Leyes no reducen la sobreutilización de costosas terapias del cáncer prostático

NUEVA YORK, 26 nov (Reuters Health) – Dos estudios coinciden

en que las leyes para prevenir el uso excesivo de servicios de

salud no impiden que los médicos sigan indicando terapias

costosas para el cáncer de próstata.

Los autores hallaron que los médicos utilizaban cirugías

robóticas y radioterapias especiales para tratar la enfermedad,

sin importar si en la región existían leyes que exigen una

autorización oficial previa para el uso de instalaciones y

nuevos equipos médicos.

“Las leyes de certificación de necesidad se diseñaron para

alinear la demanda pública con el uso de distintos servicios”,

dijo el doctor Bruce Jacobs, autor principal de uno de los

estudios, de University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

El gobierno de Estados Unidos impulsó que los estados

implementaran las leyes en los 70 y los 80, pero dejó de hacerlo

un par de décadas después. Aun así, algunos estados siguen

utilizándolas para controlar los costos.

En cada estudio, los autores analizaron tratamientos del cáncer

de próstata, que es el más común en los varones estadounidenses.

La Sociedad Estadounidense del Cáncer estima que a uno de cada

seis hombres se le diagnosticará cáncer prostático, pero que la

mayoría no morirá por esa causa. Estudios previos habían

mostrado que este cáncer es de lento crecimiento y que la

mayoría de los pacientes se puede controlar con espera vigilada.

El equipo de Jacobs revisó si en los estados con normas

estrictas (los que exigen aprobación hasta para el uso de

equipos de bajo costo) se utilizaban menos cirugías robóticas

para extirpar la próstata que en los estados con leyes no tan

estrictas o sin leyes.

En The Journal of Urology, los autores escriben que tanto el

costo de esos robots como si la cirugía robótica supera o no a

la cirugía tradicional para extirpar la próstata deberían ser

“la meta ideal” de revisión donde se aplican esas leyes.

En septiembre, por ejemplo, uno de los estudios que había

cuestionado la utilidad de la cirugía robótica demostró que los

hombres operados con la técnica robótica tuvieron pocas

complicaciones, pero puso en tela de juicio la conveniencia de

sus efectos en el largo plazo y su costo.

Pero otro estudio más reciente mostró que la cirugía robótica

reducía las complicaciones, las reinternaciones y las muertes

por causas quirúrgicas que los métodos tradicionales, según

informó Intuitive Surgical, el fabricante del sistema quirúrgico

da Vinci.

“Eso es importante para el paciente y para reducir el gasto del

sistema de salud”, indicó por e-mail Angela Wonson, vocera de

Intuitive Surgical.

En el nuevo estudio, los autores hallaron un aumento del uso

de la cirugía robótica para extirparle la próstata a un grupo de

beneficiarios de Medicare, independientemente de si el estado

contaba con leyes estrictas, más blandas o ninguna ley. Además,

la posibilidad de que un cirujano utilizara robots no tenía

relación alguna con la vigencia de las normas.

Un segundo estudio, a cargo del doctor Ganesh Palapattu, jefe

de oncología urológica de University of Michigan, analizó si las

leyes limitaban el uso de la radioterapia de intensidad modulada

o IMRT, por su sigla en inglés, o si controlaba el aumento de

los costos de atención del cáncer prostático (la IMRT permite

que los médicos orienten la radiación al tumor sin dañar el

tejido sano que lo rodea).

El equipo escribe que la IMRT es costosa y que, hasta ahora, no

habría sido comparada con otros tratamientos del cáncer de

próstata en un estudio aleatorizado, que es el diseño de

preferencia en la investigación clínica.

Al comparar el costo de tratar a una persona con cáncer

prostático en los estados con leyes y los estados sin leyes, el

equipo observó que las leyes no parecían influir en el control

de los costos de los tratamientos.

Palapattu opinó que es tiempo de reevaluar las leyes.

FUENTE: The Journal of Urology, online 19 de noviembre del

2012.

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hostess CEO: Why I’m Shutting Down Twinkies

I made the decision to liquidate Hostess last night (Nov. 15). A number of factors have contributed to this. Hostess is 93 percent unionized, and it’s been formed by a number of acquisitions over the decades; a lot of old rules were just grandfathered into contracts from companies that no longer exist. There were all these crazy work rules, like one driver can only drive cake and the other can only drive bread. Hostess went through bankruptcy in 2004 and not enough work was done in that filing to deal with these issues.

