The Best Place To Hide Money: Conversation With A Burglar

by pfadvice

I had quite the interesting conversation this weekend with a person who happened to be a former burglar. It was great timing because I was wondering if something like the skid mark underwear for hiding money would really work. I also figured that if you wanted to know the best place to hide your money from a burglar, a former burglar was the person to ask.

I started off simply and was not surprised by the answer to the question "where is the best place to hide your money?"

"At the bank," he said with a sly grin

When I rephrased and asked where the best place to hide money and valuables in the house would be if you had such items there, I was taken a bit by surprise by his answer:

"It doesn't matter how clever you think you are or where you hide it in your house, if I have enough time, I would be able to find where you stash your valuables," he said bluntly. He then explained that what was much more important than the actual place where you hide your valuables is that you understand a burglar's motivations. Basically, he has two:

1. To steal your money and valuables
2. To get out of the house as quickly as possible with these goods

When you begin to think of it from this perspective, how you should hide your money changes a bit. Obviously, you don't want to leave all your money in the places where the burglar will first look: dresser drawers, drawers by phones, desks, closets, a safe (if not bolted down), boxes, jewelry boxes, purse, etc.). That being said, you also don't want to hide all of your money too well for the following reason:

"If I can't find money and valuables in the normal places I usually find them, I would continue to tear the house apart until I found something. Remember, the first rule is to to steal money and valuables. We'll keep looking until we find something."

Your best strategy, then, is to actually leave some money in obvious places for the burglar to quickly find (the same applies if you keep all your money in the bank). This can not only save your other stash of money, but may actually keep the burglar from destroying your place as he looks for where you have hidden your money. If they believe they may have found the cash that you have in the house, they are much less likely to keep looking (remember, they want to get out asap). In the end, if you hide all your money well, you may win a moral victory in not letting the burglar find the money, but you'll likely have much more damage done to your place that will end up costing you more in the long run.

The next obvious question was "How much money should you leave for the burglar to find?"

"It depends on the area where you live. If you are in a upscale community and only leave $100, I would assume there is more and keep looking. In a different part of town $100 would convince me I found all the money that was there and leave."

When it comes to hiding valuables, his suggestion is to mark an envelope in an easily accessible drawer or with files by your computer with "Bank Safe Deposit Box" on the outside and a list of items on the inside. This will tip off the burglar that your most valuable items are stored at the bank and will discourage him from tearing up your house looking for them.

So the question of where is the best places to hide money still hadn't been answered?

His number one recommendation for money was in toys in a young child's room. As he explained, young children don't have money, they have an abundance of toys and most parents don't trust a child around money. Therefore, parents will rarely hide money there. In addition, when money is hidden, it is usually hidden away neatly and securely — a child's room is rarely a neat place making it an unlikely place for money to be hidden. Plus with all the stuff in a child's room, it is not someplace that a burglar can search quickly and get out (rule #2).

http://www.savingadvice.com/blog/2007/02/05/101141_the-best-place-to-hide-money-conversation-with-a-burglar.html

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Olbermann: Legislators for sale

Members of Congress are failing to represent their constituents in the health care fight

 

Video

Olbermann: Legislators for sale Aug.3: In a Special Comment, Countdown's Keith Olbermann slams members of Congress for acting more in the interests of their health industry campaign donors than their constituents who so clearly favor health care reform.

SPECIAL COMMENT

By Keith Olbermann

 

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on Health Care Reform in this country, and in particular, the "public insurance option." In March of 1911, after a wave of minor factory fires in New York City, the City's Fire Commissioner issued emergency rules about fire prevention, protection, escape, sprinklers. The City's Manufacturers Association in turn called an emergency meeting to attack the Fire Commissioner and his 'interference with commerce.'

The new rules were delayed. Just days later, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The door to the fire escape was bolted shut to keep the employees from leaving prematurely. One hundred and fifty of those employees died, many by jumping from the seventh floor windows to avoid the flames. Firefighters setting up their ladders literally had to dodge the falling, often burning, women. This was the spirit of the American corporation then. It is the spirit of the American corporation now. It is what the corporation will do, when it is left alone, for a week. You know the drill. We all know the drill.

