READING SLP

After a year of doom-and –gloom talk about death panels and, as late as Sunday, that “Armageddon” is coming, Democrats in Congress passed a health insurance reform to send to President Barack Obama. The legislation is far from perfect. We would have liked to see a consortium or public opinion that would rev up competition among insurers.But for all the complaints by Republican congressional leaders that they were locked out of reform negotiations, the legislation contains many of the elements that GOP leaders sought over the years. Among them, ending insurers’ practice of denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions or imposing lifetime limits on coverage. Yet insurance experts have long noted that the only way to eliminate the practice of turning down people with pre-existing conditions would be to expand the pool of the insured. This legislation would do so, covering about 95 percent of Americans, either through required payments or subsidies. There’s one detail that should be fixed now: the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula used by Medicare to pay doctors who treat the elderly. Virtually every year doctors treating Medicare patients brace for deep cuts. The convoluted SGR, created in 1997 in an attempt to bring down spiraling Medicare costs, has been blocked by Congress various times, but no fix has been devised. Doctors who treat Medicare patients make less today than they did almost a decade ago, according to the Dade County Medical Association, and other groups. Yet doctors have to employ more personnel to deal with insurance claims, and the cost of protecting against frivolous lawsuits also works against their bottom line.

The article affirms that currently:

We can conclude from the article that;

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On the night, several years ago, that I tackled my nightstand, I should have known better. Jolted awake in the dark, my wife Alice peered over the covers to where I lay on the floor. I had lunged with open arms from our bed while still asleep, truly the consequence of an overactive imagination. Alice joked that we should dust off the kids’ bed rails. Since that night, we have been forced to take my wildest dreams more seriously. In a re-occurrence months later, I “blocked” Alice in bed, envisioning instead a defensive lineman and, more recently, I punched the headboard with my fist, thinking instead that I was protecting my parents from an assailant. What makes these incidents all the more bizarre is that three years ago, having written on the history of sleep, including its disorders, I began to collaborate with Dr. John Shneerson, the director of the largest sleep centre in the United Kingdom, at Papworth Hospital. Our project: a series of papers devoted to sleep violence. Despite the anguish caused by insomnia, it is far from the most frightening sleep abnormality. Nor, in contrast to the terror of nightmares, are the consequences of sleep violence confined to the unconscious. In extreme cases, sleepers have been known to inflict violence, even death, upon family members as well as physical injury or worse upon themselves. In recent years, sleep violence has figured in a number of high-profile criminal cases. Just this past November, a retired Welsh steel worker, Brian Thomas, admitted strangling his wife in their camper while dreaming of fighting off an intruder. Not only did Thomas have a history of sleepwalking, but a polysomnograghy test, which monitors brain-waves and eye movements among other functions, was compelling enough for prosecutors to withdraw all charges. Better known, perhaps, was the case of Kenneth Parks, an unemployed Canadian whose murder of his mother-in-law in 1987 inspired a television movie, “The Sleepwalker Killing” (1997). Having no motive for the crime and a history of sleepwalking, Parks was acquitted by an Ontario jury.

According to the writer, the frightening part of his situation is that:

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The writer refers to criminal cases in which suspects have:

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In almost any city, anywhere in the world, you could find yourself stuck in a traffic jam from 0700 to 0900. But not in La Paz in Bolivia – 9a.m. is when rush hour really starts. People begin heading to work then, even if they were supposed to be at their office or factory 30 minutes or even an hour earlier. This chronic lateness is the result of what is known as “Bolivian time” which the government is now aiming to tackle with bonuses for punctual workers. Samuel Mendoza, a taxi driver in La Paz, considers himself a Bolivian exception. Because he works mainly with foreigners, he says, he is forced to be on time. Mr. Mendoza knows his compatriots well. Most Bolivians, he explains, take being late as part of their duty. “Bolivians are really irresponsible, there is no culture of punctuality here, they don’t arrive on time to work or anywhere else, it seems they don’t wear a watch on their wrist,” he says. “It is just something very Bolivian.” Indeed it is. In Bolivia, if you are told to meet somebody at a certain time, it is quite likely that the person will show up 30 minutes late-if you are lucky. But the Bolivian government thinks things should change. It is working on a labor reform that, among other things, aims to break this national habit of arriving late for everything, from work to meetings to dates. And the government has decided that the only way to change habits is to offer a financial incentive. In one of South America’s poorest countries, that extra money might mean a lot to many people. “Bolivians are not traditionally known for their time-keeping. So Bolivians who arrive at work on the dot every day could get a ‘punctuality bonus’, a recognition,” Victor Hugo Chavez, a lawyer from the Ministry of Labor, told the B.B.C. And it might mean a lot for the economy. The government of President Evo Morales believes Bolivians’ tardiness costs the country millions of dollars in lost work time .
We could say that Samuel Mendoza:

The Bolivian Government wishes to:

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Mattel said the use of names will add a “new dimension” to Scrabble. The rules of word game Scrabble are being changed for the first time in its history to allow the use of proper nouns, games company Mattel has said. Place names, people’s names and company names or brands will now count. Mattel, which brings out a new version of the game containing amended rules in July, hopes the change will encourage younger people to play. Until now a few proper nouns had been allowed which were determined by a word list based on the Collins dictionary. In Scrabble, players try to gain the highest points by making words with individual letter tiles on a grid board. Each letter tile has a points value between one and ten, based on the letter’s frequency in standard English. Various colored squares on the board can double or triple a player’s points. Mattel said there would be no hard and fast rule over whether a proper noun was correct or not. A spokeswoman for the company said the use of proper nouns would “add a new dimension” to Scrabble and “introduce an element of popular culture into the game”. She said: “This is one of a number of twists and challenges included that we believe existing fans will enjoy and will also enable younger fans and families to get involved.” However, Mattel said it would not be doing away with the old rules altogether. It will continue to sell a board with the original rules. Scrabble was invented in 1938 by American-born architect Alfred Butts. He later sold the rights and it was trademarked in 1948.

07. The game company Mattel is going to:

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Mattel expects that;

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A Jordanian mayor is considering suing a newspaper over an April Fools’ Day report saying aliens landed nearby. Al- Ghad’s front-page story on 1 April said flying saucers flown by 3m (10ft) creatures had landed in the desert town of Jafr, in eastern Jordan. It said communication networks went down and frightened townspeople fled into the streets. The mayor, Mohammed Mleihan, said parents were so frightened they did not send their children to school that day. He immediately notified the security authorities, who he said combed the area looking for the aliens. They did not find any. Al-Ghad’s front page piece said the giant aliens had arrived on flying saucers lighting up the Jordanian desert town of Jafr, some 300 kilometres ( 190 miles) east of Amman. Moussa Barhoumeh, Al Ghad’s managing editor, said the newspaper was simply having some good natured fun on April Fools’ Day, and had apologized for any inconvenience caused. “ We meant to entertain, not scare people,” he said. Mr Barhoumeh did not say why Jafr was chosen as the butt of the joke, but the area is notorious for a nearby military base that sometimes hosts US troops for joint training exercises. While April Fools’ Day jokes appearing in the press may be a great British tradition, this is not the case in Jordan, says the B.B.C.’s Dale Gavlak in the capital, Amman. While Egyptians are renowned as the big jokers in the Arab world, able to easily laugh at just about anything, the Jordanians are considered more serious. Although some are trying to change that perception by hosting a yearly international comedy festival in Amman, for Jafr’s mayor, this was clearly a joke that just went too far, our correspondent adds.

From the general reaction to the April Fool’s Day report, we could conclude that many of the Jafr townspeople are:

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It seems that in Jordan there are efforts to:

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Green groupies of government who fancy themselves on the leading edge of chic-think for their opposition to nuclear power had better rethink their style. Joining-in fact-leading-the ranks of those who think nuke is cool is none other than the man who defines progressive ideas: super-entrepreneur Bill Gates. Those anti-nuke obstructionists suddenly find themselves looking very 20th century as the co-founder of Microsoft moves ahead with futuristic plans to deliver clean, inexpensive power to an energy-needy world. The software genius already has remade the planet once by leading the personal computer revolution and helping millions of individuals worldwide create wealth. Now he stands to do so again by backing a next-generation nuclear technology, called a traveling-wave reactor. At a February conference in Long Beach, Calif.,Mr. Gates waxed enthusiastically about his plans. “If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years, it’d be to invent the thing that halves the cost of energy with no carbon dioxide. This is the one thing with the greatest impact,” he told the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, referring to his project. His wish got a major boost when Terra-Power, his start-up company, announced two weeks ago that it is negotiating with Toshiba Corp. to build the micro-reactors, which could enter production in 2014 if approved for use in the United States. On March 25, Energy Secretary Steven Chu inaugurated a blue-ribbon commission of scientists and policymakers who will spend the next two years discussing a long-term solution to managing the nation’s used nuclear fuel waste.

The writer points out that:

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Bill Gates’ company, Terra-power:

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According to recent polls, 60 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction. The same percentage believe that the U.S. is in long-term decline. The political system is dysfunctional. A fiscal crisis looks unavoidable. There are plenty of reasons to be gloomy. But if you want to read about them, stop right here. This column is a great luscious orgy of optimism. Because the fact is, despite all the problems, America’s future is exceedingly bright. Over the next 40 years, demographers estimate that the U.S. population will surge by an additional 100 million people, to 400 million over all. The population will be enterprising and relatively young. In 2050, only a quarter will be over 60, compared with 31 percent in China and 41 percent in Japan. In his book, “The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050,” uber-geographer Joel Kotkin sketches out how this growth will change the national landscape. Extrapolating from current trends, he describes an archipelago of vibrant suburban town centers, villages and urban cores.The demographic growth is driven partly by fertility. The American fertility rate is 50 percent higher than Russia, Germany or Japan, and much higher than China.In addition, the U.S. remains a magnet for immigrants. Global attitudes about immigration are diverging, and the U.S. is among the best at assimilating them (while China is exceptionally poor.) As a result, half the world’s skilled immigrants come to the U.S. The United States already measures at the top or close to the top of nearly every global measure of economic competitiveness. A comprehensive 2008 Rand Corporation study found that the U.S. leads the world in scientific and technological development. In sum, the U.S.is on the verge of a demographic, economic and social revival, built on its historic strengths.
According to what is stated in the article, in the future it is expected that:

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The writer believes that:

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Jose Padilla, a commercial truck driver, Vietnam veteran and native of Honduras, has lived legally in the United States for 40 years. He was arrested in Kentucky after he was found with a large amount of marijuana in his tractor-trailer. He was charged with drug offenses that would make his deportation virtually mandatory. When Mr.Padilla asked his lawyer about the consequences of pleading guilty, he said that he was told that he did not need to worry about his immigration status since he had been in the country so long. When he faced deportation, Mr Padilla argued that he pleaded guilty only because of that erroneous advice. The Supreme Court of Kentucky rejected his claim. It said his right to effective assistance of counsel did not apply because deportation was merely a “collateral” consequence of his conviction. The Supreme Court voted 7-to-2 to reverse. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for a 5-member majority, said judges used to have considerable discretion about whether a noncitizen should be deported after being convicted of a crime. Because much of that discretion has been taken away, correct legal advice is more important than before for immigrants. Justice Stevens said it was wrong to dismiss deportation as a “collateral” issue because deportation is nearly automatic in many cases. The court went on to rule that if Mr.Padilla’s account was correct, his lawyer had not met the constitutional standard. The court noted that the ability to remain in the country can be more important to a client than the possibility of a jail sentence. And it would not have been difficult for Mr. Padilla’s lawyer to ascertain that a guilty plea would put him at considerable risk of deportation. To get relief, Mr. Padilla still needs to show that he was actually prejudiced by the bad advice. No matter how this case is resolved, it has already established a constitutional principle that will help ensure that the Sixth Amendment rights of immigrants are protected.

