Tuesday, November 4, 2014


News Clips For The Day


MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/business/minimum-wage-state-referendums.html?_r=0

In States Voting on Minimum Wage, Even Critics Sound Like Supporters
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
NOV. 3, 2014

In state after state, labor unions and community groups have pushed lawmakers to raise the minimum wage, but those efforts have faltered in many places where Republicans control the legislature.

Frustrated by this, workers’ advocates have bypassed the legislature and placed a minimum-wage increase on the ballot in several red states — and they are confident that voters will approve those measures on Tuesday.

In Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, binding referendums would raise the state minimum wage above the $7.25 an hour mandated by the federal government.

These measures are so overwhelmingly popular in some states, notably Alaska and Arkansas, that the opposition has hardly put up a fight.

“These groups have noticed that minimum-wage increases can easily pass — they have seen this in the past few years,” said John G. Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. “They can’t get it through the legislatures in these red states, so they do it this way.”

Some Republicans say that the main reason for these initiatives is to mobilize low-income voters to help re-elect embattled Democrats, like Senators Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska. But supporters deny this, saying they are pushing to raise the minimum because so many workers are struggling and because the minimum wage has trailed inflation.

The measures in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota would set the minimum wage lower than the $10.10 an hour that President Obama has asked Congress to pass, to no avail. The ballot initiatives in Arkansas and South Dakota call for a minimum of $8.50 an hour, while Nebraska’s would go to $9 and Alaska’s to $9.75.

Zach Polett, campaign director of Arkansas Fair Share, the advocacy group backing the $8.50 minimum wage there, said some advocates were seeking a higher number.

“We decided to go with a level that had broad support in Arkansas,” he said. “We were looking to start where the state is. We’re not New York, California or Seattle. We are the South.”

Seattle has adopted a measure that will raise its minimum wage to $15 in several stages, while San Franciscans will vote on Tuesday whether to approve a $15 minimum wage. Residents in nearby Oakland will vote on a $12.25 wage.

In a surprising twist, hardly any business groups in San Francisco are opposing the $15 proposal, which is expected to pass easily.

“There’s been the conflict about gentrification and the pushback around the tech industry, and a good part of the business sector has been looking for ways to defuse some of the issue,” said Ken Jacobs, chairman of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. “They see this as one way.”

Nonetheless, one group posted a billboard in San Francisco with a picture of a giant touch screen saying, “Hello, may I take your order?” To the right of the screen, the text reads, “With a new $15 minimum wage, employees will be replaced by less costly, automated alternatives.”

The billboard was placed by the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit organization set up by Richard Berman, a prominent anti-union lobbyist.

Ed Flanagan, a former state labor commissioner in Alaska, said he and two other former labor commissioners had overseen an effort to get the minimum-wage initiative on the ballot because in their view the state’s $7.75-an-hour minimum wage was too low, considering the high cost of living there.

“We’ve gone from having the highest minimum wage in the country to being 19th, behind even Florida and Arizona,” Mr. Flanagan said. “I’m not claiming that $9.75 is a living wage in a state like Alaska.”

Dennis DeWitt heads one of the few groups to campaign against the $9.75 initiative, the Alaska chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.

“All the data show that this would kill entry-level jobs, which means the unemployment level for our young people will go up,” he said. “This $2 increase will consume the budget that small businesses have to pay their employees.”

But, Mr. Flanagan said, many studies have shown that a minimum-wage increase does not reduce jobs. He noted that the Alaska initiative exempts teenagers under 18 who work fewer than 30 hours a week — the federal minimum wage instead would apply.

Jackson T. Stephens Jr., the founder of Exoxemis, a biotechnology company in Arkansas, sued to get the initiative thrown off the state’s ballot. He said that the signature of a notary public had been forged, which should have disqualified thousands of the signatures collected, and he challenged the secretary of state’s decision to give advocates additional time collect more signatures. The state’s Supreme Court rejected his challenge and let the $8.50 measure stay on the ballot.

Mr. Stephens, who is chairman of the Club for Growth, the conservative policy organization, said the initiative was a cover for other political activities, like Democrats’ get-out-the-vote efforts. He complained that outside union money was behind it.

But having lost the lawsuit, he said, he was not fighting the ballot measure any further.

“This is an overwhelmingly popular initiative,” he said, noting that Republican and Democratic lawmakers have endorsed it. “This thing is going to pass whether I jump up and down or spend all my money.”

The National Education Association, the giant teachers’ union, has contributed $800,000 to the Arkansas initiative.

Explaining why her union contributed the money, Karen White, the N.E.A.'s political director, said, “This will help many students and parents support their families, and we have a lot of fellow educators — food service providers, custodians, adjunct professors — who don’t earn a living wage.”

Illinois has a nonbinding ballot initiative that calls for a $10 minimum wage. Jessica Angus, the campaign manager of Raise Illinois, the coalition behind the effort, said her group had identified 336,000 minimum-wage voters and had knocked on one million doors.

“We expect that we will have a mandate for the legislature to increase the minimum wage immediately,” Ms. Angus said, noting that the minimum wage had become a major issue in the Illinois governor’s race.

There is also a nonbinding referendum vote in Wisconsin, where residents in nine counties will vote on whether to raise the state’s minimum to $10.10 an hour.

Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, has been one of the most vocal skeptics of San Francisco’s $15 proposal, although her group has not officially opposed it.

“We have expressed a lot of concern, like a lot of small businesses, about how are they going to adjust to a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage,” she said, noting that the city’s current minimum wage is $10.74.

She voiced dismay that the $15 measure did not create a lower minimum wage for tipped workers, like waiters, who she said sometimes made more than $100,000 a year. She predicted that more restaurants would put a flat service charge on all bills, some of which would be shared with workers in the kitchen.

But then, sounding much like a supporter, Ms. Borden acknowledged that not even $15 was a living wage in San Francisco.

“It’s not in the business community’s interest for the minimum wage to increase, but there is an understanding why it needs to increase,” she said.

Correction: November 3, 2014 
An earlier version of this article misstated the terms of a nonbinding ballot initiative in Illinois. The initiative calls for a minimum wage of $10 an hour, not $10.65.



http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/23/minimum-wage-capturing-political-center-stage

U S News and World Report
Minimum Wage Capturing Political Center Stage
Increasing hourly pay generally gleans support from voters from all political backgrounds.
By Katherine Peralta
Oct. 23, 2014

Photograph – Fast-food workers and activists demonstrate outside the McDonald's corporate campus on May 21 in Oak Brook, Ill. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has remained unchanged since 2009. 

Ahead of the midterm elections, some politicians – like New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie – are tired of hearing about the minimum wage as a central talking point.

For others, a candidate’s stance on raising state hourly pay could be a much more important issue when it comes time to casting votes.

The question of raising hourly minimum pay generally gleans support from voters across the aisle regardless of their politics, but has emerged as a partisan fight in Congress. Democrats are hoping ballot referendums to increase the minimum wage in a handful of states with close races could result in more sympathetic voters turning out.

“The public thinks this is a fair way to make life better off for people who earn low pay. They think it’s equitable and generally levels of support are quite high,” says Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a center-left Washington think tank. “If it’s a top economic issue in the mind of many of these voters, then it can be important. But just looking at electoral returns, support seems to be much greater than it is for the political candidates who support raising the minimum wage.”

At $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage has been unchanged since 2009. According to a Gallup poll, 69 percent of voters said they’d vote in favor of hiking the federal wage to $9 an hour with automatic increases tied to inflation. But just 43 percent of Republicans said they’d vote in favor, compared with 92 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents.

As of August, 23 states and the District of Columbia had minimum wages higher than the national rate. Come Nov. 4, voters in South Dakota, Arkansas, Nebraska and Alaska will be asked whether they support an increase to their state’s minimum wage. In Illinois, there will be a nonbinding advisory referendum gauging voters’ interest in the issue.

Wage increases are expected to pass in those states “very comfortably,” says Arun Ivatury, a campaign strategist at the National Employment Law Project Action Fund, which advocates for a wage hike. The issue, Ivatury says, could have a big impact in other battleground states including North Carolina, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida and Wisconsin.

“It’s a partisan issue among politicians but not amongst voters,” Ivatury says. “At a time when many families in the country are struggling to make their way back from the depths of an economic recession, it just seems particularly out of touch to say, ‘We don’t really need to set a wage that’s a floor here.’”

Though national Democrats have been the champions of increasing the federal minimum wage, in Arkansas, Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson supports raising the state’s minimum wage. A ballot initiative in Arkansas could raise the wage there from $6.25 an hour, one of the lowest in the country, to $8.50 by 2017.

Voters in Alaska, where the cost of living is higher than most other states, will be able to decide whether the current minimum wage of $7.75 should be raised to $9.75 by 2016.

“What seems like a high minimum wage in Arkansas or North Carolina will not seem as high in states with such high food costs, rental costs and so forth,” Burtless says.

A recent survey from Public Policy Polling found that in six states with highly competitive senatorial or gubernatorial races this fall – Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina and Wisconsin – a majority of voters support increasing the minimum hourly wage to $10.10 an hour, and they’d be less likely to support Republicans candidates who oppose the pay hike.

Census data measuring the gap between rich and poor Americans show that there tends to be less income inequality in states with minimum wages that are higher than the federal level.

Further, a lift to the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 – the option President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats favor – would boost U.S. gross domestic product by about $22 billion, resulting in the creation of about 85,000 new jobs, according to a 2013 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

The Congressional Budget Office says the $10.10 option would slash employment by 500,000 jobs by 2016. Business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Restaurant Association and the National Retail Federation all have spoken out against raising hourly minimum pay and say it could reduce employment and later compromise competitiveness.

[POLL: Should Striking Fast Food Workers Get $15 Per Hour?]

That corporate message won’t resonate well with voters though, Ivatury says.

“We are in a time of record-breaking corporate profits. The share of the economic output in our country going to corporations is at an all-time high. When businesses say, ‘We have no choice but to cut jobs,’ I think it rings a little hollow for a lot of people,” Ivatury says.

But the incoming president of the National Retail Federation, Container Store CEO Kip Tindell, recently said he’s likely to soften his group’s position on minimum wage.

“It’s unbecoming to speak out against raising the minimum wage,” he said, according to Bloomberg.

And raising hourly pay could become an even louder campaign talking point following the midterm elections.

