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Most Active Stories
- Pollutants detected in water wells in Sublette County’s gas fields
- New Northern Arapaho Business Council resolves to fix tribe’s poor financial management
- Wyoming may have missed the Uranium boom
- New lead in the disappearance of Amy Wroe Bechtel
- Wyoming Judicial Branch says there’s nothing left to cut.
On Air Staff and WPM Interns
Mon January 9, 2012
Encana Asks EPA To Suspend Public Comment
Encana Oil and Gas says the Environmental Protection Agency is moving too fast with its draft analysis of ground water contamination in the town of Pavillion, and has asked the EPA to suspend the public comment period.
In a letter dated January 6th, Encana oil and gas asked the EPA to suspend the public comment period until the agency’s plans were better explained and additional critical data could be disseminated.
In early December the EPA released a draft of its ground water investigation in the town of Pavillion, which indicated that the area’s aquifer contains compounds that are: “Likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing.”
Encana contends that the data does not establish a connection between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination, and has filed a FOIA request for additional data from the EPA.
In late December officials from the Wyoming Water Development Commission slammed the EPA’s report, saying that samples were improperly tested yet sources within the EPA have called that accusation a “mischaracterization.”
EPA officials have refrained from doing interviews with the media until the public comment and review process is over, but say they are reviewing Encana’s request.
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Coke and Pepsi. McDonald’s and Burger King. Ford and General Motors.
In some industries, two companies often dominate. But that doesn’t make the entire industry a duopoly. If anything, smaller players in this industry can offer growth opportunities. But usually, one position in an industry in particular offers the trifecta of safety, growth, and income.
I call these “third place” investments.
As an investor, finding companies in third place behind two companies fighting for market share can make for better returns. Why? Because these companies have more growth ahead, and don’t have to spend as much time worrying about what a close peer is doing that may cause competition.
For example, in the 1980s, Coca-Cola and Pepsi engaged in heavy marketing campaigns that compared their product to each other in taste tests, as well as the rollout of new flavors. Each company was so brutal to the other in their marketing that one name stuck out to describe what happened: The cola wars.
But while Coke and Pepsi had the first and second most popular sodas, the third, Dr Pepper, wasn’t owned by either of them. It did enjoy the same advantages of the cola industry as its substantially larger competitors, such as a strong brand that loyal followers were willing to pay for.
It’s been several years since Dr Pepper-Snapple Group (DPS) was spun out from Cadbury. Since that time, the company has paid off debt ahead of schedule, implemented a 3.3 percent dividend, and has enjoyed modest growth in a US cola market that hasn’t grown.
On one level, that’s the power of being third: You don’t get the attention of the biggest players, but you still have the same advantages they do, with some better growth potential to boot.
Along those lines, look at Yum Brands (YUM), which has had to compete with the likes of McDonald’s and Burger King. Through its restaurant chains Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC, Yum is still less than a third the size of the Golden Arches.
But when it comes to global growth, Colonel Sanders gets more customers than Ronald McDonald any day. Yum Brands has been rapidly expanding in emerging markets, notably China, at a faster rate than McDonald’s. Yum Brands 2,800 restaurants in China outnumber McDonald’s 1,300 locations by more than two-to-one.
The company’s 2.3 percent yield isn’t quite as good as McDonald’s, but Yum has grown its dividend by five-fold since 2004. By comparison, McDonald’s has grown its dividend by four-fold over the same period. That’s a great record of dividend growth, but given the growth prospects, Yum is a better bet.
When you’re number one, you’ve got to look out for the person most likely to replace you and knock you down a peg. In investing, there are often better opportunities looking for the company that’s number three in a profitable industry.
© 2013 Moneynews. All rights reserved.
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Flipping through the television channels the other evening, I stopped at one of the many that I refer to as the “God channels”—meaning that they are exclusively Christian-based programming. A middle-aged female had the stage and she was offering a lively blend of humor and sermon to a large audience about what it means to be Christian. I was impressed with her candor and courage to speak about the Christian community needing to reinvent itself and step up to the plate: to act like true “Christians.” She chastised people for the petty bickering and gossip so prevalent in the ministries she knew, and reminded the audience that to truly be Christian is to be forgiving, joyful, peaceable, committed, (etc), and requires self-control—meaning, that we each need to take responsibility for behavior. She concluded by saying, “Love God for who he is, and not for what he can do for you.” And I realized that these words hold great wisdom for all, regardless of our inclination toward either religion or spirituality.
So often the self-improvement bandwagon entices us with promises about what we will personally achieve from our inner ministering, rather than loving the virtues themselves. After all, most of us have something in our lives that we want to change or improve, so it’s an easy sell. And while there is nothing wrong with setting goals, or aspiring toward a more favorable outcome as a result of our self-improvement, what truly strengthens and reshapes us at our core is when we keep practicing being more joyful, or more peaceable, or more forgiving, rather than achieving a specific end result. The virtues themselves are the constant, the immutable principles that expand our minds and open our hearts, that connect us to whatever we conceive of as divine, and allow the possibility of something different—better—to manifest as our experience. I think I’ll call love, peace-building, and forgiveness the God channels from now on!
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To reach Supreme Court, first court the senators
Elena Kagan is making the rounds.
To get a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, a nominee must first wear out a lot of shoe leather on Capitol Hill. And smile, smile, smile.
So that’s precisely what President Barack Obama’s choice for the high court has been doing this week. While Kagan is considered likely to get Senate confirmation, nothing is ever guaranteed in this process – remember President George W. Bush’s nominee Harriet Miers?
The other hard-and-fast rule of these Hill chats is that afterward the senators talk, the Supreme Court nominee doesn’t.
So let’s take a look at what the senators took away from their meetings with Kagan.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a Democrat who used to be a Republican, said Kagan agreed with him that the court takes too few cases and erred this year in a landmark ruling that struck down campaign finance limits. “She said she felt that the court was not sufficiently deferential to Congress” in the Citizens United case, Specter said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the meeting left him confident that Kagan was the right choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. “She has a strong belief that the Supreme Court should be a forum where the rule of law wins out and where people from every walk of life can receive a fair hearing.”
And this video is an example of the sort of pleasantries exchanged during these courtesy calls – Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican from Utah, points out a gun hanging in his office to Kagan.
The process has just begun and many more Senate doors to knock on…
Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan meets with Senator Patrick Leahy), Reuters/Larry Downing (Kagan meets with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell)
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FTC, States Crack Down on 'Phoney' PhilanthropyThe Federal Trade Commission, working with law enforcement in 34 states, completed a crackdown on charity fraud by fundraising telemarketers in a national sweep dubbed "Operation Phoney Philanthropy," the agency said yesterday.
Five charity fundraising operations face civil complaints of misleading donors in their solicitations for contributions as part of the sweep. The FTC focused on "badge scams," fundraisers who claim to solicit funds for police and firefighter organizations but who allocate little revenue to their promised causes.
Such scams continue even though fraudulent firefighter and police charity scams involving Sept. 11 seem to have tapered off, said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection. He said that fraudulent fundraising schemes were "particularly heartless scams."
The cases filed by the FTC preceded the May 5 Supreme Court decision in Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates in which the court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect fraudulent claims made by fundraisers but confirmed existing protections for legitimate nonprofit fundraisers, Beales said. The FTC applauded the decision but has always maintained the right to pursue fraudulent claims made for charity fundraising, he said.
The Supreme Court has barred states from setting standards on how much of the money collected by fundraisers should go to charity. However, the Better Business Bureau stipulates that charities should spend no more than 35 percent of annual donations on fundraising costs.
Telemarketing is the most expensive method of fundraising, particularly when used for acquiring new donors, and should be used in conjunction with less-expensive solicitations such as direct mail, said Art Taylor, president/CEO of the bureau's WiseGiving Alliance. Donors should expect that when they donate in response to a telemarketing solicitation, their donation is more costly to acquire.
The five cases filed by the FTC include:
· Community Affairs Inc., Pompano Beach, FL, also known as Powertel and Mountaineer Teleservices, is charged with having its agents represent themselves in telemarketing calls as members of law enforcement or firefighting organizations. Clients, from which the company retained 75 percent to 90 percent of donations raised, included the Virginia Firefighters Foundation and the Texas Fraternal Order of Police, the FTC said.
· West Coast Advertising, San Diego, is charged with falsely claiming in telemarketing calls that a client, the Junior Police Academy, is connected with local law enforcement agencies and sends police officers to local schools, and that donations to client American Veteran's Network, a program of Shiloh International Ministries, benefit particular veterans causes.
· DPS Activity Publishing, a for-profit publishing company based in Canada, made telemarketing calls to businesses in small U.S. communities charging $5 for books the company falsely stated would go to children in hospitals, when the hospitals either never received or had no interest in the books, the FTC alleged. A federal judge in Seattle ordered that mail sent to the company in Canada from the United States be halted.
· Clinton Greenwell of Texas is charged with misrepresenting himself as a member of a law enforcement agency and falsely telling businesses they were obligated to pay for advertising in publications including State Police Magazine, State Police Enforcers Yearbook and State Police Officers Yearbook.
· Tamara Bell of Anaheim, CA, is charged with creating six sham nonprofit corporations to illicitly raise funds for personal enrichment. A settlement of the charges bans the six nonprofits from telemarketing and restricts Bell's use of telemarketing for charity fundraising unless she discloses how contributions will be spent and the nonprofit's city and state, and alerts consumers that she is a professional fundraiser.
Sixteen states also filed law enforcement actions related to the sweep, the FTC said.
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For Immediate Release
American Friends of British Art
February 20, 2010
(Photography by Lucien Capehart)
“Lord Raynham’s Tea Party”
Lord Thomas Townshend was a well-received substitute for his father, The Viscount Raynham, in hosting a lecture and tea party to benefit American Friends of British Art (AFBA). AFBA’s founder and president, Dr. Michael Ridgdill, introduced the young English lord, who hails from two of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families and is heir to his grandfather’s four hereditary titles. The Viscount Raynham is Patron of AFBA. Attendees enjoyed a visual presentation of the Townshend family history and of their magnificent private art collection, while being reminded of the importance of supporting AFBA. The event was held in a private salon at the Palm Beach County Convention Center during the 2010 Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show.
Famed interior designer William R. Eubanks and his design partner Mitchell Brown served as Design Sponsor for the event, transforming the tea party salon into a regal “Palm Court” setting of antique Chinese porcelain, enormous potted palms, and various royal and noble portraits adorning the walls.
The tea party was presented by U.S. Trust and Bank of America Private Wealth Management, with additional sponsorship provided by Smith and Moore Architects and South Florida Financial Services, LLC.
Founded in 2003, American Friends of British Art is a 501c3 charity whose mission is to fund the restoration and preservation of historic art and architecture in Great Britain. Since their founding, AFBA has helped with the restoration of several projects in England and Scotland, and are currently seeking assistance in helping to fund the restoration of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, which is the resting place of William Shakespeare. Donations made through AFBA are tax-deductible.
Information: 561.687.3394 or http://americanfriendsofbritishart.com/
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BARRY WILNER,AP Pro Football Writer
The tuck rule could disappear from NFL games if owners approve a proposal from the competition committee to dump it.
The owners, who meet next week in Phoenix, also will consider a change to instant replay rules allowing for a video review even when a coach makes an illegal challenge.
Under the tuck rule, if a passer is in the act of bringing the ball down into his body rather than throwing it and loses control, it is ruled an incomplete pass. The proposal under consideration would make it a fumble.
Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay, president of the Atlanta Falcons, noted the controversial history of the tuck rule Thursday. He said the change has full support from on-field officials, particularly now that all turnovers are automatically reviewed.
“What is happening is a great majority of these plays are appropriately called fumbles,” McKay said on a conference call. “Then officials go into replay and look at it, and under the rule if the tuck had not been completed (the call) has to be reversed from … a fumble. They think they can call it and can understand when a passer has lost control of the ball, so we felt more comfortable proposing the rule.”
The rule was among the NFL’s most obscure until it became infamous during the 2001 playoffs in New England, when Tom Brady apparently lost a fumble late in a game against Oakland. Initially ruled a fumble, it was reversed under the tuck rule, the Patriots kept the ball and eventually beat the Raiders.
Replay also plays a key role in another potential rule change.
Last Thanksgiving, Detroit coach Jim Schwartz challenged what officials ruled was an 81-yard scoring run by Houston’s Justin Forsett. Because all scoring plays are reviewed, Schwartz was not allowed to throw the red flag, and by doing so he negated use of replay. Forsett clearly had been down by contact earlier in the run, but the touchdown stood and the Texans went on to win in overtime.
McKay called the way the rule stood “an anomaly.”
The proposal will ensure the play is reviewed and the right call is made, but the coach making the illegal challenge will draw a 15-yard penalty. Forbidden challenges occur when a team is out of timeouts; has used up its challenges; in the final two minutes of a half; in overtime; or on scoring plays or turnovers.
Should a coach challenge in the final two minutes of halves or in OT, he will lose a timeout as well as have his team penalized 15 yards.
Three player safety rule changes will be proposed:
— Initiating contact with the crown of the helmet would be a foul if a tackler or a runner does it when both players are outside the tackle box. Incidental contact with the crown of the helmet would not be a penalty.
“This is pure and simple a player safety rule,” McKay said. “The time has come we need to address the situation. You can’t duck your head and deliver a forcible blow with your helmet.”
Doing so will result in a 15-yard penalty.
“We’re looking for the obvious fouls on this one,” he added. “We realize this is a major change for players and coaches.”
— No longer could offensive players make a low block when facing their own end zone and they are inside the tackle box. That will prohibit so-called peel-back blocks anywhere on the field.
— Teams couldn’t line up more than six players on either side of the snapper for field goals and extra points. And teammates couldn’t be pushed through gaps in the protection on those kicks.
“Teams will still have opportunities to overload and affect a kick and still potentially block those kicks,” said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, another co-chairman of the committee.
Next season, players will be required to wear knee and thigh pads. Ray Anderson, who as the league’s executive vice president of football operations will oversee enforcement, said the NFL will be vigorous in ensuring players use them, beginning in the preseason.
Many players, particularly in skill positions, have fought the extra padding, saying it slows them down.
Anderson said the league office will be more proactive in making sure fields are suitable for games. He did not cite specifics, but the Washington Redskins were heavily criticized for the condition of their field for their wild-card game against Seattle. Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year, and Seahawks defensive end Chris Clemons both hurt their knees during that game.
One other proposal will allow teams to keep players on the physically unable to perform list through Week 11 instead of Week 9.
McKay added that scoring in 2012 was the highest since 1965 at 45.5 points per game and fourth highest in league history.
(© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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A fiery priest, once silenced by the Vatican for his controversial views on feminism, sexuality, and the priesthood, calls for a return to Christianity's mystical origins.
Sounds True:In your workshops, books, and recorded lectures, you often use the term “Cosmic Christ Archetype.” Can you begin by helping us understand what you mean by this term?
Matthew Fox:An archetype is a universal experience. And the “Cosmic Christ Archetype” is a universal way of seeing the world. The Cosmic Christ Archetype is a way of seeing the splendor and divine grace in all things. Hildegard of Bingen, the twelfth century Christian mystic, said, “Every creature is a glittering mirror of divinity.” In terms of John's gospel, this is the light of Christ in every creature.
If I try to relate in terms of today's sciences, I think of photons (a tiny indivisible quantity of electromagnetic energy). We know that there are photons in every atom, in every being. Therefore, the Cosmic Christ is the divine radiance that's present in every galaxy, in every star, every porpoise, every blade of grass, and every human.
The Cosmic Christ Archetype is not unique to the Christian or the Jewish tradition. It appears in Eastern traditions as well. Buddhists talk about the “Buddha nature” that is in every flower, in every child, and in every smile. This is the Cosmic Christ; it's just another language.
Sounds True:I know you have worked with many influential physicists relating the discoveries of modern physics to the discoveries of mystics throughout the ages. What about the recent discovery in quantum physics—that the universe is expanding? Does this mean that the Cosmic Christ Archetype is expanding or evolving in some way?
Matthew Fox: Absolutely. Most societies thought that time and space were eternal in their present forms. Not too long ago, we began thinking about time as being evolutionary, but now we're learning that space is something that is being created and expanded. So I think it gives us permission to expand our vision of the Cosmic Christ—in fact it demands of us that we expand.
I think it's like the opposite of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is the resistance to expansion. It is a desire born out of fear, to trap and hold back, to build walls and moats of orthodoxy and exclusion. Whereas we now know the law of the universe is to be inclusive and expansive.
I think that plays very much into a spiritual consciousness—a mysticism which is what the Cosmic Christ experience is all about—going beyond the ordinary levels of space/time relations and limitations.
Sounds True: What are some of the practical implications of the Cosmic Christ tradition? If we look at our world, with its starvation and inequities and ecological problems, how can the lessons of the Cosmic Christ Archetype be of help?
Matthew Fox: To begin, let's look at the ecological crisis. This archetype, I think, has a power much more than, for example, a stewardship theology which is based on duty, and really, guilt. That we have to save the environment, that kind of thing. This is not about duty; it's about pleasure and delight. That the earth is a garden, radiating with a divine presence. When it is in danger, it is like the crucified Christ; the compelling urgency here is born out of the experience of beauty and grace, not out of duty. Beauty and grace inspire us to let go of our lifestyles that are hostile to the health of the environment, and to recreate our lives in terms of politics, economics, education, worship, all of it. So that's one of the practical implications—in terms of the ecological crisis, it gets us moving and awake.
Another is worship. Worship is so dead in most of the West. And the reason is that it's become heady and wordy, and anthropocentric. It has become boring. But the Cosmic Christ Archetype invites us back into the lower chakras, to start breathing again and rediscovering the ways of praying that we've lost and reduced to words. I'm talking about the drumming, and the sweat lodges, and the earth spirituality, and the playfulness of dances—spiral dances, circle dances—the forms of prayer that get us back into our bodies and in touch with the earth again.
The whole idea of reawakening worship is so important. When you look at native traditions, they use worship to pass on education to the young. It's not through schools and books. And the fact is that our schools are failing us. That's a whole other topic: the task of renewing education. Schools are failing us partly because they're modeled on European Cartesian definitions of truth—clear and distinct ideas, left-brain only. The Cosmic Christ demands heart work, which is bodywork really: breathing, and ritual, and the right brain. When you get both sides of the brain going, then you have authentic education.
Another practical result of the Cosmic Christ is what I call “deep ecumenism.” Because the Cosmic Christ Archetype exists all around the world, and embraces all the great religions, I see an opportunity to draw forth the wisdom from all the world religions. This practice involves praying and exploring the mystical practices of other religions—whether it's breathing, chanting, sweat lodges, dancing, drumming—all the different ways of using worship to evoke the cosmic wisdom. And we need this so badly as a species today; we need all the wisdom we can get.
Sounds True: I'm interested in this idea of redeeming worship. I do believe that many people don't find inspiration or an opportunity for satisfying worship in the traditional churches or temples. Can you talk more about that?
Matthew Fox:We just held a conference this fall in North Carolina for five days around the theme of renewing forms of worship. It was really wonderful. There was a very diverse group of people from all different religious backgrounds. Some of them had left religion completely. But we put a lot of planning into it, and it really worked. I feel so strongly that if we could only renew worship, we could change society—its potential is that radical. Worship is education of the heart as well as the head; the young, the old, the children, all of us can be involved in it.
Sounds True: What if somebody is reading this, and they don't have much of a community for worship? They don't find much connection with their church or synagogue, but they want to pray. What would you say to someone who wanted to pray, but didn't know how to go about it?
Matthew Fox: There's so much to say about your question. One kind of prayer is to just sit and be quiet; to just listen to one's breathing, and breathe in and breathe out. It's something of a conscious way of realizing that breath is the ultimate gift. We know someone's dead when they can't breathe anymore, so breath and life go together. And so do breath and spirit. They're the same word. We have to pay attention to the things we take for granted, and holy breath is one of them. Listening to your breathing is very simple and wonderful. “Something you always have with you,” as Groucho Marx would say.
The keys to prayer are attention and concentration. They're helpful in the next way to pray, which is to go into nature, and again, just listen. Go into the woods, not thinking of all kinds of problems, be aware of your breathing, and be present with the leaves, and the trees, and the wind, and the animals.
Another way to pray is what we call “arts meditation.” This is a way to go into yourself and find your personal images, and give birth to them through painting, or dance, or storytelling, or poetry. It's a very powerful way to pray, and I think a very essential way to pray, too.
Also, read the mystics. When you read a book by a mystic, such as a book by Hildegard of Bingen, you stop whenever you hit a passage that strikes you. Just stop. The point of reading a mystic isn't to finish the book, it is to pray. And these mystics are wonderful because they are poets of the spiritual journey; they engage us with their amazing images. They can bring the mystic out of us.
You learn to play tennis by playing with someone who already knows how to do it. So you nourish your own mystic by reading the mystics who are solid. Not reading them in an academic fashion, but with your heart. And that's a real help for prayer too.
Sounds True: Do you see that the traditional structure of Western religion will change to meet people's mystical needs? Or are people going to develop their spirituality outside of the traditional institutions?
Matthew Fox: Well, Bede Griffith, the 86-year-old monk who's lived in an ashram in India for 50 years, says this: “If Christianity can't recover its mystical tradition and teach it, it should just fold up and go out of business. It has nothing to offer.”
I agree that we're in an “either/or” situation. If the churches cannot recover their mystical tradition, I think they will become passé. And those movements that can, will bear the energy of our Western spiritual traditions into the next millennium.
People today don't want religion; they want spirituality. They have a right to it. And spirituality involves spiritual practice. “Religion” has to strip down and travel much more lightly. I think that's an important part of our future.
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Respected sirs I wish to state that the hooch tragedy which has killed more than 150 people in Gujarat in 2009, I want to draw your attention about the another aspect of that accident, I want to remind you that as we all know very well that our state Gujarat is already on the hit list of terrorists and because of the liquor prohibition policy of our state govt. daily thousands of bottles in trucks of English liquor illegally made in our neighboring states and are supplied to our state. and whole of this network is operated by liquor bootleggers and mafias who can fall in to the hands of terrorists at any time and terrorists can supply a lot of poisonous liquor and can kill a largest number of innocent people any time and this will be comparatively easy and effective way for them. So I want to request you to establish the responsibility that who will be sole responsible for the accident if it takes place. Because directly govt is only responsible to first implement the liquor prohi. policy then to allow mafias to smuggle liquor in to the state, the smuggling of liquor is not possible without the cooperation of corrupt politicians and bureaucrats therefore I request you to accept my this request as a PRL and give the right directives to govt. so any major accident can be avoided. Respected sirs I am giving you some more aspects of this policy so please consider my that letter also a request to you which is as follows:-
Respected sirs ,please consider the following points in the aspect of relevancy of liquor prohibition policy of Gujarat and direct the govt. to rethink over it.. Though the liquor prohibition policy is there in force in Gujarat but three times more liquor is being sold here compare to any other state of India .Local gujarat govt. justifies this policy by saying that because this is the Gandhi’s Gujarat therefore we implemented this policy here, on moral grounds. But today we have to think that who they are to say that Gujarat’s Gandhi or Gandhi’s Gujarat. Gandhi is the father of nation and whole nation is Gandhi’s. Gandhi struggled for whole India and he never said that he is for Gujarat or Gujarat is for him so today we have to think that Don’t we put question mark on his thinking by saying Gandhi’s Gujarat.? And after all finally we have to think that Gandhi never taught us the lesson to move on morality by crushing humanity . Still there are so many people here in society who don’t drink so they like and support this policy. So the time has come to explain them that due to this policy the crime and corruption and diseases our society gets, they also can be victim of these things because this policy does not give any thing except crime and corruption to the general public of the society. The transaction of millions of rupees has been criminalized which money moves within the liquor mafia and corrupted officers and politicians only. If this policy is demolished the same money will come in the market to the businessmen and even youths will get a new field to earn and get employment . on the name of country liquor which liquor is being made and being sold here, millions of people are drinking that is made by car battary’s acid, detergent soaps water, saltpeter(anum) or ( FITKARI),and Gud(brown sugar).Now it can be understood that drinking such liquor can be how much harmful. This liquor causes the liver diseases, tuberculosis, and other so many skin diseases also. This is the totally failed and unsuccessful policy which violates our religious and human rights because we hindus think we have the right to worship our god Kal bhairav but we cant do so because liquor is required to worship the same god .but we cant get liquor because of this Islamic policy is implemented on our heads.
Respected sirs I wish to state that there are 5 crore people living in Gujarat state of India in which about thirty percent people consume liquor. Still the liquor prohibition policy is in force there. Due to this policy now you can imagine how a big number of people is consuming the poisonous liquor regularly and how big damage the society is bearing due to this policy, we tell the people that this is the policy which does not give anything to society but only crime corruption and diseases. We request all the electronic and print media to understand the seriousness of this matter and give the coverage to us and our voice. But we are neglected everywhere. only because we have no big funds to advertise ourself . but hereby I would like to request you to remind you that the time when they neglect us really they don’t neglect us but they neglect a large number of innocent people of Gujarat who are bearing the torture of this policy and are drinking poison with keeping mum because they don’t know where to go and whom to ask for their help, at last finally we look at you with the hope of some help from you. But your ignorance to us and such policy of killing the innocents with slow poison will make us more nervous. Therefore once again we request you to reconsider our request and to do needful. Respected sirs, I want to say one thing about the liquor prohibition policy of Gujarat, that due to this policy the general public of Gujarat does not get any benefit but if this policy is demolished, and due to that the government gets the revenue from liquor business, by that money government can give at least one kg sugar every month to every poor or middle class family in the state, so I wish to state that please ask the govt. on the liquor pro. Policy, assessing the relevancy and profit and losses to the society . Because today the time has come to tell the people that this policy does not give any thing except the crime, corruption and diseases, deaths of innocents to the society. And only corrupted bureaucrats, politicians, and liquor mafias are enjoying this policy, Therefore we want your help in this regard. Respected sirs once again I request you in public interest please accept my this letter as a PRL and do the needful but I request you to keep my name and my address secret to you only. because either party A sitting in power or party B sitting in opposition, no one want to demolish this policy because this policy is like a cow giving milk to them, no matter who is having turn today either A or B, tomorrow will be the turn of other.so both of them will not like that my voice should be heard by you and they may try to crush my approach to you, so please I request you again to keep secret my identity to you only. I will reach to you whenever you order me, thanking you yours faithfully: jitendra sharma ahmedabad 63 (letter to C.J. guj high court)
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"The civilian labor force participation rate
declined in April to 63.6 pct..."
Of that diminished civilian labor force, 8.1 percent are unemployed.
Do you get it? As participation in the labor force declines, so does the ostensible proportion of unemployed.
When Obama took office in Jan. 2009, 65.7% of civilians were participating in the labor force; that is, they were on the payrolls reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Now only 63.6% of civilians make up the entirety of the labor force, as so many have doubtlessly used up their 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. Those folks, if they don't get on a payroll somewhere, fall into the non-category of The Uncounted, those who receive neither a paycheck nor an unemployment check. It is as if they don't exist.
So while it looks as if the unemployment situation is improving (by a tenth of one percent) - and the Obama machine will most certainly take a victory lap, promoting the vague notion that "things are getting better" - it's really not so simple.
The government's ploy is similar to these, which may be more familiar:
Size Reduction: 11%, or 0.41 ounces
Supposedly in response to pleas from obesity activists, the Mars Company split their "King Size" Snickers bar in half so that it could be more easily shared between two people. What calls the nobility of the company's intentions into question is that, in addition to making the cut, Mars also reduced the total amount of candy in each package from 3.7ounces to 3.29 ounces -- an 11% decrease -- while keeping the price the same.
Company: PepsiCo (PEP)
Size Reduction: 12.5% - 20%
With all the air included in chips packaging, it is easy for manufacturers to reduce the amount of chips in the bags without drawing attention. PepsiCo reduced the Lay's "Family Size" potato-chip bag from 16 ounces to 14 ounces in 2009. Bags of Doritos, Tostitos, and Fritos now contain 20% fewer chips than they did in 2009, according to The New York Times. Even smaller bags have been reduced by a quarter of an ounce.
Company: Procter & Gamble (PG)
Size Reduction: 7.2%, or 10 sheets
Since June 2010, lumber futures have increased more than 80%. The cost of manufacturing paper products has gone up as well, and companies are reducing the size of paper-based products -- like toilet paper, moist towelettes and paper towels -- as a result. Proctor & Gamble recently cut the size of its Bounty 2-ply paper towel rolls from 138 sheets to 128 sheets. The company attempted to mask this change by advertising the roll as "25% thicker." Despite the increased thickness, the package reportedly weighs less.
Americans are optimists, we WANT to believe that things are getting better. And most people - if they hear anything at all - will hear only that "unemployment is down." period. (The new snickers bar is more easily shared, the new paper towel is thicker.)
The bunch o' shysters we have in government are making sure that the stats show what the administration wants them to show. And the "eunuchs of the palace media" will be more than happy to spin any manipulation that benefits His Presidency.
Don't get me wrong. If things were really getting better, if less people were unemployed this month than last, I would be the first to celebrate. I certainly don't want us to go off the cliff just for political advantage.
But I do hate being lied to.
See my hero Tyler Durden for more:
it is just getting sad now. In April the number of [cheerios not in the box] people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000. This is the highest on record....
... the real number of unemployed is not 12.5 million but 17.9 million, which in turn implies a 11.6% unemployment rate in the US.
This also means that the spread between the propaganda, and the real number is now 3.5%: the most it has been since the early 1980s.
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Columbus, Ohio (CNN) -- President Barack Obama took on critics of his energy policies Thursday, saying in carefully coordinated speeches that they weren't paying attention to increased oil production at home and were misleading the public about the cause of rising gas prices.
"Anyone who says that we're somehow suppressing domestic oil production isn't paying attention," Obama said in Cushing, Oklahoma, on the second day of a four-state tour to tout his policies.
"And anyone who says that just drilling more will bring gas prices down just isn't playing it straight," the president continued. " We are drilling more. We are producing more. But the fact is, producing more oil at home isn't enough to bring gas prices down overnight."
In Cushing and a later speech at The Ohio State University, Obama repeated his call for a diversified policy that increases production of traditional energy sources such as oil and natural gas while increasing investment in alternative sources such as solar, wind and hydrogen power to compete in growing global clean energy markets.
In particular, he rejected Republican claims that U.S. oil reserves alone offer a solution to higher gas prices and long-term supplies.
"Even if we drilled every little bit of this great country of ours, we'd still have to buy enough from the rest of the world to meet our needs," Obama said in Cushing.
He added that "the price of oil is set by the global market, and that means every time tensions rise in the Middle East, so will gas prices at home." In particular, Obama said, rising tension involving Iran was causing the current spike in global oil prices.
At Ohio State, Obama emphasized to a cheering student crowd that since he took office in 2009, "America's dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year."
"Even as the economy was growing, we've made progress in reducing the amount of oil we have to import because we're being smarter, we're doing things better," the president said.
The whirlwind trip over two days followed weeks of criticism of his approach to gas price increases by Republicans on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail.
"He has an energy policy that is very simple," Rick Santorum said of the president during a campaign stop Monday in Illinois. "You can sum it up in two letters, N-O. He is against everything that will create economic incentives to drill."
Newt Gingrich has made reducing prices at the pump a central promise of his campaign, telling voters at a recent event in Birmingham, Alabama, that "an American president who believed in energy and an American president who believed in science and technology would drive the price of gasoline below $2."
Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl sounded a similar refrain after a Republican caucus meeting in early March, agreeing with the president's all-of-the-above approach, but adding, "We need it in action, not just words."
A focus of Republican attacks has been the delay in administration approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada's tar sands production in northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast.
Last year, the administration put off a decision until 2013 after protests by environmentalists concerned about high carbon emissions from tar sands oil production and objections by Nebraska officials to a route near a vital aquifer.
Republicans in Congress, accusing Obama of avoiding the issue until after the November election, tried to speed the process by tacking a measure requiring an immediate decision to the temporary payroll tax cut bill last December.
The Obama administration then rejected the pipeline permit in January, saying an alternate route from Nebraska had yet to be decided. Since then, Republicans have persisted in attacking Obama for rejecting the permit.
The president announced Thursday in Cushing that he was using his executive authority to order federal agencies to expedite the approval process for large-scale infrastructure projects like oil pipelines. More specifically, he ordered the portion of the Keystone XL pipeline running from Cushing to the Gulf to be placed at the top of the list.
"We're making this new pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf a priority," Obama said to cheers, later adding that "as long as I'm president, we're going to keep encouraging oil development and infrastructure and we're going to do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people. We don't have to choose between one or the other. We can do both."
Many private companies -- including TransCanada, the Canadian company behind the Keystone XL project -- are working to build pipelines that relieve the bottleneck of oil in Cushing, a major hub for crude oil storage and trade.
While federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of the Interior have some involvement in the approval process for the domestic portion of the pipeline, the federal government has relatively little control when compared to the absolute say it holds over the portion that crosses the international border with Canada.
The ultimate decision-making authority for the pipeline's domestic route lies mainly with the states it crosses, prompting Republicans to question whether the president can actually claim any credit for speeding the project along.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Thursday that Obama was claiming credit he didn't deserve on the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline while continuing to prevent construction on the northern leg from Canada.
"It's already gotten its approvals and this idea that the president is going to expedite this will have no impact on the construction of this pipeline," Boehner said of the Cushing-Gulf Coast portion. "The president has continued to block development of oil and gas reserves, big reserves, on federal lands. And he can go out and make all the noise that he wants, but the facts are there."
On Wednesday, Obama kicked off his energy tour with stops in Boulder City, Nevada, and Maljamar, New Mexico, to focus on work on alternative energy sources.
The visit to Boulder City was designed to tout the success of solar technology at the largest photovoltaic solar facility in the nation. Photovoltaic solar panels create energy directly from sunlight without the need for any water or moving parts.
Obama acknowledged the high prices at the pump, but used the problem as a reason to abandon federal "subsidies" to oil and gas companies.
"We want to encourage production of oil and gas, and make sure that wherever we've got American resources, we are tapping into them," the president said. "But they don't need an additional incentive when gas is $3.75 a gallon, when oil is $120 a barrel, $125 a barrel. They don't need additional incentives. They're doing fine."
What the president calls subsidies, the petroleum industry calls the same tax breaks afforded those in many other industries.
The push to end what Obama deems to be preferential treatment to a petroleum industry that's never been more profitable was central to his two-day tour, but the president also used the trip to push back against those who call federal aid to the renewable energy industry a waste of money.
"Some of these folks want to dismiss the promise of solar power and wind power and fuel-efficient cars," Obama said in Boulder City. "In fact, they make jokes about it. One member of Congress who shall remain unnamed called these jobs 'phony' -- called them phony jobs. I mean, think about that mindset, that attitude that says because something is new, it must not be real. If these guys were around when Columbus set sail, they'd be charter members of the Flat Earth Society."
With nearly a million solar panels spread across 450 acres, Copper Mountain 1 in Boulder City provides power for roughly 17,000 homes, but employs just 10 full-time employees.
The solar plant's owner, Sempra U.S. Gas & Power, is in the process of building a second facility nearby that's set to more than triple the output of Copper Mountain 1.
Construction of the second facility -- Copper Mountain 2 -- has created 175 temporary jobs but, according to Sempra's own projections, the final solar plant will result in just five full-time positions.
CNN's Tom Cohen contributed to this report.
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On Monday, the therapy cap with an exceptions process went into effect for outpatient hospitals. In addition, the manual medical review exceptions process for claims exceeding $3,700 became effective for phase I providers. Originally, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had announced that providers would know the dollar amount that their patients accrued toward the
therapy cap on October 1. Due to some systems challenges, this information was not available. CMS announced this week that the information will be available October 8 through eligibility inquiries. Physical therapists (PTs) should check with their Medicare Administrative Contractors to determine the best way to obtain the dollar amounts accrued. When the data is available on October 8, PTs can then determine whether there is a need to seek an exception to the therapy cap.
To help PTs with the implementation of the cap and the manual medical review exceptions process, APTA has created a Medicare Therapy Cap Resources webpage. This webpage compiles relevant information available from
APTA and CMS in 1 place.
In this month's Heard on the Hill podcast, Mike Matlack, APTA director of grassroots and political affairs, breaks down the races for the United States Senate and House of Representatives and discusses the toss-up states in the Senate and competitive seats in the House. He also explains how the Electoral College looks as the candidates head into the debates.
Source: National Journal
Researchers at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes 2012 Meeting reported this week that higher levels of leisure-time physical activity cut the risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in people with type 2 diabetes, says an article by Heartwire. People with diabetes who did little or no exercise at baseline and then substantially increased their leisure-time physical-activity
levels over approximately 5 years cut their risk of death by almost two-thirds.
The researchers used data on leisure-time physical activity, recorded yearly, from more than 15,000 men and women with type 2 diabetes included in the Swedish National Diabetes Register. Participants were grouped as either "low physical activity" (no regular exercise or exercise once per week) or "regular exercise" (between 3 times per week and daily exercise). If patients died during the course of the study, their last recorded physical-activity level was used for the analysis.
Over a 5-year period, regular exercisers were significantly less likely to have a cardiovascular event or to die either from cardiovascular disease or any other cause.
The investigators also looked at patients who reported doing little or no physical activity at baseline but who increased their regular exercise to at least 3 times per week by the end of the study period (a mean of 4.8 years). Cardiovascular deaths among these patients dropped by 67% compared with patients who did not improve their exercise habits. Rates of all-cause mortality were reduced by almost the same degree.
Session moderator Nick Wareham, MD, stressed that the data "… should encourage us to focus on encouraging physical activity as part and parcel of medical care."
Researchers at King's College London have identified a gene linked to age-related degeneration of the intervertebral discs, a common cause of lower back pain.
Back pain costs the United Kingdom an estimated £7billion ($11 billion in US dollars) a year due to sick leave and treatment costs. Lumbar disc degeneration (LDD) is inherited in 65%-80% of people with the condition, suggesting that genes play a key role. Until now, the genetic cause of lower back pain associated with LDD was unknown, says King's.
For this study, scientists compared MRI images of the spine in 4,600 individuals with genome-wide association data, which mapped the genes of all the volunteers. They identified that the gene PARK2 was implicated in people with degenerate discs and could affect the speed at which they deteriorate.
The researchers say the results show that the gene may be switched off in people with LDD. Although it is still unclear how this might happen, it is thought that environmental factors, such as lifestyle and diet, could trigger this switch by making changes known as epigenetic modifications to the gene.
was published online September 19 in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.
The Marquette Challenge is an annual student-led grassroots fundraising effort that supports physical therapy research. Over the past 24 years, students participating in the Marquette Challenge have raised more than $2.3 million in support of the Foundation and its mission.
To learn how your school can help advance
physical therapy research and gain national recognition check out the interactive Challenge kit.
population level, diabetes is a stronger risk factor for new heart failure (HF)
than 4 other modifiable risk factors, namely smoking, dyslipidemia, obesity,
and hypertension, suggests the latest analysis from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study cohort.
a longitudinal study of more than 15,000 African American and Caucasian men and
women in 4 communities across the United States, who were recruited during the
1980s when they were aged 45 to 64. The current analysis included 14,709 of the
participants followed an average of 17.6 years.
to the authors, the lifetime risk of incident heart failure was about 1 in 3
for its African American participants and reached 1 in 4 in Caucasians. In both
groups, that risk was higher than the lifetime risk of new coronary heart
disease or stroke in the same population.
addition, they found that a percentage drop in diabetes prevalence would avert
more cases of new HF than the same percentage decrease of any of the 4 other
studied modifiable risk factors. Specifically, a 5% proportional reduction in
the prevalence of diabetes in ARIC African American participants would result
in approximately 53 fewer HF cases per 100,000 person-years and 33 fewer HF
hospitalizations per 100,000 person-years for Caucasians.
Free full-text of the article is available in Journal of the American College of
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When top-up fees were introduced in England and Wales in 2006-7, squeamishness amongst MPs was mitigated by an obligation placed on universities and colleges to sign ‘access agreements’ with the newly-created Office for Fair Access (OFFA).
The fear was that higher fees would deter some potential students from applying to university. Each HE provider therefore had to spend part (in practice something like 20-25%) of the additional fee income to encourage wider participation in higher education. Its plans had to be set out in a document detailing projected spending on bursaries, outreach and similar activities. More than 100 access agreements were cursorily approved by OFFA, a one-man-and-a-dog operation headed by part-time director Sir Martin Harris. None were rejected.
In fact MPs’ fears were unfounded: over the last five years participation has continued to rise –although the numbers of non-traditional students attending our elite universities (Oxbridge, the Russell Group) still remain fairly low.
Things have moved on. A new fee cap of £9000 has been agreed, but the government seems to have underestimated the number of institutions raising their fees to this limit. It is panicking about the cost (because fees are paid upfront by the state), but also again about the possible deterrent effect on potential students of much greater debt. The Lib Dems in particular are complaining once more that top universities are too socially exclusive.
So OFFA, which in many people’s view should have been kindling for the promised ‘bonfire of QUANGOs’, is back, with a new remit and more powers. It has just published 35 closely-written pages of guidance to HE providers. If they want to charge more than £6000 – as all do, for this is less than most institutions currently get per student from HEFCE funding and existing fees – they will now have to submit much more detailed annual plans (previously a five-year one would suffice), complete with targets, milestones and monitoring requirements. These will have to be completed by April 19th – i.e. in about six weeks.
Bursaries, which an OFFA report last year found to be ineffective in stimulating student demand, are now downplayed, although some universities will be required to produce matched funding to the new National Scholarship programme - about which next to nothing is known, and which could again largely be a waste of money. The focus of institutions’ plans is to shift to retention (for those universities which already have a broad intake) and outreach, which is not explained and is left up to universities to define. In the case of institutions with strong local recruitment, for example Queen Mary in the East End of London, it is easy enough to see what this might mean in terms of schools visits, open days, mentoring arrangements and so forth – but what about the University of Exeter, which recruits a large part of its intake from independent schools nationwide? How – and where - does it begin to attract a new demographic?
I estimate that these hastily-cobbled-together plans will commit universities to something like £700 million next year. Working out exactly how much spend you should put down in your plan will be a test in itself. OFFA gives some guidance. If you have ‘low’ participation from the loosely-defined ‘under-represented students’ – and you decide the indicators yourself– you should devote ‘around 30%’ of the fee above £6000 to access. Oxford, which plans to charge £9000, should be spending about £900 per student. With an ‘average’ level of participation you should spend ‘around 22.5%’, and if you have high representation of less-privileged students you need only devote ‘around 15%’. If OFFA thinks your ‘around’ is not close enough to the quoted figure, it may refuse to agree to your plan, in which case (in theory) you won’t be able to charge more than £6000 per student. Despite vagueness in many areas, in some areas the guidance is overly precise. It says, for instance, that OFFA will only agree to fee reductions for students from families ‘with a household income of up to £42,600’. This definition of a low income household could mean very different things in Gateshead and Guildford.
With no powers to determine admissions criteria, OFFA nevertheless makes it obvious that it wants to see universities use ‘contextual information’ to decide who is admitted. This means that UCAS offers to potential students should be based on relative rather than absolute criteria: lower grades for those coming from schools with poorer average results.
The new dispensation is far more intrusive than before. Universities and colleges are to be forced to spend large amounts of money on nebulous objectives, engaging in social engineering which experience suggests is unlikely to succeed. The government surely knows this, but presumably hopes that the new requirements will intimidate some providers into setting lower fees.
Elite universities already want to attract as broad a social mix as possible, but without significant improvements in state schools they face an uphill struggle. The danger with the revived OFFA is that it will chip away at the reputation and the will of our leading universities until academic standards are seriously eroded. I may be alarmist, but sustained political intervention over entry arrangements has destroyed universities in other countries before now.
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China National Petroleum officials said soaring oil prices and a refinery-imposed supply crunch led to a shortage in the consumer market. China's growing energy consumption is also a factor.Hat tip: Econbrowser.
"Asia's largest oil refiner Sinopec relies on imports for much of its crude for refining, so the surging crude prices on the world market have greatly hurt the oil giant's refining business, when the central government still controls the price of domestic refined oil to stabilize the market," a CNPC official was quoted by the China Daily.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Headline China Rationing Gasoline And Diesel Fuel
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Kolkata: Hot, crispy samosas and seekh kebabs are popular items in street food joints of African nations where people relish Indian cuisine, says Ugandan-born British journalist and author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.
"Africans love Indian food. If you go to East Africa, the black men now are cooking samosas on the street. They have learnt it all and they are cooking crisps, seekh kebabs etc.," said Brown on the sidelines of the fourth Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival here Thursday.
According to Brown, who launched her cookbook "The Settler's Cookbook" in the city Thursday, African food is mild as compared to Indian cuisine. "African food is never as hot as Indian food. It is more of an Italianish form of Indian cooking," Brown told IANS.
Pointing out the differences in ingredients, she said coconut and cassava formed an integral part of African dishes. "They mainly use ingredients like cassava (which is like potato) and plantain and coconut. A lot of the cookies have coconut because coconut is widely available," said Brown.
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HARRISON, N.Y. — The Harrison Daily Voice is heading into the new year by counting down, in no particular order, the Top 10 stories of 2012.
Survey work was completed on the project in May, and it is currently in the design process. The project will build three dams: one off Genessee Trail, a second off Shawnee Trail and a third off Tamarac Trail. The dams were proposed because during severe storms, floodwater flows across parallel streets in the neighborhood, since the town’s storm sewers can’t handle the volume of water.
Amodeo said the Genessee Trail Dam would be 10 feet high and 300 feet long. The Shawnee Trail Dam would be 16 feet high and 325 feet long. The Tamarac Trail Dam would be 8 feet high and 200 feet long.
It is estimated that the project would take 11 months to complete and cost about $1.5 million.
"It’s been a very complicated issue, and there’s a lot of pieces to the puzzles,” Amodeo said of the flooding. “There’s a lot of obstacles, and along the way we’ve gotten lucky in certain instances, where we found answers to things and overcame some obstacles. It’s a really in-depth puzzle.”
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5 Reasons To Take A Lunch Break
The lunch hour as we know it in America is becoming endangered as more and more of the work force give into the pressure to be more productive. According to a new survey more than 50% of us take less than 30 minutes to refuel during the workday, with many of us working while we munch. Here are 5 reasons you should strive to carve out a daily lunch break.
1.When answering emails or working on a project while eating, your mind doesn’t realize your body is being fed because its preoccupied. This type of mindless munching could lead to overeating at lunch or later in the day because your body doesn’t know its just gotten a meal.
2.Eating on the run or scarfing a quick bite or two will make more time for completing your workload, but it could also lead to heartburn, bloating and poor digestion because you likely won’t be concentrating on fully chewing your food.
3.Your brain could use the break! Turn off the computer, put the phone on Do Not Disturb, and put your mind on standby. Taking lunch could be just the brief reprieve your head needs in this world of information overload.
4.Even just a short time dedicated to taking a meal in the grand scheme of an 8 (sometimes 9!) hour workday, and taking a moment for yourself instead of taking care of everyone else can help you feel more relaxed and even re-energized so you can complete the rest of your day.
5.Taking your lunch hour outside of the office could give you the opportunity to catch up with a friend or colleague, killing two tasks at once!
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The Press continues to identify my state representative as, "the nation's first openly lesbian House Speaker, [North] Portland Democrat Tina Kotek."*
What they do NOT say is:
The nation's first openly lesbian House Speaker, North Portland Democrat Tina Kotek, was elected to represent a House district through which ALL of the proposed massive coal exports by train and barge to Coos Bay and Port Westward would pass by and through. Kotek did NOT testify in support of Portland's nor Metro's coal resolutions.
The nation's first openly lesbian House Speaker, North Portland Democrat Tina Kotek, denies the deadly effects of carcinogenic diesel emissions from towboats and locomotives and fugitive toxic coal dust from trains, on her constituents and every living thing in the Pacific Northwest. She denies the moral culpability of aiding and abetting Climate Change by selling coal to China which when burned blows back mercury and other dangerous chemicals on trade winds that pollute our Pacific Northwest fish and food supply.
The nation's first openly lesbian House Speaker, North Portland Democrat Tina Kotek, refuses to talk to her own constituents who are also the leaders of the North Portland Coal Committee about how Kotek can promote NO Coal legislation to protect her constituents, her state, her country and the planet.
Most voters in North Portland, Oregon and Washington do NOT vote for our elected officials based on their sexual preference. It is a non-issue. What we DO care about is how our elected officials PROTECT our air, water, fish and other animals, plants and trees, the food supply and us, the citizenry.
Representative Kotek's refusal to talk to not just prominent leaders in the NO Coal campaign but CONSTITUENTS is an insult to every one of the voters in our House district and the democratic process. Try to image Kotek's outrage if she were a leader in a gay rights group some years ago and her representative refused to talk to her on the subject. Try to image Kotek's outrage if she were a leader in a gay rights group some years ago and her representative became Speaker of the House and then opposed gay rights legislation.
Representative Tina Kotek just received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, none of them from constituents.
Until recently North Portland's ostensible state representative, Tina Kotek, has been a fully owned subsidiary of the public and private union lobbyists. In light of the recent large campaign contributions it is not entirely clear who is currently pulling the strings. But one thing is for certain. North Portland state representative Tina Kotek is NOT representing the interests of her North Portland constituents with regard to the most important item on the political agenda, STOPPING the COAL.
This behavior will not go unnoticed nor unchallenged.
Certified Oregon Change Agent by governor John Kitzhaber
Chair, North Portland Coal Committee
Northwest citizens express their NO Coal views. Click to start each video.
Portland NO Coal Demonstration August 18, 2012
Columbia Riverkeepers NO Coal Northwest
Eric de Place on Coal
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Like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino has now made an American slavery film to go with his Holocaust film (Inglourious Basterds, 2009)—and like Spielberg, he secured Best Picture nominations for both of his epic journeys into shameful human history. But while Spielberg treats his topics with terrified reverence, Tarantino does not. Quite the opposite. Their grand themes are deployed almost exclusively to provide shock value.
By using these unimaginably horrific examples of human evil and suffering as the backdrop to visceral revenge fantasies, Tarantino gives undeniable oomph and emotional resonance to his true lifelong purpose. That purpose is really quite astonishingly narrow: paying homage to the disreputable exploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s he loves so much. A peculiar ambition, to be sure, but becoming famous and respected and garlanded for riffing off disreputable junk must have its perverse rewards for Tarantino, who is among the most perversely talented moviemakers in movie history.
The junk films that inspire him—spaghetti Westerns, Japanese and Hong Kong gangster flicks, European sex romps, American blaxploitation pictures—were in such bad taste that they went beyond conventional categories into some new realm. These movies really did make explicit all the things that had long been implicit in the cinema: the charged pleasure that comes from watching staged violence, the crazed joys of plotted revenge, a woman’s breasts. But all those transgressions crossed into the mainstream fairly quickly. The literally titled Bad Taste, made in New Zealand, was the can-this-really-get-any-worse outrage of 1987; now its director, Peter Jackson, makes drippingly sentimental films about hobbits in the Shire with $300-million budgets.
When he was starting out in the early 1990s, Tarantino took the American cinema to places it had never been. He had a character cut off a guy’s ear while dancing to “Stuck in the Middle with You” in Reservoir Dogs (1992). In Pulp Fiction (1994), he had John Travolta’s character plunge a hypodermic needle into Uma Thurman’s heart to keep her from dying of an overdose, and he had a vicious black crime-boss tied up and raped. Tarantino wanted the violence to sting, to provide a buzz like touching a tongue to a nine-volt battery, and he succeeded.
These weren’t the only elements of his movies that caught everyone’s attention. It was his ability to mix such barbarities with amusing bits of repartee, funny exchanges, and hyper-wordy monologues that gave them their special kick. But after he staged his one-man assault on the American cinema, he struggled. He made the languorous Jackie Brown in 1997, which I quite liked for its evocation of middle-age disappointment, but others did not. And he struck out entirely with the two Kill Bill films in 2003 and 2004, in which Uma Thurman slaughters many people and is tortured by many others for a total of four hours. Nothing Tarantino did in this misguided project was all that surprising, and the plot motivation—a woman trying to get her daughter back from a kidnapping father—was, in the end, little more than you’d get in a Lifetime movie.
Then, in a burst of demonic inspiration, came Tarantino’s decision to make brazen use of historical calamities to deepen his tales of revenge. By doing so, he would test every possible limit of taste, as his idols had. His method was perhaps even more transgressive, though: He turned topics that present-day standards of taste and comportment now deem fitting only for low-lit exhibitions staged at funereal museums into blood-soaked frenzies.
In Inglourious Basterds, a crew of Jewish soldiers hunts down and tortures Nazis during World War II in preparation for what may be the greatest plot twist in modern cinema—a twist so startling that, even though the movie came out years ago, I don’t feel comfortable repeating it here.
In Django Unchained, Jamie Foxx plays the title character, a tortured runaway slave who, in 1858, enters the service of Dr. King Schultz, a German dentist turned bounty hunter. Schultz is played by Tarantino’s greatest discovery, Christoph Waltz, an unknown Austrian TV actor who won an Oscar for playing the multilingual Nazi Jew-hunter in Inglourious Basterds. Waltz is, if possible, even better in Django, the first Tarantino movie that actually attempts a bit of character development and moral growth amid the mayhem.
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Happy Day #7 of Digital Sisterhood Month (#DSMonth)!
Today, Digital Sisterhood Network (DSN) is celebrating how women express the #DSMonth theme of “Creativity + Great Health = Fierce Living Women.” Many women use the practice of self-love to embrace their creativity, maintain great health, and live fiercely. One of our favorite advocates and teachers of self-love is Christine Arylo, author of Madly in Love with Me. Read the question and answer (Q&A) session below to learn more about Arylo’s self-love principles.
Q & A with Author Christine Arylo
DSN: Isn’t loving yourself selfish or narcissistic?
CA: Self-love is so misunderstood. If you looked self-love up in the dictionary, yes, it is defined as conceit, vanity and narcissism but whoever came up that definition has it all wrong. People who do suffer from narcissism or excess vanity actually lack love for themselves. Their extreme self-centeredness and unawareness of their impact on others is really a cover for a deep sense of inferiority, a fear of connection and a low self-worth. Thankfully, narcissism isn’t contagious and most people don’t need to worry about being too selfish. If anything, they need to give to themselves more.
Loving yourself is the same as loving another person, the energy of love is just pointed in a different direction. Think of it this way, you’d never say loving your parents or friends was selfish, and neither is giving love to yourself. Imagine giving love to someone in your life that you deeply care about. Notice how good it feels to give love to that person – in all kinds of ways including affection, caring, acknowledgement, honor, compassion, etc. Now imagine taking that same energy and directing the love at yourself – giving yourself affection, care, acknowledgement, honor, compassion, etc. Same energy. Love is never selfish.
DSN: What is self-love? What does it really mean to love yourself?
CA:Some day I will petition the dictionary people to change the definition for self-love, but for now to set the record straight, here’s a truthful definition for self-love: Self-love is the unconditional love and respect you have for yourself that is so deep, so solid, so unwavering that you choose only situations and relationships – including the one you have with yourself – that reflect that same unconditional love and respect.
In our culture, there are a lot of words other than self-love that people are much more comfortable using – self-esteem, self-awareness, self-care, self-worth, self-compassion – words that many people mistakenly believe are the same as self-love. While all the ideas expressed by these words are components of self-love, none alone is a synonym for self-love. Love is a specific, un-paralleled, and all-powerful vibration, and none of these aspects of self-love has that power on their own – but put them together and WOW! You’ve got a tree of self-love!
DSN: Okay, so say I do believe that loving myself is a good idea, how do I actually do it?
CA: Once a person gets that loving themselves is a good idea, and they get past all that fear around it being selfish or vain, they always ask, “How do I love myself?” Self-love can feel so vast and esoteric and it can get thrown around casually, “Oh, sure I love myself,” when if you were to look at that person’s life you would see the areas where they do choose love and where they don’t act lovingly towards themselves. Loving yourself isn’t black and white, as in either you are a person who does or doesn’t. It isn’t some nirvana state you master and achieve and then can just forget about. Loving yourself is a choice you make, or don’t, in every moment of every day for the rest of your life.
The first step is to become aware of the ways in which you are a rock star at being a best friend to yourself and the ways that you have a hard time making choices and taking actions that align with love. To make this accessible and tangible for people, I teach the 10 Branches of Self-Love and guide people how to identify where they are weak so they can GROW their self-love in this place, and also how to identify where they are strong, so they can make KEEP the love flowing, and also make sure they don’t over-rely on any one branch, which will throw you out of balance.
DSN: You say that it’s possible to have too much self-esteem. What do you mean?
CA: Self-esteem is the strong belief in and regard for yourself. It is a strong confidence in your ability to do and be anything. And while we definitely want to foster self-esteem (it wasn’t that long ago that self-esteem wasn’t a common culturally acceptable ideal), self-esteem on it’s own is not enough – it’s only 1/10th of the self-love equation.
Without self-compassion, you can have tons of self-esteem, but you will be extremely hard on yourself. We are creating a culture of hardened high achievers failing to use the power of the tools of the heart – equating confidence to strength and compassion to weakness, which just isn’t true. Today, women and children are extremely emotionally hard on themselves, driven by the unrealistic expectations to do, be and have it all. And with little training and understanding of self-compassion, they silently beat themselves up, all the while appearing like they have it all together to the outside world.
You need all 10 branches of self-love – self awareness & honesty, self-acceptance, self-care, self-compassion & forgiveness, self-trust, self-esteem, self-empowerment, self-respect & self-honor, self-pleasure, and self-expression cared for, nurtured and fully blooming.
DSN: How do you cultivate a strong and independent sense of self-worth?
CA: The first stage of cultivating a really strong and independent self-worth is making sure that all 10 of your self-love branches are in a healthy state. They may not all be fully blooming, but they are headed in the right direction, which means that you need to be aware of how your life is supporting these aspects of yourself – or not – each being essential to your happiness and health.
So as not to activate the over-achiever gene or send anyone into overwhelm, I recommend choosing one branch of self-love to focus on for a given time frame, and creating a 40-day self-love practice around it. 40-days is the minimum amount of time – as the yogi’s, brain scientists, and metaphysicians agree that is the amount of time it takes to identify and release a self-sabotaging habit. And then, if you want to replace that with a new self-loving habit, 120 days is even better.
As you heal and grow the branches of your tree, the entire tree as well as the roots will flourish. Increasing your self-compassion will have a positive affect on your self-care and ability to value what is really important to you. Growing your self-empowerment will increase your self-expression, you will feel more seen and as a result more valued or who you truly are.
The second stage is all about Knowing Your Worth. This doesn’t happen overnight – coming back to your true self-worth is a profound spiritual journey but there are some powerful and accessible places to start including:
-Removing the toxins of judgment and unrealistic expectations – they gotta go!
-Giving up Comparison and Embracing your unique divine imprint – and how valuable that is.
-Embracing the truth of who you are, why you are here and how valuable that really is
-Redefining success and happiness on your terms
-Taking bold and courageous acts to get your life into alignment with your heart and soul
-Believing the truth you were born knowing – you are enough, just as you are. There is only one you, and that too is enough.
DSN: With all the information out there about taking care of yourself and being healthy why do women especially have such a hard time giving themselves permission to actually do the things they know they should do to take care of themselves?
CA: Most women know what they need to do to take good care of – replenish, nourish, nurture – themselves, they just literally cannot give themselves permission to do so. It’s not the information they’re missing, it’s the permission to do what a best friend would do in an instant, tell us “Honey, take a break, take care of yourself, the rest will wait. I insist!”
The reason most of have such a hard time following through on what we know we need, is because even though we want it, we don’t value it. We value giving over receiving. Doing over being. Why? Because we’ve been reading from the wrong handbooks — the Self Sacrifice Handbook and the Self Esteem Handbook instead of the Self-Love Handbook. The former ascribes that we must give, and give and give to others, and then give some more, until there is nothing left. Only when we have given all we have, have we given enough. This Self-Sacrifice Handbook works from the mantra “It’s better to give than receive” rather than “It’s better to give and receive.” Hence why we have little problem giving care, nourishment, nurturing to others, but the thought of giving this love to ourselves comes with a big guilt sandwich. Driven by the belief that it’s good and honorable to give to others, and selfish to give to ourselves, it’s no wonder it’s so hard to give ourselves the care we need.
The Self-Esteem Handbook makes matters worse by equating our value with how much we do, the more we do the better and more valuable we are. There is no chapter in this handbook about valuing ourselves based on “being,” no lessons on relaxing or how to have more impact by doing less. So when we find ourselves not doing, we start questioning our value and worth. Our value has become equated to how much we can get done in a day or a week or achieve in a lifetime legacy. So if we aren’t actively pursuing something or being busy, we feel bad, like we should be doing something.
Next time you find yourself having trouble giving yourself permission to take care of yourself, take a b.f.f. daring act of love and ask and answer this question, ‘What do you need to take care of yourself today?” And then make sure that you receive it – no matter what!
DSN: Is it true that you actually got the day before Valentines Day - February 13th – officially dedicated to be the international day of self-love? What’s this all about?
CA: With so much attention given to February 14th and Valentines Day, and frankly a day that currently causes more suffering than happiness, I knew we needed the day before to be a day when people could take their love power back – to get that they are loved even without a romantic partner – and a day when people could fill themselves up first with love so they had extra to give.
On February 13th, I invite people to choose one branch of self-love and make a promise to themselves that will help them grow that branch all year long. These promises give people an anchor point to come back to during their day to day life, to choose love. For example, if your branch is self-pleasure, your promise might be “I choose to have fun and do what brings me joy no matter how much work there is to do.” Or if your branch is self-care your promise could be “I promise to ask myself what I need and then take action to give that care to myself.”
Every February, our team, Team Love goes on the road and holds self-love-a-poolza’s, and our Love Ambassadors around the world throw self-love parties of their own. Last year 500 people threw parties in 31 countries and 41 states. Which makes for a lot of people taking and keeping the promise to love themselves all year long.
DISCLAIMER: This is a sponsored post written by Ananda Leeke, Founder of Digital Sisterhood Network. Leeke is currently reading and enjoying Madly in Love with Me. Her favorite quote from Arylo’s book is:
“The ability to care for yourself requires an intimate knowledge of and concern for what you need at any given time, and an unapologetic determination to give it to yourself.”
This quote became her December wisdom thought and reminded her to take care of herself as she finishes her memoir, Digital Sisterhood: Fierce Living Online.
