Tuesday, September 23, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-intruder-face-charges-court-162321387.html

White House intruder had 800 rounds of ammunition in car: prosecutor
Reuters
By Julia Edwards and Roberta Rampton
September 22, 2014

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A decorated Iraq war veteran who scaled a fence on Friday night and got into the White House had over 800 rounds of ammunition in his car and was arrested in July with a sniper rifle and a map marking the executive mansion, a federal prosecutor said on Monday.

Omar Gonzalez, 42, was also stopped, but not arrested in August walking by the White House with a hatchet in his waistband, federal prosecutor David Mudd told a federal judge.

The previous interactions that Gonzalez had with the U.S. Secret Service is part of a sweeping internal review underway of how the agency failed to stop him from getting inside the White House, and whether more security is needed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

The incident with Gonzalez follows a number of security lapses involving the president's security detail, including a prostitution scandal in 2012.

Asked on Monday whether he has confidence in the agency, President Barack Obama said: "Secret Service does a great job. And I’m grateful for the sacrifices they make on my behalf and my family’s behalf."

Gonzalez faces charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a "deadly or dangerous weapon." He was carrying a knife when he entered the White House. The charge carries up to 10 years in prison.

He consented to a search of his car after his arrest, and officers found more than 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete.

Mudd said Gonzalez's "preoccupation with the White House and accumulation of large amounts of ammunition in apparently a short period of time renders him a danger to the president," in arguing that he not be released on bond.

Although Obama and his family were not home at the time, the incident raised questions about the U.S. Secret Service's White House security procedures.

Representatives for the Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

"I encourage all of us to not rush to judgment about the event and not second-guess the judgment of security officers who had only seconds to act, until all the facts are in," U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

The agency is considering ways to beef up staffing and expand the security zone around the White House to keep tourists and other members of the public farther away, Earnest said.

One possible measure includes blocking the sidewalks around the White House or screening tourists before allowing them to use the walkways. Additionally, visitors to the complex, now screened at the entrance gates, could instead be screened blocks away, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.

After being apprehended, Gonzalez, a retired Army sergeant, told a Secret Service agent "he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing" and needed to get the information to the president, according to an affidavit released by prosecutors.

White House fence jumpers are not uncommon - and last month a toddler squeezed through the White House gates. But an intruder getting into the building caused concern and critics said the lapse could encourage deadly attackers.

The Secret Service also faced scrutiny after a 2009 breach involving an uninvited couple at a White House dinner, although a 2013 Department of Homeland Security report found no evidence of misconduct or inappropriate behavior at the Secret Service.

(Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha, Julia Edwards, Steve Holland, Roberta Rampton and Susan Heavey; Editing by Jim Loney, Doina Chiacu and Andrew Hay)




“A decorated Iraq war veteran who scaled a fence on Friday night and got into the White House had over 800 rounds of ammunition in his car and was arrested in July with a sniper rifle and a map marking the executive mansion, a federal prosecutor said on Monday. Omar Gonzalez, 42, was also stopped, but not arrested in August walking by the White House with a hatchet in his waistband, federal prosecutor David Mudd told a federal judge..... Gonzalez faces charges of unlawfully entering a restricted building or grounds while carrying a "deadly or dangerous weapon." He was carrying a knife when he entered the White House. The charge carries up to 10 years in prison.... He consented to a search of his car after his arrest, and officers found more than 800 rounds of ammunition, two hatchets and a machete. Mudd said Gonzalez's "preoccupation with the White House and accumulation of large amounts of ammunition in apparently a short period of time renders him a danger to the president," in arguing that he not be released on bond.... The agency is considering ways to beef up staffing and expand the security zone around the White House to keep tourists and other members of the public farther away, Earnest said. One possible measure includes blocking the sidewalks around the White House or screening tourists before allowing them to use the walkways. Additionally, visitors to the complex, now screened at the entrance gates, could instead be screened blocks away, the New York Times and Washington Post reported.”

“After being apprehended, Gonzalez, a retired Army sergeant, told a Secret Service agent 'he was concerned that the atmosphere was collapsing' and needed to get the information to the president, according to an affidavit released by prosecutors.” This man's statement seems like a severe delusion to me – the atmosphere is collapsing – despite his apparent planning with the several weapons and ammunition. He will probably get attention from a psychiatrist, even if he is formally charged with a crime. I have no doubt that he is in safe hands, but the authorities fear that this incursion into the White House will “encourage deadly attackers” is well-placed.

