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Monday, October 28, 2013

Lies the Dems Tell Themselves

During the Obama years, a potent mythology has taken root in Democratic circles. In this narrative, Democrats are victims, martyrs even, whereas Republicans are wily tricksters.

Last year, there was a hyped-up fable about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. President Barack Obama told "60 Minutes," "When I first came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans said, 'My No. 1 priority is making sure President Obama's a one-term president.'" Sen. Dianne Feinstein even told the San Francisco Chronicle's editorial board she heard McConnell speaking to that effect on the Senate's opening day.

The thing is that the quote in question first appeared nearly two years later -- in an October 2010 interview with the National Journal's Major Garrett.

The latest iteration of Democrats-on-the-cross works like this: Obamacare hasn't delivered the big savings promised by the president -- $2,500 annually for the average family -- because Democrats ditched the single-payer model to mollify Republicans. In the Los Angeles Times, Harvard professor Jane Mansbridge writes,

"The Democratic Party reluctantly adopted RomneyCare, a.k.a. Obamacare, to get Republican approval." What's more, House Republicans "coerced the Democrats into adopting a Republican health insurance reform plan."

A reader emails me, "The Republicans who hate Obama would not permit the creation of a decent single payer plan which would allow private insurance carriers to participate on a competitive uniform benefit program." Another insists, "We wanted single payer! The GOP did not -- that was the compromise, and it was one of many from this president."

Really? The Affordable Care Act did not win a single Republican vote on the House or Senate floor. If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi abandoned single-payer to win GOP votes, they are the most incompetent negotiators in history.

Former Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, voted for the Obama stimulus package and a measure to end "don't ask, don't tell." In her book, "Fighting for Common Ground: How We Can Fix the Stalemate in Congress," Snowe recalls how 40 House Republicans voted with 249 Democrats to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program, only to watch Democrats unveil a stimulus package with no GOP input a week later.

There was little spirit of bipartisanship when Pelosi crowed: "Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election."

When Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., rolled out his draft legislation in 2009, he didn't have a single Republican at his side. When the Senate Finance Committee voted on two Democratic public-option proposals -- to allow government plans to compete with private insurers -- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, denounced the public option as "a Trojan horse for a single-payer system." Let it be noted that centrist Democrats joined Republicans to defeat both measures.

In "The Audacity of Hope," Obama laid out a plan for universal coverage that allowed private carriers, such as Blue Cross and Aetna, to compete with new state pools. Still, he didn't stick his neck out to push for Democrats' public-option proposals.

In a 2003 speech, Obama, a second-term state senator, called himself "a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program." PolitiFact, however, couldn't find a similar blank-check statement. The fact-checking organization observes that as Obama became a more well-known national figure, he spoke "favorably of single-payer in concept, but always (added) qualifiers."

Snowe voted for the Democrats' health bill to get it out of committee, but it never won her support on the floor. You see, Snowe foresaw Obamacare's big problem. As she wrote (my italics), "not one single member in Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- could answer whether the newly created health insurance plans would be affordable, yet we hurtled headlong toward a final vote on a monumental bill affecting every American."

In a savvier Republicans-ruined-Obamacare argument, Washington Post wonk-blogger Ezra Klein contends that the Democratic part of Obamacare -- Medicaid, which is single-payer -- works. But: "The part of Obamacare that's troubled is the part Democrats lifted from Republican policymakers. It's the part that tries to integrate private insurance companies with government systems in order to create a universal insurance system that's subsidized by the state but run by private companies."

Get it? If Obamacare fails, it's because Obamacare is a Republican plan.

Now, I won't deny that two decades ago, some conservative think tank swell came up with the term "individual mandate" -- which allowed other wonks to try to pin the tail on the elephant. But if liberals have to fish for a 1989 Heritage Foundation policy paper that had no Republican support in 2008, 2009 or 2012 to establish Republican paternity for the Affordable Care Act, that tells you one thing: They think Obamacare won't work.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/10/27/lies_the_dems_tell_themselves_120464.html
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The Recipe For Strong Teenage Bones: Exercise, Calcium and D

Katherine Streeter for NPR

It's really only a sliver of time when humans build the bulk of their skeleton. At age 9, the bones start a big growth spurt. And by the time puberty ends, around 14 or 15 years old, the adult-sized skeleton is all but done, about 90 percent complete.

