我国烟民数量达3.5亿 卫生部呼吁立法控烟

5月31日是第20个世界无烟日，可是无烟的日子仍然遥不可及。卫生部履行《烟草控制框架公约》领导小组办公室今天公布的数据显示，我国是世界上烟民最多的国家，有3.5亿人喜好享受吞云吐雾的感觉，并因此制造了5.4亿被动吸烟者，其中15岁以下儿童有1.8亿。

据世界卫生组织估计，全球大约有7亿儿童呼吸的空气遭受二手烟雾污染，这种情况在家庭环境中尤甚。我国参与的“全球青少年烟草调查”结果显示：青少年在家中和公共场所受二手烟危害的比例分别为43.9%和55.8%。

我国吸烟人数为3.5亿。根据研究推算，目前我国人群中遭受被动吸烟危害的人数可高达5.4亿，其中15岁以下儿童有 1.8亿。比较1984年、1996年，2002年全国吸烟行为流行病学调查数据显示，虽然人们的吸烟率已经出现了下降趋势，但被动吸烟状况没有任何改善。

城市和农村人群接触二手烟的比例分别为49.7%和54.0%，农村高于城市。有20个省份50%以上的人接触二手烟，其中青海、甘肃、山西、陕西、吉林、内蒙古等北方地区比例高于60%。

家庭、公共场所和工作场所都是接触二手烟的地方。根据2002年调查，被动吸烟人群中，82%在家庭中、67%在公共场所、35%在工作场所接触二手烟。

在被动吸烟人群中，因年龄、性别和职业的不同，在各类场所接触二手烟的比例也不同。被动吸烟的女性90%是在家庭中接触二手烟。20~59岁男性在公共场所和工作场所接触二手烟的比例最高。和1996年的调查结果相比，人们在公共场所接触二手烟的比例上升。

我国每年死于被动吸烟的人数超过10万

人们对吸烟的危害已经有所认识，但是对于二手烟的危害却并不十分清楚。履约办提供的“2007年中国控制吸烟报告”说，我国每年死于被动吸烟的人数超过10万，每一个凋零的生命就是一条拒绝被动吸烟的重要理由。

有关专家介绍说，卷烟点燃时会产生极高温度(900℃)，这时产生的烟草烟雾中含有4000多种化学物质，包含许多有毒有害物质，其中有40多种物质具有致癌性。美国的研究也表明，二手烟雾中含有几百种已知的有毒或者致癌物质，包括甲醛、苯、氯乙烯、砷、氨和氢氰酸等。二手烟雾已被美国环保署和国际癌症研究署确定为A类致癌物质。

很多人认为，只要吸烟人数少，房间面积足够大，危害就可以减至最低，甚至没有危害，也就是说，存在“安全暴露”水平。然而，事实并非如此。每燃烧一支卷烟所形成的烟草烟雾中含有的苯并芘高达180纳克(1纳克＝10-6克)。这在一个30立方米容积的居室内就会形成6纳克／立方米浓度，超过卫生标准(1纳克／立方米)5倍。为了将它稀释至容许浓度，就得把居室内30立方米的空气每小时更换5~6次，而目前在宾馆和家庭中常用的中央空调和普通空调均无过滤清除苯并芘等类超微颗粒的功能，一旦卷烟烟雾在室内形成就很难加以清除。

美国通风问题权威机构——美国采暖通风空调工程师学会——已经作出结论，不能依靠通风技术来控制接触二手烟雾的健康风险。因此将吸烟者和非吸烟者分开、净化空气或装置通风设备等，都不能够消除二手烟雾对非吸烟者的危害。如吸烟区设立在同一建筑物内，暖气、通风、空调系统的正常运行，会把二手烟雾传送到整个建筑物中的每个角落。

应当立法禁止公共场所吸烟
卫生部履行《烟草控制框架公约》领导小组办公室相信，立法是禁止在公共场所吸烟的关键措施。现在，很多国家禁止吸烟的公共场所已从公共交通工具、电影院、展览馆、购物中心、银行、学校、医院等，逐步扩展到办公场所(包括政府办公楼、公司的写字楼等)，又进而扩展到大众餐饮娱乐场所(包括餐厅、酒吧、夜总会、按摩院等)。

2004年3月，爱尔兰成为世界上第一个立法建立无烟工作场所的国家，无烟化的范围包括所有的办公室、餐厅、酒吧和旅店等公共场所。不到3个月，挪威的无烟立法也开始生效。此后，在这两个国家的引领下，新西兰、意大利、西班牙、几内亚、毛里求斯和乌拉圭等12个国家相继开展了创建无烟工作场所和无烟公共场所的工作。

