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Sep 1, 2026
'Collapse Of Civilization
Scientists have issued a stark warning that climate change poses an existential threat to humanity as societies grapple with intensifying pressures from our planet's evolving environment.
Earth is barreling toward several critical "global tipping" points that risk triggering devastating consequences for humankind.
Among the most dire milestones on the horizon are the Amazon Rainforest's collapse, the total dissolution of ice sheets at the poles and surging worldwide temperatures.
When coupled with our booming population, these elements could unleash widespread catastrophe. It comes after a 'time traveler' from the year 4413 made a terrifying claim about the future of humanity.
• 'China's Nostradamus' terrifying warning about how US-Iran war will end
• Doomsday map reveals the 4 safest US states to survive a nuclear war
As ice sheets dissolve, ocean levels will rise dramatically, shrinking available living space for humanity even as our numbers explode, driving displaced communities deeper into interior regions, reports the Daily Star.
Climbing temperatures will make enormous portions of Earth unlivable, creating waves of climate migrants forced to seek new homes, while Amazon destruction and the loss of other tropical forests will speed up the planet's warming trajectory.
Will Steffen, emeritus professor at Australian National University, warns that humanity needs at least 30 years to change direction, though by that point the damage may be irreversible.
Prof Steffan warned Voice of Action: "Given the momentum in both the Earth and human systems, and the growing difference between the 'reaction time' needed to steer humanity towards a more sustainable future, and the 'intervention time' left to avert a range of catastrophes in both the physical climate system (e.g., melting of Arctic sea ice) and the biosphere (e.g., loss of the Great Barrier Reef), we are already deep into the trajectory towards collapse."
He continued: "That is, the intervention time we have left has, in many cases, shrunk to levels that are shorter than the time it would take to transition to a more sustainable system."
The professor posed a stark question: "The fact that many of the features of the Earth System that are being damaged or lost constitute 'tipping points' that could well link to form a 'tipping cascade' raises the ultimate question: Have we already lost control of the system? Is collapse now inevitable?".
Prof Steffan drew a chilling parallel to explain the crisis facing humanity.
He explained: "If the Titanic realises that it's in trouble and it has about 5km that it needs to slow and steer the ship, but it's only 3km away from the iceberg, it's already doomed."
Global temperatures keep rising relentlessly, with scientists confirming the mercury has increased by roughly 0.15-0.20C every ten years.
The warming has led to dramatic ice loss in polar areas, while researchers have also raised concerns about frozen ground melting beneath the surface. Permafrost constitutes a permanently frozen layer beneath the ground, covering 18 million square kilometres throughout the uppermost areas of the northern hemisphere.
This frozen zone contains rocks, soil, sand and safeguards remnants of plant life and microorganisms that have stayed entombed in the permafrost for thousands of years.
Yet this also means the carbon dioxide (CO2) from dead vegetation and microorganisms has been similarly stored in Earth's natural deep freeze - and as permafrost begins to melt at an alarming rate, this CO2 will eventually be released into the atmosphere
Current estimates suggest there could be up to 1.5 trillion metric tons of carbon stored in permafrost.
It comes as a horror map revealed the states where 75% of Americans would die in the event of a nuclear attack. -MSN
US Debt $40 Trillion
The US national debt has topped a record $40 trillion.
It’s a grim milestone in the history of the nation’s fiscal health. America’s debt burden is rising faster than estimates just a few years ago, exacerbated by persistent deficits and soaring interest payments.
And the national debt keeps rising, adding nearly $7 billion each day, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a fiscal watchdog group.
However, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the gigantic number. Just how big is $40 trillion?
All told, 40 trillion is 1 billion, 40,000 times over.
Or 1 million, 40 million times over.
At $40 trillion, if the United States were to pay down $1 billion of debt each day, it would take nearly 110 years to pay it all off. At $1 million per day, it would take nearly 110,000 years.
Here’s a list of comparisons to put into perspective just how large the national debt has become.
$117,000 per American
The US population is roughly 343 million people, according to Census Bureau data.
That means the total national debt of $40 trillion comes out to about $117,000 per American.
Double the size of the national debt in 2016
The current debt is roughly double its value just 10 years ago.
In August 2016, the total national debt was just below $20 trillion. In the past decade, the debt has doubled to $40 trillion.