According to Justice John Paul Stevens:

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In conclusion, it appears that Mr.Padilla’s case has led to:

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There’s a view that dictatorships are good for artistic life. On the one hand, they throw public money at cinema, architecture and monumental sculpture, producing mounds of propagandist kitsch, of course, but also providing the wherewithal for real talents to learn their trade. This has been true of cinema in the Soviet Union and Iran. On the other hand, they make the life of the creative dissident truly adventurous, stimulating a defiant heroism that western writers in the late Soviet era found inspiring. But as we celebrate what is-let’s not forget-the greatest collective act ever invented by human beings, a free election, it’s worth noting that such claims for totalitarianism’s cultural strength are daft. Let’s begin with visual art. Britain was not exactly a democracy when William Hogarth painted his Election series, now in Sir John Soane’s Museum, but the scenes he portrays-corruption, violence -do revel in a grotesquely comic British liberty. It is still recognizable as an election. Hogarth and the political satirists who followed him in Georgian England surely helped to lay the foundations of real democracy with their irreverent popular art. But democracy has poets on its side, too. What about Walt Whitman, singing the song of democratic America? Go back to classical Athens, and the highest ideals of excellence in literature and art we uphold today were born in a democratic city, not a totalitarian one. You could argue that the amazing cultural strength of America 60 years ago, when Jackson Pollock was painting, was down to a cult of freedom. Did Pollack fit an American more than a Soviet view of life? Er, yeah, in the sense that his art captured the liberty and energy of living in a country where you elect your leaders and can say what you like about them. So did modern jazz. So did rock ‘n’ roll…. We’re about to prove with our votes what our art has been proving for centuries: it’s a free country.

The writer suggests that:

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The writer concludes by pointing out that:

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Malaysia’s government has announced it will record the body mass index of students on report cards as part of a campaign to fight obesity. The Malaysian health minister says the country has the highest percentage of obese citizens in Southeast Asia. Teachers now have to measure students’ body weight and height to see if they have a healthy amount of body fat. The authorities say this will help parents monitor whether their child is overweight or obese. It might seem controversial, but even teenage girls, who are usually self-conscious, say they do not mind the move. The government says that one in six Malaysians is either overweight or obese. But it is not just because of the increasing number of fast food restaurants – Malaysian cuisine is also full of deep-fried, oily and spicy dishes. Parents like Saiful say it is very difficult to get Malaysians to eat more healthily: “Because our main food in Malaysia is coconut rice and everything in our foods must use coconut milk. Not so healthy, not healthy at all!” One of the ways the government is trying to tackle obesity is to get Malaysians to take in less sugar. Since last year they have been running a campaign, but it has been very difficult. Roadside food stalls, which are hugely popular among Malaysian families, serve very sugary drinks. There is a sense that it would be very difficult for Malaysians to stop indulging their sweet tooth.

We can conclude from the report that;

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In the future, the Malaysian government intends to;

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When Rafael Correa became president of Ecuador in January 2007, he was sworn in in unique style. The ceremony took place in the Andean town of Zumbahua and Mr. Correa wore an embroidered shirt typical of some highland villages. Shamans shook sacred herbs over his head to protect his “Citizens’ Revolution” from evil spirits. Then, some of the country’s indigenous leaders handed him a scepter with colorful ribbons to show they accepted him as president. “I will never fail you,” Mr. Correa promised. In a country where a quarter of the population is indigenous, he was the first president to be officially invested according to indigenous traditions. But the same indigenous leaders are now considering taking back that scepter –a sign of how unpopular the president has become among those who helped him come to power in the first place. After an initial honeymoon period, Mr. Correa and indigenous groups have clashed over several issues. Indigenous organizations have marched against the government’s policies on mining, because they want the right to veto new projects on their ancestral land. They stalled the approval in Congress of a new water law, which would take control of irrigation away from individual communities and give it to a new state agency. The administration of justice in native areas has also been a bone of contention. In March, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador filed a lawsuit against President Correa and his government for alleged genocide of two native populations in the Amazon region – an accusation Mr. Correa dismissed as “ridiculous.”

