Knights of Malta Confronts 900 Years

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 This is a delightful echo of history but also a sound idea that needs to be honored and seriously considered. It is obvious in the modern world that an invitation to actually join this order or any such like order is an invitation to conduct philanthropy. Yet it is also true that philanthropy is almost a recently popular idea amount the newly enriched of the present world.
Engaging the state in providing honors for this clearly beneficialbehavior is extremely attractive and should be encouraged andpoliced. Medieval honors are out of time and place but in a cashpoor system it was a currency that worked. A renewal of honors isclearly beneficial in this time and place in order to reward andstrongly encourage generosity.
And bye the bye, there is no surer way to gain status with money thanto be able to give it away. Hiding it in off shore bank accountsdoes not cut it.

Ancient order ofthe Knights of Malta confronts modern world as it marks 900 years
By NicoleWinfield
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ancient-order-knights-malta-confronts-modern-world-marks-161604160.html

Prince and GrandMaster of the Knights of Malta — bounds into the sitting room ofhis magnificent Renaissance palazzo sweaty and somewhat disheveled,and asks an aide if he should take off his sweater to bephotographed.
Garrulous and self-effacing, Festing embodies some of the paradoxes of a fabled Catholic religious order that dates from the medieval Crusades: Steeped in European nobility and mystique, the order's mission is humility and charity — running hospitals, ambulance services and old folks' homes around the globe. It has many trappings of a country, printing its own stamps, coins, license plates and passports, and yet — a stateless state — it rules over no territory.
The Sovereign MilitaryOrder of Malta's world headquarters, down the block from the SpanishSteps and with an Hermes boutique on the corner, features receptionrooms draped in oil portraits of grand masters past and a gem of achapel where King Juan Carlos of Spain was baptized by the futurePope Pius XII. On the ground floor, it runs a health clinic that,while private, provides free services for anyone who can't pay.
"It is, I suppose, a series of contradictions," Festing told The Associated Press ahead of the order's 900th birthday this week. "I'm on the inside of it, so it doesn't seem to be contradictory to me, but maybe it is."
And as the SovereignMilitary and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes andof Malta, as the group is officially called, celebrates theanniversary on Feb. 9 with a procession through St. Peter's Square, aMass in the basilica and an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, theancient order is confronting some very modern-day issues.
Once drawn exclusivelyfrom Europe's nobility, the order is trying to shed its image as apurely rich man's club while still tapping the world's wealthy tofund its charitable work. And though its military past is well behindit, the order is waging real legal battles to fend off what it saysare impostors seeking to piggyback on its name to con people out ofmoney.
Festing, a 63-year-old Briton and former Sotheby's auctioneer, is expansive about the unusual attributes of his organization of 13,500 Knights and Dames who make promises to be good Christians and fund the order's humanitarian work.
"On the one hand it's a sovereign entity. On the other hand it's a religious order. On the other hand it's a humanitarian organization. It's a complicated mixture of things," he says in an interview in the gold silk brocaded state drawing room between meetings with parting Vatican nuncios and visiting ministers, diplomatic receptions and silent prayer.
The order traces its history to the 11th century with the establishment of an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for people of all faiths making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. It is the last of the great lay chivalrous military orders like the Knights Templars that combined religious fervour with fierce military might to protect and expand Christendom from Islam's advance during the Crusades.
In February 1113, Pope Paschal II issued a papal bull recognizing the order as independent from bishops or secular authorities. That "birth certificate," as Festing calls it, is the legal basis for asserting the order's sovereignty and the reason for Saturday's anniversary celebrations at the Vatican.Festing himself is a "Professed Knight" — the highest rank of members who take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The poverty vow seems a bit relative in this context: Knights on the order's governing council have their own private apartments inside the palace, complete with a valet and driver for cars that carry either diplomatic plates or the order's own SMOM plates. Wine from the order's own vineyards is often served.
Pope Benedict XVI isamong the professed knights, though he's an exception since professedknights aren't ordained priests and traditionally descend from nobleblood.
Festing, whose family traces their ancestry to 14th- and 16th-century knights, was elected grand master in 2008. It's a title he holds for life and is equivalent to the rank of cardinal, though he can't vote in a conclave to elect a pope.
Currently there areabout 60 professed knights and Festing hopes to increase theirnumbers as he seeks to expand the rank-and-file base to a youngergeneration of equally Catholic but not necessarily noble classesaround the globe.
"It's not exactlyout of date, but you can't maintain that in the 21st century,"he says. "In general terms, in the old countries of Europe, wemaintain the nobiliary requirement to an extent. But only to anextent. But in places like Australia, Central America, North America,Southeast Asia, it's all done on a different basis."
Members are still expected to chip in when natural disasters strike or wars erupt. Contributions in the tens of thousands of dollars are not unusual. Members also volunteer, bringing the sick to the shrine at Lourdes or pitching in at a one of the order's clinics, like the maternity hospital it runs in Bethlehem just a few steps from Jesus' traditional birthplace, where most of the patients are Muslim.
Even though it's aCatholic aid group — whose origins date from the Crusades — theorder works in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan andSyria. "We do not hide that we are Christian, but we do notproselytize. That is impossible," said the order's healthminister, Albrecht von Boeselager.
One perk of membershipin the top ranks, reserved for men only, is the fabulous uniform:bright-red military-style jacket, with sword, spurs and epaulettesfor official duties, a dark cloak with a white, eight-pointed MalteseCross on the front for religious services.
All told, 98,000members, employees and volunteers work in aid projects in 120countries; the overall annual operating budget can run to euro 200million, Festing says.
"We certainly don't want to be, and in fact we're not a sort of rich man's club," Festing insists. "To a sort of an extent you could say, 'Well maybe they are, slightly.' But that's not the basis of it. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten in."
That elite reputation, however, combined with the order's neutral and apolitical relief work, has earned it a level of prestige that few organizations can match. Governments, the European Union and U.N. agencies finance the order's humanitarian operations; it has observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries — many in the developing world where such ties can help smooth the delivery of aid.
But the prestige hascome with a price: Copycat orders have sprung up claiming to be theKnights of Malta or an offshoot that may or may not legitimatelytrace its origins to the group. These "false orders" preyon people eager to contribute to a Catholic charity thinking it'ssanctioned by the Holy See.
The con jobs aresometimes so good that even the Vatican has been fooled. In October,the Vatican issued a public reminder that it recognizes only twoancient equestrian orders — the Order of Malta and the EquestrianOrder of the Holy See Sepulcher of Jerusalem — after a grouppurporting to be the knights obtained approval to host a ceremonywithin the Vatican walls, Festing said.
"It was entirelyinnocent," on the part of the Vatican, said Festing. "Butit wasn't actually us. It was somebody else."

