Scattered Thoughts

Five and a half weeks without a drop of alcohol and I still stubbornly refuse to say that I've quit...I'm just on a roll. Somewhere along the way I've managed to become addicted to green tea...I guess that part of it could have been worse. Thought I'd lose even more weight. That didn't happen! I have had a non-stop case of the munchies lately, and despite it's all being healthy stuff (nuts, fruit, etc), if I don't start getting more physical than getting out of this chair for another pot of tea I'm going to balloon back up to the bad old days.

My ankle seems pretty much better, can't imagine if this happened while my mother and aunt are visiting (four weeks from today). Another reason to start exercising. Hope we'll all be ready for the steps, standing and walking that is the very definition of sightseeing around Kanto.

It snowed today in Kansai. The news tonight showed it snowing in Nara park on the first (official) day of full cherry blossoms. Bet that bummed out a lot of people that had pre-scheduled hanami parties!

Read an article today that said only 20% of 11-17 year olds get the recommended nine hours of sleep a night (when did it go up to nine?). The article went on to say that 45% get less than eight hours of sleep a night. This means that 55% of 11-17 year olds are getting eight or more hours of sleep a night?! Somehow I really doubt this. The article also stated that the average time to get up on a school day was 6:30. So this means that 55% of kids as old as 17 are asleep by no later than 10:30 at night?! For that matter, 20% are asleep by 9:30 on school nights? Hmmmm.

Here's something I wrote some time ago and never posted:
I saw another accident tonight. As far as I could tell, nobody was hurt. A car hit a person on a bike. The driver of the car was at least 20 mph over the speed limit, smoking a cigarette and talking on the cell phone. The guy on the bike was actually reading or writing e-mail or text messaging on his cell phone (that's right, I said he was on a bicycle at the time!) as he just rode right through the red light. There seemed to be very little harm done on either side, and it was like a contest of which of them could apologize the most and escape the scene the fastest. ...don't know why I added that now (other than it allows me to erase a two month old unposted draft). I fear the day I get in a bicycle collision with some idiot that is as stupid as that guy on the bike. I don't think an apology will do it...and the first bow is likely to be into my knee.

Taka's life becomes a hell on earth tomorrow or the day after. There will be arrests of partners at Taka's firm tomorrow (or the day after). Three separate, unrelated cases of what amounts to the same crime (advising or helping a client to do something less than legal). Rumor has it that six partners are involved. Two for each of the three cases. If taken together to prove a corporate culture, this could be the end of the company (think Anderson Consulting). Since Taka is in the public relations department, she will be beyond busy for a while (possibly right up to the time that the company she works for no longer exists). The caca will hit the fan sometime after the arrests and press conference.

Anyone that read this far may now breath that sigh of relief (or disappointment) that there was nothing political or overly controversial in this whole post.

Time to take out the trash then get some sleep.

Thoughts on a Mad Cow

So another case of Mad Cow is discovered in the U.S. Kind of surprising really, considering how few cows are tested.

So, how is the U.S.D.A. responding? Well among other useful things (such as digging up the buried carcass of the recently discovered infected cow to more fully evaluate its age), they are considering cutting back on their testing. In addition, since I've started this post, the aphis site has been offline. This is the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which is a branch of the USDA. They boast of providing the public daily updates but apparently are having computer difficulties at present.

How thorough are the U.S.D.A.'s testing methods? Let's look at some numbers:

The total amount of cattle (dairy, beef and calves) in the U.S. is about 97 million. The generally accepted number of slaughtered cattle per year in the U.S. is roughly 35 million. There is only money budgeted to test roughly 40,000 of those per year. Being a little fast and loose with the math, that works out to about 0.1 percent tested. To put this another way, 99.99% of all slaughtered cattle are not tested. Keep in mind that this leaves out the figures for how many of those 40,000 tested were dairy cows or cows not meant for human consumption.

To make the testing procedure even more useless than it already is, how about this?: Only cows that are obviously sick are tested. Cows that show behavioral changes, and for the greater part, cows that are too ill to even walk through the chutes are the only ones tested. Cows that appear "fine" to the eye are not tested at all. In short, the testing procedures that the U.S.D.A. assures the world are more than adequate, are statistically useless. There is no real testing of any kind at all going on...and what little there is, is still coming up with positive tests!