然而，我国至今还没有一部专门规定公共场所禁止吸烟的法律法规，有关规定多半出现在相关法律法规的某些条款或细则中，而且内容模糊，执法主体不明，可操作性不强。比如1991年第七届全国人大常委会第二十次会议通过的《中华人民共和国烟草专卖法》总则中规定：“国家和社会加强吸烟危害健康的宣传教育，禁止或限制在公共交通工具和公共场所吸烟。”

2006年10月，卫生部成立了履行《公约》领导小组，并设立履行《公约》领导小组办公室。受国务院委托，卫生部正着手修订《公共场所卫生管理条例》。修定后的《条例》将强化有关公共场所禁止吸烟的规定。

如何在高利税和健康间取舍
不过，现实的挑战远不止这些。有关数据表明，从1987年起，烟草一直是我国第一大税源。2002年，我国烟草行业上缴利税1456亿元，占我国财政收入的8%。2004年我国烟草行业累计实现利税超过2100亿元，与2000年相比翻了一番，烟草业税收占全国总税收的10%。2005年增长到2400亿元。

“如何在高利税和卫生健康之间取舍，将是一项异常严峻的考验。”有专家说，对于政府财政而言，禁烟无疑于自剜其肉。

事实上，从上世纪80年代后期起，中国就开始控烟，一些限制规章也相继出台。2003年，中国政府正式签署了《烟草控制框架公约》。两年后《公约》生效，政府是否禁止或限制有关的广告、促销和赞助，是否直接或间接鼓励他人吸烟将成为主要判断标准，国内烟草企业宣传渠道受到进一步的制约。

尽管如此，中国的控烟行动仍被认为处于初级阶段，其重要原因是经济的需要。一个佐证是，今年第一季度，我国烟草行业仍呈现良好发展之势，不管是产销量还是利润都有很好的数字。比如南部某省省内卷烟企业前4个月共实现利税203.11亿元，同比增长26.9%,其中销量增长的贡献率约为24.0%，结构调整的贡献率约占72.0%。

一个好消息是，2008年我国将举办奥运会，而从1988年加拿大冬季奥运会开始，“无烟奥运”不仅是一个目标，而且变成了现实。各奥运会举办国在比赛期间对比赛场馆等公共场所实行全面禁烟，禁止吸烟及一切与烟草有关的广告。

有建议称中国一流大学应该开放课件服务大众

2003年9月，麻省理工学院做出了一个惊人之举：正式向全世界公布多达500门课程的全部内容，世界上无论哪个角落的任何一个人，都可以进入该校的专门网站下载和学习这些内容，并且在非营利的前提下免费使用这些内容。而他，正是麻省理工学院开放课件创意的首创者。

他就是数十年前由上海赴美，在麻省理工待了37年的工学院副院长俞久平教授。

“大家都能看到，里面就不会乱了”

“这没什么不好，透明度对于一所高校的品质而言非常重要”，在近日举行的中国开放式教育协会成立三周年庆典上，俞久平接受本报记者采访时说，这就好比一栋房子，如果要让别人知道里面干净整齐，最好是玻璃的房子，“大家都能看到，里面就不会乱了”。

他的创意来源于深刻的时代背景。20世纪末，随着互联网络的兴起，高等教育如何适应IT时代的新变化，成为了摆在美国众多高校面前的一道难题。

“那时候正是．com疯狂的时候，很多高校都在想着．com，而不是．edu”，俞久平说，很多学校都把自己看作商业组织，看到的是学校知识的商业价值，总想着怎么去卖，麻省理工学院在寻求应对策略时，摆在校长面前的也不乏MIT．com等计划书。

“策划做了这么久，结果答案很平凡，很没有创意”，俞久平说，往商业上发展不会使MIT到前面去，如果真办好了，几年以后可能也就10名，大不了第5名,领导力方面几乎起不到什么作用。

恰好在这个时候，他也领导着一个团队寻求策略，联想起小时候看电机工程时的情景，又联系到他在校园里经常看到有些实验室将大堆的旧书都扔掉了，心想这些书在别的地方都是非常宝贵的东西，为什么不给人家？

“想法真的很疯狂，跟．com绝对是背道而驰的，但我想，对MIT有没有好处，对世界教育有没有好处？后来想得很清楚了，是完全有好处的。”俞久平说，对麻省理工学院而言，最重要的是领导力，第二影响力，第三优秀度，而这一创意毋庸置疑会给三方面都带来加分。

稍有疏漏会得到及时指出和更正

但妙法也得要妙人才能接受，在一般人看来，课件是神秘而不可外露的东西，是教师们赖以生存的“两把刷子”，按常理推断，即使得到了学校领导层的首肯，教师们也肯定会群起反对。俞久平想，如果有50％的教授们反对，方案就肯定行不通了。