China Rent a Boyfriend

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What is most delightful about theChinese experience is that it can be compared to our experience since1960.  Recall that our society was alsoprofoundly organized along traditional lines up to then.  It was never satisfactory but it was how itwas.  The same is also true elsewhere aroundthe world.
Most of it has to do with birthcontrol actually freeing women from biological necessity for the decade oftheir twenties.  This is a huge global sociological experiment that is sometimes disturbing, but also sometimes surprising and mostly welcome.
Thus in a pressing sexist societywe have this delightful solution. Definitely a wonderful source of comedy and farce.
China Rent a Boyfriend

http://newsterm.blogspot.ca/2013/02/china-rent-boyfriend.html
China rent a boyfriend, Chinarent a boyfriend is a new fad that is sweeping the country. Since many girlswill be going home to see their families for Chinese New Year celebrations,many are renting "boyfriends" just to get their nosy families offtheir backs. On Feb. 6, The Telegraph UK reported that 300 men are listed "for rent" on the shopping site TaoBao. The price is about $48 a day -- and a bit more if an "appropriate kiss" is required -- you know, to really convince the fam.

"It can be a particularly miserable experience for girls who don’t bringhome a boyfriend, leading to endless questions about why they’re not dating andwhere their life’s going. In this sexist society, ladies over 27 who aren’thitched are labelled 'leftover women,'" reports TheTelegraph.....examiner.

The China"rent a boyfriend" idea could pay off well. At this point, it isunclear how many girls/women are shopping for pseudo-boyfriends for theholidays. However, they will all have to be careful now -- and be ready foreven more questions -- since "news" of this new thing has gone viral.

There are many cultures that would not go for something like this at all.However, China tends to try things -- all kinds of things. Some of said things catch on and some don't (like that fake braces fad from December). Renting a boyfriend probably wouldn't fly in The States, would it?

