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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Judy Romero
jromero@crf.org
Cardiovascular Research Foundation
SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 30, 2013 A new clinical trial shows that a two-stent technique for treatment of bifurcation lesions with a large stenotic side branch was not associated with significant improved outcomes compared to a provisional stenting approach. The findings from the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Coronary bifurcation lesions are caused from a build-up of plaque in the heart at a location where one artery branches from another. In provisional side branch stenting, the main vessel branch is stented and the side branch only if compromised. Currently, provisional side branch stenting is the preferred strategy for treatment of bifurcation lesions.
The safety and effectiveness of provisional stenting for bifurcations that involve a large side branch of the coronary arteries is unknown. The Nordic-Baltic IV trial was a randomized, controlled, non-blinded, multicenter, superiority trial that compared provisional stenting with a two-stent strategy for the treatment of coronary bifurcation lesions involving a major side branch.
The primary endpoint was the composite of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including cardiac death, non-procedure-related myocardial infarction, target vessel revascularization and stent thrombosis after six months. Follow up is planned until five years. A total of 450 patients with coronary bifurcation lesions were randomized 1:1 to the provisional strategy (stenting of the main vessel and provisional stenting of the side branch) or a complex two-stent strategy (planned stenting of both the main vessel and the side branch).
After six months, the MACE rate was not significantly different between provisional and two-stent techniques (4.6 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, p=0.09). Individual endpoints were also similar between the two techniques including total death (0 and 0.4 percent, p=0.32), non-procedural myocardial infarction (1.8 percent and 0.9 percent, p=0.50) and target vessel revascularization (3.7 percent and 1.3 percent, p=0.11). There were no incidents of cardiac death in either group.
However, in contrast to prior studies, longer and more complex procedures in the two-stent group did not translate into more procedural myocardial infarctions.
"Results of this trial indicate that a two-stent technique does not significantly improve mid-term outcomes for patients with bifurcation lesions compared to provisional stenting," said lead investigator Indulis Kumsars, MD. Dr. Kumsars is Head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Latvian Cardiology Center in Riga, Latvia.
Given the fact that there was a weak trend towards lower MACE in the two stent strategy and follow up is continuing for five years, the Nordic-Baltic investigators concluded, "Recommendations on optimal strategies for this lesion subset should await longer term follow up."
###
The Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study was an academic investigator trial conducted by the Nordic-Baltic PCI Study group. The study was funded by participating institutions and by unrestricted research grants from Abbott and Cordis. Dr. Kumsars reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 30-Oct-2013
ShareContact: Judy Romero
jromero@crf.org
Cardiovascular Research Foundation
SAN FRANCISCO, CA OCTOBER 30, 2013 A new clinical trial shows that a two-stent technique for treatment of bifurcation lesions with a large stenotic side branch was not associated with significant improved outcomes compared to a provisional stenting approach. The findings from the Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study were presented today at the 25th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine.
Coronary bifurcation lesions are caused from a build-up of plaque in the heart at a location where one artery branches from another. In provisional side branch stenting, the main vessel branch is stented and the side branch only if compromised. Currently, provisional side branch stenting is the preferred strategy for treatment of bifurcation lesions.
The safety and effectiveness of provisional stenting for bifurcations that involve a large side branch of the coronary arteries is unknown. The Nordic-Baltic IV trial was a randomized, controlled, non-blinded, multicenter, superiority trial that compared provisional stenting with a two-stent strategy for the treatment of coronary bifurcation lesions involving a major side branch.
The primary endpoint was the composite of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including cardiac death, non-procedure-related myocardial infarction, target vessel revascularization and stent thrombosis after six months. Follow up is planned until five years. A total of 450 patients with coronary bifurcation lesions were randomized 1:1 to the provisional strategy (stenting of the main vessel and provisional stenting of the side branch) or a complex two-stent strategy (planned stenting of both the main vessel and the side branch).
After six months, the MACE rate was not significantly different between provisional and two-stent techniques (4.6 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, p=0.09). Individual endpoints were also similar between the two techniques including total death (0 and 0.4 percent, p=0.32), non-procedural myocardial infarction (1.8 percent and 0.9 percent, p=0.50) and target vessel revascularization (3.7 percent and 1.3 percent, p=0.11). There were no incidents of cardiac death in either group.