但他没有料到的是，麻省理工学院的教授们正是“妙人”，他们一个系一个系去开会，问愿不愿意参与，有什么问题，结果多数教授表示愿意参加。少数不愿意参加的教授，所担心正如一般人想得一样，如果课件内容全部公开，会不会影响我出书的销售量？美国大学就曾经发生过这样的情形：学生们上课首先要签保密协议，因为任课教师已经跟出版商谈好了，上课内容要出书，笔记外传可能影响销量。

但俞久平用类似于吃鸡蛋看母鸡的道理说服了这些教师，如果课件很好，慕名买书的人只可能更多而不是相反。而且，大多数教授赞同也形成了压力，如果系列课程，第一章有了，第二章有了，第四章也有了，就缺第三章，任教第三章的教授面子上会挂不住的。

好处是非常明显的，迄今为止，开放课件的网站已吸引了全球200多个国家数亿次的点击，全球数百所高校也参与到这一项目中来。对于教授们而言，课件全部公开了，一方面表明他们有信心要让全世界知道他们是最好的教授，另一方面，课件中有错误、疏漏的地方，也会得到及时指出和更正。

而且，由于项目出色，也得到了基金会的青睐，3500万美元的成本中，麻省理工学院只付出了大约500万美元，对于这样一所年开支数亿美元的大学而言，不算什么大数目。而那些走．com道路的高校，当时所立的项目要么已经破产了，要么就是亏了几千万美元。俞久平说，他没有听到有成功的案例。

中国一流大学应该开放课件

“开放课程就应该是中国做，应该是清华北大这些好学校做，中国需要的人数比美国大多了！”俞久平认为，中国的高等教育差距比较明显，学校层次和地域上的差距都很大，一流大学应该开放课件。

事实上，国内已经有高校展开了与麻省理工学院的开放课件项目合作，在美国IET教育基金会的支持下，中国开放教育协会正在组织力量将麻省理工学院的课件翻译成中文，以提高中国高等教育的质量。目前，协会已拥有上千名志愿者，并翻译出了数百门课程，协会网站的日访问量也上万次，成为开放式课程计划的美国以外第一大用户。

但俞久平表示，麻省理工学院的开放式课件在中国不一定合用，还是应当由中国自己的大学来推进。

All Asian 2007 Motions

Round Zero: Debate
THW eliminate the humor round from All Asians.
THW allow coaching during preparation time.
THS affirmative action for women in debate.

R1: Bioethics
THS the trade of human organs.
THW encourage for profit surrogate motherhood.
THW make genetic screening of fetuses illegal.

R2: Terrorism
THW try Guantanamo Bay detainess in their home
country.
THW bypass Pakistani authorities in the hunt for Osama
Bin Laden.
THW export suspected terrorists to countries that
allow torture.

R3: Elections
THBT the next American President should be elected by
a popular vote.
THW adopt fixed election dates in parliamentary
democracies.
THW ban campaign finance contributions from corporate
lobby groups.

R4: Pop Culture
THS the politicization of Hollywood.
THW exempt celebrities from national service.
THW legalize animated child pornography.

R5: Refugees
THS the repatriation of North Korean refugees.
THBT Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return
to their homeland.
THS the abolition of refugee detention centers in
Australia.

R6: Obesity
THW prohibit the sale of junk food in school.
THS the establishment of weight requirements for
models in the fashion industry.
THW place obese children under the care of the state.

R7: War and Technology
THBT America=92s allies should reject BMD.
THBT media facilities are legitimate targets in war.

R8: Sexual Politics
THBT male to female trans-sexuals should be allowed to
compete in sporting events as a woman.
THW abolish statutory rape laws for teenagers.
THW ban the use of social networking websites in
catching paedophiles.

Doubles: The Internet
THW ban websites that encourage suicide.
THW keep copyright law out of You Tube.
THW require pornographic websites to use =93.XXX=94 domain
names.

Octos: Environment
THBT airline passengers should be required to pay a
carbon emissions tax.
THW require compulsory environmental service for all
citizens.
THW end exploration for new sources of oil.

Quarters: NE Asia
THW comfort the comfort women.
THW assassinate Kim Jong IL.
THBT Taiwan should rejoin China.

Semis: Religion
THW not allow religious organizations to run
orphanages.
THBT shariah courts have no place in Islamic
democracy.
THBT parents should not have the right to deny medical
treatment to their children on religious grounds.

EFL Finals: Universities
TH rejects corporate sponsorship of academic research.
TH would prohibit military recruitment on university
campuses.
THBT affirmative action in universities should be
based on economic class rather than race.

Finals: Independence and Conflict
THW forcibly disarm the Tamil Tigers.
THW partition Iraq.
THBT the UN should recognize an independent Kosovo.

Saving, Not Victimizing, Children

Published: May 9, 2007

Sexually exploited children can be helped by the law or victimized by it. An Eastern European child smuggled as a sex slave is offered protection under the federal law. An American child who flees abusive parents and ends up selling her body on the streets is labeled a crimina.

