Category: News

Ed. Note: Keep up with the President on our page dedicated to his trip through Asia.

Tomorrow, November 16, President Obama will have a town hall meeting with Chinese youth in Shanghai, China. Holding the event in Shanghai is symbolic as the Shanghai Communique was announced here and helped pave the way for normalization and the first 30 years of formal diplomatic relations.

At the meeting, the President will interact with young Chinese and discuss the relationship between our two countries in the years ahead.  Attendees of the event will come from several Universities in the Shanghai area. During this event, the President will take questions from the live audience, as well as from the online Chinese community. The online community in China has been submitting questions on a variety of websites including Xinhuanet, Sohu and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing’s website.

The Town Hall will be livestreamed on Whitehouse.gov/live. You can also join us on the official White House page on Facebook or the Embassy’s website to view and participate in a live discussion during the event.

The event is planned to start Monday at 12:45pm local time in Shanghai which means late Sunday night in Washington, DC at 11:45pm EST.

This blog post has been translated into Chinese:

欧巴马总统在上海与青年面对面

明天，也就是11月16日，欧巴马总统将与中国的青年们在中国上海面对面地交流。在上海举行这个活动是有象征意义的，因为在这里宣布了上海公报，它为前30年的正式外交关系及其正常化铺平了道路。

在活动上，总统将与中国青年人互动，讨论我们两国在未来数年的关系。 参加活动者将来自上海地区的一些大学。活动期间，总统将回答现场观众和中国网上社区的提问。中国的网上社区已经在包括新华网，搜狐和美国驻华大使馆网站的一系列网站上提交了问题。

这次活动将在Whitehouse.gov/live上在线视频直播。 活动进行当中，您也可以到白屋在Facebook上的官方页面或者大使馆网站观看和参与现场讨论。

动计划在当地时间星期一下午12时45分在上海开始，这意味着美国东部时间华盛顿特区星期日晚上11点45分。

Homebrew coder Globoeil has recently released a new version of Virtual Game Maker DS, a homebrew ap that allows you to design and build DS games easil…

The Associated Press: “Overall spending on health care would rise as a result of legislation approved a week ago by the House, and billions of dollars in projected savings contained in the measure will be difficult to maintain, according to a report by a top official at the agency that oversees Medicare. The legislation would expand insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million people who now lack it, according to the report, creating a demand for services that ‘could be difficult to meet initially … and could lead to price-increases, cost-shifting and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.’”

“The analysis was issued by Richard Foster, the chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which is part of the Health and Human Services Department. The study was conducted at the request of House Republicans, who quickly tried to turn it against the Obama administration” (Espo, 11/14).

The Hill: “CMS’s analysis is not an apples-to-apples comparison to the cost estimate conducted by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) because CMS did not review tax provisions, which help offset the price tag of the Democrats’ measure. However, the CMS analysis clearly states that the House bill falls short in attaining a key goal of the Democrats’ effort to reform the nation’s healthcare system: ‘With the exception of the proposed reduction in Medicare… the provisions of H.R. 3962 would not have a significant impact on future healthcare cost growth rates.’”

“Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) highlighted the report on Saturday in a written statement. ‘This report once again discredits Democrats’ assertions that their $1.3 trillion government takeover of health care will lower costs, and it confirms that this bill violates President Obama’s promise to ‘bend the cost curve.’ It’s now beyond dispute that their bill will raise costs, which is exactly what the American people don’t want.’ … CMS’s findings are not binding on Congress, however. Congress must abide by CBO and JCT estimates” (Hooper, 11/14).

The Hill has a copy of the full report.

The Washington Post: “Democrats focused Saturday on the positive aspects of the report, noting that Foster concludes that overall national spending on health care would increase by a little more than 1 percent over the next decade, even though millions of additional people would gain insurance. Out-of-pocket spending would decline more than $200 billion by 2019, with the government picking up much of that. The Medicare savings, if they materialized, would extend the life of that program by five years, meaning it would not begin to require cash infusions until 2022. ‘The president has made it clear that health insurance reform will protect and strengthen Medicare,’ said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. ‘And he has also made clear that no guaranteed Medicare benefits will be cut’” (Montgomery, 11/14).