However, in contrast to prior studies, longer and more complex procedures in the two-stent group did not translate into more procedural myocardial infarctions.
"Results of this trial indicate that a two-stent technique does not significantly improve mid-term outcomes for patients with bifurcation lesions compared to provisional stenting," said lead investigator Indulis Kumsars, MD. Dr. Kumsars is Head of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the Latvian Cardiology Center in Riga, Latvia.
Given the fact that there was a weak trend towards lower MACE in the two stent strategy and follow up is continuing for five years, the Nordic-Baltic investigators concluded, "Recommendations on optimal strategies for this lesion subset should await longer term follow up."
###
The Nordic-Baltic Bifurcation IV study was an academic investigator trial conducted by the Nordic-Baltic PCI Study group. The study was funded by participating institutions and by unrestricted research grants from Abbott and Cordis. Dr. Kumsars reported no disclosures.
About CRF and TCT
The Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF) is an independent, academically focused nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for people with cardiovascular disease through research and education. Since its inception in 1991, CRF has played a major role in realizing dramatic improvements in the lives of countless numbers of patients by establishing the safe use of new technologies and therapies in interventional cardiovascular medicine. CRF is the sponsor of the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine. For more information, visit http://www.crf.org and http://www.tctconference.com.
Share
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
This story first appeared in the Nov. 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
The Killing star Joel Kinnaman nabbed the title role in February's RoboCop reboot. Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul toplines March's Need for Speed and Game of Thrones' Kit Harington has several movies in the works including February's Pompeii, in which he stars. But The Walking Dead actors Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus? Not so much.
As AMC's fourth-season zombie drama continues to dominate as TV's No. 1 show among the key 18-to-49 demographic, its runaway success hasn't made stars of its largely unknown ensemble cast. Lincoln, 40, and Reedus, 44, recently signed with CAA, a signal the actors are asking the tough question: Why hasn't Walking Dead done for them what Mad Men, Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad have done for their stars?
PHOTOS: 'The Walking Dead's' Most Shocking Deaths
"Maybe now that they have more significant representation, they'll have a marketing strategy to push themselves out there more," says Henry Schafer, executive vp at The Q Scores Co., which measures consumer appeal of celebrities. Schafer says requests to gauge the value of Walking Dead stars are few and far between: "If they're not being requested by our clients, it's a good indicator that they're not being used for anything beyond Walking Dead."
Gerry Philpott, president and CEO at market researcher E-Poll, agrees: "Their awareness is low." He estimates that Mad Men star Jon Hamm has twice the awareness level of Lincoln despite Walking Dead having more than double the viewership. "Jon has been on longer, he won the Golden Globe, Mad Men is an Emmy darling, and their people get featured quite a bit more," Philpott says. "Those all work together to have someone pop and stand out more."
The Walking Dead cast isn't high on bookers' lists of prime talk-show guests. Lincoln (best known for Love, Actually before being cast on the zombie drama) last year appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and Late Show With David Letterman, but other promo spots have been rare, with a source noting bookers have to contend with his time in Atlanta and home in the U.K. outside of production. If castmembers appear on a magazine cover, it's almost always in character (save for Reedus' upcoming Men's Fitness cover). The same is true for endorsement deals, with Reedus having appeared in character in a Time Warner Cable ad during the Super Bowl in February.
STORY: 'The Walking Dead' Renewed for Fifth Season, Gimple Staying Put as Showrunner
Observers suggest Walking Dead -- whose season-four premiere Oct. 13 drew 16.1 million viewers (and an 8.3 rating in the 18-to-49 demo) and was renewed Oct. 29 for a fifth season with Scott M. Gimple returning as showrunner -- isn't being seen by as many Hollywood insiders, who have helped other cable drama stars break through. For instance, Walking Dead has yet to crack the top Emmy categories.
Its Atlanta shooting location also might be an obstacle to stardom. Series talent often sets up shop in Georgia from April through November. "The Walking Dead is quite a bit of a time strain on their schedules," says creator/executive producer Robert Kirkman. "I think we'll see some big movies from these actors in time. I really feel like it's on the cusp; we just haven't gotten there yet."
Reedus has been the biggest breakout so far, with the indie drama Sunlight Jr. with Naomi Watts set for Nov. 15. A source says the Boondock Saints alum was offered a one-day gig in George Clooney's tentpole Tomorrowland, but he had to pass because the Disney pic required him to change his hair (a no-no for Walking Dead).
