Washing Your Hands Properly Stops the Spread of Contagious Disease

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Most people know that washing your hands can help to prevent passing on nasty viruses and bacteria. But how many people just flick their hands under a dribbling tap and think that will do? Now hopeless hand washers will be caught with glowing green fingers by a good hand-washing test.

A new hand-washing training kit uses a cream containing a harmless dye that glows green in ultraviolet light to show up shoddy hand washing. Demonstrators put a blob of cream on people’s hands and send them away to wash them. When they come back, they are often amazed at how much glowing green dye remains on their fingers. If the dye were a microbe, they would be standing a good chance of infecting themselves and passing it on to other people.

The glowing cream can also be used to show how viruses such as those that cause colds and flu can survive on hard surfaces and be spread from hand to hand. Just touching a doorknob that has had a little of the special cream applied to it can make people’s fingers turn green under UV light — and then when they touch another person’s hand the green glow gets passed on.

It has been shown time and time again that washing your hands with soap and water can kill viruses that cause:

• The common cold
• Hepatitis A
• Acute gastroenteritis
• Other illnesses

Thorough hand-washing truly is an important step, as you are at far greater risk of passing on an infection by shaking someone‘s hand than even by sharing a kiss.

One report even found that regular hand washing may be more effective than drugs in preventing the spread of respiratory viruses such as influenza. Germs that cause stomach infections such as salmonella, campylobacter and norovirus can also circulate directly from person to person via your hands.

Good hand hygiene has, in fact, been called your best option in the event of a flu pandemic.

In the study, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, people who used antibacterial soaps and cleansers developed a cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms just as often as people who used products that did not contain antibacterial ingredients.

Studies have also found that soap and water work better than the waterless, alcohol-based hand wipes and rubs. Further, the active ingredient in most antibacterial products is triclosan, an antibacterial agent that kills bacteria and inhibits bacterial growth. But not only does triclosan kill bacteria, it also has been shown to kill human cells.

Antibacterial soaps and cleansers kill both good and bad bacteria, which is why they are prone to contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and potentially also to allergic diseases like asthma and hay fever.

The Society for General Microbiology’s good hand-washing test was eye-opening for many who believed they had thoroughly washed their hands, yet found they had many spots of “glowing green” left.

So to make sure you’re actually removing the germs when you wash your hands, follow this three-step hand-washing technique:

1. Use warm water
2. Work up a good lather all the way up to your wrists for at least 10 or 15      seconds
3. Don’t forget to get all surfaces including the backs of your hands, wrists,      between your fingers and an area often overlooked — your fingernails

There is one important caveat to remember, and that is your skin is actually your primary defense against bacteria — not the soap.

So resist the urge to become obsessive about washing your hands. If you wash them too frequently you can actually extract many of the protective oils in your skin, which can cause your skin to crack and bleed.

Sources: Mercola.com June 26, 2009
                  Science Daily June 3, 2009
                  Society for General Microbiology June 3, 2009

A better way to balance State budget than cut services to the poor, elderly, and library patrons : HB 25/SB 52 Reorganizing Ohio’s Executive Branch

In April, Gov. Strickland issued an executive order to reduce and control spending. In May, the office of Budget and Management estimated an additional budget shortfall would exceed $900. In response to this assessment, Gov. Strickland made the following statement:

“The national recession continues to present historic economic challenges for every state and Ohio is no exception. Even though we have reduced state government spending by nearly $2 billion this biennium, we are now faced with even steeper revenue shortages. Addressing the challenges before us will require extraordinary collaboration and bipartisan consensus-building among the state’s elected leadership. I know that we can work together to make the tough choices necessary to maintain a balanced budget while continuing to invest in education and job-creation that will lead to Ohio’s economic revival.

Did the governor mean state jobs or private sector jobs? Earlier this month, Gov. Strickland said state government must be reduced by another $2 billion to balance the budget. To accomplish this, he has closed mental health facilities and other facilities, reduce staff to Reagan era numbers, and reduced budgets of most state agencies. State employees have voluntarily sacrificed further increases in pay for several years. After all of these fiscally responsible steps, a budget deficit of $3.2 billion still exists.

I suppose that is why Gov. Strickland proposes additional cuts to local library budgets. The deficit probably accounts for a number of proposed cut is services for the poor and elderly as well.

In his last press release, Gov. Strickland repeatedly said, “We must resize the government.” Of course, he means the cuts to agency budgets and some of their personnel. What he doesn’t mean is downsizing the executive branch itself. Yet, there are concurrent bill in both House and Senate committees that will do just that. In February, Representatives Jarrod Martin and Robert Hackett cosponsored HB 25 and Senator Timothy Grendell is the sponsor of SB 52. (Where is Senator Chris Widener?) If these bills would pass, at least $2 of the $3.2 billion would be realized.

