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Gurzuf.com Powered Site
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Welcome to Gurzuf.com Web Portal!
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| U.S. Healthcare Hits $3 Trillion |
Great post by Rick Ungar over on The Policy Page. Still, I"m left wondering. It"s an election year and given the stakes, I think well look back on 2012 as the year of the great Healthcare Reform debate – Part 2. What we have today is really just the beginning of a long and winding investment in Healthcare Reform – Part 1. I think the question remains - have we tamed the cost beast with real legislation – or is it just legislation around the edges? Here"s why I"m wondering.
1. National Healthcare Expenditure – or NHE. Total agreement with Rick that costs are “out-of-control” because our NHE is really $3 trillion – this year. Actually, NHE for 2012 is probably closer to $2.7 trillion but there"s this nagging bookkeeping accrual of about $300 billion where we (narrowly) avoided those darn pesky SGR cuts to Medicare. It"s come to be known affectionately as “doc fix” – and we"ve kicked that can down the road for 9 consecutive years. Maybe we"ll just write it off – and maybe we should – but it"s actually on the books so we can"t just ignore it – can we? That puts the real NHE at about $3 trillion for 2012 (+ about 4% for each year forward – as far as the eye can see). As one economist said – we don"t have a debt problem in this country – we have a healthcare problem.
2. Accountable Care Organizations – or ACO"s. The current math is that ACO"s (a key aspect of Obama care) will accrue “just under $1 billion in savings” over the next three years. Our NHE is $3 trillion – per year. That $333 million per year savings is a fairly insignificant 0.01%. Savings aside, the CBO just announced the results of a 20 year study that negates much of the entire ACO and “bundling payment” premise. From a FierceHealthcare article referencing CBO"s own blog post yesterday - “After two decades of trying to shift toward rewarding quality care, disease management and care coordination demonstrations and value-based payment demonstrations have not reduced Medicare spending. The report found that on average, the 34 disease management and care coordination programs designed to improve the quality of care for chronically ill Medicare patients barely affected hospital admissions. For almost every program, spending stayed the same or, after considering the fees paid to participating organizations, it rose.
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| UKRAINE'S TOP 10 ACHIEVEMENTS |
As Ukraine reaches its 20th birthday, it can look back on its youth as a time of trials and difficulties, but also of successes. Not only did Ukraine avoid a bloody war for its independence, it preserved some good Soviet things– for example the space and aviation industries.
Compared to other former Soviet countries, Ukrainians enjoy a vast amount of freedom – from democratic liberties to religion – and seem to be now heading toward deeper relations with the Europe.
With the help of international experts, the Kyiv Post has put together a list of Ukraine’s 10 greatest achievements.
[1] Without bloodshed
Ukraine not only achieved its independence without a bloody conflict, it also kept the peace for 20 years – a long time given the country’s often bloody past. “It has maintained peace with all its neighbors and avoided civil strife and armed conflicts within its borders, whether social or ethnic or religious – for a full 20 years.This is an accomplishment without precedent in all of Ukrainian history,” said Roman Szporluk, a professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University.
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| 10 Skills Needed to Thrive in a Post-Collapse World |
Knowledge is something that no one can take from you. It"s the eternal wealth that will help you thrive in a Post-Collapse world.
Mad Max: Village Roadshow Pictures
Some experts see the perfect storm emerging for a dramatic collapse of Western civilization claiming we"ve reached environmental, economic, and geopolitical tipping points. Clearly, some skills will be far more valuable than others if this societal breakdown occurs. Sorry bankers, lawyers, and accountants, there won"t be a need for you in a post-collapse world.
Before we quantify the skill sets that will be viable, it is important to define the severity of a "post-collapse" scenario. When taken as a whole, together these tipping points could potentially converge to create a post-apocalyptic Mad Max-type world for the vast majority of humanity. However, given the advanced technology that we possess today, it is unlikely to ever become quite that primitive ever again. Surely there will be pockets of energy and food independence no matter what possible scenario unfolds, but the vast majority may be left to fend for themselves.
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| A BRIEF HISTORY OF OPIUM |
"Opium teaches only one thing, which is that aside
from physical suffering, there is nothing real."
André Malraux
MAN"S FATE
* c.3400 B.C.
The opium poppy is cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians refer to it as Hul Gil, the "joy plant." The Sumerians would soon pass along the plant and its euphoric effects to the Assyrians. The art of opium poppy-culling would continue from the Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn would pass their knowledge onto the Egyptians.
* c.1300 B.C.
In the capital city of Thebes, Egyptians begin cultivation of opium thebaicum, grown in their famous poppy fields. The opium trade flourishes during the reign of Thutmose IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen. The trade route included the Phoenicians and Minoans who move the profitable item across the Mediterranean Sea into Greece, Carthage, and Europe.
* c.1100 B.C.
On the island of Cyprus, the "Peoples of the Sea" craft surgical-quality culling knives to harvest opium, which they would cultivate, trade and smoke before the fall of Troy.
* c. 460 B.C.
