Bipartisan Federal Legislation Introduced to Create Coordinated ...

Washington, DC--(ENEWSPF)--August 2, 2012. ?Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards (D-4th/MD), along with Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-45th/CA) and nearly two dozen other Members of Congress, will introduce the Stop Overdose Stat (S.O.S.) Act today to support lifesaving community-based efforts to prevent fatal drug overdoses and to establish a coordinated federal plan to combat what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has declared to be a public health epidemic. The S.O.S. Act will create federal support for overdose prevention, education and training run by cities, states, tribal governments and community groups.? Key components of overdose prevention programs include training people at-risk of an overdose (and their caregivers) how to recognize the signs of an overdose, seek emergency medical help, and administer first aid and naloxone, a medication that quickly reverses an overdose from heroin and opioid pain relievers.

Despite growing recognition among federal health authorities and lawmakers that overdose prevention programs employ techniques and resources that are highly effective at saving lives at low-cost to taxpayers, few federal dollars are dedicated to supporting these critical programs. A recent CDC report credits overdose prevention programs with saving more than 10,000 lives since 1996.

"Local health officials and frontline workers engaged in overdose prevention are saving lives every day using straightforward, low-cost interventions. With federal support, we could be saving many more lives and spare countless families from enduring the heart wrenching, yet completely preventable, loss of a loved one,? said Grant Smith, federal policy coordinator for the Drug Policy Alliance. ?The Drug Policy Alliance applauds Congresswoman Edwards and Congresswoman Bono Mack for introducing this livesaving legislation and showing leadership on this issue in Congress.?

Accidental drug overdose far surpasses both unintentional and homicidal deaths from firearms and now ranks second only to auto collisions among the leading causes of accidental deaths in the United States. Since the late 1990s, fatal overdoses have jumped more than 140 percent nationwide, claiming more than 28,500 lives in 2009 (the latest year data is available). While overdoses from illegal drugs persist as a major public health problem, fatal overdoses from prescribed opioid pain relievers such as oxycodone account for more than 40 percent of all overdose deaths.

?The S.O.S Act will fight a growing health crisis that is going largely unnoticed in our country,? said Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards. ?Approximately 30,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, yet the national response to combat this ongoing crisis remains woefully inadequate.? It is time that the federal government took on an active role in promoting proven treatments recommended by medical associations. I want to thank Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack for joining me in introducing the S.O.S. Act, and I look forward to working with all my colleagues to pass this bill into law.?

?As Americans, we rally around efforts to fight breast cancer, childhood diseases and other serious health threats. But for far too long, there have only been hushed whispers about prescription drug abuse ? now the fastest growing drug problem in America.? So as the death toll from prescription drug overdoses continues to rise sharply, it?s time to move this story from the obituary page to the front page where it belongs, said Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack. ?It?s time to realize that we can?t simply wish this horrific problem away. Not with more than 20,000 people a year dying from it.? Not when the number of newborn babies who must be withdrawn from opiate dependence at birth has tripled in the past decade.? Not when nearly one out of 4 high school seniors has used prescription painkillers.? This is nothing less than a national tragedy.? If 20,000 people died each year from food poisoning, Americans would demand immediate action,? said Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack.

More than 180 overdose prevention programs have been successfully implemented nationwide, including statewide programs in New Mexico, Massachusetts and New York, and in cities such as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. The American Medical Association recently adopted a resolution supporting the expansion of overdose prevention programs that offer naloxone, education and training services. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration held a public workshop in collaboration with other federal health agencies to explore ways to make naloxone more widely available in community settings.

Source:?http://www.drugpolicy.org

Source: http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/health-and-fitness/35274-bipartisan-federal-legislation-introduced-to-create-coordinated-federal-plan-to-combat-nationwide-overdose-epidemic-.html

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Three Reasons Why Cloud Computing Can Increase Your Productivity

Each day there is more and more discussion about cloud computing. Most of it revolves around how it will be the wave of the future, the next big thing, and how your business should be utilizing it (if you aren?t already).

There are many claims about cloud computing. Here are three valid, factual reasons why it could improve your business?s productivity and efficiency.

