400 Students Skip Class To Sing To Teacher Battling Cancer

This was about three years ago (September 2016)… just came across it today via Twitter (below article). It is also on RUMBLE.

More than 400 students and faculty from a Tennessee school skipped class last week to put on a special concert in support of a beloved teacher battling an aggressive form of cancer. Video of Christ Presbyterian Academy teacher Ben Ellis watching the students outside of his home window quickly went viral after being shared by country superstar Tim McGraw.

The moving tribute was organized after word had reached students that the 50-year-old Ellis had decided to stop treatment, KTVU reported. Classes at the college-preparatory school were canceled and buses were ordered to shuttle students to his home. Ellis, a father of five, can be seen in the video watching and singing along with the students….

(FOX)

Government Mandated CFL Bulbs Have a “Fatal Flaw”

(Originally published January 2013)

BOTTOM LINE!

In every bulb that researchers tested they found that the protective coating around the light creating ‘phosphor’ was cracked, allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to escape.

UPDATE: Phasing out the rest, via Breitbart.

Another example of those thinking they are helping mankind through legislation, and then walla, they hurt that which they profess to help. When the government mandated these bulbs replace old bulbs manufacturing plants shut down, and many of these new production of CFLs went to China. Now that this law has been overturned (thank you Republicans) it is too late as far as job loss and health risks. which brings to mind a favored quote of mine:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. (C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock)

Us News and World Report “Health”

Could Compact Fluorescent Bulbs Pose Skin Cancer Risk? Tiny flaws in all brands tested allowed emission of harmful UV rays, study found

FRIDAY, August 3 (HealthDay News) — As the United States bakes under the summer sun, dermatologists often warn of cancer risks posed by ultraviolet (UV) sunlight. But research now points to a new and ubiquitous indoor source of these harmful rays: eco-friendly compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Scientists say they found widespread chipping or cracking in the phosphor surface coating of nearly all the compact fluorescent bulbs they examined, allowing UV rays to escape.

Most of the bulbs “have cracks in the phosphor coating, probably due to the fact that the coating is brittle and has trouble making the tight bends required to make these bulbs compact,” explained study lead author Miriam Rafailovich, a professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Garcia Center for Polymers at Engineered Interfaces at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, N.Y. “As a result, we observed, by eye, defects in nearly all the bulbs that we studied.”

And, Rafailovich added that, “skin cells exposed to [compact fluorescent light] emissions showed the same damage as those exposed to UV light” when placed in close range (meaning less than one foot) to a CFL bulb.

The study is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and is published in a recent issue of the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology.

…read more…

Via Hot Air:

Legislate in haste … repent at leisure. In their haste to rid Americans of the unconscionable plague of perfectly safe if somewhat inefficient incandescent lighting, politicians in Washington have forced us to adopt more expensive technology in its place. Compact flourescent lighting (CFLs) are already known to be a considerable disposal risk, thanks to the mercury used in them. A new study reported earlier this week by Miami’s CBS affiliate warns of an operational risk as well — ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancers and even acute burns (via Katie Pavlich).

Every time you turn on the lights, you may be putting yourself at risk, according to a disturbing new study.

Energy efficient bulbs are eco-friendly and can save you big bucks, but experts say that some could also have a dark side.

Actually, they’re not all that eco-friendly, as even the government acknowledges.  The EPA wants to argue that the release of mercury from CFLs in disposal is less than that released from the burning of the amount of coal one saves by using them.  That may well be true overall, but not if one breaks in your house.  At that point, you need to conduct an hours-long cleanup — and even if you want to dispose of an unbroken CFL, it takes special disposal in most jurisdictions due to the eco-unfriendly nature of CFLs.

And now, it takes special instructions to use them, too:

Money saving, compact fluorescent light bulbs emit high levels of ultra violet radiation, according to a new study. Research at Long Island’s Stony Brook found that the bulbs emit rays so strong that they can actually burn skin and skin cells.

“The results were that you could actually initiate cell death,” said Marcia Simon, a Professor of Dermatology.

