Category — America

Electronic Medical Records, Google, and Microsoft
by: Lauren Weinstein – reprinted here with kind permission

Greetings. It’s well known that a significant portion of the Obama administration’s stimulus plans will likely be a major thrust toward electronic medical records. These are touted as reducing errors, creating jobs, and saving money — though it’s arguable if medical consumers are the ones who actually pocket the savings in most cases.

But there are serious concerns about these systems as well — reminding us that exactly the same sorts of problems that tend to plague our other computer-based ecosystems could now start hitting people’s medical records in pretty much the same ways.

Today’s New York Times has an excellent story about privacy and security issues associated with electronic medical records — and the medical industry heavyweights who are trying to water down related provisions in associated and upcoming legislation. A few days ago, AP reported on a range of potentially serious medical errors created by the Veterans Administration’s new electronic medical records system.

Both Google and Microsoft have unveiled electronic medical records systems for users, and are actively seeking partnerships with major medical treatment organizations. While they both promise comprehensive privacy and control by users — in some ways that exceed those mandated by HIPAA privacy requirements, these systems are explicitly not actually covered by HIPAA — though my hunch is that this status is likely to change in the near future.

The key concern with such non-HIPAA medical records systems isn’t their privacy and security at the moment — which as I noted appear to be good at present. Rather, an important aspect of HIPAA is that it represents a set of rules that cannot be arbitrarily changed by the organizations involved. Consumers need to know that the “rules of the game” when it comes to their medical records will not be subject to unilateral alterations on the basis of business conditions or management changes, outside the realm of legislated national rules.

My belief is that electronic medical records in general, and the services like those
from Google and MS in particular, have the potential for significant benefits. I also believe that a massive rush into any of these environments could end up creating a whole new range of problems that could waste money, risk privacy, and in the worst case even cost lives.

I trust that Congress will move with deliberate speed, but not be pressured, in the area of electronic medical health records implementation, and that they will put patients’ rights to privacy, accuracy, security, control, and choice at the top of agenda. A stampede to electronic medical records without due consideration and care would be a very dangerous prescription indeed.

Lauren Weinstein’s Blog

Beautiful photos. Courtesy of: The Big Picture


The tall ships Lady Washington, right, and Hawaiian Chieftain, left, sail on San Francisco Bay, Monday, Oct. 20, 2008. The tall ships arrived from Grays Harbor, Wash., and were on an educational visit to the Bay area. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)


Billy Gernertt, gunner’s mate for the tall ship Lynx, yells, “Live Free or Die!” before firing a dummy charge from its cannon toward the Hawaiian Chieftain during a mock battle on Commencement Bay in Washington State on Friday July 4, 2008. (DREW PERINE/AP)

more: Sailing, around the world

This excellent piece comes via: Green Is The New Red

Detailing “How corporations and politicians turned animal rights activists into terrorists,” it is a must read.

Herbivore Magazine Article on the SHAC 7: “The World Takes? How corporations and politicians turned animal rights activists into terrorists”

Raven Ridge, Colorado

An important way to unravel the Earth’s history is to find and study old rocks that have been turned up and exposed on the surface through the Earth’s tectonic activity. This astronaut photo of Raven Ridge, Colorado, provides a beautiful example of such a place, one that allows geologists to walk across rocks formed about 65 million years ago, a period now known as the boundary between the Cretaceous and Tertiary Periods. The ridge is a dramatic topographic feature in northwestern Colorado formed by layered sedimentary rocks that span this boundary in geologic time. These rocks, originally deposited in a near-shore or marine environment as flat layers, were later tilted on end to an almost vertical position by tectonic forces. The tilted beds are visible in this photo as hard, erosion-resistant ridges of tan, buff, and white rocks, with a softer, gray layer in the center of Raven Ridge (extending from image left to image right).

The Cretaceous-Tertiary (commonly abbreviated as “K-T”) Boundary is most famously known as the geological threshold where dinosaurs—and a large number of other animal and plant species, both terrestrial and marine—disappeared from the fossil record in a mass extinction event 66–65 million years ago. Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain the mass extinction event, the best known being a large meteor impact that sparked widespread climate change. Another hypothesis is that widespread volcanism produced significant climate change that was unfavorable for the existing plants and animals.

The approximate location of the K-T Boundary is depicted in this image as a dotted white line. Rock layers to the south of the line belong to the Tertiary Period (lower half of image), while rocks to the north of the line are part of the Cretaceous and older Periods (upper half of image). A prominent topographic break in the ridgeline, Mormon Gap, provides road access across the ridge. To the northwest of the Gap, alluvial deposits (dark brown in the image) extending southwards from the crest of the ridge likely mantle a pediment surface—a flat, sloping surface of eroded bedrock that extends outward from a mountain front.

courtesy: NASA Earth Observatory

courtesy: Israel Defense Force Spokesperson

We support Israel

A Long Duration Balloon (LDB) is inflated at the facility near McMurdo Station.(Credit: Robyn Waserman, National Science Foundation)

ScienceDaily reports that “NASA and the National Science Foundation have successfully launched and demonstrated a newly designed super pressure balloon prototype that may enable a new era of high-altitude scientific research. The super-pressure balloon ultimately will carry large scientific experiments to the brink of space for 100 days or more.”

full story: New NASA Balloon Successfully Flight-Tested Over Antarctica

via: Dvorak Uncensored

Lockheed Martin’s Secretly Built Airship Makes First Flight

This thing looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy & Michelin Man rolled into one.

