I've been traveling for a bit, so I haven't even had time to tell you about the new version 2011r2 of our Altova product line yet. As always we've been very busy in the past four months and have added a number of very cool features to all our products. As a result the Altova MissionKit v2011r2 packs a nice punch and shouldn't be missing from any professional developer's toolbox.
Huge improvements in the charting functionality that we've originally introduced in v2011 with a wide range of new customizable charting features, including Stacked Bar Charts, Area Charts, Stacked Area Charts, Candlestick Charts, Chart overlays, Background images, Color gradients, and customizable axis labels.
Embedding external files in XML documents via CDATA blocks (supporting Base 16 and Base 64 encoding).
XML Schema refactoring in XMLSpy.
Customizable generation of documentation from XMLSpy, MapForce, and UModel via StyleVision stylesheets. This provides countless options to customize your documentation from adding your logo to creating a detailed in-depth report about your mappings or models for later analysis.
Data streaming for file output in MapForce for large ETL projects.
Support for IATA PADIS EDI format in MapForce.
Automatic creation of reverse mappings in MapForce.
Barcode support for QR, DataMatrix, PDF417, Codabar, Code39, and many other formats.
Ability to create multiple output files from a single design template in StyleVision.
Ability to create ASPX web applications for dynamic data output in StyleVision.
Support for BPMN 2.0 in UModel.
Code-generation from state machine diagrams in UModel.
And there are many more additional features. Also make sure to check out the latest couple of posts on the Altova Blog that go into more detail.
As always, you can download a free 30-day trial version from our website and our tools are available in English, German, and Japanese versions – plus XMLSpy is also available in a Chinese version now.
In our announcement of version 2010 last week I mentioned over 70 new features that we have added based on customer feedback. As I was talking with journalists through the course of the week, I came to quickly realize that people automatically assume that if it is 70 features in one release then those must be fairly small features. But in each case my conversation partner got more and more excited, as they realized that we are really talking about over 70 substantial new features.
So let me begin this series of individual feature articles by talking about database schema comparison, which we've added to both DatabaseSpy and DiffDog in version 2010.
We had originally introduced database comparison or differencing in version 2009 of our product line, but originally thought that users would primarily want to compare the actual data being stored in two separate databases. And people did indeed like that new feature and used it to synchronize data between production and development servers or between different types of database servers, and they were very excited that we allowed them to match columns with a drag&drop mapping interface in those cases where the tables were not entirely identical. One of the most frequent requests, however, that quickly emerged was to add the ability to also compare different database structures or schemas themselves.
We do, of course, automatically map any columns that have matching names, but you can also change the mapping and designate that columns are equivalent even if their names differ or follow other naming conventions e.g. due to a server migration.
In addition to visually displaying the differences between the database schemas, DatabaseSpy also allows you to generate a merge script that will synchronize the schemas between the different databases, and you can choose if you want to merge the changes from left to right or vice versa.
Once you have selected one of the options, a new script window opens and shows you the SQL statements needed to make the changes, and you can execute them directly from within DatabaseSpy.
The same process can also be used to compare databases running on different database servers, which is ideal when you want to migrate from one database backend server platform to another.
I'm very excited that Altova has announced version 2010 of our entire product line today. This new release of our most popular XML, Database, UML, and Web Services tools includes over 70 new features that our customers have asked for.
Instead of pushing some proprietary platform or other hidden agenda, we at Altova believe in delivering exactly those features that our users need the most. We've listened to your feedback via our discussion forums, support requests, and social networking sites and put together a list of the MOST WANTED features that will help you stay at the cutting edge of technology and deliver the best results.
Several key feature areas are: a totally new design paradigm in StyleVision that makes stylesheet design more productive and enables a whole new generation of electronic forms based on Authentic; WSDL 2.0 support; substantial XBRL enhancements; schema comparison/differencing for XML and databases; SysML support in UModel; JSON support in XMLSpy; and much, much more.
I will be writing more about individual features in the future, but for now I suggest you go to the Altova Blog and read the announcement and also check out the press release.
Now, XMLSpy has always had its built-in support for revision control systems, including Microsoft Visual Source-Safe and - via the Source-Safe API - a few drivers for other 3rd party source control systems, such as Jalindi Igloo for CVS. But with version 2009 we've gone far beyond that. Based on customer feedback, we've completely reworked the source control system interface in XMLSpy and also added the same level of source control support to UModel, our UML modeling tool, allowing both products to intelligently integrate with all major Software Configuration Management (SCM) tools.
For the full list of revision control systems and drivers that we've tested, please see our website.
In addition, DiffDog can be used as the ideal visual differencing tool in any of the revision control systems that allow for the configuration of an external diff utility.
When I mentioned our v2009 product launch before, I promised to write in more detail about some of the exciting new features we included. One of my favorite new functions that I use almost on a daily basis is actually available in two products, depending on your needs: it is the new database differencing module with full database compare and merge capabilities in both DiffDog 2009 and DatabaseSpy 2009.
However, unlike straight text file comparisons, where the differencing process would now start right away, for databases we recognize that the table structure is rarely the exact same, because you typically want to compare data between different servers (such as production vs. development) and one may have new columns, indexes, and the like.
This view gives you the option to show or hide columns that exist in one database only, identical columns, as well as hiding rows that are completely equal or rows that exist only in the database on the left or the right. This allows you to drill down into those differences that you consider essential.
If you are concerned about keeping a record of the data before the merge, you can even create a restore script for either database that lets you revert the changes made by the merge script if you ever need to do that (DatabaseSpy only).
And the coolest thing is that you can compare tables between connections to different database servers, which makes it an excellent tool for supporting a migration from one server platform to another that lets you verify that all data was moved properly.
What an exciting day today. This is easily our biggest product launch in several years. Altova announces the new MissionKit v2009 on the blog and in a press release that crossed the wire at 9:10 am today.
I wrote about the final SEC rule on XBRL yesterday, and today you can download a fully functional 30-day trial of MissionKit 2009 which adds XBRL support across XMLSpy, MapForce, and StyleVision. Use the new XBRL taxonomy editor in XMLSpy to create or modify a taxonomy for your company's XBRL filings. Use the new XBRL mapping feature in MapForce to create XBRL instance documents directly from your databases - or, if you are an investment firm, to analyze XBRL filings from multiple sources. Render financial report documents in PDF, Word, Open XML, or HTML from XBRL data with StyleVision.
If you are a CTO, software architect, developer, database professional, or IT engineer and are new to XBRL, we have a great new whitepaper that provides an overview of XBRL for technical users.
But today's announcement is not just about XBRL. In our effort to support various industries we are expanding into the health-care field and are introducing support for HL7 v2 EDI messages and v3 XML-based formats in MapForce.
In addition, we've added tons of new features to all our applications that are based on customer requests, including the following highlights: database comparison and merging in DiffDog and DatabaseSpy; XPath auto-completion, expanded source/revision control system support, and better visualization and editing of XML Schema identity constraints in XMLSpy; auto-generation of sequence diagrams, full source/revision control system support, and an extensive enterprise-grade automation API in UModel; grouping support and documentation generation in MapForce; completely new design manipulation for tables as well as direct template filtering with XPath expressions in StyleVision; and extended native support for SQL Server 2008, Oracle 11g, and PostgreSQL 8 across the entire product line.
In addition to all these new features, we are announcing an immediate price reduction in our US$ pricing as our own special "stimulus package" for the US economy. Our US$ prices are now reduced 13% and more - across the entire product line!
Music composition applications like Finale and Sibelius are now learning how to export music notation in MusicXML thanks to a plug-in developed by Recordare, an Altova customer.
I'm spending a few days in New York with the family and we just saw Avenue Q tonight - absolutely fantastic. I haven't laughed so hard since ... well ... since ... uhm ... probably since seeing Spamalot two years ago.
Doug Mahugh has a posted a great article about Open XML diff tools on his blog today, where he also mentions DiffDog and it's new Open XML diff/merge capabilities that we recently introduced.
While being at TechEd in Orlando, FL, last week, I had lunch with Doug Mahugh and we talked about the upcoming ODF support in Office 2007 SP2, the new features in the Open XML SDK, Altova's new support for Open XML diff/merge in DiffDog, creation of Open XML from StyleVision, and data integration and mapping for Open XML in MapForce, as well as various other XML-related topics.
We also talked about some other industry topics and finally came to chat about HDR (high dynamic range) photography. Doug sent me a few links to some of his recent photos, and this one impressed me the most.
Obviously, this isn't a particularly exciting scene - I just shot from our balcony towards the end of the cul-de-sac. I used an automatic exposure bracketing of ±2 and loaded all three images into Photomatix and then played with some settings in the tone-mapping to create some vibrant and surreal colors.
But I still like the result quite a bit - it makes me want to go out and take some HDR photos of Marblehead harbor and experiment with other local scenes where the high dynamic range can come into play nicely.
It's called Version 2008 Release 2, but in reality it should be a new major version. Our "problem" is that each year has 12 months whereas our talented engineers are practically cranking out a new major version every 5-6 months. So we have to call one of them the major release and the other one a minor release - but this one is BIG!
Very Large File Support: XMLSpy 2008r2 contains a number of advanced optimizations for working with very large files. These result in a reduction of memory consumption by up to 75-80% compared to the previous version when opening and validating XML documents in Text View. This means that you can now open and work with files that are about 4-5 times larger than those supported in the past!!
MapForce 2008r2 now directly supports SpreadsheetML and allows the user to place any Excel 2007 document inside a mapping project to directly transform data from EDI, XML, databases, web services, and legacy text files to Excel 2007 and vice-versa. This new support for Open XML and Excel 2007 is, of course, also available in the automatic code-generation capabilities of MapForce, allowing developers to generate application code for recurring data transformation scenarios in Java, C# and C++.
StyleVision 2008r2 now directly supports Open XML output in Word 2007 (WordprocessingML) to allow the user to generate multiple rich output formats from one single stylesheet design. StyleVision supports the generation of stylesheets via an easy-to-use drag&drop interface from XML documents as well as from databases and is the ultimate report designer that can produce output in HTML, PDF, RTF, and Open XML from one visual design. In addition, it allows developers the creation of Authentic forms from the same design to facilitate XML-based data entry across an organization with no deployment cost.
DiffDog 2008r2 now supports detailed XML differencing between Open XML documents, including the ability to directly edit and merge changes across those files. In addition, the directory comparison feature now also supports ZIP file types so that directories and ZIP archives can be compared as well.
Expanded Modeling Capabilities: UModel 2008r2 now supports the OMG's BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) and is also the first UML tool to ship full support for C# 3.0 and Visual Basic 9.0 - including accurate parsing of new language constructs in these programming languages that directly support XML. UModel does, of course, also continue to fully support Java 6.0 and provides full reverse-engineering and round-tripping for all the above languages.
Better Integration Through Global Resources: developers using multiple Altova tools - for example as parts of the MissionKit bundle - can now take advantage of increased integration between these tools. The new Global Resources feature lets a developer define directories, databases, and ancillary files in one central location and those are shared between all applications. In addition, a developer can define multiple deployment scenarios (e.g. test, staging, production) for their XML projects, and also directly connect the output of one application to become the input for another.
The above list has just a few of the highlights that I find most exciting. More details and all the other cool new features can be found on the "What's New" page on the Altova website. There is also a press release being issued today about the new version.
It is indeed a grim place, and it is no secret that this is somewhere in Vienna, Austria (since that is quite obviously where I've spent this week - as can be seen in recent blog postings). But the question is: where in Vienna, and what place is this? I'll provide just one hint: DiffDog would have loved that place.
Be the first one to comment on this XML Aficionado blog with the correct answer, and you'll win one single-user license of Altova DiffDog 2008, the essential differencing and merging utility for developers.