“When you look particularly at 2016 you’re going to have a lot more people focused on the election,” Ivatury says. “These positions on the minimum wage are going to be even more magnified for voters. If you have a series of Republicans running for president and saying they oppose the minimum wage, it’s going to be a lot more harmful to their prospects than it is right now.” 

Corrected on Oct. 30, 2014: A previous version of this story misstated the four states with minimum wage initiatives on their ballots.




STATE INITIATIVES – “Frustrated by this, workers’ advocates have bypassed the legislature and placed a minimum-wage increase on the ballot in several red states — and they are confident that voters will approve those measures on Tuesday. In Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, binding referendums would raise the state minimum wage above the $7.25 an hour mandated by the federal government.... Some Republicans say that the main reason for these initiatives is to mobilize low-income voters to help re-elect embattled Democrats, like Senators Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska.... In a surprising twist, hardly any business groups in San Francisco are opposing the $15 proposal, which is expected to pass easily.... But, Mr. Flanagan said, many studies have shown that a minimum-wage increase does not reduce jobs.... The National Education Association, the giant teachers’ union, has contributed $800,000 to the Arkansas initiative. Explaining why her union contributed the money, Karen White, the N.E.A.'s political director, said, 'This will help many students and parents support their families, and we have a lot of fellow educators — food service providers, custodians, adjunct professors — who don’t earn a living wage.'... But then, sounding much like a supporter, Ms. Borden acknowledged that not even $15 was a living wage in San Francisco. 'It’s not in the business community’s interest for the minimum wage to increase, but there is an understanding why it needs to increase,' she said.”

FEDERAL – The question of raising hourly minimum pay generally gleans support from voters across the aisle regardless of their politics, but has emerged as a partisan fight in Congress.... According to a Gallup poll, 69 percent of voters said they’d vote in favor of hiking the federal wage to $9 an hour with automatic increases tied to inflation. But just 43 percent of Republicans said they’d vote in favor, compared with 92 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents.... 'It’s a partisan issue among politicians but not amongst voters,' Ivatury says. 'At a time when many families in the country are struggling to make their way back from the depths of an economic recession, it just seems particularly out of touch to say, ‘We don’t really need to set a wage that’s a floor here.’'.... Census data measuring the gap between rich and poor Americans show that there tends to be less income inequality in states with minimum wages that are higher than the federal level.... Further, a lift to the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 – the option President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats favor – would boost U.S. gross domestic product by about $22 billion, resulting in the creation of about 85,000 new jobs, according to a 2013 report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington think tank.... 'We are in a time of record-breaking corporate profits. The share of the economic output in our country going to corporations is at an all-time high. When businesses say, ‘We have no choice but to cut jobs,’ I think it rings a little hollow for a lot of people,' Ivatury says.”

There is finally a really high demand for increases at both the state and the federal level. Kip Tindell, of the National Retail Federation stated “It’s unbecoming to speak out against raising the minimum wage,” he said, according to Bloomberg. Unbecoming indeed. Federal legislators are looking toward how they are going to appear in the public eye in 2016 if they don't approve a raise. There also have been a number of union actions across the nation in the last 6 months or so, McDonald's for instance. I expected food service workers to be pushing for more, but I didn't know that many teachers are also making less than a living wage. I thought they, while not wealthy, were at least Middle Class. I'm delighted that at state elections several moves to put a raise hike initiatives on the ballot are up for vote and likely to win. Of course what it shows is that the US population has been severely strapped financially for years now.

When I was young, people had more discretionary income, and they spent it. Republicans cried out the resulting inflation was a terrible danger for the economy, but I remember that our economy was growing and people in general were fairly prosperous. Not so, now. Only the wealthy are prosperous now, and growing more so, producing a dangerous gap between the wealthiest and the poor. The Middle Class has been literally disappearing. It is clear to me that 8 years under George W. Bush and tight fiscal policies (again because of fear of inflation and the growing National Debt) our country was definitely not prospering. Bush even gave away the wonderful surplus that Clinton found in the budget, to rich corporations – a typical Republican move. Then came the Great Recession. People lost their houses and their jobs. My father always used to say that Republicans bring on depressions. Poor people have to have some spending money to contribute to national prosperity by their purchases. That way businesses make more profits on a daily basis, and they can afford to hire workers again. They have more customers, so they need more workers. I don't believe that Republican fiscal policies are better for the country at all. I hope all the low-paid workers in the US end up getting a raise this year. There's no welfare plan like a living wage and lots of jobs!





http://www.news-record.com/news/voting-machine-again-displays-wrong-choice/article_4b6f41e4-616e-11e4-aa89-0017a43b2370.html#.VFa1FqaMIfk.reddit

Voting machine again displays wrong choice
By Robert Lopez/News & Record
Saturday, November 1, 2014

GREENSBORO — Another Guilford County voter has reported having problems casting a vote for a U.S. Senate candidate.

Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice.

“I called one of the poll workers over,” Bostick said. “She said do it again. And again, I touched the screen at the proper place for Kay Hagan, and it again reported it for Thom Tillis.”

On his fourth attempt, the machine registered the vote for Hagan. Another poll worker decided to cancel the ballot altogether and directed Bostick to an adjacent machine, where he was able to cast his ballot without any issues.

The problematic machine was taken out of service

On Wednesday, another voter had reported a similar problem at the Craft Recreation Center. In that case, the voter also tried selecting Hagan but saw the machine had recorded him as choosing Tillis.

He also was moved to another machine, which registered his selections without any problem.

Charlie Collicutt, Guilford County elections director, said his office has received 14 reports of voting problems since early voting started Oct. 23, including seven from people who became concerned after they got home.

He urged voters to check that the paper roll next to the screen properly registers their selections, and he said anyone having trouble should tell a poll worker.

“If a precinct official is made aware immediately, that gives us the opportunity to take the machine out of service, check it out, recalibrate it, and determine whether we can get it back into service,” he said.



http://www.votersunite.org/

When will we come to our senses?

A non-partisan national grassroots resource for fair and accurate elections! 
We believe in the power of facts.

When will we come to our senses?

VotersUnite.Org is only one of many, many websites full to overflowing with stories of how badly computerized voting equipment has performed, how easily an insider or outsider could hack the equipment to fix an election, and how dangerous to democracy is the country's dependence on concealed vote-counting provided by private, unaccountable voting system vendors.

No hypothetical danger, computerized vote-counting is a busy intersection  WITHOUT A STOP SIGN, and the crashes have already been legion.

Flawed and failing computerized vote-counters have been reported in hundreds of news stories, experienced by thousands of voters, caused millions of dollars in official investigations and studies ... and yet the equipment is still in use in virtually every jurisdiction in the United States.

Flawed and failing computers count the votes that determine who will make our laws, enforce our laws, establish foreign policy, declare wars, set the tax rates, and decide how to spend those taxes.

Flawed and failing computerized vote-counters cost billions of taxpayer dollars, cause our election structure to become dangerously dependent on private companies, and require a 'testing and certification process' that is itself as flawed and failing as the vote-counting computers.

One more demonstration of the ease with which a computerized voting machine can be 'fixed' to deliver the vote to the rightful loser has fallen silently in the forest of apathy. Read about it and watch it here.

Computerized vote-counting must stop before the next victim is democracy itself -- unless it's already too late.




“Percy Bostick, 69, of Greensboro said he tried casting a vote for Democrat Kay Hagan at the Old Guilford County Courthouse, only to have the machine register Republican Thom Tillis as his choice. 'I called one of the poll workers over,' Bostick said. 'She said do it again. And again, I touched the screen at the proper place for Kay Hagan, and it again reported it for Thom Tillis.' On his fourth attempt, the machine registered the vote for Hagan. Another poll worker decided to cancel the ballot altogether and directed Bostick to an adjacent machine, where he was able to cast his ballot without any issues.”

I would hate to think that Republican Thom Tillis had his cohorts to hack into the voting machine and prevent Democratic votes from registering. It is probably just a computer malfunction. Even so it is disturbing. This man was watching what the machine registered, so he caught the error. Most people don't watch. This VotersUnite article says that computerized voting systems have many problems, and could seriously affect political races. Luckily in FL we have paper ballots, but I remember I did feed the ballot into a computerized counting machine when I finished. “Computerized vote-counting must stop before the next victim is democracy itself -- unless it's already too late.” I would be in favor of outlawing all computerized voting or vote counting machines in this country. Paper ballots and hand counts are more accurate even if they do take longer to complete. It will probably take widespread cheating to stop the current trend of election tabulation, however. We love our computers as much as our cars in this country. How our spouses line up in comparison, I don't know.






http://www.vox.com/2014/10/31/7136945/boehner-lawsuit-troubles

Boehner has hired two law firms to sue President Obama. They've both quit.
Updated by Andrew Prokop on October 31, 2014
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2014

Back in July, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to file a historically unprecedented lawsuit against President Obama for delaying Obamacare's employer mandate. But months have since passed, with no news that a lawsuit has been drawn up or filed. There's been some speculation that Speaker John Boehner was intentionally slow-walking the process until after the election, not wanting to jeopardize the party's potential Senate gains by reviving headlines of House GOP overreach.

This week, however, Politico's Josh Gerstein and Maggie Haberman reported that Boehner's actually been having serious problems even finding a law firm willing to file the suit — two have tentatively signed on, and then gotten cold feet. Originally, attorney David Rivkin — who crafted the unique legal arguments Boehner used to justify the suit — was supposed to draw up the suit itself. But his firm, Baker Hostetler, pulled out. More recently, Bill Burck of the firm Quinn Emanuel was also tentatively hired, until similarly backing away.

Though the suit's legal arguments have been met with skepticism by scholars, Gerstein and Haberman report that the trouble here is more political — some clients simply didn't want each firm involved in such a controversial suit. Boehner's spokesperson told the reporters that the suit would still go ahead, but perhaps would be crafted entirely by lawyers employed by the House, rather than an outside firm.

Head over to Politico for the full report to learn more on these latest developments. But here's Vox's fuller explainer on the Boehner lawsuit:

Has the House of Representatives ever sued the president before?

Individual members of Congress, and groups of members, have filed many lawsuits against the president and the executive branch. But neither the House or Senate has ever institutionally sued the president for failing to enforce the law.

