Fishing for the Right Words

Words may not trip as lightly off the tongue as we get older, but we can do something about it: Eat salmon.

And tuna. And herring. And lake trout. Here's how eating fish helps give you a silver tongue.

Middle-aged and older adults who have higher blood levels of certain fatty acids -- those found in fatty fish like salmon and tuna -- fare better on verbal fluency tasks compared with their peers who are deficient in fatty acids. It seems to be particularly true for people with artery troubles like hypertension or high levels of unhealthy blood fats. Researchers suspect that people in this group suffer from greater oxidative stress -- which can wreak havoc on memory and other cognitive functions.

Did You Know?

Serving your fish with a side of tropical fruit could help reduce your mercury exposure?

Frequently eating certain kinds of fish may increase a person's exposure to mercury, a toxic substance that fish may absorb from the environment. However, a recent study of women in a fish-eating community revealed that the women who also ate the most tropical fruits had the lowest mercury levels.

Eating fish has heart-healthy benefits. To enjoy fish while minimizing your mercury exposure, limit your consumption of larger, long-lived predatory fish and mammals, which tend to accumulate more mercury from the environment compared to shorter-lived fish. Swordfish, shark, tilefish, king mackerel, red snapper, and orange roughy tend to have the highest mercury levels. Eating antioxidant-rich tropical fruits, such as mango, pineapple, banana, and papaya, also may help reduce the amount of mercury that your body absorbs.

From A Strictly Mathematical Viewpoint

This is a strictly mathematical viewpoint. It goes like this:

What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer
these questions:

If: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

is represented as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

then:

H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K
8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11 = 98%

and

K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E
11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

but,

A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E
1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

and,

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T
2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

EVEN BETTER, look how far ass kissing will take you:

A-S-S-K-I-S-S-I-N-G
1+19+19+11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while Hard Work and Knowledge will get you close, and Attitude will get you there, it's the Bullshit and Ass Kissing that will put you over the top.

Bush, Mideast Wars and End-Time Prophecy

[It's long, but a very important & scary report]

Article here.

The New York Times Newsroom Navigator

NYT Newsroom Navigator

For more than 10 years, the Newsroom Navigator has been used by New York Times reporters and editors as the starting point for their forays onto the Web. Its primary intent is to give the news staff a solid starting point for a wide range of journalistic functions without forcing all of them to spend time wandering around to find a useful set of links of their own. The list is by its nature highly selective and constantly changing. Suggestions are always welcome.

The Future of Paper is the Future of Journalism

By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet

Posted on June 25, 2007, Printed on June 26, 2007

Twenty years from now, paper will no longer be a tool for mass communication. Instead it will be a substance akin to plastic, a mere fabricated building material with industrial and consumer applications. At least, those were the thoughts that ran through my mind when I received a strange news release last week from a Finnish company called VTT, which trumpeted a business model that included developing new products based on what it called "printing technology" and "paper products." VTT has developed a prototype for bioactive paper that responds to enzymes and biomolecules by changing color. One idea is to use it in food packaging or air filters to get an early warning about toxins.

Weird innovations are great, but the most interesting part of this news release was about markets: "The goal is ... to create new business for the paper industry ... to introduce new innovations and market initiatives between the traditional ICT [information communication technology] and paper industries by combining IT, electronics and printing technologies."

Let us parse the high-flown language of commerce. VTT is saying the paper industry needs new markets, and high-tech, bioactive paper will help create them. But why? Obviously, paper has its uses -- there are newspapers, magazines, notepads, and books to be printed! Why worry about making the stuff bioactive when you can just sell it to Random House or Conde Nast? You already know the answer. Print communication is dying out, and with it goes the paper industry. Over the past few months, I've witnessed the two biggest daily papers in my area, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News, announce budget cuts that will slash their staffs by one-quarter. What does that mean for the paper industry? Fewer orders for newsprint.

When Karl Marx wrote that every great historical event occurs twice -- "first time as tragedy, second time as farce" -- I doubt he had print media in mind. And yet the upset of the paper industry feels to me like the joke that comes after the tragedy of print media's fast decline. Don't get me wrong: I'm not one of those people who think that barbarians are storming the gates because anyone can publish their ramblings on MySpace instead of having to get David Remnick's permission to publish their ramblings in the New Yorker. Still, I cannot help but feel wrenchingly bad when I think about what it will be like in the Mercury newsroom after a quarter of the editorial staff has left the building.

I won't miss the paper, but I will miss the journalists.

What's tragic is that print journalism has not tried to diversify its market as methodically as the paper industry has. Right now, VTT is just one of many companies trying to figure out cool new ways to use paper. But who is trying to figure out cool new ways to employ smart, highly trained print journalists? Maybe Dan Gillmor and a few other people running small nonprofits. But mostly, print journalists are having to figure the future out on their own.