The report informs us that;

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An issue that has caused problems between President Correa and indigenous groups is that;

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Wal-Mart has said it will soon bring back the sale of firearms, including rifles and shotguns, at more than 500 of its US stores. The retail giant stopped selling guns at hundreds of its 3,600 US stores in 2006, citing slumping consumer demand. But a spokesman said guns would return to the shelves as “part of the overall push to bring 8,000 products back.” Thursday’s news comes two months after Wal-Mart announced a seventh straight quarterly decline in US sales. Wal-Mart will be stocking more merchandise in a wide range of its stores in an effort to “offer customers the broadest assortment of our products possible,” spokesman Lorenzo Lopez told the BBC. He added that firearms would be part of that push, which he said had been planned for months. “A few years back…we were trying to streamline the assortment,” Mr. Lopez said, referring to the decision in 2006 to cease stocking firearms in many Wal-Mart stores. Wal-Mart currently sells rifles, shotguns and ammunition at about 1,000 of its locations in the US. That will rise to roughly half its 3,600 stores under the changes outlined on Thursday. Mr. Lopez said Wal-Mart was focusing on areas of the country where hunting and fishing are popular. Federally-tracked gun sales grew more than 12% in the first quarter of 2011. However, growth has mainly been seen in handguns, which Wal-Mart does not carry.

Which of the following is true?

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A Mayan sculpture that fetched 2.9m Euros ($4.2m) at a Paris auction is a fake, Mexican officials believe. The French auction house Drouot maintains that the statue, of a masked figure carrying a shield, is genuine and more than 1,000 years old. But Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History says it does not match the style of the period it was supposedly from. Another 66 pieces at Monday’s auction were also fakes, the institute said. The Mexican foreign ministry has informed French authorities. “The figure tries to recreate the Pre-Columbian features of the Maya region in southeastern Mexico, but the height, the posture and the flexed legs and the boot straps are not characteristic of this culture,” the institute said. The institute suggested that it had been carefully carved to give an ancient appearance. But the expert in Pre-Columbian art at Drouot, Jacques Blazy, told AFP news agency: “Mexico’s accusations are totally ridiculous. They are completely baseless. It is a well-known artifact that has been thoroughly analyzed.” The 1.65m statue, sold by a private collector to an anonymous European buyer, was the most expensive item at the sale.

According to the report;

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Air traffic controllers in the US have been advised to take 26-minute naps, after a string of incidents involving workers falling asleep. So is 26 minutes the ideal length of time for a nap? Referring to a 1995 study from NASA which he co-authored, NTSB member and fatigue expert Mark Rosekind said that a 26-minute nap would improve performance by 34% and alertness by 54%. There was other supporting evidence that said naps of between 20 and 30 minutes were beneficial, he said. His call for work naps is supported by the controllers’ union, which wants naps to be allowed in both overnight and day shifts. Beyond the aviation industry, combating fatigue is an issue that affects many people across all professions, working day and night, although it carries obvious risks in jobs that involve motoring or machinery. But other experts are doubtful that 26 minutes is the optimum napping time. “It’s a bit too long and risks you falling into a deep sleep,” says Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Council in the UK, which advises the government on guidelines for drivers. “Once you get beyond 20 minutes, you risk a deep sleep and you can be much more groggy when you wake up. What we recommend is that a nap is combined with a cup of coffee so you have some caffeine, and that takes about 20 minutes to kick in. Have a cup of coffee and get your head down. Done together it has a more powerful effect. A lot of people take caffeine after they wake up, but you have a window of opportunity of 20 minutes, so it will help you wake up. It works, there’s no doubt about it.”

According to the Sleep Research Council;

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Air traffic controllers in the US have been advised to take 26-minute naps, after a string of incidents involving workers falling asleep. So is 26 minutes the ideal length of time for a nap? Referring to a 1995 study from NASA which he co-authored, NTSB member and fatigue expert Mark Rosekind said that a 26-minute nap would improve performance by 34% and alertness by 54%. There was other supporting evidence that said naps of between 20 and 30 minutes were beneficial, he said. His call for work naps is supported by the controllers’ union, which wants naps to be allowed in both overnight and day shifts. Beyond the aviation industry, combating fatigue is an issue that affects many people across all professions, working day and night, although it carries obvious risks in jobs that involve motoring or machinery. But other experts are doubtful that 26 minutes is the optimum napping time. “It’s a bit too long and risks you falling into a deep sleep,” says Jim Horne, director of the Sleep Research Council in the UK, which advises the government on guidelines for drivers. “Once you get beyond 20 minutes, you risk a deep sleep and you can be much more groggy when you wake up. What we recommend is that a nap is combined with a cup of coffee so you have some caffeine, and that takes about 20 minutes to kick in. Have a cup of coffee and get your head down. Done together it has a more powerful effect. A lot of people take caffeine after they wake up, but you have a window of opportunity of 20 minutes, so it will help you wake up. It works, there’s no doubt about it.”