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I walked towards Room 22 to see my next patient, an elderly woman who was found lying on the kitchen floor of her private home. She lived alone. Because of her advancing dementia, she was unable to provide any history as to how long she had been down or the circumstances that lead to her being on the floor. Unfortunately, due to the strong smell of stale urine and feces that permeated the hallway outside of her room, it was a safe assumption that she had been down for quite a while.
Not yet fully aware of how disheartening this patient's case would be, I opened the room's partially-closed glass door before sliding back the room's privacy curtain. I stepped into this patient's room as this patient stepped into my consciousness.
What I stepped into was sad. No, heartbreaking. The patient, rolled onto her left side by our staff and lying fully exposed on her treatment cot, was being tenderly wiped and cleaned by two of our ER nurses, one standing behind the patient while the other stood in front. Despite the slightly-dimmed room lights, I could appreciate the momentous task these nurses had of cleaning the hardened stool and human waste from this patient's neglected body.
I looked to unflappable Charlene, the nurse standing in front of the patient, who was shaking her head in frustration. "This is bad," she said, "really bad." She went on to explain that the patient was found by her two children, a son and daughter, on the floor of her kitchen, conscious but covered in human waste. Her own. The prehospital team believed she had been down at least several days. According to Charlene, the paramedics, our local experts on witnessing the best and worst of living conditions, said that this patient's home was among the worst conditions they had ever encountered. "There were multiple mounds of strewn garbage, numerous puddles of drying urine, and smeared feces everywhere you looked," Charlene said, repeating their words.
I shook my head. Although I hadn't yet learned the particulars to this patient's social situation, I had seen my share of elderly patients who were brought to our ER for treatment after they had been discovered incapacitated in their home, whether ill from a trip and fall or, worse, a catastrophic medical event like a stroke or heart attack. Unfortunately, they might sometimes lay there for several days, alone and possibly in pain, frightened of never being found.
The thought of a patient suffering in this manner always makes me shudder.
Descriptions of poor living conditions sometimes accompanied these patients, as well, but none to the degree that Charlene described. "Seriously, Dr. Jim, the prehospital team said that feces was even smeared on the kitchen counter." Maybe this patient simply struggled after going down, making a bigger mess of things.
I briefly observed this patient's body--her frailness, her thin, cachectic limbs, her slightly protruding belly, her transparent pale skin, her matted-down silvery hair, her deep facial wrinkles--before walking towards her head and squatting down to her face level, ready to introduce myself. "Maam," I said, caressing the right side of her face as I spoke, "I'm Dr. Jim and I will be taking care of you today." The patient stirred as I continued to stroke her face. And then, quite suddenly, she opened her eyes, searching eyes of hazel brown, that stared back into mine. After sizing me up, she gave me a big, confused, wondrous smile, the familiar smile of a good-natured dementia patient.
"Do you hurt anywhere, maam?" I asked, beginning my exam while the nurses continued to clean her. "No," she said feebly, shaking her head. I looked in her ears, her mouth, her nose. I listened to her heart, her lungs, her abdomen. I palpated every part of her body, rotating and flexing her joints to make sure she had no clinical evidence of fractures.
Outside of the obvious signs of dehydration and her frail body breaking down at her pressure points, I was happy not to find any obvious signs of injury or acute medical illness. Now, we could pursue a thorough heart and brain workup (including a head CT to rule-out a stroke) as well as several clearance x-rays and some additional urine and blood studies. More importantly, social services could be called to pursue further information on this patient's living conditions and social situation.
It was near the end of my physical exam on this patient, though, when I began to see the situation more clearly. As the nurses continued to clean the patient and I stood beside the patient auscultating her abdomen, the room's curtain flew back and a very meticulous, very well-dressed, very put-together woman hurried into the room. She was middle-aged.
"May I help you, maam?" I asked, pulling my stethoscope from my ears as both nurses looked toward the woman, taking her in as I'm sure I had done.
"Yes, I'm her daughter," the woman answered with severe enunciation, taking a corner chair while nodding towards the patient. I waited briefly for her next question, a question that never arrived--"How is my mother doing?"--while taking in her neatly highlighted hair, her pressed wool pants, her polished heels, her matching argyle blazer, the multiple bands of gold that hovered on her neck and wrists, her ring-covered fingers, her painted face. I looked back at the patient, now rolled to her other side, and back at this daughter again.
The dichotomy of the situation was startling.
I leaned against the wall, giving the situation a few minutes to play itself out. The nurses continued their diligent work, occasionally glancing at the daughter, while the daughter continued to sit comfortably in her corner chair. And watch. I didn't expect her to offer her help bathing her mother. And she didn't. I had hoped that she might offer to hold her mother's hand, though, or whisper some encouragement in her ear. But she didn't. No moments of tenderness or love ever came.
Finally, I went up to this daughter and introduced myself and the two nurses. "Can you please tell me what happened with your mother?" I asked, eager to hear what she could contribute to her mother's story.
"Well, we, my brother and I, hadn't heard from Mother for a couple nights, so we called her. When we got no answer, we went over to her house and found her on the kitchen floor."
"Any signs of trauma?" I asked. "No," she answered. "Any blood?" "No." "Was your mother awake when you arrived?" "Yes." "Did she complain initially of any pain or have any difficulty breathing?" "No."
After finishing my questions, none with answers that would change our treatment plan, I asked this daughter about the living conditions the paramedics had described.
"Oh, that," the daughter said, blase, "we think Mother may have tried to get back up several times and failed, creating such a big mess." I nodded my head, hoping this was the extent of it, hoping that there wouldn't be anything more to this story when social services investigated. But, by Charlene's account, the paramedics had said the whole house was in disarray, not just the kitchen. "My brother is over cleaning Mother's house now as we speak," the daughter added.
I continued. "And your mother has dementia but lives alone, I see?" She nodded 'yes.' "Why hadn't anyone seen her for at least a couple days? How often do you check on her? Who cooks and cleans for her?"
The daughter shifted in her chair. "Well, either my brother or I go over every day, but both of us were busy and thought the other had been over. We were wrong. We have a cleaning maid and meals delivered, too, but not on weekends."
Although most of the answers seemed adequate, something still made me uncomfortable about this case. Something I couldn't put my finger on. At this point, though, I saw this daughter's eyes glisten. "Maam," I said, acknowledging her first signs of compassion, "I'm sorry if these questions might upset you, but they must be asked. Your mother's health and care depend on your answers." She nodded her understanding.
After a few more minutes of talking with the daughter, I said goodbye to both her and her mother, but not before thanking the nurses for yet another awesome job of patient care. They are worth far more than what their paycheck reflects. I made a conscious decision to leave the rest of the social questions to our case management team and focus on the patient's medical care.
Unfortunately, the patient's kidneys had begun failing her, both from her moderate dehydration and from being clogged with muscle-wasting metabolites (rhabdomyolysis). She was admitted, obviously, for further medical care before ultimately being placed into a safe nursing home environment. She would never again be left alone at home.
I refuse to sit in judgment of this daughter. And the son I never met. But in my line of work, a healthy dose of suspicion is sometimes what the doctor must order. So I did. I have to trust that our system works.
I have several friends who recently lost their fathers. Just last week, my brother-in-law suddenly lost his mother. My world is filled with people who, regretfully, have lost one or both parents. Who have lost their spiritual guiders. Who would give anything to have just a few more minutes with their deceased parent. Who would do things a bit differently than this patient's family, I'm sure.
I know I would.
As always, big thanks for reading. This post is dedicated to those who give of themselves to benefit an elderly person in their lives. May your kindness and compassion be returned tenfold...see you again in a few days.
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Sir Michael Parkinson, the British broadcaster, has reignited Australia’s republicanism debate, saying that it is “only a matter of time” before the country severs ties with the British royal family.
Speaking at the annual Australia Day address in Sydney on Monday night, he said that the period after the Queen either dies or abdicates would be an “acceptable” time for the nation
formally to sever ties with the monarchy.
“Why should Australia not be a republic? It’s its own country, its own man,” Sir Michael said.
“I find it, in a sense, incomprehensible that it’s not that now. My own
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On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), which, among other things, created financial incentives for physicians and other providers to adopt and utilize electronic health records (EHR) and penalties for those physicians who do not. The provisions addressing the incentives are known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act or the "HITECH Act". Many physicians remain uncertain about the details of the incentives so CMS has now published a Fact Sheet which is intended to shed some light on the HITECH payment incentives.
Here are some of the key points from the Fact Sheet:
- Financial incentives will begin in January 2011 for eligible professionals (EPs) who are meaningful EHR users.
- Beginning in 2015, payment adjustments will be imposed on EPs who are not meaningful EHR users by that date.
- Hospital-based physicians who substantially furnish their services in a hospital setting are not eligible for incentive payments.
- Incentive payments will equal to 75 percent of Medicare allowable charges for covered services furnished by the EP in a year, subject to a maximum payment in the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth years of $15,000; $12,000; $8,000; $4000; and $2,000, respectively.
- For early adopters whose first payment year is 2011 or 2012, the maximum payment is $18,000 in the first year.
- There will be no payments for meaningful EHR use after 2016.
- The Medicare fee schedule amount for professional services provided by an EP who was not a meaningful EHR user for the year would be reduced by 1 percent in 2015, by 2 percent in 2016, by 3 percent for 2017 and by between 3 to 5 percent in subsequent years.
- For 2018 and thereafter, if the Secretary finds that the proportion of EPs who are meaningful EHR users is less than 75 percent, then the reductions will be increased by 1 percentage point each year, but by not more than 5 percent overall.
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Senator Martins Congratulates Manhasset Resident For Completing Documentary on the Environment
Senator Jack M. Martins recently congratulated Chris Johnston on completing his documentary film, “Take the Challenge Now,” which examined how everyone can play their part in protecting the environment.
Chris, a sophomore at Chaminade High School, spent the past four years working on the documentary, which took him as far as Sweden to conduct interviews on environmental issues. As a resident of Manhasset, Chris also focused on Manhasset Bay and found some good news with regard to the cleanliness of the bay. This could be due to storm water treatment as well organizations such as the Manhasset Bay Protection Committee.
Chris learned a lot during the four years he worked on his documentary about the environment. But perhaps his most important message is that everyone can help protect the environment by spreading the word that environmental protection is everyone’s responsibility. “Awareness and education is the big thing that we need,” Chris said during a meeting with Senator Martins.
From refraining from throwing cups on the ground to cigarettes out the window, sensitivity toward the environment can go a long way. “Chris is an extraordinary young man who reminds us that there is no second chance when it comes to our environment. It’s our responsibility to preserve the environment for ourselves and for future generations. I want to thank him for his hard work in completing his documentary,” Senator Martins said. “Chris has an incredible future and will be a leader in years to come on environmental issues.”
Chris plans to volunteer this summer on various projects as he continues to commit himself to environmental issues. In the meantime, he encourages everyone to “Take the Challenge.” For more on Chris’ documentary, visit www.takethechallengenow.com.
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Biden Highlights Growing Investment in College Aid
By Michael A. Fletcher
ST. LOUIS -- Vice President Biden today convened a meeting of the Middle Class Task Force, where he highlighted for an audience of students, parents and educators the Obama administration's initiatives aimed at making college more affordable.
Pointing out that the cost of a four-year college education has more than doubled in the same time that middle class incomes have crept up by just 10 percent, Biden said that an unprecedented effort is being mounted to address the growing gap.
Even though most students do not pay the "sticker price" for college because of grants and loans, the cost of increasingly vital education has spun farther out of reach for too many Americans, Biden said.
"This is something we are genuinely, genuinely committed to changing," Biden said at the forum, held at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.
Biden said that the Obama administration has already started working on closing that gap by including large increases in Pell Grants and education tax credits in the economic stimulus package. The administration also has proposed streamlining the college loan process by directly administering all federally guaranteed loans, cutting banks out of that process, a controversial proposal that the administration says will save $94 billion over the next decade.
"This is the largest investment in education since the G.I. Bill," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who accompanied Biden to the St. Louis meeting.
Sharing the forum with his wife, Jill Biden, a community college professor, Duncan, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Gov. Jay Nixon (D-Mo.) and Cecilia Rouse, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, Biden paced through the audience taking questions about how to increase access to higher education.
Before the start of the meeting, the task force, which is headed by Biden, issued a report that listed those initiatives, while pointing out that colleges have to do more to lower costs, which have far outpaced inflation.
All of these changes are needed, Biden said, because of the increasingly important role that education plays in determining the economic and life chances of Americans.
"You are looking at two middle class -- years ago -- kids who got to stand before you today because of access to education," Biden said, pointing to his wife. "This comes from the gut, what we're talking about here."
After the meeting, Biden was to tour a Boys and Girls Club here before returning to Washington this evening.
Posted at 1:29 PM ET on Apr 17, 2009
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The comments to this entry are closed.
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For the first time in 20 years, air raid sirens sound in Israel's largest metro area.
A Hamas or Hezbollah rocket attack on Tel Aviv, and the Israeli response that such an attack would likely provoke, is a possibility almost too fearsome to contemplate. The city and its metro area are home to about 40 percent of Israel's population, and the country's lone international airport is located in one of its eastern suburbs. The General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces are headquartered in Tel Aviv, and because of the ongoing dispute over Jerusalem's final status, the city serves as Israel's internationally-recognized capital, and the venue for much of the country's diplomacy. Tel Aviv has always been a kind of psychological safe-zone as well, a secular city in a country riven with confessional tension; a pleasant and laid-back place where God, war and sectarianism can feel blessedly distant. An attack on Tel Aviv would not only threaten the safety of much of Israel's population. It would also yank the city back into the world that surrounds it, and initiate it into the very problems it is mythologized as being immune from. One of Israel's remaining precincts of physical safety and physic calm would be violated.
Today, there were numerous reports that that line had been crossed. On Thursday morning, an IDF spokesperson told a conference call of reporters that the IDF has targeted stockpiles of long-range Fajr-5 rockets during bombing raids on the Gaza Strip, Sky News reported that a rocket fell "in an open area in Rishon L'Tziyon," a large suburb 12 kilometers south of the city. According to The Times of Israel, reports of an attack on Rishon L'Tziyon were corroborated by the Israel media but partly denied by an IDF Spokesperson who said that no rockets had landed "on the ground" in the Tel Aviv area. The Times liveblog reports that one rocket hit the southern suburb of Holon, while Israeli radio said that two rockets hit nearby Bat Yam. According to Ha'aretz, two rockets hit Rishon L'tziyon in the late afternoon, and were followed by a single rocket that hit Holon some hours later. It's possible there has been some confusion as to which southern suburb the earlier pair of rockets hit, especially since the air raid system was activated in both places--and all reports seem to suggest that three rockets in total hit the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. To be clear, there are no credible reports that rockets have hit inside of Tel Aviv itself, and there are no reports of any injuries.
The Tel Aviv air raid siren apparently did go off, although the system is usually activated according to a rocket's speed and apparent trajectory. Thus, an attack on a suburb, or a rocket that lands in an open space or even at sea, has the potential to trigger a city-wide alert in Tel Aviv itself. And even if a rocket did hit in or around Tel Aviv, it's unlikely that the IDF would volunteer any specific information about where or what it hit: Why tell your enemy that their firing trajectories on your largest civilian population center are correct, or wrong, for that matter? According to Tel Aviv-based writer Ben Kerstein and others I spoke to, in radio broadcasts, the Israeli military is actively encouraging residents not the reveal the location of rocket strikes through social media (it's not just the army, either; this apparently home-made notice, urging Israel's not to "publish where [rockets] fall," has been making the rounds on Facebook). And according to one Times of Israel editor, the army is witholding information from Israeli media concerning the exact location where rockets land.
The exact spot of a rocket attack on the Tel Aviv megalopolis is perhaps less important than the reality of one. It's been two decades since Tel Aviv residents have heard air raid sirens go off, or have had to crouch beside their vehicles as rockets are falling overhead.
But the outer limit of Hamas's rocket campaign against Israel has expanded, bringing a degree of bewilderment and panic to a place that once seemed insulated from the region's violence. "The sirens went off for about 30 seconds," says Kerstein. "Then nothing. People were milling around on their cell phones trying to figure out what was going on." According to one person I spoke with, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on the northbound lanes of the Ayalon highway at 9:30 PM this evening. "Not normal," he added.
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I laugh when people talk about “organic” food…all food is organic…I’ve never seen any edible plastic food. However it seems the hippies aren’t getting anything extra from their “organic” food…except a much lighter wallet:
Stanford University Medical Centre has concluded that there is no clear evidence of any added health benefit to organic food. The researchers sifted through 240 different studies and were unable to identify specific fruits or vegetables for which organic appeared consistently to be the healthier choice. They also found that the risk of E. coli contamination was unrelated to farming methods.
It is the latest salvo fired in a long-running war between the organic food industry, scientists and increasingly confused British shoppers.
The research could not come at a worse time for the organic industry in Britain, which last year witnessed a sales drop of 4 per cent in organic products to £1.67 billion – the third consecutive year when sales have fallen significantly in this country. At one point, annual sales were more than £2.1 billion. The great organic boom of the Nineties and Noughties, which saw organic food transformed from a minority interest espoused by the lentil- munchers of north London into a major industry supplying every supermarket in the country – even McDonald’s – has come to an end.
The recession is largely to blame, as consumers decide that a scoop of organic Sandringham Duchy Original strawberry ice cream is a luxury they can probably afford to skip.
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Party invitations consist of many elements to consider. Moreover, there are many different types of party invitations as well such as birthday party invitations and graduation party invitations.
Parties are a great way to unwind and they are numerous types of parties. There are formal parties, informal parties, and semi-formal parties. However, regardless of the type of party, there is one thing that remains constant: party invitations. It is about communicating to your guests and more importantly, it is about setting the tone for your party. An invitation could mean the difference between the success and failure of your party and make no mistake, first impressions always count.
The most crucial element of any party invitation is the design of the invitation card. Equally important but more subtle is the message that will be presented within the card. Keep in mind that regardless of the nature of the party, an invitation must contain clear and coherent instructions and must be cordial and respectful in every way. Also, make an extra effort to understand the circumstances of your guests and provide as much information as possible in order to avoid any misunderstandings or confusion.
The design is heavily dependent on the nature of the party itself (formal, semi-formal, informal, etc.). The design will create a mental image of the party in the minds of the guests; therefore, it is very important that the design and the message are the same. If you are going in for a themed party, feel free to use color and specify the conditions of the party. In any case, it is best to opt for a simple and elegant design that can really capture the attention of all those who read it.
The message is also very important. Obviously, the central element of a party invitation is the name and contact details of the host, the details of the party and responsibilities and dress code of the guests. These details should be clear and coherent. If there is any special information that you would like to include in your party invitation, then always specify (food, etc.). Comprehensive details will reduce the chances of confusion. Also, if possible, print out a small map of the area, so guests can easily find their way.
You have several ways to give the party invitations to your friends: First – you can find an Internet site and place an order online. What you need is to fill in a special form, state your name, phone, date and location of the party. Your party invitations will be delivered in due time. Second – you can find a website where you’ll be offered printable party invitations. But in this case you should have a printer to download these party invitations and then send them to your friends by post. In this case you can add your own text or poem, photos or embellishments. Good quality and delivery are guaranteed. Third – you choose one of online ready party invitations and send it using e-mail.
There are also many different kinds of party invitations as well. Wedding party invitations have a special place among other party invitations. Some other types of invitations include graduation invitations, birthday party invitations, Christmas invitations, New Year invitations, and also tea party invitations.
Parties are occasions that can further enhance or damage your reputation as a host. Therefore, it is essential that you plan every detail of the party with clarity and precision. However, maintain a degree of flexibility or else you might find yourself in a very tough situation. Party invitations are the first and most important step towards hosting the perfect party so it is very important that you pay utmost attention to all the elements of the invitation and ensure that all your gusts receive it on time.
Incoming search terms:
- free kids party invitations
- tea party invitation idea
- princess birthday party invitation ideas
- princess invitation template
- princess party invites
- first birthday invitation card design
- unique princess party invitations
- princess tea party invitation
- princess party invitation templates
- princess party invitation
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Laura J. Martin, MD
No matter when you get the news that a loved one has a painful or terminal condition, it's a shock.
Deciding to become their caregiver, to help them manage their pain and suffering -- or manage it for them -- is a difficult choice.
That choice may be made in the blink of an eye, particularly when a loved one has a serious injury or dramatic downturn in a chronic condition.
Eunice Czarnecki, 73, had been helping her brother manage his heart disease and diabetes for years. But when he took a sudden turn for the worse, his doctor at Milwaukee's VA Medical Center told him his body simply couldn't fight any more. He was dying.
"He accepted that," Czarnecki tells WebMD. "But, even though he was having trouble breathing and was in a lot of pain, he wanted to die at home."
It wasn't Czarnecki's first time as a caregiver. She'd already seen her husband through his terminal illness.
"I knew I could take care of him as long as I had help with his pain," she says. "It was exhausting but worth it to be with my brother when he died."
When Karen Lowe married her husband, Barry, in 2005, he had already been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Soon after the Bartlesville, Okla., couple wed, they sat down with her husband's neurologist and had a heart-to-heart talk about the future. A major part of their discussion was about the end-of-life care her husband would need and want.
"So much talk about end of life is about death, but that's not what we talked about. We talked about quality of life and how to keep things as normal as possible. And we talked about how to make sure he won't suffer and the options we have to prevent that from happening," Lowe tells WebMD.
Palliative care is person-centered care with a goal of maximizing a patient's quality of life. To achieve this, the palliative care team attends to physical, emotional, social, and spiritual quality of life -- for the caregiver as well as for the patient.
"It's very supportive and very holistic care," Ben Marcantonio, MFT, of the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice, tells WebMD.
The growing use of hospice -- with its emphasis on pain control and quality of life -- has made people more aware of the benefits of palliative care for all patients, not just those who are dying. And it's demonstrated the important role family caregivers play on the palliative care team, says Christine Hudak, MD, associate director of Summa Palliative Care and Hospice Services in Akron, Ohio.
"They don't just know the person's likes and dislikes, they are also more likely to know their preferences for pain treatments and medical care, too," Hudak tells WebMD.
To find a palliative care team, Hudak suggests talking to the doctor most involved in your loved one's care or a hospital social worker. Usually they will refer you to a hospital program because almost 60% of large hospitals -- those with 50 or more beds -- have palliative care programs.
If the person you are caring for is a veteran, contact the Veterans Administration. Care consultants at local organizations, such as the Alzheimer's Association, may also be able to provide information on palliative care programs.
Good palliative care programs have two things in common, Hudak says. They use inter-disciplinary teams and each team works with the patient and family to create a personalized care plan. Typically, teams include:
"This is a 'life' team. It helps people look at options and it provides step-by-step help for caregivers in making the decisions they need to make for the best quality of life for their family member," Helene Morgan, MSW, a member of the pediatric palliative care team at Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, tells WebMD.
Whether you are a spouse, adult child, or close friend, choosing to help provide palliative care -- to become a member of the palliative care team -- means you are making "a role-changing decision," Marcantonio says.
That new role can bring stress and strain, and unexpected rewards.
Because of the added responsibilities and commitment that come with being a caregiver, you will constantly ask yourself: Is palliative care the right thing for my loved one and for me? To answer that question, do frequent reality checks.
George Roby is caring for his wife in their Chagrin Falls, Ohio, home. She has Alzheimer's disease.
"I constantly remind myself that I can't bring her into my world ... and that I am going to survive this," Roby tells WebMD.
If you feel you are on call 24/7, make sure to maintain a support network and take respite breaks.
"I'm at home a lot with my husband, so I found an online support group, MyParkinsons.org," Lowe says. "I get advice, I vent, and I get an amazing amount of info. I always feel better after I've gone there."
It's also important to take a break, says Marita Schifalacqua, who took care of her mother until she died of Alzheimer's in 2010.
"We found a respite program, through Milwaukee's Catholic Charities," Schifalacqua tells WebMD. "It allowed us to get out of the house for three hours a day. It was wonderful."
The palliative care team can support caregivers in:
Patients in palliative care sometimes recover. But caregivers have to be prepared for loss.
Soon after Jackson's husband passed away her chest started hurting so dreadfully she feared it was heart trouble. And it was. "When I went to the doctor he told me that I had a broken heart and that nothing would cure it except crying and time," she says.
"Now," she adds, "I'm crying all the time -- in the morning when I get up, in the check-out line at the store, at night. And I can feel that I'm getting better."
SOURCES:Eunice Czarnecki, Greenfield, Wis.Karen Lowe, Bartlesville, Okla.George Roby, Chagrin Falls, Ohio.Marita Schifalacqua, Milwaukee, Wis.Amy Jackson, Detroit.Christine Hudak, MD, associate director of Summa Palliative Care and Hospice Services in Akron, Ohio.Cheryl Kanetsky, LSW, program director, Cleveland Chapter Alzheimer's Association, Cleveland.Beth Kallmyer, LCSW, senior director, constituent services, National Alzheimer's Association, New York.Linda McNair, CMSW, senior programming officer, Cleveland Veterans Administration Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio.Ben Marcantonio, MA, Med, MFT, director of patient care services at the Institute for Palliative Medicine at San Diego Hospice, San DiegoLinda McNair, CMSW, senior programming officer, Cleveland Veterans Administration Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio.Stephanie Scrota, care consultant, Benjamin Rose Institute, Cleveland.Michael Williams, PsyD, senior program association, Wellness House, Chicago.Carol Whitlatch, PhD, caregiving researcher at Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, Cleveland.National Alliance for Caregiving web site, "Caregiving in the U.S., 2009;" accessed Jan. 4, 2011.National Family Caregiver Alliance web site, "Caregving Factsheet," accessed Jan. 4, 2011.Messinger-Rapport, B. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, November 2010, vol: 77 pp: 770-783.MetLife web site, "MetLife Study of Working Caregivers and Employers Health Care Costs," accessed Jan. 3, 2011.Whitlatch, CJ, Dementia, May 2009, vol: 8 pp: 223-243.
The Health News section does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information.
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ADS, Colo. (AP) — At least five homes were destroyed early Friday after as many as three rare nighttime tornadoes reportedly ripped through sparsely populated counties on the southeastern Colorado plains.
State authorities said tornadoes were reported in Prowers, Kiowa and Bent counties. Lamar officials in Prowers County said deputies and state troopers spotted a fast and large tornado south of the city that ripped through four homes and left at least two people with minor injuries.
A fifth home in Chivington in Kiowa County was totaled after the five people sleeping inside escaped, said owner Therisa Brown, who added that there was no warning before her home was demolished.
"We woke up to the roof getting ripped off," Brown said. "We went to the living room, and we lifted a wall off of a friend who was staying with us. That's when the tornado circled back, and it hit the house again. We barely made it into the bathroom."
She said only a few exterior walls remained of her home. A photo from The Denver Post showed the ceiling and wall gone from about half the house, a stove standing in the wide open kitchen.
Chris Sorensen, a spokesman for the Colorado Division of Homeland Security, said the areas hit were mostly isolated farmland. A tractor-trailer was blown over on Colorado Highway 96 near Chivington, in Kiowa County.
The National Weather Service hasn't confirmed the tornadoes but has sent a team to assess the damage. There was also a report of a tornado touching down near Yoder in El Paso County on Thursday night and damaging a barn, said Patrick Cioffi, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Pueblo.
Tornado season usually doesn't begin until May in Colorado. Overnight tornadoes are more common in Kansas and Oklahoma than in Colorado, where most severe weather is fueled by daytime heat, Cioffi said. He said the severe weather on the plains followed near record temperatures in the 80s.
Heat creates instability in the atmosphere which can lead to severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.
Power has been knocked out in Lamar and most of Prowers County because of the severe weather. Drivers traveling across the plains were warned to fuel up because gasoline wasn't available in the area.
No shelters have been established, said Catherine Barde, a spokeswoman for Pikes Peak Chapter of Red Cross.
"Right now we are just on standby," she said. "We are working with families on an individual basis."
The same band of storms also dropped snow in Breckenridge and the Eisenhower Tunnel, said forecaster Todd Dankers in Boulder. High winds swept the Western Slope, but no injuries were reported, he said.
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Fixing midline discrepancy?
I am wondering if a 2mm midline discrepancy can be fixed by fixing braces on the bottom row of teeth ONLY?
Due to financial issues I only had top braces done in the past. If fixing the midline discrepancy requires me to have braces on both rows, I am not sure if it is worth fixing due to the costs involved.
What detrimental effects can result from this condition? My left jaw has always been looser and more prone to clicking than the right. Maybe this is due to the midline discrepancy?
A midline discrepancy cannot be corrected in one arch. You would have to have braces on both the upper and lower teeth to correct this problem. There are no known problems that arise from a midline discrepancy and many orthodontists would not recommend correcting the problem if the upper dental midline is in the center of the face.
Mark G Hans, DDS, MSD
Professor of Orthodontics
School of Dental Medicine
Case Western Reserve University
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Jump to:Page Content
The choice of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to lead the Catholic Church as Pope Benedict XVI served as the springboard for a lively panel discussion on the future of religion in global politics at the Kennedy School Forum Wednesday night.
“I’m actually very worried about this appointment frankly,” said Mary Jo Bane, Kennedy School professor and author of “Taking Faith Seriously.”
Two issues most concerned Bane, a former assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. One, that the new pope’s writings on Christianity and Catholicism as the only way to salvation will be detrimental to interfaith dialogue. And two, that a simple Google search to find his past work on social issues and poverty relief turns up very little.
“I know that people change in the office,” Bane said. “But from his history on these issues that I care deeply about, I’m worried both for the church and the world.”
Less troubled was Father Bryan Hehir, professor of the practice of religion and public life at the Kennedy School. “You have a conservative intellectual — there’s no question about it,” he said.
“Whether he has got anything in the Google on social justice now or not, he’ll have something because he has a tradition he has to live up to,” Hehir added. “So there’ll be a social encyclical in my view within a year because he just has to produce on that issue.”
Richard Parker, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School, put into perspective the power of the pope over policymakers.
“In a country as intensely Catholic as Poland where this last pope came from, ultimately he was unable to stop the Polish Parliament from passing legislation that was fundamentally in contradiction with Catholic policy,” Parker said.
What then will be the legacy of Benedict XVI?
“I would hope the new pope would make serious reduction of global poverty a test of faith for this generation,” said Jim Wallis, a Christian leader and author of “God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It.” “A pope doing that would do more for interfaith collaboration…than anything else.”
The panelists also discussed the tricky relationship between religion and politics in America.
“Religion must be disciplined by democracy,” Wallis said. “It’s perfectly fine to bring your religious conviction to the public square…but you don’t get to say ‘I’m religious and I get to win’ or ‘God spoke to me last night and I got the fix for social security.’ You have to persuade your fellow citizens that what you are proposing is the best thing for all of us, religious or not.”
Hehir agreed. “I am very apprehensive of collapsing a debate into religion and politics,” he said. “Because I think the mediating term between religion and politics is some concept of morality…[then] it becomes a different debate because it doesn’t mean you try to translate religious conviction directly into political choice.”
Moderated by Center for Public Leadership director David Gergen, the event was co-sponsored by the Institute of Politics and the Kennedy School’s Catholic Caucus, Muslim Caucus, Jewish Caucus, and Christian Fellowship. A video archive can be viewed at www.iop.harvard.edu.
