At a ceremony hosted by Oakland City Council’s Rebecca Kaplan, 100 employees at medical marijuana dispensary and education hub Oaksterdam University turned in their membership cards to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 5. It may well be the first union pot shop in the country, if not the world. While it will help employees collectively bargain and resolve disputes with management, it also gives owner Richard Lee political allies with labor organizations. Lee is responsible for the Tax Cannabis 2010 ballot measure, which would decriminalize recreational use of cannabis, which polls suggest has neatly divided California voters. As legitimization of the multi-billion dollar business in marijuana could set the stage for a growth industry, one that UFCW is now in on the ground floor of. Which could help sway other growth-oriented unions like the Service Employees International Union. Of course, police officer associations and the correctional officers union are unlikely to throw their support behind the ballot measure, since more drug arrests means more money and jobs for law enforcement and prisons. It remains to be seen if the ballot measure will pick up a new string of labor endorsements, […]
In recent months allegations and admissions of child abuse by priests have shaken the Roman Catholic Church to its core, as a continuous stream of cases has surfaced across Western Europe and beyond. Priest gives out Communion Experts say there is no evidence of a link between celibacy and abuse The Vatican has defended itself by suggesting this is a problem that affects society as a whole, and that the Church has now taken steps to deal with it – an approach that has often provoked more anger and frustration among critics who believe it systematically covered up many cases. With allegations still surfacing, there is no conclusive account of the extent of Catholic abuse worldwide or its causes. But current research and expert opinion suggest that men within the Catholic Church may be no more likely than others to abuse, and that the prevalence of abuse by priests has fallen sharply in the last 20-30 years. What has made the crisis stand out are the cover-ups and other alleged shortcomings in the way abuse was dealt with. ‘The real problem is an abuse of authority, the duty of care that pastors have to […]
The hour long briefing the home-bound patient received here at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was orchestrated by a hospitalist, a member of America’s fastest-growing medical specialty. Over a decade, this breed of physician-administrator has increasingly taken over the care of the hospitalized patient from overburdened family doctors with less and less time to make hospital rounds - or, as in Mr. Keita’s case, when there is no family doctor at all. Because hospitalists are on top of everything that happens to a patient - from entry through treatment and discharge - they are largely credited with reducing the length of hospital stays by anywhere from 17 to 30 percent, and reducing costs by 13 to 20 percent, according to studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association. As their numbers have grown, from 800 in the 1990s to 30,000 today, medical experts have come to see hospitalists as potential leaders in the transition to the Obama administration’s health care reforms, to be phased in by 2014. Under the new legislation, hospitals will be penalized for readmissions, medical errors and inefficient operating systems. Avoidable readmissions are the costliest mistakes for the government and the taxpayer, […]
Can the Sahara Desert really meet Europe’s voracious appetite for energy? The Desertec solar power project aims to do just that, but a host of obstacles remain. Overly optimistic expectations are now being scaled down as the project starts to take shape. When the sun rises and it’s still hazy over Andalusia, the future is particularly visible. That’s when beams of light as thick as tree trunks and as sharp as lasers slice through the haze. They come together just below the tops of two towers, the taller of which rises 162 meters (531 feet) into the sky, taller than Cologne Cathedral. These light beams are not being emitted by some UFO, but are in fact the core of the most advanced solar power plant in the world. The towers are surrounded by close to 2,000 mirrors that face the sun. Each mirror has a surface area of about 120 square meters (1,290 square feet) and, like flowers, they follow the light, to the sound of a rattling motor that orients them toward receivers up in the towers. The bundled solar energy, which reaches a temperature of 250 degrees Celsius (482 degrees Fahrenheit), strikes steel pipes through which […]
Normally when you see or imagine someone else in pain, your brain experiences a twinge of pain as well. Not so when race and bias come into play, scientists now find. Intriguingly, people respond with empathy when pain is inflicted on others who don’t fit into any preconceived racial category, such as those who appear to have violet-colored skin. ‘This is quite important because it suggests that humans tend to empathize by default unless prejudice is at play,’ said researcher Salvatore Maria Aglioti, a cognitive and social neuroscientist at the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy. Scientists asked volunteers in Italy of Italian and African descent to watch short films showing either needles penetrating a person’s hand or a Q-tip gently touching the same spot. At the same time, they measured brain and nervous system activity. When the volunteers saw the hands get poked, the brain and nervous system activity revealed the same spot on each volunteer’s own hands reacted involuntarily when the person in the film was of the same race. Those of a different race did not provoke the same response. However, when both white and black volunteers saw violet-colored hands get jabbed, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
