Have your home cities or towns implemented cameras to catch drivers running red lights? We have them here in Berkeley.

At first, I grumbled about them as I saw them as another way for the city to score additional revenues on top of outrageous parking fees and property taxes.

As it turns out, those cameras are a lifesaver. According to a recent article in Ladies' Home Journal -- I could not find a link online -- running red lights is one of the leading killers on the road. And some cities, like Dallas, have been able to curb red-light-running by implementing cameras.

More than 100,000 crashes a year are caused by drivers running red lights, killing some 950 people and injuring 90,000 others, making it a leading cause of fatal crashes in metropolitan areas, according to the Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Worse, the numbers are on the rise: Fatal motor vehicle crashes at traffic signals increased 19 percent nationally between 1992 and 1998 (the last year for which FHWA had statistics); over the same period, all other types of fatal crashes increased just 6 percent....

The high fatality rate associated with red-light-running crashes is partly attributed to the fact that they are usually "T-bone," or side-impact, crashes involving high speeds (since drivers often accelerate to get through a red light quickly). Indeed, images of vehicles broadsided at intersections often show cars cut in two or with pulverized midsections. "Of all the injuries we see, these are some of the worst," says Harry Teter, executive director of the 2,200-member American Trauma Society. "You're hitting the most vulnerable part of the car." Moreover, 53 percent of drivers in a 2008 online poll said their cars were not equipped with head-protecting side-curtain air bags, even though these devices cut driver deaths in side-impact crashes by nearly half. (Last year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a new regulation that mandates that new passenger cars have side air bags by 2012.)

Of course, the stories in the article were heartbreaking. It's made me more cautious when I am chauffeuring my precious cargo. God bless those cameras!

The current issue of the journal Obesity has a very good, careful study linking consumption of artificial sweeteners (AS) to weight gain.  Of course we've known for many years that artificial sweeteners do not contribute to weight loss - aside from tightly controlled short-term trials, where the results are mixed, the data is clear and consistent on this.  But many believed these beverages were neutral, neither helping nor hurting.

More recently the balance of the research has been shifting.  While some studies have shown no significant relationship between AS consumption and weight gain, an increasing number have shown a modest but consistently positive link.  This latest evidence comes out of the San Antonio Heart study (data nerds can admire the pleasing graphs here):

Conclusions

We observed a classic, positive dose–response relationship between AS beverage consumption and long-term weight gain. Such an association does not, by itself, establish causality. But it raises a troubling question, which can be answered only by further research: are ASs fueling—rather than fighting—the very epidemic they were designed to block?

Compare and contrast:

John McCain:  "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don't believe in gay adoption."

Seriously. Do we really want a president who can't count to two? He later "clarified" to ABC's George Stephanopoulos:

I am for the values and principles that two-parent families represent, and I also do point out that many of these decisions are made by the states, as we all know, and I will do everything I can to encourage adoption—to encourage all of the things that keeps (sic) families together...

Barack Obama, in response to a letter from the Family Equality Council asking what he will do for all families:

I got a chuckle from a recent Ladies' Home Journal article suggesting that men are actually the kinder, more forgiving sex:

When men who have done the same naughty deed put themselves in an offender's shoes, they find it easier to forgive. But for women, empathy has the opposite effect. If we've committed the same transgression, the other person's offense actually seems less forgivable. "It's possible that women feel more shame when remembering their own offenses," says study author Julie Juola Exline, Ph.D., associate professor at Case Western Reserve University. Viewing someone else's action as worse than your own is an attempt to ease feelings of guilt over your wrongdoing, she says. So if you're finding it hard to forgive, try forgiving yourself first. --Maria Gifford

Still, men, in general, have a harder time forgiving than women. It is only after they put themselves in the other person's shoes that their empathy overcomes their vengefulness, according to Exline. Here is the original study.

A recent study found that all Americans will be fat in 2048. Also expected to balloon are healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds, which will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 — accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the U.S.

A team in the University of Warwick believe that eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels. The key is said to be a compound found in the vegetable, called sulforaphane, which encourages production of enzymes which protect the blood vessels. So, we should definately add more broccoli to our diet, or as my daughter used to call it, little trees.

