French Vanilla Iced Coffee

They now want to ban all restaurants from using oil with trans fat because it’s so dangerous to your health.

Some restaurants say no, it will change the price of the oil they buy from $10 to $35 and they can’t afford it. Sports bars will be hit hardest as all their appetizers appear to be fried.

I’m waffling on this. When I buy food products for my house, I’m careful what I buy. When I eat out, I try to be careful, but you don’t know how much salt they use or what types of oil.

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I was reading a local newspaper today about the capture of a fugitive who has been on the lam for 20 years. This man apparently was arrested for smuggling tons and tons of marijuana into the port in his fishing boat which had been specially rigged with false walls to conceal drugs.

For a few years the attorneys went back and forth, but he then skipped town, not even telling his wife or family where he was going. On a tip, they investigated and found him 3,000 miles away in California. He’d been living a clean life with a new wife and spent time golfing when not working. He’d never been in any trouble.

Now, they want to extradite him back to this area and put him on trial, I guess. But, why? He’s a man in his mid-60’s and he’s living a trouble-feel life for the past 20 years. Sure, he did something wrong, but should the state again spent millions of dollars to put him on trial, then probably jail him at an expense of $40k per year, when he won’t be around that many years?

Part of me knows that if he did something wrong, he should be punished for it. But, another part feels he went on the straight and narrow and deserves a break. He didn’t kill anyone, right?

Our prisons are overcrowded as it is. They’re building new jails around the country to house all the criminals, and don’t they say that 80% of the crimes are drug-related in one way, shape or form?

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SIDNEY, Neb. - A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

“You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child,” she said.

But, she said, “That doesn’t make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category.”

Thompson will be electronically monitored the first four months of his probation, and he was told to never be alone with someone under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18. Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.

He faces 30 days of jail each year of his probation unless he follows its conditions closely.

“I want control of you until I know you have integrated change into your life,” the judge told Thompson. “I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society is not misplaced.”

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“The nation’s largest beverage distributors have agreed to halt nearly all sales of sodas to public schools — a step that will remove the sugary, caloric drinks from vending machines and cafeterias around the country.”

Huh? They have soda machines in schools? This blows me away! When I was in junior high school and high school, there were cafeterias. In junior high school they separated those who bought lunch from those who brought their own lunch. I never bought lunch but did see other who did, and all they had available was milk. It was in those little half-pint containers and cost a nickle each. They didn’t have coffee flavored or chocolate flavored milk. There were no vending machines. The school lunches were pretty disgusting if you ask me! I remember lots of fat and carbs and salty foods and my mother would not allow me to buy lunch at school.

When I got to high school, we could sit with those who bought lunch, but there were no vending machines. Again, you could buy milk and that was it. They didn’t sell bottled water, either.

I read about these kids who buy soft drinks and candy bars during class breaks, or during lunch. They showed a television special with the kids buying french fries and cookies for lunch. Fries? What the hell do they feed these kids these days??!! They had nothing like that, it was full lunch or nothing, period. They didn’t sell bags of chips out of a machine or anywhere else, either.

Lunches were spaghetti with cubes of cheese and lots of bread (a carb lovers delight!), meatloaf and potatoes and salty gravy, bologna sandwiches with butter (ick!), frozen pizza, etc. Today you read school lunch menus and they have special veggies, special fruits, all veggie meals, etc.

What’s funny is I don’t think those sugary sodas AT SCHOOL are causing obesity at all. It’s the stuff they eat outside of school, and the fact most kids are on the computer 5 hours a day or playing video games. In my day we went outside after school and were active. We walked to school, a mile-and-a-half each way, every day. And no, we didn’t walk 5 miles through the snow with no boots after milking the cows at 5 am!!

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Hello,

My name is Bridget Hall,I am an artist. I live in United Kingdom,with my two kids,four cats, one dog and the love of my life. It is definitely a full house. I have been doing artwork since I was a small child. That gives me about 23 years of experience. I majored in art in high school and took a few college art courses.Most of my work is done in either pencil or airbrush mixed with color pencils. I have recently added designing and creating artwork on the computer.I have been selling my art for the last 3years and have had my work featured on trading cards, prints and in magazines.I have sold in galleries and to private collectors from all around the world.I am always facing serious difficulties when it comes to selling my art works to Americans,they are always offering to pay with a US POSTAL MONEY ORDER,which is difficult for me to cash here in United Kingdom.I am looking for a representative in the states who will be working for me as a partime worker and i will be willing to pay 10% for every transaction,which wouldnt affect your present state of work,someone who would help me recieve payments from my customers in the states.I mean someone that is responsible and reliable,cause the cost of coming to the state and getting payments is very expensive,i am working on setting up a branch in the states,so for now i need a representative in the united states who will be handling the payment aspect.

