Sunday, October 30, 2011

Economics, NY Times, National Security State, Heritage Foundation policies to transfer of wealth from the Middleclass

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Economics, NY Times, National Security State, Heritage Foundation policies to transfer of wealth from the Middleclass to themselves and the top one percent, Chris Hayes rare example of exceptional journalism on television.

Books Keynes Hayek, Abramson, Top Secret America, Ohio Repubs Ground Zero, Chris Hayes (future book)


George Orwell's prescient prediction of how wealth and power will takeover nations is coming close to fruition where the congressional and Presidential elections already tainted in Ohio and Florida in 2,000 and 2004, are being more aggressively pursued. The strategy is basically to keep fewer Democrats from voting and keep them as ignorant as possible with unlimited corporate and wealthy money to win elections.

As we had seen during the Great Depression, even President Franklin D. Roosevelt had his election problems in 1936 after a landslide in 1932. He lost the House even worst than Obama! In both cases the wrong party was blamed.

Hayek knew when he wrote his books on economics that even then financials were too complex to understand and it is even more difficult to understand now so most economists use mathematics to make predictions, often with wrong simplifying assumptions. About the most predictable result is that most of the time they are wrong! If only Einstein developed The Theory of Economics too!

Both Hoover and Obama made the bailout the banks mistake, largely because of Obama's inexperience and Hoover's ideology, by not nationalizing all the Big Banks and dismantling them. Now these same banks, knowing that Obama has wised up, are spending their enormous wealth to defeat him in November 2011 thanks to the very corporate friendly Roberts', Alito's, Scalia's, and Thomas' Supreme Court.

Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction awarded to John Grisham

John Grisham

About the Program


John Grisham accepts the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. After accepting the award the author speaks about being a lawyer and the role that law plays in contemporary fiction with a panel that includes, novelists David Baldacci, Linda Fairstein, and Thane Rosenbaum, Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate, lawyer Robert Grey, Jr, and Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The event takes place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.


About the Authors

John Grisham


John Grisham is the author of over twenty novels and the nonfiction title, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. He formerly practiced law in Mississippi for ten years and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990. For more information, visit jgrisham.com. (I am now reading The Litigators and The Confession Jim)

If you are interested in the Renaissance, try reading the popular The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by David Greenblat





Economist USA editor, Matthew Bishop, interviews Nicholas Wapshott on his book "Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics," Based on other books, the truth is that Hayek worshipped Keynes and only developed an alternative theory to get more credit for being a top level economist. Just like the conservatives selectively quote from Hayek's book including Churchill and Cameron, they also selectively quote from The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, and ignore the complementary The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Most worthwhile books on economics are difficult to read so they largely get unread in its entirety and some may use to index to support their views.

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This week on Q&A, Jill Abramson discusses her new position as executive editor of The New York Times, as well as her new book, “The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout.” The book is a personal narrative describing her serious injuries after being hit by a truck while walking in Times Square, and her recovery with a new puppy named “Scout.”

Abramson discusses her career in journalism, her motivation for writing, and her rise to her current position of executive editor at The Times. She speaks about the explosion of choices readers now face for obtaining news and information. She firmly asserts that The New York Times is more irreplaceable than ever because of its authority and the quality of the paper’s journalism. She relates the work done behind the scenes of some of the major stories covered by the paper, including the scandal surrounding former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. In addition, Abramson shares her vision of changes she wishes to make at the paper, including an overall shortening of story length, where possible.

Jill Abramson is the first woman to serve as executive editor at The New York Times in the paper’s 160 year history. She received her B.A. in History and Literature from Harvard in 1976. She was a senior staff reporter for The American Lawyer and then became editor in chief of Legal Times. She joined the Washington bureau of The Wall Street Journal in 1988 and eventually became the deputy bureau chief. She joined The New York Times as Washington bureau chief, and in 2003 became the paper’s managing editor. She was appointed executive editor in September, 2011. MORE »

  • Q&A: Watch at 11pm (ET) on

Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State, Dana Priest, William Arkin/Little, Brown & Co ... A decade of terrorism warnings about possible attacks in the United States had convinced (Wheel-chaired 76 year old) Whiteman that she had much to fear. Walking through a body scanner without her wheelchair was a small price to pay for safety. Never mind that no terrorist had ever fit her profile or been foiled walking through a security scanner. Never mind that the Department of Homeland Security, which was responsible for setting airport security policy, was ridiculed by people at every other intelligence agency because it hadn’t learned to hone its focus and still saw threats everywhere.