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You may not have noticed it, but tucked into President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech last night was a reference to an executive order he plans to issue today that sounds like an in-your-face invitation to a separation-of-powers battle with Congress.
Bush complained about congressional "earmarks," especially those that are snuck into committee reports that accompany legislation, rather than in the legislation itself. The president continued, "Tomorrow, I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote." Our companion Influence blog discussed the anti-earmark effort here yesterday.
Bush's challenge seemed to mirror the controversy in recent years over his signing statements, in which Bush asserted his intention not to enforce certain parts of statutes he was signing. It even carried faint echoes of "impoundment," the presidential practice of outright refusing to spend appropriated funds, which got President Richard Nixon in such trouble with Congress. Does Bush's pronouncement portend a major courtroom clash between the executive and legislative branches? MSNBC's Chris Matthews ventured the guess on the air last night that Bush's move would be "extra-constitutional."
We asked Stanley Brand of Brand Law Group in D.C., one of the top go-to guys in the nation's capital for interbranch disputes such as this one. Brand, who was general counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives under Tip O'Neill from 1976 to 1983, said his initial judgment is that Bush's executive order falls within his powers.
"It could be the one instance of many efforts by President Bush to assert executive prerogatives where he is right," said Brand. "If an appropriation is not in the law, it's not part of the constitutional mandate" for the executive branch to spend it.
Brand explained that it has become common for members of Congress to express their specific preference for how an appropriation should be spent in a committee report, which does not have the same force of law that it would have if it were in the statute itself. Nonetheless, "agencies are subject to the will of their patron appropriators," Brand says, so they often take the committee reports as marching orders.
An executive order from the President will give agencies more backbone to refuse to spend earmarked money the way members wanted them to, says Brand, but in the real world "they will still be on the horns of a dilemma." But for now, Brand says, it does not appear that Bush's executive order will be "a litigable issue."
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Communism: it sucked.
The Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol for me of the rottenness of Marxist regimes as I grew up in the 1980s. After all, no country in the capitalist West ever built a wall to keep its inhabitants from escaping. Thus when I first visited the city in the late 1990s, one of the first things I did was visit the East Side Gallery of graffiti art, sprayed on a surviving stretch of the Wall.
Still, I never thought I’d see a news report about a developer trying to tear down a chunk of the Wall so that he could build some apartments for rich people. But that’s what happened last week, until a crowd of protestors showed up to stop it from happening.
I was shocked by this act of historical vandalism because the Germans are – for obvious reasons – probably the most history conscious people on the planet. They don’t take their past lightly. Also, Germany is a very stable and orderly place, whereas razing historical sites to make way for luxury developments happens more often in authoritarian and developing countries, where personal relations between the elites frequently override the rule of law.
Moscow under ex-Mayor Yuri Luzhkov is a prime example of this. I lived downtown in the early to mid-2000s and remember watching in amazement as Luzhkov tore down one historical building after another, replacing them with bland, shiny hotels/office complexes/luxury apartment blocks/shopping malls. By an astonishing coincidence, a lot of these contracts went to his wife’s construction firm, making her a billionaire in the process.
Initially, Luzhkov concentrated on buildings that were in pretty bad shape, and it’s not wrong to demolish old rubbish – too much heritage worship and you wind up living in a tedious museum like Prague. But then he went hog wild, reaching the apotheosis of pointlessness when he tore down the ugly Stalinist Moskva hotel to build an even uglier not-quite replica. Of course, I say pointlessness, but it wasn’t really, not when folk were getting rich.
Istanbul I know less well than Moscow, but on a visit last summer I witnessed a similar phenomenon, as demolition crews were tearing down the old historic neighborhoods in the city center. Actually, I exaggerate: they were only tearing down the historic areas inhabited by poor people. Those occupied by the wealthy went mysteriously untouched by the wrecker’s ball.
Worse still is the situation in Saudi Arabia where, according to the United States-based Gulf Institute, the royal family has destroyed 95 percent of the ancient sacred sites in Mecca and Medina over the last 20 years. Current plans to build the largest mosque in the world could result in the destruction of Mohammed’s tomb, while the house of his first wife Khadijah has already been replaced with a public toilet.
To read the rest of this awesome article, click here
Latest posts by Daniel Kalder (Posts)
- Graphic Novel Review: “Crusades” by Izu, Nikolavitch and Xiaoyou - April 30, 2013
- What I want to know about George W. Bush’s presidential library in Dallas - April 24, 2013
- The other Koresh - April 17, 2013
- Are white supremacists on the rampage in Texas? - April 3, 2013
- Boris Berezovsky: death of an oligarch - March 27, 2013
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03/21/2012 12:00 pm
You may be familiar with our Zumba Fitness class offered twice a week at the library. This class is very popular with library patrons. However, there may be many who have no idea what is involved in the class. This Lunch and Learn will be a great opportunity to learn more about the class and get some information on how this is a fun way to get a good workout.
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Have you ever thought of trying to make your own mozzarella cheese at home? No? You mean not everyone sits around thinking of ways to make their life more complicated? My idea of making mozzarella cheese at home was not to make my life more complicated, just to have fun and learn something new. I spent so much time working on my first vegetable garden this year, I thought that my tomatoes could use a cheese friend. Yes, I do stuff like this often. No, I will not be giving up store bought cheese.
I’ve made ricotta cheese at home in the past (very easy), but after googling around on how to make mozzarella, it sounded a bit more complicated. Rennet?! Citric acid?! This could get ugly. Fortunately, I was able to find both these items at Whole Foods, and the process turned out to be pretty simple. Long, but simple. Most of the several hours it took to make this was just waiting, so don’t let that intimidate you.
Instead of trying to pretend that I’ve made mozzarella cheese a million times, and you should follow my process, I’ll just direct you to the site that I learned from, Instructables.com, and let them explain it to you in the simple, easy to understand way they explained it to me (with photos!). Have you guys seen this site before? There’s instructions on how to do a million things, so surf around and see if there’s something you’ve always wanted to learn!
The cheese turned out awesome, and my fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes and basil were very happy to have company.
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As a Resident Naturalist at UGA Costa Rica, one of the requirements of the job is a “forced vacation,” known as the visa trip. This is true for not only all long term volunteers, but also for any non-citizen in Costa Rica (but as always there are a few exceptions). When you enter the country, you need a valid passport that is good for at least six months and a return ticket. Visas can be given up to a 90 day period. Most tourists receive a 30 day visa, but long term volunteers, visitors, students, and expatriate residents typically want-and get-the 90 day visa. Before or on your last visa day, you need to leave the country for at least 3 days to renew it. If you don’t, there is a potential for fines and other problems.
I arrived in Costa Rica on December 2nd, 2012, and I left for my first visa trip on February 20th, 2013. I decided to go to Granada, Nicaragua for six days for a slightly longer and more relaxed vacation. Granada is relatively close to San Luis; I did not particularly want to spend more than one day traveling.
Many perceive that Nicaragua is still living under the shadow of the Revolution and the Contra War of the 70’s and 80’s, but it is actually one of the safest and most popular tourist destinations in Central America. Granada is the oldest European founded city in the Americas, having been founded in 1524, and its architecture and culture reflect this distinction. It has had a long and interesting history, including being a frequent victim of pirates and being burned to the ground by the nefarious American filibuster William Walker. Granada is also fortunate to be near many impressive natural features. It sits on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, the largest freshwater lake in Central America. It is near six volcanoes in various states of activity and 365 islands (known as Las Isletas) that were ejected into Lake Nicaragua from a past volcanic eruption.
Traveling there was fortunately very easy. I used public transportation in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua with no problems and relatively inexpensive costs. However, I do caution that I was very vigilant and protective of my bags and tried to make it clear that I had nothing worth stealing by keeping my few important items in secure locations. The border crossing from Costa Rica to Nicaragua costs a bit in “crossing fees,” and the differences between the countries are immediately apparent. While Costa Rica’s border was very clean and quiet with new buildings, the Nicaraguan side had a significant amount of trash and grungy edifices. It was filled with people selling food and souvenirs, border crossing assistance, and offerings to change money. The same caution as on the bus is extended to crossing the border. You do not need to accept help from anyone, and typically help comes with a price. Taxis in Granada were also very inexpensive, but it is important to note that you should agree on a price before you enter the cab.
My time in Granada, Nicaragua was pleasantly punctuated by a large International Poetry Festival. Besides baseball, one of Nicaragua’s most popular pastimes is poetry. This year the Festival was in honor of Ernesto Cardenal: priest, poet, minister of culture, and revolutionary. Poets came from around the world to do workshops and read their poetry to the Nicaraguan masses. Many Nicaraguan figures were present including Giaconda Belli, Margaret Randall, and Bianca Jagger. I was privileged to get to listen to him read some of his poetry as well as Giaconda Belli and many other intriguing international poets. There were also free performances of Nicaraguan folkloric dancing, musical acts, and a carnival parade to bury the enemies of poetry (arrogance and pride) in Lake Nicaragua.
Besides attending events related to the Poetry Festival, I also visited many of the colonial churches throughout the city. The most interesting was the La Merced Church and the stunning vista from its bell tower of the cityscape and Mombacho volcano in the very near distance. I also toured Las Isletas, which presented great birding opportunities and a chance to see the push and pull of locally owned islands versus foreign-owned. Additionally, some great non-profits are at work in Granada. My Camera, My World supports the education of Nicaraguan children and does that in part through programs that teach children how to use cameras and take pictures of their world. They have a small gallery where they display and sell pictures. Smiles Coffee is a cafe run by deaf-mutes and provides job skills trainings and education for disabled youth in Granada.
Finally, interactions and conversations with Nicaraguans are part of what made the trip so spectacular and part of the reason why I want to return. People were generally friendly and very tranquil (unless you were driving). I learned most from getting to sit next to someone on the bus and learning about how they see their country and culture and what goes on in their life.
Cafe de las Sonrisas
International Poetry Festival
Inside the Granada Cathedral
A view west from Merced
Sunset next to the Granada Cathedral
Article and photos: Katie Lutz, Resident Naturalist
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Deleting Google search history, blocking ads & starting fresh
As from 1 March 2012, it will be easier than ever for online advertisers to target web users, thanks to Google. Apart from debates about privacy, the simple fact is that the majority of Internet users are not experienced webmasters who know how to control and customise their privacy options.
For those rare occasions when we don't just want to buy random crap off the Internet (sarcasm), it becomes really irritating and intrusive to be constantly bombarded by adverts. I spent a couple of hours going through all my Google accounts and finding information from my teenaged years and experimental student days. Any “likes” or “interests” that you may have added somewhere in the webesphere could soon be used to load the cannons of consumerism and bombard you.
If you use Google, you may want to read this is a good article to read (published at The Age dot com) if you haven't a clue what this is all about. But what follows are a few useful places to start if you wish to start blocking ads and begin cleaning out some of your data and baggage before Google gets a firmer hold on it.
Clearing your Google Search History:
(the info below also appears on The Age dot com):
- Go to the Google History page and sign in.
- Click “Remove All Web History” then “Okay” to confirm.
- Your Google Search History should be turned on by default. You can always click "Resume" if you decide to turn this feature back on.
For more control over your various Google accounts that you may or may not have, try these:
- Google Dashboard: Here you can control the data associated with your Google Account.
- Ads Preferences Manager: Here you can make changes to the ads you see, including blocking specific advertisers or opting-out of seeing personalised ads completely.
- Eject button: If you decide you want to opt out altogether, Google provides a one stop shop to opt out of everything and take your "data dandruff" with you completely.
Blocking Ads in Firefox and Chrome
For blocking ads, there is also a useful plugin for Firefox and Chrome called Adblock Plus, which does as the name suggests: blocks ads.
A final website I came across almost by accident is the Network Advertising Initiative. An article on here called Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising gives a status on which advertising groups you have received cookies from over the years. There is a really useful "Opt-out from all" option here, which lets you remove most (if not all) of these.
And before any of you haters start bashing out comments, understand that this is not about "having something to hide"; it's a much more complicated issue around privacy, freedom of information, and how we are treated as Internet users.
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Your neighborhood post office slated for closure might be saved — at least for now.
The U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday that it will delay the closure or consolidation of thousands of post offices across the country in response to requests from lawmakers, who said the process should be stopped while Congress debates legislation to overhaul the cash-strapped mail agency.
No post office or mail processing facility will be closed or merged with nearby locations until May 15 at the earliest, but officials plan to continue reviewing the fates of thousands of locations in the coming months in hopes of resuming the closures after Congress passes postal reform legislation, officials said.
“Given the Postal Service’s financial situation and the loss of mail volume, the Postal Service must continue to take all steps necessary to reduce costs and increase revenue,” USPS said in a statement Tuesday.
(RELATED: Is my post office closing? Find out!)
As part of plans to cut $20 billion in costs by 2015, the Postal Service hopes to close more than 3,700 post offices and about 250 mail processing facilities across the country. It also hopes to end Saturday mail deliveries, slow the delivery of first-class mail and change labor union contracts to possibly cut as many as 120,000 jobs.
Postal officials say the changes need to occur quickly in order to keep the delivery service solvent, but Tuesday’s move slows the process and appears to preempt efforts to force USPS to stop closing facilities by force of law.
Concerned that USPS would preempt the passage of reform legislation, 20 Democratic senators on Friday asked Senate leaders to include language in annual appropriations measures that would block USPS from closing any more facilities until a reform bill is passed.
“While some of these changes may be needed, we believe that it is very important to give Congress the opportunity to reform the Postal Service in a way that protects universal service while ensuring its financial viability for years to come,” the senators wrote.
Competing postal reform bills have passed House and Senate committees, but neither has been brought to a full vote. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who chairs the Senate committee with oversight of the Postal Service and is the cosponsor of the Senate measure, said Tuesday that his colleagues won’t vote on the bill this month.
“I wish it would come up before the end of the year, but there’s no time,” Lieberman said Tuesday, adding that Senate leaders told him that they hope to hold a vote on the measure early next year.
Follow Ed O’Keefe on Twitter: @edatpost
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I read the answers to "When or how often should I replace my bike helmet?", but unfortunately none of the answers there cites any references.
Have there been any studies quantifying the claim of reduced protection after single impact, e.g. in terms of increased risk of injury?
It's easy to see reasons why manufacturers would want you to believe any impact kills the helmet - it's hard to set limits on potential damage, and buying a new helmet means additional profit.
Horse riding helmets come with similar warnings, but my first one seemed to survive several years while I was learning show jumping - including way more falls than I could have afforded new helmets.
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Renowned rock and roll photographer Jim Marshall died Wednesday night at age 74. NPR's Felix Contreras has this remembrance. Listen to the radio story here.
Jerry Garcia's grin, Carlos Santana's grimace, Jimi Hendrix's flamboyance and Duane Allman's intense gaze of concentration. Jim Marshall seemed to sense when it was coming and knew the exact instant when he should click the shutter.
It was usually because he shot from the stage, as close to the music as the members of the band, completely in tune with the glances and head nods that make up the wordless communication between musicians in the moment.
Jim Marshall's photographs were the reason my high school photojournalism class turned into a concert photography workshop as I spent hours in the dark room experimenting with my own manipulation of shadow and light trying to elicit the same excitement I saw in Marshall's shots. Those Marshall photographs made music come alive for me. Which is a funny thing to say since the music itself should make that happen.
Jim Marshall with his iconic image of Johnny Cash. (Courtesy of Tim Mantoani)
But I think I experienced those images like that because I was young, the music was new and the musicians played with an infectious sense of discovery. And Jim Marshall was there with his camera as witness.
While Marshall continued to snap photos throughout his career, I'm always drawn back to his work from the late 1960s and early '70s.
Looking back at his photographs from that era on news of his passing, I now understand that I had to live an additional 35 years to really grasp what is in them: not just the now-iconic images of rock stars that I saw as a high school music-lover.
I now see intimate portraits of young men and women celebrating the simple joys of being an age when we could still look at life with wonder and imagine the infinite possibilities of our dreams and aspirations.
Have an idea? Pitch it!
The Picture Show on Facebook or on Twitter
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You've angered the 404 bunny, and the page you requested was not found.
Be nice and try again, or hop on over to a link below.
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights? Read more.
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That’s the clear message from UK Financial Investments, the body that holds stakes in Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and nationalised banks. Those stakes are likely to be worth about 80 billion pounds.
“We will need to innovate, be imaginative in our approach and use the full range of sales methods available to us,” John Crompton, head of market investments at UKFI, says in a speech at Reuters offices in London.
Crompton says nothing has been decided on timing, price and how long the sell-down will take. But UKFI is expected to test investor appetite some time next year with an institution placing of several billion pounds. That could include structured transactions, including exchangeable debt issues.
Once markets stabilise, shares are likely to be offered to retail investors. That’s due to the scale of the disposal, but also to allow the public to share in any profit from the taxpayer led bail-out.
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Japan To Join Talks On Pacific Trade Deal
By: U.S. AgNet
3/18/2013 10:36:08 AM
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Friday that Japan will join talks on a Pacific trade pact that would oblige the country to open up sheltered industries including farming, long a bastion of protectionism.
According to the Associated Press, the decision to seek participation in the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, raised protests from farmers, who are a traditional bastion of support for Abe's Liberal Democratic Party.
Many in Japan, however, see the pact as a way to overcome stubborn resistance to reforms essential for reviving the stagnant economy. In a national address, Abe said Japan has no choice but to opt for the growth that comes with freer trade or lose out to other countries that are capitalizing on such market opening. He repeatedly pledged to guard Japan's national interest and ensure that the trade pact would benefit farmers as well as other Japanese.
Japan's agricultural lobby is small but politically powerful. However, after two decades of stagnation, calls by big business groups such as the Keidanren to join the trade pact or miss out on easier access to key export markets appear to have outweighed objections from farmers.
The average age of Japanese farmers is 66 and hundreds of thousands will retire in the coming years.
For more information: http://www.usagnet.com/story-national.php?Id=622&yr=2013
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Ferruccio Busoni's boa constrictor of a piano concerto is seldom performed and recorded. It is about 75 minutes long, makes considerable demands on the pianist, on the orchestra, and on the audience members, and it requires – on top of everything else – a men's chorus singing an "Hymn to Allah" in the final movement.
John Ogdon's famous recording of this concerto is out of print now, but knowing EMI Classics' habits, it will be reissued one of these days. At any rate, this new release by Music & Arts has much to recommend it, in spite of faded (but certainly not unpleasant) monaural sound. Gunnar Johansen (not to be confused with Grant Johannesen) was a prolific recording artist, but mostly for his own label (Artist Direct) which has not had much of a presence, if any, during the CD era. Johansen studied with Egon Petri (also with Edwin Fischer and Frederic Lamond) who in turn had been a protégé of Busoni himself. There even was a brief meeting between Busoni and Johansen. In the absence of recordings of this concerto by Petri (let alone by Busoni), Johansen's interpretation may be as close as we can get to an "authentic" interpretation. (But then again, maybe not.)
Be that as it may, this recording – professionally recorded (but not commercially released, apparently) during performances on January 15 and 16, 1956 – transformed my opinion about this concerto. Until now, I thought that this was a rather boring work. Johansen and Schmidt-Isserstedt make it interesting, like a long novel by Thomas Mann that you don't want to put down. The present performers shape the concerto's architecture well, and what seem like longueurs elsewhere don't seem tiresome at all here. Schmidt-Isserstedt's tempos are on the fast side – more then three minutes faster than Christoph von Dohnányi's with Garrick Ohlsson on Telarc, for example – and the lack of excessive reverence does the concerto a world of good. Busoni was a renaissance man whose interest and skill in almost everything musical was unparalleled during his lifetime. More than other pianist, I think, Johansen has captured Busoni's diversity and even his self-contradictions in playing that is alternately brilliant and grave, giddy and profound, and warm and bracing. This is one of those performances where everything seems to come together. The NDR Orchestra is not the best, but they don't take away from the importance of this recording. So, for admirers of the Busoni concerto, this is a must-have, and it could stimulate new interest in Johansen, who has been something of a cult figure up until now.
Copyright © 2005, Raymond Tuttle
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Fri May 25, 2012
Observing Memorial Day
Like many Americans, we plan to take Memorial Day off. And while a three-day weekend is always fun, this holiday is a somber one.
We were reminded of that reading an Op-Ed from Tom Manion in today's Wall Street Journal. Manion served in the military for 30 years and his son, Travis Manion, was killed in Iraq when he was just 26-years-old.
Manion delivers an emotional piece that attempts to answer a complex question: Why do they serve?
His son had an easy answer, telling him that "If not me, then who?"
But the sacrifices are enormous and many times tragic. Yet even after a decade of war, Americans still volunteer to serve. That, writes Manion, is the "essence of our country."
We encourage you to click over and read the full piece.
We'll leave you with a stunning photograph taken in Boston today, where 33,000 American flags were planted to represent the Massachusetts soldiers killed since the civil war:
We'll be back Tuesday, unless breaking news warrants an early return. Meanwhile, you may see posts from our weekend crew.
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Are you trying to lose weight, but don't have enough time to make healthy, low-fat recipes? There are many frozen foods available at most supermarkets that are healthy, low-fat options that may help you lose weight. The following are five of the best frozen foods for losing weight:
1. Michelina's Lean Gourmet Chicken Alfredo is both healthy and tasty, making it one of the best frozen dinners. This frozen food is prepared with chicken and noodles in a cheesy sauce. This is a low-calorie (about 270 calories) meal, which contains only six grams of fat and one gram of saturated fat with 610 milligrams of sodium.
2. Kashi Black Bean Mango is high in dietary fiber. It tastes great, even when baked in a conventional oven. This recipe contains 340 calories, eight grams of fat, and one gram of saturated fat. The sodium content is 430 milligrams and protein content is seven grams.
3. Amy's Brown Rice, Black-Eyed Peas, & Veggies Bowl is a favorite among those who prefer a low-fat diet. The vegetables in Amy's recipe are abundant and crunchy. Along with the fluffy rice, they make for a filling dish. The iron content is reasonably high and the calorie content is as low as 290 calories.
4. Healthy Choice Complete Meals Golden Roasted Turkey Breast is another favorite among the calorie conscious. It contains only 290 calories with 4.5 grams of fat per meal. The turkey is tender and comes with lots of green beans.
5. Kashi Lime Cilantro Shrimp is another healthy, tasty, and filling frozen meal. This dish contains lots of tasty shrimp and plenty of crunchy vegetables over a whole grain pilaf. This dish is high in fiber and has a calorie count as low as 250 calories.
© Newsmax. All rights reserved.
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April 2012 | Issue 57
Taxpayers making gifts of hard-to-value property will sometimes employ a “formula clause” which enables them to retroactively adjust the size of their gift based on a value determination carried out subsequently to when the gift was made. This is usually done in order to keep the overall size of the gift within the bounds of a gift tax exclusion.
The IRS has taken a dim view of formula clauses, attacking them without success in Estate of Christiansen, Estate of Petter, and Estate of McCord. In these three cases, the formulas provided that any excess value created by the formulas was to be given to charity.
A Recent Case
A more recent case, Wandry v. Commissioner – T. C. Memo. 2012-88, March 26, 2012, also involves a formula clause, but one differing from the others in that it does not pour the excess value over into a charity.
In August, 2001, petitioners, Joanne and Albert Wandry, formed Norseman Capital, LLC, a Colorado limited liability company. Norseman held cash, marketable securities and a family business.
On January 1, 2004, petitioners executed gift documents transferring gifts of membership units of Norseman to their children and grandchildren. The documents specified the dollar value of each gift, with the number of units gifted to be based on the fair market value of the units of Norseman as finally determined by the IRS or a court of law.
The IRS Weighs In
The IRS issued a notice of deficiency related to these gifts. It argued that the Norseman gifts represented a transfer of fixed percentage interests of Norseman rather than a specified dollar value. This, they said, creates a condition subsequent to a completed gift and voids the adjustment clause as being contrary to public policy.
The Court’s Decision
The court, for various reasons, rejected this argument, drawing a distinction between a “savings clause,” which a taxpayer may not use to avoid the imposition of gift tax, and a “formula clause,” as was used in this case, which the court held to be valid.
The court also commented on the charitable gift aspect of the case, stating that “this factor contributed to our conclusion, but it was not determinative. The lack of a charitable component in the cases at hand does not result in a ‘severe and immediate’ public policy concern.”
Wandry is the first case dealing with a formula clause that doesn’t have a charitable element. It worked for the petitioners. It might be worth taking a look at to see if it can work for your clients.
IRS Circular 230 disclosure: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding any penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction(s) or tax-related matter(s) addressed herein.
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“That’s my idee exactly; but it’s uncommon hard to settle which of them that stays at home you’ll trust your money to. You see Betsey was always pesterin’ me to give to charity things; but I told her it was better to save up and give it in a handsome lump that looked well, and was a credit to you. When she was dyin’ she reminded me on’t, and I promised I’d do suthing before I follered. I’ve been turnin’ on’t over in my mind for a number of months, and I don’t seem to find any thing that’s jest right. You’ve ben round among the charity folks lately accordin’ to your tell, now what would you do if you had a tidy little sum to dispose on?”
“Help the Freed people.”
The answer came so quick that it nearly took the old gentleman’s breath away, and he looked at his niece with his mouth open after an involuntary, “Sho!” had escaped him.
“David helped give them their liberty, and I would so gladly help them to enjoy it!” cried Christie, all the old enthusiasm blazing up, but with a clearer, steadier flame than in the days when she dreamed splendid dreams by the kitchen fire.
“Well, no, that wouldn’t meet my views. What else is there?” asked the old man quite unwarmed by her benevolent ardor.
“Wounded soldiers, destitute children, ill-paid women, young people struggling for independence, homes, hospitals, schools, churches, and God’s charity all over the world.”
“That’s the pesky part on ’t: there’s such a lot to choose from; I don’t know much about any of ’em,” began Uncle Enos, looking like a perplexed raven with a treasure which it cannot decide where to hide.
“Whose fault is that, sir?”
The question hit the old man full in the conscience, and he winced, remembering how many of Betsey’s charitable impulses he had nipped in the bud, and now all the accumulated alms she would have been so glad to scatter weighed upon him heavily. He rubbed his bald head with a yellow bandana, and moved uneasily in his chair, as if he wanted to get up and finish the neglected job that made his helplessness so burdensome.
“I’ll ponder on ’t a spell, and make up my mind,” was all he said, and never renewed the subject again.
But he had very little time to ponder, and he never did make up his mind; for a few months after Christie’s long visit ended, Uncle Enos “was took suddin’,” and left all he had to her.
Not an immense fortune, but far larger than she expected, and great was her anxiety to use wisely this unlooked-for benefaction. She was very grateful, but she kept nothing for herself, feeling that David’s pension was enough, and preferring the small sum he earned so dearly to the thousands the old man had hoarded up for years. A good portion was put by for Ruth, something for “mother and Letty” that want might never touch them, and the rest she kept for David’s work, believing that, so spent, the money would be blest.
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Last month I started reading Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within (Doubleday, 2006). Before I finished I learned it had been nominated in the criticism category for the National Book Critics Circle Award. On February 8, the The New York Times reported that Elliott Weinberger, previous finalist for the award, denounced Bawer, accusing him of "racism as criticism." Meanwhile, the president of the Circle's board, John Freeman, wrote on the organization's blog, "I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer's 'While Europe Slept'...It's [sic] hyperventilated rethoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia."
Having now finished reading it, I must agree with Freeman's sentiments about While Europe Slept. If Bawer does win in the "criticism" category when awards are announced on March 8, it will bring shame upon the Circle.
Writer and critic Bawer is gay, an avowed liberal who moved from New York to Amsterdam in 1998 because of its more tolerant atmosphere. He now lives in Oslo. While Europe Slept is a full-out critique of what Bawer considers Europe's complacency with regard to the radical Islamist threat, by comparison with the vigorous and resolute response taken by the US since 9/11. But while Bawer is critical of Europe, his views with regard to Islam are in fact symptomatic of a widespread, and growing, European tendency. Whereas hostility and racism toward Muslim immigrants were previously the property of the extreme right, such views have become increasingly mainstream. For instance, take the fulminations of Oriana Fallaci in books like The Force of Reason, or Polly Toynbee's columns in the Guardian. Whereas in the US, Islamophobic rhetoric tends to be the province of right-wing commentators and, especially, conservative evangelists, in Europe Islamophobia is more frequently articulated from within the terms of liberal discourse.
Bawer rehearses a number of the alarms about the threats posed by Muslims in Europe that are common currency on the right. First, the demographic threat, the nightmare that Muslims are about to swamp Europe. Bawer quotes British historian Niall Ferguson, who wrote in 2004, "a youthful Muslim society to the south and east of the Mediterranean is poised to colonize a senescent Europe to the north and west." Now, Bawer claims, nearly the whole of Europe is within their [the Islamists'] grasp" (231). Second, the failure of Muslims to integrate into European society, their insistence on separation, rejection, ghettoization and inter-marriage (20, 209). Third, the threat of violence and crime posed by young Muslims resident in Europe. Bawer cites the example of the city of Malmö in Sweden, whose population is 40 percent "non-Swedish" (meaning non-white Swedish), where the incidence of rape is five or six times that of nearby Copenhagen, child rapes have doubled in a decade, and teenagers were torching schools (205). Brawer piles on example after example, such as the June 2005 incidents, where 500 Muslim teenagers were involved in mass muggings on strand of beach near Lisbon (211). Fourth, Muslims in Europe are resistant to adopting "European values." Even those who might oppose the terroristic methods of radical Islam are "hamstrung by the belief that loyalty to the umma...overrode any civic obligations to their kaffir (infidel) neighbors," and so they are loathe to criticize extremist Islamists (3, 229). Moreover, "many" immigrant communities are "led by fundamentalist Muslims who looked forward to the establishment in Europe of a caliphate government according to sharia law (3)." Fifth, the immigrants bring their "tribal customs" with them, such as FGM (female genital mutilation), honor killings, payment of blood money and so on (18, 22, 211).
Let me address these scare-mongering arguments briefly. (1) The notion that the eleven or so million Muslims in Europe, who constitute 3 percent of the EU's population, are likely to become the majority any time soon is ludicrous. (2) Muslim failure to integrate and Muslim ghettoization are in large part the consequence of policies of the state and local governments, as well as fear of racist attacks, rather than active decisions of Muslim communities and individuals. "Ghettoization" is more imposed than freely chosen. (3) The violence and crime that are endemic in lower-class, "immigrant" ghettos, are the products of poor education and infrastructure, lack of opportunity and high unemployment. Bawer objects to such explanations, and cites as evidence Theodore Dalrymple's claim that young Muslims in the French cités are not poor but typically have cell phones and cars (Bawer adds that young Muslims all over Europe drive BMW convertibles) (110). Cell phones, yes, but it is well-known that France's banlieusard rioters of November 2005 torched some 9,000 cars -- because they can't afford them. Bawer elsewhere does acknowledge that "in Europe, generally speaking, only the most undesirable employment is available for people with foreign-sounding names of foreign-looking faces (72)." As for the mass muggings near Lisbon, I've seen no evidence that the bands of muggers were composed entirely, or even mainly, of Muslims. (4) As for refusal of "European values," Jocelyne Cesari's book When Islam and Democracy Meet (2004) argues persuasively that Muslims in Europe have, among other things, adopted the very "secular" notion of religion as individual choice. Many European Muslims have criticized Muslim extremism, such as the Islamic Commission of Spain, which issued a fatwa declaring Usama Bin Laden an apostate. No Muslim community in Europe is led by fundamentalists who want to reestablish the caliphate -- this position is held by a small minority, not by community leaders. (5) Most Muslims in Europe originate from countries where FGM ("female cutting" is a less incendiary term) is not practiced. Reports do suggest a rise in the rate of honor killings in the last few years, but this Boston Globe report sees this as an effect of Muslim Europeans' feelings of embattlement and isolation rather than as an imported "tribal custom."
