Which state employee makes the most money? (Hint: it's not the govenment)

see Infographic: Is Your State's Highest-Paid Employee A Coach? (Probably)

Step 1 After Your Child Is Shot Is Not Checking WebMD

From Gawker, Mother Searches WebMD for Help After House Guest Shoots Her Son

"Despite the shooting taking place around 6:30 PM on Tuesday, it wasn't until 2 AM on Wednesday that the boy's mother finally brought him to Mainland Medical Center for treatment.

She had apparently spent the previous hours looking up "gunshot wound" on WebMD."

 

All parents should know first aid for serious bleeding (without checking WebMD) and have common sense to get to an emergency room ASAP.

How Government Wrecked the Gas Can

Interesting article from Laissez Faire Today, How Government Wrecked the Gas Can

“I’m pretty alert to such problems these days. Soap doesn’t work. Toilets don’t flush. Clothes washers don’t clean. Light bulbs don’t illuminate. Refrigerators break too soon. Paint discolors. Lawnmowers have to be hacked. It’s all caused by idiotic government regulations that are wrecking our lives one consumer product at a time, all in ways we hardly notice. It’s like the barbarian invasions that wrecked Rome, taking away the gains we’ve made in bettering our lives.”

Which pollutes more? Electric cars or Gas?

From http://www.notechmagazine.com/
and
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00532.x/full

A lifetime carbon footprint comparrison of electric vehicles (EV) to normal internal combustion cars (ICEV)...


Total emissions

"When powered by average European electricity, EVs are found to reduce global warming potential (GWP) by 20% to 24% compared to gasoline ICEVs and by 10% to 14% relative to diesel internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) under the base case assumption of a 150,000 km vehicle lifetime.

When powered by electricity from natural gas, we estimate EVs offer a reduction in green house gas (GHG) emissions of 12% compared to gasoline ICEVs, and break even with diesel ICEVs.

EVs powered by coal electricity are expected to cause an increase in GWP of 17% to 27% compared with diesel and gasoline ICEVs.

Vehicle production: Manufacturing one electric car takes as much energy as manufacturing two conventional automobiles

"In contrast with ICEVs, almost half of an EV's life cycle GWP is associated with its production.

We estimate the GWP from EV production to be 87 to 95 grams carbon dioxide equivalent per kilometer (g CO₂-eq/km), which is roughly twice the 43 g CO₂-eq/km associated with ICEV production.

Battery production contributes 35% to 41% of the EV production phase GWP, whereas the electric engine contributes 7% to 8%. Other powertrain components, notably inverters and the passive battery cooling system with their high aluminum content, contribute 16% to 18% of the embodied GWP of EVs."

Goodbye

As August comes to an end I'm also thinking it's time to end this blog. It's been fun for four years and hope that those who have read it are better prepared to face the everyday challenges of life.

Our fragile Infrastructure

There is an excellent editorial by Matt Gurney at the NationalPost.com about the fragility of our infrastructure and how the best laid plans of governments and men go oft awry when reality proves more complex than anyone had planned for. Gureny argues that our infrastructure is more complex than anyone can possibly understand or imagine; that failures are inevitable; that restoration can be difficult; that recovery can take days, weeks or even months. We should all be prepared with supplies to care for our own needs, without power or water, for several days.

Here are some of the highlights from the editorial ...

Sometimes, huge and complicated systems (or even systems of systems) are brought down by fantastically tiny glitches that happen to strike at exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. [...] And so it was during the Northeast blackout of 2003, which cut electrical power for 55 million people in the United States and Ontario. That was eventually traced back to a combination of a computer glitch
and unusually hot weather causing power lines in Ohio to droop and make contact with tree branches that hadn’t been properly pruned. That was all it took to shut Toronto and New York City down.

[...] defending against this sort of thing is extraordinarily difficult. The systems that sustain our economy and civilization are too complex to be easily managed, or even understood by the trained professionals who run them. Returning to the 2003 blackout, the investigation into it revealed that even as the situation spiralled out of
control, utilities operators in Ohio had no appreciation that their electrical grid had become unstable and little understanding of how, as transmission wires overloaded and generators automatically shut down, the problem would ripple throughout their electrical system.

[...] Emergency preparedness is a good thing for governments to focus on. But [...] there’s ample evidence that governments are simply incapable of adequately tackling the complexities of disasters confined to even a single building. If something big ever happens — and sooner or later, something always does — we should all expect to be on our own for days, or longer. The systems we’ve built to support ourselves are just too complicated to repair any faster than that.

To fruit or not to fruit?

One of the hard things to give up on a low carb diet is fruit. But not all fruit is high carb, for example, half a cup of raspberries contains 3.5 grams of net carb, whereas half a cup of raisins contains 61 grams of net carb. That's 17 times more carbs for the same serving size!

When you're in a maintenance mode some low-sugar fruits may be suitable for the diet plan.
Here's an ordering of fruits by sugar content by about.com

1. Berries - lowest in sugar and high in antioxidants and other nutrients.

2. Summer Fruits - Melons, peaches, nectarines, and apricots are low in sugars.

3. Winter Fruits - Apples, pears, and citrus fruit are moderate in sugars.

4. Tropical Fruits - Pineapple, pomegranates, mangoes, bananas, and fresh figs are high in sugar (guava and papaya are lower than the others).

5. Dried Fruit - Dates, raisins, apricots, prunes, figs, and most other dried fruits are extremely high in sugar. Dried cranberries and blueberries would be lower, except that a lot of sugar is usually added to combat the tartness.