If people can so easily jump the fence around the White House it makes sense to keep them farther away from it, and screening them blocks away before they are allowed to get near the area is also a good measure. The description of his knife as having a 2 ½ inch blade didn't sound too dangerous to me, but when I saw the picture of it I was convinced otherwise. Screening people several blocks away would hopefully detect weapons from afar.

I remember when the cement barriers were placed in the road to block access to vehicles potentially laden with explosives some years back. We are living in dangerous times. As for the amount of time required for the Secret Service to catch Gonzales, I saw the security camera footage of the incident, from the time he jumped the fence – which didn't look like a difficult leap for him – and he ran from the fence to the White House entrance area in a very few seconds, so I don't think the Secret Service was negligent. Maybe they need men stationed at all times just inside the fence to further limit the access of jumpers, though, because his run to the mansion looked too easy to me.





As Run-Ins Rise, Police Take Crash Courses On Handling Mentally Ill – NPR
by DURRIE BOUSCAREN
September 23, 2014

A number of high-profile police shootings, including that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last month, have led to increased scrutiny of police interactions with civilians.

One group that is disproportionately subject to police uses of force is people with mental illness. Many local departments hold special sessions to train officers about mental illness and how to help the people they interact with.

Walking up and down the aisle of a police academy classroom in downtown St. Louis, Lt. Perri Johnson tells the officers here that responding to calls where a person is in mental distress is never easy.

"You're going to get plenty of opportunity to utilize some of the things that you learn," Johnson says.

The "tactical communications" lecture is part of a weeklong Crisis Intervention Training, or CIT. Officers are taught to recognize different types of mental illness and to calm situations where someone feels threatened or may react violently.

"You'll see bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, various versions of that," he says. "What we see a lot of is people who haven't been diagnosed, and they may be taking drugs, they may be drinking to mask those issues."

Johnson says he tells his students that most of all, they need to use compassion.

"Lower your voice so that that person becomes comfortable, but at the same time you're keeping an eye on their movements, on their hands. Know where the doors are in case you need to get out quickly," he says.

In the late 1980s, police in Memphis, Tenn., shot and killed a man threatening suicide with a knife. Outcry about the incident led to developing the Crisis Intervention Team model, which now is used by almost 3,000 local and regional departments.

Local providers for mental health services, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, work closely with departments to develop the curriculum.

Richard Stevenson is with that group. He says it's important for officers to know where they can take a person to get help. Almost 90 percent of St. Louis CIT calls end with a person being taken to the emergency room or another treatment facility.

"Because it is helpful, because it is successful, no one hears anything about it," he says. "There's not much great news value to an officer who does an effective job at calming a situation down and getting help for the person who is in distress."

Linda Teplin, who teaches psychiatry at Northwestern University, says that in the decades following the closure of some state mental hospitals and the decline of funding for mental health programs, police officers often have found themselves acting as "street psychiatrists."

"The issue is, what is happening to these people, who in past years, in a past era would have been treated in the mental health system, and now are not receiving treatment and are in the street?" Teplin says.

This means people with mental illnesses now have more contact with law enforcement, are more likely to be arrested, Teplin says, and, in very rare cases, are hurt during police encounters.

An analysis of St. Louis-area CIT reports shows that on average, officers used force in about 4 percent of cases, most often with a Taser or constraint. Last month, a St. Louis CIT-trained officer shot and killed 25-year-old Kajieme Powell, who police say rushed toward officers while carrying a knife, imploring them to shoot him.

Sgt. Jeremy Romo says in some cases, officers must respond to people who are a danger to themselves or to others.

"We train officers that — don't do any actions yourself that would further escalate that situation," Romo says. "But in some situations, the situation has evolved and gone so far downhill that the officer's safety, or citizen's safety, takes a priority."

Romo says when force is used, particularly lethal force, there's something else that comes to mind.

"I want to know how many times that individual was in the hands of the mental health system, and the mental health system failed to provide them with adequate assistance that would have prevented them from getting to that point," he says.

Romo says demand for CIT training classes has increased. But he notes that the greatest need appears to be not in cities but in rural areas, where mental health services often are scarce.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/special/excerpt.html

Deinstitutionalization: A Psychiatric Titanic
FRONTLINE, WJCT

This excerpt is drawn from Chapters 1, 3 and the Appendix of: Out of the Shadows: Confronting America's Mental Illness Crisis by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997). This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Deinstitutionalization is the name given to the policy of moving severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions and then closing part or all of those institutions; it has been a major contributing factor to the mental illness crisis. (The term also describes a similar process for mentally retarded people, but the focus of this book is exclusively on severe mental illnesses.)

