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Liberty ISD bookmobile making stops around the city – Houston … – Chron.com

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Students clamor for books during one of the stops by the Liberty ISD Bookmobile. Students were also served a snow cone to cool them down in the hot sun.

Tom Connelly, Dusty McGee, Superintendent Dr. Cody Abshier and Robert Dunn (the general manager of BJ Ford) helped donate the money to pay for the cost of the graphics on the whimsical bookmobile.

Liberty ISD bookmobile making stops around the city

Little hands count the grape, watermelon, cherry, strawberry, and lime nozzles, yes, they're all there.

A student, inside the bus, shouts "Did someone check the ice?"

All while several straighten the books on the shelves and make ready for their first stop.

Then the adults board and there's a guy who climbs in the driver's seat, the engine cranks up and the vehicle readies for takeoff.

Making turns and thrusting forward, the vehicle slowly makes its way through the streets of Liberty.

And then, to shrills and screams of ecstasy, everyone onboard catches a glimpse of a group of students who are ready to meet the Liberty ISD Bookmobile as it pulls up and parks.

The students, standing in the parking lot, look up to see the smiling face of their superintendent, Dr. Cody Abshier.

The children climb onboard and make their way through the center aisle, scanning the offering of summer reading adventures that will take them away to a fantasy land as they cozy up alone to peruse the pages.

Abshier can't help but smile as he watches and assists the students with selections.

To complement the books they check out, each student is offered a snow cone of their own choice of flavors. Some want a little of all the sweet-flavored syrups. The icy treat hits the spot, especially in the sun-drenched days of the summer.

Then Abshier puts the bookmobile in drive and all aboard wave goodbye to the students until next week.

In years gone by, it was the superintendent as a little boy standing on the curb watching and waiting for the bookmobile to come around.

"They actually sold the books," he remembered, but the memory was etched permanently into his mind and he couldn't wait to figure out a way to do the same for Liberty children.

While the snow cones and seeing the children during the summer are fun and adventurous for Abshier and his colleagues and helpers, there's more to the trips.

Research and studies show that students who read outside of the classroom do well and advance at a faster rate of comprehension.

"We know that we want our students reading, especially during the summer time," the superintendent said, pointing to research by popular education specialist Jim Trelease.

Trelease addresses the concerns of parents who might tend to think their child would be turned off by requiring them to read a book each week.

"Do you require your child to brush his teeth every day? How about changing his underwear or making his bed? Do you worry that such requirements will eventually lead to your grown son giving up teeth-brushing and underwear changes because you 'required' it in his childhood?" Trelease asks.

He writes about a single parent who required her two sons to obtain library cards and read two books a week. Today one is an engineer and the other is a preeminent pediatric brain surgeon, Dr. Ben Carson (yes, the former candidate for president).

Trelease points out huge advantages over rival students for those students committed to summer reading.

Abshier offers his boyhood experience as a game-changer in his own life.

"It was so amazing because it looked like a virtual library on wheels," he said.

Now, he is replicating that same experience for LISD students.

Four years ago, they embarked on the journey taking an old bus and trying to make it work.

"It was primitive, but the kids still came," he said.

The books came from Scholastic Book Warehouse in Houston where the superintendent spent about $1,000 on books for the bookmobile.

"We would load up the bus with the books and when we got to the area where we were going to see children, we would put these old plastic tables across the seats and line the books so the kids could see them and make their choice," he said.

But it was a lot of work.

"It was labor intensive to put all of the books out and then pack them back up when we would leave or they would go all over the bus while we were driving to the next destination or back to the district," Abshier said.

Then Bill Buchanan of KSHN found out and discovered a real bookmobile truck.

They met at the John Deere location in Liberty and found that Mr. Foster had bought a bookmobile that was designed and built by a company as a real bookmobile. It had been taken out of commission and Foster was going to use it as a food truck. But he had a change of heart when he heard Abshier's story.

"He told me he wanted to do something for the kids of Liberty and he sold it to us for practically nothing," Abshier said.

Abshier recruited his guys at the bus barn to get to work on the air conditioner, fixed the generator and it is now fully functional.

"It has three air conditioners," he said proudly, "and the bookmobile has bookshelves and even a desk for the librarian to sit and check out books to the children.

Thus far, they have traveled to a couple of apartment complexes and a trailer park.

This year, he announced that for the first time, they were going to make return trips to some of the locations on a weekly basis.

To promote the bookmobile coming each week, Abshier said they will be placing signs in front of the neighborhood a day or so before to remind parents and students that they will be traversing their way and to watch for them.

In addition to the thirst for more books by the students, the district is placing over-sized mailboxes and attaching them to a 2 x 4 board in a five-gallon bucket of concrete.

"The kids can use them to return the books and look inside to see if there is one they may want to read," all before the bookmobile returns the next week.

Abshier said he is grateful for the help of Jo Ann Gilliland and Julie Pruett, colleagues on the campus of Liberty Elementary School.

In addition to the staff, Abshier has a group of high school and middle school students who show up an hour before the bookmobile rolls to straighten the books, make sure the syrup is ready and there's ice ready for the snow cones.

"Once we get there to the location, they basically run it," Abshier said proudly.

"We just drive the bus and it's neat that the kids want to run it all," he said.

Abshier says they average between 30-40 kids per stop, or sometimes as few as a half dozen or so.

They attract the students with an external speaker system that blares out the 'ice cream favorites' music to alert the children they are near.

"We'll make three or four real slow loops around the neighborhood to let everyone know, particularly if they're inside, that we're there and have free snow cones and books for them to pick out and read," the superintendent said.

The investment, the superintendent said, is paying off and it's a program he hopes to continue every summer.

Here's the list of locations left for the summer:

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 --- Park Place Apartments (3 p.m.)

Thursday, July 13, 2017 --- Lemelle's Sausage Company [Ames] - (12:30 p.m.)

Thursday, July 13, 2017 --- Forest Grand Apartments (3 p.m.)

Tuesday, July 18, 2017 --- San Jacinto Elementary School (10 a.m.) --- Regular Summer School

Tuesday, July 18, 2017 --- San Jacinto Elementary School (1 p.m.) --- Bilingual Summer School

Wednesday, July 19, 2017 --- Park Place Apartments (3 p.m.)

Thursday, July 20, 2017 --- Liberty City Park (12:30 p.m.)

Thursday, July 20, 2017 --- Forest Grand Apartments (3 p.m.)

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 --- San Jacinto Elementary School (10 a.m.) --- Regular Summer School

Tuesday, July 25, 2017 --- San Jacinto Elementary School (1 p.m.) --- Bilingual Summer School

Wednesday, July 26, 2017 --- Park Place Apartments (3 p.m.)

Thursday, July 27, 2017 --- Liberty Municipal Library (11 a.m.)

Thursday, July 27, 2017 --- Forest Grand Apartments (3 p.m.)

Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017 --- Mother of Mercy Catholic Church [Ames]-(12 p.m.)

Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2017 --- Park Place Apartments (3 p.m.)

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017 --- New Work Family Worship Center (11:30 a.m.)

Thursday, Aug. 3, 2017 --- Forest Grand Apartments (3 p.m.)

Liberty ISD bookmobile making stops around the city - Houston ... - Chron.com

Liberty Cycle Bike Shop Owner Wins National Championship – TAPinto.net

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

BERNARDS TWP., NJ - Cyclist Greg Cordasco,Basking Ridge resident and owner ofLiberty Cycle bicycle shop in Basking Ridge, recently won agold medaland a National Cycling Title at the Master's National Track Cycling Championship at the Giordana Velodrome in Rock Hill, S.C.,

Cordascowon thegold medal in the the 2-kilometer individual pursuit on June 29.The event is a race against the clock, and Cordascosaid he bested his closest competition in his age group (55-59) by twoseconds.

Cordasco is a state, regional and, now, a National Champion, with more than25 race wins in his competitive cycling career.

"I've been chasing a National title for many years, and it finally all came together on the day of the event," Cordasco said.

Cordascosaid he was motivated by a little family rivalry.Greg Cordasco's son, Gregory, now 16, has been a cycling National Champion since 2013.

"He reminds me of his title from time to time," Cordasco says. "Well, dad has one now, and I'll have the Stars and Stripes on my uniform for life, too. Like son, like father," he observed.

Through Liberty Cycle, Cordascohas been part of the Basking Ridge community as well as local and larger-scale cycling scene for the past 27 years, and he plans to remain so.

Cordascosaid hewants to help all walks of life enjoy cycling, from a child's first bike to a racing aficionado's high-end racing machine accompanied by coaching and mentoring. Liberty Cycle, at 107 N. Maple Ave., has a registered USA cycling team. The shop also has been involved in itscollectionand repair ofused bikes for children who need bicycles.

"Balancing family, business and running one of the largest, most diverse, and active clubs in the country and doing the necessary training is a real challenge, but with a lot of help from friends and family I was able to reach my goal this year," Cordasco said.

Cordasco said he will continue to run rides from the Liberty Cycle shop, run his Junior Cycling program, promote top-notch cycling events like the Olde Mill Inn Tour of Basking Ridge and the State Bicycle Championships, and compete in area racing. In 2018, Cordasco said hewill be also berunning his 19th cycling trip to Italy.

See the article here:

Liberty Cycle Bike Shop Owner Wins National Championship - TAPinto.net

Misinforming the Majority: A Deliberate Strategy of Right-Wing Libertarians – Truth-Out

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Milton Friedman was a kindred spirit to James McGill Buchanan in terms of a philosophy of deconstruction of the government. (Photo: Wikipedia)

When and how were the seeds sown for the modern far-right's takeover of American politics? NancyMacLean reveals the deep and troubling roots of this secretive political establishment -- and its decades-long plan to change the rules of democratic governance -- in her new book,Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America. Get your copy by making a donation to Truthout now!

Many individuals who follow politics and journalists think that the right-wing playbook began with the Koch brothers. However, in her groundbreaking book, Nancy MacLean traces their political strategy to a Southern economist who created the foundation for today's libertarian oligarchy in the 1950s.

