Uncle Bill

RIP

William John Foley

March 1923 - October 2008

Olympets 2008

HONG KONG (AFP) - As athletes from around the world sweat it out in Beijing, Hong Kong's pampered pets are being put though their paces in their own version of the Olympic Games.
From rabbit hurdles and parrot rope-climbing to cat agility contests, a Hong Kong pet shop has organised 10 weeks' worth of events to try to promote sport for animals.

Organiser Howard Cheung, who runs the city-centre PetMAX store, said he was inspired by the Beijing Games, but also wanted to help owners keep their animals healthy.

"Pets need to exercise and they don't have much space in Hong Kong. So we are trying to promote exercise and stimulate owners to exercise their pets," he said.

Most of Hong Kong's seven million people live in tiny cramped apartments and dogs are banned from many city parks.

Nevertheless, pets have become a must-have accessory and are treated accordingly -- grooming parlours abound, and the city even has a bakery dedicated to making cakes for animals.

Cheung said the so-called "Olympets" had proved popular, with 400 animals taking part in the heats held so far.

An awards presentation will be held at the end of August, using pet-sized medals the store has had specially made for the event.

But Cheung admitted the prospect of winning gold was not always enough to inspire the animals.

"Of course for some of the events you have to use treats so they will try harder," he said. "The parrots do have a tendency to climb up the rope anyway, but a treat at the top helps."

Australia’s alleged “fat bomb”

AUSTRALIA has become the fattest nation in the world, with more than 9 million adults now rated as obese or overweight, according to an alarming new report. The most definitive picture of the national obesity crisis to date has found that Australians now outweigh Americans and face a future “fat bomb” that could cause 123,000 premature deaths over the next two decades. If the crisis is not averted, obesity experts have warned, health costs could top $6 billion and an extra 700,000 people will be admitted to hospital for heart attacks, strokes and blood clots caused by excess weight.

The latest figures show 4 million Australians — or 26% of the adult population — are now obese compared to an estimated 25% of Americans. A further 5 million Australians are considered overweight. The report, Australia’s Future ‘Fat Bomb’, from Melbourne’s Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, will be presented at the Federal Government’s inquiry into obesity, which comes to Melbourne today.

A grim picture is painted of expanding waistlines fueled by a boom in fast food and a decline in physical activity, turning us into a nation of sedentary couch potatoes. Those most at risk of premature death are the middle-aged, with 70% of men and 60% of women aged 45 to 64 now classed as obese.

But some weight specialists have questioned the tool used to measure obesity, saying “entire rugby teams” would be classified as obese if their body mass index (BMI) was calculated. BMI is measured by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared. A BMI of over 25 is considered overweight while more than 30 is obese. But the tool does not distinguish between muscle and fat, prompting calls for the BMI overweight limit to be raised to 28.

However, even leading nutritionist Jenny O’Dea from the University of Sydney — who recently claimed Australia’s childhood obesity epidemic had been exaggerated — has backed the new figures, which suggest that the crisis for adults has been drastically underestimated. Professor O’Dea said that while being fat was not necessarily a health risk for everyone, there was no doubt obesity was taking its toll on the nation.

It was previously thought that around 3 million adults were obese. But many past surveys were seen as unreliable as they often required participants to guess their own weight. The latest data was based on more than 14,000 people at 100 rural and metropolitan sites in every Australian state and territory. Each had their BMI recorded by having their weight, height and waist measured as part of a national blood pressure screening day last year.

The report’s lead author, Simon Stewart, said that even allowing for the BMI’s potential failings, the best case scenario was that 3.6 million adults were battling obesity. “We could fill the MCG 40 times over with the number of obese Australians now, then you can double that if you look at the people who are also overweight — those are amazing figures,” Professor Stewart said. “And in terms of a public health crisis, there is nothing to rival this. If we ran a fat Olympics we’d be gold medal winners as the fattest people on earth at the moment,” he said. “We’ve heard of AIDS orphans in Africa, we’re looking at this time bomb going off where parents have to think about this carefully,” Professor Steward said. “They’re having children at an older age, if you’re obese and you have a child do you really want to miss out on their wedding? “Do you want to miss out on the key events in their life? Yes you will if you don’t do something about your weight now.”

