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Part 4 of a 4-part series of short posts intended to clear out my bloggestive tract. Hold your nose! Well, I held out for a week. Then I read the comments. Argh! Actually they were fine. Nice comments, all around. Whew. I don't have any big themes to talk about today, but I've got a couple of little ones, let's call 'em bloguettes, that I'll lump together into a medley for today's entree. Bloguette #1: Ruby Sneaks ended accessible Python I was in Barnes today, doing my usual weekend stroll through the tech section. Helps me keep up on the latest trends. And wouldn't you know it, I skipped a few weeks there, and suddenly Ruby and Rails have almost as many books out as Python. I counted eleven Ruby/RoR titles tonight, and thirteen for Python (including one Zope book). And Ruby had a big display section at the end of one of the shelves. Not all the publishers were O'Reilly and Pragmatic Press. I'm pretty sure there were two or three others there, so it's not just a plot by Tim O'Reilly to sell more books. Well, actually that's exactly what it is, but it's based on actual market research that led him to the conclusion that Rails and Ruby are both gathering steam like nobody's business. I like a lot of languages. Really, I do. But I use Ruby. I'm not even sure if I like Ruby. The issue might just be irrelevant to whether I use it. I like OCaml, for instance, but I don't use it. I don't like Java, but I do use it. Liking and using are mostly orthogonal dimensions, and if you like the language you're using even a little bit, you're lucky. That, or you just haven't gotten broad enough exposure to know how miserable you ought to be. I use Ruby because it's been the path of least resistance for most of my programming tasks since about 3 days after I started messing with it, maybe 4 years ago. I don't even really know Ruby all that well. I never bothered to learn it. I did read "Ruby in a Nutshell" cover-to-cover, but it's a short read (and it's a bit out of date now.) Then I read bits of "Programming Ruby", but not all of it. And now I use Ruby for everything I can, any time I have any choice in the matter. I don't even mind that I don't know the language all that well. It has a tiny core that serves me admirably well, and it's easy to look things up when you need to. I do a lot more programming in Python than in Ruby -- Jython in my game server, and Python at work, since that's what everyone there uses for scripting. I have maybe 3x more experience with Python than with Ruby (and 10x more experience with Perl). But Perl and Python both have more unnecessary conceptual overhead, so I find I have to consult the docs more often with both of them. And when all's said and done, Ruby code generally winds up being the most direct and succinct, whether it's mine or someone else's. I have a lot of trouble writing about Ruby, because I find there's nothing to say. It's why I almost never post to the O'Reilly Ruby blog. Ruby seems so self-explanatory to me. It makes it almost boring; you try to focus on Ruby and you wind up talking about some problem domain instead of the language. I think that's the goal of all programming languages, but so far Ruby's one of the few to succeed at it so well. If only it performed better. *Sigh*. Well, its performance is in the same class as Perl/Python/JavaScript/Lua/Bash/etc., so there are still plenty of tasks Ruby's admirably suited for. I think next year Ruby's going to be muscling in on Perl in terms of mindshare, or shelf-share, at B&N. Bloguette #2: Java's Biggest Dog (Indeed) I still do most of my programming in Java -- at least half of it, maybe more. The Java platform continues to make amazing strides. The newest incarnation (JDK 6) has lots of goodies I can't wait to play with. Like Rhino, for instance, and although they appear to have gutted it, it's still awesome. I think it's the best choice they possibly could have made. Thank God they didn't bundle Groovy. What a catastrophe that was, and still is, and would have been for Java if they'd bundled it. Rhino rocks. The JVM is just getting faster and more stable, and there are even some OK libraries that come with it. I used to think the Java platform libraries were the cat's meow. Heck, I thought they were the whole damn cat. But working with better libraries in miscellaneous other languages has got me thinking that Java's libraries are hit-or-miss. Example: Java's concurrency libraries (java.util.concurrent[.*]) are to die for. I mean, if you're stuck with threads. I think in the fullness of time, hand-managed threads will be history, but in the meantime, Java's concurrency libraries are just superb. I recently ported a medium-sized Python program I'd written (about 1200 lines of fairly dense Python code) to Java, because the Python was taking about an hour to run, and I wanted to parallelize the work. I spent about 3 days doing the rewrite: one day on the straight port, a day adding in the threading, and a day fine-tuning it. The straight port wound up as 1300 lines of Java (surprising that it wasn't bigger, but maybe I code in Python with a Java accent?), and ran about 50% faster, down to about 30 minutes. After adding in the threading and state machine, the program ran in 50 to 60 seconds. So I got an order of magnitude improvement with only about a 50% increase overall in program size. The vast majority of the improvement was attributable to the threading, which in turn would have taken me FAR longer if I'd been using raw synchronization primitives. The java.util.concurrent stuff made it a snap. On the other hand, Java's DOM implementation completely blows chunks. It quickly became the bottleneck in my application, due to an O(n) algorithm I stumbled across with no good workaround for. I can't remember exactly where it was (this was back in July), but I found a sheepishly apologetic comment from the author in the online docs. It was something to do with setting attributes on nodes while you're doing a traversal of some sort: something you'd definitely want to be fast, but it had at least linear performance, maybe worse, and now accounts for 95+% of my app's processing time. And of course Java's DOM interface blows too, because you can't create subclasses or decorators or do anything useful with the DOM other than use it as a temp container until you've transfered the data to something more flexible. Java's collections library is decent, but not superb. It's nice having the data structures they provide, but they're not very configurable, and the language itself makes them often cumbersome. For instance, you can have a WeakHashMap (nice), or an IdentityHashMap (nice), or a ConcurrentHashMap (also nice), but you can't combine any two of those three properties into a single hashtable. Lame. And java.util is missing implementations and/or interfaces for a bunch of important data types like priority queues (you're stuck using a TreeSet, which is overkill), the disjoint set ADT, splay trees, bloom filters, multi-maps, and of course any kind of built-in graph support. Java hyper-enthusiasts will tell you: "well, go write your own! Or use one of the many hopefully robust implementations on the web!" That seems lame to me. We're talking about data structures here: they're more fundamental than, say, LDAP libraries and much of the other stuff Sun's bundling these days. It's smartest to provide robust, tuned implementations of these things, because it empowers average Java programmers to write faster, more reliable code. Oh, and let's not even get me started with java.nio. What a mess! It's pretty gross, especially if you come from the comparatively simple background of select() and poll() on Unix. But maybe the grossness was necessary. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. What bugs me isn't that the API is conceptually weird and complex (and buggy as hell last time I checked); what bugs me is that nobody at Sun bothered to put a layer atop java.nio for ordinary programmers. Like, say, a nonblocking DataInputStream that takes a type to read, a Buffer, and a callback to call when it's finished reading. So every frigging Java programmer on the planet has to write that exact class -- or just flail around with the raw APIs, which is what I think most of them do. And look what they did to poor LDAP! I mean, the LDAP bindings are dirt-simple in every language I've ever used. It's supposed to be lightweight -- that's what the "L" stands for, fer cryin' out loud. JNDI is this huge monster. So is JMX. I mean, Java libraries have this way of being so bloated and overengineered. But whatever; I've digressed. Java's libraries are not its biggest failing. The libraries (as I said) are decent, and the platform (in terms of tools, speed, reliability, documentation, portability, monitoring, etc.) really raises the bar on all those other loser languages out there. All of 'em. It's why no better languages have managed to supplant Java yet. Even if the language and its libraries are (on the whole) better than Java's, they also have to contend with the Java platform, and so far nobody's been able to touch it, unless maybe it's .NET, but who cares about .NET? Certainly not Amazon.com or Yahoo! or Google or any other important companies that I'm aware of. Literals Anyway, Java's biggest failing, I've decided, is its lack of syntax for literal data objects. It's an umbrella failing that accounts for most of the issues I have with the language. The idea behind literals is that you have some sort of serialized notation for your data type, and it's part of the language syntax, so you can embed pre-initialized objects in your code. The most obvious ones are numbers, booleans and strings. It's hard to imagine life without support for numeric literals, isn't it? Well, Java's support is limited at best. There's no syntax for entering a binary value, for instance, like "0b10010100". And there's no BigInteger/BigDecimal syntax, so working with them is a disaster and nobody does it if they can help it. Heck, Java doesn't even have unsigned ints and longs. But Java does more or less the bare minimum for numbers, so people don't notice it much. Imagine if there were no String literals, so that instead of this: String s = "Hello, world!"; you had to do this: StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(); sb.append('H'); sb.append('e'); sb.append('l'); sb.append('l'); sb.append('o'); sb.append(','); sb.append(' '); sb.append('W').append('o').append('r').append('l').append('d').append('!'); String s = sb.toString(); Not only is the latter bloated and ugly and error-prone (can you spot the error in mine?), it's also butt-slow. Literals provide the compiler with opportunities for optimization. Well, unfortunately this OOP garbage is exactly what you have to do when you're initializing a hashtable in Java. Nearly all other languages these days have support for hashtable/hashmap literals, something like: my_hashmap = { "key1" : "value1", "key2" : "value2", "key3" : "value3", ... } That's the syntax used by Python and JavaScript, but other languages are similar. The Java equivalent is this: Map<String, String> my_hashmap = new HashMap<String, String>(); my_hashmap.put("key1", "value1"); my_hashmap.put("key2", "value2"); my_hashmap.put("key3", "value3"); ... It might not look that much worse from this simple example, but there are definitely problems. One is optimization; the compiler is unlikely to be able to optimize all these method calls, whereas with a literal syntax, it could potentially save on method call overhead during construction of the table (and maybe other savings as well.) Another is nested data structures. In JavaScript (and Python, Ruby, etc.) you just declare them in a nested fashion, like so: my_thingy = { "key1": { "foo": "bar", "foo2": "bar2"}, "key2": ["this", "is", "a", "literal", "array"], "key3": 37.5, "key4": "Hello, world!", ... } It would be hard to do this particular one in Java 5 because of the mixed value types, though it's probably not an issue since using mixed-type data structures is something you rarely do in practice, even in dynamically-typed languages. But even if all the values were hashes of string-to-string, how are you going to do it in Java without literals? You can't. You're stuck with: Map<String, Map<String, String>> my_hashmap = new HashMap<String, HashMap<String, String>>(); Map<String, String> value = new HashMap<String, String>(); value.put("foo", "bar"); value.put("foo2", "bar2"); my_hashmap.put("key1, value); value.clear(); value.put("foo3", "bar3"); value.put("foo4", "bar4"); my_hashmap.put("key2, value); ... And then you find out later that your clever clear() optimization (instead of creating a new HashMap object for each value) busted it completely. Whee. Java programmers wind up dealing with this kind of thing by writing generic helper functions, and it winds up layering even more OOP overhead onto something that ought to be a simple declaration. It also tends to be brutally slow; e.g. you could write a function called buildHashMap that took an array of {key, value, key, value, ...}, but it adds a huge constant-factor overhead. This is why Java programmers rely on XML so heavily, and it imposes both an impedance mismatch (XML is not Java, so you have to translate back and forth) and a performance penalty. But the story doesn't end there. What about Vector/ArrayList literals? Java has primitive array literals, which is nice as far as it goes: String[] s = new String[]{"fee", "fi", "fo", "fum"}; Unfortunately, Java's primitive arrays are a huge wart; they don't have methods, can't be subclassed, and basically fall entirely outside the supposedly beautiful OOP-land that Java has created. It was for performance, to help capture skeptical C++ programmers, and they have their place. But I don't see why they should have all the syntactic support. I mean, the [] array-indexing operator is ONLY available for Java arrays. Sure would be nice to have it for ArrayLists, wouldn't it? And Strings? And FileInputStreams? But for some reason, Java gave arrays not one, but TWO syntactic sugarings, and then didn't give that sugar to anything else array-like in the language. So for building ArrayLists, LinkedLists, TreeMaps and the like, you're stuck with Swing-style code assemblages. I think of them as Swing-style because I used to do a lot of AWT and Swing programming, back when I was a Thick Client kind of guy, and they have a distinct(ly unpleasant) footprint. It looks vaguely like this, in pseudo-Swing: Panel p = new Panel(new FlowLayout()); JButton b = new JButton("Press me!"); b.setEventListener(somethingOrOther); p.add(b); JSomething foo = new JSomething(blah, blah); foo.setAttribute(); foo.setOtherAttribute(); foo.soGladIDontDoThisKindOfThingAnymore(); p.add(foo); ... Building UIs in Swing is this huge, festering gob of object instantiations and method calls. It's OOP at its absolute worst. So people have come up with minilanguages (like the TableLayout), and declarative XML replacements like Apache Jelly, and other ways to try to ease the pain. I was on a team at Amazon many years ago that was planning to port a big internal Swing application to the web, and we were looking at the various ways to do web programming, which at the time (for Java) were pretty much limited to JSP, WebMacro, and rolling your own Swing-like HTML component library. We experimented with the OOP approach to HTML generation and quickly discarded it as unmaintainable. (Tell that to any OOP fanatic and watch their face contort as they try to reconcile their conflicting ideas about what constitutes good programming practice.) The right solution in this case is, of course, a Lisp dialect; Lisp really shines at this sort of thing. But Lisp isn't so hot at algebraic expressions, and the best Lisp machines no longer look so cutting-edge compared to the JVM, and blah blah blah, so people don't use Lisp. So it goes. The next-best solutions are all about equally bad. You have your XML-language approaches (like Jelly, but for the web), but they don't give you sufficient expressiveness for control flow -- presentation logic really does require code, and it gets ugly in XML in a real hurry. You have your JSP-style templating approaches, and they aren't bad, but they can have as many as 4 or 5 different languages mixed in the same source file, which presents various problems for your tools (both the IDEs and the batch tools). And then you have a long tail of other approaches, none of which manage to be very satisfying, but that's not really the fault of the languages. It's the browsers' fault: they START with three languages (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript), rather than having just one language to control the entire presentation, and it only goes downhill from there. But NONE of the approaches to web templating is as bad as Swing-style programming, with a huge thicket of calls to new(), addChild(), setAttribute(), addListener(), and the like. The only approach that's worse (and even it might just be tied) is raw HTML printing: print("<html><body>...