A patch that monitors glucose levels continuously has worked in a small trial. Now scientists want more diabetics to try it out Trials of an artificial pancreas that can monitor the blood sugar levels of people with diabetes and then deliver insulin more accurately should move out of hospital into homes as soon as possible, funders of the research programme say. Promising evidence that adults may be better able to control their condition overnight has emerged from a Cambridge University-led study involving 24 adults and using developments of existing technologies. It was funded by the charity Diabetes UK , and follows encouraging research using similar equipment on pregnant mothers and children with Type 1 diabetes . Type 1 usually strikes people before they are 40 years of age and affects about one in 10 of those with diabetes. They need to test their own blood sugar levels regularly before injecting themselves with insulin or setting a pump which releases the hormone via a cannula under the skin. The new system involves placing a small circular patch on the body which continuously monitors glucose levels, sending the results by radio signals to the insulin pump which then automatically delivers the appropriate amount of insulin. This should reduce the incidence of “hypos”, when blood sugar levels fall too low, possibly rendering a person unconscious or causing unpleasant symptoms, including sweating, tingling in the lips and a pounding heart. The latest tests, involving 10 men and 14 women aged 18-65, suggested a 22% improvement in the time participants kept their blood glucose levels in a safe range, halving the time they spent with low blood-glucose levels and reducing the risk of both short- and long-term complications. Half the participants were monitored overnight after consuming a medium-sized meal and the others after a larger meal and alcohol. Dr Roman Hovorka, who led the research, said: “Hypoglycaemia remains a major challenge, especially during the night, so it’s encouraging to see such promising results from our trial using commercially available devices. “The study is a stepping stone to testing the artificial pancreas at home and suggests that the artificial pancreas may be suitable in adults as well as in children and adolescents we found previously.” Iain Frame, head of research at Diabetes UK, said: “The improvements in glucose control overnight using this new technology are impressive, and it is good to see this work develop with the addition of testing the effects following a meal with some wine. “We now need to see an extension of this study, one which tests larger numbers of people, and then take it out of the hospital and in to the home setting.” Diabetes Health James Meikle guardian.co.uk
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Typhoon fast jets cost £126m each and have too few spare parts, finds Commons report Despite years of delays and soaring costs, Typhoon fighters – the RAF’s latest fast jet – are suffering from a shortage of spares, with planes being cannibalised and pilots grounded, according to a Commons investigation. The aircraft, originally called the Eurofighter in a joint project with Germany, Italy and Spain, was conceived in the cold war when the Ministry of Defence ordered 232. The RAF will end up having fewer than half that number from a project in which the cost of each plane has increased by 75% to £126m each. The overall project is costing £20.2bn, £3.5bn more than first expected, says the report by MPs on the Commons cross-party public accounts committee. The RAF has had to spend an extra £2.7bn buying 16 additional aircraft it does not need to honour contractual commitments to other countries producing the planes. In 2019, it will scrap more than 50 Typhoon jets that became operational only three years ago to a cost of more than £4.5bn because it cannot afford to update them. The RAF is experiencing difficulties now as its priority is to adapt as many planes as possible for a ground attack role. “Problems with the availability of spares mean that Typhoons are not flying the hours required and the department is forced to cannibalise parts,” the MPs say in the report. “As a result, it is not fully training all its pilots, and only eight of the 48 Typhoon pilots were capable of undertaking ground attack missions on Typhoon. In addition, the [MoD] had to ground five pilots temporarily in 2010.” The problem is likely to be exacerbated as Typhoons are used in a wider range of operational roles, today’s report says. The aircraft, first conceived as a fighter to attack Soviet planes, was assigned after the cold war to an air defence role – intercepting suspicious planes entering UK airspace, for example. They will be on standby during the Olympics. Typhoons are now being adapted further for ground attack roles. The MoD announced on Wednesday that two RAF Typhoons were involved for the first time in hostile action – striking tanks belonging to Muammar Gaddafi’s forces near the Libyan town of Misrata. The RAF released a video of the attack. Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said in response to today’s report: “The Typhoon is a world-beating air-to-air fighter and is fast developing a ground attack capability, as is being demonstrated in Libya. We have sufficient numbers of qualified ground attack pilots to meet our operational tasks and this number is increasing all the time.” Military Defence policy Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …CNN’s John King: Should Republicans Consider Losing Their Jobs and Raise Taxes for Good of the Country?
