..... Since that call [on 2/22], a slew of new U.S. macro data have come out. They have been almost uniformly poor, if not outright awful. Consumer confidence, based on the Michigan survey, has tanked. On the real estate front, new home sales are collapsing again, existing home sales are also falling sharply, and construction activity (both residential and commercial) is sharply down. Durable goods orders are down, initial claims for unemployment benefits remain stubbornly high (way above the 400K mark). Real disposable income for Q4 has been revised downward while real disposable income (before transfers) for January was negative again. The manufacturing ISM index—while still expanding being above 50—has now fallen a couple of notches and its production and new orders index levels are falling, too; and global PMIs suggest a loss of momentum in the global economic recovery. Real inventories look unchanged in Q1 relative to Q4; auto sales were at best mediocre; core CPI was falling and core PCE was close to 0%, suggesting anemic demand and economic weakness. Q4 GDP growth was revised upward to 5.9% but most of it (3.9%) was due to inventories; final sales grew at a 1.9% rate while consumption grew at a dismal 1.7% (down from 2.8% in Q3). Q3 growth has been revised from an initial 3.5% to 2.8% to 2.2%, with final sales growing only 1.7%. So, at the time of maximum policy stimulus (H2 of 2009), final sales were growing only at a pathetic 1.8% average rate.
The eurozone (EZ) debt crisis, which RGE discusses in depth in a major new paper, predisposes Europe to a rising double-dip risk, due to the wave of fiscal austerity sweeping the periphery of the EZ. Even if the EZ doesn’t enter a double dip, the growth of domestic demand there will be as or more constrained than in the United States. This, in turn, will be a drag on the potential for U.S. export growth. The U.S. dollar rally on risk aversion reflects this risk. The U.S. dollar is settling back down and the threat of a debt crisis is headed off by a stronger Greek fiscal adjustment and potential adjustment package. But fiscal spending cuts, confidence hits and the looming threat of either rising unemployment or falling wages in the public sector—on top of private sector retrenchment—will remain. A similar retrenchment may well lie ahead in the United Kingdom, given rising fiscal sustainability concerns and the threat of a sterling crisis. Europe then will have great difficulty being a source of demand for U.S. exports, and may even provide impetus to faltering global demand growth, contributing to the threat of a wider double dip across high-income countries.
In 1993 a group of Republican senators came up with a counter proposal to the Clinton health care plan.
Here's where Obama's plan and the 1993 Republican plan are similar:
Individual mandate
No denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions
Employers must offer employees a health plan
Sets a baseline for benefits packages
State based exchanges
Subsidies for low income individuals to buy insurance
Prohibits companies from canceling plans
Percentage of Americans covered in the long term:
ObamaCare: 94%
Republican 1993 propsal: 92-94%
There's other pieces that are different, but for the most part, the big rocks of the proposals are very, very similar.
The Republican proposal was supported by Bob Dole, Chuck Grasserly, and Orin Hatch as well as many other Republican Sentaors.
ObamaCare is also VERY similar to the plan implemented by Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. Again, there's some differences, but the main parts of the plans are very, very similar.
My point is not that this is a good or bad bill, or that it is a bad thing that the Republicans have changed their minds. Everyone is entitled to change their mind as they learn more about an issue or what they prefer.
My point is, when you hear all the outrage from the pundits and political hacks saying that this is a socialist plan, or this is a disaster for the country, just remember, all the big ideas in the plan came from the Republicans. So really, how can this be a "leftist take over" if it came from the right???
MLB.com At Bat 2010 is more of the same great baseball application from the 2009 season
so you can still listen to the audio of every game in the regular
season and postseason live, get scores and highlights, get push
notifications, live streaming video (blackout restrictions apply), etc…
They’ve even went ahead and added some brand new features for 2010.
Spring Training statistics and LIVE audio
LIVE video with MLB.TV beginning mid-March
Breaking news, schedules and interactive rosters and player stats for every team
Additional enhancements to come during 2010 season, including a
suite of ‘At The Ballpark’ advantages in At Bat 2010, from customized,
proprietary content to fan-experience tools and more
10. Funemployment, n. The practice of enjoying one’s unemployment.
8. Staycation, n. Vacationing at home or near home because traveling further would be prohibitively expensive.
6. Madoff’d, v. To get ripped off in a particularly offensive fashion.
5. Recessionista, n. A consumer who has
historically paid big bucks to look like a million bucks and who,
unwilling to quit his/her fashion habit in the face of the recession.
2. Permatemp, n. The condition of being permanently employed as a temporary worker.
1. Decruited, adj. To be fired from a position one has not even started yet.
A big part of the answer arrives in new research from the Hay Group, which helps Fortune determine our annual ranking of the World's Most Admired Companies and investigates what makes them so successful.
