Round 5 - Dificid

7 days after my 9 weeks of Vanco (last taken on 7/16), my C-Diff returned on Saturday 7/23. I called the infectious diseases on call Doctor at Methodist Hospital and again was prescribed Vanco. On Tuesday my primary Doctor called and ordered up a 10 day supply of Dificid, a new drug for Clostridium difficile. Kathee picked it up at the hospital last night and I started on it this morning. More on below

FDA approves treatment for Clostridium difficile infection

Excerpts:

The safety and efficacy of Dificid were demonstrated in two trials that included 564 patients with CDAD that compared Dificid with vancomycin, a common antibiotic used to treat CDAD. The clinical response was similar in the Dificid group compared with the vancomycin group in both studies. In some patients with CDAD, symptoms can return. In the Dificid trials, a greater number of patients treated with Dificid had a sustained cure three weeks after treatment ended versus those patients treated with vancomycin.

“In recent years, many in the infectious disease community have seen an increase in the number of cases of people with a C. difficile infection,” said Edward Cox, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Office of Antimicrobial Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Dificid is an effective new treatment option for patients who develop Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea.”

....


Dificid was developed by San Diego-based Optimer Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The following represents how I am feeling:

Obama's debt limit hypocrisy

Senator Barack Obama Explaining his 2006 Vote Against Raising the Debt Limit

Excerpt:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that “the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

Comment: Who's not leading now!

Isn't that the point of make-up?

UK watchdog bans 2 makeup ads featuring Julia Roberts, Christy Turlington; says are misleading

Excerpt:

Britain's advertising standards council banned two makeup advertisements featuring actress Julia Roberts and model Christy Turlington on Wednesday, ruling the ads — which used digitally altered photographs — were misleading.

The Advertising Standards Authority found that the airbrushed images used by L'Oreal in magazine ad campaigns exaggerated the results women could expect from using the beauty products.

Comment: An airbrush or a face brush? Liz was famous for the Gaussian Blur!

Who Added "Christian" and "Conservative" to Norway Shooter's Facebook Page Yesterday?

Who Added "Christian" and "Conservative" to Norway Shooter's Facebook Page Yesterday?

Comment: With images (click above)

Amy Winehouse joins Club 27

Police: Singer Amy Winehouse found dead at her home in London

Excerpt:

Police say Amy Winehouse, the troubled diva who had struggled with drug and alcohol abuse, has been found dead at her home in London.

Police confirmed that a 27-year-old female was pronounced dead at the home in Camden Square northern London.

Comment: The 27 Club. Sad.

Tiger Wu and the Teenager

Wu at center of sex allegation

Excerpt:

Rep. David Wu has been accused of an “unwanted sexual encounter” with the teenage daughter of a longtime friend, the latest scandal to engulf the troubled Oregon Democrat.

The Oregonian reported that the 56-year-old Wu “acknowledged a sexual encounter to his senior aides but insisted it was consensual,” according to sources aware of the incident.

Oregon Democrat David Wu's 'bizarre' tiger-suit photo

Excerpt:

In the run-up to November's election, staff members working for Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) expressed growing concern that their boss was mentally unstable, the Portland Oregonian reported last week. Wu's worrisome antics, which included "loud and angry behavior," saying "kooky things to staffers," and lambasting his opponent as being "stingy with tips," led Wu's staff to keep him away from the public for three days before the election, and to make inquiries at nearby psychiatric clinics. Wu also sent a series of strange middle-of-the-night e-mails, including a "bizarre" one in which the congressman posed in a tiger suit (see below). After Wu won a seventh term in the House, six staffers, including his chief of staff and campaign pollster, resigned.

Comment: Hey Nancy ... drain the swamp!

Levitating Leaders or Photoshop follies

Source of Photos: President al-Assad Swears in Hama New Governor and zonaeuropa.com

North Korea, most of Asia terrible at Photoshop


Comment: Not the first time: Kim Jong Il: Doctored Photos? AND In an Iranian Image, a Missile Too Many

Little and BIG diesel engines

GM confirms diesel 2013 Cruze

Excerpt:

The diesel version is expected to be built at GM's plant in Lordstown, Ohio, alongside the gas engine models. GM has said it only plans to build Cruzes at the 4,150-worker plant, which already is operating with three shifts.

