Category: News

Last week Vice President Biden hosted a panel of experts to highlight the unique challenges facing the middle class in our 21st century global economy. One thing we heard over and over again is that work-family balance is a real challenge for most middle class Americans.

For the millions of American workers who lack paid sick leave, personal leave or family leave, being able to take time off is a matter of economic security. This is especially true for the 3.7 million working adults with children under 14 and no other adult or older child to share child care responsibilities.

The stakes are even higher when the worker or a family member is coping with a contagious illness – like 2009 H1N1 – given that the consequences of an employee’s decision to go to work when ill or to send a sick child to school can adversely affect many others.

Unfortunately, current law does not protect the economic security of workers in these situations. Full economic security requires two assurances.  First, workers who take leave because they or their children become sick must not lose their jobs or risk some other form of disciplinary action by their employers.  Second, workers must have a source of income while they are temporarily on leave.

The Department of  Labor testified on Capitol Hill Tuesday in support of the Healthy Families Act, which would provide the security that workers need, allowing millions more working Americans to earn up to 56 hours per year of paid sick time to care for themselves or their families. It assures them job security when they take leave and provides short-term continuation of workers’ incomes while they recuperate from illness or provide needed care to a family member. 

At the Department of Labor, we are striving for good jobs for everyone. And one of the key components of a good job is having the flexibility to meet caregiving as well as workplace responsibilities.  We believe that work-life balance includes policies such as paid leave, flexible work schedules and telework options, employee assistance programs, and access to child care and elder care support.  

Thanks to the leadership of Vice President Biden we are proud to work with our colleagues in the Cabinet and the Middle Class Task Force to improve work-life policies, and efforts are underway to see how we can better meet the needs of modern working families. The Department’s testimony in support of the Healthy Families Act pointed to one important step in that direction.

Hilda Solis is the Secretary of Labor

Maneki neko means “lucky cat” in Japanese, and any cat who who gets one of these beds sure is lucky. Introducing Neko Habitat, a brand new company from Portland, Oregon, making ultra-modern designer acrylic pet beds.

There are three styles to choose from, the Cradle, the Wave, and the Pan. Each is made from 1/4 inch acrylic. The Cradle and Pan designs have sleek stainless steel legs. The beds come in a variety of translucent acrylic colors which you can mix-and-match with several reversible cushion designs in modern fabrics.

Beds range from $230 to $250 US and are available directly from Neko Habitat.

This week, even Southern California felt a tiny bit more brisk and temperatures finally dropped from the 70-degree days earlier this week.  Working at home and feeling a bit chilled, I felt like I wanted a meal that would warm my body and soul simultaneously.  I had just been reading my friend and fellow blogger Eric Gower‘s post here on soba noodles, and nothing sounded better than a big bowl of steaming Japanese noodle soup. 

You’ve probably seen the boxes of Instant Miso Soup at Trader Joe’s.  I decided to use that as my soup base, adding shittake mushrooms, spaghetti noodles, garlic, shredded carrots, and green onion.  If you have udon or soba noocles, of course you can use those, but plain spaghetti will do the job just fine.  The fresh shittake mushrooms are the star here for me, turning up the volume of the umami-rich flavor of the miso soup.  The layering of these flavors is what really hits the spot.  Like sweet, sour, salty and bitter, umami is one of the basic tastes, very popular and well understood in Asian cooking.  It’s described as a savoriness.  Umami-rich food is all around us – mushrooms, many cheeses, olives, capers, even bacon.  Umami layers with other flavor sensations, enhancing them or contrasting with them.  For example, that’s the reason so many things (even sweet flavors) taste better with bacon! 

Miso Noodle Soup

8 oz (1/2 pkg) spaghetti noodles
2 packets Instant Miso Soup
2 cloves garlic, crushed or 2 cubes frozen Crushed Garlic
1 cup shredded carrots (available pre-shredded at Trader Joe’s)
1 (3.5 oz) pkg fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced (or substitute 1 bag TJ’s Mixed Wild Mushroom Medley, hydrated per instructions)
1-2 stalks green onion, sliced lengthwise into strips or chopped.

