plus 3, Arrested astronaut Lisa Nowak's Navy career is over - AZCentral.com |
- Arrested astronaut Lisa Nowak's Navy career is over - AZCentral.com
- UK health care, jobs in - Militant
- Got a dirty job? Zeigler's your man - San Francisco Gate
- Navy Ends Career of Former Astronaut in Bizarre Airport Attack - FOX News
| Arrested astronaut Lisa Nowak's Navy career is over - AZCentral.com Posted: 20 Aug 2010 06:52 AM PDT Aug. 20, 2010 06:43 AM JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Navy has ended the military career of former astronaut Lisa Nowak, who lost her NASA job over a bizarre airport attack on a romantic rival. A Navy panel of three admirals voted unanimously late Thursday to discharge Nowak and downgrade her rank from captain to commander. The newspaper Florida Today reports that Nowak didn't comment on the decision at the panel's meeting at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. Nowak was sentenced to a year on probation last November after pleading guilty to third-degree felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. Nowak confronted her romantic rival in the parking lot of Orlando International Airport in February 2007 after driving from Houston. Colleen Shipman had begun dating Nowak's love interest. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| UK health care, jobs in - Militant Posted: 15 Aug 2010 08:31 AM PDT
Vol. 74/No. 32 August 23, 2010 But the 1 million, mostly working people, who use the NHS every day face declining care. The experience of journalist Judith Woods is typical. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Woods who recently sought treatment for a fractured spine, reports: "First I was denied simple pain relief even as I wept and begged for it, then I was forcibly discharged, because I was taking up a precious bed—only to end up in A&E [accident and emergency] at another hospital 24 hours later." Now, with a government drive to reduce spending—the £105 billion (US$165 billion) health budget is one-sixth of total public expenditures—some of the most common operations face the axe. Examples include dying cancer patients told to "manage their own symptoms"; nursing homes for the elderly closed; the number of hospital beds reduced, including those for the mentally ill; pediatric, maternity, and elderly care being cut back; and services that provide breaks for long-term care givers being trimmed. Previously decided health construction programs are to be reviewed. The measures are the result of government decisions to achieve £20 billion (US$32 billion) in "efficiency savings" by 2014. A similar proposal was made by the Labour Party when in power. Tens of thousands of jobs will be cut. Specialist nurses will be forced to do general nursing tasks, endangering specialist care, according to the Royal College of Nursing. Figures published by The Times August 6 reveal that 11,000 job cuts have been slated for this year. Dr. Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, warned of the danger of a "return to Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells and Mid Staffs"—hospitals in which hundreds of patients died due to hygiene problems. Even with a government commitment not to reduce NHS spending, care will decline. Demands of an ageing population require a 6 percent rise in the NHS budget for each of the next three years just to maintain current care levels, according to a recent study. Prices for health provision are rising faster than average inflation. Companies take advantage of the state-funded NHS to raise their service and drug charges and rake in superprofits. Moreover, large chunks of government money invariably lands in the coffers of the bloated bureaucracy that administers the NHS. When the last Labour government expanded the health budget, spending on management staff rose by more than 80 percent in four years. In face of declining care, local protests have started. A campaign earlier in the year by the Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition won a government reprieve on cutting back services provided at the north London hospital. Hundreds took to the streets to protest proposed cuts, which included the closure of the accident and emergency department and cutbacks to maternity and children's services. Protesters called on people to save "our NHS." The government cuts, however, underscore the fact that the NHS is not ours. Workers have no property rights under capitalism. The new service was hugely popular. Working people in their millions flocked to hospitals and doctors' practices, previously denied to them. Tony Benn, former Labour Member of Parliament, characterized the NHS as "the most socialist … thing ever done by a government in Britain." But it is socialist only in the sense of bourgeois socialism—the view that the state is like an empty sack that can be filled with capitalist reforms which, as they accumulate, will amount to socialism. This reformist perspective gains support from sections of the capitalist rulers seeking to placate workers and divert independent working-class political action, particularly in times of rising class struggle. It has played a major role in politics in the United Kingdom for more than a century. In fact, the original blueprint for the NHS was drawn up by the Conservative wartime cabinet of Winston Churchill, drawing on steps that had already been taken during the war. The 1948 National Health Service Act, drawn up by Labour health minister Aneurin Bevan, differed from the Conservative proposal not in its stated objective of providing universal health care but in nationalizing the hospitals, and placing them under the control of regional authorities. In order to win the acceptance of doctors at the top of the pay pyramid—the consultants, and surgeons—the government had to "stuff their mouths with gold," as health minister Bevan put it, and protectd their private practice rights within the NHS. For providers of services and materials to the newly nationalized NHS—including the highly monopolized drug industry—state funds would guarantee gigantic profits over the long haul. In addition, workers were levied with higher tax burdens to fund the service, while care was class-differentiated according to region. As is the case with all nationalizations by capitalist governments, the health service was taken out of the hands of individual capitalists only to return it to the capitalist class as a whole. Health provision remained a commodity, albeit a cheaper and more accessible one. It wasn't long before Labour started to impose direct health charges, as government funds were diverted to the UK's participation in the Washington-led war against the Korean people in the early 1950s. Measures to expand the market within the NHS began in the early 1990s, with the Conservative