A serial accumulation of memory, incident, consideration, reconsideration, personal discovery and attempts at truth.
It is intended for my attention and that of other interested persons
If that changes, I will extensively re-edit.
Warning:
I attempt to use inductive logic.
A legislative year in which Speaker John A. Boehner set out to
marginalize more vocal right-wing Republicans ended with them buoyed,
and with some in the party ready to bring them back into the fold.
Illegal Immigration; Law and Legislation; Tea Party Movement; United States Politics and Government; Children and Childhood
A judge has been asked to order the New York Police Department to
find and turn over documents on the Puerto Rican militant group Young
Lords to a Baruch professor.
Surveillance of Citizens by Government; Archives and Records;
Colleges and Universities; Police; Nineteen Hundred Sixties;
Hispanic-Americans
The storm, which poured more than 13 inches of rain on Long
Island, flooded major roads and highways, and forced some families in
the area to leave their homes.
International colleagues of the doctor who had been leading Sierra
Leone’s battle against the outbreak had to decide whether to give him a
drug never before tested on people.
Between 10 and 11 August 2014, a total of 128 new cases of
Ebola virus disease (laboratory-confirmed, probable, and suspect cases)
as well as 56 deaths were reported from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and
Sierra Leone.
Contact tracing in Guinea, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone has
resulted in a range between 94% and 98% of contacts of EVD cases being
identified and followed-up. In Liberia, efforts are underway to
strengthen contact tracing, but help is needed in this area. The
Liberian Army has also recently placed a third province under quarantine
as part of the ongoing effort to stop transmission of EVD.
Health sector response
On 11 August, WHO convened a panel of medical ethicists,
scientific experts, and lay people from the affected countries to
consider and assess the ethical implications for clinical
decision-making of the potential use of unregistered interventions.
In the particular circumstances of this outbreak, and provided
certain conditions are met, the panel reached consensus that it is
ethical to offer unproven interventions with as yet unknown efficacy and
adverse effects, as potential treatment or prevention.
Ethical criteria must guide the provision of such
interventions. These include transparency about all aspects of care,
informed consent, freedom of choice, confidentiality, respect for the
person, preservation of dignity and involvement of the community.
Additional information on the outcomes of the meeting can be
found at
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2014/ebola-ethical-review-summary/en/.
A report of the meeting proceedings will be available to the public by
17 August 2014.
On the operational side, WHO is finalizing its strategic
operations response plan and expects to share this with countries and
partners in the coming days. Mapping is also underway to develop an
operational picture in order to coordinate and move people and materials
to areas of greatest need.
WHO does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions be
applied except in cases where individuals have been confirmed or are
suspected of being infected with EVD or where individuals have had
contact with cases of EVD. (Contacts do not include properly-protected
health-care workers and laboratory staff.) Temporary recommendations
from the Emergency Committee with regard to actions to be taken by
countries can be found at
http://who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2014/ebola-20140808/en/.
"Disease update
Confirmed, probable, and suspect cases and
deaths from Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra
Leone, as of 11 August 2014
New (1)
Confirmed
Probable
Suspect
Totals
Guinea
Cases
4
369
133
8
510
Deaths
4
242
133
2
377
Liberia
Cases
71
166
358
146
670
Deaths
32
149
153
53
355
Nigeria
Cases
0
10
0
2
12
Deaths
1
0
3
0
3
Sierra Leone
Cases
53
706
38
39
783
Deaths
19
295
34
5
334
Totals
Cases
128
1251
529
195
1975
Deaths
56
686
323
60
1069
(1) New cases were reported between 10 and 11 August 2014.
The total number of cases is subject to change due to ongoing
reclassification, retrospective investigation, and availability of
laboratory results. Data reported in the Disease Outbreak News are based
on official information reported by Ministries of Health."
The epidemic will continue until behavior changes.
The body of a 100-year-old woman was found Tuesday in the basement
of her flooded condominium in Warren, one of two deaths attributed to
the heavy rain that swamped much of the Detroit area.
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki rose from obscurity to power in part with
American help, but U.S. leaders found him an often unconstructive ally
who caused as many headaches as he solved.
United States Defense and Military Forces; United States
International Relations; Iraq War (2003-11); United States Politics and
Government
Just
a few months ago Europe’s austerians were busy congratulating
themselves, declaring that a modest upturn in southern Europe vindicated
all their actions. But now the news is looking grim, with industrial
production stalling out and good reason to fear yet another slide into
recession:
Photo
Credit
This comes as many
though not all US data points are suggesting stronger growth. So why has
Europe done so badly? I’m actually not too committed to any one story
here; there are arguably several factors.