Yes, it would be limited-government advocates dream come true. The 20 cabinet-level agencies would be consolidated into 10 cabinet-level departments.

Yes, it would actually reflect the downsizing occurring throughout the private sector as well.

According to analysis by the Ohio Legislative Service Commission, the bill would not “affect the provision of services by and operations of political subdivisions.” Because government is notorious for inefficiency anyway, the disruption of some services during the transition is bound to occur. Nevertheless, less bureaucracy means less waste and (god-forbid) less taxation.

Although Gov. Strickland still says he doesn’t want to raise new taxes, his comrades on Capitol Hill and elsewhere are creating a New Deal Era economic crisis requiring more taxes and more national debt to justify the enlargement of the federal powers and further the Left’s goal of a fully socialist-Marxist economy. Maybe that t is why loyal party member Strickland is in the key position in a key state.

This federally-driven economic crisis is even more reason for getting Ohio legislators to pass HB25/SB52 to consolidate the executive branch and meet the balance budget. If we can achieve it in Ohio, we can also achieve it at the federal level too. “Yes we can!”

Greene County Library Funding Emergency

Governor Strickland has proposed a last minute change to the State Budget: he proposes to cut funding for Ohio’s Libraries by an additional $100 million dollars a year for the next two years.

Public libraries are a vital lifeline to job hunting information, education, and family fun in a down economy. Greene County Public Library receives 55% of its funding from the State of Ohio. This funding rises and falls with the State’s income, and funding for libraries has already fallen dramatically in the current recession. If the Governor’s new cut became permanent, it would devastate the services the library provides to children, teens, adults, and seniors throughout Greene County.

Under the Governor’s proposal, the funding for Ohio’s libraries would drop to nearly half of 2008 levels. The cost to the Greene County Public Library would be $2.2 million in 2009 and $3.5 million in 2010. The cut for this year would be in addition to the $3.3 million reduction the library is already facing because of declining state tax revenues.

The Greene County Public Library has already absorbed large drops in state funding, even while staff has been working hard not to reduce services for patrons. But, without this key state funding, the library will have to make deep cuts in hours, eliminate services, and possibly even close branches.

You can help Greene County Public Library protect the funding that will keep it doing what it does best — serving you — by contacting your representatives and the Governor’s office by phone and email this week to let them how you feel about the Governor’s proposal: the decision on this proposal will be made before July 1.

Please contact:

Governor Ted Strickland
(614) 466-3555
(614) 644-4357 (Fax)
http://governor.ohio.gov

Representative Jarrod Martin
(614) 644-6020
(614) 719-3970 (Fax)
district70@ohr.state.oh.us

Representative Robert Hackett
(614) 466-1470
(614) 719-6984 (Fax)
district84@ohr.state.oh.us

Senator Chris Widener
(614) 466-3780
SD10@senate.state.oh.us

(Note: To speed up the process, you can write one email with your name and address, and then cut and paste it into your email to the legislators.)

Xenia AIA Sports

In 2007, Athletes In Action constructed a state-of-the-art sports complex consisting of baseball, football and soccer fields. The complex hosts many high-profile sports tournaments, ranging from Collegiate Baseball games, Mid-American Conference Tournaments, American Mideast Conference Tournaments, OHSAA and many others. AIA Sports Complex is a highly sought after facility.

Last month, the Planning and Zoning Department approved the construction of a bleacher stand for the baseball fields. It will have 750 seats, media seating and other amenities. Considering the average team that competes at AIA brings 25 players and 4 coaches, the number of spectators including parents, friends, scouts, media and Xenia community members could be utilizing these much needed bleachers.

It would be a crime if I failed to mention the Xenia AIA team’s next at-home game is June 25. Game starts at 7pm.

For more information about AIA, its league and/or games, go to the AIA website at http://www.aiabaseball.org/greatlakes.

Source: Xenia Development Corner, May 2009.

Bogus Complaint of Ohio ACLU Against Proposed Pledge of Allegiance Law

The Port Clinton News Herald published the following report about a proposed change in Ohio school law that would “strip Ohio School Boards of the authority to decide whether students should says the Pledge of Allegiance.” The law gives teachers sole authority to “decide if students in their classrooms will say the pledge.” Individual students would still be “allowed not to recite the pledge, but the proposal would prohibit anyone from altering it, such as adding or removing words.”

So, what is so bad about that?