What makes men cry? Some of the ten reasons mentioned ranged from "making parents proud" to "tears? What tears? It's just dust in my eyes."

Wonder what your wedding dress says about you? Click on the link and see...then share! My dress wasn't mentioned. I wonder what off the rack and cost less than $40 says about me?

A study of Microsoft's instant messaging network supports the popular idea that everyone on the planet can be connected through fewer than seven links in a chain of contacts. What that means is that YOU TOO are only six (or actually 6.6) degrees away from Kevin Bacon!

I tested it myself and found that I am only four degrees away from Kevin Bacon himself. My good friend Aneela Zaman was in Big Shots with Norma Michaels, Norma Michaels was in Wedding Crashers with Kathryn Joosten, and Kathryn Joosten was in Rails and Ties with Kevin Bacon. How many degrees away are you?

What else is in the news? What's up with you?

I am sorry for all the corporate bashing lately, but unscrupulous practices have either made the news or affected me personally. I am not down with the corps right now.

And here is another reason why we can't grant free reign to corporations: What happens when your elderly mother, who is technically legally able to make decisions for herself, is preyed upon by telemarketers? What rights do children have in this situation? One concerned daughter wondered aloud in a recent Berkeley Parents Network newsletter:

My 87-year old mother lives alone in what was the family home. She's generally competent and alert, though both her memory and her common sense are waivering. She did a very good job as money manager for the family, the result of which is that she now has a fair amount left over. She has increasingly been agreeing to sales presentations for mortgages, energy-efficient windows, ''lifetime'' exterior painting, etc. She thinks that she's doing this for the ''free stuff'' (she has 4 George Foreman grills stacked in a closet), but she is quite vulnerable to the cleverness of financial predators and their advance guard, telemarketers. Last year, she re-financed her house 3 times, forfeiting $60k in pre-payment penalties and closing costs and winding up with a 7.5% rate, when she's well qualified for much better. The situation is becoming alarming and we're beginning to think that we're going to have to do something proactively. We'd welcome thoughts on how to limit the damage she can do herself. For many reasons, we can't consider conservatorship. Thanks for your help.
''Do Not Call'' fan

Conservatorship, by the way, is when the court orders a property or person to be subject to the legal control of another person or entity known as a conservator. It is like legal guardianship. In this case, it sounds like the daughter does not want or can't be the conservator, or legal guardian, of her mother.

What do you think? Have any of you had to protect a senior loved one from predatory business practices? How did you handle it?

I recently spotted this article about what to do if your home won't sell in today's tepid marketplace.

Good news for buyers: The market is expected to further decline well into 2009. Bad news for sellers: The market is expected to further decline well into 2009.

Here is how to make adjustments if you are a seller, according to syndicated columnist Dian Hymer:

Sellers whose homes aren't selling should analyze the price they are asking with the help of their real estate agent. It's useful to look at similar homes in your area that have sold recently. Why did these homes sell when yours didn't? If price is the key determinant, adjust your price accordingly, if you can.

Duh! I swear some sellers in the Bay Area are high. I still see one-bedroom apartments on sale for $500,000 -- when you can get a single home for that kind of money.

Onto other tips:

This story in Child magazine made me sick to my stomach. Not surprisingly, school bans on peanuts have ticked off some parents. Actually, the school policies have driven some parents downright mad, prompting their children to harass schoolmates with allergies and drive them out of town.  

Saint Edward Elementary School, a Brockton, MA, private parochial school that receives federal funds and is associated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, refused to admit an extremely peanut-allergic student into kindergarten, according to the documents and local news coverage. As part of the settlement, the school agreed, without admitting any fault, to amend its policies and to reimburse the family for the extra tuition it had paid at another school.

Two nut-allergic children in the Union County, NC, public schools were found by the DOE to have been harassed in separate incidents at Antioch Elementary School and Sun Valley Middle School. Among the shocking findings investigators documented: a parent of a nonallergic child announced at a PTO meeting that he'd continue sending his child to the elementary school with peanut butter sandwiches and tell his child to "smear" the peanut butter along the hallway walls.