The scene of Joy Whiteman holding herself up with the walls of the body scanner while a crew of security guards, paid by taxpayers, made sure she didn’t fall, seemed a perfect metaphor for what has transpired in the United States over the past ten years. Having been given a steady diet of vague but terrifying information from national security officials about the possibility of dirty bombs, chemical weapons, biotoxins, exploding airliners, and suicide bombers, a nation of men and women like the Whitemans have shelled out hundreds of billions dollars to turn the machine of government over to defeating terrorism without ever really questioning what they were getting for their money. And even if they did want an answer to that question, they would not be given one, both because those same officials have decided it would gravely harm national security to share such classified information— and because the officials themselves don’t actually know. ... http://www.alternet.org/story/152855/top_secret_america%3A_the_rise_of_the_new_american_security_state?akid=7790.244053.mLgWZt&rd=1&t=12

Ohio: Ground Zero for Conservatives' Soul Crushing Agenda

A look inside John Kasich's Ohio, where workers make minimum wage, live under threat of layoff, and many spend every day on the verge of desperation.READ MORE

Mac McClelland / Mother Jones

... If the sign at the edge of town is to be believed, Gahanna is one of the Top 100 Places to Live. The Columbus suburb is a lot like the Cleveland suburb I grew up in. Green. Sprawly. Solidly middle-class, chock-full of shopping centers. And Erin and Anthony's house is a lot like a lot of houses around it, a modest split-level with a big front yard and a deck in the back. In the wedding pictures on the walls, Erin's got short blond hair. Currently, her locks are chin length and closer in color to the chocolate corduroy couch on which we sit while, on the floor before us, Jocelyn makes herself the center of a four-foot radius of toys. Erin's beaming in the photos, and that's pretty much what she usually looks like, pretty teeth bared, shiny cheeks. She still feels warm and open even as her face creases with anxiety and she says, "When we bought our house, we basically wiped out our savings." The only reason there's any money left in the bank at all is because of the rebate from President Obama's first-time homebuyer's credit program. Because the house, like most people's houses, isn't paid for, and neither is Anthony's car, like many people's cars, the prospect that Anthony might have only three more paychecks coming is making Erin "not fine," though she's "trying to be fine." When we were in college, we all had these fabulous plans. Or at least plans to be supersecure once we found careers. To make a living and then…live. Erin blames the governor for her doubts now. She calls him some unsavory names.

A lot of people are doing that. A couple of weeks ago, a poll showed the approval ratings of John Kasich, the newly elected Republican governor, at 33 percent. Once upon a time Kasich was a United States congressman, before he left in 2001 to become a managing director at Lehman Brothers, where he worked until it imploded and destroyed a bunch of lives in 2008. On the side, he hosted his own show on Fox News, as well as frequently guest-hosting The O'Reilly Factor and appearing on the Sean Hannity vehicles. He took office in January, and his approval ratings have been abysmal since March, something to do, no doubt, with the release of his proposed budget for fiscal years 2012-13. ... http://www.alternet.org/story/152853/ohio%3A_ground_zero_for_conservatives%27_soul_crushing_agenda?akid=7790.244053.mLgWZt&rd=1&t=4

TV's Wasteland of News by David Sirota,
http://www.alternet.org/story/152904/up_with_chris_hayes%3A_tv_that_deserves_the_name_%22journalism%22_?akid=7790.244053.mLgWZt&rd=1&t=21 ... By contrast, Hayes’ show joins a variety of programs, from Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” to Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” to Thom Hartmann’s “The Big Picture,” in rejecting this suffocating model. If it succeeds, it will play a huge role in creating a new model that will serve journalism and the citizenry far better than today’s vast television wasteland. ...

So when I was asked to appear on MSNBC last Saturday morning, my initial thought was, “Thanks, but no thanks.” But then I realized it was a new show hosted by Chris Hayes, a journalist whose work I’ve long admired. So I said yes. And crack-of-dawn fatigue aside, I’m glad I did, because to my surprise, I ended up getting the chance to participate in one of the best television programs on the air.

“Up With Chris Hayes,” which broadcasts Saturday and Sunday mornings, purposely rejects the manufactured red-versus-blue mallet that bludgeons every issue into partisan terms. Instead, the program’s host is creating a space for more expansive discussions with voices typically deemed too unconventional, provocative or dangerous to be allowed anywhere near a television set.

The panel I appeared on exemplified Hayes’ effort. Out of five in-studio guests appearing to discuss the death of Moammar Gadhafi, the Iraq war and the Arab Spring, one was Iraqi author Zainab Salbi, one was Libyan author Hisham Matar and one was Palestinian-American comedian Dean Obeidallah. (Arabs being asked for their opinion on events in the Arab world — what a concept!) Amazingly (and refreshingly), in a cable world dominated by crotchety Caucasians, NBC News’ foreign correspondent Richard Engel and I were the only white dudes on the panel.

Even more incredible was the show’s ideological openness. Just one example: We had a discussion about the notion of America as an empire — a concept pervasive throughout the globe that Engel nonetheless couldn’t believe was being discussed on American television. He was right to be surprised. Though it should be standard, a cable program that both explores hugely taboo questions and includes a diverse set of voices is something you rarely see in this country.

For American news consumers, Hayes’ show is a terrific, better-late-than-never development. But the fact that “Up” is groundbreaking is also something of a sad commentary on the larger media.

For the most part, TV remains exactly as Hunter S. Thompson once described it: a “cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free …” In that hallway’s current cable form, “national news” is a euphemism for New York- and D.C.-focused content engineered primarily by a closed ecosystem of East Coast elites who believe the only things that matter are Manhattan gossip and Beltway games. This is why you almost always see the same vapid pundits and the same homogenized topics on TV — because this clique is hostile to diverse viewpoints and uses its privilege to make sure media debates represent only the elites’ myopic perspective.

