IWS Babe of the Week: Christmas Chicks Bearing Gifts

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Welcome to December and to the joy of the Christmas Season.  One doesn't have to think hard to figure out who some of the hottest babes of the Yuletide time of year are.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">There's that little vixen Cindy Lou Who, whose sheer sultriness can melt not only a man's heart, but the Grinch's heart as well...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1CbwIvy6SlnQFj-LJj8IVUmXLxAlgXOcr7srjJklHPq-eB_Zf_tn09WrviajK8dEjkieAKvrFgq8oUnx4ElLGJS1ZCypv_T41ZTmsUdIj6Mzkjq8YJLZY9HpTmwZRWf5B5EZ-xSKsx-E/s1600/Cindy+Lou+Who.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1CbwIvy6SlnQFj-LJj8IVUmXLxAlgXOcr7srjJklHPq-eB_Zf_tn09WrviajK8dEjkieAKvrFgq8oUnx4ElLGJS1ZCypv_T41ZTmsUdIj6Mzkjq8YJLZY9HpTmwZRWf5B5EZ-xSKsx-E/s400/Cindy+Lou+Who.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Did you really think Frosty the Snowman began to melt because of the heat?  No, no my friends.  He began melting because that hot ingenue, Karen, loooooooved to ride him bareback...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qz9aj5pGq6h-UxexzdgTzuM-fd8fHljSZff1anwElW4Ielo7VifgdjQcGyV_nYkf0yWUuQNfJdiUi9UMJ1AvIM1vnYDypm0lH7XhLpaobQNM6X86MpjFLFlkRVwpogFb7o33bSutocQ/s1600/Frosty+the+Snowman+Karen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_qz9aj5pGq6h-UxexzdgTzuM-fd8fHljSZff1anwElW4Ielo7VifgdjQcGyV_nYkf0yWUuQNfJdiUi9UMJ1AvIM1vnYDypm0lH7XhLpaobQNM6X86MpjFLFlkRVwpogFb7o33bSutocQ/s400/Frosty+the+Snowman+Karen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Lucy and Violet, the two raven-haired hotties of Charlie Brown fame always get a laugh from Snoopy when the raspily ask Chuck, <i>"Is that a Christmas tree in your pocket, or are you expecting to have a three-way with us?"</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC91hf0mX9dcRFUVcBglG_okot_hCexlfW7qkpxVCDUCq-twn5cjShJSGHNdl9NgS8SpcCmmVFz1Me6gl19xXaMHmj4LixZBiqs9bLU96gKyLi1wQVxz5LZGUGLK9CbyqEnv0qXkzMJv8/s1600/Lucy+Charlie+Brown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC91hf0mX9dcRFUVcBglG_okot_hCexlfW7qkpxVCDUCq-twn5cjShJSGHNdl9NgS8SpcCmmVFz1Me6gl19xXaMHmj4LixZBiqs9bLU96gKyLi1wQVxz5LZGUGLK9CbyqEnv0qXkzMJv8/s400/Lucy+Charlie+Brown.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Of course it's not all about Christmas this month, the Jews will be celebrating Hanukkah.  And who better to drain the oil from my menorah than the uber-Jewalicious, Scarlett Johansson...</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZl6ssMc1EDHgAWOsXdxryPvaIyvT2aPx0luwhm0lCrT3G8Y2u8Ed5NkrAEqOv03Mf_uDDNm34b7CnFsMXqQ-kT5dqqCgyZ7G4723GlEhPDV1akGH_JP4mWGO6aFjaFlkANHiqwZKtyfs/s1600/Scarlett-Johansson-Hot+Sexy+Nude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZl6ssMc1EDHgAWOsXdxryPvaIyvT2aPx0luwhm0lCrT3G8Y2u8Ed5NkrAEqOv03Mf_uDDNm34b7CnFsMXqQ-kT5dqqCgyZ7G4723GlEhPDV1akGH_JP4mWGO6aFjaFlkANHiqwZKtyfs/s400/Scarlett-Johansson-Hot+Sexy+Nude.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Oh hell yeah...December may be my favorite month of the year!!</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">In other news...Jay and Matt went late night as they broadcast the kick-off to the 16th Annual War on Christmas last night on Blog Talk Radio.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">In case you were asleep and missed the fun and frivolity live last night, you can catch THE Number 1 comedy show on BTR by listening right cheer:</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="105" id="143577" name="143577" width="210"><param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4082681&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Fplaylist.aspx%3Fshow_id%3D4082681&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="143577" id="143577" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object></div><div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;"><br /></div></div>

IWS Babe of the Week: Christmas Chicks Bearing Gifts

Welcome to December and to the joy of the Christmas Season.  One doesn't have to think hard to figure out who some of the hottest babes ...

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Folk Medicine - Photo Essay - NYTimes.com

Dr. Ye Jiangsheng's home in Nanping Village, in Yixian county, is also his office, where, like nearly everyone else in the ancient town, he cultivates silkworms. A sign outside says "No. 2 Clinic" in Chinese, with "The Doctor's" written in English. The town is a warren of narrow alleys, stone and carved wood, ideal for kung fu heroes to jump from rooftop to rooftop or for tragic characters in Chinese costume dramas to wander from one darkened room to another. It's no surprise that the director Zhang Yimou is one of many to use Nanping Village as a film set.<br /><br><br /><br>A gray phalanx of fortresslike walls and terra- cotta roofs opens onto interior courtyards, Hui-style, as the local architecture is called. Life in Nanping Village unfolds inward, revolving around these age-old atria, like so many town squares, which locals decorate with paintings of the mountains they can't see over their windowless walls.<br /><br><br /><br>In Iwan Baan's photographs, Ye, the perfect country doctor, attends to his garden under his skylight, makes house calls over the cobblestones on an old bicycle, dons a lab coat to check a patient's sore throat and retires with his wife to sleep in a tiny, pitch-black bedroom, which, with its curtained platform below an enormous painted canopy, is like the insideof a lacquered puzzle box.<br /><br><br /><br>The peripatetic Dutch-born Baan went to capture this scene of a vanishing China for a photo festival last month. Chinese officials canceled the festival at the last minute, as they often do. But Baan was determined to show the pictures anyway.<br /><br><br /><br>Baan is prized as an architectural photographer and knows how architecture speaks formally. But whether documenting a vertical slum in an unfinished office tower in Caracas or Lower Manhattan blacked out by Hurricane Sandy, Baan photographs not just steel, brick and concrete. In the umbrella hung from the weathered wood screen in a patient's courtyard, as in the jumble of homely remedies on the bedside table, Baan celebrates real lives lived, architecture as humanity.<br /><br><br /><br><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/02/magazine/nanping-village.html?ref=magazine">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/02/magazine/nanping-village.html?ref=magazine</a>

Folk Medicine - Photo Essay - NYTimes.com

Dr. Ye Jiangsheng's home in Nanping Village, in Yixian county, is also his office, where, like nearly everyone else in the ancient town,...