PHOTOS: Inside 'The Walking Dead's' Spooky Season 4 Premiere
Where they are stars is at Walking Dead fan events. Reedus, along with Lincoln and current and former co-stars Danai Gurira, Lauren Cohan, Steven Yeun, Melissa McBride, Chad Coleman, Laurie Holden and Sarah Wayne Callies, will appear at one Nov. 1-3 in Atlanta. Gurira starred in the Sundance indie Mother of George and has an award-winning writing career. Yeun has the indie film I Origins with Michael Pitt in the works, and young lead Chandler Riggs just booked the indie Home Invasion and has producer Jason Blum's Mercy in 2014.
Callies -- who played Lincoln's leading lady and whose character was among those killed in season three -- has fielded multiple pilot offers and opted for a theater role as her follow-up. Holden has a part in Dumb and Dumber To. Former co-star Jon Bernthal, whose character was whacked in season two, might have the most promising trajectory, reuniting with original Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont for TNT's upcoming Mob City and scoring roles in winter's The Wolf of Wall Street and Grudge Match. He's also filming Brad Pitt's Fury.
And if the series maintains its ratings, opportunities likely will follow. "We're really in the beginning of the cycle," says Bob Williams, CEO at Burns Entertainment, which matches celebrities with brands for endorsement deals. "Brands are typically looking for that strong face and name recognition, and that can take time."
E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook's posted a 60 percent revenue increase in the third quarter thanks to mobile advertising growth. The numbers beat Wall Street's expectations for the second consecutive quarter.
The world's largest social network said Wednesday that it earned $425 million, or 17 cents per share, in the July-September period. That's up from a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Adjusted earnings were $621 million, or 25 cents per share, in the latest quarter. That's 6 cents better than analysts expected. This figure excludes special items, mainly stock compensation expenses.
Revenue grew 60 percent to $2.02 billion from $1.26 billion, helped by increasing mobile advertising revenue.
Analysts, on average, were expecting revenue of $1.91 billion, according to FactSet.
"The strong results we achieved this quarter show that we're prepared for the next phase of our company, as we work to bring the next five billion people online and into the knowledge economy," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
Facebook's advertising revenue was $1.8 billion, up 66 percent from a year ago. Mobile ads accounted for 49 percent of the company's total ad revenue during the quarter. In the second quarter, mobile ads amounted to 41 percent of the total. The increase shows Facebook's strategy to become a "mobile-first" company is paying off.
At the same time, Facebook is growing its share of the mobile advertising market. Research firm eMarketer estimates that Facebook will grab 15.8 percent of the world's mobile ad spending this year, up from 5.4 percent last year. Google Inc., meanwhile, is expected to capture 53.2 percent this year, up slightly from a 52.4 percent share in 2012.
There were 1.19 billion Facebook users as of the end of September, up 18 percent from a year ago. Of these, an average of 728 million users logged in every day during the month of September, up 25 percent from a year ago.
Facebook had 874 million monthly mobile users at the end of the quarter, up 45 percent year-over-year. In a conference call with analysts, though, Facebook finance chief David Ebersman said that the company did see a decrease in daily use among younger teenagers. That's been a concern for some analysts who fear young people are migrating to newer sites. Luckily for Facebook, this includes the photo-sharing service it owns, Instagram.
After soaring as much as 18 percent to $57.98 after the results came out, shares of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook fell back to $49.80 in extended trading during the company's conference call. The stock had closed Wednesday's regular trading day down 39 cents at $49.01.
As expected, the quarter's operating expenses increased as Facebook continued to invest in growing its staff and enhancing its technical infrastructure. Total costs were $1.28 billion in the latest quarter, up 45 percent from $885 million a year ago. The company ended the quarter with nearly 5,800 employees, up 34 percent from a year earlier.