These payments are in money order and they would come to you in your name, so all you need do is cash the money order deduct your percentage(10%) and wire the rest back. But the problem i have is trust,But i have my way of getting anyone that gets away with our money,i mean the FBI branch in Washington gets involved. It wouldnt cost u any amount,u are to receive payments which will be sent to u by fedex or usps from my business patners, which would come in form of a money order then u are to cash it and send the cash to me via western union money transfer or moneygram money transfer,all transfer fees should be deducted from the money.

If you are interested,please get back to me as soon as possible
with these information listed below:

1.Full Name(s)
2.Phone number
3.Full Home Address (zipcode inclusive)
4.Age and Sex
5.Indicate if you have a Wells Fargo account,otherwise whats the name of
your bank?
6.We shall need a copy of your drivers Licence or National I.D after we have
accepted you as our Representative
7. Do you have a checking account and what is your best means of communication?

You can also get back to me at my alternate email address which is bridget_paintings@myway.com

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Bridget Hall.

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The food police are back.

“A U.S. consumer group has sued the operator of the fast-food Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant over the use of trans fat, which can clog arteries and cause other health problems.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest wants Kentucky Fried Chicken to stop using partially hydrogenated oil, which contains the trans fat, or display signs warning consumers of its use.”

Now, they went after McDonald’s a few years ago who swore they would start using healthier oil, but they still have not done so. This week Wendy’s said they would switch to healthier oil as well.

Now, they aren’t just going after chicken. “The Center for Science in the Public Interest said it is planning to campaign against the Starbucks cafe chain because of the increased risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer associated with high-calorie, high-fat products it sells.”

Of course, you don’t think of coffee as being dangerous for you. I know when I began drinking my iced coffee, I checked the information online and found out that a cup has 3 grams of saturated fat but no trans fat, so I cut back a little.

But, did you know one Starbucks drink has more fat than a Big Mac?? “A 20-ounce Venti banana mocha Frappuccino with whipped cream contains 720 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat, and a banana cream crunch bar weighs in at 630 calories and 25 grams of saturated fat. By comparison, a McDonald’s Big Mac has 560 calories and 11 grams of saturated fat.”

Now, I don’t eat at McDonald’s because of the high fat and sodium content in their foods. There is no Starbucks around here but even if there were, I doubt I’d get anything, as I’m not a huge coffee fan and only really like iced coffee.

But, doesn’t this all go back to personal responsibility? Sure, the nutritional information should be more readily available, but when you go into a bar and order a beer, do they make you read a sheet of paper with the information on how the calories are empty, how it will impair your judgment, etc?

Most people, I’d say, are aware of what is good and what is bad for them. It’s ok to have some “bad” food once in a while, just don’t make a steady diet of it. Then again, we’re raising our kids to love this fast food by offering them really cute toys with every purchase. These chains offer salads but a salad with, say, Blue Cheese dressing, has more fat than some of their sandwiches. A salad can be healthy but not topped with all that fat and sodium!

If restaurants were to print up the nutritional information on all their foods, I think they’d lose 1/3 of their sales. When I eat out, I know I’m not eating that healthy, but I don’t do it that often and try to order foods that are lower in fat (no fried) and lower in sodium.

Isn’t what you eat a personal choice?

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Massachusetts initially passed a law making seat belt usage mandatory. The law was changed and now, if you’re stopped for any reason, if you’re not wearing a seat belt they can ticket you for that as well, but they can’t pull you over solely due to no seat belt.

This week they tried to change it to make it mandatory. Is this right? Isn’t seat belt usage a personal choice? I don’t use a seat belt. Now, I rarely drive on the highway, am usually on back roads and don’t go that fast. Accidents can happen at 20 mph but you don’t often read of someone being ejected from a car at that speed and dying.

Also, being a fat chick, I find seat belts very uncomfortable.

While it appeared to be a sure thing that this would pass, several legislators changed their mind and were against it, and it didn’t go through. Most said they listened to the voters but also many said that police officers simply can’t tell if someone is wearing a seat belt when they fly by.

C’mon, our police departments are struggling due to budget cuts as it is, are we going to take valuable public servants off the streets where they can make a difference and have them play hall monitor, watching for people without a seat belt? Won’t this cause an increase in racial profiling and allegations of police brutality?

It’s my choice to wear a seat belt or not. While statistics say lives are saved by wearing them, the stats also show people who don’t smoke live longer with less illness. Hey, let’s make a law and outlaw smoking. Oh wait, fat people don’t live as long and have more health issues so hey, let’s outlaw Twinkies.

Personal responsibility is a powerful thing.

