Refers to antibacterial soaps and chemicals that supposedly sanitize our hands but in reality kill the good along with the bad, thus leaving us naked without our little familiars or personal good bacteria working for us to combat the bad bacteria. While I appreciate the "Madison Avenue" issues, I'm not quite ready to return to the days when infant/child mortality due to amoebic dysentery, cholera, rheumatic fever, measles, and so on and so on was more than TWENTY TIMES what it is today. In Pennsylvania in 1912, the infant mortality rate (deaths per thousand) was 150. In 2012 it was 8. Both figures - 1912 and 2012 - include ALL deaths, not just those bacteria-borne ones. Nonetheless, "the good ol' days" weren't, and for the most part, are a fantasy no less "fabricated" by a DIFFERENT "Madison Avenue" than the fabrications of the chemo/pharmo shills. Sadly, in a world with such extraordinary access to information, it is harder to find THE TRUTH than it may ever have been in the history of human kind. We must all SEEK, and FIND, our own way in this world full of charlatans and snake-oil salesmen. Precisely why I do not share the infatuation with "all things worm", that some do. The TRUTH I find has been something less than "magic". And while I profoundly appreciate fermented food and drink - with all it's "good" little microbes - I have no illusion that the "good" ones will "win out" over the "bad" ones. They haven't throughout history, I don't know why they should now. What "wins" is a strong immune system, and when that fails, "you" die, regardless of whether you use "anti-microbial" soap or not. Paul

So what's the hubbub all about? As death rates in auto's goes, something has to be 1st, or last, however you want to phrase it. I'd bet the difference in odds in getting killed between the safest and the least safe vehicles are the same as buying one lottery ticket or a few more. Purchase two, three, or ten, you have better odds of winning, but not that much better. The problem is with the title which may be accurate, but imo can the wrong impression. So you have a blazer. Your odds of getting killed in it are 1 million to 308. What are your odds of not making it to the next morning from any cause on any given day? Somewhere around 100k to 1? Using stats that way, you'd better keep your butt inside that blazer forever if you have one because the odds of death increases if you climb out.

This being a fairly long thread, I'll answer a couple of points from ole joyful on behalf of the OP (but if I've gotten anything wrong, pls do correct me - I'm going on memory here, having contributed several times): >>This was term insurance/most are guaranteed renewals ... but usually at a substantially increased annual fee. >> No. This was an offer from the US Government. It is an unlimited term policy, which is unheard of from a private carrier. The premium remains the same in perpetuity, until the policyholder dies or allows the policy to lapse. >>If he could delay purchasing, until a time when people depended on him financially, he could (but - would he have?) invest the value of the premium for a few years until his need developed. >> The annual premium is a MAXIMUM of $365/yr and a minimum of $3.20/yr. I don't think there's an investment on this earth that would turn even the $365 maximum amount in a five- or ten-year period, into enough money to purchase a lifetime of premiums for a $400,000 30-yr Level Term policy on a male who is ratable for occupation and may by that time be ratable medically as well. Being ratable for occupation normally means a premium penalty from 40-150% in annual cost. The federal government is offering to insure this young man for: - The same premium a highly-rated A+ private carrier would charge to a healthy, non-smoking, "low-risk occupation" for $400K face amount - But instead of a 30-yr Level Term that would go up dramatically at age 54**, this policy remains in force and the premium remains the same, forever. ** For those that are not conversant with Level Term, the premium remains the same for the set number of years, but after that jumps so high (because you are now 10, 20, or 30 yrs older) that everybody drops the policy. So you want to have the term policy last until you have no need for it any longer. How high does it go? Well, after the Level Term period expires, it becomes an Annual Renewable Term policy, which is what ole joyful is referring to. For example, on a $250K policy I purchased on a 15-yr Level Term, I was rated standard for health, no rating for occupation. My premium is currently $600/yr. At the end of the 15 yr term, the annual premium jumps to $4,525, the year after that $4,912, then $5,360, etc. etc. Therefore, I will allow the policy to lapse at the end of the Level Term period.

Hi Heather, You're welcome ... ... and I'm wondering whether you are planning on living forever? I'd thought that, enjoying good health at 80, I'd like something akin to that ... ... until I got digging established grass with a fork, rising, getting down on knees, crawling along with plants to transplant in a small scoop, digging holes to receive them, carrying large bottles of water etc. while getting the garden going. I have some volunteer radishes in the area where radishes went to seed the year before last, and some that came up from seeds dropped last year ... plus, as last year, some volunteer squash plants where some deteriorated ones had been thrown back on the garden. My arthritic index finger on right hand lets me know that it's there, on occasion. Knees like some help from hands when rising from the ground. I think that, when I finish this journey, I too will be cremated. I think that, though the main plots on our family plot in the cemetery where Dad and Mom are buried are filled, it may be possible for my ashes to be buried just a short way underground on a plot already occupied, as Dad's was. Good wishes to you and yours for the upcoming season. ole joyful