Facebook went public in May 2012 at $38 per share. It took the stock more than a year to surpass that price as the company worked to prove that it could grow mobile advertising revenue at a time when an increasing number of its users were accessing it on cellphones and tablet computers. Facebook didn't start showing advertisements on its mobile applications until last spring. In the first quarter of this year, the mobile category accounted for 30 percent of total ad revenue.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-30-Earns-Facebook/id-fffc84e6c785410a875c6d2573d9620bOctober 30, 2013 06:00 PDT | 09:00 EDT | 13:00 UTC
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>> APPLE SCORES AGAIN: The iPad Air review, by Anand Lal Shimpi: "A significant re-imagining of the original 9.7-inch iPad, the Air breathes new life into the platform... I don't know that it will curb enthusiasm over the iPad mini, particularly now that the new mini shares the same hardware platform (including display), but it levels the playing field between the two models... it's smaller, lighter and faster with absolutely no tradeoffs made in the process. The iPad Air feels like a true successor to the iPad 2." AnandTech
>>>> The iPad Air: "In exactly three years, Apple has produced an iPad that outperforms a then-brand-new MacBook." Daring Fireball
>>>> What the reviews say about the iPad Air: "If you were on the fence about buying Apple's latest large screen tablet before, you won't be after reading the reviews, which are unanimous in their praise." GigaOM
>>>> Mossberg: "It is the best tablet I've ever reviewed" AllThingsD
>> ANDROID FIGHTS BACK: Lenovo Yoga tablets hands-on: 3 modes, 18-hour battery, from $249, by Daniel P Howley: "The Surface isn't the only tablet with a built-in stand. Say hello to Lenovo's new Android-powered Yoga Tablets. On sale Oct. 30, these tablets come in an 8-inch version ($249 at Best Buy) and a 10-inch flavor ($299 at most major retailers). While these slates sport mid-range specs-quad-core MediaTek CPUs, 1GB RAM, 1280 x 800 displays-they literally stand out with built-in kickstands that support three use modes and a rated 18 hours of battery life." Laptop Mag
>>>> Lenovo claims battery life crown with new Yoga tablets InfoWorld
>>>> Hands on with the Lenovo Yoga Tablet: lopsided design and 18 hour runtime Ars Technica
>> WASHINGTON WIRE: Senate confirms Wheeler to lead FCC, by Brendan Sasso: "The Senate unanimously confirmed Tom Wheeler, an investor and former industry lobbyist, to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday. The vote was delayed for two weeks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who expressed concern about Wheeler's views on political disclosure rules. Cruz lifted his objection after Wheeler assured him in a private meeting Tuesday that tougher disclosure requirements for the donors behind political TV ads are 'not a priority' for him." The Hill
>> CALLING OFF THE DOGS: Obama orders curbs on NSA spying on U.N. headquarters, by Mark Hosenball: "Obama recently ordered the National Security Agency to curtail eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of a review of U.S. electronic surveillance" Reuters
>>>> Lawmakers propose USA Freedom Act to curb NSA's powers The Hill
>>>> Legislation unveiled to bar NSA's bulk phone metadata collection Wired
>> MONEY SHOT: Man buys $27 of bitcoin, forgets about them, finds they're now worth $886K, by Samuel Gibbs: "Kristoffer Koch invested 150 kroner ($26.60) in 5,000 bitcoins in 2009, after discovering them during the course of writing a thesis on encryption. He promptly forgot about them until widespread media coverage of the anonymous, decentralised, peer-to-peer digital currencyin April 2013 jogged his memory.... Bitcoins are stored in encrypted wallets secured with a private key, something Koch had forgotten. After eventually working out what the password could be, Koch got a pleasant surprise: "It said I had 5,000 bitcoins in there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about NOK5m ($886,000)," Koch told NRK." The Guardian
>> ATTACK O' THE DAY: MongoDB support firm says intruders may have accessed databases, by Jeremy Kirk: "MongoHQ, which provides hosting and support for the open-source Mongo database, said attackers may have accessed several of its customers' databases earlier this week... contains connection information for customer MongoDB instances, along with lists of databases, email addresses, and user credentials hashed with bcrypt... The company invalidated credentials such as IAM keys it stored for customers using Amazon Web Services for backups. MongoHQ has notified AWS of the accounts that may have been affected, and AWS is offering Premium Support for organizations that need new credentials" PCWorld
