July 22, 2007

Couldn’t Help But Notice (072207)

Filed under: Business Moves, Economy, Life-Based News, Taxes & Government — TBlumer @ 11:01 am

What the Heck? There’s no tech wreck

July 18, 2007 01:36 PM

U.S. Tech Employment Hits Its Highest Point In Seven Years

The 2% unemployment rate matches other professional categories and is a big improvement from 5% in 2004.

The unemployment rate for IT occupations fell to 2%, and total IT employment has reached nearly 3.6 million, better than it has been the past seven years, according to the most recent household employment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The results paint a much better picture for the health of the IT profession than during the recession of 2003 and 2004, when the IT unemployment rate hit 5.3%.

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What is it about the phrase “shall not be infringed” in the Second Amendment that Cuyahoga County, Ohio Republicans don’t understand?

Update: A VERY interesting (and spot on) explanation at the Second Amendment Sisters link (halfway through link at Item 2; changed to “Q” and “A” here for clarity) –

Q. Is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” granted by the words of the Second Amendment, or does the Second Amendment assume a preexisting right of the people to keep and bear arms, and merely state that such right “shall not be infringed”?

A. The right is not granted by the amendment; its existence is assumed. The thrust of the sentence is that the right shall be preserved inviolate for the sake of ensuring a militia.

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In Berlin, “Police excuse man for hurling computer” — I’m assuming/hoping that the man was in a ground-floor room. A police spokesman is quoted as saying, “Who hasn’t felt like doing that?”

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Polling News Old Media Doesn’t Want You to Use

Most Americans favor no insurance coverage for birth-control, support right of conscience

Columbus, Jul 19, 2007 / 10:24 am (CNA).- A new survey conducted by Baraga Interactive has found that a large percentage of U.S. adults favor optional coverage for birth control and support pharmacists in their right to exercise their conscience when asked to fill a prescription or give counseling about drugs.

Sixty-one percent of those polled said they support no health insurance coverage for contraceptives; 65 percent of those polled support a pharmacist’s right to decline to fill or counsel for prescription drugs, which may violate their religious, moral and ethical beliefs.

The survey of 1,249 adults confirmed a similar Medscape study in 2005 whereby a slightly higher percentage of US adults — 69 percent — supported a pharmacist’s right of conscience.

Positivity: Baseball emergency has a happy ending

Filed under: Positivity — TBlumer @ 10:20 am

From Indianapolis:

July 11, 2007

Ball to the chest stopped player’s heart, but fate intervened

A 14-year-old Carmel boy nearly died on a baseball field Saturday after a pitched baseball struck him in the chest and stopped his heart.

Max Zhang dropped to the ground immediately after getting struck by the pitch in the Wooden Bat Classic tournament at Mount Vernon High School in Fortville, said Terry McGlothlin, one of the coaches of Zhang’s travel baseball team, The Southside Saints.

“He was pretty much dead when he hit the ground, and the cardiologist saved him,” McGlothlin said Tuesday.

Max was treated at Hancock Memorial Hospital in Greenfield then transferred to the intensive care unit at St. Vincent Children’s Hospital. He was released Monday.

The cardiologist, Dr. Douglas Segar, Carmel, was watching his own son play in another baseball game at the weekend tournament when he heard cries for help. He ran over to Max, along with two or three women who were registered nurses, and started cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

“Max’s eyes rolled up into his head, a little bit of white stuff was coming from his mouth, his heart wasn’t beating and he wasn’t breathing,” McGlothlin said. “They saved his life.”

Segar said Max suffered commotio cordis — defined as sudden death due to ventricular fibrillation when a baseball or other projectile strikes the external surface overlying the heart. The condition happens rarely, he said, and the victim must be breathing a certain way, the heart must be beating on a down beat and the ball must strike in just the right spot on the chest for it to occur.

It happens about 20 times a year, the cardiologist said. Only 10 percent of victims survive…..

Go here for the rest of the story.