"The closest was that the Senate Watergate Committee sued President Nixon to get the Watergate tapes," says Professor Charles Tiefer of University of Baltimore law school, an expert on separation of powers. William & Mary law professor Neal Devins concurs. "There have been lawsuits between Congressional committees and high ranking executive officials over executive privilege claims," Devins says, "but I am unaware of anything precisely like this possible case."

How have past suits from members of Congress fared?

Generally, they haven't done well. The problem is "standing." Courts can only step in to adjudicate specific cases — cases where the plaintiff has experienced some harm caused by the defendant. Only then does that particular plaintiff have "standing" to sue in federal court — and only then does the court adjudicate the merits of the case. In contrast, if the court finds the plaintiff does not have standing, they dismiss the case without ruling on it.

Boehner's problem is that the vast majority of lawsuits brought by members of Congress against the president on policy issues have been dismissed for lack of standing. As Lyle Denniston of the National Constitution Center wrote, "Time after time, when members of Congress have sued in the courts, because the Executive Branch did something that they believe frustrated the will of Congress, they have been met at the door of the courthouse with a polite refusal to let them in." The courts also tend to be skeptical of these suits because Congress has constitutional means by which it can check the president's power on its own — by passing a new law, using the power of the purse to cut off funding, or through impeachment.

In recent decades, several members of Congress sued President Clinton over the short-lived line-item veto act, other members sued Clinton for an executive order establishing environmental protections for certain rivers, and in 2011 Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D) sued President Obama for launching the military operation in Libya. All of these suits were dismissed due to lack of standing. In the line-item veto case,Raines v. Byrd, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for a 7-2 Supreme Court majority: "Our standing inquiry has always been especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would force us to decide whether an action taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government was unconstitutional."

So why would this time be any different?

It might not be. But lawyer David Rivkin and Florida International University law professor Elizabeth Price Foley crafted some new and untested arguments — since adopted by Boehner in a memo to House Republicans — to justify why the House might have standing to sue the president for failing to execute the laws, in the following narrow and specific circumstances:

1. If it's impossible for a private plaintiff to demonstrate harm. If the president is refusing to enforce a law in a way that doesn't cause harm to anyone — but still looks illegal — then, Rivkin and Foley argue, the legislature should be permitted to sue, or else no one would have standing to hold the president to account. For instance, delaying certain Obamacare provisions, changing welfare work requirements, or refusing to deport certain unauthorized immigrants could fall into this category.

2. If there's formal authorization for the suit. In the Raines v. Byrd ruling, Rehnquist wrote that "we attach some importance to the fact that" the members of Congress suing "have not been authorized to represent their respective houses of Congress in this action." Therefore, Rivkin and Foley say, Boehner should seek such authorization from the House.

3. If there's no feasible political remedy. Essentially, Rivkin and Foley argue that Obama's actions are very bad, but not bad enough to merit impeachment. Therefore, they say, the court should step in to ensure the laws are enforced properly.

What do people think of these arguments?

Some conservative commentators are impressed. The Wall Street Journal editorial page supports the effort, writing, "The legal establishment will dismiss Messrs. Johnson and Rivkin as cranks with no hope of success, but it has been wrong before." George Will agreed, calling on Boehner to fight back against Obama's "egregious executive aggressions." And Rivkin played a key role in developing novel arguments that advanced the lawsuit against Obamacare far further than most legal observers expected.

Yet most legal analysts seem much more skeptical. "I see this every day now, being covered as if it's real, as if it's somehow not a joke," Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar says. "But can they name a single successful lawsuit in American history that is of close precedent to what they are proposing?" If not, he says, "At a certain point, I get to call Birther-ism. I get to call bullshit." And Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith wrote, "The lawsuit will almost certainly fail, and should fail, for lack of congressional standing."

Some staunch conservatives have been downright scornful of Boehner's effort. Former Bush Department of Justice prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who just wrote a book making the case for impeaching Obama, wrote that Boehner's arguments — and, by extension, Rivkin and Foley's — were "either untrue or abject nonsense." He added that "judges are not there to resolve power disputes between the political branches." He pointed out that Boehner utterly fails to establish that political remedies aren't available to Congress, since they can simply cut off funding or launch impeachment proceedings.

Foley has argued that impeachment isn't plausible because "the president's own party controls one of the chambers of Congress," but that's irrelevant — political parties are never mentioned in the Constitution, and the courts don't exist to solve Congressional gridlock. Meanwhile, Erick Erickson of RedState called the lawsuit "nothing more than political theater," and said that "if the Republican leaders in the House are too chicken to use their constitutional powers to rein in the President, they should just call it a day and go home."

What is the lawsuit specifically about?

Initially, Boehner's memo to House Republicans and his CNN op-ed were vague on the subject, leading commentators to remark that it's rather odd to announce a lawsuit before you know what you're suing over.

Eventually, Boehner announced that the lawsuit would focus on the delay of Obamacare's employer mandate. "In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it.  That's not the way our system of government was designed to work," Boehner said in a press release. You can read his resolution here.

Sarah Kliff has more background about the employer mandate here and here.Boehner's lawsuit demands that the unpopular mandate be enforced, while Obama argues that he should have the flexibility to delay it. In an interview before Boehner specified what he was suing over, Yale Law professor Akhil Reed Amar said, "I'm doubtful that merely because you've waived or extended some deadline that you've done something illegal." The Constitution calls on the president to make sure that the laws are "faithfully executed," he pointed out. "Who do you trust to make Obamacare work? Obama, or the guy who's voted against it 3,000 times who doesn't want it to work?"

How would the lawsuit proceed?

Since the suit would be filed on behalf of the US House of Representatives, Boehner plans to convene a group of five House leaders called the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group. The BLAG instructs the House of Representatives General Counsel's office on how to handle the lawsuit. Its members would be Boehner himself, new majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD). That's three Republicans and two Democrats, so though the BLAG theoretically represents the whole House, GOP leadership will have full control over it.

The lawsuit would be filed in federal district court, and could then theoretically be appealed to the DC Circuit, and eventually to the Supreme Court. If the courts find the House does have standing to sue, and then rules in their favor, Obama would likely be ordered to implement the employer mandate. Theoretically, then, it would be up to him to comply — but if he refused to do so, he'd certainly fuel cries for his impeachment.
How has the Obama Administration responded?

Publicly, they haven't seemed to take it particularly seriously. Obama called it "a stunt" and said "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing." He also said, in a Rose Garden speech, "So sue me." White House counsel Neil Eggleston told a reporter, "As I used to tell clients in private practice, anybody can sue anybody over anything."

What are the broader implications?

The specifics of Boehner's suit focus only on a very narrow issue: whether or not the courts will order Obama to implement the employer mandate. So let's focus on the broader question of what will happen if the courts decide that the House does in fact have standing to sue the president. Overall, the power of the presidency would be weakened, and the power of Congress and especially the courts would be strengthened.

In recent decades, conservatives have tended to be suspicious of loosening standing requirements, and have argued instead for restraining the judicial role. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a Supreme Court dissent last year that the consequences of loosening standing requirements could be vast. Scalia darkly imagined a system "in which Congress and the Executive can pop immediately into court, in their institutional capacity, whenever the President refuses to implement a statute he believes to be unconstitutional, and whenever he implements a law in a manner that is not to Congress's liking." He added, "Placing the Constitution's entirely anticipated political arm wrestling into permanent judicial receivership does not do the system a favor."

But overall, those who think the president has grown too powerful and unchecked in recent years would probably be happy if the courts placed a new check on executive power. A favorable ruling for Boehner would likely make life somewhat more difficult for any president in power. For instance, one could imagine a Democratic Congress suing a Republican president for improperly implementing Obamacare, or for refusing to enforce environmental laws.




“Though the suit's legal arguments have been met with skepticism by scholars, Gerstein and Haberman report that the trouble here is more political — some clients simply didn't want each firm involved in such a controversial suit. Boehner's spokesperson told the reporters that the suit would still go ahead, but perhaps would be crafted entirely by lawyers employed by the House, rather than an outside firm.... 'There have been lawsuits between Congressional committees and high ranking executive officials over executive privilege claims," Devins says, "but I am unaware of anything precisely like this possible case.'... Generally, they haven't done well. The problem is 'standing.' Courts can only step in to adjudicate specific cases — cases where the plaintiff has experienced some harm caused by the defendant. …  He pointed out that Boehner utterly fails to establish that political remedies aren't available to Congress, since they can simply cut off funding or launch impeachment proceedings....Initially, Boehner's memo to House Republicans and his CNN op-ed were vague on the subject, leading commentators to remark that it's rather odd to announce a lawsuit before you know what you're suing over.... 'Placing the Constitution's entirely anticipated political arm wrestling into permanent judicial receivership does not do the system a favor.'”

“Yet most legal analysts seem much more skeptical. 'I see this every day now, being covered as if it's real, as if it's somehow not a joke,' Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar says. 'But can they name a single successful lawsuit in American history that is of close precedent to what they are proposing?' If not, he says, 'At a certain point, I get to call Birther-ism. I get to call bullshit.' And Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith wrote, 'The lawsuit will almost certainly fail, and should fail, for lack of congressional standing.'" Stripping the presidency of some of its increased power since the George W. Bush years under the “NeoCons” would not necessarily bother me. When Bush was in office many of us thought he was trying to become a king. It would mean that in cases like the last couple of years when Obama made a number of independent moves, he simply wouldn't be able to break the Congress's familiar pattern of gridlock and “Just say No” stances. Our country would remain stuck in the mud for years and years. The US people have tended to use the “throw 'em all out” philosophy rather than blaming the obstructive Tea Party members who are actually causing the trouble. I just hope the Tea Party doesn't take over in the Senate today. That would be very discouraging indeed.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/security-guard-fired-after-elevator-ride-with-obama/

Security guard fired after elevator ride with Obama
BySTEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS November 3, 2014, 10:58 AM

Former Secret Service Director Julia Pierson was compelled to resign last monthafter a series of mishaps at the agency -- including an incident at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in which President Obama found himself on an elevator for a security guard armed with a gun.

Pierson, however, wasn't the only one who lost her job after the incident at the CDC's Atlanta headquarters on Sept. 16. Kenneth Tate, the private security guard who rode in the elevator with Mr. Obama, was fired about a week after the president's visit, the New York Times reports.

"This was unjust and has been a nightmare," Tate told the Times, explaining his side of the story.