Deinstitutionalization began in 1955 with the widespread introduction of chlorpromazine, commonly known as Thorazine, the first effective antipsychotic medication, and received a major impetus 10 years later with the enactment of federal Medicaid and Medicare. Deinstitutionalization has two parts: the moving of the severely mentally ill out of the state institutions, and the closing of part or all of those institutions. The former affects people who are already mentally ill. The latter affects those who become ill after the policy has gone into effect and for the indefinite future because hospital beds have been permanently eliminated.

The magnitude of deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill qualifies it as one of the largest social experiments in American history. In 1955, there were 558,239 severely mentally ill patients in the nation's public psychiatric hospitals. In 1994, this number had been reduced by 486,620 patients, to 71,619, as seen in Figure 1.2. It is important to note, however, that the census of 558,239 patients in public psychiatric hospitals in 1955 was in relationship to the nation's total population at the time, which was 164 million.

Deinstitutionalization is the name given to the policy of moving severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions and then closing part or all of those institutions; it has been a major contributing factor to the mental illness crisis. (The term also describes a similar process for mentally retarded people, but the focus of this book is exclusively on severe mental illnesses.)

Deinstitutionalization began in 1955 with the widespread introduction of chlorpromazine, commonly known as Thorazine, the first effective antipsychotic medication, and received a major impetus 10 years later with the enactment of federal Medicaid and Medicare. Deinstitutionalization has two parts: the moving of the severely mentally ill out of the state institutions, and the closing of part or all of those institutions. The former affects people who are already mentally ill. The latter affects those who become ill after the policy has gone into effect and for the indefinite future because hospital beds have been permanently eliminated.

The magnitude of deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill qualifies it as one of the largest social experiments in American history. In 1955, there were 558,239 severely mentally ill patients in the nation's public psychiatric hospitals. In 1994, this number had been reduced by 486,620 patients, to 71,619, as seen in Figure 1.2. It is important to note, however, that the census of 558,239 patients in public psychiatric hospitals in 1955 was in relationship to the nation's total population at the time, which was 164 million.

By 1994, the nation's population had increased to 260 million. If there had been the same proportion of patients per population in public mental hospitals in 1994 as there had been in 1955, the patients would have totaled 885,010. The true magnitude of deinstitutionalization, then, is the difference between 885,010 and 71,619. In effect, approximately 92 percent of the people who would have been living in public psychiatric hospitals in 1955 were not living there in 1994. Even allowing for the approximately 40,000 patients who occupied psychiatric beds in general hospitals or the approximately 10,000 patients who occupied psychiatric beds in community mental health centers (CMHCs) on any given day in 1994, that still means that approximately 763,391 severely mentally ill people (over three-quarters of a million) are living in the community today who would have been hospitalized 40 years ago. That number is more than the population of Baltimore or San Francisco.

Deinstitutionalization varied from state to state. In assessing these differences in census for public mental hospitals, it is not sufficient merely to subtract the 1994 number of patients from the 1955 number, because state populations shifted in the various states during those 40 years. In Iowa, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, the total populations actually decreased during that period, whereas in California, Florida, and Arizona, the population increased dramatically; and in Nevada, it increased more than sevenfold, from 0.2 million to 1.5 million. The table in the Appendix takes these population changes into account and provides an effective deinstitutionalization rate for each state based on the number of patients hospitalized in 1994 subtracted from the number of patients that would have been expected to be hospitalized in 1994 based on that state's population. It assumes that the ratio of hospitalized patients to population would have remained constant over the 40 years.

Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and California all have effective deinstitutionalization rates of over 95 percent. Rhode Island's rate is over 98 percent, meaning that for every 100 state residents in public mental hospitals in 1955, fewer than 2 patients are there today. On the other end of the curve, Nevada, Delaware, and the District of Columbia have effective deinstitutionalization rates below 80 percent.

Most of those who were deinstitutionalized from the nation's public psychiatric hospitals were severely mentally ill. Between 50 and 60 percent of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Another 10 to 15 percent were diagnosed with manic-depressive illness and severe depression. An additional 10 to 15 percent were diagnosed with organic brain diseases -- epilepsy, strokes, Alzheimer's disease, and brain damage secondary to trauma. The remaining individuals residing in public psychiatric hospitals had conditions such as mental retardation with psychosis, autism and other psychiatric disorders of childhood, and alcoholism and drug addiction with concurrent brain damage. The fact that most deinstitutionalized people suffer from various forms of brain dysfunction was not as well understood when the policy of deinstitutionalization got under way.

