June 16, 2008
Hello fellow Baby Boomers…
For those who did not notice that I am not posting on this site.
Please follow me to my new host…I am up and running!
http://www.BabyBoomerAdvisorClub.com
This is your offical invitation!
Southern smiles and world peace,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
June 16, 2008
For those who did not notice that I am not posting on this site.
Please follow me to my new host…I am up and running!
http://www.BabyBoomerAdvisorClub.com
This is your offical invatation!
Southern smiles and world peace,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
April 19, 2008
Hello Baby Boomer, readers and friends…
I hope you have missed me as much as I have missed talking to you’all…
I want to thank you for making the Baby Boomer Queen a success. When we hit 100,000 people, we decided it was time for a change.
We have changed the format and server [host] and are now on a slightly elevated blog level. At least I think so…but then again…I am a new blogger…so, what do I actually know…LOL!
I do hope you will come and join us at our new address.
http://www.BabyBoomerAdvisorClub.com
Please bear with me…as you know, I am spelling, typing and computer challenged!
I hope to see and hear from you soon!
Smiles and world peace,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
Drop me a line when you get there!
April 6, 2008
Most Wednesdays and Saturdays, we play cards…tonight I was the “All Time Card Winner.”
I promised my friends I would blog this…A good time was had by all…too bad we were not playing for money!
Tonights games were CRAZY 8′s and 500 Rummy.
The snacks were burritos, jelly beans left over from Easter Baskets and Kettle Pop Corn.
Drinks were green tea, black cherry diet drink, mixed with some lemon/lime soda and Merlot Wine.
We will probably all have bad dreams and stomache aches tonight.
This is the Card Champ signing off…
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
April 6, 2008
Most Wednesday and Saturdays are card night and a movie, here at the house. I promised my friends that I would post tonights results…still reigning Card Champion of the World as we know it on 40th drive….ME!
Snacks for the championship game were jelly beans left over from Easter, burittos, and kettle popcorn.
The beverages included green tea, Merlot Wine and lemon/lime soda mixed with diet black cherry soda.
A good time was had by all even the LOSERS!
BUT, it would not surprise me if we all got stomach aches and bad dreams tonight.
The movie tonight was “The Cat in The HAT” with Mike “the insane” Myers.
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
April 5, 2008
Skinny Dippers
An elderly man in central Florida had owned a large farm for several years. He had a large pond in the back, fixed up really nice, along with some picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and some orange and lemon trees. The pond was properly shaped and fixed up for swimming when it was built.
One evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn’t been there for a while, and look it over. He grabbed a five gallon bucket to bring back some fruit.
As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee. When he came closer, he realized it was a bunch of young women skinny~dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end to shield themselves.
One of the women shouted to him, “We’re not coming out until you leave!”
The old man frowned and replied, “I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or make you get out of the pond naked.” Holding the bucket up he said, “I’m here to feed the alligator.”
Moral of the story: Old men may move slow but can still think fast.
April 2, 2008
Police Emergency
This is the true story of George Phillips of Meridian, Mississippi, who was going to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the shed. George opened the door to go turn off the light but saw there were people in the shed in the process of stealing things.
He immediately phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?” and George said no and explained the situation. Then they explained that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be there when available.
George said, “Okay,” hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.
“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people in my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot them all.”
Then he hung up. Within five minutes three squad cars, an Armed Response unit, and an ambulance showed up. Of course, the police caught the burglars red-handed.
One of the policemen said to George: “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”
George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”
April 1, 2008
Congress has big questions for Big Oil
In WASHINGTON …Top executives of the five biggest U.S. oil companies were pressed Tuesday to explain the soaring fuel prices amid huge industry profits and why they weren’t investing more to develop renewable energy source such as wind and solar.
The executives, peppered with questions from skeptical lawmakers, said they understood that high energy costs are hurting consumers, but deflected blame, arguing that their profits, $123 billion last year, were in line with other industries.
“On April Fool’s Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by Big Oil,” Rep. Edward Markey, D~Mass., said as his committee began hearing from the oil company executives.
With motorists paying a national average of $3.29 a gallon at the pump and global oil prices remaining above $100 a barrel, the executives were hard pressed by lawmakers to defend their profits.
“The anger level is rising significantly,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D~Mo., relating what he had heard in his district during the recent two week congressional recess.
Alluding to the fact that congressmen often don’t rate very high in opinion polls, Cleaver told the executives: “Your approval rating is lower than ours and that means your down low.”
“I heard what you are hearing. Americans are very worried about the rising price of energy,” said John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Co., echoing remarks by the other four executives from Exxon Mobil Corp., BP America Inc., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhillips.
Refineries run full blast at night so it won’t be so noticeable how they are POLLUTING!
But the executives rejected claims that their companies’ earnings are out of step with other industries and said that while they earn tens of billions of dollars, they also invest tens of billions in exploration and oil production activities.
“Our earnings, though high in absolute terms, need to be viewed in the context of the scale and cyclical, long term nature of our industry as well as the huge investment requirements,” said J.S. Simon, Exxon Mobil’s senior vice president.
