The world needs more black women studying STEM subjects like Jasmine Burton!
With so many college students, and especially so many blacks and women, majoring in fake, useless, worthless subjects that will leave them with nothing but huge amounts of debt that they will never be able to pay back from the low wages they will get from working at coffee shops and fast food restaurants after they graduate from college, here’s a wonderful story about someone who chose to study something that is actually useful in the real world. More people should follow Jasmine Burton’s lead and study STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/22/smallbusiness/safichoo-toilet-jasmine-burton/
This plastic toilet could save lives
Jasmine Burton helped design an inexpensive, portable plastic toilet to address the lack of basic sanitation around the world.
January 22, 2016
Everybody poops. But not everyone has access to a toilet.
“It’s shocking that this basic necessity is unavailable to nearly half of the world,” said Jasmine Burton, founder and president of Atlanta-based Wish for WASH.
Burton, 23, was a freshman at Georgia Institute of Technology when she learned that as many as 2.5 billion people don’t have access to a toilet.
It bothered her even more that this sanitation problem disproportionately affects women and young girls.
“Young girls in the developing world frequently drop out of school because there isn’t a toilet,” she said. “It angered me as a woman in higher education and as a product designer.”
Just 18 at the time, Burton channeled her feelings into a mission: She would design a toilet.
While at Georgia Tech, she collaborated with three other students to invent an inexpensive, eco-friendly mobile toilet that could convert waste into renewable energy. They called their sanitation system SafiChoo Toilet.
Made of plastic, the toilet is designed for sitting or squatting, which is a common practice in some countries. It can be placed directly on the ground, or it can be elevated by adding an attachable base. It can also function with or without water.
The system features a waste collection unit (that can go above or below ground), which separates the waste into liquids and solids. There’s also a manually-operated bidet that can be attached.
Burton said these features are intended to help curb contamination and the spread of diseases.
The SafiChoo toilet costs about $50. “That’s the highest price point we want it to be,” she said.
In 2014, Burton and her team won first place and $25,000 at the Georgia Tech InVention competition, the nation’s largest undergraduate invention competition.
“We didn’t think we’d win because products at the contest were always high-tech with super sexy designs,” she said. “Ours was a simple toilet.”
The win enabled Burton to pilot SafiChoo (which means clean toilet in Kiswahili) at a Kenyan refugee camp. She also launched Wish for WASH, the parent company of SafiChoo.
John Zegers, director at Georgia Center of Innovation for Manufacturing, contacted Burton after her InVention competition win. “We thought it was a great product that needed a little bit more development,” he said.
The Center gave a grant to Georgia Tech to develop a SafiChoo prototype and helped Burton’s team find an Atlanta-based manufacturer.
Zegers said he hopes that Wish for WASH is able to keep the toilet a Made in America product.
Burton is currently living in Lusaka, Zambia, as she tests the toilet there. The company is also running an Indiegogo campaign to support the Zambia pilot.
She hopes to begin selling the toilet to U.S.-based customers and to NGOs in 2017.
“It’s amazing when you see how many people have never used a toilet before and what [the SafiChoo Toilet] could mean for them,” she said.
New York Times: Dying Infants and No Medicine – Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals
This is what Hugo Chavez referred to as “21st century socialism.”
Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals
May 15, 2016
By morning, three newborns were already dead…
… chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions…
Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died…
Gloves and soap have vanished from some hospitals…
… there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table…
The rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry…
The rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period…
… two premature infants died recently on the way to the main public clinic because the ambulance had no oxygen tanks. The hospital has no fully functioning X-ray or kidney dialysis machines… some patients lie on the floor in pools of their blood…
… people are dying for lack of antibiotics…
… without water, gloves, soap or antibiotics, a group of surgeons prepared to remove an appendix that was about to burst, even though the operating room was still covered in another patient’s blood…
… the rotting mattress had left her back covered in sores…
The pharmacy here has bare shelves…
I hope a lot of the anti-vaccine people learn a lesson from this family’s sad experience
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-35975011
‘Anti-vax’ mother’s regret over whooping cough ‘nightmare’
April 6, 2016
An Australian mother has said she regrets refusing the whooping cough vaccination during pregnancy after she passed the potentially fatal infection to her newborn baby.
