Thursday, December 31, 2009
Diplopundit’s 2009 Words and Phrases to Remember
in “Mr. X’s nomination to be ambassador
to Country Y has been deminted by Senator Z because of senatorial disapproval
over the dear leader’s hairdo.”Or, “I did not have a normal nomination process –
my nomination was deminted for months in the Senate by a guy who disliked my
tie!”
FULL BODY SCAN: New airport screening technology to be deployed
soon at US airports. Thanks to terrorism
suspect Abdulmutallab who foolishly hid explosives in his underpants, we will all
soon undergo full body scans. I guess the new perk for the next decade will
soon be the “no full body scan” lane?
VISAS VIPER: Charming name for a State telegram without any hollow
venom-conducting fangs. Visas Viper report on possible terrorists who are not
current visa applicants for the purpose of watchlisting them. There is also Visas Donkey, and Visas Bear, and
no, you can’t pick your own animal for this.
CIVILIAN UPLIFT: Atrocious new term for the civilian surge
under Afghanistan 2.0. My dictionary defines “uplift” as “a rise of land to a
higher elevation (as in the process of mountain building),” or “a brassiere
that lifts and supports the breasts.” Ooh.
IDLE CURIOSITY: All-time favorite excuse for non-work
activities conducted during office hours especially related but not confined to
passport record snooping. As in “It was
not my fault; idle curiosity made me do it!”
HUMAN RESOURCE INITIATIVE (HRI): New term for diplomatic
hiring that used to be called Diplomacy 3.0, but is now called HRI in
congressional bills. Thank gods!
HOUSE-ENVY: A serious illness that apparently afflicts a
certain portion of the Foreign Service community overseas; reportedly impacts
morale at some posts from
has apartments and hootches). Don’t panic.
This non-contagious illness only makes an occasional appearance in OIG reports.
DEPUTY AMBASSADOR:
New title under Afghanistan 2.0; everywhere else, US missions still use
the traditional term, DCM for Deputy Chief of Mission to refer to the number #2
person at the embassy. Criteria for using
the “deputy ambassador” title, anyone?
COLD CASE: James E. Hogan, Foreign Service Officer last seen
in Curacao (a 15% cost of living and a three-year, two R&R diplomatic post and
popular tourist destination where a man disappeared without a trace on September
24, 2009). Perhaps sad for you and me, but devastating for the family.
MUZZLED: Madam le
Consul. Her blog’s disappearance is the subject of latest idea submitted in the
Secretary’s Sounding Board to allow internal blogging at State. The time has come to "liberate"
blogging in the Dept? Stay tuned!
Best wishes to Diplopundit's blog friends, tipsters and readers. Let me end this year with an old Egyptian blessing -- may God stand between you and harm in all the empty
places you must walk. Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010!
2010 Trading Odyssey
A New Year's greeting, in spreadsheet format, for those of you loyal stubborn tenacious enough to join me in this quest:
TZA system trades based on Daily Model
All signals generated End-of-Day
A
For informational purposes only
SPY Hourly
SDS Hourly
TZA Hourly flips to BUY on Hourly close above 9.50
Quickie: Suicide Bomber Kills Eight at FOB Chapman
Worst single-day
casualty toll Since Beirut
Joby Warrick in
today’s issue of the Washington Post writes about a suicide attack that killed
8 American civilians in Afghanistan (Suicide
bomber attacks CIA base in Afghanistan, killing at least 8 Americans
| WaPo | December 31, 2009). Quick excerpts below:
A suicide bomber
infiltrated a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan
on Wednesday, killing at least eight Americans in what is believed to be the
deadliest single attack on U.S. intelligence personnel in the eight-year-long
war and one of the deadliest in the agency's history, U.S. officials said.
The attack
represented an audacious blow to intelligence operatives at the vanguard of
U.S. counterterrorism operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan,
killing officials whose job involves plotting strikes against the Taliban, al-Qaeda
and other extremist groups that are active on the frontier between the two
nations. The facility that was targeted -- Forward Operating Base Chapman -- is
in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, which borders North Waziristan, the
Pakistani tribal area that is believed to be al-Qaeda's home base.