First, there is fiscal
austerity, which has been a very big drag. It’s important to realize,
however, that the US has also had quite a lot of de facto austerity via
the sequester and all that at the federal level, and state and local
cutbacks. If we use the IMF’s measure of structural balances, Europe has
indeed tightened relative to the United States:
Photo
Credit International Monetary Fund
But it’s not as big a difference as you might think — maybe 2 1/2 points of potential GDP.
You can also argue
that Europe’s fundamentals are considerably worse. If you’re worried
that secular stagnation might be depressing the natural real rate of
interest — the rate consistent with full employment — and you think that
demography is a big factor, Europe looks really terrible, indeed
full-on Japanese:
Photo
Credit
This
says that Europe really, really needs to keep inflation expectations
from sliding — in fact, it almost surely needs expected inflation higher
than 2 percent. In fact, however, the ECB has been much less successful
than the Fed at keeping expected inflation from declining.
And this reflects past
policy choices and what they say about institutional biases. In the US,
Janet Yellen and associates have been quite clear that they are prepared to take some inflation risks on the upside
in order to avoid the “nightmare scenario” of raising rates only to
discover that the economy was weakening again, and thereby deepening the
liquidity trap. In Europe, however, the nightmare scenario isn’t
hypothetical: it happened both in 2008 and, incredibly, again in 2011. And the sadomonetarists at the BIS and elsewhere continue to have much more influence in Europe than in the United States.
The thing is, I don’t
believe that current management at the ECB is that different in its
understanding of what policy should be doing from leadership at the Fed.
But it has to struggle against an economy that is weaker in its
underlying fundamentals, bad history, and a much more powerful
contingent of monetary hawks.
A Texas House panel on Monday censured a University of Texas
System regent for misconduct and incompetency, but it decided not to
push for his removal.
Colleges and Universities; Appointments and Executive Changes; Ethics and Official Misconduct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Powers,_Jr.
"Powers survived a power struggle with supporters of Rick Perry in 2014, avoiding losing his job for the foreseeable future."
In the Pashtun slums of Karachi, Pakistan, militants have gunned
down police officers, assaulted poorly defended police stations and
dispatched suicide bombers to assassinate top police commanders.
Attacks on Police; Terrorism; Police Brutality, Misconduct and
Shootings; Defense and Military Forces; Assassinations and Attempted
Assassinations; Murders and Attempted Murders
Certainly this group uses the name and methods of the Taliban.
European companies rated below investment grade have turned to issuing junk bonds, following the lead of American businesses.
Banking and Financial Institutions; Credit Ratings and Credit Rating
Agencies; European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- ); Interest Rates; Junk
Bonds
Europe is going into depression.
Companies are desperate for operating capital.
Investors are desperate for yield.
Interest rates are high but not as high as expected.
I am told that Nokia is putting their handset group back together. Microsoft has not succeeded and is not expected to succeed. Nokia may be a buy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia
The thousands who bought subsidized health insurance could lose it
next month if they do not provide proof that they are living in the
United States legally, the Obama administration said.
Health Insurance and Managed Care; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010); Citizenship and Naturalization
The Republicans are determined to loose elections.
"Republicans have repeatedly accused the administration of being careless
about verifying the income and eligibility of people who applied for
insurance subsidies. And a recent report by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services
said the exchanges did not have adequate safeguards “to prevent the use
of inaccurate or fraudulent information when determining eligibility.”"
Opinions on our toxic racial legacy, Egypt’s dismal human-rights
record, the right to vote in British prisons, verifying humanitarian aid
in Ukraine and improved Iraqi governance.
Blacks; Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (Supreme Court
Decision); Defense and Military Forces; Demonstrations, Protests and
Riots; Human Rights and Human Rights Violations; Humanitarian Aid; Race
and Ethnicity; Referendums; Segregation and Desegregation; United States
Economy; United States Politics and Government; War Crimes, Genocide
and Crimes Against Humanity
Support for Israel leads to support for the Sisi regime in Egypt.
The coming assault from Syria will be enough of a problem.
Couples could start marrying by next week as a federal appeals
court panel denied a request to delay its ruling striking down
Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages.
Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships; Marriages
A federal law intended to reform nursing homes requires that a
registered nurse be on-site only eight hours a day — whatever the size
of the facility.
Elder Care; Elderly; Nursing and Nurses; Nursing Homes
We are far from the need for residential care.
We have not trained enough nurses for decades.
A private duty nurse gets $40/hr. or about $80,000/yr.
By the time an agency gets into the act it will double.
The Care homes are underpaying the nurses.
An effective nursing staff would cut into the bottom line.
I had a good experience with Hospice.
They limit care to six months if there is recovery.
They do not limit care if there is no recovery.
Medicare pays them.
I can do that again.
I am not anxious to go that rout.
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