September 21, 2013

Krugman: I Have Seen The Future, And It Is Medicaid

One of the papers at Brookings was an attempt at prognosticating the future of health care costs — for what it’s worth, their best guess was slightly below CBO’s, so it was consistent with CBO’s relatively not-scary long-term fiscal forecasts. But what struck me most was this chart, showing cost growth in different forms of health insurance:


That flat red line at the bottom is Medicaid.

Everyone who’s serious about the budget realizes that to the extent we do have a long-run fiscal problem — which we do, although it’s far from apocalyptic — it’s mainly about health care costs. And then there’s much wringing of hands about how nobody knows how to control health costs, so maybe we should just give people vouchers, and if they still can’t afford insurance, too bad.

Meanwhile, we have ample evidence that we do know how to control health costs. Every other advanced country does it better than we do — and Medicaid does it far better than private insurance, and better than Medicare too. It does it by being willing to say no, which lets it extract lower prices and refuse some low-payoff medical procedures.

Ah, but you say, Medicaid patients have trouble finding doctors who’ll take them. Yes, sometimes, although it’s a greatly exaggerated issue. Also, middle-class patients would surely be unhappy if transferred from the open-handedness of Medicare to the penny-pinching of Medicaid.

But the problems of access, such as they are, would largely go away if most of the health insurance system were run like Medicaid, since doctors wouldn’t have so many patients able and willing to pay more. And as for complaints about reduced choice, let’s think about this for a moment. First you say that our health cost problems are so severe that we must abandon any notion that Americans are entitled to necessary care, and go over to a voucher system that would leave many Americans out in the cold. Then, informed that we can actually control costs pretty well, while maintaining a universal guarantee, by slightly reducing choice and convenience, you declare this an unconscionable horror.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/i-have-seen-the-future-and-it-is-medicaid/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto&_r=0

September 21, 2013

Let’s Be Honest About Israel’s Nukes (and Chemical and Biological weapons)

THE recent agreement between the United States and Russia on Syria’s chemical weapons made clear what should have been obvious long ago: President Obama’s effort to uphold international norms against weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East will entangle the United States in a diplomatic and strategic maze that is about much more than Syria’s chemical arsenal.

President Bashar al-Assad of Syria insists that the purpose of his chemical arsenal was always to deter Israel’s nuclear weapons. If Syria actually disarms, what about Egypt and Israel? Egypt (about whose chemical weapons the United States has been strangely silent) points to Israel. And Israel of course has its own chemical weapons to deter Syria’s and Egypt’s, and it is not about to give them up. A headline in the Israeli daily Haaretz a few days ago stated: “Israel adamant it won’t ratify chemical arms treaty before hostile neighbors.”

These three countries have not adhered to the Biological Weapons Convention either. And Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, despite having developed a formidable nuclear arsenal of its own, which will soon become the central fact in this drama, whether the United States likes it or not.

An obstacle of America’s own making has long prevented comprehensive negotiations over weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. While the world endlessly discusses Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the likelihood that it will succeed in developing an atomic arsenal, hardly anyone in the United States ever mentions Israel’s nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama, like his predecessors, pretends that he doesn’t know anything about them. This taboo impedes discussions within Washington and internationally. It has kept America from pressing Egypt and Syria to ratify the chemical and biological weapons conventions. Doing so would have brought immediate objections about American acceptance of Israel’s nuclear weapons.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/opinion/global/lets-be-honest-about-israels-nukes.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

September 21, 2013

Rebel-on-Rebel Violence Seizes Syria (Three Front War in Syria)

An al Qaeda spinoff operating near Aleppo, Syria's largest city, last week began a new battle campaign it dubbed "Expunging Filth."

The target wasn't their avowed enemy, the Syrian government. Instead, it was their nominal ally, the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.


A band of fanatical al Qaeda rebels are turning their guns on more secular rebels in an attempt to turn the struggle in Syria into a holy war. WSJ's Nour Malas joins the News Hub to explain. Photo: Getty Images

Across northern and eastern Syria, units of the jihadist group known as ISIS are seizing territory—on the battlefield and behind the front lines—from Western-backed rebels.

Some FSA fighters now consider the extremists to be as big a threat to their survival as the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

"It's a three-front war," a U.S. official said of the FSA rebels' fight: They face the Assad regime, forces from its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, and now the multinational jihadist ranks of ISIS.

Brigade leaders of the FSA say that ISIS, an Iraqi al Qaeda outfit whose formal name is the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, has dragged them into a battle they are ill-equipped to fight.