This lets others see technical details about your system so that they can help you fix whatever ails it. Visitors and regulars on our PC Pitstop Forums use this feature frequently.
How do I share my results with others?
How can shared results be used to solve problems?
Are there privacy issues in sharing results?
Why did my results link stop working?
Why do the results from a link sometimes change?
How do I stop people from seeing my results?
Create an account on the PC Pitstop site if you don't have one already. Anonymous users cannot share their results.
Copy the link at the top of that page and email or post it wherever you would like. You can also use the Email a Friend link on that page if you prefer.
If you're not sure where to look for these links, we've put together a visual guide to show you what to do. Dialup users: These screen shots are large and will take some time to load.
One of the best places to share your results is on our own PC Pitstop Forums. Our online community can help you solve virtually any PC problem quickly and at no cost. It's a fun place to hang out too; you might even make some new friends!
Maybe you're considered the PC guru among your family or friends. If so, shared results will definitely make it easier to help them with computer problems. Just have them register on our site, test their system, and send you the link.
To protect your identity, we do not display your IP address when someone else loads your results through a shared results link.
In most cases, the data collected by PC Pitstop is simply technical information about your computer; it does not contain any personally identifiable data. You may, however, have named your computer after yourself, or given your disk drives labels that were the same names as your children. We recommend that you review your test results before sharing them to see if there is any information that you would feel uncomfortable showing to others.
The most common reason a link stops working is because it has expired. Results links are only valid for one month from the time they are issued. This provides you with better control over who sees your results. (You don't need to retest to get a new link, just load the old results.) Another possibility is that the results have been deleted, either through the "View previous test results" page or as a result of the user removing their PC Pitstop account.
A results link always shows the latest results for a particular configuration of a computer. If you test your computer under two different video resolutions or change the amount of memory installed, you will have two or more configurations reflecting those different setups. You can see all the configurations for a computer you have tested on the View previous test results page.


Like that air hockey-basketball-foosball table. 3-in-1 fun.
After all this crazy makeup, I feel like my regular face is so boring! This time, Linda used me for a lesson in editorial makeup. The students wanted to experiment with gold, and I wanted to look jolie laide. Think Angelica Huston's face, Marni clothing, or maybe a platypus. Or, as this New York Times article writes, "the kind of ugliness which is noble."
This is Linda's compromise. The idea behind this composition is that different angles can give the same makeup job very different attitudes, saving on time and money. Not sure what Linda had in mind, but my take on these looks is (from left to right): Enlightened Eyebrow Raise, Ziggy is Pissed, and Broken Heart-Shaped Face. Coincidentally, these looks are an even crazier version of Gaga's new "Judas" video.
Next, I'm curious about morphing the shape of my lips, turning into some sort of beast/monster, or perhaps something with body paint. Here are some other looks Linda has done on me. What do you want to see next?
(not me) TEN Magazine, Dress by Chanel, Necklace by Lanvin, Makeup by Linda Mason.