Mark Karlin: Can you summarize the importance of James McGill Buchanan to the development of the modern extreme right wing in the United States?

Nancy MacLean:The modern extreme right wing I'm talking about, just to be clear, is the libertarian movement that now sails under the Republican flag, particularly but not only the Freedom Caucus, yet goes back to the 1950s in both parties. President Eisenhower called them "stupid" and fashioned his approach -- calling it modern Republicanism -- as an antidote to them. Goldwater was their first presidential candidate.He bombed. Reagan, they believed, was going to enact their agenda.He didn't. But beginning in the early 2000s, they became a force to be reckoned with.What had changed? The discovery by their chief funder, Charles Koch, of the approach developed by James McGill Buchanan for how to take apart the liberal state.

Nancy MacLean. (Photo: Viking Books)Buchanan studied economics at the University of Chicago and belonged to the same milieu as F.A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises, but he used his training to analyze public life. And he supplied what no one else had: an operational strategy to vanquish the model of government they had been criticizing for decades -- and prevent it from being recreated. It was Buchanan who taught Koch that for capitalism to thrive, democracy must be enchained.

Buchananwas a very smart man, the only winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics from the US South, in fact. But his life's work was forever shaped by the Supreme Court'sBrown v. Board of Educationdecision. He arrived in Virginia in 1956, just as the state's leaders were goading the white South to fight the court's ruling, a ruling he saw not through the lens of equal protection of the law for all citizens but rather as another wave in a rising tide of unwarranted and illegitimate federal interference in the affairs of the states that began with the New Deal. For him what was at stake was the sanctity of private property rights, with northern liberals telling southern owners how to spend their money and behave correctly. Given an institute to run on the campus of the University of Virginia, he promised to devote his academic career to understanding how the other side became so powerful and, ultimately, to figuring out an effective line of attack to break down what they had created and return to what he and the Virginia elite viewed as appropriate for America. In a nutshell,he studied the workings of the political process to figure out what was needed to deny ordinary people -- white and Black -- the ability to make claims on government at the expense of private property rights and the wishes of capitalists. And then he identified how to rejigger that political process not only to reverse the gains but also to prevent the system from ever reverting back.He sought, in his words, to "enchain Leviathan," which is why I titled the bookDemocracy in Chains.

Why, until your book, has his importance to the right wing been largely overlooked?

There are a few reasons Buchanan has been overlooked. One is that the Koch cause does not advertise his work, preferring to tout the sunnier primers of Hayek, Friedman and even Ayn Rand when recruiting. Buchanan is the advanced course, as it were, for the already committed. Another is that Buchanan did not seek the limelight like Friedman, so few on the left have even heard of him. I myself learned of him only by serendipity, in a footnote about the Virginia schools fight.

His importance to the right wing could only be identified by working through the archival sources that provide context for his published work. That's what I did after discovering that Buchanan had urged the full privatization of Virginia's public schooling in 1959, and then learning that he later advised the Pinochet regime on a capital-protectingconstitution that could withstand the end of the dictatorship. Even with both of those data points, I don't think I could have gleaned the full import of his project had I not moved to North Carolina in 2010, where a strategy informed by his thought has been applied with a vengeance by the veto-proof Republican legislative majority that came to power in the midterms that fall. After Buchanan died in 2013,I was able to get access to his private papers at George Mason University, where the documentation is incontrovertible.

In fact, Buchanan's records provided a kind of birds-eye view into collaboration between the corporate university and right-wing donors that at least I have never seen before, and I've done a lot of research in this area over the last two decades.

How would you draw a line connecting Buchanan to the Koch brothers?

Charles Koch supplied the money, but it was James Buchanan who supplied the ideas that made the money effective. An MIT-trained engineer, Koch in the 1960s began to read political-economic theory based on the notion that free-reign capitalism (what others might call Dickensian capitalism) would justly reward the smart and hardworking and rightly punish those who failed to take responsibility for themselves or had lesser ability. He believed then and believes now that the market is the wisest and fairest form of governance, and one that, after a bitter era of adjustment, will produce untold prosperity, even peace. But after several failures, Koch came to realize that if the majority of Americans ever truly understood the full implications of his vision of the good society and were let in on what was in store for them, they would never support it. Indeed, they would actively oppose it.

So, Koch went in search of an operational strategy -- what he has called a "technology" -- of revolution that could get around this hurdle. He hunted for 30 years until he found that technology in Buchanan's thought. From Buchanan, Koch learned that for the agenda to succeed, it had to be put in place in incremental steps, what Koch calls "interrelated plays": many distinct yet mutually reinforcing changes of the rules that govern our nation.Koch's team used Buchanan's ideas to devise a roadmap for a radical transformation that could be carried out largely below the radar of the people, yet legally. The plan was (and is) to act on so many ostensibly separate fronts at once that those outside the cause would not realize the revolution underway until it was too late to undo it. Examples include laws to destroy unions without saying that is the true purpose, suppressing the votes of those most likely to support active government, using privatization to alter power relations -- and, to lock it all in, Buchanan's ultimate recommendation: a "constitutional revolution."

Today, operatives funded by the Koch donor network operate through dozens upon dozens of organizations (hundreds, if you count the state and international groups), creating the impression that they are unconnected when they are really working together -- the state ones are forced to share materials as a condition of their grants. For example, here are the names of 15 of the most important Koch-funded, Buchanan-savvy organizations each with its own assignment in the division of labor: There's Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Mercatus Center, Americans for Tax Reform, Concerned Veterans of America, the Leadership Institute, Generation Opportunity, the Institute for Justice, the Independent Institute, the Club for Growth, the Donors Trust, Freedom Partners, Judicial Watch -- whoops, that's more than 15, and it's not counting the over 60 other organizations in the State Policy Network. This cause operates through so many ostensibly separate organizations that its architects expect the rest of us will ignore all the small but extremely significant changes that cumulatively add up to revolutionary transformation. Gesturing to this, Tyler Cowen, Buchanan's successor at George Mason University, even titled his blog "Marginal Revolution."

In what way was Buchanan connected to white oligarchical racism?

Buchanan came up with his approach in the crucible of the civil rights era, as the most oligarchic state elite in the South faced the loss of its accustomed power. Interestingly, he almost never wrote explicitly about racial matters, but he did identify as a proud southern "country boy" and his center gave aid to Virginia's reactionaries on both class and race matters. His heirs at George Mason University, his last home, have noted that Buchanan's political economy is quite like that of John C. Calhoun, the antebellum South Carolina US Senator who, until Buchanan, was America's most original theorist of how to constrict democracy so as to safeguard the wealth and power of an elite economic minority (in Calhoun's case, large slaveholders). Buchanan arrived in Virginia just as Calhoun's ideas were being excavated to stop the implementation ofBrown, so the kinship was more than a coincidence. His vision of the right economic constitution owes much to Calhoun, whose ideas horrified James Madison, among others.

And from that kind of thought, Buchanan offered strategic advice to corporations on how to fight the kind of reforms and taxation that came with more inclusive democracy. In the 1990s, for example, as Koch was getting more involved at George Mason, Buchanan convened corporate and rightwing leaders to teach them how to use what he called the "spectrum of secession" to undercut hard-won reforms through measures that have now become core to Republican practice: decentralization, devolution, federalism, privatization, and deregulation.We tend to see the race to the bottom as fallout from globalization, but Buchanan's guidance and the Koch team's application of it through the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Policy Network reveals how it is in fact a highly conscious strategy to free capital of restraint by the people through their governments.

Another way all this connects, indirectly, to oligarchic racism: wanting to keep secessionist thought alive for this practical utility, the billionaire-backed right necessarily gives comfort to white supremacists. A case in point: the Virginia governors who supported the Buchanan-Koch enterprise at George Mason University also promoted a new "Confederate History and Heritage Month." Likewise, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which honors one of Koch's favorite Austrian philosophers, is located in Alabama and led by Llewellyn Rockwell, Jr., a man who has long promoted racist neo-Confederate thought, yet was still thought fit to run the Koch-funded Center for Libertarian Studies. It's thus a mistake to imagine that the Koch and so-called alt-right causes are wholly separate; there's a kind of mutual reinforcement if you understand what Koch learned from Buchanan and how they operated.

As I conclude in the book, as bright as some of the libertarian economists were, their ideas gained the following they did in the South because, in their essence, their stands were so familiar. White southerners who opposed racial equality and economic justice knew from their own region's long history that the only way they could protect their desired way of life was to keep federal power at bay, so that majoritarian democracy could not reach into the region. The causes of Calhoun, Buchanan and Koch-style economic liberty and white supremacy were historically twined at the roots, which makes them very hard to separate, regardless of the subjective intentions of today's libertarians.

What would a society based on Buchanan's principles and goals look like?

Tyler Cowen, the economist who co-presides with Charles Koch over the cause's academic base camp (yes, that Tyler Cowen, host of the most visited academic economics blog), has spelled that out. You might want to sit down to hear what he envisions for the rest of us. He has written that with the "rewriting of the social contract" underway, people will be "expected to fend for themselves much more than they do now." While some will flourish, he admits, "others will fall by the wayside." Since "worthy individuals" will manage to climb their way out of poverty, "that will make it easier to ignore those who are left behind." And Cowen didn't stop there. "We will cut Medicaid for the poor," he predicted. Further, "the fiscal shortfall will come out of real wages as various cost burdens are shifted to workers" from employers and a government that does less. To "compensate," this chaired professor in the nation's second-wealthiest county advises, "people who have had their government benefits cut or pared back" should pack up and move to lower-cost, poor public service states like Texas.

