New Legislation
Crafting a new law is a complex matter involving all three branches of the federal government; the Legislative Branch researches, writes and debates a new bill, sending it to the Executive Branch to be signed into law, while the role of the Judicial Branch is to rule on the constitutionality of a law and provide the legal means to challenge how it is enforced.
A Straightforward Process
An idea for a new law starts as a bill or a resolution introduced by either a Senator or a House Representative, usually on behalf of his or her constituents.
The new bill is assigned a legislative number and is then forwarded to the House or Senate committee that has jurisdiction over the type of law being created. This is when the real work begins. A process of information gathering and committee work shapes the wording of the new legislation. Once a draft copy is agreed on, it then goes to Congress for deliberation.
Congressmen and women debate the law, propose amendments, and then it goes up for a vote. When a version of the law gets a majority vote in one chamber of Congress, it is forwarded to the other one and goes through a similar process. Before sending the proposed legislation to the President, it has to receive a majority vote in both the House and Senate.
New legislation being created by Congress could pass through the House and Senate with minimal opposition or require months of deliberation and compromise
That Was Easy
Congress then forwards the completed bill or resolution to the President. He could immediately sign it, creating the new law, or he could veto it, sending it back to Congress with his reasons.
With a 2/3 majority vote of Congress, the President’s veto could be overridden and their version of the legislation will pass into law. This rarely happens, however. It is more likely that Congress takes the President’s comments into consideration and reworks the legislation until it is agreed upon.
Sources of Omega-3's
The relationship we have with food isn’t simply about what’s healthy or affordable. There’s an emotional and social connection as well, influenced by where we live, what we do for business and pleasure, and the way different types of food make us feel.
Our bodies are quick to respond when we’re eating the right and the wrong types of foods
Their Role in a Healthy Diet
A typical diet requires a steady supply of healthy nutrients, including a careful balance of carbs, proteins, and fats. Of these three major food groups, we seem to hear the most about the different types of fats in the foods we eat.
Fats and “fatty acids” are quite literally the building blocks of our cells. Fats are insoluble in water, so lipid molecules line up in tight formation to form cell membranes, maintaining a fluid balance inside and outside of a cell.
In recent years, researchers have begun to focus on the ways that our bodies utilize healthy types of fat to sustain good health.
“Healthy” fats:
- positively influence brain growth in children
- increase mental alertness in adults
- protect cognitive functioning well into old age
The key seems to be in the balance between the types of fats that our bodies produce naturally and the ones we need to include in our diet.
Once and For All About Cholesterol
Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that is synthesized mostly within the liver and small intestine. As a matter of fact, our bodies naturally produce all we need. It plays a vital role in constructing cell walls and synthesizing hormones and digestive enzymes, and it’s necessary for the chemical reaction that converts sunlight to VitaminD.
Cholesterol floats through the bloodstream on either a low-density or high-density lipoprotein molecule. LDL cholesterol is associated with the
dangerous build up of fat on the walls of the arteries that can lead to heart disease. However, one of the roles of HDL cholesterol (“healthy or “helpful cholesterol”) is to safely remove this excess from the bloodstream.
Healthy fats have a positive effect on the body by raising levels of HDL cholesterol that helps keep the LDL’s under control
Your Place in the Universe
If you’ve ever – just for fun – read your horoscope to find out what the universe has in store for you, don’t forget that the signs of the Zodiac are real constellations in the night sky. Astrology and Astronomy are very different things, but within the boundaries set by the International Astronomical Union, are the luminous stars, star clusters, galaxies and planetary nebulae that astrologers believe are connected to the month you were born.
Virgo: Aug 22-Sept 21
The Virgo Cluster
Though clusters of galaxies are almost an unimaginable concept, in space terms they aren’t that unusual. Within the constellation of Virgo are numerous clusters of galaxies that have been glowing, spinning, and expanding for millions of years.
Our Milky Way galaxy, for instance, contains some of the oldest stars in the universe. We’re part of the Local Group of galaxies that itself is located within the Virgo Supercluster.
Abell 1689 is over 2 billion light years away in the constellation Virgo and is one of the largest clusters of galaxies in the known universe
Spica
At only 250 light years from earth is Spica, the fifteenth brightest star in the sky and the alpha star of Virgo.
Though Spica glows like a single bright point of light, it’s really a star system, a binary whose primary and secondary components can only be separated by their spectral lines. They’re each main sequence stars, but the primary is a blue-white giant with enough mass that it could one day disappear in a supernova explosion. The secondary is much smaller but is still seven times larger and 1,800 times brighter than the earth’s sun. Each of the stars is rotating at a speed of 200 km/sec and they complete one orbit around each other every four days.
Spica was studied by Hipparchus in the second century BCE when he calculated that the earth is wobbling slightly as it spins on its axis, causing a westward shift in the stars, noticeable over thousands of years.