By VOA News 22 August 2009
Most Muslims around the world have begun observing Islam's holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and spiritual reflection.Ramadan began Saturday throughout most of the Middle East and Asia, although Libya, Turkey and some Lebanese Shi'ites began fasting a day earlier.During the month of Ramadan, Muslims traditionally fast from sunrise to sunset. In Jerusalem's Old City, Palestinians shopped for Ramadan and prayed at the Mosque of Al-Aksa, the third-holiest site in Islam. In Iraq, Sunnis and Shi'ites began Ramadan at the same time for the first time since the fall of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama marked the start of Ramadan by extending best wishes to Muslims.Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the start of the holiday is determined by the appearance of the new moon. Religious leaders say no moon was sighted Thursday, so Friday was designated the last day of the month preceding Ramadan.During Ramadan, Muslims are expected to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sexual relations from dawn until sunset.The ninth month of the Islamic calendar, Ramadan marks the time more than 1,400 years ago when Muslims believe the words of Islam's holy book, the Koran, were revealed to the Prophet Mohammed.Ramadan will continue through September, concluding with a celebration, Eid al-Fitr.---http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Older Drivers and Medication
August 11, 2009, 3:47 pm
By Tanya Mohn
A new study has found that most older drivers were unaware of the potentially dangerous impact of medications on driving performance.
According to the report, released on Tuesday by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a nonprofit research and educational organization, 78 percent of respondents used one or more medications, yet just more than one in four were aware of the possible dangers of driving while on medications.
“That’s really scary,” said Peter Kissinger, president and chief executive of the AAA Foundation. “The risks are real.” Large numbers of older adults are on medication, and many of those medications have potential side effects, yet health care professionals “are not effectively communicating known risks,” he said.
The study, based on interviews with 630 drivers aged 56 to 93, was conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Only 18 percent of those surveyed said they had received warning about potentially driver impairing medications, such as ACE inhibitors, sedatives and beta blockers.
The study also found that as people aged, awareness decreased, despite the fact that the number of prescription medicines increased.
The problem is likely to worsen, Mr. Kissinger said, as the population of aging drivers is growing rapidly and the number of older adults using multiple medications has increased.
Previous research had established the link between the uses of certain classes of medications, alone and in combination, and increased crash risk. But the prevalence of crashes caused by older people taking these medicines — both prescription and over the counter — has not been accurately determined.
“The true incidence of driving under the influence of potentially impairing medications is not known,” said Loren Staplin, the managing partner of TransAnalytics, a consulting firm specializing in transportation safety research and development. “We just don’t have enough data or enough good data.” Part of the reason is that comprehensive testing for drugs in drivers’ systems after a crash is not routinely done, except for cases involving alcohol.
Early next year the AAA Foundation planned to release Roadwise Rx, a free Web-based resource intended to help raise awareness about driving risks related to the use of medications. The program will allow older drivers to enter individual medications or combinations of medications, and through a search function, gain access to information — based on age, gender and weight — from a database.
The goal is to inform older drivers about how medicines interact with food or other medications, as well as to provide warnings, to better understand ”when it may not be appropriate” to drive, said Dr. Staplin, whose company designed Roadwise Rx.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
By Tanya Mohn
A new study has found that most older drivers were unaware of the potentially dangerous impact of medications on driving performance.
According to the report, released on Tuesday by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, a nonprofit research and educational organization, 78 percent of respondents used one or more medications, yet just more than one in four were aware of the possible dangers of driving while on medications.
“That’s really scary,” said Peter Kissinger, president and chief executive of the AAA Foundation. “The risks are real.” Large numbers of older adults are on medication, and many of those medications have potential side effects, yet health care professionals “are not effectively communicating known risks,” he said.
The study, based on interviews with 630 drivers aged 56 to 93, was conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Only 18 percent of those surveyed said they had received warning about potentially driver impairing medications, such as ACE inhibitors, sedatives and beta blockers.
The study also found that as people aged, awareness decreased, despite the fact that the number of prescription medicines increased.
The problem is likely to worsen, Mr. Kissinger said, as the population of aging drivers is growing rapidly and the number of older adults using multiple medications has increased.
Previous research had established the link between the uses of certain classes of medications, alone and in combination, and increased crash risk. But the prevalence of crashes caused by older people taking these medicines — both prescription and over the counter — has not been accurately determined.
“The true incidence of driving under the influence of potentially impairing medications is not known,” said Loren Staplin, the managing partner of TransAnalytics, a consulting firm specializing in transportation safety research and development. “We just don’t have enough data or enough good data.” Part of the reason is that comprehensive testing for drugs in drivers’ systems after a crash is not routinely done, except for cases involving alcohol.
Early next year the AAA Foundation planned to release Roadwise Rx, a free Web-based resource intended to help raise awareness about driving risks related to the use of medications. The program will allow older drivers to enter individual medications or combinations of medications, and through a search function, gain access to information — based on age, gender and weight — from a database.
The goal is to inform older drivers about how medicines interact with food or other medications, as well as to provide warnings, to better understand ”when it may not be appropriate” to drive, said Dr. Staplin, whose company designed Roadwise Rx.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
Friday, August 7, 2009
Sotomayor's swearing in to court set for Saturday
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS (AP) – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON — When Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in Saturday to the Supreme Court, she'll be able to claim two firsts: first Hispanic justice and first high court member to have her oath-taking made available to TV cameras.