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Adderall, a Drug of Increased Focus for N.F.L. Players - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The first time Anthony Becht heard about Adderall, he was in the Tampa Bay locker room in 2006. A teammate who had a prescription for the drug shook his pill bottle at Becht.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">" 'You've got to get some of these,' " Becht recalled the player saying. "I was like, 'What the heck is that?' He definitely needed it. He said it just locks you in, hones you in. He said, 'When I have to take them, my focus is just raised up to another level.' "</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Becht said he did not give Adderall another thought until 2009, when he was playing in Arizona and his fellow tight end Ben Patrick was suspended for testing positive for <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/amphetamines/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about amphetamines." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">amphetamines</a>. The drug he took, Patrick said, was Adderall. Becht asked Patrick why he took it, and Patrick told Becht, and reporters, that he had needed to stay awake for a long drive.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Those two conversations gave Becht, now a free agent, an early glimpse at a problem that is confounding the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_football_league/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the National Football League." class="meta-org" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">N.F.L.</a> this season. Players are taking Adderall, a medication widely prescribed to treat<a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-adhd/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">attention deficit hyperactivity disorder</a>, whether they need it or not, and are failing drug tests because of it. And that is almost certainly contributing to a most-troubling result: a record-setting year for N.F.L. drug suspensions.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">According to N.F.L. figures, 21 suspensions were announced this calendar year because of failed tests for performance-enhancing drugs, including amphetamines like Adderall. That is a 75 percent increase over the 12 suspensions announced in 2011 and, with a month to go in 2012, it is the most in a year since suspensions for performance-enhancing drugs began in 1989.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">At least seven of the players suspended this year have been linked in news media reports to Adderall or have publicly blamed the drug, which acts as a strong stimulant in those without A.D.H.D. The most recent examples were Tampa Bay cornerback Eric Wright and New England defensive lineman Jermaine Cunningham last week.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The N.F.L. is forbidden under the terms of the drug-testing agreement with the players union from announcing what substance players have tested positive for — the urine test does not distinguish among types of amphetamines — and there is some suspicion that at least a few players may claim they took Adderall instead of admitting to <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/steroids/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about steroids." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">steroid</a> use, which carries a far greater stigma. But Adolpho Birch, who oversees drug testing as the N.F.L.'s senior vice president for law and labor, said last week that failed tests for amphetamines were up this year, although he did not provide any specifics. The increase in Adderall use probably accounts for a large part of the overall increase in failed tests.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"If nothing else it probably reflects an uptick in the use of amphetamine and amphetamine-related substances throughout society," Birch said. "It's not a secret that it's a societal trend, and I think we're starting to see some of the effects of that trend throughout our league."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Amphetamines have long been used by athletes to provide a boost — think of the stories of "greenies" in baseball clubhouses decades ago. That Adderall use and abuse has made its way to the N.F.L. surprises few, because A.D.H.D. diagnoses and the use of medication to control it have sharply increased in recent years.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">According to Dr. Lenard Adler, who runs the adult A.D.H.D. program at New York University Langone Medical Center, 4.4 percent of adults in the general population have the disorder, of which an estimated two-thirds are men. Birch said the number of exemptions the N.F.L. has granted for players who need treatment for A.D.H.D. is "almost certainly fewer" than 4.4 percent of those in the league.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The rates of those with the disorder fall as people get older; it is far more prevalent in children and adolescents. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using input from parents, found that as of 2007, about 9.5 percent or 5.4 million children from ages 4 to 17 had A.D.H.D. at some point. That was an increase of 22 percent from 2003. Boys (13.2 percent) were more likely to have the disorder than girls (5.6 percent).</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Of children who currently have A.D.H.D., 66.3 percent are receiving medication, with boys 2.8 times more likely to receive medication. Those 11 to 17 years old are more likely to receive medication than younger children.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But Adderall, categorized by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule II controlled substance because it is particularly addictive, is also used by college students and even some high school students to provide extra energy and concentration for studying or as a party drug to ward off fatigue.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. Leah Lagos, a New York sports psychologist who has worked with college and professional athletes, said she had seen patients who have used Adderall. She said she believed the rise in its use by professional athletes mimicked the use by college students. Just a few years ago, she said, it was estimated that 1 in 10 college students was abusing stimulants like Adderall and <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/ritalin_drug/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about Ritalin." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Ritalin</a>. That estimate, Lagos said, has almost doubled.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"It's certainly a performance-enhancing drug," Lagos said. "College kids call it the Superman drug. Take someone who is tired after a long practice, give them a stimulant. It amps up their mood and energy. It really enhances their focus, and for football players, that's crucial.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"Athletes are often taking it to fight fatigue and exhaustion. It's almost like taking 100 cups of coffee. They can take it during training camp when their bodies are especially fatigued, and the other is right before a game, to boost them. Those are two patterns that are being reported most frequently. But there is the party scene, too, and that's happening on a larger level."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The long-term effects of taking Adderall are not well understood, doctors said. While doctors prefer Adderall with a sustained release to treat adults with A.D.H.D. — so that it calms them throughout the day — Adler said that data on students who were misusing diverted medication indicated they were often using a shorter-acting version of Adderall with effects that lasted just three to five hours.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"It may not get you through a game," Adler said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Even if it does, the players union has tried to warn its members that substances like Adderall are banned unless a player receives a therapeutic-use exemption from the league. That process includes a review of an A.D.H.D. diagnosis by an independent administrator and other specialists.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">There is a poster in each locker room about banned substances, and the union sent out a memo in October that emphasized that prescription drugs like Adderall are prohibited. Birch said efforts to make players aware of banned substances had been ample, though the league wishes the union would allow it to reveal what players test positive for. Officials think that it would be a deterrent and that hearing what others are caught for reminded players of what substances were banned.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">George Atallah, a union spokesman, said he expected the number of positive tests to drop because of the greater attention being paid to Adderall. Players who have recently been suspended were tested earlier in the year, before Adderall became a topic of conversation throughout the league.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"It's a reflection that the system we have in place works," Atallah said. "Given the amount of suspensions we've seen this year, we have made a greater emphasis on making players aware of the policy on this particular substance."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Will Hill, though, said he did not think the N.F.L.'s Adderall problem would go away anytime soon. Hill, a safety for the Giants, served a suspension this season for Adderall use. Hill began using Adderall for A.D.H.D. in the spring and he said he did not realize it was on the league's banned list until he had already started taking it without getting the required waiver.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Hill said that beginning in high school, he needed extra tutors because of his limited <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/test/mental-status-tests/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Mental status tests." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">attention span</a>. He added that he could not stay still until he began taking Adderall. With Adderall, he is calm and able to focus on his tasks, on and off the field. On Thursday, Hill said he knew many people in and out of football who needed Adderall to function properly.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Hill was suspended in October; he has since watched one player after another blame Adderall for his positive test. He guessed that among players who use Adderall, "it's 50-50" whether they need it for A.D.H.D. or are using it because it is a powerful stimulant.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Hill said that he was troubled that there were players without the disorder who take Adderall for the jolt of energy and the extreme focus it provides, and by the idea that some players may be blaming the drug when they are instead taking steroids.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"It foggies everything up," Hill said. "This person can say it's Adderall, and how do we decipher the fakers from not? When you try to get an advantage over the next person, that's why we get into these situations we're in."</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "></span></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/sports/football/adderall-a-drug-of-increased-focus-for-nfl-players.html?&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/sports/football/adderall-a-drug-of-increased-focus-for-nfl-players.html?&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Adderall, a Drug of Increased Focus for N.F.L. Players - NYTimes.com

The first time Anthony Becht heard about Adderall, he was in the Tampa Bay locker room in 2006. A teammate who had a prescription for the dr...