You get something done, at a doctor's, at a dentist's, at an emergency room and the bills are in your hands before the pain medication wears off. And if you're one of the lucky ones, and you have insurance, you submit the endless paperwork and no matter whether it's insurance through your company, or your union, or your non-profit, or on your own dime, you then get your turn… at the roulette wheel.

How much of it is the insurance company going to pay this time? How much of it is the insurance company — about which you have next to no choice, and against which you have virtually no appeal — how much is this giant corporation going to give you back? What small percentage of what they told you they were going to pay you, will they actually pay you?

You know the answer. And, you know the answer if you don't have insurance. But do you know why that's the answer?

Because the insurance industry owns the Republican Party. Not exclusively. Pharma owns part of it, too. Hospitals and HMO's, another part. Nursing homes — they have a share. You name a Republican, any Republican, and he is literally brought to you by... campaign donations from the Health Sector. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota? You gave the Republican rebuttal to the President's weekly address day before yesterday. You said the Democrats' plan was for… "…government run health care that would disrupt our current system, and force millions of Americans who currently enjoy their employer-based coverage into a new health care plan run by government bureaucrats."

That's a bald-faced lie, Senator. And you're a bald-faced liar, whose bald face is covered by…your own health care plan run by government bureaucrats. Nobody would be forced into anything; and the Public Insurance Option is no more a disruption than letting the government sell you water, and not just Poland Spring and Sparkletts. But, as corrupt hypocrites go, Senator, at least you're well paid. What was that one statement worth to you in contributions from the Health Sector, Sen. Thune?

Five thousand dollars? Ten? We know what you are, Sir, we're arguing about the price. What about your other quote? "We can accomplish health care reform while keeping patients and their doctors in charge, not bureaucrats and politicians." Wow, Senator — this illustrates how desperate you and the other Republicans are, right? Because Sen. Thune, if you really think "bureaucrats and politicians" need to get out of the way of "patients and their doctors," then you support a woman patient's right to get an abortion, and you supported Michael Schiavo's right to take his wife off life support, and you oppose "bureaucrats and politicians" getting in the way, and we'll just mark you down on the pro-choice list. That's a rare misstep for you Sen. Thune.  No twelve-thousand dollar payoff for that statement! I am not being hyperbolic, am I, Senator? On the money?

Sen. Thune has thus far received from the Health Sector, campaign contributions — and all these numbers tonight are from "The Center For Responsive Politics" — campaign contributions amounting to one million, $206,176.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32276889/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/

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Deconstructing the Right Wing Lies on the Health Insurance Bill

The right's lies  about the current health insurance proposals before Congress have rarely been compiled in such concise form before. 

 

What follows is an article from the Right Wing blog ChronWatch:

 

Page After Page of Reasons to Hate ObamaCare

By Alan Caruba

 

The problem is, there's something missing, such as context. See, the writer is expecting the reader to take everything as gospel, and agree that it's bad, without any sort of explanation.  It's a list of all of the things that are wrong with the current state of the health care reform bill before Congress. If you'd like to follow along, feel free to click here to go to the bill itself. In fact, I would encourage you to look at it for yourself; it's an easy way to learn what's actually in it, without having to read through all pf the legalese.

 

We're not called Please Cut the Crap for no reason. Below each item the right wing assures readers we're supposed to hate, I've inserted context, and explained why you really shouldn't hate it. Unless you should. All of my responses are italicized and printed in red, so that you can tell whose words are whose.

I'll warn you, this is a long one, but it's an important one, so get a glass of tea, print this out, and read it to everyone who spews one of these talking points, because this really does touch on pretty much all of the right's talking points. And now you'll be able to refute them. Isn't that cool?

Now, let's continue with the article. 

 

Here are just a few very good reasons to hate ObamaCare:

• Page 22:  Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!

 

First of all, it starts on page 21, not 22, and it simply mandates a study of risk on the part of all companies that choose to provide self-insurance, to make sure they are capitalized properly. This is something that private insurance companies are required to do; it's to protect the consumer. Say you work at a company with their own health insurance system; how would you like to find out after you've received a $100,000 bill for a hospital stay, that the insurance pool can't pay the bill?

