A deaf puppy has learned to communicate with her master using sign language.

via Deaf puppy learns sign language – Telegraph.

<snip>So last Saturday they planned a car wash at a local Arby’s and got the word out a few days before in a newspaper story.The car wash started off slowly.”Nobody was coming and then a guy pulled up in a truck and he said, ‘I don’t want my truck washed but this is for you,’” Stephanie said.He handed her an envelope and went to wish Adam a Merry Christmas.”I started counting and counting and counting and it was just $100 bill after $100 bill,” Stephanie said.The envelope contained $2,000, an amount that brought Stephanie and her husband, Tim, to tears.The man who delivered it refused to give his name.”I have never met the man before, I asked him his name and he just waved me off,” Stephanie said. Adam calls him a “heavenly messenger.” The money will allow them to put a down payment on Scout and pick him up on Christmas Day.<snip>

via Stranger’s generosity means Valley man will get service dog | azfamily.com Phoenix.

In a small pilot program playing out during the special primary election to replace former U.S. Rep. David Wu, about 12 voters have filled out their ballots on Apple’s touch-screen tablet.

As far as elections officials in Oregon can tell, it’s a first for any state.

“We’re really at the edge,” said Secretary of State Kate Brown. “We want to make voting as convenient as possible.”

via Oregon looks to iPad to make voting easier for those with disabilities | OregonLive.com.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Inglis Foundation, also based in Philadelphia, are partnering with Boston public broadcaster WGBH’s Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) on a joint project to explore how adaptive technology can make personal health records accessible to people with disabilities. NCAM is the project leader and principal recipient of the three-year, $600,000 grant, awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The grant, titled “Accessible Designs for Personal Health Records,” is funded by the Department of Education’s National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The project began operations last month.

via Grant Will Help Bridge Digital Divide for People with Disabilities — PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –.

Every October marks National Disability Employment Awareness Month. October also is also a good time to clear up myths and attitudinal barriers that still hinder people with disabilities who want to work from obtaining employment.

While the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 has made great strides in the area of employment for people with disabilities, 20 years after the ADA took effect, only one-third of Americans with disabilities were employed, even though more than two-thirds of unemployed people with disabilities said they would like to work. Clearly, we must even the playing field and how we do that depends on employers changing their attitudes about hiring people with disabilities — and that means getting the facts straight.

Here are some tangible ways to tackle the employment and disability quagmire.

via Independent Living: Employees with disabilities can work to dispel myths | The Ithaca Journal | theithacajournal.com.

Service dog and family pet Zeus in Staten Island kill shelter

Zeus is in danger of being put to sleep. This shelter kills 24/7. Zeus was a family dog since 3 weeks old. He is a year and a half old gorgeous white AmStaff.

Zeus is a registered service dog. Like so many others in New York, he will most likely die.

via Service dog and family pet Zeus in Staten Island kill shelter – National American Pit Bull | Examiner.com.

Amends the School Code. In provision permitting a service animal to accompany a student with a disability at all school functions, whether in or outside the classroom, defines “service animal” to include an animal trained or being trained as: a hearing animal; a guide animal; an assistance animal; a seizure alert animal; a mobility animal; a psychiatric service animal; or an autism service animal. Provides that reasonable accommodations must be sought for the use of a service animal to accompany a student with a disability at all school functions, whether in or outside the classroom (rather than the service animal being permitted at all school functions). Amends the Guide Dog Access Act. Changes the title of the Act to the Service Dog Access Act. Includes mobility, psychiatric service, and autism service dogs in the list of animals that must be allowed access to a public place of accommodation if such dog is wearing a harness, backpack, or vest identifying the dog as a trained service dog and such person presents credentials for inspection issued by a school for training guide, leader, seizure-alert, seizure-response, or autism service dogs. Effective immediately.

via Illinois General Assembly – Bill Status for HB3826.

“A lot of our foreign offices are being deluged with questions,” says Mary Lou Valdez, FDA’s associate commissioner for international programs. “The China office has done significant outreach with Chinese officials and exporters” and translations of the law into 11 languages are popular downloads.

Valdez says FDA translated the Food Safety and Modernization Act, which became law earlier this year, into 11 languages using eight different alphabets. Excluding English, they include the five other, official United Nations languages—Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish—and six languages that represent the top countries from which the United States imports food—Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Thai, and Hindi.

President Obama signed the food safety act into law on Jan. 4. It enables FDA to more effectively guard against foodborne illness by focusing on prevention, as opposed to reacting to contamination and other food safety problems after they happen.

“For imported foods, the primary difference under the new law is that, for the first time, importers will be specifically required to have a program to verify that the food products they are bringing into this country are safe,” says David Elder, director of FDA’s Office of Regulatory Operations.

Increased Authority

Because a high percentage of some foods—such as seafood and fresh fruit—served in U.S. households and restaurants are imported, the law gives FDA important new authority to hold imported foods to the same standards as domestic foods. This authority includes:

Importer accountability—For the first time, importers have an explicit responsibility to verify that their foreign suppliers have adequate controls in place to ensure that the food they produce is safe.

Third-party certification—It establishes a program through which qualified third parties can certify that foreign food facilities comply with U.S. food safety standards. This certification may be used to facilitate the entry of imports.

Certification for high-risk foods—FDA has the authority to require that imported foods that are at high risk of contamination have a credible third-party certification or other assurance of compliance as a condition of entry into the U.S. The “third party” could be a private company or a governmental entity.