“Unsustainable borrowing on this scale has huge repercussions throughout the economy, straining efforts to address affordability and risking a dangerous debt spiral if lawmakers don’t act,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told CNN.
Worth more than world’s 500 richest people combined
Entrepreneur Elon Musk made headlines in June when his net worth surpassed $1 trillion after the SpaceX initial public offering. But even adding up the wealth of the world’s richest people gets only a fraction of the way to the value of the national debt.
The 10 richest people in the world have a combined net worth of $2.7 trillion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The national debt is worth almost 15 times that.
And if you keep adding the rest of the world’s richest people, you don’t get much closer. The total net worth of all 500 richest people on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index comes out to almost $13 trillion.
More than the total value of all gold ever mined
Across all of history, roughly 220,700 tonnes of gold have been mined, according to the World Gold Council.
At gold’s current spot price of roughly $4,600 a troy ounce, the total value of all gold ever mined comes out to roughly $33 trillion — still $7 trillion less than the national debt.
More than seven Nvidias
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, has a market cap of more than $5.2 trillion. It would take more than seven Nvidia’s to match the size of the federal debt.
The top 11 most valuable companies in the S&P 500 have a combined market value of roughly $28 trillion – still $12 trillion less than the value of the national debt.
More than 300 International Space Stations
The International Space Station is estimated to cost roughly $117 billion, according to the European Space Agency.
At that whopping price tag, it would still take about 340 International Space Stations to reach the value of the national debt.
Larger than US the economy
The federal debt is larger than the entire value of the goods and services produced in the US economy.
The US economy, as measured by gross domestic product, was valued at over $32 trillion in the second quarter of this year, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Comparing the debt to GDP can help make comparisons between different nations. The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is at roughly 123%, near a record high. It first surpassed 100% in 2012.
That puts the US debt burden in the top 10 around the world, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. The only countries with higher debt-to-GDP ratios than the United States are Japan, Singapore, Sudan, Bahrain, Italy, Greece, Senegal and the Maldives.
Larger than the next five biggest economies combined
Take the five largest economies after the United States. The US national debt is larger than all of them combined.
China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and India have GDPs roughly valued at a combined $37 trillion, according to World Bank data.
That’s about $3 trillion less than the total US debt burden.
Double total US household debt
Total US household debt, including mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt and student loans, was almost $19 trillion in the second quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s about half the US government’s total debt burden.
Zooming in, total US credit card debt hit $1.26 trillion in the second quarter, according to the New York Fed. The US national debt is almost 32 times the value of all outstanding US credit card debt.
Approaching the total value of US retirement savings
The total value of retirement assets in the United States was $47.6 trillion in the first quarter of this year, according to the Investment Company Institute.
The national debt, at $40 trillion, is equivalent to almost 85% of all retirement assets in the United States. -CNN
IDF’s War Crimes
Israel’s willingness to investigate its own, even if a case is later dropped, highlights a key distinction from adversaries who would never hold their own accountable for killing Israelis or Jews.
By Yonah Jeremy Bob
In many senses, the IDF’s first official alleged war crimes report regarding Israeli soldiers’ conduct during the Israel-Hamas War was too little too late.
The report was released on Wednesday. From a pro-Israel perspective, for nearly three years Israel and the IDF have not been fully putting forth their narrative into the public sphere to defend themselves against genocide and other allegations.
Sure, there have been generic defenses about Hamas using human shields and the IDF trying to evacuate civilians away from the fighting (both of which are true), but at some point militaries have to address the specific allegations of distinct incidents.
For Israeli critics, the nearly three-year delay has solidified their conclusion that the IDF and Israel are not interested in true justice, but in a fancy whitewash process.
And yet, after both of those criticisms, the report was an important staThe IDF only gave the public an update on five of its 150 criminal probes, not to mention over 3,000 disciplinary probes.
But the results in the five probes defied some critics’ expectations that there would be no deeper probes at all.
In two of the cases, IDF soldiers and commanders will be questioned under criminal caution, and may yet be indicted.
Critics are correct that indictments against Israeli soldiers for killing Palestinians are even rarer than criminal probes.
But they are not nonexistent, with at least half a dozen such cases in the decade before October 7.
And every time the IDF questions soldiers, not to mention commanders, under criminal caution, it creates major waves among the political class and general population.