 

This is also important because when they can't pay the bills, then everyone else with insurance ends up picking up the slack. Got that? That's the reason health insurance premiums have more than doubled in the last ten years, and are scheduled to double again in the next ten, if nothing changes.

 

Anyway, why should companies acting as health insurance companies be allowed to operate under different rules than insurance companies? Isn't that unfair competition?

 

• Page 29:  Admission: your health care will be rationed!

 

The section actually starts on page 26, and it's entitled:

SEC. 122. ESSENTIAL BENEFITS PACKAGE DEFINED.

There is absolutely NO section in there, from page 26 through page 30, that indicates rationing of any kind. Looking at Page 29 specifically, it contains a section called "Annual Limitation." A-HA! See? It's a LIMITATION! That's the same as rationing, right? Didn't they admit rationing?

 

Well, no. Because the limit is on the amount that people will have to pay out in cost-sharing, should the agency implementing the bill decide to use a version of cost-sharing. The limit is on how much a patient will have to pay, not a limit on the health care the patient receives.Watch how many times these tools bring up the "rationing" canard. It's almost as often as they mention ACORN. (I kid you not. Just wait.)

 

See what I mean when I say we have to watch these people, and check their "facts?"

 

• Page 30:  A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)

 

The section on Page 30 establishes an advisory committee, and yes; they will decide which treatments and benefits you get. I'm unsure as to why this is a bad thing. I don't want my health insurance premiums going to Britney's boob job, even if I have private insurance. Which reminds me; does this bozo actually think private insurance companies don't have a list of acceptable treatments and benefits? 

 

There is one difference here, though. The committee's recommendations will be published and the public will have access to them. Which means they will be able to offer input to the process.

 

Oh, and there is nothing here about "no appeals process." The Committee will simply recommend processes for implementation. Not only that, but varying appeals processes are laid out in detail throughout the bill. So, he lied about that...

 

http://www.pleasecutthecrap.com/

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New U.S. film shows pranksters battling companies

* "The Yes Men" spoofs depicted in documentary

* Hoaxes meant to show lack of corporate responsibility

By Christine Kearney

Jacques Servin fooled the BBC and the world when he posed as a Dow Chemical (DOW.N) spokesman five years ago and said that Dow would pay billions of dollars in compensation for India's Bhopal disaster.

Such hoaxes by Servin and his partner, Igor Vamos, better known as the American protest group "The Yes Men," are featured in a documentary premiering on U.S. cable channel HBO on Monday.

"The Yes Men Fix The World" chronicles their efforts to lampoon what they see as corporate greed and the excesses of a free-market economy. It won the audience award at this year's Berlin film festival and will hit U.S. cinemas in October.

"It's a bit like if you crossed Sacha Baron Cohen with Michael Moore," Vamos told Reuters in a recent interview of their stunts in which they portray corporate or government representatives and infiltrate press and trade conferences to make fake announcements.

Vamos, 41, better known as Mike Bonanno, and Servin, 45, who uses the name Andy Bichlbaum among many other aliases, rely on humor to point out corporate and government irresponsibility.

"We have prioritized profit pretty much over everything else and we have seen the results," said Servin. "We are seeing it on Wall Street, with millions of people losing their homes and we are starting to see the results of that globally with climate change."

CLIMATE CHANGE HOAXES

Several companies said the stunts are a serious offense. But Servin and Vamos have never been sued.

The BBC interview in 2004 -- their biggest hoax -- was picked up by several news organizations and caused Dow Chemical's shares to tumble 3.4 percent.

"That showed that corporations can't announce that they are going to do the right thing, because they will be punished for it," said Vamos. "We have to change the rules."

Dow Chemical says it bears no responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe that killed at least 8,000 people and poisoned half a million people after lethal gas escaped from a chemical plant into nearby slums 25 years ago in the central Indian city.

The Bhopal factory was owned by Union Carbide, now a Dow subsidiary, which paid $470 million to the Indian government in a 1989 legal settlement.