Some will do what I've done, gradually moving from print media to online. I've gone from a print zine to an online zine to a weekly newspaper to print magazines to running a blog. This column you're reading is syndicated to both print newspapers and Web sites. Nobody gave me guidance. No slick marketing dude from Finland came in and said, "Hey, maybe you should diversify and start creating bioactive journalism." Instead, I fumbled along on my own, trying to find the most stable place where I could settle down and write for a living. Other journalists won't be as lucky or as willing to change. They may stop writing; they may become shills for the companies they once investigated; they may feel bitter or liberated or panicked. None of them deserve it. Somebody should have helped them get ready for this transition five years ago.

I live in a world where corporations care more about the future of paper than the futures of people who have made their living turning paper into a massive network of vital, important communications. This is not how technological change should work. You cannot discard a person the way you discard a market niche. That's because people revolt. Especially journalists.

Annalee Newitz (annalee@techsploitation.com) is a surly media nerd looking for a few good geek journalists to help her run a blog. Serious nerd experience needed. Inquire within!

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/55162/

Universal Health Care: No Sick Joke

Pro: Cure for the Uninsured

by Katherine Swartz, Harvard School of Public Health

Since 2000, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have risen by an average of 73%. For small firms, they’ve more than doubled. This rapid run-up in costs, plus pressures from an increasingly globalized economy, is causing firms of all sizes to pull back from offering health benefits. In 2000, 67% of nonelderly Americans had employer-sponsored health insurance. Just 63% do today.

Large companies increasingly hire workers on a contingency basis through contract houses, temp agencies, or contracts with self-employed people. This allows companies to reduce the number of workers with benefits. Small firms have always faced higher premiums per person than large firms and so have been far less likely to offer health coverage. Since many are new, they feel especially reluctant to provide a fringe benefit that’s more than doubled in cost in just the last six years.

Moreover, many startups exist as virtual companies: They’re groups of self-employed associates, rather than employees. This means they must find health insurance on their own, which costs even more than employer-group coverage.

For 20 years, the services sector, where small firms are the norm, has generated employment growth in the U.S. This, plus employer resistance to rising premiums, has transformed who’s uninsured. Today, almost 60% of the U.S.’s 46 million uninsured are 19 to 45 years old. Significantly, a quarter of all 25- to 34-year-olds and one-fifth of all 35- to 44-year-olds are uninsured. Both those figures have doubled in the last 25 years.

We need to recognize this sea change and create a universal coverage plan. The real question is: How will we finance it? A starting point is to recognize that universal coverage involves a social compact—and individuals should be required to enroll.

Second, individuals and companies should contribute; firms reap large benefits from having a healthy workforce. The federal government would raise funds to subsidize lower-income households and cover most of the expenses of people with extremely high medical costs. Universal coverage can easily include private health plans. But unless we reconfigure the financing, private health insurance will soon exist only for a fortunate, small minority.

Con: No Right to “Free” Health Care

by Onkar Ghate, Ayn Rand Institute

The cause of the U.S. health-care mess is governmental interference. The solution, therefore, is not more governmental control, whether via nationalized medical insurance or a government takeover of medicine.

Health insurance costs so much today because the government, on the premise that there exists a “right” to health care at someone else’s expense, has promised Americans a free lunch. When a person can consume medical services without needing to consider how to pay for them—Medicare, Medicaid, or the individual’s employer will foot the bill—demand skyrockets. The $2,000 elective liver test he or she would have forgone in favor of a better place to live suddenly becomes a necessity when its cost seems to add up to $0.

As the expense of providing “free” health care erupts accordingly, the government tries to control costs by clamping down on the providers of health care. A massive net of regulations descends on doctors, nurses, insurers, and drug companies. As more of their endeavors are rendered unprofitable, drug companies produce fewer drugs, and insurers limit their policies or exit the industry.

Doctors and nurses, now buried in paperwork and faced with the endless, unjust task of appeasing government regulators, find their love for their work dissipating. They cut their hours or leave the profession. Many young people decide never to enter those fields in the first place.

What happens when demand skyrockets and supply is restricted? The price of medicine explodes. What was once to serve as a free lunch for everyone becomes lunch for no one.

The solution? Remove all controls. Recognize each citizen’s right and responsibility to pay for his or her own health care, and return to insurers the entrepreneurial freedom to come up with innovative products.

True freedom would bring health care into the reach of the average U.S. citizen again—just as it has done for other goods and services, such as computers, cell phones, and food.

Opinions and conclusions expressed in the BusinessWeek Debate Room do not necessarily reflect the views of BusinessWeek, BusinessWeek.com, or The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Create Your Own Radio Station

Pandora


[From their Website]

When was the last time you fell in love with a new artist or song?

At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you'll love - and nothing else.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project©.

Since we started back in 2000, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of fifty musician-analysts has been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.

You can create as many "stations" as you want. And you can even refine them. If it's not quite right you can tell it so and it will get better for you.

The Music Genome Project was founded by musicians and music-lovers. We believe in the value of music and have a profound respect for those who create it. We like all kinds of music, from the most obtuse bebop, to the most tripped-out drum n bass, to the simplest catchy pop tune. Our mission is to help you connect with the music YOU like.