Hippocrates, "the father of medicine", dismisses the magical attributes of opium but acknowledges its usefulness as a narcotic and styptic in treating internal diseases, diseases of women and epidemics.
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| Cognitive performance in elderly individuals with multi-year dancing activities |
Aging is associated with a progressive decline of mental and physical abilities. Considering the current demographic changes in many civilizations there is an urgent need for measures permitting an independent lifestyle into old age.
The critical role of physical exercise in mediating and maintaining physical and mental fitness is well-acknowledged.
Dance, in addition to physical activity, combines emotions, social interaction, sensory stimulation, motor coordination and music, thereby creating enriched environmental conditions for human individuals. Here we demonstrate the impact of multi-year (average 16.5 years) amateur dancing (AD) in a group of elderly subjects (aged 65–84 years) as compared to education-, gender- and aged-matched controls (CG) having no record of dancing or sporting activities.
Besides posture and balance parameters, we tested reaction times, motor behavior, tactile and cognitive performance. In each of the different domains investigated, the AD group had a superior performance as compared to the non-dancer CG group.
Analysis of individual performance revealed that the best participants of the AD group were not better than individuals of the CG group. Instead, the AD group lacked individuals showing poor performance, which was frequently observed for the CG group.
This observation implies that maintaining a regular schedule of dancing into old age can preserve cognitive, motor and perceptual abilities and prevent them from degradation. We conclude that the far-reaching beneficial effects found in the AD group make dance, beyond its ability to facilitate balance and posture, a prime candidate for the preservation of everyday life competence of elderly individuals.
Note:
* 1 Neural Plasticity Lab, Institute for Neuroinformatics, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
* 2 Department of Neurology, BG-Kliniken Bergmannsheil, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
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| Warning – Warning – Warning |
Toxic Gas Alert
June 25, 2010 by Mark Sircus
Into the Ashes
Our very humanity and the nobility of medicine are on the line with the Gulf oil spill disaster. How we respond and what we respond with will be remembered, so we better get it right. Dr. Stuart Scheckner says though, “As a victim of mercury toxicity from a spill in my dental practice, I understand the insidious danger from poisons. The average physician does not have a clue when it comes to toxicity. Diagnosis and treatment of toxicity problems are not well understood by many physicians. Toxic rain and air will be a nightmare. How do you wake up those who represent us?”
The medical officials in the federal government who cannot recognize the harm and toxic dangers of mercury-laden vaccines and how they “might” have caused autism and other neurological and learning disorders in children are certainly not the people to lead us through this crisis.
Hydrogen Sulfide, commonly known as swamp gas: a normal level in the
air for it ranges from 5 to 10 parts per billion (ppb). At the monitoring station in
Venice, on May 2, the levels recorded were 30 ppb. The next day, May 3, the
reading was nearly 40 times that, at 1,192 ppb. The day after that, May 4,
it dropped down to 46 ppb, before rising on May 5 to 1,010 ppb.
The best suggested treatment of course is to have people try to avoid exposure as much as possible but because the government is hiding, as it usually does behind its smoke screens of convoluted communication, people are not taking precautions and the workers on cleanup are not being protected. My assistant in the Tampa area said, “People I’ve been talking to don’t seem concerned at all about this problem. They are all unaware of the dangers and think everything will just disperse, and that the beaches are the only problem.”
Note: Comments
12 Responses to “Warning – Warning – Warning”
http://intotheashes.imva.info/?p=321/#arrive
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| The Crash of 2013 |
The United States is broke and in debt. The only people who refuse to understand that reality, and who refuse to care, are the big spenders in Congress and the White House. Disaster approaches, and what informed citizens want to know is exactly when the hammer will fall on our currency and economy. Now Moody’s Investor Service has given us a clue. First, some background.
We all know the U.S. issues and sells bonds at over 200 public auctions each year. These bonds are sold on the open market and are essentially loans to us from other nations (like China) and private investors (like banks and individuals). These lenders buy the bonds and expect to be repaid after a fixed period, say, 30 years. Meantime, they collect interest. The money Washington gets from taxes, and money raised from bond sales, is used to pay for everything in the budget, from two ongoing wars to Social Security and Medicare, and to pay that interest. Since America enjoys a “AAA” credit rating now, the interest Washington pays buyers of these bond loans is low. As this is written, the interest on a 30-year bond is 4.49 percent.
Because of prodigious spending by a congress that obeys every whim of a profligate White House, the debt these bonds represent grows astronomically. If spending continues at the present rate, by the year 2020 all taxes and fees the government collects will not be enough to pay interest on the debt and still fund budget obligations and entitlements, like your Social Security check.
Obviously, 2020 is not a deadline cast in concrete, and investors in the bond market will act long before it arrives. It is also obvious that investors will raise the interest rate they demand from a deadbeat borrower—if they will lend to us at any rate of interest. The signal that sets the markets on fire is when the U.S. credit rating drops from AAA to AA+ or lower.