I hear that the push toward healthier food is what did us in, but that hasn’t affected us at all. Why do you have chocolate companies? How do you explain doughnut shops when doughnuts haven’t changed in 100 years? We were north of $ 2 billion a year in sales. They weren’t the problem, our cost structure was.

I came on board at Hostess in February, and I was stunned by how little had been accomplished. We managed to make a deal with the Teamsters but the bakers didn’t support what they’d agreed to. I told them that if there’s going to be a strike over the negotiations, we won’t be able to withstand it and we have to liquidate. But I don’t think they believed us. We had 36 Hostess plants when the strike started two weeks ago, but we immediately closed three, so we only had 33 left. Bakers were crossing the picket line in some numbers but not enough to keep things going. Last night I got the update: 11 plants still weren’t operating. After that I communicated with my board and made the decision. That was a difficult call to make. I had people on that call who’d been working 20 hours a day at these plants, trying to make enough product to keep them on the shelves.

I look at this as a failure. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why we didn’t make more progress. I’m a turnaround guy, I’m a pretty optimistic guy. I don’t think this was the inevitable end. We had a shot at surviving, but we couldn’t overcome the strike. We have potential buyers for our brands and we’ll contact them, but I haven’t even thought about that yet. We sent everyone home from the plants. That’s 18,500 people out of work. — As told to Claire Suddath

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Egypt’s Mursi faces judicial revolt over decree

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi faced a rebellion from judges who accused him on Saturday of expanding his powers at their expense, deepening a crisis that has triggered violence in the street and exposed the country’s deep divisions.

The Judges’ Club, a body representing judges across Egypt, called for a strike during a meeting interrupted with chants demanding the “downfall of the regime” – the rallying cry in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.

Mursi’s political opponents and supporters, representing the divide between newly empowered Islamists and their critics, called for rival demonstrations on Tuesday over a decree that has triggered concern in the West.

Issued late on Thursday, it marks an effort by Mursi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. The decree defends from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.

It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.

Egypt’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of the judiciary. The Judges’ Club, meeting in Cairo, called on Mursi to rescind it.

That demand was echoed by prominent opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei. “There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says ‘let us split the difference’,” he said.

“I am waiting to see, I hope soon, a very strong statement of condemnation by the U.S., by Europe and by everybody who really cares about human dignity,” he said in an interview with Reuters and the Associated Press.

More than 300 people were injured on Friday as protests against the decree turned violent. There were attacks on at least three offices belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement that propelled Mursi to power.

POLARISATION

Liberal, leftist and socialist parties called a big protest for Tuesday to force Mursi to row back on a move they say has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

In a sign of the polarization in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood called its own protests that day to support the president’s decree.

Mursi also assigned himself new authority to sack the prosecutor general, who was appointed during the Mubarak era, and appoint a new one. The dismissed prosecutor general, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, was given a hero’s welcome at the Judges’ Club.

In open defiance of Mursi, Ahmed al-Zind, head of the club, introduced Mahmoud by his old title.

The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak’s rule to a new system of democratic government.

Analysts say it reflects the Brotherhood’s suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak’s days.

“It aims to sideline Mursi’s enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution,” said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.

“We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down.”

ADVISOR TO MURSI QUITS

Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of tear gas hung over the capital’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011 and the stage for more protests on Friday.

Youths clashed sporadically with police near the square, where activists camped out for a second day on Saturday, setting up makeshift barricades to keep out traffic.

Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt’s most widely read dailies, hailed Friday’s protest as “The November 23 Intifada”, invoking the Arabic word for uprising.

But the ultra-orthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind Mursi’s decree.

The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.

Samir Morkos, a Christian assistant to Mursi, had told the president he wanted to resign, said Yasser Ali, Mursi’s spokesman. Speaking to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Morkos said: “I refuse to continue in the shadow of republican decisions that obstruct the democratic transition”.

Mursi’s decree has been criticized by Western states that earlier this week were full of praise for his role in mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians.

“The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy, Marwa Awad, Edmund Blair and Shaimaa Fayed and Reuters TV; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

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Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video becomes YouTube’s most viewed

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – South Korean rap star Psy‘s music video “Gangnam Style” on Saturday became the most watched item ever posted to YouTube with more than 800 million views, edging past Canadian teen star Justin Bieber‘s 2-year-old video for his song “Baby.”

The milestone was the latest pop culture victory for Psy, 34, a portly rap singer known for his slicked-back hair and comic dance style who has become one of the most unlikely global stars of 2012.

