Job hazard for bloggers

~ susie ~ 4 Comments

2014 Vivid Sydney: GALAXIA II #11

Chicken or egg?

Mistrust of other people may put you at higher risk for dementia, according to a new study published in the journal Neurology. The study looked at the impact cynicism may have on long-term cognitive health.

Cynicism is defined as the belief that people are generally motivated by their own self interest and promotion and cannot be trusted.

For the study on 1,449 people, researchers at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio administered tests to screen for dementia, as well as questionnaires to gauge each person’s level of cynicism. Out of that number, 622 people completed two tests for dementia, with the second one eight years after the start of the study. The average age of study participants was 71.

When taking the cynicism questionnaire people responded to statements such as “I think most people would lie to get ahead” and “It is safer to trust nobody.” After scoring the questionnaire participants were divided into groups of low, moderate and high levels of cynicism.

A total of 46 people were diagnosed with dementia in the eight years between taking the two questionnaires. After adjusting for factors such high blood pressure and cholesterol, the researchers found people with high levels of cynicism were three times more likely to develop dementia than those with low levels of cynicism. A total of 164 people were found to have high levels of cynicism and 14 of them developed dementia. However, only nine out of 212 people with low levels of cynicism developed dementia.

Higher levels of cynicism also appeared to be linked to early death. However, after adjusting for factors such as income, health problems and lifestyle habits such as smoking the researchers found the link to be tenuous. Even still, there are a number of studies that show cynicism does impact physical health. A study published in American Journal of Epidemiology found that cynicism increases one’s risk for acute myocardial infarction.

Our betters are getting nervous

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Guillotine

But not enough yet to substitute public relations for substance:

Yesterday’s Conference on Inclusive Capitalism co-hosted by the City of London Corporation and EL Rothschild investment firm, brought together the people who control a third of the world’s liquid assets – the most powerful financial and business elites – to discuss the need for a moresocially responsible form of capitalism that benefits everyone, not just a wealthy minority.

Leading financiers referred to statistics on rising global inequalities and the role of banks and corporations in marginalising the majority while accelerating systemic financial risk – vindicating the need for change.

While the self-reflective recognition by global capitalism’s leaders that business-as-usual cannot continue is welcome, sadly the event represented less a meaningful shift of direction than a barely transparent effort to rehabilitate a parasitical economic system on the brink of facing a global uprising.

Central to the proceedings was an undercurrent of elite fear that the increasing disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the planetary population under decades of capitalist business-as-usual could well be its own undoing.

The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism is the brainchild of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a little-known but influential British think tank with distinctly neoconservative and xenophobic leanings. In May 2012, HJS executive director Alan Mendoza explained the thinking behind the project:

“… we felt that such was public disgust with the system, there was a very real danger that politicians could seek to remedy the situation by legislating capitalism out of business.”

Well, we can’t have that, can we?

The Initiative for Inclusive Capitalism’s recommendations for reform seem well-meaning at first glance, but in reality barely skim the surface of capitalism’s growing crisis tendencies: giant corporations should invest in more job training, should encourage positive relationships and partnerships with small- and medium-sized businesses, and – while not jettisoning quarterly turnovers – should also account for ways of sustaining long-term value for shareholders.

The impetus for this, however, lies in the growing recognition that if such reforms are not pursued, global capitalists will be overthrown by the very populations currently overwhelmingly marginalised by their self-serving activity. As co-chair of the HJS Inclusive Capitalism taskforce, McKinsey managing director Dominic Barton, explained from his meetings with over 400 business and government leaders worldwide that:

“… there is growing concern that if the fundamental issues revealed in the crisis remain unaddressed and the system fails again, the social contract between the capitalist system and the citizenry may truly rupture, with unpredictable but severely damaging results.”

There’s more, go read it.

I’m sure it’ll be fine

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Oyster Creek Nuclear Station After Sandy

It’s not as if they’d lie to us:

Operators at the nation’s oldest nuclear plant have terminated an “unusual event” status that was briefly declared after staffers detected an odor of chlorine at the plant’s intake structure. The declaration at the Oyster Creek plant in Lacey Township occurred at 10:34 a.m. Wednesday.

Plant officials say the odor was emanating from piping that provides service water to plant systems. The leak was isolated and the odor dissipated, and officials say it posed no threat to plant workers, the environment or the public.

The “unusual event” declaration — which is the lowest of four levels of emergency classification — was terminated at 11:40 a.m. Normal plant operations continued while the declaration was in effect.