Politico analyzed some of the the report’s statements: “Pg. 3 – ‘Most of the provisions of H.R. 3962 that were designed, in part, to reduce the rate of growth in health care costs would have a relatively small savings impact.’ Translation: Things like wellness and prevention programs and reducing Medicare fraud don’t save much money.”

“Pg. 9 – Over the next decade, the report estimates ‘a relatively small reduction in non-Medicare federal health care expenditures of $2.1 billion, all of which is associated with the comparative effectiveness research provision.’ … Pg 16 – ‘The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting, changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.” Translation: A crush of newly insured patients could be a shock to the system’” (Frates, 11/14).

Electronic Arts and Visceral Games’ video game interpretation of the Divine Comedy, Dante’s Inferno (PS3, PSP, and Xbox 360) is looking pretty sharp. …

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 56,000 Americans become infected with HIV each year. A lot needs to be done to halt the HIV epidemic in the U.S. and, thankfully, we have effective tools at our disposal.

Chief among these tools is HIV testing. CDC estimates that 21% of people living with HIV are unaware of their HIV status.  You might ask how this is related to stopping the HIV epidemic. Well, many studies have found that HIV-positive individuals who know that they are HIV-positive change their behavior to reduce the chance of transmitting the virus to their HIV-negative partners.  People who are infected with HIV but don’t know it are at high risk of unintentionally placing HIV-negative partners at risk for HIV infection.  The result is that a greater number of new HIV transmissions in the U.S. each year stem from people who do not know that they are HIV-positive. If we scale up HIV testing, then we can reduce the number of individuals who are unaware of their HIV infection and possibly also reduce the number of annual HIV transmissions.

We can also do more to help people who are diagnosed with HIV to get connected to appropriate health care services.   Besides prolonging the life of people living with HIV, HIV-positive individuals on antiretroviral therapy (ART) are less likely to transmit HIV to an HIV-negative partner. Increasing the number of people with HIV who receive regular care will help extend their lives, reduce the likelihood of late stage diagnoses (which is especially common among racial/ethnic minorities), and possibly reduce the number of new HIV transmissions.

So, why aren’t people getting tested regularly for HIV or accessing services once diagnosed? There are many complicated personal, financial, and other reasons that affect a person’s decision to get tested for HIV or to access HIV services after diagnosis.  Federal, state and private health insurance policies can also deter people from seeking HIV-related preventive or treatment services. 

The White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) has commissioned the Institute of Medicine — the independent health arm of the National Academy of Sciences that provides unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public — to examine federal, state, and private health insurance policies that 1) serve as barriers to HIV testing or 2) inhibit entry into clinical care or continuous and sustained care.  We know that providing clinical care for HIV-positive persons is complicated by the fact that fewer providers are choosing to specialize in HIV care.  Even if we get more people tested for HIV or into health care services, it is a problem if there are fewer health care providers available to provide these services for the long-term.  We have also asked the Institute of Medicine to examine policies that may help increase the number of health professionals providing HIV care.

To get the process started, the IOM will select a panel of 15 subject matter experts who will plan a series of workshops that will address questions in each of the following 3 areas:

HIV testing and federal, state, and private health insurance policies: Relevant questions include: What current federal and state laws or private health coverage policies impede HIV testing? What has been the impact of opt-out HIV testing?  What effective HIV testing methods can be used to reach at-risk populations?
Health care system capacity to administer a greater number of HIV tests and to accommodate new HIV diagnoses: Relevant questions include: Where do HIV-positive patients currently get care? What is the training of most HIV care providers? What capacity is there to absorb newly diagnosed HIV-positives as a result of expanded HIV testing services? What are the impediments for professionals entering into AIDS care and being retained? Are there ways to incentivize HIV/AIDS as a specialty among the health care professions?
Federal and state policies that influence entry into clinical care and the provision of sustained care: Relevant questions include: How can federal and state agencies provide more integrated HIV care services? What policies promote clinical care services among agencies at the federal level, state level or between state and federal agencies? What are federal and state agency policies in funding HIV medication adherence programs?

