Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care reform plan that Republican Minority Leader John Boehner offered as a substitute to the Democratic legislation. CBO begins with the baseline estimate that 17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won’t have health-care insurance in 2010. In 2019, after 10 years of the Republican plan, CBO estimates that …17 percent of legal, non-elderly residents won’t have health-care insurance. The Republican alternative will have helped 3 million people secure coverage, which is barely keeping up with population growth. Compare that to the Democratic bill, which covers 36 million more people and cuts the uninsured population to 4 percent.

But maybe, you say, the Republican bill does a really good job cutting costs. According to CBO, the GOP’s alternative will shave $68 billion off the deficit in the next 10 years. The Democrats, CBO says, will slice $104 billion off the deficit.

The Democratic bill, in other words, covers 12 times as many people and saves $36 billion more than the Republican plan.

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io9 – Five million people downloaded copies of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie since it opened in theaters, and it’s not even on DVD yet. Paramount cites that fact in its filing with the FCC’s taskforce to create a National Broadband Plan. Easy access to broadband has made movie piracy easier than ever before, and sites like Google and Bing are participating, Paramount charges. So any plan to expand access to broadband has to include some mechanism for preventing piracy, possibly including some kind of “deep packet drones.”

CNNGO – Tateishi Burger is an old-school hamburger joint with a faux-modern twist: Patrons can order burgers through a coin-operated ‘vending machine.’ In a country obsessed with vending machines this one takes the love affair to a new, albeit technically inferior level. Pop in ¥100 and out drops the Tateishi Burger. Plop in ¥300 to the orange vending machine nearby, and a Tateishi Royal Burger with pickles and bacon rises from the bottom.

Just don’t try to order two at a time. The machine is automatic — and not really a machine. The chef cooks the burgers in his kitchen and manually operates the machine with a piece of string.

TMZ – Thomas Dekker — the guy who played John Connor on the “Terminator” TV show — has been charged with two counts of DUI stemming from his arrest last month.

The L.A. County City Attorney has decided to charge Dekker with 2 misdemeanor counts of DUI after he allegedly boozed up and crashed his car into a 17-year-old who was riding his bike near a Freeway on-ramp.

The victim was treated for minor injuries — Dekker was hauled to Van Nuys jail, where he eventually bailed out.

Dekker is set to be arraigned on Friday.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2009/11/03/thomas-dekker-terminator-charged-dui-drunk-driving-los-angeles/#ixzz0VpkQrpK5

Federal guidelines currently put the daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. But that level is based on a handful of experiments done in the 1980s rather than hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating that serious health risks could result from much lower doses of BPA. Several animal studies show adverse effects, such as abnormal reproductive development, at exposures of 2.4 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, a dose that could be reached by a child eating one or a few servings daily or an adult daily diet that includes multiple servings of canned foods containing BPA levels comparable to some of the foods Consumer Reports tested.

In keeping with established practices that ensure an adequate margin of safety for human exposure, Consumer Reports’ food-safety scientists recommend limiting daily exposure to BPA to one-thousandth of that level (standard safety limit setting practice), or 0.0024 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, significantly lower than FDA’s current safety limit.

Consumer Reports tested three different samples of each canned item for BPA and found that the highest levels of BPA tests were found in some samples of canned green beans and canned soups. Canned Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans Blue Lake had the highest amount of BPA for a single sample, with levels ranging from 35.9 parts per billon (ppb) to 191 ppb. Progresso Vegetable Soup BPA levels ranged from 67 to 134 ppb. Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup had BPA levels ranging from 54.5 to 102 ppb.

Average amounts in tested products varied widely. In most items tested, such as canned corn, chili, tomato sauce, and corned beef, BPA levels ranged from trace amounts to about 32 ppb. (A microgram BPA /kg food is equivalent to a ppb level found in food, the only difference being that it’s a microgram of BPA/kg of food tested versus the exposure or dose limits of microgram of BPA/kg of a person’s body weight per day. So, in the example of the green beans, based on one serving of the average level from three cans tested, the average concentration is 123.5ppb of BPA in the can, the next conversion is to ug BPA per serving, 14.9 ug BPA / serving of green beans, so for a small child (22lbs or 10kg) that would calculate to 1.49 ug BPA/kg-bw and for an adult (example used in the magazine, 165lb, 75kg) .20 ug BPA/kg bw for a 75kg adult.)