[…]
A former senior
agency official said it was the worst single-day casualty toll for the agency
since eight CIA officers were killed in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in
Beirut in April 1983.
Health News of the Day
Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:Coffee May Have Some Health Perks, but Can Brew Trouble in People With Certain Conditions. Coffee is the second most widely traded commodity in the world, after oil http://bit.ly/7SpcHy
Zinc Fingers May be a New Way to Edit DNA and Give Hope for Gene Therapy. Zinc fingers can be deployed as a word processing system for cutting and pasting genetic text (DNA) http://bit.ly/6eATaP
"A burger or fried chicken with a side of diabetes?" How fast food increases BMI and diabetes risk: Women who ate fast food burgers or fried chicken twice a week were 40-70% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes http://bit.ly/6gmq3c
Wedding ring dermatitis: Till Dermatitis Do Us Part http://bit.ly/5aXM3c
Never too late to quit smoking: heart attack survivors who quit live longer than those who keep puffing away http://bit.ly/6HNZ6e
Household Transmission of 2009 H1N1 Influenza: contacts less than 18 years of age were twice as susceptible as 19-50 yr http://bit.ly/4wixBm
Activated Protein C for Sepsis: clinical benefit and recommendations are controversial. http://bit.ly/6SfYj0
How McDonald's makes sure its burgers are safe: a glimpse into the world of extreme food safety - USA Today http://bit.ly/7aaz0K
Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.
Follow me on Twitter:
US Embassy Jakarta Issues Warden Message on Bali Warning
the US Embassy in Jakarta issued the following Warden Message on Bali. Reprinted
in part below:
The Bali Tourism Board widely distributed this message: “The
Governor of Bali Mr. Mangku Pastika wishes to share a message with all of us:
‘There is an indication of an attack to Bali tonight,’ but please don’t panic,
but put your security system to full alert.” This message is shared
verbatim for your information. The safety and security recommendations in our
Consular Information Sheet, quoted below, remain valid.
“Indonesian police and security forces take active measures
against both ongoing threats posed by terrorist cells, including Jemaah
Islamiyah
(JI), a U.S. government-designated terrorist organization thatcarried out several bombings at various times from 2002 to 2009 and outbreaks
of violence elsewhere. While Indonesia’s counterterrorism efforts have
been ongoing and partly successful, violent elements have demonstrated a
willingness and ability to carry out deadly attacks with little or no warning.
Most recently, in November 2009, unknown assailants shot at foreigners in Banda
Aceh, North Sumatra, an area that was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and the
scene of a long-running separatist conflict that ended in 2005. The
gunfire wounded a European development worker. A house occupied by U.S.
citizen teachers was targeted and hit by gunfire, but there were no U.S.
citizen casualties. In July 2009, attacks by armed assailants in Papua
resulted in several deaths, including security personnel and one Australian
national. Also in July, suspected JI elements bombed two Western hotels
in Jakarta, killing nine Indonesians and foreigners and injuring over 50,
including six U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens in Indonesia must be
physically and mentally prepared to cope with future attacks even as they go
about their normal daily routines.
Extremists may target both official and private interests,
including hotels, clubs and shopping centers. While it may be difficult
to modify one’s behavior to counter risks in a country where places in which
U.S. citizens and other Westerners must congregate to live and work are well
known and few in number, it is also extremely necessary. In their work
and daily living activities, and while traveling, U.S. citizens should be vigilant
and prudent at all times. We urge U.S. citizens to monitor local news
reports, vary their routes and times, and maintain a low profile. U.S.
citizens must consider the security and safety preparedness of hotels,
residences, restaurants, and entertainment or recreation venues that they
frequent.”
Americans living and traveling in Indonesia are urged to register and update
their contact information with the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, U.S. Consulate
General in Surabaya, U.S. Consulate Medan or U.S. Consular Agency in
Bali. Registration facilitates the U.S. Mission’s contact with Americans
in emergency situations, and may be done on line and in advance of
travel. Information on registering can be found at the U.S. Department of
State’s Consular Affairs website at http://travelregistration.state.gov
and at the Embassy’s website at http://jakarta.usembassy.gov. All Travel Warnings,
Travel Alerts, Worldwide Cautions, and recent warden messages are posted on the
Embassy website.
