CAROLINA NATURALLY: Oct 2, 2009

Friday, October 2, 2009

What the world thinks of the repugicans and their blocking health care

Six health care lobbyists for every member of Congress

Surprising that the health care Americans want is struggling.
Best democracy money can buy.

America's health care industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block the introduction of public medical insurance and stall other reforms promised by Barack Obama. The campaign against the president has been waged in part through substantial donations to key politicians.

Supporters of radical reform of health care say legislation emerging from the US Senate reflects the financial power of vested interests ‑ principally insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and hospitals ‑ that have worked to stop far-reaching changes threatening their profits.

The industry and interest groups have spent $380m (£238m) in recent months influencing health care legislation through lobbying, advertising and in direct political contributions to members of Congress. The largest contribution, totaling close to $1.5m, has gone to the chairman of the senate committee drafting the new law.

And, you still wonder why the world is laughing at us?!

The height of hypocrisy and bullshit

From Crooks and Liars:

For $503 A Year, Members of Congress Have A Top-Notch Hospital On Call In The Capitol. But They Don't Want 'Government Care'?

I wanted to make sure everyone saw this. I'm so mad, I can hardly see straight. If your elected representative is one of those standing in the way of the public option, I suggest you tell him or her what you think of this. (And don't forget Plan B: If you're uninsured and you get swine flu, go visit your congress critter and turn their waiting room into a different kind of waiting room - "waiting" for affordable health care!)

From time to time, we're reminded of the fact that members of Congress -- many of whom are fighting to kill health care reform -- give themselves pretty good coverage. Several weeks ago, the LA Times reported on the taxpayer-subsidized insurance federal lawmakers currently enjoy.

The piece noted that, while most Americans have to go with whatever their employer offers, members have a choice of 10 plans that offer access to a national network of doctors. "Lawmakers also get special treatment at Washington's federal medical facilities and, for a few hundred dollars a month, access to their own pharmacy and doctors, nurses and medical technicians standing by in an office conveniently located between the House and Senate chambers," the article added.

ABC News explores this conveniently located facility in more detail today. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal for lawmakers.

This fall while members of Congress toil in the U.S. Capitol, working to decide how or even whether to reform the country's health care system, one floor below them an elaborate Navy medical clinic -- described by those who have seen it as something akin to a modern community hospital -- will be standing by, on-call and ready to provide Congress with some of the country's best and most efficient government-run health care.

Formally called the Office of the Attending Physician, the clinic -- and at least six satellite offices -- bills its mission as one of emergency preparedness and public health. Each day, it stands ready to handle medical emergencies, biological attacks and the occasional fainting tourist visiting Capitol Hill.

Officially, the office acknowledges these types of services, including providing physicals to Capitol police officers and offering flu shots to congressional staffers. But what is rarely discussed outside the halls of Congress is the office's other role -- providing a wealth of primary care medical services to senators, representatives and Supreme Court justices.

Through interviews with former employees and members of Congress, as well as extensive document searches, ABC News has learned new details about the services offered by the Office of Attending Physician to members of Congress over the past few years, from regular visits by a consulting chiropractor to on-site physical therapy.

"A member walked in and was generally walked right back into a physician's office. They get good care. They are not rushed. They are examined thoroughly," said Eduardo Balbona, an internist in Jacksonville, Fa., who worked as a staff physician in the OAP from 1993 to 1995.

The Office of the Attending Physician includes at least four Navy doctors as well as at least a dozen medical and X-ray technicians, nurses, and a pharmacist. When a specialist is brought in, members pay no additional costs.

Indeed, lawmakers receive top-notch, wait-free care, and money is largely no object. Members pay a flat annual fee of $503, and it covers all expenses -- without submitting claim forms to their insurer. Despite soaring costs throughout the health care system, prices have been largely stagnant in the Office of the Attending Physician for 17 years.

Some lawmakers didn't pay the fee and still took advantage of OAP services.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear a member of Congress complaining about the nightmares of government-run, taxpayer-subsidized health care.

Content Theft is Not Really Theft

The question is asked: I'm not clear on how the DMCA can supercede every other law on the books when it comes to using stolen content.

Obviously, copyright is the big issue that everyone focuses on. But isn't the theft itself a different issue?

Can't you go after someone for the simple act of stealing the content in the first place? It would seem that you could file criminal charges for theft, as opposed to a copyright violation. If a site was charging to view the stolen material would that change anything?

One other area that hasn't been explored much, at least that I've seen, is filing complaints with the FTC over unfair competition. Wouldn't that be a potentially viable route? Of course, the arguement would be that by using stolen and unlicensed content, they are competing unfairly. Would the DMCA somehow supercede the other existing laws and regs?

Thanks for your time!

And the law replies: Not at all -- this is a general question. I would be happy to answer.

Content theft is not really theft. One of the elements of theft is that you, the person whom the item was stolen from, have lost the use and enjoyment of the item taken. If someone copies your content, you still have the original and you can still do something with it. In civil law we call theft conversion but it is hard to convert digital images.

