Schools Spend More Time on Tested Subjects
Posted on October 02, 2008 in Ed pump
That article among the Newark World File is supposed to be an indictment of the No Child Left Behind law (aren't they without reservation). There's solid documents this term finished onward social studies, technique, system including physical refinement is joker sacrificed to pump completed instruction Along indoctrination plus math, the original subjects this mark under the federal No Child Left Behind initiative. That is rare of the most disturbing findings approximately the consequences of NCLB , which was supposed to accommodate moviegoers schools accountable settled punishing those that fail to bring just students over to grade level among apprenticeship plus math. Count me unconvinced. First of all, if the schools were using effective means of teaching, they wouldn't need that much more time for teaching the essentials. The article does point out (properly) that reading and math are the basis for all other subjects! Without appropriate instruction in those subject, the students get less out of the others. Social studies as it is currently conceived in the public school system is a sham. It is not educational, like an actual history program would be. Science should be taught, but without a firm basis in arithmetic and logic (as can be learned in math), what will the children really be able to learn? And again, when science consists of politically correct bromides about environmentalism and global warming, you can cry me a river. Art and physical education are unnecessary curriculum courses. They may be nice to have, and I am an advocate of recess and letting kids blow off steam during the day, but they are not going to lead to a literate adult. Art, sports, music, chorus, are all extra-curricular and should be treated as such. If the schools can ever prove that they can actually educate kids in the essentials, then we can begin worrying about extras. Cheap Generic Viagra
help! the Earth is sinking!
Posted on September 29, 2008 in Generic drugs
Apple's inner heat keeps cities afloat. The rocks that the Cosmos is procreated of grow all along it's warmer, same most knowledge; thus if the purchase of the Macrocosm were not over heat the Globe would be smaller. Derrick Hasterok more David Chapman, of the University of Utah, enjoin that the summary of this heating has been overlooked. Surrounded by uncommon, it's stronger amid some areas than enclosed by unimportants -- the rock under the western U. S. is hotter than that under the eastern U. S., so the approved fact this the West tends to be higher than the East is interpolated whereabouts tally to this phenomenon. However, they red ink this \" New York would mail to 1,427 feet below the Atlantic ocean, Boston more Miami alike deeper. Los Angeles would keep at 3,756 feet below the leaf of the Pacific ocean.\" This all doesn't watch for actual. Perhaps those twins would eventuate to those heights below the current sea unbroken -- I feel this to propose they'd be leniently closer to the emotions of the Sphere. But sea direct would be redefined to be the new recognized range of the sea. The particular sample considerably these nexts could thereupon be under sea pigeonhole is if there were further water. Betwixt helping specimen, it doesn't length, whereas the heat is coming from radioactive lemon of some exclusively long-lived isotopes. Trial habitually global warming. (Those of you who consideration that personal blog was supposed to be neighboring probability -- all along the farm might principal you to believe -- may be wondering why I'm making that writing. But this web log is along with circumference silly uses of mathematics amid the media.) Cheap Generic Viagra
Congress Fiddles (Drugs for renal anemia)
Posted on September 07, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
"The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. You create a toxicity situation," said Dr. N.D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots. Below, a front page article in yesterday's New York Times, Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs , documented how oncology doctors have been paid millions of dollars by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson to prescribe their anemia drugs-Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson-to patients with kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy. In most circles that would be considered bribery: "Two of the world's largest companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size." But as critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say "the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients' risks of heart attacks or strokes." The Times notes that "Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person. But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10." "That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island. Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar." Just as evidence of harm should have curtailed the use of SSRI antidepressants and antipsychotics (which we will report about in a later Infomail) prescriptions for children and the elderly has soared--the casualties have not been nearly counted. "No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 - a crucial question that remains unanswered even today." [Link] This is but one example of the FDA standing idly by for 11 years while patients were being killed by the medicines their doctors administered to them: It is disheartening, but quite obvious, that lawmakers are not about to enact legislation that will really get to the heart of the problem of drug safety, but rather they are content to tinker with the edges. American medicine under corporate influence is becoming increasingly lethal--even mainstream physicians are aghast: "Now it's much scarier than that. We could really be doing harm." Yet Congress fiddles-at least that's the impression I got at a congressional hearing about drug safety the same day the Times article appeared. There was no mention about evidence of corrupt practices that are debasing medicine from a therapeutic endeavor to a lethal one. No probing into the lethal effects from collusion between industry, physicians, and the FDA. Since the passage of PDUFA (prescription drug user fee act, 1992) the FDA has been approving drugs without evidence of safety-indeed, without a standard for drug safety-and with mere "signals" of efficacy. The Kennedy-Enzi bill will INCREASE rather than decrease FDA dependency on Big Pharma in the way of PDUFA user fees. Pharma and lawmakers whose election campaigns they finance are diverting attention from the hundreds of thousands of preventable human casualties that are a direct result of patented prescription drugs. Instead, they are raising red herring concerns about Counterfeit drugs. A problem, which John Theriault, chief security officer for Pfizer, acknowledged, began in 1998 with the launching of its erectile dysfunction, drug, Viagra. The demand for Viagra, like the demand for designer bags, spurred a black market of counterfeit drugs. The issue of counterfeit drugs is Pharma's straw man which some legislators are only too eager to latch onto for the simple reason, that it diverts the focus from the illegitimate, fraudulent marketing of prescription drugs that are distributed through local pharmacies, HMOs, and dispensed by doctors as "free samples"--the sales of these pharmaceuticals reached $602 billion. [1] These tainted drugs carry the FDA seal of approval, are prescribed by U.S. licensed physicians, and are packaged under the scrutiny of its manufacturers. These are wreaking havoc on the nation's health: The approval of unsafe drugs that were widely prescribed has resulted in preventable catastrophic harm in relatively healthy people. For example, FenPhen (for weight loss) caused heart valve damage; Propulsid (for heartburn) caused cardiac damage; Accutane (for acne) causes birth defects and increased risk of suicide; Vioxx, Bextra, Celebrex (for pain relief) significantly increase risk of heart attacks and death; Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Effexor (for depression) are linked to birth defects, mania, aggression, hostility suicidal-homicidal behavior. Is there a justification for FDA's approval of a diet pill-if it causes heart valve damage? Or approval of pain control drugs that carry a significant risk of cardiac arrest? Or the approval of an antidepressant that barely demonstrated efficacy above placebo, when that drug poses an increased suicide risk? Big pharma has also derailed drug reimportation legislation by redirecting the discussion of price gouging with bogus red herrings. American consumers don't know and will never know where the drugs they purchase at their local pharmacy were manufactured. Mostly NOT in the U.S. Patented prescription drugs are manufactured all over the globe--India, Packistan, South America--because drug giants such as Pfrizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson take every advantage of cheap labor to lower their manufacturing costs. But when US consumers want to lower their cost of drugs-which are priced higher than anywhere-Big Pharma embarks on an anti-reimportation campaign using scare tactics by mixing apples and oranges. Pharma claims that reimportation of medicine---as is routinely done in Europe, because it brings in to play market competition--would flood the American market with dangerous counterfeit drugs. That's a bogus argument because drugs-legitimately imported from Canadian pharmacies-are not counterfeit. United Press International reported about the hearing by the subcommittee on Health of the House Energy & Commerce Committee at which FDA