Note that Warden
Messages are not easily visible on the main page of the US Embassy’s website. When checking for updates, click on American Citizen Services,
and select Notices
to Americans.
Social Media Related Tweets and Insights
From my Twitter account:Picturing the Past 10 Years - NYTimes http://bit.ly/5UQKJB
How to use social networking in your doctor job hunt - AMA News http://bit.ly/5zVDyQ
Free courses from top universities now easier to find: http://bit.ly/82UERR
102-year old Merle Phillips decided to retire. This gives her more time to write that 11th book: http://bit.ly/4TDgou
Top Google Apps in 2009 - a list of Google services that were launched or were significantly improved in 2009 http://bit.ly/4rpebz
Who did Google make cry this year? 9 startup dreams & industries Google crushed in 2009 http://bit.ly/4ZGP3k
Most popular "Top 5" of everything topics for 2009 by LifeHacker http://bit.ly/5ki2tC
Dr. RW started his new edition of Top 10 issues in hospital medicine for 2009 http://bit.ly/7fQBhp, see the 2008 edition: http://bit.ly/6JViT9
Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Insider Quote: I now completely despise these words...
"I'm spending all week this week in a training. This is also my last week on my current rotation, which means I have some projects to finish. This makes being unavailable 7 hours a day very inconvenient. Due to said training, I now completely despise the following words: "synergies", "deliverables", "results-oriented" and "tranche". We're only 2.5 days in. I'm sure there will be more."
Carrie in Are You a Whiiiiiiiiiiiner??
from FS Blog: Worldwide Available
My Opinions Are Mine and Mine Alone
Quote: The Role of the Ambassador’s Wife
sometimes a bit misunderstood. To the outside world the life of an
ambassadorial couple is glitz and glamour, they live in palatial houses, are
driven by chauffeurs in large cars with flags, attend a whirlwind of parties.
But when you look behind the scenes, you see a different picture, especially
for the ambassador’s wives. First, many of these women are highly educated and
had successful careers in their home countries. By accompanying their husbands
in their postings, they become “trailing spouses” and risk losing part of their
identity. Increasingly women react either by continuing their own careers, thus
not joining their husbands, or by using their profession in the country of
assignation, thus combining their role of “ambassador’s wife” with their own
professional accomplishments. Another issue is also that ambassadorial couples
have budgetary resources that are insufficient for their representational
functions. As a result, many of the ambassador’s wives have to be ingenious
financial experts and astute organizers."
Rita Janssen
Spouse of Ambassador Marc Franco, the head of the
Delegation of the European Commission
to Russiafrom Ambassador
and His Wife: One plus One Is More Than Two
Trading system update & news
Hourly on a fresh BUY
Daily holding SHORT from early December
Note that a close today above 10.05 would be a fresh BUY
Now a few examples of how this trading system looks across other tradables, specifically, Crude Oil, including a Crude Oil ETF that trades options:
USO Daily
USO Hourly
UCO Hourly
UCO Daily
UCO: The investment will seek to replicate, net of expenses, twice the daily performance of the Dow Jones UBS Crude Oil Sub-Index. The fund normally invests assets in financial instruments with economic characteristics twice the return of the index. It may employ leveraged investment techniques in seeking its investment objective.
Allan's Trading Notes
We have developed (or stumbled upon) an excellent trend following algorithm that appears to be very profitable across a wide cross-section of tradables. I am focusing on the most active, liquid and volatile leveraged ETF's for my trading. Similarly, almost all of these have options available should the average winning trade percentage be high enough to suggest trading the signal with options.
The pattern emerging across this universe of ETF's is that for every two trades, one is a whipsaw for a modest percentage loss and one is a solid trend trade for a sizable percentage gain.
It is evident from your comments, questions and emails that these charts and the embedded trading system are something unique to my hardware and software set-ups and that most of you are unable to replicate this on your own. I am seriously considering disseminating these signals on a real time basis....it's that good! If there is enough interest I can do this for a nominal monthly fee that would pale in comparison to the rewards inherent in trading even a single ETF along the lines of the above annotated signals. You folks will have to do the math on our own, its not brain surgery. My only hesitation is my time commitment, each day, every day, all day. Ergo the small fee.
