20 Jun 2006
Concentrated animal feeding operations near schools may pose asthma risk

In my experience, just driving past one of these abominations puts one at a higher risk of not being able to breathe at all! Or at least not wanting to breathe through your nose ...

Children who attend school near large-scale livestock farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) may be at a higher risk for asthma, according to a new study by University of Iowa researchers.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

21:21 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

The Network's Back!

As of last night, about 11pm. Oh, and by "network", I mean our home/business phone system as well. You see we're on ISDN out here - it's the only kind of (admittedly pseudo) broadband we can get, and it's usually pretty reliable. Unless it takes a direct lightning hit.

I suspected that finding a replacement router would be problematic - not so! I had two of the (used) little buggers in hand by noon on Monday. One was a Netgear RT338, which was an exact replacement for the one we had, the other was an older RT328. I replaced the switch, and figured I'd be back up and running before mid-afternoon.

But while we had phone service at that point, we still couldn't get online, except from the laptop. It seems as though some of the NIC's in the computers had been fried as well, so another trip to town, and more installation headaches. Without Big Mac running I couldn't make a blog post, so I logged into our remote server from the laptop via SSH and made a manual note here about what was happening.

Add to that some configuration issues, and it was a very long day. We were supposed to have my cousins, Jackie and Sarah, who are visiting from Florida, out for dinner last night but had to postpone until tonight instead. And today being Tuesday, of course I had the egg route this morning. As well as a petting zoo for the library this afternoon.

But the botton line is: we're back online. And I'm wading through nearly 400 emails, so if you're looking for a reply, hang in there! I'll get to it Real Soon Now™!

21:13 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Drug Prices Up Sharply This Year

Maybe other folks are beginning to suspect that insurance is the problem, not the solution. But I still can't see a good and equitable way out of the current mess we've made of things in the healthcare arena.

AARP said prices for brand-name drugs jumped 3.9 percent in this year's first quarter, four times the general inflation rate.

(link) [New York Times]

21:09 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link