But doctors say a lot of children aren't getting what they need to do that. Calcium and vitamin D are essential, sure, but so is lots of time jumping and running.

"It's the magic window of time when bone is built," says Dr. Laura Tosi, an orthopedic surgeon who directs the pediatric bone health program at Children's National Health system in Washington, D.C. And when it comes to bones, "bigger is definitely better," she says, "The wider and thicker the bone, the harder it is to break or tear."

Just about everybody knows that calcium and vitamin D are essential to build strong bones. But children and teenagers are all too often shunning the foods that would help them get enough calcium and vitamin D to build those bones.

Federal health officials recommend that children between the ages of 9 and 18 get 1,300 milligrams of calcium every day. That translates into four to five glasses of milk or the equivalent. According to Dr. Neville Golden, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, most teens are not drinking anywhere near that amount.

Only about 15 percent of high school students are drinking milk, according to a 2011 federal survey. And only about 9 percent of girls do. In part that's because milk drinking is viewed as "uncool," says Golden, and teens, particularly girls, often think of milk as fattening.

But that's not true, he says. One glass of skim milk contains no fat and approximately 80 calories, about the same caloric content as an apple.

Now of course there are other sources of calcium — yogurt and cheese, for example. But lots of kids think those are fattening, too, Golden says. And while vegetables can be a source of calcium, you'd have to eat an awful lot of them to reach the recommended levels – one cup of broccoli has just 42 mg of calcium. Fortunately, there are other food sources, including fortified orange juice, breakfast cereals, and tofu.

Calcium supplements are often recommended for adults to meet their recommended daily requirement. But for kids, Golden says, it's far better to eat calcium-rich foods. That's because the body absorbs calcium better from food than it does from supplements.

Even if boys and girls get the recommended amount of calcium, if they're not also getting Vitamin D it won't make a difference. "You can drink as much calcium as you like, but if you don't have enough vitamin D, you're not going to absorb it," Golden says. The vitamin, which is actually a hormone, interacts with the lining of the stomach and intestines to help calcium get absorbed.

In 2010, the Institute of Medicine said that children and most adults need 600 international units of vitamin D a day. They found no evidence of widespread Vitamin D deficiency, though people these days spend much less time out in the sun, which stimulates the body's production of vitamin D.

Vitamin D is found in foods like fatty fish such as salmon and sardines, but teenage girls were least likely of all age groups to get enough vitamin D in food, according to a 2010 study. One interesting point, says Golden: farmed salmon is not as vitamin D rich as wild-caught salmon. And like calcium, Vitamin D is added to foods like milk and orange juice.

If a teenager still isn't getting enough vitamin D from fish, milk and other healthy foods, Golden says a reasonable workaround is taking supplements of about 400 international units per day.

Perhaps the secret ingredient to building strong bones for a lifetime is exercise, says orthopedic surgeon Tosi. One study found that when children jumped up and down between classes, totaling about 15 minutes a day, they added mass to their leg bones.

The bounce is what's important, Tosi says. "We think the bounce probably sends an electrical or other signal right up the skeleton, saying 'OK, time to give more, time to build more bone'."

So, jumping, jogging, tennis and basketball are all good options. Federal health officials suggest kids get at least one hour of exercise every day.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/28/240553878/the-recipe-for-strong-teenage-bones-exercise-calcium-and-d?ft=1&f=1001
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Health Screens Offered By Nonprofits May Harm More Than Help

Stacy Riggs of Fairfax, Va., is prepped for a screening for atrial fibrillation by Life Line Screening medical assistant Kennea Blake at Messiah United Methodist Church in Springfield, Va.