It
turns out that this year's leaders -- the industry champs that really
did come through the recession on top, such as UPS, Disney, McDonald's,
and Marriott International -- differ from the stragglers in at least
one way: They actually believe what every company proclaims about
people being their most valuable asset.
The contrasts are
striking. The winners in this recession, meaning the three most admired
companies in each industry, were much less likely than the others to
have laid any people off in the past two years (only 10% did so, vs.
23% for their less admired peers). By even greater margins, they were
less likely to have frozen hiring or pay. By a giant margin (21
points), they were more likely to have invested the money and the
effort to brand themselves as employers, not just as marketers to
customers.
Tying all those facts together is one precept: "Most
Admired companies display a greater long-term focus than do their
peers," says the Hay Group's Mark Royal. That is, they understand that
people are an asset, not an expense.
Consider Pedroia's line by age 25: 481 games, .307 batting average, .370 on-base percentage, .855 OPS, 191 extra-base hits.
Check those stats against history, and you'll find only two second
basemen with comparable numbers by age 25. One was Tony Lazzeri, who
played for the Murderers' Row Yankees and turned 25 in 1929. The other
was Larry Doyle of the 1912 New York Giants.
This is from Mark Hyman who has been working with Alberto Villoldo and the Four Winds Society lately. He is a well published MD and a great guy to talk to. I've met him a few times and it looks like from this article that he went on a trip with the Four Winds that is very similar to the trip I will be going on this June.
The
shamans provide a doorway back to meaning, to a sense of place and
control and order in our world. The mind-body understanding in health
and disease needs to include not only tools for relaxation but also
tools and rituals and context for realignment of the soul. Modern
biologic discoveries mirror shamanic work. The deep understanding of
systems biology and the origins of disorder and biologic dysfunction
and the re-establishment of balance and harmony provide a new
scientific framework for healing. Traditional shamanic practices and
cosmologies use a consistent model of healing. First, the shaman
identifies and
removes negative energies in each of the body’s energy channels,
identifies imbalances and removes the causes on a physical and soul
level, and then restores balance and harmony in the body’s
core energy systems and re-establishes connection and harmony in
relationship.
Systems
biology and medicine (for which functional medicine provides a robust
clinical model) operate from a similar framework. In order to create
healing, the core systems of the body (meaning the body-mind and the
mind-body) and the interrelationships or patterns that connect all
these systems must
be understood as a whole. Healing cannot occur out of context. Healing
is created through an understanding of imbalance in each of the core
systems and how these patterns of imbalance
interconnect and influence each other. Once the imbalances are
identified, factors that have created them (negative energies), such as
poor diet, stress, social disconnection, toxins, infections, and
allergens, must be removed (extracted). Then the ingredients for
restoration and balance, such as quality food, adequate
nutrients for restoration of optimal function, rest, sleep, exercise,
rhythm, light, air, water, connection, love, and community, must be
provided. Once the systems of the body are realigned, harmonized,
and balanced, healing is possible. The ancient cosmologies and modern
molecular biology take
us to the same places and provide complementary tools to achieve a
healing of the body, mind, and soul, all of which are necessary for
health and to establish our place in the world. The challenge of
mind-body medicine is to embrace, contain, and include the human need
for purpose, connection, and meaning.
Brody recently proposed, in The New England Journal of Medicine,
that every medical specialty identify five procedures—diagnostic or
therapeutic—that are done a lot and cost a lot but provide no benefits
to some or all of the patients who receive them. Five is just a
suggestion, high enough to be meaningful but low enough to exclude
procedures in which the science is still open to debate, such as annual
mammograms for women under 50. "I'm pretty convinced that each
specialty could come up with 15 or 20, but in calling for five I think
we can find uncontroversial ones," says Brody. It's not just about
saving money, either. Any time a doctor performs a procedure, there is
the risk of medical error and side effects, such as an elevated risk of
cancer from CT scans. Unnecessary care kills 30,000 Americans every
year, estimates Dr. Elliott Fisher of Dartmouth Medical School—and that
figure includes only Medicare patients.
Medical groups
have not exactly beaten a path to Brody's door, so NEWSWEEK contacted
several to see if they would play along. Reactions ranged from "we do
no unnecessary care" (dermatology) to "only five?!" (emergency
medicine). Allen Lichter, CEO of the American Society of Clinical
Oncology, nominates what he calls "nth-line therapy"—the third or
fourth or fifth chemotherapy drug for a patient whose cancer has not
been felled by the first or second. "I don't know what n
should be," he says. "But at some point chemotherapy has an extremely
low chance of extending life and a high chance of shortening life due
to toxicity."
