Society

233 Politicians Just Voted to Steal Social Security’s $2.9 Trillion Surplus
233 Politicians Just Voted to Steal Social Security's $2.9 Trillion Surplus

233 Politicians Just Voted to Steal Social Security’s $2.9 Trillion Surplus

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 12, 2018Contact: Linda Benesch, lbenesch@socialsecurityworks.org Legislation That Would Surreptitiously Steal Social Security’s $2.9 Trillion Surplus Has Been Defeated – But 97% of Republicans Voted For It (Washington, DC) — The following is a statement from Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works, in reaction to nearly every Republican member of the House of Representatives, as well as seven Democrats, voting for a Constitutional amendment requiring that all annual revenue and spending balance every year. The amendment failed to attain the two-thirds majority required to pass it into law: “Every pay period, starting with our first jobs, America’s workers contribute to Social Security. The program uses those funds to pay all benefits and related administrative costs. Social Security does not add even a penny to the deficit, as Republican President Ronald Reagan so clearly stated when he was president. When Social Security runs a surplus, Social Security holds the funds in trust.…

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The Lunatic Farmer – Loneliness
The Lunatic Farmer

The Lunatic Farmer – Loneliness

January 31, 2020             A new study highlighted in the Wall Street Journal says loneliness is up:  61 percent of Americans say they're lonely.              Additionally, the study found a direct relationship between social media and loneliness.  The more social media usage, the higher the loneliness.              But I thought we were better connected through our devices.  These kinds of findings make me shake my head and marvel.  In case you're just tuning in, Teresa and I have no TV in our house.  Neither of us has a smart phone.  We have flip phones.  I don't do texting--at all.  My cell phone does not work in our house.  Even cordless landlines are dicey in our house.              I'm not lonely.  Is it possible to have device addiction?  Or to have interest addiction--like if someone doesn't express interest in me every 30 minutes, then apparently the world doesn't think I'm worth attention?             …

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‘It makes me enjoy playing with the kids’: is microdosing mushrooms going mainstream?
Post Image Mushrooms Going Main Stream

‘It makes me enjoy playing with the kids’: is microdosing mushrooms going mainstream?

Before the school run, or commuting to work, increasing numbers are taking tiny doses of psychedelic drugs in the UK. Why? Rosie has just returned from the school run. She drops a bag of groceries on to her kitchen table, and reaches for a clear plastic cup, covered by a white hanky and sealed with a hairband. Inside is a grey powder; her finely ground homegrown magic mushrooms. “I’ll take a very small dose, every three or four days,” she says, weighing out a thumbnail of powder on digital jewellery scales, purchased for their precision. “People take well over a gram recreationally. I weigh out about 0.12g and then just swallow it, like any food. It gives me an alertness, an assurance. I move from a place of anxiety to a normal state of confidence, not overconfidence.” Over the last 12 months, I have been hearing the same story from…

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High Stress Drives Up Your Risk Of A Heart Attack. Here’s How To Chill Out
High Stress Drives Up Your Risk Of A Heart Attack. Here's How To Chill Out

High Stress Drives Up Your Risk Of A Heart Attack. Here’s How To Chill Out

April 14, 20195:01 PM ET Heard on Morning Edition Allison Aubrey Twitter The trick, of course, is to find moments of deep relaxation wherever you are, not just on vacation. Laughing with friends can be another way to start breaking the cycle of chronic stress and help keep your heart healthy, too. stock_colors/Getty Images Work Stress. Home Stress. Financial Stress. The toll of chronic stress isn't limited to emotional suffering. High stress can set the stage for heart disease. In fact, research shows that those of us who perceive a lot of stress in our lives are at higher risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems over the long term. Shots - Health News This Is Your Stressed-Out Brain On Scarcity The latest evidence comes from a new study of siblings in Sweden. Researchers identified about 137,000 people who had been diagnosed with stress-related disorders; the diagnoses included post-traumatic…

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Encourage Mathematical Thinking With These Board Games for Little Kids