A summary report from the each of the workshops on these three topics will be released in March 2010, May 2010 and September 2010, respectively. Information from the reports will help inform the implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and will complement ONAP’s other activities. Stay tuned… 

Greg Millett is Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of National AIDS Policy

To have a better than 25% chance of avoiding runaway climate change we have to limit C02 emissions at a trillion tonnes. Check this out to see when the trillionth tonne of CO2 be emitted.

Oh, I get it. It’s called “Shack” Friday at Radio Shack instead of Black Friday. Because “shack” sounds like “black” and “shack” is part of Radio Shack’s name. So basically, they just switched the two words around. I get it.

Know what else? The damn sale starts on Thursday! What a world! “Most stores open at 10 AM Thursday,” says the circular. And then they open at 5:30 in the morning on Friday! That’s Shack-rilege! See how I worked the name of the store into that one?

Anyhoo, here’s the good stuff. Doorbusters are marked with an asterisk.

Automotive

Gigaware Car Charger for iPod – $10.00

Sirius Stratus 5 Dock & Play Radio + Car Kit – $29.99

XM onyX Satellite Radio – $59.99

Blank Media

25-Pack of Gigaware 16X DVD-Rs – B1G1F

50-Pack Of Gigaware 52X CD-R – B1G1F

Gigaware 25 Pack of 16X DVD-Rs – B1G1F

Gigaware 50 Pack of 52X CD-Rs – B1G1F

Cell Phones

BlackBerry Curve 8520 (w/2-Year Agreement) – $0.00

Gigaware High Power Docking Speaker For iPod – $49.99

LG Xenon Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $0.00

Motorola CLIQ w/Motoblur (w/2-Year Agreement) – $79.99

Motorola i776 Cell Phone – $69.99

Nokia 2720 No-Contract Mobile Phone – $9.99

Palm Pixi Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $99.99

Palm Pre Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $99.99

Plantronics E210 Bluetooth Headset – $19.99

Samsung Impression Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $29.99

Samsung Instinct S30 Cell Phone (w/2-Year Agreement) – $0.00

Samsung Mantra Cell Phone – $29.99

Snap-On Covers for iPhone 3G or Blackberry Curve 8300 – $9.99

Computer Accessories

Gigaware 1.3MP Webcam w/Microphone – $14.99

Gigaware 2.1 Multimedia Speaker System – $10.00

Gigaware Folding Notebook Cooling Pad – $10.00

Gigaware VoIP USB Headset – $10.00

Gigaware Wireless Optical Mouse – $12.99

Logitech Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo – $19.99

Netbook Accessory Bundle (USB Hub, Mouse, Earbuds, Cooling Pad) – $29.99

Pinnacle Ultra-Compact USB HDTV Tuner – $39.99

Computers

Acer 11.6″ Netbook w/Intel Atom Processor Z520, 2GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive – $249.99

Acer 15.6″ Notebook w/AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor, 4GB Memory, 320 Hard Drive – $399.99

Digital Cameras

Buy Any $89.99 Camera In This Ad, Receive a Free Polaroid Pogo Mobile Printer – $0.00