1.) Boil noodles according to package directions, omitting the salt in the boiling water (the miso soup has plenty for me).  Cook until al dente.  Drain, rinse and set aside.
2.) Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, empty the contents of the soup packets into 4 cups water.  Add garlic and bring to a simmer.
3.) Add carrots and mushrooms.  Simmer for a few minutes until mushrooms look tender and cooked.
4.) Divide noodles between two bowls, ladle half of the soup over the noodles in each bowl and top with green onions.  Serve immediately.

Serves 2 as a main meal or serves 4 smaller portions

Note: If you are vegetarian, this soup may seem like a great option at first glance, but traditional miso soup is not vegetarian. Miso soup ingredients include dashi which is a stock that contains a bit of fish flakes, and the TJ ingredients concur.  You can’t really taste a fishiness, but  the dashi is there and adds the umami-rich taste of miso soup.  If you want a vegetarian version, you can make miso soup by stirring miso paste into a vegetarian broth, or buy vegetarian miso soup packets at other grocers.

The new DSi LL may have a few features that previous models don’t, but about the only feature that really sticks out is that it’s larger. We’ve seen p…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is threatening to halt federal funding for the Washington D.C.’s AIDS programs after a Washington Post investigation found many delivered faulty services and failed to account for their work. “Assistant Secretary Mercedes M. Marquez said HUD will send a letter to the city this week stipulating that no new AIDS housing money will be awarded unless the D.C. Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS Administration improves its tracking of services and spending.”

“HUD officials said this is the first time in the AIDS housing program’s 18-year history that money would be withheld from a city based on poor performance. … Since at least 2003, HUD’s monitoring reports have repeatedly found that the city, which has the highest rate of AIDS cases in the country, has failed to keep tabs on nonprofit groups that promised to provide housing for the sick. In some cases, the District did not provide financial records and other documents from HUD monitors” (Cenziper, 11/12).

The Washington Post reports that Hispanic lawmakers and groups are “scrambling to develop a strategy to counter what they see as efforts to shortchange immigrants in health bills on Capitol Hill.”

While some Hispanic leaders have tried to keep health care reform and illegal immigration separate, concerned they said “that immigration would distract from health care. But other lawmakers and activists have inserted the immigration issue into the middle of the health-care debate, causing a collision between what Hispanic leaders call their two top policy priorities.” The insistence of some on considering both in the context of the health reform bills has forced Hispanics’ hands. “Many of them believe that a health-care overhaul is vital to their community, which is disproportionately uninsured and suffers from a host of chronic illnesses.”

In the House, illegal immigrants would be allowed to buy insurance with their own money — without government assistance — in insurance exchanges. In the expected Senate bill, they would not. “In both the Senate and House, all legal immigrants are eligible for government subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange, but immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years would remain barred by existing law from enrolling in Medicaid and Medicare” (Thompson, 11/12).

The New York Times reports that illegal immigration may turn into a rift issue among lawmakers as Congress “seeks to construct a compromise health care bill capable of passing both houses. … Those who oppose allowing illegal immigrants in the exchange acknowledge that their position is largely symbolic. They doubt that significant numbers of uninsured immigrants would be able to afford the exchange’s premiums without subsidies” (Sack, 11/11).

Congratulations to Amy, creator of the Kitty Treehouse doodled Caboodle! It was a close race and everyone did such an amazing job! Thanks to all the creative people to entered the contest. We have a little gift for all of you from Puutty Power, so check your email.

And thanks to Caboodle and Puutty Power for sponsoring this awesome contest!

I’m pleased to have been invited to be one of a dozen or so regular contributors to the blog ‘Risk Matters,’ because, well, risk matters. It’s a key part of the reason why anyone or any group would look to the future… which of course also conditions how we look, what we look for, and what we find or miss.

So this stimulates me to put down a few thoughts about risk assessment and its relationship with industry and strategic foresight as a whole. This is a big topic of course, but seeing as the categories are confused a lot, it’s worth tackling even if just in summary terms.

When I reach the topic of Risk Assessment in my ‘Industry Foresight and Business Future Strategy’ MBA elective, I use the ‘Adidas-Salomon: Incorporating Risk into Corporate Strategy’ mini-case [Ref: ICFAI 304-141-1; sourced via Cranfield’s Case Clearing house.]

The case is a useful baseline in risk assessment because it describes the various risks a multinational company typically faces: marketing risks (market change, brand image); operations risks (quality; reliability of processes and suppliers); social & environmental risks (workforce & natural resources compliance); legal (liability, regulation, patent); information technology (compromise or disruption); and financial risks (currency, interest rate, credit).