1) Storing data securely. Perhaps the biggest reason to adopt a cloud storage strategy is a cure for what we?ll call the ?Grandma?s Attic? method of storage. In your Grandma?s musty attic are many boxes?some are marked with a list of the contents, most are not. Let?s say your Uncle Charlie has just passed away, and you have been given the unenviable task finding his will, which wasn?t kept in a safety deposit box (Charlie was born before the Depression, so early on he developed an innate mistrust of banks). Grandma seems to recall that it was last seen in her attic?who knows how long ago?and she?s in no shape to go up there for more than a few minutes, so you take on the job of going upstairs to look for it. Soon the minutes have turned into hours and you?ve searched through about half the boxes without finding it.

Does this sound a lot like your company?s archived data storage system? No one really knows which hard drive or which server has the information you need to research a frequent customer?s sales history, of which he says he?d like a copy. Admittedly, in the past when data was entered and saved a record was supposed to be kept, but apparently volumes of information have been added over the years without that being done. There was no master file record ever made during that time and no one has any idea what the numbers in the cryptic filenames mean. This requires someone to open and look at each one. You recall that Louise, your previous bookkeeper, knew where everything was?but since she?s passed away that information has gone with her.

If you migrate your data to the cloud, the cloud service provider (CSP) you?ve chosen could maintain such a record for you. Imagine being able to search through your company?s records with ease from your desktop computer! Plus, the physical amount of storage space that the previous archives required can now be used for something else. Security issues are nonexistent, as CSPs pride themselves in secure data storage.

2) Truly organized information.? This goes right along with the above. If you have anything like that system, there?s no doubt that you?ve got some work ahead of you as far as deciphering and organizing that data. However, as it is slowly worked through it can be added to your company?s files on the CSP?s storage system. One of the biggest benefits is that even though your late bookkeeper Louise is gone (for example), the information will live on. In fact, whenever any employee leaves the company, you?ll still have access to the information they left behind. Obviously this is a much more organized system.

3) Collaboration becomes much simpler.? Right from the start, you set ground rules for your new cloud storage system. This is how the data is to be organized, it is to be stored in this way. This is so that when a customer?s records are researched there?s not several different organizational formats for his or her data. By having each record entered and stored in just such a way, other employees are much better able to access and review it, enabling the collaborative effort. Many of these efforts seem to fail because employees grow tired of the search process and the sometimes Byzantine method by which the data was stored. By following a set procedure for organizing and storing it, that reason given for lack of collaboration goes out the door.

Be assured that there are more good arguments for adopting a cloud storage strategy. This article was meant to address some of the common reasons why small businesspersons seem hesitant. It?s certainly worth a deeper look at what cloud computing has to offer.

Source: http://www.thebackuplist.com/three-reasons-why-cloud-computing-can-increase-your-productivity/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-reasons-why-cloud-computing-can-increase-your-productivity

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Kelly Stables Celebrates Her Baby Shower

Kelly Stables, who's set to welcome a baby boy with husband Kurt Patino on Sept. 18, celebrated her upcoming arrival on Sunday in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/bzRmaPMpfAI/

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Romney shrugs off criticism of bumpy European tour

WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wrapped up a gaffe-filled European tour on Tuesday dismissing criticism he had undermined his attempt to present himself as a replacement for President Barack Obama on the world stage as one of his aides lost his cool with the media.

Romney's European tour was meant to burnish his foreign policy credentials but has instead generated embarrassing headlines after he offended the British by questioning their readiness to host the Olympics and the Palestinians by suggesting they were culturally inferior to the Israelis.

In an interview with Fox News, Romney said reporters were allowing themselves to be diverted from woes in the U.S. economy and the substance of his own trip, in which he sided strongly with Israel and raised questions about Russian backsliding on democracy.

"I realize that there will be some ... who are far more interested in finding something to write about that is unrelated to the economy, to geopolitics, to the threat of war, to the reality of conflict in Afghanistan today, to a nuclearization of Iran," he said.

Romney studiously avoided making any off-the-cuff comments to the media on Tuesday however, and, after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, ignored shouted questions from reporters keen to get his take on his trip.

"Governor Romney, are you concerned about some of the mishaps on your trip?" shouted one.

"Governor Romney do you have a statement for the Palestinians?" shouted another.