Overall, Bawer's argument proceeds through distortion of fact, selective use of evidence, taking minority trends as representative of the whole community, and blaming the victim. While Europe Slept presents a picture of (white) Europeans intimidated and bloodied by violent Muslim youth, when in fact it is European Muslims who are most at risk, from racist attacks by extreme-right militants and the police, and increased racial profilings and community repression since 9/11 and the Madrid and London bombings.
Where Bawer's argument connects with "liberal" discourse is in its concern with women's and gay rights. Bawer asserts that "some estimates suggest that 90 percent of European Muslim wives are physically abused" (59), and he is concerned that non-Muslim European are threatened by Muslim violence, particularly rape (55). But it is Muslim homophobia that really exercises him, as someone who left the US because of Christian fundamentalist intolerance for gays, only to find conditions were worse in Europe. "I wasn't fond of the hypocritical conservative-Christian line about hating the sin and loving the sinner," Bawer writes, "but it was preferable to the forthright fundamentalist Muslim view that homosexuals merited death" (33). And he quotes approvingly the statements of Pim Fortuyn, Holland's charismatic anti-immigrant and populist politician, assassinated in 2002: "What...would happen to same-sex marriage when fundamentalist Muslims gained enough power to eradicate it? Islamic countries not only prohibit gay marriage: they execute people for sodomy" (164-165). Bawer concludes the book by stating that Muslim intolerance is making life more dangerous for gays in Holland, and that this is prompting a desire among many Dutch to emigrate.
Certainly, women's and gay rights must be defended. What I want to underscore here, however, is the ways in which Bawer deploys stereotypes of Muslim intolerance of women's and gay rights to argue for a crackdown on Muslim immigrants (and citizens) and immigration writ large. Western discourse about defending women from sexist Muslim men, of course, has a long history, whereas the defense of gay rights against fundamentalist Muslims represents the embrace of a relatively new Western "tolerant" value. According to a report in the New York Times last October, "So strong is the fear that Dutch values of tolerance are under siege that the government last winter introduced a primer on those values for prospective newcomers to Dutch life: A DVD briefly showing topless women and two men kissing."
Increasingly, centrists and liberals across Europe are embracing the view that Muslim religious and cultural values are simply too conservative and fundamentalist, that they are incompatible with the "tolerant" European values that have taken hold since the 1960s and 1970s. Immigration, therefore, should be strictly limited or cut off altogether, and Muslims in Europe should be forced to "integrate."
Let's hope that the National Book Critics Circle has the good sense not to honor a book that propagates such arguments.
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HSPA+ is also known as HSPA Evolution or Evolved HSPA (eHSPA). In addition to significantly increasing data speeds, the standard reduces latency, boosts network capacity, and provides an enhanced user experience. The larger bandwidth supports more data-intensive applications people commonly use on the internet today, including video downloads. Telstra recently confirmed it is on track to begin rolling out the new technology to the Next G wireless network by the end of this year.
Ross Fielding, Executive Director, Telstra Product Management said Telstra announced in February that the Next G network would start being upgraded to peak network downlink speeds of 21Mbps by the end of the year.
"We are on track to deliver on this promise and start providing peak network speeds of 21Mbps downlink across the network’s expansive footprint from the end of the year," Mr Fielding said.
"Working with our partners, Sierra Wireless, Qualcomm and Ericsson, we are developing the world’s first 21Mbps capable mobile broadband device, which will take advantage of the speed, coverage and capabilities of the Next G network, giving our customers an unrivalled broadband experience when on the move, across a network that covers over two million square kilometers and 99 per cent of the Australian population."
"HSPA+ technology will provide a remarkable improvement in how people experience mobile broadband, and once again opens the door for new, higher bandwidth applications," said Jim Kirkpatrick, Chief Technology Officer for Sierra Wireless. "Telstra has shown tremendous industry leadership in delivering leading mobile broadband technology first in the world, and we are thrilled to work with other key industry leaders like Qualcomm and Ericsson to support this initiative." [October 24, 2008]
Send this IT news to a friend
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February 27, 2013
As Africans, our struggle must be focused on achieving our inalienable right to self-determination – to develop our own political and economic systems and put in place our own political structures, free of interference from the outside world. Only we can turn the tables – only we can achieve our own liberation from systems that continue to keep us in a state of dependency and disarray.
December 9, 2012
Congolese problems should have Congolese solutions. We ask that the United States of America and the United Kingdom immediately withdraw all forms of financial and military aid to Rwanda that is a state sponsor of terrorism in Africa. We must pledge to ourselves that we will never again betray our people and ourselves by staying quiet and passive.
October 29, 2012
The images emerging from the current siege of Bani Walid are gruesome. NATO’s henchmen are attacking their own people with bombs and chemical weapons, injuring and killing scores of civilians. Women, children and old people lie maimed or dismembered on the side of the roads, many of them buried in the rubble. Ethnic cleansing of people with black skin is being carried out by Arab supremacists, but the Muslims of Bani Walid refuse to accept that people with black skin are to be hunted and killed.
December 27, 2011
The past 12 months were very intense on the African continent. Some important elections stirred up a whole lot of interests. Shared zones of influence are being renegotiated between the old powers of the world, the Western powers, and the new power, China.
September 20, 2011
The North Atlantic tribes, under the banner of NATO, and their Arab flunkies are lining up for a showdown in Sirte. Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remain defiant and have issued statements saying that they will never surrender.
August 17, 2011
Thousands of people stood in unity at the Millions March in Harlem on Malcolm X Boulevard and 110th Street in Harlem, New York, on Saturday, Aug.13, to make the demand, “U.S. / NATO HANDS OFF AFRICA AND HANDS OFF AFRICAN PEOPLE!”
June 20, 2011
Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a scathing statement on the relentless bombing of Libya by NATO forces at a press conference held at United Nations Plaza Hotel Millennium in New York City on Wednesday, June 15, 2011.
June 4, 2011
Gerald Perreira has lived and worked in Libya as an organizer and journalist and has been giving regular reports to Block Report Radio and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper. It is important to develop our own media and experts who can speak from an African perspective.
April 23, 2011
“All of our institutions have failed us if they do not use their power and act against this crime against humanity being carried out in Africa today. I received a call this morning from an Ivorian friend who calls it genocide what Sarkozy’s troops are doing there. Blood, blood, everywhere. Depleted uranium in Libya. Generations to come will suffer the health effects. We must try to stop President Obama. He has the power to say no. So far, he is good at saying yes to all the wrong people. So we must do more than we think we can. Anything less places more blood on everyone’s hands.” – Cynthia McKinney
March 26, 2011
The fundamental stimulus of the attack on Libya is greed, not the protection of the Libyan people. In fact, the people of Libya have suffered more during this bombardment by Western powers and their allies than during the entire 41 years of the leadership of Muammar al-Gaddafi. We must be clear that the attack on Libya is an attack on Africa. The great danger of the attacks on Libya is that they are being used by the U.S. to test the effectiveness of AFRICOM, the African Command, and this adventure will open the door to direct military intervention in Africa.
February 5, 2011
My comrades, Hajj Malcolm Shabazz and Ra’Shida, and I (Minister of Information JR) were invited by international peace activist Cynthia McKinney to participate in the historic Conference of African Migrants in Europe held from Jan. 15-17 in Tripoli, Libya. Malcolm spoke at a televised event and got a standing ovation.
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January 23, 2013
Tweetable facts about Cape Town
Stuart Buchanan is a journalist, blogger, and online writer for Flow Communications.
He grew up in Durban and has lived in various parts of South Africa and the UK, before finally settling on Cape Town. He often wonders why anyone would want to live anywhere else.
So you know that there is a flat mountain and pretty beaches, but there is much, much more to the beautiful Mother City than that. Here are a few short, interesting facts about Cape Town to share on Twitter, among friends, or maybe at your next pub quiz, to help you sound like an authority on the matter!
- Cape Town has a population 3.7-million people
- Cape Town receives an average of 283 days of sunshine per year
- Cape Town International Airport has been voted Best Airport in Africa for the past two years – and 8-million passengers passed through it in 2011
- Cape Town's container terminal moves 700 000 containers per year
- The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway has been operating since 1929, receiving its 1-millionth visitor 1959, and its 22-millionth in 2012
- In the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen even recommends a little Constantia for its "healing powers on a disappointed heart", in reference to the Cape wine region
- More species of plants grow on Table Mountain than in the whole of the United Kingdom
- The world’s first heart transplant was performed by Dr Christiaan Barnard in Cape Town in 1967
- Cape Town is home to the world’s largest individually timed cycle race, the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour
- The daily noon gun is not only Cape Town’s oldest living tradition, but the guns used (there are two, in case one fails) are two of the oldest in the world still in daily use
- Many of the houses in the Bo-Kaap area were built from the ballast that Dutch ships used on their voyages to Cape Town
- Table Mountain is the only terrestrial landmark to have an equivalent in the stars – Mensa (meaning "table"), a constellation which like the mountain even has a "tablecloth", in the form of part of the Large Magellanic Cloud
Know any other good ones? Share them below!
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BBC Radio 4′s From Our Own Correspondent has a gripping report on a meeting with a Cambodian psychologist who works in a country still trying to come to terms with the collective brutality initiated by the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.
The text of the report is online and makes for powerful reading but I really recommend listening to it, either streamed from page linked above or by downloading the podcast available as an mp3.
The Khmer Rouge are considered to be perhaps the bloodiest regime in history, with over 7 million estimated killed. They began a form of genocide where average citizens were recruited into killing people considered to be subversive from their own community.
Needless to say, many are still living with those who committed the atrocities, or, with the memories of having atrocities committed against them.
The piece is reported an understated but powerfully insightful manner, the psychologist himself reflecting the ambivalence the society still feels towards its past.
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There is more to job security than mastering job search skills. There are plenty of books about resume writing, networking, interviewing and developing a LinkedIn profile.
These job search skills are important, but not sufficient in an age when companies and even entire industries are undergoing radical changes. Career Insurance fills the void by preparing people for what’s to come — before it arrives.
There are four cornerstones of Career Insurance; the organizing framework for putting together your own personal Career Insurance plan. These four cornerstones further solidify your survival in the turbulent waters of today’s economy:
- Embracing adaptation.
- Positioning for the next advance or change.
- Investing in cutting edge skills.
- Tapping into abundant thinking, creativity, and emotional non-attachment.
You must get in touch with your built-in adaptive nature. This means being alert, responsive, and engaged; knowing how to survive in what sometimes feels like the jungle of work, careers, and jobs.
A practical way to assess your adaptive qualities is to ask, write down or record your answers to these questions:
- How did I overcome obstacles in the past?
- What lessons can I draw from folks I know and those I don’t about how to bounce back and move forward?
- Who can I lean on to support me emotionally when it seems as if I cannot or will not climb the summit of change?
Your answers to these questions will put you in touch with your built-in adaptive nature. If adversity is foreign to you, then you probably know others in your life that have stories and secrets to share about how to tap into the resilient spirit that we all have.
Positioning for the Next Advance or Change
A very important skill for Career Insurance is to predict what type of work is in demand, the supply of talent available to meet that demand, and how to position yourself to fill the gap. This skill will be used consistently throughout your career.
Self-assessment using surveys and questionnaires as well as soliciting feedback from peers will provide you with most of the information you need to map out these three scenarios:
- Your desired career scenario.
- Your most probable career scenario.
- Your nightmare career scenario.
Your job is to vividly describe, in writing, the details of each of these three scenarios. After detailing each of the scenarios, determine what decisions and actions you must make while in your current position that will affect you in the short- and long-run in realizing your desired position in your company.
Investing in Cutting Edge Skills
Given the fast paced change in the world of work, it is a good idea to learn new skills to increase your value as an employee. Today, you never really finish learning; if you do, you may find yourself and your career on a dead-end street.
There are costs to learning new skills, yet, there are also benefits. The decision is yours to create or seize an opportunity to learn about skills now in demand in your industry, how to acquire those skills, and how to keep those skills on the cutting edge. Train for skills in demand in the future.
Tapping into Abundant Thinking, Creativity, and Emotional Non-Attachment
Reflect back on a time when you or somebody else could only think of the downside of a situation or viewed the world from the perspective of loss, competition and survival. Those thoughts come from a scarcity thinking mindset. Scarcity thinking triggers fear and anxiety. If you more often than not think in the following way, then you may be suffering from scarcity thinking:
- My job offer means that somebody else is without a job.
- My raise/promotion means that somebody else gets less of a raise/promotion.
- My acceptance at a training event means that somebody else is robbed of the change to grow and develop.
To standout in today’s job market, you have to demonstrate value. Demonstrating value is a two part equation: first, let folks know about your past accomplishments. Second, and most importantly, express what you intend to do in the future. This holds true whether you are seeking another opportunity in your current company or an opportunity outside your company perhaps due to situations beyond your control such as restructuring and downsizing.
Many organizations today are revamping their processes, updating their technology, and offering a different portfolio of goods and services with the same and different consumers. Are you poised to be as flexible as the market demands? Do you find yourself thinking “I’ve got by this long…I’ll be OK?” Or, do you find yourself thinking, “This will be rough initially, but I can see how it will be better in the long-run for me, our customers, and the company.” It is the latter thought that illustrates abundant thinking. Abundant thinking has many benefits including creativity and innovation. After all…somebody had to make up the job of being a webmaster. Why can’t you make up a job based upon a need or opportunity in your company?
Building Your Career Future
The four cornerstones are the foundation of solidifying your job, career, and work future in this new world of work. The good news is that at each point in history when industry underwent radical changes, our ancestors adapted most with grace, poise and optimism. We seem to be at another inflection point where the exact future is not fully clear. Career Insurance is your survival tool. When not distracted by striving to make a living, you can make a difference.
Dr. Marty Martin, known for his state-of-the art content presented in an engaging, dynamic fashion, has been speaking and training nationally and internationally for many years. His second book, Taming Disruptive Behavior which will be published by The American College of Physician Executives (ACPE) in 2013. He is currently working on his third book, Do You Have Career Insurance? Dr. Martin is the Director of the Health Sector Management MBA Concentration and Associate Professor in the College of Commerce at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. For more information to obtain a free chapter of Do You Have Career Insurance? please visit his website: http://www.drmartymartin.com.
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NBC New York
She refuses to let her family's financial situation shape her life: Meet Samantha Garvey the amazing Long Island girl who has been named a semi-finalist in the national Intel science competition.
A Long Island high school senior whose family was forced into a homeless shelter just weeks ago has been named one of the top science students in the nation.
Samantha Garvey, 17, is among 61 Long Island teens designated as semi-finalists in the National Intel Science Search.
"I couldn't believe it," Garvey told NBC New York. "My dad has always said, 'Pick your head up and keep on going.' That's the mentality."
The Garvey family was evicted from their home in December after the teen's parents were injured in a car crash. Samantha, along with her mom, dad and two siblings, moved into a homeless shelter in Bay Shore two weeks ago.
It's the family's second time in a shelter. Garvey, who attends Brentwood High School, says being homeless has "always been a motivator for me."
That motivation has driven Garvey to become an honors student applying for admission to Brown University, among others, even as she struggled to find the cash to pay for her application.
"You can sit around and mope, but what's that going to get you?" Garvey said.
The teen found relief in the two-and-a-half year scientific study that culminated in her Intel entry. The study focused on the effects of predators on mussels, and the work took her to a Long Island salt marsh and a research lab at Stony Brook University -- all as she faced obstacles at home.
"Sam has the ability to focus amidst all of her troubles," said teacher Rebecca Grella. "Even in the darkness, she sees the light."
"I tell all my customers about her," said dad Leo Garvey, now working as a cab driver.
"We are so proud of her," said mom Olga Garvey, now working at a local hospital.
Samantha Garvey aspires to be a marine biologist. She hopes for more good news later this month, when Intel names its finalists for the competition's top prize of $100,000.
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What Concerns Do You Have About the Jersey Shore?
Water quality, overdevelopment, and continued replenishment of beaches top the list of concerns for respondents to a poll on Jersey shore issues.
The New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium asked people who voted in its popular Top 10 beaches contest to list their No. 1 concern about the Jersey shore.
Topping the list was the overall quality of water at the shore, cited by 30 percent of the nearly 6,000 respondents. Over-development at the shore was next.
Beach replenishment placed third, followed by public access to New Jersey’s beaches; beach and marine debris; protecting shorebirds and marine life; flooding; the health of Barnegat Bay; balancing coastal resources, and the quality of seafood caught in New Jersey.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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'Huge potential for Kerala coir products'
Alappuzha (Kerala), Feb 2 : New coir products have huge potential, experts said Saturday and asked the Kerala government to provide subsidies to drive the industry's resurgence.
"There is no shortage of coir fibre. But there is an imperative need for the government to...subsidise the new coir products to make them affordable and competitively priced for the consumers," said P.A. Peethambaran, former dean (research), Kerala Agricultural University.
Peethambaran was taking part in a seminar at Coir Kerala 2013, an international event that aims to drive the resurgence of the state's most important traditional industry, which opened here Friday.
"The launch of a new coir product is likely to create scepticism among the consumers. If the government starts using coir products, it will create confidence among the public and remove their scepticism," he pointed out.
Rajesh D. Anandjiwala, a researcher from South Africa said composite materials reinforced with natural fibres, such as flax, hemp, kenaf and jute are witnessing a considerable growth in applications, particularly in automotive, aerospace, shipping, consumer electronics and packaging.
"The market for natural fibre reinforced composites, including wood fibres, is increasing at a rate of about 10-15 per cent per annum in value and the market is projected to reach USD 3.8 billion in 2015 from its 2010 level of USD 2.2 billion," said Anandjiwala.
Jose Cyriac, chief secretary to Kerala government said, coir is on the path to rejuvenation because of modernisation and upgradation of technology.
"The coir industry is witnessing value addition because of modernisation and mechanisation. The key to its growth lies in increasing productivity through modernisation," said Cyriac.
The six-day Coir Kerala 2013 is being attended by over 150 delegates from 60 countries and would end Feb 6.
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A Turkish official says more than 1,300 Syrians fled to Turkey overnight to escape spreading violence.
Updated: August 7, 2012 - 5:34 AM
ANKARA, Turkey - A Turkish official says more than 1,300 Syrians fled to Turkey overnight to escape spreading violence.
The government official said at about 1000 GMT (6 a.m. EDT) that 1,328 refugees had crossed the border so far on Tuesday — nearly double the number of refugees who reached Turkey on Monday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says fighting has extended to new parts of Aleppo, which is close to the border with Turkey.
The new arrivals would increase the number of Syrians who have found refuge in Turkey close to 48,000. Turkey is also a staging ground for rebels fighting Bashar Assad's regime.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Fighting in Aleppo spread to new areas Tuesday as rebels try to expand their hold inside Syria's largest city despite two weeks of withering counterattacks by President Bashar Assad's troops, activists said.
Heavily armed government troops have been steadily shelling rebel-controlled parts of the city, particularly Salaheddine and other districts on the southwestern edge of Aleppo, for more than two weeks as the two sides fight for control over the strategic city.
Activist Tamam Hazem said fierce clashes were going on Tuesday in Bab Jnein and Sabee Bahrat districts near the historic city center, suggesting the rebels were making inroads. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also says fighting Tuesday has extended to new parts of the city.
"We are expecting a massacre in Aleppo. The regime is bringing reinforcements to the city because they consider that if Aleppo falls, the regime will fall," said a Syrian refugee in Turkey who identified himself as Abu Ahmad.
"The city is being bombed from the air and ground," he said, adding he was in daily contact with residents still in the city.
Despite a ferocious crackdown, rebels in Syria have grown more confident using increasingly bolder tactics both in Aleppo and the Syrian capital, Damascus.
In a brazen, daylight attack, rebels this week abducted a group of 48 Iranians near Damascus, branding them as spies assisting in Assad's crackdown against the rebels.
Iran said those captured when their bus was commandeered were pilgrims visiting a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of Damascus. On Tuesday, Iran's Foreign Ministry said it holds the US. responsible for the fate of the abducted Iranians.
Iran's state IRNA news agency said the ministry summoned the Swiss envoy in Tehran late Monday to stress that Iran expects Washington to use its influence to secure the Iranians' release. The Swiss look after U.S. interests in Iran since Tehran and Washington have no diplomatic relations.
The abductions threaten to suck Iran deeper into Syria's civil war and the wider political brinksmanship around the region. Iran says it has no fighting forces aiding Assad, but it has sharply amplified its criticism of countries supporting the rebels such as neighboring Turkey and Gulf states led by Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The Iranian Embassy in Turkey said Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi is traveling to Turkey and will meet Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara on Tuesday to discuss Syria and the situation of dozens of Iranians abducted outside Damascus.
In Damascus, a senior Iranian envoy, Saeed Jalili, was to meet with Assad and hold a press conference later Tuesday.
Syrian rebels claimed three of the Iranian captives were killed on Monday during shelling by government forces in Damascus and its suburbs, and threatened to kill the remaining Iranians unless the army stopped its bombardment.
"The Syrian regime is responsible for anything that happens to the Iranians," a spokesperson from the Baraa Brigades that claimed responsibility for the group's abduction told The Associated Press on Skype.
However the spokesperson's claim that three of the captives were killed could not be independently verified. An official at the Iranian Embassy in Damascus said he had no information on the subject.
While skirmishes were reported in the Syrian capital overnight and its suburbs Tuesday, the main battle has now moved to Aleppo, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) north of Damascus where rebels seized several neighborhoods two weeks ago and have proved difficult to dislodge.
Aleppo is Syria's commercial hub and it's close to the Turkish border where the rebels have their rear bases. If the opposition were to gain control, it would be a major blow to the regime and a possible opposition base of operations.
"The rebels are making their way closer to the city center despite the bombing using everything from planes and helicopters to artillery shells and machine guns," Hazem, the activist, said.
He said clashes were also reported around the medieval citadel, a symbol of the city that dominates its ancient center.
Ahmad Saleh, a Syrian from the town of Tal Rifaat near the Turkish border, said the town was shelled Monday from the nearby air base of Minnegh, killing two people. Saleh, who fled to Turkey after midnight Tuesday, said pharmacies and grocery shops are empty and it is difficult to buy such products.
"The situation is miserable and it is not possible to find goods," said the man. "We had to choose between dying in Syria or coming to Turkey."
Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara contributed to this report.
© 2013 Star Tribune
Powered by Limelight Networks
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Intel plots 4MB L2, 64-bit desktop CPU
Conroe to bring Pentium M family to the desktop
Intel is preparing a multi-core, desktop incarnation of its Pentium M processor with a whopping 4MB of on-die L2 cache and 64-bit x86 extensions.
So claims usually accurate Japanese website PC Watch.
The chip, codename 'Conroe' (a name as yet unconfirmed, the report says), is being developed by the Israeli team behind the first Pentium M, 'Banias', and its 90nm successor, 'Dothan'. The latter is due to ship next quarter.
Banias was a ground-up redesign focusing on power preservation and performance, rather than simply producing a mobile version of the Pentium 4 architecture. Naturally enough, the team are working on the chip's descendants, including 'Merom', which will again sport an entirely new architecture. Like Conroe, it will feature 4MB of cache, a feat made possible by the use of a 65nm fabrication process.
Merom is also expected to include all the technologies Intel has been touting of late, including HyperThreading, the Vanderpool virtualisation system - allowing the chip to run multiple OSes simultaneously - LaGrande security features and, of course, Intel's 64-bit Extended Memory system.
Conroe is believed to be essentially the same part but with desktop roles in mind. In practice, that means a greater willingness to trade power consumption for performance, so you're looking at Conroe consuming 90W to Merom's 45W, PC Watch suggests. That's not only a big improvement on the current generation of 90nm Pentium 4, 'Prescott', but also Prescott's successor, 'Tejas', which is expected to consume around 125W.
Merom will not follow directly on from Dothan - 'Jonah', essentially two Dothan cores on a single die, connected to 2MB of unified cache, is expected to ship first, again fabbed at 65nm. Merom and Conroe are roadmapped to appear in 2006, Jonah sometime next year, probably in the second half and maybe much later, depending on whether Intel suffers the same problems it experienced with its transition to 90nm when it makes the move to 65nm. Delays to Jonah would undoubtedly push back Merom from H1 2006 to H2.
Jonah is likely to be accompanied by a third version of the Centrino platform, dubbed 'Napa'. The chipset itself is codenamed 'Crestine', and is expected to offer a higher frontside bus that 533MHz, 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM support and feature a next-gen. ICH7-M South Bridge. 'Alviso', the next generation of Pentium M chipset, will take the FSB from 400MHz to 533MHz, Intel has said.
Before Conroe, Intel will ship Tejas sometime next year, followed by 'Cedarmill', a dual-core, 65nm version of Tejas. ®
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Novel PSP risk loci revealed by genomewide association study
19th June 2011
A large international consortium, including members of the Reta Lila Weston Institute (RLWI) have just completed a genomewide association study to identify genetic loci other than the tau gene that are associated with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). The findings of this study were published in Nature Genetics in June 2011. PSP is a parkinsonian movement disorder that is distinct from Parkinson’s disease (PD) in that PSP brains are typified by tau protein pathology i.e. widespread microscopic inclusions within the neurons and glia consisting of abnormally aggregated tau protein. Furthermore, common variation that forms the H1 haplotype of the gene coding for tau, MAPT, on chromosome 17 is strongly associated with increased risk of PSP. In the past decade, we have focused on the functional basis of this association and our data suggest that this is due to increased production of the tau protein.
However, PSP is a sporadic disorder and the tau H1 haplotype does not necessarily cause PSP. It is clear that one or more other genetic risk loci combined with environmental triggers acting alone or in concert cause PSP. With advances in microarray-based technology, it is now possible to get a snapshot of the all 20,000-25,000 genes and non-coding regions between the genes in the human genome and compare common variation between affected individuals and normal unaffected controls. Using this technology, one can now identify any variants that are over- or under-represented in the disease group and thereby pinpoint the affected genes. However, due to the very small effect size of these associations, it is necessary to screen the variants in as large a number of disease and control individuals in order to obtain statistically meaningful results. Since PSP is a relatively rare disorder, this project required the formation of a large international consortium of clinical and scientific centres from Europe and the US so as to maximize the number of PSP cases in the study to a final cumulative total of nearly 2,100 cases with a large contribution of autopsy confirmed samples from the RLWI/Queen Square Brain Bank.
The genomewide study reiterated the role of the tau gene in PSP with the H1 haplotype a stronger contributor to disease risk than the ε4 allele of apolipoprotein E in Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, several other gene associations provide us with intriguing new insights into pathways involved in PSP pathogenesis, including brain myelination (MOBP gene), endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response (EIF2AK3 gene), trans-Golgi-endosomal vesicle fusion (STX6 gene). Several other genes showed strong associations, including IRF4, IL2/IL21 (intergenic) and CD8B that suggest the role of immune response in PSP.
These findings provide us with new avenues for the study of the causes of PSP and if the processes interact, leading to a common pathway involving tau.
The consortium was headed by Professor Gerry Schellenberg, University of Pennsylvania and included members of RLWI (Dr Rohan de Silva, Professors John Hardy and Andrew Lees). The project was funded by the CurePSP Foundation and the Peebler PSP Research Foundation.
Prof Lees First Lord Brain Memorial Lecture
20 May 2010
RLWI Director, Professor Andrew Lees was awarded the First Lord Brain Memorial Lecture "Brainwashed by the Black Stuff" that he delivered at the Royal London Hospital on June 24th at 5pm. Professor Lees is an alumnus of the Royal London and the lecture was introduced by Professor John Hardy.
Walter Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain (October 23,
– December 29, 1966) was a British neurologist. He was principal author
of the standard work of neurology, Brain's Diseases of the Nervous
System, and longtime editor of the neurological medical journal,
Brain. In 1922 he was elected to the staff at Maida Vale Hospital
(merged in 1948 with the National Hospital for Neurology and
Neurosurgery). This was the start of an association with the National
Hospital which lasted all of his professional life.
21 May 2010
Complete sequences of monozygotic twins
affected by multiple sclerosis and the other unaffected
A recent letter in Nature from groups at UCSF and NCGR in New Mexico have reported the complete genomic sequencing of monozygotic (mz) twins with one of the twins affected by the devastating autoimmune demyelinating disorder, multiple sclerosis (MS). They compared the complete genome sequence of one discordant MS mz twins and the transcriptome and epigenome sequences of CD4+ lymphocytes of three other discordant mz twins. Interestingly, the study failed to identify any differences between genome sequences, gene expression or the epigenome.
Mutant Parkinson's Zebrafish
19 May 2010
Zebrafish with deleted WD40 region of the LRRK2 gene developed at the Genome Institute of Singapore resulted in L-DOPA responsive movement deficits and neuronal loss and these a rescued by the normal protein.
Follow this link for article
Page last modified on 19 jun 11 20:03
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TRENTON, New Jersey — Motorists are seeing slightly higher prices at the pumps in New Jersey.
AAA Mid-Atlantic says the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in New Jersey on Friday was $3.31, up 2 cents from last week. But that's still much lower than the price from a year ago, when motorists were paying $3.74.
The increase ends a nine-week stretch where prices had fallen sharply in New Jersey.
Meanwhile, the national average price rose by a penny to $3.52. That's still much lower than the national average from a year ago, when motorists were paying $3.80.
Analysts say the rising prices are due to higher crude oil prices and positive domestic and global economic news.
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France says Algeria supportive of its Mali operation
PARIS, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Algeria has allowed France full use of its air space in its military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali and is ready to seal its border if the conflict moves north, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Sunday.
Fabius said he was in regular contact with the government in Algeria, which had pushed for a political solution to the crisis in Mali over a military intervention, and was grateful it was being supportive of the operation.
"Algeria has authorised unlimited access to fly over its territory, something I thank the Algerian authorities for," Fabius told LCI television, as Rafale jets deployed from France pounded rebel strongholds in northern Mali.
"We talk regularly with Algeria. I must underline our collaboration, and what we envisage - although it's not for today - is that if the African troops move to the north, the Algerians would have to close their border," he said.
Algeria, which shares a 2,000 km (1,242 mile) border with Mali, has worried that a military offensive could push al Qaeda militants into southern Algeria and also trigger a refugee crisis if displaced Malian Tuaregs head north to Algeria.
A security source in Algeria familiar with the situation told Reuters he believed the border may already be closed.
Algeria, an influential regional power and a top oil and gas exporter, has pressed for a diplomatic solution for Mali rather than the intervention to be led by the West African ECOWAS bloc.
At the same time, Algiers has waged a long campaign against Islamist militants on its own territory, and the rebels in Mali hold three Algerian diplomats hostage.
Fabius said he would speak to the Malian prime minister on his return from a two-day visit to Algiers.
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Neither would, of course, do much to truly disarm the true problem. That is people — or, more correctly, what gets into their heads sometimes.
And while greatly increased mental-health vigilance and care might help reduce that problem it would hardly erase it. People are the product of the sea in which they are spawned and swim. The acceptance and approval of the violence around us in the supposed “culture” has made many gory choices appear normal, even acceptable. At minimum, it has put inside a lot of heads such actions with them often portrayed as acceptable solutions to problems.
