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Just So You Know…..
Teachers who mark work in red pen could be inflicting psychological damage on their students, according to new guidelines.
Australian educators are being urged to correct homework in less aggressive colours like green and blue, in an attempt to improve mental health in the classroom.
Makes you wonder how the older generation manged to grow up with their mental health intact. At the very least, you would think that the suicide rate for young people would have been higher back in them days wouldn’t you?
Too Much Information, Not Enough Knowledge
But in many cases it is just not known whether what is seen on a scan is the cause of the pain. The problem is that all too often, no one knows what is normal.
“A patient comes in because he’s in pain,” said Dr. Nelda Wray, a senior research scientist at the Methodist Institute for Technology in Houston. “We see something in a scan, and we assume causation. But we have no idea of the prevalence of the abnormality in routine populations.”
Now, as more and more people have scans for everything from headaches to foot aches, more are left in a medical lurch, or with unnecessary or sometimes even harmful treatments, including surgery.
“Every time we get a new technology that provides insights into structures we didn’t encounter before, we end up saying, ‘Oh, my God, look at all those abnormalities.’ They might be dangerous,” said Dr. David Felson, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University Medical School. “Some are, some aren’t, but it ends up leading to a lot of care that’s unnecessary.”
Shout It From The Roof Tops
So here’s a little experiment. Imagine that a Congressional bailout effectively pays for $10 an hour of the retiree benefits. That’s roughly the gap between the Big Three’s retiree costs and those of the Japanese-owned plants in this country. Imagine, also, that the U.A.W. agrees to reduce pay and benefits for current workers to $45 an hour — the same as at Honda and Toyota.
Do you know how much that would reduce the cost of producing a Big Three vehicle? Only about $800.
That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
And So It Begins…
The rocks are lying everywhere in the streets. Thousands and thousands of them. Iron rods are also littered about, as are makeshift wooden clubs and spent cartridges. The sharp stench of teargas floats through the air, mixed with the acrid odor of melted plastic. Flames shoot out of trash bins; a Japanese compact lies on its side. And from behind the fence surrounding the Athens Polytechnic, black clad rioters are chanting as loud as they can:
“Pigs! Swine! Murderers!”
“Pigs! Swine! Murderers!”
Facing them, around 10 or 20 meters away, is a unit of riot police, armed with truncheons and armored with shields and white helmets. Earlier, the police had spoken of following a strategy of de-escalation — but by late Tuesday night, that, apparently, had been discarded. “Come on out you cowards! Come out and get us,” yells the police commander. He bends down to grab a rock and hurls it at the demonstrators. His men do the same. It’s a revolt in reverse.
It is the fourth night since 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos died after being shot in the breast by a policeman. And still, peace refuses to return to the Greek capital.
From a different article in Spiegel….
The two seem enthusiastic as they chat to each other, smiling and cracking jokes. Perhaps they’re related. At the same time, the mates of a rioter standing next to him are busy ripping apart the sidewalk. The woman says goodbye, kissing both of his cheeks, before gracefully tottering away. Then one of the rioters turns around, picks up a large rock and throws it down into the street where the police are standing.
It’s the daily dose of anarchy in Athens, that entered into its fifth day on Wednesday.
The Greek riots are a textbook example of how deep a country can sink if it lacks democracy’s most important element, the support and acceptance of its people. The scales of democracy have tipped here, and one inevitably gets the impression these days that there are few left who still trust the government to find the right path. Their experiences with its scandals, cronyism and corruption are too deeply seated. And it is in their unanimous rejection of the elite that both business people and the Black Bloc anarchists have found common ground.
Spiegel almost makes it sound heroic to destroy the sidewalk and throw it at the police. Granted, the Greek political elite is pretty corrupt, but the people of Greece are hardly oppressed. If they were being oppressed, there would be a lot more then just one punk dead. Heck, the police are barred by law from entering the universities. This gives the rioters a place to rearm and regroup unmolested by the evil forces of authority. How is that for oppression? Whats more, the protesters have been rioting for almost a week without have any clear idea of what they hope to accomplish. I guess they just want hope and change.
Greece has the government that it deserves but that government has no authority.
I am bothered by the lack of transparency
Blagojevich is accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, including alleged attempts by the governor to try to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. Blagojevich also is accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.
In my opinion, there are only two things that make this wrong. Number one, the dang guy was going to be selfish and he was going to keep all the money for himself. Number two, the bidding process was not transparent and open to to all comers. Other then that, I think selling it to the highest bidder is a great idea and one that Governor Paterson in New York should give serious thought to.
Look, New York State is short of money. People spends millions of dollars trying to win a senate race in New York state. I say that instead of giving all that money to TV stations to torture us all with ads, they should just put the money straight into the treasury to benefit everyone in the state.
Now some fools might protest that we won’t get the best person for the job this way. But given that Paterson is most likely going to appoint someone with no political experience to Hillary’s vacant spot just because they have a famous last name, I don’t think that argument holds much water.
Proof of Deflation?
Treasuries rose, pushing rates on the three-month bill negative for the first time, as investors gravitate toward the safety of U.S. government debt amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
My guess is the banks are parking the TARP money in short term treasuries – and that has pushed the yield to zero.
If I knew for a fact that this was true, I would be rolling around on the floor laughing. Just think about it, the government borrows a whole lot of money to bail out the banks and what do the banks do? They loan it back to the government.
A lot of people are going to use this as proof that we are in a deflationary spiral. But I would bet dollars to dimes that this is not the case. I expect the price of treasuries to drop as fast the price of oil did.
Think about it. A lot of oil producers are going to have to start selling off their reserves to maintain themselves in the style to which they have become accustomed. Russia has already started to do this. I expect that China will have to slow down on the purchases of treasuries if not halt them completely within the next six months. These factors combined will cause interest rates on treasury bills to shoot up.
Then the fun will really start. But on the bright side, I don’t think people will be worried about deflation anymore.
The Truth About The Bailout
This is the crude truth. (H/T Megan McArdle)
Here is the real explanation if you want it.
Oil Prices and Break Even Points Discussed By Someone With Brains
This is becoming a trend
Taliban militants launched a second raid in as many days on Nato supplies in Pakistan setting fire to nearly 100 more vehicles destined for coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The latest attack on a container terminal near the northwest city of Peshawar came a day after Taliban militants launched the biggest such raid to date, destroying nearly 200 vehicles in the area.
This time, the attackers set nearly 100 vehicles alight including jeeps and 20 supply trucks after dousing them with petrol, police said.
“It was almost the same type of attack as the one conducted by 200 armed militants” on the previous night, said a police official. “The militants fled from the scene when police arrived.”
Speaking of trends, Pakistan has moved against Lashkar-e-Taiba. From the Guardian…..
Pakistan launched its first major operation against the militant group accused of carrying out the Mumbai attacks, raiding a camp of Lashkar-e-Taiba and capturing a man identified by India as one of the masterminds behind the terrorist strike.
According to local reports, 12 members of the banned group including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused by Delhi as being one of the planners of the carnage in India’s financial centre, were arrested in Sunday night’s raid in the hills above Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A helicopter gunship hovered overhead and gunfire was heard.
Sounds great don’t it? But we have been down this road before. From later on in the article….
In the past, Pakistan has arrested the founder of LeT, Hafiz Saeed, but then quietly let him go weeks later.
Lashkar-e-Taiba has been banned for years now. But that has not stopped it from operating.