"While some may find 'The Yes Men' entertaining, it is important to realize that these pranksters continue to communicate inaccuracies," a spokesperson for Dow said in an e-mail.

Servin also is seen delivering a speech posing as an Exxon Mobil representative in 2007 at Canada's largest oil conference in Calgary, showing off an oil product he said was made from people who died in climate change disasters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsnews/idAFN2448454320090726?rpc=33&sp=true

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Are you a corporate dupe?!!

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Invasion of the body snatchers

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Al-Qaeda offers US conditional peace

Al-Qaeda has offered the US President Barack Obama a truce in exchange for a complete withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan.

Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, offered the conditional truce in a 90-minute video released on Monday.

"If Obama wants to [reach] an understanding then he should respond to Sheikh Osama [bin Laden's] two offers," Zawahiri noted, referring to the militants' commander-in-chief's suggestions for a ceasefire.

Bin Laden had put forward the notion of a peace treaty with the US in 2006 which would entail "just conditions that we will stand by ... a truce which offers security and stability and the rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan which war has destroyed."

The quid pro quo armistice was originally proposed to the administration of the former US president George W. Bush.

Zawahiri reiterated Bin Laden's conditions for a peace, saying, "The minimum that the mujahideen (al-Qaeda) would accept [includes] ... the exit of infidel troops from all of the land of Islam and an end to stealing Muslims' wealth under the threat of military power," The Washington Post quoted him on Monday.

He went on to warn the US of more attacks unless the conditions were met.

 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=102460&sectionid=3510203

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America makes nothing except weapons

Posted by Cory Doctorow

Jon Taplin reproduces this jaw-dropping chart: Floyd Norris's scary graph of Durable Goods Production, adding, "We have so hollowed out our industrial plant that the only thing we are now producing is weapons of war." He goes on to quote Toynbee on Rome: "The economy of the Empire was basically a Raubwirtschaft or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. The Empire relied on booty from conquered territories... With the cessation of tribute from conquered territories, the full cost of their military machine had to be borne by the citizenry."

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/01/america-makes-nothin.html

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Barack Obama faces 30 death threats a day, stretching US Secret Service

US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.

By Toby Harnden

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service.

Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Most however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously.

According to the book, intelligence officials received information that people associated with the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab might try to disrupt Mr Obama's inauguration in January, when the Secret Service co-ordinated at least 40,000 agents and officers from some 94 police, military and security agencies.

More than a dozen counter-sniper teams were stationed along the inauguration parade route and the criminal records of employees and hotel guests in nearby buildings were scrutinised.

Despite all this, there were glaring loopholes in the security. Kessler describes how more than 100 VIPs and major campaign donors were screened by metal detectors but then walked along a public pavement before boarding "secure" buses and were not checked again.

It could have been relatively simple for an assassin to have mingled with them in order to get close enough to shoot the new president.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5967942/Barack-Obama-faces-30-death-threats-a-day-stretching-US-Secret-Service.html

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Associated Press will sell you a license to quote the public domain

Posted by Cory Doctorow

James Grimmelman sez,

The Associated Press -- which thinks you owe it a license fee if you quote more than four words from one of its articles -- doesn't even care if the words actually came from its article. They'll charge you anyway, even if you're quoting from the public domain.

I picked a random AP article and went to their "reuse options" site. Then, when they asked what I wanted to quote, I punched in Thomas Jefferson's famous argument against copyright. Their license fee: $12 for an educational 26-word quote. FROM THE PUBLIC FREAKING DOMAIN, and obviously, obviously not from the AP article. But the AP is too busy trying to squeeze the last few cents out of a dying business model to care about little things like free speech or the law.

They tell me I have to use the sentence "exactly as written" and heaven help me if I don't include the complete footer with their copyright boilerplate. Along the way, their terms of use insisted that I'm not allowed to use Jefferson's words in connection with "political Content." Also, I can't use use his words in any manner or context that will be in any way derogatory" to the AP. As if. Jefferson's thoughts on copyright are inherently political, and inherently derogatory towards the the AP's insane position on copyright. I require no license to quote Jefferson. The AP has no right to stop me, no right to demand money from me. All their application does is count words to calculate a fee. It doesn't even check that the words come from the story being "quoted."

