On an industrial lot in Brooklyn, N.Y., three garbage bins have been transformed into swimming pools. They're set in what looks like an urban country club — with tent cabanas, barbecue grills and a dozen plastic beach chairs.

The idea of swimming in a trash container grosses you out? Think again. They're clean. The bins are lined with thick sheets of plastic, and the water is chlorinated and filtered, just like what goes in an inground pool.

The company behind the pools is Macro Sea, a Manhattan real estate developer. Jocko Weyland, the guy in charge of the pool project, says Macro Sea got the idea from a rock musician in Georgia.

The pools are behind a chain-link fence in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood. The 5 1/2 foot-deep containers are in an H-formation with a wooden deck built around them. There's also a shallower kiddie pool.

News of the Brooklyn trash bin swimming pools first surfaced on a blog for ReadyMade magazine, which helps do-it-yourselfers use familiar objects in new ways.

"It's a Dumpster. It's not trying to pretend it's not a Dumpster, you know," Weyland says.

"We wanted to show that this is not that hard. If you got a Dumpster donated or found one or stole one, you could do it for under $1,000. Show some initiative. Get off your ass and put it together," Weyland says.

Then throw a party and invite your friends.

excerpts from NPR's Morning Edition

Senator Sanders Unfiltered: Lies, Fibs and Anti-Reformers

I couldn't have said it better than Senator Sanders. My fear is that not enough people are getting this message, and too many are only getting the lies from FOX and the Sarah Palins.

Well Done FOX, Your Lies are Working

Americans are not the 'sharpest knives in the international cutlery drawer.' This is well known world wide. I travel a lot, believe me. If you doubt me, watch this video. Now, lets try to figure out why Americans are not really known for their superior gray matter.

Two polls came out this week, one by Daily Kos and the other by NBC. By joining these two polls - the first about who watches FOX News, MSNBC or CNN and the later which shows the misconceptions on Obama's health bill - one can deduce that Republicans are most often wrong about the issues surrounding the proposed health bill and they are getting the majority of their news from FOX. The grain of salt to take along with these numbers is this: the first poll is by a progressive organization and the second by FOX's competitor. So read this from the pro-corporate, conservative Wall Street Journal:

Nearly half of Americans believe that a proposed overhaul of the health care system means the government will decide when to stop providing medical treatment to senior citizens, according to the latest polling by NBC News released this evening.

Some 45% said they believe the plan is likely to include such a provision that has become known as “death panels” despite bipartisan efforts by President Barack Obama and the provision’s author, Republican Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson to dispel the idea. (Isakson, in a recent interview with the Washington Post called the confusion “nuts.”)

To be sure, 50% of respondents said they believe the bill was unlikely to include such a provision, but the deep split over the veracity of “death panels” underscores the difficulty Democrats have had in selling their overhaul to the public.

Further, a majority of Americans (55%) believe the bill will extend health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants even though no proposals currently under negotiation would do so. An equally high number (54%) believe the overhaul will lead to a “complete” government takeover of the health care system, although there is also no actual proposal for that, either.

Additionally, 50% believe that the overhaul will use federal tax dollars to pay for abortions. While it is unclear if the final bill would do so, current law bans federal funds from being used to fund abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. The president has said he is not interested in expanding abortion rights in the health care package. “I’m pro-choice, but I think we also have the tradition in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care,” Obama said in a July interview with CBS.

Americans are also sharply divided on the town hall meetings taking place during the August recess, with 43% of respondents saying the often disruptive and angry encounters with lawmakers—focused mainly on health care—are doing “more harm than good” while 42% said they are doing “more good than harm.” The meetings, however, have also captivated Americans, some 85% of which said they have “seen, heard, or read” news coverage of the events.

As for the president’s approval on handling the health care issue, his numbers are virtually unchanged from last month with 41% saying then and now that they approve of the job he’s doing. While 46% in July said they disapprove, now 47% said the same.

Despite the headwinds Democrats are facing on health care, the NBC poll offers little in the way of good news for their Republican opponents. By a nearly three-to-one margin, 62%-21%, Americans said they disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are handling health care reform.

The poll, conducted Aug. 15-17 of 805 adults, has a 3.5% margin of error. The full poll results are posted at msnbc.com.

Wall Street Journal

At least we are not Palistinian

No matter how stupid things get in the USA over things like Death Panels and our president who was born in Kenya, at least we are not Palistinian. Here is a story of a Palistinian father who lives under Isreali occupation (KHALED ABED RABBO = father, ANJALI KAMAT = Democracy Now!‘ announcer). Human Rights Watch released a report last week detailing new evidence of possible Israeli war crimes committed during last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza that left over 1,400 Palestinians dead. Keep in mind that since the 1970s, Israel has been one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid, with most of that money going toward the military. Which means you the tax payer funds this.

KHALED ABED RABBO: [translated] January 7th, it was a Wednesday, the Israeli army ordered us over a megaphone to leave our houses. We came out holding white flags—my wife, my mother and my three daughters and I holding white flags. We exited our house from there and came to this very spot. We stood at the spot for seven minutes, waving flags, waiting to see if they would let us enter our house or go somewhere else.

There was a tank there with two soldiers sitting on top of it. One was eating chips, and the other, chocolate. For seven minutes, we stood there without talking. Then, suddenly, one emerged from the tank and fired at the children. My daughter Amal, she was two years old, her intestines fell out. My daughter Suad, age seven, was also shot. My daughter Samar, age four, was shot in the back, chest and stomach; her spine was destroyed.

ANJALI KAMAT: Suad died almost instantly, and Amal died of her wounds a few hours later, because no ambulances were allowed into the area. Samar is paralyzed from the waist down. Khaled Abed Rabbo’s mother was also seriously injured. When the family returned home towards the end of Operation Cast Lead, their home was a pile of rubble. I asked Khaled Abed Rabbo whether Hamas had a presence in the area.