But Markey asked Simon why Exxon Mobil hasn’t followed the other companies in investing in alternative energy. The four other companies reported spending as much as $3.5 billion in recent years on solar, wind, biodiesel and other renewable projects.
“Why is Exxon Mobil resisting the renewable revolution,” asked Markey.
Simon said his company, which earned $40 billion last year, had provided $100 million on research into climate change at Stanford University, but that current alternative energy technologies “just do not have an appreciable impact” in addressing “the challenge we’re trying to meet.”
Executives from the largest U.S oil companies have been frequent targets of lawmakers, frustrated at not being able to do much to counter soaring oil and gasoline costs.
In November, 2005, Hofmeister and the top executives of the same companies represented Tuesday sat in a Senate hearing room to explain high prices and their huge profits.
The prices are of concern, Hofmeister said at the time, adding a note of optimism: “Our industry is extremely cyclical and what goes up almost always comes down,” he told the skeptical senators on a day when oil cost $60 a barrel.
About six months later, when the cost of the same barrel reached $75, the executives were grilled again on Capitol Hill on their spending and investment priorities.
Recently oil prices reached a peak of $111 a barrel. While declining a bit in recent days, the price remains above $100 and there’s talk of $4 a gallon gasoline in the coming months.
Markey challenged the executives to pledge to invest 10 percent of their profits to develop renewable energy and give up $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years so money could be funneled to support other energy and conservation.
The executives said the companies already are spending billions of dollars, more than $3.5 billion over the last five years, on renewable fuels such as wind energy and biodiesel, but rejected any tax increases.
“Imposing punitive taxes on American energy companies, which already pay record taxes, will discourage the sustained investment needed to continue safeguarding U.S. energy security,” Simon insisted.
“These companies are defending billions of federal subsidies … while reaping over a hundred billion dollars in profits in just the last year alone,” complained Markey, chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
The House last year and again on Feb. 27 approved legislation that would have ended the tax breaks for the oil giants, while using the revenue to support wind, solar and other renewable fuels and incentives for energy conservation. The measure has not passed the Senate.
***************************************************
Thank you AP NEws and H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
***************************************************
The rich get richer and the poor stay that way…
Why not give grants and funding to companies who are looking for alternative fuels? I would love to thumb our/my noses at the oil companies and countires.
But asking questions..isn’t the act of busting a grape, now is it Baby Boomers.
Did you know that last century there was a tire that invented that would have lasted the life of your car…did you ever see it on the market…NO…like the pharmaceutical companies [why sell the cure when you can sell the pill that will continue the disease and keep the public buying more]…why sell one tire when you can sell many…the inventor sold out.
Raise your voices and your fists!
Refineries are in every state and counrty. They are big power and money!
I have a friend that says…protesting is STUPID, it solves nothing…well I hope you are reading this because if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the pollution! You my dear, will not solve anything.
Do not be a cow Baby Boomers…following the cow’s rear end in front of you…be a RHINO! Charge head down and kick some cow, donkey or mule ass!
~The Baby Boomer Queen RHINO ~
Grangemounth Oil Refinery HDR
March 31, 2008
Good Investment
A woman walks into a bank in New York City and asks for the loan officer. She says she’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and needs to borrow $5,000. The bank officer tells her that the bank will need some kind of security for such a loan, so the woman hands over the keys to a new Rolls Royce that’s parked on the street in front of the bank.
Everything checks out, and the bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan. An employee drives the Rolls Royce into the bank’s underground garage and parks it there.
Two weeks later, the woman returns, repays the $5,000 and the interest, which comes to $15.41. The loan officer approaches her and says:
“We are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we’re a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked out your accounts and found that you were a multimillionaire. What puzzles us is why would you bother to borrow $5,000?”
“Well, where else in Manhattan can I park my car for two weeks for fifteen bucks?”
March 31, 2008
Leading doctors urged a return to older, tried and true treatments for high cholesterol after hearing full results Sunday of a failed trial of Vytorin.
Results of a Vytorin trial showed the drug failed to improve heart disease though it reduced risk factors.
Millions of Americans already take the drug or one of its components, Zetia. But doctors were stunned to learn that Vytorin failed to improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to reduce three key risk factors.
“People need to turn back to statins,” said Yale University cardiologist Dr. Harlan Krumholz, referring to Lipitor, Crestor and other widely used brands. “We know that statins are good drugs. We know that they reduce risks.”
The study was closely watched because Zetia and Vytorin have racked up $5 billion in sales despite limited proof of benefit. Two Congressional panels launched probes into why it took drugmakers nearly two years after the study’s completion to release results.
Results were presented at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago Sunday and published on the Internet by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Doctors have long focused on lowering LDL or bad cholesterol as a way to prevent heart disease. Statins like Merck & Co.’s Zocor, which recently came out in generic form, do this, as do niacin, fibrates and other medicines.
Vytorin, which came out in 2004, combines Zocor with Schering~Plough Corp.’s Zetia, which went on sale in 2002 and attacks cholesterol in a different way.