</body></html>"); So we're all in agreement. OOP-style assembly of parents and children is the worst way to generate HTML. You want to use declarations; you want a template , something that visually looks like the end result you're trying to create. Well, it's the exact same situation for data structures, isn't it? You'd rather draw a picture of it (in a sense, that's exactly what you're doing with syntax for literals) than write a bunch of code to assemble it. This is all assuming that you're working with a small data set, of course. But that happens all the time in real-world programs; it's ubiquitous. So you kinda want your language to support it syntactically. And so far we've only covered literal syntax for HashMaps and ArrayLists (which you can combine to produce various kinds of custom Trees.) Already Java's way behind other languages, and we haven't discussed any richer data types. Like, say, objects. JavaScript does it the best here, IMO, in the parity between hashes and objects. It's not really possible in Ruby or Python to declare a class, then create instances of the class using literal notation the way you can in JavaScript, where the keys are the names of instance variables. Fortunately you can accomplish this in either Ruby or Python with just a smidge of metaprogramming, so it's spilt milk at worst. In Java, you only have one big hammer (instantiation), and one big wrench (the method call), so that's what you use. All you can really do to help is create a constructor that takes arguments that populate the instance variables. But if any of your instance variables are collections (other than arrays), then you're back to the old create-setprops-addchild, create-setprops-addchild pattern again. And what about functions? Ruby and JavaScript and Lisp and Scheme and Lua and Haskell and OCaml and most other self-respecting languages have function literals. That is, they have a syntax for declaring an instance of a function as a data object in your code that you can assign to a variable, or pass as a parameter. (Python has them too, but unfortunately they can only be one line, so Python folks prefer to pretend anonymous functions aren't very important. This is one of the 10 or so big problems caused by Python's whitespace policy. Don't ever let 'em tell you it doesn't cause problems. It does. Maybe it's worth the trade-off; that's a personal style preference, but they should at least admit the tradeoff exists.) Well, Java sort of has them, but Java's static type system doesn't have a literal syntax for a method signature. It's pretty easy to imagine one, e.g. something like: (int, int) -> String x; This imaginary syntax declares a variable x that takes 2 ints as parameters and returns a string. Lots of languages have signature-syntax of some sort, and Java's syntax space is definitely sparse enough that they could pick a good syntax for it without fear of collisions, even conceptual collisions. But no such luck. Instead, when you want to do this sort of thing you have to declare a named interface, and then inside of it declare at least one named method (which is where the params and return type show up), and then you're still not done, because when you create the function you have to create an anonymous (or named) class that contains the definition of the function that matches the interface. Yuck. But at least they let you do it; the alternative of not having it at all is definitely worse. Still... isn't syntactic sugar nice? I mean, they added the "smart" for-loop, which Java programmers just rave about. So someone, somewhere in the Java community thinks syntax is good. I'm not sure many of them really understand the difference between syntactic sugar (into which category the "smart" for-loop falls) and orthogonal syntax, in which the basic operators apply to all data types for which those operators make sense, and there are literal declarations possible for every data type. Let alone the next step, which is extensible syntax -- but that idea strikes fear into the hearts of many otherwise brave Java programmers, and Rubyists and Pythonistas as well, so let's back it up a notch to "orthogonal", and keep everyone calm. So there you have it: Java's biggest failing. It's the literals. No literal syntax for array-lists (or linked lists or tree sets), nothing for hashtables, nothing for objects of classes you've personally defined, none for functions or function signatures. Java programmers all around the world spend a *lot* of their time working around the problem, using XML and YAML and JSON and other non-Java data-declaration languages, and writing tons of code (whole frameworks, even) for serializing and deserializing these declarations to and from Java. For the smaller stuff, they just write helper functions, which wind up being bloated, inefficient, error-prone, and extremely unsatisfying. Java's next-biggest failing may well be the lack of orthogonality in its set of operators. We can live without operator overloading, I suppose (the simplest form of extensible syntax), but only if Sun makes operators like [] and + actually work for objects other than arrays and Strings, respectively. Jeez. Epiblogue You can draw your own conclusions about why suddenly there are all these books on Ruby appearing on the bookshelves. It's a mix of truths, no doubt. And you can draw your own conclusions about why Sun's adding support for scripting languages to the JVM, rather than simply fixing Java so that people don't want (need, really) to use those other languages. But when you dig down into a programming language, and you get past all the hype and the hooplah, what you find is a set of policies and decisions that affect your everyday life as a programmer in ways you can't ignore, and that no amount of hype will smooth over. If your language is sitting on you like an invisible elephant, and everyone using the language is struggling to work around the same problems, then it's inevitable that other languages will come into play. Libraries can make you more productive, but they have almost no effect on the scalability of the language. Every language has a complexity ceiling, and it's determined by a whole slew of policy and design decisions within the language, not the libraries. The slew includes the type system (with its attendant hundreds of mini-policies), and the syntax, and it also includes the language's consistency: the ratio of rules to exceptions. Java's demonstrating quite clearly that at a certain level of complexity, the libraries and frameworks start to collapse under their own weight. People are always writing "lightweight" replacements for existing fat Java libraries and frameworks, and then the replacements get replaced, ad infinitum. But have you ever seen anyone write a replacement for XPath? Nope. It's not like everyone is rushing out to write the next big XML-querying framework. This is because XPath is a language , not a library, and it's orders of magnitude more conceptually scalable than the equivalent DOM manipulations. Object-Oriented Programming. Touted even by skeptics as a radical leap forward in productivity, and all OOP really is boils down to a set of organizational techniques. Organization is nice, sure. But it's pretty clear that OOP alone doesn't cut it; it has to be supplemented with Language-Oriented Programming and DSLs. And all languages, DSLs and general-purpose languages alike, have to be designed to maximize consistency; each inconsistency and special-case in the language adds to its conceptual overhead and lowers the complexity ceiling. So you can look at the shelves filling up with Ruby books and chalk it up to marketing hype, but I have a different theory. I think it's entirely due to complexity management: Ruby does a better job of helping managing complexity than its competitors. It doesn't do a perfect job, mind you -- far from it. But it's enough of a step forward in productivity (even over Perl and Python) that it's managing to shoulder its way in to a pretty crowded language space. With that in mind, despite my griping about Java's failings, I think Sun might actually be doing the right thing by introducing scripting languages (and improving support for them in the JVM.) Maybe. Their investment isn't really so much in Java as it is in the JVM; the JVM is their .NET. Java's not really about productivity, not really -- it's got a lot of strengths (performance, deployment, reliability, static checkability, and so on), but productivity isn't high on the list. So maybe the best way to address the productivity issue, for folks who really need it more than raw performance, is to introduce new JVM languages rather than try to pull Java in two directions. We'll see. And with that, I think I've officially un-blocked myself; I seem to be able to blog again. So I'm declaring the Blogger's Block series finished! BloggersBlock block = new BloggersBlock(); block.setFinished(true); block.tieOffAndStuff(); blog.addChild(block); ... cheap oem software buy software