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My twin sister's blog!

<span style="font-size: large;">My twin sister blogs too!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">For her take on Dublin life, hop on over <a href="http://amydublinia.blogspot.ie/">here</a>!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I love her blog!  She writes really well about very interesting topics and her pictures are also super too......</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-vkwFhjKzFG_QVmvkSgAcJCyBBuINotAChxhNNiV4nsEb_jDoqxPYtKezbZ_XIm4QbjuoPtqBuSJTCzF25jmEy97GPWaJbqMcXxXXGLaiDQJwS2GvDAWPCdsSZur41HIRp40T51eFqRG/s1600/Amy&Enid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig-vkwFhjKzFG_QVmvkSgAcJCyBBuINotAChxhNNiV4nsEb_jDoqxPYtKezbZ_XIm4QbjuoPtqBuSJTCzF25jmEy97GPWaJbqMcXxXXGLaiDQJwS2GvDAWPCdsSZur41HIRp40T51eFqRG/s320/Amy&Enid.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>

My twin sister's blog!

My twin sister blogs too! For her take on Dublin life, hop on over here ! I love her blog!  She writes really well about very interesting to...

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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/02/2012

<ul class="diigo-linkroll"> <li> <p class="diigo-link"> <a href="http://wappwolf.com/dropboxautomator">Automate your Dropbox</a> </p> <p class="diigo-description">A super duper Dropbox, google drive, evernote, Facebook Automator. Called "ifttt for Dropbox."</p> <p class="diigo-tags"> <span>tags:</span> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/News">News</a> <a href="http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher/productivity">productivity</a></p> <ul class="diigo-comments"> </ul> </li> </ul><p class="diigo-ps">Posted from <a href='http://www.diigo.com'>Diigo</a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href='http://www.diigo.com/user/coolcatteacher'>here</a>.</p>

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/02/2012

Automate your Dropbox A super duper Dropbox, google drive, evernote, Facebook Automator. Called &quo...