Even those who wept when little children on seeing “Bambi” when the fawn/hero’s mother was shot (off screen) nowadays can watch massive faked mayhem and blood spurting in movies, on television, in video games without shedding a tear.
There is as little chance of that being wiped out, due to the First Amendment, as there is of guns being outlawed as the Second forbids.
ALSO LITTLE understood is that there just are a lot more Americans nowadays, greatly increasing the potential for both good … and evil. Back in 1892 when the national “shocker” was the later acquitted Lizzie Borden supposedly giving her father and mother “forty whacks” with a hatchet (nobody tried to ban axes at the time) there were 63 million Americans and the news of the event travelled by telegraph to be distributed by newspapers, there then being nothing else. By the time of Sandy Hook there were more than 300 million Americans and the electronic media made all of us part of the story because “we were there.”
At best and most, although likely impossible to legislate, would be for all of us to do a better job of sensitizing ourselves and others, particularly the young, regarding the sanctity of all life. Similarly, if there are going to be possible weapons of mass slaughter around — and our households are full of them even if no guns can be found there — a better job needs to be done of learning to respect their darker potentials.
What is now almost universally disturbing us all is that Sandy Hook happened in a nice, quiet, pleasant, desirable place to live … a whole lot like Greater Rome and most other communities. If it could happen in Newtown, it could happen here, and while nobody wishes to suggest such a thing everyone knows it.
Nonetheless, here, there and everywhere guns are not the problem so much as some of the people who have or can get them. Those same types, whether driven by political motives or mental mirages, are perfectly capable of inflicting massive casualties without firearms.
The World Trade Center was brought down with commandeered airliners; the federal building in Oklahoma City with farm fertilizer. An explosive more powerful than dynamite is sold without need for a permit, and in unlimited quantity, at dozens of sites locally. It is called gasoline. Every household contains cleaning products easily turned into incendiary devices. Pretty much everyone has a car that, if aimed with deliberate slaughter in mind, can mow down a lot of pedestrians.
THE WORLD, particularly the more available man’s clever inventions become, is not a safe place and guns are a very minor part of this. Indeed, like kitchen knives, they are typically more dangerous in spur-of-the-moment rages caused by emotions than in planned attacks. It is the isolated mind detached from normal society, or desperate to seek approval from a small cabal of like-minded peers (as in suicide bombers) that inflict casualties on larger scales.
That is the sort of problem on which one needs psychiatrists to guide us, not politicians.
As for increased protection at the schools, whether it is by armed teachers/administrators as some propose or by an added law-enforcement presence (and taxes/cost), the grim reality is that this actually would, at best, only work to reduce the degree of any possible mayhem, not the mayhem itself.
It may deter comparatively sane evildoers, assuming such exist, but it will do little to stop true nut cases less likely to appear on the spur of the moment and more likely — as at Newtown or the Aurora (Colo.) movie theater — to have planned what they intend to do without even considering the possibility of getting away. They would just figure out when an officer is on one side of a school, which tend to be very large places, and start shooting at the other end.
Things are not what make the world unsafe — not even guns. It is what goes on in the heads of some people, particularly those who largely live inside them and/or feel isolated/neglected by society.
That guns are often used is actually less important to note than that those scripting these mass-murder scenarios — one can go all the way back to Charles Manson — almost always appear to be white, male, young … and unusually intelligent. Those are pretty hard elements to ban.
ABOUT THE WISEST words heard on the “what do we do now?” topic thus far came Rep. Katie Dempsey, R-Rome, when she said that in her view school safety was predominantly a local issue rather than a state or federal one. Indeed, the problem with “control” of anything is when it is imposed from the outside, by those far removed from where those in our readership circle live. One would hope all communities feel the same way about such matters.
Rep. Dempsey added: “I know it’s a good time to look at everyone’s safety plans, from small businesses to schools.” Which is what is occurring in Rome and Floyd County currently although nobody is going to need to mandate increased vigilance and response training. That is a given and, thankfully, does not need to go through a legislative process.
Additionally, beyond the law-enforcement presence already existing daily in area high schools, now coming on line as part of the new emergency radio network wisely approved by taxpayers is inclusion of all schools in an “instant alert” system. That’s something Newtown did not have.
How much could or should be done? That’s for this community to determine … and be willing to deal with extra taxes to provide if necessary. Banning guns, axes or fertilizer would be window dressing, not new and heavier bars across the doors to keep out what are obviously mentally disturbed individuals that have fallen between the cracks in a detection/prevention health system that in reality barely exists at all.
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On 30 November 2010, the Scottish Government will introduce a new membership scheme to replace and improve upon the current disclosure arrangements for people who work with vulnerable groups.
The Protecting Vulnerable Groups Scheme (PVG Scheme ) will:
- help to ensure that those who have regular contact with children and protected adults through paid and unpaid work do not have a known history of harmful behaviour.
- be quick and easy to use, reducing the need for PVG Scheme members to complete a detailed application form every time a disclosure check is required.
- strike a balance between proportionate protection and robust regulation and make it easier for employers to determine who they should check to protect their client group.
The PVG SchemeAny individual who is not barred may apply to become a member of the PVG Scheme. The PVG Scheme is administered by Disclosure Scotland and allows organisational employers and personal employers to satisfy themselves that an individual to whom they are offering regulated work is not barred from doing that type of regulated work. The PVG Scheme provides three different disclosure records for this purpose, which replaces the use of standard and enhanced disclosures for work with vulnerable groups. PVG Scheme members are continuously monitored for new vetting information and any information which comes to light which may indicate that they are unsuitable to do regulated work will lead to a consideration for listing. will be managed and delivered by Disclosure Scotland which, as an executive agency of the Scottish Government, will take on additional responsibilities. This will include taking decisions, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, about who should be barred from working with vulnerable groups.
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Garden Talk: December 30, 2010
From NGA Editors
A Starring Role for Arkansas Bluestar
If you're looking for an easy care addition to the flower garden with lots of interest as the seasons change, look no further than the Perennial Plant Association's 2011 Perennial Plant of the Year™. Amsonia hubrichtii, which goes under the common names "Arkansas bluestar" and "thread-leaf blue star," forms a three foot tall and wide, shrub-like mound of bright green, ferny foliage that is covered with two to three inch wide clusters of pale blue, star-shaped flowers in late spring and early summer. But it puts on its biggest show with the approach of fall, when its leaves change to an eye-catching, bright yellow-gold.
The billowing, fine-textured, "feather-duster" foliage makes an excellent contrast to plants with bolder leaves. A pairing of this bluestar with the large, felty leaves of 'Helen von Stein' lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) adds months of low-maintenance visual excitement to the garden. The subtle tones of its flowers mix well with other bloomers in both hot and cool colors. Contrast them with the bold reds and oranges of Oriental poppy blossoms for some garden sizzle, then let the bluestar's expanding leaves cover the bare spots left behind when the poppies go dormant. The gilded fall foliage plays off well against the late season show of coneflowers, asters and ornamental grasses, especially when planted in masses, and really pops against a backdrop of dark foliage like that of 'Black Lace' elderberry or purple-leaf smokebush.
Arkansas bluestar grows best in full sun and well-drained soil in USDA Hardiness Zones 4-9. It rarely suffers from insect or disease problems, is usually passed over by deer and can go for years without needing division. What more could a gardener ask for?
The Perennial Plant Association is a trade association dedicated to the improvement of the perennial plant industry by providing information to enhance the production and use of garden perennials. Every year, their experts choose an outstanding "perennial plant of the year" that is suitable for a wide range of climates, requires low maintenance and exhibits multi-season interest.
For more information on Amsonia hubrichtii and the Perennial Plant Association, including information on past "Plant of the Year" winners, go to: Perennial Plant Association.
Snow now blankets many parts of the country and winter's cold has spread a palette of browns and grays over much of the landscape. But with some thoughtful plantings, you can still have spots of bright color in the garden to catch the eye and lift the heart in the bleakest weather.
As you can probably guess from their names, red-twig or blood-twig dogwoods (Cornus spp.) light up the winter landscape with their colorful branches. These shrubby relatives of dogwood trees are fast-growing, low maintenance additions to the landscape. When they drop their leaves in autumn, the vivid hues of their twigs come to the fore, making an exciting contrast against a blanket of snow, especially when these shrubs are planted in groups. Cornus sericea 'Cardinal' competes with its avian namesake for color; the cultivar 'Isanti' is equally bright, but is smaller in stature. For winter gold, plant the cultivars 'Flaviramea' or the more disease-resistant 'Budd's Yellow' with bright yellow stems.
For some real drama, add a medley of colors with Cornus sanguinea 'Midwinter Fire,' whose yellow stems tipped with orange and red will really heat up the garden during the cold months. Chosen by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) as one of it 2011 Gold Medal award winners, 'Midwinter Fire' forms a large shrub that spreads by suckers to form a dense clump. Its green leaves take on purple, red and yellow hues in autumn, then fall to reveal vivid stems that look especially nice against a backdrop of dark evergreens. Abundant clusters of white flowers in mid-spring extend its seasonal interest and are followed by dark purple berries that will entice birds to the garden.
Adaptable to many soils, except ones that are wet, and tolerant of urban conditions, 'Midwinter Fire' is an easy-care shrub that grows well in zones 4-7. It will exhibit the brightest colors when grown in full sun and given a hard pruning every spring to force lots of new growth.
Gold Medal Plants are chosen yearly by the PHS for their ease of cultivation, resistance to pest and disease problems and beauty throughout the seasons.
To find out more about 'Midwinter Fire' bloodtwig dogwood and other Gold Medal award winners, go to: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
While visiting hummingbirds may only be the stuff of summer memories at this time of year, it's not too soon to begin thinking of ways to attract these tiny beauties to our gardens when warm weather returns.
A great plant for attracting hummers, as well as for adding a dose of strong color to the garden is red salvia, also called scarlet sage. And one of the best cultivars is the 2011 All-America Selections Bedding Plant Award winner, Salvia coccinea 'Summer Jewel Red,' bred by Takii & Co. This cultivar was chosen for its early and abundant flowering that continues until fall frosts, as well as its dense branching habit and relatively low stature. Plants stay a manageable 20 inches in height.
Each flower spike is packed with half-inch, bright red blossoms that will not only lure hummingbirds into the garden, but will attract butterflies as well. And if you let some of the flowers go to seed at the end of the season, you're likely to have goldfinches stopping by as well.
Red salvia is a tender perennial that is grown as an annual in most parts of the country. 'Summer Jewel Red' will bloom from seed in only about 50 days, two weeks earlier than other varieties. Give it full sun and well-drained soil for best performance.
For more information on 'Red Jewel' salvia, go to: All-America Selections.
Ecology Action is a non-profit organization whose mission is teach people around the world to better feed themselves by growing their own food while building the soil and conserving resources at the same time. To this end, they have built upon age-old cultivation techniques to develop their own scientifically-tested, biologically-intensive, organic food raising approach called the Grow Biointensive® Sustainable Mini-farming method.
When properly used, this method results in the building of topsoil sixty times faster than in nature. Water consumption, fertilizer and energy use are greatly reduced, while soil fertility, production and the income from crops produced show a large increase.
To help spread the information on these techniques, a free, downloadable self-teaching handbook is available at their website. Written by Margo Royer-Miller, this 16-page guide contains information on deep soil preparation, composting, intensive planting and companion planting and how to integrate all the various techniques into one effective system. Also included are chapters on carbon farming (raising crops to provide material for composting) and calorie farming (how to grow the food for a nutritionally complete diet on the smallest amount of land).
With worldwide Internet access these days, Ecology Action hopes that this information can reach around the globe to help improve the lives of people everywhere. But even if you are not planning on small-scale farming, the information contained in the guide can help you make your own garden more productive and environmentally friendly.
To download the self-teaching handbook on Sustainable Mini-Farming, go to: Grow Biointensive.
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Fifteen new cases of fungal meningitis were reported today in a nationwide outbreak, bringing the total to 184.
- Discuss the fungal meningitis outbreak on Facebook
- Continuing coverage of the fungal meningitis outbreak
One case of an infected joint has also been reported in connection with contaminated steroids that were shipped to 23 states. It was not in Tennessee.
Tennessee cases climbed to 50. Texas joined the list of states reporting illnesses. A live blog with state health officials is now under way.
Another shipment of possibly tainted steroid injections has been identified that was sent to Tennessee in early June, according to Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. John Dreyzehner. The state is now working to contact 111 new patients who were exposed to that shipment, although evidence suggests they probably are not at risk.
As the outbreak continues, doctors are learning more about the course of treatment best suited for fungal meningitis.
"Somewhere around four to six weeks of intravenous medications is probably what we're going to be shooting for," said Dr. Robert Latham, who has treated dozens of fungal meningitis patients at St. Thomas Hospital.
About 5 percent of those exposed to the potentially contaminated steroid injections at the root of the outbreak have contracted meningitis in Tennessee, according to Dr. David Reagan. That percentage could shift as the outbreak continues.
One of the three lots of steroids from New England Compounding Center suspected of contamination seems to be the culprit in most of the Tennessee cases, according to Dr. Marion Kainer.
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|Unilateral sanctions violate principles of UN Convention against Corruption: Iranian official||
TEHRAN – State Inspectorate Organization Director Mostafa Pourmohammadi has said that the imposition of unilateral sanctions on a country goes against the principles of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Pourmohammadi made the remarks on Friday in a speech during the 6th
Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Anti-Corruption Authorities (IAACA) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which opened on Thursday and closes on Sunday.
The Iranian official said that the Islamic Republic believes that the imposition of unilateral sanctions on a country runs counter to the principles of the UN Convention against Corruption because such sanctions will lead to the growth of underground economy, illegal financial transactions, and money laundering.
He also called on governments to refrain from imposing unilateral sanctions on other countries because such an approach is in violation of international regulations.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Pourmohammadi urged governments to support the campaign against illicit drugs, an issue which has increased social crises, financial corruption, human trafficking, and insecurity.
Pointing to recent blasphemies against Islam, he said that disrespecting religious sanctities and insulting prophets must be condemned because such intellectual and moral corruption creates discord between nations, promotes hatred, and results in the waste of financial and human resources.
Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay in touch and receive all of TT updates right in your feed reader
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The generally accepted Christian consensus provided this country's cultural foundation for many years, but more recently it has eroded under the weight of pluralism and an increasingly antagonistic attitude toward the Christian faith. This change is actually kind of exciting, because the spiritual climate of today is much like that in which the Church was born. Christ's call in Matthew 28:18-20 to go into all nations and make disciples is as all-encompassing for our congregations today as it was for the original disciples who heard his Great Commission with their own ears. For Community of Joy Lutheran Brethren Church of Eagan, Minnesota, this means that our Lord Jesus has called us to lives of active discipleship.
The role of the Adult Discipleship Team (formerly the Adult Education Board) of Community of Joy is to help our congregation think in terms of discipleship. This is to be the key emphasis in all that Community of Joy is and does. A major task confronting the congregation is to equip disciples of Jesus Christ to engage a culture that is no longer grounded in a biblical worldview and is therefore either apathetic or even hostile to the message of Christ. The question is, "Where do we begin?"
There's been a stirring in the hearts of our people in recent months to become more mission-focused in showing love to our neighbors. Our children's ministry and women's ministry have recently adopted Dakota Woodlands, a shelter in Eagan for homeless women and their children. Volunteers conduct our Kids Club for the children of Dakota Woodlands one Wednesday night each month and our Women of Joy prepare and serve lunch there once a month as well. In addition, we are partnering with the Eagan Resource Center, our local food shelf, and Amnion, our area crisis pregnancy center.
Even as we reach beyond the walls of our church in these ways, we want to be grounded in the Word of God and motivated by God's love for the world as expressed in the Gospel. Our Adult Sunday School curriculum has been reorganized to better equip our people to address the current culture from a biblical viewpoint. For example, we've just completed two Sundays on life issues, and we are currently studying World Religions. Last year we enlisted the services of Tentmakers which conducted a two-day course called "Bridge Builders," in which participants from Community of Joy and Gethsemane Lutheran Brethren in Rochester received training in how to converse with people we had never met before. This past fall we introduced our Sunday night Discipleship Training Course called S.A.L.T. (Simply a Life Transformed). This is in-depth training to ground participants in the Word with a view toward providing both content and confidence in sharing our faith with others in culturally relevant ways.
When Jesus sent his first disciples out to reach their world with the Gospel, he entrusted the most important task in the entire world to that group of humble men and women. He empowered them with his Holy Spirit. Beyond that he had no alternative plan, no "Plan B." The same word he gave to them resonates in our ears and pounds in our hearts today: "Go, make disciples of all the nations."
Mark Jarvinen serves as pastor of Community of Joy Lutheran Brethren Church, Eagan, MN.
Printed in the March/April 2010 issue of Faith & Fellowship Magazine
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Message from the Associate Dean:
Stephen Hargarten, MD, MPH
The Global Health Program was established in January 2010 and is housed with the Institute for Health and Society at Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). Our vision is to train the next generation of global health leaders and address global health inequities across neighborhoods and nations. Our mission is to reduce global health inequities through multi-institutional collaborative partnerships in education, research, patient care and community engagement. Our goal is to develop a sustainable platform of global health partnerships to support and grow education, research, patient care and community engagement training and collaborative activities of our faculty and trainees.
MCW is uniquely positioned to address this goal. We have nearly 200 faculty participating in or who have participated in global health activities across 80 countries. We are committed to assisting faculty in formalizing their existing partnerships and creating new collaborative locally and worldwide to address global health from neighborhoods to nations.
MCW Global Resources
MCW offers a wealth of interest, expertise, and resources to global health efforts. It is an exciting challenge to help faculty and trainees explore and implement their global health activities. Virtually all the departments at MCW have important pursuits related to global health. In general, collaborative international activities have arisen based upon the personal contacts of faculty rather than as the result of coordinated strategic planning. Interdisciplinary collaboration across our departments could increase sustainable funding opportunities, credible and educational learning environments for MCW faculty and trainees, and synergistic efforts to address health disparities locally and worldwide.
Working with Our Local, Community Partners
We continue to work with our key community partners and other academic institutions including the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, Froedtert Hospital, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Department of International Studies and local community-based organizations such as Lutheran Social Services Refugee Resettlement Program, Neighborhood House of Milwaukee International Learning Center, United Community Center and the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center.
It is an exciting time for us to help coordinate global health activities on the MCW campus. As the catalyzing agent we are taking advantage of the diverse skills and experiences of our faculty and trainees. Together, with them we may work towards improving the health of those most in need locally and worldwide.
I look forward to keeping you informed of our progress as we continue building the Medical College of Wisconsin Global Health Program. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Steve Hargarten, MD, MPH
Associate Dean for Global Health
Professor and Chair Department of Emergency Medicine
Director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin
— Updated October 2012
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Rabbis Shawn Zevit and Mordechai Liebling discuss the uses and variety of values-based approaches to money and other resources in congregational life. They will engage in a lively discussion about the way money has historically been and can be a spiritual tool for communal and societal transformation. Special focus is given to the meaning ascribed to money, issues of class and social justice in Jewish life.
Rabbi Shawn Israel Zevit, is the Director of Outreach & Tikkun Olam, and a congregational consultant and resource developer for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation. He is a founding member of Shabbat Unplugged and the Davenning Leaders’ Training Institute, and a spiritual director for numerous clergy and communities. He has written and developed resources and delivered workshops in the areas of community building, leadership, prayer, interactive midrash, contemporary views of GOD, prayer and spiritual leadership skills, money and Jewish values, social justice issues, Jewish environmental concerns and Jewish men's issues. He is the author of "Offerings of the Heart: Money and Values in Faith Community (Alban, 2005) and a forthcoming book for Jewish Men.
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling served as executive director of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation for 12 years and is the Executive Vice President of the Jewish Funds for Justice. He is a consultant to JRF, a consultant on Money and Values issues for the Shefa Fund of Philadelphia, and a member of Reconstructionist Minyan Dorshei Derekh in Philadelphia.
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The topic of “overbuying” comes up so many times in our practice that I can’t limit this to just one blog entry — this could easily become a recurring theme. I’m not talking about paying too much, where the competitive process breaks down and the end user pays more than they should have (easily another few blog topics). Instead, I am referring here to where the equipment purchased is more expensive, feature rich, durable, or otherwise overkill for the intended application. In many cases, the less expensive equipment would actually work better. Think that never happens? Read on …
We have several clients with IP-based CCTV systems that include fairly elaborate self-healing, fiber-optic ring networks. These networks are configured in a circular topology, where each node has a path to the previous node and the next node. If either one of the fiber-optic links to a node is broken, the network remains fully functional. Sounds like a great idea so far, doesn’t it?
The intended application for this type of network is in areas where there is some danger of one of the fiber-optic links being broken. Traffic cameras are a good example as a pole could get knocked down. Campus environments where the network spans multiple buildings. Or hazardous environments where the cable could be in danger. No examples come to mind, but I’m sure they are out there. If you think of any, hit the “comment” link.
But the applications I am talking about are in large, contained structures. The cable is well secured in back hallways, and any accident that damaged one link would probably sever others as well. So these applications do not gain any functionality from this topology, but they sure pay a cost. For one, the network bandwidth is limited to a single link — with this topology, if the link speed is 1 gigabit (1000BASE-T), the total bandwidth for all nodes is 1 gigabit. With a star configuration (where all nodes are connected to a central hub), the speed is 1 gigabit per node, not per network. And the star approach is more reliable, faster, and significantly less expensive. In fact, with many of our clients we have replaced these expensive switches with simple media converters, reconfigured the rings to stars, and watched network crashes and slowdowns disappear overnight. And, if a media converter goes bad and is no longer being manufactured, you only need to replace the pair. With the self-healing ring, you often have to replace the entire network.
There are plenty of other examples — specifying high-end network switches where lower end products will work just as well for simpler applications. Running Cat-6 cable to cameras or other edge devices where they will never come close to utilizing the bandwidth available in a Cat-5e cable. But, if you’re the integrator that can bring some common sense to the party, explain where the cost savings won’t hurt and may actually help the system, and save your customer some money, you have a distinct competitive advantage. It’s something to think about.
Other Security Blog Posts
Laying Down the Law | May 22, 2013
Guest writer Judge Ruth Kraft, and employment law expert at Kirschenbaum & Kirschenbaum, discusses why it’s important for security alarm company owners to have their employment policies translated into several languages.
Under Surveillance | May 16, 2013
SSI Associate Editor Ashley Willis speaks with Matrix Systems’ new CEO, Holly Tsourides. Tsourides discusses her plans for Matrix, shares sales and marketing tips, and offers advice for women in the security industry.
Under Surveillance | May 10, 2013
The May issue of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION includes an exclusive and in-depth interview with Gary Lederer, business leader of Honeywell Life Safety, Fire Solutions, Americas. In this bonus blog post from Managing Editor Rodney Bosch's lengthy discussion with Lederer, the industry veteran shares his thoughts on how installing fire systems contractors can find success in the marketplace, as well as issues surrounding false fire alarms.
Under Surveillance | May 2, 2013
SSI Managing Editor Rodney Bosch speaks exclusively to Kratos Public Safety and Security's (PSS) Jim Henry. In this interview, Henry shares personal insights about his family’s business, Henry Brothers, and the trajectory of his own career path.
Under Surveillance | April 25, 2013
SSI Editor-in-Chief Scott Goldfine shares highlights from DMP's second annual daylong Owner's Forum, hosted on April 9 at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas.
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This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: Sarcoma Alliance
Doctors learned about the rare cancer at a conference this week and made plans for clinical trials to develop better treatments.
New York, NY (PRWEB) March 31, 2012
While an international initiative to help women with gynecologic sarcomas gets underway, doctors got up-to-date information on these rare cancers this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, Sarcoma Alliance board member Suzie Siegel said today.
The U.S. National Cancer Institute, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer and the United Kingdom clinical trial system are working on an International Rare Cancer Initiative to design and fund trials, in hopes of improving treatment, according to the NCI.
“This initiative will allow us to perform trials for cancers so rare that none of us could have managed it on our own,” said Ted Trimble, M.D., M.P.H., director of the NCI’s Center for Global Health in Bethesda, Md. “Working together like this allows us to reduce the cost of trials for each partner organization, to speed development and conduct of rare cancer clinical trials, and to harness worldwide expertise in these rare conditions.”
The initiative will start with these five:
-- gynecologic sarcoma
-- penile cancer
-- fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma
-- rare head and neck tumors (anaplastic thyroid cancer and salivary cancers)
-- small bowel cancers
The first clinical trial approved under this initiative will be for women with high-grade uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) that hasn’t spread outside their uterus, the NCI reported. Martee Hensley, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, is the initiative’s U.S. chair for gynecologic sarcomas.
After surgery, women can choose whether they want to participate in the randomized Phase III trial. Half will be observed closely, but get no chemo, while the other half will receive gemcitabine (Gemzar) plus docetaxel (Taxotere), followed by doxorubicin (Adriamycin).
The trial should open in a few months, and it is expected to last six years, according to the NCI.
It is similar to a trial Dr. Hensley did as part of the Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration. The results are expected to be published in a year or so.
Others have studied whether sarcoma patients should get adjuvant chemo, i.e., chemo after all their cancer has been removed. But comparing studies is fraught with difficulties, Siegel said. For example, a previous one by the EORTC on uterine sarcomas included subtypes that Dr. Hensley's did not.
Sarcoma is a cancer of connective tissue, and leiomyosarcoma is a subtype of smooth muscle, or involuntary muscle. The research on uterine LMS may be of interest to doctors treating LMS in other parts of the body as well as other sarcomas, Dr. Trimble said. “But each sarcoma is a little bit different.”
“I’ve been fighting LMS since 2010, and I’m happy to hear that there is collaboration between three reputable organizations who are sharing their research data to find a more effective treatment to help those with LMS,” said Nancy Bobick of Carlsbad, Calif., near San Diego.
The LMS arose in her pelvic area, she said. She had four surgeries and six cycles of gemcitabine/docetaxel. She said she wanted to see an oncologist with special expertise in LMS, but her insurance would not pay for someone out of its network. Bobick paid the expenses herself, and the Sarcoma Alliance reimbursed some of them. The Alliance’s Assistance Fund helps patients get second opinions from experts, Siegel said.
Three new tumors have grown, and Bobick learned this week that at least one is LMS. She meets with her doctor Monday to decide on a game plan.
Siegel, who lives in Tampa, said the Sarcoma Alliance has had a representative at the SGO annual meetings since 2006, and three of its board members have survived gynecologic leiomyosarcoma, including herself.
This week’s SGO meeting in Austin was the first to have an educational forum on the diagnosis and management of uterine sarcomas, Dr. Hensley said. She led it with her MSKCC colleague, Mario M. Leitao, a gynecologic oncologist. Doctors packed the large meeting room.
“We’ve made great progress on gynecologic sarcomas, in large part, thanks to Dr. Martee Hensley and Memorial Sloan-Kettering,” Dr. Trimble said.
MSKCC has developed a nomogram for women with uterine leiomyosarcoma to help predict their survival.
Drs. Hensley, Leitao and their colleagues also had an article in this month’s Gynecologic Oncology journal about uterine LMS that expresses estrogen or progesterone receptors. Women with these tumors go longer without their cancer advancing, as compared with women whose LMS doesn’t express ER or PR, the article concluded.
Dr. Suzanne George of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston has been conducting a phase II study of letrozole (Femara) for patients whose uterine LMS is ER or PR positive, according to the NCI. Letrozole is an aromatase inhibitor, or anti-estrogen drug.
In addition to current treatments and clinical trials, the SGO had intriguing posters on other scientific research, Siegel said. Gynecologic oncologist Matt Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., explained some of his:
“We have begun to comprehensively examine patterns of gene expression in uterine leiomyosarcoma, comparing them to both benign leiomyomas (fibroids) as well as healthy myometrium. We find that the overwhelming feature of uterine leiomyosarcomas (ULMS) is the overexpression of gene products that are involved in regulating a specific aspect of how cells control their proliferation. This feature is known as the 'G2-M cell cycle checkpoint’ and is frequently overexpressed in many cancers. Many different investigators have examined different genes involved in the G2-M cell cycle checkpoint and have found that they are frequently overexpressed in many other types of cancer.
“However, what is unique about what we have done is that we have developed a very thorough global view of how patterns of gene expression have changed," said Dr. Anderson, director of clinical and translational cancer research in gynecologic oncology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. "This has allowed us to start to map out pathways that we think drive leiomyosarcomas to grow/spread as well as identify drugs that have been developed for other, much more common cancers that could be then used to treat women with ULMS.”
The national nonprofit Sarcoma Alliance is based in Mill Valley, Calif., just north of San Francisco. It offers a peer-to-peer network, live chat room, Facebook page, YouTube channel, blog and discussion board so that people can support one another and share information. For more information, visit http://www.sarcomaalliance.org.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/3/prweb9350570.htm
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Game Description:Boldly critiquing the Australian government, Escape from Woomera caused controversy by exposing a secret interment camp for refugees in the desert. Woomera is a secret a desert prison that holds detainees who, seeking asylum in Australia, have found themselves indefinitely confined in what one guard called “the hottest place this side of hell.” To create this mod of Half-Life, the Escape from Woomera Project Team had to piece together information from leaked maps and eyewitness accounts (including previously planned escape routes), and a few vague snatches of government-sanitized news footage. In this way, they were able to reconstruct a site that barely anyone in Australia had ever seen. Arguably the boldest exploit in indie game creation to-date, Escape from Woomera also served as a form of investigative journalism, allowing players to see the previously unseen interior of a highly classified government detention site and exposing the government. The project caused a huge fracas when it was discovered that it was funded by an art grant from the Australian government.
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As the Sundance Film Festival gets underway this week, the neighboring Slamdance Film Festival kicks off its 18th edition in Park City as well. This writer was there for the first Slamdance Film Festival in 1995, when a small group of the festival's founding filmmakers were screening their films in whatever venues were available, including restaurants, and soliciting whatever audiences they could find in the snowy streets, via fliers and posters.
Another trend that has dovetailed with the ascent of digital filmmaking has been the use of "crowd-funding" via sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to raise budget financing. Mirvish says, "This year, I think Kickstarter was involved with around 20 films at Sundance. And probably half the films at Slamdance did some type of crowd-funding. I think it's become a lot more acceptable, and mainstream, to just ask friends for money to help make your movie."
Founded in 2010, the industry website, Crowdsourcing.org, is a neutral organization dedicated solely
to crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. As one of the most influential and credible authorities in the crowdsourcing space,
Crowdsourcing.org is recognized worldwide for its intellectual capital, crowdsourcing and crowdfunding
practice expertise and unbiased thought leadership.
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You be the judge. From his "Economic View" column in the New York Times yesterday, "It May Be Time for the Fed to Go Negative":
Imagine that the Fed were to announce that, a year from today, it would pick a digit from zero to 9 out of a hat. All currency with a serial number ending in that digit would no longer be legal tender. Suddenly, the expected return to holding currency would become negative 10 percent.
That move would free the Fed to cut interest rates below zero. People would be delighted to lend money at negative 3 percent, since losing 3 percent is better than losing 10.
Of course, some people might decide that at those rates, they would rather spend the money — for example, by buying a new car. But because expanding aggregate demand is precisely the goal of the interest rate cut, such an incentive isn’t a flaw — it’s a benefit.