Even when the IDF legal division later may reach a conclusion that an indictment would not succeed, and the case should be dropped, the simple act of interrogating Israel’s own is exactly what differentiates it and other democracies from many of the Jewish state’s enemies, who would never dream of putting someone on trial for killing Israelis/Jews
Criminal interrogation achieves a deterrent effect
While critics say that absent an indictment or even a conviction, there is no deterrence for soldiers to be more careful, in many cases the criminal interrogation itself, which leaves the soldiers and those around them in doubt for an extended period, achieves a deterrent effect.
Next, critics will compare the IDF legal division’s performance in this war negatively versus in past wars.
They will note the IDF legal division opened 32 criminal probes following the 2014 Gaza War when Israel killed over 2,100 Palestinians, at least 50% civilians.
Further, they will claim that after killing over 70,000 Palestinians – even if 25,000-30,000 were Hamas or killed in internal Palestinian fighting – 150 criminal probes is not even close to adequate.
They will denigrate the more than 3,000 disciplinary probes, claiming they are jokes that can be ignored completely.
There is no easy answer to some of these charges.
If Israel tried to open the same ratio of criminal probes per Palestinian killed during this war compared to the 2014 Gaza conflict, there would be over 1,050 criminal probes.
And no one would claim that fewer mistakes were made in this war, with a massive number of highly documented errors which led to the tragic killing of a sizable number of Palestinians.
IDF admits the errors it has made
In some cases, the IDF has admitted that tank shells hit the wrong target, in others that mistaken intelligence indicated that all civilians had left an area where dozens were still hiding and killed by aerial bombs, and in yet others where missiles hit one Hamas location but that location turned out to be linked to an unknown underground tunnel which then unexpectedly toppled an entire block of civilian homes on their residents.
In other words, there is no debate that a large volume of errors were made.
The question is how those errors are understood.
Pro-Israel advocates will note that these three years of war can be broken down into literally millions of smaller operations and fights versus Hamas, house-to-house, tunnel section to tunnel section. They will add that even if more mistakes were made than in any prior war, the volume of mistakes was still small compared to the number of battles.
In terms of time, some decisions were made earlier, but still have not been publicized, with The Jerusalem Post exclusively publishing back on February 8 that the IDF legal division had already delved into and closed dozens of cases, but was withholding publication.
Advocates will correctly note that at times the environment of criticism which enveloped Israel, even in October 2023 before the stains of blood of the 1,200 slaughtered Israelis were cleaned, has been intense and grossly disconnected from facts and context. This led Israeli officials to often hold back on publicizing their decisions out of fear that critics would abuse anything they put out.
Once the International Court of Justice took the spurious genocide charges against Israel seriously and the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against between two and five senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli hesitance to publicize information which could be abused became even stronger.
Moreover, Israeli legal officials would note that it was not easy to pick a time to publicize their results when the government has been trying to fire the Attorney-General, overhaul the court system, and threatened to go after IDF legal officials who would dare to charge soldiers.
Legal blunder of Sde Teiman saga
The Sde Teiman saga is a case in point: Israeli legal officials started with good intentions but ended up with the worst of all worlds.
In July 2024, then IDF legal division chief Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi faced hundreds of Israeli civilians, including some government Knesset members, who literally broke into an army base to try to free arrested IDF prison guards, who were being questioned for allegedly beating a Palestinian detainee.
At one stage, Tomer-Yerushalmi issued indictments against five soldiers and started to try to move the case to trial.
However, she severely erred in illegally leaking evidence against the five soldiers prior to trial (had she presented the evidence at trial or received permission from the IDF chief or the courts to publicize the evidence pretrial, there would have been no issue), then trying to cover up her illegal act, and then appeared to have a sensational public breakdown, almost committing suicide or faking suicide.
Ultimately, her successor, current IDF legal chief Maj. Gen. Itay Offir, closed the case not because he found the five defendants innocent, but largely because of the fantastical sideshow Tomer-Yerushalmi created, which he thought made a trial untenable.
Underlying Tomer-Yerushalmi’s clearly illegal leaking actions was a reasonable intent to ensure that the arrested soldiers be probed and tried on the charges as opposed to a mob breaking them out of prison with no accountability.
The fact that she melted down not only said something about her own personal failings, but also about the domestic atmosphere and unprecedented pressure that the government and portions of the public have placed on any legal officials daring to probe IDF soldiers’ actions.