Cormit Avital said she had turned down the vaccination because she was a “healthy, fit, organic woman”.
She caught the disease shortly before giving birth and passed it to Eva, who has spent a month in intensive care.
Ms Avital recorded a video warning about her “nightmare” experience.
“If I could turn back time I would protect myself,” she said, in the video released by Gold Coast Health, the regional health authority.
‘A lot of suffering’
Ms Avital contracted whooping cough, also known as pertussis, around the time she gave birth, and was told she had passed it to Eva.
Within two weeks, Eva’s cough “became pretty scary, horror movie, coughing to the point of going blue, flopping in my hands, can’t breathe,” she said.
“For a moment there you think they’re dead in your hands. [It’s] a lot of suffering for a tiny little cute thing you love so much.”
What’s behind the ‘anti-vax’ movement?
The mother who is “angry as hell” with anti-vaccination movement
Gold Coast Health Staff Specialist Dr Paul Van Buynder told the BBC that Eva’s condition was improving.
She is likely to be released from hospital in coming weeks.
Dr Buynder said more than 20,000 pertussis cases were recorded in Australia last year, and “sadly this is becoming more common”.
“There’s always a feeling of pregnancy being this special state and you don’t want to put anything into your body, but what’s really bad for your baby is to get whooping cough or influenza”, Dr Buynder added.
Newborns are highly susceptible to the infection until they start vaccination at two months old.
I hope this cigarette will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law
Officials say cigarette sparked fatal motel fire
March 20, 2015
The state police fire marshal today said a cigarette was the cause of a fatal motel fire in Westmoreland County on Thursday.
Timothy Paul Shane, 43, of Hempfield was killed in the fire at the Motel 3 on Route 30 in Adamsburg, according to the county coroner’s office.
State police fire marshal Scott Mackanick ruled the fire an accident and said Mr. Shane was smoking a cigarette that ignited the blaze around 6:30 a.m.
A section of Route 30 was closed in the area of the fire, as was the Irwin exit off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Mr. Shane’s cause and manner of death are pending toxicology results from an autopsy, the fire marshal said.
Democrats who voted for Obamacare are complaining that people actually have to pay for it!
http://news.yahoo.com/apnewsbreak-democrats-seek-relief-health-080256254.html
Democrats seek relief from health law penalties
Senior Democrats seek sign-up extension for people facing health law penalties
February 16, 2015
Three senior House members told The Associated Press that they plan to strongly urge the administration to grant a special sign-up opportunity for uninsured taxpayers who will be facing fines under the law for the first time this year.
The three are Michigan’s Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, and Lloyd Doggett of Texas. All worked to help steer Obama’s law through rancorous congressional debates from 2009-2010.
“Open enrollment period ended before many Americans filed their taxes,” the three lawmakers said in a statement. “Without a special enrollment period, many people (who will be paying fines) will not have another opportunity to get health coverage this year.
“A special enrollment period will not only help many Americans avoid making an even larger payment next year, but, more importantly, it will help them gain quality health insurance for 2015,” the lawmakers added.
Woman with Obamacare policy borrows $14,000 to pay for cataract surgery
http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_27481258/obamacare-medi-cal-waiting-game-many-low-income
Obamacare: Medi-Cal a waiting game for many low-income Californians
February 7, 2015
Julie Moreno felt lucky to be among more than 2.7 million previously uninsured Californians to be added to Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for the poor.
Until she needed cataract surgery.
For three months after her November 2013 diagnosis, the 49-year-old Mountain View resident said, she tried to get an appointment, but each time she called, no slots were available. Desperate and worried, she finally borrowed $14,000 from her boyfriend’s mother to have the procedure done elsewhere last February.
Harvard faculty members who supported the passage of Obamacare are now complaining that they have to pay for it
This is hilarious!
January 5, 2015
For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.
Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care. The university says the increases are in part a result of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which many Harvard professors championed.
