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Here is a list of articles that i’ve included under the heading of social psychiatry. Broadly speaking they include reviews of policy documents, cultural psychiatry and epidemiology (strictly speaking it could be included under biological psychiatry but i’ve included them here because the data is considered at the population level). Where the titles are self-explanatory there isn’t an accompanying description.

DOH Documents Reviewed

Attitudes to Mental Illness 2010 DOH document

Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer 2009 DOH document

Autism Strategy – Impact Assessment – DOH document

NHS Operating Framework for 2010/2011 – DOH document

New Horizons. Towards a Shared Vision of the Future DOH document on new 10-year plan for mental health services

Estimating Future Numbers of Adults with Profound Multiple Learning Disabilities in England DOH document based on research

Modernising Mental Health Services for People who are Deaf DOH document

Developing Services for Carers and Families of People with Mental Illness DOH document

Topic Selection Process for Technology Appraisals DOH document

Consultation Response and Analysis. National Dementia Strategy DOH document on National Dementia Strategy

Mental Health Advocates Supplementary Guide DOH document

Mental Health Ten Years On DOH document reviewing progress on the National Service Framework for Mental Health

National Service Framework for Mental Health 1999 DOH document outlining 10-year plan for mental health services

Commissioning and Access to Psychological Therapies – DOH document in IAPT services

The Journey to Recovery – The Government’s Vision for Mental Health Care

The National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) – Establishing a Mental Health Network DOH document on the MHRN

Mental Health Review Tribunal Report – Review of aspects of mental health tribunal administration over a specific time period

Mental Health Taskforce: An Introduction DOH document overviewing the mental health taskforce.

Choosing Health DOH document on supporting the physical health needs of people with mental illness.

Making the CPA Work for You DOH booklet explaining the CPA to service users.

Breaking Down Barriers DOH document looking at changes in mental health services.

Mental Capacity Act 2005. Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. DOH Consultation Document on the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.

Medicines Management: Everybody’s Business. DOH document by service users on medication issues.

DOH Guidance on cCBT. DOH document on use of computerised CBT.

ECT Survey in England – January-March 2002. Survey of ECT practice in the UK.

Best Practice in Managing Risk. DOH document on managing risk.

Action on Stigma. Department of Health’s campaign against mental health discrimination in the workplace.

Transforming the Quality of Dementia Care Consultation on a National Dementia Strategy

Capabilities for Inclusive Practice DOH document looking at a component of the National Social Inclusions Program (NSIP)

Global Perspective

Global Mental Health Series – Commentaries. Global Mental Health Series.

Barriers to Development of Services. Global Mental Health Series.

Mental Health Systems in Countries. Global Mental Health Series.

Treatment and Prevention in Low and Middle Income Countries. Global Mental Health Series.

Scarcity, inefficiency and inequity. Global Mental Health Series.

No Health without Mental Health. Lancet Global Mental Health Series.

Prevalence of Schizophrenia in China. Large epidemiological study in China.

Developing Mental Health Services in Nigeria. Paper about developing mental health services in Nigeria.

The Influence of Culture on Psychiatry in China. This post looks at a paper on prevalence of depression in China.

Mental Health Perspectives from the Carribean Diaspora – Article on factors influencing mental health in the Carribean Diaspora

Mental Health Services in Mexico

Dementia and Related Conditions

Risk Factors for Dementia

Physical Activity and the Risk of Neurodegenerative Disease

Dementia and It’s Implications for Public Health

Social Networks and their Role in Preventing Dementia

Religious Education, Midlife Observance and Dementia. Longitudinal study looking at religious education and lifestyle interactions with dementia.

Comparability of the Diagnostic Criteria for Vascular Dementia – Article reviewing diagnostic criteria for VaD

The Genetic Epidemiology of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Accuracy of Prevalence Rates in Multiple Sclerosis

Huntington Disease in County Donegal Epidemiological Study

Mental Health Informatics

Prescriber Attitudes Towards PDA-Prescription-Assistive Technology

Ubiquitous Healthcare Service Using Mobile Phone Technology

The Use of Health Information Technology in Seven Nations

The Alignment of Information Systems with Organisational Objectives and Strategies in Health Care

YouTube and Neurological Knowledge

Mobile and Fixed Computer Use by Doctors and Nurses on Hospital Wards

Why is there Paper in the Paperless System?

Junior Physician’s Use of Web 2.0 for Information Seeking and Medical Education. A Qualitative Study

Can Wireless Text-Messaging Improve Adherence to Preventive Activities?

Web 2.0 Tools in Medical and Nursing School Curricula

Software Support for Huntington’s Disease

Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0: Tensions and Controversies

Using the Internet for Health Related Activities

Epidemiology

The Social Origins of Folk Epidemiology

Selection Effects in Psychiatric Epidemiology

Liaison Services

Comparison of Psychosomatic Clinic with Community and Inpatient Liaison Services

A Primary Care Psychiatry Program Australian paper on Primary Care Psychiatry

Comparison of Consultation-Liaison Services in the United States and Japan

Health Impact of Social Connectedness

Social Buffering Relief from Stress and Anxiety

The Social Connectedness of Older Adults: A National Profile

History of Psychiatry

Research in the Field of Psychiatry Article from 1969

What Should Psychiatrists Be Doing in the 1980’s? Interesting look back in time

A History of Human Brain Mapping Interesting article on the history of the field of human brain mapping

Miscellaneous

Bridging the Divide Between Science and Journalism

Vocational Services for People with Severe Mental Health Problems

Factors influencing children being taken into care. A large Swedish registry study looking at factors influencing children being taken into care.