>> LOCAL BIG DATA: Cloudera positions Hadoop as an enterprise data hub, by Joab Jackson: "Cloudera has expanded the scope of its software so that it can serve as a hub for all of an organization's data, not just data undergoing Hadoop MapReduce analysis. Some of Cloudera's enterprise customers have 'started to use our platform in a new way, as the center of their data centers,' said Mike Olson, Cloudera's chairman and chief strategy officer. 'We think this is a very big deal. It will change the way the industry thinks about data,' " InfoWorld
>> FRENEMIES: Exclusive: Intel opens fabs to ARM chips, by Jean-Baptiste: "At the ARM developers' conference today, Intel partner Altera announced that the world's largest semiconductor company will fabricate its ARM's 64-bit chips starting next year... Intel will build Apple's A7, Qualcomm's Snapdragon or the Nvidia Tegra for the right price." [These are the chips used by most smartphones and tablets.] Forbes
>>>> The chip times are a-changin': "Mark LaPedus at Chip Design reported on the agreement with Intel back in February" InfoWorld
>> RICKROLL: Top reviewers on Amazon get tons of free stuff, by Lisa Chow: "You're on Amazon.com. You're buying, say, a toaster, and you're checking out the customer reviews. You assume the people writing these reviews are people like you -- people who wanted a toaster, went online and bought one. As it turns out, a lot of reviews on Amazon are written by people who are nothing like you. They're written by elite reviewers who are sent free merchandise to review products. In other words, it's possible that the guy reviewing that toaster you're looking at wasn't in the market for a toaster to begin with and didn't pay a cent for it." NPR Planet Money
>> Apple claim that iCloud can store passwords 'only locally' seems to be false Ars Technica
>> Twitter rolls out expanded previews for photos and Vines on the Web, Android and iOS TNW
>> Microsoft partners with Corona Labs to attract more Windows 8, Windows Phone 8 apps ZDNet
>> BlackBerry met with Facebook last week on potential bid Wall Street Journal (paywalled)
>> Oculus Rift will make virtual reality goggles for Android phones Gizmodo
>> Barnes & Noble's Nook GlowLight is lighter, brighter, whiter, with less Simple Touch for $119 Engadget
>> Mozilla releases 10 patches, five critical, for Firefox PCWorld
>> Google+ brings massive upgrades for its most loyal users: photographers VentureBeat
>> The ultimate guide to preventing DNS-based DDoS attacks InfoWorld
>> SAP draws fire from noisy neighbor IFS over HANA: "We can beat SAP in a straight fight for business" says IFS Computerworld UK
>> Australia's National Broadband Network posts loss of nearly $1B in past year ARN
>> AWS updates big data analytics platform with new support for Hadoop and its ecosystem TechCrunch
>> Python is the only programming language in LinkedIn's 2013 Most Demanded Skills LinkedIn (t/h Hacker News)
>> Google shows off second gen Google Glass w/ mono earbud coming later this year 9to5Google
>> TWEET O' THE DAY: "Self-destructing food packaging. Reaction yields in 3 formats: 1) Flower seeds 2) Vapor that smells like chocolate 3) A rainbow." @BoredElonMusk
FEED ME, SEYMOUR: Comments? Questions? Tips? Shoot mail to Trent or Woody. Follow @gegax or @woodyleonhard.
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“Here’s my letter,” said Rep. Cory Gardner. The central Colorado congressman, who looks like an eager Batman sidekick grown up and made good, waved “the letter that my family got canceling our insurance.” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius looked on, framed by TV and still cameras capturing every flutter of the paper.
“We chose to have our own private policy back in Colorado so we could be in the same boat as our constituents,” said the congressman. “And yet my insurance policy has been canceled. The White House website says, if you like the plan you have, you can keep it. Did I hear it wrong?”
Sebelius, who had sweated through three hours of questions (almost half of them, to be fair, from friendly Democrats), talked to Gardner as if trying to troubleshoot for him. “I don’t know how long you’ve had your plan,” she said.
“Why aren’t you losing your health insurance?” asked Garner.
From there, the discussion turned into a familiar shaming exercise about why administration officials or liberal congressmen won’t sign onto the health care exchanges. Democrats find that easy to dismiss; Rep. Henry Waxman, the snappy ranking member of the committee, asked Sebelius if she could follow Gardner’s advice and secure a health plan that “would be able to protect you from cheap shots?”
Now that Obamacare is being implemented, the rest of the GOP is going to feel the pain of the middle class.