By contrast, Hayes’ show joins a variety of programs, from Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” to Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” to Thom Hartmann’s “The Big Picture,” in rejecting this suffocating model. If it succeeds, it will play a huge role in creating a new model that will serve journalism and the citizenry far better than today’s vast television wasteland.

David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover and The Uprising. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Supreme Court Blame Roberts’ Inequality Assured Corporate Favored Rulings

Tags: Roberts' Supreme Court, Slate's Dahlia Dahlia Lithwick, Chris Hayes, Citizens United Ruling Not the Worst Decision


Rachel Maddow’s favorite guest is Dahlia Lithwick of www.slate.com when matters of law are concerned. www.slate.com/authors/dahlia_lithwick.html Today, as a guest on the superb news program Up With Chris Hayes had a very stimulating and well argued show with a bright and open minded approach except for the one Republican on the panel. This was the first Republican on Up with Chris Hayes who spouted ideology as David Brooks did on Meet the Press in his smooth talking manner without answering the question honestly. In contrast in his more honest book, The Social Animal, he had to admit in his book that logic is not so logical at all, since we use logic to support our beliefs.


Our first instinct no matter the situation is to survive. We do what is necessary to keep our jobs even though it means sacrificing some of our core principles and beliefs. Congress persons and executives do the same thing by doing what they would not even consider doing to their family, friends, or neighbors. Even serial psychopathic killers behave as good neighbors to provide a cover as we have found repeatedly.


The same can be said for House and Senate members who do not agree with the more radical elements of their party, but they do vote in high numbers in the primaries, so they vote with the minority views. That is how the radical Christian Right hijacked the Republican party.


Corporate supported Think Tanks such as the Heritage Foundation which came up from Gingrich supporting a view in the past that does not coincide with the radical right now.


In 2,000, I tried to tell everyone I could talk to even before I started using the Internet at home, that it was obvious to me that electing Bush would be a disaster because he would put corporate conservatives into the Supreme Court. As a Republican, I voted for McCain of old in the primary. When Bush won, I immediately supported Democrats and worked hard to get rid of one of the managers in the House who led the Impeachment of President Clinton by campaigning for a conservative Democrat, a former state Senator, Adam Schiff. He has been reelected and is still a House member with a more Pelosi liberal point of view now.


Dahlia Lithwick discusses what the Supreme Court did to our country with their decision. Yes, it is well worth reading the whole column.

The Supreme Court run by Roberts and Scalia previously not only illegally installed Bush as President by stopping the Florida recount which the newspapers determined went to Gore easily, still hold to the corporate view that Bush won because they only saw the headlines in the New York Times by a corporate editor who has since been fired. The current executive editor, Jill Abramson often clashed with Raines, the former editor, somehow survived due to those above Raines.


Jim Kawakami, October 23, 2011, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com


From OWS to OSCOTUS

As Occupy Wall Street protesters look to the Supreme Court, they’ll find more to be outraged about than the Citizens United case.

By Dahlia Lithwick|Posted Monday, Oct. 17, 2011, at 7:12 PM ET

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/10/oscotus_what_ows_protesters_should_focus_on_at_the_supreme_court.single.html


The protesters at Occupy Wall Street and all the mini-occupations that have sprung up around the country in recent days have started to connect two important dots. Blaming Congress for the corporate takeover of American democracy is only half the fun; blaming the Supreme Court is almost better. So when Cornel West was arrested Sunday at an impromptu protest on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, his message was a simple one that may be starting to resonate: If you don’t like big corporations buying and selling your government, you may want to go talk to the five-justice majority who gave us the Citizens United decision.


There is only one small problem with this argument. The corporate takeover of government predates the Citizens United ruling, issued in 2010, by many, many years. Moreover, while the ruling certainly opened up the possibility that future elections will be affected by the flood of corporate money into political campaigns, most empirical studies of the 2010 elections still show that the actual impact of Citizens United was actually quite limited.


Many of the worst aspects of our money-saturated campaigns (like the role of 501(c)4’s) were already legal before Citizens United, and the holding in the case didn’t change them. The stuff you want to really worry about with big money and elections, such as the failure to disclose who you’re buying, is unaffected by Citizens United. Things may well get much uglier in future elections. But they’d have been ugly with or without the court’s intercession. So if you want to get mad at the Supreme Court for the role it has played in insulating and empowering American corporations, realize that Citizens United is largely a symbolic target. It is not the most important aspect of the Roberts court and its affinity for big business. ... Link above.


Thursday, October 20, 2011

Health Breast HER2 Cancer, C-diff Kills Autism Causes, Alzheimer’s BP ACE Inhibitors 50% Less

Tags: Health Breast HER2 Cancer, C-diff Kills, Autism Causes, Alzheimer's BP ACE Inhibitor 50% Less, Omega-3 FA Osteoarthritis Cure


Protein That Fuels Lethal Breast Cancer Growth Emerges as Potential New Drug Target


ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017124243.htm

A protein in the nucleus of breast cancer cells that plays a role in fueling the growth of aggressive tumors may be a good target for new drugs, reports a research team at the Duke Cancer Institute.


The finding, published in the Oct. 18, 2011, print issue of the journal Cancer Cell, presents a potential new way to inhibit breast cancer growth among so-called estrogen receptor negative cancers, which are especially lethal because they don't respond to current hormone therapies.