Unemployment, social isolation and psychosis. Study looking at the interaction between unemployment, social isolation and psychosis.

Modelling Disease Frequency in Schizophrenia Epidemiology. Paper looking at building mathematical models for use in epidemiology of schizophrenia.

The Growth of PTSD in Anxiety Research. Study looking at the number of research articles published in this area over time.

Exposure to ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland influences the presentation of Schizophrenia. Paper looking at the interaction between traumatic exposure and presentation of schizophrenia.

Community Treatment Orders. Review of a debate about Community Treatment Orders.

Demoralisation Syndrome. Review of a study examining the construct of a demoralisation syndrome.

Index: An index of the site can be found here. The page contains links to all of the articles in the blog in chronological order. 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). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

Filed under: Motorsports, Videos, Dodge, Racing

Sam Hubinette has started his own racing team, Samuel Hubinette Racing, given his title-winning Dodge Viper to team driver Andrew Comrie-Picard and picked up a shiny Dodge Challenger for himself. The team went out to Adam’s Motorsports Park in Riverside, California to shake everything down, and the result is a couple of orange blurs and a lot of smoke.

High-res pics are below, with video of the Viper and the 885-horsepower Challenger eating up a set of low-profile BFGoodrich tires after the jump, along with a presser on BFG’s kickoff to the Formula D season.

[Source: BFGoodrich, YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Sam Hubinette drifts his new 865-hp Dodge Challenger

Video: Sam Hubinette drifts his new 865-hp Dodge Challenger originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SFWeekly has declared this book, Microwaving Cooking For One, by Marie T. Smith, to be the saddest cookbook ever written.

We have to agree, which is why we’re glad Stouffers is putting suicide prevention tips on their packages. (Not really, it’s from the The Onion. We wish it was true, however.)

Pic of the Day: Saddest Cookbook Ever [SFWeekly]

by Jeff Goodell

The other day, an MSNBC producer asked me, “What is the
connection between this coal-mine disaster in West Virginia and geoengineering the
planet?”

The question is not as strange as it sounds.

A few years ago, I wrote a book called Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future. Among other things, I spent a lot of time
underground with coal miners and learned a lot about the dangers and problems
of mining coal. I also learned a lot
about Don “I’m a poor guy with a lot of money” Blankenship, the CEO of Massey
Energy, which owns the mine where at least 25 men died as the result of a methane
explosion last Monday. Because of that
experience, I’m often asked to comment when there is breaking news about a mine
disaster.

My new book, which is about geoengineering the earth’s
climate, would seem to be entirely unrelated. But in fact—as I tried to explain to the MSNBC producer—it really
isn’t.

For one thing, writing Big Coal convinced me of the need to
take geoengineering seriously. After
four years of researching and writing about the coal industry, it became very
clear to me that the world is not going to stop burning coal any time
soon. Nor is carbon capture and
sequestration—the only technology on the horizon that might allow us to burn
coal without melting the planet—ever likely to amount to much (too
complicated, too expensive, the industry itself too moribund to ever change).

Upshot? Climate
calamities ahead. Geoengineering might
indeed be a foolish idea, but we live in foolish times.

But there are other connections between the West Virginia mine
disaster and geoengineering.

Both are creations of America’s failed energy
policies. The fact that the U.S.—the
richest, most technologically sophisticated nation on the planet—is still burning
more than a billion tons of black rocks every year to generate electricity is a
political outrage. Yes, burning coal
generates cheap power. But as everyone reading this knows, coal is only
“cheap” because the industry uses its muscle to make sure that the true costs—the broken bodies of coal miners, the blasted mountains of Appalachia, the
asthmatic children who live near coal plants, the superheated planet—are not
factored into the price. If they were,
we’d be burning a lot less coal, and we might be a lot further along in the
development of cleaner, more sustainable energy sources.

And of course if we were burning less coal, we probably
wouldn’t be talking about geoengineering at all. In this sense, geoengineering is a
technological fix for a broken political system.

Another connection between the West Virginia coal disaster and
geoengineering: Who eats the risk?

One of the big fears about geoengineering is that it will
allow rich, technologically sophisticated nations to essentially call the shots
when it comes to deciding what kind of climate we live in. It’s not a big leap to assume that these
nations will want to optimize the climate for their benefit.

And if we starting monkeying around with the climate and
something goes wrong—oops, sorry,
didn’t mean to turn off your monsoons!—who do you think is going to
suffer most? The people in the Sahel or the people in Sausalito?