For one thing, Tate said he was assigned to accompany Mr. Obama as the president visited the CDC. Additionally, while reports initially indicated that Tate was a convicted felon, his employer -- the private security firm Professional Security Corporation -- confirmed to the Times that Tate had no felony or misdemeanor convictions. Tate had been arrested on robbery and assault charges but never convicted.

The security guard said he was never given an official explanation for his termination, though it seemed like the Secret Service was angry over a picture he tried to take of Mr. Obama's armored limousine, called "the beast."

After he snapped the picture, the Secret Service pulled Tate aside for questioning, he said. He deleted the picture as requested. After the interview, the CDC took away his badge, and he was fired about a week later.




“Kenneth Tate, the private security guard who rode in the elevator with Mr. Obama, was fired about a week after the president's visit, the New York Times reports. 'This was unjust and has been a nightmare,' Tate told the Times, explaining his side of the story. For one thing, Tate said he was assigned to accompany Mr. Obama as the president visited the CDC. Additionally, while reports initially indicated that Tate was a convicted felon, his employer -- the private security firm Professional Security Corporation -- confirmed to the Times that Tate had no felony or misdemeanor convictions. Tate had been arrested on robbery and assault charges but never convicted.... The security guard said he was never given an official explanation for his termination, though it seemed like the Secret Service was angry over a picture he tried to take of Mr. Obama's armored limousine, called 'the beast.' After he snapped the picture, the Secret Service pulled Tate aside for questioning, he said. He deleted the picture as requested. After the interview, the CDC took away his badge, and he was fired about a week later.”

The only likely security breach, if Tate was indeed supposed to be with Obama and no one in his command had told him he should take off his gun, is the picture he took of the presidential limousine. The reason for his photograph hasn't been divulged, if he has in fact told the press. There is too little “there there” in this story to suit me. The Secret Service is apparently under political pressure, maybe from Republicans, maybe from members of the American public who want to keep up a barrage of criticism that is ultimately aimed at Obama himself.

There have been a series of incidents, only one of which struck me as being blatant carelessness, and that was when the guard at the White House door had left the door unlocked and somebody pushed him aside and made his way down the hallway, where an OFF DUTY officer who happened to be there succeeded in tackling him. To make it worse, the alarm was turned off because it was apparently annoying to some of the White House staff. I hope the President didn't know anything about that. For that several people should have been fired. Maybe they were and I just missed it. The series of three fence jumpers in a month or so does almost look like conspiracy, but it probably was just the harebrained exploits of some men who wanted to get their names in the paper. None of them were Muslim. The good news was that on the last case their trusty guard dogs took the man down. The security on that incident was well-executed. Two fierce hundred pound dogs are a very good investment for the White House.




EBOLA – THREE ARTICLES


Ebola and insurance: A complicated mixture
By JONATHAN BERR MONEYWATCH
November 4, 2014, 5:45 AM

Multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations that operate at the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa as well as U.S. health care facilities are scrambling to make sure they have adequate insurance coverage against the deadly disease.

However, insurers such as ACE Ltd. (ACE), one of the world's largest, are starting to issue riders or endorsements on policies limiting or in some cases excluding from coverage any activities in the countries affected by the deadly disease. Ebola has killed 9,000 people so far, mostly in Africa.

According to a statement from Zurich-based ACE, its global casualty unit, which provides coverage for U.S.-based companies and organizations that operate overseas, is applying the endorsement during the underwriting process on a case-by-case basis to new policies and renewals.

"It is not being applied in any indiscriminate, unilateral or blanket way to address the Ebola risk," according to ACE.

Insurance companies are using the exclusions only when they aren't getting satisfactory answers from their clients about how they're limiting Ebola risk, according to Logan Payne of insurance brokerage and risk-management advisory firm Lockton. He hasn't seen rate increases because of the disease.

"We only had only one client who had the exclusion," he said, adding that he was able to convince the insurance company to drop it.

The Ebola epidemic has killed just one person in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, and sickened two nurses who cared for him and a doctor who treated infected patients in Africa. Payne said one of the issues that insurance companies haven't figured out is whether people who are quarantined can get workers' compensation.

Demand for insurance coverage from U.S. hospitals and other health care facilities has also increased because of Ebola, but coverage costs vary widely depending on the size of the facility, according to Peter Reilly of brokerage William Gallagher.

Insurance demand remains robust, although it has tailed off somewhat after the initial flurry of interest when the epidemic first made headlines, he said. Reilly added: "There's a lot of fear of the unknown."

The disease, which has a fatality rate of about 70 percent, shows no signs of slowing. Projections from catastrophic risk-management firm RMS estimate there may be 1,400 new Ebola cases daily within the month. If that happens, the epidemic would be the worst in the world since the 1918 flu outbreak.

"Controlling the spread of this Ebola outbreak is more a question of logistics than virology," said Dominic Smith, pandemic risk expert and senior manager of LifeRisks at RMS, in a press release. "The fight against the Ebola epidemic is a race against a moving target; more resources are required as the number of cases increases."

Ebola presents companies and organizations with many challenges including risk of employees getting sick and interruption of normal business activities. Insurance companies are advising clients to use alternative production facilities outside the Ebola zone, if that's possible. However, oil and mining companies operating in West Africa can't afford to leave, and humanitarian organizations operating there don't want to abandon the region either.

"They don't want to have to pack up," said Dr. Robert Quigley, senior vice president of medical assistance at International SOS, a medial and travel security company, adding that some companies, academic groups and nonprofits that left the Ebola zone at the start of the epidemic "are now starting to come back."

Quigley declined to discuss specific clients, though he did note that his company was advising them to develop contingency plans to deal with the disease.





http://news.yahoo.com/ebola-carrying-bats-may-heroes-well-villains-133959664.html

Ebola-carrying bats may be heroes as well as villains
Reuters
By Ben Hirschler
November 3, 2014

(This November 2 story corrects name of journal to Science in thirteenth paragraph)

LONDON (Reuters)- Bats are living up to their frightening reputation in the world's worst Ebola outbreak as prime suspects for spreading the deadly virus to humans, but scientists believe they may also shed valuable light on fighting infection.

Bats can carry more than 100 different viruses, including Ebola, rabies and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), without becoming sick themselves.

While that makes them a fearsome reservoir of disease, especially in the forests of Africa where they migrate vast distances, it also opens the intriguing possibility that scientists might learn their trick in keeping killers like Ebola at bay.

"If we can understand how they do it then that could lead to better ways to treat infections that are highly lethal in people and other mammals," said Olivier Restif, a researcher at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

Clues are starting to emerge following gene analysis, which suggest bats' capacity to evade Ebola could be linked with their other stand-out ability -- the power of flight.

Flying requires the bat metabolism to run at a very high rate, causing stress and potential cell damage, and experts think bats may have developed a mechanism to limit this damage by having parts of their immune system permanently switched on.

The threat to humans from bats comes en route to the dinner plate. Bushmeat -- from bats to antelopes, squirrels, porcupines and monkeys -- has long held pride of place on menus in West and Central Africa. The danger of contracting Ebola lies in exposure to infected blood in the killing and preparation of animals.

NATURAL HOSTS

Scientists studying Ebola since its discovery in 1976 in Democratic Republic of Congo, then Zaire, have long suspected fruit bats as being the natural hosts, though the link to humans is sometimes indirect as fruit dropped by infected bats can easily be picked up by other species, spreading the virus to animals such as monkeys.

This nexus of infection in wildlife leads to sporadic Ebola outbreaks following human contact with blood or other infected animal fluids.

This no doubt happened in the current outbreak, although the scale of the crisis now gripping Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, which has killed around 5,000 people, reflects subsequent public health failures.

"What is happening now is a public health disaster rather than a problem of wildlife management," said Marcus Rowcliffe at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which runs London Zoo.

Bats' role in spreading Ebola is probably a function both of their huge numbers, where they rank second only to rodents among mammals in the world, as well as their unusual immune system, according to Michelle Baker of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia's national science agency.

Baker, who is intrigued by bats' ability to live in "equilibrium" with viruses, published a paper with colleagues in the journal Science last year looking at bat genomes. They found an unexpected concentration of genes for repairing DNA damage, hinting at a link between flying and immunity.

"(This) raises the interesting possibility that flight-induced adaptations have had inadvertent effects on bat immune function and possibly also life expectancy," they wrote.

UNDERSTANDING BATS

As well as tolerating viruses, bats are also amazingly long-lived. The tiny Brandt's bat, a resident of Europe and Asia, has been recorded living for more than 40 years, even though it is barely the size of a mouse. Bats also rarely get cancer.

"We are just at the beginning," Baker said in a telephone interview. "But if we can understand how bats are dealing with these viruses and if we can redirect the immune system of other species to react in the same way, then that could be a potential therapeutic approach."

It won't be easy. Turning on components of the immune system can bring its own health problems, but the idea -- which has yet to get beyond the basic research stage -- is to turn up certain elements to achieve a better balance.

One reason why Ebola is so deadly to people is that the virus attacks the immune system and when the system finally comes back it goes into over-drive, causing extra damage.

Ebola works in part by blocking interferon, an anti-virus molecule, which Baker has found to be "up-regulated", meaning it is found in higher levels, in bats.

VENISON, WITH WINGS

The bat immune system may or may not lead to new drugs one day. Still, experts argue there are plenty of other reasons to cherish bats, which also play a vital role in pollination and controlling insect pests.

They are also a traditional source of protein in West Africa, often served in a spicy stew, and restrictions on bushmeat consumption are now contributing to food shortages in parts of West Africa, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Hunting and butchering bats may be risky but cooking is thought to make them safe. The World Health Organization advises animals should be handled with "gloves and other appropriate protective clothing" and meat should be "thoroughly cooked".

"In the long run it would be sensible to see people moving away from hunting bats but in the short term they provide an important source of food," said Rowcliffe of ZSL.

"Essentially, wild meat is a good, healthy product. People in Britain eat venison and rabbit, and in many ways it's no different to that."

(Editing by Peter Millership and Giles Elgoo



INSURANCE – “However, insurers such as ACE Ltd. (ACE), one of the world's largest, are starting to issue riders or endorsements on policies limiting or in some cases excluding from coverage any activities in the countries affected by the deadly disease.... 'It is not being applied in any indiscriminate, unilateral or blanket way to address the Ebola risk,' according to ACE. Insurance companies are using the exclusions only when they aren't getting satisfactory answers from their clients about how they're limiting Ebola risk.... Quigley declined to discuss specific clients, though he did note that his company was advising them to develop contingency plans to deal with the disease.”

