Magnitude 4.2 earthquake rumbles across Los Angeles region 

A magnitude-4.2 earthquake rumbled across the Los Angeles region but there are no early reports of damage. The U.S. Geological Survey says the quake hit around 1:47 p.m. Thursday and was centered 24 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was initially estimated at 4.1.

D.C. Government Claims Nonprofit Used Grant Money to Open Strip Club

The D.C. government is suing a non-profit group to get back nearly $330,000 in grant money given for a job-training facility that was instead allegedly used to build a strip club. 

The suit claims the director of "Miracle Hands" improperly billed the city for work that was never done. It also claims that Director Cornell Jones used the money to open the Stadium Club venue. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/01/dc-government-claims-nonprofit-used-grant-money-to-open-strip-club/#ixzz1WkFyMLJQ

Publisher's Note:

When I saw this, I laughed so hard!  There's a lot to said about 'Miracle Hands.'  I have sooooo many things to say about this story, but I think I'll keep it clean.  Tempting, but necessary! 

Who Will Care for You? - Need for Nurses, Instructors Intensifies

Nurses are one of the most crucial caregivers, once a person enters into the health care system. They perform needs that range from helping a person get dressed to assisting physicians during surgery. Nurses are on the front lines of the health care industry.
As baby boomers age and as the need for health care escalates, so does the need for nurses.
“It could be catastrophic if we don't increase our pipeline and make sure we're meeting the needs of our health care system,” said Lydia Ostermeier, director of Indiana University Health Nurse Recruitment.

One Meal a Day

Eat one meal a day or one meal every other day, and it will prolong your life. Do not think that you will starve. On the contrary, you will be treating yourself to life, and a life filled with sickless days. You can hardly get sick eating this way. I know because I have this experience. If you eat the proper food—which I have given to you from Allah (in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad to Whom be praise forever) in this book—you will hardly ever have a headache.

Small Firms Try ‘Speed Dating’ Lenders

State officials in South Carolina played matchmaker this week in an effort to crack the tight credit market by pairing small-business owners with lenders.

A state-sponsored workshop on small-business financing strategies in Columbia, S.C., Wednesday included a “speed-dating” session where business owners held rapid-fire meetings with multiple lenders, organizers said.
The event was aimed at bringing important resources “right to small-business owners,” Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt said in a statement. He described small business as the backbone of the state’s economy.

The Right Food and the Proper Time to Eat It is Becoming a ‘Must'

If you can eat one meal every other day, you will enjoy both health and a longer life.

New body 'liquefaction' unit unveiled in Florida funeral home

The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water.
The facility has been installed at the Anderson-McQueen funeral home in St Petersburg, and will be used for the first time in the coming weeks. It is hoped other units will follow in the US, Canada and Europe.
The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the complete separation of dental amalgam for safe disposal.
Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for up to 16% of UK airborne mercury emissions, and many UK crematoria are currently fitting mercury filtration systems to meet reduced emission targets.

Freeze drying

Another "green" alternative to cremation is in the pipeline. Susanne Wiigh-Masak, a Swedish biologist, has for a decade proposed a technology she calls Promession.

The process involves a fully automated and patented machine. Coffins are fed in one end, and the body removed from the coffin within the unit and then treated with liquid nitrogen.
The body is then vibrated until the body fragments, after which the remains are dried and refined further, and then passed through filters to remove metals, including dental amalgam. The remains are then poured into a square biodegradable coffin, again automatically, for shallow burial.

Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh-Masak explains how "promession" works, and how the idea evolved

For Ms Wiigh-Masak, it is all about preparing the body for this shallow burial, a process which says is akin to composting. It was in her garden on the island of Lyr on Sweden's west coast, that the idea came to her.
"It only takes two to three weeks before the kitchen and garden waste is soil so this is what inspired me to really see if not only the kitchen and garden waste but also everything organic, including us, could be treated this way to really become soil," she told BBC News.

So far, the technology has only been tested on pigs, with one pig even being fitted with a hip replacement prior to death, to test the efficacy with which the metal joint could be removed during the process.
Ms Wiigh-Masak is now confident commercial operations will begin soon, after the Swedish government promised to introduce new legislation that would allow individuals to use a "burial tax" paid by all Swedes not just for cremation and burial, but also for Promession.

Designs are complete, manufacturers appointed, and four potential sites in Sweden have been earmarked for facilities.

She says 60 countries around the world have expressed an interest in the technology, including councils in England such as Crewe and Nantwich Council and Cambridge City Council (who have also held discussions with Resomation Ltd).

Many individuals have already signed up for the process. The bodies of about a dozen people - including Ms Wiigh-Masak's late parents - are being held in cold storage because, prior to their deaths, they signalled their desire to undergo the process.

How long they may have to wait remains unclear.

Daum: New words to live by

Every year around this time, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary releases a list of words that will be added to its next edition. It's lucky that the announcement comes toward the end of August, when most humans want to go on vacation and most columnists, therefore, need to write an "evergreen."

Evergreen is journalist lingo for a topic that, like its namesake, is always in season (or, at least, one that won't go stale immediately). I suppose "frozen casseroles" could also work, but for whatever reason, that term never took off. 

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