It’s a similar dynamic in the coal industry. Don Blankenship
doesn’t have to worry about getting blown up in a methane explosion. He flies around in a black helicopter, lives
on the top a West Virginia
mountain—one of the few in the region that still has a top—and cashed in
stock worth nearly $4 million this year alone. If he can push his workers to work longer hours, cut corners, and run
more coal, well, hey, that’s how capitalism works!
This is a commodity business, after all. Coal is coal, whether there’s blood on it or not.

All the risks, of course, are borne by the workers in the
mine. The men and women who labor in the
noisy darkness for eight, ten, twelve hours a day, most of whom are just trying
to feed their families. They know they are replaceable, that if they open their
mouths about the dangerous conditions they see or the fears they have about a
mine starting to go bad, they will find themselves stocking yo-yos at Wal-Mart
for seven bucks an hour.

So they shut their mouths about the outrages they see and
keep working. They eat the risk. And the great tragedy is, sometimes they end
up dead. 

——-

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of posts from Jeff Goodell, author of How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate. Here’s his first post. And here’s an interview with Goodell about his book, and an earlier interview about Big Coal.

Related Links:

Senate Energy spox responds; more on fossil-fuel safety and our energy future

World Bank vote gives billions to coal

Another Tragic Iceberg Awaiting Massey’s Titanic Violations: Brushy Fork Dam

Daimler and Chrysler’s divorce back in day is one that made headlines in the automotive industry. Chrysler, which was originally sold by Daimler to investment company Cerberus Capital Management, is now under the management control of Fiat SpA after undergoing a government-scripted Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Comparing its new alliance with Renault-Nissan, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said that his company’s relationship with Carlos Ghosn’s companies is much better than the one it had with Chrysler.

“After nine years of working together with Detroit we had less on our hands than we do today. That is our main learning” from the Chrysler experience, said Zetsche.

Ouch.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: DriveOn

Sitting at home, and checking in on Foursquare as though you are somewhere else, just to claim mayorship, or to steal it from someone else? More people have been doing this than you think. So, the team at Foursquare has added a GPS fix that will not allow you to receive points, or steal mayorships if you are not actually at the location you claim to be at. While they have stated they are never going to take away the ability to check in virtually anywhere at any time, they do want to prevent people from wrongfully claiming and stealing mayorships, and earning points for checking into locations when they are sitting at home all comfy cosy. [via foursquare blog]

After reading 天空情緣 by Ms. Lam (林燕妮) , it got me thinking of writing my own cockpit stories. Over the years, I have flown many long flights and I asked and often was allowed to go in the cockpit to chat with the pilots and co-pilots. They were all nice experiences and the cockpits were tight as Ms. Lam described.

Anyway, one time I had an experience of a life time. That cockpit visit was during my time working in the air traffic control (ATC) system project. The flight attendant was nice and got me a visit to the cockpit. And the pilot and co-pilot were exceptionally nice to me. How nice? Well, we chatted for a long time about these and that (including the ATC project) and questions I have. And when we were approaching the airport and I thought it was my cue to leave, they asked me if I would like to stay for the landing? I said yes faster than they could reconsider! 🙂

So they helped me buckle-up on the jump-seat, I think it was one of those five (?) belts and buckle/lock in the middle seat belt, very cool. Because it was a night time flight, the view outside was just spectacularly beautiful. Imagine a city of lights and tiny cars on the highways. Beautiful.

As we approached the runway, the landing lights on both sides of the runway slowly rise up, and then the plane slowly touched down to meet the runway. And the the full force of the brakes applied to stopped the plane on the runway. That was an exciting experience that I won’t forget for a long long time. (Of course, my wonderful cockpit experience was long before 9/11, those were the simple and happier days.)

Incidentally, do you know why is that when a plane lands it is ALWAYS in full speed and then using the brakes to stop the plane? Well, it is because the pilot has to always be prepared to execute a “missed approach“. Interesting I still remember these ATC stuff years later (like ACC, separation, etc).

Here is an excerpt from 天空情緣 – 林燕妮 – 2010年04月08日,

“乘搭飛機，當你年輕貌美時，機長會差人請你到 cockpit駕駛艙；當你中年而臉目仍然姣好時，在機場碰上剛下機的正副機長和機艙服務長時，仍有問必答；當你開始步入老年時，不管你保養多好，他們已不屑一顧了。這是女人搭飛機的三部曲。

第一次讓請進駕駛艙，真的十分青春，忘了是空中小姐還是空中少爺把我帶到駕駛艙，坐下了，正副機長跟我搭訕，我沒什麼可跟他們聊的，他們並不老，但比起我的十八二十歲，他們可是阿叔了。在喝了杯飲品之後，我便走了。

駕駛艙並不舒服的，在飛機頭，面積不大，也許因此而叫 cockpit，雞籠穴吧。駕駛艙的窗是環迴的，前面左面右面都曬得要命，所以機師都戴上墨鏡，跟我說話時會摘下來露個全相。記憶中我大概被請進過機艙三次吧，第一次又熱又曬，第二次機師曬得受不了，用報紙在窗上黏上幾個特曬的部分。不能全封的，他們需要看得見天空。第三次機師則用些深色的遮光塑膠在窗上黏了幾片，應是空姐幫他們做的吧。幾百人的安危在他們手上，機師不能隨便四處走。”

Filed under: Canada, people

L.A. City Hall reporter Phil Willon will be chatting with readers Friday about the city’s budget turmoil and the drastic steps Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has proposed, including shutting down city services two days a week.