Casio Exilim 10 Megapixel 3x Optical Zoom Digital Camera Gift Bundle – $89.99

Kodak MD81 12.0 Megapixel Digital Camera – $99.99

Nikon S220 10 Megapixel 3x Optical Zoom Digital Camera – $129.99

Olympus 12 Megapixel 7x Wide-Angle Zoom Digital Camera – $149.99

Vivitar 8.1 Megapixel 2x Optical Zoom Digital Camera – $49.99

Digital Media Cards

Sandisk 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo – $9.99

Sandisk 2GB Type-M xD-Picture Card – $9.99

Sandisk 4GB MicroSDHC Card – $9.99

Sandisk Standard SDHC Card – $9.99

DVD Players

Memorex Upconverting DVD Player – $29.99

Samsung BD-1600A Blu-ray Disc Player – $149.99

Electronics

Casio 32 Mini-Key Electronic Keyboard – $29.99

Discovery 54-Key Electronic Keyboard – $29.99

Discovery Kids Digital Camcorder – $39.99

Emerson Portable CD+G Karaoke Player – $29.99

Gigaware 7″ Digital Photo Frame – $29.99

Gigaware Micro Projector – $99.99

MagicJack VoIP Kit – $29.99

Motorola 4-Pack of 2-Way FRS Radios – $29.99

Panasonic DECT 6.0 Cordless Phone System w/4 Headsets – $69.99

Pandigital 10.1″ Digital Photo Frame – $79.99

Sanyo 720p High-Definition Video Camcorder – $169.99

Skullcandy Headphones – $9.99

USB Turntable – $79.99

Vivitar 720p High-Definition Video Camcorder – $69.99

GPS Systems

Garmin Nuvi 255W 4.3″ Widescreen GPS – $119.99

Garmin Nuvi 265WT 4.3″ GPS w/Free Lifetime Traffic Updates – $169.99

Mio 4.3″ M400 GPS – $79.99

TomTom XL 330S GPS w/Free Dash Mount – $99.99

Hard Drives

Iomega 320GB Portable Hard Drive – $49.99

Miscellaneous

5×7″ Recordable Talking Picture Frame – $10.00

Duracell Color Charger w/2 AA Rechargeable Batteries – $10.00

Enercell Holiday Bettery Tin – $9.99

ESPN GameDay Universal 4-in-1 Remote – $10.00

Gigaware 1.5″ Digital Photo Keychain – $10.00

Gigaware Crystal Skin for iPod Touch – $10.00

Gigaware Laser Etched Skin for iPod Touch – $10.00

Gigaware Retractable Rapid Home Charger for iPod/iPhone – $10.00

RadioShack 25-Piece Mini Tool Kit – $10.00

RadioShack 4.3″ GPS Soft Case – $14.99

RadioShack GPS Home AC Charger – $14.99

RadioShack Weather Cube Radio – $10.00

Rechargeable Spotlight – $10.00

Swiss+Tech Micro-Max 19-in-1 Tool Kit – $10.00

MP3 Players

8GB iPod Touchw/$20 GC – $199.99

Gigaware 2GB MP3 Player – $19.99

Gigaware 4GB MP3 Player – $39.99

Gigaware MP3 Accessory Kit – $9.99

iHome Computer Stereo Speakers w/Dock for iPid – $29.99

iLive 2.1 Home Theater Upconverting DVD System w/Dock for iPod – $99.99

iPod 8GB Nano w/$15 GC – $149.99

iPod Accessory Kit – $30.00

Sansa 2GB Clip Plus Music Player w/1000 Song Music Card – $49.99

Sound Bar w/Dock for iPod – $69.99

Networking

Netgear WNR1000 Wireless-N 150 Router – $34.99

Portable USB Storage

Sandisk 2GB USB Flash Drive – $4.99

Sandisk 4GB USB Flash Drive – $9.99

Televisions

AOC 22″ 720P LCD HDTV – $199.99

Auvio 3.5″ Pocket Digital TV – $79.99

Auvio 7″ Portable TV – $119.99

Samsung 32″ LCD HDTV – $399.99

Video Games

DualShock 3 PS3 Wireless Controler – $29.99

Gigaware Recharging Station for Nintendo Wii – $12.99

Nyko Wand for Nintendo Wii – $24.99

V.Motion Game Console – $34.99

Xbox 360 Elite System w/$60 Cash Back & 2 Games (Lego Batman and Pure) – $299.99

Radio Shack Black Friday Ad [BlackFriday.info]

