In the News: Medicine just gets more confusing

I can guess that some patients who paid (many times neglecting other needs) for these medicines are feeling a bit depression or despair. I often wonder what type of research and followup is done with many medicines. Hopefully not many patients suffered the side affects without the benefits - AThinker

On CNN today:

Trial: Popular cholesterol drug fails to improve heart disease

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Leading doctors urged a return to older, tried-and-true treatments for high cholesterol after hearing full results Sunday of a failed trial of Vytorin.

Millions of Americans already take the drug or one of its components, Zetia. But doctors were stunned to learn that Vytorin failed to improve heart disease even though it worked as intended to reduce three key risk factors.

"People need to turn back to statins," said Yale University cardiologist Dr. Harlan Krumholz, referring to Lipitor, Crestor and other widely used brands. "We know that statins are good drugs. We know that they reduce risks."

The study was closely watched because Zetia and Vytorin have racked up $5 billion in sales despite limited proof of benefit. Two Congressional panels launched probes into why it took drugmakers nearly two years after the study's completion to release results.

Results were presented at an American College of Cardiology conference in Chicago Sunday and published on the Internet by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Doctors have long focused on lowering LDL or bad cholesterol as a way to prevent heart disease. Statins like Merck & Co.'s Zocor, which recently came out in generic form, do this, as do niacin, fibrates and other medicines.

Quote of the Day

Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the gun. - Martin Amis

Glad to see positive happenings

Does a wound heal by ignoring it? - AThinker

From SFGATE, please click link to read article in its entirety

Sen. Barack Obama's historic speech earlier this month in Philadelphia on race relations has elevated the discussion about the issue to the point where it has worked itself into the pews and pulpits of Bay Area churches.

Local ministers say they gave sermons about it on Easter, the holiest day of the year for Christians, and others plan to do so in the future.

These ministers - Pentecostals, Episcopalians and Baptists, Republican and Democrat, white, black and Asian - say Obama's honesty offers a steppingstone to wade into the volatile waters of race relations.

They said his speech, which called for an honest dialogue about race, offered an opportunity to be open to others' experiences without automatically triggering the shame, guilt and strife such conversations usually entail.

"Obama is such a gift right now: He talks about the truth in a way that everyone on all sides needs to hear, in a way that suggests there's hope for a new day," said Allan Collister, 64, who is white and is the pastor of New Church Berkeley, a nondenominational and heavily Asian church that's within the evangelical Protestant umbrella. "He treats with respect people he doesn't agree with. That's so huge."

Resentments often stifled

In his speech, Obama spoke of the history of race in America, explaining the sources of anger and resentment by whites and blacks. He said these resentments are too often stifled in private conversation, and disregarded as illegitimate or racist despite seeds of truth. Obama said that has to change.

"I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren," he said at the National Constitution Center.

Obama's speech was prompted by controversial sermons made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Excerpts on television and YouTube show him declaring that the government created AIDS as a form of genocide on people of color and that U.S. foreign policy instigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He also said "God damn America" for its injustices against people of color.

'The most segregated hour'

Obama denounced Wright's comments, but he described his former pastor as being "like family" and said he could "no more disown him than I can disown the black community."

Several ministers said there is no more appropriate place for the conversation about race to occur than the place where believers search for their greatest meaning.

That churches themselves often exemplify some of the racial ills of the nation only emphasizes the need, several ministers said.

"The most segregated hour in America is 11 o'clock on Sunday morning," said the Rev. Arelious Walker, 77, pastor of True Hope Church of God in Christ, a Bayview district congregation of Pentecostals, primarily black. "That, to me, is unacceptable. ... It is not the plan or the will of God that a church be exclusive to one ethnic group."

Walker, who has a goal of raising the nonblack members of his congregation by 5 percent this year, said the speech "helps church people to confront their problems with race. I know some blacks don't even try to bring whites into their congregation, and I know some whites, they don't want to welcome blacks."

Some ministers said they would avoid mentioning Obama because it might alienate some parishioners and detract from the purpose that unites their congregations.

Political preaching can "overshadow the spiritual world," said Larry Ellis, pastor of Pilgrim Baptist Church in San Mateo. "My first responsibility is to represent Christ."

Black, white and Asian ministers said the fact that many were shocked by Wright'scomments speaks to the racial divide and unfamiliarity with anger and resentment in the black community.

Black churches play a unique role for a community historically disenfranchised from power - political, economic and otherwise. Wright gained national renown for the social services his church provides.

Andrew Park said he would have not used Wright's language or examples. But he and others said the underlying issues can't be conveniently ignored by creating a caricature.