"This is validation of a new drug target for a subset of breast cancers that have poor treatment options," said the study's senior author, Donald McDonnell, PhD., chairman of the Duke Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology.

In about 75 percent of breast cancers, the growth of tumors is driven by estrogen. Current treatments for these tumors work by blocking the effects of the hormone.


But about 25 percent of breast cancers are not fueled by estrogen. Among the most common malignancies in this category are HER2-positive tumors, where human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 is in excess on the surface of tumor cells. Treatments have been developed to disable the activity of HER2 and impede tumor growth, but the tumors often grow resistant.


McDonnell and his team focused on a protein inside the nucleus of tumor cells that has a relationship with HER2. Known as estrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRα), the protein was identified in the 1980s and misleadingly dubbed an estrogen receptor. It is not; instead, it controls genes involved in energy metabolism.


But ERRα does appear to play a role in spurring tumor growth in breast cancers. Using a genomic analysis to profile 800 breast tumors, McDonnell's team identified a correlation between the activity of the protein and the aggressiveness of estrogen-negative malignancies.


"When that ERRα receptor is active, the outcome of these patients is much, much worse," McDonnell said. "The question is why?"


The protein appears to ignite tumor growth after getting a signal from different hormone receptors. One trigger is HER2, the growth factor receptor, and another is IGF-1R, which binds to an insulin-like hormone. As a result, ERRα is active in all breast cancer tumors where either HER2 or IGF-1R is also active, a scenario that occurs most frequently in estrogen receptor negative cancers.


Using a drug candidate that is still investigational, the scientists found they could shut down ERRα in cellular models of breast cancer even without knowing everything that was causing its activation. By silencing ERRα with the experimental drug in laboratory tests, the researchers stopped the tumor cells from proliferating. …



Infection: How Hospitals Are Breeding Grounds for Superbugs You've Never Even Heard Of


We don't think of hospitals as places where we can get sick. But that's what they are, far more commonly than the healthcare industry wants us to know.


Anneli Rufus, www.alternet.org October 19, 2011 |

Hospitalized for pneumonia, Lisa Thayer's mother was suddenly gripped with painful cramps and a bout of diarrhea that Thayer calls "explosive."


"It had a horribly distinctive smell -- a gross almost-sweetness that made me close my eyes. The hospital staff recognized it immediately," says Thayer, a Houston architect. "They said, 'Uh oh. It's C-diff.'" …

An infected person's feces contain bacteria that form sturdy disinfectant-resistant spores that can survive in the open for five months. A hand touches a contaminated surface, then enters a mouth. Think you're not eating shit? In hospitals, you quite possibly are.

According to a recent article in American Family Physician, 13 percent of patients hospitalized for up to two weeks catch Clostridium difficile, as do 50 percent of those hospitalized for four weeks or more. But you needn't be a patient to catch C-diff. All you need do is visit a hospital.

Over the last decade, C-diff has morphed into a superbug. A new epidemic strain emerged in 2004 that is now making C-diff ever more virulent, drug-resistant, prevalent and lethal. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that C-diff kills nearly 30,000 people in America every year. Some experts call this a low estimate. …

C-diff is the meanest new microbial kid on the block. … Children, seniors and people with health problems -- especially those taking antibiotics or undergoing chemotherapy -- face the highest risk of contracting C-diff when visiting hospitals.

"But anyone can develop C-diff if the spores enter their mouth," says former New York State Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey, who combats HAIs through her advocacy group, the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. "Visiting a hospital recently, I saw a child in the elevator eating French fries and touching all the surfaces. I wished that I could explain to the parents that these invisible C-diff spores are on everything."

That is, everything that infected people's feces have touched. And those explosive, watery C-diff feces have a knack for traveling. We're talking walls, sinks, toilets, linens, light switches, furniture, wheelchairs, drapes, handles, knobs, telephones, trays, uniforms, buttons, doors and floors. Standard cleaning methods with alcohol and ammonia products won't kill C-diff spores; pretty much only bleach can.

"Don't bother using alcohol-based hand sanitizers," McCaughey warns. "They won't work. Wash with soap and water -- but even then, you're not killing the germs. Soap doesn't kill them. You're just washing them down the drain. …

McCaughey exhorts hospital administrators to enforce rigorous cleaning protocols and discourage children from visiting. She applauds the 27 state laws now on the books requiring hospitals to track and disclose their HAI rates. Delaware's Hospital Infections Disclosure Act, for example, penalizes noncompliant hospitals with fines and yanks their licenses. …

http://www.alternet.org/story/152786/infection%3A_how_hospitals_are_breeding_grounds_for_superbugs_you%27ve_never_even_heard_of?page=entire

Resistance to empiric antimicrobial treatment predicts outcome in severe sepsis associated with gram-negative bacteremia.

J Hosp Med. 2011; 6(7):405-10 (ISSN: 1553-5606)

Micek ST; Welch EC; Khan J; Pervez M; Doherty JA; Reichley RM; Hoppe-Bauer J; Dunne WM; Kollef MH
Pharmacy Department, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri.