The obesity inquiry in Melbourne will be told that a national strategy encouraging overweight Australians to lose five kilograms in five months could reduce heart-related hospital admissions by 27% and cut deaths by 34% over the next 20 years. Among the radical solutions proposed in the report is a plan to make fat towns compete for “healthy” status in national weight loss contests tied to Federal Government funding. Towns that lost the most weight would be given cash to build sports centres and swimming pools. And like the “Tidy Towns” program, communities would have to meet targets to be eligible for a share of the funding pool.

Other suggestions from Professor Stewart’s report include subsidised gym memberships, personal training sessions for heavier people and restricting weight loss surgery to those who show they can lose some weight on their own first.

One of Australia’s leading obesity experts, Boyd Swinburn, will tell the inquiry in his own submission that a crackdown on junk food marketing to children is paramount in the fight against the epidemic. With the fastest growing rate of childhood obesity in the world, Australia must make radical changes to the way unhealthy food is promoted if the rate is to be reduced, his submission reads. Professor Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University, will argue that better nutritional labeling and more funding for effective treatments such as weight-loss surgery are also necessary. “We’ve got a huge problem here and we can’t bury our head in the sand any more,” Professor Swinburn will tell the inquiry. “The previous federal government blamed parents and individuals and told them to pull up their socks … that’s not going to achieve anything but make us fatter as a nation. “It’s good to see the Rudd Government take obesity seriously with this parliamentary inquiry and the preventative health strategy but that has to be turned into proper policy, regulation and funding.”

Ian Caterson, director of the Institute of Obesity, Nutrition and Exercise at the University of Sydney, said innovative government “thinking outside the square” policies were necessary because, “as we get fatter and older as a nation things are just going to get worse.”

Auntie Barb

R I P
Barbara Alice Goodridge

(Nee Foley)

February 1916 - April 2008

Growing Old Or Growing Older

The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.

I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.

She said, 'Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?'

I laughed and enthusiastically responded, 'Of course you may!' and she gave me a giant squeeze.

'Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?' I asked.
She jokingly replied, 'I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids...'

'No seriously,' I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.

'I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!' she told me..

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.

We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this 'time machine' as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made
friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, 'I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know..'

As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, '! We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.

There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You've got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams,
you die.

We have so many people walking around who are dead and don't even know it!

There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.

If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.

Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.

The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.'

She concluded her speech by courageously singing 'The Rose.'

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.

Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.

When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family,
they'll really enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.

REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a
Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give.

God promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it..
'Good friends are like stars........You don't always see them, but you know they are always there.'

We need some Good Small Banks and Bankers

Banks and Credit Unions Dirty little secret; Small Banks could of prevented the recent lending practice; Big banks need to be prohibited from buying small banks so easily.

Banks have historically not loved the poor, but they never actively abused them. Recent events in the home mortgage industry show us all too clearly how big banks and their agents simply care less about people as individuals and humans.

A few years ago I spoke with a fellow who is a top VP with a bank in Oklahoma and in that state they allow small individual banks and in fact they flourish. He told me that banking was incredibly lucrative and there were so many ways to make money at it. Even from the standpoint of a small neighborhood bank. So why are they gone and disappeared from our cities. At one time these types of banks and credit unions were the back bone of small neighborhoods, ask your parents or grandparents.

There was a time when you could walk in a bank and get a loan without anyone looking at your credit rating or examining your assets. The bankers there knew your family and your history and trusted your judgment to run your affairs.

They haven’t disappeared because they cant make money, but they have disappeared because large banks buy them at insanely over market prices because they recognize that gaining access to a neighborhoods finances is the key to pretty much owning it, similar to a old mafia family might. Their goals, allowed by law and supported by confused republicans and free traders, are simply profit and nothing else.

I say that is wrong and a wrong headed way of making our economy strong. If we had had more small banks that exercised judgment that people trusted for their loans for homes instead of banks people had to go to without one single person that knew them or they knew in the bank by name. Complete dehumanization, and the entire process antiseptic of void judgment. In a world with more small banks we would be far safer.

A small bank would never do those abusive bank loans that we saw these last few years, and they would never of loaned people who are not ready for a loan the money. However, that is not to say they would not of helped them get a home, just perhaps a smaller one or a condo.

There is so much evidence of how banks care less to little than less for the poor people in our society. For instance, have you ever wondered what group of people pays the overdraft fee of $30 on the average at their bank, the poor and weakest in our society? It’s a short term loan in disguise. Its impossible to get a checking account where they wont let you overdraft it from 100 to 1000 dollars and then the bank charges you huge fees for every over drafted check. And, if you are poor, you use this feature often, perhaps every month, and pay disgustingly high interest.