Jenny Gold/Kaiser Health News

Messiah United Methodist Church in Springfield, Va., is unusually busy for a Thursday morning. It's not a typical time for worship, but parishioner Stacy Riggs and her husband have come for something a little different: a medical screening.

"I'm getting ready to turn 50 sooner than I'd like to say, and just thought it was a good time to get an overall screening," said Riggs, of Fairfax, Va. She doesn't have any symptoms, but she stopped by the church, which as a service to parishoners is offering a day of testing by the company Life Line Screening.

For less than $200, Riggs is getting six different screenings for stroke, heart disease and osteoporosis. Life Line says they've checked 8 million Americans this way at churches and community centers, and up to 10 percent of them have been found to have some sort of abnormality.

But several of the tests performed by Life Line are on a list of procedures for healthy people to avoid.

The tests can potentially do more harm than good, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel that recommends evidence-based treatments. Even though the screening tests are generally noninvasive, follow-up exams and procedures often are not, and can increase a person's odds of being injured or overtreated.

One of those questionable tests is carotid artery screening, which looks for plaque buildup in a neck artery that can cause a stroke. It's on the American Academy of Family Physicians' list of procedures to avoid.

With that test, "the patient is more likely actually to have a stroke because of the screening and subsequent testing and possible surgery than if they'd never been screened at all," says Dr. Glen Stream, who chairs the academy's board.

The problem, he says, is that many of the findings are false positives – in other words, things that may be abnormal but won't ever hurt you. But once you find something, he says, it's hard not to aggressively treat it, even when that's not the right approach.

"There's sort of a compelling momentum for patient and doctor both to say, 'Well, now that we know there's a problem, we need to investigate and understand it. And then there's the dilemma about, 'Do we treat it?' " Stream explains. "So many times watchful waiting is the right treatment option, but it just doesn't always sit well."

Dr. Andy Manganaro, medical director of Life Line Screening in Independence, Ohio, takes a different view. He says the company's tests save many lives. Manganaro, who was a vascular surgeon for 30 years, says he was often called to see a patient in the emergency room who had an already-ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm that could have been discovered earlier with screening tests of the sort that Life Line Screening offers.

"Had they known they had the aneurysm a week before, we could have fixed it with very little risk to them," he says. "And they would have been going home instead of to the morgue."

And while most of the research and advisory panels are nearly unanimous that several tests offered by Life Line and other companies are more likely to cause harm than good for people without symptoms, Manganaro counters that the research those panels cite is out of date.

Even people who aren't at major risk can benefit, he says, because the tests push them to change their lifestyles before more damage is done.

"Yes, you can tell people in general, lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, lead a healthy lifestyle. But most often it goes in one ear and out the other," Manganero says. "On the other hand, though, if you show someone a picture of their carotid artery filled with plaque as compared to a normal carotid artery, they're much more likely to throw out their Lucky Strikes on the way out the door."

“ When information comes in the form of an advertisement or promotion, regardless of the source, be skeptical.

- Dr. John Santa

But it's not just about quitting smoking or taking other steps to improve your health. It's also about money.

Life Line Screening is a for-profit company, and it often partners with local hospitals and surgical centers that help promote the screening days. If Life Line screens find an abnormality, the patients can be referred to the hospital for follow-up care, which means more business for the hospital. Cardiac care can be especially lucrative.

The fact that for-profit companies are pushing these tests should raise consumer suspicions, says Dr. John Santa, medical director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.

"When information comes in the form of an advertisement or promotion, regardless of the source, be skeptical," Santa says. "Realize that from a health point of view, if this was a really good and important thing to do you probably wouldn't need to be advertising and promoting it."

Most important, he adds, is to talk to your family doctor before doing any kind of screening to make sure you're getting the tests that are right for you.

This story was produced in collaboration with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/28/239861764/health-screens-offered-by-nonprofits-may-harm-more-than-help?ft=1&f=3
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ATM malware may spread from Mexico to English-speaking world

A malicious software program found in ATMs in Mexico has been improved and translated into English, which suggests it may be used elsewhere, according to security vendor Symantec.

