• Dentistry,  Pinboard Links,  The Morning Flap

    The Morning Flap: May 18, 2012

    These are my links for May 17th through May 18th:

    • Dental Abuse Seen Driven by Private Equity Investments – Isaac Gagnon stepped off the school bus sobbing last October and opened his mouth to show his mother where it hurt.
      She saw steel crowns on two of the 4-year-old’s back teeth. A dentist’s statement in his backpack showed he had received two pulpotomies, or baby root canals, along with the crowns and 10 X-rays — all while he was at school. Isaac, who suffers from seizures from a brain injury in infancy, didn’t need the work, according to his mother, Stacey Gagnon.“I was absolutely horrified,” said Gagnon, of Camp Verde, Arizona. “I never gave them permission to drill into my son’s mouth. They did it for profit.”

    Isaac’s case and others like it are under scrutiny by federal lawmakers and state regulators trying to determine whether a popular business model fueled by Wall Street money is soaking taxpayers and having a malign influence on dentistry. Isaac’s dentist was dispatched to his school by ReachOut Healthcare America, a dental management services company that’s in the portfolio of Morgan Stanley Private Equity, operates in 22 states and has dealt with 1.5 million patients. Management companies are at the center of a U.S. Senate inquiry, and audits, investigations and civil actions in six states over allegations of unnecessary procedures, low-quality treatment and the unlicensed practice of dentistry.

    • Democrats look to California in bid to retake House– No state figures more prominently in Democratic plans to retake the House than bright blue California.With 25 seats separating them from the speaker’s gavel, Democrats have settled on a blueprint targeting nearly a dozen seats across the Golden State — a yawning figure that highlights the emphasis party officials have placed there.
    • Exit, stage Wright– Yesterday’s breathless campaign hysteria arose out of a not-really-much-of-a-scoop from the broadsheet across town: A rich guy in Omaha wants to spend a lot of money defeating Barack Obama.Stop the presses. Eek.Said rich guy sought the advice of a controversial consultant (who’d very much benefit from getting the rich guy’s commission) on a strategy. The consultant proposed reviving the 2008 controversy over Obama’s relationship with his egregious pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

      You’d have thought, from the mainstream-media tweets yesterday morning, that the mere act of mentioning Obama and Wright in the same breath was nothing less than a hate crime in itself. How dare anyone mention the president in the same breath as the anti-American demagogue who officiated at his wedding, baptized his children and gave him the title of his second book.

      For those of us who enjoy seeing such folk sputter and squirm, the idea of a Wright attack against Obama instantly seemed rather piquant. But it only took a moment’s reflection to see how senseless and even stupid such an approach would be.

