Zirenz & other

Monday 1 September 2008

Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report Feature Highlights Recent Blog Entries

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While mainstream news coverage is noneffervescent a basal source of information for the modish in policy debates and the health care mart, online blogs have become a significant part of the media landscape, often presenting new perspectives on policy issues and drawing attention to under-reported topics. To put up complete coverage of health policy issues, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report offers readers a window into the world of blogs in a roundup of health policy-related web log posts. "Blog Watch," published on Tuesdays and Fridays, tracks a wide range of blogs, providing a brief description and relevant links for highlighted posts.

Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress Action Fund's Wonk Room looks at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (Ariz.) stance on a cigarette tax, as well as the reception of McCain's economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin (here) to questions about the candidate's "individual-market centrical health care proposal."

Merrill Goozner of Gooz News discusses a Wall Street Journal editorial that denounces cigarette taxes. Goozner says a national cigarette levy "directly taxes one of the major causes of rising health care costs; it reduces smoking, which will lour health care costs in the long run; and, because it is national, it leaves the smoking compartment with no place to run for cheaper cigarettes."

The Health Care Blog's Sarah Arnquist inside information the soon-to-be launched "Healthy Howard Plan" in Howard County, Md. Arnquist says, "As long as national health care politics remain paralyzed, local and state governments volition experiment with reform and coverage enlargement plans."

John Joseph Leppard writes in Healthcare Manumission, "Many individuals let the misguided belief that the reason prescription drugs cost so much is simply because we do not set prices as is through with in other countries. The truth is far different."

Bob Laszewski from Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review looks at a decision by the United Kingdom's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to deny coverage for certain treatments for advanced kidney cancer. Laszewski says the agency does not "ca-ca arbitrary and bureaucratic decisions -- they follow the science."

Michael Miller from the Health Policy and Communications Blog looks at how health concern issues are polling among voters and political insiders.

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn writes on Health Populi that health fear cost direction is impossible "without individuals connecting the dots 'tween our individual health behaviors and wellness economics."

Joe Paduda of Managed Care Matters outlines what he sees as a trend: "[H]ospital revenues are up slightly, profits ar up much more than revenues, and this despite (mostly) flat patient volumes and lower surgical volumes." Paduda surmises that "[h]ospitals ar gaining office at the expense of commercial payers."

Mark Levin from the National Review Online's The Corner responds to a column from Paul Krugman of the New York Times about the possibility of guaranteed accession to health care. Levin writes, "[Krugman] measures advance by the extent to which government runs things, not by what actually benefits society."

Sarah Weaton of the New York Times' The Caucus blog, Louise of Colorado Health Insurance Insider and Stephen of the Physicians for a National Health Program's web log address health care components of the principles fix forth by the Democratic Party's platform committee.

Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal's Health Blog is moderating an ongoing argue about wellness care issues with Jay Khosla, a health policy adviser for the McCain, and David Cutler, a health policy adviser for presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). The questions and answers are available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from hTTP://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the intact Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email speech at hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.

Friday 22 August 2008

California fines 18 hospitals for shoddy care

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Eighteen hospitals in California were fined for state wellness code violations in which patients received shoddy concern that in some cases led to deaths.

Violations included an improperly inserted catheter, a ventilator that wasn't turned on and operative tools left hand inside patients after operations.

The fines made public Monday stem from investigations by the California Department of Public Health.

The hospitals were fined $25,000 for each violation � the latest of dozens of penalties the state has issued in recent age to more than 40 hospitals.

"The number of penalties will decrease and the quality of care volition dramatically better as hospitals take action to better," said Kathleen Billingsley, music director of the health department's Center for Healthcare Quality. "The entire intent of these fines is to improve the overall quality of care in California."

The report elaborate a death at a La Mesa hospital in which a worker failed to turn on a ventilator for a patient role who was being transferred. Another patient in Los Alamitos died after falling from a wheelchair with no seat belt on, and a Santa Ana hospital lost a patient from a medication overdose.

At Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo, a registered nurse improperly inserted a catheter into a patient's neck vein on Sept. 1, and the patient role died as a result of an air bubble from the tube. The report plant the nurse had not completed a required anatomy class or the hospital's training on protocol.

Defending himself in the report, the unidentified male nurse told investigators, "I am the pro of the hospital. The other nurses call me to put in IVs that they cannot get in."

A message seeking comment from the medical center was not returned Monday.

In early cases, patients had surgical instruments or sponges left inside their bodies during surgery, requiring a second surgery to retrieve the items. The report likewise found some patients experienced surgical cognisance during their procedures due to unconventional anesthesia.

The country has issued 61 such penalties to 42 hospitals, Billingsley said.

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Tuesday 12 August 2008

Peter Andre in Car Accident

Katie Price's husband Peter Andre was reportedly tangled in a car accident while on his way back from the cinema.

The former Aussie pop headliner was aforesaid to be lucky to escape uninjured after a car tight into his vehicle.