Ignoring the questions, Romney strode back to his motorcade vehicle as an aide admonished members of the press. "Shove it," the aide, Rick Gorka, told reporters.

In footage broadcast on Polish television, a voice could be heard telling reporters it was not appropriate to shout questions so close to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, "a holy site for the Polish people" and that reporters should "show some respect".

On the London leg of his trip, the former governor of the state of Massachusetts drew derision from the British press after questioning whether the city was ready to host the Olympics.

On the next stopover in Israel, he angered Palestinian leaders by calling Jerusalem the Israeli capital and saying cultural differences had made Israel more successful economically than the Palestinians.

Stuart Stevens, a senior Republican strategist, said on Tuesday that if some groups had taken exception to Romney on the tour it was because he spoke his mind - a quality that could work in his favor in the election campaign.

"I think people like that. I think that this idea that you have to not speak your mind is something that's not very appealing to people," said Stevens.

CRITICISM OF RUSSIA, PRAISE FOR POLAND

In Poland, Romney, stuck to the script, saying Russia was faltering in its transition to democracy, while hailing former Soviet satellite Poland as a beacon of freedom that the rest of the world should follow.

In a speech in the library of Warsaw University, Romney named a number of countries he said were guilty of repressing democracy.

"Unfortunately, there are parts of the world today where the desire to be free is met with brutal oppression," Romney said, listing the Moscow-allied state of Belarus, the Syrian leadership, and Venezuela's leader Hugo Chavez.

"And in Russia, once-promising advances toward a free and open society have faltered," he said in a speech that was met with polite applause from his audience of academics and junior government officials.

Romney has previously said that Russia is "without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe". The Kremlin has opposed the expansion of NATO into its sphere of influence and the West has accused it of mistreating political opponents.

Romney had warm words for his host, Poland, evoking its struggles two decades ago to bring down the Iron Curtain.

Its efforts since then to embrace small government and a market economy - the same model he says is needed to revive spluttering U.S. growth - were praiseworthy, he added.

"In the 1980s, when other nations doubted that political tyranny could ever be faced down or overcome, the answer was, 'Look to Poland'," Romney said. "And today, as some wonder about the way forward out of economic recession and fiscal crisis, the answer is to 'Look to Poland' once again."

However, Poland's Solidarity movement, that helped topple Communism, distanced itself from Romney's visit, saying he had supported attacks on unions in his own country.

Romney has pledged not to criticize President Obama from foreign soil, but his comments in Poland - as during the Israel leg of his tour - appeared designed to highlight differences in the candidates' approach to foreign policy.

Obama has put emphasis on a "reset" in previously fraught relations with the Kremlin. That left some in Poland - which has a bitter history of occupation by its eastern neighbor - feeling Washington was overlooking old allies in Warsaw for the sake of a better relationship with Russia.

"I believe it is critical to stand by those who have stood by America," Romney said in his speech.

Romney has run a fairly smooth campaign in the United States by sticking closely to a message that the U.S. economy under Obama has faltered with 8.2 percent unemployment.

On foreign issues, however, his performance has been less smooth, drawing criticism from the Obama camp that he is not ready to be U.S. commander in chief.

(Editing by Christian Lowe and Andrew Osborn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney-chides-russia-last-leg-bumpy-foreign-tour-124654547.html

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Storms May Speed Ozone Loss Above the U.S.

Summer storms in the United States inject water into the atmosphere at altitudes up to 20 kilometres, accelerating ozone-destroying reactions. Image: Rick D?Elia/Corbis

Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

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From Nature magazine

Summer thunderstorms across the United States inject water vapour far higher into the atmosphere than was previously believed, promoting a cascade of chemical reactions that could pose an increased threat to Earth?s protective ozone layer as the climate warms.

James Anderson, an atmospheric chemist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues made the discovery while investigating the origins of high-altitude cirrus clouds ? thin and wispy formations that blanket the sky and trap heat, contributing to the greenhouse effect.

Anderson?s team expected to see summer storms supply cirrus clouds by pumping water vapour up to an average altitude of about 14 kilometres. Instead, the researchers report today in Science1, about half of the storms that they studied injected vapour to altitudes of between 15 and 20 kilometres.

?We were shocked,? says Anderson. ?Standard, run-of-the-mill Midwestern thunderstorms are far more capable of injecting water vapour into the stratosphere than we once thought.?