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Doctors Who Work for Hospitals Face a New Bottom Line - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">or decades, doctors in picturesque Boise, Idaho, were part of a tight-knit community, freely referring patients to the specialists or hospitals of their choice and exchanging information about the latest medical treatments.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But that began to change a few years ago, when the city's largest hospital, St. Luke's Health System, began rapidly buying physician practices all over town, from general practitioners to cardiologists to orthopedic surgeons.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Today, Boise is a medical battleground.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">A little over half of the 1,400 doctors in southwestern Idaho are employed by St. Luke's or its smaller competitor, St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Many of the independent doctors complain that both hospitals, but especially St. Luke's, have too much power over every aspect of the medical pipeline, dictating which tests and procedures to perform, how much to charge and which patients to admit.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In interviews, they said their referrals from doctors now employed by St. Luke's had dropped sharply, while patients, in many cases, were paying more there for the same level of treatment.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Boise's experience reflects a growing national trend toward consolidation. Across the country, doctors who sold their practices and signed on as employees have similar criticisms. In lawsuits and interviews, they describe growing pressure to meet the financial goals of their new employers — often by performing unnecessary tests and procedures or by admitting patients who do not need a hospital stay.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In Boise, just a few weeks ago, even the hospitals were at war. St. Alphonsus went to court seeking an injunction to stop St. Luke's from buying another physician practice group, arguing that the hospital's dominance in the market was enabling it to drive up prices and to demand exclusive or preferential agreements with insurers. The price of a <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/test/colonoscopy/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Colonoscopy." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">colonoscopy</a> has quadrupled in some instances, and in other cases St. Luke's charges nearly three times as much for laboratory work as nearby facilities, according to the St. Alphonsus complaint.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Federal and state officials have also joined the fray. In one of a handful of similar cases, the Federal Trade Commission and the Idaho attorney general are investigating whether St. Luke's has become too powerful in Boise, using its newfound leverage to stifle competition.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. David C. Pate, chief executive of St. Luke's, denied the assertions by St. Alphonsus that the hospital's acquisitions had limited patient choice or always resulted in higher prices. In some cases, Dr. Pate said, services that had been underpriced were raised to reflect market value. St. Luke's, he argued, is simply embracing the new model of health care, which he predicted would lead over the long term to lower overall costs as fewer unnecessary tests and procedures were performed.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Regulators expressed some skepticism about the results, for patients, of rapid consolidation, although the trend is still too new to know for sure. "We're seeing a lot more consolidation than we did 10 years ago," said Jeffrey Perry, an assistant director in the F.T.C.'s Bureau of Competition. "Historically, what we've seen with the consolidation in the health care industry is that prices go up, but quality does not improve."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; "><strong>A Drive to Consolidate</strong></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">An array of new economic realities, from reduced <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicare/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about Medicare." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Medicare</a> reimbursements to higher technology costs, is driving consolidation in health care and transforming the practice of medicine in Boise and other communities large and small. In one manifestation of the trend, hospitals, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/private_equity/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about private equity." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">private equity</a> firms and even <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about health insurance and managed care." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">health insurance</a> companies are acquiring physician practices at a rapid rate.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Today, about 39 percent of doctors nationwide are independent, down from 57 percent in 2000, according to estimates by Accenture, a consulting firm.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Many policy experts praise the shift away from independent practices as a way of making health care less fragmented and expensive. Systems that employ doctors, modeled after well-known organizations like Kaiser Permanente, are better able to coordinate patient care and to find ways to deliver improved services at lower costs, these advocates say. Indeed, consolidation is encouraged by some aspects of the Obama administration's <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival news about healthcare reform." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">health care law</a>.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"If you're going to be paid for value, for performance, you've got to perform together," said Dr. Ricardo Martinez, chief medical officer for North Highland, an Atlanta-based consultant that works with hospitals.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The recent trend is reminiscent of the consolidation that swept the industry in the 1990s in response to the creation of health maintenance organizations, or H.M.O.'s — but there is one major difference. Then, hospitals had difficulty managing the practices, contending that doctors did not work as hard when they were employees as they had as private operators. Now, hospitals are writing contracts more in their own favor.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"Hospitals are constructing compensation in ways that are based on productivity and performance," said Steve Messinger, president of ECG Management Consultants, which advises on physician acquisitions.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But the consolidation of health care may be coming at a hefty price. By one estimate, under its current reimbursement system, Medicare is paying in excess of a billion dollars a year more for the same services because hospitals, citing higher overall costs, can charge more when the doctors work for them. Laser eye surgery, for example, can cost $738 when performed by a hospital-employed doctor, compared with $389 when done by an unaffiliated doctor, according to national estimates by the independent Congressional panel that oversees Medicare. An echocardiogram can cost about twice as much in a hospital: $319, versus $143 in a doctor's office.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Conflicts over the changes are numerous. One Florida primary care physician said he could earn a $5,000 bonus for keeping patients in the hospital for less than three days, according to a lawsuit he filed this year. Hospitals, which are typically reimbursed a fixed amount of money for treating a specific illness, can make more money if patients stay for shorter periods of time.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Last month, the Justice Department reached <a title="A Justice Department news release." href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/November/12-civ-1320.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">a $9.3 million settlement</a> with Freeman Health System, a hospital group in Joplin, Mo., which was rewarding doctors it employed partly based on how many tests they ordered. Freeman says that it alerted regulators to the potential violations and that patient care was not affected.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Recently, the Office of Inspector General at the Health and Human Services Department sent a letter to emergency physicians across the country asking for information about inappropriate admissions. Federal regulators are also examining the higher numbers of physician contracts being created, searching for violations of laws that prevent hospitals from rewarding doctors for admitting patients or for ordering lucrative tests and procedures.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Health Management Associates, a for-profit hospital chain; EmCare, a Dallas-based emergency room staffing company for hospitals; and other hospitals have disclosed that they are the subjects of federal investigations. Regulators are looking into whether the hospitals improperly pressured physicians to admit patients.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; "><strong>Pumping Up Admissions</strong></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">According to two emergency room doctors who worked at Carlisle Regional Medical Center in Pennsylvania, the message could not have been clearer: more patients needed to be admitted.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The doctors were employed by EmCare, whose parent company <a title="A news release about the acquisition." href="http://www.cdr-inc.com/news/releases/2011-05-24_cdr_completes_acquisition_of_emergency_medical_services_corporation.php" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">was later acquired</a> by the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice in 2011 as part of a $3.2 billion deal. EmCare, in turn, was under contract to provide emergency room doctors for the hospital, which is owned by Health Management Associates. In interviews, doctors said that hospital administrators created targets for how many patients they should admit. More admissions translated into more dollars for the hospital.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. Jean-Paul Romes, one of the physicians, recalled getting phone calls in the middle of the night questioning why he had not admitted an older patient whose hospitalization he could easily have justified. "The pressure to admit was so high," he said. Dr. Romes left the hospital last year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">After another physician, Dr. Cloyd B. Gatrell, raised concerns that the hospital had too few nurses to keep patients safe, an EmCare executive warned him to "back off," according to a lawsuit Dr. Gatrell filed last year. EmCare later fired him at Carlisle's request, according to the suit. Dr. Gatrell's wife, Kathryn, a nurse at Carlisle, had been fired earlier and also filed a lawsuit. Both Gatrells maintained they were fired for bringing up patient safety concerns, according to Dr. Gatrell's lawsuit.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Health Management, which operates 70 hospitals, said <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_states_attorneys/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about United States Attorneys." class="meta-classifier" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">United States attorneys</a>' offices in seven states were investigating physician referrals, including financial arrangements and the "medical necessity of emergency room tests and patient admissions."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">EmCare said in an e-mailed statement that it could not comment on continuing legal matters involving it or its clients, but that its "first concern is the well-being of the patient."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Health Management is also the target of a suit filed last year in Florida state court by a former executive who says there were improper admissions. The executive, Paul Meyer, an officer in the company's compliance office, was a longtime employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He said in his lawsuit that he was fired from H.M.A. in 2011 in retaliation for raising questions about what he felt were improper admissions at four of the chain's hospitals. H.M.A. said its overall admission rate from the emergency department had remained constant in recent years and that its practices were in line with those of other hospitals. It also said there was no indication that Carlisle admitted any patients unnecessarily. Admissions are "based solely on what is best for patient care," it said in an e-mailed statement.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The company said that it had addressed all of Mr. Meyer's concerns, and that he was fired for what the company said was a failure to cooperate in an internal investigation. Health Management fired the Gatrells, it said, "for performance issues," an accusation Dr. Gatrell strongly denied.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Doctors at other hospitals also say they have faced pressure to meet financial targets. Dr. Manuel Abreu said his contract with All Care Medical Consultants, a practice in Clearwater, Fla., allowed him to earn a bonus as high as $5,000 if he kept patients' hospital stays to an average of no more than three days, according to a copy of the contract included with a lawsuit he filed in Florida state court this year. The parties reached a settlement and the case was voluntarily dismissed, court records show. Calls to Dr. Abreu's lawyer and a lawyer for All Care were not returned.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Other physicians say they are pushed to ignore what is best for patients by referring them to doctors working for the same hospital. Dr. Victoria Rentel, a family practice doctor near Columbus, Ohio, recalled feeling pressured when she was employed by a local hospital to send her patients to doctors there for tests and procedures.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"I routinely got reports about the money I kept in the system," Dr. Rentel said, detailing how much revenue she was generating for the hospital through in-house referrals. "I tended to refer to specialists I knew who would deliver better care." The hospital eventually closed the clinic where she worked.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Some physicians also complain about quotas. Dr. Patricia F. White, an emergency room physician who worked at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Fla., said that starting in 2010, her compensation was partly calculated based on the number of patients she saw an hour, according to a lawsuit she filed in August against the hospital and Emergency Resources Group, which provided emergency room staffing to Baptist.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The staffing group said it had no choice but to agree to the hospital's demands. "If we don't comply with their wishes as good partners, there is a termination notice in our contract," wrote Paul Davidson, administrator for the group, in a series of e-mails that were included with Dr. White's lawsuit.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In an e-mailed statement, Baptist Health said that patients expected timely access to quality care and that an emergency room physician's "productivity and efficiency are vital components to delivering good patient care as well as ensuring patient safety and satisfaction." A lawyer for Emergency Resources Group echoed those sentiments in an e-mailed statement, adding that efficiency was only one component of physician compensation.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Doctors at numerous hospitals said it was often difficult to criticize the policies instituted by hospitals or investor-owned physician groups because, as employees, they could easily be fired.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"We all have families, and we have mortgages," said an emergency room physician. "If you get fired, it looks bad and it's hard to get another job."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; "><strong>Rising Medical Costs</strong></p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">It was about three years ago that Dr. Julie A. Foote, who has been an endocrinologist in Boise for 18 years, began noticing the ads in the local newspaper.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Each week, another advertisement appeared, heralding the hire of a physician or a practice group by either St. Luke's or St. Alphonsus, which is part of Michigan's Trinity Health, one of the nation's largest hospital systems. "The playing field wound up being divvied up pretty aggressively," Dr. Foote said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In the last four years, St. Luke's acquired 22 physician practices in the area.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. Mark Johnson, a family practice physician who has worked in Boise for about 25 years, was part of a five-person practice that sold itself to St. Luke's. Among the factors behind the decision were the high cost of adopting an electronic health records system, and a concern that the group members would not be able to find younger doctors willing to buy them out of the practice.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"But probably the driving reason was the changing landscape of health care delivery and the uncertainty around that," Dr. Johnson said. "The thought was that we were going to be in a safer position if we were aligned and affiliated with a network."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But as St. Luke's moved forward with its plans to acquire most of the Saltzer Medical Group — a practice of about 50 doctors in Nampa, Idaho, about 20 miles west of Boise — St. Alphonsus filed an injunction to block the purchase.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">St. Alphonsus argues that St. Luke's dominance is hurting its business because it has experienced steep declines in hospital admissions and referrals from physicians acquired by St. Luke's.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">St. Luke's says it is positioning itself to compete better by improving its ability to coordinate patient care. It recently filed an application with Medicare officials to become a so-called accountable care organization. Hospitals <a title="A government fact sheet about A.C.O.'s." href="http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/2011/03/accountablecare03312011a.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">designated as A.C.O.'s</a> can usually keep a portion of any savings they generate. They cut health care costs by avoiding unneeded procedures and tests or by keeping patients out of the hospital, while still meeting quality targets.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But St. Luke's remains under investigation by state and federal authorities for possible antitrust violations. While most physician group purchases are too small to draw regulators' attention, concerns have been raised about whether consolidation is resulting in higher prices and fewer choices for patients.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; "><a title="News release from the F.T.C." href="http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/07/carilion.shtm" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">In 2009, the F.T.C. forced the sale</a> of two outpatient clinics that had been acquired by Carilion Clinic, based in Roanoke, Va., saying Carilion's fee structure would have increased patients' out-of-pocket expenses for a brain imaging test, for example, to $350 from $40.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In another case, the F.T.C. and the Nevada attorney general ordered Renown Health in Reno to release 10 cardiologists from their noncompetition agreements after the hospital system bought the two largest cardiology groups in the area, giving it 88 percent of the market.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In Boise, doctors are pressured to refer only within their own system, according to St. Alphonsus in its complaint. It reported a 90 percent drop in admissions to its hospitals by physicians employed by St. Luke's. In one community, independent doctors often send patients 40 miles away for CT scans because prices at St. Luke's are 60 percent higher, the complaint said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Mr. Pate, the St. Luke's chief executive, disputed the notion that physicians employed by St. Luke's were prohibited from referring patients to outside doctors.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"My own wife was referred by a St. Luke's physician to a St. Al's physician for her particular condition because he felt the St. Al's physician was the best for this problem," he said. "If the wife of the C.E.O. is being referred to a physician at another hospital, that should prove that our physicians send many referrals over there."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Mr. Pate acknowledged that prices for some services had risen, but he said this was only because they had been severely underpriced. In the long run, he argued, overall costs will decline as St. Luke's is better able to coordinate care, avoiding expensive emergency room visits and redundant tests.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But some people remain skeptical that patients will be better served.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"I'm not certain what all this means is that patients are getting cost-effective care, which is how the nation is painting this evolution," Dr. Foote said. "If this is better quality for less price, I want to see the less price."</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "></span></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/business/a-hospital-war-reflects-a-tightening-bind-for-doctors-nationwide.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/business/a-hospital-war-reflects-a-tightening-bind-for-doctors-nationwide.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