That would change under a new law that would reform the juvenile justice system so it protects rather than punishes exploited children.

Under the proposed Safe Harbor law, young children who have been battered and exploited by pimps and johns on the street would no longer be charged with prostitution. They would instead be put under state supervision under existing child welfare laws and placed in safe housess. The children would be given medical care and counseling that they would almost never get in detention, and be assigned adult advocates who would follow their cases. The bill provides for long-term housing.

Children placed in shelters, however, would remain under the control of the courts, and could be sent to detention for noncompliance. If necessary, the Legislature could also make that provision explicit.

The FCC's not our mommy and daddy

Why the Federal Communications Commission is wrong to recommend regulating violence on TV.

the FCC issued a report last week on "violent television programming and its impact on children" that calls not just for expanding governmental oversight of broadcast TV but extending content regulation to cable and satellite channels for the first time.

Despite its sober tone, the study rests on the demonstrably false idea that violent TV breeds violence in reality, and it also fails to take seriously the vast increase in child-friendly programming and parent-empowering viewing tools.

If fantasy violence translates readily into its real-world counterpart, then why have juvenile violent crime arrests dropped steadily for 12 years? The same trend is true for violent crime among the larger population. There seems little question that depictions of violence in media have become more frequent and more graphic since 1994. If Adelstein's thesis were true, the facts on the ground would be otherwise.

The ultimate goal of the report is not simply to empower parents who worry about what's on TV in their house but to change "the media landscape outside our homes" and to increase "the amount of family-friendly, uplifting and nonviolent programming being produced."

It's safe to say that when a quartet of do-gooder, pizza-chomping cartoon reptiles has become a predicate for federal regulation, American governance has gone seriously off the rails. More to the point, the FCC seems to be wholly unaware that, in recent years, cable TV has become jampacked with channels dedicated to the sort of fare Tate demands. Cartoon Network, Disney Kids and others devote most or all of their hours to kid-friendly culture.

At the same time, parents have gained unprecedented control over the tube. Since 2000, all new TV sets have come equipped with a government-mandated "V-chip," which allows parents to automatically block specific programs based on violence, language or sexual content ratings. The typical TV or cable/satellite box includes other controls as well that allow the blocking of channels and restrict access to the set. And, of course, all TVs come with an on/off switch.

Toward a Federal Shield Law

When the subject of a journalists’ shield law comes up in Congress, as it has this week, the issue is often framed as an attempt by reporters to give themselves special privileges to the detriment of criminal investigations and even national security.
A shield law does protect journalists. But the real benefit for society is that it protects sources, allowing whistle-blowers or other insiders to expose wrongdoing in government and the private sector. The information they provide is vital to the public’s ability to know what government and businesses are doing and to make informed judgments.
Yesterday, six members of Congress introduced a new, balanced and bipartisan bill that would allow a reporter to protect the identity of a confidential source in most circumstances. The measure, the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, is supported by dozens of media companies.
It is not a blank check. The bill would set reasonable criteria that would have to be met before unpublished information could be subpoenaed from reporters in a federal criminal or civil matter. Prosecutors would have to show that they had exhausted alternative sources before demanding information. They would need to show that the sought-after material was relevant and critical to proving a case, and that the public interest in requiring disclosure would outweigh the public interest in news gathering. The bill has strong protections for confidential sources but would permit disclosure to avoid “imminent and actual harm” to national security.
The only thing a federal shield law would threaten is the administration’s ability to make policy in secret. This measure of protection is long overdue.

Medicare Privatization Abuses

It seems that outrageously high government subsidies aren’t enough to satisfy the private plans that participate in Medicare. Some of these Medicare Advantage plans have been caught using hard-sell tactics to pressure elderly Americans into signing up for policies that may leave them worse off than they would be with traditional Medicare coverage. The unscrupulous sales pressure is one more argument for removing the subsidies that are the only crutch allowing many of these plans to survive.
The abusive sales tactics are particularly egregious among the private fee-for-service plans. These plans receive the highest subsidies and do the least to earn them among the array of private offerings available for Medicare recipients.
State officials are investigating a range of sales abuses. In Georgia, two insurance agents were arrested and accused of signing up unwilling consumers; one beneficiary said her signature was forged by a door-to-door salesman. In North Carolina, the insurance commissioner is investigating complaints that agents switched residents of an assisted-living facility from traditional Medicare into private plans without their permission. At least five other states are investigating complaints about sales tactics.
Defenders of the private fee-for-service plans argue that they often provide better benefits or charge beneficiaries less than traditional Medicare does, a feat they are able to accomplish thanks to their huge subsidies. That is often true, but not always. Some beneficiaries have found that their doctors won’t accept patients enrolled in private fee-for-service plans. Others have been shocked to be hit with much higher co-payments than under traditional Medicare — as much as $100 a day for the first 20 days in a skilled nursing facility for which no co-payment would have been charged under traditional Medicare.
Congress needs to ensure that such abuses do not continue. And it should eliminate these lavish subsidies.