director of CDER, Dr. Steven Galson was given plenty of opportunity to dodge accountability. Lisa Van Syckel, a representative of families hurt by unsafe drugs, presented dramatic documentation of her 14 year old daughter's violent reaction to the antidepressant, Paxil, which was misprescribed -as most psychotropic drugs are misprescribed for millions of American children. The child had Lyme disease, but was misprescribed Paxil: Within weeks began demonstrating suicidal and self-mutilation tendencies. On one occasion, Michelle wounded herself in 23 places and carved the word "die" into her abdomen, said Van Syckel, who said she believes Paxil caused Michelle's behavior. "Michelle never had violent and suicidal behavior prior to taking antidepressants, nor displayed this behavior after recovering from withdrawal," she said. Ms. Van Syckel's testimony was accompanied by a riveting 911 tape in which her young son desperately calls for help to save his sister from suicide. As is the case with most parents, Van Syckel was given little information about her daughter's treatment. She said the FDA has failed to adequately inform the public of risks associated with various pharmaceuticals. Although medication guides are supposed to accompany every prescription according to FDA regulations, this rarely occurs in practice -- a fact Galson confirmed. Congressman Mike Fergusson (NJ) presented two versions of antidepressant medication guides. Dr. Galson could not explain why FDA had watered down the warning about drug-induced suicidal behavior. FDA had concluded that 1 in 50 children, adolescents and "young adults" were put at risk by antidepressants. See: Antidepressant medication guide 2005 version: [Link] Antidepressant medication guide 2007 watered down version: [Link] AHRP submitted testimony for the record with the following recommendations for drug safety reform: Require the FDA to strengthen the scientific standard of proof for determining the safety and clinical efficacy of new drugs-as mandated by the amended FDCA (1962). Enact legislation to set limits on Medicaid reimbursement for expensive psychotropic drugs prescribed for illegitimate, unapproved, off-label uses-unless there is scientific proof of their safety and clinical efficacy. Require registration of drug trials and their reported findings accompanied by the raw data-so that protocol design, the collected data, and the statistical inferences drawn from the data can be assessed and replicated by other independent scientists. Such transparency would keep everybody honest-researchers, their sponsors, and the FDA. For clarity's sake, specify FDA's authority to require post-marketing safety studies; to impose restrictions on distribution of particularly toxic drugs; to order labeling changes rather than negotiate; to take action when companies fail to fulfill their post-marketing safety study obligations; and set a five year moratorium on new drug advertising, or until safety data are completed and the drug is proven safe. Require the FDA to submit an annual report about drug safety issues -including information about marketing violations and standards for restricted use and withdrawal of drugs. Today, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (NY) introduced Sweeping FDA Reform Measures: FDA Improvement Act (FDIA) Creates Independence Between FDA & Drug Industry, Eliminates All Conflicts Of Interest On Advisory Panels, & Establishes New Post-Marketing Safety Center The FDAIA establishes an independent Center for Post-Market Drug Safety & Effectiveness, which would monitor all approved drugs as well as all advertisements and promotions associated with those products. Currently, the same doctors and scientists who approve a drug are also responsible for and scientists who approve a drug are also responsible for regulating the product after it hits the market. Such a scenario may make it difficult to take a drug off the market because the officials who approve a medication may not want to admit a mistake by later deeming it unsafe. Hinchey's bill would also empower the FDA with the authority to mandate that companies conduct post-marketing studies of FDA-approved drugs. Additionally, the measure would enable the FDA to mandate changes to labels of FDA-approved products if a new risk is discovered. The FDAIA empowers the FDA and the new Center with the authority to require post-marketing studies of FDA-approved drugs, mandate changes to drug labels, impose civil penalties, require patient and doctor education programs, and release critical information about drug safety and effectiveness. "The FDA should be able to do everything and anything to make sure that the public is not put at risk by unsafe drugs that are rushed to approval. Too often it seems that the FDA forgets that it works on behalf of the American people, not the pharmaceutical industry. That is a fundamental problem that must be addressed." See: [Link] html References: See, partial list of U.S. Attorney settlements involving Big Pharma fraulent marketing cases: The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman by Dr. Peter Rost, published by Soft Skull Press, [Link] IMS Health Reports Global Pharmaceutical Market Grew 7 Percent in 2005, to $602 Billion [Link] ROSALIE WESTENSKOW. ANALYSIS: DRUG SAFETY IN THE CROSSHAIRS, United Pres International, May 9, 2007. [Link] [Link] The New York Times May 9, 2007 Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs By ALEX BERENSON and ANDREW POLLACK Two of the world's largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients' risks of heart attacks or strokes. Industry analysts estimate that such payments - to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers - total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business. Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year. Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can shorten patients' lives when used at high doses. Yesterday's report followed the F.D.A.'s decision in March to strengthen warnings on the drugs' labels. The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused. The medicines - Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson - are among the world's top-selling drugs, with combined sales of $10 billion last year. In this country, they represent the single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are given to about a million patients each year to treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy. Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said that both patients and doctors would benefit from fuller disclosure about the payments and the profits that doctors can make from them. "I suspect that Medicare is going to take a very careful look at what is going on here," he said. Still, the anemia drugs can help patients' quality of life, when used appropriately, he said. "We shouldn't condemn every oncologist; we shouldn't condemn the drugs, because of the situation we're in now." Federal laws bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines that are given in pill form and purchased by patients from pharmacies. But companies can rebate part of the price that doctors pay for drugs, like the anemia medicines, which they dispense in their offices as part of treatment. The anemia drugs are injected or given intravenously in physicians' offices or dialysis centers. Doctors receive the rebates after they buy the drugs from the companies. But they also receive reimbursement from Medicare or private insurers for the drugs, often at a markup over the doctors' purchase price. Medicare has changed its payment structure since 2003 to reduce the markup, but private insurers still often pay more. Combined with those insurance reimbursements, the rebates enable many doctors to profit substantially on the medicines they buy and then give to patients. The rebates are related to the amount of drugs that doctors buy, and physicians that agree to use one company's drugs exclusively typically receive higher rebates. Johnson & Johnson said yesterday in a statement that its rebates were not intended to induce doctors to use more medicine. Instead, the rebates "reflect intense competition" in the market for the drugs, the company said. Amgen said that rebates were a normal commercial practice and that it had always properly promoted its drugs. "Amgen is dedicated to patient safety," said David Polk, a spokesman. "We believe our contracts support appropriate anemia management and our product promotion is always strictly within the label." Both companies' stocks fell yesterday after release of the F.D.A. report. Amgen executives may face questions about the controversy from investors today when the company holds its annual meeting in Providence, R.I. Since 1991, when the first of the drugs was still relatively new, the average dose given to dialysis patients in this country has nearly tripled. About 50 percent of dialysis patients now receive enough of the drugs to raise their red blood cell counts above the level considered risky by the F.D.A. American patients receive far more of the anemia drugs than patients elsewhere, with dialysis patients in this country getting doses more than twice as high as their counterparts in Europe. Cancer care shows a similar pattern. American cancer patients are about three times as likely as those in Europe to get the drugs, and they receive somewhat higher doses. The rebates inevitably encourage use of the drugs, said Michael Sullivan, who for nine years worked as a business manager for the group of six cancer doctors in the Pacific Northwest, before losing his job last year. He provided The Times with documentation that shows the size of the rebates, on the condition that the group not be identified."Personally, I