Free Republic

The Supreme Court justices’ stance on President Obama’s Medicaid expansion provision could be good news for states that want to lower their drinking ages from the federally mandated 21. ... The Supreme Court ruled that threatening to take away a state’s Medicaid funding unless the state does what the federal government wants is “unconstitutionally coercive” and declared it invalid. Because any given part of a Supreme Court decision can set a precedent for future laws and can even invalidate an established law if it is challenged using the Supreme Court’s new argument, the Medicaid decision could affect the National Minimum...

Put a lid on it. That is the conclusion of research examining the amount of Clostridium difficile that flies into the air and contaminates surrounding surfaces with the flush of a lidless toilet. The investigation, published online December 2 in the International Journal of Hospital Infection, is the work of E. L. Best from the Microbiology Department, Old Medical School, Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds Teaching Hospital National Health Service Trust, United Kingdom, and colleagues. Using fecal suspensions of C difficile, the researchers measured airborne suspension of the bacteria in addition to surface contamination by the bacteria after flushing of both...

If you’re an environmentalist, particularly a San Francisco version of that creature (one of the most virulent of the breed), it must have come as quite a shock for you to learn that your muck stinks just as bad as a Rush Limbaugh fan’s output. The stench from the sewers in that earth-loving city has become overwhelming, “especially during the dry summer months.” Why? The low-flow toilets insisted upon (by force of law) by enlightened legislators are not saving the San Francisco environment as the science said they would. According to SF Gate, the near water-free commodes have forced city...

San Francisco's big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink. Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months. The city has already spent $100 million over the past five years to upgrade its sewer system and sewage plants, in part to combat the odor problem. Now officials are stocking up on a $14 million, three-year supply of highly concentrated sodium hypochlorite -...

Imagine a toilet that knows how long you've been there and flushes accordingly. Or one that raises the lid as you approach and lowers it as you walk away. Indeed, the toilet of the future will do everything but wash your . . . oh, wait, it does that, too. And then dries you when it's finished. But the toilet of the future is also a molded plastic potty perched over a pit, the waste composting below. These are the two directions toiletry is headed - ultra luxury for the high-end, ultra simplicity for eco-types. Not to mention the 2.6...

When the government regulates how much water a toilet can flush, or what kind of lightbulbs you can put in your table lamps at home, the Constitution looks pretty small in the rear view mirror. Exactly where in the Constitution does it say that it is the government's business how much water my toilet is flushing or what kind of lightbulb illuminates my household? But the busybodies in the environmental movement have folks convinced of a lot of things that just aren't so. Remember the campaign that passed the lightbulb bill? The holier-than-thou greenies told us that if we only...

Middle Eastern-style 'squat' toilets are to be fitted in a shopping centre after bosses attended a cultural awareness course. WCs at Rochdale's Exchange shopping centre will include two Nile pans alongside traditional western toilets when they reopen following a refurbishment. The pans differ from western toilets as the user is able to squat over them, rather than sitting.

BOSTON, June 7 (UPI) -- Some Boston officials say they want to convert two former public toilet facilities into upscale outdoor eating establishments. The idea of converting the aging gothic-style "Pink Palace" at Boston Commons and a grungy closed-up restroom called the Duck House in the Back Bay Fens neighborhood will be presented to lawmakers at a Statehouse meeting Tuesday by the city's Parks and Recreation Commission staff, the Boston Herald reports.

Vivian Y. Bright likes to watch her congressman at work, but she was glad when Rep. Edolphus Towns finally gaveled to a close a hearing on sexual disparity in federal restrooms -- because she had to find one. "Just now, we experienced it," she said. "We went to the ladies room. There's a line." The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Towns (D-N.Y.) chairs, heard testimony Wednesday on legislation to develop a more equitable sexual balance in the number of toilets in federal buildings.

Old toilets are backing up Austin-area landfills. The City Council plan approved last month to help apartment complexes install new water-efficient toilets has resulted in older models packing rapidly filling landfills. Critics say up to 280 tons of toilets could be dumped in county landfills, contradicting the city's long-held commitment to recycling. "It's a clear example of the City of Austin's left hand not knowing what its right hand is doing," Rick Cofer, co-chairman of the city's Solid Waste Advisory Commission, said in Friday's editions of the Austin American-Statesman. The city offers free and discounted water-saving toilets to homeowners and...