There are significant implications for stratospheric ozone, which shields the Earth from ultraviolet radiation. Ozone can be destroyed by reactions with chlorine and water ? and the rates of those reactions are governed mainly by temperature and the presence of water vapour. If, as expected, storm activity increases owing to global warming, says Anderson, the proportion of water in the stratosphere will increase, leading to accelerating destruction of stratospheric ozone ? and an increase in the amount of ultraviolet radiation reaching Earth.

Climate calculations

Andrew Dessler, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University in College Station, says that further observations are needed to understand all the implications. ?I?m not at all surprised that this happens,? he says, ?but I think a challenge is really going to be quantifying all aspects of the problem? including the frequency of the water-vapour injections and any resulting stratospheric chlorine reactions.

The affected area of the stratosphere ? between 15 and 20 kilometres in altitude ? contains about 20% of the total stratospheric ozone, and Anderson says that the water-vapour injections could provide conditions for rapid ozone destruction similar to those that scientists have been investigating for decades in Antarctica and more recently in the Arctic.

Currently, water vapour occupies about 5 parts per million by volume (p.p.m.v.) of the affected parts of the stratosphere. If that were to increase to 12 p.p.m.v., up to 25% of the ozone in the affected zone could be destroyed within a week. If water-vapour content climbed to 18 p.p.m.v., about 35% of the ozone could be destroyed in the same time frame.

Kerry Emanuel, a climatologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, says that the study adds urgency to an issue that his profession has yet to clear up: how will storms respond to climate change? ?We really don?t know the answer to that,? he says. ?This is a surprisingly under-developed field.?

Geoengineering risk
The study also raises questions about geoengineering ? the concept of manipulating the environment to mitigate climate change. One method of geoengineering currently being considered would involve pumping sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space and cool the planet. But sulphate particles also act as catalysts for ozone-destroying reactions, so such a scheme could speed the reactions. ?The worst cocktail you can think of is to inject a combination of sulphur and water into the stratosphere, and that is exactly what would be happening,? says Anderson. ?Nature would be injecting the water, and humans would be injecting the sulphates.?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=89e608d15cfa6afd02f053b503490e3a

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laya_malka: Jane Lynch tackles student loan debt http://t.co/b5W5QDsq #college

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My dad has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. I can't think ...

The?Nebraska?Panhandle, 1988

First water, we called it?the first water of the summer irrigation season?first water was coming. On the Fourth of July, 1988, the summer before I entered seventh grade, my father had my whole family at the end of a field of Great Northerns laying ten-inch irrigation pipe over new corrugations.? It was 111 degrees in the shade and all I wanted was to be at the lake with the guys, riding in a motorboat, waterskiing, maybe sneaking a can of beer from a cooler to pass around.? But beans don?t irrigate themselves.

My father was talking about Cincinnatus, the hero that saved Rome and then refused to be dictator, returning instead to his fields.

?This country could use a Cincinnatus or two,? he said.

My grandparents, resolute Catholics, had deemed it their duty to apportion a son to the Church.? My father had been shipped off to seminary at age thirteen, joining the last wave of men to receive a pre-Vatican II education.? Just shy of ordination, he decided celibacy was too heavy a cross to bear.? He bolted for co-ed college and Vietnam and this farm, toting along his classical education like sharp jeweled shards.? It has always seemed to me that these shards jab his brain even when he is about the grittiest of farm labor.? Perhaps more so then.

Cincinnatus was a favorite theme.? We heard the story many times.? I think about him still in moments of reverie, dreaming of accomplishing heroic deeds myself in the camera?s unblinking eye, refusing all offers of position and prestige, returning to my farm with a final wave to the hushed TV masses.

We had to unload the pipes from a trailer hitched to an old open-cab Oliver tractor, my ten-year-old brother Travis at the wheel.? The pipes were hot and I had forgotten my gloves at the house.? My father shook his head and gave me his.

?Don?t be sorry,? he said.? ?Just don?t forget.?

As the trailer jounced over the corrugations, we rolled pipes onto the dirt, my father on one end and my eight-year-old brother Nate and I on the other.? Dust whorled around our ankles.? My mother dandled my little sister Michaela under the elm trees in the shade.? Michaela was just three and, left on her own, might go chasing a moth under the wheels of the tractor.