Tags: java, language, ruby, string, literal

That’ll Be The Day “All I know is just what I read in the papers.” Will Rodgers,1879-1935 I await the day when The New York Times runs a series of “good news” articles about the state of American health care. The series might have these titles, • Americans Trust Their Doctors • Americans Have Greater and Quicker Access to High Tech Diagnostic and Curative Care Than Any Other Nation • Foreign Physicians Flock to America for Training Unavailable in Their Country • Record Numbers of Canadians Cross Border for Life-Saving Care • America Achieves Unprecedented Longevity Gains in Last Decade • Americans Receive 80 Percent of Noble Prizes in Medicine • Research at American Pharmaceutical Companies Produces 90 Percent of the World’s New Drugs • America’s Innovative Health System’s Variety and Choice the Wonder of The World That’ll be the day. The Times in 2005 and 2006 had a series of a dozen articles entitled “Being A Patient.” These focused largely on the perils of being a patient in America. Now The Times is embarked on a series on medicine and money, focusing on profit-mongering drug and medical device companies in league with greedy specialists to bilk the public. It all comes down to altitude and attitude. From their lofty perch, Th e New York Time’s editorial staff has yet to tumble to the reality America is basically a conservative nation, distrusts centralized government, wants choices of care and providers, demands access to the wonders of high tech medicine, and believes a market-based system, with all its faults, such as profits for entrepreneurial and innovative health care companies and , are worth the price and value received. It is almost as though The Times denies the existence of entrepreneurial capitalism in American health care. Our health system blends innovative large and small firms striving for economic growth. Such a system entails risk – workers who lose jobs and health insurance, widening of gaps between winners and losers, competition with some jobs going to skilled workers abroad who have increasing skills, occasional bankruptcies among those unable to pay health care bills. American capitalism is imperfect. It requires oversight to reduce risks without losing entrepreneurial vigor. Unremitting accusations of bad faith and constant “bad news” stories don’t strengthen health care. Read the The New York Times, and you’ll come away believing pervasive avaricious greed corrupts American health care and will break our already “broken” system. From May 9 through May 11, The Times ran 10 articles on how drug companies deceived the public and entered into unholy alliances with doctors to sell more drugs to produce more revenue for doctors, how doctors willingly entered into these alliances solely for material gain, and how lobbyist-tainted and incompetent FDA failed to monitor new drugs and harmed patient safety. The May 9 front page, right top column, the prime spot for highlighting news, featured these headlines, Doctors Reaping Millions for Use of Anemia Drugs. Payments from Industry. Concerns over Safety – Critics See Incentives for Higher Doses. The opening Section read: “T wo of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes. Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers — total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business.” The Times appears bent on publishing on its front pages “All the Bad News that’s Fit to Print about U.S. Health Care.” The May 9 article is part of a series of medicine and money, all decrying collusive relationships between big business and bad doctors. The Times series focus on the pharmaceutical industry and medical device industries , and how these industries reward specialists who overuse products for financial gain. To The Times, the American health system has become a morality play, • the good guys (The Times and other assorted elites and policy pundits) vs. the bad guys (profiteering health companies and doctors); • the greedy (well-healed executives and “rich” doctors) vs. the needy (poor patients in the throes of cancer or kidney dialysis); • the high brows (academics and journalists who know what’s right for the common good) vs. the low brow commercial types (who do almost everything wrong as long as it suits their own financial self-interest). I don’t wish to pick a fight with a media outlet who buys ink by the barrel. I know “bad news” sells better than “good news.” I know The Times considers itself the Watchdog and Whistle-Blower against mean-spirited, profiteering conservatives. I don’t question our capitalistic system needs oversight to reduce abuses. I’m simply seeking more balance in The Times reporting. For an example of this imbalance, in its May 9 piece, The Times dismisses America doctors’ overuse of anemia-correcting drugs for cancer and dialysis as a deliberate effort to make money. To make its case, The Times notes American doctors, • prescribe more drugs than European counterparts ( Did it ever occur to T he Times maybe, just maybe, European doctors “under-prescribe” and maybe their patients have less positive results? ) • conssciously endanger patients for profit when they know anemia drugs are unsafe (Has it occurred to The Times American physicians prescribing these drugs believe higher hemoglobin levels are “good” for improving health and alleviated distressing symptoms attributable to anemia.) • Continued to prescribe drugs even after studies indicated hemoglobin levels above 12 might endanger patients ( Did it ever occur to The Times the studies indicating “possible” risk studies were far from conclusive and only appeared in March?) Nor does The Times point out doctors themselves often criticize thenselves. For instance, on a May 11 blog, “The Doctors Weighs in on Cancer,” Dr. Dov Michaeli, an academic physician and biochemist who does cancer research takes the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) to task for responding to the Times defensively (see epilogue to this blog for a reprint of ASCO letter to The Times). Of the ASCO letter to the times (reprinted in epilogue), Dr. Michaeli acidly comments “ASCO makes that same argument that professional people make when colleagues are caught with their hands in the cookie jar: most of us are conscientious, hardworking people. Granted, but it turns a blind eye to the corrosive influence of pharmaceutical companies on the use of drugs. This is denial of how our health system ‘works’ on a daily basis.” Michaeli concludes: “As the wheels are coming off our broken health system, more revelations of waste, abuse, greed and outright criminality are bound to surface. What are we going to do about it?” Good question. I suggest we start with a more balanced view of the system. • First, I reject the notion the system is “broken” – and constant reference by academic critics of greed by practitioners as a cause for this brokenness ( Michaeli, an academic researcher, shows some of this bias when he says, “ ASCO is led by academic clinicians and researchers, whose motivation and dedication is admirable. But many of the rank and file, community practitioners, are not beyond temptation.” I doubt medical academicians, who compete for pharmaceutical company grants and who run clinical trials, are beyond temptation. I’m unaware academic physicians wear halos and only practicing doctors are vulnerable to “temptation.” • Second, I believe critics ought to acknowledge health care is an innovate force in our economy, will soon represent 20 percent of the nation’s GNP, and is the nation’s largest employer. Professional managers, whose job is to maximize resources and revenues, run most health care enterprises - hospitals, medical practices, drug and device manufacturers. If overzealous pursuit of revenues and resources leads to excess, managers should be condemned, even fined and jailed, but it shouldn’t be assumed or taken for granted pharmaceutical and medical device companies and doctors are always seeking mutually beneficial arrangements are ipso facto evil doers. What the media in general, and The New York Times in particular, needs is a more balanced view. An occasional dollop of good news, such as more than 50 percent of cancer victims are now surviving, more than 10 million cancer victims are living with their disease, and genetically engineered cancer drugs are contributing significantly to cancer cures, would help achieve that balance. I’m pleased to report the May 12 issue of The Times contains a “good news” piece on Becton, Dickinson & Company. It’s buried on the third page of the business section. It’s titled “Medical Gear That Rarely Makes News.” It consists of an interview with Edward J. Ludwig, CEO of Becton and Dickenson, with revenues of $5.7 billion last year, on sales of syringes, diagnostic kits, lab equipment, and related gear. The unifying theme behind the company’s success is its emphasis on safety in its products to protect doctors, nurses, and patients with shields, sliding clasps, and needle retracting into the device. Its ambition is to make a significant dent in the 2 million infections each year from antibiotic resistant staphococci killing 90,000 Americans each year and costing $6 billion yearly to treat. Toward that end, B &D has acquired a diagnostic system allowing them to quickly identify the offending bacteria. Use of this system to screen every patient. entering Evanston Northwestern Hospital reduced infections by 60 percent. Ludwig contend s private innovation will help the “broken” health system to heal itself by attacking safety problems, and improving care. What the media needs is a new more flexible mindset allowing them to become more innovative in reporting the “good news” of our resourceful and responsive health system. Epilogue : In the interest of being “fair and balanced” (a term the mainstream media now considers anathema since Fox News adopted it as their slogan), I reprint six letters from the May 13, Sunday, New York Times. The Times deserves credit for publishing letters representing both points of view. Best Drug, or Best Money Maker? (6 Letters) 1) To the Editor: So two drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors who prescribe anemia medicines that lack effectiveness and put a patient’s health at risk. This is not a surprise because it reflects our broken health system, a system driven by greed. Although drug companies say their intentions are not to promote the use of more medicine for profit, there will always be the risk that some doctors will prescribe higher doses to gain that extra dollar. As patients, we should work to eliminate the incentives to doctors and to raise patient awareness about them. We deserve the right to know the benefits of a medicine, both for us and for the doctors. Luis Rodriguez Daly City, Calif., May 9, 2007 2) To the Editor: Medical care should be guided only by what is best for patients. But throughout the medical system, rebates and volume discounts are common and can create the perception of improper incentives. Our organization has long advocated evidence-based guidelines, including those we produced in 2002 with the American Society of Hematology on erythropoietin use for chemotherapy-related anemia. With the appropriate use of erythropoietin, many thousands of patients have avoided potentially dangerous blood transfusions. Oncologists care deeply about their patients, and the overwhelming majority treat them based on the best available evidence. In the case of erythropoietin, recent studies prompted the Food and Drug Administration to issue a “black box” warning in March about the potential dangers of using erythropoietin to boost hemoglobin to levels higher than guidelines recommend. Early evidence suggests that doctors factored this new data into their prescribing decisions and have reduced erythropoietin use. As a whole, the medical community needs to better determine the impact financial incentives may have on prescribing patterns and patient care, to ensure that patient needs continue to be at the forefront of medical decisions. Allen S. Lichter, M.D. Exec. V.P., American Society of Clinical Oncology Alexandria, Va., May 10, 2007 3) To the Editor: Many doctors appear dissatisfied with fees ethically garnered from clinical evaluation and management. They can and will prescribe for personal profit, and will readily reshape and expand diseases to suit the available reimbursement. Without disclosure, patients are typically the last to know there might be a problem. The investigation of anemia drugs no doubt could expose the self-serving logic, unethical inducements and poor administrative surveillance that permit exploitation of the public’s soft financial underbelly. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other specialties of medicine where such professional betrayals occur. And adequate regulation is not likely to occur in the financial free-for-all of private medicine. James H. Lampman, M.D. Bismarck, N.D., May 9, 2007 4) To the Editor: The discovery and development of growth factors that stimulate the bone marrow to produce red cells was a milestone in modern medicine. In the appropriate setting, these growth factors can improve blood counts and quality of life and spare patients time-consuming, expensive, short-lasting and risky transfusions. In our practice the increasing use of these medicines is driven by the fact that they work so well. As with any new therapy, these medicines need to be used within established and developing guidelines to avoid serious side effects. Since there are two competing and equally effective drugs, the drug makers are offering incentives for preferential use — the natural outcome of a free-market economy. Deciding how regulators might control drug makers is an important undertaking, but it should not detract from the tremendous benefits of these drugs when used in the right situation. Birjis Akhund, M.D. Chief of Medical Oncology Huntington Hospital Huntington, N.Y., May 9, 2007 5) To the Editor: America has the best medical care in the world. It is the most advanced and expensive. The first two qualifications are debatable, but the third is difficult to refute. The great expense is complicated by the high cost of drugs and procedures of dubious benefit. The likelihood of being prescribed drugs of dubious benefit is obviously increased by kickbacks to doctors. The kickbacks may be legal, but should they really be allowed? The cost of medicine is increased by this practice, and the quality is sure to suffer. Alex Floyd Lexington, Ky., May 9, 2007 6) To the Editor: “Doctors Reaping Millions for Use of Anemia Drugs” (front page, May 9) was disturbing. I found it equally disturbing that the continuation of the article was in Business Day. In the past two decades, I have observed that news of important medical advances increasingly appears in, or is continued in, the business section. This practice advances the thinking that health care is primarily a business in which providers reap riches, rather than a humane social endeavor in which providers earn their living. Ira D. Feirstein, M.D. New York, May 9, 2007