April 14, 2011 No Comment
Now that President Obama has put tax increases on the table in order to balance the budget, his media are going to put even more pressure on Republicans to comply. A fine example of this happened on CNN's “John King USA” Thursday when the host actually asked Sen. Rob Portman (R-Oh.), “Should Republicans now have the open mind and the courage to maybe lose their jobs like President Bush did for the good of the country and at least say entering the conversation, 'We won't flatly, ideologically, reflexively rule out any tax increases?'” (video follows with transcript and commentary): JOHN KING, HOST: Senator Portman, you have a somewhat unique voice in this debate because you're in the Senate now. You served in the House. You were George W. Bush’s budget director. You also served as a policy adviser back in the day to George H.W. Bush. I want to take you back to that experience. Go back, imagine it's 1990 when George H.W. Bush brought Democrats, brought Republicans to Camp David, to Andrews Air Force base. Is our deficit debt crisis now worse than then or not as bad? SENATOR ROB PORTMAN (R-OHIO): It's far worse. And it's far worse because of the fact that between Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, we currently have about a $100 trillion unfunded obligation going forward. That wasn’t the case then. Our deficit as a percentage of our economy was also lower and our debt, our national debt, was lower as a percent of the economy. So it's more difficult now for us to deal with the issue. It's also more important that we show leadership to do so. I would draw this interesting comparison because you mentioned the 1990 budget agreement and the risks that then President Bush took. If you recall that that came back to haunt him in the 1992 election campaign. KING: He lost an election. Let me interrupt. Because he lost an election, the President of the United States who happened to be a Republican at the time broke his “Read my lips – no new taxes” pledge. And you’re right. There was a consequence to him. He lost the election. You could make an argument that Bill Clinton never would have balanced the budget were it not for the tax increase given to him by a Republican President George H.W. Bush. Should Republicans now have the open mind and the courage to maybe lose their jobs like President Bush did for the good of the country and at least say entering the conversation “We won't flatly, ideologically, reflexively rule out any tax increases?” The idiocy on display here boggles the mind. First off, who is John King to say that raising taxes at this moment is “for the good of the country?” An Associated Press poll released hours before King made this statement found ” 62 percent say they favor cutting government services to sop up the red ink. Just 29 percent say raise taxes.” As such, according to this AP poll, less than a third of Americans support higher taxes to balance the budget putting King in a very small minority. Beyond this, claiming the budget would never have been balanced in the '90s without Bush 41's tax hike ignores that a Republican Congress forced Clinton to cut taxes in 1997, and that it was spending restraint along with non-recurring tax receipts associated with the tech stock bubble that led to that decade's eventual surpluses. Honestly, have you ever heard anyone credit George H.W. Bush's tax hike for causing budget surpluses five years after he was out of office? As for Republicans risking their jobs to support a tax increase, doesn't that mean their constituents in their respective states or districts would be opposed to such a move? The just-released AP poll suggests so. With that in mind, Republicans doing such a thing would be going against the will of the people. Exactly why would they do that? In reality, what King should have asked is, “Should Republicans now have the open mind and the courage to maybe lose their jobs like President Bush did for the good of Obama, Democrats, and people like me in the media who think that would be good for the country regardless of what the polls say?” That's a question that makes much more sense.