After the line was deposited, the pipes had to be joined.? Everyone had a job.? Nate went along slamming shut the four-inch square surge gates that controlled the flow of water down the corrugations.? Travis checked the gaskets.? I lined up the pipes so the male end would penetrate the female.? The old pipes were dented and warped.? They didn?t fit together so well.? My father butted a slab of creosote-stained railroad tie against the pipe-end to thump with a sledge hammer.? He wielded the sledge with the precision some men swing golf clubs.? He used to lay these lines of pipe by himself.

If my end didn?t pop in after a couple swings, I?d sit on it to add a little weight.? I was very judicious about this.? If I sat wrong, my particulars got stung good.

?Move it, boys,? my father roared after popping a joint in, grinning, swinging the sledge up on his shoulder.? ?You?re slowing me down!?

We raced down the field, whooping in the heat.? I grabbed a dirt clod, winged it at Travis.? I missed by a mile but my mother saw.

?Quit that,? she called.? ?You?re going to put an eye out.? And fix your bandana.?

?Ah, Mom,? I said.

?Don?t you look at your mother with that tone of voice,? my father said.

My mother made us wear bandanas under our ball caps to shield our neck and ears from the sun.? We each had different colors: yellow, purple, red, a little tribe of bedouins on the western Nebraska prairie.

Lunch was in the shade trees by the tumbledown beet labor shack, built during the premechanized days when gangs of migrant workers roamed the country seeking fieldwork.? We ate baloney sandwiches soggy from the heat and guzzled fizzy Squirts chased by water out of a frozen milk jug so cold it hurt my teeth.? The breeze was hot sandpaper on our faces.

My father talked about how the conquering Mongols lived on meat cured between a saddle and a horse?s back.? He admired true grit above all else, and the first book I can remember being proud enough to show him I had read on my own was called?Genghis Khan.

?Back to it,? my father said.? ?Christmas is coming.?

We made good progress.? I started to get hopeful about the lake and meeting the guys.? I wouldn?t tell them why I was late.? Town kids didn?t understand pipes or first water or Cincinnatus.

Storm clouds mounted in the east, giant black thunderboomers that mushroomed a mile into the sky, crackling with sheet lightning.? We worked until thunder rolled overhead and cool gusts knifed through our sweaty shirts.

?Jim,? said my mother, coming from the trees, toting Michaela.

?All right, all right,? said my father.? ?Let?s mount up.?

As we retreated the world went electric with lightning like flashbulbs pressed to my eyeballs.? The sky spit hail, and we took cover in the beet labor shack, standing together in the front room watching pea-sized hailstones shimmy like popcorn through the empty window frames.? Then the hail stopped, and a last squall pelted the splitting wood shingles with crooked rain. Not a bad storm, though electricity continued to strobe the sky.? The beans would make it, but all my friends would have fled the lake.

The shack consisted of three tiny rooms, no indoor plumbing, no electricity.? Slats showed through jagged cracks in the walls.? Chunks of plaster were scattered pebbly on the warped floorboards.? My father picked a chunk up, thumbed powder from the edges.

?Luxury,? he said.? ?Thomas Aquinas wrote the?Summa Theologica?in a stone monk?s cell with a quill pen and a candle.? Men like that have about gone the way of the gooney bird.?

No way would I have told my friends, but around then I wanted to be a priest, thinking sainted thoughts, clacking beads over penitents.? Times had grown permissive, though, and, at a much earlier age than my father, I realized I couldn?t hack celibacy.? Nevertheless I have come to mimic St. Thomas, hunched in close rooms alone, writing.? The saint would not own me, I wager.

Michaela started crying.? ?Let?s get them back up to the house,? said my mother.? ?Who knows how long the lightning will last.?

We loaded up in the back of the pickup and headed home.? My father dispatched a couple oatmeal cookies with us then returned to finish out the line.? First water was coming.

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Source: http://courtmerrigan.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/my-dad-has-been-diagnosed-with-terminal-brain-cancer-i-cant-think-what-else-to-say-here-is-something-i-wrote-last-year-which-was-supposedly-about-me-but-was-really-about-him/

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