Two versions of the malware, called Ploutus, have been discovered, both of which are engineered to empty a certain type of ATM, which Symantec has not identified.

In contrast to most malware, Ploutus is installed the old-fashioned way: by inserting a CD boot disk into the innards of an ATM machine running Microsoft Windows. The installation method suggests that cybercriminals are targeting standalone ATMs where access is easier.

The first version of Ploutus displays a graphical user interface after the thief enters a numerical sequence on an ATM's keypad, although the malware can be controlled by a keyboard, wrote Daniel Regalado, a Symantec malware analyst, on Oct. 11.

Ploutus is programmed for a specific ATM model since it assumes there is a maximum of four cassettes per dispenser in the ATM. It then calculates the amount of money that should be dispensed based on the number of bills. If any of the cassettes have less than the maximum number of 40 bills, it releases whatever is left, repeating that process until the ATM is empty.

Kevin Haley, director of Symantec Security Response, said in an interview earlier this month that the attackers have deep knowledge of the software and hardware of the particular ATM model.

"They clearly know how this machine worked," he said.

The source code of Ploutus "contains Spanish function names and poor English grammar that suggests the malware may have been coded by Spanish-speaking developers," Regalado wrote.

In a new blog post, Regalado wrote that the attackers made Ploutus more robust and translated it into English, indicating the same ATM software can be exploited in countries other than Mexico.

The "B" variant of Ploutus has some differences. It only accepts commands through the keypad but will display a window showing the money available in the machine along with a transaction log as it dispenses cash. An attacker cannot enter a specific number of bills, so Ploutus withdraws money from the cassette with the most available bills, Regalado wrote.

Symantec advised those with ATMs to change the BIOS boot order to only boot from the hard disk and not CDs, DVDs or USB sticks. The BIOS should also be password protected so the boot options can't be changed, Regalado wrote.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2058360/atm-malware-may-spread-from-mexico-to-englishspeaking-world.html#tk.rss_all
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Vudu teams up with Sony to offer extra streaming features

Vudu is joining Netflix in trying to put another nail in DVD's coffin by offering interactive features for select Sony films. The Walmart-owned streamer calls the new service Vudu Extras+, and kicked it off today with deleted scenes, featurettes and trivia from Sony's District 9 alien flick. Other ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/g7DcwWmpayQ/
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T-Mobile confirms free Mobile Hotspot on prepaid plans, domestic data roaming also now included

T-Mobile

More prominent 'Simple Choice' branding and features making their way to the prepaid market

Starting the last couple of days, T-Mobile prepaid customers have started to have unfettered access to their phone's mobile hotspot function. Previously the only way to hotspot "by the book" on its prepaid plans was to pay $15 per month, but now we have confirmation that T-Mobile has changed its policies regarding hotspotting on prepaid. Reaching out to T-Mobile, we received the following response:

Starting Oct. 20, T-Mobile will give pay-in-advance customers access to domestic data roaming across the U.S. for the first time. Additionally, pay-in-advance customers that sign up for our Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan will also have access to 2.5GB of Smartphone Mobile Hotspot (i.e. tethering). Only T-Mobile gives pay-in-advance customers data roaming AND Smartphone Mobile Hotspot at no extra charge with their Unlimited Nationwide 4G Data plan.

So not only has T-Mobile killed the $15 fee for hotspotting on prepaid, it has also tossed in a small amount of domestic data roaming — both firsts for its prepaid brand. Befitting for the changes, T-Mobile is also moving towards rebranding its prepaid offerings under the new "Simple Choice" plan name, referring to them now as "Pay-in-advance Simple Choice" plans.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/svV0iL5pu_M/story01.htm
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Go Where You Want in These Immersive 360 Degree iPad Animations

Movies, TV and video are great. Someone made all the decisions and you just get to sit back and watch. If you want to take control you play video games. Right? But HEAD-Geneva wanted to develop a hybrid genre so the group created IDNA.