• Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 5th on 14:23

    These are my links for May 5th from 14:23 to 15:40:

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 5th on 14:00

    These are my links for May 5th from 14:00 to 14:17:

    • California Bill allowing college aid for illegal immigrants passes Assembly – The Assembly passed legislation Thursday to allow illegal immigrants to receive college scholarships, setting the stage for new fighting over an explosive social issue whose prospects were buoyed last year by the election of Gov. Jerry Brown.

      The Assembly approved the first of two "Dream Act" bills, Assembly Bill 130, which would allow a small segment of undocumented immigrants who currently qualify for in-state tuition to apply for scholarships from private donations. Majority Democrats passed the bill on a 51-21 party-line vote.

      Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, proposed both AB 130 and a pending companion measure — Assembly Bill 131 — that would open the financial aid door even wider by allowing those illegal immigrants to qualify for Cal Grants and other publicly funded aid.

      "We cannot afford, our economy cannot afford, to deny educational opportunities to anyone who has the strength of character, the personal discipline, the intelligence, to make it" through California's college or university system," Cedillo said in a statement.

      Cedillo's bills would apply to students who have attended a California high school for three years or more, graduated from a high school or attained an equivalent degree — and, if they are illegal immigrants, commit to legalizing their status if given the chance.

      The group targeted by AB 130 represent only a tiny fraction of college enrollment — 1,941 at the University of California, 3,633 at California State University and 38,202 at community colleges. Of those totals, illegal immigrants comprise about 32 percent of UC's figure and an unknown but perhaps higher percentage of those from state and community colleges, according to a legislative analysis of AB 130.

      ======

      Of course, California has a massive budget deficit but the Democrats want to reward their constituency for their political support.

      The taxpayers be damned.

      It doesn't matter if you are in this country legally or not, California will help you get the subsidized college education.

      How much of an illegal immigrant magnet is this?

    • “Getting to Denmark” – By Mark Steyn – The Muslim world is certainly “getting to Denmark.” It’s also getting to the Netherlands, to Austria, to France, and beyond. In Scandinavia and in other advanced Western societies, the state grows ever bolder in constraining freedom of expression and other core Western liberties. In the interests of enforcing the state religion of a hollow and delusional “multiculturalism,” basic tenets of Fukuyama’s “rule of law” — including due process, the truth as defense, and equality before the law — are tossed aside in the multiculti version of heresy trials. As recent decisions in Michigan suggest, America is not immune to this trend.

      ======

      Read it all.

      Hope we don't go the way of Denmark

  • Dentistry,  Oral Bisphosphonates

    Oral Bisphosphonates: Study – Absolute Risk for Femur Fracture Low with Bisphosphonates

    I have written a number of pieces about the problems associated with bisphosphonates and osteonecrosis of the jaw. My latest post is here.

    Now, there is a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine which sheds new light on the advantages vs. risks of taking these drugs.

    Almost 78% of all Swedish women aged 55 years and older who sustained an atypical femur fracture in 2008 had taken bisphosphonates, but the absolute risk for such breaks is small enough to justify prescribing the drugs, according to a study published in the May 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

    For patients taking bisphosphonates, the age-adjusted relative risk for an atypical femur fracture — a clean, horizontal break spreading from the lateral side and occurring with minimal or no trauma — was 47.3%, the study reported. The crude incidence of the fractures was 0.09 per 10,000 patient-years among women who had never taken the drug compared with 5.5 among those who had ever taken it.

    These results “should be reassuring for bisphosphonate users,” write lead author Jörg Schilcher, MD, from the Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Science, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden, and colleagues. “With a correct indication, the benefits of fracture prevention…will greatly outweigh the risk of atypical femoral fracture.”

    So, in other words, the benefits of preventing fractures by taking the medications outweigh the risk of an atypical leg (femur) fracture.

    So, how does this apply to dentistry?

    With more and more patients taking these drugs to prevent osteoporosis, and for longer periods of time, dentists will have to be scrupulous in their medical histories. Osteonecrosis of the jaw, while rare, is a known and serious complication.

    An undisplaced femoral fatigue fracture associated with bishosphonate treatment. NIH photo

    This study echoes the paper published in February in the Journal of the American Medical Association which I cited a few months ago. The AMA paper is here.

    Experts interviewed by Medscape Medical News call the study definitive because researchers not only studied a massive number of participants — all 1.5 million women in Sweden who were aged 55 years or older in 2008 — but also reviewed the x-rays of nearly all those who had particular kinds of femur fractures.