A reservoir tells Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper, "Pete had only been in LA for a few hours and had just kissed Katie goodbye.

"He was in his chauffeur-driven car when the accident happened.

"Another car plowed into the side Pete was sitting. It left a massive dent in the motorcar door just thankfully Pete walked out uninjured.

"He was adamant he didn't want to go to infirmary and made sure the other driver was OK.

"Not surprisingly he was badly shaken only immediately called Katie to reassure her that he wasn't hurt."

More info

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Sukima Switch

Artist: Sukima Switch

   Genre(s):
Pop: Japan
   Other

Discography:

Greatest Hits

Year: 2007
Tracks: 15

Yuukaze Blend

Year: 2006
Tracks: 13

Natsukumo Noise

Year: 2005
Tracks: 12

Brideshead Revisited - movie review

The palatial estate sits languid against the landscape, the massive family home base looking
as much like a museum as a manor. Within its walls are secrets kept silent for far
too many years, a lineage bad in lies, deception, and an imperturbable faith in
God. For the Flytes, Brideshead reflects their own insular being -- self contained,
nail with its own ornate chapel and religious iconography. But for anyone away
the clan, such opulence shields wealth of a different, worrying kind. And should
one and only revisit the famed locale, they overly will encounter themselves lost in its amoral allure.

When we first gear meet heart class student Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), he is leaving
his distant father for Oxford. Instantly, he is thrust into a world of privilege,
and the peaked sphere of influence circumferent fey fop Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw).
Over the course of the school year, they become inseparable in ways that suggest something
other than bare companionship. Fate finds the pair spending the summertime at Sebastian's
family home base, known as Brideshead. There, Charles meets two women who will figure promin
ently in his future -- the staunchly Catholic matriarch Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson)
and Sebastian's glamorous sister Julia (Hayley Atwell). Over the next few years,
everything about Brideshead, from the people to the place itself, will haunt Charl
es' attempt to forge an identity for himself, as well as guide what he genuinely wants
out of life.

Handsomely helmed by Kinky Boots/Becoming Jane director Julian Jarrold and like an expert condensing
Evelyn Waugh's classical novel, Brideshead Revisited is Merchant/Ivory with a fastidious political
standpoint. Leaning left field on everything from homosexualism to the interfering influence
of religion, while tranquil distilling British class fellowship into its horrid haves and
every bit spineless have-nots, this is a period piece as partial propaganda. Waugh made
no bones about his attempted social commentary, and Brideshead remains one of his
harshest denouncements. Jarrold merely ups the criticism, making it clear what side
of the scandals his and his film's philosophies lay.

At its core group, this big screen version (a 1000000 miles away in paper and patch points
from its famous 11-hour mini series first cousin circa 1981) focuses on blind faith -- in
love, in God, in money and its power, in manhood and all its frailties. Jarrold,
along with screenwriters Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, never lets us forget that,
inside the imposing mansion with its statuary and classic canvases, rests an equally
antediluvian (and decomposition) notion of interpersonal relationships. No matter the parameters --
Charles and Sebastian, the Flyte children and their domineering mother/ultra-lenient
father, Lady Marchmain and the rest of the domain -- award and inordinate conviction
replace love and lust as proper emotional responses.

The throw off clearly shines within these confines, standouts being Whishaw as the particularly
offended Sebastian, so weak of will and physicality that you're convinced a rigid breeze
would break him in half. It's a knockout turn by the actor, particularly when slott
ed against Old Vic wonders like Thompson (marvellously bitchy as Mother Marchmain)
and Michael Gambon (as the discredited Lord paterfamilias in expatriate). Guiding us through
all of this is Goode, his open faced Everyman slowly giving way to a selfishness
all his own. The amazing thing about Brideshead Revisited, outside of its stunning
set design and meticulous direction, is how gullible we find ourselves inside these
posh and polite environs. Once the characters' true motives get showing through,
we are shocked at how dramatic (and unexpected) they are.

It's all part of this film's unfathomable charms. Most audiences would see an English
countryside accented with a castle-like keep and stiff swells and assume they know
the taradiddle from rote. Granted, Brideshead Revisited does initially feel like a journey we've
made before. But thanks to the utter gift of everyone in front of and behind the
lens, we wind up seeing the circumstances through fresh, and very satisfied eyes.

That must be why they call it Brideshead.

More info

Mott The Hoople

Artist: Mott The Hoople

   Genre(s):
Rock
   Rock: Punk-Rock

Discography:

All The Young Dudes

Year: 2006
Tracks: 9

Live

Year: 1974
Tracks: 8

Mott

Year: 1973
Tracks: 9

Mad Shadows

Year: 1970
Tracks: 7

Mott The Hoople

Year: 1969
Tracks: 8

Mott the Hoople ar one of the big also-rans in the history of sway & hum. Though Mott scored a number of album careen candy hits in the early '70s, the ring never quite an stony-broke through into the mainstream. Nevertheless, their filthy alignment of dense metallic component, glam sway, and Bob Dylan's supercilious hippie cynicism provided the foundation for many British hoodlum bands, most notably the Clash. At the centre of Mott the Hoople was trail vocalist/pianist Ian Hunter, a late addition to the band world Health Organization developed into its focal point as his songwriting grew. Hunter was able to overthrow rock candy & roll conventions with his lyrics, and the circle -- light-emitting diode by guitarist Mick Ralphs -- had a tough, muscular sound that unbroken the chemical chemical group firm in hard sway territory, even when dalliance with homophile imagination and glammy make up. However, their want of success meant that they of requirement splintered apart in the '70s, with Ralphs forming Bad Company and Hunter launching a cult solo vocation.

