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- I arrived at headquarters half hour ago to find blogger Joe Rospars dozing in his chair with a hickory baseball bat across his lap. He's been here since yesterday afternoon sometime--now that's vigilance. Meanwhile, Bat #14 was just cresting over... |
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- Excerpt: "Even before the Census Bureau announced the numbers, showing that the number of uninsured Americans had risen by 2.4 million last year, to 43.6 million, most of the major Democratic presidential candidates were campaigning hard on the problems in health care. Not since the 1992 election has the issue drawn so much attention ... |
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- Excerpt: "Most imported drugs are counterfeit knockoffs that could seriously endanger the health of those taking them, say federal drug and customs officials who conducted a spot inspection over the summer that they disclosed yesterday." (New York Times; one-time registration required) |
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- Excerpt: "The number of people without health insurance shot up last year by 2.4 million, the largest increase in a decade, raising the total to 43.6 million, as health costs soared and many workers lost coverage provided by employers, the Census Bureau reported today." (New York Times; |
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- Excerpt: "Following an FDA hearing last week on direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads, supporters of the ads said the agency will likely allow them 'to continue in much the same form,' and '[e]ven critics were not optimistic that the agency would make significant changes,' the New York Times reports." (KaiserNetwork.org) |
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- Excerpt: "Employers next year will pay an estimated 12% more for employee health care benefits, marking the fifth consecutive year of double-digit increases and a doubling of employer health care costs since 1999, according to a survey to be released Monday by Towers Perrin, the Wall Street Journal reports." (KaiserNetwork.org) |
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- 13 pages; Dugan v. R.J. Corman R. |
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- Excerpt: "A government that provides for all of your body's health care needs will ultimately think and act as if it owns your body. Those who are uncomfortable with that idea need to understand that they need to reject the illusion of government handouts, and demand the right to spend their own dollars-- free of tax-- to provide for their own lives and health." (Americans for Free Choice in Medicine) |
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- 6 pages. Excerpt: "To the disappointment of many, the final regulations are substantially similar to the proposed regulations issued in 2002 and earlier this year and will for the most part make new executive split dollar arrangements financially unattractive. However, the transition guidance issued in Notice 2002-8 still applies and employers still have options for existing split dollar arrangements." (Buck Consultants) |
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- 6 pages. Excerpt: "The additional information would include a breakdown of plan assets into broad asset classes and the expected rate of return for each class, projected benefit payments, expected employer contributions, and tables of significant actuarial assumptions. The project is on a fast track, with the proposal scheduled to become effective for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2003." (Buck Consultants) |
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- Excerpt: "The primary factor behind the increase in the number of uninsured was an erosion in both adults' and children's private health insurance coverage, driven by the weak economy, rising unemployment and the increasing costs of health care. These developments made it harder last year for workers and their dependents to retain employer-sponsored health insurance coverage." (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities) |
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- Press release. Excerpt: "The Davis Administration has expressed its concern with the cost of the legislation, something that could be fixed in the 2-year interim before the bill will take effect, according to the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) ..." (The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) |
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- Excerpt: "Part-time workers ... could benefit greatly from California's new health insurance mandate, dubbed SB2, which Gov. Gray Davis is expected to sign soon. But questions remain about how affordable the benefit will be to part-time employees and how the state will enforce non-compliance. |
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- Excerpt: "With open-enrollment season starting, now's the time to consider signing up for plans that can save you hundreds of dollars." (Los Angeles Times; one-time registration required) |
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- Excerpt: "The House Government Reform Committee approved a bill on September 25 that would let federal civilian and military retirees and active duty military employees pay for their health care premiums on a pre-tax basis. It awaits action by the House Ways and Means and Armed Services Committees before going to the House floor for a vote." (CCH Tax Newsletter) |
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- Excerpt: "The tech industry faces a challenge that could undermine the Silicon Valley economy, as the board that sets accounting standards inches closer to requiring companies to count employee stock options as a business expense.... Tech industry leaders have rightly insisted that any change in the treatment of stock options ought to preserve their ability to provide broad-based option plans for rank-and-file workers." (The [San Jose] Mercury News) |
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- Press release. Excerpt: "Workers covered by 401(k) plans stay in the labor force longer than if they had traditional pension plans, according to a new issue in brief from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR). The study-- authored by Alicia Munnell, Kevin Cahill, and Natalia Jivan, all of the CRR-- explores how work incentives differ by type of pension plan.' Full text at http: |