Hanging in the balance

Clive Stafford Smith

May 1, 2007 12:40 PM | Guardian Unlimited

Amnesty International has published its annual report on the death penalty, which makes modestly encouraging reading for those who would put an end to state-sanctioned killing.

This is not surprising: there is little chance that history, as it is ultimately written, will favourably recount stories of electrocution, hanging, gassing or lethal injection, any more than it does burning witches at the stake.

However, this is of little solace to the thousands of individuals who continue to be executed each year, each of whom has only one life to lose.

Consider China. There were 1,010 documented executions last year, but the true number was more likely to have been close to 8,000. Executions in China are shrouded in mystery, we are told, because the fact of an execution is a state secret. Why, if a government wishes to deter its citizens from crime, would the consequences of criminality be kept hidden?

China leads the premier league of executions by a long way, with well over 90% of all executions worldwide. Despite this, there are signs that China is moving towards abolition. In March 2007, a Chinese delegate told the United Nations that he thought "the application of the death penalty will be further reduced and it will finally be abolished" in his country. If the inevitability of abolition is already clear, what is the point of continuing to execute?

With the China Olympics slated for next year, criticism of the industrial scale of executions is muted. Perhaps this is inevitable since the US still comes in fifth on the annual execution table (with 53), chasing China and Pakistan on total numbers of people awaiting execution on death row.

No matter what George Bush's attitude may be, Britain cannot afford to sit silently by, if morality and British foreign policy are to intersect at all. Reprieve has learned that there were at least two British nationals among the thousands who faced execution in China in 2006, yet the British government has apparently not been able to contact the men, or influence their fate.

Presumably, China wants to earn the respect of the world in the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing. A public commitment towards abolition would be a good way to start. The fact that Australia executed nobody at the Sydney Olympics has not been touted among the reasons for the success of the 2000 Olympiad; conversely, however, executing your guests hardly enhances the goodwill of the games.

Privacy Laws Slow Efforts on Gun-Buyer Data

Momentum is building in Congress behind a measure that would push states to report their mental health records to the federal database used to conduct background checks on gun buyers.

But a thicket of obstacles, most notably state privacy laws, have thwarted repeated efforts to improve the reporting of such records in the past and are likely to complicate this latest effort, even after the worst mass shooting in United States history at Virginia Tech last month.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been adjudicated as a “mental defective,” as well as anyone involuntarily committed to a mental institution, from buying a firearm. But only 22 states now submit any mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, against which all would-be gun purchasers must be checked.

The erratic reporting is a problem to which gun-control advocates, law enforcement officials and others have sought to draw attention for years.

“We’ve had these wake-up calls for years, and all we ever do is push the snooze button,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

The federal system, in fact, contained only about 235,000 mental health records as of January 2006, even though it is estimated that as many as 2.7 million people have been involuntarily institutionalized nationwide.

“The biggest impediment is privacy relating to mental health records,” said Joey Hixenbaugh, a unit chief in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s criminal justice information systems division.

In 1998, Russell Weston barged into the United States Capitol and fatally shot two police officers. Mr. Weston had been involuntarily committed in Montana as a paranoid schizophrenic, but the authorities in Illinois, where he bought the gun, were unaware of that because privacy laws bar Montana from reporting those records to federal authorities.

Several years later, Peter Troy, who was twice admitted to a mental hospital, killed a priest and a parishioner at a Long Island church with a .22-caliber rifle he bought.

In the case of Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, a special justice declared in late 2005 that Mr. Cho was mentally ill and a danger to himself, ordering him to outpatient treatment after two women complained that he was harassing them. The finding should have disqualified him from buying a gun under federal law, which says that any court ruling that a person is a “danger to himself or others” because of mental illness is adjudicated as a mental defective.

But because Virginia reported only involuntary commitments to mental health facilities, Mr. Cho’s information was not reported to the state police and federal authorities.

Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia issued an executive order this week to try to close the gap between state and federal law by requiring that commitments for outpatient treatment be reported, as well.

The bill being pushed by Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Charles E. Schumer, both New York Democrats, takes a carrot-and-stick approach that offers money to states to automate records and speed their transmission to the federal database. It also withholds part of federal financing for a crime-prevention program from states that do not comply.

The measure is co-sponsored by Representative John D. Dingell, a Michigan Democrat who is a former board member of the National Rifle Association and a longtime opponent of gun control. Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho, a current member of the association board, said he supported the thrust of the bill.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the N.R.A., said it was mainly mental health groups that had stood in the way of similar legislation in the past.

“We are not an obstacle,” Mr. LaPierre said. “We’re strongly in support of putting those records in the system.”

But Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, said his group was fighting the bill.