If someone steals a print of a photograph from a museum we have theft.

When cookies for dinner is okay

The occasional health slip-up — such as eating cookies for dinner — may not be as bad as you think.

The verdict

Also:

Why it's still so brutal finding work

Employers slash more jobs, making September unemployment worse than expected.

White House was wrong

Also:

Merle Haggard fights on

Merle Haggard fights on after cancer

The outspoken country musician, undaunted after lung surgery, refuses to be pigeonholed.

'The great arbitrator'

Also:

Downside of winning the lottery

The happy ending many million-dollar lottery winners expect sometimes never arrives.

'It's a nightmare'

Also:

Blue Jean

David Bowie

Devastating Indonesian earthquake 'still to come'

A megaquake in the Sumatra region is long overdue, say geologists, but the earthquake this week wasn't it.

Devastating Indonesian earthquake 'still to come'

Have you ever wonder why big business isn't backing public healthcare?

Not having to pay for employees health care would save them a bunch of money and make the U.S. more competitive. but, perhaps they really do want you to die..quickly.

'Dead Peasants' insurance pays your employer a secret, tax-free windfall when you die. insurers have sold millions of policies to companies such as Dow chemical.

...When you die - perhaps years after you leave your employer - the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldn't go to your family.
The money would go to the company.

Full Story

Tamiflu found in rivers

Tamiflu, the primary flu-fighting drug, is contaminating rivers downstream of sewage-treatment facilities, researchers confirm.
They worry that birds, which are natural influenza carriers, are being exposed to Tamiflu and might develop and spread drug-resistant strains of seasonal and avian flu.

Tamiflu found in rivers

Portable pain weapon may end up in police hands

The Pentagon’s efforts to develop a beam weapon that can deter an adversary by causing a burning sensation on their skin has taken a step forward with the development of a small, potentially hand-held, version. The weapon, which is claimed to cause no permanent harm, could also end up being used by police to control civilians. [...]

Like all supposedly non-lethal weapons that could be used to control civilians, the Pentagon’s new portable weapon is raising concerns. “I’d like to know why they want another advanced pain compliance weapon like this,” says Steve Wright, non-lethal weapons analyst at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK. “Persuading by pain rather than brain - through conversation - has led to push-button torture in the past. If it leaves no mark on the skin how will anyone prove it’s been abused?”

Full Story

Man with transplanted hands heads home

Jeff Kepner, the first person in England to receive two hand transplants, is now home after four months of recovery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in the United States.

From LancasterOnline:

In a strange way, the double transplant was a bit of setback for Kepner, who had lost part of both of his arms and legs in 1999. Doctors amputated the limbs in a bid to save his life after Kepner came down with a strep infection that plunged him into a coma.

After the amputations, Kepner was outfitted with prosthetic hands and feet and forged on with his life.

"He had gotten quite used to his hooks," his mother says of her son's artificial arms. "He could dress himself. He could drive his car. He could do a lot of things..."

Now in therapy (after the transplants), he is learning how to pick up small items, like cotton balls, and catch a ball, but he still has no feeling in his fingers. The nerves grow about an inch a month from where the hands were attached, at the forearm.

"They told him it will be at least until the end of the year before those nerves get down into those fingers," Doris Schafer said. "Then he'll begin to do things."

"Man ready to go home after double-hand transplant"

Pee as fertilizer ingredient

From the "Who knew?" Department:

New research suggests that a slurry of wood ash and piss makes a good fertilizer for tomatoes. It's the nitrogen in urine and the calcium and magnesium in the ash that does the trick.
After promising results in a greenhouse, University of Kuopio environmental scientist Surendra Pradhan and his colleagues plan a real world test in Nepal.

From National Geographic:

Human urine and wood ash have each separately been used as fertilizer for centuries. But until now, no one had explored applying them together...

Urine can be collected from eco-friendly, urine-diverting toilets. Or farmers could just collect their pee in cans.

The researchers estimate a single person could supply enough urine to fertilize roughly 6,300 tomato plants a year—yielding some 2.4 tons of tomatoes.

The farmer would just need to give plants ash three days or more after applying urine...

One potential setback may be that pharmaceuticals and hormones excreted in human urine—such as remnants of birth control pills—could negatively impact crops, Pradhan said. For instance, such byproducts could promote antibiotic resistance in local bacteria or get absorbed by the plants.

"Human Pee With Ash Is a Natural Fertilizer, Study Says"

Actually, you could probably find some old farmers almost anywhere on the planet who could have told you that pee on plants is good.
I mean humans have been farming for over 10,000 years so the subject has come up ... and 'tested' on more than one occasion to be sure.
Also, pee combined with ash is hardly a ground breaking concept - we humans have had the use of fire for well onto 1,000,000 years and more than a few fires have been dampened with pee over that time.

Nasal spray for memory enhancement

Now this could be real interesting ...

