The Norquist Pledge has nothing to do with tax reform as understood by most American taxpayers. For example, the majority of Americans favor increasing -- rather than capping -- the marginal tax rates of the top 1%. (By the way, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) -- a tax-exempt institution -- pays no taxes on its annual revenues of about $5 million per year, according to ATR tax forms.)

Grover Norquist even emphasizes that the pledge has no exceptions for war, natural disaster, or other misfortunes. For example, a signer of the Norquist Pledge isn't permitted to vote to increase tax rates on America's 1% -- even if such changes would be revenue neutral, and/or are desperately needed for a national emergency. Mr. Norquist's real goal (explained in his other writings) is to substantially shrink the size of government.

Disruptive and aggressive behavior in classrooms as early as the first grade has repeatedly been identified as a risk factor for this spectrum of problems later in life (Kellam et al., 2008).

The Good Behavior Game (GBG), a universal (classroom) behavior management method, was tested in first- and second-grade classrooms in Baltimore beginning in the 1985–1986 school year. Followup at ages 19–21 found significantly lower rates of drug and alcohol use disorders, regular smoking, antisocial personality disorder, delinquency and incarceration for violent crimes, suicide ideation, and use of school-based services among students who had played the GBG.

Substance abusers seek help quitting drugs not as an end in itself, but as a means to escape these negative consequences and to gain a better life. Accordingly, while substance abuse treatment seeks to promote abstinence or at least significant reductions in substance use, its ultimate aim is to improve the patient’s quality of life (QOL).  Unfortunately,

Clinicians tend to focus on symptoms, whereas for clients, symptom management is a means to an end.

Alexandre B. Laudet, Ph.D., presents current concepts of QOL and tools used to measure it, summarize recent paradigmatic shifts in the SUD field that are leading to an emerging interest in QOL, and review the evidence bearing on QOL in the treatment of addiction.  Dr. Laudet also presents implications of incorporating QOL concepts into clinical practice and research.

Recognize This! – You can’t engage employees. You can only create a culture in which they want to engage.

An article in Knoweldeg at W.P. Carey pointed out the importance of company culture to achieving the company strategy – and the peril of ignoring that importance.

Why is culture so important? Culture is simply the shared beliefs, values and behaviors of a group of people.

Your culture produces your results. If you need a change in results, then you need a change in culture. Your culture is always working, either for you or against you. To accelerate a change in the culture, start by defining the new results you wish to achieve. Everyone in the organization needs to be focused on and aligned with the desired new outcomes. Culture changes one person at a time.

Your people must believe that these new results are obtainable. Only then can they change their thinking and actions — something that usually happens when they can verbalize their job descriptions in terms of how they contribute to successful outcomes.

Misconfigured networks account for more than three quarters of breaches. A survey found that a badly configured network is the main cause of network breaches because IT professionals "don’t know what to look for."

The survey, conducted by Tufin, also revealed that 18 percent of security experts believe misconfigured networks are the result of insufficient time or money for audits, while 14 percent felt that compliance audits that do not always capture security best practices are a factor. The CTO and co-founder of Tufin said: "The really big question coming out of the survey is how to manage the risk that organizations run dealing with the complexity that is part and parcel of any medium-to-large sized company’s security operations.

Is the information-technology function at your company focusing on the same priorities as the business? Based on a recent survey by The Corporate Executive Board's IT Leadership Exchange, the overwhelming answer to this question is—No.

Through a survey of 150 IT departments at mid-sized companies, the IT Leadership Exchange found that 90 percent of CIOs expect that the IT department will be misaligned with business needs in an economic recovery, and more than half feel that this will threaten the business's long-term competitiveness.

China is the number-one source of email-borne targeted attacks of the sort Google and at least 30 other companies are believed to have suffered, according to the latest monthly MessageLabs Intelligence report from Symantec Hosted Services. The firm analyzed the email headers of suspect messages intercepted last month to identify the true IP address of the senders, and found that around 28 percent of targeted attacks originated in China.

More than half of IT and security professionals worldwide believe their company’s laptops and other mobile devices pose security risks to their organizations, and only half of them have CEOs who are strong advocates and supporters of data security efforts, according to new report issued today.

[Rich opinion: Information Technology (IT) is nothing but "chop wood and carry water".  Technology leaders must be so much more than technologists with business titles. They must be strong business leaders to successfully participate in risk management. In the end, it's all about money, politics, and time value. Are you part of the accountability or part of the risk?]

California intends to create a state-of-the-art information security operations center to monitor cyber-threats and protect state and local government networks from attack. The center also would support local government networks that need assistance.

Two computer programmers designed codes to alter thousands of trade blotters and records for swindler Bernard Madoff and took hush money to help keep the massive fraud going, U.S. authorities said. The FBI arrested Jerome O'Hara, 46, and George Perez, 43, at their homes on Friday morning.

China is significantly boosting its capabilities in cyberspace as a way to gather intelligence and, in the event of war, hit the U.S. government in a weak spot, U.S. officials and experts say.

Outgunned and outspent in terms of traditional military hardware, China apparently hopes that by concentrating on holes in the U.S. security architecture, its communications and spy satellites and its vast computer networks, it will collect intelligence that could help it counter the imbalance.

BP (Beyond Petroleum laf!) has been fined a record $87m (£53m) for failing to correct safety hazards at its Texas City refinery in the U.S. The $87m fine is the largest in OSHA’s history. An explosion in 2005 at the Texas plant killed 15 people and injured 180 more. The safety violations found "could lead to another catastrophe", US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said.

The Homeland Security Department should establish a national standard to encourage companies and individuals to report data breaches to federal authorities, helping them gauge the intensity of cyberattacks and investigate cybercrime, security professionals said on October 28. Federal agencies are required to report data breaches to the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which is part of DHS. Reporting requirements for companies, however, vary by state.

The growing ineffectiveness of a popular and widely requested antibiotic has Chattanooga doctors emphasizing the importance of responsible antibiotic use. Chattanooga physicians say between one-half and two-thirds of the most-common bacteria — streptococcus pneumoniae — is showing resistance to azithromycin, the generic name for the antibiotic Zithromax. The antibiotic often is dispensed in a packet called the “Z-pak.”

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 introduced in the Senate would allow the President to shut down private Internet networks. The legislation also calls for the government to have the authority to demand security data from private networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.