Doctors Who Work for Hospitals Face a New Bottom Line - NYTimes.com

or decades, doctors in picturesque Boise, Idaho, were part of a tight-knit community, freely referring patients to the specialists or hospit...

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Pricing the "Ring of Life"

Today I just learned about the "Ring of Life," a monument under construction in Fushun, China. Attention has been directed at its form, its function (or lack thereof), and its cost; I'm most intrigued by the last of these three. Before delving into that, I think that <a href="http://www.archdaily.com/297846/architectural-icons-and-landmarks-on-the-rise/">ArchDaily inadvertently hit on a potential inspiration</a> for the form in mistakenly calling it the "Ring of Fire." A quick search for that term brings up numerous images of an annual solar eclipse that is visible in China; <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120520-solar-eclipse-2012-ring-of-fire-annular-sun-science-how-see-where/">this photo at National Geographic</a> shows a slight shift between inner and outer circles similar to the photo of the Ring of Life below.<br /><br /><img alt="fushun-ring.jpg" src="http://www.archidose.org/Blog/fushun-ring.jpg" title="Ring of Life under construction in Fushun, China" /><br />[Ring of Life under construction in Fushun, China | image <a href="http://blog.buzzbuzzhome.com/2012/11/chinas-giant-ring-that-serves-little-purpose.html">source</a>]<br /><br />The prevailing view of the object's (<a href="http://blog.buzzbuzzhome.com/2012/11/chinas-giant-ring-that-serves-little-purpose.html">lack of</a>) function is <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5961049/what-the-hell-is-china-building-here">summed up at Gizmodo</a>: "According to Fushun Municipal Government's officials, this titanic structure does absolutely <em>nothing</em> except serve as an elevated sighting position." [Italics in original.] It seems that people are using a fairly narrow definition for the term, ignoring that symbolic function can be just as important as practical function. And clearly the description quoted recalls a historic precedent that also serves to only present an elevated sighting position—the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_Arch">Gateway Arch</a> in St. Louis. Of course, close to 50 years after the completion of Saarinen's design, very little criticism is levied at the purposelessness of the "gateway to the west." (And didn't Aldo Rossi write about the importance of monuments—of which the Ring of Life clearly is one—<i>not</i> having a function?)<br /><br />So what about the cost of the project, which is reportedly $16 million? Gizmodo, again, talks about that figure in these terms: "The Chinese media has been harsh about the building after a blogger posted [some] photos on Sina Weibo, which is the country's 'largest microblog platform.' Not surprising, since this thing costs $16 million." Is this to say that $16 million is a lot of money to spend on the monument? It seems to be worded that way to me, but I think that figure is very low for a construction of this scale (515 feet/157 meters high).<br /><br />In comparison, Wikipedia quotes the cost of realizing the Gateway Arch at $13 million in 1960s U.S. dollars, approximately $96 million today. The arch in St. Louis is about 100 feet taller, but the variance is nevertheless clear. While some of the difference can be ascribed to China's relatively cheap labor, that doesn't really explain why people are making a big deal about the cost of the Ring of Life. Compare the $16 million Ring of Life with the $220 million <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_pavilion_at_Expo_2010">China pavilion at Expo 2010</a> in Shanghai, which one could argue is just as purposeless, and was temporary, to boot. It seems like the Ring of Life is a pretty good deal after all.

Pricing the "Ring of Life"

Today I just learned about the "Ring of Life," a monument under construction in Fushun, China. Attention has been directed at its ...

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Matt Said, Jay Said XXX.XXX.XXX

