A Fitness Program To Combat Childhood Obesity - Len Saunders

June 14th, 2012 by Len Saunders

From The Detroit Free Press?..

A three-part health and fitness program launched Wednesday by Gov. Rick Snyder and other state officials aims to tackle childhood obesity in Michigan starting in infancy.

The Pure Michigan FIT Program, mentioned in Snyder?s State of the State address, will incorporate nutritional signage at grocery stores, efforts to improve access to healthy foods for low-income families and nutrition education for doctors and other health professionals.

The kickoff was in Wyoming, near Grand Rapids, and events are planned in metro Detroit starting in July.

The goal is to tackle childhood obesity by instilling good habits at an early age, said Keith Creagh, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

?The most common vegetable for a 3-year-old shouldn?t be a french fry,? Creagh said.

To read the full story?..Click here

Entry Filed under: Health / Fitness Articles

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Police looking for NY surgeon in woman's death

An Erie County Sheriff's helicopter searches at the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. A police official confirms that a woman was killed Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Erie County Medical Center, which he describes as being in "complete lockdown" as SWAT teams and other officers cordon off the 65-acre campus. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

An Erie County Sheriff's helicopter searches at the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. A police official confirms that a woman was killed Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Erie County Medical Center, which he describes as being in "complete lockdown" as SWAT teams and other officers cordon off the 65-acre campus. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Law enforcement officers search the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. A police official confirms that a woman was killed Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Erie County Medical Center, which he describes as being in "complete lockdown" as SWAT teams and other officers cordon off the 65-acre campus. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

A priest walks near the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. A police official confirms that a woman was killed Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Erie County Medical Center, which he describes as being in "complete lockdown" as SWAT teams and other officers cordon off the 65-acre campus.(AP Photo/David Duprey)

Buffalo Police spokesperson Michael DeGeorge speaks to the media at the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

An Erie County Sheriff's helicopter searches at the scene of a shooting at Erie Count Medical Center in Buffalo, N.Y., Wednesday, June 13, 2012. A police official confirms that a woman was killed Wednesday morning on the grounds of the Erie County Medical Center, which he describes as being in "complete lockdown" as SWAT teams and other officers cordon off the 65-acre campus. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) ? Police in Buffalo, N.Y., say a trauma surgeon is a "person of interest" in a fatal shooting at a hospital and warn the former Army Special Forces weapons expert may be armed and dangerous.

The early morning shooting death of a 33-year-old woman Wednesday locked down the Erie County Medical Center complex for more than four hours. The woman was shot four times in the stairwell of one of the hospital's buildings.

Later Wednesday, police blocked the road leading to Dr. Timothy Jorden's home in an isolated area of private Lake View homes near the Lake Erie shore.

SWAT team members in camouflage arrived in unmarked SUVs. A helicopter flew over the house then left.

Police have not yet identified the victim.

Associated Press

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Corporate boards where politicians go to retire

By Douglas A. McIntyre and Brian Zajac, 24/7 Wall St.

The appointment of former politicians to large public companies? boards of directors is regularly called into question.

Just recently, following the scandal at Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) when CEO Aubrey McClendon made investments in drilling projects in which the company was involved, the issue was in the limelight again. Chesapeake, based in Oklahoma, has two powerful politicians on its board ? former member of the Senate from Oklahoma, Don Nickles, and former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating. The company?s board members used the firm?s private planes for travel ? a perk most governance experts frown upon. Perhaps the more salient question is why the two have stayed on the board under the current circumstances. It is equally reasonable to ask why politicians, with their backgrounds unrelated to running big companies, were even appointed to the board.

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Many other politicians sit on the boards of America?s largest public companies, and some aspects of their services raise troubling questions. Some are successful lobbyists because of their Washington connections. These firms could work for causes or companies that do not have identical interests to those of the corporations of the boards on which they sit. There are questions about the past ethical behavior of others among these board members. In most cases, the former politicians have no obvious backgrounds that qualify them to be on public companies? boards. A final problem is that some have done very well financially because they sit on several boards ? another practice many corporate governance experts oppose.

The common thread among the directors on this list is that they have been paid very well in their roles. Most make more than a quarter of a million dollars a year. Most also have stock ownerships or grants that add substantially to those payments and usually amount to millions of dollars.

24/7 Wall St. examined the boards of the largest 100 public companies in America based on sales to find politicians who are currently serving on those boards or who have recently served. To qualify, a person must be a former governor, senator or member of the House of Representatives. We scrutinized their past records in elected office , their current jobs and their qualifications to serve as directors of public companies.