More Black Friday deals…

On Saturday in Singapore, I spoke to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit on behalf of President Obama.  In my remarks to this gathering of more than 800 business leaders from across the Asia-Pacific region, I spoke of the robust and beneficial trade relationships that the United States enjoys with our 20 fellow APEC members – 61 percent of total American manufacturing exports are destined for APEC economies, and roughly 3.7 million American jobs are supported by those exports – and about the potential to gain even more job-creating opportunities for American workers, families, and businesses by increasing engagement with and exports to our partners in this fast-growing region.

"And when all is said and done, part of why I believe so strongly in reforming our health care system is because of the difference it will make for these women who gave us life — so simple — these women who raised us, these women who supported us through the years" — so said the First Lady in explaining why she wanted to speak about how health insurance reform will affect older women in America.  She followed several other women who were willing to share their difficult and even tragic stories dealing with the status quo, and thanked them for speaking out.

The First Lady has spoken before about the many ways in which reform will benefit women in particular.  And as for the impact on all Americans as they become seniors and rely on Medicare, the Vice President gave the scare tactics propagated by defenders of the status quo the contempt they deserve.  The First Lady made sure to cover all of that ground again, but also made the point that older woman have their own specific circumstances:

And I don’t think anyone here will be surprised to learn that a recent study found that one-third of all women have either used up savings, taken on debt, or given up basic necessities just to pay their medical bills.  And as many of you know firsthand, these kinds of problems — the problems of coverage and cost — only grow worse when you get older, making quality, affordable coverage harder to come by just — as we’ve seen today and heard today — just when you need it the most.

In the individual market, people in their early 60s are more than twice as likely to be denied coverage than people in their late 30s.  Older women are more likely than men to face a chronic illness, but they’re less likely to be able to afford the cost of treating that illness.  And in recent years, studies have shown that women over the age of 65 spend about 17 percent of their income on health care.  And that’s just not right.

Our mothers and grandmothers, they have taken care of us all their lives; they’ve made the sacrifices that it takes to get us where we need to be.  And we have an obligation to make sure that we’re taking care of them.  It’s as simple as that.  America has a responsibility to give all seniors the golden years they deserve and the secure, dignified retirement that they worked so hard to achieve.  (Applause.)

 

Kratos has always been a lone wolf. One angry, angry wolf with blades instead of fangs. In God of War III, however, he may just move from being a soli…

Working with computers is a complex labor that requires acquiring and perfecting many skills for one to become truly efficient and proficient. Besides the basic knowledge needed for operating software programs, the skillful use of other resources is a must, especially if one needs to employ the PC as their main ”working tool.” Such an ability is the fast and accurate typing that helps the one who masters it evolve in many directions. They will become more efficacious at their job because, if writing and correcting texts will take less time, one can attend to other aspects of their occupation that certainly need their attention.

Just like in the case of any other perfectible ability, for typewriting, practice makes perfect. It may seem tedious and stressing at first, particularly if you start from scratch, but, in the long run, you have only to gain by developing it and, once you’ll reach a decent level, things will start looking brighter. Progress is usually attained at a fast pace, especially if you have the right ”coach.” Finding the perfect partner is not an easy thing to do, but, if you search enough, you’re bound to come across it. First of all, you need to know exactly what you’re after and, once you establish that, you’ll discover that there are quite a few options to go for.

