Muscle pain relieved by manganese or selenium

I am prone to sharp muscle pains which are relieved by taking selenium (usually taken as either sodium selenite or sodium selenate), and which I therefore assume are symptomatic of selenium deficiency; and different (not so sharp) muscle pains which are relieved by taking manganese (taken as manganee amino acid chelate). When taken in sufficient quantity, relief follows within minutes in each case. Does anyone else have any experience, or insights, regarding this, or ideas as to complementary, or aggravating, factors? Based on my own observations, I conclude that the failure to timely get these nutrients, in my case, leads to apparent neurological degeneration of motor neurons, followed by atrophy of the muscle. I also take vitamin E (mixed tocopherols and tocotrienols) and ubiquinol, which I believe to be also helpful,though not specific antidotes for the muscle pains.

The High Cost Of Health Care Savings

OK, so now that it looks like health care reform ("to hold down ballooning costs") is moving along nicely, we can start talking about raising taxes to pay for it. http://tiny.cc/B4dtr

Health Care / Health Scare Scam

This health scare scam is disingenuous. Observers note that even the special interests (hospitals, doctors, Big Pharma) want health care reform. Of course they do! Rising health care costs, instituted by what is already effectively a monopoly, are arguably part of an orchestrated campaign to scare politicians and their constituents into adopting a taxpayer-supported government-sponsored welfare program for the “health care” industry. First the masses were brainwashed from infancy by TV advertising into eating profitable (for Big Food) junk which made them chronically disease-prone. Then they were brainwashed into believing that only Big Medicine could (and was legally permitted to) cure them; and now the brainwashing is complete as they accept the cradle to grave drugs, radiation, and chemo”therapy” that they “need” to keep them “healthy,” and all shall have the right (and compulsion to pay for) these “benefits” (provided of course that the “benefits” shall have been pronounced “safe and effective” by the stooges at FDA/AMA, and are prescribed by doctors who do as they're told. Congratulations Big Medicine, Big Food, Big Pharma, and Big Government on hijacking a major portion of the GNP with the support of the hoodwinked masses, sending America sinking, while those with real needs (think North Korean concentration camp inmates) attract no real attention. Is Obama leading us inexorably toward an only somewhat late-arriving 1984?

Carcinogenic Diesel Fumes in Enclosed Metro Stations and Tunnels

Washington D.C. Metro (WMATA) runs diesel-powered work trains in its underground stations and tunnels (often merely idling, which appears unnecessary) to do routine scheduled repair work, during the normal hours of operation when the system is being used by the public. The result is a heavy concentration of diesel fumes in enclosed areas which were not designed to, and are not capable of, providing adequate ventilation to prevent accumulation of the fumes to unsafe levels. Diesel exhaust fumes are carcinogenic and toxic. Metro provides no notice or warning of these incidents or of its policy, custom, or practice of exposing both the public and its workers to this hazardous condition.

Metro Train Crash Due To Obsolete Control Technology?

Washington DC. It appears that there may be superior technology available which could both improve reliability of train sensing (automatic train protection), potentially preventing catastrophic accidents such as the recent Metro train crash, AND save the transit system money on maintenance costs. See for example the Honeywell product widely used in Europe, at http://www.honeywell-sensor.com.cn/prodinfo/sensor_rail_products/datasheet/003698_1.pdf

Metro Train Crash Update: Doubletalk From Metro?