Experts in internal medicine are already well along in identifying
items for Brody's list. "I hate to say it, but it's true: doctors
sometimes do things that do not benefit patients and can even be
harmful," says Stephen Smith of Brown University medical school, who is
spearheading the effort. Nominations, all from physicians, include
antibiotics for upper-respiratory infections (the drugs kill bacteria,
not the viruses that cause colds), Pap tests for women under 21 ("solid
research shows that they find things that lead to unnecessary
interventions but would clear up on their own," says Smith), and me-too
drugs that are no more effective than older versions (anything other
than diuretics for first-line treatment of high blood pressure).
I have no clear favorite movie this year, thougth Avatar because of its subject matter, comes close. Here's my guess at some of the winners from the list of nominees:
Best Picture: Avatar
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Waltz
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'nique
Best Screenplay, for the Screen: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Best Screenplay, Adapted: Up in the Air, Jason Reitman
There's some new voting rules that could really change things, especially around Best Picture. Many folks think that these new rules could help "The Hurt Locker" over "Avatar"
The big "winner" was also one of last year's biggest box office hits: The overlong,
over-loud, under-whelming toy-based sequel TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.
In addition to taking Worst Director for The Boy Blunder of Blow-‘em-Ups
Michael Bay, FALLEN also fell victim as the year's Worst Screenplay
and Worst Picture. Worst Actress was awarded to a star who could
well follow up the berry next night with an Oscar win: Sandra Bullock, RAZZed
for her performance in ALL ABOUT STEVE. The film also took the Worst Screen
Couple dis-honor, for Bullock and co-star Bradley Cooper. Worst
Actor went jointly to Disney Boy Band The Jonas Brothers, playing
themselves in JONAS BROTHERS: THE 3-D CONCERT EXPERIENCE. Supporting "winners"
were Billy Ray Cyrus, riding his daughter's coat-tails and playing her
dad in HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE and Sienna Miller as the former
girlfriend and current nemesis of the main character in G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF
COBRA. One of last year's biggest box office bombs, LAND OF THE LOST, started
the evening with a pack-leading 7 nominations. But the $150 million production
(which grossed a humiliating $49 million in the U.S.) wound up only "winning"
as Worst Remake/Rip-Off or Sequel.
In celebration of three decades of Dissing Hollywood's Biggest Under-Achievers,
special awards were also given for Worst Picture of the Decade
(BATTLEFIELD EARTH, which "won" by a landslide) Worst Actor of the Decade
(Eddie Murphy for ADVENTURES of PLUTO NASH, I SPY, IMAGINE THAT, MEET
DAVE, NORBIT and SHOWTIME) and Actress of the Decade ("Celebutant" Paris
Hilton for THE HOTTIE & THE NOTTIE, HOUSE OF WAX and REPO: THE GENETIC
OPERA).
It was a surprisingly big year for Shaman themes in movies this year. Some examples:
Avatar: A shaman led community with close connection to their "mother" planet comes together to deal with outside forces. Sam Worthington's character goes on a classic "Hero's Journey" after starting out with a near death initiation, he overcomes many obstacles as he learns his lessons (often the hard way), then eventually opens up, merges with spirit, becomes fearless, and moves beyond death. I was stunned sitting in the theater seeing a mainstream movie like this.
17 Again: The Zac Efron vehicle has a wounded man turning to a "spirit guide" so he can journey to his past and relive his big wound that is ruining his current life. He goes back to that very point and changes his path, letting go of all the pain and moving into creating what he wants.
Men Who Stare at Goats: A farce, but still rooted in many shamanic beliefs. The main characters are called "shay-man" and work with the universe to create what they want. It is sick at times what they are trying to do, but it is all there, sometimes hidden in sarcasm and fear. Just like everyday life.
2012: The ancient Incan and Myan prophecies come true
Harry Potter: The whole series is based on shamanic principles and in the latest version Harry has to deal with dream visions to divinge the future and the truth, and protecting himself from energies out to undermine him. An amazing series of books and movies.
TV makes you drunker. TV may make you drink more. When it comes to drinking, we’re apparently very susceptible to what we see on TV, according to a report published in Alcohol and Alcoholism. To discover whether what we view actually affects drinking habits, researchers rounded up 80 male university students between the ages of 18 and 29 and plunked them down in a bar-like setting where the students were allowed to watch movies and commercials on TV. The researchers found that men who watched films and commercials in which alcohol was prominently featured immediately reached for a glass of beer or wine and drank an average of 1.5 glasses more than those who watched films and commercials in which alcohol played a less prominent role.