Neuroendocronologists report that a nasal spray containing a chemical secreted by the body's own immune system can improve the formation of long-term memories while sleeping. Lisa Marshall and team at Germany's University of Lubeck studied the impact of the substance, interlukin-6, on emotional and procedural memory retention.

From the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology:

To make this discovery, Marshall and colleagues had 17 healthy young men spend two nights in the laboratory. On each night after reading either an emotional or neutral short story, they sprayed a fluid into their nostrils which contained either interleukin-6 or a placebo fluid. The subsequent sleep and brain electric activity was monitored throughout the night. The next morning subjects wrote down as many words as they could remember from each of the two stories. Those who received the dose of IL-6 could remember more words.

"You must remember this: Scientists develop nasal spray that improves memory"

Eggs the size of footballs

Unusual dinosaur discovery

Scientists in India find hundreds of fossilized eggs the size of footballs.

Possible clues to extinction

Also:

Hard-hit cities most likely to rebound

These 10 housing markets hammered by the recession are poised to bounce back fast.

Up to 41% gain in 5 years

Also:

Message floats across the Atlantic

A couple's ritual of tossing a note in a bottle out to sea has a surprising result.

But a bittersweet twist

Also:

How Letterman blackmail saga unfolded

The talk-show host admits to affairs with coworkers — but they aren't his first controversies.

Potential fallout

Also:

Rio gets Olympics bid

So much for the odds makers ...

Rio gets Olympics bid

Rio de Janeiro beats out Chicago and two other cities for the 2016 Olympics.

U.S. stunned by early rejection

Also:

Anti-Wi-Fi paint protects your signal

Apply this paint to your walls to keep neighbors off your wireless network.

But is it worth redecorating?

Also:

Illegal toxic waste spotted from space

Move over Erin Brockovich ...
Today's environmental detectives can use radar, helicopters and satellites to spot illegal waste dumps.

Illegal toxic waste spotted from space

Better World

There's a lot more to green technology than wind farms. From more efficient aircraft to thread made from chicken feathers, we pick out the best ideas.

Better world: Top tech for a cleaner planet

Pavlov's Fish?

From BBC-Science:

Black sea bass (Noaa Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary)

Fish school

Meet Pavlov's fish - the black sea bass that come back when scientists call

The fish in action

Texas judge clears way for gay divorce

From the "See it ain't different" Department:

A Texas judge cleared the way for two Dallas men to get a divorce, ruling Thursday that Texas' ban on same-sex marriage violates the constitutional guarantee to equal protection under the law.

Full story

******

Thus proving what the comedians have been saying all along ... Gay Marriage is OK, they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us.

But boy, the stink this is going to cause in some circles.

Oil drops again

Oil prices slid below $70 a barrel Friday in Asia as signs of a sluggish U.S. economic recovery discouraged stock and crude investors.

Oil slides below $70 as traders eye US economy

St. Anthony statue

Define irony:

When a statue goes missing, maybe it helps if it's a statue of the patron saint of lost items.

Full Story

Then again, maybe it's just plain funny!

Replica of Wright plane Crashes

An authentic replica of the 1905 Wright Flyer III crashed at the Huffman Prairie Flying Field at approximately 9:30 a.m. today.

Full Story

Babies born now could live to 100

Researchers: Half of the babies born in rich nations today could live to be 100 years old.

Impact on health care

Also:

Problems with flu shots

The delay of seasonal flu vaccines is forcing doctors to turn patients away and clinics to close.

'Be patient'

Also:

They are alive

Ray of hope amid quake devastation

Two women are rescued from the rubble days after the Indonesian earthquake.

Thousands more feared buried

Also:

By Definition

Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

~ Ambrose Bierce

Tax cheaters, beware

If you are hiding money from the IRS, a popular government program has tipsters speaking out. How it works

Also:

Smart money moves that really aren't

These financial choices sound smart, but they can leave you asking what went wrong.

Hidden consequences

Also:

Unusual Holidays and Celebrations

Today is

Phileas Fogg's Wager Day,
World Smile Day,
National Denim Day,
and
World Farm Animal Day

Daily Almanac

Today is Friday, Oct. 2, the 275th day of 2009.

There are 90 days left in the year.

Today in History, October 2.

Our Readers

Some of our readers today have been in:

Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Munich, Bayern, Germany
Gothenburg, Vastra Gotaland, Sweden
Dordrecht, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
Toronto,Ontario, Canada
Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Stockholm, Stockholms Lan, Sweden
Blackburn, England, United Kingdom
Berlin, Berlin, Germany

as well as Singapore, and the Unites States

Daily Horoscope

Today's horoscope says:

It's a good time to build up your self-esteem in terms of expressing yourself.
Deep down inside, you're a very creative person, and today is a good day to let that show.
Get involved in planning or cooking a meal, and volunteer to set the table.
You can arrange the settings in a unique way -- let yourself do something that strikes people as downright odd.
It's all part of encouraging yourself to take chances and express your natural talents.

Already on it.

Welcome to ...

Friday, October 2, 2009

Naturally Friends

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