At the middle school, a teacher brought in a homemade casserole containing nuts and invited the allergic boy to eat it; when he said he couldn't because of his allergies, she had him stand outside the classroom (in the cold) while the other students ate. This child was also taunted and bullied by other students in the cafeteria, including one who refused to move from a peanut-free lunch table and ate a peanut butter sandwich—which resulted in the boy's suffering an extreme allergic reaction that landed him in the hospital, the documents show. The schools, while not admitting fault, agreed to change their food-allergy policies, according to the settlement documents. A spokeswoman for the schools told Child these were isolated incidents and that they try to do right by every student.

The anecdotes go on and on. Parents in one town suggested that families with allergic children homeschool them. One mom on a message board joked that her daughter was going to dress up as "The Death Peanut" for Halloween.

As one psychologist in the article pointed out, allergies are chronic and misunderstood. It's also been a source of tension and strife within families afflicted by them as understandably concerned moms hover over their children who can literally be killed by a peanut.

While Child magazine's article did not pinpoint a cause for these allergies, it did suggest that such allergies are on the rise in this country.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that about 5% of children have food allergies (primarily to milk, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts). Experts consider the data "soft" because some studies use small samples and others rely on self-reports.

A much-cited 2003 study by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and FAAN found that the number of children reporting peanut allergies had doubled between 1997 and 2002, from 1 in 250 to 1 in 125; the highest rate was for those 5 years old and under. The numbers, obtained through phone interviews, don't meet the gold standard of having been verified by medical tests. Still, studies that draw on reports from elementary schools and school nurses also suggest that the incidence of childhood food allergies is rising, as does a mountain of anecdotal evidence.

Reactions to food allergies can range from runny noses and rashes to anaphylactic shock, a severe reaction that can involve closing up of airways, a dramatic drop in blood pressure, and unconsciousness and can even lead to death. But diagnosing these allergies is surprisingly difficult. The blood and skin-prick tests that are widely used, for example, have false-positive rates as high as 50% (although negative test results are usually reliable). Allergies to nuts—especially peanuts—get the most attention and cause the most fear because research shows that they're the most deadly and persistent. A 2001 study of 32 deaths over five years from food-induced anaphylaxis found that tree nuts and peanuts were responsible for 94% of the fatalities—with peanuts the culprit in 63% of the cases.

Some parents of competitors in the Beijing Olympics may not be able to see their children compete as they were scammed thousands of dollars for tickets by a website called BeijingTicketing.com, according to MSNBC's The Red Tape Chronicles.

Also in The Red Tape Chronicles: The U.S. House Financial Services Committee just passed a "Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights" that would make it illegal for credit card companies to impose higher rates retroactively on outstanding balances in certain situations, for example. The bill passed 39-27 despite aggressive lobbying by the banking industry. However, even if the bill were to pass Congress, President Bush will most likely veto it.

Amen, amen, amen: Pastor Dan over at Street Prophets took on Focus on the Family's reasons for why we must not allow gay and lesbian families to adopt children. He agreed with them that adoption is not an inalienable right. But he had a brilliant response as to how Christians should not keep people from helping others. The number of children needing homes -- and number of Christians not adopting -- are staggering indeed.

Here is a shout-out to Catherine Price of Salon's Broadsheet for her excellent take on a few Clinton supporters (ahem, Lanny Davis, cough, cough) who do not want a woman other than Hillary to share the ticket with Obama. It is denigrating to women to suggest that Hillary Clinton is the only female in the entire country fit to be president not to mention the insinuation that women would hold other women back. Can we just let Obama pick who he deems the most qualified?

Writer Kelli Best-Oliver discusses her love-hate relationship with Whole Foods at Eat. Drink. Better..

Our Stacey, who is about to embark on a family trip of her own, cited a Newsweek column in her blog Fussbucket about how family trips play an important role in children's lives.

Ladies' Home Journal had an interesting poll on its website: How do you and your spouse manage money? Fifty-four percent of respondents, including myself, keep joint accounts. Another 21 percent keep separate accounts and the last 25 percent have joint and individual accounts.