BACKGROUND: Gram-negative bacteria are an important cause of severe sepsis. Recent studies have demonstrated reduced susceptibility of Gram-negative bacteria to currently available antimicrobial agents.

METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study of patients with severe sepsis who were bacteremic with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter species, or Enterobacteriaceae from 2002 to 2007. Patients were identified by the hospital informatics database and pertinent clinical data (demographics, baseline severity of illness, source of bacteremia, and therapy) were retrieved from electronic medical records. All patients were treated with antimicrobial agents within 12 hours of having blood cultures drawn that were subsequently positive for bacterial pathogens. The primary outcome was hospital mortality.

RESULTS: A total of 535 patients with severe sepsis and Gram-negative bacteremia were identified. Hospital mortality was 43.6%, and 82 (15.3%) patients were treated with an antimicrobial regimen to which the causative pathogen was resistant. Patients infected with a resistant pathogen had significantly greater risk of hospital mortality (63.4% vs 40.0%; P < 0.001). In a multivariate analysis, infection with a pathogen that was resistant to the empiric antibiotic regimen, increasing APACHE II scores, infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, healthcare-associated hospital-onset infection, mechanical ventilation, and use of vasopressors were independently associated with hospital mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: In severe sepsis attributed to Gram-negative bacteremia, initial treatment with an antibiotic regimen to which the causative pathogen is resistant was associated with increased hospital mortality. This finding suggests that rapid determination of bacterial susceptibility could influence treatment choices in patients with severe sepsis potentially improving their clinical outcomes. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2011. © 2011 Society of Hospital Medicine. http://reference.medscape.com/medline/abstract/21916003?src=nlbest

Autism Brain Development Low-Fat Diet Avoiding Sun Using Sunscreen Too Much

Dr. Stephanie Seneff, Posted by Dr. Mercola, October 19, 2011, www.mercola.com http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/19/vitamin-d3-sulfate-exposure-recipe-for-disaster-part-1.aspx?e_cid=20111019_DNL_art_2

Just about everyone in America is convinced of two well-established tenets for how to live a long and healthy life:

  • Eat a low-fat diet
  • Avoid the damaging rays of the sun

My goal in this essay is to convince you that these two tenets, taken together, are extremely bad medical advice, and that the consequences of our government's success in selling this well-intended but misguided recommendation to the American public are devastating and long-lasting, particularly to our nation's children.

In fact, I have now formed a mental profile of the prototypical mother of an autistic child: she would be a woman who is extremely conscientious about avoiding foods that are high in fat content.

She would be very vigilant to protect herself from the harmful rays of the sun whenever she ventures outside, and she would be very careful to stay pencil thin and to keep herself physically fit.

In short, to most Americans, she would be the epitome of good health.

How Diet and Sun Exposure May Impact Your Chances of Having Autistic Child

The onset of menstruation will not occur until the body fat content rises above 17 percent. Young female athletes often find that menstruation is delayed, or that their menstrual periods are suddenly shut down, likely because their exercise has upset the ratio of muscle to fat to the point where Mother Nature considers it a bad bet to risk a pregnancy. Ballet dancers and gymnasts, who must stay thin but still be very strong, are at great risk of having their menstrual cycles shut down completely [1]. Human biology wants fat not just on the person, but also in the diet, if a pregnancy is in the wings.

This fact has been proven quite conclusively by a recent analysis of data from the Nurses' Health Study, an ambitious long-term study involving over 18,000 nurses, which has yielded a wealth of data on issues related to women's health.

Dr. Jorge Chavarro at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data on their dietary practices over an eight year period, and looked for correlations with various health issues (Dairy Fat Fertility). Of all the dietary associations that were investigated, the one associating fat in dairy consumption with fertility gave the most striking and statistically significant results. Women who said they ate low-fat diary (e.g., skim milk and low-fat yogurt) increased their risk of infertility by 85 percent, whereas women who consistently ate high-fat dairy (whole milk and ice cream) decreased their risk by 27 percent [2].

Consider this: chicken eggs are now considered "unhealthy" due to their high concentration of cholesterol.

They are also one of the best food sources of vitamin D. This is to say, a mother hen supplies her unborn chick with nutritional supplements that include a rich supply of cholesterol and a rich supply of vitamin D. Cow's milk is also high in fat, unless it's been manipulated into skim milk, and would be high in natural vitamin D if it weren't pasteurized (the high temperature destroys the vitamin D).

We now artificially restore synthetic vitamin D to replace what's been destroyed by pasteurization, a process that can't work well with skim milk, since vitamin D is only soluble in fat, and there is none.

We can conclude that a mother cow loads up the milk she feeds to her newborn calf with fats and vitamin D. Even fish supply their offspring with plenty of vitamin D and cholesterol, as evidenced by the fact that caviar (fish eggs) is high in fat and a good source of vitamin D. Human milk has an even higher fat content than cow's milk; 55 percent of the calories in breast milk are from fat. It would also be loaded with vitamin D if the mother had not aggressively protected herself from the "damaging" rays of the sun. Mother Nature considers it important for newborns, whether chicks or calves or fish or human infants, to be well supplied with fats and vitamin D, in order to assure healthy development.