Research firm GMI Ratings was critical in supporting us with research for much of our analysis. Securities held by these board members at the corporations they serve include stock ownership, securities that can be acquired, exercisable options and deferred stock units. All data are from the most recent proxies.

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This article should provide shareholders of public companies, both institutional and individual ones, with some guidance about why politicians are chosen for boards. It should also reveal the extent to which these individuals are qualified, both ethically and in terms of work experience, to effectively do their jobs.

1. Chevron

• ?Board member: Chuck Hagel
• ?Board compensation: $301,199
• ?Director since: 2010
• ?Primary job: Distinguished professor at Georgetown University and chairman of think tank Atlantic Council
• ?Common stock ownership: 3,046 shares
• ?Government service: U.S. senator from Nebraska (1997?2009)

From 1997 to 2009, Hagel served as a U.S. senator from Nebraska. Hagel makes a strong addition to the Chevron (NYSE: CVX) board because of the time he spent on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Hagel was often mentioned as a candidate for the presidency, vice presidency and secretary of state. Hagel is currently on the board of Zurich?s Holding Company of America, the advisory boards of Corsair Capital and the advisory board of Deutsche Bank America.

2. General Electric?(NYSE: GE)

• ?Board member: Sam Nunn
• ?Board compensation: $312,793
• ?Director since: 1997
• ?Primary job: Co-chairman and chief executive officer, Nuclear Threat Initiative
• ?Common stock ownership: GE stock-based: 273,878 shares
• ?Government service: U.S. senator from Georgia (1972?1997)

Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972, Nunn served as the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Retiring from office in 1997, Nunn was rumored to be a potential running mate for both Barack Obama and John Kerry. One of the advantages he would have brought to an election is his considerable knowledge of the Defense Department, its inner workings and procurement methods. Nunn is one of several people who sits on multiple Fortune 500 boards. He has served as a director of the Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO), Chevron and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL). Some governance experts would argue this is far too many, given the workload of these jobs.

3. Ford

• ?Board member: Richard A. Gephardt
• ?Board compensation: $224,455
• ?Director since: 2009
• ?Primary job: Gephardt Government Affairs
• ?Common stock ownership: 32,346 shares
• ?Government service: U.S. House of Representative from Missouri (1976?Jan 2005)

Some governance experts do not think Washington lobbyists should also serve on public companies? boards. Having served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1976 until January 2005, Gephardt is now one of the more visible lobbyists in Washington, D.C. Gephardt?s Government Affairs? tag line is ?Strategy. Access. Results.? The ?access? part would make some experts on the role of a board member uncomfortable. Gephardt was named a ?top lobbyist? by a division of the Congressional Quarterly.?He ran for president in 1988 and 2004.

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4. Ford

• ?Board member: Jon M. Huntsman, Jr.
• ?Board compensation: New director
• ?Director since: February 2012
• ?Primary job: Chairman of the Huntsman Cancer Foundation
• ?Common stock ownership: Zero shares
• ?Government service: Governor of Utah (2005?2009)

Serving as governor of Utah for one term, Huntsman was a candidate for president just before he joined the Ford (NYSE: F) board. He was the U.S. ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011. Huntsman was appointed to the board of Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) in April, just about the time his run for the presidency ended. Perhaps this was a coincidence.

5. JP Morgan?(NYSE: JPM)

• ?Board member:?William H. Gray III
• ?Board compensation:?$266,250
• ?Director since:?1992, stepped down at last annual meeting
• ?Primary job:?Chairman of government lobbying and advisory firm Gray Global Strategies
• ?Common stock ownership:?89,061 shares
• ?Government service:?U.S. House of Representative from Pennsylvania (1978?1991)

Gray represented Pennsylvania?s 2nd Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1978 until his resignation in September 1991. He was chairman of the House Committee on the Budget and House majority whip. Gray?s record as a public company director is less than clean. He was marked as a ?Flagged (Problem) Director? by the Corporate Library due to his responsibilities with Visteon leading up to the corporation?s bankruptcy. The same organization criticized him for having the largest number of board seats on the most heavily interconnected public companies. Put another way, it is a rebuke in part for the number of board seats he holds.

Click here to read all of 24/7 Wall St.'s politicians go to these companies to get rich

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Canadian government appoints Jean-Pierre Blais as new CRTC head

The past five years have certainly been an eventful time for the CRTC -- with broadband controversies and foreign ownership issues garnering plenty of headlines, to name just two examples -- and we now know who will be leading the Canadian regulatory agency for the next five. The Prime Minister's Office announced today that it has appointed longtime civil servant Jean-Pierre Blais as Chairperson, with his five-year term set to begin on June 18th. Blais comes primarily from a legal background, and has previously held positions at Canada's Treasury Board, the Department of Canadian Heritage, and the CRTC itself -- all of which Prime Minister Harper says makes him "well qualified" for the job, and gives him a "comprehensive understanding of the broadcasting and telecommunications sectors and the role of the CRTC." He replaces Konrad von Finckenstein, who's term ended in January, at which point the government indicated he would not be reappointed for a second term.

