Hit & Run > Private Benjamins - Reason Magazine

Argentina's central bank blames it on "speculators," meaning everyone from ordinary citizens, who stockpile coins, to Maco, the private cash-transport company (think of Brinks) that repackages change gathered from bus companies to .....more...

Daring Fireball: Private

There has been much discussion lately regarding the use of private iPhone APIs. First with Google Mobile’s publicly acknowledged use of a private API to access the proximity sensor, then again with Landon Fuller’s report of having an .....more...

Fresh Intelligence : Radar Online : Travolta To Have Private Viewing

As the autopsy on John Travolta's son Jett was underway this morning, Bahamaian officials said the body would be transported to the Restview Memorial Mortuary and Crematorium for a private family viewing later tonight...more...

24/7 Wall St.: GMAC: Private Capital Deserts The Govenment

Insightful Analysis and Commentary for US and Global Equity Investors...more...

ScreenSaver private investor 1.2

ScreenSaver private investor 1.2 - ScreenSaver private investor 1.2 is an investors screen saver...more...

GMANews.TV - Obama's girls enroll for classes at private school ...

WASHINGTON — First things first: President-elect Barack Obama's two daughters have checked into their new school in Washington...more...

TaxingTennessee: Tougher accountability standards for private schools

Private Career Colleges must meet higher placement and dropout standards. “Their institutional average, they have to have a 75-percent placement rate. That means 75-percent of the people that graduated got a job. .....more...

Obama's girls enroll at private school - SantaFeNewMexican.com

Website of Santa Fe New Mexico's only daily newspaper. Offering news, classifieds, employment ads, a monthly Real Estate Guide, guides to the outdoors, the arts, and events of interest to visitors...more...

Private exe Protector - The Smile Gods

Private exe Protector v2.71 (IMG:http://e.imagehost.org/0874/pe.png) Software for protection of applications from cracking, analysis and reverse engineering; the meta-morphic loader; algorithm of compression lzma, cipher - aes-256; .....more...

Press Conference Expected From Anthonys' Private Investigators ...

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Eyewitness News has learned that two of the Anthonys' private investigators are planning on holding a news conference Monday. VIDEO REPORT: Mystery Videotape Could Hold Clue Monday, January 5, 2009...more...

BBC News Search: private (20)

Afghan suicide attack 'kills two'

The authorities in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar say a suicide bomb attack on private security guards has killed two people and wounded six.

Q&A: NHS co-payments

Co-payments has proved a controversial subject for the government. Why do people feel so strongly about it?

NHS top-up care ban 'untenable'

Denying NHS services to patients who top up their care with private treatment is "untenable", according to a leading health think-tank.

Private sector key to NW economy

The solution to the North West's economic problems lie with the private sector, the Finance Minister says.

Battling bills - what help is there?

A guide to the help available to those struggling to pay their fuel bills this winter.

Data loss firm contract axed

PA Consulting, the firm blamed for losing the details of thousands of criminals on a memory stick, has its Ј1.5m contract cancelled.

School playing field lease scheme

Proposals to lease a school playing field in Northampton to a private firm is going before councillors.

Country profile: Angola

Key facts, figures and dates

Aniston deals with press scrutiny

Former Friends actress Jennifer Aniston reveals the intense media attention on her private life does not faze her.

Country profile: Pakistan

Key facts, figures and dates.

Unions protest over Metro future

Union members protest against what they claim are plans for the "privatisation" of the Tyne and Wear Metro.

Family's fury over escaped rapist

Criticism mounts after a killer escaped from a secure private hospital to rape a 14-year-old girl.

Escaped killer raped schoolgirl

A man who escaped from a secure private hospital near Bristol admits raping a schoolgirl.

Data on 5,000 justice staff lost

Jack Straw has ordered an inquiry into the loss of a computer hard drive containing the details of up to 5,000 justice system staff.

Closure appeal won by care home

A private care home in Northamptonshire, threatened with closure after the death of two residents, wins an appeal against a health watchdog's ruling.

To market, to market

Heard the one about how many economists it takes to change a lightbulb? The belief that the market would take care of it has been shaken, says Point of View's Katharine Whitehorn.

The big issues facing the TUC

As the TUC prepares for its annual congress, what are the major issues facing unions?

Informa shuns private equity bid

Publisher Informa's shares fall after it rebuffs a reduced takeover bid from private equity firms.

Chavez takes over fuel transport

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez approves a plan to take over the firms that distribute fuel to households and petrol stations.

Calls for end to ferry monopoly

Two of the first submissions to the European inquiry into Scots ferries call for the break-up of Caledonian MacBrayne.

There Is Strength In A Herd

I once was asked to speak to a group of teenage boys about the importance of families. I am a high school religion teacher and often speak to teens. But this assignment made me nervous because I knew it was a topic the boys weren't excited to hear.

Minutes before speaking I had an unusual experience. A visual image came to my mind as though someone had turned on a television set in my brain. I clearly saw a scene you might see on the Discovery Channel -- it was a lion scattering a herd of animals.

The image came so powerfully that it surprised me. I wondered if it had anything to do with the talk I was about to give. The understanding quickly came.