All of that is to say that it becomes less surprising that Israeli legal officials took longer to publish their results when they knew that both most Israelis and most global critics would mercilessly attack them and their reputations for doing so.
There was no “reward” for honestly addressing complexity waiting at the end of the road.
It seems that Tomer-Yerushalmi’s fears delayed publication at least since January 2025, when sources first told the Post that many updates could already be published, with no real coherent explanation why those decisions were delayed.
Practically speaking, Offir cannot be blamed as he only took office in November 2025.
Nine months is not an unreasonable time for legal study
Publishing the results in nine months was certainly not fast, but also is not unreasonably slow, taking into account how much he had to study from scratch when he came on board.
But all of these internal Israeli sagas will not quiet critics and do not repair the damage done to Israel’s global legitimacy by the severe delay in publishing the report.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians were killed alongside tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists, and there needs to be a more timely accounting for that.
The IDF put out five reports on its criminal probes and indictments following the 2014 Gaza conflict. It will eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, need to put out at least that many, or its future reports will need to address a larger number of cases.
Of course that will only be a partial accounting.
One of the reasons that the ICC has been able to go after Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials is because Israel has not probed any of them, only lower-down IDF soldiers involved in specific attacks.
But what about the policy decision to level 80-90% of Gaza’s structures? What about the decision to block food aid from March to May 2025, even if Israeli estimates were that there was sufficient food inventory for many months? What about the general ratio of “acceptable” collateral civilian deaths to military targets being hit even when there were military targets?
Offir cannot probe this.
Former deputy attorney-general Roy Schondorf already in May 2024 publicly recommended the one proper way to handle these issues: a re-run of the post-2009 Gaza conflict Turkel Commission.
Israel has probed its war-making decisions before.
If it does again, the ICC will have to freeze its arrest-warrant process.
Most importantly, probing everyone, from the highest officials to the lowest, has a shot at convincing those fair-minded people in the West and elsewhere that, however imperfect, Israel does care about human rights.
Such a detailed narrative is a moral obligation to do justice to Gazan civilians who got wrongly caught in the crossfire and to bring to justice any soldiers who broke the rules, and it can also finally put the simplistic, and sometimes antisemitic, genocide campaigners on the defensive for the first time, where they will have to address facts and depth, and not just make generic accusations. -JP
PREDIDENT'S SON
By Bess Lovejoy
If anyone had reason to believe they were cursed, it was Robert Todd Lincoln. The eldest son of Abraham Lincoln was closely connected to three presidential assassinations over the course of his life — first his father’s, then those of Presidents James A. Garfield and William McKinley. Although later retellings have exaggerated his role, the real story is remarkable enough.
Robert narrowly missed accompanying his parents to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, declining an invitation to see Our American Cousin. (Tired, he had decided to go to bed early.) After John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln, Robert rushed to the Petersen House across the street, where his father had been taken. He spent the night comforting his devastated mother and was at Abraham Lincoln’s bedside when the president died the following morning.
Sixteen years later, history repeated itself. On July 2, 1881, Robert Lincoln (then secretary of war) was walking toward President James A. Garfield at Washington, D.C.’s Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when Charles Guiteau fired two shots. Lincoln was roughly 40 feet away and reached the wounded president within seconds, helping organize the chaotic response. Garfield died more than two months later from complications of his injuries.
In 1901, history took another uncanny turn. Lincoln and his family arrived by train in Buffalo, New York, intending to visit the Pan-American Exposition, only to be handed a telegram announcing that President William McKinley had just been shot there. Lincoln hurried to the wounded president’s bedside and visited him twice, believing he was recovering. Instead, McKinley died eight days later.
Robert himself reportedly felt there was a “fatality” surrounding his presence at presidential occasions. But historians caution against the idea of any real curse, and the idea that he was an eyewitness at all three events, as is sometimes reported. His famous name, long career in public life, and the unusually turbulent era in which he lived simply placed him in the orbit of the White House again and again — with extraordinary consequences. -History
Sep 8, 2025
Jun 5, 2025
Amazing Facts About Elevators
Today, riding an elevator is a mundane activity, but little more than two centuries ago, these mechanical contraptions were steam-powered, death-defying wonders. In the years since, these mostly unseen pieces of urban infrastructure have become a key part of what makes modern cities possible. Without them, a city’s upward trajectory would be impossible, and the design of our world would be unimaginably different. Here are six amazing facts about the humble elevator, from its surprisingly ancient origins to the many places it may take us in the future.