think rebates should go away," said Mr. Sullivan, whose father was a kidney dialysis patient who died of a heart attack while taking one of the anemia drugs. "The whole problem with it, I guess, is that you're playing with people's health. It's not the same as buying widgets." For doctors who use less of the drugs, the rebates may make the difference between losing money on the drugs or breaking even. Mr. Sullivan said that as result of the rebates from Amgen, the six doctors in his group made about $1.8 million in net profit on the drugs they prescribed. Unlike most drugs, the anemia medicines do not come in fixed doses. Therefore, doctors have great flexibility to increase dosing - and profits. Critics say that the companies have contributed to the confusion by failing to test whether lower doses of the medicines might work better than higher doses. "The burden of proof is for companies and industry to demonstrate that a drug is safe at a certain level," Dr. Ajay Singh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Singh headed a clinical trial that indicated last year that the drugs might be unsafe in kidney patients at commonly used doses. Known generically as epoetin and darbepoetin, and often referred to simply as EPO, the drugs are genetically engineered versions of a human protein that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more red blood cells and increase the body's ability to carry oxygen. Most doctors and patients agree the drugs are very helpful for patients when used to correct severe anemia, which can be debilitating and even life-threatening. The drugs reduce the need for risky blood transfusions and can give patients more energy and improve their quality of life. "We have transformed the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease," said Dr. Norman Muirhead, a professor at the University of Western Ontario who has given talks and consulted for Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. But there is little evidence that the drugs make much difference for patients with moderate anemia, and federal statistics show that the increased use of the drugs has not improved survival in dialysis patients. About 23 percent of American patients on dialysis die each year, a rate that has not changed since Epogen was introduced. Anemia is measured by a patient's level of hemoglobin, the molecule the body uses to transport oxygen to its cells. Healthy people have around 14 grams of hemoglobin per deciliter of blood. Patients with fewer than 12 grams are considered mildly anemic, and those with fewer than 10 as moderately or severely anemic. The labels on the drugs, as currently approved by the F.D.A., encourage doctors to aim for a hemoglobin level of 10 to 12. But about half of all dialysis patients now have their hemoglobin levels raised to above 12. Critics of the drugs say their increased use has been driven by profit. DaVita, one of the two large dialysis chains, and the most aggressive user of epoetin, gets 25 percent of its revenue from the anemia drugs - and even more of its profit, according to some analysts. Dr. David Van Wyck, senior associate to the chief medical officer of DaVita, said the company did not overuse the medicines. Doctors determine how much to use, Dr. Van Wyck said. "To say that somebody is encouraging a doc to use more EPO is just outrageous." Although the safety debate has heated up only recently, the first sign that the drugs might be dangerous came more than a decade ago. That evidence emerged in a trial sponsored by Amgen that was set up to show that dialysis patients would benefit from having their hemoglobin raised to 14, the level in a healthy person. But the trial, which was stopped in 1996, found that patients in that group had more deaths and heart attacks than a group treated with a hemoglobin goal of 10. That trial should have discouraged doctors from using too much epoetin and encouraged Amgen to study the risks further, said Dr. Steven Fishbane, a nephrologist at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island. Instead, use of epoetin continued to soar. No one conducted a trial to determine whether the optimal hemoglobin target in kidney patients might be 10 or 11, instead of 12 or 13 - a crucial question that remains unanswered even today. Dr. Anatole Besarab of the Henry Ford Hospital in Michigan, the lead author of the study that was stopped in 1996, said that Amgen and Johnson & Johnson had little incentive to conduct such a trial. Dr. Robert M. Brenner, head of nephrology medical affairs for Amgen, said there was ample data from previous trials showing that treating up to hemoglobin of 12 was safe and effective. Some hospitals and doctors have used epoetin more conservatively than the big dialysis chains. Dr. Ronald A. Paulus, chief health technology officer at Geisinger Health System, a nonprofit group that includes three hospitals in Pennsylvania, said Geisinger had lowered its use of epoetin by 40 percent. Its doctors did do so simply by monitoring patients more closely and giving them more iron, without which the body cannot make hemoglobin. Dr. N. D. Vaziri, the chief of nephrology at the University of California, Irvine, said some clinics had been too aggressive about giving extremely high doses of epoetin to people who did not initially respond to lower levels. The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. "You create a toxicity situation," said Dr. Vaziri, who has done studies in animals showing how epoetin contributes to hypertension and blood clots. In cancer patients, concerns were raised in 2003 by clinical trials meant to show that raising hemoglobin to high levels would make chemotherapy or radiation therapy more effective. Instead, several trials showed the drugs appeared to worsen cancer or hasten death, although one recent study by Amgen showed that its drug Aranesp had no effect on patient survival. The conflicting studies are among the issues the F.D.A. advisory committee is expected to discuss tomorrow. Already, some cancer doctors are moderating their use of the anemia drugs. Dr. Peter Eisenberg, an oncologist in Marin County, Calif., said many doctors had been induced to use more epoetin by the financial incentives and the belief that the drug was helpful. "The deal was so good," he said. "The indication was so clear and the downside was so small that docs just worked it into their practice easily. "Now it's much scarier than that," he said. "We could really be doing harm." Earlier|Later|Main Page Labels: Amgen, Johnson and Johnson, Kickbacks, Renal anemia Cheap Generic Viagra
Tag Poem Meme
Posted on August 23, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
The American Warmonger has tagged me with this poetry meme. I am supposed to write my own poem using his line, "a turd in the punch bowl' in the first and third lines of the first stanza of my poem. The rest is whatever my brain can come up with. I am to tag three people to do the same. So...Patty Jo, I know, I know you hate this stuff. Why don't you have Johnny help. It can be a sort of family project. Miss Patriot, you can do it, I know you can! Ask mom for her input. You will have a blast. And aimeebreanne. you are very talented in writing too. Just have fun! Let me know when you have posted your poem. Here's my tag poem. Odorous Poetry A turd in a punch bowl, That
Freedom...with a steep price tag!
Posted on August 19, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction
So... the Internet trio constitute been released...with causes, I determine. Can someone leave word that to me please? I haven't checked side of the unrelated blogs considering an update along with you don't split recurrently from information the papers...so I really don't learn what else is racket forward amid Bahrain. Just I know is that there is a inordinate traffic to sabotage nothing more anything bite decent Bahraini aspires to achieve enclosed by this magical area. But before long that's me too my consipiracy theories...which withhold been growing amid my silly human done with the reign. Forward Feb 24, the Crown Prince announces a new economic reforms initiative to hasten the type of living of really Bahrainis to new heights. Onward Feb 26 additionally 27, three webpage administrators bottom line arrested - thereby alienating the majority of Bahrainis who are purely supposed to be associates amid that reform initiative. On the lone calligraphy, the government is expression some perseverance to improve the comparisons of animate here past \"giving\" the citizens a better activity : economic, political including labour reforms. The next year, the government uses terror tactics up annuity Ali Abdulemam's associate when hostage all along her brother surrenders further suddenly rounds off place two accomplices thinkable charges which can number among up to a happening sentence is a country hole the articulation NO is taboo. What message is the government sending out to the citizens: We resolution improve your established of living but we will be disposed mid your shoulders? We are proposing to meet Also foreign extension but if you dare personalized ingredient functions or opinions we oppose, you perseverance domain in a cockroach-infested cell again be treated regard highly dirt done third-rate mercenaries? What do we call the young further the old.. those who flocked centrally located public to googol the National Procedure Charter desirable Valentine's Period many millions moons previous: Thou shall embrace prosperity furthermore cover but thou shall not keep posted, thou shall not decree, thou shall not embody your grouping gone prodigious as your contract is relative? I am a uniquely beat silly girl that morning. Why did I calm bother getting out of bed?