Exposure to the bulbs could lead to premature aging and skin cancer, according to doctors.

“It can also cause skin cancer in the deadliest for, and that’s melanoma,” said Dr. Rebecca Tung.

Well, these are just the defective CFLs, right?  The outsides are coated to block UV radiation.  And that’s true, but…

In every bulb that researchers tested they found that the protective coating around the light creating ‘phosphor’ was cracked, allowing dangerous ultraviolet rays to escape.

…read more…

This is just `anecdotal` Evidence for Democrats (Blinded by Ideology)

This news comes from Libertarian Republican:

The Daily Caller got the scoop. The DC Italian restaurant Filomena was once rated as a “personal favorite of President Bill Clinton.” 

He dined there on numerous occasions with visiting heads of state. 

Now, a post by the restaurant on its website reads:

“Because of the potentially large new expense of offering healthcare coverage to 90 employees, we had to look for areas of operations that were either marginal or losing money to trim expenses or losses and find new areas to increase business so that we could keep all our employees and continue to grow our business.”

“Because restaurants such as ours, 86 employees, are so labor intense the potential expense of offering coverage to so many could threaten independently owned restaurants like ours,” it added. “Our goal is to tackle the problem head on and find ways to pay for it without losing our employees…

Pastor Chuck Smith Going Under the Knife this Month ~ Lung Cancer

Religion News Blog has this:

COSTA MESA, CA (ANS) — The congregation at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California, were stunned last Sunday when Pastor Chuck Smith, its senior pastor, announced during his Sunday morning services that he has lung cancer and will have a biopsy on Tuesday and surgery the following week.

Chuck Smith, now in his eighties and the father of the Jesus People Revolution in Southern California, said that he has never smoked in his life.

At at the end of the third service that was broadcast on KWVE 107.9 FM, his son-in-law, Brian Brodersen, joined with other pastors at the huge church and anointed him with oil and prayed for his healing.

Karl Corcoran, evangelism pastor at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, posted on Facebook, “Update: Pastor Chuck Smith having surgery this month for lung cancer after a series of tests this week. Estimated recovery time is 3 weeks.”

In response to the posting, Kathy Buckley Keys said, “We were stunned with the news of Pastor Chuck. His ways are higher than ours and He is able to keep that which is committed to Him so we commit Pastor Chuck and all that is related to him, family, doctors and treatments to the Great Physician who knows Pastor Chuck intimately and ask for His guidance, favor, love and support through this time.”

…read more…

Christopher Hitchens Seeing the Despair In “Best Laid Plans” By Men?

Fixed Point (video at the end) discusses what we Christians were all thinking who have known and enjoyed Hitchens via debates with great Christian thinkers as well as his weekly insights on the Hugh Hewitt show. In a previous post I asked and said this in regards to the news of his cancer:

will he remain an atheist to death. Many in his place have, but typically die through disease inflicted through too many partners, or drug overdoses. Sartre and Flew are examples of others who have changed their minds, even if at a late hour. I will be praying for Hitchens, that he escape the worst sickness of all… his rebellion against his Creator.

A great question, considering his diagnosis of a deadly form of cancer. Here is a more recent story from POLITICO: (now a dead story… contacted the author in orer to get a new link, until then, the quote can be found at PUBLISHERS WEEKLY)

Hitchens was describing the events leading up to his hospitalization, in which he learned of his diagnosis.

“In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist. … I can’t see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how it’s all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it bores even me,” he writes. “Rage would be beside the point for the same reason. Instead, I am badly oppressed by a gnawing sense of waste. I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read — if not indeed write — the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?”

…(read more)…

The above shows a stage of the below… inspiration for insertion of this Robot Chicken can be blamed entirely on THE ANCHORESS:

He is being brought to the importance of a decision by the one-to-one ratio that besets us all. He is also being brought to the realization of the compassion indwelt in the Judeo-Christian worldview… something he has waged war on – God.

Heartbreak! Rifqa Bary Refuses Chemo After Healing Revival

She has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Out of the frying pan into the fire. The sad thing is, her parents may not be the worse thing for her… she may be. In fact, her killing herself through bad theology is now higher than her mom and dad doing it.