“Christine Link, executive director of the ACLU in Ohio, said the proposed law violates free speech rights. School boards should retain the authority to decide if the pledge is appropriate.”

Whose free speech rights does this proposed law threaten? It is not students for they still have the right not to say the Pledge. It is not teachers who will gain greater discretionary authority in the classroom. That leaves those local school district officials who have decided students will not say the Pledge of Allegiance at school. Seeing the state already dictates school policy anyway, the loss of discretionary authority at the district level is almost meaningless.

The real problem is this: It “is a transparent attempt to force all school districts into mandating the pledge to be recited in all classrooms,” according to Link.

In other words, the proposed law threatens the ACLU’s socialist control over speech in the public domain.

Let’s evaluate this issue further. Children attend school to learn how to be good citizens of the United States of America. Engendering loyalty towards their national homeland is one of the original goals of public education. Who would grow up even to consider defending their nation if they did not highly value it? Stating the Pledge of Allegiance is instrumental in accomplishing that goal.

It must be acknowledged that the religion of some families forbid such acts. The flag could be viewed as object of idolatry, and a pledge could be compared to a religious oath. I cannot imagine any other reason for not pledging allegiance to their nations and the values it represents.

I almost forgot that the few atheists like those in the ACLU justify editing out of our nation’s historic Pledge those offending words like God through a secular interpretation of free speech rights.

Is it possible to edit out the same offending words and their synonyms from our nation’s founding documents? Even the second Constitution included the word Lord, which meant God not King Charles. It must be terribly offensive from them to read the multiple volumes of the Constitutional Convention debates. That is assuming they have actually read them. God was not left out. Then there are those federal building in which us etched scriptural references and even the Ten Commandments in the Supreme Court chambers.

Over the edge are statements written into the Constitution of Ohio. For example, the Preamble states:

We, the people of the State of Ohio, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare, do establish this
Constitution.

Article 1 Section 7 of the Bill of Rights states:

Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to pass suitable laws, to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.

Ohio public schools are government institutions whose purpose is the inculcation of good citizenship in its citizens. It is the Constitutional responsibility of schools to teach children what a good government is, the essentials being religion, morality, and knowledge.

Requiring children to say the Pledge of Allegiance is not a violation of free speech whereas forbidding it is a violation of Constitutional law. When religion conflicts with offending practices, the Ohio Bill of Rights accommodates freedom of conscience. Even children of atheist parents have a right not to say the Pledge.

The intention of the proposed law is to eliminate politically incorrect censorship or denial of the Pledge in a nation under God.

Sources: Port Clinton News Herald, June 13, 2009.
                  The Ohio Constitution.

Economic Crisis : A Commentary, Part 2

In the previous post, the commentary of Dr. Bill Ragle, associate professor of finance at Cedarville University, focused on the causes of the current economic crisis. Unlike most like a bad dreams, America is still shaken by the prolonged impact of the recession, which began during the failed policies of FDR’s New Deal and certainly by Lydon B, Johnson’s Great Society. But, the impetus pushing the economy over the edge is the result of deregulation–Community Reinvestment Act of 1995 and after–that occurred under previous Democrat regimes and not under GW Bush. That is not to deny Bush’s contributions to the problem.

This post presents solutions to America’s economic crisis offered by Dr. Ragel and others.

Solutions

According to Prof. Ragel, America’s economic problems can be fixed. He proposes the following three steps that would affect financial restoration.

(1) Tax policy must be restructured to encourage entrepreneurial activity. This means tax cuts.

(2) Government must allow market forces to work. Bankruptcy is often the result of either inefficient management or the lack of market demand. For these reasons, government should stop propping up poorly run companies and municipalities.

(3) Both individuals and governments must begin exercising fiscal restraint and pay off their debts. Fiscal restraint is a moral issue related to the concept of self-governance, which was the problem first addressed by Prof. Ragle. For Constitutional governance to work, moral self-governance is among the first principles as understood the founders like John Adams.

If the above are not done, Prof. Ragle warns America will likely suffer a prolonged recession, if not an outright depression. “We will continue to build our debt-based house of cards until it inevitably collapses.”

Cedarville president, Dr. Bill Brown, says the economy reflects societal values, which arise from worldviews. Revaluing our economy is synonymous with the above steps. Moral self-governance (restraint) begins with the providence and sovereignty of nature’s God over individual as well as public life.

Dr. Robert Parr, professor of sociology, sees economic crisis as good news for families. He wrote, “[E]vidence from both Scripture and society demonstrates that a tough economy reinforces the value of family. “Threat to survival provides opportunity to rebuild caring and helping relationships as opposed to narcissism or alienation.