Oyster Creek is located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia.

Here is an intended outcome of ACA…

~ Boohunney ~ 1 Comment

Northside By Day

According to Kaiser Health News, the ACA has helped safety net hospitals see more insured patients…

At Seattle’s largest safety-net hospital, the proportion of uninsured patients fell from 12 percent last year to an unprecedented low of 2 percent this spring—a drop expected to boost HarborviewMedicalCenter’s revenue by $20 million this year….

Such facilities had expected to see a drop in uninsured patients seeking treatment, but the change has been faster and deeper than most anticipated— at least in the 25 states that expanded Medicaid in January, according to interviews with safety-net hospital officials across the country.

But, that was not the only predicted outcome for formerly uninsured patients…

 (In Seattle)… Hospital officials say the biggest impact of the change is on patients themselves. Rather than having to rely on emergency rooms, newly insured patients can see primary care doctors and get diagnostic tests and prescription drugs, among other services.

Some safety-net hospitals say they started to see their numbers of uninsured patients dropping almost immediately after the Medicaid expansion took effect in January…

About 80 percent of the system’s new Medicaid patients had previously been seen by the hospital as uninsured patients, she said. Their enrollment in coverage means the hospital is paid more for their care and is able to direct them to outpatient services and preventive care.

Here is Georgia, where the Medicaid expansion was refused by Governor Nathan Deal, the state legislators this past spring passed a law that the expansion can only be approved by the legislators. In the current political makeup at the State Capitol that approval has very little chance of happening. The result has been putting a real strain on rural South Georgia community hospitals and as many as 14 may close by the end of the year.

But, Deal has a plan…

A plan by Gov. Nathan Deal to help Georgia’s ailing rural hospitals could be too little too late for some hospitals on life-support and may not do much good for others.

The plan, sparked by a recent spate of rural hospital closures, enables hospitals in danger of shutting down, or that have closed in the past year, to downsize into freestanding emergency departments to cut costs. The departments would stabilize patients, then send them to nearby full-service hospitals.

This plan is being directed by the state with the new Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee. And no one is saying how it will be funded…

…One thing that won’t be an option: accepting federal money to expand Medicaid to adults without dependent children. That move would cover a half-million poor Georgians. The Republican-controlled legislature opposes the Affordable Care Act, which created the expansion, and says Medicaid expansion would cost the state too much in the long run.

That’s a mistake, says Tim Sweeney, health policy director at the nonprofit Georgia Budget and Policy Institute. “If the primary issue is the financial stability of rural hospitals, then expanding Medicaid should be step one,” he says.

Georgia is missing out on $31 billion in federal money for the state’s health care system over the next decade by not expanding Medicaid, he says. “We know that it would provide significant new funding for hospitals in rural Georgia that are serving uninsured patients right now.”

If Georgia accepted the Medicaid expansion, approximately 486,000 people would be eligible for Medicaid and Peachcare for children.

Philly style

~ susie

Auto Repair Shop
What kills me about stories like this is when suburbanites sniff and say, “What can you expect?”

After spending 20 years covering suburban politics, I can say with some assurance that it’s much easier for corruption to flourish in the burbs. They don’t have very aggressive investigative journalism, and voters assume because politicians are white, they’re honest. Crazy, I know, but that’s the way it is.

Going in reverse

~ susie

365/126 100% solar powered radio solar panels. This is kzmu.

All these ALEC-dominated state legislatures are really having a ball, aren’t they:

The Ohio House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday that would roll back the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency law, making Ohio the first state to reverse standards meant to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

The bill passed out of a House committee on Tuesday and went to the floor Wednesday afternoon. The bill had already passed the Senate earlier this month.

The Ohio legislature approved the renewable energy and efficiency standards in 2008, when it passed them almost unanimously. But opponents of the measure have been trying to roll them back for several years. Last year, state Sen. Bill Seitz, a Republican from Cincinnati, said the standards are like “Joseph Stalin’s five-year plan.” (Seitz is a co-sponsor of this year’s bill.)

80+ Americans killed with guns the week before UCSB massacre

~ susie ~ 1 Comment
At Least 80 Americans Were Killed with Guns the Week before Horrific UCSB Massacre (via Americans Against The Tea Party)

With the horrific events that took place at the University of California, Santa Barbara, national attention is turning yet again to the plague that is gun violence in America. In the week before the UCSB shooting, at least 80 Americans were murdered…

Continue reading “80+ Americans killed with guns the week before UCSB massacre” →