Walk out your door, pick fresh oysters & clams and cook them in our beach firepit while enjoying the sunset. Drive onto the beach and launch your boat. Enjoy the mulitude of walking trails and cliffside walk. Suitable for adults only. Minutes from Hague Lake and Manson's Markets.
To find us just follow Lagoon Road, which turns into Taka-Mika Road, right to the end.


text:
Implementation of the google-api-ruby-client for use on the command line or wherever.

# Command line usage example
`ruby -r "./src/gmail.rb" -e "NeilBryson::GoogleApis::GDrive.new.listFiles"`

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


This web site has been quiet since Thursday night, but not because I wanted it to be. My daughter and I spent the weekend down at Disneyworld for "ESPN the Weekend" (as the invited guests of Disney Corporate Services, but more about that later this week). I had intended on posting stories from down there, but if you have ever stayed at a Disney property, you know that there are two inevitabilities: cell phone reception is horrid and what they try to pass off as "internet connectivity" is NFFWP (Not Fit For Work Purposes). Again, this will be discussed in a story later this week.
What was really cool was being out in the cold and drizzle in the wee hours of Saturday morning for the 2010 Champion 5K for the V Foundation, and being able to hang out side by side with the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders, the Harlem Globetrotters, Trey Wingo, Dana Jacobson, John Anderson, and Carolina Panthers running back DeAngelo Williams. Here is a short picture essay from the early morning event that my daughter ran in.
The V Foundation was run as part of the 2010 "ESPN the Weekend"
2010 "ESPN the Weekend" event schedule.
in the 2010 Champion 5K for The V Foundation.
2010 Champion 5K for The V Foundation.
runners in the Champion 5K for The V Foundation.
work in the community. These three members of the squad did not run, but along with other team members, encouraged hundreds finishing the Champion 5K for The V Foundation.
came out to encourage hundreds finishing the 2010 Champion 5K for The V Foundation.
crossed the finish line at the 2010 Champion 5K for The V Foundation.