“Our biggest concern is this is being done as a denial of a civil liberty, and it’s being done without due process,” Mr. Pratt said.

Mental health advocates also opposed the measure, arguing that reporting these records to a federal database contributed to the stigmatization of mental illness.

David L. Shern, chief executive of Mental Health America, said the bill did not take into account how treatment could cure people.

“This is a classic example of a well-intentioned effort that’s going to have almost no effect and, in fact, is going to do harm,” Mr. Shern said.

The Supreme Court put up another hurdle to having states report records to federal authorities with a controversial ruling in 1997. In a lawsuit financed by the N.R.A.’s civil defense fund, the court struck down an earlier provision of the Brady bill that governs the background checks on gun purchases and ruled that state workers could not be ordered to carry out a federal regulatory program. States can be encouraged to share their information voluntarily, but in many cases they would have to amend their privacy laws to do so, an uphill battle in many states.

In North Carolina, gun-control groups tried in 2002 to require the reporting of additional mental health records but were stymied by both mental health and pro-gun groups.

Robin Peyson of the Texas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said she would oppose efforts to change privacy laws in her state.

“Its unintended consequence will be to discourage people from seeking treatment when they need it most,” Ms. Peyson said.

5 Ways to Power Up Productivity

做下小广告：下面是我写的 blog——也算是和大家share 一点 tips

A while ago, zenhabits (a productivity and lifehack blog) listed Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity, as follows:

1. Twitter.
   
2. IM.
   
3. Email notification.
4. Blog reader.
   
5. Social bookmarking sites like Digg.
   

One question though, what if I use ALL of them, not only on a daily basis, but on an at-least-hourly basis?

First let me start by saying I have good reasons to keep the habits:

1. Twitter. ( the most convenient way to keep track of my+my friends' life, a substitute of a condensed diary)
   
2. IM. ( it's a code of conduct nowadays to be always reachable, as important as keeping your cell phone on)
   
3. Email notification. ( same reason as above)
4. Blog reader. ( keep informed. two days without reading recent feeds makes you a stone-age man/ woman)
   
5. Social bookmarking sites like Digg. ( a little fun at side wouldn't hurt)

I use Google Reader, and subscribe to about 20 feeds from three categories: world news/opinion (up to 13 feeds), music, technology/productivity, etc. Here's how I survive:

1. Get up earlier.

No matter where you live, your internet connection is always fastest in the early morning. How early? That really depend on your environment. In my university, the internet starts to slow down at about 7:30 AM. That's why I usually get up at 6:00 AM, just enough time for me to read every feed and check out a few YouTube post.

2. Start with the fun part.

I don't care what people say about "get the important stuff done first", the thing is, if you are gonna start your day with some heavy news, it's likely you wouldn't want to continue working at all. So I start with my music feeds, chances are that there would be some free tracks available for downloading (if you subscribe to sites like Largehearted Boy or 3 hives) so that you could start the day with new music.

3. SORT your information.

I couldn't stress this strong enough. I read news from New York Times, Washington Post, BBC International and Gotham Gazzete (don't underestimate it just because of name, trust me, you couldn't know about news and public policies in NYC anywhere else. and since NYC is where most of the interesting policies start, it's the best place to learn about American policies), and commentaries / editorials from Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Economists, and Guardian Unlimited. [I had to do this because as a debater, I must be fully informed about (and preferably have an insight into) almost everything in the world... -_-////] The overlapping part of the information is time-consuming, so I keep news and opinions in two folders, and make the items in news folder only show headlines (for scanning) while the opinions show in full article (by then I should know what is more important/controversial).

4. Mozart, Mozart, Mozart...

I'm sure you've heard about "Mozart makes you smarter" (it's not a myth, but science-proven by the way). If you hate classical, listen to something that can get you out of the usual morning-doze. Listening to something, anything! While you are browsing the *fun* feeds, listen to a podcast; while reading news feeds (which require more concentration), using any non-vocal music.

5. Water!

Don't forget to drink a lot of water. It pumps up your body energy much better than coffee and rehydrates your body after a long period of sleep. (Oh, with a slice of lemon for better effect, if possible ;)

Virginia Ends a Loophole in Gun Laws

Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia closed a loophole Monday in the state’s gun laws that allowed a mentally disturbed Virginia Tech student to buy the guns used in a shooting rampage that left 33 dead at the university on April 16.

The governor issued an executive order intended to prohibit the sale of guns to anyone found to be dangerous and forced to undergo involuntary mental health treatment. Under the order, their names would be included a database of people banned from buying guns.

In December 2005, a Virginia judge directed Seung-Hui Cho, the gunman in the massacre, to undergo outpatient treatment. But because Mr. Cho was treated as an outpatient, Virginia did not send his name to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal database. Federal gun laws depend on the states for enforcement, and the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho has raised growing questions about the adequacy of background checks to scrutinize potential gun buyers.