As Willon and colleagues Maeve Reston and David Zahniser have reported, a key piece of the budget puzzle is $73.5 million that the City Council wants the DWP to turn over, but which the agency has refused to do.

For details on the live chat, read the Readers’ Representative Journal blog on latimes.com.

The Honda CB1100 is a retro styled UJM (Universal Japanese Motorcycle) built for their domestic market. Honda has been pretty clear that they weren’t exporting the CB1100 to the United States, but a reader of Two Wheels Blog recently snapped a pic of the bike in California. I can’t tell if it’s wearing a manufacturer’s plate or not, which would help to clarify if it was a Honda import to test the waters or just another rich rider’s toy of the week.

The bike was designed for returning riders in the 40 to 50 year old demographic, and features a modest power output of 87 horsepower. Like the CBs of old, the motor is air cooled, both for simplicity and for an authentic retro feel. In fact, the motor looks just like an early 80s CB900F, right down to the black and silver cooling fins and the polished aluminum valve cover.

Having owned two Honda CBs from the early 80s (a CB750F and a CB900F), I understand this bike. At nearly $11,000, it’s a bit on the steep side for a trip down memory lane, particularly since it won’t do anything as well as a contemporary motorcycle. Still, Harley’s got their retro XR1200 priced at around $12k, so maybe there is a market for this kind of bike after all.

Source: Two Wheels Blog

 

Kelly with @cookingwcaitlin and I the most awesome lunch last week, and one of the dishes we both had was this Red Quinoa with edamame and tomatoes. If you are ever in Phoenix, you must go to St. Francis and nosh on some. It’s amazing! Here you can gawk at the rest of our lunch.

I love Quinoa in general because it’s a power packed food with fiber and protein, and most importantly, it tastes good. 10 years ago though, I would never have eaten this stuff because I was knee deep in my corporate road warrior days flying all over the place eating mainly airplane food, Chinese take out, and strip mall restaurant food.

Yes, when I wined and dined customers, we ate at fancy restaurants but I mostly stuck to spinach salad, some chicken dish, Tiramasu, and of course the bread basket and a cocktail…or three. I drank a whole lot during my corporate days in hindsight because I was trying to numb myself from a life I hated living. I called it Corpse-rate America for a reason.

Mirrors are not just for checking our look

After going on medical leave, one of my healers really got me to start looking at my relationship with food as a reflection of my relationship with myself. She told me that our outside world, what’s going on in our lives, is merely a reflection of our inside world – mirroring. To change the outside, you must start with the inside. My first reaction was, “If that’s true, I’m so messed up, I don’t even know where to begin.” As messed up as I was at that time, I did have a starting point, granted not a pretty one, but it was a point. That day with my healer was important because it led me to where I am here today.

When the healer talked about mirroring, it’s not about exact replicas like someone stole my gym bag so where did I steal something. It’s about the energy involved, where is it similar, like for example, the boyfriend broke up with me like amputating a limb, just cut me off, so where in my life have I amputated, cut something off or removed something, whether it be people, place, thing, belief, or emotion?

Starting to see the connections

I had never thought about mirroring before and that my relationships with food and myself were mimicking each other. The problem-sover in me thought this mirroring concept was really eye opening because when I switched my brain over to start comparing, I could immediately see some similarities. Later on, I’d start to see a whole boat load of connections.

The amputation example really struck me because I know that throughout my life I had performed many amputations with friends and jobs. If a friend hurt me, I would just cut them off and no longer talk to them. No explanation, no communication, I just cut off all ties. With jobs, I would just quit and never speak to anyone there ever again. I was a pro at the silent treatment.

Today, I’m all about talking and dealing with problems as they arise. I no longer run away from friction or conflict because this is how we grow, and besides, the universe won’t let you get very far, so I figure I might as well get it over with while the problems are smaller versus bigger if you keep putting them off.

Words I would use to describe my relationship with food

10 years ago, some words I would use to describe my relationship with food would include: antagonistic, depressed, controlling, guilt-ridden, and disconnected. Joy was fleeting and what joy I did feel around food was related more to the high of sugars and fats like donuts, pizza, and ice cream. I would binge on foods and then purge either literally or I’d exercise for hours on end.

When I looked at my outside life, all of those words that I used to describe my relationship with food could be applied to what was going on with me at the time. For example, depression got so bad for me that my doctor put me on the “happy pills” as I used to call the anti-depressants.

I had an antagonistic relationship with my job and work environment. I mostly hated the corporate world and had even given up love for money. I was so caught up in the image of being the hot, successful, rich marketing woman that I became completely disconnected from the real me. I had a terrifying dream one night where I realized I didn’t even know who I was any more.