Greek Mathematician Archimedes Invented an Elevator in 236 BCE
The elevator is a surprisingly old invention. According to writings from the ancient Roman engineer Vitruvius (the same Vitruvius who inspired Leonardo da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man”), the Greek mathematician Archimedes invented a primitive elevator back in 236 BCE. Archimedes’ contraption bore little resemblance to today’s people-movers: It worked via manpower, with ropes drawn around a drum that was then turned by a capstan, a large revolving cylinder often used to wind ropes on ships. Although the attribution was written after Archimedes’ death, the invention makes sense for the great Greek thinker, who was famous for his exploration of compound pulley systems. Elevators join the list of other surprising ancient inventions, including such wonders as the world’s first steam engine and the world’s first computer.
Before the Modern Elevator, Top Floors Were Undesirable
Today the most luxurious high rises are crowned with multimillion-dollar penthouses, but before the rise of elevators (pun intended), the most desirable floors were those closest to the ground. The first building to include elevators at the design stage was the 130-foot Equitable Life Building in downtown Manhattan, which was built in 1870. Society was slow to adjust to the elevator, and the building was designed to look like it had fewer floors than it did. Also, the insurance company that worked out of the building still occupied the “valuable” lower floors, while the custodian enjoyed the upper floors. The era of the penthouse didn’t arrive in full swing until the 1920s, when the decade’s economic boom brought a flurry of construction projects to New York City and other cities around the world.
An American Inventor Created the First Modern Passenger Elevator
A key part of the very first passenger elevator was invented by Elisha Graves Otis, who founded the Otis Elevator Company, a manufacturer still in business today. Otis invented a safety device that would prevent an elevator car from falling if the cable broke. Before Otis’ invention, elevators were dangerous contraptions primarily reserved for moving cargo in factories, warehouses, and mines. In 1854, Otis introduced his “safety elevator” at New York City’s Crystal Palace, also known as “Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations,” where he asked someone to cut the rope that was holding him up. Once cut, the platform dropped only a few inches before catching him. This enhanced safety feature helped sway public opinion by demonstrating that elevators could be a safe means of vertical transportation. Today, elevators are considered statistically safer than stairs.
People Once Trained for Years To Be Elevator Operators
Although Elisha Otis invented a safer elevator, that didn’t mean the device was foolproof. For decades, operating an elevator was considered a highly skilled job that required years of study in some parts of the world, such as Germany. In the late 19th century, elevators were operated using “shipper ropes,” and operators were trained on the precise timing of pulling these ropes to arrive at the right floor. A well-trained operator was highly desirable, since they made the difference between a smooth ride or a death-defying jumble of starts and stops.
Over the decades, the job of the elevator operator became increasingly automated. In 1887, American inventor Alexander Miles designed the first automatic elevator doors, after reading about several accidents involving people falling down elevator shafts. But it wasn’t until the 1960s — a little over a century after Elisha Otis introduced the first safety elevator — that automated elevator cars began to replace human operators entirely.
The Fastest Elevator in the World Travels Up to 67 Feet Per Second
In the early days, elevators could only travel at about 40 feet per minute. After some 150 years of innovation, the world’s fastest elevator can now travel 67 feet in a second (or around 46 miles per hour). This elevator is located in Shanghai Tower in China, which also includes the longest continuous elevator run, at 1,898 feet. Originally installed by the Japanese company Mitsubishi Electric in 2015, the elevator got an upgrade in 2016, allowing it to traverse a path from the second-level basement to the tower’s 119th floor in just 53 seconds. The elevator in the CTF Finance Center, also located in China, comes in a very close second, traveling at 65 feet per second.
German Engineers Designed a Sideways Elevator in 2017
Since their invention two millennia ago, elevators have done just two things — go up and go down. However, in 2017 a German elevator company began testing an elevator that can travel in any direction. Nicknamed the “Wonkavator” after the multidirectional elevator seen in 1971’s Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the machine was hailed as “the biggest development in the elevator industry” since the device’s invention. However, a sideways elevator is only the beginning of what’s in store for the technology’s future. Scientists (and sci-fi writers) have also hypothesized about the feasibility of a space elevator that can ferry future astronauts from the Earth’s surface to outer space — completely forgoing the need for expensive, pollution-belching rockets. -Ineresting Facts
Alzheimer's Disease
By Shruthi N, MD
Could It Be Alzheimer's?