To further protect the public (at least that's who they assure us are being protected), it was decided that only cattle 20 months old or younger could be slaughtered for human consumption. This is because BSE does not present itself before then. However, there is no limit on how old dairy cows can be while supplying milk. It also fails to regard the issue that just because an animal doesn't seem to be dying of the disease, doesn't mean that they aren't infected. An example that comes to mind is AIDS. HIV positive people carry and can spread the disease for years without actually being in the throws of full-blown AIDS. I would argue that just because a cow shows no signs of BSE, there is no reason to assume it poses no threat.

How else is the public being protected? Well, cattle feed may no longer carry byproducts of ruminants (animal byproducts from sheep infected with scrapies [the sheep version of BSE] in cattle feed is thought to have first started BSE). Somehow, pigs were "declared" not to be ruminants for the purposes of this law (a law which even the USDA admits is being broken on a regular basis and is very difficult to enforce). Pigs also have a version of this disease as do chickens (whose feces is regularly added to cattle feed (nice thought, huh?).

So how dangerous is the beef you consume? Statistically, it's still not that bad. But with up to a 20 year incubation period in humans, who knows how many people are currently infected? The only ways to test for vCJD (the human form of BSE) are (risky) brain biopsies on people presenting symptoms or a highly unlikely test procedure during an autopsy. There is an added situation to note here. The most common diagnostic error in finding vCJD is to find that the person suffers from or died of Alzheimer's. They both present similar findings (the smoothing of the folds in the brain). There has been a widely reported dramatic increase in Alzheimer's (esp. in the States) recently. Could some part of that be due to misdiagnosed vCJD? There is just no way to know how many people are infected and will develop vCJD even as I type this.

Is there some kind of conspiracy to not test U.S. cattle? I leave it to you to form your own opinion. Keep in mind what an incredibly large, wealthy and powerful, tight-knit group the beef industry is. They spend as much or more in advertising, lobbying etc. as any other wealthy, powerful industry in the States. The beef and dairy industry rank up there with the oil, defense and pharmaceutical industries (and has close ties with two of those). To give a couple international examples into cattle testing protocols, Japan tests 100% of the cattle intended for human consumption. In Europe, roughly one quarter are tested. Sounds excessive compared to the .1% (drawn from a pool of obviously sick animals) the U.S. tests, huh?

I think I'll stick to my lifestyle choices food-wise.

Why Me?

Why me, indeed!

Once again I find myself at the computer with one leg propped up and an ankle on ice. I'm reasonably sure this is unrelated to gout (other than the cumulative joint damage it causes over time).

Yesterday morning I woke several hours before my planned time to wake up to make my ritual trip to the bathroom before returning to bed. Well, you know how if you sleep with a hand or foot in a strange position for too long it is a little stiff and sore just until you slowly stretch it out a little? That happened to my ankle...but aside from being half asleep, I REALLY had to go to the bathroom. The pain was instant but bearable, and I was back to bed in to time.

Yesterday I limped around a little, it hurt a little I went to the store for dinner stuff and it hurt a little more (and was a bit swollen), but still no real big deal. Today when I woke up, it was a little swollen, but I pretty much spent the whole day doing little that required much more than a trip to the kitchen, etc....Until it was time to shop for and make dinner. The more shopping, the more pain. Fixing dinner almost killed me. Right now it looks and feels like a sprained ankle.

I don't eat meat. I don't consume any dairy. I eat very few processed foods of any kind. And I haven't had anything but water, green tea , juice and an occasional coffee to drink in close to a month. So what's up with the ankle!!!!!

Whining, complaints, and general ranting done for now (although Taka may have to suffer through a bit more before the night's through.

I spent a large part of today fact-checking my next post. It's inspired by the latest case of Mad Cow discovered in the States. That'll be up soon.

I have an early job tomorrow. It'll be yet another embarrassing day if I need to take my cane (bad enough that I have one to take!).

Staying Up-to-date

Here are is just a tiny sample of what I read today. I actually spend at least a couple of hours a day going through the news. These don't even scratch the surface of the things that interest me at the moment. Maybe next time I'll add a few on Education, Health, Random Cool Stuff...