Voluntary qualified importer program—FDA must establish a voluntary program for importers that provides for expedited review and entry of foods from participating importers. Eligibility is limited to, among other things, importers offering food from program-certified facilities.

Authority to deny entry—FDA can refuse entry into the U.S. of food from a foreign facility if the agency is denied inspection access by the facility or the country in which the facility is located.

Inspections Abroad

The law also directs FDA to develop a plan to expand the technical, scientific, and regulatory food safety capabilities of foreign governments and their industries. Part of the plan includes training foreign governments and food producers on U.S. food safety requirements.

Elder says resident investigators in FDA’s foreign offices have already gotten a jump on the requirements.

“FDA’s foreign offices have already exceeded our operational expectations,” he says. “Investigative staff in-country have conducted many routine and directed inspections to support FDA’s foreign inspection program. They have already been working closely with the host country inspectors to help them better understand what our requirements are.”

And the foreign inspection program is bearing fruit, Elder says. Last year, a food producer in China—the site of FDA’s first foreign office—refused to allow an FDA investigator to perform an inspection.

“That resulted in FDA’s first ever import alert based on a foreign firm’s refusal to permit an FDA inspection,” Elder says.

In addition, Elder says investigators in FDA’s 11 foreign offices have obtained and shared local information that resulted in better identifying the products coming into the U.S. that might not meet strict FDA standards.

“Their efforts to build productive working relationships with, and provide training and technical assistance to, regulatory officials in foreign countries will serve us well in the long term by supporting awareness, collaboration, and product safety,” Elder says.

This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.

Posted September 29, 2011

Resource: [url]http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm273561.htm[/url]

Google plus vs Facebook…. IMHO……..

They both have their pros and cons.

Facebook as we all know has added majour features. In my Opinion many are not so good. Some actually works for me. Lets go to what doesn’t work

Putting together both Top Stories and More Recent Stories is a bad feature. One should be able to have a choice from the get go to decide and that it sticks. Not this click and it scrolls down for you to recent stories and then you have to scroll back to others too. To make this feature better IMO is to have it by default recent stories and have that drop window for one to choose if it’s worthy enough to be a top story. Not the other way around.

Next comes the real time ticker. This is ridiculous to have as you see the same posts in your news feeds. They also now have it below the sponsors in which it covers almost the whole left side for those having their browser fonts large. The settings aren’t the same. This movement without having a shut off button or ignore button could cause many people with disabilities issues. Similar to KMarts blue special sells … The blue light flashing could cause those with seizures and seizure episodes. Others whom may have health issues such as cluster migraines or legally blind, the constant movement could become a majour issue.

Now with that said there are a few things that is good with facebook. Remember I said a few. <g>

Subscriptions….. There are two parts to this although many people don’t realize. First anybody that is on your friends list is automatically subscribed to your status. Now though your friends have control as to what status one wants to receive on their news feeds. Such as if you prefer not to see any type of games you could just hover over the individuals name and then hover over subscriptions and uncheck the box next to games. If you uncheck the box called comments / likes you will never see those individual posts from that person. It has nothing to do with you posting and it becoming public.

The second part of this equation is that you could choose to turn on the public subscriptions. This is good for businesses, Organizations, and Advocates alike. Because people then do not have to request to be your friend they could just click subscribe. And like wordpress, blogs , etc they will receive posts in their news feed. Only difference is that when you post if it’s not posted for Public then no matter what they cannot see your posts. Unless you have your wall open for the public. I have my subscription off as there was a minour bug in it. It allowed guests to post comments when it shouldn’t. This maybe fixed and I will have to check into it again.

OK Now with that said. Google Plus….

Since this is actually my second day on this I am still trying to find my way around. This doesn’t mean that their interface is not accessible or easy to navigate. It just means I don’t know every aspect of it.

Google Plus has a simple (at least so far) interface. Easy to use from what I can tell and if you have gmail account you will see when logged in your Plus at the top left. On the right you could also post your stuff to your plus without actually going there. OK that to me is a plus. lol.

Circles are similar to facebook lists. But I find this better. From the get go with FB I actually had to make lists in which if I choose to I could send posts to only particular group of people. To get there you have to go into friends which is now even more steps to find create a list. Although FB never had made listings until now and of course very few. Whereas Plus has Circles that seems to layout at the bottom when you click circles.  Yes there’s a small toolbar when you log in. Home, About, Circles, and a couple more. Your friends are listed up above and you could click on as many as you could and drag them into a particular circle or circles. This layout is easier then facebook. Less steps IMO.

Now the only thing I see right now is that there is no share button unless you are friends with each other. There are some posts made to be shared with whether or not one has google plus. I don’t notice that option but again plus is still in beta mode even though it’s open for the public.

Another thing I notice is that when you invite people to join from my understanding as they sit up above in the circle section it doesn’t say pending. Also if you add them into one of your circle from my understanding when you post for that particular group they will indeed receive that post via email. I’m not sure if you don’t put them into any circle if they would still receive any type of post or not. This could be a con for plus.

I also cannot find out how somebody whom comes across one of plus public post, how they could request joining. Still looking at plus in all aspects. However again from what I can see Google Plus is user friendly.

Well that is my take for the two biggest social network giants. Yes I do consider Google to be a giant, just look at their Browser.

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services CMS announced the award of $1,980,000 in grants to six states to develop sustainable partnerships with State Housing Agencies.

via PWD SD Awareness – Google+ – Hmmmm! I find this quite interesting. Don’t you!.

Yes this goes to my google + as I was trying to see how it works. It didn’t actually put the other link in. But that’s OK.