BATS – “Bats can carry more than 100 different viruses, including Ebola, rabies and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), without becoming sick themselves. While that makes them a fearsome reservoir of disease, especially in the forests of Africa where they migrate vast distances, it also opens the intriguing possibility that scientists might learn their trick in keeping killers like Ebola at bay.... Clues are starting to emerge following gene analysis, which suggest bats' capacity to evade Ebola could be linked with their other stand-out ability -- the power of flight. Flying requires the bat metabolism to run at a very high rate, causing stress and potential cell damage, and experts think bats may have developed a mechanism to limit this damage by having parts of their immune system permanently switched on.... They found an unexpected concentration of genes for repairing DNA damage, hinting at a link between flying and immunity.... As well as tolerating viruses, bats are also amazingly long-lived. The tiny Brandt's bat, a resident of Europe and Asia, has been recorded living for more than 40 years, even though it is barely the size of a mouse. Bats also rarely get cancer.... One reason why Ebola is so deadly to people is that the virus attacks the immune system and when the system finally comes back it goes into over-drive, causing extra damage. Ebola works in part by blocking interferon, an anti-virus molecule, which Baker has found to be 'up-regulated', meaning it is found in higher levels, in bats.... Hunting and butchering bats may be risky but cooking is thought to make them safe. The World Health Organization advises animals should be handled with 'gloves and other appropriate protective clothing' and meat should be 'thoroughly cooked.'”

I confess I have eaten squirrels, rabbits, turtles, frog legs, doves and even an opossum. I would like to try rattlesnake. People say it's good. I am even curious about insects. I have heard they are crunchy if fried, and tasty. When I was on the Net looking things up I found a restaurant in SE Asia that serves insects and they are considered a delicacy. A woman I got to know from China said that they ate scorpions at her wedding feast.

If the people in Africa would not touch a bat without gloves, and when finished burn the gloves, perhaps they would be safe. There is no way to tell by looking at a bat that it is infected with Ebola because they don't get sick from it. They're like Typhoid Mary in the early twentieth century. If scientists can detect exactly how they tune up their immune system and manage to fight off so many viruses, they will perform a very useful service in studying Ebola. I'll look for any more articles on this subject.

Bats are kind of cute in a way. Their wings have a certain delicate beauty. When they have their mouth open and are showing all their teeth, however, I am very much afraid of them. They are famous in the US for carrying rabies. One article on rabies said that a certain high percentage (which I can't remember now) of human rabies cases have been identified as being bat rabies. They can and do bite people. A number of years ago there was a bat that turned up, hanging upside down as they do, in a woman's kitchen. She called animal control. That was on the news. Some people have them in their attics. I would fumigate the house with cyanide if I had bats, and then have a contractor go over it inch by inch to see where they managed to get in and plug up the holes. Like most forces of nature I want them to stay away from me.



Typhoid Mary
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), better known as Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. She was presumed to have infected 53 people, three of whom died, over the course of her career as a cook.[1] She was twice forcibly isolated by public health authorities and died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation.



The following are various comments on the Ebola situation made by politicians. I like Gov. Andrew Cuomo's best of all. He has clearly come to terms with the threat and is at the point of having a sense of humor about it.


http://www.npr.org/blogs/goatsandsoda/2014/11/04/361158955/the-election-day-ebola-quiz-match-the-politician-and-the-quote

The Election Day Ebola Quiz: Match The Politician And The Quote
NPR STAFF
November 04, 2014

This Election Day comes as the world is dealing with an Ebola crisis. Eager to educate the public and/or pander to paranoia, politicians have been eagerly weighing in on the disease. Can you match the quote and the speaker?

THE QUOTES

1. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have an Ebola outbreak, we have bad actors who can come across the border. We need to seal the border and secure it."
2. "I don't believe when you're dealing with something as serious as this that we can count on a voluntary [quarantine] system. This is government's job."
3. Answering a question about the possibility of ISIS terrorists flying into the U.S. deliberately infected with Ebola: "I think that is a real and present danger."
4. "We don't just react based on our fears. We react based on facts and judgment and making smart decisions."
5. "Containing the outbreak in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone is the right thing to do for humanitarian reasons, but it's also essential to protecting the American people."
6. "I'm asking those people who were in contact with infected people — stay at home for 21 days. We will pay. Enjoy your family. Enjoy your kids. Enjoy your friends. Read a book. Read my book."

THE POLITICIANS

a) Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin
b) Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-New York
c) Gov. Chris Christie, R-New Jersey
d) Rep. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina
e) Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida
f) President Obama

ANSWERS: 1/d; 2/c; 3/a; 4/f; 5/e; 6/b





Researchers develop new way to attack antibiotic-resistant bugs
By AGATA BLASZCZAK-BOXE CBS NEWS
November 3, 2014, 4:55 PM

Researchers have developed a novel approach to the treatment of severe bacterial infections without the use of antibiotics. They hope it could someday offer a solution to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, which is making some infections harder and harder to treat. However, the technique has only been tested in mice so far.

In a new study, published Sunday in Nature Biotechnology, scientists from University of Bern in Switzerland engineered artificial nanoparticles made of lipids, called "liposomes," that are a lot like the membrane of host cells. The liposomes act as decoys for bacterial toxins, sequestering and neutralizing them. Bacteria without those toxins are defenseless and can be eliminated by the person's immune system.

In clinical medicine, liposomes are used as vehicles to deliver particular medications into the bodies of patients.

"We have made an irresistible bait for bacterial toxins," study author Eduard Babiychuk said in a statement. "The toxins are fatally attracted to the liposomes, and once they are attached, they can be eliminated easily without danger for the host cells."

"Since the bacteria are not targeted directly, the liposomes do not promote the development of bacterial resistance," study author Annette Draeger said.

So far the substance has only been tested on mice, which were treated with the liposomes for septicemia -- a life-threatening blood infection, also known as sepsis -- and survived without receiving any additional antibiotic therapy.

Since the development of penicillin almost 90 years ago, antibiotics have been used as the gold standard in the treatment of bacterial infections. However, the number of bacteria that have developed antibiotic resistance over the years has grown, according to the World Health Organization.

Last March, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 75,000 patients die each year as a result of infections they picked up in hospitals or other health care facilities, often involving drug-resistant strains of C. difficile, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), E. coli, Enterococcus and Pseudomonas.

If antibiotics eventually stop working to protect us from infections, even the most minor injuries or illnesses could prove fatal. Researchers have therefore been looking for alternative ways to address the problem before it becomes an even greater health crisis. In another study, published in September, scientists from Sweden identified 13 lactic acid bacteria found in bees and in honey that showed resistance to MRSA -- a type of bacteria that is highly resistant to commonly-prescribed antibiotics. They said further research would investigate whether the substance shows promise for treating infections.




“The liposomes act as decoys for bacterial toxins, sequestering and neutralizing them. Bacteria without those toxins are defenseless and can be eliminated by the person's immune system. [In addition,] In clinical medicine, liposomes are used as vehicles to deliver particular medications into the bodies of patients.... In another study, published in September, scientists from Sweden identified 13 lactic acid bacteria found in bees and in honey that showed resistance to MRSA -- a type of bacteria that is highly resistant to commonly-prescribed antibiotics. They said further research would investigate whether the substance shows promise for treating infections.”

Scientists – 2. Bacteria – 0. Go team! Nobody has to prove to me what the usefulness of “pure science” is. It becomes useful once it is discovered and developed. Besides, it is endlessly interesting to read about.

Monday, November 3, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Death with dignity advocate Brittany Maynard ends her life
CBS/AP November 2, 2014, 10:22 PM

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with incurable brain cancer who became an advocate for death with dignity laws in the last weeks of her life, died Saturday, according to a spokesperson.

Maynard was surrounded by family when she took lethal medication prescribed by a doctor, as she had planned, said Sean Crowley of the group Compassion & Choices. She teamed with the group after being diagnosed with a lethal form of cancer earlier this year.

Despite surgery and other treatment, doctors said she had only months to live. Maynard and her husband moved from California to Oregon so that she would be able to use that state's Death With Dignity Act.

"Brittany suffered increasingly frequent and longer seizures, severe head and neck pain, and stroke-like symptoms," Crowley said in a statement. "She died as she intended -- peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones."

"I don't want to die," Maynard told CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford in mid-October. "If anyone wants to hand me, like, a magical cure and save my life so that I can have children with my husband, you know, I will take them up on it."

Maynard also explained why she chose to take her own life.

"I think until anyone has walked a mile in my shoes and knows what they're facing and has felt the -- like, just bone-splitting headaches that I get sometimes, or the seizures, or the inability to speak, or the moments where I'm looking at my husband's face and I can't think of his name."

Just last Wednesday, Maynard said she was considering whether to postpone her death, and that she had crossed an item off her "bucket list": a visit to the Grand Canyon.

"Brittany has died, but her love of life and nature, her passion and spirit endure," said Compassion & Choices President Barbara Coombs Lee said in a statement Sunday. "In Brittany's memory, do what matters most. And tell those you love how much they matter to you. We will work to carry on her legacy of bringing end-of-life choice to all Americans."

Oregon was the first U.S. state to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe a life-ending drug to a terminally ill patient of sound mind who makes the request. The patient must swallow the drug without help; it is illegal for a doctor to administer it.

More than 750 people in Oregon used the law to die as of Dec. 31, 2013. The median age of the deceased is 71. Only six were younger than 35, like Maynard.

The state does not track how many terminally ill people move to Oregon to die. A patient must prove to a doctor that they are living in Oregon. Some examples of documentation include a rental agreement, a voter registration card or a driver's license.

Oregon voters approved the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, then reaffirmed it -- 60 percent to 40 percent -- in 1997.



https://www.compassionandchoices.org/

Who We Are

Compassion & Choices is the leading nonprofit organization committed to helping everyone have the best death possible. We offer free counseling, planning resources, referrals and guidance, and across the nation we work to protect and expand options at the end of life.

For over thirty years we have reduced people’s suffering and given them some control in their final days – even when injury or illness takes their voice. We are experts in what it takes to die well.