Business disruptors
In sum these are the things that could damage or disrupt the business. Isolating such factors, keeping vigilance over them, and having thought through or enacted counter-measures in advance, allows the organization to better control or reduce the impact should risk become reality.

All risks are future events, so a risk assessment is undoubtedly a future study, but assuming a company looks diligently across all these categories for potential and emerging hazards, how prepared is it for a changing world? What kind of industry foresight does this give managers? Is a risk assessment a futures assessment?

The obvious first answer is that a risk assessment is only half the equation. It’s oriented to the downside potential of changes not the upside; looking for threats not opportunities. Obviously that means that opportunities are less likely to be identified.

The second thing is that a standard risk assessment operates in the realm of known risks, in known categories, that may cause disruption and damage in a known way. It doesn’t have the mechanism to expand conceptions of what could go wrong, or how it could go wrong, or what the full knock-on effects will be. The types of mental-model-expanding techniques that fuller foresight offers are not built into a typical risk assessment.

Strategy questions
Third, risk assessments never really broach the question: is the business idea or business model good and will it keep on being good? That is, what products or services will be appropriate going forward, or how will models of supply or manufacture or marketing or fulfillment need to change, due to technology change or shifting consumer preferences.

In other words, risk assessment doesn’t ask strategic questions of managers. It is part of the day-to-day management vigilance necessary with reference to the future – the hygiene factors in running an organization. It is about keeping the business going as is, not about changing it for a changing word.

There’s nothing wrong with this. The point is, it’s just ‘first base’ in building a quality view of the future, and therein a robust point-of-view about what to do next. Although no doubt companies such as Google or Apple or Virgin, etc., assess and mitigate their risks, they didn’t become successful in their future by doing risk assessment and saying ‘That’s it, were done. We’re ready for the future.”

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Pelfast loves giving us great free updates, and they’re following up on that again big time. A free update for the tower defense creepfest is now avai…

Japan-based electronics maker Greenhouse has announced the GHV-DV30HDLXW/P [JP] today, a video camera specifically designed for women. The device is available in two colors, white and (the inevitable) pink. Buyers will also get a cute pouch that fits the color of the camera.

Greenhouse has partnered up with fashion brand GAUDI (who I never heard of before) to design the camera. It features a 3-inch TFT LCD screen, 128MB of internal memory, SD/SDHC memory card support (up to 32MB), a miniHDMI port and a USB interface. The device can record video in 1,280×720/720p resolution and at 30fps in (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264(MOV)).

The video camera will go on sale in Japan only for $190 (including the pouch) from the end of this month. If you live outside Japan and want to look cute while shooting video, contact import specialists Japan Trend Shop or Geek Stuff 4 U.

The Prime Minister and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen have agreed that the international community should continue to show resolve in Afghanistan.

Gordon Brown welcomed the Secretary General to Downing Street this morning and congratulated him on establishing himself quickly in his new role.

Their conversation focused on Afghanistan and recent political developments in the country. Both leaders were clear that President Karzai needs to use his second term in office to concentrate on issues such as governance and corruption.

The PM and the Mr Rasmussen also agreed that work needs to be done to establish a gradual handover of security responsibility to the Afghans in certain districts, starting from next year.

Last month, we thought it was quite excessive that states’ attorneys in Illinois were asking for all sorts of information on the students who were involved in the Medill Innocence Project — a journalism school investigative reporting effort that has helped free wrongly convicted individuals. The prosecutors were asking for information on the students’ grades and private notes, which seemed to go beyond what seemed reasonable. However, now the prosecutors are claiming that the students may have paid witnesses for their interviews, which could raise questions about their authenticity (found via Romenesko). Of course, reading the details, it’s not so clear cut. The students admit that they paid for the guy’s cab fare, but it sounds like there was money left over from the cash they gave the cabbie, and he gave it to the interview subject (who then used it to buy drugs). That certainly makes it a little more clear as to why prosecutors were looking for more info, but it still seems like the overall request went beyond what was reasonable. It certainly looks more like an intimidation tactic than any attempt to get to the bottom of the case.