Indeed, Cowen forecasts, "the United States as a whole will end up looking more like Texas." His tone is matter-of-fact, as though he is reporting the inevitable. Yet when one reads his remarks with the knowledge that he has been the academic leader of a team working in earnest with Koch for two decades now to bring about the society he is describing, the words sound more like premeditation. For example, Cowen prophesies lower-income parts of America "recreating a Mexico-like or Brazil-like environment" complete with "favelas" like those in Rio de Janeiro. The "quality of water" might not be what US citizens are used to, he admits, but "partial shantytowns" would satisfy the need for cheaper housing as "wage polarization" grows and government shrinks. Cowen says that "some version of Texas -- and then some -- is the future for a lot of us" and advises, "Get ready."

You conclude your book ironically with a Koch maxim: "playing it safe is slow suicide." How does that apply to those who support a robust, non-plutocratic society?

I ended the book that way because I understand the many pressures that lead people not to act on their anxiety over what they are seeing unfold in Washington and so many states. Union leaders have fiduciary responsibilities that make bold action risky. Nonprofits have boards of directors to answer to. Young faculty must earn tenure. People in public institutions worry about their next appropriations. Parents have to budget their time. And so on. We tell ourselves, "Well, if it were that serious, surely others would be doing something about it." So, I wanted to alert people that what is happening now is radically new -- and designed to be permanent. We may not get another chance to stop it.

Having said that, though, I also believe that panic is the last thing we need. There is great strength to be found in the simple truth thatBuchanan and Koch came up with the kind of strategy now in play precisely because they knew that the majority, if fully informed, would never support what they seek.So, the best thing that those who support a robust, non-plutocratic society can do is focus on patiently informing and activating that majority. And reminding all Americans that democracy is not something you can just assume will survive: It has to be fought for time and again. This is one of those moments.

Go here to read the rest:

Misinforming the Majority: A Deliberate Strategy of Right-Wing Libertarians - Truth-Out

Powell enters race for Libertarian gubernatorial nomination – Miami News Record

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Chris Powell, active in the OKLP since 2000 including a term as chairman, is seeking the state's highest office.

OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma Libertarian Partys most successful candidate to date, Chris Powell, is seeking the nomination for Governor.

Powell, of Bethany, received over 89,000 votes running for county office in 2016, besting Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnsons statewide total of 83,481. He will formally announce at the State Capitol on July 8.

Powell, active in the OKLP since 2000 including a term as chairman, contrasts his greater depth of political experience as compared to the other Libertarian candidates for the states highest office. In regard to those seeking the Republican and Democrat nominations, Powell said, My life is far more representative of the vast majority of Oklahomans than that of the members of the political establishment in those other two parties. I understand the daily problems of regular people in ways those politicians never can.

Powell said he intends to focus on empowering local school boards and teachers, elimination of special interest tax credits, state agency consolidation, criminal justice reform, and working to reduce divisions in the Legislature, all of which will he says will help address ongoing state budget problems.

Each vote I get on Nov. 6, 2018 will be a clear message to every elected state official to put aside partisan differences and enact real solutions for our state, said Powell.

Originally posted here:

Powell enters race for Libertarian gubernatorial nomination - Miami News Record

Libertarian wants end to governments’ ability to profit from fines – Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

By Charles Ashby Sunday, July 9, 2017

When the Colorado Legislature proposed and the governor later signed a bill limiting law enforcements use of civil asset forfeiture laws, police, prosecutors and even some county commissioners hit the roof.

They all said they needed the ability to keep such assets to help them fight crime.

Now, a former Libertarian Party presidential candidate who lives in Littleton wants to take that idea one step further.

Steve Kerbel, who vied to be his partys presidential nominee last year, submitted a proposed ballot measure Thursday that would prevent any Colorado governmental entity from the state on down from keeping any money they collect from fines or penalties.

Kerbels thinking is that most of those fines are not intended to dissuade people from doing bad things, but as a means to enrich governments or pad their ever-shrinking budgets.

Im not saying that every fine is for self-enrichment, but what I am saying is that we have given the government the privilege to enforce laws, and they have abused their authority, Kerbel said.

The goal here is to bring forth judicious enforcement based on the real intent of the law, rather than just taking advantage of the letter of the law.

His proposal, which if approved would be on the 2018 ballot, would not limit or do away with fines, but redirect them.

Instead of the fining agency keeping that money, it first would go to reimburse a victim for any financial losses.

If there is no victim, such as in a speeding incident, the money would go to a charity of the fine payers choice.

That way, the fines and penalties that various courts and governments assess could still be used as a deterrent. They just cant be used to fund a government agency, Kerbel said.

Its really destroyed the entire law and order purpose and perception, he said. Removing that credibility from the actions of government is damaging. With this law, the deterrent remains. The fines are still payable, but the government just cant have them.

Kerbel said what hes really trying to do is to remove a conflict of interest that governments have put upon themselves.

That conflict is inherent in any government agency trying to enforce a law, and then financially benefiting from it.

Sometimes, Kerbel says, a local governments only motivation in assessing fines and penalties is as a major funding mechanism for themselves.

He points to a small town in Colorado called Mountain View, a town in the Denver metropolitan area that is only six blocks long and two blocks wide.

It gets more than 50 percent of its revenues from traffic violations, Kerbel said.

Its highway robbery. They are openly and obviously manipulating the system.

Even though his measure still has a long way to go to qualify for the ballot, Kerbel said hes already been approached by people in other states and even Australia about the idea.

People are fed up with this pure abuse of authority, Kerbel said.

And its become more transparent as the years go by. As that transparency increases, people become even more fed up.

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Libertarian wants end to governments' ability to profit from fines - Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Getting Butthurt in Debates Shouldn’t Prevent Libertarians From Working Together – Being Libertarian

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Theres already plenty of articles about how libertarians shouldnt be as divided as we are and how the infighting will prevent us from making progress, but theres a specific item that I wanted to address in regards to this division between different factions of libertarians.

It has been highlighted to me most recently by the current dispute between some Anarchyball editor, and Jared Howe, and recent debates between anarchists and minarchists. These debates always seem to be end in hurt feelings, or plain ad hominem attacks.

Open borders supporters call closed border supporters fascists, while the latter calls the former communists. Anarchists claim that minarchists need to open their eyes and stop being sheep, while minarchists claim that anarchists are idealists with no real answers.

These are great topics for debate, but libertarians cant let these differences in ideas stop them from the ultimate goal: liberty that consists of individualism, natural rights and property rights.

So, allow me to ask some questions:

Is society at the point yet where it matters if our ideologies lean towards some form of state, or none at all?

Is the welfare state small enough where debating between open or closed borders is relevant?

Are property rights even remotely existent in todays society?

By asking these questions, I am not saying that libertarians shouldnt be having these debates, but it shouldnt become a point of division. Discussions in the theoretical realm of each persons perfect libertarian society can assist in bettering the ideals and maybe converting some to other factions within libertarianism, but the butthurt and shunning needs to cease.

The goals of liberty lovers are so overlapping at this point, because of the massive, intrusive government currently in place, that we should be working together to strip away the power of the state in general.

An anarchist society, minarchist society, or a constitutionalist society will not happen overnight. Libertarians need to think of the long-game, which currently should be about decreasing the amount of regulations, eliminating victimless crime laws, and chipping away at the statist mindset of the general population.

So, lets all fight to end silly regulations within our communities. Lets fight to have marijuana legalized nationwide. Lets fight to create or fund alternatives to government services to demonstrate the inefficiency of the state.

Let us fight for these things and not fight with each other. Until the time comes when it truly matters to debate the amount of government society should have, we should unite.

Thomas Jefferson once said, I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend, and while I may sincerely disagree with anarchists, classical liberals and conservatarians, I still consider each of these liberty-minded individuals a companion and a comrade (and not in the Stalin sense).

The end goal is liberty, and while everyone is going to have a different definition of it, the current predicament in the country should be enough for libertarians to put their differences aside to make some change.

* Luke Henderson is a composer, economics enthusiast and educator in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a budding Libertarian, joining the party in 2016, and has contributed to Being Libertarian and The Libertarian Vindicator, in addition to being an editor for the Libertarian Coalition.

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Getting Butthurt in Debates Shouldn't Prevent Libertarians From Working Together - Being Libertarian

Marshall Islands-based military expert casts doubt on Earhart photo claims – The Japan Times

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

MAJURO, MARSHALL ISLANDS A Marshall Islands-based military expert has cast further doubt on claims that a blurry photograph shows famed U.S. aviatrix Amelia Earhart alive in the territory in 1937.

The fate of the legendary American and her navigator, Fred Noonan, during their round-the-world flight is one of aviations greatest mysteries, and has fascinated historians for decades.

Earhart and Noonan vanished on July 2, 1937, after taking off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, and the prevailing belief is that they ran out of fuel and ditched their twin-engine Lockheed Electra in the Pacific Ocean near remote Howland Island.

But a documentary being aired on the History Channel Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence claims to have unearthed a beguiling new clue about what happened to the pair.

The program suggests that Earhart, who was seeking to become the first woman flier to circumnavigate the globe, and Noonan may have survived and been taken prisoner by Japanese forces.

It cites a blurry black-and-white photograph discovered in the National Archives in Washington, purportedly showing the pair in the Marshall Islands after their capture.

But military expert Matthew B. Holly told AFP the photo appeared to have been taken about a decade earlier.

From the Marshallese visual background, lack of Japanese flags flying on any vessels but one, and the age configuration of the steam-driven steel vessels, the photo is closer to the late 1920s or early 1930s, not anywhere near 1937, he told AFP.

Holly, an American living in Majuro, has spent decades identifying the locations of lost US aircraft and the identities of American servicemen killed in action in the Western Pacific nation.

He added that by January 1937 the Japanese had closed most of Micronesia to foreign vessels, including Marshallese commerce, which is obviously flourishing in this photo.

Additionally, there are no Japanese sailors to be seen.

There is no dispute that the photo shows the dock at Jabor Island in Jaluit Atoll, which was the headquarters for Japans administration of the Marshall Islands between World War I and World War II.

During the 1920s and early 1930s, Japanese businesses flourished on Jaluit, purchasing copra dried coconut flesh used to make coconut oil from Marshall Islanders.

But The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has spent decades trying to figure out what happened to Earhart and Noonan, also disputes that they are the pair in the photo.