text:
Few Bible Belt pastors mention what's in their backyard, millions of poor people trapped in the Obamacare "coverage gap."
By John Blake, CNN
(CNN) - The Rev. Timothy McDonald gripped the pulpit with both hands, locked eyes with the shouting worshippers, and decided to speak the unspeakable.
The bespectacled Baptist minister was not confessing to a scandalous love affair or the theft of church funds. He brought up another taboo: the millions of poor Americans who won't get health insurance beginning in January because their states refused to accept Obamacare.
McDonald cited a New Testament passage in which Jesus gathered the 5,000 and fed them with five loaves and two fishes. Members of his congregation bolted to their feet and yelled, "C'mon preacher" and "Yessir" as his voice rose in righteous anger.
"What I like about our God is that he doesn't throw people away," McDonald told First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta during a recent Sunday service. "There will be health care for every American. Don't you worry when they try to cast you aside. Just say I'm a leftover for God and leftovers just taste better the next day!"
McDonald's congregation cheered, but his is a voice crying in the wilderness. He's willing to condemn state leaders whose refusal to accept Obamacare has left nearly 5 million poor Americans without health coverage. But few of the most famous pastors in the Bible Belt will join him.
Joel Osteen? Bishop T.D. Jakes, and other prominent pastors throughout the South?
Like McDonald, they preach in states where crosses and church steeples dot the skyline yet the poor can't get the health insurance they would receive if they lived elsewhere. All declined to comment.
When people talk about the Affordable Care Act, most focus on the troubled launch of its website. But another complication of the law has received less attention: a "coverage gap" that will leave nearly 5 million poor Americans without health care, according to a Kaiser Health Foundation study.
Learn more from Kaiser about the coverage gap in states that refused Obamacare
The coverage gap was created when 25 states refused to accept the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare. The people who fall into this gap make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and not enough to qualify for Obamacare subsidies in their state insurance exchanges. If they lived elsewhere, they would probably get insurance. But because they live in a state that refused the new health care law, they likely will remain among the nation's uninsured poor after Obamacare coverage kicks in come January.
The coverage gap has been treated as a political issue, but there is a religious irony to the gap that has been ignored.
Most of the people who fall into the coverage gap live in the Bible Belt, a 14-state region in the South stretching from North Carolina to Texas and Florida. The Bible Belt is the most overtly Christian region in the country, filled with megachurches and pastors who are treated like celebrities. All but two Bible Belt states have refused to accept the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.
Should Bible Belt pastors say anything publicly about the millions of poor people in their communities stranded by the coverage gap? Is it anti-Christian for state leaders to turn down help for the people Jesus called "the least of these"? Or should pastors say nothing publicly about such issues because they are strictly political?
CNN's Sanjay Gupta explains who falls into the coverage gap
Who speaks for the poor in the coverage gap?
When these questions were sent to many of the most popular pastors in the Bible Belt, they hit a wall of silence. Virtually no prominent pastor wanted to talk about the uninsured poor in their midst.
Joel Osteen, pastor of the largest church in the nation, declined to be interviewed about the subject. So did Bishop T.D. Jakes. Their megachurches are both in Texas, the state with the nation's highest number of people without health insurance.
Max Lucado, the best-selling Christian author who is a minister at a church in Texas, declined to speak; Charles Stanley, the Southern Baptist pastor in Georgia whose In Touch Ministries reaches millions around the globe, declined to speak; Ed Young Sr. and Ed Young Jr., a father and son in Texas who pastor two of the fastest-growing churches in the nation, also declined to speak.
Bishop T.D. Jakes declined to talk about the millions of poor people stranded in the "coverage gap."
The silence is not hard to understand. Obamacare is a polarizing political issue in the Bible Belt. A pastor who publicly weighs in on the subject could divide his or her congregation or risk their job. And some prominent pastors like Osteen are popular in part because they do not alienate fans by taking political stands.
The Rev. Phil Wages, senior pastor Winterville First Baptist Church in Georgia and a blogger, was one of the few Bible Belt ministers willing to speak on the subject.
He says he won't preach about the coverage gap created by the state's rejection of the Medicaid expansion because he has what he calls theological differences with the thrust of the new health care law.
Wages says the Bible teaches that the care of orphans, widows and the sick are given to the church, not to the government. Early Christians were the first to create hospitals, orphanages and hospices.
"I have an issue with the government coming in to get money through me - through taxes - to take care of people, when my argument is that I should be free to give to charities or to my church in order to take care of the sick and destitute," he says.
Wages says he has no doubt that lack of health insurance is a monumental problem, and that many people are poor because of circumstances beyond their control. Yet there is no New Testament example of Jesus trying to shape public policy on behalf of the poor.
"I do not see any biblical precedent where Jesus ever went to Herod or Pilate and said you should be taking care of the poor," Wages says. "Jesus told his disciples to take care of the poor and the apostles said the same thing to the early church."
Wages' position is impractical and unbiblical, says Ronald Sider, a longtime advocate for the poor and author of "The Scandal of Evangelical Politics."
Churches and charities don't have enough resources to take care of an estimated 48 million Americans who don't have health care. The Bible is filled with examples of God's fury over economic oppression of the poor, which Christians should regard as scandalous, he says.
"If you are not sharing God's concern for the poor, it raises huge questions about whether you are a Christian at all," he says about pastors who say nothing about the uninsured poor.
"As God's spokespersons, you ought to be talking about God's concern for the poor as much as God. In the richest nation in world history, it's contradictory to have millions without health insurance."
"It absolutely stinks"
The coverage gap may inspire a religious debate, but for its victims the issue is raw and personal.
A recent New York Times article about the coverage gap revealed that many of its victims are the working poor: cooks, cashiers, sales clerks and waitresses.
"These are people who are working people but they haven't been able to afford health insurance or their employers don't offer it and they're stuck," says Andy Miller, editor of Georgia Health News, a nonprofit news organization that covers health news in the state. "A lot of these folks have chronic health conditions."
They are people like Shelley "Myra" Mitchell, a single mom with four children who makes $9 an hour working at a Chick-fil-A in Georgia. She makes $18,000 a year – too much for Georgia's existing Medicaid program, but not enough to qualify for subsidies to sign up for Obamacare's insurance marketplace in Georgia.
Mitchell's voice grew edgy with frustration when asked to describe her health needs. She rang up about $20,000 in emergency room bills because she has no health insurance. She can't afford to get pap smears, go to the dentist or get surgery for a two-year-old hernia. She can't take medication for her depression and anxiety because she can't afford it.
She thought she could get help under Obamacare but recently learned she can't because Georgia did not accept the law's Medicaid expansion.
"It stinks," she says. "I've been dealing with this hernia for two years now, and I can't get anyone to help me because I don't have health insurance. It absolutely stinks."
Why pastors should stay silent about the coverage gap
Mitchell's plight may stink. But at what point should a pastor go public on such a complex issue, and what could he or she actually say?
Two prominent evangelical pastors openly wrestled with those questions.
Andy Stanley is one of the most popular evangelical pastors in the nation. He is the senior pastor of North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia, a megachurch with at least 33,000 members. He is also the author of the forthcoming book "How to be Rich," which urges Christians to be "rich in good deeds" instead of wealth. His church recently announced that it donated $5.2 million to Atlanta charities and provided another 34,000 volunteer hours.
Joel Osteen has the largest church in America. He also declined to speak about the coverage gap.
Stanley says the coverage gap disturbs him. The church cannot handle the needs of millions of uninsured people alone and should quit taking shots at government involvement, he says. But he adds that it's not anti-Christian for political leaders in states like Georgia to turn down the Medicaid expansion for the poor.
"If you really want to know how concerned someone is for the poor ask them what percentage of their personal money they give to organizations that help the poor," he says. "Ask them how much time they give to organizations that help the poor."
Stanley says it would be difficult for any pastor to talk about the Medicaid expansion without addressing the entire law.
"I tried to imagine a scenario where I urged people to write our governor encouraging him to reconsider his decision regarding the expansion of Medicaid for the poor," he says. "As I imagined that, I got the feeling that by the time I finished explaining the issue, people's eyes would be glazed over."
Pastors who don't preach one way or the other on Medicaid expansion aren't callous or apathetic, says Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. They may be suspicious of a bigger government and skeptical of whether this move will solve the problem.
"The Bible calls on Christians to answer the cries of the poor," he says. "All Christians must do that. The question of the Medicaid expansion is a question of how we do that. I don't hear many people arguing that we shouldn't care about the plight of the poor when it comes to medical care. The question is a genuine debate about the role of the state."
Moore says some people have a "utopian view" of what state power can accomplish.
"Government programs sometimes encourage dependency, unintentionally break down family structures, and become unsustainable financially," Moore says.
Bob Coy, pastor of Calvary Chapel megachurch in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, wondered aloud about what he could, and should, say.
Florida, which has the second highest number of people without health insurance behind Texas, has not accepted the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.
Coy says he hasn't spoken publicly about poor people missing health coverage in Florida. But he has called the governor to get more information.
"I'm not an activist guy. I don't tell the government what to do. I am a church guy. I teach the Bible."
That doesn't mean he doesn't care for the poor, though, Coy says. He grew up in a poor family that couldn't afford to go to the dentist. His church also spends a large percentage of its budget on serving the poor.
Coy says he is suspicious of large-scale programs that are publicly funded because they are often abused.
"One side of our society is saying, 'We need this,' while on the other side is saying, 'This isn't fair and isn't going to work.' So how should a pastor, who has a heart to help people, respond?"
Why pastors should speak out
The Rev. Shane Stanford's answer to Coy is simple: Talk about justice for the poor like Jesus did.
Stanford is the senior pastor of Christ United Methodist Church in Memphis and author of "Five Stones: Conquering Your Giants."
He is also HIV-positive. He was born a hemophiliac and contracted the virus when he was 16 during treatment for his illness.
Stanford says he publicly speaks out about the millions of Americans stranded without health coverage because he knows how it feels. Once, after heart surgery, he was getting a transfusion when a nurse came into the room and pulled the needle out of his arm because she said he had maxed out his health insurance coverage.
He says standing up for people in the coverage gap is a matter of justice.
"Sometimes pastors have to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear."
Stanford ignores fellow pastors who counsel him to be silent about his state and others that refused to accept the Medicaid expansion.
"They say you have to be careful talking about political issues," he says. "When I look at their lives, part of me thinks they never had that needle yanked out of their arm."
Conservative pastors who urge their colleagues to avoid politics are hypocrites, says James Cone, a prominent theologian who has spent much of his career writing books condemning white churches for what he says is their indifference to social justice.
"When their own interests are involved, they are very much involved in politics," Cone says. "Same-sex marriage and abortion – they have no trouble politically opposing them."
Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, says a nation is defined by how it treats its most vulnerable members. But there is an entrenched hostility to poor people in America that goes unchallenged by some white, conservative Christians, he says.
"When poor people get food stamps, they get mad," Cone says. "When the rich and corporations get tax breaks and pay no taxes, they don't say anything."
McDonald, the pastor who spoke out on behalf of poor people from his Atlanta church, says Jesus provided universal health care. The Gospels are filled with accounts of Jesus healing marginalized people.
"He did it for free," McDonald says of Jesus' healing. "The reason the crowds gathered around Jesus primarily was for healing. People want wholeness."
Perhaps the gap between Bible Belt pastors who say nothing about the uninsured poor and those who do is also rooted in history.
Conservative Christians have traditionally emphasized providing charity to the poor - soup kitchens, donations to impoverished people in undeveloped countries - while progressive Christians have blended charity with calls for public policy changes that help the poor.
The distinction between both approaches was distilled by a memorable quote from the late Brazilian Roman Catholic Bishop Dom Helder Camara, who said: "When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist."
That may be changing as a new generation of evangelicals rise in the Bible Belt and elsewhere. One minister who speaks to them is the Rev. Timothy Keller, a conservative Christian author who pastors a megachurch in New York.
Keller is the author of "Generous Justice: How God's Grace Makes Us Just," a popular book that argues that evangelicals should do more than preach personal salvation; they must "speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves." He is a role model for many younger evangelicals.
"God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we. That is what it means to 'do justice.' ''
CNN.com recently contacted Keller to see if he would talk about "Generous Justice" and how it might apply to health care and the poor. Did he think pastors in Bible Belt states should say anything publicly on behalf of poor people being denied basic medical insurance? His publicist said she would contact Keller with the request.
Several days later, she returned with Keller's answer.
He had no comment.
John Blake - CNN Writer
Filed under: Baptist • Barack Obama • Belief • Bible • Christianity • Church • Church and state • Courts • Culture wars • Ethics • evangelicals • Fundamentalism • Politics • Poverty
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A single payer system would have given the best care to everyone. The right wing republicans and corporate interests are the reason why we have this hybrid scheme based on insurance, and this mess.
Indeed – that's what we typically get for compromising with conservatives....less effective, watered-down legislation that somehow still benefits the wealthiest Americans over everybody else.
We will have a Single Payer system as soon as Hillary Clinton is elected with a Democratic House and Senate.
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that
Oh Christ, I just puked. That's the scariest thing I've ever heard.
Move the Britain if you want that sh!t. The US is supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of the mollycoddled.
This is great. Democrats begging for Bible-based government programs.
How did you get there?
I don't hear about these church pastors turning down people who receive 10% of their members government Social Security checks. What hypocrites !!!!! The reason Jesus turned to the church is because no one in the government was willing to feed and help the poor like it is today. Stop twisting my brothers words !!!!!!!
Reality # 2
Only for the newbies:
Putting a quick end to all the inanity of religion especially the Christian and Islamic cons:
(only for the newbies)
Putting the kibosh on all religion in less than ten seconds: Priceless !!!
• As far as one knows or can tell, there was no Abraham i.e. the foundations of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are non-existent.
• As far as one knows or can tell, there was no Moses i.e the pillars of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have no strength of purpose.