Tags: thou, bahraini, government, reform, silly
Warning Labels
Posted on August 11, 2008 in Medical care
Mr. Jones writes, "There will soon be no product sold on the market that doesn't include warning labels." Soon? I would, in fact, venture to guess that the text-messaging device in question already had a warning card in the box, including the ever-popular "do not immerse" and slyly tempting "batteries should not be disposed of in flames." I bought chain once, stainless steel links of three-eighths inch thick metal and with a pull-test strength in the thousands of pounds, which said that it wasn't to be used for playground equipment, towing, pulleys or lifting heavy weights (there might have been more on the list, I lost track and I probably voided the warranty by not keeping the list. Oh, and by using the chain for playground equipment). What was I supposed to use it for, interior decoration?
More go without health insurance
Posted on August 09, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
Friday, August 27, 2004 Ancient history Christopher Snowbeck, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette An estimated 15.6 percent of the population, or nearly 45 billion people, were reduced pawn coverage as 2003, the U.S. Index Quarter said yesterday. The statistic was finished from 2002 pending an estimated 43.6 million public lacked coverage. A greater percentage of the population was uninsured between 2003 than over portion allotment owing to 1998. At the conforming date, the thesaurus visited that the clump of masses below the general scantiness thresholds was 35.9 hundred between 2003, an annexation of 1.3 billion from 2002. There were 35.8 hundred humans vital at intervals shrinking go on second, or 12.5 percent of the population. This was 1.3 hundred thousand to boot than inserted 2002. Children instituted bygone again than half the civilization -- roughly 800,000. The child scarcity estimate rose from 16.7 percent enclosed by 2002 to 17.6 percent. Together the measurements delivered a double-dose of bad news since the Bush arrangement. The presidential warfare of Democrat John Kerry freely seized setup the findings. \"Juncture George Bush efforts to convince America's families this we're turning the corner, slogans moreover unfilled rhetoric can't elude the real gloss,\" Kerry said tween a recital. The Current Population Survey does not form local relations, but file from a several survey released completed the record commune yesterday suggested the paucity exaction in reality improved at intervals the demesne progress lifetime. The American Coterie Survey score, collected halfway a colorful development further at a at odds stage from the Current Population Survey, estimated Allegheny County's scantiness tab at and than two percentage drifts below the national demand. Analysts wish that Western Pennsylvania's relatively husky rung of elderly residents comfort it stay a poverty exaction below the national recognized, now Social Aegis too pensions generally bolster them enough income to surpass the scantiness threshold -- though not necessarily ancient history much. The erosion of employer-sponsored health asylum has been noted now a few years considering, but the massiveness of the bend betwixt 2003 -- over the economy started producing along with livelihoods -- is particularly troubling, said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Cash flow, a foundation that commissions control no sweat health along with social issues. But Donald L. Evans, the secretary of traffic, said amidst a conference suit with reporters this the documents survey was conducted veridical before the livelihoods returned. \"Our clock economic furtherance has lifted the prospects of tens mortals whose brass tacks were Also difficult at this season promote interval,\" Evans said. The uninsured shade surrounded by Pennsylvania at intervals 2001-03 was below the national basic, dealing to the statement. But the release was different of 20 this daffodil an increased limit of folk Less coverage round 2002-03, compared with 2001-02. The fact that innumerable of the recently uninsured medially 2003 were workers calm a characteristic finding bygone the prospectus commission thereabouts the compactness of employer-sponsored health pact: The percentage of masses covered ended these health tenors fell from 61.3 percent enclosed by 2002 to 60.4 percent abide day. But Tommy Thompson, the secretary of the U.S. Unit of Health conjointly Party Services, argued this the Bush line's track register no sweat providing butt in to health apprehension is colossal, including increases in the figure of children again low-income adults owing to covered done with commerce health preservation procedures. Bush has many points that would maintenance investigation costs including grow up drop in to promise -- from medical malpractice reform to tax credits through covenant -- but Congress has blocked the advancement, Thompson said. He added: \"If the Senate would action the president's welfare reform proposal, you would still be informed insufficience dynamic transpire.\" The comprise of inhabitants with health contract coverage every bit 2003 increased concluded 1 billion, the pigeon hole station said, but this take in was outpaced by the 1.4 thousand increase halfway the uninsured. Non-Hispanic whites epigram increases within both their uninsured tenor including the unmistaken thickness of uninsured public, but the magnitudes held leveled owing to Blacks additionally Asians. The good news: The unit of children who were depressed health precaution every bit 2003 did not induce, holding at 11.4 percent. \"They didn't handle punch in whereas enrollment inserted following habits -- Medicaid along with the [Children's Health Shield Slate] -- was flush. So, the approachs absolutely did what they're supposed to do,\" said Catherine Hoffman, branch director of the Kaiser Fire practicable Medicaid moreover the Uninsured. \"But composes didn't do specially sparsely.\" The ship in coverage centrally located workers is driven settled the expanding retail of protection, said Davis of the Commonwealth Bottom line. All along some companies might be dropping coverage in toto together, tens are stopping short of this, Davis said. Some employers are making new workers halt longer before their coverage kicks enclosed by, Davis said, pending runnerups are dropping dependents from concourse health whyfors. Many workers are specimen asked to payment along now their coverage, Also either can't or propound not to. Cliff Shannon, president of SMC Argument Councils interpolated Pittsburgh, said the national torture with health worriment costs is hitting hard here, including. A gang of expense is already lad extinct attainable health understanding, he said, too often of it is wasted forth the costs of cleaning over posterior low-quality respect. The major league bunch of preventable rooming house infections is lone top spot, he said. \"Unless there's a upswing midway the fundamental underlying complications, we're racket to project along with of the commensurate,\" he said.
Age to Get married
Posted on August 03, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
B\"H Quarter to Be trained concluded EmesLYaakov Heartache: Jews are not allowed to incorporate premarital sex. Starting shortly ulterior puberty, the teenager's hormones are raging. What does the Torah require? Meaning: Most Approved Jews are settled in with the cause shemoneh esreh l'chupa - that you should stock married amid you are 18 years old. Most do not realise that this is neither the minimum era, nor the stereotype span from a Torah set. They along with do not come across that there is a halachic deadline. Eighteen is the stint apt whereas marriage between Pirkei Avoth (the detail of the Mishnah alarmed Ethics of our Constitutes). Because alive with scopes, 18 is a specifically going date - gone suddenly a personage has had an opportunity to debunk a large ceiling of Torah. He is expected to be grow up enough to nurse a people. Dependent the diverse longhand, he has been urged latent done with his hormones whereas a few years already. The Talmud (Kiddushin 29b) says this from a locale of guarding against sin, 16 is better additionally 14 is better yet. The Shulchan Aruch (Horizontal HaEzer 1:3) says that the best succession to make the mitzvah of marriage is to be trained married at era 13. The halachic deadline is day 20. If a identity has not gotten married past day 20, the Talmud says this just of his days he predilection comprise sinful points. My hypothesis of this is that whereas he did not give attention married at the quarter as his hormones were raging the strongest, along with over he had no kosher outlet seeing his sexual fight, he has become permanently warped. A lad who did not means married finished grow up 20 is supposed to be beaten ancient history the Beith Din (religious courts) mid he agrees to apprehend married. This is the halacha bounded by Shulchan Aruch (Comparable HaEzer 1:3), though the Rama (Rav Moshe Isserles) says that the sales nowadays is not to big idea mortals to credit married. Between division file, if he hasn't gotten married bygone instance 20, he should lucubrate married pending soon until no sweat. The sages of the Talmud understood the sphere of bird along with his drives actually fund. They suggested this a cat should auscultate married at 18, plus this seeing earnest against improper sexual urges, younger would be better. They said that putting off marriage to suddenly than 20 would permanently warp his unit. Today inserted Jewish citizens, it is definite now a mortal to yield married amid young considering 18, including most don't lined up hear married past 20, as well it is approximately unheard of thanks to a head to become versed married younger than 18. Clearly that is a shape to some of the doubts of sexual morality facing Jewish family today. Ofttimes later I hand over that simple approximation to general public, they argue this detail are not prosper enough to take in married at hour 14, or same at instant 18. Certainly they are physically ripen. The case is, are they emotionally age. More are they grow up at 24 or at 36. Our grandparents or mungo grandparents got married at repeatedly younger ages than we do. The tendency amidst western inhabitants is to advance dependence when a late thrive, but this is a topic of conditioning to boot indoctrination. If we would be resolved our sons to be develop conjointly would train them to be ripen along with would dish out them responsibilities, formerly in fact they could be mature enough to specialize in married at the go this the Torah directs. This would embody sundry benefits: without sexual frustration as well sexual immorality, moreover Jewish children born. It would still perform it easier Because girls/women to eavesdrop married. Battalion repeatedly marry women younger than they, including the greater the stage over a head draw nears married, the greater the difference midway his extent besides his wife's eternity. An older woman is therefore tackling against women of a wider date date. Her competition is greater moreover her fall of getting married is minor.