Executive director Richard Gillespie previously told AFP the photo was laughable as a piece of evidence.

This is just a picture of some people on Jaluit wharf, he said. Where are the Japanese? Where are the soldiers?

Marshall Islanders have also claimed over the years that Earhart and Noonan survived an emergency landing and were captured by the Japanese.

Two years ago, American investigators additionally said they had located parts of Earharts plane on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

But Holly maintained it was unlikely the photo was taken in 1937.

Generally, there would be a series of photos in the same folder which could have also time-dated the photo, Holly said.

There is no date of 1937 associated with this photo.

See the original post here:

Marshall Islands-based military expert casts doubt on Earhart photo claims - The Japan Times

Amelia Earhart Captured and Killed? New Evidence Debunks History Channel’s Crazy Theory – Daily Beast

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

A new theory about the fate of Amelia Earhart is seriously undermined by evidence obtained by The Daily Beast. The theory, to be aired Sunday in a History Channel documentary, claims that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were rescued by the Japanese after crash landing in the Marshall Islands and then taken to a Japanese prison where they died in captivity.

The pivot of the documentarys case is a photograph, undated, of a wharf at Jaluit Island, one of the scores of atolls that make up the Marshall Islands. A forensic expert who specializes in facial recognition appears in the program to support the claim that Earhart and Noonan are among a group of people on the wharf.

Just beyond the wharf, in the harbor, is a Japanese military vessel identified as the Koshu Maru. The documentary suggests that after this picture was taken Earhart and Noonan were arrested and taken aboard the Koshu Maru and that a barge alongside contained the remains of their Lockheed Electra airplane.

According to the documentary, it is likely that the Koshu Maru then sailed for the island of Saipan where the two Americans were imprisoned and then killed.

The role of the Koshu Maru (maru means ship in Japanese) is therefore crucial to the theory that Earhart and Noonan are, indeed, the people in the photograph.

However, in 1982 a Japanese author and journalist, Fukiko Aoki, published a book in Japanese, Looking for Amelia. She found a surviving crewmember of the Koshu Maru, a telegraphist named Lieutenant Sachinao Kouzu. He told her that, like other Japanese ships in the western Pacific, they were told that Earhart had disappeared while over the ocean and were alerted to look out for any sign of the airplane and, if they did, seek to rescue Earhart and Noonan.

After a few days, said Kouzo, the alert was dropped. At no time did anyone on Koshu Maru set eyes on the Americans, alive or dead.

Aoki told The Daily Beast that her interest in the Earhart story was sparked when she read a story about four Japanese meteorologists who were assigned to a weather station on Greenwich Island in the South Pacific. As soon as they arrived at the station early in July 1937, they received a government message to look out for the aviators and, if they saw them, to organize a rescue operation. They saw nothing.

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart looks so different from the Japanese and American sides, Aoki told The Daily Beast. One of the weathermen, an old guy called Yoneji Inoue, protested against the theory that Amelia was captured and executed by the Japanese. I wanted to find out what really happened. I found and checked the log of the Koshu Maru, but of course I couldnt find any description of the capture of Amelia Earhart.

Aoki later moved to New York where she became bureau chief for the Japanese edition of Newsweek. She has written 12 books. Looking for Amelia was republished as a paperback in 1995 but only in Japanese.

The four meteorologists were taken to Greenwich Island on the Koshu Maru, arriving on July 3, the day after Earhart disappeared. Greenwich Island is now named Kapingamaranji,and is 1,500 miles from the Marshall Island where the photo supposedly of Earhart was taken, which means that the vessel was nowhere near the Marshall Islands at the crucial time.

As Aokis research indicates, the assumption that the Japanese military was under orders to arrest and quietly kill Earhart and Noonan them shows little understanding of what was happening in the Pacific at the time.

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The war in the Pacific didnt begin with Pearl Harbor. It began on July 7, 1937, five days after Earhart disappeared, when a minor clash between Japanese and Chinese troops near Beijing suddenly turned into all-out war between the two nations.

The last thing the Japanese needed was to inflame American opinion by murdering the worlds most-famous woman. Although they had a formidable air force and navy the Japanese were distracted by Soviet Russias claims to Japanese islands and at that time they also feared American naval power in the Pacific. America, in turn, wanted no part of the war in China.

Just how anxious both the U.S. and Japan were to avoid conflict was revealed by an incident in December 1937. An American gunboat, the USS Panay, that was allowed to patrol the Yangtze River by international agreement, was called in to evacuate staff from the U.S. embassy in Nanking, as well as some international journalists as the Japanese carpet-bombed the city.

The Panay sailed upriver to what the captain thought would be a safe refuge and anchored alongside other boats laden with Chinese refugees.

But a swarm of Japanese bombers attacked all the boats, including the Panay. Two U.S. crewmen and an Italian journalist were killed. The Japanese claimed that the attack was an accident. President Roosevelt was so anxious that the bombing should not lead to calls for retaliation that he censored newsreel footage. The Japanese, alarmed that they might have awakened a sleeping tiger, paid $2.2 million in compensation.

Then there is how the Japanese treated Charles Lindbergh.

In August 1931, he flew from Alaska across the Bering Sea to Japan in a seaplane with his wife Anne. Thick fog forced Lindbergh to make a blind landing using only his instruments. After touchdown, with the engine shut down, the airplane drifted dangerously close to rocks and was rescued by a Japanese boat that towed them to a safe harbor.

When they reached Tokyo the Japanese gave the Lindberghs a welcome that one newspaper said was one of the greatest demonstrations ever seen in the ancient capital.

As for Earhart, there was no military intelligence value to the Japanese in getting their hands on her Lockheed Electra. The Electra was widely used by airlines across the world and held no technological secrets. By 1937 the Japanese were mass-producing a Mitsubishi bomber so far superior to the similarly-sized Electra that when it was converted to an airliner it flew a record-breaking round-the-world flight.

The theory that Earthart crash landed in the Marshall Islands is not supported by the basic rules of geography and navigation. It rests on the idea that, once Earhart realized she had missed a scheduled rendezvous with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on tiny Howland Island, she reversed direction.

The Marshall Islands are 800 miles northwest of Howland Island, way beyond the range of the Electra as it was running low on gas at the end of a long leg from Papua New Guinea, over the Pacific.

Her only option was to look for a landing place that was much closer and, ideally, ahead of her rather than far behind.

Her last message to the cutter was at 8:43 a.m. on July 2. It was that she was flying on a line of 157 337 that is, the southeasterly course from her starting point that intersected Howland Island. Because of an unexplained problem with the Electras radio, the cutter could receive her messages but she couldnt receive the replies.

As a result, in the 80-year search for Earhart there is nothing to go on to point to her final position beyond what was in that radio transmission. Yet on the basis of that one transmission we arrive at the next most prominent theory about Earharts fate.

This takes us to an atoll named Nikumaroro Island, 350 miles southeast of Howland Island, and to Ric Gillespie, chief executive of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, TIGHAR.

Gillespie is the best funded and most persistent of all Earhart hunters. Since 1989 he has directed 12 expeditions to Nikumaroro, partly funded by National Geographic, and each expedition follows the same pattern: advance publicity that garners a gullible audience and funds, followed by negligible results, some bordering on the ludicrous.

Gillespie gave scientific credence to his theory by analyzing 120 reports of radio traffic in the area of Nikumaroro at the time and deciding that 57 messages were possibly transmitted from the Electra, beginning three hours after the final transmission picked up by the Coast Guard cutter.

To believe this demands two leaps of faith or, more likely, of the imagination. The first is that Earhart managed to land on the atoll and the second is that she did so with such skill that her radio remained able to operate.

Such a landing would have required a near miraculous feat of airmanship. Nikumaroro is a typical coral atoll sitting atop a volcano with a rocky reef looping around a lagoon with only a tiny appendage of flat surface. And although she did not lack courage, Earhart was not a pilot of natural intuitive skills, like Lindbergh, and the Electra was an unforgiving machine in a marginal situation like this.

Earhart, under the stress of knowing that her fuel was running out, would have had to align her approach over water at a shallow angle and make a finely-judged touchdown with no margin of error. Landing on an aircraft carrier would be much easier.

For the radio signal theory to have any credence the airplane then had to remain undamaged by water for days.

For a fraction of the money that TIGHAR has invested and is still investing in its expeditions they could have commissioned a computer program to simulate the landing. All the necessary data about the handling characteristics of the Electra and the probable weather and sea conditions at the time are available. The trouble is, of course, that this would prove the impossibility of the idea.

Gillespie was, not surprisingly, dissed when told of the History Channel revelation about the Marshall Islands.

This is just a picture of a wharf at Jaluit with a bunch of people, its just silly, he said.

This happened when Gillespie had just sent another expedition to Nikumaroro, this time including four sniffer dogs trained by the Institute for Canine Forensics. The dogs arrived wearing life vests when the temperature was more than 100 degrees. They were looking for human remains the latest spin of the theory being that Earhart and Noonan had perished there.

The Earhart saga will go on providing endless fuel for lovers of the classic vanishing airplane narratives. People in the grip of a pet theory will go to great lengths to believe in that theory on the thinnest evidence. Gillespie, for example, seized on the discovery of a jar of 1930s ointment for the treatment of freckles found in the waters near Nikumaroro as evidence that Earhart, famously freckled, had made it to the island.

Freckles would not have been of much concern as Earhart planned her flight. Nothing that was not essential was carried in the Electra. She was piloting what was virtually a flying gas station. In place of passenger seats the airplane was stuffed with six large extra gas tanks and had another six in the wings, as well as having to carry 80 gallons of oil for its hot-running supercharged engines.

There is, to be sure, no reason to stop looking for Earhart, Noonan and the Electra. The odds are that after a desperate search for land they ended up, out of fuel, ditching into the ocean, and then plunged as far as 17,000 feet down to the bottom of the ocean. They most certainly didnt die in a Japanese prison.