In China,renting a boyfriend might not be that bad of an idea. Family questions can berelentless.

Dogs Understand Human Perspective

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Dogsof course do make a study of the family that they have become partof, or at least the smart ones do. In fact the whole subject of dogcleverness needs to be properly investigated. The best are notautomatons simply channeled.
Wehad an excellent farm dog who simply chose to not eat what we wouldnot eat ourselves or directly give him. He still hunted out thepests, but then brought them to us for disposal. And he always actedin an intelligent manner.
Knowingthis, the following item is unsurprising and is actually a niceexercise in experimental design to ferret out the actual details. Itstill needs to be applied against the population of dogs.
Dogs understandhuman perspective, say researchers
By Sean Coughlan 11February 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21411249
Dogs are more capableof understanding situations from a human's point of view than haspreviously been recognised, according to researchers.
They found dogs werefour times more likely to steal food they had been forbidden, whenlights were turned off so humans in the room could not see.
This suggested thedogs were able to alter their behaviour when they knew their owners'perspective had changed.
The study, publishedin Animal Cognition, conducted tests on 84 dogs.
The experiments hadbeen trying to find whether dogs could adapt their behavior inresponse to the changed circumstances of their human owners.
It wanted to see ifdogs had a "flexible understanding" that could show theyunderstood the viewpoint of a human.
Dog's understanding
It found that when thelights were turned off, dogs in a room with their human owners weremuch more likely to disobey and steal forbidden food.
The study says it is"unlikely that the dogs simply forgot that the human was in theroom" when there was no light. Instead it seems as though thedogs were able to differentiate between when the human was unable orable to see them.
The experiments hadbeen designed with enough variations to avoid false associations -such as dogs beginning to associate sudden darkness with someonegiving them food, researchers said.
Dr Juliane Kaminski,from the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, said thestudy was "incredible because it implies dogsunderstand the human can't see them, meaning they mightunderstand the human perspective".
This could also beimportant in understanding the capacities of dogs that have tointeract closely with humans, such as guide dogs for the blind andsniffer dogs.
Previous studies havesuggested that although humans might think that they can recognisedifferent expressions on their dogs' faces, this is often inaccurateand a projection of human emotions.
"Humansconstantly attribute certain qualities and emotions to other livingthings. We know that our own dog is clever or sensitive, but that'sus thinking, not them," said Dr Kaminski.
"These resultssuggest humans might be right, where dogs are concerned, but we stillcan't be completely sure if the results mean dogs have a trulyflexible understanding of the mind and others' minds. It has alwaysbeen assumed only humans had this ability."

Big Sky Locavores

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In the past, demand for local food was undeveloped and farmers found themselves competing with truckers happy to often dump in order to not have to haul it home. The farmers advantage was that their product was fresh and gave the retailer days more to sell the product.
That demand is now developing and it does not take too much to make serious inroads in the local market share. Also the cost of local processing is now very competitive also. Just what does it take for a local farmer to can a field of tomatoes himself? Add in various other crops and local partners with their own fields and we suddenly have a local value added product good for year round sales.
None of this is too difficult and the locavore movement will naturally drive this market.
Another point to note here is that if we can make it work in remote Montana then just about anywhere is fine.