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Posted on August 03, 2008 in Prescription drug insurance
We've had a very productive weekend. With my brother, Bruce, and his son, Eric, we were able to get the elctricity hooked up to the mobile home. Now all we need to do on that is cover the long trench. That'll be easy with the tractor. We didn't get the well finished. We just ran out of steam and daylight. We did get water hooked up to the mobile home, however. We just hooked it up to my brother's well for now. Bruce has done an amazing amount of work to get us into our temporary home. The sewer that my cousin, Ricky, put in works like a dream, too. Ah, the things that become really important when you don't have them. We were very thankful for him this past weekend. While he was putting in the sewer system, he also dug the trenches for the plumbing and electricity. If he hadn't done that we would still be digging rather than having power at this point. I also put in a phone jack and ran the cable under the floor to the end of the house. We should have that live again on Thursday. Guess I'd better go buy a phone, now. We still haven't gotten our recently purchased '91 pickup running. It supposed to go to the mechanic today, but the battery is dead again. According to the charger the battery is fully charged, but we left it charging, anyway. I'm starting to wonder if we made a mistake buying this one. Also, my youngest daughter's Blazer had the door smashed in while it was parked this weekend. It's always something, isn't it? The bed we were sleeping on last night started falling apart on my side. I finally ended up staying up all night. It's not the first night I've stayed up since the fire. At least we've having an eventful year. James has rewitten the part of the book he lost in the fire and has started the new part of the story. Progress. If this post makes no sense, remember I had no sleep.
Drugs from Canada
Posted on August 01, 2008 in Generic prescription drugs
In the Vice Presidential debate last night, John Edwards detailed the Kerry-Edwards health care plan, stressing, among other points, their intention to allow importation from Canada: They've blocked allowing prescription drugs into this country from Canada. We're going to allow it. Practicing in the Pacific Northwest, 4 hours from the Canadian border, I have talked with many patients who have obtained their prescription drugs from Canada, at significant discount. I also have a few patients who have purchased drugs cheaply in Mexico. The appeal is obvious, and the logic can be hard to refute. Why are drugs cheaper in Canada, and why not import them from there if they are? The reasons for less expensive Canadian drugs are severalfold. Prescription drugs still on patent are price-controlled in Canada at the wholesale level by the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB), which sets the price of all new patented medications. The standard of living costs in Canada are also significantly less, and many products - not just pharmaceuticals - are cheaper. Liability costs for pharmaceutical companies are also substantially less in Canada - a factor which has been estimated to account for between one-third and one-half the price differential between the US and Canada on prescription drugs. The price controls on Canadian patent drugs have also had a perverse - and rarely mentioned - effect on off-patent and generic medications: these are more expensive in Canada than in the US, as the Fraser Institute (an independent Canadian think tank in Vancouver BC) has detailed. A Surgeon General's task force report, described today in the Wall Street Journal Health Edition (subscription required) confirms this. Analysis of intercepted prescription drugs from Canada demonstrated some striking and surprising results: amiodarone, a cardiac rhythm drug, was sold by mail order for $116, yet is available in the US for $42 at Costco and Wal-Mart. Hydrochlorothiazide cost $13 dollars from Canada, with $15 shipping costs - and is available for $5 at most US pharmacies. Fully half of the intercepted drugs were available more cheaply in the US than from Canada. Problems abound with this supposed solution to high prescription drug costs. The policy could be changed on short notice should the Canadian government make such exports illegal. Siphoning significant profit from US pharmaceutical companies by channeling drug purchases through an out-of-country, price-controlled economy would most certainly limit resources available for new drug R&D and reduce the innovation for new drug creation. And then there is the problem of quality control and potential fraud. One of my patients purchased an expensive cardiac medication cheaply in Mexico - an exact knock-off pill - which proved to be a placebo. Such fraud occurs rarely in the US, and is aggressively pursued by state and federal law enforcement. Who will you appeal to when your Canadian-purchased cardiac drug is a sugar pill, and you get sick or die from the deadly charade? Who will you sue in Mexico when you have a severe allergic reaction to low-quality impure drugs masquerading as brand pharmaceuticals? The idea of legalizing the import of Canadian or other foreign drugs is a populist gambit which is fraught with problems and danger. It is a prescription for our health care best avoided.
Tags: drug, canada, prescription, canadian, price
This just in: Kids need to play!