Affirming different cultures

Listening to Wright on YouTube, "I was saying 'Amen,' " said Park, 32, a Korean American and a Baptist seminarian who leads Oakland Mosaic Project. "The struggle of what race you are is huge in America, especially in an urban environment. ... As an Asian American, I could totally resonate with that."

Park said his sermon today, inspired by Obama's speech, would be about the story of Jesus engaging with a Samaritan woman at a well - a parable affirming acceptance of different cultures.

The Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus, the Episcopal bishop of California, said the Bay Area's diversity "already calls us beyond the dimensions of that speech," which focused largely on relations between black and white people. Yet, in his Bay Area diocese of 27,000 parishioners, Andrus said people don't see others' hurts as easily as they see their own.

"I've become aware that each self-identified group within the diocese tends to suffer in isolation," he said.

If it's segregated public schools, it's mostly black people who come to meetings. If it's about immigration, it's immigrants. If it's about sexuality, it's largely gays and lesbians. "St. Paul says that when any member of the family suffers, all suffer. Or when one rejoices, all rejoice. But we as a people live as if that weren't true."

:

Obama inspires racial dialogue in churches

Matthai Kuruvila, Chronicle Religion Writer

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Have you heard about Earth Hour today?

I won't lie this is the first I've heard about it even though I'm often watching the news or reading it online. I guess it just didn't stick with me - AThinker

I actually think there will be more calls for this

Wasn't surprised to read this on The New York Times site:

March 28, 2008, 10:27 am

Vt. Senator Calls for Clinton to Drop Out

By Kate Phillips

Senator Patrick Leahy, who has endorsed fellow Senator Barack Obama, called for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to drop out of the presidential race in a radio interview today.

Talking on Vermont Public Radio, Mr. Leahy said: “There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that’s a decision that only she can make. Frankly, I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate.”

Senator Clinton obviously displays no inclination to quit the race. In interviews just yesterday, she mentioned there could even be a “credentials fight” at the Democratic convention in August. And her campaign has consistently promoted the notion that she’s the favorite among many of the big states, evidenced currently by her popularity in Pennsylvania with its primary on April 22.

Quote for the Day

Who lies for you will lie against you - Bosnian Proverb

Randal T. Ellis got off TOO EASY

This fool, Randal T. Ellis, could have and was aiming for someone to get hurt. There is absolutely nothing harmless about this prank. Randal T. Ellis is an idiot - AThinker.

From the Associated Press:

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A computer hacker was sentenced to three years in prison for placing a phony 911 call that led a SWAT team to storm a family home at gunpoint.

It marked the first prosecution in Orange County for a prank known as "swatting" that involves sending SWAT teams on wild goose chases, said county district attorney's spokeswoman Farrah Emami on Thursday.

Randal T. Ellis, 19, pleaded guilty Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court to five felony counts, including computer access and fraud, false imprisonment by violence and falsely reporting a crime.

He was given prison time and ordered to pay $14,765 in restitution, most of which will go to the county Sheriff's Department.

A call to Ellis's attorney, Ronald Brower, was not immediately returned Thursday.

Ellis, of Mukilteo, Wash., placed a 911 call last March, at first claiming to report a drug overdose and then alleging a possible murder, investigators said.

From the OC Register:

LAKE FOREST – It was nearly a year ago that Doug Bates heard rustling outside his home and, thinking it was a burglar, grabbed a knife from the kitchen and walked into his back yard to protect his family.

His two toddlers were asleep inside his home and his wife started dialing 911.

What Bates, 37, didn't know was that a team of heavily armed deputies from the Orange County Sheriff Department's Critical Incident Response team were surrounding his home. Thinking they were responding to a call that escalated from a drug overdose to a murder, deputies responded to the quiet neighborhood expecting the worst.

What nobody here knew on the night of March 29, at least not yet, was that they were all pawns in a false 911 report that was made more than a thousand miles away by a 19-year-old Washington man who had placed hundreds of similar false calls across the country.

With knife in hand at about 11:30 p.m., Bates walked out into the direction of gun barrels pointed in his direction.

Deputies ordered him to the ground. Bates dropped the knife and in seconds he was in handcuffs. His wife was also placed in cuffs minutes later.

"I was so immediately wanting to protect my family, I took it upon myself," Bates said. "I thought they were going after the wrong guy."

In an Orange County courtroom Wednesday, Randal T. Ellis, of Mukilteo, Wash., pleaded guilty to charges of computer access fraud, false imprisonment by violence, falsely reporting a crime and assault with a firearm. The 19-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $14,765 in restitution to the Sheriff's Department and the city of Mulkiteo.

Authorities believe it was one of nearly 200 false calls Ellis made.

It took this week's sentencing to finally bring peace of mind to his family, Bates said.