    • Hewlett-Packard to Cut About 30,000 Jobs – NYTimes.com – RT @TomBevanRCP: Ouch: HP to cut 30,000 jobs.
    • Ricketts’ aide: Jeremiah Wright plan was DOA– The head of the Super PAC that considered a proposal to attack the president based on his associations with controversial preacher Reverend Wright said Friday that the pitch was a non-starter.“I was immediately troubled by the proposal. It surprised me,” Brian Baker, president of Ending Spending Action Fund funded by billionaire Joe Ricketts, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We run an organization based on fiscal responsibility. They know we asked for a document based on ending spending, fiscal responsibility and jobs in the economy. This is far afield from that.”
    • Mark Zuckerberg will ring NASDAQ opening bell this morning, on Facebook’s IPO day | The Verge – RT @verge: Mark Zuckerberg will ring NASDAQ opening bell this morning, on Facebook’s IPO day
    • Romney Launches First General Election Ad– Mitt Romney’s campaign is out with its first television ad of the general election, describing what a Romney presidency would look like on “day one.”The spot will be launched in four swing-states –Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa and Virginia — with a $1.2 million buy, CNN reports.A generally positive ad, the narrator outlines different Romney initiatives that he would launch from the start of his time in office, which include approving the Keystone XL pipeline and replacing President Obama’s heath care reform legislation.
    • Race issues return with Rev. Jeremiah Wright – Race issues return with Rev. Jeremiah Wright
    • Herman Cain: Jeremiah Wright is ‘fair game’ – Herman Cain: Jeremiah Wright is ‘fair game’
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-18 – @Flap Twitter Updates for 2012-05-18
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Michael Ramirez on Fast and Furious – Michael Ramirez on Fast and Furious
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Daily Extraction: May 17, 2012 – The Daily Extraction: May 17, 2012
    • Explaining Why Minority Births Now Outnumber White Births | Pew Social & Demographic Trends– The changing profile of the nation’s youngest residents also stems from the fact that some groups, especially Hispanics, have higher numbers of children than do non-Hispanic whites. One illustration of this difference is in the “total fertility rate,” or the number of children the average woman is predicted to have in her lifetime, based on current age-specific birth rates. For the U.S. as a whole, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of American Community Survey data, the number is 2.0. (American Community Survey data in this posting come from a Pew Research Center analysis of the 1% sample of the 2010 ACS Integrated Public Use Microdata Series [IPUMS])Among Hispanics, the total fertility rate is 2.4. For non-Hispanic whites and for non-Hispanic Asians, it is 1.8. Non-Hispanic blacks (2.1) have higher fertility than whites but lower fertility than Hispanics.Immigration is an important contributor to higher birth rates among Hispanics, because foreign-born women tend to have more children on average than U.S.-born women. Most growth in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010 was due to births, not immigration, a change from the long-time pattern. But most births to Hispanic women are to those born outside the U.S.
    • Flapsblog Posts / Born in Kenya, eh???? – Born in Kenya, eh????
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » The Morning Flap: May 17, 2012 – The Morning Flap: May 17, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Gallup: U.S. Unemployment Decreases Slightly to 8.2% – Gallup: U.S. Unemployment Decreases Slightly to 8.2%
    • Capitol Alert: Latinos will soon be California’s largest ethnic group, Census says – Latinos will soon be California’s largest ethnic group, Census says
    • Latinos will soon be California’s largest ethnic group, Census says– Latinos will become California’s largest ethnic group very soon, a new Census Bureau report indicates.The bureau issued its first post-2000 census estimates of population growth, birth rates, age cohorts, and racial and ethnic characteristics.It pegs California’s Latino population (it uses the term “Hispanic”) at 14.4 million, 38.2 percent of the state’s 37.7 million residents, while the non-Hispanic white population is just under 15 million or 39.7 percent, dropping below the 40 percent mark for the first time.

      For several years, demographers have predicted that the state’s Latino population would surpass whites by 2015, but the new Census Bureau reports indicates that the crossover may occur somewhat sooner.

      Although immigration from Latin America has slowed to almost a stop, other findings indicate, Latinos tend to be younger than the white population and have much-higher birthrate, thus expanding their population while that of whites continues to shrink..

    • USC sued in deaths of 2 students– A wrongful death suit has been filed against USC by the parents of two USC graduate students slain near the campus on April 11.Wanzhi Qu and Xiaohong Fei, father and mother of Ming Qu, and Xiyong Wu and Meinan Yin, parents of Ying Wu, filed the suit Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. They are seeking unspecified damages.Wu and Qu, both 23-year-old electrical engineering students from China, were fatally shot during a downpour about 1 a.m. while sitting in Qu’s recently purchased 2003 BMW, which was double-parked in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue.

      Wu was found in the passenger seat and Qu on the steps of a nearby house where he collapsed while trying to summon help, Los Angeles police said.

      USC attorney Debra Wong Yang today issued a statement in response to the suit.

    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: May 17, 2012 – The Morning Drill: May 17, 2012
    • Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog » Day By Day May 17, 2012 – Boom Boom – Day By Day May 17, 2012 – Boom Boom
  • The Afternoon Flap

    The Afternoon Flap: November 14, 2011

     

    These are my links for November 14th from 06:42 to 16:16:

    • USC enrolls the most international students in the nation – For the 10th year in a row, USC held on to a championship that has nothing to do with sports: The Los Angeles campus once again enrolled the most foreign students of any college or university in the United States, according to a new study. UCLA had the sixth-highest international enrollment, up from seventh place the year before.