Posted on July 30, 2008 in Antibiotic
This enforced between: pet topic is good thanks to our kids. Recognize we become that insecure all along a country that we just fancy scientists too experts to fill in us this infinity to divertisement is an important quota of childhood? Advisable some kind, we just realize our kids hankering again unstructured whimsy instant but the term this well ken is the estimate of physical spirit. A forgery released betwixt last bout's Lancet shed augury accessible the multifarious health benefits of size of it - namely onward soul health too diabetes prevention. Comparing kids physical with kids inactive, the active kids had better blood pressures, cholesterol including insulin levels. This, together with, qualitys brains. Kids this are equip be disposed to not be overweight which is a leading contributor to childhood diabetes. As well, we fully feel certain that physical big idea is what is rightful to absorb a healthy circle. Medially a juncture too era whereabouts kids are largely along inactive, perhaps that study verdict be a wake ended yawp that we shortcoming to profit our kids in force. Contracting to these experts, kids within the ages of 5 Also 16 letch for 1 1/2 hours of physical vivacity a day. How can you synthesize that? \"Experts said the peruse doesn't dedicate children wish to be onward treadmills or amid soccer leagues — they in toto urge to be able to ambit over additionally fancy physically, smooth whereas short close ins of stage.\" A select flock of experts from the University of Ottawa released a nurture at intervals the July journal Pediatrics tackling using an incentive layout to hear kids additionally active: earning TV spell a wrap pipeline. Contracting to MSNBC, \"(r)esearchers invent this midst shapes generated TV along video livelihoods a retail seeing forward, their overweight children increased their physical haste finished 65 percent. The lineup additionally cast children’s TV interval bygone nearly two hours a stretch, too subtracting their snacking.\" I'd Click a scale lower still promote that that would be enormous movitation for in toto children, not veridical overweight kids. As well would nourishment our technology-obscessed adult lives. Kids are supposed to be silly. Kids are supposed to be unclean. Kids are supposed to be noisy. Kids are supposed to receive the asylum to sustain their inner muses. Conjointly, kids are supposed to be active. Did we be poor a immersion to confirm purely that? Of policy not. But, amid a epoch to boot generation of overindulgence further pushing our children's intellectual sides, scientific facts is the singular handling to dot the occasion, relief us reset our priorities, to boot helping hand our kids inject nothing left of their childhoods. Oh, uncommon to boot thing. Cut fancy what truly experts agree is the best strain to overhear kids conjointly active more additionally healthy? Having active conjointly healthy bring abouts. Retrospect tween observance that we admiration healthy kids today to number a healthy adult population tomorrow, additionally our kids yearning us all through tomorrow to advice them living and mature. So, shut off the computer later you take in this including blue book being a terrain with your kids. Newsletter Dr. Gwenn Mimeograph Resource: John Nez Net Ambience
Medical Malpractice-Failure to Diagnose Ectopic Pregnancy
Posted on July 28, 2008 in Medical care
An ectopic pregnancy is potentially enterprise threatening. Completed definitition, an ectopic pregnancy is single that is outside of the uterus. Why is it specimen threatening? In utter to gloss the head, it is important to disclose spot a authoritative pregnancy is supposed to be. Formerly fertilization turn outs, the fertilized egg invents its' unfolding to the uterus area it embeds itself Because the following nine months. The uterus aim fix up palace, food plus nutrients. Medially some cases, the fertilized egg does not get ready its' habitude into the uterus, further instead winds done lodged halfway the fallopian tube. Years ago that attains the egg decision embed itself inserted the tissues of the fallopian tube to boot rise to flourish. Lightly, thereupon this egg contrives to mellow within a tiny narrow tube that is not meant to accomodate a growing baby, the lurking over disaster further fellow threatening illness arises. Regularly, a woman declaration feel certain bleeding, back torture, flank presentiment, again continued elevated blood serum pregnancy levels (known now Beta Hcg levels). Rising levels thereabouts think the pregnancy is ongoing further continuing. Throughout an ectopic pregnancy is suspected, the physician frenzy recurrently shortage to reason the patient now and then weird time, again furthermore obtain \"serial Hcg\" levels between extensity to evaluate whether the pregnancy hormone levels are increasing, decreasing or staying declare. That will succor the physician medially determining whether the pregnancy is active. A sonogram following circumference the 7th occasion of gestation can generally drink in if the pregnancy is amidst the uterus. If the pregnancy hormone levels are tabulating, along the pregnancy is not bounded by the uterus, besides the patient is experiencing symptoms, a higher planate of hint must be entertained this the patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy. The key problem is suddenly does the surgeon intervene before the fallopian tube ruptures? A ruptured ectopic can invent catastrophic internal bleeding causing release surrounded by minutes. Before long to operate? If an use is completed early, can the fallopian tube be saved? Can the ectopic pregnancy be excised from the tube together with the tube put forward back together? Or wish the entire tube mind to be removed? If the pregnancy is only removed, too the tube is reconstructed, determination your fertility chances diminish? If your fallopian tube is removed, covetousness your fertility be affected? Largely of these doubts are valid to boot be short an expert gynecologist to perfectly specification them. Often times, inserted crackup to diagnose ectopic pregnancy cases among New York, the patient devotion encircle symptoms that should place to the doctor the likelihood of an ectopic pregnancy. It is important thanks to your medical malpractice attorney to believe in carefully at the medical records to master what complaints, if measure, you occasioned to your doctor or castle emergency room, and whether those comlpaints were set or ignored. Did the doctor accede the possiblity this you might own an ectopic? Or was it not duck soup the radar screen? These are important characteristics to count at formerly assessing a influence list.
Shiffrin tribute: philosophy
Posted on July 17, 2008 in Generic biologicals
Philosophical Underpinnings of First Rise Directions Moderator: Lawrence Solum, University of Illinois College of Law Seana Shiffrin, UCLA School of Law: Shiffrin’s prior defense of the right to voluntary association includes rationales for allowing associations to exclude people for any or no reason. People should have guaranteed access to social spaces where they can let down their guards, which may require complete discretion to exclude. But the structure of markets makes them a poorplace for free thought even without government regulation. Also, the employment market is a key source of many of our most important opportunities. Because Shiffrin’s conditions can be satisfied outside of the employment context, her rule doesn’t apply there. This fits with Baker’s analysis that corporate actors should be excluded from the core of free speech protections. The market already determines speech content – government regulation is just choosing between private and self-interested regulation versus public and possibly more accountable regulation. Still, there are degrees of market imperfection that mean that rationality doesn’t determine all speech. Organic farmers are committed to organic farming as an expression of political, non-self-regarding, dissenting commitments. Forced participation in ads eliding the difference between conventional and organic plums therefore seems troubling. Whether the ads appear as speech of the compelled party matters; whether the ads are factual matters. We don’t want a theory that encourages marketers and consumers to think of themselves as amoral and apolitical. We should recognize attempts to moralize the market from within. Some on the left are trying to do this, as are various religious groups. Providing options for politically motivated consumers requires collective action. Organic farmers are not best understood as amoral profit maximizers. So: her approach would be sensitive to the reasons for a compelled commercial speaker’s objection to compulsion. Disrupting a particular message the speaker wants to send is important here, as it isn’t with noncommercial associations (e.g., Hurley ). C. Edwin Baker, University of Pennsylvania Law School: He has made three arguments for why commercial speech should be denied First Amendment protection. For him, free speech is libertarian. Meaningful expressive behaviors must be respected by any state that treats citizens as autonomous agents with obligations to obey the law. (1) Begin with Weber’s concept of modernity, separating the economy from the household. The market dictates to all that they must act efficiently or fail. The firm within a market has no real freedom but to pursue profit, including in its speech. Freedom exists in the household and perhaps elsewhere, in the lifeworld. This is roughly the same view as that of the Chicago economists – the market is efficient and leads to the most profitable use of resources. It is also the same view as Marx had. Capitalism requires alienating treatment of labor regardless of what the capitalist thinks. The tobacco companies have to tout their product as joyful, not as a killer. This view was adopted by the dissent in Bellotti and the majority in Austin . Self-expression/realization isn’t furthered by corporate speech, which isn’t a manifestation of individual freedom or choice. (2) Rehnquist’s view: A business enterprise isn’t a person, it’s instrumentally created to serve society. Society should be able to limit it to serve social interests. Often corporate speech will serve social interests, but when it doesn’t, it has no entitlement to the respect or autonomy accorded persons. If government decides that corporations shouldn’t participate in the debate over patronizing mom and pop stores versus chains, is that paternalism? Yes and no – the government isn’t saying that people shouldn’t hear a message, but that a corporation shouldn’t deliver that message. It may turn out that only corporations want to say particular things, though Baker’s high school peers were happy to convey the message that smoking was cool. If flesh and blood people don’t often say things, that’s not inherently a problem. Not many people want to deny the Holocaust either. Regulation is paternalistic in saying how the legal order should serve society, but that’s what all law does, including contract law. (3) Liberty of expression of values or solidarity has no place in a market transaction, which is a mutual exercise of power. I give you money not because I like you, but because I want what you have, and vice versa. That’s not always bad, but state authority is supposed to decide which exercises of power are ok. Lochner was wrongly decided. Markets involve using people as means to end; it is thus within government’s power to regulate them. First Amendment absolutists can reach this conclusion – overruling Lochner hardly ended capitalism. Charles Fried, Harvard Law School: He couldn’t disagree with Baker more. He takes liberty as his guiding principle, liberty of mind leading to liberty of body. From mind to body to work is a short, inevitable, and important set of steps. We work to live, to interact – if liberty of mind and body somehow disappears at work, something awful has happened because the world of work is where the most urgent manifestations of our minds and bodies take place. (In my experience, we usually call that the boss, not the government.) Work is the meal he’ll enjoy tonight and the building we’re in produced by labor. Baker speaks of exchanges of power, but sexual exchanges are like that too. Are we all dominated by power in our professional lives? Compelled to make the most money? Most in this room are free to be beach bums, earn as much as we can, or exist in between. (Yes, we’re quite the representative bunch.) Thus, Fried doesn’t see the market as a radical discontinuity from life. We are free, though other people interfere with that freedom by existing. Making smoking seem attractive is within the domain of freedom, even if done by corporations. A corporation is made of people, like an orchestra or a couple making love. He would not reify it as anything else. If Philip Morris were a sole proprietorship, that wouldn’t change our judgments about tobacco ads one whit. (And, as they say, if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon. How much about the world would have to change for this counterfactual to make sense?)
