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IOM report: “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health”

Abstract:

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, “peer” countries.

In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings.

U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage. 

The rising level of inequality in the USA is probably one of the things that is effecting people’s health the most. Psycho-social stress has been shown to be a significant factor in determining the quality of life and health.

Thanks to reddit user christ0ph for providing this information

National Intelligence Council Study: China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030

(New York Times) WASHINGTON — A new intelligence assessment of global trends projects that China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030, but that America will remain an indispensable world leader, bolstered in part by an era of energy independence.

Russia’s clout will wane, as will the economic strength of other countries reliant on oil for revenues, the assessment says.

The product of four years of intelligence-gathering and analysis, the study, by the National Intelligence Council, presents grounds for optimism and pessimism in nearly equal measure. The council reports to the director of national intelligence and has responsibilities for long-term strategic analysis.

One remarkable development it anticipates is a spreading affluence that leads to a larger global middle class that is better educated and has wider access to health care and communications technologies like the Internet and smartphones. The report assesses global trends until 2030.

read more

In 2004, the Bush Administration won re-election

ignatius-m:

Through a dirty trick known as Voter Caging. It’s a form of disenfranchisment where they send voter verification forms to addresses of likely Democrat voters who will be unlikely to respond to the verification forms. The Republican party has done this a number of times and was ordered to stop. However, the Bush folks brought it back to win the 2004 election.

It worked because it was a close election. We’ve had a lot of close presidential elections in recent history.

In 2008, Barack Obama mobilized a voting majority large enough to be immune to caging. With all the other controversies going on at the time, it was a more effective strategy than trying to end the caging.

Having found the caging method would likely not work for them again in 2012, the Republicans are going back to an old strategy: poll tax.

Historically, poll taxes were used as a legal method of keeping African Americans (and really poor white people) from voting. They were declared illegal.

So, the modern method is to require voter ID cards. Only the voter IDs can be difficult for poor people to obtain. Hence, poll taxes again.

I’m not going to tell you the Democrats are the best choice but it’s pretty clear that they’re at least a slightly better choice than the Republicans (if the past year and a half hasn’t proven that to you, I’d suggest paying closer attention to the news).

Since we’re not going to succeed in electing Socialists en masse this year, we need the Democrats to win. We also need the Democrats we elect to understand that we want actual liberal positions, not slightly-less-right-of-center-than-Tea-Partiers.

—

This is not a polysci paper. It’s a call to mobilize. If you think I’m wrong about 2004, 2008, and 2012 and want me to provide sources, well, tough nuggets. I’m not here to provide you sources. I’m trying to energize the left for a stopgap of the creeping Tea Partyism, institutional racism, etc.

That said, here’s some fucking sources on caging and its effects in 2004.

Greg Palast: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6757612420128645563

PBS’s NOW report: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/

Eartha Jane Melzer of the Michigan Messenger: http://michiganmessenger.com/4076/lose-your-house-lose-your-vote

(via ignatius-m)

Your individual rights are what give you the right to practice your own religion.

Your individual rights, the ones that have been granted to you in this country, just like everyone else that lives in the United States. We are all (supposedly) granted the same rights.

When your practicing of your religion starts infringing on the individual rights of others, the same individual rights that give you the right to practice your religion, you are making where your religion is taking precedence over other’s individual rights.

What makes you so important that other people should live by your belief? Why do you think you have the right to say “You don’t have the same freedom I do.”?

Think about it. Even inside the Christian religion you guys can’t decide the details of exactly how to be religious. There’s all different sects of Christianity. What if suddenly one day, that choice was taken away from you. What if yourhad to be Catholic or you had to be Baptist, or you had to be Mormon. 

Say you were Catholic but you were told you had to live by Evangelical rules. You wouldn’t like it, you wouldn’t like it if they outlawed any number of thing that you had personal choices about, so why do you think it’s okay to push your choices on other people.

Don’t think your religious choices are so sacred that other people have to follow them. There are a lot of things I don’t like from how some people dress, to lifestyle choices I think are unwise, but I remember, if it’s that person’s personal choice, and it doesn’t infringe on anyone else, then it’s not my right to tell them what they can and can not do.

So yes, it basically comes down to not getting what you want. Not being able to push your beliefs on other people. Not being able to take choices away from others and replace them with your own.

There is no war on religion, it’s something politicians do to whip their base into a frenzy. It’s something religious leaders say to make their followers think that it’s okay to take away other people’s choices and replace them with their own.

It’s not okay. Your rights are not more important than anyone else’s no matter what your church or political leaders say.

Breaking: Democratic Women Boycott House Contraception Hearing After Republicans Prevent Women From Testifying

atheismfuckyeah:

This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women and minorities from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Republicans oppose the administration’s rule and have sponsored legislation that would allow employers to limit the availability of birth control to women.

Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that “As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”

And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules’ alleged infringement on “religious liberty,” not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule. Holmes Norton said she will not return, calling Issa’s chairmanship an “autocratic regime.”

AlterNet

See a video compilation of the exchange at the link.

I’ve bolded the part I thought needed the most attention.

You know what that statement says? That says that women shouldn’t be allowed to talk ever, the men are being important and making important decisions, so the women should shut up and just take it.

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH THESE PEOPLE TALK ABUOT IT BEING A RELIGIOUS FREEDOM/RIGHTS MATTER, THAT’S BULLSHIT - BECAUSE GUESS THE FUCK WHAT? IT IS A CONTRACEPTIVE, REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL AUTONOMY MATTER.

THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO HAVE WOMBS ARE GOING TO BE AFFECTED BY THIS DECISION. THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO BE ABLE TO GET PREGNANT WILL BE AFFECTED BY THIS.

AND LOOK WHO’S ON THIS PANEL. OLD, WHITE, CIS-MEN OF A RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVE BENT.

TELL ME THESE OLD, WHITE, CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS CIS-MEN AREN’T JUST SCARED OF WOMEN HAVING CONTROL OF THEIR OWN BODIES.

GO ON. TELL ME THAT. WITH A STRAIGHT FACE AND NO SNIGGERING.

Fuck the Republicans.

Sometimes I am so grateful to be British. I get to actually have control over my womb here.

~Mooglets

(via sidfromabove1975)

Tennessee private school bans homosexuality

atheismfuckyeah:

A Christian school in America has updated its policies to ban gays and any mention of homosexuality.

News Channel 3 of Memphis, Tennessee, reports that a letter was sent home to parents of the 300 children at Rossville Christian Academy outlining the ban.

The policy reads: “Homosexuality is forbidden in scripture (Romans 1:27, Leviticus 18:22).  A staff member or student who promotes, engages in, or identifies himself/herself with such activity through any word or action shall be in violation of this policy. 

“Should the administration determine a violation of this policy, the person involved will be subject to disciplinary action with the possibility of permanent dismissal.  Any applicant who is not in compliance with this policy will not be admitted.”

A lawyer has told the news channel he sees no legal issues within the new policy because the school is a private institution and there are no state laws protecting gays.

The school is yet to comment on its new policy.

From Pink Paper

Seriously, people. Seriously. 

~Mooglets

And unfortunately, that lawyer is right.

Shit like this pisses me off so much, it drives me crazy that the radical religious will try to shelter themselves completely from the outside world.

I’m guessing the clients of this “school” have parents that are woefully homophobic, then they go to school where it’s not even discussed, and end up living in this “alternate reality” that will influence them for the rest of their life.

It’s pretty sad.

Democracy in America is a sick joke and the masses aren’t laughing anymore.

by Steven Van Zandt | Huffington Post

There Is Only One Issue In America…

I was obsessed with politics in the ’80s. I’ve recovered and I’m feeling much better now thank you.

By the time I realized, as interesting as it was, I’d better stop this stuff and try to earn a living, I had discovered many of our social problems and quality of life issues could be traced to the same political source: our corrupt-by-definition electoral system. The solution to the problem was as easy to discover as the cause: The elimination of all private finance in the electoral process.

I was working doing most of my research in the area of our foreign policy since WWll, whatever fell under the umbrella of international liberation politics, but I examined and analyzed a fair amount of local issues as well.

I wanted to know how things work? Where’s the power? Who’s pulling the strings?

The economy of the world came down to the unholy trinity of guns, drugs and gasoline — military industry, drugs (legal and illegal), and energy — and now I would add agribusiness as the fourth controlling commodity, and always with the enabling bankers never too far out of sight making their profits far too often from wars and slave labor.

While that readily explained the suffering of the Third World, it didn’t immediately answer why in America it was possible for so many people to be unhappy with our government’s decisions, both foreign and domestic, when we’re supposedly living in a democracy.

A quick analysis of our electoral process revealed the obvious answer. The simple fact is we do not live in a democracy. Certainly not the kind our Founding Fathers intended. We live in a corporate dictatorship represented by, and beholden to, no single human being you can reason with or hold responsible for anything.

The corporation has but one obligation, which is to increase profits for it’s shareholders by any legal means necessary by the next fiscal quarter.

They have no moral, patriotic, social, environmental, generational or even sustainable responsibility. They have only a short-term economic mandate and their only responsibility to society is to stay within the law to accomplish it.

[FULL STORY]

We’re beginning to look a lot like a police state, and they did it not through force, but by winning hearts and minds, by taking a marketable message and feeding it to the masses.

By Aaron Baldwin | Activate the Mechanism!

It seems like these guys (the extreme right, the heads of big business, the ultra wealthy, fundamentalist) have just progressively gotten more and more brazen over the years. They are at a point now where it’s like they seriously don’t give a fuck any more, they just do what ever the fuck they want and half of the US just looks the other way because they live in the Fox News universe and think that everyone is picking on the rich people and want free handouts.

Meanwhile the ones who don’t live in Fox’s alternate reality are labeled socialists, terrorists, hippies, or what ever other scary buzzword is popular at the time. They have managed to damn near completely divide the public with this bullshit and now get away with damn near anything they want because everyone is too busy arguing about wedge issues or religious “moral” bullshit.

Stories like this one (The AIG CEO who is suing the government for more taxpayer money) aren’t even widely or accurately reported in the media, it’s the type of stuff you have to go hunting for, shit like this happens and everyone is too busy screaming about how taxing the rich at a higher rate is some kind of class warfare. 

An uninformed public is VERY easy to control, as evident by all the posts around the internet I’ve seen lately either cheering the police for using excessive force on the protesters or telling the people getting the excessive force used on them that it’s their own damn fault for protesting.

They’ve actually managed to instill in a lot of Americans that any kind of dissent is grounds to get you ass kicked, pepper-sprayed, or shot with rubber bullets, like the government is supposed to be our authoritarian daddy, that sure as hell doesn’t sound like freedom to me.

We’re beginning to look a lot like a police state, and they did it not through force, but by winning hearts and minds, by taking a marketable message and feeding it to the masses.

“When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross” 

If you’re poor, YOU HATE AMERICA!!!