    “It’s the largest and most comprehensive study of this issue that I’ve seen,” said Sundeep Khosla, MD, president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) and a professor of medicine and physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

    The study’s conclusions echo those in other recent studies on the worrisome fractures and the bone-building drugs for osteoporosis. An article published in February in the Journal of the American Medical Association, for example, reported that long-term use of bisphosphonates boosted the risk for these fractures, but those authors noted that the absolute risk for fracture is low and is outweighed by the benefits of the therapy.

    And, what about drug holidays – especially since the risk of fracture declines rapidly after drug withdrawal?

    Because it is not clear how long patients with osteoporosis can be safely treated with bisphosphonates, the ASBMR recommends that clinicians consider discontinuing them after 5 years. At that point, many physicians give their patients a “drug holiday” for 1 or 2 years and then resume the therapy. Dr. Shane said that the rapid decline in fracture risk after drug withdrawal helps justify a holiday.

    “Now there seems to be evidence that giving patients intermittent drug holidays is appropriate to do,” she said. Dr. Khosla agreed, saying the decrease in fracture risk provides “reassurance that a [drug holiday] is good clinical practice.”

    Again for dentists, it will be esepcially important to monitor our patients for when they are on or off the medications. Since dental visits may be episodic, and in older patients only in case of an emergency e,g. tooth extraction, proper dental/medical records are mandatory. Appropriate consultation with the patient’s physician is indicated. Treatment plans for dental examination and/or treatment either prior to initial treatment or before resumption of treatment with these drugs would be beneficial to patients.

    I will look forward to additional studies on the risk of dental complications using a drug holiday approach – with resumption of drug use.

    In the meantime, Flap urges caution for patients taking ORAL Bisphosphonate medications. And,please patients update your health history and tell your dentist if you are using these drugs.

    Previous:

    Revisiting Bisphosphonates and Femur Fractures

    Oral Bisphosphonates Associated with a SLIGHTLY Elevated Risk of Developing Osteonecrosis of the Jaw?

    New Dentistry Cause for Alarm for Patients Who Use Bisphosphonates – Fosamax, Actonel, Boniva?

    Dentistry
    Today: Bisphosphonates: Zometa (zoledronic acid) & Aredia
    (pamidronate disodium) Associated with Osteonecrosis of Jaw – REDUX

    Bisphosphonates: Zometa (zoledronic acid) & Aredia (pamidronate dis odium) Associated with Osteonecrosis of Jaw

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 5th on 09:43

    These are my links for May 5th from 09:43 to 11:50:

  • Barack Obama,  Osama Bin Laden,  Polling,  President 2012

    President 2012 Poll Watch: Obama Approval Jumps 6 Points to 52% After Bin Laden Death

    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    Americans’ approval of President Barack Obama is up six points after the death of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid on the al Qaeda leader’s Pakistan compound. Obama averaged 46% approval in Gallup Daily tracking in the three days leading up to the military operation and has averaged 52% across the three days since.

    This increase in approval rating is not unexpected and is fairly typical, if not low.

    Presidents’ popular support often increases in response to major international events, commonly known as “rally events.” Thus, a jump in Obama’s approval after bin Laden’s death is not unexpected.

    The six-percentage-point increase in Obama’s approval rating is fairly typical for a rally event. Gallup has compiled data on changes in presidential approval after 48 different international or domestic crises since 1950 and finds a median increase of seven percentage points.

    The largest rally Gallup has ever measured was a 35-point increase for George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Other large rally effects include an 18-point increase for George H.W. Bush at the beginning of the 1991 Persian Gulf War; a 16-point jump for Richard Nixon after the Vietnam War peace accords were signed; and 14-point increases for George H.W. Bush after the U.S. sent troops to Kuwait following Iraq’s invasion of the country, and for Lyndon Johnson after he announced he was halting bombing in North Vietnam.

    When the U.S. in December 2003 found and captured another “high-value target” — former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — George W. Bush’s approval rating rose seven points.

    So, will President Obama’s bounce in the polls be sustained? I, frankly, doubt it since most on the RIGHT understand he never supported the measures that brought hm success in this operation, including enhanced interrogation methods.

    The U.S. military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden is a major milestone in Obama’s presidency, and now a majority of Americans approve of the job he is doing, and more than at any time since May 2010. The question is whether Obama can sustain that higher level of support, or whether it will quickly dissipate. Most often, a president’s approval rating begins to decline fairly soon after the rally event occurs, with the increases in approval often disappearing in as little as one to four weeks.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 5th on 09:25

    These are my links for May 5th from 09:25 to 09:29:

    • California to delay sending DMV registration bills – Jerry Brown Holding Out for More Taxes – California drivers who are scheduled to register their cars in July are getting a reprieve –- as the state won’t be sending them their annual registration bill just yet and is waiving any late fees for at least a month.