With food, I ate things that numbed me versus nourished me and thus kept me disconnected from my body and my emotions. I was a serious emo eater, mostly binging when I didn’t want to or could not handle my emotions. I would eat the “bad” foods and feel so guilty afterward, but not guilty enough to stop just guilty enough to feed my self-sabotaging need to feel not good enough.

I felt controlled by food because in my head food and exercise determined my self worth because it was tied into my weight. The scale definitely was the real boss of me in my life, and each step on that scale either determined a good day or a bad day. The scale was my ball and chain.

Thank goodness for my prosperity peeps

Back then, the only way I was going to be able to create a healthier relationship with food and myself was through help from people I like to call, “Partners in Prosperity” because health is wealth. These are people both professional and personal who care about and help me in my success and rebuilding.

I say rebuilding because in some areas of my life, I literally had to demolish and rebuild kind of like what they do with new casinos on the Strip in Las Vegas. They have to blow up and destroy the old casino to build a new fabulous one. At that time, some of my Partners in Prosperity included nutritionists, chefs at cooking classes, therapists, energy healers, a naturopathic doctor, fitness trainer, and chiropractor. On a personal level, I made new friends in a running club and at a gym where the environment was fun. And through 5 years of blogging, I’ve met so many incredibly supportive folks. I enjoy the fact that social media can help bring us together and help us help each other.

The last 10 years has definitely been quite the journey in rebuilding my relationship with food, and part of that journey was creating Noshtopia so that I could give my own learning lessons a voice and to use that to help others in similar circumstance. Today, the words I would use to describe my relationship with food would include: vibrant, real, fun, nourishing, creative, brings out the best in me, and connected.

And yes, as below so is above 🙂

Yesterday, when former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan testified (.pdf) before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, much of the hearing was focused on accusation and causation, with far less emphasis on solutions. Earlier today, Atlantic Correspondent Ben Heineman Jr. pointed this out, and highlighted the former central banker’s call for regulatory reform. In doing so, he mentioned some of Greenspan’s ideas. One, in particular, could mark a promising step towards solving the too big to fail problem.

The idea of a resolution authority sounds great in theory. A regulator that can neatly and quickly wind down a large financial institution would definitely have helped a few years ago. But on a practical level there’s some fear that if only select firms are subject to the resolution authority, it could provide a competitive advantage. There’s also some question of what liquidation costs would be covered through a resolution fund, as creditors would lend more cheaply to a firm if they know some of their investment is guaranteed even if an institution fails.

And that’s where Greenspan’s idea comes in. It roughly follows the bail-in theory described here, where large troubled institutions could convert debt to equity in order improve their capital levels, without needing to be wound down. The problem, of course, is that a resolution authority can’t do this haphazardly, or the market would just have even more uncertainty. You can’t leave such details up to the whims of regulators. Greenspan’s solution: detail how this conversion would work. In his prepared testimony, he said:

The solution, in my judgment, that has at least a reasonable chance of reversing the extraordinarily large “moral hazard” that has arisen over the past year is to require banks and possibly all financial intermediaries to hold contingent capital bonds–that is, debt which is automatically converted to equity when equity capital falls below a certain threshold. Such debt will, of course, be more costly on issuance than simple debentures, but its existence could materially reduce moral hazard.

However, should contingent capital bonds prove insufficient, we should allow large institutions to fail, and if assessed by regulators as too interconnected to liquidate quickly, be taken into a special bankruptcy facility. That would grant the regulator access to taxpayer funds for “debtor-in-possession financing.” A new statute would create a panel of judges who specialize in finance. The statute would require creditors (when equity is wholly wiped out) to be subject to statutorily defined principles of discounts from par (“haircuts”) before the financial intermediary was restructured. The firm would then be required to split up into separate units, none of which should be of a size that is too big to fail.

Greenspan’s point about moral hazard is very important. The big worry is that if large institutions will be rescued, then their creditors will provide them cheaper debt. But if investors’ bonds will be converted to equity at some relatively unfavorable conversion rate, then suddenly creditors won’t be as willing to provide big firms a significant funding advantage. Indeed, the idea of paying more for debt might even discourage firms from growing so large in the first place. The key would be to force most or all debt of systemically relevant firms to be subject to equity conversion when some pre-determined capital inadequacy trigger has been hit.

He further calls for firms to fail if the conversion won’t restore capital to a sufficient level. This would make the possibility of rescuing a firm through debt-to-equity conversion a sort of “Chapter 11” bankruptcy mechanism. Firms that can’t be saved even through this means would be resolved. That would be closer to traditional “Chapter 7” liquidation. This would allow firms that aren’t sick enough to require wind down to have a sort of managed bankruptcy reorganization through debt-to-equity conversion.

The only area where Greenspan might lose some public support is his thought that taxpayer funds should be used for debt-in-possession financing. But that could be easily fixed through the creation of a resolution fund through assessments on large institutions, as the regulation measures in Congress already call for.

Other than that, Greenspan’s idea would be a welcome addition to the resolution authority. It would eliminate a great deal of uncertainty regarding failure scenarios of giant firms, but also require their failure if that’s the best option.