The governor said the database “should include any determination that someone is mentally ill and so dangerous to himself or others as to warrant involuntary treatment.”

The governor also instructed the State Police to request orders for involuntary inpatient care and involuntary outpatient care from district courts and to include that information in the database.

“We realized that this is something we can fix right now and that we needn’t wait to fix it,” Mr. Kaine said in a news conference.

He added that he hoped his move would encourage other states to tighten their mental health restrictions on gun buyers.

“We were all very surprised to find that despite a federal prohibition on purchase of weapons by the mentally ill that dates back to the 1960s,” Mr. Kaine said, “the majority of states report no data on mental health adjudications in the national database.”

Even in states with these stricter mental health restrictions, gun buyers can sidestep background checks by obtaining firearms from a private seller or at a gun show from a “private” individual or “collector.”

Those purchases account for about half of the guns sold in the United States each year. Efforts by Virginia lawmakers to close this gun-show loophole have been repeatedly blocked by gun-rights advocates.

Administration Proposes Expanded Energy Drilling

The Bush administration proposed on Monday leasing out millions of acres along the coasts of Alaska and Virginia to oil and gas drillers, a move that would end a longstanding ban on drilling in those environmentally sensitive areas.
Both areas have been closed to new drilling for many years. The areas off Virginia are still covered by laws that prohibit new drilling in all areas along the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards. But Congress lifted the prohibition on Bristol Bay off Alaska in 2003, and President Bush lifted an executive order in January that had blocked drilling there through 2012.
In the case of Virginia, administration officials are hoping to capitalize on interest in drilling expressed by the state legislature, which passed a bill last year asking the federal government to allow exploration for natural gas in waters 50 miles or farther from the state coastline.
Both proposals are part of a broader five-year plan to open up 48 million acres along the outer continental shelf to oil and gas drilling. Unless Congress objects within 60 days, most of the five-year plan will go into effect, though resistance has been voiced. Starting this year, the Interior Department plans to offer leases on about 8.3 million acres in the central region of the Gulf of Mexico, which Congress specifically approved for offshore drilling late last year.
But the department hopes to open up far more than that. It would offer leases on 37 million acres off Alaska, starting as early as 2008, in vast new areas in the Beaufort Sea, the Chukchi Sea and the Cook Inlet. None of those areas have been subject to a drilling ban, but none have been tapped before.
Starting in 2011, the Interior Department would also lease out 5.6 million acres in Bristol Bay along the Alaska Peninsula, an area that Congress closed off after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. If the plan can get approval from Congress, it would offer up three million acres off the coast of Virginia, starting in 2012.
“The outer continental shelf is a vital source of domestic oil and natural gas for America, especially in light of sharply rising energy prices,” said Dirk Kempthorne, secretary of the interior.
But Democrats in Congress criticized the plans for Alaska and Virginia, and they are likely to extend the current ban on drilling off Virginia. Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, said he supported limited drilling for exploration but has refused to endorse production.
“Whatever pressing energy issue comes before the American people, the Bush administration always responds with the same oil answer: more oil,” said Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
The proposal includes measures to protect against damage to coastal areas from oil spills and other accidents. It would not allow drilling within 50 miles of the Virginia shore and would wall off an additional “obstruction zone” near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
Some environmental advocates said, however, that the proposed protections would be inadequate and could jeopardize fishing areas.
“The Bush administration is zeroing in on the most environmentally sensitive areas for offshore drilling,” said Richard Charter, a lobbyist for Defenders of Wildlife and co-chairman of the National Outer Continental Shelf Coalition. “These areas that they are characterizing as buffer zones are woefully inadequate when you consider that the Exxon Valdez oil spill traveled hundreds of miles in a matter of weeks.”
It is not clear how much fuel lies in the areas that would be made available. Interior Department officials estimated that the entire plan could produce 10 billion barrels of additional oil and 45 trillion cubic feet of additional natural gas over the next 40 years. That would be equal to about 16 months of the United States’ current oil consumption and about two years of its current consumption of natural gas.
The oil industry’s two big trade associations, the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, both praised the administration plan and urged Congress to open even more areas to drilling.
Royal Dutch Shell has been particularly eager to explore and develop the areas in Alaska, and has hired a number of former state and federal officials to help build popular support in communities near the proposed drilling areas.
If the administration does lease out areas in Alaska, companies may be entitled to a special reprieve from paying royalties to the government. In passing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress extended what is known as “royalty relief” for deepwater drillers to cover oil and gas produced in “frontier areas” that are far from transportation centers.
The administration plan could encounter heavy resistance. New Jersey’s two senators, Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, both Democrats, warned in a joint statement that the plan to allow drilling near Virginia was unacceptable because it “starts us down the slippery slope that could lead us to drilling off New Jersey’s coast.”
Congress has extended an annual moratorium on leasing along the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts for more than 20 years. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, has been a staunch supporter of the drilling bans and has protested Mr. Bush’s decision in January to lift the prohibition for Bristol Bay.