Mickey Ralphs (trail guitar, vocal), Verden Allen (organ), Overend Pete Watts (basso), and Dale "Buffin" Griffin (drums) formed Silence in 1968 and began playing around their hometown of Hereford, England. Early in 1969, the band added singer Stan Tippens and landed a record squeeze with Island (Atlantic Ocean in the U.S.), head to London to record with producer Guy Stevens, whose number one travel was to change the band's name to Mott the Hoople, later on a Willard Manus novel. By the summertime, Tippens was dismissed, by and by comme il faut the band's road managing director, and was replaced by Ian Hunter. Mott the Hoople's eponymic debut album was released in the fall of 1969 and it became an underground strike, known for its fusion of Blond on Blonde-era Dylan and heavy metallic element, as well for its straight cover of Sonny Bono's "Laughter at Me" and its buffeting instrumental adaptation of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me."

Disdain all of the attention, Mott the Hoople received, it didn't sell well and neither did its sickly reviewed 1970 follow-up, Unrestrained Shadows. The band returned in 1971 with the country-tinged Wildlife, which was its least popular record to date. Despite their lack of gross sales, Mott the Hoople had gained a cult next in Britain through their unvarying touring. At a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in July 1971, the band sparked a mini-riot that lED the venue to ban rock concerts for a number of days. More than any of their old releases, Brain Capers (1971) demonstrated the band's live power, simply when it failed to sell, the group was prepared to disband.

Scarcely as the band was about to split, David Bowie intervened and convinced the grouping to stick around together. Riding at the acme of his Ziggy Stardust popularity, Bowie agreed to bring forth Mott's adjacent album and offered "Suffragette City" for the bandmembers to phonograph record. They refused the song, asking for "Screw Saturday" rather. They finally settled for "All the Young Dudes," which became the group's breakthrough hit. An explicitly brave hymn recorded by a straight person isthmus, "All the Young Dudes" became the hymn for the glam rock earned run average, becoming a number trinity hit in the U.K. and a Top 40 strike in the U.S. in the summer of 1972. An album of the same name was released on Columbia Records in the go down, and it became a hit in the U.K. and the U.S.

Allen left wing the isthmus ahead the recording of the group's reexamination to All the Young Dudes, citing Hunter's reluctance to disk his songs. A concept album about a stone band struggling for success, Mott, released in the summertime 1973, expanded the band's success, receiving good reviews and peaking at number 7 in Britain and issue 35 in America. "All the Way from Memphis" and "Roll Away the Stone" became Top Ten hits in the U.K., substantiating the band's status as one of the leaders of the glam rock trend. In the summer of 1974, Hunter promulgated Diary of a Rock Star to great acclaim in the U.K.

Spell the bandmembers were eventually experiencing the success that they had desired, the group was beginning to fall apart. Frustrated with Allen's departure, as well as the fact that his song "Can't Get Enough" was prohibited of Hunter's range of mountains, Ralphs left Mott in late 1973 to form Bad Company with Paul Rodgers. He was replaced by other Spooky Tooth guitarist Luther Grosvenor, world Health Organization changed his constitute to Ariel Bender upon connexion the band; keyboardist Morgan Fisher likewise coupled the grouping. The new lineup toured in late 1973, and the concerts were attested on 1974's Mott the Hoople Live. The live record was released later The Hoople appeared in the spring, peaking at 11 in the U.K. and 28 in the U.S. on the specialty of the singles "The Golden Age of Rock & Roll" and "Sly Foxy." Former Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson replaced Bender in the fall of 1974 upon Hunter's request. Within a few months, the pair leftfield the ring to begin on the job as a yoke. The left members of Mott the Hoople added guitarist Ray Major and singer Nigel Benjamin, truncating their appoint to Mott. The new incarnation of the grouping released Tug On (1975) and Yelling and Pointing (1976) to little attention before adding John Fiddler as their atomic number 82 singer and ever-changing their diagnose to British Lions. They split up deuce old age later.

Though the fealty between Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson was short-lived, it was well-received and the deuce would continue to sporadically work together until Ronson's death in 1993. Hunter pursued a moderately successful solo career, highlighted by his eponymic 1975 album and 1979's You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic. Hunter's "Ships" was covered by Barry Manilow in 1975, while Great White took his "In one case Bitten, Twice Shy" into the Top Ten in the early '90s.