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Sound weird? It did to me, too, but I heard it on the news this morning. Apparently, as a requirement of graduations, MIT requires that you be able to swim 100 yards. At Cornell, Dartmouth, and Columbia, they also have this as a requirement of graduation. If you fail, you must take a swim class and pass or you do not graduate.

A spokesman from MIT said (this was taken from another website) “We would like to assure that all of our graduates, when placed in a water-threatening situation (car goes into a lake; child falls out of a boat; etc.), that the person is comfortable and capable enough to save themselves and another person.”

Ya know, more people die from smoking each year, but do they require you to be a non-smoker to graduate? More people die from murder each year, but do they require that you be able to fight off an attacker with a gun to graduate?

With so much of our country obese, a requirement that you be physically fit seems almost unfair. You can have a perfect class attendance, be at the top of your class in academics, yet if you can’t swim, you’re sunk?

What’s next, a requirement that you be able to change a tire, because after all, if you have a flat, you can be in a life-threatening situation?

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Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America.

The data below speaks for itself.

Celebrex: 100 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $ 0.60
Percent markup: 21,712%

Claritin: 1 0 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
Percent markup: 30,306%

Keflex: 250 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
Percent markup: 8,372%

Lipitor: 20 mg
Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
! Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
Percent markup: 4,696%

Norvasc: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $188.29 Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
Percent markup: 134,493%

Paxil: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
C! ost of g eneral active ingredients: $7.60
Percent markup: 2,898%

Prevacid: 30 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
Percent markup: 34,136%

Prilosec: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
Percent markup: 69,417%

Prozac: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
Percent markup: 224,973%

Tenormin: 50 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
Percent markup: 80,362%

Vasotec: 10 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
Percent markup: 51,185%

Xanax: 1 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
Cost of general active ingredients: $0.024
Percent markup: 569,958%

Zestril: 20 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
Percent markup: 2,809

Zithromax: 600 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
Percent markup: 7,892%

Zocor: 40 mg
Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
Percent markup: 4,059%

Zoloft: 50 mg
Consumer price: $206.87
Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
Percent markup: 11,821%

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen’s on every corner. On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that’s not a typo…..three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are “saving” $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies tha t did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs.

I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients.

I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.

I would like to mention, that although Costco is a “membership” type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there,as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is
true)

I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.

Sharon L. Davis
Budget Analyst
U.S . Department of Commerce
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458
Office Fax: 202-482-5480
E-mail Address: sdavis@doc.gov

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Our world is geared toward younger families with children. First, there are refrigerators. Ever notice how the doors are now made to hold gallons of milk? Uhm, how many senior citizens or single people need gallons of milk? My fridge has a nifty feature called pull-out shelves for smaller children so they can get items in the back more easily. I don’t think I have ever pulled a shelf forward to reach something, and I have very short arms.

Why don’t they offer a younger family model, a single person model, and a senior citizens model? Seriously. Younger families need all those features such as gallons on the door, extra wide shelves for large platters, etc. Single people like me don’t need that stuff, it just makes the door heavier as we load smaller bottles on the door to make up for the extra space. Seniors keep small amounts of food in their fridge and most don’t use a gallon of milk in a month!

Stoves are made to be childproof. All knobs are now in the back. Uhm, sorry, but I’m short with short arms, and I can’t easily reach to the back of the stove, particularly if a pot is on top of the stove cooking heartily. Every stick an arm over a gas stove burner trying to reach the back? It’s an easy way to remove arm hair, that’s for sure.

My water coolor is childproof. I can’t get hot water out of it unless I push the hot water button a certain way. A service tech once told me that his kids showed him how to use it.

Vehicles have to be the worst. Let’s see, in my SUV the driver and front seat passenger have childproof buttons, and if depressed, they don’t allow you to open the door from the inside, just the outside. I had no idea what that button was until my own parents called me after they bought a new Toyota and were stuck in a parking lot, unable to get out of the car!

This past weekend I had someone in my backseat and they were unable to exit the vehicle unless I opened the door from the outside. I unlocked the door. I locked the door. I set the childproof lock in the front. I unset it. I kept my car in gear. I shut it off. I did everything but dance naked on top of it and the door would not open. I figured it was something with the car alarm, so brought it in today to the alarm place. What was it? CHILDPROOF FEATURE. They opened up the back door and on the frame of the door was a button that was engaged, and over it was a label - CHILDPROOF LOCK. Gee, why didn’t the auto manual tell me about this?? And I had it at the Toyota dealership for hours yesterday!

Why don’t they offer the option to get it non-childproof? I will never, ever have children in my vehicle.

Oh, do you know next year it’s mandatory that all new vehicles have the pull-up type of window knob for electric windows (do vehicles come without electric windows?). Why? Deaths of children who lean on the rocker type switch in a car while the window is partly open. Uhm, why not just make it so that the window will NOT go up if there is a foreign object in the way?

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