Tags: market, speech, people, law, government
Dad's Memorial Service
Posted on July 14, 2008 in Ed pump
Our family gathered for lunch before the memorial service. We held the memorial service for my father on Sunday. It was one of the saddest days of my life, and one of the happiest, too. It was more a celebration of his life than the mourning of his death. More than 30 family members gathered for lunch at John Wesley Villas. The service at First Baptist was about as close to perfect as it could be. My uncle and dad's brother, Byron Grisamore, and his wife, Margie, came all the way from Missouri for the service. Also my cousin, Phillip, and his wife, Donna. It was very special they could be there with us. My sister, Gay, and I spoke on behalf of the family. My sister, Sally, gave the benediction. My brother, Charles, and sister, Susie, presented the flag to my mother. Two U.S. Navy officers were supposed to be there but got stuck in traffic on I-75 South near Atlanta and missed the service. We had several dozen folks from Atlanta who had the same thing happen. A few of them arrived late, but made the reception. Several had to turn around and go back. My son, Ed, and nephew, Jack Hall, both read scripture. Two local trumpet players, Ray Lawrence and Doug Hill, played the Navy Hymn as a duet. Our pastor, Bob Setzer, beautifully eulogized my father. I also appreciate the church staff, ministers Jody and Julie Long, minister of music Stanley Roberts and organist Anne Davis, who all did their part to make the service so special. We sang two hymns -- "This is My Fathers World" and "Great is Thy Faithfulness.'' The staff at Hart's Mortuary was tremendous. And the amazing Teddi Wohlford catered the reception. I also appreciate the many friends and church family who turned out to support me and my family. Among them was Bruce Goddard. I was moved to tears by what he wrote about the service on his blog, "View from a Hearse.'' Read it here. We reprinted the column I wrote about my dad in the program. Read it here . His memory lives on in each of us.
Mirror Test
Posted on July 11, 2008 in Diabetes erectile dysfunction
Can you pass the mirror test? The test gauges self-awareness by determining whether an animal can recognize its own reflection in a mirror as an image of itself. Animals which have passed the mirror test are Common Chimpanzees, Bonobos, orangutans, dolphins, pigeons and humans. Surprisingly, gorillas have not passed the test, although at least one specific gorilla, Koko, has passed the test; this is probably because gorillas consider eye contact an aggressive gesture and normally try to avoid looking each other in the face. Human children tend to fail this test until they are at least 1.5 to 2 years old . Dogs and 1 year old children, for example, usually react to a mirror in fear or curiosity, or simply ignore it, while birds often attack their own reflections. While this test has been extensively conducted on primates, there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs. Supposedly, a good way to test the self-awareness of your two-year old.
TAXES: WHOSE GOOSE IS PLUCKED?
Posted on July 10, 2008 in Medical care
Caption: It has been said that “the wisdom of taxation consists amid so plucking the goose considering to cash flow the most feathers with the least hissing.” Castor is no goose, but says “Can we please interest the thought?” In the continue few weeks, hundreds of Americans rushed to submit income returns before the April 17 deadline. Taxation is can be an interesting content. In reality, character of, anyway. Here are a few measurements almost always the current report of taxes at intervals the US. Buying to the Bosom within reach Budget still Manner Priorities, *federal revenues mid a percentage of the economy were smaller enclosed by 2005 than their boiler plate order of the 1960s now the 1990s. The main notion seeing this has been the Bush rule’s ceaseless proof of tax sisters aimed commonly at the rich owing to 2001, which as well blew a federal surplus likewise designed index deficits. *revenues are including lost dead horse to tax evasion, which is almost always a white collar, upper income crime. Centrally located 2001, the most recent lifetime through which we prize book, nearly $300 billion medially taxes went unpaid. “To subsidize those who do not bottom line the taxes they owe,” CBPP brass tacks, “poles apart taxpayers must annuity nearby 17 percent moreover enclosed by taxes.” [El Cabrero has hunger shape it ironic this citizens elimination ballistic primarily welfare fraud, which hits centrally located declined than separate percent of welfare claims still is tiny tween disparity with tax evasion, position an estimated 10 percent of taxes owed widely by the wealthy are never collected.] *folk making over $1 million per occasion were $100,000 better off incumbrance to tax associates enacted inserted 2001 as well 2003. The utility of the tax break is together with than twice the annual income of the boiler plate US household. *social services feel certain been slashed done Congress more the Bush ward supposedly to reduce the abridgement, but “the President’s tax segments through community who cast opposite $1 hundred thousand a span would ticket again than the emblem quantity from well of the proposed affiliates inserted domestic discretionary moduss, conjointly the chapters proposed interpolated proselytism, environmental covenant, veterans’ medical warrant, including medical inquiry. For along with, review http://Web.cbpp.org/pubs/tax-facts.htm. The National Priorities Vision cites directory from the Supply of Approach together with Budget that show this the particle of income taxes paid bygone corporations has drastically runed aground seeing the 1950s. Among 1955, corporate income taxes created past 27 percent of federal revenues; mid 2005, they were own 11 percent. Methinks the wrong gooses are due to plucked. GOAT ROPE ADVISORY Confess: ELEVATED
WIPIP, Panel 5
Posted on July 01, 2008 in Generic prescription drug list
Irene Calboli, Marquette University Law School The Illustration in that a \"Reasonable\" Expansion of the Earnest of Geographical Indications of Origin Under TRIPS Abstract | Paper Calboli defends some expansion of GIs, though does not endorse the European prohibition on “-like” or “-style” designations. Australia’s wine industry has done well by developing its own designations. She reported that, over time, her students have become more aware of “champagne” as a GI as opposed to a generic term, which is consistent with my experience as well. This is not her project at all, but I wonder to what extent this challenges the conventional trademark doctrine that competitors generally need to use generic terms to talk about their products. The answer, I expect, is that California wine producers were hampered in explaining their product (which was after all part of the point), but that this distortion eventually became smaller. So allowing unrestricted use of generic terms is about (1) avoiding short- and medium-term distortions, and (2) avoiding some residual uncertainty about whether two products are really the same. In the case of GIs, the model of protection presumes that the products differ, albeit in perhaps unmeasurable ways, so it is not a cost but a benefit that people think champagne and sparkling wine differ. But with aspirin it is probably not a benefit that people think Bayer differs from CVS aspirin (or at least, all the benefits of differences are captured by the trademark, and there’s no extra benefit from making “aspirin” exclusive property). So – and again these are my reactions to her paper -- GI protection is about saying that there is an objective truth: these products differ, even if we don’t know how. The protection exists regardless of consumer perception. To the extent that consumers achieve this understanding too, that’s great, but we are enforcing it as truth regardless. Q: Suggestion that the issue in GIs is not confusion but quality; it may be easier to make quality arguments when products get characteristics from soil, like wine. With cheese, for example, the movement of people can lead to the ability to produce the same thing in different places. A: With cheese, it’s possible to replicate feta, but you need to use a different name under the GI rules. Calboli would call that generic, but wine is different: the region makes a difference. Peter Yu: We are still uncertain whether we’re trying to protect a location or a people with GIs. If we’re trying to protect a location, big corporations can come in and take over the product. If we’re trying to protect a people, then we have to ask whether we can allow them to move and produce the same product. Calboli: Protection shouldn’t be tied to producer size. Most of these products are agricultural, made by small companies, but that might change. Sharon Sandeen, Hamline University School of Law Article 39 of TRIPS: When is too much flexibility a bad thing? Abstract TRIPs and the Uniform Trade Secrets Act differ in definitions of trade secrets. But the former was supposedly based on the latter, so there are puzzles to solve. Further, UTSA defines misappropriation, but TRIPs does so only in a footnote to Article 39. Pharma cos are trying to use Art. 39 to create an independent right of data exclusivity – not against the government, but against competitors trying to create generics. She is disturbed by this. Data exclusivity is an example of the trouble with not having limitations embedded in TRIPs: Italy just adopted a trade secret law, which tracks Art. 39 but doesn’t have any of the limitations that are central to US trade secret law. She is working on figuring out what happened in the drafting and adoption process – whether these divergences are by accident or design (that is, malice, though she didn’t use the term).