See the article here:

Amelia Earhart Captured and Killed? New Evidence Debunks History Channel's Crazy Theory - Daily Beast

Walter Williams: Colleges: Islands of Intolerance – LubbockOnline.com

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Is there no limit to the level of disgusting behavior on college campuses that parents, taxpayers, donors and legislators will accept? Colleges have become islands of intolerance, and as with fish, the rot begins at the head. Lets examine some recent episodes representative of a general trend and ask ourselves why we should tolerate it plus pay for it.

Students at Evergreen State College harassed biology professor Bret Weinstein because he refused to leave campus, challenging the schools decision to ask white people to leave campus for a day of diversity programming. The profanity-laced threats against the faculty and president can be seen on a YouTube video titled Student takeover of Evergreen State College

What about administrators permitting students to conduct racially segregated graduation ceremonies, which many colleges have done, including Ivy League ones such as Columbia and Harvard universities? Permitting racially segregated graduation ceremonies makes a mockery of the idols of diversity, multiculturalism and inclusion, which so many college administrators worship. Or is tribalism part and parcel of diversity?

Trinity College sociology professor Johnny Eric Williams recently called white people inhuman and he added another word that is unprintable. In the wake of the Alexandria, Virginia, shooting at a congressional baseball practice, Williams tweeted, It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be white will not do, put (an) end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system. #LetThem-Die

June Chu, dean of Pierson College at Yale University, recently resigned after having been placed on leave because of offensive Yelp reviews she had posted. One of her reviews described customers at a local restaurant as white trash and low class folk; another review praised a movie theater for its lack of sketchy crowds. In another review of a movie theater, she complained about the barely educated morons trying to manage snack orders for the obese.

Harvey Mansfield, a distinguished Harvard University professor who has taught at the school for 55 years, is not hopeful about the future of American universities. In a College Fix interview, Mansfield said, No, Im not very optimistic about the future of higher education, at least in the form it is now with universities under the control of politically correct faculties and administrators.

Once Americas pride, universities, he says, are no longer a marketplace of ideas or bastions of free speech. Universities have become bubbles of decadent liberalism that teach students to look for offense when first examining an idea.

Who is to blame for the decline of American universities? Mansfield argues that it is a combination of administrators, students and faculties. He puts most of the blame on faculty members, some of whom are cowed by deans and presidents who dont want their professors to make trouble.

I agree with Mansfields assessment in part. Many university faculty members are hostile to free speech and open questioning of ideas. A large portion of todays faculty and administrators were once the hippies of the 1960s, and many have contempt for the U.S. Constitution and the values of personal liberty.

The primary blame for the incivility and downright stupidity we see on university campuses lies with the universities trustees. Every board of trustees has fiduciary responsibility for the governance of a university, shaping its broad policies. Unfortunately, most trustees are wealthy businessmen who are busy and arent interested in spending time on university matters. They become trustees for the prestige it brings, and as such, they are little more than yes men for the university president and provost. If trustees want better knowledge about university goings-on, they should hire a campus ombudsman who is independent of the administration and accountable only to the board of trustees.

The university malaise reflects a larger societal problem. Mansfield says culture used to mean refinement. Today, he says, it just means the way a society happens to think, and theres no value judgment in it any longer.

For many of todays Americans, one cultural value is just as good as another.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. His column is distributed by Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045.

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Walter Williams: Colleges: Islands of Intolerance - LubbockOnline.com

Love Island’s Jessica Shears and Dominic Lever reveal they are in love and planning to move in together as they make … – The Sun

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

The couple are already plotting their future

LOVE Island stars Jessica Shears and Dominic Lever have revealed they are in love and planning to move in together after making their relationship official.

The couple have been spending a lot of time together since they reunited outside of the villa and they have now told fans they are planning a future together.

ITV

The stars opened up about their romance on spin-off show Aftersun tonight and they made a big admission as they told host Caroline Flack they are in love.

Dom also revealed they are planning to move in together.

When asked about their relationship status, he said: Its official we are girlfriend and boyfriend.

When Caroline pressed him about the L word and whether it means they are in love, he added: It does.

I completed love island.

Dom is currently based in Manchester and Jess is in Devon, but they are now planning to buy a house and rent a flat together.

ITV

He added: Were going to buy in Manchester and rent in London

We need bases.

It was an emotional episode for the stars as it also showed them having a confrontation over Jess romp withMike Thalassitis.

Jess insisted all she did in the hotel room with Mike was talk and slather on face masks but fans dont believe her.

Some demanded the pair go on Jeremy Kyle for a lie detector test.

ITV

The Sun Online exclusively revealed that Jess and Mike had a night of passion at a hotel after they were given the boot from the show.

Dom was left outraged by the news, and he finally confronted her about the romp on spin-off show Aftersun tonight.

Jess denied she had sex with Mike, insisting they just put face masks on and sat on the hotel room bed talking about life in the villa.

She said: "Literally, we just sat there with face masks on, chatted about the villa and went to bed."

Mike also insisted they didn't have sex during their night of passion, saying: "He's lucky that I didn't try to stick it on her."

Dom decided to believe their story, but many viewers were convinced the pair were not telling the truth about the saucy night.

ITV

One viewer wrote: "Take mess in Jeremy Kyle for a lie detector test #LoveIsland."

Another tweeted: "Still don't believe Jess and Mike."

The Sun Online exclusively revealed that Jess beddedDom's rival Mike Thalassitis just hours after being dumped from the show.

They had sex at a hotel, and devastated Dom even stormed out of the villa when he heard about the betrayal.

He was overwhelmed with emotion when he asked her about her romp with Mike, saying: "How did you do that?"

Dom breaks down as he says: "There's so much going on in me head.

Mike insisted Dom should be glad he 'didn't stick it on Jess'

"I just want to hear from you, what's the deal with the pictures of you coming out of a hotel with Mike?

"I knew something was up."

Jess then says: "Honestly, don't," before Dom continues: "First it was anger, then it was just betrayal I suppose.

"How did you do that?...

"Do you know what I don't get is how you were mates with him when you didn't like him in the villa."

After their romp,Jess and Mike were reunitedas they appeared on This Morning together - and they looked closer than ever.

The Sun Online went on to reveal they were "all over each" other backstage at the show shortly before Jess reunited with Dom.

They were spotted spending the night together at a London hotel and they have been inseparable ever since.

Originally posted here:

Love Island's Jessica Shears and Dominic Lever reveal they are in love and planning to move in together as they make ... - The Sun

People’s Republic of China continues to support the Pacific Islands Forum – Loop PNG

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

The money was handed over to Forums Secretary General, Dame Meg Taylor last week.

During the handover, the SG thanked China for their ongoing support through the fund and strong relationship between China and Pacific.

Id particularly like to thank you for the ongoing support to the Pacific Trade and Invest (PTI China) office in Beijing. The trade relationships we have with China are very important and the work of this office continues to help in their development, she said.

Chinas Ambassador, Zhang Ping said China attached great importance to the relationship with Pacific Islands and cooperation and looks at extending this in future.

China always attaches great importance to the relationship with Pacific Island Countries, and looks forward to further enhancing the bilateral dialogue, exchanges and cooperation in various fields and persists to provide assistance and aid within its capacity, said Ambassador Ping.

We sincerely welcome the Pacific Island Countries participation in the cooperation of Belt and Road Initiative to realise common development through win-win cooperation, he added.

The China-PIF Cooperative Fund was established in 2000 to support trade, investment, tourism and personal exchange between China and Forum countries.

One of the key initiatives under the fund is PTI China which works closely with Forum Country Embassies in Beijing to develop and strengthen networks between Pacific businesses and Chinese markets.

Trade statistics released by PTI China last year showed that the fourteen Forum Island Countries exported US$2.5 billion worth of goods to China in 2015, up from US$2 billion in 2014.

Chinas exports to the Forum Island Countries in the same year doubled from US$2.5 billion in 2014 to US$5 billion.

The Fund also enabled the China-PIFS Regional Scholarship Scheme which doubled its intake last year and has seen more than 80 students study a wide range of subjects recently.

The subjects include engineering, international law, medicine, information & communications technology, agriculture, and commerce in Chinese institutions.

The handover follows the trip to China earlier this year by the Secretary General during which she met with Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi.

Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed that China stood ready to support Pacific Island Countries and encouraged them to take up the opportunities offered by its Belt and Road strategy for economic and people to people cooperation.

China has been a Dialogue Partner of the Forum since 1990.

Link:

People's Republic of China continues to support the Pacific Islands Forum - Loop PNG

Sport: Fiji netballers impress as illness bugs Cook Islands – Radio New Zealand

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Fiji are a step closer to the knockout rounds after their second straight win at the Netball World Youth Cup in Botswana.

The Baby Pearls thrashed Trinidad and Tobago 55-28 in their tournament opener and backed it up with a comprehensive 48-35 victory over Wales on Monday at the UB Indoor Sports Arena.

Meanwhile the Cook Islands lost their second match against hosts Botswana as they continue to be hampered by a gastro bug that swept through the squad on their arrival in Gaborone.

The Baby Black Pearls had let a five goal advantage slip in a 43-41 defeat by Jamaica at the weekend and led briefly this morning before the home side ran out 51-41 winners in front of a vocal home crowd.

The Cook Islands squad pushed Jamaica close despite suffering from a gastro bug. Photo: Facebook / Netball Cook Islands

Head coach John Glassie said nine of their 12 players have been hit with the bug, which has been lingering for more than a week.

He said the team have moved accommodation in recent days, which has helped, and are monitoring closely what food the players are eating.

"It's still a bit there, a few of the players are still suffering from it but we've been trying to deal with it," he said.

"We ran out of medication after like four days so we've been going to the event doctors getting more medication every couple of days.

"So the girls are getting better but obviously not being able to hold your food down and that sort of thing does play a part in preparation so that's why these physical games are taking such a toll out of the players."

Photo: Netball World Youth Cup

While his team was far from 100 percent, John Glassie acknowledged the role played by the raucous home fans, who helped inspire their team to victory.