Some U.S. officials said they see it as a battle for the FSA's survival.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324807704579082924138453120?mg=reno64-wsj.html?dsk=y

September 20, 2013

Apple’s iOS7 includes a surprise: a ticket to the next generation of the internet

For five years, researchers have toiled over an obscure bit of fundamental internet infrastructure that promises to make the connections to our mobile devices faster and more reliable than ever, and if you’ve already downloaded Apple’s iOS 7 to your iPhone or iPad, you could be using it already.
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It’s called multi-path TCP, and here’s why it matters and how it works: At present, if your phone or tablet is connected to Wi-Fi and a cellular network at the same time, it can only use one or the other connection to transmit data. But what if your Wi-Fi connection or your 3G connection drops? Whatever data was being transmitted—data for an app, a webpage, an iMessage—will fail to arrive, and you have to try again, usually after getting a frustrating error message or a blank page. Just as importantly, if one of your connections to the internet slows down, or speeds up, your phone has no ability to use its other connections to its advantage, leading to a poorer and slower experience overall.
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Activate Siri to feel the power of the future

Multi-path TCP allows your phone to send data by whatever way it’s connected to the internet, whether that’s Wi-Fi, 3G or ethernet (say, if it were running on a laptop connected to the internet via a cable). And if you want to activate it, says one of the researchers who built multi-path TCP, you have only to use Apple’s voice command software, Siri.
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This is the first time that this new means of connecting to the internet has appeared in a commercial product. That it showed up in Apple’s software and not Google’s shows that Apple’s technical chops are substantial, even when the company isn’t highlighting what it’s up to.

http://qz.com/126642/apples-ios7-includes-a-surprise-a-ticket-to-the-next-generation-of-the-internet/

I wonder if this mucks up the NSA. I hope so.

September 19, 2013

US prosecutors encourage users to upgrade to iOS 7 for Activation Lock security feature

The Attorneys General for New York and San Francisco issued a joint statement on Thursday following the launch of iOS 7. The statement praised iOS 7's Activation Lock feature as "an important first step towards ending the global epidemic of smartphone theft."

"In the months ahead," the statement reads, "it is our hope that Activation Lock will prove to be an effective deterrent to theft, and that the widespread use of this new system will end the victimization of iPhone users, as thieves learn that the devices have no value on the secondary market. We are particularly pleased that – because Activation Lock is a feature associated with Apple's new operating system as opposed to a new device – it will be available to consumers with older phone models who download the free upgrade."

San Francisco District Attorney General George Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have been calling on Apple, Google, Samsung, and others to build better security features into their devices and the operating systems that run them in order to head off smartphone theft.

Specifically, Gascón and Schneiderman have been calling for the addition of a "kill switch" on the OS or device level that would render a phone inoperable if it is stolen. Apple's Activation Lock — which requires that a user's Apple ID and password be entered before anyone can turn off Find My iPhone, erase data, or re-activate a device after it has been remotely erased — implements many of the changes the Attorneys General had been asking for.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/19/us-prosecutors-encourage-users-to-upgrade-to-ios-7-for-activation-lock-security-feature?source=email_rt_mc_body&app=n

September 19, 2013

Syrian government says civil war has reached stalemate

Exclusive: Deputy PM says neither side is strong enough to win and government will call for ceasefire at Geneva talks

The Syrian civil war has reached a stalemate and President Bashar al-Assad's government will call for a ceasefire at a long-delayed conference in Geneva on the state's future, the country's deputy prime minister has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Speaking on behalf of the government, Qadri Jamil said that neither side was strong enough to win the conflict, which has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people. Jamil, who is in charge of country's finances, also said that the Syrian economy had suffered catastrophic losses.

"Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side," he said. "This zero balance of forces will not change for a while."

Meanwhile, he said, the Syrian economy had lost about $100bn (£62bn), equivalent to two years of normal production, during the war.

If accepted by the armed opposition, a ceasefire would have to be kept "under international observation", which could be provided by monitors or UN peace-keepers – as long as they came from neutral or friendly countries, he said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/19/syrian-government-civil-war-stalemate

September 19, 2013

8/9/2013: Amanda Bynes still in hospital; mother named conservator 8/30: extended for year

https://www.google.com/search?q=amanda+bynes+cnn&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

(CNN) -- Amanda Bynes is going to remain under medical care as legal control over her person and estate is temporarily handed to her mother, Lynn.

Bynes, 27, was placed under an involuntary psychiatric hold in late July after she was "involved in a disturbance in a residential neighborhood" in Thousand Oaks, California. According to People magazine, the hold was initially for 72 hours, but on July 25, a judge ordered Bynes to be held for an additional two weeks.

At the same time, Bynes' parents, Rick and Lynn, filed for conservatorship of their daughter, who has been exhibiting increasingly bizarre behavior in recent months.