Which brings me to this: If anyone knows how to write an iPhone App or Twitter automated mail mailing (or"twitting" if you will), send me private email: apharris@mac.com
A
Let the Finger-Pointing, Circular Firing Squad Begin …
That’s Just What Al-Qaeda is Counting On ...
The off with her head calls came barely 24 hours after the attempted bombing of the Detroit flight. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano’s head, that is.
What a great idea! Fire the head of homeland security, and wait for the nomination and vetting process to start from scratch with a new candidate. Which, of course, can’t be done in days, or weeks, but months because you know – the candidate has to be scrupulously scrutinized to ensure there are no skeletons in his/her closets or no unpaid jaywalking tickets. Oh, and god forbid, a nanny problem!
And when all that is done, the new nominee, unless deminted in Congress like the TSA nominee must transition into his/her new role as top honcho of homeland security, and provide leadership to 225,000 employees in 7 sub-agencies, and 11 other components, plus tackle its $52 billion budget.
And when all that is done, the new nominee, unless deminted in Congress like the TSA nominee must transition into his/her new role as top honcho of homeland security, and provide leadership to 225,000 employees in 7 sub-agencies, and 11 other components, plus tackle its $52 billion budget.
I don’t care if that candidate is a genius. The fact is, transitioning into that leadership role won’t happen overnight as we might like to think. And while he/she is transitioning, Al Qaeda
is rolling in their caves, laughing at how quickly we pick up their bait and diversion. They will send their agents of chaos on to our commercial airlines (we’re not even talking about the land borders yet!) and expect these knee jerk emotional reactions from us. Why else would they claim ownership over Mr. Underpant’s failed attack? To sow fear and terror, and more fear and terror; and to watch us, most especially our politicians as they tear each other down -- until we get so foul and twisted in our fears, we won’t know our heads from our tails.
is rolling in their caves, laughing at how quickly we pick up their bait and diversion. They will send their agents of chaos on to our commercial airlines (we’re not even talking about the land borders yet!) and expect these knee jerk emotional reactions from us. Why else would they claim ownership over Mr. Underpant’s failed attack? To sow fear and terror, and more fear and terror; and to watch us, most especially our politicians as they tear each other down -- until we get so foul and twisted in our fears, we won’t know our heads from our tails. NO MORE!
The politicians who are using this incident as rocket boosters for their own ambitions should be lined up on the steps of the Capitol; and we should call on their mothers to publicly scold them for such shameful behavior.
In a related note,
Ugh!
I supposed that is the easiest trick in the book -- to scream “incompetence” when something like this happens. But it shows a deep misunderstanding of the consular trade. There are over 1500 consular officers in the Foreign Service
. They are some of the hardest working folks I know. Most work more than 8 hours or weekends and are on call 24/7 with no additional compensation. Perhaps, more than anyone else in a US mission, consular officers are dictated by manuals, guidelines, SOPs, and regulations. They are not freelancers, and the work that they do have almost zero optional parts.
. They are some of the hardest working folks I know. Most work more than 8 hours or weekends and are on call 24/7 with no additional compensation. Perhaps, more than anyone else in a US mission, consular officers are dictated by manuals, guidelines, SOPs, and regulations. They are not freelancers, and the work that they do have almost zero optional parts. I wonder what he meant by “poor enforcement of visa procedures?” That the suspect was issued a visa two years before his Detroit attack? That State did not know the Brits did not renew the suspect’s visa? US visa sections in over 200 embassies and consulate refuse visa applications every single work day, and as far as I know, we don’t tell the Brits about them. Why should they tell us about their refusals or nonrenewals? Now, it would have been much simpler if the father’s report was transmitted with an automatic “arrest” or "kill" button, right? But we still live by the rule of law.
As one the U.S. intelligence official puts it to Spencer Ackerman -- “Realistically, a lot of guys call every day and say their relative or former friend is dangerous,” the official explained. To use that level of information to revoke someone’s visa or stop someone from flying would be “unmanageable. We’d probably shut down air traffic.”