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In case you haven’t heard, the other day Samsung announced Bada, a new open source platform it hopes will enable its handsets to better compete with the likes of the iPhone and the entire Android line-up. Set to arrive in Q1 2010, not much is known about Bada other than that it features an intuitive touchscreen-based UI and will, for the most part, take the place of all Symbian S60 handsets offered by the Korean company. The handsets that will debut running Bada are also a mystery, but our Dutch friends over at Mobile Phone Helpdesk Europe were sent in a tip, and the handset you see rendered above could be amongst the very first. The fact anyone with the slightest Photoshop skills could whip this up aside, let’s assume for a minute what we’re looking at is real. Are you feeling it or not?

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In the digital age many of us have become accustomed to RSS readers. They’re simple, they’re convenient, and for the most part they deliver just the information without all the frills. But sometimes people want the frills. After all, it’s not so long ago that we went to the end of the driveway to pick up the newspaper every morning. To that end, there is Press Display, a service which allows you to view your favorite newspapers from around the world, right down to the formatting. You download the publication, meaning you can read it offline, a huge, huge plus for the traveling worker. Their latest development, as we learn from jkOnTheRun, is PressReader, an application which allows you to view those publications on your BlackBerry.

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The Prime Minister has announced plans to tighten the points-based system of immigration.

During a speech in west London this morning, the PM said he favoured a “tough but fair approach” to immigration under which the Government would decide what categories of skills were allowed into the country.

He said points-based immigration creates a system that serves the national interest by “recognising what we, as a country, need for a successful economy; but also what will strengthen our society and our communities”.

“Under this system, first and foremost – we must continue our efforts to equip our people with the skills they need to compete in the global economy.”

The PM said the Government also needed to manage the impact of immigration on communities through mainstream funding and the new Migration Impact Fund, which would see newcomers pay an additional contribution to help ease the pressures of population change.

And migrants wanting to stay in the UK permanently would be required to “earn” UK citizenship, Mr Brown said.

“It is because we believe those who look to build a new life in Britain should earn the right to do so that we will now push forward the points-based system to the next stage by introducing a points-based test not just for entry, but also for permanent residence and citizenship.”

Gordon Brown said at the same time the Government was continuing to focus on strengthening UK borders.

Annual figures for net inward migration show that overall net immigration is down 44% on last year, the PM said.

Speeches and transcripts: Speech on immigration

CHICAGO (Reuters) – CVS Caremark Corp (CVS.N) said on Tuesday it would start offering pharmacy benefit management clients more genetic services next year under a deal with Generation Health Inc, in which it is taking a minority stake.

The deal with privately held Generation Health will expand pharmacogenomic clinical and testing services.

Such services can help doctors evaluate a patient’s genetic make-up to determine if a medication will be effective and should help improve care for patients who do not respond to or have adverse reactions to their medication, CVS said.

CVS Caremark’s pharmacy benefits management business, or PBM, administers prescription drug benefits for employers and health plans and operates a large mail-order pharmacy.

Last week, CVS stunned investors when it said that its PBM had lost $4.8 billion in business heading into next year.

CVS Caremark already provides pharmacogenomic intervention services in its specialty pharmacy business. Now, under the new partnership, it plans to introduce those services for certain drugs dispensed under the traditional PBM.

The companies said they would first focus on clinical and testing programs that predict how a patient will respond to medications in areas such as oncology, cardiovascular medicine and the treatment of HIV.

The services are set to be introduced to CVS Caremark’s PBM clients in the second quarter of 2010.

As part of the deal, CVS Chief Medical Officer Dr. Troyen Brennan will join Generation Health’s board of directors.

Generation Health was created in November 2008 with funding from its founders and venture capital firm Highland Capital Partners. (Reporting by Jessica Wohl, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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Well I don’t think now is the time for a review. Clearly, the game is not yet finished, given that the game has only two maps at the moment (one in beta phase) and that the Runes gameplay feature is still a “work in progress.” Giving it a review right now will be unfair for the developers seeing how this Warcraft DotA clone shows much promise.

It’s again downloading updates right now (a VERY good sign) so I can’t play this free PC multiplayer strategy game. What with my shift coming up, I might as well sit down and write about my first impressions.

The impressions and download links after the jump.

League of Legends: Clash of Fates is a free-to-play real-time strategy game that is being developed by Riot Games. Part of the dev team are Steve “Guinsoo” Feak and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, two people who were directly involved in the development of the highly-popular Warcraft: The Frozen Throne mod, DotA.