government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The Blair Labour government took further steps, projecting that all hospitals would become stand alone, self-financing "foundation trusts"—raising money from government and from private capital. During this time, the number of NHS hospital beds declined by one-third. Blair was unable to carry through his goals to the end in face of opposition from the Gordon Brown-led forces within the Labour Party who were connected to union leaderships, especially in the public sector. Today just half of the hospitals in England and Wales are Foundation Trusts. In Scotland, where health is the purview of the government, London was not able to even start the move to Foundation Trusts, blocked by a coalition of the labor officialdom and the Scottish National Party. Even under the more limited PFI in Scotland, costs have rocketed upwards and patient care has eroded. A recent article in the Edinburgh Evening News reports that the private company Consort, which leases the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary to NHS Lothian, will have charged the government institution seven times the cost of the hospital by 2028. Consort—a consortium of the construction companies Balfour Beatty and Morrison's, along with the Royal Bank of Scotland—the hospital owner, also profits from running the canteen, hospital shops, and car park. The government's new proposals are an effort to carry through what Blair couldn't. The leaderships of five national trade unions have submitted motions for the annual Trades Union Congress in September calling for protests in the face of the government's cuts. Pete Clifford in Edinburgh, Scotland, contributed to this article. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Got a dirty job? Zeigler's your man - San Francisco Gate Posted: 20 Aug 2010 07:07 AM PDT Dominique Zeigler (right) has won fans among players and coaches with his zest for giving up his body. (08-19) 22:40 PDT -- Dominique Zeigler learned to take a big hit when he was little. No small wonder, then, the wide receiver they still call little is such a big hit at 49ers training camp. Time and again, Zeigler throws his 185-pound frame into harm's way in the middle of the defense. Nearly every time, his 6-foot-3 skeleton comes out the other side with a catch secured and his helmet properly strapped. Zeigler's willingness to run the most dangerous routes is proving to be his safest bet to make the 53-man roster at last. "People always seem to think that just because I'm little, I'm scared to go across the middle," Zeigler said. "If I was scared to get hit, then I'm in the wrong profession." If Zeigler plays like his profession depends on it, good. The 49ers have cut him three times in three years. The practice squad is all that's kept Zeigler from pursuing his bio-page dreams of broadcasting, or coaching high school football. No way the 49ers waive him again. Quarterbacks love him because he goes after balls with his hands in traffic. Coaches love him because he can play any receiver position. "We all feel good about throwing the ball to him in traffic because he is so strong-handed," quarterback Alex Smith said. "I think we're all liking what we're seeing, everybody." Offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye said he's had an "outstanding camp." Head coach Mike Singletary called Zeigler "a guy who does everything for us." Zeigler, who has all of five career catches, has gone from bubble boy to a virtual lock as the No. 4 guy. "He is very unselfish and he doesn't mind going across the middle, going underneath, doing some of the dirty work," Singletary said. Consider it the first football lesson learned by Zeigler, who got his start as an option-running quarterback in the middle of Texas. Keep the ball, and Zeigler had to run into the muscle of the interior defense. Pitch the ball, and he was going to get hit just the same. At least as a receiver, Zeigler gets to run away from a defense instead of right into one. "As long as I've been playing football, getting hit is part of the game," Zeigler said. "We ran a lot of option so you take hits. When I was younger, I was always the first to run Oklahoma drills. I like hits. I have pads on just like everybody else. "It's not like I'm going to die. You're just going to get hit, so may as well catch the ball." That's exactly why Smith and the quarterbacks dig him so much these days. Three times, Zeigler caught a 2-minute drill pass in congestion Thursday morning, including a touchdown in the back of the end zone. He caught passes with both hands extended, leaving himself defenseless against linebackers. He went up sideways in the air, exposing his body to safeties. It's a dangerous job, but someone has to do it. "Even after a big hit, you get up and that lets them know you're not scared," Zeigler said. Briefly: Outside linebacker Travis LaBoy practiced for the first time since his concussion two weeks ago. He ran with the second-team defense. ... Now, it's backup tackle Adam Snyder who is out with a concussion. ... Tight end Vernon Davis (knee) and receiver Michael Crabtree (neck) remain out on a day-to-day basis. Catching as catch canThe 49ers are widely expected to carry five receivers on the 53-man roster. Here's how The Chronicle handicaps the race: 1. Michael Crabtree: Sprained neck a minor preseason issue, nothing more. 2. Josh Morgan: Downfield blocker who runs pure routes. 3. Ted Ginn Jr.: Defense-stretching speed catching on with improved hands. 4. Dominique Zeigler: Runs tough inside routes, catches with hands, not body. 5a. Kyle Williams: Rookie will make it if his sprained toe isn't too serious. 5b. Jason Hill: He'll make it if Williams' sprained toe is serious. This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Navy Ends Career of Former Astronaut in Bizarre Airport Attack - FOX News Posted: 20 Aug 2010 07:07 AM PDT Published August 20, 2010 | Associated Press The Navy has ended the military career of former astronaut Lisa Nowak, who lost her NASA job over a bizarre airport attack on a romantic rival. A Navy panel of three admirals voted unanimously late Thursday to discharge Nowak and downgrade her rank from captain to commander. The newspaper Florida Today reports that Nowak didn't comment on the decision at the panel's meeting at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station. Nowak was sentenced to a year on probation last November after pleading guilty to third-degree felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. Nowak confronted her romantic rival in the parking lot of Orlando International Airport in February 2007 after driving from Houston. Colleen Shipman had begun dating Nowak's love interest. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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