      Across the country, the ranks of international students enrolled in American higher education last year increased 5%, to 723,277, according to the annual report by the Institute of International Education, a New York nonprofit, in partnership with the U.S. State Department.

      China, for the second consecutive year, sent the largest group, which was up 22% to about 158,000. Indian students were the next-biggest contingent, followed by those from South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico and Turkey, the report found.

      USC enrolled 8,615 international students last year, up from 7,987 the previous year, said the study, “Open Doors,” which is being released Monday. UCLA enrolled 6,249 international students, compared with 5,685 the prior year. Aside from the Los Angeles campuses, the other schools in the top 10 were: the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, New York University, Purdue University, Columbia University, Ohio State University, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan State University and Harvard University.

      USC has recruiting offices in Shanghai; Seoul; Mumbai, India; Taipei, Taiwan; and Mexico City, said Timothy Brunold, the university’s admission dean. About 70% of international students at USC are in graduate programs, heavily concentrated in engineering, computer science and business, he added.

    • Herman Cain collapsing in new CNN poll – For weeks, polls have shown former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain holding strong despite the revelation of sexual harassment allegations against him. Now, his support is starting to collapse.

      A new CNN poll finds Cain dropping 11 points among Republicans, from 25 percent in October to 14 percent on Monday. That puts him in a statistical tie for third place in the GOP nominating contest with Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

      Even as most Republicans continue to say that the allegations have no effect on their vote, Cain is sliding downward.

      “Roughly four in 10 Republicans think this is a serious matter and tend to believe the women who made those charges,” CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

      The likely explanation: Cain supporters were looking for a viable conservative alternative before jumping ship. Polls had shown growing concern over the allegations for weeks, even as the Republican’s overall numbers stayed strong.

      Those supporters appear to have settled on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich , who jumped from 8 percent to 22 percent in the CNN poll.

      Other polls found Cain slipping, although not as dramatically as in the CNN survey.

    • Newt Gingrich vs. debt supercommittee on campaign trail – Newt Gingrich is a major player in the GOP presidential contest again, and he’s using that platform to position himself as the biggest critic of the congressional debt-reduction “supercommittee.”

      Gingrich, who placed second nationally in a poll released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research, said at an event here this morning that the supercommittee is “maniacally stupid” and “an invitation to economic catastrophe.”

      The former House speaker said the panel should drop the provision passed by Congress during the summer that would trigger broad cuts if it can’t reach a deal by its Nov. 23 deadline. He said that Americans should be skeptical of any plan produced by the supercommittee and shouldn’t settle for a halfway measure just because of the trigger provision.

      “We should reject any effort to blackmail us into accepting a dumb idea on the grounds that in July we accepted an even dumber idea,” Gingrich said.

      Gingrich said a threat of massive cuts to defense and domestic program was totally artificial anyway and that the creation of the special debt-reduction panel in the first place is a reflection of Washington’s problems.

    • Bialek’s ex-boyfriend, Victor Zuckerman, speaks about Herman Cain – The ex-boyfriend of Sharon Bialek corroborated the sexual harassment allegations that Bialek made against Herman Cain, saying at a Monday press conference that Cain did in fact know the Chicago woman, something he has repeatedly denied.

      Victor Zuckerman, who identified himself as a pediatrician and a registered Republican, said that Bialek spent time with Cain, and that he remembers her saying that she was seated next to Cain at a dinner, and ”had opportunities to speak to him at length.”

      “She told me I needed to meet this man of warmth, of wit,” he recalled, adding that Cain later told them about the release of his gospel album in 1997.

      After Bialek lost her job at the fundraising arm of the educational foundation at the National Restaurant Association, it was Zuckerman who advised her to reach out to Cain, the former head of the NRA in the mid 1990s, for help.

      Bialek claims that during her trip to Washington for job advice, Cain groped her in a car.