The most crucial role for both vitamin D and cholesterol in the embryo is in the development of the brain and central nervous system. …

Could Hypertension Drugs Help People With Alzheimer's?


ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017102609.htm Within the next 20 years it is expected the number of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) will double from its current figure of half a million to one million. A new study has looked at whether certain types of drugs used to treat high blood pressure, also called hypertension, might have beneficial effects in reducing the number of new cases of Alzheimer's disease each year.


The team of researchers from the University of Bristol have looked at whether drugs already being used to treat hypertension, particularly ones that specifically reduce the activity of a biochemical pathway, called the renin angiotensin system, might reduce the occurrence of Alzheimer's and another common type of dementia called vascular dementia.

The study, conducted with the support from North Bristol NHS Trust and published online in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, stems from work by one of the team's members, Dr Patrick Kehoe. Dr Kehoe, who is a Reader in Translational Dementia Research and co-leads the Dementia Research Group at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, is a leading authority on the possible role of the renin angiotensin system in Alzheimer's.

This pathway is very important in blood pressure regulation and, for at least a decade, links between hypertension and dementia have been known but poorly understood.

In more recent years it has been shown that certain signals produced by this pathway contribute to a number of the damaging effects often seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. These include memory loss, lowered blood circulation in the brain, higher levels of brain inflammation and increased levels of brain cell death due to reduced oxygen circulation. …


Omega-3 Fatty Acids Shown to Prevent or Slow Progression of Osteoarthritis


ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017111600.htm New research has shown for the first time that omega-3 in fish oil could "substantially and significantly" reduce the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis.


According to the University of Bristol study, funded by Arthritis Research UK and published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, omega-3-rich diets fed to guinea pigs, which naturally develop osteoarthritis, reduced disease by 50 per cent compared to a standard diet.


The research is a major step forward in showing that omega-3 fatty acids, either sourced from fish oil or flax oil, may help to slow down the progression of osteoarthritis, or even prevent it occurring, confirming anecdotal reports and "old wives' tales" about the benefits of fish oil for joint health.


Lead researcher Dr John Tarlton, from the Matrix Biology Research group at the University of Bristol's School of Veterinary Sciences, said classic early signs of the condition, such as the degradation of collagen in cartilage and the loss of molecules that give it shock-absorbing properties, were both reduced with omega-3.


"Furthermore, there was strong evidence that omega-3 influences the biochemistry of the disease, and therefore not only helps prevent disease, but also slows its progression, potentially controlling established osteoarthritis," he said. …


Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Books, Bankers Wall Street Brains Folly of Fools NYT New Editor FT Economy Healthcare, Debt Forgiveness

Tags: Books, Bankers Wall Street Brains Folly of Fools NYT New Editor FT Economy Healthcare, Debt Forgiveness


Our thinking about events are shaped by what the corporate press and media tell us and what they do not tell us. Remember they want to entertain us. The only exceptions are primarily the evening segment of MSNBC and especially Rachel Maddow http://maddowblog.msnbc.com and Ed Schultz http://ed.msnbc.com Lawrence O’Donnell was on Homeland on Showtime on Sunday playing himself.


Ed Schultz and Dylan Ratigan Harsh Words Video

I have stopped watching Ratigan because he tends to criticize Obama for not being liberal enough on every show, and refuses to discuss why Obama needs to do this.

I love Ed Schultz http://ed.msnbc.msn.com/ because he has mucho passion and presents everything clearly. Rachel often recommends her listeners to not miss the best of Ed’s programs. The Right Wing has been attacking Ed Schultz so he must be effective since both CNN and FOX have been criticizing him.

Jim

HuffingtonPost.com, Oct 06, 2011, Ed Schultz and fellow MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan had a very angry exchange on Thursday afternoon.

The two were part of an MSNBC panel analyzing President Obama's Thursday morning press conference. Host Thomas Roberts asked Schultz what he thought of the conference. Schultz was positively giddy, calling it a "home run" for Obama and praising his American Jobs Act. "It's about jobs, it's about jobs right now," he said.

Ratigan was much more downbeat. "Ed, can I ask you a couple of questions?" he said. While Schultz listened, Ratigan said that he didn't think the jobs bill went nearly far enough to solve the unemployment crisis in America. He lamented that Washington could not seem to come up with a bigger solution.

"Don't I and the rest of America have a right to be frustrated with this entire apparatus?" he asked Schultz.

"You're not gonna do this overnight," Schultz said, adding that Obama had been honest about this and that Ratigan seemed to want to wave a "magic wand." Ratigan tried to cut in, causing Schultz to angrily push back. … http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/06/ed-schultz-dylan-ratigan-obama_n_998596.html


Books


The Art and Science of Self-Deception “The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life” Robert Trivers, Harvard Biologist “The problem of why natural selection favors dishonesty to oneself is as poorly understood as it is riveting. … Richard Wrangham Harvard

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement For complex analysis, nothing better than unconscious brain. Financial analysts often fail because they just think logically about what comes to mind then.

How Patients Think, and How They Should

By DANIEL J. LEVITIN

Published: October 7, 2011


Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber, UK

Anthropologists already know that barter was not very significant going back 5,000 years. Jesus trashed the temple because the loans’ interest rate too high.