Photo: Amazon The best way to help young kids understand math concepts isn’t by standing in front of a white board and rattling off multiplication facts. Rather, it’s by letting them see math in action. Board games are a great way for little learners to get a grasp on skills such as pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, problem solving and visual perception. Here are some of the best board games for kids under 8 that encourage mathematical thinking, according to math educators and parents. Note: The ages listed are from the game creators. Kids can often start playing earlier if they show interest, or you can make modifications to games such as playing on teams, playing cards face up or eliminating the time component. Rush Hour Jr. Rush Hour Jr. presents kids with a true dilemma: The ice cream truck is stuck in traffic. To get it out, they must shift…

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Doctors Explain How Hiking Can Actually Change Our Brains

While it may seem obvious that a good hike through a forest or up a mountain can cleanse your mind, body, and soul, science is now discovering that hiking can actually change your brain… for the better! Hiking In Nature Can Stop Negative, Obsessive Thoughts Aside from the almost instant feeling of calm and contentment that accompanies time outdoors, hiking in nature can reduce rumination. Many of us often find ourselves consumed by negative thoughts, which takes us out of the enjoyment of the moment at best and leads us down a path to depression and anxiety at worst. But a recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that spending time in nature decreases these obsessive, negative thoughts by a significant margin. To conduct this study, researchers compared the reported rumination of participants who hiked through either an urban or a natural environment. They found those who walked for 90 minutes in a…

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Canadians! More No-Waste Grocery Stores Are Coming to a City Near You

And the trend doesn’t just apply to grocery stores. And the trend doesn’t just apply to grocery stores. The Soap Dispensary and Kitchen Staples in Vancouver, for instance, sells bulk and packaging-free beauty and household products, as well as food. This is a welcomed trend for environmentally-savvy consumers. “We’ve got a massive plastic packaging problem,” Barb Hetherington, a board member for Zero Waste Canada, told Global Citizen. “We’ve got so much packaging in the world that our recycling systems can’t handle it.” The average person in North America or Western Europe consumes about 100 kilograms of plastic, and the bulk of that is due to packaging, according to Zero Waste Canada. Related Stories June 18, 2018 New Toronto Grocery Store Lets Its Customers Pay What They Can Hetherington argues that the zero-waste shopping experience not only reduces the amount of packaging that has to be manufactured and recycled, but because…

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Doing Dishes Is the Worst

Photo by: Mardis Coers / Getty Every day, they slowly accumulate. Plates covered in sauces and crumbs. Bowls with a fine layer of sticky who-knows-what. Forks, knives, and spoons all gummed with bits of this and that. At the end of a long day of work, cooking, cleaning, and, for many, negotiating with small children, a couple has to face the big question: Who is going to do the dishes? A report from the Council of Contemporary Families (CCF), a nonprofit that studies family dynamics, suggests that the answer to that question can have a significant impact on the health and longevity of a relationship. The study examined a variety of different household tasks—including shopping, laundry, and housecleaning, and found that, for women in heterosexual relationships, it’s more important to share the responsibility of doing the dishes than any other chore. Women who wash the vast majority of the dishes…

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Billionaire Musk releases all Tesla patents to help save the Earth

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Shanghai's Mayor Ying Yong attend the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory groundbreaking ceremony in Shanghai, China Jan. 7, 2019. Aly Song, Reuters SAN FRANCISCO - Elon Musk announced Thursday he had released all of the electric carmaker Tesla's patents, as part of an effort to fight climate change. In a blog post, the colorful billionaire founder of Tesla promised the company "will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology." It was a remarkable move in an industry where the smallest idea or seed of invention is carefully guarded to protect its monetary value.  And it in fact came on the same day US prosecutors charged a Chinese national with stealing secrets from Apple's self-driving vehicle project. "Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport," Musk said. "If we clear a path to the creation of compelling…

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D.C. Council gives final approval to Airbnb regulations

Property owners won’t be able to use secondary homes for short-term rentals under the new rules By Andrew Giambrone Nov 15, 2018, 11:54am EST D.C. residents who use Airbnb or similar booking services to rent out their homes will likely have to abide by new regulations starting next October, when they are set to go into effect. The policies represent the first time the city has charted comprehensive laws for short-term rental units—an effort that has sparked a fierce debate spanning roughly the past two years. District lawmakers on Tuesday unanimously green-lit rules for short-term rentals, after they had delayed a final vote on the rules last month. The legislation bans property owners from renting out any homes other than their primary residences for fewer than 30 days at a time, commonly done through platforms such as Airbnb and VRBO. It also restricts to 90 the total number of days…