The faculty vote came too late to stop the cost increases from taking effect this month, and the anger on campus remains focused on questions that are agitating many workplaces: How should the burden of health costs be shared by employers and employees? If employees have to bear more of the cost, will they skimp on medically necessary care, curtail the use of less valuable services, or both?
In Harvard’s health care enrollment guide for 2015, the university said it “must respond to the national trend of rising health care costs, including some driven by health care reform,” in the form of the Affordable Care Act. The guide said that Harvard faced “added costs” because of provisions in the health care law that extend coverage for children up to age 26, offer free preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies and, starting in 2018, add a tax on high-cost insurance, known as the Cadillac tax.
Richard F. Thomas, a Harvard professor of classics and one of the world’s leading authorities on Virgil, called the changes “deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university.”
Mary D. Lewis, a professor who specializes in the history of modern France and has led opposition to the benefit changes, said they were tantamount to a pay cut. “Moreover,” she said, “this pay cut will be timed to come at precisely the moment when you are sick, stressed or facing the challenges of being a new parent.”
Jerry R. Green, a professor of economics and a former provost who has been on the Harvard faculty for more than four decades, said the new out-of-pocket costs could lead people to defer medical care or diagnostic tests, causing more serious illnesses and costly complications in the future.
“It’s equivalent to taxing the sick,” Professor Green said. “I don’t think there’s any government in the world that would tax the sick.”
“It seems that Harvard is trying to save money by shifting costs to sick people,” said Mary C. Waters, a professor of sociology. “I don’t understand why a university with Harvard’s incredible resources would do this. What is the crisis?”
New Jersey public school forces student to get psychological evaluation, blood test, urine test, and to strip, because he twirled a pencil. The state threatened to take him away from his father.
Ethan Chaplin, Student, Says He Was Suspended For Twirling Pencil
April 7, 2014
Was it a twirling pencil or something more sinister?
That’s the question that hovers over the story of Ethan Chaplin, a Vernon, N.J. seventh-grader who, last week, was told he could return to Glen Meadow Middle School only after he received a psychological evaluation.
According to News 12, Chaplin said he was sitting in class, spinning a pencil with a pen cap on top when a fellow student told his teacher, “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie.”
After the incident, Chaplin’s dad, Michael, said his son was effectively suspended pending a psychological examination, which the middle schooler passed.
The school tells a different story.
Vernon Schools Superintendent Charles Maranzano told HuffPost he couldn’t discuss the specific incident because of privacy laws, but he did say “no school in the state of New Jersey or nationally would leap to a school suspension for twirling a pencil. That’s not what the basis of our actions are.”
Instead, Maranzano said the student was not suspended, but was told he could return as soon as a doctor completed a psychological evaluation and determined the student posed no threat to himself or others.
“Our actions are always based on what’s best for the health safety and welfare of all the students,” Maranzano said. “We’re responsible for their mental and physical health and safety and security. When a student misbehaves or displays actions that are non-conforming or don’t meet our expectations, it causes us some concerns.”
Maranzano also said, in the wake of several deadly shootings, schools are being especially careful.
“I don’t want to be the one who failed to act when there were warning signs being demonstrated or displayed,” Maranzano said.
Michael Chaplin told InfoWars about what his son had to undergo during the psychological evaluation.
“The child was stripped, had to give blood samples (which caused him to pass out) and urine samples for of all things drug testing,” Michael Chaplin said. “Then four hours later a social worker spoke to him for five minutes and cleared him. Then an actual doctor came in and said the state was 100 percent incorrect in their procedure and this would not get him back in school.”
Maranzano said Chaplin is back in school.
Dad: NJ threatens to take away son after pencil-twirling incident
June 10, 2014
VERNON, N.J. (PIX11) – A 13-year-old boy was the most famous kid in school for a few weeks.
A simple pencil-twirling incident landed Ethan Chaplin in hot water with his school, which threatened to suspend him after a classmate claimed he was spinning the writing utensil like a gun.
After media attention from PIX11 and around the world, school officials backed off — but child protection agencies did not.
Letters to Ethan’s father, Michael, show the school found his son did nothing wrong at all, and that there would be no disciplinary action. The superintendent was even confident the issue would be behind all of them.
