January 11, 2012

Greek Crisis Has Pharmacists Pleading for Aspirin as Drug Supply Dries Up

Greek Crisis Has Pharmacists Pleading for Aspirin as Drug Supply Dries Up

By Naomi Kresge - Jan 10, 2012 5:01 PM ET

For patients and pharmacists in financially stricken Greece, even finding aspirin has turned into a headache.

Mina Mavrou, who runs a pharmacy in a middle-class Athens suburb, spends hours each day pleading with drugmakers, wholesalers and colleagues to hunt down medicines for clients. Life-saving drugs such as Sanofi (SAN)’s blood-thinner Clexane and GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK)’s asthma inhaler Flixotide often appear as lines of crimson data on pharmacists’ computer screens, meaning the products aren’t in stock or that pharmacists can’t order as many units as they need.

“When we see red, we want to cry,” Mavrou said. “The situation is worsening day by day.”

The 12,000 pharmacies that dot almost every street corner in Greek cities are the damaged capillaries of a complex system for getting treatment to patients. The Panhellenic Association of Pharmacists reports shortages of almost half the country’s 500 most-used medicines. Even when drugs are available, pharmacists often must foot the bill up front, or patients simply do without.

The financial crisis is brewing a “Greek tragedy” of slowing access to medical care and worsening outcomes for patients, Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, wrote in an October article in The Lancet.

The Greek Ministry of Health didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
‘Many Difficulties’

“It would be unrealistic to deny that there are many difficulties regarding all public services due to the financial crisis,” Nicolaos Polyzos, secretary general of the Ministry of Health, wrote in a response to McKee’s article posted on the ministry’s website. “However, this cannot justify characterizing the current picture of (the) health sector in Greece as a ‘tragedy.’”


source and the rest:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-10/greek-crisis-has-pharmacists-pleading-for-aspirin-as-drug-supply-dries-up.html

January 11, 2012

Dang....Jury Duty Problem...

I went to read up on the situation, and then suddenly my only option was to bow out of service, and I was not able to vote.
Maybe just a fluke. All 25 other times there was no problem with my giving my opinion.

January 11, 2012

Winter in the South - What's outside my door today

January 10, 2012

Chris Hedges: The Gospel of the Penniless, Jobless, Marginalized and Despised

Mr. Fish

"The Cross and the Lynching Tree are separated by nearly two thousand years," James Cone writes in his new book, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree." ...

"One is the universal symbol of the Christian faith; the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy. Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus' death on the cross and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamp post or tree, relatively few people, apart from the black poets, novelists, and other reality-seeing artists, have explored the symbolic connections. Yet, I believe this is the challenge we must face. What is at stake is the credibility and the promise of the Christian gospel and the hope that we may heal the wounds of racial violence that continue to divide our churches and our society."

So begins James Cone, perhaps the most important contemporary theologian in America, who has spent a lifetime pointing out the hypocrisy and mendacity of the white church and white-dominated society while lifting up and exalting the voices of the oppressed. He writes out of his experience as an African-American growing up in segregated Arkansas and his close association with the Black Power movement. But what is more important is that he writes out of a deep religious conviction, one I share, that the true power of the Christian gospel is its unambiguous call for liberation from forces of oppression and for a fierce and uncompromising condemnation of all who oppress.

Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, writes on behalf of all those whom the Salvadoran theologian and martyr Ignacio Ellacuría called "the crucified peoples of history." He writes for the forgotten and abused, the marginalized and the despised. He writes for those who are penniless, jobless, landless and without political or social power. He writes for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and those who are transgender. He writes for undocumented farmworkers toiling in misery in the nation's agricultural fields. He writes for Muslims who live under the terror of war and empire in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he writes for us. He understands that until white Americans can see the cross and the lynching tree together, "until we can identify Christ with a 'recrucified' black-body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy."


for the rest go to:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Gospel-of-the-Penniles-by-Chris-Hedges-120109-178.html

January 10, 2012

U.S. Inquiry of MF Global Gains Speed - Search for $ 1.2 billion is on

January 9, 2012, 9:57 pmLegal/Regulatory
U.S. Inquiry of MF Global Gains Speed
By BEN PROTESS and AZAM AHMED

