Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to “w00t.”
“W00t,” a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers as an exclamation of happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher’s online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.
Merriam-Webster’s president, John Morse, said “w00t” was an ideal choice because it blends whimsy and new technology.
Doctors reading mammograms miss an average of 2 in every 10 cases of breast cancer, even for women with lumps and other symptoms, researchers reported Tuesday.
In a stark reminder of the limitation of the common diagnostic test, the researchers found wide variation in radiologists’ ability to detect cancer in breast X-rays, with some missing as many as 7 out of 10 cases. In other words, the test’s ability to detect cancer is strongly dependent on who is reading it.
“Women think mammography is perfect, so if they get a negative [normal] mammogram, they think they’re safe for at least the next year,” said Diana Miglioretti, lead author of the study, which appears in this week’s Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “The reality is, they shouldn’t be falsely reassured by a negative mammogram.”
Hey, they just have to perform the mammogram/ultrasound/whatever to get paid…accuracy in reading is not part of the deal. And I wonder what kind of refresher courses in image reading are required to maintain licensure. I’m guessing none.
Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.
Their latest modelling studies indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.
[…]
Remarkably, this stunning low point was not even incorporated into the model runs of Professor Maslowski and his team, which used data sets from 1979 to 2004 to constrain their future projections.
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.
[…]
Professor Peter Wadhams from Cambridge University, UK, is an expert on Arctic ice. He has used sonar data collected by Royal Navy submarines to show that the volume loss is outstripping even area withdrawal, which is in agreement with the model result of Professor Maslowski.
“Some models have not been taking proper account of the physical processes that go on,” he commented.
“The ice is thinning faster than it is shrinking; and some modellers have been assuming the ice was a rather thick slab.
[…]
“In the end, it will just melt away quite suddenly. It might not be as early as 2013 but it will be soon, much earlier than 2040.”
And yet, Congress can’t even begin to make any changes in our approach towards energy, for fear it would cut oil company profits: DFP
Senate Democrats said Tuesday they planned to revive their energy bill with a 40% increase in fuel economy standards on Thursday thanks to changes in a controversial tax plan, but Republicans said the bill still fell short of having enough votes and faced a certain veto by President George W. Bush.
The bill passed the House last week, but fell seven votes short of the 60 needed in the Senate to block a Republican filibuster. Opponents, including a couple of Democrats, objected to a $21-billion tax provision and requirements on electric utilities to generate up to 15% of their energy from renewable sources.
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The Bush administration had warned that the president would consider vetoing the bill because of both of those clauses, and several senators expected them to be removed as part of a compromise.
I guess they figure they’ll be able to afford water and air conditioning with all the money they’ve made, so why bother?
The US is trying to remove a reference to 25-40% target cuts in carbon pollution by 2020 for developed nations, which remained in the latest draft roadmap released by the UN today.
Harlan Watson, the US chief negotiator, said: “The reality in this business is that once numbers appear in the text, it prejudges the outcome and will tend to drive the negotiations in one direction.”
The target is supported by Britain and Europe, who say it is necessary to avoid a 2C rise in global temperatures, and by developing nations such as Brazil and China, who want the US to show it is now serious about global warming.
The German environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, said the Bali conference would be meaningless if it did not set clear targets.
He said: “I do not need a paper from Bali in which we only say, ‘OK, we’ll meet next year again’. How can we find a roadmap without having a target, without having a goal?”
The roadmap aims to set the framework and timetable to agree a successor to the Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, which expires in 2012.
AMARA, Iraq (Reuters) – Three car bombs ripped through a busy street in the Shi’ite city of Amara on Wednesday, killing 40 people and wounding 125 in one of the deadliest attacks in southern Iraq this year, police said.
The attacks came just days before Britain is to complete the handover of security for the four southern Iraqi provinces it has controlled since 2003, and tensions have been high among rival Shi’ite factions competing for influence.
The street was a scene of chaos, with cars torn apart. A blocked gutter along one street was red with stagnant blood washed from pools on the pavement next to a child’s shoes.
“I arrived just after the explosions. It was gruesome and horrible — pieces of flesh sprayed everywhere,” said taxi driver Kazim Mutar, 42.