Deinstitutionalization is the name given to the policy of moving severely mentally ill people out of large state institutions and then closing part or all of those institutions; it has been a major contributing factor to the mental illness crisis. (The term also describes a similar process for mentally retarded people, but the focus of this book is exclusively on severe mental illnesses.)

Deinstitutionalization began in 1955 with the widespread introduction of chlorpromazine, commonly known as Thorazine, the first effective antipsychotic medication, and received a major impetus 10 years later with the enactment of federal Medicaid and Medicare. Deinstitutionalization has two parts: the moving of the severely mentally ill out of the state institutions, and the closing of part or all of those institutions. The former affects people who are already mentally ill. The latter affects those who become ill after the policy has gone into effect and for the indefinite future because hospital beds have been permanently eliminated.

The magnitude of deinstitutionalization of the severely mentally ill qualifies it as one of the largest social experiments in American history. In 1955, there were 558,239 severely mentally ill patients in the nation's public psychiatric hospitals. In 1994, this number had been reduced by 486,620 patients, to 71,619, as seen in Figure 1.2. It is important to note, however, that the census of 558,239 patients in public psychiatric hospitals in 1955 was in relationship to the nation's total population at the time, which was 164 million.

By 1994, the nation's population had increased to 260 million. If there had been the same proportion of patients per population in public mental hospitals in 1994 as there had been in 1955, the patients would have totaled 885,010. The true magnitude of deinstitutionalization, then, is the difference between 885,010 and 71,619. In effect, approximately 92 percent of the people who would have been living in public psychiatric hospitals in 1955 were not living there in 1994. Even allowing for the approximately 40,000 patients who occupied psychiatric beds in general hospitals or the approximately 10,000 patients who occupied psychiatric beds in community mental health centers (CMHCs) on any given day in 1994, that still means that approximately 763,391 severely mentally ill people (over three-quarters of a million) are living in the community today who would have been hospitalized 40 years ago. That number is more than the population of Baltimore or San Francisco.

Deinstitutionalization varied from state to state. In assessing these differences in census for public mental hospitals, it is not sufficient merely to subtract the 1994 number of patients from the 1955 number, because state populations shifted in the various states during those 40 years. In Iowa, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, the total populations actually decreased during that period, whereas in California, Florida, and Arizona, the population increased dramatically; and in Nevada, it increased more than sevenfold, from 0.2 million to 1.5 million. The table in the Appendix takes these population changes into account and provides an effective deinstitutionalization rate for each state based on the number of patients hospitalized in 1994 subtracted from the number of patients that would have been expected to be hospitalized in 1994 based on that state's population. It assumes that the ratio of hospitalized patients to population would have remained constant over the 40 years.

Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and California all have effective deinstitutionalization rates of over 95 percent. Rhode Island's rate is over 98 percent, meaning that for every 100 state residents in public mental hospitals in 1955, fewer than 2 patients are there today. On the other end of the curve, Nevada, Delaware, and the District of Columbia have effective deinstitutionalization rates below 80 percent.

Most of those who were deinstitutionalized from the nation's public psychiatric hospitals were severely mentally ill. Between 50 and 60 percent of them were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Another 10 to 15 percent were diagnosed with manic-depressive illness and severe depression. An additional 10 to 15 percent were diagnosed with organic brain diseases -- epilepsy, strokes, Alzheimer's disease, and brain damage secondary to trauma. The remaining individuals residing in public psychiatric hospitals had conditions such as mental retardation with psychosis, autism and other psychiatric disorders of childhood, and alcoholism and drug addiction with concurrent brain damage. The fact that most deinstitutionalized people suffer from various forms of brain dysfunction was not as well understood when the policy of deinstitutionalization got under way.

Thus deinstitutionalization has helped create the mental illness crisis by discharging people from public psychiatric hospitals without ensuring that they received the medication and rehabilitation services necessary for them to live successfully in the community. Deinstitutionalization further exacerbated the situation because, once the public psychiatric beds had been closed, they were not available for people who later became mentally ill, and this situation continues up to the present. Consequently, approximately 2.2 million severely mentally ill people do not receive any psychiatric treatment.

Deinstitutionalization was based on the principle that severe mental illness should be treated in the least restrictive setting. As further defined by President Jimmy Carter's Commission on Mental Health, this ideology rested on "the objective of maintaining the greatest degree of freedom, self-determination, autonomy, dignity, and integrity of body, mind, and spirit for the individual while he or she participates in treatment or receives services."8 This is a laudable goal and for many, perhaps for the majority of those who are deinstitutionalized, it has been at least partially realized.