The AP Will Sell You a "License" to Words It Doesn't Own (Thanks, James!)

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/08/02/associated-press-wil-1.html

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Cash for Clunkers

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Trilateral Member Hormats nominated to State Department

by Patrick Wood

On July 18, 2009, another Trilateral Commission member has been nominated to a strategic post in the Obama administration, bringing the total number of Obama's Trilateral appointees to twelve.

Robert Hormats, vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, has been nominated by President Obama to be an Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agriculture. His Senate confirmation is expected to proceed without incident.

http://waronyou.com/topics/trilateral-member-hormats-nominated-to-state-department/

 

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Ghost Letters: Opponents Of Clean Energy Reform Send Fake Letters To Sen. Conrad

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that a DC-based lobbying firm was caught forging letters to Rep. Tom Periello (D-VA) in opposition to the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill. The company, Bonner & Associates, has a decades-long history of "astroturfing" –- misrepresenting corporate-backed policy as a real grassroots movement. ThinkProgress just received a letter indicating that more anti-clean energy letter forgeries may be out there.

Joseph Richardson received a letter from Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) in reply to a letter that he never sent:

Richardson never wrote such a letter, and he never would. Calling himself a "vocal member" of the North Dakota Alliance for Renewable Energy, Richardson told ThinkProgress that he is an ACES supporter and even wrote a letter to Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) calling on the congressman to support clean energy reform.

The forged letter was likely a result of astroturfing. Conrad's letter was delivered to an out-of-date address that Richardson hadn't used for months. According to Richardson, Conrad's office is currently in the process of tracking down the original letter they received. See the full letter Senator Conrad's office sent to Richardson.

This latest news joins an evolving series of dishonest tactics from opponents of clean energy reform. On Friday, a former Bonner & Associates employee told Talking Points Memo that extreme managerial pressure at Bonner is par for the course, and inevitably leads to these desperate measures. According to the article:

[The former employee] portray[ed] Bonner and Associates as a place where ethical missteps were far from rare. "They just got caught this time," he said.

A note to the astroturf groups: next time you decide to forge a letter, try doing a Google search to make sure your target hasn't publicly stated their opposition to your agenda.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/03/new-aces-letter/

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VIDEO: Is Israel Guilty of Piracy off the Coast of Gaza

 

Is Israel guilty of piracy? Watch the video and decide for yourself how many international and maritime laws Israel has broken. The Israeli navy hijacked the Spirit of Humanity in international waters. The Israeli government hijacks Palestinian fishing boats, in Palestinian territorial waters, kidnaps the fishermen, and sends its military out to shoot to wound and kill them as they struggle to make a living. After watching this video, you will be convinced that Israel has committed acts of piracy against Palestinians and against internationals. No other country would be allowed to do what Israel does on a daily basis.

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteers were accompanying fishermen to document attacks on them by the Israeli Navy, and to provide a deterrence to these attacks. (www.palsolidarity.org)
For more information and current reports about Gaza fishermen: fishingunderfire.blogspot.com

http://waronyou.com/topics/video-is-israel-guilty-of-piracy-off-the-coast-of-gaza/

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What's so great about private health insurance?

The bloody battle in Congress over a 'public option' ignores the insurers' role in creating the nation's healthcare crisis and their efforts to throttle reform.

by Michael Hiltzik

Throughout the heroic struggle in Congress to provide a "public option" in health insurance, one question never seems to get answered: Why are we so intent on protecting the private option?

The "public option," as followers of the debate know, is a government-sponsored health plan that would be available as an alternative to, and in competition with, the for-profit health insurance industry, otherwise known as the private option.

 

On Friday, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce narrowly passed a reform bill incorporating a public option resembling Medicare. It was a bloody fight among members of Congress, some of whom believe that the public option will give the government unwarranted power over healthcare, and all of whom enjoy government-provided healthcare that's a lot better than what most of us get.