“They were women, children, market traders. The aim of this explosion was to kill (civilians). There were no security forces or a military patrol or even a governmental institution here.”
maybe not really news..but was watching this news segement the other day and notice VP Cheney addresses Bush as “Good morning, Sir” instead of “Good morning, Mr. President” isn’t that contrary to protocol.
iran gives u.s. tail another tug. following it’s announcement four days ago that it has “completely halted” all oil transactions in dollars, the middle easts second largest producer of crude oil, has just inked a new deal with china:
Iran signs $2bn oil deal with China
Iran signed a $2bn oil contract with Sinopec of China on Sunday, sending a signal to western companies that they might miss out on potentially lucrative contracts with one of the world’s biggest energy exporters if they continued to heed US-inspired sanctions against Tehran.
“If other countries who like to invest in oil and gas hesitate, they will lose opportunities,” said Gholam-Hossein Nozari, Iran’s oil minister.
The contract to partly develop the giant Yadavaran oil field in south-west Iran is one of the biggest Tehran has signed and is the first with a Chinese company. “Implementation of the contract will start immediately,” Mr Nozari said.
[…]
Sunday’s deal reflects Tehran’s attempt to drive a wedge between the US and its allies by attracting non-western companies.
My apologies if anyone has eaten a meal within the past few minutes…
WASHINGTON – Negative news coverage may have cost former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales his job, but it won him a dubious honor Wednesday from a magazine published by the American Bar Association: Lawyer of the Year.
Additionally, the ABA Journal named Gonzales’ successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as its top lawyer for 2008 — mostly in anticipation of how often he’ll be in the media spotlight for trying to repair the beleaguered Justice Department. – linkage
check out the list of also rans…goodling?!…scooter?! not to mention mukasey…who’s op ed in the lat today will soon be the subject of yet anothe fisa diary.
and they passed over fitzgerald.
they even had the temerity to compare this selection to time selecting hitler and stalin…no wonder lawyers and politicians are looked upon with scorn.
word of the year: AP/Yahoo
if no one can read them properly? Chicago
Doctors are paid based on quantity. How do we change the incentive to quality?
Hey, they just have to perform the mammogram/ultrasound/whatever to get paid…accuracy in reading is not part of the deal. And I wonder what kind of refresher courses in image reading are required to maintain licensure. I’m guessing none.
There is a cheaper and non-nuclear way – the BSE pad, but nobody’s gonna send you a reminder to use it.
I saw it on TV once, and never got one. It’s not easy to find, drugstore.com has it for $20.
Deeply disturbing; please read the entire article.
Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’
And yet, Congress can’t even begin to make any changes in our approach towards energy, for fear it would cut oil company profits: DFP
I guess they figure they’ll be able to afford water and air conditioning with all the money they’ve made, so why bother?
Climate talks progressing despite US opposition to targets, Benn says
Triple car bombing kills 40 in southern Iraq
Mike Huckabee’s fundamental creepiness.
iowa’s still too close to call, with clinton at 29%, obama 26%, and edwards 22%, but things in new hampshire are shifting dramatically where polls show …Clinton (D-NY) has lost a twenty-point lead… and is in a statistical dead-heat with Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in two new polls.
w00t!
lTMF’sA
I think people have enough of the same-old, same-old, don’t you? Let’s hope it holds.
maybe not really news..but was watching this news segement the other day and notice VP Cheney addresses Bush as “Good morning, Sir” instead of “Good morning, Mr. President” isn’t that contrary to protocol.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/Story?id=3983948&page=2
Heh. That’s pretty consistent with Cheney being the acting president and his own fourth branch of government, isn’t it?
iran gives u.s. tail another tug. following it’s announcement four days ago that it has “completely halted” all oil transactions in dollars, the middle easts second largest producer of crude oil, has just inked a new deal with china:
things aren’t working out quite like BushCo™ and big oil had planned.
lTMF’sA
My apologies if anyone has eaten a meal within the past few minutes…
Cuz, ya know, Gonzo has done so much for the betterment of the legal profession.
check out the list of also rans…goodling?!…scooter?! not to mention mukasey…who’s op ed in the lat today will soon be the subject of yet anothe fisa diary.
and they passed over fitzgerald.
they even had the temerity to compare this selection to time selecting hitler and stalin…no wonder lawyers and politicians are looked upon with scorn.
lTMF’sA