Comment: Umm ... but the pic of the diesel above: World's largest diesel engine makes 109,000 horsepower

The 109,000-horsepower Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C, which first set sail in the Emma Mærsk in 2006, weighs in at a rotund 2,300 tons, and it's 44-feet tall and 90-feet long. In other words, the TRA96 is the height of a four-story building, and longer than a Christmas Eve line at Sam's Club. Within that massive exterior rests 14 cylinders that each consume 6.5-ounces of diesel fuel every cycle. And, if you like torque, there's enough twist to rip an M1 tank to shreds, though the massive mill churns at only 102 rpm.

Who owns our debt?

$14 Trillion in Debt, But Who Owns All That Money?

Comment: Graphics with the article. Worthwhile read to understand the issue

Who knew? A battery can be hacked!

Apple Laptops Vulnerable To Hack That Kills Or Corrupts Batteries

Excerpt:

Modern laptop batteries contain a microcontroller that monitors the power level of the unit, allowing the operating system and the charger to check on the battery’s charge and respond accordingly. That embedded chip means the lithium ion batteries can know when to stop charging even when the computer is powered off, and can regulate their own heat for safety purposes.

When Miller examined those batteries in several Macbooks, Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs, however, he found a disturbing vulnerability. The batteries’ chips are shipped with default passwords, such that anyone who discovers that password and learns to control the chips’ firmware can potentially hijack them to do anything the hacker wants. That includes permanently ruining batteries at will, and may enable nastier tricks like implanting them with hidden malware that infects the computer no matter how many times software is reinstalled or even potentially causing the batteries to heat up, catch fire or explode. “These batteries just aren’t designed with the idea that people will mess with them,” Miller says. “What I’m showing is that it’s possible to use them to do something really bad.”
Miller discovered the two passwords used to access and alter Apple batteries by pulling apart and analyzing a 2009 software update that Apple instituted to fix a problem with Macbook batteries. Using those keys, he was soon able to reverse engineer the chip’s firmware and cause it to give whatever readings he wanted to the operating system and charger, or even rewrite the firmware completely to do his bidding.

From there, zapping the battery such that it’s no longer recognized by the computer becomes trivial: In fact, Miller permanently “bricked” seven batteries just in the course of his tinkering. (They cost about $130 to replace.) More interesting from a criminal perspective, he suggests, might be installing persistent malware on the chip that infects the rest of the computer to steal data, control its functions, or cause it to crash. Few IT administrators would think to check a battery’s firmware for the source of that infection, and if undiscovered the chip could re-infect the computer again and again.

Comment: Since I have 2 MacBooks, I trust a fix will be available shortly!

Cisco vs Apple

Why Cisco is a Better Bet Than Apple

Excerpts:

Over the last year, Cisco's stock has fallen by more than 30%. Apple's, in contrast, has risen more than 50% — breaking the $400 barrier, in fact, in after-hours trading Tuesday following its earnings report.

Maybe the better headline would be "The Beauty and the Beast."

... glamour stocks that are as popular as Apple's is today more often than not underperform out-of-favor stocks that are as unpopular as Cisco's.

This does not mean that Cisco's earnings or sales will necessarily grow at a faster pace over the next couple of years than Apple's. On the contrary, the historical pattern is for glamour stocks' earnings and sales to continue growing faster than those of out-of-favor companies like Cisco.

The reason to nevertheless bet on Cisco is that it's unlikely to grow as slowly as its depressed stock price is discounting, while Apple is unlikely to grow as fast as the market is assuming.

Comment: AAPL / CSCO

One problem I have with Apple is the absolute cost. 10 shares would be almost $ 4000!