Religion News Blog:

Christian convert Rifqa Bary is refusing chemotherapy for cancer because she believes that she was cured at a faith-healing event, according to a motion in Franklin County Juvenile Court.

Rifqa was to undergo a year of chemotherapy after her cancer was surgically removed, the document filed by her parents states. But Rifqa, who is in foster care, was taken to a faith-healing event in Youngstown a couple of weeks ago by Franklin County Children Services, without her parents’ consent, according to the document.

A motion to force treatment is to be considered on Tuesday in Juvenile Court.

Rifqa’s attorneys, meanwhile, are asking the court to make “special findings” so that she can obtain an immigration status that will allow her to stay in the country and obtain medical care. Rifqa, a native of Sri Lanka, does not have legal status in the United States, her attorneys have said in court.

[…]

Rifqa ran away from home in July 2009, saying her Muslim father would kill her for converting to Christianity. She lived with evangelical pastors in Florida before returning to Ohio to live in a foster home.

[…]

The Barys want to force chemotherapy and are concerned that their daughter could die without treatment, Tarazi wrote….

…(read more)…

Let the Rationing Begin

Actually this is the second shot, the first involved the kids (Egalitarianism Doing the Opposite of What It Sets Out To Do), but this snowball will get bigger and bigger as time goes on.

ObamaCare: The Rationing Begins in Earnest

This is the first shot in the health care revolution.

On Thursday the Food and Drug Administration will try to take the anti-cancer drug Avastin “off-label.” Avastin is a Stage 4 drug used to battle breast cancer. Avastin is not a cure but has been shown to stop the growth of cancer for an average of five months — meaning some late stage breast cancer victims live beyond five months.

But late stage breast cancer patients do not fit into the cost-benefit analysis of the Obama Administration. We told America rationing would happen if the health care takeover bill passed and Thursday women with breast cancer will be its first victims.

Avastin is the first medicine to fight cancer by blocking the growth of blood vessels that feed tumors. While Avastin is expensive and may not be the miracle drug some anticipated for breast cancer (it is for other types of cancer) from the success of the early trials, the overwhelming majority of breast cancer specialists believe the drug can be effective and useful in certain patients….

….Dr. Richard Pazdur is the FDA’s Cancer Czar.   Pazdur decides which anti-cancer drugs patients can have access to.  In the case of Avastin, Pazdur changed the criteria to a new very subjective and slippery standard of “clinically meaningful.” And apparently the FDA and Pazdur don’t believe that extending the life of a Breast Cancer victim by 3 to 5 months or more is “Clinically Meaningful.”

How do you put a price tag on those precious months for the families who are living through the hell of losing a Mother, Sister, Daughter, Aunt or Wife?  Taking Avastin off label is nothing more then government rationing of healthcare. Period….

…(read more)…

Christopher Hitchens, Cancer

(Old post linked to pic [June 09, 2007]…. just click)

HOTAIR’S Allahpundit (an atheist) shows his respect:

His prognosis, not in only terms of survival but in carrying on with speech and debate, is unknown thus far. But here’s a passage from the Merck handbook linked above:

Because esophageal cancer usually is not diagnosed until the disease has spread, the death rate is high. Fewer than 5% of people survive more than 5 years. Many die within a year of noticing the first symptoms. Because nearly all cases of esophageal cancer are fatal, the doctor’s main objective is to control symptoms, especially pain and the inability to swallow, which can be very frightening to the person and loved ones (see Death and Dying: Difficulty Swallowing)….

(read more)

His debates on religion were not that impressive, outside of rhetoric and polemics. His stance against Muslim terrorism around the world is phenomenal. But I ask this question, will he remain an ATHEIST to death. Many in his place have, but typically die through disease inflicted through too many partners, or drug overdoses. Sartre and Flew are examples of others who have changed their minds, even if at a late hour. I will be praying for Hitchen’s, that he escape the worst sickness of all… his rebellion against his Creator.