A free tool, with a very solid … (read more)

Modern Warfare 2 came out this week. You know what that means. Lots of news about what is being claimed as the biggest entertainment launch of all t…

Better late than never, right? The BlackBerry Storm2 isn’t exactly rocket science. Usually companies whether it’s a car manufacturer, handset company, computer maker or others follow up on an existing product and label it “new and improved.” Just like clockwork, RIM has spit out another iteration of their BlackBerry Storm series and this time it’s the much-awaited BlackBerry Storm2 9550 for Verizon. Finally the handset packs everything you’d hope for in a BlackBerry as far as hardware specs are concerned: global roaming, Wi-Fi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a decent processor, and 256MB of RAM. Since the screen is pretty much the most important part of the Storm as it’s the only navigation and text entry method, it is great to see RIM improve on their existing implementation and almost knock it out of the park. What’s funny is that the same way the Storm2 works is how it was initially described to us way back in July of last year, and we’ve heard that the original Storm was actually supposed to be more like the Storm2, but we won’t get too far into that as it’s unsubstantiated at this point.

We covered the BlackBerry 9520 a bit as we have been playing with it for a little while, but the screen has got even better with a retail unit and it’s less noisy and even more fun to use. Typing is pretty easy, and the unit in general feels great in your hand to hold and use. As far as market positioning for the Storm2, Verizon hasn’t made things easy for RIM lately. Many people have said that this is what the first Storm should have been, and while we agree, we don’t think it’s too late. If you have to have a BlackBerry and you want a touch-based phone, the Storm2 is an excellent choice. If you’re comparing it to other touchscreen handsets though, the waters get a little murky and you’ll have to make that decision for yourself. Hit up the BlackBerry 9550 gallery for more shots!

Click on over to our BlackBerry 9550 hands on gallery!

Though the local time was 3pm, as I walked down the main corridor aboard Air Force One, it may as well have been the middle of the night given row after row of sleeping people.  This is officially day three of the President’s trip to Asia, and if our colleagues who travel ahead of us to get things set up (called the advance team) are to be believed, this is when the jet lag catches up with you. It gets better from here. 

Don’t tell that to David Axelrod, Senior Advisor to the President. When I arrive to set-up this taping, I find David hard at work along with Robert Gibbs in the Air Force One conference room. "Maybe I should do the taping after dinner? Should I even be eating dinner? What time is it?"

What time is it actually? A glance at almost any wall on the plane gives you three time zones to choose from, the most unsatisfactory is 4:30am Eastern Standard Time.

David’s eyes slide from the food tray to the beckoning computer, "We better do that taping now. Are you all set?"

Arun Chaudhary is the official White House videographer

News outlets covering the health reform debate noted that Republicans are continuing their arguments against Democratic legislation and outlined what might happen in the coming week in the Senate.

The Hill: “The latest push for Republican ideas for health reform was made Saturday by Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who also used the GOP radio address to promote his own Senate candidacy. Kirk outlined core elements of Republicans’ health reform proposals in the address, arguing that the healthcare bill passed a week ago by the House would do little to reform the system, and result in higher taxes. ‘The Pelosi healthcare bill has no significant lawsuit reforms and does not guarantee your medical rights from government waiting lines or restrictions,’ Kirk said” (O’Brien, 11/14).

Chicago Tribune  “Kirk, one of nine Republican candidates seeking the Feb. 2 nomination for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Rod Blagojevich Democratic appointee Sen. Roland Burris, contended his proposal aimed at curbing malpractice lawsuits and allow people to buy insurance across state lines was a ‘common sense’ approach to health care reform. ‘Unfortunately, all of these common sense Republican reforms were rejected by (House) Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi’” (Pearson, 11/14)

Related KHN story: The Debate Over Selling Insurance Across State Lines (Galewtiz, 11/8).

CQ HealthBeat reports on one controversial aspect of the House bill – whether people who didn’t buy health insurance would go to jail – and reports:  “In theory, it is possible under the House version of the health care overhaul bill — but likely would only happen in very rare circumstances, and only for those who willfully refuse to pay taxes assessed in the form of a penalty tax. ‘In actual implementation, I can’t believe anybody is going to go to jail over this’” said Linda J. Blumberg, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Urban Institute who’s closely followed the health debate. … The approach for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would be the same as with other delinquent tax filers who face the possibility they will wind up imprisoned if they refuse to pay and undergo criminal prosecution, said Ed Haislmeier, senior research fellow in health policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. ‘At the end of the day is it theoretically possible? Yes,’ said Haislmaier. But fewer than 100 convictions were obtained last year by the IRS for willful failure to pay taxes” (Norman, 11/13).