The study tested whether Vytorin was better than Zocor alone at limiting plaque buildup in the arteries of 720 people with super high cholesterol because of a gene disorder.
The results show the drug had “no result…zilch. In no subgroup, in no segment, was there any added benefit” for reducing plaque, said Dr. John Kastelein, the Dutch scientist who led the study.
That happened even though Vytorin dramatically lowered LDL, fats in the blood called triglycerides and a measure of artery inflammation…CRP.
Some doctors noted that hormone pills for menopausal women and torcetrapib, a promising cholesterol drug Pfizer Inc. recently abandoned, also lowered cholesterol but were found in big studies to raise heart risks, not lower them.
Another ominous sign was the decision Friday by other researchers to expand enrollment in a more pivotal study of Vytorin to 18,000 people because early results suggest it will be harder than anticipated to see if it is any better than Zocor alone.
“It will be 2012, ten years after the drug was introduced before we know the answer,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, a Cleveland Clinic cardiologist who has no role in the studies and has criticized the drugmakers over the one reported Sunday.
Dr. Robert Spiegel, chief medical officer for Schering~Plough, said the study was done “with the highest integrity” and that doctors can believe the results “because of the time we took to make sure the data are right.”
“We were disappointed that it was not a very balanced panel discussion” by the heart doctors who urged their peers to focus on more established treatments.
However, Kastelein said the data were far more consistent than anticipated and ample to show that the drug simply did not work.
“A lot of us thought that there would be some glimmer of benefit,” said Dr. Roger Blumenthal, a Johns Hopkins University cardiologist and spokesman for the American Heart Association.
Many doctors have prescribed Vytorin without trying older, proven medications first, as guidelines advise. The key message from the study is “don’t do that,” Blumenthal said.
No one should ever stop any heart drug without talking with their doctors, heart specialists stressed.
However, doctors “should be thinking twice,” said Duke University cardiologist Dr. Robert Califf. He takes the drug himself because he cannot tolerate the high dose of statins he otherwise would need.
Dr. James Stein, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Wisconsin~Madison, said many doctors prescribe Zetia and Vytorin because they seem to be safe ways to get cholesterol down quickly, without annoying side effects like flushing that some other medicines carry.
Stein, who has consulted for Schering~Plough, said that after six years on the market, it would have been good to see better results on a drug so many doctors believed would help, “but the reason we do research is so we don’t have to rely on our ‘beliefs’ …we can rely on data.”
The New England Journal also published a report showing that Vytorin and Zetia’s use soared in the United States amid a $200 million advertising blitz. In Canada, where marketing drugs directly to consumers is not allowed, sales were four times lower.
Merck is based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey; Schering~Plough, in Kenilworth, New Jersey.
In addition to the two Congressional committee probes, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed the companies in a similar probe in January.
“While these corporations profited, Americans were left in the dark,” Cuomo said in a written statement Sunday.
“The millions who take this drug, taxpayers who subsidize its use through the Medicaid and Medicare programs, and Merck and Schering~Plough’s investors deserve to know why it took so long for the results to be made public. This new information underscores our concerns and advances our investigation, which we will pursue aggressively.”
****************************************
Thank you AP News
**************************************
There you have it Baby Boomers…another drug company that has been making millions from the public…while its medicine has not been doing what it is supposed to do…do you think there will be any money given back to those who have been taken advantage of??? Those whose health has not improved over the last two years? Those whose conditions has seen the flip side of improvement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is what Vytorin is supposed to be…
What is Vytorin (Ezetimibe Simvastatin)?
Ezetimibe and simvastatin are cholesterol-lowering medicines. They reduce the amount of cholesterol (a type of fat) absorbed by the body and block the production of cholesterol in the body.
The combination of ezetimibe and simvastatin lowers “bad” cholesterol in the blood, (also called LDL, or low-density lipoprotein) and raises “good” cholesterol (also called HDL, or high-density lipoprotein). Lowering your LDL and raising your HDL cholesterol levels may reduce your risk of hardened arteries, which can lead to heart attacks, stroke, and circulation problems.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are SOME of the POSSIBLE side effects…since studies where not done properly…I am sure ther are more!
What are the possible side effects of Vytorin (Ezetimibe Simvastatin)?
Get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.
Stop using ezetimibe and simvastatin and call your doctor at once if you have any of these serious side effects:
muscle pain, tenderness, or weakness with fever or flu symptoms and dark colored urine
decreased urine or rust-colored urine; or
blurred vision
Keep taking ezetimibe and simvastatin and talk to your doctor if you have any of these less serious side effects:
stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea
cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose
tiredness
headache
skin rash or itching
joint pain, back pain
insomnia
Side effects other than those listed here may also occur. Talk to your doctor about any side effect that seems unusual or that is especially bothersome.
~~~~~~
CONTINUE IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE LESS SERIOUS SIDE EFFECTS…ARE THEY CRAZY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
THEY CALL THIS MEDICINE???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Remember that there are more people who die from pharmaceuticals then illegal drugs every year.
Eat well and exercise. It is NEVER to late! There are alternative out there!
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