Politics of Oregon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Like many other U.S. states, the politics of Oregon is centered mostly around regional concerns.[1] Oregon leans Democratic as a state, with both U.S Senators from the Democratic party,[2] as well as four out of Oregon's five U.S. Representatives.[3] The state has voted Democratic, by relatively small margins, since 1988 in presidential elections.[4]Both houses of Oregon's legislative assembly have been under Democratic control since the 2012 elections.[5]

The state is broken up into two main geographically separate political areas: the liberal cities of the Willamette Valleyand the rest of the state, whose voters are moving from conservative to libertarian.[1][6] While about 47% of the population of Oregon lives in the Portland metropolitan area as of 2013,[7][8] the state has a rural population with generally conservative views on same-sex marriage and state taxes. On most other issues, however, the state leans considerably left, including on public health care,[9][10] medical marijuana,[11] euthanasia[12] and environmental protections.[13]

Similar to the West Coast states of California and Washington, Oregon has a high percentage of people who identify as liberals. A 2013 Gallup poll that surveyed the political ideology of residents in every state found that people in Oregon identified as:[20]

34.8% moderate
33.6% conservative (the 10th least conservative state)
27.9% liberal (the 5th most liberal state)

Another study on the state's political ideology noted that the state's conservatives were the most conservative of any state (more so than Utah or Tennessee) and that the state's liberals were more liberal than any state (more so than Vermont or D.C.).[21]




There is a very good timeline at this Compassion and Choices website on the legal advances concerning the right-to-die movement in the US. It is too long to include here, but for anyone who either has a personal need for help on this issue or who is simply curious about the much debated lawsuits and state laws, it is recommended reading.

“'She died as she intended -- peacefully in her bedroom, in the arms of her loved ones.'... More than 750 people in Oregon used the law to die as of Dec. 31, 2013. The median age of the deceased is 71. Only six were younger than 35, like Maynard.... Oregon voters approved the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, then reaffirmed it -- 60 percent to 40 percent -- in 1997.” Though Right-to-die physician assisted suicide is not legal in most states, the Living Will in which a citizen may describe his or her own preferences as to how long a hospital will leave him on a life-support system, are commonplace. In that document we may describe how aggressively our physicians will pursue treatments that are in themselves sometimes very difficult to bear, such as chemotherapy for cancer, and whether we should remain for an extended period in a coma after a catastrophic brain injury.

The simple fact is, unless we believe that we will go to a fiery hell for voluntarily ending our live, a quick and fairly painless death is not as bad as months to years of bedridden pain and inability to function independently. A peaceful death would be the choice of many people in that kind of situation. Personally, if the rest of my life were doomed to be spent tied to a bedpan, I would rather go to a hospice and get off all medications except those for pain. I would read books if I could see and listen to my favorite music tapes. My friends could come to see me and we could talk together. I don't think I would be swamped with regret at such a death, as the key for me is to live a fulfilling and mainly happy life until its end.






No-fly zone near Ferguson protests were meant "to keep media out" – CBS
AP November 2, 2014, 9:05 PM

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests over the shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer.

On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area -- but ban others.

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. "But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA's Kansas City center said police "did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn't want media in there."

FAA procedures for defining a no-fly area did not have an option that would accommodate that.

"There is really... no option for a TFR that says, you know, 'OK, everybody but the media is OK,'" he said. The managers then worked out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.

Police said at the time, and again as recently as late Friday to the AP, that they requested the flight restriction in response to shots fired at a police helicopter.

But police officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed "rumors."

The AP obtained the recordings under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They raise serious questions about whether police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials.

Such images would have offered an unvarnished view of one of the most serious episodes of civil violence in recent memory.

"Any evidence that a no-fly zone was put in place as a pretext to exclude the media from covering events in Ferguson is extraordinarily troubling and a blatant violation of the press's First Amendment rights," said Lee Rowland, an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney specializing in First Amendment issues.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement Sunday his agency will always err on the side of safety. "FAA cannot and will never exclusively ban media from covering an event of national significance, and media was never banned from covering the ongoing events in Ferguson in this case."

Huerta also said that, to the best of the FAA's knowledge, "no media outlets objected to any of the restrictions" during the time they were in effect.

In the recordings, an FAA manager urged modifying the flight restriction so that planes landing at Lambert still could enter the airspace around Ferguson.

The less-restrictive change practically served the authorities' intended goal, an FAA official said: "A lot of the time the (lesser restriction) just keeps the press out, anyways. They don't understand the difference."

The Kansas City FAA manager then asked a St. Louis County police official if the restrictions could be lessened so nearby commercial flights wouldn't be affected. The new order allows "aircraft on final (approach) there at St. Louis. It will still keep news people out.... The only way people will get in there is if they give them permission in there anyway so they, with the (lesser restriction), it still keeps all of them out."

"Yeah," replied the police official. "I have no problem with that whatsoever."

KMOV-TV News Director Brian Thouvenot told the AP that his station was prepared at first to legally challenge the flight restrictions, but was later advised that its pilot could fly over the area as long as the helicopter stayed above 3,000 feet. That kept the helicopter and its mounted camera outside the restricted zone, although filming from such a distance, he said, was "less than ideal."

None of the St. Louis stations was advised that media helicopters could enter the airspace even under the lesser restrictions, which under federal rules should not have applied to aircraft "carrying properly accredited news representatives." The FAA's no-fly notice indicated the area was closed to all aircraft except police and planes coming to and from the airport.

"Only relief aircraft operations under direction of St. Louis County Police Department are authorized in the airspace," it said. "Aircraft landing and departing St. Louis Lambert Airport are exempt."

The same day that notice was issued, a county police spokesman publicly denied the no-fly zone was to prevent news helicopters from covering the events. "We understand that that's the perception that's out there, but it truly is for the safety of pilots," Sgt. Brian Schellman told NBC News.

Ferguson police were widely criticized for their response following the death of Brown, who was shot by a city police officer, Darren Wilson, on Aug. 9.

Later, under county police command, several reporters were arrested, a TV news crew was tear gassed and some demonstrators were told they weren't allowed to film officers. In early October, a federal judge said the police violated demonstrators' and news crews' constitutional rights.

"Here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying and arresting reporters who are just doing their jobs," President Barack Obama said Aug. 14, two days after police confided to federal officials the flight ban was secretly intended to keep media helicopters out of the area. "The local authorities, including police, have a responsibility to be transparent and open."

The restricted flight zone initially encompassed airspace in a 3.4-mile radius around Ferguson and up to 5,000 feet in altitude, but police agreed to reduce it to 3,000 feet after the FAA's command center in Warrenton, Virginia, complained to managers in Kansas City that it was impeding traffic into St. Louis.

The flight restrictions remained in place until Aug. 22, FAA records show. A police captain wanted it extended when officials were set to identify Wilson by name as the officer who shot Brown and because Brown's funeral would "bring out the emotions," the recordings show.

"We just don't know what to expect," he told the FAA. "We're monitoring that. So, last night we shot a lot of tear gas, we had a lot of shots fired into the air again. It did quiet down after midnight, but with that ... we don't know when that's going to erupt."

The recordings do not capture early conversations about the initial flight restriction imposed a day earlier, but they nonetheless show the FAA still approved and modified the flight restriction after the FAA was aware that its main intent was to keep the media away.

One FAA official at the agency's command center asked the Kansas City manager in charge whether the restrictions were really about safety. "So are (the police) protecting aircraft from small-arms fire or something?" he asked. "Or do they think they're just going to keep the press out of there, which they can't do."




“The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests over the shooting of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer.... The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.... But police officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed 'rumors.' The AP obtained the recordings under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They raise serious questions about whether police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials.... 'Any evidence that a no-fly zone was put in place as a pretext to exclude the media from covering events in Ferguson is extraordinarily troubling and a blatant violation of the press's First Amendment rights,' said Lee Rowland, an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney specializing in First Amendment issues.... Later, under county police command, several reporters were arrested, a TV news crew was tear gassed and some demonstrators were told they weren't allowed to film officers. In early October, a federal judge said the police violated demonstrators' and news crews' constitutional rights. 'Here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying and arresting reporters who are just doing their jobs,' President Barack Obama said Aug. 14..."

“...they nonetheless show the FAA still approved and modified the flight restriction after the FAA was aware that its main intent was to keep the media away.” Well, the police presence in full military regalia still made its way onto the national news, and the reports of reporters enduring arrest proved the police attempt to stifle their First Amendment rights. The President of the US spoke out clearly against the police attempt at a coverup, but the FAA still allowed them the flight restrictions. Does the FAA answer to the executive branch, or to Congress? Who should have intervened in this case and didn't? If the following information from Wikipedia is correct, the FAA answers to the USDOT whose head answers to the President and to Congress. The President and an FAA official both said the action to limit press access at Ferguson was directly illegal, so hopefully the ACLU will bring a lawsuit against the FAA official who knew the true purpose of the flight ban and allowed it anyway. Somebody should definitely be fired.


Federal Aviation Administration
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of American civil aviation. 

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is a federal Cabinet department of the U.S. government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967. It is governed by the United States Secretary of Transportation.

The United States Secretary of Transportation is the head of theUnited States Department of Transportation, a member of thePresident's Cabinet, and thirteenth in the Presidential Line of Succession.[1]  Anthony Foxx, the Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina was nominated by President Barack Obama on April 29, 2013, to succeed Ray LaHood. On June 27, 2013 the Senate confirmed his appointment by a vote of 100-0.[7]





Arizona school district may edit biology textbook over abortion law – CBS
AP November 3, 2014, 9:18 AM

PHOENIX - A Phoenix suburb's school district may revise a high school honors biology textbook to add or remove content because of a 2-year-old state law on abortion-related instructional material.

The Gilbert Unified School District board voted 3-2 Tuesday night to have district officials consider how to change the textbook and report back to the board, the Arizona Republic reported.

At issue is a chapter in the textbook, "Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections," that discusses abstinence, birth-control methods, tubal ligations and vasectomies, and drugs that can induce abortion.

The 2012 Arizona law says the state has a strong interest in "promoting childbirth and adoption over elective abortion." It prohibits instructional programs and material that don't give preference to childbirth and adoption over elective abortion.

No organization tracks Arizona school districts' selection or usage of textbooks, but Staci Burk, the president of the Gilbert board, said the district is likely the first to enforce the relatively new law.

Chris Kotterman, a state Department of Education official, told the board in an email that the textbook didn't appear to violate the law.