It’s normal for people to become a bit forgetful as they age. So how can you tell a harmless "senior moment" from Alzheimer's disease? One in nine people 65 and older have this devastating form of dementia. In its first stages, Alzheimer’s may not be obvious to friends and family. But there are some early warning signs to watch for.
Warning Signs: Memory and Speech
In early Alzheimer’s, long-term memories usually remain intact while short-term memories become sketchy. Your loved one may forget conversations you had. They may repeat questions that were already answered. The disease also disrupts speech, so they might struggle to remember common words.
Warning Signs: Behavior
In addition to memory loss, Alzheimer’s can cause confusion and behavior changes. Your loved one may get lost in familiar places. Mood swings and lapses in judgment are also common, as is poor hygiene. People who were once stylish may start wearing stained clothes and forget to wash their hair.
Don't Ignore the Signs
It's hard to face the thought that a loved one could have this disease, but it's better to see a doctor sooner rather than later. First, the diagnosis might be something else. The symptoms could be caused by a highly treatable problem, like a thyroid imbalance. And if it is Alzheimer’s, treatments work best when they’re used early in the course of the disease.
How Is It Diagnosed?
There’s no simple test for Alzheimer’s, so the doctor will rely on you to describe the changes in your loved one. A mental status test, sometimes called a “mini-cog,” or other screening tests can measure their mental skills and short-term memory. Neurological exams and brain scans may be used to rule out other problems, like a stroke or tumor, and they can provide other information about their brain.
What Happens to the Brain?
Alzheimer’s causes nerve cell death and tissue loss throughout the brain. As the disease gets worse, brain tissue shrinks and areas that contain cerebrospinal fluid become larger. The damage harms memory, speech, and comprehension.
What to Expect
Alzheimer’s takes a different path in every person. Sometimes the symptoms get worse quickly and lead to severe memory loss and confusion within a few years. For other people the changes are gradual. It could take 20 years for the disease to run its course. Most people live 3 to 9 years after diagnosis.
How Will It Change Daily Life?
Alzheimer’s affects concentration, so your loved one may not be able to do ordinary tasks like cooking or paying the bills. A study suggests trouble balancing the checkbook is often one of the first signs of the disease. As symptoms worsen, they may not recognize familiar people or places. They may get lost easily or use utensils improperly, like combing their hair with a fork. Incontinence, balance problems, and loss of language are common in advanced stages.
Should My Loved One Stop Driving?
Poor coordination, memory loss, and confusion are a dangerous combination behind the wheel. If you feel your loved one should stop driving, tell them why. If they won’t listen, ask their doctor to step in. If they still insist on driving, contact the Department of Motor Vehicles for an assessment. Then make other plans for their transportation needs.
Can Exercise Help?
Physical activity can help your loved one keep some muscle strength and coordination. It might also boost their mood and help them feel less anxious. Check with their doctor to learn which types of exercise are appropriate. Repetitive activities, like walking, gardening, or even folding laundry may be the best at giving them a sense of calm.
How Is It Treated?
There’s no cure for Alzheimer’s and no way to slow the nerve damage it causes in the brain. But there are medications that appear to help maintain mental skills and slow the disease’s effects. If your loved one gets treatment early on, they may be able to stay independent and do their daily tasks for a longer period of time.
The Caregiver's Role
If you’re caring for someone with this disease, you’ll probably wear many hats -- cook, chauffeur, and accountant to name a few. While you may have to handle meal planning and finances, encourage your loved one to do some things for themselves. It may help to label cabinets with their contents and put up sticky notes with reminders of daily tasks. Be sure to buy a weekly pill box for their medications.
Challenges in Caregiving
In the early stages, people with Alzheimer’s often understand what’s happening to them. They may be ashamed or get anxious. Watch for signs of depression, which the doctor can manage with medication. Later on, your loved one may become paranoid or aggressive and could even turn on you. Remember that the disease is responsible for this change. Tell the doctor about this kind of behavior promptly.