Over the past year, investigators and the District Attorney's Office have repeatedly assured him that he and his family were random victims and were not specifically targeted by Ellis. But the thought that someone could manipulate the system and place his family in such danger put his family on edge, Bates said.

"The chances of something like that happening at random, I'd rather win the lottery," he said.

The conviction has set his mind at ease with the knowledge that those that manipulate the system will be punished.

From the L.A. Times:

Ellis was arrested last year after hacking into a telephone network and impersonating a caller from a Lake Forest home, saying that he had killed someone in the house and was threatening to shoot others. The technique in which a prank call is made to 911 dispatchers is known among hackers as "SWATting."

The Sheriff's Department dispatched a SWAT team and surrounded the home with dozens of officers, dogs and a helicopter.

As the children of Stacey Cerwin-Bates and Doug Bates slept, Doug Bates thought he heard a prowler outside and grabbed a kitchen knife.

When he entered the backyard, deputies armed with assault rifles confronted Bates and handcuffed him and his wife until officers were able to determine that the report was fake.

Authorities spent more than six months tracking down Ellis.



Thank goodness this did not turn out with a death. Are people really that bored and silly that they put other people's life at risk for a laugh? - A Thinker

Seems these jobs kept at home would help security and unemployment

Reading this at The Washington Times website made me think of how the government could actually help two ongoing problems, read on but also click the link and read it fully:

Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security

By Bill Gertz
March 26, 2008

This is the first in a three-part series on the outsourcing of passports.

The United States has outsourced the manufacturing of its electronic passports to overseas companies — including one in Thailand that was victimized by Chinese espionage — raising concerns that cost savings are being put ahead of national security, an investigation by The Washington Times has found.

The Government Printing Office's decision to export the work has proved lucrative, allowing the agency to book more than $100 million in recent profits by charging the State Department more money for blank passports than it actually costs to make them, according to interviews with federal officials and documents obtained by The Times.

The profits have raised questions both inside the agency and in Congress because the law that created GPO as the federal government's official printer explicitly requires the agency to break even by charging only enough to recover its costs.

I can't help but think keeping this jobs "at home" would help unemployement & security

What happened to Critical Thinking

More and more I truly believe that we as a nation suffer from being a bit lazy when it comes to thinking. We get our news in sound bites and blurbs and many never question the news source or check the source. We form opinions and masquerade them as fact because we don't want to spend time doing any fact checking.

People feed us and we stop questioning if it has any value just swallow it whole. I am not here to tell people what to think but it would be great if people did that - THINK. Don't just feed to me lines you heard over the radio or on a talk show. Show me that you at least made some effort to research what you are spouting out of your mouth or typing on blogs, comments, and boards.

Sometimes I truly think people don't want to do the research because quite frankly they can always use their ignorance as an excuse. How lazy

-AThinker

I think the people should be named - Passport Breach

Personally, I believe that the employees who did the breach should be named and it should not be swept under the rug. This has been in the news a bit, I will post a bit of the article from NY Times since I have that web page open now - AThinker

Passport Files of 3 Candidates Were Improperly Viewed

By HELENE COOPER and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Published: March 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — The State Department said on Friday that it was investigating several incidents in which the passport files of all three presidential contenders were improperly accessed by employees.

The breaches involved electronic files that contained personal information about Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain. A State Department spokesman declined to say what was in those files, but he said they were likely to contain biographical information and passport applications.

Mr. Obama’s passport file was breached on three separate occasions earlier this year and as recently as last week, by three employees working for independent contractors who did not have authorization to access the information. The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21, and March 14, according to The Associated Press.

The State Department’s computer system had flagged each incident, but senior department officials were not informed until they looked into the matter, after receiving inquiries from a reporter on Thursday, a department spokesman said. “That information didn’t rise up to senior management levels,” the spokesman, Sean McCormack, said at a Friday news conference. “That should have happened.”

Two of the employees were fired, Mr. McCormack said. The Associated Press reported that they had worked for Stanley, Inc., a company that provides administrative support and services to government groups and is based in Arlington, Va. Stanley signed a five-year, $570 million contract with the State Department earlier this week to work on the department’s passport database.

Today

Today
I am determined
to take all there is out of life
and live it
live it in a way
where there are no regrets
I will not purposely cause harm
to another
to satisfy my desires
but live this day
happy that I am
at least alive
to live it

-mymindspeaks

A blog I hope you will spend time looking at today

Too many time people form opinions based on "selected" slices of life. If that is so I welcome you to take a bit of time and look at another slice.

http://truthabouttrinity.blogspot.com/

I can not nor will I ever want to tell you what to think but I will suggest that people spend more time looking at the bigger picture. Yes we are use to fast information but that is no excuse not to read entire speeches and sermons rather than snippets. Sometimes I feel we learn that through our education where we are often fed textbooks that present selected pieces.