• There was no Gabriel i.e. Islam fails as a religion. Christianity partially fails.
• There was no Easter i.e. Christianity completely fails as a religion.
• There was no Moroni i.e. Mormonism is nothing more than a business cult.
• Sacred/revered cows, monkey gods, castes, reincarnations and therefore Hinduism fails as a religion.
• Fat Buddhas here, skinny Buddhas there, reincarnated/reborn Buddhas everywhere makes for a no on Buddhism.
• A constant cycle of reincarnation until enlightenment is reached and belief that various beings (angels?, tinkerbells? etc) exist that we, as mortals, cannot comprehend makes for a no on Sikhism.
Added details available upon written request.
Phil Hersey
Because they are utter total non-believers in it for the job and the status and the attention. These hypocrites, who are Christians as they acknowledge Jesus as "lord", are sent to hell in Matt 25:41 believers or not.
From Professor John P. Meier at the University of Notre Dame:
"When commenting on the use of phylake (prison) in Matt 11:2, Meier [Marginal Jew II,198] notes that "the whole passage depicting the last judgment (Matt 25:) is either a Matthean creation or heavily redacted by Matthew."
Find added discussion at http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/jdb425.html.
Bottom line: Matt 25 :41 is historically nil.
I'mvotingforHillary
They are "buffett Christians" who pick and chose what they want to preach about. If you are gay or have an abortion then you will find the condemning you, but if you are an adulterer, fornicator, poor, sick, etc they will ignore you. They are poor excuses for Christians.
Lionly Lamb
Blaming the whole tree for its broken branches or wormy fruits is a shameful perspective to own up to...
Seastanker
Why are people on message boards always so mean?
DaveCA
Religion for profit businesses like Osteen's and these other money grubbers are "christian"s in name ONLY.
KaPueo
What utter nonsense. No one will be denied health INSURANCE in any state. Health CARE, on the other hand is a different matter, because Obamacare is only about insurance. And why would anyone on the left – and this writer is surely on the left – want all those Right Wing, Christian, Conservative, Racist, Tea Party preachers (They are all those things aren't they?) involved with a government program?
Yes they are all those things and if they can get involved with government issues when it comes to gays then they can get involved with the poor.
Tell that to the thousands (millions?) on Medicaid/Medical or whatever the name might be, in state who's government has refused to expand their coverage. By choice. They've chosen to not accept a profound amount of "free" Federal money to cover those state's poor citizens. They refuse to help those in need for purely political reasons. It's sickening to say the least.
This just goes to show that the religion of most conservatives is just as morally bankrupt as their favored political party is devoid of ethics, honor and ideas for moving the country forward.
This article is stupid!
Doc Vestibule
You're a towel!
Actually, You are the one!
I second the motion that this is one of the dumbest articles I have ever spent two minutes reading. The lines of nonsense under the pillar of a homeless person that likely doesn't even know that any of this is happening is comical. Who cares if the relegious leaders refuse to weigh in on the political debate? I seem to recall something about separation of church and state.....but maybe that was overturned by obamacare 🙂
Name*js
I know it makes the bleeding heart libs feel good to spend other folks money to help the poor but really you are just being selfish trying to relieve your guilt using other people's resources. In this way you bring everyone down and accomplish nothing except make yourself feel good on the inside while all you end up doing is hurting people. Liberalism always had the exact opposite effect of its stated intent. The Bible is not written to governments or nations (unless you are living under the old covenant still). It is meant for individuals and thus it is up to Christians or churches individually to give to those in need. As a Christian I agree that Christians in general could do a much better job at this but on the flip side I would not force my religion on any person. The argument that we should have socialized health care because we are a "Christian country" is simply ridiculous.
Dave A. hits it on the head. The Unaffordable Care Act, based on ridiculously out of touch assumptions, will lead to budget busting trillion dollar deficits. It's poorly designed from the outset and will not effectively control costs, in fact, it's going to logarithmically accelerate them, just as Medicare did due to inadequate cost controls.
But all this numbers stuff is too tough for our 10th grade math dropout President.
We need to bail out of the Obamacare fiasco before our economy is tanked and implement a rational, across the board plan for health care coverage that doesn't add layers of ineffective complexity like the UCA.
Brinkley Man
Is this 2013 or 1935? Because I could swear that back in 1935, y'all said the EXACT SAME THINGS about the introduction of Social Security.
Rich D
God's love knows no bounds. Nor does man's hate.
jrdedonato
Simple but powerful...Well done!!!
I think it's plain for all to see. The All Mighty Dollar is what these "Christian" men covet. Way much more so than the All Mighty.
Praisethelard
That's because the All Mighty Dollar is real, whereas the so-called All Mighty is fictional.
Amen brother. Amen...
The poor can always get care in the emergency room or urgent care. People try to make it sound like because they don't have insurance they are left to die or something. Not true – nobody is ever turned away from the emergency room or urgent care. They can also get emergency medicade if needed or just not pay the bill. What Obamacare is really about is making everybody pay and making the poor get some kind of insurance so the goverment (and taxpayers) are not stuck with their emegerncy room and urgent care costs. So like it or not – we are already paying for health care for the poor – ObamaCare just makes it more official. Where Obamacare goes wrong is it hurts some people who are paying for insurance and who will actually be better off now with none. So Obamacare needs to be tuned but I beleive it will in the end be better than what we had.
ME II
"nobody is ever turned away from the emergency room or urgent care."
Only if their condition is life threatening, if I understand correctly.
Susan StoHelit
Yes, they are condemned to die.
The emergency room provides emergency care only – this type of care means that anyone with a progressive condition will die. If you have kidney or liver problems. Asthma that needs simple and cheap meds to be under control – they won't provide the meds, but when asthma has almost killed you, you can go get an ER treatment – and if it's in time, you're alive, if it isn't, you are dead. Lack of medical care kills people, and no, the ER does not take over.
The ER doesn't have to help you – and will not – unless you are in immediate danger.
Or – take a diabetic. No insulin for them, no medicine. ONLY once they pass out in a coma (which, again, the hospital may or many not be able to revive them), or only when one of their limbs is gangrenous, will the ER do something – and even then – revivie, amputate, and kick them out again.
Insulin is cheap, and would stop it – but it's not the ER's job to provide care, just to save lives.
TELew
Of course, how the poor are going to pay for an emergency room visit is a totally different issue. They generally don't have $1,000 laying around for an emergency.
I have a brother who cannot work due to issues with his back. These issues could be surgically repaired. I can assure you no emergency room is going to fix his back.
It isn't the role of the government to ensure that everyone has AFFORDABLE healthcare. WHICH they failed to do in the ACA. It is the role of every Christian/ citizen of this country to take care of one another and it is definately the role of the CHURCH to help those 5 million people that fall through the cracks. Many churches do help in this way. I'm sure however ole'Joel will just write another self-help happy Jesus book and keep making millions. He preaches a religion that is totally dependent on the member coming back to feel better like a free weekly therapy session. Instead he should preach to people who take the real message of Jesus about being free, beautiful, and independent individuals that willingly chose to help on another. The same way God wants us to willingly choose to follow him and his message. If these people quit just going to church and hearing the Message and start LIVING the message we wouldn't need the gov't mandated health insurance tax that hurts more than it helps.
And if you aren't of the right religion? Or your church is poor?
Churches are a horrible safety net. Too often it's about membership drives, the religion, and not about caring for others.
This is what the gov't is supposed to do – take care of all of it's citizens.
The self-righteousness continues.
Our government has become nothing but a common thief, a middleman, stealing from the one and giving it away to another.
been that way for a while now....about 50 yrs at least
Rush Limbaugh agrees with you. Sounds like you two have been chatting latley.
hrladyship
I'll bet you hated Robin Hood, too.
amigay
Yes, it's called SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS. courtesy of Ronnie Raygun!
This isn't a "scandal".
CNN is one pathetic left wing propaganda network. How the hell do you know what they are preaching anyway? As if you are there, listening to all the sermons in the country.
drefromla
if you hate CNN why are you patronizing their website? let me guess... fox troll?
November 10, 2013 at 12:16 pm |
shabot
These pastors are wise not to reply to something as political as Obamacare because as well intentioned as it is, it has flaws. They also have been burned by the media before and they know better.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Learn the pros and cons of PCIe SSD, how NAND flash works, typical use cases for PCIe SSD, as well as the vendors and products in this space. Plus, get recommendations for VARs interested in selling PCIe-based SSD to customers.
PCI Express, or PCIe, is a computer motherboard interconnect that's used to expand the performance, functionality or connectivity of a server. HBAs, NICs, graphics accelerator cards and RAM expansion modules are common examples. Solid-state storage devices in the form of NAND flash are a newer application for the PCIe interconnect. This article will detail PCIe SSD: PCIe cards that contain on-board SSDs and provide internal storage to a server as opposed to external SSD arrays that are connected through a PCIe interface card.
Flash-based SSD is seeing increasing use because disk storage can't keep up with CPU performance; hard drive rotational speed hasn't increased in almost a decade. Even though some performance improvement has come from increased data density (more data per rotation), the fact remains that hard disk-based storage can't get data to and from CPUs fast enough to take advantage of continually improving processors. Memory (DRAM) is too expensive to provide the capacity needed, so flash storage has been tapped to fill this gap. With performance that's a lot closer to DRAM than HDDs but a cost per gigabyte that's in between the two, flash offers a viable alternative to spinning disk storage.
PCIe provides an efficient platform for integrating this flash into the compute environment, putting it onto the server motherboard and moving it closer (physically and logically) to the server compute engine. Compared with external devices -- such as traditional disk arrays with SSDs instead of hard drives, dedicated SSD arrays or caching appliances -- flash on the PCIe card storage can bypass the array controllers, interface protocol and cabling that direct-attached external devices have. They also eliminate the switches and networking connections of SAN-attached arrays.
As a data recording medium, NAND flash has a number of characteristics that require special processes. These processes represent overhead to be carried out by either a flash controller that's resident on the PCIe card or by the server CPU. Generally, they're associated with flash write operations but also handle reliability processes like error correction and replacement of bad flash blocks.
When data is written to flash, old data must be erased ahead of each write to make room for the new data. Also, this flash erase must occur in blocks, not at the byte level as with HDDs. This means that when a section of data is deleted, the entire block it's located on must be erased and the bytes not marked for deletion must be copied to another location.
NAND flash, unlike magnetic disk substrate, has a finite life span, meaning it can only be written to and erased a certain number of times. In response to this condition, flash controllers spread data writes across all available blocks so that the entire chip ages at a more even rate. Called "wear leveling," this process maximizes the life of the NAND substrate and, consequently, the SSD that contains it.
Flash on a PCIe card puts the SSD closest to the CPU memory complex within the server and affords a lower potential latency than external SSD devices. PCIe is bidirectional, meaning reads and writes can occur simultaneously, and it eliminates the protocol translation of SAS, SATA or FC storage. All this adds up to faster I/O than external devices, which use these protocols and often have to share CPU with RAID functions and storage features as well. Obviously, network-attached flash storage systems put the additional network latency into the equation.
Since it's a captive, dedicated storage device, a PCIe SSD card can be the easiest to install and use. External systems, especially those connected to a storage network and shared with other hosts, are typically more complex to implement. These larger-capacity storage devices represent a bigger investment and often involve strategies like storage tiering and caching to improve SSD utilization.
Being an internal, bus-connected card, PCIe SSD devices cause a reboot when installed or replaced, making expansion or servicing more disruptive. Also, since they consume a PCIe slot, they may reduce the number of other PCIe devices, like network adapters (or additional SSD cards) that can be used. As dedicated storage, PCIe SSD can't be shared with other servers, something that could help cost-justify this premium-priced capacity.
PCIe SSD is ideal for I/O-intensive applications, like Web 2.0, social networking, OLTP, active databases, etc. It can also provide quick performance improvements for localized application problems that require a large, fast buffer area, like video editing, financial modeling, simulations and data acquisition. This direct-attached storage (DAS) implementation may also appeal to first-time SSD users, compared with the potential complexity of an external or network-attached array. This form factor is also ideal for OEMs to include SSD with servers as an upgrade option.
Texas Memory Systems puts the flash controller on the PCIe card, so it doesn't impact the server CPU or memory resources to handle the write overhead mentioned earlier. According to Levi Norman, director of marketing, "NAND flash returns errors; you just have to manage it. Texas Memory Systems designs PCIe cards as a system, with onboard RAM and CPU, giving it the intelligence to conduct more efficient I/O and improve performance, especially for write-heavy applications."
Mitch Crane, senior director of technical marketing at Fusion-io, said, "Everyone else is trying to make flash look like a disk drive; we're making it look like memory." He said Fusion-io's products use physical memory addresses and DMA to treat flash more like system memory than storage. Fusion-io products don't do flash overhead functions on the card, which Crane said increases complexity and chances for failure.
LSI's PCIe SSD solution takes a little different approach. Its card includes six SSD drive modules, as well as a SAS/SATA bridge that acts an interface between PCIe and these modules. The flash controller functions are handled by the SSD modules themselves. JB Baker, the company's principal product manager, said, "The use of SAS controllers in the solution architecture gives LSI the flexibility in future designs to consider including ports to external SAS/SATA devices, which could enable users to expand and scale the system."
Although PCIe-based SSD products are newer and represent a small portion of the total SSD market currently, they're certainly a hot topic. According to Gartner, market share for PCIe-based SSD was 6% of all solid-state shipments in 2009 and is predicted to be four times that by 2013, as all major SSD vendors come out with products. From a performance perspective, PCIe SSD represents a fast and efficient way to apply flash performance to a server IOPS problem. While performance is the key driver for SSDs, actual mileage may vary depending upon the PCIe solution chosen and the environment. But performance is a discussion integrators are used to having with customers. Another one is implementation.
As practitioners are finding out, getting the kinds of utilization they need to see from their SSD investment is easier said than done. Adding SSDs to existing arrays or putting in dedicated SSD appliances can be a complex and expensive solution. As a smaller, localized implementation of SSD, a PCIe card can be easier to get approved, easier to put in and be faster to show the performance improvements expected.
For VARs, this shouldn't be the only SSD product on the line card. Like other technologies, integrators should handle a range of products and represent multiple implementation options. Whether it's localized application acceleration, dedicated high-performance storage or the simplest way to get an IOPS problem resolved, PCIe SSDs provide a strong set of options for VARs.