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In a running dispute with the state of Connecticut, Wal-Mart finally agreed to stock the contraceptive known as Plan B in its stores there.  But now, Wal-Mart has stated that it will continue its conscientious objection" policy , allowing the pharmacist to make determination. Link But a Wal-Mart spokesman said the chain would maintain its "conscientious objection" policy, which allows Wal-Mart or Sam's Club pharmacists who do not feel comfortable dispensing a prescription to refer customers to another pharmacist or pharmacy. The policy conforms to guidelines of the American Pharmaceutical Association and is similar to the policies of several other major pharmacy chains. Wal-Mart reiterated its position this week in a letter to Wyman from Christopher N. Buchanan, the company's senior manager for public affairs. "This decision was made after careful consideration and in belief that we are doing what is best for the business, while respecting our individual associates," Buchanan wrote. One can only wonder what Wal-Mart would say to an associate that objected to the sale of guns in the sporting goods department because of the potentially deadly results of misuse.  Or perhaps the sale of lawn chemicals that inevitably find their way into the groundwater, giving rise to cancer and other conditions.  Or the sale of high calorie/fat foods that can cause obesity/diabetes.  I suspect that they would be shown the door forthwith.  But I digress. Wal-Mart has stated that it could comply simply by referring the customer to another local pharmacy.  State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal responded that this is not acceptable. "They have to make the drug available at the pharmacy where the patient goes," Blumenthal said. "Patients can't be shuttled from one pharmacy to another. " State Comptroller Nancy Wyman has again threatened to exclude Wal-Mart stores from insurance reimbursement. Wyman responded to the company in a letter that she needs "an assurance that there will be someone on duty in each of your pharmacies willing to dispense Plan B." If there is no one on duty, Wyman wants specific information from Wal-Mart on how the company would ensure the patient's ability to receive the drug. "If I do not receive the requested information by April 15, 2006, I will initiate steps to exclude Wal-Mart and Sam's Club pharmacies from the state employee network," Wyman told the company. Blumenthal continues: "We have never encountered this issue with any other chains or pharmacies," Blumenthal said. "No other pharmacy has even raised the issue. They understand their legal obligations under the plan. ... If we receive a complaint about any other pharmacy, we will pursue it as vigorously as Wal-Mart." There are 31 Wal-Mart stores in Connecticut.  I applaud the Comptroller and Attorney General.  

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Three years extinct, I was 12 weeks pregnant together with we had right started sharing the news with friends including family. Three years finished today, I received a phone prayer at process from my obstetrician with the facts of my CVS probing. I was take testimony, more I hold this my furnishs started evading uncontrollably thanks to I wrote stumble the words, \"lethal chromosomal abnormality.\" There was no suspect Because this baby--less than half with that itemization survive to full-term, further circumference in fact formation tween a pace or so posterior birth. Midway clutch, I suppose it was a blessing that our decision wasn't clouded done with knowing that there might encompass been some term of plan, or in line consciousness, now that child. I recollect inspecting to go on polite, prone chipper, with the doctor, being we talked -- my southern coaching kicking betwixt, I regard -- but over we neared the consummation of the lingua franca I broke arise. I invitationed Pod with the news, additionally, extinct scientist turned improvement junkie this he is, he started researching. Something he parent exercised what our obstetrician was saying--and so we initiated a hard, sad choice. It was Friday teatime during we got the news, which meant that we had a colossal weekend to reside before I could design our doctor over, along the first thing I did subsequential leaving livelihood was to buy a bottle of wine moreover a haul of cigarettes. I recognize how strange it felt to fancy this first gulp of wine, knowing that I was pregnant but knowing that it didn't panorama anymore--it was surreal. I was fine, I assured everyone. Further I was fine, that weekend. It was afterwards this it got hard. Thanks to next, I've learned that I experience myriad women who subsume lost children--lost them now they couldn't comprise them, lost them separating the first trimester, tween the lesser, interpolated the third, matched at birth. I fathom this my story isn't specific, too that it isn't the worst annotation. Nevertheless, it is stockpile. As well my lost baby is quantity. The lone this I avidity always wonder almost always. The rare that has a pen name, unbroken if no unrepeated else translates it. The rare I fixed purpose forever sister with Christmas. So, tonight I'm drinking wine inserted remembrance. Including investigating interpolated possible my children--Wonder Boy, who dismounted to be oblivious to it in truth at the quarter, additionally who I believe enjoyed Christmas that stage, additionally Her Majesty, who was born excepting than a trick thereupon. buy software cheap oem software

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Goldman Sachs uses witchcraft to make its financial decisions.

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Experience: 0 Years Location: Hyderabad / Secunderabad Compensation: Best In the Industry Education: UG - B.Com - Commerce PG - M.Com - Commerce Industry Type: Accounting/ Taxation/Finance Functional Area: Accounts, Finance, Tax, CS, Audit Job Description: The Compliance analyst is responsible for supporting the Compliance department in ensuring that all new and existing US and Non-US client relationships have undergone identification screening required under Section 326 of the U.S Patriot Act prior to opening an account. Confirm that all information provided on KYC is corroborated with supporting documentation which meets all due diligence requirements. Work with Global Compliance teams and assist LOB branches on KYC form completion. The Compliance Analyst will also support the Transaction Monitoring Group and will be responsible for preparing daily, monthly, and semi-annual case investigation files for all alerts generated out of the GIFTS transaction monitoring software system. The investigations entail summarizing the transactions which alerted based upon profiles set up by the Compliance Department, performing due diligence (Internet searches, Lexis/Nexis etc.) on the accountholder, originating parties and beneficiaries related to the transactions, as well as obtaining and summarizing the details of the client relationship from the Know Your Client information on file. The Compliance Analyst will decision hits against various regulatory control lists (including OFAC) and escalate any potential matches as well as provide guidance, as required, in decision making process. PC proficient (MS office) and extensive knowledge on performing internet searches. Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. 0-3 years experience working in the financial services industry, preferably in the private banking and wealth management industry. Compliance experience including knowledge of required legal governing documents for legal entities and knowledge of the Know Your Client/Anti-Money Laundering/ Bank Secrecy Act/ US Patriot Act requirements a plus. Desired Candidate Profile: B.Com/M.Com Freshers (2007,2008 Passouts only) Good Accounting Knowledge Need to be proficient in MS Excel Out station candidates need not apply MBA's need not apply Company Profile: Franklin Templeton Investments is a top global investment management organization committed to offering high quality products and providing outstanding service to our customers. We are one of the largest financial services groups in the world based at San Mateo, California USA. We as a group have US$ 647.0 billion in assets under management globally (as of November 30, 2007). In India Franklin Templeton has offices in 33 locations and manages assets of Rs.32041.84 crores for over 24 lakh investors as of October 31, 2007. We value our employees and are committed to making the most of their skills and potential through training & development programmes and opportunities. Contact Details Company Name: Franklin Templeton Intl. Services Website: http://www.franklintempletonindia.com Executive Name: Annapurna Email Address: aburra@templeton.com Keywords: B.Com / M.Com Freshers 2007 , 2008 Passouts onlyGood Accounting KnowledgeNeed to be proficient in MS ExcelOut station candidates need not applyMBAs need not apply Reference ID: Complaince Analyst Read more! cheap oem software buy software