"With Botswana the major factor there would have been crowd and after seeing briefly the live footage it's hard to comprehend how loud the crowd actually is.

"Just being able to talk to the players and that sort of thing - we're trying to yell out during the breaks - and even talking to my assistant coach next to me we had to yell at each other because it was deafening."

"They had a great support from their home-based crowd and it really did make a difference. The girls said it was very hard to concentrate it was so loud, it was deafening at some stages."

"Botswana, they're actually used to that sort of cheering and that loud vocal support whereas our crowd wouldn't have played in anything quite as hostile or even half as loud as that - something we tried to plan for but it's very hard to adjust to that sort of thing."

Meanwhile Samoa were thrashed 85-33 by defending champions New Zealand in their first match and Australia produced the most lopsided result to date, thumping Singapore 119-12.

See the rest here:

Sport: Fiji netballers impress as illness bugs Cook Islands - Radio New Zealand

2 GOP senators suggest bill to repeal health care law ‘dead …

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

The initial GOP bill to repeal and replace the nation's health law is probably "dead" and President Donald Trump's proposal to just repeal it appears to be a "non-starter," two moderate Republican senators indicated Sunday as their party scrambled to salvage faltering legislation.

"We don't know what the plan is," said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. "Clearly, the draft plan is dead. Is the serious rewrite plan dead? I don't know."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said it may now be time for Republicans to come up with a new proposal with support from Democrats.

"I think my view is it's probably going to be dead," McCain said of the GOP bill. If Democrats are included, he said, it doesn't mean "they control it. It means they can have amendments considered. And even when they lose, then they're part of the process. That's what democracy is supposed to be all about."

Signaling his pessimism as well, Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote on Twitter late Saturday that Republicans will lose their Senate majority if they don't pass health care legislation. The Iowa Republican said the party should be "ashamed" that it hasn't been able to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

"WE WONT BE ASHAMED WE WILL GO FROM MAJORITY TO MINORITY," he tweeted.

The White House, anxious for a legislative victory on health care, insisted that it fully expects a GOP repeal and replace bill to pass in the coming weeks that will fulfill Trump's pledge to end Obamacare. Democrats have ruled out negotiating with Republicans unless they work to fix the law, not repeal it.

"Whether it'd be before August recess or during August recess, the president expects the Senate to fulfill the promises it made to the American people," said White House chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Trump used Twitter Sunday afternoon to urge Republicans to follow through on their pledge to get rid of the health care law pushed by his predecessor.

"For years, even as a "civilian," I listened as Republicans pushed the Repeal and Replace of ObamaCare. Now they finally have their chance!," Trump said in a tweet.

At least 10 GOP senators have expressed opposition to the initial bill drafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Republicans hold a 52-48 majority and Democrats stand united against the bill, meaning that just three GOP defections will doom it. The weeklong July 4 recess only raised more doubts among senators as many heard from constituents angry about the GOP bill and the prospect of rising premiums.

McConnell last week said he would introduce a fresh bill in about a week scuttling and replacing much of former President Barack Obama's health care law. But McConnell also acknowledged that if the broader effort fails, he may turn to a smaller bill with quick help for insurers and consumers and negotiate with Democrats.

Cassidy, an uncommitted senator who encountered upset voters this month at a Baton Rouge town hall, rated the chances of Republicans passing broader legislation in the next three weeks at "50-50." He cited questions about the impact on coverage and cost in a revised conservative plan being circulated by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Cruz's plan, which aims to lower premiums for healthy people, has drawn support from the White House and some conservatives in the House, which would have to approve any modified bill passed by the Senate. But his proposal has limited appeal to Republican moderates such as Grassley, who told Iowa Public Radio that it may be "subterfuge to get around pre-existing conditions."

Cruz on Sunday sought to dismiss Grassley's criticism as a "hoax" being pushed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, insisting that people will be able to get the coverage they need at an affordable price. Cruz cast his plan as a compromise to unify the party on a GOP health bill.

"When it comes to repealing Obamacare, what I think is critical is that Republicans, we've got to honor the promise we made to the voters that millions of Americans are hurting under Obamacare," Cruz said.

"In my view failure is not an option," he said.

The growing skepticism among Senate Republicans spurred Trump earlier this month to suggest repealing the Obama-era law right away and then replacing it later, an approach that GOP leaders and the president himself considered but dismissed months ago as impractical and politically unwise.

Cassidy cautioned that if senators are unable to reach agreement by the end of July then a "repeal-only" bill would be a non-starter. Echoing McConnell, Cassidy said Republicans may have to pass legislation instead to stabilize the insurance markets.

"I do think we have to do something for market stabilization, otherwise people who are paying premiums of $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 will pay even that much more," he said.

Cassidy and Priebus appeared on "Fox News Sunday," Cruz spoke on ABC's "This Week" and CBS' "Face the Nation," and McCain also was on CBS.

Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

2 GOP senators suggest bill to repeal health care law 'dead ...

Bernie Sanders: ‘I beg Senator McConnell to listen’ on health care – USA TODAY

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Scott Wartman, The Cincinnati Enquirer Published 9:45 p.m. ET July 9, 2017 | Updated 9:45 p.m. ET July 9, 2017

Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered a speech on the Senate floor last night regarding Republicans' health care plan, June 20, 2017. Courtesy Office of Sen. Bernie Sanders

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a "Care Not Cuts" rally in support of the Affordable Care Act, Sunday, July 9, 2017, in Covington, Kentucky.(Photo: AP Photo/John Minchillo)

COVINGTON, Ky. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders hoped to draw big crowds in Covington Sunday.

More than 2,000 people showed up at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center, including the Covington Mayor, who introduced Sanders, I-VT.

Sanders and the crowd wanted to send a message to Republicans, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in his home state.

That message: Don't destroy the Affordable Care Act.

Sanders lambasted the proposed Republican health care bill that would repeal the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

John McCain: GOP health care bill likely 'dead'

Average premiums could rise 74% by 2020 if Trumpcare passes

"I beg Sen. McConnell to listen to the organizations at the forefront of medicine who oppose this disastrous legislation," Sanders said on Sunday.

Sanders flew to Northern Kentucky after headlining a similar rally earlier on Sunday in Morgantown, W.Va.

The crowd lined up for blocks outside the convention center. Many had earlier in the day linked hands across the Roebling Suspension Bridge in support of the ACA and in opposition to the Republican Health Care Plan.

Megan Meyer and her daughter Maya, 6, traveled five hours from their home in Cadiz, Ky.

Maya proudly held a sign aloft saying, "Even I know this is NOT normal!!"

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., arrives to speak during a "Care Not Cuts" rally in support of the Affordable Care Act, Sunday, July 9, 2017, in Covington, Kentucky(Photo: AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Meyer said she didn't have health insurance until the Affordable Care Act. She works for herself refinishing floors and catering.

She believes the demonstration and Sanders' speech on Sunday were worth the five-hour drive.

"I think it's already had an impact the way we've seen people resisting in the streets," Meyer said. "Republicans are nervous."

Was their message heard by Republicans? Before the event, the Republican Party of Kentucky sent a defiant message.

"Senator Sanders' visit is just more proof that the leaders of the Kentucky Democratic Party are continuing to move their party away from Kentucky families and towards coastal liberal elites," RPK spokesman Tres Watson said in a statement.

Covington Mayor Joe Meyer welcomed Sanders to the stage. Interim city manager Loren Wolff prior to that gave an emotional speech about how the Affordable Care Act helped her son, William, get a kidney transplant.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to 2,000 people in Covington on Sunday(Photo: Scott Wartman/The Enquirer)

The crowd erupted as Sanders took the stage to give a 46-minute speech. He took aim at billionaires frequently and criticized the tax breaks the Republican bill would give them.

We will not allow 22 million to be thrown off health insurance in order to give $500 billion in tax breaks to the top two percent, Sanders said.

The loudest applause came when Sanders repeated his pledge to introduce a bill that would give the U.S. a single-payer health care covering everyone under Medicare.

Republicans have criticized a single-payer "Medicare-for-all" system they have claimedwould cost $32 trillion over a decade.

The average family would save more in health care costs to make up for the rise in taxes to pay for his proposed health care system, Sanders told The Cincinnati Enquirer last week.

"Would taxes go up? The answer is yes," Sanders said. "But for the middle-class family, they would be better off because of their outrageously high health care costs would go down."

Sanders pledged to defeat the Republican health care bill.

The bill currently in the U.S. Senate is a moral outrage and together we will defeat it, Sanders said as he stepped away from the podium to raucous applause.

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Why is the Republican health care bill taking so long? Some didn't think Trump had a shot at winning. Buzz60

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Bernie Sanders: 'I beg Senator McConnell to listen' on health care - USA TODAY

Two Republican senators declare bid to repeal health care law ‘dead’ – Fox News

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Two Republican lawmakers admitted Sunday the initial GOP bill to repeal and replace the nations health law is probably dead and President Trumps proposal to solely repeal it appears to be a non-starter.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a televised interview on CBS it may now be time for Republicans to come up with a new proposal with support from Democrats.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La, speaking on Fox News Sunday, told Chris Wallace We dont know what the plan is. Clearly, the draft plan is dead. Is the serious rewrite plan dead? I don't know."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, signaled pessimism as well. He wrote on Twitter late Saturday that Republicans will lose their Senate majority if they dont pass health care legislation. Grassley added the party should be "ashamed" that it hasn't been able to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Trump used Twitter Sunday afternoon to urge Republicans to follow through on their pledge to get rid of the health care law pushed by his predecessor.

"For years, even as a "civilian," I listened as Republicans pushed the Repeal and Replace of ObamaCare. Now they finally have their chance!," Trump said in a tweet.

Sen. Ted Cruzs plan, which aims to lower premiums for healthy people, has drawn support from the White House and some conservatives in the House, which would have to approve any modified bill passed by the Senate. But his proposal has limited appeal to Republican moderates such as Grassley, who told Iowa Public Radio that it may be "subterfuge to get around pre-existing conditions."