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The Yamas & One-Night Stands: A Yogi Perspective on Sex

  I’ve always been the girl who felt uncomfortable with one-night stands. But being a single, adult female, I quickly learned that my standards of needing a relationship before sex were, well, old-school. Not putting out within the first three dates is a guaranteed way to not hear back from a potential mate. Instead of giving into society’s new norm of casual sex, I found another way to feel fulfilled and still play the game of adult dating. Now, sometimes casual sex is great. (Okay, a lot of the time.) But dating in my early 20s is a scary, muddy puddle that I’m supposed to just know how to swim. Naturally. After a few bad fish, I had to ask myself, “How can I get what I want and still make sure I leave the other person better than I found them and without compromising my true feelings?” As a…

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Emotional General Motors Workers Seen Wiping Away Tears After Company Lays Off 14,500 People

By Jack Phillips November 28, 2018 Updated: November 28, 2018 Photos this week show emotional General Motors workers in Ontario, Canada, wiping away tears after the company laid off more than 14,000 employees just days before the holidays. The firm made the announcement on Nov. 26, saying it will shutter seven plants in the United States and Canada. It said it plans to cut 15 percent of its workforce to save $6 billion and adapt to “challenging market conditions,” and it will abandon many car models. “I don’t know how I’m going to feed my family,” Matt Smith, a worker at an Ontario factory, said outside the plant, News.com.au reported. “It’s hard. It’s horrible.” Smith said his wife also works at the plant, adding they have an 11-month-old baby. Members of Unifor local 222 gather at the union hall before the press conference with union leaders in Oshawa, Ontario, on…

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Kavanaugh Has Exposed the Savage Amorality of America’s Ruling Class

How the DC establishment has responded to his confirmation controversy tells us an awful lot. Brett Kavanaugh in 2009. Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty For decades, Brett Kavanaugh has traveled through the ranks of the conservative movement as smoothly as food slides down the gullet of a force-fed foie gras duck. An elite private high school, Yale, Yale Law School, a series of clerkships for conservative judges, a spot on Ken Starr's team during his investigation of Bill Clinton, a gig as a lawyer in George W. Bush's White House, and, thanks to Bush, a federal judgeship. When Donald Trump—or really, the right-wing Federalist Society—nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court this summer, a fleet of shiny legal establishment types gushed over the pick, declaring him a fine legal mind and an upstanding citizen. One of Kavanaugh's old professors, a self-described Hillary Clinton supporter named Akhil Reed Amar, called him a…

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WATCH: Donald Trump’s Sexual Predator Friends

  This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford about the night she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, the judge nominated to the Supreme Court by a president who is a self-admitted sexual predator. She believed she was about to be raped and thought she might die. How did we end up here? How does a man with multiple, credible allegations of sexual assault make it this far, on the brink of a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court? First of all, we've always been here. Forever. None of this is new. Women have had to suffer this since the beginning of time. And men have always had friends in high places and systems set up to make sure they've never had to face any consequences for their actions. The media, over the decades, have failed to confront this issue and have…

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No Response After an Interview? Here’s What to Do If You’ve Been Ghosted

By Robert Half August 28, 2018 at 11:45am   You met the hiring manager two weeks ago and thought the conversation went well, yet there’s still been no response after the interview. This might be due to the rise of workplace ghosting. Job seekers across the United States are experiencing an increase in career-related ghosting — the act of the company vanishing, going dark or pulling away at some point in the hiring process without explanation. The term arose in the dating world, but perfectly applies to a phenomenon job seekers are encountering. From an employer's perspective, informing people that they didn’t get the job is not particularly fun or easy. Instead of breaking the disappointing news of an official rejection, some employers may avoid the situation altogether or provide no response after the interview to keep you as a back-up option should their top choice fall through. How can…

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