Hispanic immigrants do the 3D jobs – dirty, dangerous and difficult.

From Tom Barnett's Blog:

Nice piece by David Brooks today on immigration ("Immigrants to Be Proud Of," NYT, 30 March 2006). All sorts of arguments about how Hispanic families tend to be–relatively speaking–paragons of family values.

My arguments tend to be more grubby. Hispanic immigrants do the 3D jobs a lot–as in, dirty, dangerous and difficult. They earn every year upwards of a half trillion in wages. They spend over 90 percent here in the States and sent a mere fraction to families back home, yielding a cash flow that, in Latin America alone, is roughly ten times what America sends the entire Gap annually in Official Developmental Aid.

Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future

2Spare – Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future
# «We will bury you.»
Nikita Krushchev, Soviet Premier, predicting Soviet communism will win over U.S. capitalism, 1958.

# «Everything that can be invented has been invented.»
Charles H. Duell, an official at the US patent office, 1899.

Just when you thought that glass of wine did you good!

Just when you thought that glass of wine did you good!
Initially it appeared the abstainers were at higher risk for heart disease because they refrained from drinking alcohol, and so did not get its protective benefit, when in fact Fillmore says those in the abstainer category were often already frail and predisposed to death.

Nesting Eagle Web Cam

Thanks to Adam Brown, wildlife bioligist, who says:

You gotta check this out…so cool, a close-up video of a nesting, the camera is in the nest with it, Bald Eagle in Washington State:

Since I am sending along web cams…here is a seabird research camera that is used by colleagues of our with FWS…this site is right off the coast of San Fransisco…the birds aren’t there in huge numbers now, but in a month it will be teeming. You can see if we are living in the fog or not…

It appears that the Hornby Island bald eagle eggs are infertile. But another successful nest is in their place instead.

Here is a link to nest in Harrisburg Penn. of 4 Periguine Falcon hatchlings.
Reasons for the Failure to Hatch:

We cannot be sure, why the initial Eagle nest in Vancouver failed. For Some educated guesses follow,Click here.

Check out the Seal Cam

Tom Friedman Interview on NPR

Tom Friedman may be best known for his best-seller about globalization "The Earth is Flat", but his 3 Pulitzer Prizes have come from his Middle East Expertise.

The most frightening thing the United States could do to Iran, short of attacking it, is to leave Iraq, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The second most frightening thing for Iran, he says, would be a U.S. success in Iraq.

Listen to this interview with Terry Gross on NPR's "fresh Air".(In Windows Media PLayer)

And if you would like to hear some earlier interviews. 

The ear wax cleaning madness must stop

Dr. Paul J. Camp, Spelman College, Department of Physics is in the don't-pick-your ears camp: Plug o' earwax Oh for god's sake, this has gone on long enough.Ear wax is there for a reason. It has antibacterial properties as well as preventing dirt and bugs from going further into your hearing system. Excess earwax is pushed naturally to the opening of the ear canal, where it is washed away, pushed out as the cerumen glands secrete more wax and also by epithelial migration as your skin goes through its replacement cycle.

From the Mayo Clinic: "Never attempt to dig out excessive or hardened earwax with items such as a paper clip, a cotton swab or a hairpin. You may push the wax farther into your ear and cause serious damage to the lining of your ear canal and even to your eardrum." Wanna go deaf? Stick a bobby pin in your ear. See herefor what it looks like when you've been packing that stuff in for a while.

Even if you don't do that, simply scratching or abrading the skin in the ear canal provides a protected growth site for fungus — the dreaded swimmer's ear. I had this once when psoriasis broke up the skin in my ear. You don't want it. Also, removal of impacted ear wax, from pushing it further down in the ear, is inevitably very painful.

Now there are a VERY FEW people who have excessive wax secretions and need to have it cleaned out every now and again. The solution to that is a few drops of mineral oil to soften up the wax and, a day or two later, a bit of warm water or hydrogen peroxide squirted up the ear canal.

And for god's sake, don't stick a candle in your ding dang ear. Ear wax cannot be sucked out by a candle. There are easier ways to set your head on fire.