"In my view failure is not an option," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Two Republican senators declare bid to repeal health care law 'dead' - Fox News

Single-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems – The Hill

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Democrats are increasingly committing to support single-payer healthcare, amid Republican attacks on ObamaCare and pressure from their partys left-wing base.

What was once considered only a progressive talking point has gained traction as more Democratic candidates have been willing to embrace government-funded healthcare on the campaign trail and more House members have been signing onto the idea.

Single-payer isnt just being discussed in liberal enclaves of the country like California, where a single-payer measure recently fell short in the state Assembly. Its a hot topic in Speaker Paul RyanPaul RyanSingle-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems GOP chairman proposes new sanctions on Russia for violating arms treaty Ryan says he won't do public town halls citing concerns over possible protests MOREs (R-Wis.) Republican-leaning district, where all the Democratic candidates running in the primary have supported it.

Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersSingle-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems The Hill's 12:30 Report In Woodrow Wilson fashion, here are 14 points for ObamaCare repeal MORE (I-Vt.) championed the idea of universal healthcare during his insurgent presidential campaign, and hell introduce his single-payer plan once the debate over ObamaCare ends.

Other senators such asElizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenSingle-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems In Woodrow Wilson fashion, here are 14 points for ObamaCare repeal Warren: Ethics director's resignation 'deeply unnerving' MORE (D-Mass.) and Kirsten GillibrandKirsten GillibrandSingle-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems Senate Democrats: ObamaCare repeal fight isn't over yet Bipartisan senators seek to boost expertise in military justice system MORE (D-N.Y.), two potential 2020 contenders are getting on board with a Medicare for All proposal. Sen. Tammy BaldwinTammy BaldwinSingle-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems Major progressive group rolls out first incumbent House endorsement Dems push for more action on power grid cybersecurity MORE (D-Wis.), who faces a tough reelection in a state won by President Trump, said shes a maybe on Sanderss plan but anticipates supporting it, according to The Capital Times.

In the House, Rep. John Conyers Jr.s (D-Mich.) Medicare for All bill has already netted 113 co-sponsors nearly double the number of co-sponsors the legislation garnered last congressional session.

Key names are noticeably absent from the list, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). But other members of leadership, includingDemocratic Caucus Chairman Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.), are co-sponsors of the bill.

Its nice to see many senators and a variety of people in the House publicly stating for the first time on record that a single-payer system is the way of the future that we need to be working toward, Shannon Jackson, the executive director of the Sanders-aligned group Our Revolution, told The Hill.

Warren has publicly encouraged Democratic candidates to campaign on the idea in 2018 and 2020. But even though the Democrats in Ryans likely safe GOP district are supporting it, other Democratic candidates in red states and districts have been more cautious about endorsing single-payer. Rob Quist, the Montana Democrat endorsed by Sanders, was the only candidate in this years House special electionsto run on that platform.

I think that the politicians who choose to run on a campaign that states and embodies that pillar of our platform will be successful and they will be able to connect with the people, Jackson said.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll shows a modest increase in Americans support for the concept, with 53 percent of the public supporting all Americans getting their coverage through a single government plan.

Thats up from 2008 and 2009, when about 46 percent of the public held this position. A majority of the uptick in support has come from independents, Kaiser noted.

But in practice, Democrats havent been able to muster enough votes to pass a single-payer plan. In Californias state Assembly, moderate and progressive Democrats couldnt agree on the proposal. While it passed the state Senate, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D) ultimately tabled the proposal in his chamber.

Itll tend to be an issue that more left-leaning Democrats are willing to embrace, said Dan Mendelson, president of consulting firm Avalere Health.

In order to embrace that concept, youll have to be willing to defend the efficiency and effectiveness of a fully run government system, and there are many Democrats who are not going to do that and there are some who are.

For Democrats, the increased talk about single-payer offers an alternative message to oppose the Senate GOPs bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare, he said.

Under a single-payer system, all Americans would have health coverage, whereas the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates 22 million people would become uninsured under the Senate GOPs healthcare plan.

I think what you see is the Democrats on the Hill are searching for a single unifying message to unite in opposition to what is happening presently in the Congress, Mendelson said. And thats really what they're looking for.

Republicans have taken note, seizing on Warrens request for Democrats to campaign on single-payer in an attempt to play offense in the healthcare debate as Republicans struggle with their unpopular plan.

But Republicans are seeing an advantage in Democrats embrace of single-payer, too. The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is running auto-play Facebook ads that seek to tie the 10 Democratic senators up for reelection in states Trump won to Warren and government-run healthcare.

The Senate GOPs campaign arm and the Republican National Committee have pointed to studies that say Medicare for All could cost as much as $32 trillion over a decade.

I think that the idea that this is becoming ourcentralfocus is mistaken and one that our opponents are trying to put forward so they dont have to talk about their age tax, said a Democratic strategist with ties to Senate races. What unites Senate Democrats is opposition to this disaster of a Republican bill.

Some Republicans dont see single-payer becoming a toxic issue for Democrats, arguing that those kinds of attacks are more of a deflection tool from the GOPs own healthcare bill.

It almost seems like its too wonky and not enough red meat to really make something catch fire, a Republican operative in Washington told The Hill. Its hard to attack Democrats over single-payer healthcare when we cant get our act together on repealing ObamaCare.

Despite increasing talk of single-payer, Democrats havent agreed yet on a healthcare message for the 2018 midterms, in part because that will depend on whether Republicans manage to repeal ObamaCare.

"The [GOP] Senate bill is almost designed to make healthcare top-tier issue in the next elections, said Larry Levitt, a Kaiser Family Foundation senior vice president.

If the repeal and the replace bill is enacted and signed into law, Democrats will face a challenge as to what their healthcare message will be in 2018 and 2020, Levittsaid, adding that its very likely that many Democrats would turn to single-payer as the next step.

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Don’t Leave Health Care to a Free Market – New York Times

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Most dismaying for me as a physician is that after all of my attempts to apply my compassion and training to save their lives, all three of these patients told me some variant of: Thanks for what youre doing, but I would rather that you hadnt. Even the man with the brain bleed, who certainly would have died without our immediate intervention, expressed dismay. In the neurology intensive care unit, with a bolt through his skull to measure the pressure around his brain, he told me that while he did not have health insurance, he did have life insurance. He said he would rather have died and his family gotten that money than have lived and burdened them with the several-hundred-thousand-dollar bill, and likely bankruptcy, he was now stuck with.

A believer in free-market medicine, Mr. Ryan has said about health care: You get it if you want it. Thats freedom. Yet being given services without your consent, and then getting saddled with the cost, is nothing like freedom.

Imagine Verizon sending you a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars (roughly the cost of the medical care of the patient with the brain bleed who required an emergency neurosurgery and prolonged I.C.U. stay) and then telling you, We called you to offer you some extra services. You didnt answer the phone because you were in a coma, but we guessed that youd want them, so we went ahead and added them on and charged you for them. Clearly you would be outraged.

So why does this happen with health care? The answer is that we dont truly believe in free-market medicine. We know that in an empathetic and caring society, life is valued above all else, especially when the life in question is in the most helpless condition possible. Deep down inside, we all intuitively know that health care is not a free market, or else society would not allow me to routinely care for people when they are in no position to make decisions for themselves.

Republicans need to be honest with themselves and the public: If they want medicine to be truly free-market, then they have to be willing to let the next man or woman they find lying unconscious in the street remain there and die. In a truly free market, we cannot treat someone and charge someone without their consent and against their will. If we believe, however, that those lying there in their most vulnerable moments deserve a shot, then we need to push forward with the idea that health care, at its core, must be designed around a caring system that serves all people fairly.

Farzon A. Nahvi is an emergency medicine physician and an instructor of emergency medicine in New York City.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 10, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Health Care Cant Be a Free Market.

Don't Leave Health Care to a Free Market - New York Times

City’s Disability Pride Parade Marches Through Health Care Concerns – NY1

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Thousands took part in the third annual Disability Pride Parade in Manhattan on Sunday, where participants expressed concerns about health care funding.

The event traveled from Union Square Park to a festival in Madison Square Park to show solidarity and support for those with disabilities.

"We're here because we're disabled and proud," one participant said.

In 2015, Mayor Bill de Blasio declared July "Disability Pride Month" in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

While participants said rights have come a long way in the nearly three decades since it passed, they said there is still a lot of work to be done.

Many said they were worried that the Republican health care bill being crafted in Washington will cut programs for which people with disabilities depend.

"It's disastrous for the disabled for the cuts, because a lot of the people they only have Medicaid to support them," one parade attendee said.

Some of the top technology to assist those with disabilities was also on display Sunday, including OrCam, an advanced wearable technology that provides artificial vision for those who are blind or visually-impaired.

The Disability Parade also gave participants a platform to talk about issues that are most important to them, such as how to improve the accessibility of the city.

"Every train station with elevators, yes," one woman opined. "Every single station. We travel in the trains."

But they said the most important part of the Disability Pride Parade was coming together.

City's Disability Pride Parade Marches Through Health Care Concerns - NY1

Big data analytics in healthcare: Fuelled by wearables and apps, medical research takes giant leap forward – Firstpost

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Driven by specialised analytics systems and software, big data analytics has decreased the time required to double medical knowledge by half, thus compressing healthcare innovation cycle period, shows the much discussed Mary Meeker study titled Internet Trends 2017.

The presentation of the study isseen as an evidence of the proverbial big data-enabled revolution, that was predicted by experts like McKinsey and Company. "A big data revolution is under way in health care. Over the last decade pharmaceutical companies have been aggregating years of research and development data into medical data bases, while payors and providers have digitised their patient records, the McKinsey report had said four years ago.

Representational image. Reuters

The Mary Meeker study shows that in the 1980s it took seven years to double medical knowledge which has been decreased to only 3.5 years after 2010, on account of massive use of big data analytics in healthcare. Though most of the samples used in the study were US based, the global trends revealed in it are well visible in India too.