Note: Reader Comments: Submit Your Comment (2)
First rate column. Trenchant and concise. Bravo!
posted by : hidari
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 01:52 AM
Very good article. Just one problem; Washington isn't reading it, and could care less. Everybody in the world seems "to get it" except the people who are actually causing the problem, and the only ones who have the power to do something about. It all defies logical explanation. The only thing, that my frustration and absolute disgust with the regime in Washington, comes up with, is that Obama, Reid, Pelosi and and their ilk just don't care. They are purposely tearing down, with a scorched earth policy, everything about this great country. When everything is destroyed, they plan on building their own Socialist Utopia whether we like it or not. None of us peons know what is good for us, we are all stupid idiots, and not members of their enlightened group of Aristocrats. Just look back through history, and you'll see every century produces the same type elitists, who in rabid fury, and along with Lucifer, shake their fists in the face of God, and shout in one voice, "I will not serve!" History is full of two bit dictators who live for unbridled power, and bring untold
misery and suffering on the people they are susposed serve! As the saying goes, History repeats itself for those who ignore the past.
posted by : Richard C Wagener
Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 02:52 AM
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| The cult of omega-3 |
Hardly a week goes by without a new health claim being made of eating oily fish. But is it really as magical as we are told?
If there were a top 40 of good foods, a chart rundown of the right things to eat, then anything containing omega-3 fatty acids would have been number one for years. They even have their own international awareness day, which takes place this Wednesday.
Omega-3 is the name given to a family of unsaturated fatty acids found mainly in oily fish, such as salmon, herring, sardines and anchovies, and also in eggs, meat, milk and cheese.
Oily fish 'can halt eye disease'
The naturally occurring acids of the omega-3 family can apparently boost our brain power, keep our hearts healthy, strengthen our bones, and much more. You can ingest the fatty acids by eating a lot of the right kind of fish or by taking fish oil supplements - little golden capsules rich in omega-3.
Hardly a week goes by without yet another media report on "The wonders of omega-3 fatty acids" (as a headline in Canada put it recently).
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| Lemon Balm and L-Theanine in Green and Black Tea! |
Quick Relief from Anxiety and Stress Without Tranquilizer Drugs
By Tiesha D. Johnson, RN, BSN
Daily stress and anxiety not only wreaks havoc with our sense of well-being, but also shortens our lives by contributing to heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive impairment.
Drug companies offer medications to treat the symptoms of anxiety, but fears of addiction and side effects cause most health conscious people to avoid them.
Fortunately, alternatives are available in the form of natural botanical extracts—one of which was shown to be as effective as a leading prescription medication.
Prescribed as a medicinal herb since ancient Greek times, lemon balm has long been known to relieve anxiety, promote sleep, and sooth agitation. Since this botanical extract cannot be patented, its beneficial effects have been completely ignored by pharmaceutical interests.
Animal studies of lemon balm have produced impressive results with regard to stress reduction. In one study, researchers gave low doses of a lemon balm extract to mice. They observed a decrease in anxiety-related behaviors when the animals were placed in an unfamiliar environment.6 In the same study, higher doses of the lemon balm extract produced analgesic (pain-relieving) effects. Most dramatically, lemon balm extracts induced sleep in mice that had been given tiny (non-sleep-inducing) doses of traditional sedative medications.
A very recent study of herbs used in traditional Lebanese medicine as sedatives demonstrated that lemon balm extracts had the ability to bind to receptors that trigger relaxation and reduce anxiety in the brain.7
Human Studies Confirm Lemon Balm’s Benefits
Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)
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| Russians in Ukraine |
The Law “On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR” was enacted 20 years ago, on October 28, 1989, long before the proclamation of Ukrainian national independence. Nevertheless, it marked a breakthrough of the national democratic forces and summed up long years of struggle of the Ukrainian intelligentsia against the Soviet regime. Ukrainian was proclaimed the official language: “In keeping with the Constitution of the Ukrainian SSR, the Ukrainian language shall be the official language of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.”
Ukrainian has remained the official languages over the past 20 years. It is an axiom unless one takes into account cheap political speculations and promises that, fortunately, will never become a reality (anyway, such is the opinion of sober-minded people). The editorial office of The Day has received a letter from our regular contributor Nadia Kniazev in which she writes about the anniversary of the Law “On Languages in the Ukrainian SSR.” She enclosed a letter written by Vitalia Kovalenko, a 15-year-old girl. The letter is entitled “What can I do for my native language?” This question was chosen for a poll involving The Day’s friends, young people all over Ukraine.
The anniversary of this law reminds me of Vladimir Putin and his 17 million, precisely the way the Russian prime minister described to President Barack Obama Russia’s approach to its relations with Ukraine during the US president’s working visit to the Russian Federation. He stressed that 17 million Russians live in Ukraine, and this is very important for Russia. Even as president, Putin repeatedly claimed there are 17 million Russians in Ukraine, without identifying to the source of this statistic. Still earlier in his presidency, in an interview with the popular Time magazine (December 2007), Putin declared that Ukraine’s 45-million population includes 17 million ethnic Russians, and that 80 percent regarded Russian as their mother tongue. I called Putin’s statistic into question and compared it with the official statistics.
Note: Photo by Kostiantyn HRYSHYN, The Day
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