And that’s exactly what happened, until Ethan’s father received startling communication from New Jersey’s Department of Child Protection and Permanency and Department of Children and Families.
“I received a letter from them saying they had found an incident of abuse or neglect regarding Ethan because I refused to take him for psychological evaluation,” Michael said.
In an effort to play along and clear his name, Michael agreed to take his son for an evaluation.
Ethan was seen by a social worker, and had his blood drawn and urine taken. In the end, no behavioral problem was found.
The state, it seems, is ignoring that set of testing, demanding further evaluation and threatening that if Michael doesn’t comply, they are will terminate his parental rights and free Ethan up for adoption.
“All I can do is keep fighting, keep telling the truth and (keep) presenting the evidence. That is all I can do and hopefully the state does the right thing,” Michael said.
He has even reached out to Governor Chris Christie’s office, who replied they would contact the Dept. of Children and Families to investigate.
“…I’m scared because they have a habit of running away with things unchecked and that’s exactly what’s going on,” Michael said.
PIX11 tried to get a comment from DCPP and NJ Department of Children and Families but received no answers.
The agency told PIX11 they can’t discuss the allegations or even acknowledge they have involvement with the family.
Berkeley man dies after pro-Michael Brown protesters delay paramedics
Berkeley Man Dies After Pro-Michael Brown Protesters Delay Paramedics
December 23, 2014
A Berkeley man has died thanks to protesters who claim they are protesting against unnecessary deaths.
The man, who lived in a Kittredge Street apartment complex, collapsed several days ago while protests were going on in the streets around his home.
Paramedics attempted to rush to his aid, but were slowed and sometimes stopped by protesters. The protesters were demonstrating in favor of Michael Brown, an African American teen who was shot and killed after he assaulted and charged at a white police officer.
The protesters claimed they were in the streets to bring attention to unnecessary deaths caused by rash behavior.
The Berkeley man was eventually reached by paramedics and rushed to the hospital, but he passed away there. His death was likely preventable, but help arrived too late because of protesters.
“Anytime there is a delay it causes us concern,” said Berkeley Fire Chief Gil Dong. “Our objective is to get there rapidly so we can start treating the patient.” He was not able to comment further because of privacy laws.
Separately, a staffer stated that “no one could get to” the man in need, who was experiencing shortness of breath, “difficulty breathing, and sweating.”
When the delayed paramedics arrived, the man was already unconscious.
Vermont Democrats chicken out and abandon their plan for single payer health care
In this previous post, I wrote: (the bolding is new, and was not in my original post)
Vermont plans to start single payer health care in 2017
April 27, 2014
Vermont is planning to start a single payer health care system in 2017.
I support states’ rights, and I don’t live in Vermont, so I don’t have anything against Vermont doing this.
I view this the way a scientist views an experiment. I’m curious to see how it turns out.
Will Vermont stick to its plan, or will they chicken out?
Will the federal government allow it to happen, or try to block it?
Will patients’ access to health care get better, worse, or stay the same?
Will the number of doctors per person in Vermont get bigger, smaller, or stay the same?
Will costs go up, down, or stay the same?
Will politicians, celebrities, and rich people participate in it, or will they find some way to get exemptions?
Only time will tell. And I am quite curious to find out.
Unfortunately, that bolded part has come true.
Associated Press has just reported:
Governor abandons single-payer health care plan
December 17, 2014
Calling it the biggest disappointment of his career, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday he was abandoning plans to make Vermont the first state in the country with a universal, publicly funded health care system.
Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said. The measure had been the centerpiece of the Democratic governor’s agenda and was watched and rooted for by single-payer health care supporters around the country.
Legislation Shumlin signed in 2011 put the state on a path to move beyond the federal Affordable Care Act by 2017 to a health care system more similar to that in neighboring Canada. Shumlin adopted the mantra that access to quality health care should be “a right and not a privilege.”
Vermont’s Democrats supported single payer health care in theory. But as the reality of the plan got closer and closer, they eventually admitted that they did not really want such a plan.