The latest iPhone OS 4.0 announcements may have had a lot of Apple haters sitting back, smiling at their computer screens and feeling validated. But over at Today’s iPhone, the general mood in the comments of our event page has been downright glum. Despite the announcement of 4.0’s upcoming support for multitasking — iPhone users’ most-wanted feature — the rest just seemed disappointing.

Not that iPhone owners would complain about getting stuff like a unified email inbox, changeable wallpapers, folder management, iBooks on the iPhone or social networking for gaming. Much of these “tent poles,” as Apple referred to them, are indeed features that have been sorely lacking in the OS. And so this will make some users happy. But others are frustrated. They see these offerings merely as Apple plugging up holes in its existing software. Instead of watching the company play “catch up,” they wanted to see new and exciting features and genuinely forward-thinking functionality. And this just wasn’t it.

As if to rub salt in the wounds, it was announced that older iPhone 2G and 3G models, not to mention pre-iPod Touch 3rd generation devices, won’t be able to handle multitasking, and so therefore won’t be getting the new functionality, even if they upgrade to 4.0 (Remember the huge number of sales last year on iPhone 3G phones? The ones that were selling them for sub-$100 pricing? That means there’s a fairly big iPhone OS userbase out there who are now pretty ticked off.)

At first, I was wondering the same thing as everyone else, “What was Apple thinking??” First, to hold the 4.0 preview event mere days after the iPad debuted risked overexposure in the media. Second, if they were willing to do that, then the details unveiled would have seriously needed to be spectacular to keep excitement alive. And it wasn’t. In fact, the preview event today may have actually angered more users than given them something to look forward to.

The only rationale I can think of for this has everything to do with the iPad. Even though tablet owners aren’t scheduled to receive this update until the fall (after everyone else gets theirs in the summer), something needed to go out soon — not just to get new owners to hang in there, but also to tip the fence sitters over to the Cupertino side.

The iPad’s impact on today’s announcement

First, the presentation started off with iPad statistics, then segued into an announcement that more than hundreds of new features were coming. And yet, they only touched on 7 key areas today:

• Multitasking
• Folder management
• Social gaming
• iBooks support for iPhone
• Enhanced email
• Enterprise uses and security
• Apple’s own in-app advertising model (iAd)

Like the iPhone, one of the major criticisms of the tablet was its inability to multitask. I’m wondering if Apple wanted to get word out as fast as possible that the device — along with its “Mini Me” smartphone counterpart — would be getting this, so as not to impact critical Stage One tablet sales. And with all these new iPad owners, app management was going to take on a heightened priority. Gaming, email, enterprise uses — all these have been hyped a lot on the iPad. As for iBooks, well that was important to the tablet too, and now owners know that iBook purchases will be available on their iPhones as well.

As for advertising, this is pretty much a no-brainer. With a windfall of iPad apps that will likely rain down upon the App Store, to join the hundreds of thousands of iPhone apps that are currently in there, of course Cupertino was going to place a big emphasis on new ways to monetize that and attract developers and partners. (The fact that it could take a potshot at AdMob in the process was probably just icing on the cake for them.)

A look ahead

There was a lot that was missing today, undoubtedly. But after a little time has passed, to let the facts sink in a little, I’m not as disappointed in the event as I was earlier on. Here’s why:

I could be wrong, but if today’s announcements were really more about the iPad, then there are several iPhone-specific details that have yet to emerge. So that has me wondering about what might be addressed at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Every June/July, Apple uses the event to unveil its next smartphone and full SDK. And that’s when we’re likely to know some of the answers to questions like these:

• Will it have a 1GHz A4 processor chipset, like the iPad?
• Will it feature a front-facing camera?
• Is there a new iteration that comes with a higher resolution display?
• Is there a new form factor on tap? Finally?
• What about different versions of the iPhone?
• Will there be new carrier partnerships? (Like Verizon?)

At this point, everyone knows that Apple’s dominance in smartphones is more precarious than ever — and no one knows that more than Cupertino. It’s a crucial year for its smartphone. But I do think it’s possible that the company might have some cards up its sleeves it hasn’t played yet. One thing’s for sure: It’s going to be a long wait these next couple of months to know if that’s true.

Didn’t get into the BlackBerry Twitter beta when it was locked up tight? Didn’t feel like dabbing with leaked software when the newest version leaked to everyone a few days later? Fear not, dear reader! It’s almost your time to bask in the sweet, sweet RIM-brand Twitter client sunlight.

Tonight at 6 P.M Pacific (9 PM eastern), them fine folks up in Waterloo will be flipping all the appropriate switches to send the Twitter client into the public realm. It’s still considered Beta, but it’s at least solid enough that RIM’s ready for anyone and everyone to play with it. Look for it in the Test Center on the BlackBerry App World or, failing that, BlackBerry Beta Zone.

Let us know what you think, won’t you?