This was very similar to what our Banks have done to Americans in high interest rates for student lending policies, credit cards, and housing.


Bush Republicans passed the Bankruptcy law that prevented education loans and credit card debt mostly due to medical expenses from declaring bankruptcy.


Our dear IMF is closest to the loan shark Mafia which has impoverished the Third World, and possibly the euro zone by charging increasingly higher interest rates, keeping the money in American banks, and forcing the countries to sell their public assets to corporations.


Argentina is an example of the IMF trashing them when they defaulted on their loans by getting American banks to move all their dollars out in a convoy of armored trucks. Luckily South America had President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela lent them money at reasonable interest rates and saved many countries to get off the yoke of the IMF essentially destroying the influence of the IMF there.


Throughout the ages when debts got too high, much of that was forgiven so the economy would not crash. Our policies and those of Europe makes the economy in recession with high unemployment without adequate safeguards as they have in Europe.


Democracy For The Few, 9th edition, 2011, by Michael Parenti is a book all Americans need to read. Pages 286 Marvelous, clear, writer of this text book for colleges and some high schools. This edition is expensive, but look for the 8th edition which costs less. It explains why we need the bottom 99% demonstrations. His recent book God and His Demons is filled with sparkling insights, sly wit, and beautiful writing of a kind we have come to expect from Michael Parenti. He strips away the virtuous pretenses of self-proclaimed religionists throughout the world, and he does it with evidence and arguments that are historically and biblically informed. A riveting read that I RECOMMEND TO ALL.” Julia Scheeres author of Jesus Land.



“Your Medical Mind,” a kind of sequel to Groopman’s 2007 best seller, “How Doctors Think,” aims to empower patients to become active participants, indeed negotiators, in decisions about their health care. “The path to maintaining or regaining health is not the same for everyone,” Groopman and Hartzband write. “Medicine involves nuanced and personalized decision making by both the patient and the doctor.” I suspect insurance companies, H.M.O.’s and more than a few doctors are going to hate this book. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/your-medical-mind-by-jerome-groopman-and-pamela-hartzband-book-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Groopman%20book&st=cse


October 17, 2011

TOP TEN UNLIKELY OCCUPY WALL STREET SUPPORTERS

Posted by John Cassidy



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2011/10/top-ten-unlikely-occupy-wall-street-supporters.html#ixzz1b4iHnmNb


ANNALS OF COMMUNICATIONS

Changing Times

Jill Abramson takes charge of the Gray Lady.

by Ken Auletta



Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/24/111024fa_fact_auletta#ixzz1b4iXqQwX


Financial Times,

Shannon Bond, Oct 18, 2011 US Producer Prices Rise Sharply, Rising oil costs main factor increasing prices. A 10% rise in the cost of vegetables accounted for 80% of an increase in food prices. Corn prices went up today. Auto sales are having a good year with lean inventories.


Jamil Anderlini in Beijing reports that growth has gone down to 9.1%. Further growth depends strongly on the world economy with inflationary increases of 6% down from about 10% cutting internal Chinese purchases. Of course government supported industries make up most of the firms that are doing well, but continued growth depends strongly on the world economy.


Rahul Jacob in Dongguan and Simon Rabinovitch in Beijing Small and Medium size companies that mentioned about a month ago still relies on loan sharks to build their business. About half are near bankruptcy. It is not known how many have gone this route, but it is estimated to be about 8 percent.


CFTC approves new caps on speculators, Gregory Meyer, Oct 18, 2011 Sweeping new caps on speculation in food, energy, and metals which limits the size of positions in futures and swaps will curb the ability of banks and investment funds ability to trade commodities although some loop holes may have been inserted due to Wall Street pressure.



S&P downgrades Italian debt.


Tom Braithwaite, Goldman Sachs Loss Questions Future, Stock went up sharply today.



Wall Street Occupation This week on Truthdig Radio in association with KPFK: It’s all about Occupy Wall Street, which Pulitzer Prize winner and guest David Cay Johnston says is unlike any movement he’s covered. Also: voices from Occupy L.A., Nomi Prins, Other People’s Money: The Corporate Mugging of America, 2004 (Correct date, formerly at Goldman Sachs), Scott Tucker and the NYPD arrests journalists.

Listen to the show:

SPECIAL TOPIC

CHART: Thanks To The 99 Percent Movement, Media Finally Covering Jobs Crisis And Marginalizing Deficit Hysteria

By Zaid Jilani on Oct 18, 2011 at 2:30 pm


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Raucous protests across the country are refocusing media attention.

Part of the reason economic policymakers have failed to properly address the poor economy is because the nation’s news media has not properly covered the unemployment crisis. For example, at the beginning of August, when Washington, DC was debating the debt ceiling crisis, the national debt dominated the airwaves. While it was appropriate for the media then to be covering the deficit due to the debt ceiling debate at the time, there was a stunning lack of coverage of the jobs crisis. A ThinkProgress review of the media coverage of the last week of July found that the word “debt” was mentioned more than 7,000 times on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, and “unemployed” was only mentioned 75 times: http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/unem.png


Richard Wrangham, Harvard Primatologist

Birth Defects from Monsanto Roundup Weed Killer for Home and GMO Corn, Soybean, Beet Sugar, Canola Oil, etc. Concerns about Monsanto's herbicide, Roundup, are at an all-time high. But according to a new report by Earth Open Source, one of the biggest concerns may be something that you're totally in the dark about, namely birth defects.