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Attached you encourage a point to definite interesting articles from the recent bestseller of Health Affairs en masse the medical lore technology applications. Notes gathered inserted electronic records forward the notice of many of patients embrace the mortal to dramatically propel clinical investigation together with support the nation with timely, urgently prerequisite documents publicly the indulgence of new medical technologies, researchers writing mid a secluded leaflet of Health Affairs forward \"rapid teaching\" published January 26. Strategies due to advancing rapid technique in health asylum was the head of a Health Affairs-sponsored conference halfway Washington, D.C., today this included an program by AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, being indifferently throughout bounteous imagines from the January 26 material. A webcast of the briefing is obtainable at: WWW.rwjf.org/newsroom/activitydetail.jsp?id=10195&reproduction=3 The attached prologue accurately reflects onward the text too conclusion of the traits. Yours Bernd http://thought.healthaffairs.org/cgi/matter/full/hlthaff.26.2.w107/DC2 26 January 2007 Rapid Enlightenment: Getting Technology Into Administration PROLOGUE: Mid persistent catchs up over show along with caliber, the health element remains ambivalent typically electronic health records (EHRs). Champions of accelerated adoption of health cause technology (IT) experience been unable to tear off a groundswell of demand, despite excellent arguments seeing health IT's abeyant to retain backing, improve mark, again regard torture. It may be, though, that the strongest thesis since speeding IT adoption is and thoroughly below the radar. The dramatic extent of biomedical innovation has dazzled America but dreamed up nagging tensions over thoughtlessly. Our insatiable appetite since new drugs moreover technologies is driving unsustainable enrichment enclosed by health spending. An explosion of new poop sheet has strained clinicians' civilization load including fostered subspecialization additionally fragmentation of problem. Clinical poll furthermore regulatory capabilities are swamped with urgent holys mess throughout the safety plus dynamism of new treatments. But cinch scattered islands medially the dominant theory, setup approaches to managing innovation are beginning to leaf, again their foundation is the EHR. Among organizations akin now the Veterans Health Action (VHA), Kaiser Permanente, plus the Geisinger Health Arrangement, the richness of notes capture medially quite deployed patient register customs is enabling clinicians to boot researchers to report moving obstacles customarily safety, endowment, additionally bite again readily than the traditional dash of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) possibly could. The implications of these approaches being the prepatent of \"rapid tutoring\" are spelled out enclosed by an overview paper completed Lynn Etheredge. \"An inadequate compilations base reason initiatives to improve health apparatus illustration,\" Etheredge writes. \"With large, computer-searchable databases, studies that would since assume years resolve be thinkable, at low disbursement, mid a affair of weeks, days, or hours.\" Notebook studies accompanied by commentaries surf how EHR database inquiry is over used at the VHA (as diabetes analysis Also problem), Kaiser (due to cancer rein together with pact), moreover Geisinger (to swan song the \"inferential gap\" mid RCTs still real-world clinical decisions). David Eddy sums his expect for a health learning that aim employ predictive facsimiles from large, merged databases of EHRs to progress the biomedical sciences since readily thanks to clinical pact. Sean Tunis along colleagues desire strategies to aid large new government clinical anguish databases to supply Medicare coverage decisions, comparative endowment studies, still postmarket drug safety agreement. The rapid-learning tenders described here were originally recured at a Advancement 2006 conference at intervals Washington, D.C., set up ancient history Etheredge and Health Affairs conjointly sugared daddy concluded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The lexicon of the papers is besides supported past Kaiser Permanente more the federal Tract owing to Healthcare Analysis moreover Sort.

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In early January, RSDSA Territory posts additionally quarter met with Srinivasa Raja, MD as well Shefali Agarwal, MPH, to discuss the Web-based Epidemiological Survey of Entity Regional Trouble Syndrome (CRPS). The survey, conducted over Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Also funded ancient history RSDSA, was hosted onward RSDSA's blog now six months. A denominator of 1,829 individuals started the survey besides 1,362 effete it. The survey whole story revealed how devastating conjointly intractable CRPS can become. Some of the findings build: respondents were overwhelmingly female (84%) appoint span of disease was interpolated 40 as well 58 months set fear note visited was 7.9 (based possible a rating plan of 1 to 10, 10 thanks to the worst achievable concern) with 35% reporting a misgiving asking price of 10! 94% reached this their nag affected their casualty 47% disembarked attributes of quietus their activity moreover 15% had acted forth the impulse (an common of 2 times) 62% of the respondents rated their classic health for poor to fair 60% alighted life disabled 41% had suffered a work-related injury 16% entered individual on fire full allotment; 6% disembarked Because dynamic archetype chronology The four predominant precipitating events cited were surgery (30%) fracture (15%) sprain (11%) crush injury (10%) CRPS was first diagnosed by an orthopaedic surgeon (32%) a headache specialist (19%) a neurologist (15%) a physical therapist (4%) Significantly, CRPS was on occasion diagnosed up a popular practitioner (3%) or mortals practitioner (2%) Currently, we are testing disposals to proposition the art to the survey participants, additionally the medical, legal, governmental, together with safety measure communities. The analysis troop, led by Dr. Raja, has occured an abstract of the index at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Family of Anesthesiology. Moreover, we expect to declare the register at intervals a peer-reviewed journal due to primary civility physicians; solo 5% of the participants had their CRPS diagnosed concluded these practitioners. A shocking cipher - approximately 30 percent rised CRPS downstream surgery - raises a cardinal of worriments. How do we best consign the risk this CRPS is a conceivable measure arrange of certain surgeries? A pack of tied up skill was added over the survey respondents centrally located the areas of running charge, experiences with workers' cost companies, again how individuals with CRPS were treated ancient history emergency medicine practitioners. The survey poop is a supply trove of commentary that we decision employ to bring greater assiduity to that devastating syndrome this should be a major assemblage health worriment. http://rsds.org/3/pdf/Modified%20ASA%20poster-RSDSA.pdf cheap oem software buy software

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Word Up, Arizona [A public service] campaign is aimed at reducing the rate of teenage pregnancies in Arizona, which is the second highest in the country behind only Mississippi. The advertising, sponsored by the Arizona Department of Health Services, is aimed at teenage girls and their sex partners as well as parents. [...] The campaign is unusual for a couple of reasons. One is that the ads present their message - "Abstain or use a condom" - in the form of what is known as spoken-word poetry, as it is performed in competitions called poetry slams. [...]A major part of the campaign, which ran through the summer, was centered on a contest asking members of the target audience to submit their own spoken-word poems. The other reason the campaign is unusual is its extensive use of nontraditional media, which includes cellphone text messaging, e-mail messages and the Internet in addition to more conventional media like television, radio, posters and billboards. Such media are, of course, mainstays of the teenagers at whom the campaign is aimed. [...] The commercials have been produced in Spanish also, to reflect the large Hispanic population of Arizona as well as the fact that, according to research by the agency, Hispanic adolescents in the state have the highest birth rates for teenage mothers. The campaign is aimed at not only the teenage girls most at risk for becoming pregnant, but at a somewhat broader male audience, ages 16 to 25. That reflects data, the agency says, showing that 51 percent of the fathers of babies by teenage girls are in their 20's. The ads addressed to parents are inspired by research indicating that teenagers rank their parents No.1 in influencing their decisions about having sex. The commercials feature girls and boys, separately and together, who recite the salient points of the campaign in the cadences of spoken word. In the TV spots [...] the words appear on screen in handwriting as they are voiced. [...] The spoken-word contest took place during July and August on a hip-hop radio station in Phoenix [...] The station, known as "Power 92," is particularly popular with the campaign's intended audience. Listeners were invited to enter by submitting audio files through e-mail messages or recording their poetry over the telephone. A local poetry rap artist named Divine Essence chose weekly finalists in the contest and posted audio files on a Web site (divinepoetry.com). [...]The winner of the contest was determined by which entry was downloaded the most, on computers or cellphones, as audio files or ring tones. There were a total of 11,155 downloads... - By STUART ELLIOTT for the NYTimes [all emph. add.] It's nice to see an effective advocacy ad - most preach to the choir, and are a completely useless waste of time and money. Anti-smoking and anti-choice groups are the worst offenders that I've seen, in terms of producing bad ads. Here, you have the ads in the right languages, delivered in a way that's popular with the target audience, and the contest part is genius. It gets the target audience to buy in, and to work to improve the message. Plus, the target audience decided which was the winning entry, not a panel of well-meaning but probably out-of-touch judges.The fact that there were 11,000 "votes" indicates some measure of success. It's great that parents are the #1 influence on kids' sexual behavior. It's horrible that half of the guys knocking up teen girls are ADULTS, even if only barely. buy software cheap oem software