Washington DC. As was previously reported, Metro (WMATA) continues to insist that the system and its trains are safe, despite its failure to act on a 2006 NTSB finding that the 1000 Series cars are not crashworthy and should be replaced or retrofitted, and its 2007 report calling Metro's failure to do so "unacceptable." Today, Metro Board of Directors Chairman Jim Graham, in an interview on WTOP Radio, clarified Metro's safety argument by saying that the train cars in question "absent this type of impact, are safe." In other words, the system is totally safe, unless something goes wrong and a crash occurs. It now becomes clear why Mr. Graham is Metro Board Chairman; as a local politician and lawyer with long experience in the art of doubletalk and deceit, he is the perfect apologist and advocate for Metro's practice of honoring safety in word but not in deed, lulling tourists as well as local patrons into a false sense of security by telling them it's safe, but omitting to mention that "safe," to Metro, really means "safe unless there's an accident and people get killed or maimed."
Mr. Graham also stated that the train in question stopped and then started up again, and that "this is extremely perplexing to us." Well, if so, maybe the wrong people are running Metro, as from where we sit, it doesn't appear perplexing at all, based on preliminary findings. It is known that there were two trains ahead of the striking train, and that the train immediately ahead of it stopped to await clearance of the Fort Totten station by the train still further ahead. Obviously, at 5:02 pm, likely nearing the peak of rush hour traffic, the trains were waiting in line to service the Fort Totten platform. As such, after each successive train cleared the station, each respective following train could move up one position, thus creating a stop and go pattern down the line. The following train involved in the accident thus stopped behind the train ahead of it each time the line moved forward, until the train ahead of it stopped in the section with the apparently defective detection circuit, whereupon the computer system, detecting no train immediately ahead, caused the following train to move ahead, resulting in the crash into the rear of the stationary undetected train immediately ahead of it. Why did no previous train crash or fail to be detected? WBAL-TV reports that the operator of the struck train was operating in manual mode (whereas it has been reported that trains generally were in automatic operation mode during rush hours, that is, when trains would likely have backed up in a waiting pattern). If previous waiting trains all stopped in the same precise location due to computer control, perhaps that location was one which permitted detection by one of the properly functioning detector circuits, causing the computer to detect the presence of the train and slow following trains accordingly. If the manually operated train happened to stop in a position where no portion of the train was outside the coverage area of the defective detection circuit, as appears to have been the case, that train would have been rendered invisible to the detection system (the track circuit in question is reportedly 740 feet long, and an eight-car train would be about 600 feet long).
According to NTSB Investigator Debbie Hersman, there were three controls (toggle switch, dial, and master controller) in the cab of the striking train which were all set for automatic (computer controlled) operation. Perhaps the emergency brake had no chance to stop the train in such circumstances, on short notice coming around a blind curve at high speed.

Metro Train Crash Update: Design Defects?

Washington DC. The Associated Press reports that the NTSB found anomalies in track sensors which in simulations prevented transmission of vital information relevant to controlling the speed and movement of the train; and that the transit workers union has demanded that operators be allowed to choose whether or not to operate in automatic mode. Investigators found the control in the operator's cab in the automatic operation position. Are the operators not authorized and trained to remove the train from automatic operation in the event of a braking emergency? Logically, the trains should be designed to automatically disengage the automatic operation control when the emergency brake is applied. It may be asking too much to expect an operator to remember, or to have time in an emergency, to disengage the automatic control which is continuously applying power to move the train forward, prior to applying the brake. Yet failure to do so would logically pit the manual brake against the computer-controlled propulsion system ("engine"), likely rendering the braking action ineffective, consistent with NTSB's initial findings that the brake rotors were fused from apparent emergency braking action over several hundred feet, while passengers reported that the train never slowed down prior to impact. Inadequacies in train design (no automatically disengaging throttle or "autopilot" when brakes applied?), training (operators not trained and frequently drilled on disengagement of computer control prior to braking, if no automatic disengagement?), or operator error (failure to follow such procedure, if so trained), are apparent. But if automatic disengagement of computer control in event of emergency braking is not part of the design, it would be hard to assign much blame to the operator in the face of such a blatant apparent design defect.
And with respect to the track sensors in question, is there no redundancy in the design? The recent Air France plane crash seems to have involved inconsistent readings from three different pitot tubes, there being three so that if one or two failed, hopefully at least one would be left still working. Similarly, if there were multiple independent track sensors, connected through independent wiring to independent computers, the failure of one need not lead to catastrophic consequences; and the system could presumably be programmed to abort computer control or automatic operation of the train in the event of conflicting data or instructions. One means of achieving effective redundancy near stations would be to make the track circuit blocks shorter than the length of the trains, so that every train would be in proximity to at least two track circuits. Then, if one detection circuit failed, as appears to have happened in this case, at least one properly functioning circuit would likely remain available to transmit the appropriate information to prevent collision by the following train. Any failure to incorporate both redundancy, and disengagement of automatic train control when the manual brake is applied, would appear to constitute critical design defects.