"Medicine and underlying biology is now becoming a data-driven science where large amounts of structured and unstructured data relating to biological systems and human health is being generated," says Dr Rohit Gupta of MedGenome, a genomics driven research and diagnostics company based in Bengaluru.

Dr Gupta told Firstpost that big data analytics has made it possible for MedGenome, which focuses on improving global health by decoding genetic information contained in an individual genome, to dive deeper into genetics research.

While any individual's genome information is useful for detecting the known mutations for diseases, underlying new patterns of complicated diseases and their progression requires genomics data from many individuals across populations sometimes several thousands to even few millions amounting to exabytes of information, he said.

All of which would have been a cumbersome process without the latest data analytics tools that big data analytics has brought forth.

The company that started work on building India-specific baseline data to develop more accurate gene-based diagnostic testing kits in the year 2015 now conducts 400 genetic tests across all key disease areas.

What is Big Data

According to Mitali Mukerji, senior principal scientist, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research when a large number of people and institutions digitally record health data either in health apps or in digitised clinics, these information become big data about health. The data acquired from these sources can be analysed to search for patterns or trends enabling a deeper insight into the health conditions for early actionable interventions.

Big data is growing bigger But big data analytics require big data. And proliferation of Information technology in the health sector has enhanced flow of big data exponentially from various sources like dedicated wearable health gadgets like fitness trackers and hospital data base. Big data collection in the health sector has also been made possible because of the proliferation of smartphones and health apps.

The Meeker study shows that the download of health apps have increased worldwide in 2016 to nearly 1,200 million from nearly 1,150 million in the last year and 36 percent of these apps belong to the fitness and 24 percent to the diseases and treatment ones.

Health apps help the users monitor their health. From watching calorie intake to fitness training the apps have every assistance required to maintain one's health. 7 minute workout, a health app with three million users helps one get that flat tummy, lose weight and strengthen the core with 12 different exercises. Fooducate, another app, helps keep track of what one eats. This app not only counts the calories one is consuming, but also shows the user a detailed breakdown of the nutrition present in a packaged food.

For Indian users, there's Healthifyme, which comes with a comprehensive database of more than 20,000 Indian foods. It also offers an on-demand fitness trainer, yoga instructor and dietician. With this app, one can set goals to lose weight and track their food and activity. There are also companies like GOQii, which provide Indian customers with subscription-based health and fitness services on their smartphones using fitness trackers that come free.

Dr Gupta of MedGenome explains that data accumulated in wearable devices can either be sent directly to the healthcare provider for any possible intervention or even predict possible hospitalisation in the next few days.

The Meeker study shows that global shipment of wearable gadgets grew from 26 million in 2014 to 102 million in 2016.

Another area that's shown growth is electronic health records. In the US, electronic health records in office-based physicians in United States have soared from 21 percent in 2004 to 87 percent in 2015. In fact, every hospital with 500 beds (in the US) generate 50 petabytes of health data.

Back home, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, runs Aadhar-based Online Registration System, a platform to help patients book appointments in major government hospitals. The portal has the potential to emerge into a source if big data offering insights on diseases, age groups, shortcomings in hospitals and areas to improve. The website claims to have already been used to make 8,77,054 appointments till date in 118 hospitals.

On account of permeation of digital technology in health care, data growth has recorded 48% growth year on year, the Meeker study says. The accumulated mass of data, according to it, has provided deeper insights in health conditions. The study shows drastic increase of citations from 5 million in 1977 to 27 million in 2017. Easy access to big data has ensured that scientists can now direct their investigations following patterns analysed from such information and less time is required to arrive at conclusion.

If a researcher has huge sets of data at his disposal, he/she can also find out patterns and simulate it through machine learning tools, which decreases the time required to arrive at a conclusion. Machine learning methods become more robust when they are fed with results analysed from big data, says Mukerji.

She further adds, These data simulation models, rely on primary information generated from a study to build predictive models that can help assess how human body would respond to a given perturbation, says Mukerji.

The Meeker also study shows that Archimedes data simulation models can conduct clinical trials from data related to 50,000 patients collected over a period of 30 years, in just a span of two months. In absence of this model it took seven years to conduct clinical trials on data related to 2,838 patients collected over a period of seven years.

As per this report in 2016 results of 25,400 number of clinical trial was publically available against 1,900 in 2009.

The study also shows that data simulation models used by laboratories have drastically decreased time required for clinical trials. Due to emergence of big data, rise in number of publically available clinical trials have also increased, it adds.

Big data in scientific research

The developments grown around big-data in healthcare has broken the silos in scientific research. For example, the field of genomics has taken a giant stride in evolving personalised and genetic medicine with the help of big data.

A good example of how big data analytics can help modern medicine is the Human Genome Project and the innumerous researches on genetics, which paved way for personalised medicine, would have been difficult without the democratisation of data, which is another boon of big data analytics. The study shows that in the year 2008 there were only 5 personalised medicines available and it has increased to 132 in the year 2016.

In India, a Bangalore-based integrated biotech company recently launched 'Avestagenome', a project to build a complete genetic, genealogical and medical database of the Parsi community. Avestha Gengraine Technologies (Avesthagen), which launched the project believes that the results from the Parsi genome project could result in disease prediction and accelerate the development of new therapies and diagnostics both within the community as well as outside.

MedGenome has also been working on the same direction. "We collaborate with leading hospitals and research institutions to collect samples with research consent, generate sequencing data in our labs and analyse it along with clinical data to discover new mutations and disease causing perturbations in genes or functional pathways. The resultant disease models and their predictions will become more accurate as and when more data becomes available.

Mukerji says that democratisation of data fuelled by proliferation of technology and big data has also democratised scientific research across geographical boundaries. Since data has been made easily accessible, any laboratory can now proceed with research, says Mukerji.

We only need to ensure that our efforts and resources are put in the right direction, she adds.

Challenges with big data

But Dr Gupta warns that big-data in itself does not guarantee reliability for collecting quality data is a difficult task.

Moreover, he said, In medicine and clinical genomics, domain knowledge often helps and is almost essential to not only understand but also finding ways to effectively use the knowledge derived from the data and bring meaningful insights from it.

Besides, big data gathering is heavily dependent on adaptation of digital health solutions, which further restricts the data to certain age groups. As per the Meeker report, 40 percent of millennial respondents covered in the study owned a wearable. On the other hand 26 percent and 10 percent of the Generation X and baby boomers, respectively, owned wearables.

Similarly, 48 percent millennials, 38 percent Generation X and 23 percent baby boomers go online to find a physician. The report also shows that 10 percent of the people using telemedicine and wearable proved themselves super adopters of the new healthcare technology in 2016 as compared to 2 percent in 2015. Collection of big data.

Every technology brings its own challenges, with big data analytics secure storage and collection of data without violating the privacy of research subjects, is an added challenge. Something, even the Meeker study does not answer.

Digital world is really scary, says Mukerji.

Though we try to secure our data with passwords in our devices, but someone somewhere has always access to it, she says.

The health apps which are downloaded in mobile phones often become the source of big-data not only for the company that has produced it but also to the other agencies which are hunting for data in the internet. "We often click various options while browsing internet and thus knowingly or unknowingly give a third party access to some data stored in the device or in the health app, she adds.

Dimiter V Dimitrov a health expert makes similar assertions in his report, 'Medical Internet of Things and Big Data in Healthcare'. He reports that even wearables often have a server which they interact to in a different language providing it with required information.

Although many devices now have sensors to collect data, they often talk with the server in their own language, he said in his report.

Even though the industry is still at a nascent stage, and privacy remains a concern, Mukerji says that agencies possessing health data can certainly share them with laboratories without disclosing patient identity.

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Big data analytics in healthcare: Fuelled by wearables and apps, medical research takes giant leap forward - Firstpost

Perplexed by English medical professionals desire to prevent care – Spencer Daily Reporter

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Danzig

Like many of you I find myself watching with a breaking heart as a young British couple faces the likely prospects that their young child, Charlie Gard, is going to die.

Charlie has mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome which causes muscle weakness as well as the loss of functions including eating, talking, breathing and walking. He remains on life support as he has for the last eight months as medical professionals sought to care for the rare genetic condition.

Time is apparently up as far as the European health care and court system is concerned. The Great Ormond Street Hospital where little Charlie has been cared for recently received permission to turn off the life support, against the parent's wishes, as the child's condition continues to worsen. And people wonder what's wrong with socialized medicine. When fighting for a life becomes a dollars and cents decision, the individual's ability to battle is weighed against the government's purse. I guess the one thing you will find out with socialized medicine is exactly how much you're worth down to the last penny, at least in the government's eyes,

But what puzzles me is why there is such resistance against the child receiving medical care offered in America. Apparently the U.S. has one of two hospitals which have stepped up and offered to use an experimental treatment on young Charlie which they feel might offer him a slight chance of survival. Although the chance is slight, the parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates, are desperate to try anything at this point to give Charlie a fighting change.

Pope Francis and President Trump are both offering support of prayers and care for the young man as opposed to just writing him off. If there's a chance, even the slightest, for this child to survive and for those parents not to have to bury their son, then it should be explored.

So the question remains, if Charlie can be safely transported and there are entities interested in making it happen, why is the English medical community so opposed. Is it stubbornness? Is it a statement that impacts their system? Is it ego? Or is it just the culture of death we live in today sees so little value in human life that it's just not worth the time, effort and monetary investment? Is there a price tag on a life? And if so what determines that price tag?

Charlie deserves every opportunity to live. To fight. To receive care. His parents have the right to try and save their son.

If you disagree, I guess you just need ask yourself, if Christ was standing before you and you had to explain your feelings about the fate of this child, how would he feel about the justification behind your feelings?

Until the young boy passes I will continue to pray for his life and healing and every bit as important, that his life be regarded as something worth fighting for until the last resource is exhausted. But ultimately, it's in God's hands.

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Perplexed by English medical professionals desire to prevent care - Spencer Daily Reporter

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