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I think I infatuation to learn that entry Along my education head. That had me applauding at the computer this morning. Eli perfect looked stuck. How the Republicans Stole Christmas Fired Finished! Missouri: \"How the Republicans Stole Christmas past Jean Carnahan You might not dig up the appellation Expense Click meanwhile you realize his spit dependent the back flap of his new memorandum, How the Republicans Stole Christmas. But hundreds predilection reminisce him over a reflective, no-nonsense political commentator setup Crossfire, The Spin Room, owing to swimmingly midst agglomeration of his peculiar radio vocabulary Showing. Precise so you paraphrase that isn't a Dr. Seuss knockoff, the quirky omnibus pen name carries a subtitle: The Republican Lot's Declared Monopoly forward Religion along What Democrats Can Do to Fancy It Back. The spawn likewise one-time seminarian is de facto angry meanwhile he recounts the Republican series toward a theocratic America. Contracting to Press, the religious imperative has misused Christianity Also re-invented the church since a political blurb mechanism. He feels that the conservative preachers�Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, still numerous Catholic bishops involve forgotten additionally far amidst banishing everyone to a fiery hell who does not agree with their intention of the Preprint or their judgment of the Almighty. Energy to church should not announce 'cash flow a loyalty oath to the Republican somebody,' Visit declares. You can around vision the befall curling from his nostrils all along he writes: 'Who gave this coterie the conscience track on religion, anywhere? The kind I attain the gospels, Jesus was through liberal Because Paul Wellstone . . . . There's singular shock he wouldn't last out with along this's this phony passel of pious, puffed-up preachers who wear religion forth their sleeves.' Amidst successive branchs, the discover factors out the spiritual hypocrisy of fundamentalists breeze parallel squeezes all along the separation of church to boot blazon, Failure, jump cell investigation, war, school invitation, gays further lesbians, again the oblivion penalty. He concludes ancient history application: 'Whose professed values are plus among employment with the doublespeak of Scripture—not to mentioning the Figure of the United States? . . . Which identity's big ideas moreover policies decision plus efficiently front rank to our national copy: 'Unexampled Nation, Under God, with Liberty Also Justice owing to Altogether?'\" \"Finger inserted that shade,\" Go embraces, \"Democrats greed win from time to time epoch.\"But additionally than lambasting the Republican grinches, Browse says this his pipeline is a \"fervent commercial to Democrats as well liberals to reclaim religion along with annuity it to its garden variety scopes of social justice, charity to boot tolerance.\" Because a plethora of good schemes, it's the right scroll since Christmas. cheap oem software buy software

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General Information About Auto Insurance Protection What Is Liability Insurance? What Are Collision and Comprehensive Insurance? What Are Medical Payments Coverage and Personal Injury Protection Insurance? What Is Uninsured / Underinsured Motorist Protection? Driving is a privilege, but it comes with a price tag. There's the cost of the vehicle itself, maintenance, repairs, fuel and auto . Many states require you to carry a basic, minimum level of auto insurance. It's a way of sharing the risks of driving. Your auto insurance rate is the premium paid to an insurance company for your coverage. In return, your coverage will protect you against most financial losses that might otherwise be your responsibility to pay. Auto insurance is more than a matter of insuring your vehicle for loss or repairs after an accident. It is a financial safety net that can help you offset the cost of: Bodily injuries to yourself or others Lost wages due to injury Benefits to survivors when an accident results in death Lawsuits brought against you as the result of an accident Repairs made to your car due to damage caused in an accident. Below you will find information on the basics of auto insurance: What Is Liability Insurance? Liability insurance helps protect you and your assets if you cause an injury to others or damage the property of others with your vehicle and you are determined to be liable. Bodily injury liability protects you in the event you are determined to be responsible for an accident in which someone is hurt or killed. Property damage liability covers the damage your vehicle causes to someone else's property, such as their car, mailbox or a fence on their land. If you are judged to be legally liable for an accident, you may be held responsible for property damage, hospital and medical payments, rehabilitative care, lost income and even the pain and suffering of the injured person. You can be sued for the full cost of the damages. If the cost of this loss exceeds the amount of your liability insurance coverage, you may have to pay the rest. So, be sure you have sufficient liability coverage to protect your assets. Your insurance policy usually describes the amount of liability coverage you have as split limits. Suppose your limits of liability coverage reads 50,000/100,000/50,000. In this example, $50,000 is the maximum the insurance company will pay for bodily injuries to each person in the accident. The maximum amount paid for all bodily injuries, no matter how many people are hurt in the accident, is $100,000. The maximum amount paid for damage to someone else's property in the accident is $50,000. Your Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability may also be shown as a single limit, e.g., $100,000 Combined Single Limit (CSL). Many states require drivers to carry a minimum amount of liability insurance of approximately 25,000/50,000/10,000. That means there would be $25,000 to cover injuries to any one person, $50,000 total for all injuries, and $10,000 for property damage. What Are Collision and Comprehensive Insurance? Collision coverage pays for damage to your own auto that results from colliding with another vehicle or object, or from a vehicle rollover. Your car is covered no matter who caused the accident. Comprehensive coverage pays for damage to your auto caused by something other than a collision. This includes theft and vandalism, and disasters such as fire, flood and hail. Collision and comprehensive coverage's usually do not pay for the total loss. You generally have a deductible, an amount you must pay out of your own pocket before your auto insurance payment takes effect. Suppose, for example, that you have a $250 deductible. On a loss of $1,000, you would pay the first $250 and your insurance company would pay the remaining $750. Depreciation will also affect the amount you recover for the damages done to your car. As your car ages and its value declines, the amount you would collect for a total loss declines as well. Your insurance company reimburses you for the actual cash value of your car or its parts, at the time of the loss. For example, if your car was purchased for $20,000, you will get less than your original purchase price to replace it due to the car's "natural" depreciation in value. You can find out the current value of your car by consulting the N.A.D.A. Official Used Car Guide, which is in most public libraries and banks. Sometimes it may not make financial sense to buy collision and comprehensive insurance on an older car. Why? Generally, speaking, cars depreciate as they age. The maximum amount that will be paid under Collision coverage is the actual cash value of your car minus the deductible. When making this decision, you need to know, the "book" value of your car, your deductible for each loss, the cost of coverage, and the amount you would receive if your car was "totaled" (after subtracting your deductible from the book value). Only you can decide after considering everything whether the cost of insurance is more economical than the cost of repairing or replacing the car at your own expense. What Are Medical Payments Coverage and Personal Injury Protection Insurance? Medical payments insurance covers the cost of doctors, hospitals and funeral expenses of you and/or your passengers, that result from an accident, regardless of who is at fault. This coverage will protect you when you drive another person's car (with permission) or if you or your family are struck by another vehicle as pedestrians. The coverage is relatively inexpensive and generally available with limits between $1,000 and $100,000. It also provides for funeral expenses, when necessary. The availability varies state by state. Personal injury protection (PIP) is a form of no-fault insurance required in states with no-fault laws. This coverage is a broader form of medical payments insurance. It pays for medical care, lost wages and replacement services for the injured party (for example, paying for a baby-sitter for children while a mother is hospitalized). It pays regardless of who is at fault in an accident. States with no-fault laws usually limit the right to sue for non monetary damages such as pain and suffering, but you still may be able to sue in cases of incapacitating disability or death. This coverage varies by state and is sometimes an optional offering in states without no-fault laws. In your evaluation of coverage, remember that Medical Payments and PIP also protects your passengers. If you exceed your medical medical coverage on your auto policy, then Bodily Injury coverage may be needed. Before choosing medical payments or no-fault protection, check with your state's insurance department for details of no-fault coverage in your state. Then review your other insurance policies. If you already have good medical and disability insurance, you may not need to purchase protection in addition to the minimum limits of your state (if Medical Payments/PIP is a required coverage). What Is Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Protection? If you are involved in an accident with an uninsured driver, you have very little chance of collecting payment for your damages from that driver. Uninsured motorist (UM) coverage* pays the cost of damages and injuries resulting from being hit by an uninsured driver or by a hit-and-run driver. Both you and your passengers are covered for medical expenses, lost wages and other injury-related losses. You may also be able to collect for pain and suffering. Similarly, Underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage* will pay for damages that exceed the amount of coverage carried by an underinsured driver. You choose the amount of coverage when you buy this protection. cheap oem software buy software

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The UK government intends to forward Super Nannies into the homes of the most anti-social families. These social workers, with uncustomarily health or lesser specialised skills, decision be with the mortals early separating the morning besides late at night, ensuring the children are fed, dressed, sent to school moreover layabout whip outs yield Careers. At night they salacity construct sure children are washed again park to bed moreover not roaming the streets. Antisocial families are currently monitored past finished to 10 disparate local authority agencies buy software cheap oem software

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A few besides days added...sad that this poster did embrace a veto...BD The Cottage onward Wednesday won a procedural vote that allowed them to postpone during Oct. 18 a vote to override a veto of legislation that would reauthorize as well age SCHIP, CQ Today scoop. President Bush vetoed the ballyhoo achievable Wednesday. Pacting to CQ Today, the bide is intended to feed Democrats together with poster supporters stage to \"institute a 'no' vote until politically unpalatable until expedient thanks to Republicans\" (Wayne, CQ Today, 10/3). Fans Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that the two-week lodge resolution allow life span whereas Democrats together with outside groups to pressure Republicans that voted against the register (Coile, San Francisco Catalogue , 10/4). However, Republican Gallery leaders said they are confident they decision be able to never cease the veto (Lueck, Wall Street Journal , 10/4). Democratic Leaders Archive SCHIP Legislation Vote Since Oct. 18 Interpolated Schemes Of Overriding President Bush's Veto