I don’t think folks really have an idea how much poison pen letters visa sections overseas get. If you take every single poison pen letter from jealous neighbors, ex-spouses, cranky relatives, broken families, old lovers, ditched boyfriends, mistresses, third wives, business competitors, etc, etc. as “word from god” commercial travel as we know it would stop. Really. No more Disneyland trips, no more shopping in New York, no more students for American universities and colleges, etc. etc. And congressional constituencies, even those still unable to vote would run to "their" representatives to complain, and senators and congressmen would send out congressional inquiries to embassies and consulates as to why so and so was refused a visa.
Finally, one more former Bushie has called for the visa function to be removed from the State Department to DHS saying that: “Granting visas is a function that most people at State relegate to the margins of their activities. State’s mandarins — foreign service officers or “FSOs” — look down at the consular officials who handle visas. This is considered a third-rate assignment, something young FSOs have to suffer through for a few years at the very start of their careers.”
He added that “Moving visa functions to DHS is no panacea, obviously, but the case of the would-be airline bomber Abdul Mutallab is perhaps suggestive. His multiple-entry visa to the U.S. was not cancelled by State, not even after his own father alerted U.S. Embassy officials in Nigeria of the danger he might present. His visa to enter the United Kingdom was cancelled, however, months ago.”
Of course, DHS is responsible for American’s homeland security and border control. Maybe DHS wants the visa adjudication function, maybe not. No offense to our friends at DHS but I understand that there are 12 million illegal aliens in the United States that we have not caught or deported yet. DHS has records of aliens entering the United States but there’s no one out there who actually knows when or if these aliens depart because DHS has no tracking system for them. Further, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, USCIS, one of DHS’s sub-agencies that deal with immigration is “actually still deep in the weeds and unable to keep up with the existing workload”. CIS reports that as of the end of June 2009, the agency had a backlog of nearly 2.7 million applications and petitions that were pending review, above and beyond the 1.8 million that had been completed that quarter.
So yes -- instead of figuring out what went wrong this time, so it won’t happen again next time -- let’s just forgettaboutallthat and shuffle the decks, move this function from here to there. It's all rather very simple, isn't it? We would, of course, all sleep like babies at night knowing that the same agency that could not get a handle on 12 million illegal aliens within our borders would now be tasked with issuing visas to all foreigners coming into the United States. You would find that exceptionally comforting, yes?
Let’s pretend for a moment that the visa function was with DHS this past year. That when the suspect’s father went to the US Embassy to report his concern about his son, he talked to a DHS officer. As I understand it under current regulations, the DHS officer would have brought this to the attention to the Visas Viper Committee normally chaired by the Deputy Ambassador. A Visas Viper cable would be transmitted to the US as it happened in this case. The information would go to NTC, and an interagency committee decides to put the suspects name in the half-a million name database. Would it have made a difference in the airport screening of this case? Given the same information, provided by DHS this time, instead of State, would they have decided to revoke the suspect’s visa? If the information was not significant enough to put subject in the more restrictive “No-Fly” list, would it have been significant enough for visa revocation?
Let’s presume that the revocation occurred. It is not as simple as stamping the visa “revoked” or “cancelled.” A report has to be made out, a "lookout" created and submitted, actual revocation documents drafted and approved by a responsible official, the subject of revocation had to be notified and asked to present his visa at the embassy for physical cancellation, the information had to be sent by DHS to other agencies including its child agency, CBP to warn them of possible entry, and its other child agency, ICE to locate, apprehend and remove subject if he was inside the United States.
In an alternate universe this might work, in a real world, I doubt it.
We need to find out what happened in this case without the hysteria or the urge to convene the circular firing squad. We need everyone’s help to get to the bottom of this, without the constant fear that their jobs are on the line -- whether in the airports, the airlines, or any of our relevant agencies, including the CIA and other intel agencies. We must refuse to let mob mentality drive this issue, let our people do their work and hope that they are now, learning more quickly to connect the dots before another incident happens. What we don't want to happen is for officials to lower the threshold for inclusion as CYA, and in so doing presents our analysts with more haystack than they can manage.
As Peter Feaver writes in FP, Off with her head? I'd rather know what's on Napolitano's mind first: “It may well be that there were lapses of judgment and oversight that rise to firing offenses. But let's investigate the alleged crime before we execute the sentence.”