Continue reading …Appalling Cartoon at News Media Guild Site Is Evidence That Its Members Are Incapable of Objective Coverage
April 14, 2011 No Comment
The undisguised bias of a dispatch tonight by Associated Press reporter Laurie Kellman, with help from Scott Bauer, about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's appearance before a Congressional committee may have as its source two items found at the Newspaper Guild's web site (seen after the jump). One is an announcement relating to a possible deterioration in the Guild's negotiations with AP, where union members have been working without a contract since November . Immediately below the announcement is an extraordinarily mean and spiteful cartoon produced by “alternative” comic Tom Tomorrow directed at Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan which has no place at the site of a group wishing to at least maintain a fig-leaf pretense of objectivity. First let's look at several of the words, phrases, and sentences Kellman and Bauer employed in the 10:26 p.m. version of their report (saved here at my host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) — after the headline (“Wisconsin governor defends hobbling unions'), with which the AP pair may have had help: The opening — “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker defended his school of union hobbling as a route to fiscal discipline …” Paragraph 5 — “Walker's budget for Wisconsin is just the opposite ( of bipartisanship — Ed. ) – an explicit act of partisanship.” Paragraph 7 — “Walker's assault on the public employee unions roiled Wisconsin politics, inspiring widespread protests and a walkout by Senate Democrats in the legislature.” Paragraph 8 — “Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is set to attend a tea party rally this weekend at the Wisconsin Capitol, the site of recent protests over legislation that would strip union rights for most public workers.” There they go again, implying that all union rights are stripped for those involved (in an earlier paragraph, the AP writers claim that Wisconsin's pending law “ends collective bargaining on everything except wages for state and local government employees”). Paragraph 9 — “The bitterness followed Walker to Washington on Thursday. The hearing, billed by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., as a look at the choices faced by budget-strapped local governments, was more a coming-out for the Republican governor.” Paragraph 11 — “Governors all must balance their budgets, (Vermont Governor Peter) Shumlin, a Democrat, said, and most do it without sparking the kind of animosity roiling Wisconsin.” Paragraph 19 — “(DC nonvoting Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes) Norton suggested Walker should take a lesson on civility from Congress, of all places. Though she often disagrees with Issa, for example, 'I have always felt that this was somebody I could talk with and we could have a civil conversation.'” Now let's get to the News Media Guild's home page . It opens with an update published today on the labor dispute with AP: The News Media Guild launched a nationwide investigation into possible illegal coercive anti-union conduct by The Associated Press after receiving reports this week that managers threatened mass layoffs at the news cooperative. The Guild told AP on Wednesday that it had reports from its members that some managers may have violated the anti-coercion provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. It demanded that AP produce a summary of all management contacts with staff about the ongoing labor negotiations. Gee, I'm no fan of AP management, but I suspect that the “threats” might really have been suggestions of the possibility that a lot of people might get laid off if a resolution isn't reached. I don't believe AP is required by law to execute a contract with the Guild, which would appear to indicate that if they want to lay Guild members off, they are within their rights to do so. Below the update on the Guild's home page is the real topper, Tom Tomorrow's cartoon. I've copied the first half, and I'll type the text of the rest, again for fair use and discussion purposes only: The text of the cartoon's final three frames runs as follows: Frame 4 — Heading: “Step Two: Serious people applaud the seriousness of the plan. One Man: “Processing the elderly into snack crackers has always been the third rail of American politics.” Second Man: “It's extremely courageous.” Frame 5 — Heading: “Step 3: Left-wing critics are portrayed as naive, unrealistic ideologues.” Man: “If they had their way, government would be required to provide cradle-to-grave ponies and rainbows .” Woman: “They are so unserious, it is barely worth acknowledging their existence .” Frame 6 — Heading: “Step 4: The window of acceptable debate is shifted ever further toward outright lunacy.” Man: “Perhaps we could take a more moderate approach–and simply abandon the elderly in the desert to fend for themselves !” Second Man: That's about what I'd expect –from a big government socialist like you !” It is very difficult to imagine how the members of a union that is in what looks like a death match with the entity which may be its largest employer and whose leadership would publish hateful garbage like the Tom Tomorrow cartoon detailed above can relay news, especially news directly relating to management-labor relations or government finances, in anything resembling an objective manner. And they usually don't. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …Appalling Cartoon at News Media Guild Site Is Evidence That Its Members Are Incapable of Objective Coverage
April 14, 2011 No Comment