Ron Paul on national debt

Ron Paul: "We Will Default Because The Debt Is Unsustainable"

Excerpt:

"When a country is indebted to the degree that we’re indebted, the country always defaults. We will default because the debt is unsustainable," Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) said on the House floor today.

"If we don’t understand this, this default will not be because we don't send out the checks. We will send out the checks. It will be defaulted on because people will get their money back, or they will get their Social Security checks and it won't buy anything."

Comment: I hope he is wrong but I believe he is right

McD's SUPERSIZED!

World's biggest McDonald's to open... on the OLYMPICS site

Excerpt:

Sports-loving spectators at the London 2012 Olympics could have a battle of will power on their hands - as McDonald's has announced it will open its biggest ever branch close to the park.

The 3,000 square-metre restaurant stretches over two floors and is equivalent to half the length of an American football field. It has 1,500 seats and will be one of four stores opening including one in the athletes' village in Stratford, east London.

The restaurant will employ 470 staff to serve around 50,000 Big Macs, 100,000 portions of fries and 30,000 milkshakes during the Games.

Comment: Whatever one thinks about their food, it is a great stock

It is on our buy list. I like their food, by the way.

Wells Fargo "Little Jack Horner" of big banks

Wells, B of A: A Tale of Two Capital Ratios

Excerpt:

If the financial industry were made up of nursery rhymes, Wells Fargo & Co. would be Little Jack Horner and Bank of America Corp. would be regarded as Pinocchio.

As evidenced by the reaction to the two banks' second-quarter results on Tuesday, Bank of America is plagued by a lack of credibility among analysts and investors. That's a problem Wells Fargo, which continues to pull out plum earnings, has been able to avoid.

The divergence in the two banks' bottom line results was stark. Wells Fargo had record earnings, while Bank of America reported a big net loss. Both banks continued to feel the brunt of the sluggish economic rebound, reporting anemic revenue.

The primary concern for analysts and investors, though, seemed to revolve around capital levels, a subject of ongoing consternation and confusion. Though banks have until 2019 to meet Basel III requirements, there is still some uncertainty over how the requirements will be phased in for each bank, and the effect of future economic setbacks on those capital levels. Here is where the differences between B of A and Wells might be most profound.

...

[Bank of America] expects to have a tier 1 common ratio between 6.75% and 7% by January 2013, well above Basel III capital requirements of 3.5% for that time.

Wells, on the other hand, now estimates that its tier 1 capital under Basel III rules stands at 7.4%, growing quarter over quarter despite a return to paying out dividends and buying back shares.

Comment: Little Jack Horner source. Pinocchio source

He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said 'What a good bank am I!

Clorox and the Pirate

Icahn Fires Back At Clorox Board, Ups Bid To $80

Excerpt:

On Monday, the board of Clorox dismissed a takeover offer from the company’s largest shareholder Carl Icahn, and instituted a shareholder rights plan to dissuade him from increasing his 9.4% stake. The billionaire is not going quietly though, upping his bid Wednesday morning and shooting back at the board’s claims that his initial offer was “neither credible nor adequate.”

Comment: Daphne and the Pirate is a 1916 silent film. Today Clorox trading at $ 75. ALL CAPS is the corporate raider equivalent of pulling out the big guns!

Bernanke: Debt ceiling breach 'calamitous'

Debt ceiling delay: Gun shot to the economy

Excerpt:

No one knows what will happen to the economy if lawmakers fail to reach a debt ceiling deal by Aug. 2.

Except this: It won't be good.

For starters, interest rates could shoot up and stock prices could plummet -- leaving Americans less well off and less willing to spend, to say nothing of having less economic confidence going forward. The same goes for business owners and investors.

On top of that, the federal government won't be able to pay 44% of its bills worth an estimated $134 billion, according to a Bipartisan Policy Center analysis.

On an annualized basis, that's like cutting spending by $1.6 trillion -- which is nearly all of discretionary spending, including defense. Looked at another way, it's like slashing $33.5 billion a week.

Technically, it wouldn't be a "cut" in spending so much as a postponement. That's because the bills the Treasury Department puts off will have to be paid once the debt ceiling is raised. It is, after all, money owed for goods and services already provided, government benefits already earned or agency funding already appropriated.