"In general, the mere mention of a means of medically inducing abortion does not automatically signal a lack of preference for childbirth and adoption ... the responsibility lies with the teacher to provide context for the student," said Kotterman, a deputy associate superintendent.

A lawyer for a Scottsdale-based conservative advocacy group's representative said the law's requirement applies whenever abortion is mentioned.

"The law is not limited to books in sex-education classes," Alliance for Defending Freedom attorney Natalie Decker said. "It applies any time a mention of abortion is included in instruction. This is not an ambiguous law."

Decker said the book could be redacted or have additional information pasted in.

"The cheapest, least disruptive way to solve the problem is to remove the page," said board member Daryl Colvin.

The execution director of the ACLU of Arizona urged the board in a letter to not change the book. Doing that would violate students' First Amendment rights, said Alessandra Soler.

"Suppressing facts that some people or organizations find disagreeable sets a terrible precedent," Soler said.

State Sen. Nancy Barto, a Phoenix Republican who sponsored the bill that became the 2012 law, attended the board's meeting and urged the board to follow the law to the letter.




The Gilbert Unified School District board voted 3-2 Tuesday night to have district officials consider how to change the textbook and report back to the board, the Arizona Republic reported. At issue is a chapter in the textbook, 'Campbell Biology: Concepts & Connections,' that discusses abstinence, birth-control methods, tubal ligations and vasectomies, and drugs that can induce abortion. The 2012 Arizona law says the state has a strong interest in 'promoting childbirth and adoption over elective abortion.' It prohibits instructional programs and material that don't give preference to childbirth and adoption over elective abortion.... Chris Kotterman, a state Department of Education official, told the board in an email that the textbook didn't appear to violate the law. 'In general, the mere mention of a means of medically inducing abortion does not automatically signal a lack of preference for childbirth and adoption ... the responsibility lies with the teacher to provide context for the student,' said Kotterman, a deputy associate superintendent.... 'The law is not limited to books in sex-education classes,' Alliance for Defending Freedom attorney Natalie Decker said. 'It applies any time a mention of abortion is included in instruction. This is not an ambiguous law.' Decker said the book could be redacted or have additional information pasted in. 'The cheapest, least disruptive way to solve the problem is to remove the page,' said board member Daryl Colvin.... The execution director of the ACLU of Arizona urged the board in a letter to not change the book. Doing that would violate students' First Amendment rights, said Alessandra Soler.”

I wonder if high school students will hear about this story on the news and become alert to the fact that the very textbooks from which they are being taught have been redacted to meet political demands. If they do, will they make up their minds to go around the darned textbook and look the subject up for themselves on Google? Will they join a politically liberal group when they get to college? Read the following news article on civil disobedience among Colorado high schoolers – http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/denver-school-protest/16126625/. It is very impressive. I do these young people continue to care about their civil rights, because otherwise the population in Arizona will be less and less well educated. It's not just about this issue of abortion, which is probably something most young women already know about from talking to their friends. Some Southern states have highly sanitized text books on race relations, the Civil War, and civil liberties under the Constitution also. As it was, very little of the things like the internment of Japanese US citizens were in my history textbooks rather than a glorified idea of America which is responsible for our aggressive stance against other nations in this century.

If those soon to be voting young citizens don't read on their own widely and freely, they will be ignorant of a great deal of basic information. They won't respond with disgust at the propagandizing of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” which, though mocked by Republicans, exists to this day with the goal of keeping the common people under their political, economic and philosophical thumbs. Their language is the language of religion and patriotism, but their goals are to destroy democracy in this country starting with the Middle Class and the poor, while keeping the structure of the government intact as long as it serves their purposes. There are those among today's Republicans who still want to make the public school system “die on the vine” by cutting off its funding and who would like to starve the Social Security system by allowing young workers to put their money into an individual retirement account instead of Social Security. They don't want a large part of the American population to be well educated, that way their factories and coal mines could pay people very low wages while making megabucks to stuff in the CEO's and owners' pockets. This is why I vote and speak as I do – the right wing needs to be fought to the end, or we can kiss our freedom of speech and religion and all the other rights, too, goodbye.







Brain Training May Help Calm The Storms Of Schizophrenia – NPR
By AMY STANDEN
November 03, 2014

Reality, if you think about it, is a kind of social contract. You and I might be strangers, but we agree, at least at a really basic level, on what is real.

So when you talk to someone who isn't signed onto that same contract, it's kind of unsettling.

"What do the gloves do?"

I'm asking a guy named George about the thin plastic hospital gloves he was wearing when we met. "It's so the cosmic dust doesn't get on my hands," is his reply.

I met George at the Citywide Mental Health Center in San Francisco's tenderloin district. It's the type of place where men wearing unseasonable winter parkas loiter around the entrance smoking cigarettes.

The clinic let me come in and talk to its clients on the condition that I won't use their last names. Staff there says that part of looking out for their patients' best interests is protecting their privacy – something that's also required under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act - HIPPA.

George was upstairs, in a computer room. He's in his 50s, with neatly combed hair and faded tattoos on his forearms.

And when I spoke to him, he told me he saw flashes of light coming from my mouth.

"It looks like yellow, with light pinkish color."

When I asked him if he's always seen colors when people speak, he told me he has, and that seeing the colors helps him understand life and makes him feel superior.

I'm not proud of it, but this conversation made me uncomfortable.

It was something about the particular way that George drifted back and forth between delusions and reality that was unsettling.

And that's partly why when antipsychotic drugs were invented in the 1960s, they seemed revolutionary.

Up until that point, the treatments for schizophrenia were pretty draconian, says Dr. Sophia Vinogradov, a psychiatrist and researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

"Wrapping them in wet towels, locking them in a padded cell, frontal lobotomies if the behavior was really out of control," she says.

"So when anti-psychotic medications did evolve and they did reduce psychotic symptoms, it was like the heavens had opened."

Antipsychotic drugs are good at tamping down the kinds of symptoms that scare people — those strange beliefs and visions. And to be clear, for a lot of people this is a lifesaver.

But for others, the drugs don't work that well. They can have bad side effects, make people gain weight, have tremors or get slow and sleepy. Some people with schizophrenia say they don't want to get rid of their hallucinations because they are a part of who they are.

And for Vinogradov and other researchers who study the disease, the antipsychotics aren't really getting at the disease itself. They are just treating one symptom of it.

"We haven't been addressing these underlying cognitive dysfunctions which are really at the heart of what impede people's ability to have a fulfilling and successful life," says Vinogradov.

This is important, but it's a little bit complicated. So let's back up.

Schizophrenia, the word, means literally "split mind." And that's how people usually think of schizophrenia, as a disease defined by weird ideas, like believing in cosmic dust. Or that the FBI is following you.

But this public perception of schizophrenia hasn't kept up with the science. When you talk to scientists today who study the disease, these weird beliefs are not what they emphasize.

If you want to really understand schizophrenia, look instead to how the disease begins, says Dr. Daniel Mathalon, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco.

"Kids seem to be growing up OK. But somewhere, typically in the teenage years, you start to see a decline in their functioning," he says. "They were doing better in school, now they're doing worse. They may have they had friends when they're younger, but they're starting to be more socially isolated."

This stage in life is supposed to be a time when the intellect flourishes. But for teenagers who go on to develop schizophrenia, the opposite can happen. They start to lose focus. Some say they used to be able to read books and now they can't. They used to be able to play the guitar well and now they can't.

At its core, schizophrenia is a decline in basic brain functioning, says Mathalon and others. Abilities like memory and basic motor skills start to falter. It's almost like a dementia that hits young people.

Then there's what scientists call "salience."

Someone without schizophrenia can hear a car alarm go off in the distance and barely register it. The brain instantly knows that the car alarm isn't salient. You can ignore it.

But for some people with schizophrenia, says Vinogradov, it's as if the filter is broken.

"They are walking down the street trying to have a conversation and their brain is being flooded with the sound of the door slamming, the airplane going overhead."

The brain of someone with schizophrenia tries to process all that information as though it has meaning, says Vinogradov. And maybe, though this is just a theory, this onslaught of extra stuff, extra data – that is what gives rise to hallucinations.

"It tries to make sense of it so that the person can go about with their life," says Vinogradov. "And there's some evidence to suggest that that's what gives rise to delusional ideas, to paranoia, to hallucinatory activity."

Considered this way, schizophrenia is a disease in which the stream of consciousness has swollen into a tsunami.

This seems to be the case with Paul, another guy I met at the clinic. Paul is an Asian man in his 50s whose conversation is hard to follow.

"Punjab, Punjab, Punjab," Paul keeps repeating. Then: "I've never been to India, but I saw pictures of it, books. You go places you never been like books." Pretty soon he's talking about his brother Kenny, Chuck Norris, Stanley tools, Battlestar Galactica, and on and on.

Everything I say to Paul, or he says to me, triggers a jumble of tangentially related ideas. It's like playing pinball with a machine where the ball never comes back down the chute. It just keeps bouncing around.

So what if you could teach someone like Paul to tune out the distractions in his head, to have a real conversation?

This is what researchers in schizophrenia want to achieve these days. They're less focused on making delusions go away. They want to help people with schizophrenia simply think more clearly.

One way to do this might be with a drug designed to improve memory and basic brain performance. Pharmaceutical companies have been working on this, but without much success, so clinicians are prescribing things that seem to be good for the brain like fish oil pills and exercise.

And at the mental health clinic where I met Paul and George, Vinogradov is conducting a study to see whether the brain can be, essentially, retaught. It uses computer games designed to train people with schizophrenia to tune out distractions and focus on simple instructions.

The idea isn't that video games would replace antipsychotic drugs, at least not for everyone. Vinogradov says there are many people whose voices or delusions are so destructive, so violent, that they need to be turned off. Medication is still the best way to do that.

But for another group of people, these kinds of approaches might let doctors focus on a different set of questions, says Vinogradov. "Is this person able to have the kind of life they want? Are they able to have friends, people they love who can love them back? Are they able to keep food and shelter?"

Voices and beliefs may not be what are getting in the way of that. Simpler problems like memory and focus may be the bigger obstacles to a good quality of life.

Addressing those questions may be a lot more important than whether someone hears voices or not.




