All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

BERNAMA – Bird Flu Claims 13 Lives In Cambodia This Year

A ten-year-old boy died of bird flu on Saturday, bringing death toll in the country to 13 this year.

\”We regret to announce the boy passed away in Kantha Bopha Hospital this morning,\” said Sonny Inbaraj Krishnan, communication and media relations officer at the World Health Organisation (WHO) office in Cambodia.

Xinhua news agency learns the boy confirmed positive for human H5N1 avian influenza on Thursday after he was admitted to the hospital in Phnom Penh.

A joint statement from the Cambodian Health Ministry and WHO office said the boy had come into contact with chickens in his village in southern Kampot province a month before becoming ill.

Some 30 chickens had reportedly died in the village at that time.

Cambodia has reported 45 human cases of the virus with 32 deaths to date.

According to WHO, H5N1 influenza usually spreads among poultry but can spread from poultry to human.

via BERNAMA – Bird Flu Claims 13 Lives In Cambodia This Year.

1 charged, 1 questioned in shooting of 6-year-old boy – chicagotribune.com

One person has been charged and another is being questioned in connection with the attack that left a 6-year-old boy who with a gunshot wound to the chest after he was struck by gunfire on his way to a tutoring class with his two brothers in the Gage Park neighborhood this week.

via 1 charged, 1 questioned in shooting of 6-year-old boy – chicagotribune.com.

Obamacare’s Secret Success Story : Social Insurance : Our Work

Thus far, 25 states (including D.C.), have opted for expansion, while 26 (mostly red) states remain on the sidelines.

Of the 37,000 people who have thus far gained health coverage in New York, for example, two-thirds qualified through Medicaid.

In Washington, the Medicaid expansion accounts for half of its 35,000 new enrollees. In Kentucky, four out of every five of the state’s 26,000 newly insured can thank Medicaid for their benefits.

Two main factors account for Medicaid’s early success. First, states operate their own Medicaid programs, which means they are largely insulated from the federal government’s IT issues.

Second, a handful of states have taken advantage of a “fast-tracking” option permitted by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Fast-tracking, or facilitated enrollment, allows states to offer an express lane to residents already known in their welfare systems, such as food stamp recipients.

Because eligibility standards for food stamps are generally more stringent than those for Medicaid, states can effectively presume such individuals are eligible for the Medicaid expansion and enroll them with minimal hassle, conserving valuable administrative resources and bypassing bureaucratic delays.

Persuading the Cynics

All this is well and good, but it is unlikely to make converts of Obamacare’s critics.

What may change their minds, though, are costs. The major argument expansion opponents make is that it will be too expensive for cash-strapped states.

Here, the evidence is encouraging.

The federal government will bear the lion’s share of new Medicaid costs through 2016, declining to 90 percent by 2020.

If all states expand Medicaid, the feds will inject $952 billion into state budgets between 2013 and 2022. In other words, the feds are paying for 93 cents of every new Medicaid dollar.

As if this wasn’t already a good deal for states, it gets even sweeter—because states will save billions on lots of things they currently pay for.

When the uninsured seek medical care but do not pay for it, the bill falls to someone else—and that someone else is usually the government.

via Obamacare’s Secret Success Story : Social Insurance : Our Work.

From Tunisia to Occupy and Beyond: The New Wave of Social Change, Past, Present and Future (pp. 1-68)

Open Systems expert Merrelyn Emery

The final section of the paper looks at the necessary and sufficient conditions

for the current wave to succeed; that is for it to enable a return to active adaptive

organizations and communities in which people may fulfil their destinies as the

purposeful systems they are and, thereby, tame the social field into one that supports and

fosters a new global culture of cooperation, wisdom and joy.

via From Tunisia to Occupy and Beyond: The New Wave of Social Change, Past, Present and Future (pp. 1-68).

WNBA rookie makeup class proves old norms die hard

some things just change like glaciers used to – very, very slowly – too slowly//1

Fit and Feminist

Confession time: I am 34 years old and I am teaching myself how to do my makeup. Well, that’s not accurate, exactly. I know how to do the most basic “natural” look – just enough foundation to even out my complexion, just enough mascara to keep my eyes from vanishing, lip gloss because I like it – but the skillful use of eye shadow and cheekbone highlighters and various liners is something that has eluded me until now, mainly because I just didn’t care all that much.

I’m not sure what caused the switch to flip but it did, and now I watch YouTube video tutorials, pick up tips from the news anchor ladies I work with, and pay close attention as my best friend demonstrates the proper use of a crease brush.  I still mostly go barefaced these days, but I like knowing I have the ability to whip…

View original post 1,181 more words

US (MA): Banana plant breaks greenhouse roof

A banana plant at colleague in the United States was apparently so determined to keep growing that it broke through a pane of glass on a greenhouse roof. Rob Nicholson says he\’s seen plants do lots of amazing things in his 21 years as manager of the Northampton college\’s Botanic Garden, so he wasn\’t entirely surprised. But he did say it was annoying that the pane on the 30-foot high roof needs to be replaced.

Nicholson tells The Daily Hampshire Gazette he learned about the situation Monday when he arrived at the plant house. A staff member who worked on the weekend left a note on his door alerting him to the problem.

Nicholson says he has seen photographs dating to 1904 that show same banana plant in nearly the same location.

via US (MA): Banana plant breaks greenhouse roof.