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />Jay speaks, Matt speaks, You listen.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi5ZZme3BX7rhyphenhyphenIXvfacIlpkFDTwSYk0wEdfGOmiyWQlgl9Gw5qvbTP9AD1iqZ8nn6a1PWkCPVSvI624NeKjrZEy8Xq6k-Jz7M7MEO0BGN8sg_TRikocRL7fy42iwyH6D-4Gqv16PJuGM/s1600/JayStalker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi5ZZme3BX7rhyphenhyphenIXvfacIlpkFDTwSYk0wEdfGOmiyWQlgl9Gw5qvbTP9AD1iqZ8nn6a1PWkCPVSvI624NeKjrZEy8Xq6k-Jz7M7MEO0BGN8sg_TRikocRL7fy42iwyH6D-4Gqv16PJuGM/s320/JayStalker.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b><i>*ring* *ring*</i></b><br /><b>Matt:</b> Yo<br /><b>Jay: </b>*heavy breathing* what are you wearing *heavy breathing*<br /><b>Matt:</b> Oh, Schmoop it’s for you.<br /><b>Schmoop: </b>Hello?<br /><b>Jay:</b> *heavy breathing* what are you wearing? *heavy breathing*<br /><b>Schmoop: </b>Oh hi Jay!<br /><b>Jay: </b>I’m not Jay! I’m a Mysterious Stranger.<br /><b>Schmoop: </b>Oh, right. Matt, it’s for you. It’s Jay.<br /><b>Jay:</b> Dammit!<br /><i><b>*click*</b> </i><br /><br /><b><i>*ring* *ring*</i></b><br /><b>Matt:</b> Howdy Ho<br /><b>Jay:</b> I’M GONNA RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AN SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!<br /><b>Matt:</b> Jay, what are doing?<br /><b>Jay: </b>I’M NOT JAY DAMMIT! CALL ME THAT NAME AGAIN AND SUFFERE THE CONSEQUENCES!<br /><b>Matt:</b> Jay … Jay … Jay … JayJayJayJayJayJayJayJay<br /><b>Jay:  </b>I said I’m not Jay! I’m … I’m … It doesn’t matter who I am!<br /><b>Matt:</b> You really should have thought this out better.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Bite me! I’ll cut your throat while you’re sleeping.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Well just remember Schmoop is the one on the couch and I’m in the bedroom.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Okay! Prepare to die!<br /><b>Matt: </b>Could you let me know when?<br /><b>Jay: </b>NO! That would ruin the surprise.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Okay then.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Okay then!<br /><br /><b>Matt: </b>It’s margarita night, isn’t it?<br /><b>Jay:</b> Yeah.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Maybe you should stick to wine?<br /><b>Jay: </b>Wine makes me too mellow. I lose my edge.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Well, you could probably stand to lose it.<br /><b>Jay:</b> That kind of hurts.<br /><b>Matt:</b> How bout beer?<br /><b>Jay:</b> That just makes me all sloppy and shit.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Hmm … well, margaritas it is I guess.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Or maybe just sipping on bourbon?<br /><b>Matt:</b> That might work.<br /><b>Jay:</b> Hey! Can I talk to Schmoop.<br /><b>Matt: </b>No, she’s in a good mood. I don’t want you to ruin it.<br /><b>Jay:</b> Again, that’s a bit hurtful, but I understand.<br /><b>Matt: </b>It’s the best I can do.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBAyJwUX4usYqxrmKn6tt1kA7_oNNKwcUlARWBNhc33N2i8nM_-6esds0Ru_4MStfLLOM3gigj3wpawfaCQDek46PDtaaKIwFt03jdeHpFq-mkTO30_ORv0CBwX5oH672i7G4DSKOTv8/s1600/war-on-christmas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwBAyJwUX4usYqxrmKn6tt1kA7_oNNKwcUlARWBNhc33N2i8nM_-6esds0Ru_4MStfLLOM3gigj3wpawfaCQDek46PDtaaKIwFt03jdeHpFq-mkTO30_ORv0CBwX5oH672i7G4DSKOTv8/s400/war-on-christmas.jpg" width="275" /></a><b>Jay:</b> So War on Christmas this week?<br /><b>Matt: </b>Saturday NIGHT at 11 PM ET!!<br /><b>Jay:</b> What side are we on?<br /><b>Matt: </b>I dunno.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Both? Neither?<br /><b>Matt:</b> Something like that.<br /><b>Jay: </b>I’ve already got some material.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Really?<br /><b>Jay: </b>Yup, a couple of reports from the brave journalists covering the War.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Always useful.<br /><b>Jay: </b>They’re like Hemingway.<br /><b>Matt: </b>I hope not cause Papa sucked.<br /><b>Jay:</b> Oh yeah, I keep forgetting.<br /><b>Matt: </b>The War on Christmas is very complicated.<br /><b>Jay: </b>People need us to break it down for them.<br /><b>Matt:</b> We’ll identify the combatants and what’s at stake.<br /><b>Jay: </b>And make fun of them.<br /><b>Matt:</b> Noooooooooo. This is serious shit.<br /><b>Jay: </b>War is Hell son.<br /><b>Matt:</b> Damn right it is.<br /><b>Jay:</b> And we’ve experience a bit of Hell ourselves.<br /><b>Matt: </b>And now we’re gonna bring Hell to the masses.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Just like Doc Holiday.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Exactly. Actually, I have no idea what you mean by that.<br /><b>Jay:</b> The move Tombstone? “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynKoZD-sFi4" target="_blank">Tell ‘em I’m coming and Hell’s coming with me!</a>”<br /><b>Matt: </b>Oh. Okay then. That works. I guess.<br /><b>Jay: </b>Totally.<br /><b>Matt: </b>Alright! Another #1 show, coming right up!<br /><b>Jay:</b> Brilliant!<br /><br />There you go kids. Another fun and exciting peek into the world of IWS show prep. And, don’t forget to tune in at our new time on Saturday NIGHT at 11 PM ET for our <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/im-with-stupid/2012/12/02/16th-annual-war-on-christmas" target="_blank">War on Christmas Extravaganza</a>! It’s gonna be a blast!<br /><br /></div>

Matt Said, Jay Said XXX.XXX.XXX

Jay speaks, Matt speaks, You listen. *ring* *ring* Matt: Yo Jay: *heavy breathing* what are you wearing *heavy breathing* Matt: Oh, Schmoo...

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AFH - What Do You See?

'Tis the season for, among other things, giving. One organization worthy of some year-end loosening of purse-strings is <a href="http://architectureforhumanity.org/">Architecture for Humanity</a>, who are "building a more sustainable future using the power of design." <a href="http://architectureforhumanity.org/whatdoyousee">What Do Yo See</a> doesn't just ask for money, it asks people to describe a vision for their own community. Check it out...<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/416RUjiBakI?rel=0" width="640"></iframe><br /><br />...and then <a href="http://architectureforhumanity.org/donate/form?program=What%20do%20you%20see?">DONATE</a>.

AFH - What Do You See?

'Tis the season for, among other things, giving. One organization worthy of some year-end loosening of purse-strings is Architecture for...

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Full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist - Hartford Public Library

<strong>Full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist - </strong><span style="color: #48286d;"><strong>Hartford Public Library</strong></span> seeks a full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist. Reporting jointly to the Technical Services Director and the Curator of the Hartford History Center, the Digital Cataloging Specialist is responsible for the cataloging and processing of the Library’s historical collections and the development and maintenance of the classical music collections. This includes providing reference services and public program assistance in the Hartford History Center; the training and supervision of Hartford History Center staff in the proper handling of historical materials according to archival standards; original and copy cataloging of classical music records, music scores and archival collections. Position Qualifications: Masters degree in library science from an ALA-accredited program or equivalent. Minimum of three years cataloging experience. Direct knowledge and experience with OCLC Connexion and experience with an integrated library system (ILS); experience with III Millennium ILS preferred. Necessary Knowledge, Skills and Abilities: Music background of knowledge of the intricacies of music. Ability to manage multiple complex projects. Historical research and archival records management skills. Experienced with Encoded Archival Description (EAD) preferred. Strong commitment to working within a team management structure. Strong commitment to public service. Strong communication and public relations skills. Thorough knowledge of selection and classification of library collection. Thorough knowledge of the principles and practices of modern library systems and programs. Strong computer skills with expertise in word-processing, spreadsheet and database programs, specifically Microsoft Office Suite. Valid Connecticut driver’s license or ability to obtain upon employment. A full job description and application are available on our website; <a href="http://www.hplct.org/" target="_blank">www.hplct.org</a> and from the Administrative Offices, Hartford Public Library, 500 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06103. Applications accepted until <span style="color: red;">December 28, 2012</span>. The Hartford Public Library offers a competitive salary commensurate with experience. Hartford Public Library is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Hartford Public Library requires a criminal background check and a pre-employment drug screening for the applicant who is selected for the position. Applicants will be provided a copy of any positive drug test results. A criminal record does not necessarily eliminate you from employment with Hartford Public Library. Each conviction will be reviewed with respect to the offense, circumstances, seriousness, and the position for which you apply.