Research published last year shows that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, causes birth defects in frogs and chicken embryos at far lower levels than used in agricultural and garden applications.

The malformations primarily affected the:

Is the Brain Good at What It Does?

By CHRISTOPHER CHABRIS

Published: October 14, 2011


The human brain gets a lot of press these days, but not all the publicity has been good. Its reviews are reminiscent of Barack Obama’s during the 2008 presidential campaign, when one side said he was a socialist Muslim foreigner and the other thought he was a savior from on high. To its detractors, the brain is a kludge, a hacked-up device beset with bugs, biases and self-­deceptions that undermine our decision making and well-being at every turn. To its admirers, it contains vast potential we can all unlock to improve our lives, thanks to “neural plasticity” that enables the adult nervous system to change in more dramatic ways than previously thought. Lately, a growing army of Chicken Littles retorts that this very plasticity has been hijacked by the Internet and other forms of technological crack that are rewiring our brains into a state of continual distraction and intellectual torpor. … http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/books/review/is-the-brain-good-at-what-it-does.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all


BRAIN BUGS

How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives

By Dean Buonomano

Illustrated. 310 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $25.95.


NOW YOU SEE IT

How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

By Cathy N. Davidson

342 pp. Viking. $27.95.


THE COMPASS OF PLEASURE

How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good

By David J. Linden

Illustrated. 230 pp. Viking. $26.95.


OPINION

How Medicare Fails the Elderly

By JANE GROSS

Published: October 15, 2011


Jane Gross is a former New York Times reporter and the author of “A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents — and Ourselves.”

HERE is the dirty little secret of health care in America for the elderly, the one group we all assume has universal coverage thanks to the 1965 Medicare law: what Medicare paid for then is no longer what recipients need or want today. … http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/how-medicare-fails-the-elderly.html?pagewanted=all

Unconscious Racism at the University of California, Huffington Post, Bob Samuels, President University Council--AFT, March 9, 2010,

Currently, the University of California appears to be facing several unrelated problems that bring into focus the central issue facing all public universities: how can schools maintain access, affordability, and quality during a time of decreased public support. For many people inside and outside of higher education, the solution to this problem is to push states to increase their funding for higher education; however, this necessary correction is only part of the problem: universities need to not only campaign for more money, but they also have to show that they are using their funds in an effective and efficient manner. Moreover, public universities need to actively fight ethnic and racial conflicts that threaten to arise during times of economic downsizing. …

Racism in the Hidden Brain

In his book, The Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam reviews the latest studies of how racism works, and he documents some surprising findings. One of the more upsetting discoveries is that children as young as three-years-old will associate positive traits with white people and negative traits with black people regardless of the race of the child or the attitudes of the children's parents and teachers. As Vedantam stresses, these associations are learned through cultural experience and continue to exist in the unconscious of people even if these same individuals espouse tolerant and progressive stances on a conscious level. From this perspective, the only way to fight racism is to openly admit that we all harbor racist associations and that we need to become aware of our unconscious tendencies.

Another interesting finding that Vedantam analyzes is the notion that people equate blackness to crime and welfare on an unconscious level. In reviewing several psychological tests that are based on word and picture associations, we are confronted with the fact that even if politicians do not mention race when discussing crime and welfare, people draw associations between deviance and blackness in their hidden minds, and these associations often determine how people vote.

Racism and Pop Culture

While the election of Barack Obama might make us think that we have moved beyond these race-based prejudices, the recent events at the University of California, San Diego reveal how we cannot simply escape unconscious racism. For example, after a fraternity held a party dubbed the "Compton Cookout," which invited people to come dressed in stereotypical ghetto attire, the students who came up with this idea said that it was only a joke, and they meant no harm. Moreover, they added that they got their ideas from popular culture, and so they were only playing on stereotypes that black actors and rappers portray themselves.

As Vedantam's research shows, the first problem with these students' attempt to deny wrongdoing is that they fail to see how popular culture maintains and circulates racist stereotypes. In other words, from the perspective of the hidden, unconscious mind, there is no such thing as a joke, and, even if people do not consciously intend to offend, they are drawing from an unconscious reservoir of offensive associations. Here, we see how we cannot base personal responsibility solely on what people intend in a conscious way; rather, people must be held accountable for their unconscious associations.

Unconscious Racism

A week after the Compton Cookout created a stir, a noose was found in the main library at UCSD, and several events were held by the administration to address the growing sense of racial conflict. While these interventions were well intended, they failed to get to the root of the problem, which is how do we teach people not to act on their unconscious racist beliefs. This need for education was evident when the student who placed the noose in the library explained that she did not intend to do any harm, and she did not think about the racial significance of the noose.

Whether you accept or do not accept her explanation, it is important to examine how a university student could be unaware of the cultural association tying the noose to racism. On one level, we can blame her education, but on another level, we have to look at the fact that our stereotypes are both unconscious and social; in other words, we share a common language, but we don't even admit that this language exists. … http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-samuels/unconscious-racism-at-the_b_491817.html