text:
Youth wing of Dutch Party for the Animals shows its solidarity with young Swedish climate activist
Last week, students and members of PINK!, the Dutch Party for the Animals' youth wing, were on school strike outside the Dutch parliament to protest against the majority of the Dutch parliament's indifference to climate change. The students wanted to show their solidarity with Greta Thunberg, the Swedish schoolgirl who has become an international role model to young people around the world expressing their dissatisfaction with the current climate policies.
With this solidary strike, PINK! aims to stress the importance of an appropriate climate policy. PINK! hopes students from other countries will follow their example, until governments are willing to take the future of young people seriously. The solidary strike in The Hague was led by student Matt Kanters: "We have a generation of young people who feel their interests are not adequately represented in politics. The indifference of our governments to voiceless generations is a problem as universal and transboundary as that of climate change itself and must therefore be combated with the same passion."
Swedish and Dutch students on school strike
During their strike outside the Dutch Parliament in The Hague, the students were even taught about climate change by their enthusiastic geography teacher. The Swedish and Dutch students are supported by the various sister parties of the Dutch Party for the Animals, including the Swedish Djurens Parti, Italian Partito Animalista, Belgian DierAnimal and British Animal Welfare Party.
Geography teacher teaching Dutch students on strike outside parliament building
British Animal Welfare Party MP showing her support
Growing international opposition
Around the world, more and more young people as well as grown-ups take it upon themselves to stimulate their governments to act against climate change. In various parts of the United States, children have won lawsuits against their government who, according to the children, is conserving the status quo despite the consequences for the planet and for younger generations. In Colombia young people have won a lawsuit claiming that deforestation and rising temperatures are violating their constitutional rights to healthy food and water and a healthy environment. In Pakistan, a seven-year-old stood up to her government, accusing it of not doing enough to preserve the planet for her generation.