Meanwhile, Roll Call reports, “Senate leaders do not expect to receive an official cost estimate on their health care reform bill until sometime next week, but Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is prepared to keep the Senate in session the week of Thanksgiving in order to get debate started on the measure before the holiday. Senate aides acknowledged that the Congressional Budget Office is not expected to produce a cost estimate of the bill on Friday as expected and that Reid is hoping to receive the score by Tuesday or Wednesday” (Pierce, 11/13).

CNN: “Reid won’t release the legislation until he knows the cost of the bill. He has been waiting nearly three weeks for the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to return its score, or cost. Reid’s aides said they expect the CBO’s score any day. … Asked when Reid hopes the legislation will get to the president, Rodell Mollineau, one of Reid’s top communication staffers, said, ‘our goals remain unchanged. ‘We want to get health insurance reform done this year, and we have unprecedented momentum to achieve that’” (Bash, Keck and Helton, 11/14).

The Associated Press: “The wait has been lengthy precisely because Reid is aiming to ensure that when the budget office releases its analysis it hits certain marks. The complex legislation, which Reid is taking a free hand in writing based on two committee-passed bills, must not exceed Obama’s specified price tag of $900 billion over 10 years, and it must not add to the deficit.”

“‘We’ve sent them a list of options; they raise questions. We answer them, we raise other questions, they answer them. The goal is to put together the best bill possible,’ Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Friday. ‘Senator Reid made a decision a while ago that he wants to get this right before taking it to the floor.’ Senators wanted more generous subsidies to help lower-income people afford insurance; Reid has weighed that. Making subsidies more generous or scaling back a tax on high-value insurance plans that’s unpopular with union members and some Democrats would require more money. Reid began considering a new Medicare payroll tax on people earning more than $250,000 a year, as The Associated Press first reported this week. CBO must do the math in response to each new idea from Reid, then redo it as Reid tweaks his proposals” (Werner, 11/14).

 

 

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The blog reviewed here is ‘Psychotherapy Brown Bag. Discussing the Science of Clinical Psychology‘.

Appearance and Design

The background is white including in the title pane. The title pane features what looked to me like a series of progressively fading blue trees. However this might be a concrete interpretation. So they could also be letters (o, p and q) which is consistent with the image of a blog (words) or people with the tear drop shapes representing heads (so looking from above it would be a group of people huddled together) which would fit with psychology (maybe this is a variant of the Rorschach test!). Just below the title pane is an index – here the reader can navigate using the archives menu while there is also an ‘About Us’ and ‘Links’ section (amongst others) that can be accessed. The articles occupy the left two-thirds of the screen. On the right hand one-third of the screen there are a large number of features – a search bar, twitter, options, RSS feed icon, subscribe option, recent comments, recent posts and categories as well as adverts. At the end of the articles themselves there are a number of options including the ability to disseminate the articles using social media tools as well as a rating system.

Articles

The first article in the archives is from February 2009. A number of articles contain a number of references to the research literature, suporting the main arguments in the articles  themselves. Many of the articles give an overview of a topic (e.g. Distress Tolerance in Problematic Behaviours). In an article on binge eating, Anestis explains the diagnosis in more detail and also includes links to a number of books on the subject. In this article, he explores impulsivity in detail. The authors cover current research, discussing studies in detail. For instance in this article, there is a discussion of a study looking at an interesting (almost abstract) computerised therapy for social anxiety which showed promising results. Indeed there is a series of articles on online treatment approaches for different conditions (e.g. insomnia). Michael Anestis, doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, writes two interesting articles on dialectical behavioural therapy and explains how this can be used with a mindfulness-based approach (see here and here). The authors also look at the use of approaches to specific contexts  (e.g. see this article). A number of the articles address commonly posed questions such as this article on why group data is useful for informing individual therapeutic approaches. In an article about a related topic, Anestis addresses the role of clinical intuition versus actuarial approaches to decision making. A number of articles such as this one on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder look at changes that might take place in DSM-V.