Psy succeeded with a video that generated countless parodies and became a media sensation. He gained more fame outside his native country than the more polished singers in South Korea‘s so-called K-Pop style who have sought to win international audiences.

YouTube, in a post on its Trends blog, said “Gangnam Style” on Saturday surpassed the site’s previous record holder, Bieber’s 2010 music video “Baby,” and by mid-day “Gangnam Style” had reached 805 million views, compared to 803 million for “Baby.” Within a few hours, “Gangnam Style” had gone up to more than 809 million views.

“Gangnam Style” was first posted to YouTube in July, and by the following month it began to show huge popularity on YouTube with audiences outside of South Korea.

“It’s been a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said the YouTube blog.

The blog also said the “velocity” of the video’s popularity has been unprecedented for YouTube.

In his “Gangnam Style” video the outlandishly dressed, sunglass-wearing Psy raps in Korean and dances in the style of an upper-crust person riding an invisible horse.

The song is named after the affluent Gangnam District of Seoul and it mocks the rampant consumerism of that suburb. Psy, whose real name is Park Jai-sang, is no stranger to wealth as his father is chairman of a South Korean semiconductor company.

His parents sent him to business school in the United States but he confesses that he bought musical instruments with his tuition money. He later graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and won fame in South Korea with his 2001 debut album.

The viral success of “Gangnam Style” on YouTube also has translated into strong record sales. In late September, the song jumped to the top of the British pop charts and it also has sold well in other countries.

Popular parodies of the “Gangnam Style” video included one featuring the University of Oregon’s duck mascot, and another done in the “Star Trek” language Klingon.

The official YouTube view count for Gangnam Style represents only the figure for the original video posted to the site, but copycat versions, parodies and videos by people commenting on the song have been posted to the site and elsewhere on the Web.

Counting all those different versions, “Gangnam Style” and its related videos have more than 2.2 billion views across the Internet, said Matt Fiorentino, spokesman for the online video tracking firm Visible Measures.

“Without the dance, I don’t think it would have been as big as it is,” Fiorentino said. “And the other thing is, Psy has a unique sense of humor which comes through in the video. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.”

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Bill Trott)

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German research points way to faster flu vaccines

LONDON (Reuters) – An experimental vaccine based on a molecule related to DNA protects animals against influenza and may one day offer an ultra-rapid way to develop new shots for humans, German scientists reported on Sunday.

Assuming it also works in people, the new approach could allow commercial flu vaccines to be designed and manufactured in weeks rather than months.

Making vaccines quickly is critical in fighting flu, particularly during a pandemic when health authorities and drugmakers are in a race to keep up with mutating strains of virus.

Flu vaccines have traditionally been produced in chicken eggs, a tricky and lengthy process. More recently some firms have started using animal cell cultures, with Novartis on November 20 winning the first U.S. approval for such a product.

Both approaches, however, still involve virus cultivation, which can result in variable yields and production delays.

The new vaccine developed by Lothar Stitz of Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut and colleagues uses a quicker approach. It is made solely of messenger RNA (mRNA) – a single-stranded molecule that carries information telling cells which proteins to make.

“The only thing we need is the sequence of the relevant genes,” Stitz said. “It’s a new option and it doesn’t take long to do.”

His team vaccinated mice, ferrets and pigs with an mRNA vaccine and found that the immune response was similar or better than that found with conventional vaccines. What is more, the new vaccines showed high efficacy in very young and very old animals, which can be a problem with current flu shots.

Reporting their results in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the scientists calculated that a completed vaccine could be produced within six to eight weeks of the genetic code of a flu virus strain being published.

In contrast growing vaccines in fertilised chicken eggs can take up to six months, while using cell cultures may reduce that by up to eight to 10 weeks.

Another potential advantage of mRNA vaccines is the fact that they do not need to be refrigerated.

A human vaccine based on the research is still years away, since extensive clinical trials will be needed to test safety and efficacy, and the job of taking the work forward now rests with CureVac, a privately owned biotech company.

CureVac, backed by billionaire German investor and business software firm SAP’s co-founder Dietmar Hopp, is already developing a therapeutic mRNA vaccine for prostate cancer in human trials.

The firm also has a vaccine for lung cancer in development and is working on prophylactic vaccines against several unnamed infectious diseases in a collaboration with Sanofi.

Sanofi is a major supplier of flu vaccines, along with Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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Japanese Stocks? Yes, They Really Think So

Less than a quarter-century ago, Japan was the economic envy of the world. In 1989, Tokyo-listed shares represented nearly half the planet’s equity value, while the land beneath the city’s royal palace was worth more than all of California. American nightly news anchors practically misted up when they had to report that Rockefeller Center was turning Japanese.