Sources: The Torch, (Spring/Summer 2009), pp. 4-8, 3, and 19.

Economic Crisis : A Commentary, Part 1

The Problem

In the latest edition of The Torch, Cedarville University provides readers with varied perspective on America’s current economic crisis. The theme mentioned on the front cover is aptly titled A Fragile Economy. Associate professor of finance, Dr, Bill Ragle, wrote the one article I want to focus on.

In Waking Up to an Economic Crisis, Prof. Ragle begins by setting the mood for his commentary. The recession is like a bad dream. The problem is it hasn’t faded away once since we began to awaken. As Prof. Ragle points out, “rousing from today’s economic debacle will be very slow in coming. We may want a quick recovery, but it isn’t going to happen.” Why? Because the current situation developed over several decades, it will not be resolved quickly or easily. He further clarifies this point claiming “[a] few multi-billion dollar bailouts and a massive redistribution of America’s wealth will not fix the problem.”

Prof. Ragle presents a number of causal factors that have led to the current economic crisis. They include the undermining of key principles of Constitutional governance in part because of the demoralizing effects of New Deal and Great Society welfarism and the enslavement of Americans to unsustainable entitlement debt. Christian morality is necessary for our form of Constitutional governance. As John Adams once said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The Protestant work ethic is antithetical to a welfare entitlement mentality. Many Americans have become totally dependent on government for nearly every part of their economic wants; the federal government has become just as irresponsible. Quoting Prof. Ragle,

“Another way to think of the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government is to compare their costs to their revenues. The cost to run the federal government in 2008 was $3.64 trillion. Total revenues of the federal government were $2.66 trillion, a deficit of $980 billion. During that year, expenses increased 25 percent, while revenues increased 1.3 percent.”

From this point of view, it seems valid to infer that the millionaires running the federal government feel entitled to spend way beyond working American taxpayer means. The Rich lawmakers did not get to Capitol Hill to change the economic status quo.

Prof. Ragle considers the Community Reinvestment Act as the camel that broke the irresponsible straw man’s back. By straw man, I mean national and international corporations like Fannie Mae, GM, Washington Mutual Bank, and Bear Stearns. Fannie and Freddie, Lehman Brothers, and now GM are like Bonnie’s and Clyde’s dressed in pin stripped suits. Unlike the pair of bank robbing legends, our modern institutional version were created and sanctioned by Congress. Their existence and actions violate the supreme law of the land, they rip off taxpayers, and any repayment to the federal government will be through inflation, which means by ripping off taxpaying consumers. Anyway, Prof. Ragle explains why the Community Reinvestment Act (1995) was the culprit crashing the economy.

“As the U.S. economy began to unravel in the spring of 2008, one of the main culprits was default on subprime mortgages. These loans were to individuals unable to repay them, yet the government forced financial institutions to provide them to citizens anyway. The name of the offending legislation was the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). The CRA, as revised in 1995, stipulated that down payments, credit history, and proof of income was no longer required as qualifying criteria for mortgage loans. Banks that did not actively solicit these subprime loans were punished…. Lending to [these] unqualified borrowers … resulted in artificial demand for residential real estate, which in turn caused housing pricing to increase 120 percent. Borrowers stuck in interest-only adjustable rate loans or negative amortization loans were further unable to make payments, and many had no recourse other than foreclosure. The national home foreclosure rate in the spring of 2008 spiked to between 200,000 and 250.000 per month, a 300 percent increase from pre-crisis level of 2005.”

Financial institutions holding large amounts of subprime loans incurred massive losses, and consequently they collapsed overnight.

In 1995, Democrat Bill Clinton was president not George W. Bush. According to Family Security Matters, it was Clinton who mandated bank lending to unqualified buyers. Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1999) that deregulated New Deal regulations into law. Democrats who voted for the Act included Harry Reid and Joe Biden. The left has little grounds to blame Bush. In 2003, GW Bush tried to get Congress to amend Fannie Mae and Freddie rule to prevent unqualified borrowers from obtaining mortgages.

Yet, in 2007, a Democrat-led Congress did refuse to bailout the big three automakers while GW Bush insisted on giving the automakers $17 billion claiming to allow the automakers to enter bankruptcy would be too big a blow to the economy. This sent a bad message to other corporations and municipalities, according to Prof. Ragle. The message was “if you get into trouble Congress will bail you out.” Americans have since discovered Congress agrees that banks, automakers, commercial real estate developers, newspapers, states and municipalities alike think they too are entitled to taxpayer dollars.

Sources: The Torch, (Spring/Summer 2009), pp4-8.
                  http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.1347/pub_detail.asp