Big Sky’s the limit: How to make local food lucrative in Montana
By Claire Thompson
http://grist.org/food/big-skys-the-limit-how-to-make-local-food-lucrative-in-montana/
You wouldn’t think that a place like the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, Mont., has much work to do when it comes to sustainability. Yelp reviews describe the place variously as “perhaps the nicest cooperative grocery in the country,” with “local, organic, down-to-earth options” and patrons that fit “the stereotypical Bozeman granola or hippie type.” In this college town of 38,000 people, the co-op boasts 20,000 members — a sign that it must be doing something right.
But even with that kind of green cred, there’s room for improvement. Despite its longstanding commitment to sourcing locally, the co-op still managed to double the amount of local food it purchased in 2012, and saw sales rise accordingly — joining the growing ranks of institutionsaround the country getting serious about connecting people with local farms and food.
The Community Food Co-op has two locations, both of which sell deli food that’s prepared at a large central kitchen in a separate building. Though the stores’ produce departments offer some local fare, until recently, the central kitchen relied mostly on a large out-of-state distributor to provide the ingredients for its soups, sandwiches, and hot meals (things like stir-fried veggies, mac ‘n’ cheese, sweet-and-sour tofu, and fried rice). The alternative — working directly with growers — is much more labor-intensive, not to mention risky. As central kitchen manager Christina Waller puts it, “It’s hard to know when you’re going to get a hailstorm.”
Waller, who’s 36 and hails from Atlanta originally, studied nutrition as an undergraduate and always valued good food, but her job at the co-op — she started in 2006 — was the “catalyst,” she says, that pushed her to get a master’s degree in sustainable food systems. Inspired to put what she’d learned into practice, Waller started volunteering at Bozeman’s Three Hearts Farm, where farmer Dean Williamson grows everything from spinach to fava beans and lemon cucumbers on his seven acres.
She saw the abundance of good food growing there — all without pesticides — and compared it to the produce trucked in to the co-op from Spokane, Wash. “After a week out [on the farm], I was like, ‘Why don’t we have more local produce?’”
Waller started asking other local farmers about buying wholesale produce. For small growers who typically sell to CSAs and farmers markets, bulk orders can require some scrambling. “It was a new thing for them, for us to suddenly be asking for hundreds of pounds of produce,” she says, so she made it clear that she was open to working with what the farmers had available. If a cool summer led to a paltry tomato crop, for example, she could supplement with inferior trucked-in versions; if a local grower had an abundance of squash, then butternut squash soup could become a daily staple instead of a weekly special.
“Making that commitment to buy the food and deal with all the unpredictables — it takes a leap of faith,” says Williamson, who’s only been farming for five years (but “it feels like a lifetime.”) “Until you see it work.”
And it did work, thanks in no small part to Waller’s gung-ho approach to the demanding task of building partnerships with, and balancing supply from, at least a half-dozen different small farmers. Such strong partnerships make the investment worth it: “I know [the co-op is] going to give me a fair price, so I’m going to give them great food,” Williamson explains.
Conventional wisdom has it that local food commands a prohibitively high price — for its superior taste, freshness, and market cache, as well as the labor that would be taken over by middlemen in a larger operation — but Waller found that to be the case for only some items. With others, like zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower — things easy to grow and harvest in Montana — “our prices were less than what we’d be paying for large distributors, and [the food was] honestly so much better.”
Plus, buying from local farmers means less waste. “Cisco is infamous for packing their greens in 20-pound bags,” Williamson says. “The bottom three or four pounds are useless when they show up. Because we’re close by, we can package in a way that everything shows up fresh.”
Waller made it a goal to spend an average of $2 per pound overall, and by the end of the season, she found that her costs had evened out to $1.98 per pound. And once customers caught on to the fact that the co-op’s prepared foods were now made with higher-quality local ingredients, sales soared. In one telling example, the co-op sold nearly $12,000 worth of pies made with local pumpkin this past Thanksgiving, compared to just $5,000 worth of non-local pumpkin pies over the same time period in 2011.
Now that she’s seen her investment in local food pay off, Waller is ready to take it to the next level. She plans to streamline her system with spreadsheets and a set ordering schedule. She’s also applied for a USDA grant to buy some large processing equipment, so that this year the co-op can purchase several times the amount of local, seasonal produce it bought last year and preserve it for year-round use in its prepared foods.
Waller tested out this idea by stocking up on produce at the end of last summer and seeing which preserved items would be popular. She tried pesto, then “killed it with kimchi,” according to Williamson. “It flew off the shelves.”
For farmers like Williamson, this system “essentially allows me to grow 10,000 pounds of kale, or whatever, and they flash-freeze it and have kale for salads and soups all year,” he says. And for customers, “Now you’ve got access to food that’s grown right down the street 365 days [a year]. That’s the game changer.”
The central kitchen’s operation closely mirrors the way larger institutions like schools and hospitals prepare food, offering a glimpse of how it might be possible for such organizations to shift their sourcing through a similar focus on processing and preserving. Of course, the co-op is an autonomous, member-owned body that has far more control over its budget than public schools do. Still, all over the country, school districts, corner stores, restaurants, government programs, farm shares, social-justice groups, and Native American tribes are finding ways to make local, sustainable food the rule — not the exception — for the populations they serve, despite lean budgets and small staffs. As a result, sales from farms directly to buyers havedoubled in the past 20 years.
For the co-op, part of this year’s goal is to spread the gospel to anyone interested in following its example. “Our plan is to take this model and knock on every door in town and say, ‘You need to do this; it works,’” Williamson says.
“Every school or institution that finally takes the chance and does this — it always seems to end up working out,” says Waller. “And the food is so much better. I knew it would be in theory, but it really has made a huge difference. And it’s definitely increased sales, no doubt about that.”