Two lost decades and massive property- and stock-bubble explosions later, Japan is a one-word cautionary tale. Caught in economic and demographic atrophy—and stewarded by countless false-start prime ministers—the country has become a hub for zombie banks, a generation of disenchanted youth, and fading brands such as Sony (SNE), Sharp (6753:JP), and Panasonic (PC).

Last year, for the first time, sales of adult diapers in Japan exceeded those for babies. Factor in how the strong yen has been making the country’s critical exports more expensive, and you can see why the world’s No. 3 economy (recently pushed into third place by China) has been quicksand for investors; when international markets hit bottom in early 2009, Japan’s Nikkei slumped to levels it hadn’t seen since 1983. A Merrill Lynch survey of global fund managers discovered that their net exposure to Japan is at its lowest in a decade (subscription necessary).

Accordingly, in his Nov. 14 note, “The Sun Also Rises?”, James Hunt, portfolio manager of Tocqueville’s International Value Fund and a rare Japan bull, concedes: “One of the questions we are asked most often by investors is why we would invest in Japan. Normally, there is a slight tone of derision in the question, as if to say: ‘Everyone knows that Japan has poor demographics, a huge public debt and weak growth prospects.’ And of course, all of these things are true.”

Hunt says his case for Japan boils down to its deeply contrarian pull: “Everyone thinks Japan is sinking into obscurity,” he writes, “and this negative sentiment provides us with the opportunity to buy what we consider to be excellent global franchise businesses at attractive valuations.”

Noting that Japanese equities have lagged their U.S. counterparts by 25 percent over the last two years, Hunt writes, “The storm of negative factors affecting Japan combined with the poor market performance is just of the sort of situation that piques our interest.”

Over the last 12 years of economic stagnation, Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index has, in dollar terms, posted zero total return. Meanwhile, aggregate earnings for its profitable companies have gone from ¥438 billion ($ 5.3 billion) to ¥608 billion, while their return on equity has swelled from around 6 percent to nearly 10 percent. At the same time, notes Hunt, the price-to-earnings ratio for these profitable listings has collapsed from 24 to 15, while their dividend yield has tripled to 2.3 percent.

Of course, Japan—Nikkei, Discman, and all—could just be in the middle stages of terminal decline. Zero interest rates be damned: Jobs are scarce, deflation constantly threatens, and China and Korea are not getting any easier to compete with. Japan’s debt-to-gross domestic product ratio, now well over 200 percent, is tops in the world.

Not likely, says Hunt. “There will,” he writes, “be a moment when the broad process of [equity] de-rating has run its course. With valuation multiples having compressed to quite reasonable absolute levels, we may be approaching that moment.”

“Our discipline generally is to buy good business franchises at a discount to their intrinsic value,” he adds, “and we are not as focused as many investors on catalysts and timing for the realization of value. That being said, with expectations so low and the market having underperformed, we would not be surprised to see the sun also rise in Japan.”

Hunt isn’t alone in declaring contrarian ardor for Japan. David Herro, Morningstar’s (MORN) international stock fund manager of the decade, also thinks its risk-reward profile is increasingly attractive.

Indeed, the Nikkei has recently sprinted higher on broadening sentiment that the country’s policy makers will act forcefully to lower the yen—a development that would provide a huge boost to Japanese multinationals such as Toyota (TM), Canon (CAJ), and Fuji Heavy Industries (7270:JP). The “yen rout play” is what market bloggers are already calling the trade.

Shinzo Abe, widely viewed as frontrunner to become the next prime minister, has been calling for unlimited monetary easing to incite inflation. The current governor of the (independent) Bank of Japan, who has been criticized for not being loose enough with his monetary purse strings, is expected to step down in April.

“(Shinzo) Abe’s focus is on two things—aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus,” wrote CLSA Japan strategist Nicholas Smith in a report. “He made clear that the Bank of Japan will bend to his will or he will rewrite the BOJ Law to let him fire them.” The replacement governor, he added, will be selected for his “willingness to print money.”

“It has been a fool’s game to guess when the yen would finally weaken,” writes Hunt, “but economic healing in the West and eventually inflation and rising interest rates here could certainly be a catalyst, as could money printing in Japan.”

It should be remembered, however, that the Bank of Japan has already shattered what is widely regarded as the ultimate monetary taboo: printing money to buy equities to boost the chronically moribund economy. To little apparent avail, so far.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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6 ways to tweet yourself out of a job

Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss

Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted: 

SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults

@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”

After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”

Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:

 @HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”

Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:

“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.” 