Sundown Syndrome
Experts don’t know why, but some people with Alzheimer’s get upset when the sun goes down. This tends to last through the evening and sometimes all night long. To ease tension, keep the house well lit and close the drapes before sunset. Try to distract your loved one with a favorite activity or TV show. Switch them to decaf after breakfast.
When Your Loved One Doesn't Know You
Many people with Alzheimer’s have trouble remembering names, even of people closest to them. A temporary fix is to put up pictures of people they’re likely to see often or know well with names printed underneath. Eventually, your loved one may no longer recognize faces and may react as if family members are strangers. This can be distressing, especially for the main caregiver.
Warning Signs of Caregiver Stress
Caring for someone with Alzheimer's can be physically and mentally draining. Signs of caregiver stress include:
Anger, sadness, and mood swings
Headaches or back pain
Trouble concentrating
Trouble sleeping
Take Care of Yourself
To avoid caregiver burnout, make sure you take at least a few minutes to do something you enjoy every day. Stay in touch with friends and keep up with hobbies when you can. Find a friend or relative to be your support person. You can also join an online or local caregiver support group through the Alzheimer’s Association.
Essential Documents
While your loved one is still able to make important decisions, talk to an attorney about drafting advance directives. These are legal documents that spell out what they want in terms of medical treatments and end-of-life care. They should name someone to make health care decisions and manage finances on their behalf. This will help avoid confusion later on if they're no longer able to state their wishes.
Home Health Care
Many people want to stay in their own homes as long as possible. That’s not easy if they have trouble getting dressed or using the bathroom on their own. A home health aide can help with personal hygiene and other daily tasks. You can also check with your local Area Agency on Aging for information on services that deliver meals or provide transportation to the elderly.
Assisted-Living Facilities
There may come a day when your loved one can no longer be cared for at home. If they don’t need 24-hour nursing care, an assisted-living facility may be good choice. They provide housing, meals, and activities, but are much less expensive than nursing homes. Look for one with an Alzheimer’s special care unit that can give 24-hour supervision and personal care to meet the needs of people with dementia.
The Later Stages
People with advanced Alzheimer’s may lose their ability to walk, talk, or respond to others. Eventually, the disease can hinder vital functions, like the ability to swallow. This may be the time to switch to hospice care, which provides pain relief and comfort for people with terminal illnesses.
How to Help Children Understand
Children may feel confused, afraid, or even resentful when a family member has Alzheimer’s. Let the child know these feelings are normal and answer their questions about the illness honestly. Help them celebrate happy memories of your loved one. You could create a scrapbook with pictures from happier times.
Can You Prevent It?
Is there anything you can do to lower your chances of getting this disease? Research in this area is ongoing, but diet and exercise appear to be important. Studies show people who eat a Mediterranean diet rich in vegetables, fish, and nuts and get plenty of physical activity are the least likely to get Alzheimer’s.
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Dec 1, 2024
Christmas
In halls decked with holly, and trees all a-glow,
I feasted on goodies, let my inhibitions go,
From gingerbread houses to mulled wine so bold,
I consumed with abandon, in holiday's hold.
Eggnog flowed like a river, a creamy delight,
Pies disappeared faster than stars in the night,
Turkey and stuffing, and oh, the mince pies,
I ate 'til I felt like a stuffed Christmas prize.
Dear Santa, I plead, as the scale gives a sigh,
Bring stretchy new pants and don't ask me why,
For I've eaten like royalty, bursting at seams,
Now I need new attire, for my dining regimes.
So here's to the feasting, our holiday rite,
Merry Christmas to all, let's eat day and night,
With waistbands expanded and spirits held high,
May your holidays be filled with joy and pie!
New Pants for Christmas
Brann Rafferty
Nov 18, 2024
Nov 1, 2024
Sep 14, 2024
The Constitution (Part 1)
Signed in convention September 17, 1787. Ratified June 21, 1788. A portion of Article I, Section 2, was changed by the 14th Amendment; a portion of Section 9 was changed by the 16th Amendment; a portion of Section 3 was changed by the 17th Amendment; and a portion of Section 4 was changed by the 20th Amendment
Section 1: Congress
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article I, Section 1 provides: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” The Constitution first vests all federal legislative powers in a representative bicameral Congress. Central to the social compact, this lawmaking institution forms the foundation of the federal government and allows the people’s representatives to act together for the common good. Article I, Section I establishes several fundamental features of the Congress.