But after the hearing, Gardner kept on fulminating about the broken “you can keep it” promise. In a TV statement, and in a short conversation with reporters, Gardner repeated the president’s phrase like a mantra. An insurer had informed Gardner and his family that their old plan was unavailable, replaced by something with a “significantly higher” cost. They were among the 15 million people who bought insurance on the individual market, and now among the 7 to 12 million whose plans would be ended by Affordable Care Act regulations.
“We’re like millions of Americans who lost our plan after the president said if we liked it we could keep it,” he said. “We called them up, and I said, ‘Is this due to Obamacare?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ ”
To Republicans, this is the latest in an ongoing series of Obamacare “smoking guns,” proof that the law never should have passed. And it’s more than that. It’s a shift away from the fruitless, theoretical, absolutist attacks of the past few months. Let Sen. Ted Cruz go on about liberty and tyranny and the evils of the living Constitution. Now that Obamacare is being implemented, the rest of the party is going to feel the pain of the middle class.
That pain is most acutely felt, right now, by the 5 percent of Americans who shop on the individual insurance market. For more than three years, health care reporters had been warning that these plans would be altered or scrapped as they comported with new regulations, and for at least the last month conservatives had been circulating the letters from companies warning of the change. Gardner actually released his one month ago, the sort of dramatic gesture that might have gotten more attention had congressional conservatives not been betting all their chips on a government shutdown.
Since the shutdown ended, some of the conservatives most identified with Manichean calls to shrink the government are calling for something new. Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, won a new national following with a book (The Battle) about how each new government program put a brick on the “road to serfdom.” Yet in an Oct. 18 speech, he warned conservatives against “insane” attacks on “the government social safety net for the truly indigent.”
“We somehow want to zero out food stamps or something,” said Brooks. “It’s nuts to want to be doing something like that. We have to declare peace on the safety net.”
This week, in a speech at D.C.’s other conservative mega–think tank, Utah Sen. Mike Lee did a similar reshuffle of conservative talking points. It was worth building a federal system that rewarded good behavior and lifted up the poor, even if that meant—clutch your handkerchief—some redistribution of wealth. “Many middle-class parents may pay no income taxes—but they do pay taxes,” said Lee. “Working parents are not free riders.”
What Brooks, Lee, and Gardner all realized was that conservative Republicans needed to acknowledge what government looked like in 2013. The “if you like it, you can keep it” story, which they should have glommed on to earlier, inverts the health care narrative that had always made Democrats sound like Samaritans and Republicans sound like misers. Before, the “exemplar” story of health care was of the sick person (preferably young, preferably cherubic) being denied coverage because of villainous HMOs. Now, the networks were full of exemplars whose insurers had been held down and smothered by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ invisible army of regulators.
This has Democrats spooked, for the moment. On Wednesday, as Republicans got ready to roll out a bill literally named “The If You Like Your Health Care Plan You Can Keep It Act of 2013,” Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu promised her own version. “The promise was made and it should be kept,” said the Democrat, who’s up for re-election in 13 months. “It was our understanding when we voted for that, that people when they have insurance could keep what they had.”
So the sad insurance company letters will roll in, and Republicans will keep making them famous. As the New Republic’s Jonathan Cohn puts it, this tact gets Republicans out of a jam on their own health spending plans. Almost every member of the party is on record for Medicaid reforms that would end the program for millions of people, hypothetically more than are getting the bad news about private insurance plans now. Democrats, for now, are set to be the party of pain and suffering. That’s surely why Republicans at the hearing didn’t actually call for Sebelius to quit her job, or for the president to fire her.
“If this were the private sector, heads would roll,” said an eager reporter to committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, after the hearings.
“I had the opportunity to work at the White House myself, as a political appointee,” said Upton. “I served, every day, at the pleasure of the president. I knew that if I didn’t do my job, I probably wasn’t going to be there. Because she is there, she is serving with his pleasure, and, uh …”
He trailed off, but the point was clear. Republicans have a better target than Sebelius.
They're too busy cheering the stunning turnaround, hailing a fighter who was victorious against almost invincible odds.
There have been many such miraculous comebacks in the UFC, one of the reasons we've fallen so deeply in love with the sport. Cheick Kongo scored a win out of nowhere over Pat Barry in a fight in Pittsburgh's Consol Energy Center which he was seconds away from losing by knockout.