When a predator attacks a herd the first job is not the kill. There is strength in the herd and the predator knows it. The first job is to scatter. If the predator can separate the weak from the strong and the young from the powerful they become easy targets.

This was demonstrated powerfully in a National Geographic special I saw about mother elephants (cows) and their babies (calves). Elephant cows are careful to keep their calf within a step or two because danger is always waiting nearby. Lions sometimes stay as close as 20 feet. When the cow charges the lions they easily lope away. The lions understand they can never get to the calf with the powerful mother nearby. So they watch and wait for one of them to make a mistake.

The program then showed of one calf becoming separated from its mother. The lions quickly pounced on it, trying to bring it down and kill it. Somehow this lucky calf was able to escape and return to the safety of its mother.

We live in a society now filled with children not so lucky. Predators have successfully scattered and separated families. Children have become easy targets. These attacks are devastating not only families but entire societies.

In his book, The Broken Hearth, former US Secretary of Education William H. Bennett stated:

"It is fashionable these days to say and to believe that matters like divorce, illegitimacy, cohabitation, and single-parenting are "private" matters that are not the business of the wider community. To which I would respond: There are few matters of more profound public consequence than the condition of marriage and families. Most of our social pathologies -- crime, imprisonment rates, welfare, educational underachievement, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, depression, sexually-transmitted diseases -- are manifestations, direct and indirect, of the crack-up of the modern American family."

What is the answer? Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said it well:

"We either build our children or we build more jails. Time to stop building jails. Our children are not the problem, they are our future. If you want young people to become contributing citizens and not convicts, then early in life we must give them the character and the competence they need to succeed in this exciting new world. It begins in the home with caring, loving parents and family members who pass on the virtues of past generations" (GOP National Convention, July 31, 2000).

It begins with parents. We have the responsibility to stand close to our children, to make time for them, to love them, to teach them. If we do not they will become victims to the serious predators that now surround them.

There is strength in a herd.

What Is Important When Choosing A Laser Eye Surgery Clinic?

It is quite confusing for people looking at where to go for their laser eye surgery treatment. Especially so in London, UK where there are many laser eye clinics to choose from.

In other cities you can usually find one or more of the big three chains: Optical Express, Ultralase and Optimax and these centres are probably doing about 80% of all laser eye surgery in the UK, simply because of their wide geographical footprint and so easy access for many people.

Most people really are not sure what to look for in a laser eye surgery provider. They don't understand the difference between different laser systems and they don't have easy access to the true performance or knowledge about individual surgeons.

So most people default to the 'look and feel' of the website and clinic if and when they attend for a consultation. Most of the brochures are pretty interchangeable, all making the same claims about experience, technology etc. You could swap the company name and not really notice the difference in brochures!

I found several brochures particularly unhelpful from a patient's point of view (although all suffer from the same problem) as they simply list procedure after procedure over multiple pages. How on Earth is a patient supposed to be helped by all of that? It only leads to confusion and possibly a decision to defer until things are clearer.

There are FOUR key points to look at when choosing a clinic:

1. The laser technology

2. The surgeon

3. The clinic

4. The price

Let's look at these in more detail:

1. Laser technology

The improvements in success rates and safety of laser eye surgery, including LASIK and PRK, have been mainly down to improvements in sophistication of the laser technology. The lasers are dramatically better than they were even a few years ago.

NOTE: not all lasers are made equal, so you MUST look at the US government FDA trial results to get accurate performance information. These data are available on the results page of the Focus Laser Vision clinics website.

Also note that each clinic makes a claim that they have the best technology, but this of course cannot be true. They can't ALL have the best laser equipment, as they all have different systems. We at FOCUS bought the WaveLight Allegretto system from Germany as it had the best overall FDA clinical results in extensive trials.

2. Surgeon

Equally important for your result and safety is the surgeon who will perform the procedure and assess your suitability for treatment. The most important decision is who NOT to operate on! In the UK you can look for one or more of the following points in your surgeon: 1. NHS Consultant appointment, 2. Fellowship training in refractive surgery and corneal disease, 3. Extensive experience in treating your kind of prescription, 4. Has performed more than 5000 procedures, 5. Works in refractive surgery on a full-time basis or at least two days every week if involved in other areas of ophthalmology (the more time in refractive surgery, the better), 6. Teaching and presenting on refractive surgery skills, vision outcomes and research.

3. Clinic

Look at the support that each clinic will offer to you. Individual independent clinics can usually offer excellent continuity of care so you see the same clinician each time, but may not be as well geographically placed as some of the nationwide chain centres. Ask if you will get your surgeons private phone number after treatment in case of problems or advice being needed. This number is very reassuring for patients.

4. Price.

Last of all, look at the price. You want the above three factors to be the best you can get first of all. If you are completely satisfied you have not compromised there, then you can look for the best price, but ONLY then. High price is not a guarantee of quality, of having the best laser technology, of getting the best surgeon. It may give you these things, but you have to look and make sure for yourself.

In summary, look for yourself and ask the right questions. I have more information of the FOCUS Laser Vision clinics website on this and other related topics.