For a substantial minority, however, deinstitutionalization has been a psychiatric Titanic. Their lives are virtually devoid of "dignity" or "integrity of body, mind, and spirit." "Self-determination" often means merely that the person has a choice of soup kitchens. The "least restrictive setting" frequently turns out to be a cardboard box, a jail cell, or a terror-filled existence plagued by both real and imaginary enemies.




“A number of high-profile police shootings, including that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last month, have led to increased scrutiny of police interactions with civilians. One group that is disproportionately subject to police uses of force is people with mental illness. Many local departments hold special sessions to train officers about mental illness and how to help the people they interact with.... 'You're going to get plenty of opportunity to utilize some of the things that you learn,' Johnson says. The 'tactical communications' lecture is part of a weeklong Crisis Intervention Training, or CIT. Officers are taught to recognize different types of mental illness and to calm situations where someone feels threatened or may react violently. 'You'll see bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, various versions of that,' he says. 'What we see a lot of is people who haven't been diagnosed, and they may be taking drugs, they may be drinking to mask those issues.'... This means people with mental illnesses now have more contact with law enforcement, are more likely to be arrested, Teplin says, and, in very rare cases, are hurt during police encounters.... Romo says when force is used, particularly lethal force, there's something else that comes to mind. 'I want to know how many times that individual was in the hands of the mental health system, and the mental health system failed to provide them with adequate assistance that would have prevented them from getting to that point,' he says.”

“Linda Teplin, who teaches psychiatry at Northwestern University, says that in the decades following the closure of some state mental hospitals and the decline of funding for mental health programs, police officers often have found themselves acting as 'street psychiatrists.'” On the decline of funding for mental health programs and deinstitutionalization – see http://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/ on my blog “Thoughts And Researches” for detail on this process. I lived in Washington DC when they closed St. Elizabeth's there, and within weeks there grew to be many more homeless people on the street, begging. The police have tried various things, from carting them up and moving them to some other less visible location to taking them to an overnight shelter, especially in the most frigid winter nights. It really shouldn't be up to the police to solve this problem. There is a need for psychiatric institutions. If they had been run inhumanely in times past, then make laws to prohibit that. One woman whose son had been a campus shooter said that the family had tried to get permanent care for him, and had trouble placing him anywhere. The need has not decreased, and mental healthcare should be more available and affordable now. Maybe the Affordable Care Act will help with that.




Giving Chickens Bacteria ... To Keep Them Antibiotic-Free – NPR
by DAN CHARLES
September 22, 2014

You know those foods and pills that promise to supply your body with "good bacteria?"
They may or may not make you healthier, but some of these "probiotics" do, in fact, appear to be effective in chickens. Poultry companies are turning to probiotics as an alternative to antibiotics, which have become increasingly controversial.

"As we took antibiotics out of the feed, we put some other things in, such as probiotics," says Bruce Stewart-Brown, an executive at Perdue Farms. "We've increased the amount of probiotics by five times over the past five years. It's a significant part of our program."

Poultry companies have fed antibiotics to their chickens to fight off disease, and also to make them grow faster. Public health advocates have been pushing for an end to this practice, saying that it can lead to the emergence of more antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Perdue Farms has not gone completely antibiotic-free, but it has reduced or eliminated some uses of antibiotics in its operations, and it is expanding production of chickens that are raised completely without antibiotics. According to Stewart-Brown, that has forced the company to search for new ways to keep chickens healthy, which is where probiotics come in. The idea is, all these "good bacteria" can crowd out the harmful microbes that make a chicken sick.

Stewart-Brown says that he was initially skeptical about probiotics. "Eight years ago, I would have said that they're not working in poultry. They're not very useful. Today, I'm saying that they are useful. Expensive, but useful." Chickens that got probiotics stayed healthier and grew faster than birds that didn't.

He declined to say exactly what products the company is using, but some poultry probiotics include live Enterococcus,Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium 
microorganisms.

In addition, Perdue Farms has eliminated the use of animal byproducts, such as fat, in chicken feed, after finding that chickens appeared to stay healthier on a vegetarian diet. (Chickens, of course, aren't "naturally" vegetarian; given the choice, they'll happily forage for insect larvae.) It now vaccinates its chickens against a wider array of diseases. It experimented with herbal remedies that were used by Coleman Natural, an organic poultry company that Perdue bought in 2011.

According to Stewart-Brown, all of this has increased the company's costs.

"Our birds grow a little bit slower, significantly slower than the rest of the industry, in general," he says.

But as long as consumers are willing to pay better prices for meat from chickens raised without antibiotics, the extra cost is worth it.