Conclusions

The ‘Psychotherapy Brown Bag’ blog is in my opinion an excellent resource for those wanting to learn more about different forms of psychotherapy both from an experiential and more prominently an evidence-based perspective. The authors have written a number of very interesting and useful articles on pragmatic issues and have utilised a systematic approach in doing so. They also intersperse these articles with commentaries on contemporary issues for instance news stories reported in the media.

 

Twitter

You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link

Podcast

You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

Responses

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The Royal College of Psychiatrists Podcast series has a new podcast featuring an interview with Dr Simon Moore, a clinical psychologist based in the Cardiff School of Dentistry who was involved in a longitudinal study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in which there was found to be a significant association between ‘excessive’ childhood consumptions of confectionary and conviction for violent crime by age 34 (available here). Moore suggested a number of mechanisms including impulsivity and delayed gratification that could account for this association.

On a slightly related note I also watched one of the recent Horizon series which is available here (see restrictions however) titled ‘Why do we talk?’.  Although obviously not a podcast, I thought this was a very interesting episode which looked at the development of and origins of language. The episode features a researcher who has captured footage of his child learning to talk and is in the process of analysing a considerably large data-set. An example was given of the child gradually shaping the words ga ga into water. They also include footage of EEG activity in a baby while the mother speaks and there is also a brief interview with Noam Chomsky who proposed that language is innate. I was surprised to see footage of animals including dogs vocalising and to see that the position of the laryngeal apparatus was changed during the vocalisation process thus countering the prominent suggestion that humans are able to speak because their laryngeal apparatus is found inferior to the placement in other species. This apparently increases the range of movements that are available but increases the risk of choking (also the larynx is higher in human babies although it has been suggested that this doesn’t significantly reduce the range of available movements – also in the same article there is the suggestion that the larynx descended as far back as 600,000 years ago in Homo Heidelbergensis). The result of this evidence is that there is likely to be another explanation for humans having language and not chimpanzees for example. This means that the explanation is most likely to be found in the central nervous system. In this regards they also talk to some of the researchers and subjects who were involved in the research that led to the discovery of the FOXP2 gene which has been implicated in a number of conditions. Indeed only recently there was found to be a difference between the behaviours of the human and chimpanzee gene products at the cellular level. This has also been an area of interest in the study of Neanderthals where the version has been found to be the same as in humans and is intriguing in light of recent suggestions that Neanderthals and humans interbred although it is still unclear if there was any contribution to the modern human gene pool. There was then an interview with an autistic man with quite remarkable language abilities having learnt over 20 languages. During the interview he is observed learning a number of words from a new language (to him) and does this effortlessly and the researcher suggests that this in some way relates to an ability to master the rules of language although this is an entire topic in itself. There is also a fascinating look at a male finch that was reared separately from other members of its group and learnt to produce a rudimentary song. What was interesting here was that when the offspring was reared together but away from other members of the group that were able to produce full songs, they were able to improve their songs with time and were soon producing complex songs familiar to their species. This reminded me of one of Steve Pinker’s books on language in which he described how children were able to develop creole language without the intervention of adults. This seems to be consistent with Chomsky’s theory of an innate grammar. I thought this was an excellent episode which drew together many different lines of investigation to shed light on human language.

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You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast).

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Disclaimer

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While getting ready to do this taping with Jon Favreau, the President’s Chief Speechwriter, my Blackberry was buzzing in my pocket, carrying new instructions for a motorcade movement, pushed up by over 2 hours. What was going to a leisurely stroll to find the perfect location for our Japan update, became a scramble to secure a suitable section of the lobby.