The undisguised bias of a dispatch tonight by Associated Press reporter Laurie Kellman, with help from Scott Bauer, about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's appearance before a Congressional committee may have as its source two items found at the Newspaper Guild's web site (seen after the jump). One is an announcement relating to a possible deterioration in the Guild's negotiations with AP, where union members have been working without a contract since November . Immediately below the announcement is an extraordinarily mean and spiteful cartoon produced by “alternative” comic Tom Tomorrow directed at Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan which has no place at the site of a group wishing to at least maintain a fig-leaf pretense of objectivity. First let's look at several of the words, phrases, and sentences Kellman and Bauer employed in the 10:26 p.m. version of their report (saved here at my host for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) — after the headline (“Wisconsin governor defends hobbling unions'), with which the AP pair may have had help: The opening — “Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker defended his school of union hobbling as a route to fiscal discipline …” Paragraph 5 — “Walker's budget for Wisconsin is just the opposite ( of bipartisanship — Ed. ) – an explicit act of partisanship.” Paragraph 7 — “Walker's assault on the public employee unions roiled Wisconsin politics, inspiring widespread protests and a walkout by Senate Democrats in the legislature.” Paragraph 8 — “Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is set to attend a tea party rally this weekend at the Wisconsin Capitol, the site of recent protests over legislation that would strip union rights for most public workers.” There they go again, implying that all union rights are stripped for those involved (in an earlier paragraph, the AP writers claim that Wisconsin's pending law “ends collective bargaining on everything except wages for state and local government employees”). Paragraph 9 — “The bitterness followed Walker to Washington on Thursday. The hearing, billed by Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., as a look at the choices faced by budget-strapped local governments, was more a coming-out for the Republican governor.” Paragraph 11 — “Governors all must balance their budgets, (Vermont Governor Peter) Shumlin, a Democrat, said, and most do it without sparking the kind of animosity roiling Wisconsin.” Paragraph 19 — “(DC nonvoting Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes) Norton suggested Walker should take a lesson on civility from Congress, of all places. Though she often disagrees with Issa, for example, 'I have always felt that this was somebody I could talk with and we could have a civil conversation.'” Now let's get to the News Media Guild's home page . It opens with an update published today on the labor dispute with AP: The News Media Guild launched a nationwide investigation into possible illegal coercive anti-union conduct by The Associated Press after receiving reports this week that managers threatened mass layoffs at the news cooperative. The Guild told AP on Wednesday that it had reports from its members that some managers may have violated the anti-coercion provisions of the National Labor Relations Act. It demanded that AP produce a summary of all management contacts with staff about the ongoing labor negotiations. Gee, I'm no fan of AP management, but I suspect that the “threats” might really have been suggestions of the possibility that a lot of people might get laid off if a resolution isn't reached. I don't believe AP is required by law to execute a contract with the Guild, which would appear to indicate that if they want to lay Guild members off, they are within their rights to do so. Below the update on the Guild's home page is the real topper, Tom Tomorrow's cartoon. I've copied the first half, and I'll type the text of the rest, again for fair use and discussion purposes only: The text of the cartoon's final three frames runs as follows: Frame 4 — Heading: “Step Two: Serious people applaud the seriousness of the plan. One Man: “Processing the elderly into snack crackers has always been the third rail of American politics.” Second Man: “It's extremely courageous.” Frame 5 — Heading: “Step 3: Left-wing critics are portrayed as naive, unrealistic ideologues.” Man: “If they had their way, government would be required to provide cradle-to-grave ponies and rainbows .” Woman: “They are so unserious, it is barely worth acknowledging their existence .” Frame 6 — Heading: “Step 4: The window of acceptable debate is shifted ever further toward outright lunacy.” Man: “Perhaps we could take a more moderate approach–and simply abandon the elderly in the desert to fend for themselves !” Second Man: That's about what I'd expect –from a big government socialist like you !” It is very difficult to imagine how the members of a union that is in what looks like a death match with the entity which may be its largest employer and whose leadership would publish hateful garbage like the Tom Tomorrow cartoon detailed above can relay news, especially news directly relating to management-labor relations or government finances, in anything resembling an objective manner. And they usually don't. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
Continue reading …This is very cool. Digby has crashed the beltway party again and wrote another great op-ed for The Hill DC’s deficit frenzy The entire political world has descended into a deficit frenzy that rivals the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials. The mania has been growing for months, but exploded last week when D.C. heartthrob Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (R) unveiled what was widely received as the most important document since the Emancipation Proclamation and the entire political establishment started babbling about “brio” and “courage.” Nothing else matters at this point — not anemic economic growth, not sustained, shockingly high unemployment, not a Middle East uprising of world-changing consequence — not even an epic nuclear catastrophe… read on Click through and read it. We need to support our own who write so brilliantly.
