1. Be Impeccable with your Word
Speak with
integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak
against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word
in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a
projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune
to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of
needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.
Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid
misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you
can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be
different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any
circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment,
self-abuse, and regret. (04/27/09)
more…

Thom Hartmann writes: Over six million people are now out of work, and unemployment figures released today show that now-record number is continuing to climb. Meanwhile, still-profitable American corporations manufacture goods for American consumption using Chinese labor and pay virtually no income tax by keeping their profits offshore.

A hundred years ago, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt tried to reign in some of the most toxic behaviors of capitalists that he found incompatible with modern democracy by pushing through congress a law that banned the practice of corporations giving money to politicians. He slowed down the robber barons a bit, but three consecutive Republican presidents in the 1920s led us straight into the Republican Great Depression.

Franklin Roosevelt, his distant cousin, rebooted capitalism in the 1930s, ushering in an era of regulated capitalism - embraced by Republicans like Eisenhower and Democrats like JFK - that brought us the largest, strongest, and most stable middle class ever seen. We also became the world’s economic superpower, as the world’s largest importer of raw materials, exporter of finished goods, and banker to the world. We imported iron ore and exported televisions and cars and washing machines. The rest of the world was in debt to us. A worker with a high school diploma could find a job that paid enough to raise a family and have a safe and comfortable retirement.

The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s was the third “rebooting” of capitalism in the 20th Century, and continues to this day. Scorning the “regulated” part of “regulated capitalism,” economic Reaganites from the Gipper himself to GHW Bush to Bill Clinton to GW Bush flipped our economy upside down. Today, after just thirty years of “free trade” and “right to work” and other oxymoronic nostrums applied as policy, we’ve become the world’s largest importer of finished goods and the world’s largest debtor. We now export minerals to Asia, and import back from them televisions, cars, and washing machines.

So now the big question: Will Obama reboot capitalism anew? Will he move us into a new realm of capitalism, back toward regulated capitalism, or continue the slide toward a poverty-ridden Dickensian economy that Reagan started?

At the moment, nobody knows. (04/27/09)
more…

BBC Medical Science – The 500,000th pacemaker operation in the UK has taken place - at the same hospital, St George’s, London, which carried out the first such procedure in 1958. …

Mrs Trudie Lobban, founder of the Arrhythmia Alliance, said: “Although implants have increased in the UK by 5% each year, we need an increase of 15% per annum to be in line with European implant rates by 2016. 100,000 sudden cardiac deaths occur in the UK every year, yet 80% of these could possibly be avoided if diagnosed and treated appropriately.” …

Previously the size of the devices meant they had to be worn, normally around the neck, with connecting wires into the heart to deliver electrical impulses. The earliest pacemakers were even plugged into mains electricity, leaving patients stuck in hospital and at the mercy of the electricity supply.

The first implanted pacemaker in the UK was the size of a pram wheel. Now devices are smaller than a matchbox and weigh between 20 - 50g. Today, pacemakers are software-controlled, allowing them to be programmed from a small external computer and their batteries last seven years without a recharge.

The 500,000th fitting was one of the latest generation of pacemakers, a biventricular ICD. It was received by Karl Sidhu from Camberley, Surrey, to resynchronise his heart muscle function, which was not working as well as it should after a series of heart attacks.

As well as preventing his heart from going too slowly, the pacemaker will improve co-ordination between the upper and lower chambers, and right and left sides of the heart.

David Ward, the senior consultant cardiologist at St George’s Hospital, said: “Implanting pacemakers has become almost routine in the UK, but there is nothing routine about it for patients. Mr Sidhu represents one of the tens of thousands of people in Britain who have had their lives improved thanks to a pacemaker and this milestone should be celebrated.” (04/27/09)
more…

BBC Medical Science — Vitamin D is an effective treatment for prostate cancer in some patients, a UK study suggests. A once daily dose reduced PSA level - an indicator of severity of disease - by as much as half in 20% of patients. There has been much interest in vitamin D in prostate cancer after studies linking lower risk of the disease to higher sunlight exposure, the researchers said.

One expert agreed the findings were encouraging but said it needed to be tested in a bigger population. The trial - results of which are due to be published in the journal BJU International - was set up after one patient got better when his wife bought him some vitamin D tablets.