Frankie Edgar rallied to retain his lightweight title after being dropped multiple times and on the verge of going out against Gray Maynard at UFC 125. Tim Boetsch was battered and beaten and hopelessly out of the fight when he came out of nowhere to defeat Yushin Okami at UFC 144.
There have been no deaths in the cage in the UFC's 20-year history, and, as best as is known, none of its fighters have suffered traumatic brain injuries.
Doctors, paramedics and ambulances are on hand at every arena to treat fighters in distress.
UFC fighters are among the greatest sportsmen in the world, as Lyoto Machida showed on Saturday when he failed to take advantage of an out-cold Mark Munoz in the main event of a card in Manchester, England. Machida knocked Munoz down with a kick to the head, and got to the prone Munoz before the referee.
The rules allowed Machida to try to punch the downed Munoz -- What ex-heavyweight champion Randy Couture called the sport's "rules of engagement" after a loss to Brock Lesnar at UFC 92 -- but Machida recognized Munoz was out and defenseless and never threw another punch.
The referee then quickly stopped the fight. By declining to throw that extra punch or two before the referee intervened, Machida may have saved Munoz a serious brain injury.
Much of the credit for the UFC's terrific safety record, though, should be given to the referees, who very literally have the fighters' lives in their hands, and repeatedly show good judgment.
Velasquez was pummeling dos Santos from the bout's opening seconds, and by the end of the third round, there were calls for Dean to stop the bout. But Dean let dos Santos continue until the fifth, when dos Santos went down and Velasquez delivered a series of unanswered blows from the top.
On Saturday in Manchester, Jessica Andrade routed Rosi Sexton in a fight that referee Neal Hall let go the three full rounds. Many thought it should have been stopped, including UFC television analyst Joe Rogan. Sexton, though, took a shot at what she felt was Rogan's over-the-top commentary.
48 hours post fight - I have 2 black eyes, otherwise I'm 100% fine. You could have given me an IQ test as I stepped out of the cage, and I'd still have scored higher than Joe Rogan.
Long-time MMA journalistDamon Martin suggested in a column on Fox Sports that Hall made the right move allowing the fight to continue.
He suggested gender bias led to all the calls for a stoppage, when there were not similar cries when males were being similarly beaten.
If the conversation is about when a fighter is being too tough for their own good or when to account for too much punishment in a fight, then that's a subject worth putting under the microscope but it has to go there without an ounce of gender bias. Referees and corners need to undergo training and watch fight footage and have to understand when enough is enough and be willing to make those calls regardless of the public backlash that may occur because a fight was deemed as stopped too early.
The same goes for corners who are there on behalf of the fighters, and they need to be willing to stop the action and deal with the fallout from fellow coaches and the fighter for making a judgment call.
"Big" John McCarthy, the outstanding referee, made a great point to Ben Fowlkes in USA Today about the right time to stop a fight. The referee's job is all about safety and not about worrying about what is at stake for a fighter.
If the fighter doesn't show he is physically able to be competitive and defend himself, the bout needs to be stopped, no matter what is on the line. McCarthy was 100 percent on the money in his comments to Fowlkes.
No one deserves the right to finish a fight. They earn it through their actions in being competitive. A ref needs to understand the difference between fighting and surviving. Sometimes we need to protect fighters from themselves as much as their opponent.
I have personally covered seven boxing matches where a fighter died, and in virtually every case, it wasn't from one single powerful punch. Rather, the death resulted from a long, sustained beating to the head.
Sexton finished on her feet and, fortunately, appears to be in good health. And, as Martin pointed out correctly, she had her best round in the third after being demolished in the second.
Stopping a fight too quickly may rob the fans of a Kongo over Barry or of Boetsch over Okami or one of any of about 100 other incredible finishes.
The referee should always stop a bout when one fighter is taking repeated, clean, hard blows to the head and doesn't seem to have the capacity to fend off further onslaughts by either landing significant strikes of his or her own or by strategically moving away from danger.
CTE and other traumatic brain injuries don't go away just because a fighter rallied from the brink of defeat for a heart-pounding win. Referees must be trained to stop fights well before there is a higher-than-average risk of head injury.
Doing so will occasionally rob the fans of an amazing stop-the-presses finish, but if it means all of the fighters return home safely with their wits intact, it's a small price to pay.