This awkward-looking contraption can read your mind—sort of. It’s an encephalometer from Hitatchi, and it measures the change in blood flow across your brain. You know what that makes it good for? Neuromarketing, apparently! And an old joke. More »

BMW and SGL Group will invest $100 million to produce a carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Washington that will build parts for a new BMW electric-vehicle under its MegaCity vehicle project. The plant will begin ultra-lightweight carbon fiber reinforced plastics and will kick off production in the third-quarter of 2011.

The plant will employ about 80 workers.

The carbon fiber will be build exclusively for BMW’s first EV under a new sub-brand, whose name has yet to be revealed. BMW didn’t reveal any details about the electric-vehicle other than that it will arrive before 2015.

The new BMW MegaCity vehicle will be build under the company’s Project i unit.

-By: Omar Rana

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

Filed under: Spy Photos, Performance, SUV, Europe, Crossover, Spyker, Luxury

This could possibly be our first glimpse at the forthcoming super D12 SUV from Spyker. The team from Auto Informatief somehow managed to get their sticky mitts on what is said to be a clandestine shot of a clay model featured during some kind of corporate presentation. As shown, the body looks decidedly more Spyker than the Land Rover Defender-skinned test mules we’ve seen spy shots of thus far, but it also looks a good bit different from the Peking-to-Paris showcars we’ve seen for the last couple of years. As this photo is not explained in any context (including temporal), it could also be that this is an early development clay that predates the P-to-P, and not representative of the forthcoming production model.

Either way, the really interesting rumors center on the Spyker’s engine bay. First, the bad news: there will no longer be a 12-cylinder behemoth under the hood. Depressed? Cheer up. In its place, the company is said to be plopping in a supercharged V8 of some unknown origin. The web is already crawling with theories of a blown Ferrari or AMG beating heart – both of which are decent guesses as far as we’re concerned.

Assuming the clay model is representative of the production car, it looks like the new beast from Spyker will feature suicide rear doors – always a winner in our book – and a somewhat tall ride height. Ugly? Beautiful? It’s too early to tell for us, but anything’s bound to be better than the cobbled-together skin of the mules we’ve seen. No word yet on what designation the car will carry when it reaches production (SSUV? Peking-to-Paris?), but hopefully we’ll get a better look at the real-live thing sometime soon.

[Source: Auto Informatief]

Spy Shots: Are you the Spyker D12 SSUV? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Testifying to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and former Citigroup executives Robert Rubin and Charles Prince passed the buck. Rubin and Prince said they could not have understood Citigroup’s extraordinary exposure to the housing market or recognized the risk the bubble posed any earlier. And Greenspan poured water on the idea that he could have done more to diminish the housing bubble, saying he was “quite active in pursuing consumer protections for mortgage borrowers.”

Diane E. Thompson, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center, begs to differ. As part of the Federal Reserve’s Consumer Advisory Council, she and other consumer advocates alerted him to the looming crisis in mortgages starting in the early 2000s. We spoke earlier today; the interview transcribed below is lightly edited for length and clarity.

Greenspan’s testimony seemed to contradict even the Fed’s own reports on the housing bubble.

I was surprised to read what he said, because he articulated a view that’s been thoroughly discredited over the past several years. There was no meaningful regulation [in housing by the Fed] between 2000 and 2008. Statements were issued, but they weren’t binding — they were advisory and worked around the edges of the problem. Plus, there weren’t even any such statements during the height of the crisis! When things were gathering steam and hens were coming home to roost, the Fed did nothing. And it did nothing despite the fact that many consumer advocates were warning about loans in the subprime market. He says that he believed the sub-prime market was so small it wouldn’t matter to the broader economy. But obviously it did.

I also found it interesting that he said the problem was the demand for those loans. To some extent I agree with him. There was demand for these loans, of course, but had there been meaningful restrictions in place, this would not have become the crisis it did. The Fed finally put those restrictions into place in 2008.

The other point that struck me was his description of how involved the Fed was. He has cited the Consumer Advisory Council, but it was created by statute. The Consumer Advisory Council doesn’t exist by the good of the Fed’s heart. The years I served on it, it was dominated by industry. The Fed governors would say, “We have all these meetings with the Consumer Advisory Council! We get an interchange of views!” But my experience was that it was difficult to get consumers heard.

And the crisis was easier to see from the end-user, consumer side of it than the banking side?

The problem was obvious to those of us who worked in the communities where the housing bubble originated, particularly the African-American and Latino communities that were just obliterated by subprime lending. I think that there was this understanding that this was a minority-community problem — deplorable, but not exportable to the rest of the economy. That was wrong.

How often and how strongly did the Consumer Advisory Council warn the Fed about the housing bubble?

The council meets three times a year, and I was on it for three years, in 2003, 2004, and 2005. I know that during my time on it, as well as before me and after me, there were consumer advocates who said, “There are problems in the subprime market, and they could impact the entire mortgage market and the entire economy.“

That isn’t to say — I will not claim to have predicted the financial meltdown. To be honest, I was shocked, because I assumed that investment bankers had a better grasp of risk management. But, I know for years before I came on, and for years after I went off, at least from 2001 to 2007, at every meeting, people said, “There are problems in the subprime market. These policies aren’t promoting home ownership. If anything, they’re going to end up doing the opposite.”