      But the move is hardly a gift from the cash-strapped state. It is part of an effort by lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown to buy time to negotiate a budget package that includes hiking vehicle registration fees.

      Under current law, the annual vehicle license fee that drivers must pay is set to drop from 1.15% of a car’s value to .65% on July 1. But Brown wants to keep the fee at 1.15% — the difference amounts to $5 for every $1,000 a car is worth — and he signed a new law, SB 94, Wednesday to delay sending registration notices.

      The governor doesn’t want drivers to get a smaller bill this month and, should he succeed at extending the rate hike, a second bill asking them to make up the difference later.

      "It is going to eliminate some potential confusion and duplication," said Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.

      Roughly 2.4 million vehicles are registered in California each month, said Mike Marando, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles. Drivers with July registration dates will not receive their renewal notices the usual 60 days in advance and they will not have to pay late fees for 30 days, he said. In addition, highway patrol officers will be instructed to ignore late registrations in the month of July.

      ======

      Come on Jerry. Just cut the budget.

      More political machinations from the California Democrats in order to exact more money from California taxpayers.

    • President 2012: Accepting award, Mitch Daniels highlights Syrian background – Mitch Daniels drew extensively on his Syrian heritage in accepting an award from an Arab-American group Wednesday night, connecting his own family’s journey to the United States with the uprisings unfolding in his ancestral homeland and elsewhere in the Arab world.

      “There have been the same stirrings, same yearnings for freedom that have busted loose elsewhere," the Indiana governor said during his second public appearance of the day in Washington. “May Syria and all the lands near it soon become places of peace, and freedom and self-determination.”

      Daniels, who gave a major education speech earlier in the day as he mulls a presidential bid, compared his paternal grandfather’s emigration from Syria to Ellis Island in 1905 to the broader struggles against dictatorship and autocracy in the Middle East, identifying the desire for freedom and a better life as the common threads.

      “The same dreams and the same hopes and the same determination to make a great life for themselves that brought Elias Esau Daniels to this country — of which he knew nothing, whose language he did not speak — is alive now in that part of the world,” Daniels said as he accepted the Kahlil Gabran "Spirit of Humanity" award at the Arab American Institute Awards Gala. "And they have a chance to bring the same sort of wonderful opportunities he made possible for my father and ultimately for me.

      ======

      Read it all.

      Decision time coming for Daniels in the next 10 days….

  • American Economy,  Polling,  Unemployment Rate

    Poll Watch: U.S. Unemployment Falls to 9.4% But Underemployment Increases to 19.3%



    According to the latest Gallup Poll.

    Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, fell to 9.4% at the end of April from 9.6% in mid-April and 9.9% at the end of March. Unemployment is now at its lowest level of 2011 and is lower than the 9.6% at the end of April last year.

    So, should Americans be reassured that the economy is turning around?

    Well, perhaps, since a broader unemployment measure remained high in April.

    The decline in unemployment since late March was not enough to offset the increase in those working part time but wanting full-time work. As a result, the combined underemployment measure was 19.3% at the end of April — essentially the same as the 19.2% in mid-April and slightly higher than the 19.0% at the end of March. Underemployment is now higher than the 18.9% at the end of April a year ago.

    Here is the graph:

    While the unemployment rate has decreased a little, there are more Americans only working part-time while they desire full-time work. Some work is better than no work but the implications are clear – people will remain disgruntled – especially at the ballot box.

    There has been a relatively modest decline in unemployment over the first four months of 2011, and that improvement may be at least partly the result of seasonal hiring factors. There was a similar downward trend in Gallup’s not-seasonally adjusted unemployment measure over the same four-month period in 2010. This similarity in trends also holds for Gallup’s Job Creation Index and broader underemployment over the same time frames.

    These trends are consistent with the Challenger report for April that showed fewer workers being let go than in March and slightly fewer than in April a year ago, and the ADP report that found a less-than-expected 179,000 increase in private-sector hiring during April. While layoffs are down, businesses continue to hold back on their hiring in the U.S.

    Although the jobs situation has been relatively flat in 2011 — not much better than in 2010 and with an increasing number of people working part time but wanting full-time work — even marginal job growth is good, given the slow growth of the first quarter of this year. At a time when the U.S. economy is facing numerous economic headwinds, including plummeting consumer confidence and soaring food and gas prices, the challenge may be to maintain this performance during the months ahead.