This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees. 

SEE MORE: Does a shaved head give you an advantage in corporate America?

The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation. 

Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.

SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?

Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it. 

Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.

The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.

Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:

@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”

He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.” 

Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.

Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:

@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!” 

Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.

Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.

When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:

@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.

The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:

@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.

Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.

 — Rob Lammie

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Ang Lee talks about risks, spirituality of “Life of Pi”

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gay cowboy drama “Brokeback Mountain” may have been considered a risky film to make, but director Ang Lee said his new movie, “Life of Pi,” a 3D exploration of faith about a boy stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger, is his riskiest yet.

The film, which was released in U.S. theaters this week, is adapted from Yann Martel‘s best-selling novel of the same name and was once considered impossible to make.

Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Lee, 58, took on the laborious task of using computer-generated imagery to bring the sensational plot to the big screen, taking a year and a half just to edit the film together.

The director talked to Reuters about the film’s themes, technical barriers and casting an unknown actor in the lead.

Q. Why was “Life of Pi” considered unfilmable?

A. “Because you cannot make the tiger do everything you want to do, you have to use digital. A digital animal, up until two years ago, was not totally realistic yet, let alone in 3D, and then water is pretty difficult.”

Q. Was this your most difficult filming experience yet?

A. “Oh yes. And it was also the longest…there was the technical difficulty and then it is a big movie. And it was across continents, I finally decided to shoot most of it in Taiwan, but we also had to go to India to shoot for two to three weeks. Because you can’t fake Pondicherry, and Munnar. And then we have scenes in Canada.”

Q. But Brokeback Mountain was a risky film too?

A. “No, that wasn’t for me. At least when I made it, I thought it was strictly arthouse and few people would see it. And it’s a lot cheaper (to make). So I didn’t care…And then I got nervous, ‘Oh they are going to lynch me, making a gay cowboy movie, that will go into a shopping mall.’”

Q. It was only after you made it you realized that?

A. “Yes, I was afraid. I was looking around when I walked, when I would go home, to see if anybody was following me. Once it hit the shopping mall I was nervous, actually. My brother is a distributor in Taiwan and I told him not to buy it. He hates me to this day, he is still babbling about it.”

Q. Why choose unknown Suraj Sharma to play Pi?

A. “I wanted someone authentic, and no bad habits, that means you have to train them from the start. “

Q. Why did you replace Tobey Maguire and reshoot his scenes with the little-known Rafe Spall?

A. “It was a small part, and he is a big movie star. He is a good old friend of mine and he would do this for nothing, for me. But he is not doing anything (in the role), he is just sitting there listening most of the time. It becomes a little distracting I think.”

Q. How does the film explore spirituality?

A. “To me, faith can be elusive, but .. As a Taoist would say, ‘That’s the apple’s truth.’ The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That’s the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That’s worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.”

“Sometimes I feel (illusions) are more of life’s essence, I can trust them more than real life that is full of deceit and covering up.”

Q. Did exploring faith encourage you to make this?

“The book is fascinating, it talks about faith. But it didn’t make me believe in God or anything…I didn’t go to church or a temple after that. When I started making the movie, you do feel faith embody you and carry you through. But when I picked the subject, and chose to do the book, it was actually more storytelling in my mind. The value of storytelling. How people share a story. Because a story has structure, it has a beginning, middle and end. It seems to have meaning, where life has not.”

Q. Do you practice any religion?

A. “No, my mother is a baptized Christian, so she made me go to church every Sunday, and I prayed four times a day until I was 14. And at lunchtime kids at school would giggle at my praying…I stopped praying. And two weeks later, nothing happened to me, so I didn’t pick it up again.”

“I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.”

Q. Do you consider yourself spiritual?

A. “I hate to think life is just facts and laws. And I am a filmmaker, I am a sensitive person, I like to think it is spiritual, so I like people to be more in that way. I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd. Call it illusion or call it faith, whatever you call it, we have emotional attachment to the unknown. We yearn to find out. That is human nature. It can be, in a way, unrequited love, we don’t know. I don’t have a particular God I pray to, except sometimes a movie god.” (laughs)

(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Four new cases of SARS-like virus found in Saudi, Qatar

LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.

The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.

On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.

“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.

The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.

Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.

Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.

Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.

Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.

The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.

“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.

It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.

Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.

The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.

The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.

“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.

(Editing by Alison Williams)

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