Professor Jonathan Waxman, said the example had prompted him to assess the effects in a wider group of patients. Out of 26 men with recurrent prostate cancer, who took a daily dose of vitamin D2 bought from the chemist, five responded to the treatment. In two the PSA level, fell by more than half, in two by 25-50% and in one man it fell by less than 25%. The effects in one man were sustained for 36 months.

Study leader Professor Jonathan Waxman, from Imperial College London, said vitamin D therapy was effective and well-tolerated. “It’s very interesting - there has been no significant trial of vitamin D. This is a treatment which is unlikely to have significant toxicity and is a welcome addition to the therapeutic options for patients with prostate cancer.”

He agreed that a further trial in a larger number of patients, comparing vitamin D with a dummy pill was warranted. One theory is that vitamin D interferes with the effect of the androgen receptor, which is stimulated by hormones such as testosterone and implicated in prostate cancer.

John Neate, chief executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, said it was not the first study looking at vitamin D in the disease but a consensus on the benefits had not been reached. “This small scale study investigating the use of vitamin D as a ’stand alone’ treatment for men with progressive prostate cancer provides a valuable additional perspective. Many men with prostate cancer may wonder whether they should take vitamin D supplements to control their disease. This study does not answer that question, but maintaining a good level of vitamin D is recommended as part of a generally healthy lifestyle.” (04/27/09)
more…

BBC Technology — A disc that can store 500 gigabytes (GB) of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs, has been unveiled by General Electric. The micro-holographic disc, which is the same size as existing DVD discs, is aimed at the archive industry. But the company believes it can eventually be used in the consumer market place and home players.

Blu-ray discs, which are used to store high definition movies and games, can currently hold between 25GB and 50GB. Micro-holographic discs can store more data than DVDs or Blu-ray because they store information on the disc in three dimensions, rather than just pits on the surface of the disc.

The challenge for this area of technology has been to increase the reflectivity of the holograms that are stored on the discs so that players can be used to both read and write to the discs.

Brian Lawrence, who leads GE’s Holographic Storage said on the GE Research blog: “Very recently, the team at GE has made dramatic improvements in the materials enabling significant increases in the amount of light that can be reflected by the holograms.”

The higher reflectivity that can be achieved, the more capacity for the disc. While the technology is still in the laboratory stage, GE believes it will take off because players can be built which are backwards compatible with existing DVD and Blu-ray technologies.

In a statement the firm said: “The hardware and formats are so similar to current optical storage technology that the micro-holographic players will enable consumers to play back their CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs.”

”GE’s breakthrough is a huge step toward bringing our next generation holographic storage technology to the everyday consumer,” said Mr Lawrence in a statement. “The day when you can store your entire high definition movie collection on one disc and support high resolution formats like 3D television is closer than you think.” (04/27/09)
more…

BBC Health
– The United States and the European Union have urged
travellers to Mexico to exercise caution, amid concerns over the spread
of the swine flu virus. … Cases are also confirmed in Canada, the US
and Spain. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US - which has
40 confirmed cases - was taking the issue “very
seriously”.

World Health Organization (WHO) experts
are meeting to consider raising the global pandemic alert level. The UN
has warned that the virus has the potential to become a pandemic. But
it says the world is better prepared than ever to deal with the
threat.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said on
Monday that 149 people - all aged between 20 and 50 - had now died of
suspected swine flu and that number was expected to continue to rise.
He said only 20 of the deaths had been confirmed to be from swine flu
and test results were due on the rest. …

Earlier,
the WHO said there were 40 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in
the US, 26 in Mexico, six in Canada and one in Spain. Tests are also
being carried out on individuals or groups in New Zealand, Australia,
Brazil, Britain and Israel who fell ill following travel to Mexico.
…

There is currently no vaccine for this new
strain, but severe cases can be treated with antiviral medication. The
WHO said it had not made any recommendations about travel restrictions.
But spokesman Gregory Hartl said the fact that an emergency committee
meeting had been brought forward by a day showed the urgency with which
the organisation was treating the issue.

The
committee could decide to raise the pandemic level from its current
level of three, if it believes the virus is showing a sustained ability
to pass from human to human. The WHO is advising all countries to be
vigilant for seasonally unusual flu or pneumonia-like symptoms among
their populations - particularly among young healthy adults, a
characteristic of past pandemics. A top US health official warned that
there could be worse to come.

“From what we
understand in Mexico, I think people need to be ready for the idea that
we could see more severe cases in this country and possibly deaths,”Richard Besser, acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, told ABC television. (04/27/09)
more…