Full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist - Hartford Public Library

Full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist -  Hartford Public Library seeks a full-time Digital Cataloging Specialist. Reporting jointly to t...

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Job searching in a mobile world

<br /><div class="ArticleHeadline" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin-top: -30px; text-align: left;"><div class="hdr_org_bld" style="color: #ff6600; font: normal normal bold 18px/normal arial, helvetica;"><h1 id="articleHeadline" style="color: #000066; font-size: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span id="cbArticle_lblHeadline">Job searching in a mobile world</span></h1></div><b><span id="cbArticle_lblByLine">By Susan Ricker, CareerBuilder Writer</span></b><br /><div class="cb_share_more_wrapper"></div></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;" /><div class="ArticleContent" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" class="media-image" src="http://artstg.icbdr.com/sites/all/files/styles/large/public/Job%20search%20in%20mobile%20world_0.jpg" typeof="foaf:Image" /></div>Forgot to turn the lights off after you left your house? Your phone can turn them off for you. Want to deposit a check into your bank account? Your phone can take care of that. Interested in capturing videos and pictures of your family vacation? Your phone can email the album to your family and friends.<br /><br />Today, cellphones are capable of so much more than making a call. They can even help your job search. Checking out jobs using a mobile application, emailing potential employers, killing time on your phone while waiting to begin an interview, conducting an interview on your cellphone -- these are just a few of the ways cellphones have become integrated into a job search.<br /><br />From searching to interviewing to following up, here's a guide to job-search cellphone etiquette.<br /><br /><strong>Searching for a job</strong><br /><a href="http://www.theworkbuzz.com/news/8-job-related-smartphone-apps/" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none;">Job-related mobile apps</a> are great resources to use when you're short on time. However, before sending your job application materials to a prospective company, be sure that you've done your research. Learn about the company and the open position so that your cover letter and other application materials are relevant. It may be tempting to send a résumé for every open position you find, but being choosy can be more beneficial and productive.<br />When you contact hiring managers using a mobile app or emailing from your phone, you still need to be formal and professional. You aren't texting friends, so proper grammar and spelling and complete sentences are required. Also, consider removing any automated signatures your smartphone adds to your email, such as "sent from my mobile phone." This doesn't add anything to the note and may come across as though you sent the message in a hurry.<br /><br /><strong>Interviewing for the position</strong><br />When you get contacted for an interview, consider your cellphone's role in the process. If you've listed your cellphone number as your main contact number, be aware of your surroundings when you answer any potential business calls. If you're out with friends, go to a quiet area to take the call, or return the call in a timely fashion when you can speak privately. It's not OK to text a response to the hiring manager. <br /><br />If a hiring manager requests a phone interview, consider whether using a cellphone is the best choice. Will you have strong enough service where you plan to take the call? Does your phone have a history of dropping calls? If you deem your phone reliable, choose a distraction-free location so you can focus on acing the interview.<br /><br />If you're invited to an in-person interview, use your cellphone as much as you like before you arrive. However, once you check in and are awaiting the meeting, keep the cellphone out of sight. Put it away so you can focus on the interview instead of getting distracted by a friend's text message or an intense game. If you have to use it while you're waiting, make sure to turn it off or keep it on silent once you get called in for the interview.<br /><br /><strong>Following up</strong><br />Within 24-48 hours after your interview, email or mail a thank-you note that recaps conversation highlights and expresses your continued interest in the position. While it may be tempting to shoot off an email from your phone as soon as the interview ends, it may be best to wait until you get home. That way, you can send the response that night or the next day so you stay fresh in the hiring manager's mind. <br /><br />As cellphones continue improving and becoming more crucial to everyday life, remember that professionalism and good judgment are key to making a good impression on employers. That goes for every part of the job search.<br /><em>Susan Ricker is a writer and blogger for </em><a href="http://www.careerbuilder.com/" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none;"><em>CareerBuilder.com</em></a><em> and its job blog, </em><a href="http://www.theworkbuzz.com/" style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em>The Work Buzz</em></a><em>. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.</em></div>

Job searching in a mobile world

Job searching in a mobile world By Susan Ricker, CareerBuilder Writer Forgot to turn the lights off after you left your house? Your phone ca...

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The Late Late Toy Show!!

<span style="font-size: large;">The Late Late Toy Show is on tonight!!</span><br /><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">If you are Irish, you'll know all about this.  If you are not Irish you may not be aware of this show.  <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late_Late_Show">RTE's Late Late Show</a> is the longest running TV show in Irish TV history (and it is also the longsest running show in the World!!).  It has been presented by 4 presenters Gay Byrne, Pat Kenny, Gerry Ryan (presented 1 show when Pat Kenny's mother died) and is now presented by Ryan Tubridy.  It is broadcast every Friday night and includes interviews with celebrities and light discussions about current affairs along with performances by musicians.....you get the idea!</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Every year on the last Friday in November, the Toy Show version of the Late Late Show is broadcast.  Have a look at the <a href="http://www.rte.ie/ten/2012/1130/latelateshow.html">RTE website</a> for the type of thing that will be on the toy show.  The other thing about the toy show is the Christmas Jumper that is worn by the host who normally wears a suit - there is always big speculation as to how hideous the jumper will be this year!</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It is a tradition for Irish people to stay in and watch the show.  Children are allowed to stay up late for it and adults devise <a href="http://passmeamineral.com/?p=1387">drinking games</a> to make it a bit more watchable!!  My twin sister and I intend to get in to our PJ's, mix up some nice wintery cocktails and enjoy some nibblies while watching the show.  Can't wait!!</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The show can be enjoyed Internationally for the Irish Abroad, RTE will be streaming it live here on the <a href="http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/">RTE Player</a> 9.35pm, Irish time.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">You know the Christmas Season has arrived once you've watched the Toy Show!</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Will you be watching?!!</span></div>

The Late Late Toy Show!!

The Late Late Toy Show is on tonight!! If you are Irish, you'll know all about this.  If you are not Irish you may not be aware of this ...

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feature friday on 6th street design school

Today is an exciting day for me as my little cottage is on <a href="http://6thstreetdesignschool.blogspot.com/2012/11/feature-friday-little-black-door.html" target="_blank">Feature Friday</a> over at <a href="http://6thstreetdesignschool.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">6th Street Design School</a>. Kirsten was one of the first blogs I got hooked on and I've always loved this series. Head on over and <a href="http://6thstreetdesignschool.blogspot.com/2012/11/feature-friday-little-black-door.html" target="_blank">check it out</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxG85IIyzT6uEn1UOnhyphenhyphenWFkaA3k0Pq6uXDmmHma1Yp_sKU8ce8gHP22ISC4nRX12VF9tksHjm4Wz60DB744oXZ14lsI1qc-1hRmg_D3WPasEzxYZwqKaKlJC5Xs_S-ZbFyJkS6-EWwtkac/s1600/kirstenheader.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxG85IIyzT6uEn1UOnhyphenhyphenWFkaA3k0Pq6uXDmmHma1Yp_sKU8ce8gHP22ISC4nRX12VF9tksHjm4Wz60DB744oXZ14lsI1qc-1hRmg_D3WPasEzxYZwqKaKlJC5Xs_S-ZbFyJkS6-EWwtkac/s400/kirstenheader.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />Happy Weekend!

feature friday on 6th street design school

Today is an exciting day for me as my little cottage is on Feature Friday over at 6th Street Design School . Kirsten was one of the first b...