  • Pinboard Links

    Flap’s Links and Comments for May 5th on 09:03

    These are my links for May 5th from 09:03 to 09:22:

    • Mitch Daniels: He’d call Dick Lugar! But Wait Jennifer Rubin….. – Strike two: Liberals are comforted by the notion that he is “if not a one-issue candidate, certainly a one-theme candidate” and is more than happy to take the meat ax to defense spending. Why, sort of a penny-pinching Obama!

      And then there is this:

      On foreign policy, he said that he’s a “water’s edge” kind of guy. He is sure that the President is in a position to know a lot more about what’s needed in Afghanistan than he is. He said he didn’t think Obama had “made the case” for the Libya intervention, though this doesn’t mean there is no case. Pressed to say something critical about Obama’s foreign policy, he said that he was “uncomfortable” with the President’s “apology tours.” But he didn’t look comfortable saying it.

      Jamie Rubin asked him a clever question, right out of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”: if he had just one phone call to make about some foreign policy issue and he could call either Richard Lugar or John McCain, which would it be? After a little hemming and hawing, he said that he is “always comfortable” talking with Lugar. Though of course he respects McCain, too, he hastened to add. Maybe he was just being nice about his state’s senior senator, but I hope he was expressing a preference for diplomacy (Lugar’s M.O.) over warmongering (McCain’s).

      That’d be strike three. Relying on the Senate Republican most despised by the conservative base (who’s sure to be primaried) and who has run interference for President Obama on foreign policy issues such as START and a Russian reset will set alarm bells ringing on the right. If personnel is policy, then a Daniels administration would seem to be to the left of George H.W. Bush.

      ======

      Read it all.

      In three strikes Jennifer (Jamie) Rubin outs Mich Daniels as a liberal squish who either knows nothing about foreign policy or knows too much.

      Not a friend of the Indiana Governor, in post after post, she dissects his foibles while ignoring his successes and history.

      She whines that Daniel's spokesman does not call her back and then sets him up with a Hobson's choice question.

      Every pundit knows Daniel's connection to Senator Richard Lugar. It goes back decades.

      But, a choice between McCain and Lugar? I mean, please.

      Remember Mitch Daniels was Ronald Reagan's political director in the White House as well as George W. Bush's OMB Director. He is decidely pro-life and his conservative agenda which has made it into Indiana law is a record everyone can evaluate.

      Oh yeah and Indiana looking and speaking Daniel's grandfather came from Syria in the early 1900's.

      I wish we could see some balance from jennifer Rubin in her writings but since we won't I suppose I will have to continue to provide some counter-weight.

    • President 2012: ‘Probably not’ ready: Mitch Daniels on foreign policy – Conservative elites swoon over Mitch Daniels' fiscal conservative bona fides, but the Indiana governor says he's "probably not" ready for a foreign policy debate with President Barack Obama.

      Continue Reading
      Daniels passed on a chance to criticize Obama's Afghanistan troop surge Tuesday, telling reporters in New York that the commander-in-chief is privy to top secret information he does not have. The comments came as he's on a three-day East Coast swing, with a major education speech at the American Enterprise Institute set for Wednesday afternoon in Washington.

      The group of reporters included National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru, who reported Daniels' frank "probably not" response to the question of if he could engage Obama in a foreign policy debate at the moment.

      "His foreign-policy details are TBD," Ponnuru wrote.

      "Daniels said that 'it cannot be illegitimate to ask' if some of the country’s military commitments should be unwound,' but he has not yet reached any conclusions about which should be — or, at least, any he is willing to share," Ponnuru reported. "On Afghanistan he refuses to second-guess the decisions of the president, to whose greater access to information he defers. On Libya he says only that he has not seen the case for intervention made. One gets the impression of someone who is much more cautious about foreign intervention than Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty, but also cautious about saying so. He was asked if he were ready to debate President Obama on foreign policy. 'Probably not.' (He is candid.)."

      ======

      Daniels is candid and terribly non-spin – almost to a fault. This will play well in any Presidential or Vice Presidential debates.

  • Barack Obama,  Day By Day,  Osama Bin Laden

    Day By Day May 5, 2011 – License to Kill



    Day By Day by Chris Muir

    There is little doubt that President Obama was LED to the correct decision by CIA director Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But, the correct decision was made and we have to thank Obama for it.

    With regards to the release of the photos, I am ambivalent about the issue. I can see both arguments and know that eventually some of the photos, plus video will leak out.

    This will remain cannon fodder for the conspiracy theorists for years to come – without the official sanction of the United States though.

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