The study also revealed that bypassing metal cans in favor of other packaging such as plastic containers or bags might lower but not eliminate exposure to BPA, but this wasn’t true for all products tested. In addition, BPA was found in some products labeled as “organic” and some cans that claimed to be “BPA-free.”

“The findings are noteworthy because they indicate the extent of potential exposure,” said Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Technical Policy, at Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports. “Children eating multiple servings per day of canned foods with BPA levels comparable to the ones we found in some tested products could get a dose of BPA near levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies. The lack of any safety margin between the levels that cause harm in animals and those that people could potentially ingest from canned foods has been inadequately addressed by the FDA to date.”

Consumers Union has previously called on manufacturers and government agencies to act to eliminate the use of BPA in all materials that come in contact with food and beverages. An FDA special scientific advisory panel reported in late 2008 that the agency’s basis for setting safety standards to protect consumers was inadequate and should be reevaluated. A congressional subcommittee determined in 2009 that the agency relied too heavily on studies sponsored by the American Plastics Council.

Given the new findings, Consumers Union sent a letter to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Margaret Hamburg reiterating its request that the agency act this year to ban the use of BPA in food- and beverage-contact materials. FDA is expected to announce the findings of its most recent reassessment of the safety of BPA by the end of this month. Bills are currently pending in Congress that would ban the use of BPA in all food and beverage containers. Industry has been waging a fight against new regulations, and California Assembly members recently voted not to ban BPA from feeding products for children under three.

Consumer Reports is advising those who are concerned that they might be able to reduce, though not necessarily eliminate, their dietary exposure to BPA by taking the following steps:

Choose fresh food whenever possible.
Consider alternatives to canned food, beverages, juices, and infant formula.
Use glass containers when heating food in microwave ovens.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-starkman/tests-find-wide-range-of_b_342967.html

Their worried parents bring them to the doctor, fearing drug abuse or depression, but the evaluations come up empty. A doctor at Children’s Hospital Boston says something else may be at work. “We see kids who are just gaming, and they appear to their parents to have all of the signs and symptoms of drug use,’’ Dr. Michael Rich said about the seductive world of online games. “But in fact they are only hooked on the drug of electrons on their screen.’’

Climbing levels in games like World of Warcraft, where unlimited numbers of role-playing competitors play around the clock and around the world, can be habit-forming and disruptive for both adolescents and adults. Other online activities, from visiting porn sites to incessantly checking e-mail, can also interfere with work, school, and relationships. In a world where always being connected seems as vital as breathing, how much is too much? And does excessive Internet use equal addiction?

A debate already divides behavioral addictions such as compulsive gambling or shopping from physiological addictions to alcohol or other drugs. People don’t die when they unplug from the Internet, Dr. Ronald Pies points out.

“A person who is hooked on a barbiturate, taking tons and tons of it every day, and is suddenly cut off from the supply will go into a physiological withdrawal, which could kill him and often does,’’ said Pies, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I have yet to be convinced that a teenager who sits in his room using the Internet for five, six, seven hours a day, as troubled as he or she may be, has a condition that can reasonably be compared to barbiturate addiction. Which is not to say there aren’t people with a severe, pathological use of electronic media.’’

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The Aseman Airlines Boeing plane had taken off from Tehran airport after a six-hour delay, but had to return following a technical fault, the ISNA news agency quoted a passenger as recounting.

“The plane took off at 0015 in the morning and had to land back in Tehran after 45 minutes,” the passenger said.

“The pilot told the passengers ‘the plane is facing a technical problem and has to return. So please pray.’”

Iran has been under years of international sanctions hampering its ability to buy modern planes from major manufacturers, such as Boeing and Airbus, or spare parts, and has suffered a number of air disasters over the past decade.

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The results of that first test, a run of particle beams through the 17-mile tunnel, showed the machine in perfect working order. The scientists are hoping to have the LHC up and running as good as new in November, which after careful research I conclude is less than a week away.

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