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New: Needle-less injections soon a reality

An MIT lab has come up with a painless, controlled way of shooting medicine through the skin without using needles.

The jet injector device uses a small, powerful magnet and electric current to inject drugs at nearly the speed of sound. Changes in the electric current allow the injector to work in two phases — a high-speed phase to enter the skin and reach a certain depth, and a lower-pressure phase to deliver the drug in a slow stream that allows for absorption.
“If you are afraid of needles and have to frequently self-inject, compliance can be an issue,” said Catherine Hogan, a research scientist in MIT’s department of mechanical engineering. “We think this kind of technology … gets around some of the phobias that people may have about needles.”

The jet injector delivers its drugs through an opening as wide as a mosquito’s proboscis.
(source)

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New Orleans to be largest US city without daily newspaper

From Newsy: The saying “out with the old, and in with the new” is hitting home in New Orleans. The city’s daily newspaper, The Times-Picayune, announced starting this fall it will only publish Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Jobs will also be cut as the paper makes some more modern changes. CNN explains.

“The publisher said in a memo the Time-Picayune needed to dedicate more resources to its online presence. He announced a new media group including NOLA.com which will continue to report seven days a week.”

A new company called NOLA Media Group will include the Times-Picayune and its affiliate website. Forbes.com says according to the paper’s publisher the…

“…best path to success lies in a digitally focused organization that combines the award winning journalism of the Times-Picayune and the strength of NOLA.com”

The Times-Picayune received international recognition for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. But many of its subscribers were forced out of the city by the storm, never to return. Today, the paper reaches about 155-thousand doorsteps on Sundays and 134-thousand on weekdays. But Poynter says it was double that before the storm.

“…circulation in March 2005, before Katrina flooded the city and shrank the population: about 285,000 on Sundays and 257,000 on weekdays.”

On Twitter, David Hammer, the investigative reporter at the Times-Picayune told his followers…

“…It’s like a morgue in the newsroom today.”

But According to Gambit, a New Orleans Weekly newspaper, it may be the way the announcement was made that had people so upset. The website says…

“…Even longtime senior writers and editors — said they learned of their fates from The New York Times report. One employee said, ‘I had to find this out by Twitter. Do I go into the office tomorrow? Do I even have a job to go in to tomorrow?’”

That same report says about a third of the paper’s reporters will be fired, along with top executives. When the change is made, New Orleans will become the largest U.S. city without a daily newspaper.

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CA: Judge rules DOMA unconstitutional

From The Advocate: A federal judge in California has ruled a section of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional in a case brought by a group of public employees whose same-sex spouses were denied long-term care insurance.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled late Thursday that Section 3 of DOMA, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages, violates the equal protection rights of the couples who sued both the federal government and the state’s California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).

In granting summary judgment to the public employees, Wilken ruled that DOMA and a provision in the federal tax code “are constitutionally invalid to the extent that they exclude Plaintiff same-sex spouses and registered domestic partners from enrollment in the CalPERS long-term care plan.”

Read more at The Advocate.

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Follower of Pastor “Put homosexuals behind a fence” Worley defends position

OMG! You have to watch this interview with Anderson Cooper and Stacey Pritchard of North Carolina Pastor Worley’s congregation.

She somewhat incoherently defends Pastor Worley’s desire to put homosexuals behind an electrified fence.

She starts out saying “of course he would never want that to happen” then diverts to “being taken out of context” to “this is 2012 – that doesn’t happen.” Even with Anderson Cooper saying “this IS happening in Iraq and Iran.”

Fascinating. Seriously. This is what “hate” looks like in America.

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CNN’s Brooke Baldwin asks Tony Perkins: “Why do homosexuals bother you so much?”

Brooke Baldwin asked Tony Perkins, of the certified hate group Family Research Council, to clarify what about same-sex couples deserved to be “less valued” by society. Perkins noted that he did not discount that there were loving same-sex couples raising children, just as there were loving single mothers doing the same. “If it were just two caregivers, three would be better!” he noted, but instead it was about a “fundamental role” a man and a woman had in a family.

Baldwin asked him whether his experience had corroborated that belief: “Have you ever been to the home of a same-sex couple?” Perkins answered in the negative, and refused to argue what he would tell that hypothetical couple to convince them their lifestyle was hurting society. “We don’t make public policy based on what is good for me… not anecdotes or what one couple likes.” As a society, Perkins asserted, “we have incurred a great harm.”

“I know you don’t want to answer the question,” Baldwin asked, patience wearing visibly thin, “but I’m going to try again: why do homosexuals bother you so much?” “They don’t bother me!” Perkins replied, asserting again that he was “not going to be silent while they try to redefine marriage in this country.”

You’ll note how many times Perkins says the phrase “social science has shown us” that kids do better with two, opposite sex parents. The fact is quite the opposite: children raised by lesbian parents fare as well as they would in heterosexual households, new research suggests.
(source)

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Growth of government spending slowest in 60 years under President Obama

Click pic for larger view

Mitt Romney says federal spending has accelerated under President Obama.

Actually, the facts bear out something quite the opposite: Federal spending under President Obama grew at the slowest pace in 60 years.  Click on the pic above to see rate of spending under the last 8 administrations.

From Politifact:

Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention. The only significant shortcoming of the graphic is that it fails to note that some of the restraint in spending was fueled by demands from congressional Republicans. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly True.