Although I generally don't believe 100% of commercials I see on TV, I used to enjoy seeing Frank Perdue. He was kind of funny looking and explained things like why chicken should not be white, but yellow. His slogan was “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken." I have bought his chickens, but generally not as they are more expensive, however if they are going the extra mile to avoid increasing the problem of anti-biotic resistant bacteria, maybe I will in the future. At any rate, it's good to see that farmers in general are paying attention to this problem, as it has caused deaths when a good antibiotic would have been available in the past to effect a cure. Science marches on.




Facing resistance at home, Obama urges climate action on world stage
By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS
September 23, 2014, 5:34 AM

When President Obama addresses the United Nations climate summit on Tuesday, he'll call on world leaders to follow his lead and develop plans to cut carbon pollution.

"The president does hope that the kinds of steps that he has already taken here in the U.S. will serve as a model for significant commitments from leaders of other countries to take similarly important steps to confront the challenge of climate change," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.

In his six years in office, Mr. Obama has taken a number of significant steps to reduce carbon emissions, like fostering green energy marketswith the 2009 stimulus and enacting stricter vehicle-fuel-efficiency standards in 2011. Last year, Mr. Obama rolled out a comprehensive "climate action plan" that should cut nearly 3 billion tons of carbon pollution between 2020 and 2025 and save consumers billions in energy expenses -- when it is fully implemented.

Yet one key portion of that plan -- a proposal to require existing power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 -- faces resistance from conservative lawmakers in some states. The proposal, rolled out by the Environmental Protection Agency in June, is one of Mr. Obama's most significant climate-related policy proposals, but some lawmakers say it amounts to a war on coal.

In August, 12 states filed a lawsuit against the plan, and a few weeks later, 15 Republican governors sent Mr. Obama a letter voicing their concerns. Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana said in a statement that the proposal was "ill-conceived, poorly constructed, and will cause significant harm in the states."

Advocates of the new proposal, called the "clean power plan," say they're confident it will be fully implemented. The movement to reduce carbon emissions, they say, has already gained too much momentum.

"That's a subset of conservative governors trying to delay the inevitable and delay action on this," J.R. Tolbert, executive director of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, told CBS News. "But I think at the end of the day those decision makers will discover it's an untenable solution."

Tolbert pointed to the more than 300,000 peoplewho marched in New York City over the weekend to bring attention to the threat of climate change, calling that crowd just "the tip of the iceberg."

"The public is standing up and saying we actually need action," he said.

A CBS News/New York Times poll released Monday shows that 54 percent of Americans say global warming is having a serious impact now or will in the future. As many as four in 10 say global warming will be a serious threat to them during their lifetime.

If public opinion isn't enough incentive to act, recent technical innovations making it easier to reduce carbon emissions should help, said Cathy Zoi, a former Department of Energy and EPA official who is now part of a project called the New Climate Economy. The project released a report last week demonstrating how governments can take action on climate change while also fostering economic growth.

"I am hopeful states will see this plethora of tech options at our fingertips, so they'll all get on board," Zoi told CBS News. "It will be a missed opportunity if they don't."

Wind and solar energy are increasingly efficient, prompting investment banks like Citigroup to call this the "age of renewables." Industrial leaders like Tesla are quickly developing more cost-effective cars.

That economic potential will continue to grow with more government support, Zoi argued. Technological developments in the auto industry may outdo the fuel efficiency rules the Obama administration put in place, but "without that signal from government, many companies would've sat on the sidelines," she said.

"The private sector needs a safe haven for capital, and the policy provides that safe haven," she added.

While there's opposition to Mr. Obama's "clean power plan," politicians at the state level have already enacted significant policies to reduce carbon emissions. As many as 38 states have renewable portfolio standards or goals, and 10 states have market-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs.

The EPA is still accepting public comments on the plan, and the agency plans to put out a final version of the rule by June of next year.




“In his six years in office, Mr. Obama has taken a number of significant steps to reduce carbon emissions, like fostering green energy markets with the 2009 stimulus and enacting stricter vehicle-fuel-efficiency standards in 2011. Last year, Mr. Obama rolled out a comprehensive "climate action plan" that should cut nearly 3 billion tons of carbon pollution between 2020 and 2025 and save consumers billions in energy expenses -- when it is fully implemented. .... If public opinion isn't enough incentive to act, recent technical innovations making it easier to reduce carbon emissions should help, said Cathy Zoi, a former Department of Energy and EPA official who is now part of a project called the New Climate Economy. The project released a report last week demonstrating how governments can take action on climate change while also fostering economic growth. 'I am hopeful states will see this plethora of tech options at our fingertips, so they'll all get on board," Zoi told CBS News. "It will be a missed opportunity if they don't.'... While there's opposition to Mr. Obama's 'clean power plan,' politicians at the state level have already enacted significant policies to reduce carbon emissions. As many as 38 states have renewable portfolio standards or goals, and 10 states have market-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction programs.”