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Charmin Freshmates

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lJ72Sh4wruU/ULiVXxnbDAI/AAAAAAAADcU/pk7PkVCG48A/s1600/bk-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lJ72Sh4wruU/ULiVXxnbDAI/AAAAAAAADcU/pk7PkVCG48A/s320/bk-5.jpg" width="193" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">How clean is clean?!</div>

Charmin Freshmates

How clean is clean?!

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TURKEY'S INTEREST IN EU MEMBERSHIP PLUNGES

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves/> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:DoNotPromoteQF/> <w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/> <w:DontVertAlignCellWithSp/> <w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> <w:Word11KerningPairs/> <w:CachedColBalance/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> <m:mathPr> <m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/> <m:brkBin m:val="before"/> <m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/> <m:smallFrac 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font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style><![endif]--> <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4O3ZRKBV2q0iDGCXtGBjf_n5nR0ElzW7ErqMLMN2U5DpLsJ36tJfet56x2oTEte1dzytPeDVPwm8vNKRpFNicpRjKyYpObMmFkJ3RzCsz1pZsSVZczzUXj1HM-u2M0auHbD41uAEV68nY/s1600/UE_TURK1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4O3ZRKBV2q0iDGCXtGBjf_n5nR0ElzW7ErqMLMN2U5DpLsJ36tJfet56x2oTEte1dzytPeDVPwm8vNKRpFNicpRjKyYpObMmFkJ3RzCsz1pZsSVZczzUXj1HM-u2M0auHbD41uAEV68nY/s400/UE_TURK1.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>THE QUESTION IS DOES TURKEY NEED EU MEMBERSHIP???……. MOST LIKELY NOT</b></span></span></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">In <span style="color: blue;"><b>June 2011 Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring</b> </span>wrote: <span style="color: red;"><b>DOES TURKEY REALLY NEED THE EU</b></span> <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/06/does-turkey-really-need-eu.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/06/does-turkey-really-need-eu.html</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">After more than two decades of trying, TURKEY has all but given up on acquiring membership in the EUROPEAN UNION, where it has faced annual rejections from GERMANY, FRANCE and CYPRUS, which are concerned with EASTERN influences in EUROPE. CYPRIOT opposition stems mainly from GREECE'S position, since much of CYPRUS is under a GREEK-backed government.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Now TURKEY, which for years has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, regards itself as part of modern EUROPE but is exhibiting more of an Islamic government. And it is seriously considering giving up its efforts to join the EU if it hasn't achieved membership by 2023, a decision which could have enormous consequences, especially for EUROPE.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>TURKEY: BRIDGE BETWEEN OXIDANT AND ORIENT?</b></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">As a bridge between East and West, TURKEY, with its Islamic orientation, has sought to be a major influence with other countries of the MIDDLE EAST and CENTRAL ASIA where Ankara had historical impact in its former capacity as the OTTOMAN EMPIRE.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The influence would be essential for EUROPE, which needs TURKEY for continued political and economic trade with the EAST. However, a number of the EUROPEAN countries, most notably FRANCE, are concerned about TURKEY'S government becoming more Islamist. In addition, TURKEY continues to deny that the massive killing in 1915 of ARMENIANS was genocide -- a position to which FRANCE has raised strong objection. </span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">EUROPEAN opposition to TURKEY joining the EU stems from a number of issues. </span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1_7KRky9yZQB6pkOZyrdMUBKCfu-Ao_m8yAhSe8ETmyebybZSCpPQXv2vC_iIuykDNR7YefmMFi9d_m1Y31b9x8RqCDVdSD-GrDTIc3Bnkj129Dm4ksq6DzS8UV-ere5md86-Ns2H4oi/s1600/200px-Turkish_EU_accession_logo.svg_.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1_7KRky9yZQB6pkOZyrdMUBKCfu-Ao_m8yAhSe8ETmyebybZSCpPQXv2vC_iIuykDNR7YefmMFi9d_m1Y31b9x8RqCDVdSD-GrDTIc3Bnkj129Dm4ksq6DzS8UV-ere5md86-Ns2H4oi/s320/200px-Turkish_EU_accession_logo.svg_.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Those concerns included continued restrictions on civil rights, curtailment of freedom of expression, assembly and association. It also revolves around the treatment that the TURKISH government has shown to the KURDS and CHRISTIAN minorities, including journalists.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Reaction from TURKISH officials was immediate. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan complained that the EUROPEANS "probably won't string us along that long (to 2023) but if they do string us along until then the EUROPEAN UNION will lose out, and at the very least they will lose TURKEY."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">For its part, GERMANY, which has the largest TURKISH population in EUROPE, has concerns over the integration of TURKS into GERMAN society and the influx of even more immigrants should TURKEY become an EU member.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Given the resistance of major EUROPEAN powers, there is no clear path for TURKEY'S entry into the EUROPEAN UNION. Turkey is very wary about being drawn into an inter-Islamic conflict, especially in SYRIA. <a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-syrian-policies.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-syrian-policies.html</a>However, mutual interests and opportunities for cooperation exist with the states that surround the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas. The more effectively TURKEY promotes regional stability and also asserts herself in this multi-dimensional world, the less attractive EU membership becomes." </span><br /><br />By F. Michael Maloof<br /><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">See more articles about TURKEY</span></b>: <br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/turkey-iran-great-silk-gold-road.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/turkey-iran-great-silk-gold-road.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/turkeys-foreign-policy-poker-game.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/10/turkeys-foreign-policy-poker-game.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-energy-dependency-on-countries.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-energy-dependency-on-countries.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-erratic-foreign-policies-all.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/08/turkeys-erratic-foreign-policies-all.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkey-and-russia.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkey-and-russia.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkeys-sunni-crescent.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/07/turkeys-sunni-crescent.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/turkey-and-central-asia.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/turkey-and-central-asia.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/turkeys-double-edged-sword-policies-or.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/06/turkeys-double-edged-sword-policies-or.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-shiite-persians-versus-wahhabi.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-shiite-persians-versus-wahhabi.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/china-and-turkey.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/china-and-turkey.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-everyones-enemy.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkey-everyones-enemy.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/cyprus-and-turkey-never-ending-story.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/cyprus-and-turkey-never-ending-story.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkeys-chess-game.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/turkeys-chess-game.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/turkeys-middle-east-chess-game.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/turkeys-middle-east-chess-game.html</a><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/warmongerning-between-israel-and-turkey.html">http://news-these-days.blogspot.com.ar/2011/09/warmongerning-between-israel-and-turkey.html</a>

TURKEY'S INTEREST IN EU MEMBERSHIP PLUNGES

THE QUESTION IS DOES TURKEY NEED EU MEMBERSHIP???……. MOST LIKELY NOT In June 2011 Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring wrote: DOES TURKEY ...

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