Aging Boomer's Blog

To contact us Click HERE
Hey, a short entry today to plug my relatively new website where I'm blogging on a regular basis about getting older and all the trappings that come with it.

I named the site cleverly...

AgingBoomersBlog.com

Okay, so that's not so clever. But it was an available domain name that more-or-less reflected what it was going to be about.

Anyway, if you're an aging boomer, surf on over and bookmark my new site. Then spend some time there reading the many posts already up and then spending some more time commenting and moving the discussions forward.

I promise my AgingBoomersBlog.com will never be dull or boring or politically correct!

Chet "Aging Boomer" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog

Renewables Winning Economic Argument

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Without question the thermal coalindustry is setting up to simply disappear. The hard driver will be the rapid build out of natural gas burningplants.  No one can stand up against thattype of competition.
Way more important it that sooneror later we will have super conducting power transmission to send poweranywhere to anywhere at slight cost and we will have effective batteries to storesurplus energy as a huge energy buffer. With that environment, wind is a gift that never stops giving andgeothermal also become highly attractive for base load.
Fuel based systems then becomeunattractive, particularly as presently configured.  They were all established on the basis of  a logistical compromise whose economic rational evaporates.
The changeover is well underwayand will become more apparent as time progresses.

A New ManhattanProject
Saturday, 09 February 2013 10:40By Thom Hartmann,
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/14445-a-new-manhattan-project
Something interesting is happening in Australia.
A newstudy by the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has found thatunsubsidized renewable energy is now cheaper than fossil fuels like coal andgas.In fact, it’s a lot cheaper.
Data shows that wind farms in Australia can produce energy at AU$80/MWh. Meanwhile, coal plants are producing energy at AU$143/MWh and gas at AU$116/MWh.
Unlike the United States,where energy companies can pollute and have the costs (from illness toenvironmental degradation) picked up by the taxpayers, Australia has a carbon tax, whichpartially explains why renewables have a price advantage. But the data shows that even without the cost of carbon tax factored in; wind energy is still 14-cents cheaper than coal and 18-cents cheaper than gas.  
And this is in a nation that relies more heavily on coal than any otherindustrialized nation in the world. But that coal reliance will soon change, ascompanies in Australiaare quickly adopting new, cheaper renewable energies. As the study found, banksand lending institutions in Australiaare now less and less likely to finance new coal plants, because they've simplybecome a bad investment.
And, while Australian wind is cheapest now, by 2020 - and maybe sooner- solar power will also be cheaper than coal and gas in Australia. The energy game israpidly changing in that country.
Michael Liebrich, the chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, noted, “The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables are expensive is now out of date.”
Well, here’s a news flash: That perception has been out of date for awhile now – even right here in the United States.
According to the EnergyInformation Administration, looking ahead to 2016, natural gas is thecheapest energy in the United States at roughly $66/MWh. Coal comes insecond at $94/MWh. But right behind coal is renewable wind at $97/MWh,which in large part accounts for why U.S. wind energy production hastripled since 2000.
And, unlike in Australia,none of those USprices account for the externalities associated with fossil fuels likepollution, cancers, military protection, or global warming. In America,the fossil fuel industry has made sure those externalities are paid for not bythe coal and gas energy producers, but instead by you and me.
The fossil fuel industry doesn't pay a penny of the cost of rapidlyaccelerating climate change. Or the healthcare costs from exhaust- andrefinery-driven diseases and deaths from air, water, and other pollution. Notto mention the community costs of decreasing property values when a coal plantis put in your backyard. Nor do they put a cent toward the cost of our Navykeeping the oil shipping lanes open or our soldiers “protecting” the countriesthat “produce” all that oil.
All of these externalities come with fossil fuel production, but prettymuch don't exist with renewable energy production. And those externality costsare not only not paid for by the fossil fuel industry – they're never evenmentioned in the corporate-run “news” media in America.
Research from the Annalsof the New York Academy of Sciences concludes that the total cost ofthese externalities, if paid by the polluters themselves, would raise US fossilfuel prices by as much as nearly $3/MWh. And that’s an extremely conservativeestimate. Which puts wind power on parity with coal in America.
The trend lines here are pretty clear: Buggy whip, meet automobile!  
Renewables are getting cheaper, and fossil fuels are getting moreexpensive.
Which is why we as a nation need to throw everything we have at makingrenewable energies our primary way of powering America into the 21st century.
Think of it as a new ManhattanProject. We need green energy, local energy, and a 21st century smart gridto handle it all.  
Over time, the marketplace will do this for us. But with just aboutevery developed country in the world ahead of us, and our dependence on oilmaking us more and more tightly bound to Middle Eastern dictators and radicals,to wait and hope big transnational corporations will help birth a new Americais both naïve and stupid. Instead of depending on them, we should be recoveringfrom them the cost of those externalities – a carbon tax – that can be used tobuild a new energy infrastructure in America.
Let’s take a lesson from Australia and the Eurozone, whichhave both set up carbon taxes to make 19th century energy barons pay forat least some of the damage they've done. And then use that revenue for a greenenergy revolution here in America.
Considering the threats of climate change, war, and disease, only anidiot – or a fossil-fuel billionaire like Charles or David Koch – would want usto bring in more oil with a pipeline or take any other steps to continue America'sdependence on dirty and costly last-century fuels.
Renewables now cheaper than coal and gas in Australia
By Giles Parkinson on 7 February 2013
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/renewables-now-cheaper-than-coal-and-gas-in-australia-62268