KHALED ABED RABBO: [translated] This is a border area. There’s no resistance here at all. The soldiers were eating chips and chocolate. How ironic that as my child were shot dead, the Israeli soldiers were eating chocolate. They were sitting on top of the tank, not even inside the tank. I mean, there’s no resistance here.

Manditory Vacation

Did you know, the United States is the ONLY country in the industrial world where paid vacations are NOT required by law.

In countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, employers are required to provide up to 20 days of paid leave. The French get 30 days. Americans, on the other hand, get an average of 12 days every year. A study conducted by the Families and Work Institute found that less than half of U.S. employees take the full vacation.

"People felt healthier during vacation. They had a better mood. They were less tense. And they had a higher level of energy, and they were more satisfied with their life," says Jessica de Bloom who studies the effects of vacation on stress, recovery and work motivation at the Radboud University in the Netherlands

story inspired by NPR

Must have iPhone/iTouch app for amateur cooks

[laidback Sunday edition]

If you are lucky enough to own an iPhone or iTouch, and you enjoy cooking, this is a must have app. I use this site all the time for recipes. But what I needed was a mobile recipe book with ingredients list. Epicurious was a step ahead of me. From Epicurious's own press release:

Epicurious.com, the award-winning food site, today introduced its first application in the Apple App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The free application, "Epicurious' Recipes & Shopping List: On the Go and In the Kitchen," allows users to browse and search Epicurious.com's database of over 25,000 editor-tested recipes, toggling between an easy-to-view shopping format, and a cooking format that shows one instruction step at a time.

"We're delighted to bring our much-lauded recipe collection to the iPhone and iPod Touch," said Tanya Wenman Steel, editor in chief of Epicurious.com. "Everyone from beginner cooks to experienced chefs will be able to shop from Epicurious recipes on-the-go and then create these amazing dishes at home by using this free app."

"Epicurious' Recipes & Shopping List: On the Go and In the Kitchen" features:

• Proven recipes: Over 25,000 professionally tested recipes to ensure a delicious meal. Sources include two of the most respected brands in the business, Gourmet and Bon Appetit, plus web-exclusive recipes from renowned chefs and cookbook authors.
• Browse functionality: Browse popular recipe collections, from Weeknight Dinners to Cool Cocktails. Select a recipe collection from the Home screen, then swipe to flip from recipe to recipe.
• A robust search engine: Swipe through cool icons on the search screen to filter by what's in your fridge, what's healthy, what's in season, and more. Find inspiration browsing by type of dish, main ingredient, cuisine, dietary consideration, dish type, and season or occasion. Or, search recipes by keyword.
• Saving and sending functionality: Save recipes to your Favorites by tapping the plus sign on any recipe image. E-mail any recipe to yourself or to a friend.
• Shopping List: Shop on the go by saving recipes to your Shopping List (just tap the plus sign on any recipe image). At the store, check off items as you shop.
• Cookbook mode: Turn your iPhone into a cookbook! Tap "view recipe" and turn the iPhone on its side to see the recipe in step-by-step view for easy-to-follow instructions in the kitchen
• Stunning graphics: Gorgeous photography, graphics, and design make this app fun and enticing.

The "Epicurious' Recipes & Shopping List: On the Go and In the Kitchen" application is available free from Apple's App Store on iPhone or iPod Touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

Boycott Whole Foods

John Mackey is a right wing libertarian.

He’s a union buster.

He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes.

He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system.

And he’s the CEO of Whole Foods.

Primo hangout of liberal Democratic yuppies.

from CommonDreams.org

You can read John Mackey's Wall Street Journal OpEd here, Whole Foods Alternative of ObamaCare.

Or this commentary from Teaberry posted on the Daily Kos:

He's quite full of himself about the fabulous health insurance plan he offers his employees.

For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

OK, let's assume you're working at Whole Foods, making $10 an hour (a quick intertube search shows this a fair estimate) and working the minimum 30 hours per week. This means you're only grossing $15,000 per year. Even after you add the $1,800 WF sets aside for you, you're still only up to $16,800. How far does that even go for subsistence level living, let alone paying for health care to meet the $2,500 deductible before the insurance kicks in?

He blathers on with bullet points about how health care should be reformed. Here's a fun one:

Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

WTF? "Government mandates?" Insurance companies cover only what they want to cover, when they feel like covering it. WTF? "Consumer preferences?" Consumers would prefer that insurance cover them when they need care, not drop them the minute they get sick or need something more than a band-aid.

Another one of my faves:
 

Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

This false premise that health care is somehow a commodity really burns me. That an individual must comparison shop when they need health care? Health care is a human right, not "goods or service," like a TV or car or a pedicure.

But wait, Mr. Mackey says:

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America.

I guess that part in the Preamble to the Constitution where it talks about promoting the general welfare, doesn't count. And I'm so glad we don't have any pesky government agencies regulating the food supply or building codes to mess up our "voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges."

And of course, there's the obligatory dig at Canada and the U.K.:

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

No, actually, Mr. Mackey, citizens of these countries HAVE decided health care is a right by the act of establishing their national health care systems. The United States has far more rationing of care. Insurance companies ration and deny it to increase their profits. And individuals self ration it because they can't afford it.

I'll have to quit soon, because I've gone way past the fair use standards, but one more for the road:

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.

True as this may be, it matters not how many doughnuts, cigarettes or PBRs one forgoes, if you've got MS, get hit by a bus, get pregnant, or any number of other things that have nothing to do with lifestyle choices, you're SOL in this country.

Whole Foods is a whole lotta crap and I won't shop there. I hope you won't either.