Would your first response to this scenario be to buy a new car? I bet a lot of people would decide instead to buy gold, or to exchange their U.S. dollars for the currency of a country less likely to pick a number out of a hat and invalidate a tenth of its currency.
Later in his column, Mankiw offers a more reasonable way that the Fed could create negative real interest rates, by committing to a certain level of inflation (presumably one higher than the Fed's current 2% target). Is this the best way to spur aggregate demand though? If this is a balance sheet driven recession, as some observers have termed it, and the problem is that many consumers can't service their debts, why not deal with that more directly?
For those whose mortgages are underwater, restructuring them using John Hussman's idea of property appreciation rights might make make sense. That would lower monthly borrowing costs for those mortgagers and enable them to increase their discretionary spending. For mortgagers who aren't currently underwater, the idea of Glenn Hubbard and Christopher Mayer, to use the GSEs to lower mortgage rates down to their historic spread of about 1.6% above 10-year Treasuries might make sense. According to Yahoo! Finance, the average rate on 30-year fixed rate, conforming mortgages today is 4.88%; since 10-year Treasuries currently yield 2.75%, under the Mayer and Hubbard plan mortgage rates might average 4.35%. Refinancing higher-rate mortgages at 4.35% would also lower borrowing costs and enable tens of millions of Americans to increase their discretionary spending.
The image above, of the Happy Days character Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler) jumping the shark1 comes from Media Bistro.
1For those unfamiliar with the phrase, see the Urban Dictionary's definition of "jumping the shark".
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Battle lines have begun to form around the fiscal cliff. They will, of course, shift and waver in coming weeks. That is the nature of negotiations. In the process, financial markets will alternately suffer bouts of fear and relief. In all likelihood, the give-and-take will go on until the last possible minute. That, too, is the nature of such negotiations. But for all the doubts that will occur in the interim, it’s likely that in the end, the talks and maneuvers will keep the nation from going off the cliff. The exact nature of coming compromises remains vague, but the positioning to date gives at least a hint.
The feeling at the moment is that the Democrats have the advantage. The election, after all, put President Obama back into the White House, modestly enlarged the party’s Senate majority and gave Democrats small gains in the House of Representatives. But Republicans retain a solid majority in the House and have the ability to block legislation in the Senate. Especially since there is dissension within the two parties, neither side has the power to impose its will on the other. What is more, both sides face tremendous pressure to compromise. If each party hopes that the public would blame the other for failure, the prospect of a recession, which would almost certainly accompany a fall off the cliff, simply carries too much risk for most politicians. Even such tough partisans as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have bowed to the imperatives of the moment and begun to talk in terms of “grand bargains” and “compromise.” Pelosi says bluntly, “We want agreement,” while Reid decries “brinkmanship.”
The biggest issue is the expiration of the Bush tax rates. Republicans want to extend the lower rates for all. President Obama and the left of the Democratic Party insist on keeping the rates low for all but higher-income earners. The president points to the election to claim that the majority of the public is on his side. He has a point, but it is not all his way. At least one-third of the House Republican caucus has pledged never to raise tax rates on anyone. Obama knows his election victory means little to these representatives. Their political careers would end if they broke their vow. Their seeming intransigence raises the risk of failure should the president stand firm on his point, and the president knows that failure would impose considerable pain on his constituents. Taxes would rise on the middle class as well as the wealthy. Non-defense discretionary spending would suffer more than $50 billion in cuts. Extended unemployment benefits would end suddenly, and the burden of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) would be imposed on much of the middle class. Medicare services would be weakened as a scheduled 27% cut in doctors’ fees would prompt many doctors to exit the program.
Faced with such an impasse, both sides might well embrace tax reform. Some way to reduce statutory tax rates while at the same time eliminating or capping tax breaks would offer a way out of the awkward impasse on the Bush tax rates. And reform proposals of this sort have found favor at times on both sides of the aisle. In the past, Republicans have only countenanced such reforms if they were revenue-neutral, but House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has already indicated that he would accept revenue enhancers, opening an avenue for compromise. Even Republicans who have taken the pledge against higher taxes could square increased revenues with their pledge, since tax rates would not rise in a reformed structure.
Right now, the president offers the biggest impediment to the reform solution. Though he has embraced such reform principles in the past, he wants first to impose higher tax rates on wealthier Americans and then negotiate reform from those higher rates. For this reason Obama has argued that eliminating or capping deductions would fail to provide sufficient revenue. “The math,” he says, “tends not to work.” But analysts on both sides of the political spectrum say the government could generate considerable revenue in this way. Those analyses have had an effect. Many, even within the president’s own party, seem reluctant to risk failure for the sake of the administration’s two-step process. A centrist group called the New Democratic Coalition has formed that includes at least one-quarter of the Democratic caucus, and it has made clear that it wants to embrace the new Republican openness to revenue increases within a reform effort. Combined with the 15 remaining conservative Democrats, the so-called “Blue Dogs,” mostly from Southern states, this new coalition could add considerable force for compromise.
Similarly, the pressure of the cliff seems to have made Congress more open to entitlement reform. Republicans, of course, built part of their presidential campaign around it. Now, while the Democratic left still rejects entitlement reform out of hand, the pressures of the moment have raised other voices within the party. Some would only permit minor adjustments, but others, led by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, would consider bolder ways to contain entitlement spending. Bolstered by work done at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, the new Democrat positions focus on raising the eligibility age for Medicare, introducing means testing for benefits and competitive bidding for some services, and seeking savings by replacing the fee-for-service system with payments for medical outcomes. Even Obama has tipped his hat to such proposals, though only in a general way. They are far from Republican positions, but no less a partisan than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has characterized them as a basis for compromise.
While such compromises would still leave the country far short of complete fiscal reform, they would allow it to avoid the fiscal cliff, or at least the bulk of it. Any combination of entitlement and tax reform, especially with enhanced revenues, would count as sufficient deficit reduction to avoid the automatic discretionary spending cuts, the so-called sequestration, currently built into law and a big part of the fiscal cliff. Tax reform, even if it were to fall far short of ideal, would also sidestep the debate over the Bush tax rates and spare the economy that part of the cliff as well. Having jumped such hurdles, Congress could easily pass another annual AMT patch to block an extension of this particular burden to the middle class. Nor should Congress have difficulty protecting Medicare services by blocking the planned cut in doctor’s fees since it has done this so frequently in the past that the legislation has a nickname, the “doc fix.” Not only could the economy miss the fiscal cliff this way, but, for those with an optimistic turn of mind, the compromises, jury-rigged as they inevitably will be, might even lay the foundations of something more substantive.
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When the great-grandchildren of five wealthy slave families come together to meet with the elders for their inheritance, they will find out that the family fortune comes at a terrible price that must be paid in blood! THE INHERITANCE is built on a unique and interesting piece of traditional slave folklore that can best be related to THE SKELETON KEY within the genre. It is too bad that the film loses itself in cheap cliches and tired genre conventions, since it had the potential to become a much more chilling ghost tale. Writer/Director Robert O'Hara includes a number of garish sound and editing choices like split-screen and both fast- and slow-motion techniques where they are absolutely unnecessary, which makes it difficult to take the film seriously at times. His talented cast is wasted on stiff and unnatural dialog that brings down their performances. By the end, THE INHERITANCE suffers from a complete identity crisis as it struggles to define itself as either a mediocre ghost tale or weak Slasher. However, as one of the few films of its kind, it does present a strong cultural influence that is rarely seen in modern haunts.
If you liked THE INHERITANCE, check out:
TALES FROM THE HOOD, HOOD OF HORRORS, THE SKELETON KEY.
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Last week I reported that AstraZeneca (AZ) posted an ad for CRESTOR on its "AZ Health Connections" corporate blog (see "AstraZeneca's Timely CRESTOR Branded Blog Post: Did It Violate Its Own Policy?"). The post included the indication for CRESTOR and also the "Important Safety Information" (ISI) that is required by the FDA whenever a drug company talks about a brand and its approved indication.
I wrote about that only because it was the first time -- to my knowledge -- that a pharma corporate blog promoted a branded product and I wondered if such posts violated AZ's own posting policies (turns out that it may or may not depending upon what you mean by "may" -- see the post for details).
Today, I noticed an AZ Health Connections blog post that talked about another AZ drug - ARIMIDEX, which is approved for "adjuvant treatment (treatment following surgery with or without radiation) of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer."
This time, however, the post (find it here; see screen capture above) did NOT mention the approved indication. It is, by FDA definition, a "reminder ad." According to the Pharma Marketing Network Glossary:
Reminder advertisements are identified as an exemption to the advertisement regulations, including provisions to provide a brief summary. Reminder advertisements " . . . call attention to the name of the drug product but do not include indications or dosage recommendations for use of the drug product. . . . and, optionally, information . . . containing no representation or suggestion relating to the advertised drug product." Reminder advertisements cannot make a representation about the product or suggest a use for the product.The AZ Health Connections post does "call attention to the name of the drug," but it also directs readers to ARIMIDEX Direct, which is a program that "allows eligible patients to receive ARIMIDEX delivered to their homes for $40 a month, including shipping and handling." Sounds like a good deal, although I did not investigate what the eligibility requirements were.
AZ deserves credit for reaching out to the online community to learn more about how it can make its drugs more accessible. Recall that AZ was the first pharma company to host a Twitter chat "to raise awareness about helping patients save money through prescription savings programs" (see "OMG! AstraZeneca Hosts Twitter Chat & World Does NOT End!").
PhRMA "forbids" Reminder Ads, But Not on Internet!
AZ's post raises some interesting questions regarding the promotion of Rx drugs on the Internet that neither the FDA nor the pharma industry has addressed. For example, PhRMA's "Guiding Principles for Direct-to-Consumer Advertising" (here) prohibit reminder ads on TV but NOT on the Internet:
Principle #10: "DTC television advertising that identifies a product by name should clearly state the health conditions for which the medicine is approved and the major risks associated with the medicine being advertised." [Alos see "Reminder Ads - Pharma's Dodo?"]AZ, I believe, is a signatory to these voluntary guidelines. Since these guidelines only apply to TV advertising, AZ is not in violation. It's still the "wild west" on the Internet with regard to reminder ads; i.e., It's perfectly fine to run "reminder ads" on the Internet. This is usually the case when pharma companies buy Adwords (paid search ads) from Google, especially after the FDA came down on Adwords that included the indication with the brand name.
Another interesting issue is how pharma companies can manipulate "natural" (aka "organic") Google search results to display what is essentially a branded product ad that includes the brand name and indication, but no ISI.
Search Google for "arimidex" as I just did and you will find this:
The #4 (or #3, depending on how you count) search result leads you to the home page of the www.arimidex.com Web site. Note that the search result looks like an ad with copy that mentions the indication of the drug: "Learn about IN YOUR CORNER, an online breast cancer support resource for women with early breast cancer and the people who care about them."
How did that copy get there? Simple, AZ included the following "meta tags" in the "header" of the HTML code that generates the home page:
Google mindlessly reads the META NAME tag to display the description of the site in the search result. The information contained in that tag, of course, was written by AZ with the full realization that a Google search will include it in the search result. From there, it is only necessary to ensure that the site gets good placement in the natural results list and BINGO! You've got a branded "ad" that mentions the drug name and the indication WITHOUT the required ISI.
P.S. The Arimidex search result shown above may actually be what's called "paid inclusion," which refers to a sponsored "organic" search result (see, for example, "Paid Inclusion: Too Hot for Pharma Marketing?").
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The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Pricetags Get Smaller at Apple: "The Apple spin, however, involves the iPodization of the flash player. And that begins with its looks: this tiny, sleek player resembles a couple of sticks of Juicy Fruit entombed in shiny white plastic. It weighs less than an ounce. It comes with a white lanyard to complement the famous white iPod earbuds. And it can also work as a tiny hard drive for transporting computer files.
Also like the larger iPods, this one syncs effortlessly with the free iTunes jukebox software for Mac or Windows. It plays songs you've bought from the iTunes Music Store but not from other commercial pop-music sites. (Of course, it also plays songs you've copied from your own CD collection and other non-copy-protected music.)
The terrific AutoFill button, new in iTunes, can intelligently stock the iPod Shuffle with a fresh set of 120 or 240 songs - favoring those you've rated highly, if you like - each time you connect it. The word 'Shuffle' in the name refers both to its ability to play its songs in random order and to the serendipity of finding a different set of songs on it each time you sally forth.
Another improvement over other flash players: the iPod Shuffle gets its power from a built-in rechargeable 12-hour battery, rather than a steady diet of AAA's. It recharges when it's plugged into a computer.
Will the radical Mini sink like the Apple's previous squarish marvel of miniaturization, the Macintosh Cube? Conversely, will so many people pounce on this tasty morsel that it cannibalizes sales of other Mac models?
That's for the market - and the marketers - to decide. One thing, though, is for sure. The iPod Shuffle and the Mac Mini are bold attempts to shatter the common wisdom that Apple makes gorgeous, expensive things. For the first time in its history, Apple has begun to make gorgeous, inexpensive things."
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Considering both these issues can be solved by the browser, or host operating system, it seems like overkill and potentially a lot of extra work, depending on how complex your site design is.
Assuming you're not using tiny fonts and really low contrast colours, I would say it's safe to assume that if a user with vision problems is having trouble reading your site, they're probably also suffering from the same issues on most other sites as well. To that end, they would probably already be using accessibility tools that would improve their situation such as magnifiers, large fonts and high contrast overrides.
What I would recommend instead is that you make sure your HTML markup is as clean as possible with proper headings, paragraphs, annotations, etc. This will not only make it easier for people to override your styles, but also make things far more accessibly to screen readers for the blind.
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Skip to Main Content
Access to hardware devices is an important requirement to be fulfilled by Java implementations targeting embedded systems because the interaction between the embedded system and the environment where it is inserted on is performed by these devices.In this paper we introduce a method for abstracting hardware devices to embedded Java applications. We have evaluated our method in terms of performance, memory footprint, and portability. The applicability of our method was tested for abstracting simple hardware devices for serial communication and for abstracting more complex components such as a motion estimator for H.264 video coding.
Date of Conference: 7-11 Nov. 2011
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I'm encouraged by the news (from Rocky's Bru) that a group of practising and former Malaysian journalists are writing to the Executive Chairman of Kumpulan Utusan, Tan Sri Mohamed Hashim Ahmad Makaruddin, to express their anger and disgust at the story on the late Yasmin Ahmad that the tabloid Kosmo! ran on July 27th, 2009. As they write in their email seeking fellow journalists' support for their letter: "Let's uphold the kind of journalism that this country so desperately needs."
According to this principle, journalists should:
- Show compassion for those who may be affected adversely by news coverage. Use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
- Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief.
- Recognize that gathering and reporting information may cause harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance.
- Recognize that private people have a greater right to control information about themselves than do public officials and others who seek power, influence or attention. Only an overriding public need can justify intrusion into anyone’s privacy.
- Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.
- Be cautious about identifying juvenile suspects or victims of sex crimes.
- Be judicious about naming criminal suspects before the formal filing of charges.
- Balance a criminal suspect’s fair trial rights with the public’s right to be informed.
In the case of Kosmo's article, the people behind it have violated this principle in at least four ways:
- They have treated the memory of their subject, a recently deceased person no longer able to tell her side of the story, with disrespect, making allegations that may (given prevailing societal attitudes, prejudiced though they may be) diminish how she is remembered by Malaysians, and expose her family to odium.
- They showed little compassion to her family and scant regard for the potential harm to her aged and frail mother.
- They did not demonstrate any overriding public need that could have justified such an intrusion into their grief and privacy.
- The mode in which they presented their report suggests that they have pandered to lurid curiosity, perhaps motivated by the need to sell newspapers.
It is therefore fitting that the journalists' letter rebukes Tan Sri so: "...if your objective is to practice ethical journalistic conduct and act with humanity, you have failed - miserably." They go on to ask him, "How much of your personal honour are you willing to part with in order to increase your circulation?"
All of us will be held to account for everything we write, before the One who reads and edits us all. In the meantime, Kosmo and its journalists involved with this article are accountable to us, their readers and colleagues. Let us make it clear to them that we will not stand by to see ethics breached.
"...Yasmin has gone to meet her Maker. Our time will come soon. Seharusnya kita sadaqah Al-fatihah untuk arwah Yasmin and not go into this silly polemic about her gender. May her soul be placed among the blessed. Amin."
Now, may I pose this question, not to Kosmo!, but to all of us who are outraged by Kosmo's article:
Do any of us believe that Kosmo has a monopoly on unethical journalism in Malaysia?
The duty of the journalist is to further public enlightenment as the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy, by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Journalists should:
- Seek Truth and Report It - Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.
- Minimize Harm - Ethical journalists treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings deserving of respect.
- Act Independently - Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know. [Advocacy journalists may of course intentionally and transparently adopt a non-objective viewpoint.]
- Be Accountable - Journalists are accountable to their readers, listeners, viewers and each other.
The letter to Tan Sri Hashim begins "July 27th, 2009 marked the darkest day in Malaysian journalistic history yet." In the light of the above, haven't there been days in Malaysian journalistic history just as dark as 27/7/09?
How about in the days just before the 1990 general elections, when "then opposition politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah was depicted as selling out Muslim interests to Christians merely because he was photographed wearing ethnic Kadazan cultural headgear on which was a symbol resembling a cross. The photograph was splashed in the media and Razaleigh had little chance to counter the allegations".
How about something more recent, just eight days ago (22/07/09), when Pakatan Rakyat's position regarding the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the death of Teoh Beng Hock was grossly misrepresented in the pages of the New Straits Times?
Why do we not speak up and act against journalistic misconduct by all news outlets (including our own)? Why are we being selective? Surely our professional ethics apply equally to all, no matter what the victims' (and perpetrators') station in life is? Or is it just a case of double standards and whose ox is being gored?
So, let me put the question back to all the journalists who are rightly outraged at Kosmo: How much of our personal honour are we willing to part with in order to increase our circulation (prospects, promotions, popularity, etc.)?
In other words, when our Editor reads us, will He find us fit to print, or fit to spike?
Lest we be found wanting, we must be mindful of what we ourselves and our colleagues write. For the sake of our integrity, we must speak and act whenever and wherever we see journalistic ethics being compromised, and we must do so in spite of our political beliefs and personal interests. Let's uphold the kind of journalism that this country so desperately needs.
You can download a printable copy of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics in full here (in PDF format).
(I am a member of Hartal MSM, a mediawatch group which had its beginnings in December 2007 in The People's Parliament, an initiative convened by civil rights lawyer Haris Ibrahim. The group seeks to promote a free and fair media as an impetus to Malaysia's stalled nation-building process. The views expressed here are solely my own)
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The London Olympics were a big boost to low-fares charger Ryanair, pushing business up to a €596 million profit after tax on a revenue turnover in the first six months of the year of a massive €3.11 billion.
Ryanair is currently attempting to take over rival airline Aer Lingus. The bid is being evaluated by European competition authorities, but Aer Lingus has urged shareholders to reject the offer, saying it undervalues the business.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary said his company was “determined to explore all commercial options” to address any competition concerns the EU may have to secure approval for the merger.
Europe's biggest budget airline said this week it was also benefiting from the collapse of European rivals like Spanair and Hungary's Malev.
Many airlines have been hit hard by Europe's struggling economy and high fuel costs. Ryanair has fared better than most, thanks to its size and focus on low costs and low prices.
Chief financial officer Howard Miller said, “It was a strong performance after the Olympic Games. We certainly saw an upward rise in average fares.
“Many people who appeared to stay at home came back in force post the Olympic Games.”
The airline said its fares rose six percent in the six months ended September, while passenger numbers surged seven percent to a total of 49 million.
The high price of oil hit the airline, with fuel rising by 24 percent and leading to an eight percent rise in unit costs. When the impact of fuel prices was discounted, the rise was only two percent.
The company predicted market conditions in Europe would remain tough, with austerity measures, fuel costs and government charges weighing the demand for air travel.
A Ryanair statement said, “Further airline failures and consolidations are inevitable given the fragmentation among European airlines and the existence of so many high cost, high fare airlines with poor punctuality records.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the fiscal year, Ryanair said its traffic is expected to rise by four percent to more than 79 million, but the airline predicted flatter traffic in the second half of the year as high oil prices and seasonal demand restrictions caused it to ground up to 80 aircraft.
The company is targeting growth over the next 10 years, predicting it will carry up to 120 million passengers per annum within a decade.
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Structure of the organization
ADP – Zid have a Assembly and Indenpendent Board of Directors, which representes managing bodies of the organization. Executive bodies of the organization are Executive Director and Programme Board. Within organization number of employees and persons engaging by contract is various, depending of scope of work and activities within actual projects.
Large number of young people recognize the work of organization as their priorities, so the number of active volunteers within projects and services of the organization is much lesser than number of volunteers enlisted and included in volunteer's data-base.
Indenpendent Board of Directors
Indenpendent Board of Directors established by the decision of Assembly of the organization in order to direct and controle the work of organization, on volunteer base, composed from respectable individuals and community representatives interested in work of ADP ZID. Aiming development of strategic plan, programmes and project activities of the organization, Board cooperate very closely with executive director and other officers from the organization. The Board could take the role within realization of certain activities within projects of the organization. In oirder to make the work more effective, the Board could create some permanenet or temporary committees – they could meet by need and President of the Board is in charge of gathering the committees.
Work and function of the Board is defined according to special act and corresponding to statute of the organization.
President of the Board of Directors is Slaven Radunovic, director of "Office Center" company. You can contact Mr. President by e-mail: email@example.com
Indenpendent Board of Directors is in charge of:
Suggesting to Assembly propositions of changing of Statute of the organization and suggestion about changing of mission and aims of the organization.
Suggesting to Assembly propositions about changing of Board's personal structure.
Providing effective planning of organization with participation within a process of strategic planning of the organization.
Participating in providing of suitable resources for work in organization.
Adopting Annual Report about work and operating of the organization.
Works on promotion of public reputation of the ogranization participating in representing organization in public.
Taking care about legal and ethical integrity of the organization.
Works on recruiting and orientationing of new members and evaluating the efficiency of the Board.
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University of Sydney ahead of the pack in 2005 NHMRC Program and Enabling Grant Awards
6 July 2005
The University of Sydney has been successful in securing more than $22 million in funding in the 2005 round of NHMRC Program Grant and Enabling Grant awards, around a fifth of the total awarded nationally ($101 million) and more than any other university in the country.
Program Grants to University of Sydney researchers are in areas as diverse as skin cancer research, stuttering, medical test evaluation, and gene function. An Enabling Grant goes to Professor John Simes and his team to develop a national resource for clinical trials.
Professor Richard Kefford and colleagues from the Sydney Melanoma Unit at the Westmead Millennium Institute and the University of Sydney have received $7,895,340 to investigate the molecular determinants of risk, progression and treatment response in melanoma.
Melanoma is more common in Australia than any other country. The melanoma incidence rates in Australia and New Zealand are around four times higher than those found in Canada, the UK and the US and up to 10 times higher than in other countries.
By investigating melanoma sufferers thoroughly, and by careful treatment of those who develop melanoma, they aim to be able to better predict who is likely to develop the disease, and in whom it is likely to spread. With this information, they aim to improve the care of people at risk of the disease, and also improve the treatment of people who develop it.
Welcoming the funding, Professor Kefford said: ‘This NHMRC Grant will progress our research into the molecular factors that determine people’s risk of melanoma. It will also allow us to identify the type of melanoma and how that disease may respond to treatments, based on understanding flaws in the “computer program” of melanoma cells, resulting in a better prognosis for melanoma sufferers.’
The other recipients are:
- Professor Merlin Crossley and his team at the University of Sydney’s School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, received $2,823,805 to investigate bimolecular interactions in cellular development and disease;
- Professor Mark Onslow and colleagues from the University of Sydney’s Australian Stuttering Research Centre, who received $4,068,410 to determine, through research trials, ways to adapt existing treatments for delivery by distance learning to rural patients who may not have access to speech pathology services;
- Professor Les Irwig and colleagues who received $6,316,140 for the Screening and Test Evaluation Program (STEP), to study the under-researched area of medical tests. Dealing with questions including: Should a particular test be done or not? When should it be done? How should it be done? Which test is best?
An Enabling Grant of $1,290,000 was awarded to Professor John Simes at the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, to develop a national resource which will provide resources in clinical trials expertise and web-based trials systems to enable investigator-initiated clinical trials of public good.
For further information contact the University of Sydney Media Office:
+61 2 9351 2261 or +61 2 9351 4514
Pictured: Hon Tony Abbott MP announcing the NHMRC funding at Sydney University
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Doctor-assisted suicide goes to ballot in Massachusetts
Bill would allow terminally ill patients to receive a lethal injection.
Fri, Oct 26 2012 at 11:41 AM
Boston Statehouse. (Photo: Erin Stevenson O'Connor/Flickr)
Should terminally ill patients be able to ask their doctors to help them end their lives? Voters in Massachusetts will address that controversial question on Nov. 6. If passed, the "Death with Dignity" initiative — also known as Question 2 — would allow a patient with less than six months to live to request medication that would end his life.
Similar physician-assisted suicide laws are on the books in Oregon and Washington, as well as in some other countries, such as Switzerland. Backers of Question 2 include the American Civil Liberties Union and the Massachusetts Death with Dignity Coalition.
The Massachusetts measure (pdf) would make the process entirely voluntary. Patients must be suffering from a terminal condition that has been confirmed by at least two doctors. The patient must also possess the mental capacity to make a request to the doctor. Patients would be required to make their requests at least three times: twice verbally and once in writing, with witnesses. If the life-ending medication were prescribed, it would be self-administered by the patient.
The bill's supporters say it will ease the pressure on families. "It is not a choice between life and death. It's a choice of the exact timing and the manner of death because these patients are dying," Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, told NPR.
Others opposed the bill for a variety of reasons. "No civil right to commit suicide exists in any social compact," said Ira Byock, director of palliative care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Writing for The Atlantic, he says it is easier for patients in Oregon to get approval for doctor-assisted suicide than it is for them to get approval for hospice care.
The Massachusetts Medical Society has also come out against the bill, saying it is unnecessary. According to a statement on the society's website, "Assisted suicide is not necessary to improve the quality of life at the end of life. Current law gives every patient the right to refuse lifesaving treatment, and to have adequate pain relief, including hospice and palliative sedation." The society also says life expectancies for people with terminal illnesses are hard to estimate and witnesses could be biased if they would financially benefit from a patient's death.
Opponents of the bill have raised more than $1.6 million to fight it, compared with less than $500,000 raised by supporters, according to the Associated Press. Although opponents have raised more money, at least one poll suggests that more than 60 percent of Massachusetts voters support the bill.
Massachusetts is not alone facing the question of physician-assisted suicide. According to a report in The Economist, bills regarding assisted suicide are pending in England, Scotland, New Zealand, Quebec, and New South Wales in Australia. The magazine writes that this "reflects a big shift towards secular thinking and individual autonomy as well as growing worries about the medicalized, miserable and costly way of death that awaits many people in rich countries."
Related on MNN: California to vote on GM food labeling
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Miller-Keystone Blood Center is looking for heroes. The agency's blood supply has fallen to a critically low level as a result of several accidents which required the use of about 1,200 pints in less than a week.
Officials at Miller Keystone, which services 22 hospitals in a 10-county area, including Berks County's two acute-care facilities, said all blood types are needed, but there is a critical need for O-positive and O-negative blood.
If you haven't donated blood in the last eight weeks, this would be a good time to give the gift of life. It is a safe, painless procedure that usually takes less than an hour.
According to blood center officials, each pint can save up to three lives.
Of the people who are capable of donating, health care officials have estimated, only about one in 10 people does so, and only about one in 20 does so more than once a year.
Donors can visit the blood center at 2745A Leiscz's Bridge Road in Bern Township or call to schedule an appointment at 610-691-5850.
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Casinos make a safe bet
MY VIEWÊ•ÊState stands to win with jobs, education funds
Your editorial, 'Private casino's a bad bet for all' (Insight, May 12), missed the mark on so many fronts it's hard to know where to start.
But let's look at just one conclusion: that it would make more sense for state government to run a private casino and keep 100 percent of the revenues rather than a private enterprise that would guarantee 25 percent of revenues to the state.
First, whoever runs a casino Ñ state or private interests Ñ needs to change the constitution to lift the 1984 ban on casinos that was placed in the constitution when the Oregon State Lottery was adopted.
Second, casino resorts don't just appear out of thin air. The restoration of the historic Multnomah Kennel Club in Wood Village Ñ where we propose to build a casino Ñ into a world-class tourist attraction will cost $450 million. Do you expect taxpayers to front that money? Of course not.
Taxpayers win because their share comes from gross revenues right off the top Ñ before expenses such as payroll and operating costs.
Under our proposal, the resort casino would be required to dedicate 25 percent of the gross revenues to Oregon, primarily to K-12 public education.
Let private investors take on the risk.
If it fails, they're out the money, not taxpayers. If it succeeds Ñ taxpayers win, too. The state would receive nearly $200 million a year with the bulk of it going to public schools. No strings attached.
This is a good deal for taxpayers, especially compared with Oregon's nine current tribal casinos, which are not required to contribute a single dime to our public schools.
(However, Oregon, through tribal compacts, asks that Native American casinos give a certain percentage of their annual gaming revenue to local charities.)
Like it or not, gaming is here in Oregon.
So, the real question is, How can Oregon benefit from casino gaming?
Our proposal shows Oregon can benefit Ñ from 10,000 new jobs to hundreds of millions of dollars for schools.
Our economy and our education system just aren't strong enough for us to casually dismiss numbers like that.
We can do it Ñ and we should do it.
Roger Gray is general consultant for the Good for Oregon Committee, which is seeking to place two measures on the November general election ballot that would allow private casinos.
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The following article is from the Secular Humanist Bulletin, Volume 24, Number 4 (Winter 2008/2009).
On November 11, 2008, the Yale Political Union (YPU) held a debate on the topic “Resolved: Religion Should Have No Place in Government.” YPU invited yours truly to argue in favor of that proposition. After my argument and a question-and-answer period, the student members of YPU took turns giving five-minute speeches in favor of or against the resolution. The debate was lively and intellectually stimulating, and the arguments of the speakers were sharp and unsparing in their criticism—just as they should be. A vote was then held. Regrettably, the resolution was defeated, by a vote of 27 to 45.
Will I do better with you? You can let us know by sending an e-mail with your vote to info [at] secularhumanism.org. Please put “Vote on YPU Resolution” in your subject line. We will report the results, along with excerpts from some of the e-mails, in the next issue of SHB. Below, with some edits, is an abridged version of the speech I delivered for YPU.
Religion should have no place in government. Before I begin to defend that proposition, let me be clear about what I am advocating: I certainly am not advocating that persons who are religious should be excluded from government positions, much less that they should be denied the right to vote. Such a policy of exclusion would be both inadvisable and morally repugnant, even if it were possible to implement such a policy. Nor am I saying that it is improper for government officials or voters to be inspired in some way by their religious beliefs. The source of one’s motivations is a matter of indifference to others, at least to the extent that this motivating source merely provides one with a general commitment to act responsibly and with respect for others in the moral community.
No, what principally concerns me and many other secularists is religion’s role in informing and shaping public policy and, in particular, in the use of religious tenets as a justification for public policy. It is in that sense that religion has no place in government. Discourse about public policy should be framed entirely in secular terms, and decisions about public policy should be based entirely on secular considerations.