Sotomayor, who won a groundbreaking Senate confirmation vote Thursday over intense conservative opposition, will be sworn in twice by Chief Justice John Roberts.
She will repeat one oath as prescribed by the Constitution in a private ceremony at the high court. It will be open only to members of Sotomayor's family. Then, Roberts will administer a second oath, taken by judges, with the new justice's family and friends, and reporters present.
Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the ceremony apparently will be the first one open to television cameras in the court's history.
Sotomayor is the first Democratic nominee in 15 years. She becomes the nation's 111th justice — and just the third woman in the court's history. She'll appear next week at the White House with President Barack Obama, who chose her in May to replace retiring Justice David Souter.
"With this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Justice Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation's highest court," Obama said following Thursday's 68-31 confirmation vote.
Senate Democrats backed her unanimously but most Republicans lined up in a show of opposition both for her and for the president's standards for a justice.
The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge.
Republicans argued that she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench. But Democrats praised Sotomayor as an extraordinarily qualified mainstream moderate and touted her elevation to the court as a milestone in the nation's journey toward greater equality and a reaffirmation of the American dream.
Souter, while named by a Republican president, has sided with the court's liberal wing, so Sotomayor is not expected to alter the court's ideological split in succeeding him.
Still, her nomination sparked an intense fight between Republicans and Democrats, which highlighted profound philosophical disagreements that will shape future fights over the court's makeup as Obama looks to another likely vacancy — perhaps more than one — while he's in the White House.
In the final Senate tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate's two independents to support Sotomayor's confirmation. They included the Senate's few GOP moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, as well as conservative Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the party's third-ranking leader.
GOP critics decried Obama's call for "empathy" in a justice, painting Sotomayor as the embodiment of an inappropriate standard that would let a judge bring her personal whims and prejudices to the bench. They criticized rulings in which they said Sotomayor showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees. And they repeatedly cited comments she had made about the role that a judge's background and perspective can play, especially a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped a "wise Latina" judge would usually make better decisions than a white man.
The National Rifle Association, which hadn't weighed in on Supreme Court nominations past, strongly opposed her and threatened to downgrade its ratings of any senator who voted to confirm Sotomayor. The warning may have influenced some Republicans who were initially considered possible supporters but later announced their opposition, citing gun rights as a key reason.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
WASHINGTON — When Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in Saturday to the Supreme Court, she'll be able to claim two firsts: first Hispanic justice and first high court member to have her oath-taking made available to TV cameras.
Sotomayor, who won a groundbreaking Senate confirmation vote Thursday over intense conservative opposition, will be sworn in twice by Chief Justice John Roberts.
She will repeat one oath as prescribed by the Constitution in a private ceremony at the high court. It will be open only to members of Sotomayor's family. Then, Roberts will administer a second oath, taken by judges, with the new justice's family and friends, and reporters present.
Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the ceremony apparently will be the first one open to television cameras in the court's history.
Sotomayor is the first Democratic nominee in 15 years. She becomes the nation's 111th justice — and just the third woman in the court's history. She'll appear next week at the White House with President Barack Obama, who chose her in May to replace retiring Justice David Souter.
"With this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Justice Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation's highest court," Obama said following Thursday's 68-31 confirmation vote.
Senate Democrats backed her unanimously but most Republicans lined up in a show of opposition both for her and for the president's standards for a justice.
The 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents was raised in a South Bronx housing project and educated in the Ivy League before rising to the highest legal echelons, spending the past 17 years as a federal judge.
Republicans argued that she'd bring personal bias and a liberal agenda to the bench. But Democrats praised Sotomayor as an extraordinarily qualified mainstream moderate and touted her elevation to the court as a milestone in the nation's journey toward greater equality and a reaffirmation of the American dream.
Souter, while named by a Republican president, has sided with the court's liberal wing, so Sotomayor is not expected to alter the court's ideological split in succeeding him.
Still, her nomination sparked an intense fight between Republicans and Democrats, which highlighted profound philosophical disagreements that will shape future fights over the court's makeup as Obama looks to another likely vacancy — perhaps more than one — while he's in the White House.
In the final Senate tally, nine Republicans joined majority Democrats and the Senate's two independents to support Sotomayor's confirmation. They included the Senate's few GOP moderates and its lone Hispanic Republican, retiring Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, as well as conservative Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the party's third-ranking leader.
GOP critics decried Obama's call for "empathy" in a justice, painting Sotomayor as the embodiment of an inappropriate standard that would let a judge bring her personal whims and prejudices to the bench. They criticized rulings in which they said Sotomayor showed disregard for gun rights, property rights and job discrimination claims by white employees. And they repeatedly cited comments she had made about the role that a judge's background and perspective can play, especially a 2001 speech in which she said she hoped a "wise Latina" judge would usually make better decisions than a white man.
The National Rifle Association, which hadn't weighed in on Supreme Court nominations past, strongly opposed her and threatened to downgrade its ratings of any senator who voted to confirm Sotomayor. The warning may have influenced some Republicans who were initially considered possible supporters but later announced their opposition, citing gun rights as a key reason.
--http://davidsradiotv2000.blogspot.com
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