G.O.P. Senators Say Accord Is Set on Wiretapping
Moving to tamp down Democratic calls for an investigation of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee said Tuesday that they had reached agreement with the White House on proposed bills to impose new oversight but allow wiretapping without warrants for up to 45 days.
Full article at:
From the New York Times

Congress cannot legally bypass the Constitution. If they wish to change the Bill of Rights, Congress can initiate a change by a 2/3 vote in both chambers followed by ratification of 3/4 of the states. Absent that, Congress saying it's legal for Bush to wiretap without warrants doesn't make it so.
The Constitution is the original "contract with America". When the government acts outside the Constitution, it ceases to be the legal government of this land.
- Mike Rivera


The Cost of War(s)
US Spending $5.9B In Iraq Per Month...
Monthly expenditures are running at $5.9 billion; the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan adds roughly another $1 billion. Taken together, annual spending for the two wars will reach $117.6 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 -- 18% above funding for the prior 12 months.
Posted Mar 8, 2006 10:19 AM PST
Category: IRAQ
Full article at:
From the Wall Street Journal

Impeachment
A reasonable background article from Harper's magazine:
The Case for Impeachment

I would like to add that for all of the reasons listed in this article (and then some), I would include not only the president but the vice president, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove, Rice (and anyone else I may have missed. The list of charges are huge (and vary somewhat from person to person), but I'd settle for whichever stand the best chance for outing the lot of them.

Impeachment
Straight to the article:
30 US Reps for Bush Impeachment Inquiry



For Those Who Served...and continue to pay the price.


Soldiers Back From Iraq, Unable to Get Help They Need
The VA acknowledged some veterans suffer those problems but said most do not.
"Last year, 97 percent of veterans who came to us for a primary care appointment got that appointment within 30 days, and 95 percent of those who came for an acute care appointment got it within 30 days," said R. James Nicholson, secretary of Veterans Affairs.

A thirty day wait for an acute care visit?! Read both pages of the article and you realize how optimistic even that travesty is.

Full article:
From ABC News

Steve Stuff

Thought I'd give the political stuff a little rest for at least one post.

I finally got the free tickets issue worked out with Northwest Airlines. For those of you saying, "Huh?"...Taka and I got two free round trip tickets anywhere in Asia in return for staying an extra night in Saipan last year (tough break, huh?). They expire at the end of this month. Taka and figured a short vacation to Thailand (if the more exotic choices weren't possible).

Try redeeming free tickets sometime! Man, what a hassle! Three phone calls, the second one lasted an hour and a half. First I was basically told that any and all flights I wanted weren't possible (although they did keep telling me Saipan would be okay...oh yeah, and I could go to Thailand but couldn't come home). From there I was told that the tickets I held in my hand weren't really free tickets but were just re-printed tickets from the trip we already took. When I demanded they check, I was told it would take two weeks....by which time, of course, no booking of any kind would be possible. By the time I made it on the phone with the supervisor's supervisor, I eventually worked a deal where the mileage equivalent of the tickets I was arguing over would be credited to our WorldPerks cards. Now since we have the points instead of the tickets, there is no expiration date. We can use the tickets any time we want. I guess determined and persistent demands for justice occasionally work.

Taka just got back from five days in Hong Kong for work tonight. She figured she'd have time for some shopping, etc., but they kept her so busy she didn't even get to shop in the department store connected to her hotel. She got back around 10 p.m., managed a small bowl of miso soup and a glass of water before falling asleep on the sofa. I'll be pretty much on my own till Sunday when she is at least partially rested up.

A couple of weeks ago, I was really sick for three days. I couldn't even keep water down. I was a little concerned since the same thing happened about two months before. I was wondering if it had to do with my diet, my drinking, my insomnia, or some combination of the three. I was a little relieved when I heard that a friend of mine and her husband had the same thing a week earlier. She described every symptom exactly. Her husband went to a doctor and was told it was a stomach virus that has been going around Tokyo for some time. I guess I caught it twice in 2 1/2 months.

After three days without so much as a drink of water, I was pretty badly dehydrated. As I slowly started with okayu and water and worked my way back to regular (for me) food, I kind of stayed with just water. I developed a renewed motivation for health in general. I've been really focusing of three solid, well-rounded meals a day, with fruit and nuts as snacks between meals. Water (lots of it), green tea and various juices have been my only drinks. I'm also working hard at trying to normalize my sleep schedule. Next step will be easing back into working out again.

Speaking of food, health, etc., here's one to end on:

A 12 year old girl in the States doing a science project had some findings worth sharing. She went to five fast food places and ordered sodas (one from drive-thru and one from the counter of each place). She also took samples of the water from the toilets of each place. She then did a bacteria count on the ice in each of the sodas and compared it to the toilet water from the same place. Shocker time! Three of the five places had higher bacteria counts in their ice than they did in their toilets!!!
Whoops! The link I had up before was the wrong one. It's been corrected. Sorry!
Here's the article:
Dirty Ice