Why do I take that view? To begin, I am assuming that we are speaking about a democratic form of government, or at least a government of a country in which the citizens are encouraged to discuss and debate public policy and the government is expected to justify its public policy to its citizens. There is one clear prerequisite for democratic discourse to be successful: the participants in that discussion must be able to understand, evaluate, and debate reasons that others offer for their views. That is not possible if religious doctrine is offered as a justification for public-policy positions.
If you claim that you oppose same-sex marriage because the Old Testament states that homosexual conduct is an abomination, that’s the end of the discussion, isn’t it? There’s really nothing more to say. Similarly, if you claim that you oppose the death penalty solely because you believe it violates God’s commandment not to kill, that also puts a stop to our discussion. At this stage, there’s effectively no way for someone who differs from you to persuade you otherwise.
Now you might say: Is this such a bad thing provided that, ultimately, decisions on what public policies to pursue are left to the people? Eventually, we will decide at the ballot box which policies will be implemented. True, but notice two things. First, if we allow religious tenets to provide a justification for public policy, then what voters are being asked to decide is whether to vote in favor of particular religious beliefs. I don’t think that I have to dwell on why that is not an especially attractive proposition. The last thing any society needs is to divide along religious lines. History provides ample proof of the serious problems caused by religious disputes and how so often there is no resolution to deep-seated religious divisions other than through violence. Second, there is value in discussion. When we can discuss the pros and cons of a particular policy, we may just arrive at a better decision. As indicated, discussion is foreclosed when one appeals to religious tenets or dogma.
Now someone might question my key premise. You might ask why is it the case that reliance on religion cuts short discussion. Can’t we discuss religion just like we discuss other beliefs? In principle, perhaps. In reality, no. I should note that one of my colleagues at the Center for Inquiry, Dr. Austin Dacey, has written a book, The Secular Conscience, in which he argues against the view I am advocating here, at least in part. Dacey does not think it is a good thing for religious tenets to influence public policy, but he does maintain that religious beliefs can permissibly be advanced as a justification for policies during public debates. To quote Dacey:
“Secular liberals must lift the gag order on … religion in public debate. We can no longer insist on precluding controversial … religious claims from public conversation. Let believers and unbelievers speak their minds and let honest debate ensue. This is not to say anything goes in public discourse. Claims of conscience in politics should be held to the same standards as other serious public proposals: honesty, consistency, rationality, evidential support, feasibility, legality, morality, and revisability.”
One problem with Dacey’s proposal is indicated by the last sentence of that excerpt. Religious belief is not something usually held to the same standards of consistency, rationality, and evidential support as are other beliefs on which public policy might be based, and that includes our moral beliefs. That Jesus was simultaneously both divine and human seems on the face of it impossible—even more than some being having the identity of both a rhinoceros and a worm—but that does not prevent Christians from asserting this belief because at the end of the day they can always invoke “faith.” “Faith” means not having to supply reasons. You cannot argue with someone’s faith. If you don’t believe me, try arguing with a Chicago Cubs fan.
Furthermore, even if adherents of religion were willing to allow their beliefs to be examined critically, and certainly some theologians are willing to submit at least some of their claims to scrutiny, think about how involved the process of determining public policy would become. Every time someone offered a religious belief as a justification for public policy, we would become immersed in an incredibly complex discussion about whether the underlying religious belief is justified. Let’s say someone favors abstinence-only education because fornication is a sin in Christian doctrine. To start off, we would have to examine the basis for the claim that fornication is indeed a sin. This requires exegesis of biblical texts that are not terribly straightforward or transparent in their meaning. More over, who is to say the Bible represents the commandments of God? We now know, for example, that the four canonical Gospels set forth in the New Testament represent a fraction of the various gospels regarding Jesus that floated around in the first few centuries of the Common Era. How do we determine which statements attributed to Jesus actually represent the views of Jesus? Do we even know whether Jesus existed? Scholars have spent decades on such questions. And, of course, for those who do not accept Jesus as divine or even a divinely inspired prophet, there is the problem of proving to them that they should accept the pronouncements of Jesus as authoritative. How in God’s name do we accomplish that within the period of the time available for coming to a decision on a public policy such as the support of abstinence-only education? We cannot turn every public policy debate into a debate on religion unless we are willing to spend all eternity engaged in such debates.
Contrast this religion-laden approach to public policy with the secular approach. The primary goals of abstinence-only education are to reduce STDs and unwanted pregnancy. If abstinence-only education is effective in achieving these goals, especially if it is more effective than standard sex education, perhaps it should be supported. If it is not, then support may not be advisable. This is a question that can be resolved through empirical studies. Granted these empirical studies cannot be done overnight, but they require a finite amount of time and yield clear results, as contrasted with the lifetime of study that would be required to address abstruse theological questions that do not promise to yield a definitive answer ever. In fact, studies have been carried out on abstinence-only education, and these studies show it is not effective. That should resolve this question, and it would resolve this question if we kept religion out of government.
But you might ask at this point, are we not denying to those who accept religion as a guide to moral values a right to participate in government? Or, at the very least, are we not requiring them to restructure and rephrase their views in nonreligious terms before they participate in government? This was the complaint made by Stephen Carter in his book The Culture of Disbelief. He argued that those who want to keep religion out of government force religious citizens to restructure their arguments in purely secular terms before they can be presented. To which I say: And? So what? What is wrong with that?
As I said in the beginning, I am not arguing that religious persons should be kept out of government and, of course, I recognize that a person’s religious beliefs will influence her outlook. But if that person wants to engage fellow citizens in a discussion about the correct course of action to take, she must restructure her arguments in secular terms. There is nothing onerous about that requirement. In fact, it operates as a much-needed check on the soundness of one’s reasoning. If one cannot reformulate a religiously based moral belief in terms that a nonbeliever might find persuasive, one should pause to consider whether one’s views are correct. Perhaps you have misinterpreted God’s commandments. After all, why would God ask you to follow a rule that does not make any sense when you try to explain it to someone else?
I submit we need to go beyond sacred texts and religious dogma when considering the basis for public policy. Using some allegedly sacred writing from millennia ago—that provides us with the profound wisdom of a nomadic and barbaric tribe—as both the starting and end point of any public policy debate does not seem an especially promising way to deliver solutions to twenty-first-century problems.
Ronald A. Lindsay is the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism.
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Well, here goes, I hope you all understand this tutorial. I really like these disappearing 4 and 9 patch quilts, but I do like them with a bit of consistancy, like a background fabric. The tutorial is on a 4 patch using 5"squares, it would be quicker to use larger squares, and I think I would like sashing and corner blocks.
Start with 4 squares, placed as above. Sew together to make one large square. Now, place the 1" mark of the ruler on the seam of the square and cut. Do the same on all sides of this middle seam.
Now, mix those long rectangles up, then sew back together. Square, if needed, you are finished. This block has many possibilities, so have fun! And remember, press, press, press!!!
I am a pattern designer, my patterns are under the name of Cool Cat Creations. Yes, I do love cats and have 4 of them. I was always interested in quilting but drawing, painting and making clothing got in the way. I took a beginner course about 11 years ago, I had already studied tailoring and pattern drafting, then started teaching. I still teach quilting classes, love it. I started the pattern business about 3 years ago.
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This database contains the seismic safety inventory for California public schools for Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin, Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Santa Cruz counties.
You can search for a school by name.
The results should show Category 1 buildings, which are expected to perform well in earthquakes, or Category 2 buildings, which are not expected to perform as well, and need a detailed seismic evaluation.
Numerous Category 2 buildings have already been evaluated and, if needed, retrofitted or torn down. But in many other cases, they haven't.
To find out, contact officials at your local school district and request they fill the comment form below.
Only school district officials should fill out this form, which will allow us to provide updates on the status on evaluations and retrofits for Category 2 buildings. At a later date, the results will appear in searches with the associated school's name.
District officials who write should include whether they requested the AB300 list for this and other schools; if evaluations were performed on Category 1 and Category 2 buildings; the current status of any needed building retrofits.
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How ‘Freakonomics’ Can Help Explain Hyped PA Polls
A new poll shows President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tied at 47 percent in Pennsylvania. Conducted for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review by Susquehanna Polling and Research, the poll is being touted nationally as evidence Romney might actually win Pennsylvania.
The only problem? As we’ve stated before, Susquehanna is a GOP-centric polling firm. Their numbers have consistently favored Romney more than any other firm in the state, and the only that has ever shown him winning. They are an outlier. And yet, they’re all the conservative media is talking about. They’re the ones making national headlines.
Coincidence? Probably not.
The Susquehanna poll, like the Romney campaign’s recent moves in Pennsylvania, may be a sort of ‘Hail Mary pass,’ by the GOP. The right-wing media may be attempting to only lead their readership to the fake polls with the idea that if enough people see them, they’ll become true. As for everyone else: The media loves a good horserace until the end.
As Matt Taibbi wrote for Rolling Stone on Tuesday, “Banning poll numbers would force the media to actually cover the issues. As it stands now, the horse race is the entire story—I can think of a couple of cable networks that would have to go completely dark tomorrow … if they had to come up with even 10 seconds of news content that wasn’t centered on who was winning.”
As for the voters, the sudden push and corresponding conservative polls can probably be explained by a November 2011 episode of Freakonomics Radio. Host and New York Times columnist Stephen Dubner talks to professors at Yale University who are looking into something called “Cultural Cognition.” It’s a project specifically looking at hot button social and political issues around the country and how our opinions on these issues are formed. The conclusion they came to: Your opinions are based on where you live. All politics is local. Red states, blue states, whatever.
But one way to change the local conversation, might be to nationalize the local news. It’s likely part of the final push to build momentum inside Pennsylvania — since Ohio now looks out of reach for the Romney campaign. And according to the Cultural Cognition theory, the combination of an ad blitz, internal polls and national headlines may be the combination the GOP thinks it needs to win. If the media keeps saying Romney is winning or tied when he is not, enough voters may decide to vote or even change their vote to Romney. So this interpretation of the idea goes.
“We like to think that we make up our minds about important issues based on our rational, unbiased assessment of the available facts,” notes Dubner. “But the evidence … shows that our beliefs, even about something as scientifically oriented as climate change, are driven by a psychological need to fit in.”
Releasing internal polls tells readers there are others like them out there. And they push a certain storyline. For instance, look at what Susquehanna has shown us over the last few months. First, they said the polls were closer than the nonpartisan analysts would want you to believe. Then, they said Romney is winning (and therefore, can win the state). Now, they’re saying the race is tied—so you Republicans better get out and vote.
No political media consultant could dream of writing a narrative like that. Luckily, they have the numbers to do it for them.
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Reactions to FDA Change in Ambien Dosage Vary; Doctors Applaud Strength Reduction
While some patients are dismayed, some doctors applaud move to reduce strength.
Published: Monday, January 21, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 21, 2013 at 11:59 p.m.
LAKELAND | Shannon Brett recalls being a small child and lying in bed, wide awake deep into the night, as everyone else in her family slept.
Ambien User Speaks
"Where do they get off doing that? There's plenty of other things to go after — go after the meth-heads and stuff. My stuff comes from a doctor, not from somebody on the street."
Lake Wales Ambien user
She learned to accept chronic insomnia as simply a part of her life. When she reached adulthood and became the mother of young children while working full time, she realized her health depended on getting some sleep.
About six years ago, a doctor prescribed Ambien, a popular sleep medication. To her relief, Brett could suddenly get six solid hours of sleep a night.
Brett, a Bartow resident, has been taking a 10 mg dose of Ambien on a regular basis ever since then. So she was dismayed to learn of a recent recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration that doctors reduce by half the dose for women.
"This ruling infuriates me," said Brett, 42. "The dosage of any approved medication is between a patient and their doctor. The only thing that this ruling will do is make it impossible for someone like me to have the proper amount of Ambien for me."
Actually, the FDA ruling issued Jan. 10 doesn't preclude female patients from getting the larger dose — 10 mg for quick release and 12.5 mg for extended release. But that will require a doctor to ignore the federal agency's guidelines.
Ambien, the trade name for the generic drug zolpidem, has become one of the world's most popular prescription sleep aids since coming on the market in the early 1990s. (Zolpidem also is sold as Edluar and Zolpimist.) About 40 million prescriptions for medications containing zolpidem were dispensed in 2011, according to IMS, a health care information and technology company.
Even as Ambien has become readily prescribed, medical authorities have issued warnings about the drug. Reports abound of people engaging in odd behavior — binge eating, for example —while under the drug's effect.
In its recent recommendation, the FDA cited reports of patients still groggy or sedated the morning after taking zolpidem. The agency said studies show zolpidem blood levels in some patients remain high enough the next morning "to impair activities that require alertness, including driving."
Noting that women's bodies process zolpidem more slowly than men's, the FDA told manufacturers the recommended dose should be lowered for women and product labels should recommend that doctors consider a lower dose for men as well. The FDA said the risk of after-effects is highest for those using the extended-release form.
Ambien and similar drugs already are manufactured in doses at half the maximum levels, and many people already take the lower dose.
"The patient and doctor can work together to decide which dose works best to treat symptoms, as each patient is different," FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said in an email to The Ledger. "We recommend that doctors prescribe the lowest dose that treats the patients's symptoms."
Brett, a program manager for a state agency, said she could get only four hours of intermittent sleep before she started taking Ambien. She said she had tried virtually every prescription and over-the-counter sleep aid and followed all the standard sleep hygiene advice without success.
"Ambien is the only thing that has ever allowed me to get an acceptable amount of sleep," Brett said. "My life has been changed because of Ambien. I no longer feel like a train hit me. I am no longer ‘always tired.' "
She said she has never experienced grogginess or other after-effects with Ambien.
Walsh, the FDA spokeswoman, said she didn't know whether the recommendation will affect coverage by health insurers. Patients like Brett may find that even if their doctors are willing to prescribe the higher dose, their insurance providers now may cover only the lower dose.
Katie Reiche of Lake Wales told a story similar to Brett's. Reiche, 60, said she suffered from chronic insomnia before her primary-care doctor prescribed Ambien. She has been taking the 12.5 mg extended-release form nightly for two years and has not had any negative effects.
"If I'm not on Ambien, then I'm up all night walking the house," Reiche said. "If someone has morning grogginess, I suggest they take a different sleeping pill."
She blasted the FDA for its recommendation.
"Where do they get off doing that?" she asked. "There's plenty of other things to go after — go after the meth-heads and stuff. My stuff comes from a doctor, not from somebody on the street."
Two local doctors had much different reactions, applauding the FDA for taking steps they say could protect the general public.
"About time," was the reaction of Daniel Weinberg, a psychiatrist at Watson Clinic in Lakeland. "Any time the FDA comes out with anything, a lot of people say, ‘About time.' "
The recommendation also drew praise from Dr. Daniel Haight, Associate Vice President of Community Health for Lakeland Regional Medical Center and former director of the Polk County Health Department.
Haight, a doctor of internal medicine, said the ruling fits with LRMC's "community benefit plan," which contains nine areas of focus, one of which is reducing injuries and deaths from car accidents.
"Patient safety is the No. 1 concern, and this decision to lower the recommended dose helps avoid impaired driving the next morning," Haight said. "Car crashes are far too common and obviously affect not just the patient but also those involved in the crash. Anything that reduces the chance of this is helpful."
Haight said he has prescribed zolpidem on a short-term basis to treat insomnia. He said he first suggests addressing habits that could impair sleep, such as a patient's tendency to consume too much caffeine, watch TV until bedtime or engage in vigorous activity too late in the day.
"A medication should not replace something you could otherwise easily do," Haight said.
Haight acknowledged that every patient is unique. He said people respond differently to medications, and he said doctors should talk to their patients in deciding on the best solution to a sleeping problem.
e_SDLqFor those currently taking the medication, this is an opportunity for the patient and the health-care provider to discuss insomnia and the best approach to treatment while avoiding side effects," Haight said. "The goal is to find the lowest dose of a medicine that helps the patient while avoiding unwanted side effects. For some, this may mean staying with their current dose."
Weinberg, the Watson Clinic psychiatrist, said he sometimes prescribes zolpidem to be taken as needed for a month or two for "crisis situations." He said he avoids keeping patients on the drug longer than that because of the risk of developing physical dependency.
"I've been seeing problems with people on Ambien for years," Weinberg said. "Not only do people get addicted to it, but it stops working and you get trapped in a cycle where your body is looking for it to sleep and if you stop it you get rebound insomnia."
For patients with chronic sleep problems, Weinberg said he prescribes trazodone (brand name Desyrel), a sedative originally developed as an antidepressant. He said trazodone is the most commonly prescribed sleep aid.
Weinberg said he tells patients it's safe to use zolpidem on a long-term basis as long as they take it no more than twice a week. When he does prescribe zolpidem, Weinberg said he warns patients to allow a minimum of eight hours between taking it and driving a vehicle.
Weinberg said he prescribed only the 10 mg, short-release form of the drug. He said he will heed the FDA recommendation and prescribe only the 5 mg dose for female patients.
Weinberg, who did his residency just 3½ years ago, said he might be more aware of recent studies than doctors further removed from their training. He said he has talked to colleagues who shared his opinion that the FDA ruling is overdue.
But Weinberg said he realizes patients might have different reactions.
"I anticipate a lot of doctors are going to have patients who are unhappy about trying to get off (zolpidem)," he said.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.
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Posts Tagged ‘luxury house design’
The inspiration of this extraordinary wonderful project was love for the yachts, which the initiators of the project feel. “H3″ is located in a very picturesque place in Athens. The two-floor house was designed by Greek firm 314 architecture studio for single family. The main part of the house, supported by special pillars, ‘hovers’ over a large swimming pool. Thanks to a large area, the house accommodates a large number of rooms. Garage, technical rooms, a gym and sauna, two bedrooms with private bathrooms designed for guests are located on the first floor. On the second floor, in the lower part of it, there is a dining room and a large living room. These spaces are separated from the terrace by sliding glass partition. On the upper part of the second floor there is the green terraced platform. Inside of the upper console volume, supported by the pillars, there is a bedroom, lounge with exit to the roof, bathroom and cloakroom. The house is eco-friendly and ‘provides energy saving for cooling and heating systems through the means of the coil fan’.
Read the rest of this entry »
Corben Architects presented the project of Mosman House, located in Sydney, Australia. A three-storey residence includes four luxurious bedrooms. Open plan integrates living room, dining room, kitchen and maximizes the use of space. Designers have made every effort to benefit from its location, beautiful views of water, as well as to protect the inhabitants of the house from curious neighbors\\\’ eyes. During the construction designers used natural materials: concrete, stone, wood veneer and sandstone. Inside finishing combines American Oak wood flooring, Grey honed limestone, Walnut veneer. This building is not only beautifully decorated, it is also extremely environmentally friendly. There are skylights that provide maximum light transmission and natural ventilation. The house also has rainwater harvesting system comprising of 30,000L rainwater tank which is used for garden irrigation and flushing of toilets.
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Part 1 of a series focusing on The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Debt Collection.
Ok. I was going to write this post later in the week, but I keep seeing so much information and so many “what not to do” examples of debt collection that I feel *someone* is trying to tell me something.
So, here’s the deal:
#1: Television is not real. I know this is a difficult concept for some people, but even “reality tv” is not real. Shows like Repo Men, Lizard Lick Towing, etc. that show people slugging it out to save their car from being repossessed aren’t real. I’m not saying that they don’t happen, they do. What I’m saying is that the law penalizes people who “disturb the peace” for “self help repossession.” Federal and State law both prohibit violence to recover property and can impose stiff fines on bad actors for each occurrence. Sure, it makes good TV, but it’s not a great way to stay in business.
#2: The debtor has a lot of protection under the law. Opportunities to dispute the credit, prohibition of harassing conduct, and (potentially) discharge under bankruptcy. If you’re in debt, read through the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). If you’re the creditor READ the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and your state equivalent (if it exists). The creditor has to jump through some non-trivial hoops to collect on debts and if you don’t, you face severe fines for each occurrence (that is, let’s say you’re a creditor/collector and have made harassing phone calls – you can get fine $1000 PER PHONE CALL). That quickly makes the debt less attractive to collect.
#3: Realize that once debts are sold or “given over to collections” (in some cases), the collectors are incentivized to collect, regardless of the hardship on the debtor. Here’s an article on one extreme situation. Several debt collection organizations say that “they work with the debtor to get their finances on track and work out a realistic payment plan.” Often, in reality, this means that they work with debtors to prioritize the debt they’re trying to collect over items such as food, rent, or basic necessities (like internet!).
If you’re in debt and are receiving debt collection notices, or if you’re a small business trying to collect on a debt, see an attorney with debt collection experience. It can save a lot of headache, money, and time for everyone.
- The Creditor-Debtor Relationship: Low Level Disruption (cleardebt.co.uk)
- Fair Debt Collection – Thwarting Abusive Collections Tactics (lexingtonlaw.com)
- Debt Validation and Collection Agencies (lexingtonlaw.com)
- Collections and Telephone Calls (lexingtonlaw.com)
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Can IT Cure Healthcare's Inertia?
If the industry remains resistant to change, it will eventually render itself obsolete.
Our arthritic system certainly suffers from an unwillingness to move forward. It stubbornly clings to a fee-for-service model, focuses most of its energy on treatment rather than prevention, and resists IT innovations that can transform it into a nimble, cost-effective business.
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And speaking of business models, the U.S. medical system has fallen victim to the same kind of myopia that recently bankrupted Kodak and seriously weakened the railroad industry over the years.
In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11, and as David Asch and colleagues from the Philadelphia VA Medical Center point out, the company's demise was largely the result of not understanding what kind of business it was in--at least from its customers' point of view.
In last week's New England Journal of Medicine, Asch and associates point out that "Kodak was late to recognize that it was not in the film and camera business: it was in the imaging business." And when the public found a better way to get their images, namely through digital services, it was too late for Kodak to catch up.
[ Looking for a PACS platform to replace an outdated system? See 9 Must-See Picture Archiving/Communication Systems. ]
The railroad industry has suffered from the same shortsightedness, imagining that it's in the train business when in fact it's in the transport business. And that mistake has cost it dearly, allowing competitors with cars, trucks, and planes to make major inroads into its business (no pun intended).
Healthcare could be driving down this same dead-end street, imagining it's in the healthcare industry while what customers really want isn't healthcare but health. "Healthcare is just a means to an end--and an increasingly expensive one. If we could get better health some other way ... then maybe we wouldn't have to rely so much on healthcare," Asch said.
There are alternative ways to better health, and many of these options make use of information technology. Patients' alternative path typically starts off by doing an Internet search to understand their symptoms and the standard treatments for a specific disorder. They then shop online for the best approach to their condition, which sometimes takes advantage of the orthodox healthcare system and sometimes takes them to chiropractors, nutritionists, massage therapists, acupuncturists, hypnotists, and other less conventional practitioners.
Other patients are turning to their smartphones to see what their options are within the traditional healthcare system. Castlight Health, for instance, provides an online shopping platform for healthcare. Castlight says it lets consumers "see their options for selecting a doctor or choosing a lab or clinic, complete with cost and quality of care information, before they make an appointment." The company recently introduced a mobile app that lets consumers use their phones to access pricing and quality data.
We're always going to need hospitals, surgeons, and prescription medication to manage life-threatening illness, but patients increasingly are turning away from the mainstream healthcare system to manage chronic disorders. To remain relevant, clinicians need to get deeply involved in the patient engagement business, and use all the relevant IT tools now available.
Patient portals, secure email systems, and online patient education libraries are a significant part of this effort. Some hospitals are even setting up what's best described as "internal Facebook" systems that let patients share experiences and support one another.
Children's Medical Center Dallas, for instance, has set up a Patient and Family Social Network, which lets past and present patients and their families share stories. The network is divided into communities of patients coping with disorders in various specialties: gastroenterology, neurology, cardiology, and so on.
Patients and their parents at Children's also have access to a patient portal, called MyChart, where they can see test results, a list of medications, and alerts for appointments. They can request prescription refills, make appointments, interact with clinical staff through a HIPAA-compliant email system, and get information about insurance coverage.
To stay relevant in any industry, managers have to think the way their customers do, whether they process photos, move freight across the country, or remove gallbladders. Inertia simply isn't an option.
InformationWeek Healthcare brought together eight top IT execs to discuss BYOD, Meaningful Use, accountable care, and other contentious issues. Also in the new, all-digital CIO Roundtable issue: Why use IT systems to help cut medical costs if physicians ignore the cost of the care they provide? (Free with registration.)
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Constructed over the course of a decade, the Wehr Life Science Building, the Todd Wehr Chemistry Building, and the William Wehr Physics Building together form what was referred to as the Wehr Science Center.
Named in honor of the Wehr Family to recognize the donation of C. Frederick (Todd) Wehr, a Milwaukee native who served as president and chairman of the board of the Wehr Steel Company. Wehr contributed $2.25 million to Marquette in 1965 for the purpose of enriching science education. While the Life Sciences Building was completed in 1962, three years before the gift, it was renamed to honor the Wehr family.
Scanned as grayscale in reflective mode with Epson Expression 10000XL at 300 DPI. Display image is jpeg generated from archival tiff file.
This image is issued by Marquette University. Use of the image requires written permission from the staff of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives. It may not be sold or redistributed, copied or distributed as a photograph, electronic file, or any other media. The image should not be significantly altered through conventional or electronic means. Images altered beyond standard cropping and resizing require further negotiation with a staff member. The user is responsible for all issues of copyright. Please credit: Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Marquette University Libraries.
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Does the consumer culture affect marriage?
Family therapist William Doherty talks about the impact of consumer culture on marriage and personal relationships as well as the increasing rates of divorce. He urges church leaders to encourage married couples to strengthen their commitment to God and remind them that marriage is not a private lifestyle decision.
Does the consumer culture affect marriage? Yes and it's devastating. Marriage is becoming a lifestyle with a person I choose because they can meet my needs and we can be happy together.
I don't believe people bring this attitude to the altar. People still get married, I think, because they love this person and want to be committed to them and live their life together. But there's this alternative sensibility of entitlement. When the going gets rough, as it almost always does, this voice comes out that asks, "Is this a good deal for me?"
Now I hasten to add that there are some awful things that can occur: You didn't sign up for your spouse to be philandering or for abuse. There are things that are not acceptable, and those are what I'd call the "hard" reasons why a marriage would come apart.
But today we see the proliferation of "soft" reasons, such as: We don't communicate well; the sex isn't any good; he doesn't listen to me; we're not friends like we used to be; we argue too much; I don't feel supported. I've been doing marriage therapy for 30 years, and at the beginning I saw people staying together in impossible situations. But today I see people ending marriages for the soft reasons.
This could be the wakeup call to reinvest in your marriage, but suddenly it becomes your ticket out the door. And too often, someone-it could be your clergy, your lay minister, your friend, or your therapist-takes this common human dilemma and makes it a tragedy by agreeing that these are good enough reasons to end a marriage.
Aren't there people out there who challenge the soft reasons?
Unfortunately not many. People don't want to interfere.
You can see the consumer values in our cavalierness toward the marriage commitment. In an individualistic culture, the focus is on your needs and your happiness. Nobody wants to be judgmental, so sometimes we escort someone out of a marriage by not challenging them when they say, "I'm thinking of getting out."
A woman at one of my workshops told me that her married daughter had come to her one day and said, "We're getting divorced. It's not working." The mother said, "Over my dead body. You're going to get some help and think this through first." The daughter was stunned, but they did get good help and worked it out. "Over my dead body" was the key. It was telling the daughter, "You have more at stake here than just yourself." The responsible thing is to slow down, get some help, and then make a decision. That's an ethic I'd like to see in this country.
Instead people think divorce will make them feel better?
It's seen as a solution to a problem because people are in agony. But if you back up a year or two or three, they've gone through a process that gets them to that agony. You can ruin almost any perfectly fine marriage in a year or two by emphasizing how your spouse is not meeting your needs, especially if you pick at things they're really not able to change. Like the woman who wants the guy to be warm and emotional. Or the guy who wants the woman to want sex a lot.
Instead we could make the choice to say "This is good enough" and to remind ourselves of our commitment. Partners who are committed, for example, don't highlight their attraction to other people or spend time comparing their partners to other people.
Do marriages naturally drift apart?
Sure they do. If you use the Mississippi River as an example, we get married at the farthest north point of intensity and passion. Then as years go by, especially if you have kids, there's a natural drift south. It happens to nearly every couple. There's even neurochemical evidence to show that torrid, romantic love is different from stable married love. Something cools off.
But people think they're the only ones it happens to. And they think it's their spouse's fault, because we don't pass on the kind of cultural wisdom about marriage that we do about raising children. I know my cute, 1-year-old grandson will have not-so-cute phases, as surely as the winter will come to Minnesota. But when it comes to marriage, we're so private. We don't make ourselves vulnerable. We can vent all sorts of worries about raising teenagers, for example, but there's no version of that for marriage. I say to clergy, imagine how many people you go up to and say, "How's your health? How are the kids?" But how many people do you go up to and say, "How's your marriage?" They can't imagine saying that.
We can all help married people understand that they've got marital versions of the common cold or flu, not a life-threatening disease. I sometimes tell people that every couple has the same two or three fights their entire relationship. If you didn't have those problems, you'd have some other ones. It's almost like the spiritual life: You never stop working on your flaws and faults, and you never stop trying to feel better till you die. You never get there, but you don't stop working at it.
Can churches do anything about this?
Absolutely. Churches are the only institution that married couples trust, because marriage is so personal, as it relates to sexuality. They have credibility. In fact, Catholicism is seen as taking marriage more seriously than other religions, particularly with the pre-Cana programs for couples. Still, one Catholic I know says that "Catholics go from prepare to repair."
Also, churches get worried about offending the divorced or never married. You acknowledge couples' anniversaries at church in a moving way, and other people in the back are in tears. We have trouble holding that. I think it takes real pastoral leadership to say that marriage is something important to all of us whether we're married or not. Life is filled with tragedy. Some people want to get married and don't, others want to stay married and don't. But we can still hold onto the ideal of marriage and not let it become simply a private lifestyle decision.
This article appeared in the June 2006 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 71, No. 6, pages 16-17).
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you know, for their own good.......
27 May, 2009
Riyadh-Saudi Arabia's religious police want to install surveillance cameras in shopping centres throughout the country in order to watch young people. "We will place surveillance cameras in all shopping centres and public places to monitor the behaviour of young people," said General Abdel Aziz al-Hamin, chief of the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, quoted by Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday.
"Our objective is to correct the mistakes made by some youths, in order to protect their moral integrity," said al-Hamin.
However, Saudi Arabia's religious police have been accused by many Saudis of violating young people's privacy by providing the media with the names of those who are caught engaging in behaviour considered in breach of Islamic Sharia law.
Their names are then published in Saudi newspapers.
Al-Hamin, however, has denied the claims and said he never handed over the names of anyone to the media.
In a separate incident, a court in the holy city of Medina on Tuesday acquitted two religious police.
They were accused of having caused the death of four young people, two men and two women, who died in a car accident while they tried to escape from the religious police after being caught together.
Sharia law prohibits unmarried and unrelated men and women to travel together in a car.
The religious police or committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice is a government bureaucracy in charge of enforcing Sharia law. It has more than 3,500 members, as well as volunteers.
Click to view image: '0008131670da-surveillancecamera200x150.jpg'
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