“Abilities like memory and basic motor skills start to falter. It's almost like a dementia that hits young people.... Someone without schizophrenia can hear a car alarm go off in the distance and barely register it. The brain instantly knows that the car alarm isn't salient. You can ignore it. But for some people with schizophrenia, says Vinogradov, it's as if the filter is broken.... The brain of someone with schizophrenia tries to process all that information as though it has meaning, says Vinogradov. And maybe, though this is just a theory, this onslaught of extra stuff, extra data – that is what gives rise to hallucinations.... So what if you could teach someone like Paul to tune out the distractions in his head, to have a real conversation? This is what researchers in schizophrenia want to achieve these days. They're less focused on making delusions go away. They want to help people with schizophrenia simply think more clearly."

“... Vinogradov is conducting a study to see whether the brain can be, essentially, retaught. It uses computer games designed to train people with schizophrenia to tune out distractions and focus on simple instructions.... Simpler problems like memory and focus may be the bigger obstacles to a good quality of life. Addressing those questions may be a lot more important than whether someone hears voices or not.” The article states that some delusions and hallucinations are more violent and dangerous than others. Computer games of the right sort and “fish oil pills and exercise” to improve basic brain function are being used on some schizophrenics, rather than trying to get rid of the voices and hallucinations. Helping the schizophrenic to manage distractions may help them concentrate on the important things.

I don't see anything in this article about the basic mechanism by which hallucinations and erratic thinking occur. An article within the last few years stated there is brain degeneration involved. The Net has a number of such articles, though they are too technical to easily understand and explain without more medical knowledge than I have. I went again to my trusty old Wikipedia and found something of interest on similarities between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I quote the following from that article.


“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_bipolar_disorder_and_schizophrenia

Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disordersfourth edition (DSM IV). Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder, and bipolar disorder is a mood disorder but can also involve psychosis (in Bipolar I, not Bipolar II). However, because of some similar symptoms, differentiating between the two can sometimes be difficult, and in fact there is an intermediate diagnosis schizoaffective disorder.

While reported and observed symptoms are a main way to diagnose either disorder, recent research studies are allowing psychiatrists to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to try to find better, definite markers. Through MRIs, the psychiatrists can see specific structural differences in the brain. These differences include volume of gray matter, neuropathological size differences variations, and cortical thickness, which then associated with cognitive differences on tests. These differences may sometimes be seen throughout the lifespan of the diseases, and often occur soon after the initial episode. Although the diseases are different, some of their treatments are similar, because of some shared symptoms.

Both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia appear to result from gene–environment interaction. Evidence from numerous family and twin studies indicates a shared genetic etiology between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.[1][2] Geoffroy, Etain, and Houenou note that the largest family study available found a combined heritability for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia of approximately 60%, with environmental factors accounting for the remainder.[2] Genetic contributions to schizoaffective disorder appear to be entirely shared with those contributing to schizophrenia and mania.[1]

Bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia each occur in approximately 1% of the population; schizoaffective disorder is estimated to occur in less than 1% of the population.[1]

When schizophrenic patients are compared to healthy participants, there is a decrease in gray matter volume in prefrontal and temporal regions.[9][non-primary source needed] The only region in which the volume increases for gray matter is within the rightcerebellum,[9] an area that contributes to the cognitive, affective, perceptual, and other deficits seen in schizophrenia.[10]

Unlike schizophrenia, bipolar disorder has very little differences for gray matter volume.[8][9] Overall, there is no difference between bipolar patients and healthy patients.[9]

Magnetic resonance imaging studies found that schizophrenia is associated with significantly smaller amygdala volume compared to both healthy controls and participants with bipolar disorder.[11

Besides the amygdala, there are other neuropathological areas of degeneration as well; the overall brain volume can also be measured. Research shows that the overall brain volume is not statistically significantly different between bipolar and schizophrenic patients, except when making comparisons in the intracranial volume.[14][non-primary source needed] A larger intracranial volume is present in the brains in bipolar disorder, but no variation occurs in the brains in schizophrenics.[14]





Women Increasingly Pick Brains Over Looks In Choosing Egg Donors – NPR
ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
November 02, 2014

More women than ever are using donor eggs as they keep delaying childbearing until long past the age when their own eggs are healthy. This has helped fuel an increase first-time mothers over 40, whose numbers have quadrupled in the past 30 years.

But as the practice becomes more widespread, women are no longer trying to hide the fact that their babies come from donor eggs by working hard to find donors who are physically or genetically similar to them, a study finds. Instead, the researchers say, recipients tend to look for other qualities, such as intelligence and athletic ability, that they hope to pass on to their children.

The study — archly titled "Beauty, Brains, or Health" — was conducted by physicians at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and the fertility clinic Reproductive Medical Associates of New York. It found that women today are not as focused anymore on a donor's hair and eye color.

The editor-in-chief of the Journal of Women's Health, which published the study, sees this as an indication that using egg donors has become more socially acceptable. Recipients are no longer working hard to try to make a baby who looks like their own biological child, so they can keep the baby's origins something of a family secret.

The shift in what recipients are looking for in egg donors indicates that they've become "more sophisticated" in their choices, according to Dr. Susan Kornstein, the editor. But is it really more sophisticated, though, to go shopping for an egg donor as though shopping for shoes, hoping that traits like intelligence or athletic ability will actually be present in the egg cell's DNA?

The researchers, led by Homero Flores of Reproductive Medical Associates, looked at the choices made by 438 potential egg recipients, aged 24 to 53, over the past five years.

Between 2008 and 2012, the percentage of women who said they wanted an egg donor from a "similar gene pool" declined from 40 percent to 25 percent. At the same time, looking for a baby with a "similar appearance" was relatively rare and held roughly steady, with 15 percent of women in 2008 saying it was important to them, and 22 percent saying so in 2012.

The most important thing that recipients cared about was the same thing mothers have cared about since time immemorial — the baby's health. Nearly three-quarters of the women in the Mt. Sinai study said the health of the egg donor was a crucial factor in making their decision.

But other factors were also important, and became more so during the five years of the study.

From 2008 to 2012, the percent of women who cared about a donor's "intelligence" increased from 18 percent to 55 percent, and the percent who cared about "athletic ability" increased from 1 percent to 17 percent.

Flores and his co-authors saw this as a good thing, a sign that recipients became more focused on "practical traits that would serve their offspring's overall quality of life." This assumes, of course, that "practical traits" can be passed along quite this easily — that being good at math or at throwing a ball not only enhance one's quality of life but also are inherited.

The preference for egg donors who are not only healthy, but smart and skilled, has been a trend in looking for sperm donors, too, with sperm banks becoming almost as personality-oriented as online dating. Indeed, one online dating site called Beautiful People created its own service a few years ago to matching up gamete donors and would-be recipients.

Hidden in this paper is the fact that 78 percent of the potential egg recipients were over the age of 40. And at least one of them was 53 years old.

This means that there are a lot of women out there in their 40s and even 50s (50s!) who think they still have the option to become pregnant. An argument could be made — a topic for another day — that by the time you pass 45 or so, that perhaps you should be thinking about other ways to satisfy your maternal cravings.




“But as the practice becomes more widespread, women are no longer trying to hide the fact that their babies come from donor eggs by working hard to find donors who are physically or genetically similar to them, a study finds. Instead, the researchers say, recipients tend to look for other qualities, such as intelligence and athletic ability, that they hope to pass on to their children.... The most important thing that recipients cared about was the same thing mothers have cared about since time immemorial — the baby's health. Nearly three-quarters of the women in the Mt. Sinai study said the health of the egg donor was a crucial factor in making their decision. But other factors were also important, and became more so during the five years of the study.... This assumes, of course, that "practical traits" can be passed along quite this easily — that being good at math or at throwing a ball not only enhance one's quality of life but also are inherited.”

“From 2008 to 2012, the percent of women who cared about a donor's 'intelligence' increased from 18 percent to 55 percent, and the percent who cared about 'athletic ability' increased from 1 percent to 17 percent.” I'm surprised but pleased to see that so few of these women chose for athletic ability over intelligence – only 17%. I want to see earth's population become more and more intelligent so that we become as a result more “logical” and more able to retain and process information. Studying to be a lawyer or doctor requires a high intelligence. Unless there is a massive failure in society, the role of technology will continue to eliminate more and more jobs that people used to do with their hands, so they will need to learn the technicalities of computers or engineering. As the oncoming age of global warming produces more and more environmental challenges we will need scientists and citizens who understand science enough to help -- be “a part of the solution rather than the problem.”

Intelligence plays a part in how we get along with others, too. A good healthy family background is also crucial, of course, because a child who was sexually or psychologically abused will most likely have mental health problems. Some criminals are bright, but emotionally damaged, but if they are intelligent enough they may be able to think their way into a healthier personality, especially with therapy. Prisons usually administer psychotrophic drugs and antidepressants, but I don't know how many of them employ psychologists for talk therapy. For that reason I think prisons should should be required to include therapeutic and rehabilitative aspects rather than merely “keeping the prisoners off the streets” and punishing them for their wrongs. I think that is why so many young kids are delinquents, but when they grow up they mature enough to fit in without so much conflict and learn to love rather than hate. If a religion is practiced on its principles __ “Love thy neighbor as thyself” – rather than on its theology and dogma it can help these people to change for the better, teaching them empathy with others and to think deeply on issues such as ethics. Confucianism, for instance, has no deity but it teaches ethics and a philosophical way of life.

Finally, to have a fully free, inclusive and productive society, we all need to be able to think beyond our lowest instincts. The hatred of the “other” – those with slanted eyes and darker skin, or of the mentally deficient or emotionally disturbed people who will inevitably occur in any group of people. That was a good thing in prehistoric times in that it increased group unity and possibly tended to produce more genes without genetic disorders. It also, however, is the main cause of bullying and other evils, and of course war. If the urge to compete to the last drop of blood we have in us could be reduced in society, we would be so much better off. We need more philosophers among us who are benign – not like those who have spawned evil beliefs like Nazism – and more average citizens who think deeply and seek goodness.

We need such citizens to keep our democracy improving rather than going backward. My problem with “conservatism” is that it's always headed toward a fondly remembered past rather than a better and more just future – the good old days of white dominance in the South, for instance. Black people “knew their place” in those days. Phrases like “mud race” are appalling to me, and they crop up every now and then still in the news. Human beings need to think their way into a better way of interrelating or we won't have a democracy based on things like freedom and universal prosperity anymore. In fact, the very worst of the “conservatives” will take over and we will find ourselves with a new Hitler, in the White House and not in a foreign country.