A new analysis from research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has concluded that electricity from unsubsidised renewable energy is already cheaper than electricity from new-build coal and gas-fired power stations in Australia.
The modeling from the BNEF team in Sydney found that new wind farms could supplyelectricity at a cost of $80/MWh –compared with $143/MWh for new build coal,and $116/MWh for new build gas-fired generation.
These figures include the cost of carbon emissions, but BNEF said evenwithout a carbon price, wind energy remained 14 per cent cheaper than new coaland 18 per cent cheaper than new gas.
“The perception that fossil fuels are cheap and renewables areexpensive is now out of date”, said Michael Liebreich, chief executive ofBloomberg New Energy Finance.
“The fact that wind power is now cheaper than coal and gas in a country with some of the world’s best fossil fuel resources shows that clean energy is a game changer which promises to turn the economics of power systems on its head,” he said.
But before people, such as the conservative parties, reach for the smelling salts and wonder why renewables need support mechanisms such as the renewable energy target, BNEF said this was because new build renewables had to compete with existing plant, and the large-scale RET was essential to enable the construction of new wind and solar farms.
The study also found that Australia’s largest banks and foundthat lenders are unlikely to finance new coal without a substantial riskpremium due to the reputational damage of emissions-intensive investments – ifthey are to finance coal at all.
It also said new gas-fired generation is expensive as the massiveexpansion of Australia’sliquefied natural gas (LNG) export market forces local prices upwards. Thecarbon price adds further costs to new coal- and gas-fired plant and isforecast to increase substantially over the lifetime of a new facility.
BNEF’s analysts also conclude that by 2020, large-scale solar PV willalso be cheaper than coal and gas, when carbon prices are factored in.
In fact, it could be sooner than that, as we reportedyesterday, companies such as Ratch Australia, which owns coal, gas andwind projects, said the cost of new build solar PV was already  around$120-$150/MWh and falling. So much so that it is considering replacing itsageing coal-fired Collinsvillepower station with solar PV. The solar thermalindustry predicts their technologies to fall to $120/MWh by 2020 atthe latest.
The Bloomberg analysis said the Australian economy is likely to be powered extensively by renewable energy in future and that investment in new fossil-fuel power generation may be limited.
“It is very unlikely that new coal-fired power stations will be builtin Australia. They are just too expensive now, compared to renewables”, said Kobad Bhavnagri, head of clean energy research for Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Australia.
“Even baseload gas may struggle to compete with renewables. Australiais unlikely to require new baseload capacity until after 2020, and by this timewind and large-scale PV should be significantly cheaper than burning expensive,export-priced gas.
“By 2020-30 we will be finding new and innovative ways to deal with theintermittency of wind and solar, so it is quite conceivable that we couldleapfrog straight from coal to renewables to reduce emissions as carbon pricesrise.” he added.
The analysis by BNEF is significant. Australia relies more on coal thannearly any other industrialised country, but it also has some of the world’sbest renewables resources, which it has been slow to exploit. But is this likelyto prompt a review of the Coalition’s energy policies – which are based on thepremise that renewable energy is expensive and unreliable? Don’t bet onit.

Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Kills 7 in One Family

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Let us make it simple.  Anyone who collapses needs two thingsimmediately.  A 911 call for emergency assistanceand CPR now.  The breathing will not betoo helpful at all, but the sloshing of the blood will save your life and brainuntil help arrives and has a chance to restart the heart.
Most victims are excellentcandidates for shocking the heart back into action.  Thus having the tools available at schoolsand similar situations is only wise. Training available personnel is even better.
At least this spells out why wedo have so many such events out there. It is not just excessive training that kills athletes with an enlargedheart.
If your family has any history ofsudden death outside the usual parameter for heart disease, it is wise to findout if you are at risk.  Then live yourlife in close association with others. Alone in your apartment is not a solution.
Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Kills 7 in One Family
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES |
http://gma.yahoo.com/hypertrophic-cardiomyopathy-kills-7-one-family-171138717--abc-news-health.html

So far, Lisa Salberg has lost seven family members to an insidious heart disease, a medical mystery that took four generations of tragedy to unravel.
Her great-great uncle, an Irish immigrant, mysteriously dropped dead atthe age of 19 in a New Jerseyiron mine a century ago. At 50, her great-grandmother died of"dropsy" -- an old-fashioned term for the accumulation of fluidassociated with heart failure.
Salberg's grandfather had a heart murmur and died at 43. Her father missed a date with her mother because he had to administer CPR to his dying father. Salberg's aunt died at 36 of "the flu." Another aunt died of a stroke at 52. And an uncle died of heart failure at 48.
Fast forward to the mid-1970s: Salberg's sister Laurie was properly diagnosed with what looked like the cause of death of so many in her family, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), or an enlarged heart.
Her death in 1995 hit Salberg the hardest, as she struggled to raise Laurie's children along with her own newborn daughter.
"I don't know how many there are, but we are dropping like flies," said Salberg. "The pieces came in dribs and drabs, and it took years to get the information imparted. There was no connecting the dots."
Their father was diagnosed with HCM in 1989 and died in 2008.
"It affected generations of people and it's everywhere in my family," said Salberg, 44, who got her diagnosis in 1979.
Salberg's now 17-year-old daughter, as well as Laurie's children, her niece, 28, and nephew, 30, also have HCM. Several cousins also have the disease.
Cardiomyopathy isa familial disease that primarily affects the muscle of the heart. With HCM,the normal alignment of muscle cells is disrupted, a phenomenon known asmyocardial disarray. It also causes disruptions of the electrical functions of the heart and, depending on whether it obstructs the outflow of the heart from the left ventricle, can be obstructive or nonobstructive.
HCM is an autosomal dominant genetic condition, which means themutation only needs to be passed down from one parent. Becausecardiomyopathy is a spectrum of diseases, each person is affected differently.
The disease is "actually pretty common," affecting about 1 in500 Americans, said Dr. Sripal Bangalore, assistant professor in cardiology at NYU Langone Medical Centerin New York City.An estimated 600,000 Americans are living with the disease.
"A lot of people walking around lead a normal life into their 70sand 80s with no problems," he said. "At the other spectrum, youngathletes die while playing sports."
Often there are no symptoms, so the disease is diagnosed byevaluating family history. Children at risk should have an echocardiogram tosee if the heart muscle is enlarged. That must be repeated every five yearsuntil adulthood and is not always conclusive. Many doctors do not recommendgenetic testing because of its complexity – there are more than 1,000 genesassociated with cardiomyopathy.
Treatments may include medications like statins, beta blockers andcalcium channel blockers; surgery to burn away the thick part of the heartmuscle; and implanted defibrillator devices.
HCM is best known as the disease that strikes young athletes intheir prime. It gained attention in 1990 with the death of 23-year-old Hank Gathers,a basketball star at Loyola Marymount Universityin Los Angeles.
According to a 2003 review published in the New England Journal ofMedicine, HCMis the leading cause of sudden death among athletes, accounting for roughlya quarter of deaths.
But it more commonly causes sudden death off the athletic field, according to Salberg, who founded the New Jersey-based Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association (HCMA) to raise awareness of HCM and provide support to those with the condition. For 17 years, Salberg has connected families with leading researchers at academic hospitals and medical centers nationwide.