Continue reading …Sen. Carl Levin Wants Goldman Sachs Execs Prosecuted After His Sweeping Investigation Is Concluded
April 14, 2011 No CommentSen. Levin grills Goldman Sachs execs during the long investigation into financial crash. Is this the time, finally, when we see some of these bastards go to jail for crashing the economy to feed their own greed? Finally? I wouldn’t hold my breath: WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs executives deceived clients in order to profit off the brewing financial crisis and then misled Congress when asked to explain their actions , concluded a top lawmaker who led a two-year investigation into Wall Street’s role in the meltdown. Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will recommend that Goldman executives who testified before his panel, including chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, be referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the Michigan Democrat announced Wednesday . Members of the subcommittee will now deliberate Levin’s proposal. A Goldman spokesman said its executives were truthful in their testimony, adding that the firm disagreed with many of the panel’s conclusions. Two and a half years after a historic crisis that has yielded not a single criminal conviction of anyone who played a leading role in causing it, the prosecution of such a high-profile Wall Street executive may satisfy the public’s desire to see culprits brought to justice. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a lawsuit it had brought against Goldman. But the firm was just one target of a sweeping, 639-page report by the Senate panel into the causes of the crisis. Hardly a fluke occurrence, the meltdown was the product of a deeply corrupt financial system, one fueled by profit-hungry banks that deceived their clients, and overseen by lax regulators who were complicit in the firms’ chronic abuse of the most fundamental rules of the game, the report concludes. The investigation found a “financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing,” Levin said. More than any other government report produced in the wake of the crisis, this account names names, blaming specific people and institutions: Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s, the Office of Thrift Supervision and others . It targets four types of institutions, all of which it says played key roles in causing the crisis: mortgage lenders that offered prospective homeowners booby-trapped loans; regulators that were paid by the institutions they were regulating and cooperated in widespread deception; rating agencies that gave seals of approval to products they knew to be especially risky, all in the pursuit of market share; and Wall Street banks that duped investors into buying securities that only the insiders knew were destined to go bad. “Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight,” said the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican.
Continue reading …Sen. Carl Levin Wants Goldman Sachs Execs Prosecuted After His Sweeping Investigation Is Concluded
April 14, 2011 No CommentSen. Levin grills Goldman Sachs execs during the long investigation into financial crash. Is this the time, finally, when we see some of these bastards go to jail for crashing the economy to feed their own greed? Finally? I wouldn’t hold my breath: WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs executives deceived clients in order to profit off the brewing financial crisis and then misled Congress when asked to explain their actions , concluded a top lawmaker who led a two-year investigation into Wall Street’s role in the meltdown. Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will recommend that Goldman executives who testified before his panel, including chairman and chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, be referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution, the Michigan Democrat announced Wednesday . Members of the subcommittee will now deliberate Levin’s proposal. A Goldman spokesman said its executives were truthful in their testimony, adding that the firm disagreed with many of the panel’s conclusions. Two and a half years after a historic crisis that has yielded not a single criminal conviction of anyone who played a leading role in causing it, the prosecution of such a high-profile Wall Street executive may satisfy the public’s desire to see culprits brought to justice. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a lawsuit it had brought against Goldman. But the firm was just one target of a sweeping, 639-page report by the Senate panel into the causes of the crisis. Hardly a fluke occurrence, the meltdown was the product of a deeply corrupt financial system, one fueled by profit-hungry banks that deceived their clients, and overseen by lax regulators who were complicit in the firms’ chronic abuse of the most fundamental rules of the game, the report concludes. The investigation found a “financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing,” Levin said. More than any other government report produced in the wake of the crisis, this account names names, blaming specific people and institutions: Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s, the Office of Thrift Supervision and others . It targets four types of institutions, all of which it says played key roles in causing the crisis: mortgage lenders that offered prospective homeowners booby-trapped loans; regulators that were paid by the institutions they were regulating and cooperated in widespread deception; rating agencies that gave seals of approval to products they knew to be especially risky, all in the pursuit of market share; and Wall Street banks that duped investors into buying securities that only the insiders knew were destined to go bad. “Blame for this mess lies everywhere from federal regulators who cast a blind eye, Wall Street bankers who let greed run wild, and members of Congress who failed to provide oversight,” said the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican.