Airline: Women only toilets Some will say it's about time ... but others will ask how is this possible in these 'tough economic' times? Just the same Japan's All Nippon Airways plans to start offering a toilet - for women only. (So much for putting the lid down.)

The ancient Mayans may have had enough engineering know-how to master running water, creating fountains and even toilets by controlling water pressure, scientists now suggest... Scientists investigated the Mayan center at Palenque in Chiapas, Mexico. At its height, this major site, inhabited from roughly 100 to 800 AD, had some 1,500 structures -- residences, palaces, and temples -- holding some 6,000 inhabitants under a series of powerful rulers. The center at Palenque also had what was arguably the most unique and intricate system of water management known anywhere in the Maya lowlands. These involved elaborate subterranean aqueducts to deal with...

WASHINGTON -- The feds are spending tens of millions of stimulus dollars to repair and build toilets across the nation, in an outflow of taxpayer funds that critics have branded "potty pork." From humble sylvan outhouses to "historic" restrooms, cash from the $787 billion stimulus is going to spruce up or completely replace aging toilets, government releases show. In New Mexico alone, the feds are spending $2.8 million for toilets in national forests.

Some of these toilets are absolutely hilarious. They are enough to make you wet yourself laughing. Bet you thought going to do the business was just another unpleasant chore people just had to get on with. When you gotta go, you gotta go, as they say. But some people, like the owners of these funny toilets, like to do with style, with imagination, with a flourish. Don't these zany toilets make the dready job of relieving yourself a whole lotta extra fun!

Bottom reached “Natural living” advocates unveil their latest planet-saving invention - the reusable toilet wipe.

A GUEST at a Dutch hotel found a live, 2.5 metre python in the toilet, alerting authorities who arrested four people for illegally trading in rare animals, it was reported today. In yesterday's incident the snake is believed to have slithered up the drain from a room below, where authorities discovered about 30 exotic animals, ANP reported, quoting the police. The animals included snakes, geckos, frogs, salamanders and a baby crocodile.

More than one billion people worldwide have no toilet and defecate outside, while some have to be shamed into changing their habits when presented with conveniences, a conference was told. Humanitarian organisations have for decades tried various ways -- be it new systems, pumps or subsidies -- of getting people in developing countries to stop defecating outdoors due to the serious health risks concerned. But despite their efforts, an estimated 1.2 billion people, primarily in Asia and Africa, still don't use toilets to defecate, a forum of experts meeting in Stockholm was told. For many extremely poor people who are...

New flats for elderly people have opened in Bristol - with toilets that do not face Mecca. The Muslim-friendly Very Sheltered Housing (VSH) scheme in Lincoln Street, Lawrence Hill, also includes beds that allow a tenant's feet to point in the right direction. Lincoln Gardens cost more than £6 million, has 55 bedrooms and was put up by the city council and the Guinness Trust on the site of the former Wainbrook elderly persons' home. It includes 19 flats suitable for "tenants from the Muslim community" following local consultation. A council spokesman said: "The toilets in these flats are orientated...

Andy Rogers / P-I Justin Hall leaves the automatic public toilet at Hing Hay Park, one of five installed by the city in 2004. Hall, who is homeless and trying to get off the street, uses the toilets regularly. A recently completed report by Seattle Public Utilities recommends that the city cancel its contract for the costly self-cleaning lavatories. Cancel toilet contract, city told By ANGELA GALLOWAY P-I REPORTER The naysayers may have been right: Seattle's multimillion-dollar, high-tech public toilet program looks like a washout.Some city officials, including the city's wastewater utility director, want to remove the five automated,...

About two in every five people still have no access to a proper toilet, said the World Health Organisation and the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF), warning that the lack of sanitation is putting 2.6 billion people at risk of disease. "In the world today, there are 15 million deaths caused by infectious diseases," said David Heyman, WHO's assistant director general for health security and environment. "If we had good sanitation today, and good water supplies, we could decrease that immediately by two million -- those children who are dying unnecessarily from diarrhoea diseases."