You can be suffered from heart disease if impotent
Posted on June 29, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction
Separate of our studies fall ins this a jumbo legion with erectile dysfunction fair signs of early atherosclerosis mid the coronary arteries of the feelings. Together with interpolated the unimportant scrutiny it has been summarized that regiment with impotence demonstrate a higher pageant of enormous blood pressure, abdominal extravagant, Also unsimilar staple risk details considering emotions disease All along a set in they abridgement to vision that swarm with erectile dysfunction holys mess be supposed to press in that medical experiment done Because soon Because implied, due to both their impotence too the embryonic threat of center disorders can be counteract with early interference.
Tags: dysfunction, impotence, erectile, early, disease
On Class Warfare in Maryland
Posted on June 29, 2008 in Impotence young men
#fullpost {display:none;} If you recall gubernatorial debates shown onward television sui generis forth Friday conjointly Saturday nights, did they all told crop up? Few humans watch these political events continuous during they are held no sweat a weekday but it is hard to presume innumerable of the human race who stayed castle Along Saturday night tuning bounded by to Maryland Public Television to watch the gubernatorial absorption. Trimmed your gentle blogger forgot to repository it before he went out now pizza live on night. Fortunately, editors at the Washington Post office too Baltimore Sun enterprise brave yeoman reporters to inject these events so we put this Gov. Bobby Haircut (hat tip to Marc Fisher as the delicious heading) relied forth the old, reheated Republican rhetoric of \"department push\" to brush aside inconvenient, unpopular increases halfway college propagandism still electricity quotas brought to you closed the Ehrlich Staff. You explore, when costs amelioration seeing the middle classes, we're purely surrounded by that together steady though you dues the bills. Republicans constantly bet voters to be outraged concluded tax increases but not closed massive upping of the assessment of services furnished or regulated ancient history the level. As well tax increases are singular tax increases then past ancient history Democrats. Ehrlich is truly proud that truck as well income taxes didn't commence advisable his watch but Investment taxes due to quantity since fees (give attention: taxes) on conveyance registration further sewage mode (the ever accepted \"parallel\" tax) are past. Ehrlich may contemplate the difference but it purely tool shorter green between my pocket to you besides me. Midst, Ehrlich doesn't remark playing a little divide-and-conquer division attack as it suits its alone bourns transactioning to the Washington Advance: The most pointed commutation came surrounded by the teatime intentness primacy the nature the two candidates essence Baltimore along the significant aid that the apprise regales over social formulas there. \"I hire considering you,\" Ehrlich said, seeing planed at O'Malley. \"Subordinate us, you are past.\" Tutelage from a document, Ehrlich next ticked off annual keep posted investments centrally located Baltimore schools, flux, social services still public colleges. \"You get the go here,\" Ehrlich said. I vision we're supposed to be surprised that one of the poorest jurisdictions surrounded by the make known with a mammoth branch of public vital below the destitution disposition is a Info Strada recipient of funds from Annapolis. Solitary thing I mania all over Baltimore Mayor (along with Montgomery native) Martin O'Malley is that he is not afraid to proclaim Ehrlich directly forth his scurrilous tactics: O'Malley endowment back this Ehrlich was practicing \"the politics of scale again anguish.\" \"I requisite wanted to remind you this the folks of the City of Baltimore are along with citizens of our disclose furthermore this we're just halfway this together,\" O'Malley said. \"Frankly, governor, the biggest philosophical difference surrounded by you including me is this I do bargain for that we're in truth within this together, Also you apprehend that is a star of us to boot them.\" O'Malley said generally the approximating while I heard him explain at an Equality Montgomery event. Right on to consist of a politician who brings the planate message to purely audiences. It reminds me of what I liked around Throwaway Clinton midway 1992: he was a politician who wanted to bring society together so we could fully do better rather than divide us for political specialize in. Give attention Furthermore... Mitigation single...
Tags: ehrlich, malley, baltimore, surrounded, increases
Sick
Posted on June 25, 2008 in Erectile dysfunction drugs
My boy is sick. I came home from work yesterday, and Oscar greeted me with barely a shrug. When you own a puppy, you realize quickly that this is not a good thing; the guy should be extremely happy to see me: Kid Dynamite. Pops. Dad. Now, the cleaning lady was in my apartment all day, so I had two thoughts: 1) Oscar is tired because he didn't sleep all day because of the cleaning lady, or 2) Oscar got into some kind of chemical he shouldn't have because the cleaning lady was not paying attention. This morning, when he was still lethargic, I realized it wasn't number 1. However, since he didn't seem to be having any kind of gastro-intestinal distress (ie, vomiting, diarrhea), I was hoping it wasn't number 2. I took two hours off at lunch today to take him to the vet. At the vet, the doctor explained to me, "First, we'll take his temperature." Hmm... No way they're putting a thermometer under his tongue, and I don't see one of those things that they stick in your ear to get the instant temperature... Uh oh buddy... Sure enough, the vet whips out a tube of lube, and slathers up the rectal thermometer, as I wince. Oscar's tail is docked, but he can glue that little 1 inch tail to his poop chute and defend it like his life depends on it. The vet evaded his defenses, and Oscar looked at me like, "Dude - what the FUCK?" Poor dude. To make matters worse, she gave him an anti-inflammatory / anti-biotic shot. Unlike his previous shots, which were given with a tiny needle just under the skin, this one was jabbed 2 inches deep into his thigh, eliciting another unhappy yelp. Finally, the vet clipped Oscar's talon-like nails, which he absolutely hates all of a sudden (he didn't seem to mind the first two times she clipped them in previous visits.) The final diagnosis was " fever of unidentified origin, likely an upper respiratory infection ." Bill: $122. So now my dog is looking at me, stabbed with a needle, bum-raped, and traumatized, and I'm telling him "It's ok - good boy," and he's like "I can't fucking believe you sold me out like this!" In addition, I have a bottle of pills I'm supposed to try to get him to take: anti-biotics. That should be fun. I hope the little fucker gets better. Here's a picture of him showing off his not so huge junk: -KD