Semi-sweet

The Future of Chocolate

Collage by Linn Collette. For more, click here.

From: Maryam Heinen , Organic Consumers Association, More from this Affiliate and ENN.com

Back in the Mayan age, around 1100 BCE, cacao was recognized as a "super" food, traded as a precious currency with a value on par with gold and jewels Bythe 17th century the Spanish added sugar (cane) to sweeten it and the rest is history. As other European countries clamored to get in on the action—and started exporting cacao trees to their colonies—Africa soon became the world's most prominent grower of cacao, even though it's not native to that continent.

VIDEO: How the NRA celebrated Easter

How many Peeps can you take out with a 50 caliber bullet?

Don’t Cheat Your Grandma

One idea for cutting Social Security that's gaining popularity in Washington would hurt the elderly, especially older women.

By Martha Burk

Despite the fact that Social Security isn’t contributing a penny to the federal budget deficit, fiscal hawks have convinced President Barack Obama that we must slash its benefits to save the country. He’s joined the sky-is-falling crew in a crazed search for targeted cuts that will shrink Social Security outlays.

One idea he’s considering is a magic trick known as “chained CPI.”

Most people don’t understand the economic-speak well enough to grasp what this sleight of hand would do to your Social Security check. 

Tom Gentz’s head explodes

“Charlestown is…well, Charlestown”

By Will Collette

Four little words, “Charlestown is…well, Charlestown,” triggered a rhetorical tantrum from Charlestown Town Council boss Tom Gentz (CCA). Those four words appeared in a March 28 whimsical editorial by Westerly Sun managing editor Dave Tranchida. Tranchida used his weekly editorial spot to lament what a lousy month March was in our region, what with the bad weather, the awful shootings in Stonington, the Copar political scandal in Westerly and, “well, Charlestown.”

Gentz’s rhetorical explosion took the form of an overwrought op-ed that the Sun ran on April 2^nd. How dare the Sun besmirch Charlestown when, under the enlightened leadership of Tom Gentz and the Charlestown Citizen Alliance Party, Charlestown has reached new heights of grandeur?

How dare Tranchida make such a remark without listing in detail all manner of grand achievements by Gentz and the CCA Party, such as leading the charge to eliminate the state’s affordable housing law? Or hiring a new police chief.

Send them the pallets from the Charlestown bonfire

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Unraveling NGC 3169 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Bright spiral galaxy NGC 3169 appears to be unraveling in this cosmic scene, played out some 70 million light-years away just below bright star Regulus toward the faint constellation Sextans.

Its beautiful spiral arms are distorted into sweeping tidal tails as NGC 3169 (left) and neighboring NGC 3166 interact gravitationally, a common fate even for bright galaxies in the local universe.

In fact, drawn out stellar arcs and plumes, indications of gravitational interactions, seem rampant in the deep and colorful galaxy group photo. 

The picture spans 20 arc minutes, or about 400,000 light-years at the group's estimated distance, and includes smaller, dimmer NGC 3165 at the right.

NGC 3169 is also known to shine across the spectrum from radio to X-rays, harboring an active galactic nucleus that is likely the site of a supermassive black hole.

Wetlands work

Salt Marshes are great Carbon Sinks

From: Tom Marshall, Planet Earth Online in ENN.com

Allowing farmland that's been reclaimed from the sea to flood and turn back into salt marsh could make it absorb lots of carbon from the atmosphere, a new study suggests, though the transformation will take many years to complete.

Scientists looked at one of the oldest such places in the UK, Tollesbury in Essex. Originally a salt marsh, the site was claimed for farming in the late 18th century, but eventually relinquished in 1995 when the bank separating it from the sea was deliberately breached. Since then it's been reverting to its natural state, though this is very slow process.

More than 700 in Charlestown

Where The SNAP Cards Are

By Bob Plain in RIFuture.org

The five cities with the biggest budget problems also have the highest percent of residents who use SNAP benefits.  In other words, there’s a correlation between the communities that can’t pay their bills and residents who can’t afford to feed themselves.

According to the Department of Human Services, 181,567 Rhode Islanders – 17 percent of state – use SNAP cards. But 59 percent of all SNAP users lives in one of the post-industrial cities that have experienced serious budget problems in recent years.

1. Central Falls; 40.3 percent
2. Woonsocket: 33.8 percent
3. Providence: 33.8 percent
4. Pawtucket: 27.9 percent
5. West Warwick: 25.8 percent.

Everybody wants the Westerly Hospital deal done

I just hope it makes Westerly Hospital a better place

By Will Collette
 
On March 27, the RI Health Department and the Attorney General held two sparsely attended meetings in Westerly to discuss the pending buy-out of Westerly Hospital by Lawrence and Memorial Hospital of Stonington.

L&M is offering $69 million to save the trouble hospital from almost certain closure.

According to the Westerly Sun, there were no dissenting views.

Westerly Hospital Medical Director Robert Harrison said that staff have been so concerned about the future of their jobs, some have already decided to leave for other work.

LOSERS!

The Yankees suck

Choice?

New Abortion Laws

By Jen Sorenson

Click here to see them.

Raptakis Remains Key Vote On Marriage Bills

The Coventry senator says he hasn’t made a “firm decision” yet on voting to allow SSM legislation to be voted on by the full Senate.

By Elizabeth McNamara, Narragansett-South Kingstown Patch

State Sen. Lou Raptakis (D-Coventry, E.G., W.W.) has removed his name as a sponsor of legislation to hold a referendum on same sex marriage, but he’s stopped short of saying he will definitely support allowing a bill legalizing same sex marriage to be voted on by the full Senate. Raptakis is one of ten members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel in control of the legislation right now.

No Need to Know

Rhode Island GMO Labeling Bill Delayed

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

Since its introduction to the American diet in 1992, genetically engineered food has raised countless questions. Proponents, including many scientists, say bioengineering helps feed the world and that there is no evidence that genetically modified food (GMO) is a health threat.

Critics say GMOs are already messing with the environment and, if unchecked, could create untold health consequences.

Lies, damned lies and Food Stamps

Fox “News” And The War On Woonsocket’s Poor

By Bob Plain In Rhode Island’s Future

If you didn’t know that local conservatives were going to take to Fox “News” to exploit Ken Block’s food stamp fraud report, I would like to bet you that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Then, maybe we can go double or nothing on whether or not the days will get longer until late June, when they will then get shorter for about the next six months.

The Providence Journal this morning reprised Dave Fisher’s post from Friday about Woonsocket Mayor Leo Fontaine going on Fox “News” and blaming the city’s economic woes on the fact that one in three residents needs SNAP benefits.

The ProJo picked up on the similar themes as did Fisher’s post: Fontaine inaccurately claimed that Block’s report uncovered “massive fraud” (or, me and Fontaine have an entirely different idea of what the word massive means) and that even the Fox anchor was surprised that Fontaine was blaming the poor for the city’s problems.

Unfortunately Fontaine wasn’t the only conservative using Block’s investigation to bash our poor on national television.

CCA minutes obtained by new correspondent

Meeting called to order at 4:01pm by CCA  President Gin Woo Ten, 10^th Dan, Kybioshi Dojo, House of Eyor.

Attending: Gin Woo Ten,  President Sensei;  Passa DeMayo,  Treasurer Senseless; Confused & Ancient helmsmen  Acenhole, Deucebaga, Threepiezio, Fourskinner, Fivendime, Sixpak, Sevenup, Eightbar, Nineball, and Tennyshoo.