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Walter Breuning was born in 1896 and put his longevity down to eating just two meals a day and working for as long as he could Walter Breuning, the world’s oldest man and second-oldest person, has died aged 114. Breuning died of natural causes in a Montana hospital, said a spokeswoman for the Rainbow retirement home where he lived. Breuning was admitted to hospital at the beginning of April with an undisclosed illness. Breuning was 26 days younger than Besse Cooper of Georgia, whom the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles lists as the world’s oldest person. In an interview last autumn, Breuning attributed his longevity to eating just two meals a day, working as long as he could and always embracing change, especially death. “We’re all going to die. Some people are scared of dying. Never be afraid to die. Because you’re born to die,” he said. Breuning was born on 21 September 1896, in Minnesota and spent his early life in South Dakota. His family had no electricity or running water. He lied about his age and got a job in Minnesota with the Great Northern Railway in 1913 at age 16. He moved to Montana two years later and worked on the railway for 50 years – the rest of his working life. He married his work colleague Agnes Twokey in 1922 and stayed with her until her death in 1957. The couple had no children and Breuning never remarried. He earned $90 a month – working seven days a week – at the beginning of his career. He said this amount was “a lot of money at that time”. In 1919, he bought his first car, a $150 secondhand Ford, which Breuning remembered spooking the horses when he drove around the streets of Great Falls. He and his wife bought property for $15 and hoped to build a house, but their plans never came to fruition because of the Great Depression. “Everybody got laid off in the 30s,” Breuning said. “Nobody had any money at all. In 1933, they built the civic centre over here. Sixty-five cents an hour, you know. That was the wage, big wage.” Breuning remained in his job until 1963 – the year the Beatles released their first album – when he decided to retire at the age of 67. But he kept working, becoming the manager and secretary for the local Shriners, a group similar to the Freemasons, a position he held until he was 99. He moved into the Rainbow retirement community in 1980, calling home a spare studio apartment with bare walls. Breuning would spent his days in an armchair outside the retirement home director’s office in a suit and tie, sitting near a framed Guinness certificate proclaiming him the world’s oldest man. He would eat breakfast and lunch and then retire to his room in the early afternoon. He would visit the doctor twice a year for check-ups and the only medication he would take was aspirin, director Tina Bundtrock said. With most of his relatives gone, Breuning said his real family was there in the Rainbow. He received letters from admirers from around the world, and he kept up with world events. “Everybody says your mind is the most important thing about your body. Your mind and your body. You keep both busy, and by God you’ll be here a long time,” Breuning said. United States David Batty guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …National Defense magazine reports that President Obama has recognized that our defense program is way overextended, and it’s now time to develop long-term strategic objectives for national defense. Tweets Sandra Erwin , “Obama calls for fundamental review of DOD missions a year too late. The 2010 QDR was supposed to do that.” Serious military analysts are skeptical . “Without a change in strategy, cuts in spending are worse than doing nothing,” said Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. The absence of “strategic choice” is the reason why decisions about where to cut defense spending have been nearly impossible to make, said Gordon Adams, American University professor and former director of the Office of Management and Budget. Cutting the defense budget should not be about doing the same with less, Adams said.
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