Living Near Power Lines: Is it Dangerous to Your Health?

By MoneyBlueBook

The Internet is quite a mixed bag of information - a wild, wild west cornucopia of unfiltered and unadulterated questions and answers. Among the nuggets of knowledge, there's an endless supply of trashy material and unsubstantiated half truths. For every debatable issue imaginable, there are legions of supporters and oppositions on both sides of the divide. Search engines like Google and Bing do nothing to segregate the legitimate articles from the biased quackery and it's often up to the readers themselves to differentiate fact from fiction. Such is the case with a very contentious and controversial issue of mine that's literally hitting close to home - the issue of living next to power lines and whether they have any negative impact on one's health.

From the various articles available online, you'll frequently read comments and posts from individuals claiming that their personal cancers and miscarriages were the direct results of living too close to nearby power lines. Though when subjected to scientific scrutiny, this does not necessarily indicate a definitive connection between the two, it's easy to see how the passionate and emotional voices could come to such conclusions. In my case, both of my parents are survivors of lymphoma cancer. Both of them successfully completed their chemotherapy treatments and both were able to cure themselves of the cancers that plagued their bodies for months. However, as far as I know - they and I have never lived in close proximity to power lines of any sort. However, if we hypothetically had, I'm sure I would

By MoneyBlueBook

Free Monthly Lottery Drawing: The American Dream Card From HSBC (info)

Since I was a little kid, I've always dreamed of hitting it big and winning the lottery. I'm not talking about winning the Texas Holdem poker pot at your buddy's house, or lucking out at grandma's Bingo night, but rather about�  landing one of those mega jackpots - the ones you see on TV that feature the screaming people holding the oversized checks - the Powerball's and the Mega Millions lotteries. Alas - I've yet to experience success in any type of sweepstakes or lottery drawing other than that one time I won my elementary school's carnival raffle as a kid (and even then my "prize" was simply a free lunch and movie date of sorts with my school principle). But certainly one can dream right?

For many people, winning a multi million dollar lottery jackpot is truly the ultimate once-in-a-lifetime fantasy. In light of spiking unemployment rates and the ongoing recession, some people now even see lotteries as their best and only chance to ever gain a personal net worth of a million dollars or more. But unfortunately for them and the millions of people who participate in the daily and weekly lottery drawings, the odds are astronomically stacked against them - so much so that their chances of being struck by lightening or even drowning in their own bathtubs are much higher than that of ever winning. Participants of the popular Powerball lottery currently face an unfathomable 1 in

By MoneyBlueBook

After finally returning home from an extended three month overseas trip to spend time with my parents, I was greeted back home by an overweight mail box stuffed to the brim and absolutely overflowing with junk mail. Although I had authorized my mail to be temporarily redirected to my brother's address while I was away, a very great deal of unsolicited junk mailers, expired coupon booklets, and pre-approved credit card offers still mysteriously winded up in my inbox. All in all, the entire paper pile, weighing in excess of many pounds, ultimately found its way straight into my trash can in a matter of minutes - fulfilling its pointless life cycle as not only a complete waste of my personal time, but as a fruitless consumer of precious natural resources.

Save The Environment and De-clutter Your Life By Reducing Junk Mail Trash

According to online statistics from sources such as the Center for a New American Dream (CNAD), a non profit organization based in Maryland whose stated mission is to protect the environment by helping Americans develop sustainable consumption habits - simply by eliminating the amount of junk mail you receive every day can significantly reduce the amount of energy and natural resources you consume, as well as greatly reduce the landfill space usage and carbon footprint that you leave behind. For example, according to numbers provided by CNAD, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and various sources, did you know that:

• The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equivalent to 1.5 trees every year, which comes out
  

By MoneyBlueBook

The past few weeks have been tough on me as an aspiring full time blogger. After almost a full year of nearly regular blog posts and after months of practicing fairly consistent writing habits, I've finally been smitten with the ailment that inevitably afflicts all bloggers and online entrepreneurs at some point or another - blogger burn out. Blogger's block, as the affliction is commonly called, is basically the lack of motivation and sudden depletion of new ideas found in those suffering from writer's block, except it affects those who blog online for alternative side income or for amusement. However, in my case, it's not the lack of new article writing ideas or lack of potential subjects to opine about, but rather the summer laziness feeling that has made it nearly impossible for me to stay self driven and self motivated. I actually have a spiral notebook that I keep around and regularly update. The notepad contains all my various scribbled down notes and ideas as they come to me. With hundreds of personal finance article writing topics and self jotted potential leads to inspire me, it's rarely a matter of running out of ideas - I have plenty of them - it's actually the drive and daily motivation to actually sit down and put fingers to keyboard that's the feet dragging hurdle for myself at the moment. When it comes to running a side business in the nature of self employment, one must have a consistent way to stay focused and stay driven, working

By MoneyBlueBook

I have a little secret to share. Well it's not really a secret so much as it's a phobia that I've held since I was a little kid. Here's the�  secret - I am deathly afraid of household insects, but in particular - cockroaches. There, I've said it - the cat's out of the bag - go ahead and laugh, but it's not funny (maybe just a little bit). Funny or not, it's something that makes my heart beat fast, makes my pupils dilate like saucers, and summons forth caveman like instincts to grab the nearest bunny slipper or rolled up U.S. News and World Report magazine for some self-preservation-inspired bug pounding.

The mere sight of the creepy crawly legs and wiggling antennas of the common household cockroach jetting out from dark corners and scampering across bathroom counters and kitchen floors utterly freaks me out. While I don't instantly jump onto chairs, call my mommy, or scream at the top of my lungs like a little girl, I do become visibly startled and immediately shift into fight mode whenever I encounter a lost spider or resident evil roach in my apartment. I'm sure you PETA fanatics out there may be turned off by my disdain and opposition to the plight of roaches and other household vermin, but I don't care. Roaches and insects have no place in my home and I'll do whatever it takes to eradicate the pests. I've had too many unfortunate experiences and bad memories of living with roaches during my student years.

Fortunately,

By MoneyBlueBook

The other day I shuffled past my pet parrot's metal cage and casually glanced at him. He looked up at me and smiled. Well he didn't actually smile - that would be weird, not to mention it would be an exceedingly remarkable feat for a bird to do - but he did seem to want to tell me something. I glanced down at the bottom of his cage and realized what he was so antsy about - it was time for me to clean his bird cage. The bird poo clumps and endless feather fluffs were starting to dirty up the bottom lining of his cage and it was time to replace his bird bedding. So before cleaning his bird cage, I went and did what I've been doing for the last 10 or so years - I went to the supermarket and bought a copy of the Sunday newspaper to use as bird cage lining. When I got home and proceeded to clean his cage, dumping out the old newspaper sheets that held his former poop droppings, an interesting thought occurred to me. Although I've been buying newspapers regularly and consistently for many years now, I haven't once actually sat down to read one. It seems the only reason I even have them around in the first place is to use them to line my pet parrot's bird cage. Over the years I've learned that newspaper print pages contain the perfect combination of non toxicity and biodegradable composition that is uniquely more absorbent than