      “I can confirm that when she returned, she was upset, she said that something had happened and the Mr. Cain had touched her in an inappropriate manner,” Zuckerman said. “She said she had handled it.”

      Zuckerman said that more recently, he and Bialek talked about Cain after the allegations came to light, and Bialek said that the accusations didn’t surprise her.

    • foursquare

      :: Gregory Flap @ Starbucks – Going to a comedy club in Pasadena after Alice gets off work. (@ Starbucks)

    • foursquare

      :: Gregory Flap’s Badges :: Fresh Brew – I just unlocked the “Fresh Brew” badge on @foursquare! Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee.

    • CA-25: Rep. Elton Gallegly to Face Off Against Rep. Buck McKeon? | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – CA-25: Rep. Elton Gallegly to Face Off Against Rep. Buck McKeon? #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: Run for Her 5 K Race Report: November 13, 2011 – Run for Her 5 K Race Report: November 13, 2011
    • Want to Lose Weight? Don’t Tell Anyone! | Smiles For A Lifetime – Temporary (Locum Tenens) Dentistry – Want to Lose Weight? Don’t Tell Anyone!
    • President 2012 California Poll Watch: All Obama – All of the Time » Flap’s California Blog – President 2012 California Poll Watch: All Obama – All of the Time
    • Isakson introduces bill to reverse NLRB decision – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson has introduced legislation that would reverse a recent decision from the National Labor Relations Board on collective bargaining.
      The board in August said that as few as two or three employees could form micro-bargaining units, or “mini-unions,” to engage in collective bargaining with employers. Isakson said the administration’s decision to allow micro-bargaining units “recklessly disregards the long-standing principles of collective bargaining” and said President Barack Obama’s appointees at the NLRB are tipping the scales in favor of unions.
      Isakson’s legislation would reinstate the traditional standard for determining which employees make up an appropriate bargaining unit.
      The Georgia Republican’s bill -The Representation Fairness Restoration Act – has 28 cosponsors.
    • Boeing: Union Reneged On Deal; NLRB Emails Shed Light – Newly released documents regarding the National Labor Relations Board complaint vs. Boeing reveal that extensive, though ultimately futile, efforts were made to avoid litigation.

      Boeing (BA) officials say the documents relate to a settlement that they thought they had made with the International Association of Machinists, the union that brought the complaint.

      The aerospace giant claims IAM revoked the offer after Boeing had accepted it. If true, that would suggest that IAM was interested in pursuing the case as a test of the NLRB’s power under the Obama administration.

    • Despite Senate victory, court battle looms for net-neutrality rules – Advocates of the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules celebrated a major victory on Thursday as the Senate rejected a Republican bid to repeal the rules.
      But with a lawsuit pending in the D.C. Court of Appeals, the victory may prove to be short-lived.

       

      The rules, approved by the FCC in December, prohibit Internet service providers from slowing down or blocking access to legitimate websites. Supporters of the rules say they preserve competition and consumer choice, but opponents argue they are an unnecessary burden on businesses and amount to government control of the Internet.

    • President 2012 GOP Iowa Poll Watch: Cain 20% Vs. Gingrich 19% Vs. Romney 14% Vs. Bachmann and Paul 10% | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 GOP Iowa Poll Watch: Cain 20% Vs. Gingrich 19% Vs. Romney 14% Vs. Bachmann and Paul 10% #tcot #catcot
    • President 2012 California Poll Watch: All Obama – All of the Time | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – President 2012 California Poll Watch: All Obama – All of the Time #tcot #catcot
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Daily Extraction: Dr. Tommy Murph’s Costa Rica Extraction Courses – The Daily Extraction: Dr. Tommy Murph’s Costa Rica Extraction Courses
    • Flap’s Dentistry Blog: The Morning Drill: November 14, 2011 – The Morning Drill: November 14, 2011
    • Day By Day November 12, 2011 – Word | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – Day By Day November 12, 2011 – Word #tcot #catcot
    • The Morning Flap: November 14, 2011 | Flap’s Blog – FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog – The Morning Flap: November 14, 2011 #tcot #catcot