GM Futurliner

A terrific piece at SQUOB about; Futurliner: the baddest bus ever? + More great photos.

More information:

Futurliner
GM Futurliner Restoration Project
The General Motors Futurliner: A History

click image to enlarge-Standing stones beneath Lake Michigan?

The BLDGBLOG @ RICE UNIVERSITY reports that “In a surprisingly under-reported story from 2007, Mark Holley, a professor of underwater archaeology at Northwestern Michigan University College, discovered a series of stones – some of them arranged in a circle and one of which seemed to show carvings of a mastodon – 40-feet beneath the surface waters of Lake Michigan.”

If verified, the carvings could be as much as 10,000 years old – coincident with the post-Ice Age presence of both humans and mastodons in the upper midwest.

full story: STONEHENGE BENEATH THE WATERS OF LAKE MICHIGAN

click image to enlarge

click to image to enlarge

In the early morning hours of December 22, 2008, the earthen wall of a containment pond at Tennessee’s Kingston Fossil Plant gave way. The breach released 1.3 million cubic meters (1.7 million cubic yards) of fly ash—a coal-combustion waste product captured and stored in wet form. As fly ash dries, it is typically moved to new containment areas to continue drying, and it was one of these areas, housing dredge cells that facilitate further drying, where the containment wall broke. Some of the sludge traveled north through a valley, and some flowed to the east, where it damaged dozens of homes. The spill infiltrated the Emory River, buried some 120 hectares (300 acres) in sludge, and even knocked a nearby home completely off its foundation.

The Thematic Mapper on NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite captured these images of the Kingston Fossil Plant and its surroundings on November 20, 2008, a month before the spill (bottom), and December 22, 2008, immediately after the spill (top). In these false-color images, water appears blue, and sediment-laden water appears light blue. Vegetation appears green, and bare ground and urbanized areas appear pinkish-brown.

In the November image, walls visibly contain two adjacent slurry ponds at the plant—one in the northwest and one in the southeast—but in the December image, the walls of the northwestern slurry pond have given way. In this image, light blue slurry covers the ground to the north and east of the plant. Sediment also clogs the nearby Emory River, evident from the waterway’s relatively light blue color.

A report released by the Tennessee Valley Authority stated that the plant’s byproducts included arsenic, lead, chromium, manganese, and barium, although tests of drinking water upstream from the plant indicated that the water there was safe to drink. Estimates of the time required to clean up the spill ranged from weeks to years.

Officials suspected that the breach occurred along the northwest corner of the northwest slurry pond. Representatives of the Tennessee Valley Authority cited heavy rains and freezing temperatures in the days leading up to the breach as factors in the incident. A preliminary report of a plant inspection conducted in October 2008 described a wet spot on one retaining wall that might be associated with a leak. The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee scheduled a hearing on the spill for January 2009.

courtesy: NASA Earth Observatory

Thinking Fluidly reported on this earlier here: ASH FLOOD IN TENNESSEE

Ann Edie and her guide miniature horse, Panda, checking out at Staples.-Jeff Riedel for The New York Times

ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT IN A SUBURB of Albany, a group of children dressed as vampires and witches ran past a middle-aged woman in plain clothes. She gripped a leather harness — like the kind used for Seeing Eye dogs — which was attached to a small, fuzzy black-and-white horse barely tall enough to reach the woman’s hip.

“Cool costume,” one of the kids said, nodding toward her.

But she wasn’t dressed up. The woman, Ann Edie, was simply blind and out for an evening walk with Panda, her guide miniature horse.

full story: Creature Comforts

File: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory shows a synthetic image of the Spirit Mars Exploration Rover.

Expectations were far lower when Spirit made a bouncing landing in a cocoon of air bags on Jan. 3, 2004, followed 21 days later by Opportunity: The goal was to try to operate each solar-powered rover for at least three months.

“That’s an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times,” Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a December statement.

These NASA Rovers are damn well built. Maybe NASA should start building cars. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

full story: Mars Rover Meant for 3-Month Mission Still on the Job 5 Years Later

via: Dvorak Uncensored

$1 Trillion To The States ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Governors of five U.S. states urged the federal government to provide $1 trillion in aid to the country’s 50 states to help pay for education, welfare and infrastructure as states struggle with steep budget deficits amid a deepening recession.

The governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin — all Democrats — said the initiative for the two-year aid package was backed by other governors and follows a meeting in December where governors called on President-elect Barack Obama to help them maintain services in the face of slumping revenues.

Where does this nonsense end?!?!?!?!?