Canadian government appoints Jean-Pierre Blais as new CRTC head originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jun 2012 18:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Physicists discover mechanisms of wrinkle and crumple formation

Friday, June 8, 2012

Smooth wrinkles and sharply crumpled regions are familiar motifs in biological and synthetic sheets, such as plant leaves and crushed foils, say physicists Benny Davidovitch, Narayanan Menon and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, but how a featureless sheet develops a complex shape has long remained elusive.

Now, in a cover story of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the physicists report that they have identified a fundamental mechanism by which such complex patterns emerge spontaneously.

Davidovitch says they were inspired and moved toward a solution by thinking about how a familiar birthday balloon, made of two circular mylar foils, wrinkles and crumples (two separate processes). The two foils start flat, but when glued together around their edges and injected with helium gas to create higher-than-atmospheric pressure inside, they spontaneously changes shape to accommodate the gas.

"This simple process leads to a fascinating pattern of wrinkles and crumples that emerge spontaneously near the perimeter of each foil," Davidovitch points out. "What we discovered is an unusual sequence of transitions that underlie this and possibly other types of morphological complexity."

In the laboratory, rather than balloons, the researchers including doctoral student Hunter King, who conducted many of the experiments, and postdoctoral researcher Robert Schroll, who carried out theoretical calculations, used microscopically thin films and a drop of water to model the effects they wished to study. They cut a circle of ultra-thin film from a sheet 10,000 times thinner than a piece of paper, only tens of nanometers thick, and place it flat on the water drop nestled in a circular collar, where surface tension holds it in place.

"We then very, very gently inject more and more water into the bubble, very gradually, so it becomes more and more curved without spilling over," says Davidovitch. "When the radius of the drop gets small enough, the thin film starts to develop fine radial wrinkles near its outer perimeter as the water pressure increases If you keep adding pressure, decreasing the radius further, a second transition takes place and the film starts to crumple and to look more like a table cloth, draping with sharp creases over the edge of a flattened top," he adds.

Watching this process through incremental steps, the researchers were able to observe and describe through mathematical formulas how the drop imposes confinement on circles of latitude of the sheet. "The degree of this confinement increases as the drop's radius decreases, and an unusual sequence of transitions can then be observed," says Davidovitch.

With this work the investigators, who had earlier proposed quantitative predictions of wrinkle patterns in ultra-thin sheets by following the principle that such sheets must be free of compression, confirm their theoretical predictions. The current experiments also suggest that the wrinkle-to-crumple transition reflects a dramatic change called "symmetry breaking" in the distribution of stresses in the sheet, rather than just a further disruption of its symmetric shape, Davidovitch points out.

The researchers are now working on new puzzles regarding the formation of crumpled features posed by the experiment.

###

University of Massachusetts at Amherst: http://www.umass.edu

Thanks to University of Massachusetts at Amherst for this article.

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Enterprise Eagle ford shale crude oil system receives first deliveries

Friday, June 08, 2012

Originating in Wilson County, Texas and extending 147 miles to Sealy, Texas, the 24-inch diameter crude oil pipeline has a capacity of 350,000 barrels per day ('BPD') and provides Eagle Ford Shale producers with improved access to the Gulf Coast refining complex.

Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Enterprise's general partner, A.J. 'Jim' Teague, said, 'Another impressive performance by our employees and contractors allowed us to bring this phase of the project on line in a safe and timely manner. Supported by long-term volume commitments from shippers, this extension of our integrated midstream network improves the ability of refineries to access reliable and secure supplies of domestic crude oil while facilitating continued development of the Eagle Ford Shale.'

A link to Enterprise's Rancho pipeline at Sealy allows the Eagle Ford crude oil system to reach the Gulf Coast infrastructure network, including Enterprise's ECHO crude oil storage facility under construction in southeast Houston. Initial operation is on schedule for July 2012, coinciding with the first deliveries of Eagle Ford Shale crude oil into the Houston area. As an important hub for handling growing domestic crude oil production, ECHO will ultimately provide shippers with access to approximately 4 million BPD of refining capacity.

This article is for information and discussion purposes only and does not form a recommendation to invest or otherwise. The value of an investment may fall. The investments referred to in this article may not be suitable for all investors, and if in doubt, an investor should seek advice from a qualified investment adviser. More

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