Why Wolfowitz Should Stay

By NUHU RIBADU

Published: May 1, 2007 New York Times

Abuja, Nigeria

FOR the past few weeks, the world has been riveted by the difficulties of Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, regarding a potential conflict of interest involving the salary of his partner, also a senior official there. With the bank’s board deliberating this week over how to handle the charges, the controversy now needlessly and regrettably threatens Mr. Wolfowitz’s presidency, which has been largely defined by his energetic support for a new Africa that is struggling to emerge.

Over the last two years, Mr. Wolfowitz has effectively directed the bank’s energies toward fighting poverty and improving human life. He is a champion of using international development institutions to deal with some of the world’s major problems. And he has been a steadfast supporter of the efforts of African organizations to rescue our people from the scourge of misrule, which leads to poverty, disease and early death.

Over the last three years, Nigeria, once the emblem of outlandish corruption, has become a leading reformer, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which I head, has been at the cutting edge of these efforts. The enormous challenges we face would have proved almost insurmountable without external help, especially from the World Bank under Mr. Wolfowitz.

When disgruntled lawmakers here tried to cut off our financing and shut down critical aspects of our operation, a World Bank grant of $5 million allowed us to bring to closure important cases of political corruption involving key members of Nigeria’s ruling elite, including members of the executive branch and Parliament.

Today our work receives accolades from all corners of the globe, and the financial and moral support of our thoughtful and courageous allies has played a crucial role in our success. In a country that never saw a single conviction for fraud or corruption before the beginning of our reform campaign, we now have 150 convictions, with 400 more cases awaiting decision in the courts. We have also recovered $5 billion in stolen property. We have brought powerful politicians and businessmen to account through the criminal justice system.

These developments are gradually improving the integrity of our national life. Two weeks ago, Nigeria had its first general election intended to pass power from one elected government to another. While the election did not meet the high standards we set for ourselves, it did reveal that for citizens, the fight against corruption was a top priority — right up there with food, health care and education. In other words, Nigerians made the same connection between runaway corruption and human suffering that Mr. Wolfowitz rightly does.

Corruption is the greatest challenge to progress across much of the developing world, and as we in Nigeria know from bitter experience, this is particularly so in Africa. As Mr. Wolfowitz remarked in a recent speech, some two million Africans die from AIDS-related illnesses each year, while nearly 3,000 African children die each day from malaria and nearly 40 million are not in school. All this, he noted, despite $300 billion in international aid to Africa over the last 20 years.

Corruption has not only produced injustice and a chronic failure to effectively manage international support, it has also led to the squandering of Africa’s considerable human and natural resources. Nigeria has made nearly half a trillion dollars from oil in less than five decades — a figure that dwarfs that of international aid to the whole of Africa. And yet, around 70 percent of Nigerians live in conditions of dispiriting poverty, on incomes of less than a dollar a day. Corruption kills far more effectively than AIDS, malaria or war.

On my recent visit to the World Bank in Washington, I was greatly impressed with the remarkable changes in policy and direction that Mr. Wolfowitz had undertaken, as well as by the diversity of talents he had convened to execute his vision of a fairer world. The bank’s secretary and two vice presidents are Africans — one was my colleague in the Nigerian cabinet. Another vice president is Salvadoran.

Mr. Wolfowitz spoke eloquently for those of us in poor countries last month when he exhorted citizens of the industrial world: “As we go back to our comfortable beds tonight, we should think about the voiceless millions who may not even have beds at all, who go to sleep hungry, sick and uncertain about their future. For many it’s literally a matter of life and death.”

And he has matched words with deeds through initiatives to promote greater international cooperation with poor countries, especially regarding the recovery of assets from pilfered resources. Effective efforts at fighting corruption cannot stop at our borders when up to 80 percent of the “grand corruption” perpetrated in Africa is dependent on international mechanisms that facilitate money laundering.

Mr. Wolfowitz has made a praiseworthy effort to halt the illicit drain of money from the coffers of poor countries. Just this simple step — denying a haven for money stolen from a poor country — addresses more than half the problem of corruption in Africa.

It would be a terrible shame to bring all these efforts to a premature halt. Mr. Wolfowitz has openly acknowledged responsibility for the mistake he made. He has apologized and expressed willingness to accept the decision of the bank’s board of directors. But the board should consider how important his error really was, especially considering that the bank’s internal documents suggest that Mr. Wolfowitz tried to follow the rules from the beginning.

The board should avoid lending credence to the widespread suspicion that Mr. Wolfowitz is really being punished for his previous role in the United States Department of Defense. And it should consider the benefit Mr. Wolfowitz has brought to countries like Nigeria.

Nuhu Ribadu is the chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.