The idea of initiating naps at work;

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A Chinese publisher is set to bring out the first ever authorized edition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘ One Hundred Years of Solitude’ in Chinese, after winning the auction for the rights with a fee reported to be in excess of $1m. Pirated editions of the Nobel prize-winning author’s most famous novel have been rife in China for decades. The piracy so enraged Marquez on a visit to the country in 1990 that he swore that even 150 years after his death his books would not be authorized in China, according to Chinese newspaper, ‘The Global Times.’ But Thinkingdom House editor-in-chief Chen Mingjun refused to take no for an answer, writing a letter to the author in 2008 which according to the ‘Global Times’ read: “We must pay our respects to you across the Pacific Ocean, making every effort, shouting ‘great master!’ just like you did to your idol Hemingway across the streets in Paris… We believe you’d also wave your hand and shout back ‘Hello friend!’ just like Hemingway did.” Thinkingdom House emerged triumphant from the auction for the Chinese rights in ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ which followed. It will publish the book this summer, and is also promising a crackdown on pirated editions of Marquez’s story of generations of the Buendia family. Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin China, which publishes the English language edition of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, said the size of the advance had “already created an enormous amount of interest” in the novel, despite it being “widely available in pirated forms for a long time.” The deal, however, “does serve to demonstrate why China is at a fascinating point”, she added. “Even at a time when writers and artists (such as Ai Weiwei) are disappearing in crackdowns, publishers are bullish about the future, and it’s one of the few places in the world where you can attend the opening of a large-scale chain bookstore. (I went to one in Beijing two weekends ago),” she said.
In China, until now:

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According to Jo Lusby, managing director of Penguin China;

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Germany’s dramatic rethink over nuclear power has thrown up new problems, as the consequences of a retreat from atomic technology emerge. Just after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in March, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a review of energy policy and ordered Germany’s oldest reactors to be shut down immediately, and perhaps permanently. Only a few months earlier, she had decided to keep the reactors running past their original shutdown dates. But only now comes the hard bit. Power companies have warned of higher prices because of the shutdown; Germany has imported electricity to meet peaks in demand; analysts have warned that coal-fired power stations will be boosted – and nuclear ones in the nearby Czech Republic and France. And right in the heart of the country, protest groups are raising their voices as they realize that rejigging a country’s energy industry means redirecting the transmission lines through their picturesque backyard. The difficulty is that many of the threatened nuclear power stations are in the south, situated conveniently for the big energy users like the cities of Munich and Stuttgart and manufacturers like Volkswagen. If these southern nuclear generators are decommissioned, the idea is that wind farms in the north might take up the slack. But that implies new high-voltage cables with very high pylons to match. A new grid of high-voltage cables is proposed right through the heart of Germany. The route goes through the Rennsteig, the beautiful ridge of deep-green, forested hills that stretches for more than 160km down the centre of the country. It is where Germans come to hike in what they feel is the idyllic embodiment of their country. Germany’s Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said planning rules should be changed so that applications could be handled centrally. That would take decision-making further from the local opponents of particular projects and nearer to a national body. So Germany – like other countries repelled by nuclear power – now has some tough choices. Wind is not an easy, cheap, swift alternative. Another unpleasant fuel may be easier –but it is one which green activists hate: coal. Professor Claudia Kemfert, an energy economist at the Institute of Economic research in Berlin, thinks the Japanese disaster will boost coal all over the world.
One of the side effects of shutting down Germany’s nuclear power stations could be;

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It has been suggested that;

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