Just thinking out loud.

-AThinker

Huckabee gets it!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/19/huckabee-defends-rev-jer_n_92346.html

Things are getting harder and harder...

Can't say I was surprised when I came across this CNN article today about Gas. In Los Angeles, I thought I already saw one at $3.75 this past weekend.:

Gasoline price spike has only just begun

Motorists should expect to pay upwards of $3.75 a gallon in the coming weeks as prices at the pump catch up with record crude, but relief may arrive by summer.

Quote for the Day

You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them. - Michael Jordan

Pakistan: Missiles hit house, at least 20 dead

read this via USA Today, today. I wonder how many people really pay attention to what is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan any more. - A Thinker

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A missile strike near the Afghan border destroyed the house of a suspected militant leader Sunday, killing at least 20 people, witnesses and state-run Pakistan Television said.

Seven missiles were fired in the strike in the tribal area of South Waziristan, the television report said. The Pakistani military said five or six explosions were heard near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

Local tribesman Rahim Khan told The Associated Press missiles were fired by an unmanned drone. At least two hit and destroyed the home of a local militant leader and Taliban sympathizer who goes by the single name Noorullah, Khan said.

Only U.S.-led coalition forces are known to have unmanned drones operating in the region. Coalition forces based in neighboring Afghanistan have also launched attacks inside the Pakistani border in the past.

Khan said the house — a huge, fortress-like compound — was known as a hub for visiting foreign militants. Four of those killed were not locals, he said without elaborating, and seven other people were wounded in the attack. Taliban supporters immediately surrounded the area

Another Quote I enjoy

God does not ask about our ability, but our availability.


-for myself it is one I have to remind myself about. Too often I forget that just because I am not able to do something today does not mean I can't be of use and do something. As long as I am alive, I will also have the opportunity to learn new things. - AThinker

Quote for the Day

James Reynolds (Abe, Days of Our Lives):

"People don't have to be volunteers," he says, "Just do something each day for somebody else. And do it for somebody you don't know"

Quote for the day

We have the Bill of Rights. What we need is Bill of Responsibilities. - Bill Maher

Quote for the Day

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal - Henry Ford

Another Quote for the Day

When you blame others, you give up your power to change - Author unknown

63,000 jobs lost - that we know about (what about those unrecorded)

Sadly, I am not surprised by the news I read online at USA Today


Jobs plunge by 63,000, worst since 2003; Fed steps in

By Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Employers cut jobs for a second month in February while the unemployment rate fell as more people quit looking for work in the weakening job market, the government said Friday in a report that led to further calls of a 2008 recession.

The Federal Reserve, shortly before the report was released, underscored its concern for the economy by saying it will pump more cash into financial markets to try to ease credit.

The Fed said it will raise its planned March 10 and March 24 auctions to $50 billion each, from $30 billion it had previously announced. The auctions serve as short-term loans to get banks the cash they need to keep lending.

Fed officials aslso said they would move to even larger amounts at future auctions if necessary.

Quote for the Day

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it - Marcus Aurelius

Quote for the Day

When change is necessary, to not change is destructive

Quote for the Day

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfil another - George Eliot

Another Quote for the Day

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
John Wooden


I personally think this is a good quote FOR LIFE - AThinker

In the News

John Wooden is one of my personal heroes so I follow stories about him. -

Read this via Sports Illustrated, get well Mr. Wooden - heal fast and keep spreading your wisdom:

Wooden breaks wrist, collarbone

UCLA legend said to be 'up, joking around' after fall

Posted: Friday February 29, 2008 9:14PM; Updated: Friday February 29, 2008 9:59PM

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- John Wooden broke his left wrist and collarbone in a fall, leaving the former UCLA basketball coach hospitalized Friday.

Daughter Nan Muehlhausen said the 97-year-old Wooden fell in his condominium Thursday night. She said Wooden was resting comfortably in a hospital and visited with family members throughout the day.

"Dad's spirits are good," Muehlhausen said in a statement. "He is up and joking around with the family. He will probably be in the hospital for a couple of more days before he goes home."

Wooden has a hairline fracture in his wrist and a fractured collarbone. He also hit his head, but a CT scan of his head and neck were negative.

The family didn't release the name of the hospital.

-------

I know he is getting older and things like this is not unheard of. I just selfishly want him at full strength all the time. I respect him a lot. - A Thinker

Quote for the Day

Promises are like the full moon, if they are not kept at once they diminish day by day. - German Proverb