This is just the same business as the payday advance loan business which is completely over the top in its fees. At least however, they are separate and not ingrained in your daily activities.

I say these things can be fixed. Banks must stop providing secret wink and a nod over drafting at $30 a pop to the poor and never closing those accounts as start to stop paying checks when the balance is less than 0, and not charged the customer 30 dollars if someone presents a check or debit charge if the account is too low.

Look at PayPal. You make a PayPal account and move your money to it from your checking account and then if you happen to charge or try to use your debit card and you don’t have enough in your account, the debit card is simply denied. No fuss no muss no abuse.

If you do the same thing with a normal checking account, the bank pays the charge, lets say on April 1, $119 renewal to your XM radio service you forgot was going to hit. Okay now suddenly you are over drafted 119 for a service that don’t matter a lot plus add 30 to that, 149 overdraft. This happens unknown to you and you deposit your paycheck on the morning of April 2 at the night deposit box. And as you arrive home write the rent check for 1,050 and put it in the manager’s mailbox. Now this deposit of $1,100 raises your account to $950.

And, you just wrote a check for your rent. The rent check arrives at the bank on the 4th of the month and the account

This rent check hits your bank and the bank may or may not pay it. Probably they will if you haven’t done something foolish like buy a loaf of bread or something. And you are now over drafted $104 (assume you had $25 to start, subtract the xm and the overdraft fee, $149, add your deposit $1,100, subtract the rent $1,050 and the fee for the check needing to be force paid.).

Now this person who is working and struggling is $162 short of having the money to pay their rent and add $50 to that and 5 per day, so say they can pay it by the 10th or 7 days at 5 or 35 dollars. The rent due now is up to 1060 plus 50 plus 35 or 1145, they have 898 in the bank, so they are 247 dollars short, and 5 to 10 days from being served eviction papers and 40 days or so from being homeless.

This is their dirty secret. Dressed in posh clothing of old trusted bank, they are predatory with no, none, zero concern for people or communities. It does not matter how many people suffer or fail to them as long as they can collect these fees for services with no value to anyone. They create nothing of worth.

It does not ever help poor consumers to have bank accounts over drafted and a fee added to them. Also, it’s patently unfair to charge $30 dollars to just get denied. My god the entire bank does is look at your balance and say, not enough money. Charge you $30 for that? It’s beyond inhumane.

Assume if the bank had just denied the XM radio charge. No big deal. The rather innocent mistake this person made of forgetting to set aside money for that renewal does not start the cascade of brutality that banks impose on the poor.

In every case Banks take the moral high ground and say they are doing customers a favor by paying these over drafts and it’s a disincentive from people over drafting. Perhaps in a time when verification was not instantaneous it would be, but it isn’t any longer.

Another practice banks have started. In the old days they used to run all deposits to your account first, then the checks before finding and charging overdraft fees. Suppose you wrote a check for groceries on Thursday night and you get paid Friday and it’s deposited. The bank has no regard for the fact that they did not pay or in fact were not presented with your check till Friday. They use modeling tools to maximize their fees. So, the bank will in these so called modern times charge you that $30 fee even though they were not presented the check because they wont run the deposits first on Friday before the debits to your account. In old times it was considered respectful and a courtesy to always run your transactions this way. But there is more money in abusing the poor and the banks do it.

If you are moderately well off or at minimum have good cash flow, you are unaware of these practices. But the poor who receive say a $870 disability checks and write just a few checks if any each month, these types of fees can render them homeless with just a couple of innocent mistakes.

Bring back the small banks. Yes its okay to have a few big giant ones for the huge companies that need them. But mostly we don’t need every bank to be giant huge and impersonal and they can definitely make money as small banks, if the Government would just enforce the anti trust laws on the books.

Will anyone ever look out for the regular poor people again?

Are there any people willing to go into banking as a career and not sell out to big banks and help local neighborhoods? It’s very lucrative, even if you are kind and don’t take every predatory practice.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen meets Colbert

I watched the Colbert report last night and as usual found it funny and enlightening. I am posting this as a footnote to myself to not forget that we have many inventions in-the-bag that can be enormously helpful to the world.

Dean Kamen has invented a devise that cleans 1000 liters of water a day for nearly no cost. This could help eliminate nearly all disease in certain parts of the world at an extremely low cost.

Watch Colbert show it off with his special humor at this link.

http://gizmodo.com/370698/colbert-first-vid-of-dean-kamens-miracle-water-distiller