In the United Statesalone, approximately 250,000people die every year from sudden cardiac arrest, according to the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 10 percent of SCA eventsoccur among people less than 40 years of age.
Most die in schools, work places and at home, far from hospitals with lifesaving equipment. Salberg has spearheaded successful legislation in New Jersey to get CPR and automated external debrillators (AEDs) in the schools and supported national efforts for sudden cardiac arrest drills.
Salberg and NYU's Bangalore don't recommend universal testing of athletes, although those diagnosed with HCM should avoid vigorous activities."If you screen 10 to 15 million people, it's a big cost,"said Bangalore."It's not a cost-effective strategy. The number of young athletes who dieis small -- less than around 100."
Heart Condition Diagnosed in Junior High School
Salberg first knew she had a heart condition in the seventh grade when she lined up to be routinely evaluated for her hearing and scoliosis.
"I get up to the front and a [doctor] sitting on a stool stops andlooks up at me with horror on his face," she said. "He told the nurseto clear the room, and all the girls stood back. He had me squat and stand andsays, 'Listen to this.' Immediately the nurse told me to sit down and call mymother."
The doctor had detected an abnormal heartmurmur. In only 25 percent of all cases of HCM such a murmur will bepresent.
Soon, a cardiologist diagnosed her with the same disease as her brother and sister. He didn't give her much hope, telling Salberg, "I could die any moment -- though I looked fine."
At the time, "there was nothing out there to save me," shesaid. "I wasn't given any treatment."
Salberg ignored symptoms such as chest pain and dizziness.
"On at least two occasions I nearly passed out," she said."And I didn't mention it to anyone at the time, because it wasn't asimportant as going on Saturday afternoons to the roller rink.... I have no ideahow I was lucky enough to survive."
At the age of 21, she had a "full-blown stroke," and todayhas residual paralysis." Soon, her sister's health also declined withincreasing arrhythmias.
"[Laurie] spiraled out of control and we were told she was in heart failure," said Salberg, who at the time was eight months pregnant with her daughter. "I promised to take care of her two kids."
"Standing next to Laurie's bed, watching her struggle for breath, I wondered if the baby I was carrying was also affected," said Salberg. "I thought, 'I can't die now -- I am too busy to die.'"
After suffering heart failure herself after the birth of her son, Salberg began to search the Internet, "looking for answers."
In 1996, she founded the HCMA. Since then, Salberg has worked with more than 5,000 families, "from birth to 95," and in 45 countries.
"We've saved thousands of lives helping people get identified andare now working on legislative approaches."
The association offers a tool to determine who in the family might haveHCM and how to assess for risk of sudden cardiac arrest.
"Our knowledge changes day by day, and you have to maintain follow-up and be educated," Salberg said. "The patient needs to know the risks over time."
Today, Salberg, her daughter and her nephew all wear an implantablecardioverter defibrillator (ICD) that can shock a failing heart backto life. They are also on medication.
Salberg testified for a 2007 task force report in which three of the nine recommendations were turned into legislation called "Janet'sLaw," which was signed into law in September. It requires thatevery New Jersey school, public and private, be equipped with an AED. Schools must also establish emergency action plans for responding to sudden cardiac arrest events and training for school officials and coaches on how to operate AEDs.
The new law was named for Janet Zilinski, an 11 year-old who collapsed and died of sudden cardiac arrest in 2006.
Salberg is still pushing for drills to educate students and school responders. "We are not prepared for cardiac arrest when it happens," she said. "It's the most common way to die, and we don't drill for it. ...We have fire drills and armed invader drills. You are far more likely to have a child die in a school from sudden cardiac arrest than from a bullet or fire."
Salberg recommends that insurance pay for routine pre-certification physicals for athletes that are typically done today in schools, but not for universal testing specifically for HCM. She agrees with the medical experts.
"There is a lot of talk about athletes and sudden death and it's acomplete and utter myth to go down that path," she said. "Eightypercent of the kids we lose under 24 are non-athletes. It's no panacea and evenif you screen all high school students, there are false positives and falsenegatives.
"You are taking the resources away from those who need it, givingit to those who don't."