This article is another piece of good news, as over half of the US states have already taken steps to reduce emissions, and the introduction of “market-based” reduction programs is even better. That has to mean that businesses are getting behind it. I'm glad to see because there are indeed signs in the news several times a year of some sort of global warming related issue, and I am sure the trend will continue until we lower the amount of CO2 much more. Republicans may call his plan “a war on coal,” (which coincidentally many companies are determined to exploit to the last shovelful) but it is actually a war on global warming instead. To a Republican everything is about profit and loss, and in this case the possibility of a major change in our world's climate is much more important than company profits. Push on forward, Democrats!






An EMT grows in Brooklyn
By VINITA NAIR CBS NEWS September 22, 2014, 7:42 PM

BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Volunteers from the Bedford-Stuyvesant Ambulance Corps are trained to expect the worse.

In this Brooklyn neighborhood, shootings and stabbings occur regularly.

"Your job is to try to resuscitate them bring them back to life and then let the emergency room work on them," says, James Robinson. Robinson, 74, is a retired EMS captain -- and the man behind the EMT training.

"I want to teach them how to save a life instead of taking a life," he said. "Raise the level of their thinking and they could be anything that they want to be."

Thirty-year-old Isaac Rodriguez used to sell drugs. Now he's training to be an EMT.

"This place woke me up," he said. "You know, seeing so much positive - it's like, I want to do that too. I want to be a part of that."

In many ways it was difficult to give up his old lifestyle, Rodriguez added, "because you are surrounded by it."

Over the years, Robinson has trained more than a thousand neighborhood kids. He funds 85 percent of the program with his pension and a reverse mortgage. Donations make up the rest.

The money pays for uniforms and supplies as well as two ambulances that are staffed by a certified EMT.

"I don't think that I could do nothing else because everybody has a mission in life and I didn't realize my mission in life until I actually got into it," he said.

At least 90 percent Robinson's students go on to pass the state licensing exam and get a full-time job as an EMT. Some of them come back to volunteer, and train the next batch of recruits.




“'I want to teach them how to save a life instead of taking a life," he said. "Raise the level of their thinking and they could be anything that they want to be.' Thirty-year-old Isaac Rodriguez used to sell drugs. Now he's training to be an EMT. 'This place woke me up,' he said. 'You know, seeing so much positive - it's like, I want to do that too. I want to be a part of that.'... Over the years, Robinson has trained more than a thousand neighborhood kids. He funds 85 percent of the program with his pension and a reverse mortgage. Donations make up the rest.... At least 90 percent Robinson's students go on to pass the state licensing exam and get a full-time job as an EMT. Some of them come back to volunteer, and train the next batch of recruits.”

James Robinson has retired from the EMS, but is living a whole new active and creative life in his retirement. Many retired people who are still in good physical condition just aren't ready to stop being useful. Republicans would like this story because it's about people improving their lives without a “government handout,” and it is also something which is very much needed. Poverty stricken communities need to produce a positive product of some kind. In most cases it would be a small business, but here it is training for jobs for many people who may have been unemployed. This story makes me happy and hopeful. Robinson should get an award from the city for his efforts, and a non-profit should step forward and help manage the costs of his training program. He can't be a wealthy man.





Brainwave test may help diagnose autism – CBS
By TARA HAELLE HEALTHDAY September 23, 2014, 5:38 AM

Measuring how quickly a child's brain processes sounds might help identify the severity of autism, according to a new study.

Observing children's brainwaves may also allow identification of autism earlierthan is currently possible, the study authors reported.

"The finding that the brain's response to certain types of information is associated with autism severity is hugely promising," said senior researcher Sophie Molholm, an associate professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

"A major goal of autism research is to develop measurements to diagnose the disorder as early as possible, and that can help to identify areas of weakness, and strength, so that treatments can be optimized," Molholm said. "Our work shows that measuring brain activity is a viable approach to achieving these goals."

The findings were published in the Sept. 22 online edition of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disabilities.

Approximately one in 68 children has been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the experience of autism for these children differs significantly in terms of their symptoms and impairments.

Molholm's past research found that among children with autism, the brain takes slightly longer -- measured only in milliseconds -- to process sounds, sights and other sensory information.