What is the radiation exposure from full-body scans used for airport security screening?
There are 2 types of full-body scanner machines that use "weak" X-rays and radio waves respectively:- Backscatter radiation X-ray full-body scanners. The image looks like a chalk drawing (shown right).
- "Millimeter wave" (radio wave) full-body scanners. The image looks like a fuzzy photo negative.
Backscatter radiation X-ray full-body scanners
The older type of full-body scanners use so-called backscatter radiation to scan the entire body to detect foreign objects. Passengers will be directed to stand against a refrigerator-size backscatter machine as a "pencil-thin" X-ray beam rapidly scans them to produce textured "charcoal outlines" of their bodies. The backscatter uses a narrow, low-intensity X-ray beam that scans the entire body at a high speed. The X-ray is not strong enough to penetrate much beyond the skin, so it cannot find weapons that may be hidden in body cavities.
The amount of radiation used during this scan is equal to 15 minutes of exposure to natural background radiation such as the sun's rays. One scan emits less than 10 microrem, the unit used to measure radiation. Comparably, an hour on an airplane at a high altitude exposes a passenger to 300 microrem, and the average person is exposed to 1,000 microrem of radiation over the course of a normal day.
Thirty hours of airplane travel is the equivalent of one chest X-ray (CXR) - an important health warning for frequent flyers.
A backscatter X-ray scan gives a person as much radiation as he or she would get from two minutes of flying in an airplane at 30,000 feet. A traveler would have to undergo more than a thousand scans in a year to equal one standard chest X-ray.
Dr. Albert J. Fornace Jr., an expert in molecular oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center, said such a low dose was inconsequential, even for pregnant women. “Obviously, no radiation is even better than even a very low level,” Dr. Fornace said. “But this is trivial.” But David J. Brenner, a professor of radiation oncology at Columbia University, said that even though the risk for any individual was extremely low, he would still avoid it.
"Millimeter wave" (radio wave) full-body scanners
The newer type of scanners, called a "millimeter wave" machine, doesn't use radiation. It uses electromagnetic waves to create an image based on energy reflected from the body. According to the TSA these devices deliver 10,000 times less energy than a person's cell phone.
The millimeter wave machine works like this: A person walks into a large portal that resembles a that resembles a glass elevator (9 feet tall and 6 feet wide), pauses and lifts his or her arms while the machine takes two scans using radio waves. The scans take 1.8 seconds, and it takes about a minute for the image to appear on a computer screen in a separate location.
Privacy concerns
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) promises no one will see the revealing images except trained security agents staring at computer screens in a nearby room. The body scans will be deleted after 12 seconds.
Special “privacy” software intentionally blurs the image, creating an outline of a body that is clear enough to see a collarbone, bellybutton or weapon, but flattens details of revealing contours.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have raised objections, calling the X-ray scan a “virtual strip-search.”
References:
Dutch to use full body scans for U.S. flights. CNN.
New Airport X-Rays Scan Bodies, Not Just Bags. NYT.
For their eyes only? Boston Globe.
Manufacturer says full body scanners at airports are a valuable tool in fighting terror. The Plain Dealer.
Body-scan machine eyed for airports. AP.
Manchester airport trials naked-image security scans. Guardian.
Radiation risk low with whole-body airport scanners. Reuters, 2010.
New Airport Scanners: Radiation Risk Tiny. WebMD, 2010.
Image source: Wikipedia, backscatter X-ray, US Transportation Security Administration part of U.S. Department of Homeland Security, public domain.
Updated: 01/08/2010
Read more on a Kindle:
Health News of the Day
Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:Hemoglobin A1C Blood Test Now Recommended for Diabetes Diagnosis http://bit.ly/5WJIfO
The Middle-Aged Heart: The level of LDL cholesterol jumps an average of 10% in the years around menopause http://bit.ly/6m5DVc
Cardiologists sue U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sebelius over Medicare fee cuts http://bit.ly/4njr31
Wedding ring dermatitis: Till Dermatitis Do Us Part http://bit.ly/5aXM3c
How McDonald's makes sure its burgers are safe: a glimpse into the world of extreme food safety - USA Today http://bit.ly/7aaz0K
Is Twitter a "must" for doctors, asks Medscape http://bit.ly/5s14Or - No, it is not.