The investigation into MF Global is intensifying as federal authorities unearth new details and confront potential obstacles in their hunt for roughly $1.2 billion in customer money that disappeared from the brokerage firm.
While prosecutors and regulators have jointly conducted dozens of depositions with former and current employees, a senior official in the Chicago office of MF Global recently declined to meet with the federal authorities, people briefed on the investigation said.
That official, Edith O’Brien, a treasurer at MF Global, is considered a “person of interest” in the investigation, the people said. Federal authorities suspect that she transferred about $200 million to JPMorgan Chase in London on the eve of the bankruptcy of MF Global, money that turned out to be customer cash.
Authorities had expected to interview Ms. O’Brien last month. She instead balked at meeting voluntarily, asking first to strike a deal with criminal authorities that would excuse her from prosecution. the people said. The criminal investigation is led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in Chicago and Manhattan.

for all of it go to:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/u-s-inquiry-of-mf-global-gains-speed/?nl=business&emc=dlbka8

January 9, 2012

Could we possibly call it "The Romney"? - New smart TV from Lenovo

Lenovo introducing TV in China
Submitted by davidranii on 01/09/2012 - 10:07
Tags: .biz

Lenovo, the world's No. 2 PC maker, plans to enter the intensely competitive television market with a new "smart TV" that users can control with their voice.

The new K91 TV, announced Sunday, is debuting in China immediately and will be available elsewhere at an unspecified later date. It's the first TV that will utilize the Android 4.0 operating system.

Lenovo, which zoomed from No. 4 to No. 2 among the world's PC makers last year, is based in China and has 1,800 workers at what it calls its "executive headquarters" in Morrisville.

The K91 with "voice control" is being released with 42-inch and 55-inch widescreen displays and is part of the company's four-screen strategy -- PCs, tablet devices, smartphones and TVs -- that aims to take advantage of cloud computing to provide a seamless experience for users. The company has dubbed its approach the "Personal Cloud."

Its smartphones and TVs, however, aren't yet available in the U.S. market.

PC makers that have expanded into TVs in the past -- HP, Dell and Gateway -- haven't fared well, said technology analyst Rob Enderle of The Enderle Group.

Read more here: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/business/home#storylink=cpy


source:
http://blogs.newsobserver.com/business/home

January 9, 2012

‘Only Humane Thing' - candidates are cleverly solving problem (Borowitz making me laugh)

Other Republicans Agree Not to Tell Rick Perry Where Next Debate Is
‘Only Humane Thing,’ Candidates Say

CONCORD, NH (The Borowitz Report) – In a move that they are calling “the only humane thing to do,” the other Republican candidates for President have agreed not to tell Texas governor Rick Perry where the next debate is being held.

The candidates reached the decision after a two-debate weekend in which Mr. Perry put in a performance that, in the words of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, was “brave, but painful to watch.”

Immediately following the final New Hampshire debate on Sunday morning, an awkward scene unfolded onstage as Mr. Perry asked the other candidates, “So, where is everyone going now?”

“Um, I don’t know, Rick,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, looking down at his shoes.

“Isn’t there going to be another debate after this?” Mr. Perry persisted.

“Not that I know of, Rick,” said former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, pretending to text with his phone. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

After Mr. Perry left the stage, Mr. Romney told a reporter that he “felt bad about fibbing to Rick,” but added, “Putting him out there onstage again would just be cruel.”


edited to add website
www.borowitzreport.com

Elsewhere, in the NFL on Sunday, God defeated Satan in overtime.

January 9, 2012

"Obst" is the German word for "Fruit"

We gotta have Art

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kgI2wOvDEfM/Twl9bGNGRNI/AAAAAAAAReY/Fc4pjLso_Zo/s1600/thrift+el.jpg

January 9, 2012

Did I show you this last fall? We have such an abundance of cardinals

and I just love them.
I was sitting in my chair on my deck reading, and he was about 6 feet from me.

January 9, 2012

Pity the Billionaire - Video of Chris Hayes' interview with the author Thomas Frank

Pity the Billionaire - Video of Chris Hayes' interview with the author Thomas Frank

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45910366#45910366