League of Legends: Clash of Fates is a clone of the original Defense of the Ancients, in it, two teams still defend their base, which are connected by three lanes that are lined with turrets. Just like DotA All-Stars, both bases continuously spawn a steady stream of minions. It is up to you and your team to help these minions destroy the enemies’ base.

Whoa, this is turning into a review. Crud. Ok, first impressions:

• Game has a retail version. Did you know that? Yep, it has. Buying the retail version speeds up the process of unlocking the game’s various unlockables. Then again, I’m not sure if the retail version comes with all the unlockables unlocked. I have yet to check on this.
• It has an account system. Playing more games grants you “Mastery” points that you can purchase to give whatever Champion you choose infinitesimal boosts like 0.66% Critical, etc. They may not be game-changing benefits, but they sure are handy.
• Yes, your account “levels up.”
• No heroes here. Kidding. The game names them as “Champions.” You are the “Summoner” of these champions.
• There is also a Rune system. It’s not clear to me yet, as I’ve got to do some reading (IT company work and gaming websites don’t mix well lol!), but it looks like you can unlock certain Runes as your account levels up. You can then (I think) choose from your collection which Runes to use for a certain match.
• The audio is awesome.
• Oddly enough, while the audio is awesome, the game makes me feels as if I’m “floating” above it. It’s not immersive enough like that of DotA’s. With Warcraft, when I walk a character, it really feels like I’m there gallivanting across the hills and dales of the terrain. With this game, I feel detached. I don’t know, but there’s something lacking that I can’t put a finger to. Let’s hope they fix this.

• The graphics are toony. This could be a good or bad thing depending on your preferences. It’s not exactly a bad thing for “grit lovers” though — at higher video settings, the game really shines. One can just look at all those Youtube League of Legends: Clash of Fates gameplay videos. At lower video settings, it reminds you of those cheapo, free-to-play MMO PC RPG games.

• The game has recipes and items — this massive collective absolutely swamps, floods, drowns, buries, and obliterates that of DotA. Newbies (wait. Edit: “Fellow newbies.”) need not be alarmed however; the game presents suggestion weapon and items for your Champion of choice. Here’s more: clicking those items will bring down, recipe trees, enabling you to easily see which items are needed to create them. Expanding on that innovative twist, the developers have even made the recipe trees interactive — click on the components, and the “Buy” button lights up, giving you the option to immediately buy that item from the tree without going back to the main, relatively labyrinthine “Health-Defense-Critical-Movement” menu.

All in all, this is one of the greatest freeware release the free-to-play world has seen. Warcraft and DotA players, take heed: League of Legends: Clash of Fate is something you need to get into. Even in its WIP state, it’s still is awesome.

>>> The download link and an HD trailer of the game can be found HERE

>>> See more downloadable free full version real-time strategy (RTS) games HERE

LONDON (Reuters) – British private equity firm 3i Group (III.L) said asset values increased just 2 percent in the first half of its financial year as the real economy failed to keep up with rebounding stock markets.

Its shares were 6.5 percent lower, leading the list of UK blue-chip fallers, after it said net asset value per share (NAV) increased to 286 pence at the end of September from 279 pence six months earlier, towards the bottom of analysts’ expectations.

“It is difficult to see what will drive the NAV in the short term; realisations are likely to be low for some time, with activity levels in the private equity market only slowly picking up,” said Cazenove analyst Chris Brown in a note.

Cazenove said it was likely to adjust its new NAV target for 3i to 276 pence a share, down from 307 pence.

“Recent stock market rallies do not seem to reflect the real economy and, as a result, we remain cautious,” 3i said.

It had hoped to be reporting clear evidence of an upturn, but has only seen clear signs of recovery in India and China.

There are mixed signals from the U.S., while Europe remains challenging due to a combination of high government debt, low consumer demand and stressed banking sectors, which it sees creating a tough environment for some time to come.

As a result, the group invested just 190 million pounds in the six months to end September, compared with 668 million over the same period of 2008.

Realisations were also down to 507 million pounds from 597 million as the group limited portfolio company disposals in the depressed M&A market.

It declared an interim dividend of 1 pence, down from 3.8p the previous year.

By Simon Meads

(Editing by Will Waterman)

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