1. Bicameralism. The Framers of the Constitution of 1789 created a powerful national legislature to represent both the People and the States. Yet they also feared its awesome power and therefore determined to limit that power in order to protect individual liberty. The Vesting Clause embodies two strategies for limiting Congress’s power. One strategy was to condition legislation upon the agreement of two differently constituted Chambers. See The Federalist No. 51 (James Madison). With smaller districts and short terms, the House of Representatives was expected to be responsive to We the People. But hasty popular measures could be ameliorated or killed in the Senate, whose members served for longer terms and were selected by the state legislatures until enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment.
2. Limited and Enumerated Powers. As a more explicit limitation, the Constitution vests Congress only with those legislative powers that are “herein granted.” Unlike state legislatures that enjoy plenary authority, Congress has authority only over the subject matter specified in the Constitution, particularly in Article I, Section 8. Early Presidents and Congresses took seriously the limited jurisdiction of the federal government. They assumed no federal power to fund internal improvements, for example. They also debated what powers might be implied by the grant of the enumerated powers.
A significant early debate concerned whether Congress could create a Bank of the United States. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson argued against such a power, but President Washington ultimately supported Alexander Hamilton’s plan for the Bank, even though the Framers had rejected bank incorporation as an enumerated power. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Bank and recognized that the enumerated powers included some implied ones in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819).
The New Deal Court expanded upon McCulloch’s interpretation of Congress’s enumerated powers: the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 grew into a capacious source of congressional authority to regulate the economy, and the Necessary and Proper Clause at the end of Section 8 was interpreted to expand Congress’s authority yet further in Wickard v. Filburn (1942). The Court has afforded significant deference to Congress’s judgment about how far to press its enumerated powers.
Despite the expansive interpretation of the commerce power, the principle of a Congress vested only with limited and enumerated powers endures. In United States v. Lopez (1995), the Court invalidated a federal law making it a crime to possess a firearm close to a public school. Not only did Congress fail to connect the statute to an enumerated power, but the power asserted (regulation of commerce) was not considered the kind of economic regulation the Court had previously sanctioned. Lopez reaffirmed some outer boundary to the federal regulatory power.
3. Nondelegation. Article I, Section 1 vests all legislative powers in Congress, which means the President and the Supreme Court cannot assert legislative authority. See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952). This marks an important separation of powers between the departments of the federal government. It also has been interpreted to include a principle of nondelegation, that the people’s representatives in Congress must make the law, rather than delegate that power to the executive or judicial branch.
For most of American history, judges and commentators have assumed that Congress cannot “delegate” legislative authority and the Supreme Court has located this rule in Article I, Section 1. See, e.g., Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc. (2001). Individual Justices have opined that the nondelegation doctrine ought to be treated as a serious limitation on Congress’s authority. (For example, see Justice Thomas’s dissent in Whitman.)
While the principle of nondelegation persists, the Supreme Court has allowed a lot of delegation, so long as Congress includes intelligible principles to guide discretion. The Marshall Court ruled that Congress could delegate authority to the federal courts to adopt rules of process, Wayman v. Southard (1825), and to the President to revive trading privileges, Cargo of the Brig Aurora v. United States (1813). Although assuming a nondelegation doctrine, no law was invalidated for this reason in the nineteenth century.
In 1935, the Supreme Court invalidated a congressional delegation of lawmaking authority to private institutions—the only occasion where the Court has invalidated a law under the nondelegation doctrine. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935); Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935).
Particularly since the New Deal, Congress often legislates in open-ended terms that give substantial authority to executive branch officials and judges. Since 1935, almost all the Justices on the Supreme Court have either applied the nondelegation doctrine leniently, to allow large-scale delegations accompanied by vague limiting principles, Mistretta v. United States (1989), or have said the doctrine of unconstitutional delegation is not readily enforceable by the courts. (See Justice Scalia’s dissent in Mistretta).
The Court, however, sometimes gives effect to the values undergirding the nondelegation principle through narrow interpretations of statutory delegations. For example, the Supreme Court has overruled agency rules adopted pursuant to congressional delegations, on the ground that the agency is advancing a big change in policy. “We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’” Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014) (plurality opinion) (quoting FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000)); see also King v. Burwell (2015).
Section 2: The House of Representatives
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers;and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section 3: The Senate
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.
The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.
Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Section 4: Elections
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day. -Constitution Center
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