Congratulations to Julie over at A Little Pregnant for the birth of her second little boy "Baby not-Natalie." I got a chuckle from her husband Paul's post about not wanting to cut the umbilical cord. My husband had the same reaction and let the midwife do it.

What else is in the news? What's up with you?

This Associated Press story ran in last week's San Francisco Chronicle and it is worth a mention.

The Federal Trade Commission has found that the nation's largest food and beverage companies spent $1.6 billion in 2006 to market their products to children. About a third of that money was spent promoting carbonated drinks.

The report, to be released today, stems from lawmakers' concern about growing obesity rates in children. It gives researchers new insight into how much companies are spending to attract youth to their products, and what venues the companies are using for their marketing. For its estimate, the FTC used confidential financial data that it required the companies to turn over.

Overall, the spending was less than some previous estimates had indicated. Still, it represents a large pot of money that is being used to entice children to foods that are often unhealthy choices, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who had asked for the study.

"This study confirms what I have been saying for years. Industry needs to step up to the plate and use their innovation and creativity to market healthy foods to our kids," Harkin said.

"That $1.6 billion could be used to attract our kids to healthy snacks, tasty cereals, fruits and vegetables."

Amen!

Mark my words. I will never purchase a prepaid credit card. Ever.

Last Christmas, I bought prepaid American Express cards for my family and friends. I received a lot of complaints about the card like it was not accepted in many places and the most common one -- how the heck do you use it?

Most recently, I opted to purchase a prepaid VISA "Green Dot" card for our Round Peg Inna Square Hole for her birthday. I figure she could buy whatever she wanted as long as it was an establishment that accepted VISA. And who doesn't take VISA?

Apparently VISA doesn't take VISA. To activate this so-called prepaid card -- which I had to pay for in cash, not even debit card -- I had to provide the company with my social security, birthday, mailing address and other personal information.

"I don't want a credit card!" I told one customer service representative who was unsure of how the product worked. "I want my money back, which according to your card I have 30 days to get."

"You need a credit card number for that," he told me. "Go back to Walgreens."

Ugh. Well, there's no way for me to get my money back. Walgreens, which sold me the card, has told me this is one item I cannot return. The manager admitted to me there have been many complaints about the card and that there were even news stories about VISA's Green Dot like it required a social security number to activate.

Because I was forced to pay for the product in cash, there is no way to return the money onto my credit card and there is no paper trail of this purchase minus my worthless receipt. Also, the two "toll-free" numbers inside the packaging of the card have no live people to talk to me. I literally spent all yesterday morning on the phone.

As it turns out, numerous other people, including those who gave VISA their social security numbers to activate their accounts, were unable to use the card. It is a scam. I just contacted a friend of mine who is a class action attorney. Considering this card is sold at Wal-Mart, Walgreens and numerous other popular stores in this country, I would hate for VISA to get away with it. Prepaid credit card customers beware.

Traveling across the country this summer, I have come across people who say they will not vote for Sen. Barack Obama for all kinds of bizarre reasons, including the false premise that he is a Muslim.

But I paused when a dear family member, who is a manager at Wal-Mart, said he has warned his employees that if they vote for Obama, who will "force" them to join a union, they will be out of a job. Apparently, Wal-Mart has urged all its managers to issue this dire warning to their employees.

I went ahead and e-mailed my loved one this piece by Kevin Drum along with my comments:

I just thought of our conversation about Wal-Mart and the union because there was a news report about it in CBS. The writer, Kevin Drum, by the way, is a blogger like Markos:

http://www.cbsnews.com/...

I didn't know this, but ONLY 10 percent of Wal-Mart's total costs is labor, which makes the Walton family's loathing of unions that much more reprehensible. They have plenty of cash -- thanks to their employees-- to pay for janitors, overtime pay, and much more than that. And they are going to lash out at unions? Please.

This is clearly a bias against working people. Just mis dos centavos, Elisa

Feel free to pass on to everyone you know who works at Wal-Mart.

This morning I spoke with a friend who works for SEIU. He was scratching his head. Apparently, only 8 percent of the American workforce belongs to a union, yet voters are up in arms about this. Sounds like the joke is on the working people of this country.