Going on holiday can involve a lot of stress considering all the preparations you have to make. It is just as stressful on your pets as they do not understand that you are going to come back – animals do not have the same sense of timing that we do – for them, an hour can seem like a lifetime. If you are going away, it is a good idea to put your animals into a kennel in order to minimise the stress to them.
Boarding your animals is a kinder option unless you have someone staying at your home whilst you are away. You may feel that cats are too independent to worry about but this is simply not true. Cat Kennels are a good way to reduce anxiety in your kitty while they are away from you. You can be assured that the kennel will look after your kitty cat in much the same way you would.
It is not an exaggeration to say that your dog lives for you and your family – boarding your dog is the perfect way to support your pooch while you are away. Dogs are very social creatures and need to daily interaction with humans in order to be completely happy. They will, of course, still miss you when you are gone but you will find that the kennel staff will provide useful distractions to them.
It is, naturally, imperative to find the right boarding kennel and so you need to vet potential Dog Boarding options carefully. The first thing to do is to check whether they have a set plan throughout the day for the animals. For the kennel to be run successfully, they need to have well established routines – feeding times should be consistent and there should also be daily play and exercise sessions. You also need to visit the kennel beforehand to get a proper feel for the place – is it clean? Do the animals there look happy? Is there an exercise area?
Do not leave off the investigation there – search the company's website – do they make unrealistic promises, such as "We guarantee that nothing will happen to your pet"? If so, be very wary – there may very well be some unforeseen circumstances and a professional kennel will understand this and have a plan that allows them to deal with this. Also check that the kennel requires an up to date vaccination certificate – if it doesn't, steer clear. The last check you must do is to run a search on the kennel itself – if there are complaints about the kennel, they will most likely come up in the search. Proper research upfront will go a long way to reducing your pet's stress whilst you are away.