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- Excerpt: "If a financial planner is a fee-only provider, there is less chance that the information will be biased in any way. Likewise with consulting firms: If they are paid directly by the employer by fees and not commissions that are often bundled together, the potential for excessive fees is smaller than if they get paid via commissions from money managers in the form of 12b-1 fees, finder's fees or soft-dollar commissions." (TheStreet. |
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- Monkey see, monkey do, monkey wrench. - nyc.indymedia.org:8080 |
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- more parasites clinging to easy access and taxpayer $$ - nyc.indymedia.org:8080 |
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- Podla aktualnych statistik asociacie Visa uskutocnili Slovaci za 12-mesacne obdobie konciace junom tohto roka 9,7 miliona transakcii platobnymi kartami Visa v celkovom objeme 230 milionov USD |
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- Posledny vyvoj kurzu slovenskej koruny ako aj priaznivy vyvoj inflacie a deficitu bezneho uctu platobnej bilancie boli podla guvernera Narodnej banky Slovenska (NBS) Mariana Juska hlavnymi dovodmi posledneho znizovania klucovych urokovych sadzieb o 0,25 % |
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- Mesto Kosice planuje vystavbu bytoveho domu so 48 bytovymi jednotkami v mestskej casti Zapad |
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- Priblizne 8-% pokles navstevnosti v porovnani s vlanajskom zaznamenali pocas tohtorocnej letnej sezony vo Vysokych Tatrach |
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slowly... (Sep 30 2003 13:59 GMT) - A few transparent shadows hushed by my office yesterday. They were not even shadows really, more like areas of changed focus, as if the air had the density of water, spontaneously, in the shape of... |
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- Steve who is currently in London has written this challenging reflection which echoes around in my head tonight - mainly because it reminds me of numerous similar conversations I've had with young people the last couple of years. PS: sorry... |
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- O tom, co už Dominik kde zapoměl, by se pomalu dal vydat menší časopis. Ve čtvrtek mívá hudebku a tak jsem mu včera k večeru naznačil, že by mohl trošku pocvičit na flétnu. Za pár minut se z pokojíčku ozvalo "Tati, nevíš kde mám flétnu a noty?" a mě bylo jasné, že bude veselo. Prolezli jsem celý dětský pokojíček (a našli spoustu věcí, o kterých jsme si už mysleli, že jsou vyhozené : |
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- Guantanamo Translator Is ArrestedA physician working as a translator at the U.S. prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested Tuesday, a federal law enforcement official said. The official, describing the apprehension at Boston's Logan International Airport,... |
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- Ran across this over at A Little More To The Right. This fits in with the theme from yesterday - as I obviously didn't feel like reading any news articles yesterday. I'll get back on track today... |
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- Fast jeder Fünfte kennt die Bedeutung des 3. Oktober nicht |
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ISBN (Sep 30 2003 13:58 GMT) - Changes in the size of the ISBN are coming.The Book Industry Study Group last Thursday unanimously approved a policy statement that calls for the 13-digit Bookland EAN bar code to be the sole bar code for books and book-related products, effective January 1, 2005. At the same time, the group endorsed the expansion of ISBNs from 10 digits to 13, effective January 1, 2007. More info at BISG. |
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- Being a rather lazy person about everything except thinking, I love to think about how to ensure that the few feeble bursts of libertarian effort I manage to put in every few days actually have some beneficial impact. The well known link between fondness for strategy and fondness for sitting in armchairs is no mere coincidence. So I was delighted when Alex Singleton chose, for the talk he gave at my most recent last-Friday-of-the-month meeting... |
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- Buy.com, as part of its latest 24 Hour Sale, offers the Viewsonic VG800-2 18-inch LCD monitor for $489.99 with free shipping. Already $79 off our...(more) |
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- David Brooks piece in the NYT's today is worth a read. The money paragraph:The fundamental argument in the presidency wars is not that the president is wrong, or is driven by a misguided ideology. That's so 1980's. The fundamental argument... |
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- Weil der Schauspieler Richard Harris seinen Rolls Royce 25 Jahre lang in einem New Yorker Parkhaus vergessen hat, bekam seine Witwe eine unglaubliche Rechnung. ¬> netzeitung |
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- Pop star Sir Elton John is selling off the contents of his London home at an auction on Tuesday. |
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- Captain Bernhard Langer drops plans to qualify for Europe's Ryder Cup team. |
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- The police say they are undertaking new research to tackle "honour killings" more effectively. |
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- A taxi driver says he feels guilty Harold Shipman killed up to 20 of his customers, because he did not call police. |
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- I'm not sure what the message is here. I guess it's 'Don't Do Drugs! But if you do, you might want to consider hanging out around marathons.' BERLIN (Reuters) - Race medics at the Berlin marathon saved the life of a collapsed heroin addict when they mistook him for a competitor. The head of the marathon's medical team said on Monday some of his doctors found and resuscitated a 40-year-old man wearing a numbered race bib who had collapsed on a public transport rail platform at the 37-km mark of the 42-km (26 mile) marathon. |
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- South Africa is often cited - inside and outside the continent - asAfrica's leading economy, as well as a major player in the New Partnershipfor Africa's Development (Nepad). |
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