In a hearing Friday, Judge Glen Reiser with the Superior Court of California in Ventura County granted her parents' request for conservatorship, noting that Bynes is under a "continued ... hold in a psychiatric facility."

http://guardianlv.com/2013/08/amanda-bynes-under-long-term-psychiatric-hold/

Amanda Bynes Under Long-Term Psychiatric Hold

A judge on Friday granted doctors treating Amanda Bynes for an unspecified mental disorder authority to hold her for up to a year, according to TMZ. The hold was then transferred to Bynes’ mother and conservator, Lynn Bynes, and Amanda Bynes was then moved to UCLA medical center.


Amanda Bynes has not yet been diagnosed with a specific condition, as her mental disorder appears to be complex, but she is reportedly being treated for schizophrenia. Although the long-term hold can last as much as a year, her psychiatrists do not expect her treatment to take that long, and are hopeful that she can be released and continue to be treated at the home of her parents. In fact, according to TMZ she could be held at UCLA for as little as 60 days while her doctors figure out a sound course of treatment that will allow her to function without presenting a danger to herself or others.

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Dr. Drew cited this as a case of how parents can step in when a person starts to get psychotic.

September 18, 2013

Syrian jihadi groups are now kidnapping and killing one another.

The potential of a U.S. military strike over the past several weeks -- which mainstream forces largely welcomed, and jihadists, fearing that the United States would target them, opposed -- appears to have exacerbated tensions between the groups. Full-blown clashes broke out in the north and east of the country today, with Free Syrian Army (FSA)-affiliated groups in the city of Deir Ezzor battling with the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Meanwhile, ISIS also launched an offensive on the northern town of Azaz, which lies close to the Turkish border.

The clashes follow an ISIS announcement earlier this week declaring war against the FSA-affiliated Farouk Brigades in Aleppo, along with another moderate rebel brigade. Dubbing its operation "The Repudiation of Malignity," the jihadist group said its offensive was in response to an attack by the brigades against its headquarters in the northern city of al-Bab last week.

ISIS even appears to be picking fights with more radical brigades. The jihadist group reportedly kidnapped nine commanders from the Ahrar Souria group in the northern city of Raqqa on Sept. 12. It also killed a commander from the powerful Ahrar al-Sham militia, after the man objected to ISIS's kidnapping of Malaysian aid workers. In going after Ahrar al-Sham, ISIS is turning a former friend into an enemy: The Salafist group stood by ISIS last month when it clashed with Ahfad al-Rasoul, an FSA-affiliated rebel group, and as popular protests erupted against ISIS.

ISIS's feuding with moderate Syrian rebels seems to be sanctioned by the very top of the al Qaeda hierarchy. In an audio statement last week, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri warned his followers in Syria to avoid cooperation with "secular groups that are allied to the West."

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/09/18/rebel_vs_rebel_syria_jihadists_groups

September 18, 2013

Al Qaeda Clash With Free Syrian Army a New Stage of Opposition Split

While the U.S. and Russia pursue a diplomatic route in Syria, a battle between the country’s moderate and extremist rebels erupted in eastern Syria. Eli Lake talks with a commander of the pro-Western opposition about a new front in the civil war.

The same day the United States and Russia announced a plan to disarm Bashar al-Assad of his chemical weapons, a fresh round of fighting erupted along the Syria-Iraq border. This time, it was rebel versus rebel—specifically, al Qaeda–linked rebels against the more moderate elements of the opposition.

Mahmoud al-Aboud, commander of the eastern front for the Free Syrian Army, told The Daily Beast on Sunday in a Skype interview that the fighting began Saturday with a car bomb. Killed in the attack, said Aboud, was the brother of Saddam al-Gamal, a local commander of Allahu Akbar Brigades, a group aligned with the FSA in al-Bukamal. After the bombing, Gamal’s men launched a counterattack with small arms fire that killed four fighters in the opposing rebel group.

The five military councils associated with the FSA have clashed with fighters from the two main al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in recent months. (The two al Qaeda affiliates also have fought each other in the same period in an apparent power struggle.)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/17/al-qaeda-clash-with-free-syrian-army-a-new-stage-of-opposition-split.html

September 18, 2013

So how is it we have all these shooters trying to get medical help...

And still no results?

We know the pattern already. Shouldn't it be more obvious to mental health providers by now what they should be on the lookout for?

Don't people who fit the pattern need a consistent support team or something? It really seems like they are just shoved back out into all their problems with little relief from whatever is breaking them. And then we are shocked when it happens.

There are enough ways to kill people that simply preventing them from purchasing that AR-15 is no true solution.