I have heard statements from Greenspan in the past two years that seem to me more reflective of the role the Fed played and more cognizant of the fact the Fed missed signs of the crisis, which he did not say here.

What else surprised you in the testimony?

I was surprised at the attack on the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]. I was particularly surprised that he said that the banks weren’t the problem, but that the GSEs were. They got into the subprime boom late — and they aren’t what is driving the current foreclosure crisis. They contributed to the volume for some bad loans, but so did the large banks.

And so ultimately, as a consumer advocate…

There’s an assumption that runs throughout his testimony that these toxic products were in fact affordable products that increased home ownership. That continues to be a popular view among bankers. If you get rid of these toxic products you will reduce homeownership; these products help increase homeownership. That is contrary to all of my experience. There is just a weird tautology in saying there wasn’t a problem in the origination of the loans, but the demand for them.

There’s tremendous demand for cocaine — it would be like saying the issue isn’t the sale of cocaine, but the fact that there’s tremendous demand for cocaine. It is just bizarre. Can you imagine our drug enforcement focusing exclusively on drug users rather than drug dealers?

by treehugger.com

From cooking recipes for gas-free beans to sipping on sustainably
sourced biodiesel, find out which of your favorite celebrities are
serving up (at times) more than a little weird, yet helpful
tips to leading greener lifestyles. A star finds an unusual cure for
acne, excess phlegm, and other unmentionables; a Hollywood heartthrob
and HBO star rummages through the lost-and-found; and a Grammy
Award-winning musician suggests steamy shower sessions for curbing
water consumption. Here are some of our favorite green tips from
celebrities.

Woody Harrelson in Zombieland.Photo via Treehugger1. Woody Harrelson goes milk-free and then vegan to cure runny nose, redness, and acne

Woody Harrelson shares a story with Hustler (as reported by Ecorazzi), on how he gave up dairy all together in his mid-twenties for a vegan diet—Twinkies were his favorite indulgence.
He says, “When I was 23, 24, I used to have a really bad runny nose,
mucus, tons of acne, reddishness all over. A woman on a bus I took
looked at me and said I was lactose intolerant.” Three days later, his symptoms were gone. If milk, cheese, or other dairy products give you the willies try an alternative like almond, rice, hemp, or soy milk—yum!

Get the rest of the list from our friends at Treehugger.

Related Links:

Celeb couple awkwardly asks you to dim the lights for Earth Hour

Michael Pollan sets Food Rules on Oprah

Green celebs bring sexy back to Senate politics

In the hot desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, finding fresh drinking water has always been a great challenge. For decades now, the state has been providing clean water by converting millions of gallons of seawater via desalination plants that remove salts and minerals from the water. Now the country plans to use one of its most abundant resources to counter its fresh-water shortage: sunshine [Technology Review].

Working on a joint project with IBM, Saudi Arabia’s national research group King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) has announced that it will open the world’s largest solar-powered desalination plant by 2012 in the city of Al-Khafji. The pilot plant will not just supply 30,000 cubic meters of clean water per day to 100,000 people, but will also reduce operating costs in the long run by harvesting energy from sunshine. Saudi Arabia, the top desalinated water producer in the world, uses 1.5 million barrels of oil per day at its plants, according to Arab News [Technology Review].

In the new desalination plant, the Saudis hope to slash energy costs by deploying a new kind of concentrated photovoltaic technology, which uses lenses or mirrors to focus the sun’s rays onto solar panels. The technology will concentrate the sun 1,500 times on a solar cell to boost efficiency. That’s about three times the solar concentration of most concentrating photovoltaic panels currently in operation [The New York Times]. The system’s upgrade is due to a device that IBM came up with back when the company was designing mainframe computers and trying to ensure that they didn’t overheat. The device, called a liquid metal thermal interface, uses a highly conductive liquid metal to transfer heat away. In the desalination plant, the devices will serve as heat sinks to prevent the photovoltaics from breaking down under such extreme, concentrated heat.

The energy generated by these solar arrays would then power the plant’s desalination process, which will be accomplished via reverse osmosis. In this technique, seawater is forced through a polymer membrane at high pressure, which filters out salt and contaminants. The Al-Khafji plant will use an advanced nano-membrane that IBM and KACST developed, which researchers say allows water to flow through 25 to 50 percent faster than conventional membranes used in desalination plants.

The Al-Khafji desalination plant is the first of three steps in a solar-energy program launched by KACST to reduce desalination costs. The second step will be a 300,000-cubic-meter facility, and the third phase will involve several more solar-power desalination plants at various locations [Technology Review].

Related Content:
80beats:Flying the Sunny Skies: Solar-Powered Plane Completes 2-Hour Test Flight
80beats:A Novel That Laughs Along with Climate Change: Ian McEwan’s Solar
80beats: 2 New Nanotech Super Powers: Desalinating Sea Water and Treating Cancer
80beats: San Diego Residents Will Soon Be Drinking Desalinated Seawater
DISCOVER: Water, Water Everywhere, So Let’s All Have a Drink explores the idea of offshore desalination platforms

Image: IBM