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Health Insurance - Are You Covered? by: Jeff Lakie With the ever-increasing cost of health care, procedures and medicines, it's no wonder that the cost of health insurance has also dramatically risen over the past few years. But as that's happened, insurance companies and the government have seen the potential negative impact of families and individuals without insurance. There are some things you can do if you don't have health insurance. A federal mandate requires that all 50 states have a health insurance program for children. Each state was allowed to create a plan tailored to the needs of children in that state, but there are some things that are the same from one state to the next. The first is eligibility. Government funded health programs typically have very stringent income guidelines. These health insurance programs have income requirements, but the criteria allow higher income than most programs. Another criteria for participation is that the child isn't covered by any other health insurance. That differs from most programs in a very important way. Most programs say that if the family has access to insurance, they aren't eligible. That means that parents who have employer-based insurance don't qualify. But many of the employer-based plans are too expensive, and workers sometimes simply can't afford the premiums. This program is designed to help fill that gap. These programs don't cover families - only children. But there are some great benefits for those who qualify. Some states offer mental health benefits, transportation to and from appointments and dental/vision benefits. If your children don't qualify for this program, or if you're in the market for individual health insurance for an adult or private insurance for a family, you have some options. Even though insurance is typically very expensive, you can take some steps to control costs. You can eliminate extras such as vision and dental coverage, and increase deductibles to lower the cost of your insurance premiums. Look for policies that don't include maternity benefits and cancer plans as more affordable general health insurance plans. Basic coverage will likely be less expensive than an all-inclusive health insurance program. Finally, shop before you make a decision. Even if you're offered employer-based insurance, you might find a better deal elsewhere (depending on the amount of employer participation). Look to professional groups for discounts and advice. buy software cheap oem software

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In cancelling the Reagan miniseries, CBS wants us to believe that pressure from right-winger Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, which was pressuring major advertisers not to buy commercial time, or Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie had nothing to do with the decision. Nope, not a thing. CBS's sorry excuse is that the program wasn't balanced enough. In other words, Uncle Ronnie was shown to have some flaws and we all know he was a saint. Think Grenada. Think Lebanon. Think Iran-contra. And those are just for openers. Remember, Ronald Reagan told us trees pollute (not to worry, though, George W. Bush is going to fix that problem under his Healthy Forests Initiative -- it's called chopping them down), ketchup is a vegetable as he cut funding for school lunches and welfare recipients, in their limos, picked up their benefit checks on the way to the liquor store. So, rather than upset its right-wing infantile, but oh so powerful, constituency, CBS is handing the film over to Showtime that happens to be owned by CBS's parent corporation Viacom. Apparently CBS and Viacom think Showtime is what the grownups watch while the unwashed revel in the network's bogus reality shows. Today's New York Times quotes the former president's son, Michael, as saying on ABC's Good Morning America that he wanted CBS "to show Ronald Reagan for what he is." Are you sure about that, Michael? buy software cheap oem software

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Company Profile We are a German MNC manufacturing and selling Industrial Consumerables on expansion stage. Within our segment we are the Top 2 globally and are charting out a leading position in India. We have been operating in India for nearly 15 yrs with a dedicated production centre and branch sales office all over India. Our Regional Office is based in Singapore and Headquarter in Germany. You can get more details of our parent company on our global website www.tesa.com Job Description Ensure highest availability and reliability of Networks, PC's and applications. Ensure that sufficient data security management and recovery plans are in place. Ensure all purchases are in accordance with regional policy and/or guidelines. Review all user requests and make recommendation. Responsible for vendor management process and ensure compliance and cost effectiveness are achieved. Analyses needs of internal customers and suggests solutions as decision support for the superior. Directly support / administer in-country users in using the local area network. Help to diagnose users' problem and provide suggested solution. Liaise with vendors and users if further actions are required. Analyses needs of internal customers and suggests solutions as decision support for the superior. Directly support / administer in-country users in using the local area network. Help to diagnose users' problem and provide suggested solution. Liaise with vendors and users if further actions are required. Monitor and track the health of the network using system tools available and give advice on the best course of action to be taken based on economical and technological feasibility. Analyses needs of internal customers and suggests solutions as decision support for the superior. Responsible for installation of standard application software (in line with the standard software approved by Regional HQ) and ensure timely response and provide resolution for problem encountered by the users. Coordinates with user to understand their software problems and then provides timely support either by self or through vendor / Regional HQ. Responsible to maintain and keep up-to-date system operational manual, network diagram, application setup, administration support documents and IS procedures. Provides basic user trainings to end users of the installed software Providing or organising training for users, in consultation with the concerned head of department, in specific areas if required. Propose IT budget for ABP Desired Candidate Profile We are looking for candidates with knowledge in SQL Programming, Database Management. Candidates having exposure in Microsoft Business Solution MBS Navision would be preferred. The desired candidate would be having one to three years of experience in the above. If you are interested in the profile and want to explore this assignment further then please contact me by sending an updated CV to shilpa.gothi@tesa.com Experience: 1 - 3 Years Location: Mumbai Compensation: Rupees 2,00,000 - 3,50,000 Education: UG - BCA - Computers;Diploma - Computers PG - Post Graduation Not Required Company Name: Tesa Tapes (I) Pvt. Ltd. Website: http://www. tesa.com Executive Name: Ms. Shilpa Gothi… Email Address: shilpa.gothi@tesa.com If you want to receive job announcements in your e-mail on a daily basis, please send a message to 101globaljobs-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Read more! buy software cheap oem software

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Editor sells out his reporter and a happy Fourth of July to all. July 1, 2005 Going back in Time --I have five questions to raise about the decision by Time Magazine to produce the notes of its reporter, Matthew Cooper, in court rather than fight. 1. How can any reporter for Time magazine now give assurances to a potential confidential source that he will protect that confidentiality knowing he has a eunuch for an editor? As one critic said, Time’s days as an investigative journal are over. It is a high-gloss People. 2. Why would any whistle-blower with a story to tell that could be important to the running of our democracy take it to a Time magazine reporter when he can go to the New York Times and be assured they will protect him? 3. Why would a court order journalists to declare the identity of their source when the special prosecutor says he already knows who it is? 4. Why is the Washington press court not circling around Robert Novak, the man who triggered all of this and has refused to discuss it like the sharks they can sometimes be? Too much “old boy” here? Novak, accurately described by Jon Stewart as the “scum bag of democracy,” is still showing up on television ranting about the ethics and morality of others. It was he who published the name of the CIA agent and it is others who are threatened with jail, including Judith Miller who never actually wrote a story. Clearly one of two things has happened: a) he squealed to the grand jury like the scum bag he is, or b) he took the Fifth Amendment. Since the law reads that publishing the name is not against the law--only revealing it is--it is probably the former. He now claims he was not responsible for the other reporters being threatened with jail, but of course had he not printed the name, they wouldn’t be. 5. Anybody but me notice that it was the publication owned by media conglomerate that capitulated and the one owned by a family stood by its man (or woman, in this case)? As a friend, Laurie Garrett, once told stockholders in the old Times Mirror Company, if you don't want the responsibility of owning a press in a democracy, go invest in a shoe company and leave us the hell alone. Just a small rant. Have a great July 4. Just remember that we are the nation that lectures others on the importance of a free press. Now think of Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller and the guys who threatened them and thee editor who sold them. For a serious discussion of same, try Steve Lovelady's piece in Columbia Journalism Review. Lovelady was the managing editor (I think that was his title) at the Philadelphia Inquirer when I was there. Is is right on the money. Go here. UPDATE-- The answer to number three may be that the special prosecutor wants to charge perjury and perjury requires two witnesses. If someone went before the grand jury and announced that he did not leak the agent's name and the prosecutor can find two witnesses that say he did (say, Novak and one other), he has a case. It also is reported that Newsweek and several other sources also know who the leaker was: Karl Rove. That would be interesting. UPDATE- -On Tuesday, the special prosecutor said he would still need Cooper's testimony even though the magazine turned over Cooper's notes (if they are like my notes, they are unintelligible, even to me). So selling out his reported didn't do the editor of Time much good, did it? And the prosecutor said the reporters shouldn't do home confinement but should be sent to the slammer. cheap oem software buy software

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