In this study, Molholm and her colleagues measured this processing speed in 43 children with autism, aged 6 to 17, using electroencephalograms, or EEG (brain wave) recordings. When the children were shown an image, played a tone or provided a tone and image at the same time, they pressed a button while the EEG recorded how quickly their brains registered the stimulus.

Then Molholm's team compared the children's visual, audio and audiovisual processing speeds to the severity of their symptoms. The researchers based their assessment of autism symptom severity on how great the children's social-communication difficulties were, how severe their repetitive behaviors were and how restricted their interests were.

The more severe the children's symptoms were, the study found, the slower the children processed sounds. There was also a connection between how slow children processed combined audiovisual stimuli and the severity of symptoms, but there was no difference in how quickly they processed the images by themselves, according to the study.

"As we develop EEG probes that measure areas of dysfunction, or even areas that individuals with autism are unusually good at, we should be able to use them as tools to help diagnose autism," Molholm said.

This study's particular finding on audio and audiovisual processing, however, would only apply to those with slower sensory processing. That may not necessarily include all individuals with autism spectrum disorders, she said.

In addition, the association seen in the study does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

One autism expert expressed optimism about the study, but noted it has some significant limitations.

"The finding is intriguing and may well open new areas of researching the problems those with autism spectrum disorders have in interacting with their environment," said Dr. Glen Elliott. He is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford School of Medicine and chief psychiatrist and medical director of the Children's Health Council.

Elliott emphasized, however, that the study is very small, with several different variables and with measurements taken at only one point in time. He added that measuring "severity" of autism can be problematic.

"There really is no standard, partly because it's multidimensional," Elliott said. "One can't just count symptoms because a severe impairment in one area might be much worse than mild impairments in a number of areas."

But if further research in this area could overcome that challenge, then using brainwave measurements may be helpful, he suggested.

"An objective measure of autism severity would, indeed, be a boon -- for example, allowing regional centers to set a cut-off of who does and does not qualify for services, even if they meet criteria for autism spectrum disorder," Elliott said.

Molholm said she plans to continue looking at ways that EEGs can be used to assess individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

The more precise these tools can become, then the more information they might be able to provide long before it's currently possible to diagnose autism based on behavior.

"We imagine that once developed, these will be used in conjunction with clinically based diagnostics, at least for the foreseeable future," Molholm said. "However, the hope is to get to the point where they can be used for very early diagnosis."

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health with additional support from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.




“Measuring how quickly a child's brain processes sounds might help identify the severity of autism, according to a new study. Observing children's brainwaves may also allow identification of autism earlierthan is currently possible, the study authors reported.... Then Molholm's team compared the children's visual, audio and audiovisual processing speeds to the severity of their symptoms. The researchers based their assessment of autism symptom severity on how great the children's social-communication difficulties were, how severe their repetitive behaviors were and how restricted their interests were. The more severe the children's symptoms were, the study found, the slower the children processed sounds. There was also a connection between how slow children processed combined audiovisual stimuli ... 'As we develop EEG probes that measure areas of dysfunction, or even areas that individuals with autism are unusually good at, we should be able to use them as tools to help diagnose autism,' Molholm said.... The more precise these tools can become, then the more information they might be able to provide long before it's currently possible to diagnose autism based on behavior.”

Sophie Molholm, an associate professor of pediatrics and neuroscience has developed an important new technique, even if it does have “some significant limitations.” This is one of several recent articles about brain function and disorders. The other very interesting one was about differences between the size of people's amygdala and their level of compassion with others. That was mentioned in relation to psychopathy, or on the other hand those with a high degree of generosity and helpfulness. The larger the amygdala, the more generous and caring the people are, at least according to that study.

It's good to know that scientists can measure brain waves without piercing the skin or other invasive procedures. I do hope there can be an early intervention in the case of kids with autism, because the figure of one in every 68 people seems to me to be a pretty high figure for such a problematic condition. I'll bet some type of brain abnormality is present in a very high percentage of the population. The number of children who encounter learning difficulties during their school years is pretty high, and it becomes a life-long problem unless a tutor can intervene, or the teacher can identify some better way to teach the child which he will respond to more successfully.

I've been fascinated with autism since I saw the wonderful movie “Rain Man,” starring Dustin Hoffman as a man with the condition. In his case, but not all, he had an unusual but not unheard of skill with keeping track of a very large number of mathematical activities, and his brother played by Tom Cruise takes him to Las Vegas to clean out the casino on blackjack. While it was very touching, it was also very funny, and there are real “counters” who occasionally have to be thrown out of a casino for doing that very thing. I don't remember his name, but about 20 years ago a math professor made it into the news when he was banned from the casinos in Las Vegas.