Comment: My own view ... not sure of the effect but I doubt it would be good

Debt Ceiling votes: What goes around comes around

March 16, 2006 (Bush was President)

Law School economics

Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!

Excerpt:

The basic rules of a market economy — even golden oldies, like a link between supply and demand — just don’t apply.

Legal diplomas have such allure that law schools have been able to jack up tuition four times faster than the soaring cost of college. And many law schools have added students to their incoming classes — a step that, for them, means almost pure profits — even during the worst recession in the legal profession’s history.

It is one of the academy’s open secrets: law schools toss off so much cash they are sometimes required to hand over as much as 30 percent of their revenue to universities, to subsidize less profitable fields.

In short, law schools have the power to raise prices and expand in ways that would make any company drool. And when a business has that power, it is apparently difficult to resist.

How difficult? For a sense, take a look at the strange case of New York Law School and its dean, Richard A. Matasar. For more than a decade, Mr. Matasar has been one of the legal academy’s most dogged and scolding critics, and he has repeatedly urged professors and fellow deans to rethink the basics of the law school business model and put the interests of students first.

“What I’ve said to people in giving talks like this in the past is, we should be ashamed of ourselves,” Mr. Matasar said at a 2009 meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. He ended with a challenge: If a law school can’t help its students achieve their goals, “we should shut the damn place down.”

Given his scathing critiques, you might expect that during Mr. Matasar’s 11 years as dean, he has reshaped New York Law School to conform with his reformist agenda. But he hasn’t. Instead, the school seems to be benefitting from many of legal education’s assorted perversities.

N.Y.L.S. is ranked in the bottom third of all law schools in the country, but with tuition and fees now set at $47,800 a year, it charges more than Harvard. It increased the size of the class that arrived in the fall of 2009 by an astounding 30 percent, even as hiring in the legal profession imploded. It reported in the most recent US News & World Report rankings that the median starting salary of its graduates was the same as for those of the best schools in the nation — even though most of its graduates, in fact, find work at less than half that amount.

Comment: Fundamentalist Seminaries is another place where there is no link between supply and demand

A minor example of Federal Government largesse (waste)

Three outstate airports to lose Delta service

Excerpt:

For the cities losing Delta service, there's a small chance they could lose all commercial air service, Hedrick said, if no one bids on them and U.S. legislators cut subsidies that help airlines serve less viable markets.

On Friday, House Transportation Chairman John Mica, R-Fla., added a provision to a must-pass bill to keep the Federal Aviation Administration in business that includes eliminating subsidized air service to 13 small cities and caps subsidies at $1,000 per passenger.

...

Thief River Falls isn't so lucky. The northwestern airport about five hours north of the Twin Cities has planes departing on average with only 12 percent of seats filled. Last year the airport served about 2,500 people,

Comment: Note the phrase .... a proposal to "cap[] subsidies at $1,000 per passengers". That means the current subsidy is North of that! Let them take buses! Image above


Meanwhile another view of the debt crisis with the view of turning it into a de facto Balanced Budget Amendment.

Instant Balanced Budget Amendment: Maintain the Present Borrowing Limit

Excerpt:

There is a very simple way to balance the budget without passing a Balanced Budget Amendment: refuse to raise the federal borrowing limit. Treasury would be forced to do what any business or family would do: live within its means and stop mortgaging the American dream to the Chinese. Instant Balanced Budget Amendment.

Comment: About the above. Not sure if it would work but indeed that is what everyday Americans do ... prioritize spending. And cutting the subsidy for small airports is a good way to start!

Obama a Johnny-come-lately phony deficit hawk

Call Obama’s bluff

Excerpt:

President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”

How about last December, when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February, when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April, when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?

All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one. He’s been saying forever that he’s prepared to discuss, engage, converse about entitlement cuts. But never once has he publicly proposed a single structural change to any entitlement.

Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation?

Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear.

Comment: Where's the beef, Mr President?