That explains why a plan that was passed in 2011 was not set to take effect until 2017. It gave Vermont’s Democrats bragging rights, so they could say they supported single payer health care. But as the 2017 deadline for actually adopting the plan got closer and closer, their bluff was revealed. They did not really support single payer health care. Instead, they just wanted to say they supported single payer health care.
Their supposed excuse for abandoning their plan was that they just found out that it would require higher taxes. Do they really expect us to believe that they were unaware of this in 2011, when they passed the plan? How dumb do they think we are?
Vermont’s Democrats are liars, and they are cowards.
To the Vermont Democrats who claim to be shocked at the fact that adopting single payer health care would require higher taxes, I post the following scene from the movie Casablanca:
Washington Post: “I’m an Obama supporter. But Obamacare has hurt my family. Obamacare has been far more frustrating than I’d ever dreamed.”
The Washington Post recently wrote:
I’m an Obama supporter. But Obamacare has hurt my family.
Obamacare has been far more frustrating than I’d ever dreamed.
By Catherine Keefe
December 10, 2014
Obamacare brought us new health insurance options, but cost us our more affordable plans.
In November 2013, Jim learned his small-business policy would be canceled because it didn’t comply with the new mandate to cover pediatric dentistry and maternity care.
The individual plan I had with Blue Cross was canceled, too.
We learned patience, but we couldn’t keep our doctors.
We had applied online and sent copies of our passports to California Covered for verification, but we received no bill, no confirmation of our coverage, no insurance cards. Jim spent an hour and a half on hold once before getting disconnected. He tried again the next day, waiting another two hours before getting disconnected.
… the urologist wouldn’t accept our new Blue Shield plan – even though the Blue Shield website said he did.
We have no choice to opt out of the required pediatric dentistry or maternity coverage we’ll never use…
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Obamacare was passed due to “lack of transparency” and “the stupidity of the American voter”
In October 2013, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said:
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO [Congressional Budget Office] scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass….Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
CDC allowed Doctors Without Borders to bring Ebola patient onto New York City subway
Craig Spencer is a U.S. doctor who, as a participant in Doctors Without Borders, went to Guinea to treat Ebola patients.
After he got back to the U.S., he passed the so-called “enhanced screening” that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control gives to all returning travelers from West Africa.
After he passed this “enhanced screening,” he rode on the New York City subway system, went to a bowling alley, and rode in a taxi.
After that, he tested positive for Ebola.
CDC Director Tom Frieden said that people with Ebola should not ride on mass transit because they might give Ebola to someone else.
Democratic Underground posters get angry at new Hepatitis C drug that costs less than 1/6 as much as a liver transplant
Hepatitis C is a an infectious disease that, in the U.S., kills more people than AIDS.
Some patients require a liver transplant which costs an average of $577,000.
However, a new drug for the disease just came on the market. It’s called Sovaldi, and it costs $84,000 for a 12 week course of treatment.
Taking this drug lets patients avoid getting a liver transplant.
Those of us who understand math think that this is a wonderful thing. Spending $84,000 instead of $577,000 is a huge savings.
I think it’s great that this new drug has been invented.
Liberal and progressive hero Elizabeth Warren signs letter in support of trickle down economics
On November 8, 2012, it was reported that in response to the medical device tax that is part of Obamacare, some medical device manufacturers had announced plans to layoff employees, including Welch Allyn (275 planned layoffs), Stryker (1,170 planned layoffs), and Medtronic (1,000 planned layoffs).
On December 4, 2012, Elizabeth Warren joined Al Franken, John Kerry, and 15 other Democratic U.S. Senators in signing a letter to Harry Reid, asking him to delay the tax on medical devices, claiming that the tax would hurt job creation in their districts. The letter can be read here.
I think it’s great that Warren has come out in favor of trickle down economics, and I am glad that several of her Democratic colleagues have also embraced the position.
Unfortunately, the medical device tax is still in existence, and continues to wreak havoc. On February 18, 2014, it was reported that the medical device tax had destroyed 14,000 jobs, and had prevented an additional 19,000 new jobs from being created.