"Medical errors kill 98,000 people a year: 98000reasons.org, calls it equivalent to two 737s crashing every day" - NYT http://bit.ly/8DiU8F
NYT on Anguish of Litigation - Doctor: "My mood turned from stoic resignation to a toxic muck of apathy and irritation" http://bit.ly/4HBQlp -- RT @rlbates "Why we need tort reform: Read comment #10 on the NYT article. Wow." http://bit.ly/5hIh2Z
Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.
Follow me on Twitter:
CNN Video: School Lunch Nutrition Worse Than Fast-Food Restaurants
From USA Today:
"McDonald's, Burger King and Costco, for instance, are far more rigorous in checking for bacteria and dangerous pathogens. They test the ground beef they buy five to 10 times more often than the USDA tests beef made for schools during a typical production day.
For chicken, the USDA has supplied schools with thousands of tons of meat from old birds that might otherwise go to compost or pet food. Called "spent hens" because they're past their egg-laying prime, the chickens don't pass muster with Colonel Sanders— KFC won't buy them — and they don't pass the soup test, either. The Campbell Soup Company says it stopped using them a decade ago based on "quality considerations.
We simply are not giving our kids in schools the same level of quality and safety as you get when you go to many fast-food restaurants."
References:
School Lunch Nutrition Worse Than Fast-Food, Says USA Today. NPR Health Blog.
Fast-food standards for meat top those for school lunches. USA Today.
"Kids only have 20 minutes to eat their lunches at school, so they'd automatically eat the sweet snacks first". CNN. http://goo.gl/yPxNQ
Social Media Related Tweets and Insights
From my Twitter account:"20 Essential Gmail Tips You Probably Don't Use (but Should!)" http://bit.ly/7Bb45c
"Complete Guide to Free Kindle Books" http://bit.ly/5aV8wH
Free Online Storage Feature-by-Feature Comparison Chart http://bit.ly/6Ri9AQ
Official Twitter buttons: Choose the button you’d like to include in your website http://bit.ly/40pq2l
The Best Twitter Apps for your Mobile Phone http://bit.ly/8NZPff
Deepak Chopra: "It used to annoy me to be called the king of woo woo" http://bit.ly/8xRvIE
Doctors in satirical prints and cartoons (MJA) http://bit.ly/6783OA
Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.
Officially Out: Jide Zeitlin Withdraws Nomination for “Personal Reasons”
Josh Rogin of The Cable had an exclusive yesterday on Jide Zeitlin, President Obama’s nominee as US Representative to the United Nations for U.N. Management and Reform with the rank of Ambassador (Controversial Obama U.N. nominee withdraws for "personal reasons," official says | The Cable | December 29, 2009).
The report cites Zeitlin’s trouble in India (the case was settled between IMIL and Shatakshi Contractors, according to settlement documents obtained by The Cable) and his earlier legal problem with American Tower. Also this:
"But concerns about his nomination grew as rumors swirled around Washington and New York that Zeitlin was engaged in other activities that called into question his overall character and also may have included elements of identity fraud.Specifically, one woman contacted several government offices and multiple news outlets, including The Cable, with allegations that Zeitlin had used deception to lure her into what eventually she claims was a romantic relationship. Those allegations could not be independently confirmed by The Cable. The administration official declined to comment as to whether they had been investigated as part of Zeitlin's vetting process or afterwards. In his letter, Zeitlin said his withdrawal was due to "personal reasons," the administration official said."
We have not seen the official statement of withdrawal sent to the Senate yet, but folks are on a holiday break. And -- Josh’s report includes a blurb from White House spokesman Tommy Vietor when contacted about the story -- "We appreciate his willingness to serve and wish him the best of luck in the future."
Related Posts:
- SFRC Clears USAID and State Dept Nominees | Dec 09, 2009
- Obama's UN-Mgt Reform Nominee's Troubles | Nov 12, 2009
- SFRC Hearings: Zeitlin, Arvanat, Barton, Yohannes, Lomellin ... | Nov 04, 2009
- Officially In: Jide Zeitlin to UN Mgt and Reform | Sep 16, 2009
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