The value of all executive search assignments within Retail Financial Services & Insurance increased by 11.7% in the last 12 months.
Per Ardua dominates both tables at the more focused boutique level.
Across all assignments over £100k the firm has a 21.6% market share, and for those over £200k Per Ardua holds almost a third (31.3%) of the market share.


Circa 1890-1900s. Victorian era. Silk cotton lining with knit lace overlay. Fits modern 2/4 best. Corset inner boning. Front clasp closures. Silk waistband detail. Alencon lace cuff sleeves. Excellent condition- no lace breaks or holes; very faint underarm staining but unnoticeable due to lace overlay.
Chest: 34" | Shoulder: 16" | Waist: 28" | Length: 18"


text:
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FDA Reveals and Quells Concern Over Proton-Pump Inhibitors
By Mark Bloom , Editor-in-Chief, MedPage Today
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- After nine weeks of internal worry about the cardiovascular safety of two prescription proton-pump inhibitors, omeprazole (Prilosec) and esomeprazole (Nexium), the FDA has issued a limited all clear.
Clearly reacting to criticism that it withheld data on the cardiovascular safety of rosiglitazone (Avandia), the agency announced that it had been struggling with data it received from AstraZeneca on May 29 on the results of two small randomized studies that stirred the pot on esomeprazole and the prescription version of omeprazole.
The studies triggered "concerns that long-term use of Prilosec or Nexium may have increased the risk of heart attacks, heart failure, and heart-related sudden death in those patients taking either one of the drugs compared to patients who received surgery," said the FDA.
At a press conference, Paul Seligman, M.D., M.P.H., associate director of the Office of Safety Policy and Communication at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, described frenzied analyses from May 29 till the end of July, including discussion at an internal safety board meeting on July 12, before the fears were quelled. "There was a lot going on in June and July," he said.
During this period, more data from AstraZeneca and the FDA's own analyses led to a calmer assessment, said the FDA. "Based on everything we know now, FDA's preliminary conclusion is that the observed difference in risk of heart attacks and other heart related problems seen in early analyses of the two small long-term studies is not a true effect."
Dr. Seligman said it was hard to say just when the initial concern began to wane or why it took until today to make the initial worries public. Dr. Seligman said a final report would be issued in three months.
In both studies, patients with severe GERD were to be randomly assigned to receive treatment with a drug (either omeprazole or esomeprazole) or to have surgery to control their GERD.
"Since May 29, the company has provided FDA with a large amount of additional data, including more information on patient follow-up from the two long-term studies, and pooled analyses of other controlled clinical studies, including placebo-controlled trials of up to two years' duration," the agency said in a statement.
"At this time, FDA's preliminary conclusion is that collectively, these data do not suggest an increased risk of heart problems for patients treated with omeprazole or esomeprazole. Therefore, FDA does not believe that healthcare providers or patients should change either their prescribing practices or their use of these products at this time.
One of the studies was a 14-year trial comparing omeprazole with surgery in patients with severe GERD. It found that more patients treated with omeprazole had heart attacks, heart failure, and heart-related sudden death than did the patients who had surgery. "The difference between the two groups of patients was seen within the first year of the study, and continued over time."
A second study, which is ongoing, compared esomeprazole with surgery and had five year follow-up information on patients. "While the initial data from this study suggested a difference between treatments in the rate of cardiovascular events, an updated report submitted by AstraZeneca found that the number of patients who experienced heart problems was similar in both treatment groups."
The FDA said the study protocols did not specify how heart problems, such as heart attacks, were to be defined or documented.
"As a result, evaluating the information that has been gathered about the safety of either drug in these studies is difficult," said the FDA.
"Also, many of the patients who were randomized to the group that was to have surgery withdrew from the study without ever undergoing the surgical procedure," the FDA added. "The patients who had surgery tended to be younger, and less likely to have a past history of heart problems or risk factors for heart problems, than those who were treated with one of the drugs. These differences between the two groups of patients could have biased and significantly influenced the safety data from these studies.
In addition, the FDA said its preliminary conclusion was supported by an additional analysis of 14 comparative studies of omeprazole, of which four were placebo-controlled. "Patients in these studies were treated for up to two years," said the FDA. "In these studies, there were fewer heart attacks or other heart problems reported in the patients treated with omeprazole compared to patients that were given a placebo. Although these studies were not specifically conducted to assess the risk of heart problems, and patient follow-up is incomplete, they do not suggest an increased risk of heart problems with the use of omeprazole. FDA will continue its review of all available data."
Mark Bloom
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Olivia, Can You Hear Me Now?
"When people ask what's going on with the San Francisco music scene, point them in the general direction of Andrew St.
San Francisco native and singer-songwriter Andrew St. James is a rare talent who has single handedly combined San Francisco's beatnik past with it's willfully high-tech future. St James writes and performs music that lives up to the mythology created by Neil Young, Jerry Garcia and Jack Kerouac while easily meeting the bar set by current luminaries such as Father John Misty, Ryan Adams, and other keepers of the singer-songwriter flame. But Andrew St James is in a class of his own, as a listen to any of his recorded work will make readily apparent.
Listen to Andrew St James now.


Protection circuitry to prevent short circuits.
Pressure vents to prevent explosions.
500 charge cycles guaranteed before 75% decrease by memory effect.
Charging Current: Recommended 1A, maximum 2A.
Charging Current USB Port: 0.8A.
Size: Length: 2.8" (70mm) Diameter: 0.7" (18.6mm).


The PF Classic/MR is one of the strains best suited for this tek. But all strains can work, some better than others.
2. buy at least one dozen half-pint canning jars with lids. the half pint wide-mouth jars are the best for this method..
3. drill/punch-out 4 holes equidistant around the rim of each lid.
4. buy some brown rice and grind it into flour using a coffee grinder, blender, etc.
7. pour 1/2 cup of the verm. in medium mixing bowl and level it out.
8. cover the vermiculite with 1/4 cup of the ground rice flour evenly.
9. sprinkle on 1/4 cup of spring water.
11. load mixture into a jar, until level with the bottom of the lid's threads, discarding/recycling excess.
12. carefully clean the rim of jar of any material.
13. fill jar rest of way to rim with plain, dry vermiculite.
14. screw on lid, and cover holes/lid with aluminum foil.
15. repeat until you have all jars filled.
16. place jars into a large pot, add enough water to reach 1/3 up the jars' sides, cover with lid, and boil/steam 45 minutes.
18. inject 1 cc. from the spore syringe into each jar, splitting it evenly between the 4 holes.
incubator or until the jar is completely covered with white growth.
fully colonized jars meanwhile, from the very beginning if possible, expose to light several minutes a day, eventually you'll see little shroom-like growths called pins.
20. flip the jars over so the cakes rest on the lids.
after colonization is finished and the cake is fully whitened, remove the lid, shake off the excess unattached vermiculite, shake the cake partially out to loosen it, then replace the lid. this gives more headspace for shrooms to grow and more airspace. one can repeat this process of airing the jars every few days to help speed up growth.
21. pick shrooms when caps open and the veil under the cap tears. or when they quit growing, or turn dark in color.
22. dry them if you want, or eat them fresh. store un-picked but ripe invitro jars in the refrigerator for freshies all-the-time, year-round.
A tip to improve invitro performance: After 100% colonization....and especially when you start to see the pins form....sit them lids up, and take them off and fan over the open tops for a few minutes every few days....for gas exchange and all.
Notes: This tek is primarily designed for anyone who, for whatever reason, cannot fruit in humidified terrariums. While the yield from each cake per flush is a bit less compared to some other methods, over time and multiple flushes the yield per cake can easily reach 7+ grams dry weight in mushrooms, particularly when the Dunk Tek} is used between flushes. Some few strains are rather poor performers with this method so use them at your own risk. Pf's Classic aka Amazonian aka Matias is probably one of the best for this tek. The cakes can be left unattended for long periods of time, there is no need to do anything to them in between picking sessions. You can open the jars any time after full colonization to remove the cake for picking, drying out the jar, etc. The only real concern is to be alert to any sign of decay or rot on the fruit. If it turns black or appears slimy/wet then it's best to pick ASAP.


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