But the battle is just beginning. After the committee vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that the health insurance industry will conduct a "shock and awe" campaign to kill the public option when Congress returns from vacation in September and starts debating the measure. We can expect to be overwhelmed with an industry ad campaign worth millions of dollars (remember Harry and Louise?) exhorting us to write our lawmakers to preserve the American way of healthcare.

So it's proper to remind ourselves what that American way entails. For if the insurers have proved anything over the last 15 years as the health crisis has gathered speed like an avalanche roaring downhill, it's that they're part of the problem, not the solution.

The firms take billions of dollars out of the U.S. healthcare wallet as profits, while imposing enormous administrative costs on doctors, hospitals, employers and patients. They've introduced complexity into the system at every level. Your doctor has to fight them to get approval for the treatment he or she thinks is best for you. Your hospital has to fight them for approval for every day you're laid up. Then they have to fight them to get their bills paid, and you do too.

One Wendell Potter reminded a Senate committee in June that health insurance executives had assured Congress in 1993 that they would work to secure universal medical coverage and end denials of coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Then they moved heaven and earth to kill reform.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik3-2009aug03,0,6650122.column

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Torturing Children: Bush's Legacy and Democracy's Failure

by Henry A. Giroux

The torture of children under the Bush administration has gone relatively unpublicized. (Photo: thepeoplesvoice.org)

    This is an excerpt from Henry A. Giroux's forthcoming book, "Hearts of Darkness: Torturing Children in the War on Terror," to be published by Paradigm Publishers.

    Nowhere is there a more disturbing, if not horrifying, example of the relationship between a culture of cruelty and the politics of irresponsibility than in the resounding silence that surrounds the torture of children under the presidency of George W. Bush - and the equal moral and political failure of the Obama administration to address and rectify the conditions that made it possible. But if we are to draw out the dark and hidden parameters of such crimes, they must be made visible so men and women can once again refuse to orphan the law, justice, and morality. How we deal with the issue of state terrorism and its complicity with the torture of children will determine not merely the conditions under which we are willing to live, but whether we will live in a society in which moral responsibility disappears altogether and whether we will come to find ourselves living under a democratic or authoritarian social order. This is not merely a political and ethical matter, but also a matter of how we take seriously the task of educating ourselves more critically in the future.

    We haven't always looked away. When Emmett Till's battered, brutalized, and broken fourteen-year-old body was open to public viewing in Chicago after he was murdered in Mississippi in 1955, his mother refused to have him interred in a closed casket. His mutilated and swollen head, his face disfigured and missing an eye, made him unrecognizable as the young, handsome boy he once was. The torture, humiliation, and pain this innocent African-American youth endured at the hands of white racists was transformed into a sense of collective outrage and pain, and helped launch the Civil Rights movement. Torture when inflicted on children becomes indefensible. Even among those who believe that torture is a defensible practice to extract information, the case for inflicting pain and abuse upon children proves impossible to support. The image of young children being subjected to prolonged standing, handcuffed to the top of a cell door, doused with cold water, raped, and shocked with electrodes boggles the mind. Corrupting and degenerate practices, such despicable acts also reveal the utter moral depravity underlying the rationales used to defend torture as a viable war tactic. There is an undeniable pathological outcome when the issue of national security becomes more important than the survival of morality itself, resulting in some cases in the deaths of thousands of children - and with little public outrage. For instance, Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, appearing on the national television program "60 Minutes" in 1996 was asked by Leslie Stahl for her reaction to the killing of half a million Iraqi children in five years as a result of the U.S. blockade. Stahl pointedly asked her, "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."(1) The comment was barely reported in the mainstream media and produced no outrage among the American public. As Rahul Mahajan points out, "The inference that Albright and the terrorists may have shared a common rationale - a belief that the deaths of thousands of innocents are a price worth paying to achieve one's political ends - does not seem to be one that can be made in the U.S. mass media."(2) More recently, Michael Haas has argued that in spite of the ample evidence that the United States has both detained and abused what may be hundreds of children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo, there has been almost no public debate about the issue and precious few calls for prosecuting those responsible for the torture. He writes:

The mistreatment of children is something not so funny that has been neglected on the road to investigations of and calls for prosecution of those responsible for torture. George W. Bush has never been asked about the abuse of children in American-run prisons in the "war on terror." It is high time for Bush and others to be held accountable for what is arguably the most egregious of all their war crimes - the abuse and death of children, who should never have been arrested in the first place. The best kept secret of the Bush's war crimes is that thousands of children have been imprisoned, tortured, and otherwise denied rights under the Geneva Conventions and related international agreements. Yet both Congress and the media have strangely failed to identify the very existence of child prisoners as a war crime.(3)

    While it is difficult to confirm how many children have actually been detained, sexually abused, and tortured by the Bush administration, there is ample evidence that such practices have taken place not only from the accounts of numerous journalists but also in a number of legal reports. One of the most profoundly disturbing and documented cases of the torture of a child in the custody of U.S. forces is that of Mohammed Jawad, who was captured in Afghanistan after he allegedly threw a hand grenade at a military vehicle that injured an Afghan interpreter and two U.S. soldiers. He was immediately arrested by the local Afghan police, who tortured him and consequently elicited a confession from him. An Afghan Attorney General in a letter to the U.S. government claimed that Jawad was 12 years-old when captured, indicating that he was still in primary school, though other sources claim he was around 15 or 16.(4) Jawad denies the charges made by the Afghan police, claiming that "they tortured me. They beat me. They beat me a lot. One person told me, 'If you don't confess, they are going to kill you.' So, I told them anything they wanted to hear."(5)

http://www.truthout.org/080309A?n

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Really long delays

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Hope for Health Reform? Push Single-Payer Now

by John Nichols

 

It is unsettling to listen as President Obama and House Speaker Pelosi talk up a health-care reform "plan" that has yet to take shape in any realistic form.

The vagueness on the part of the president and the speaker is, of course, intentional.

Obama and Pelosi are still pushing the notion that they can get some version of their public-private stew cooked up before the year is done -- although not, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, before the president and the Congress take the extended summer vacations that will kill whatever sense of official urgency might have existed.

Reid has taken some hits for suggesting that it would be a good idea to try and get health-care reform right, rather than just rush through a plan that fails to cover all Americans or control costs.

But that requires details. And neither Obama nor Pelosi is dealing in details right now because that's where the devil resides.

Here is the truth they tend to avoid mentioning: A robust public plan, with the quality and flexibility that is required to make it appealing to all Americans, would wipe out its insurance-industry competitors in short order. Why would anyone opt for more of the profiteering, restrictions and actual denials of needed treatment -- especially for people with pre-existing conditions -- that the insurance industry uses to make money rather than provide Americans with the medical care they require? And why would any employer choose to subsidize the stock value of health-care conglomerates when it is possible to opt for the better care and controlled costs of a public plan?

Unfortunately, the creation of a robust public plan, one that can compete on the basis of quality and affordability, will require a significant federal expenditure in the form of start-up money as well as regulatory protection for the program. That's where the devil comes in.

The powerful insurance and private health-care lobbies, which fear honest competition as the vampire does the stake, are going to do everything in their power to accomplish three things:

1. Scare Americans with hypocritical talk about the hefty price-tag for getting a robust public plan off the ground.

2. Undermine the structural supports for a public plan so that it cannot compete -- effectively turning it into a sub-standard "alternative" that will appeal only to those who have no other options.

3. Fiddle with the overall "reform" so that most of the taxpayer money that is expended streams into the accounts of private firms.

In the state of confusion created the industry's lobbying and advertising campaigns, chances are that the scaremongers and the profiteers will come out ahead.

They usually do.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/455834/single_payer_advocates_must_seize_this_openning

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Recalcitrant Blue Dogs Raked In Health Industry Cash

by Sam Stein

 

The seven Blue Dog Democrats holding up health care reform legislation in the House Energy and Commerce Committee have received tens of thousands more dollars from health and insurance interests than other Democrats on the same committee, a new report finds.

An analysis of campaign finance data by the Public Campaign Action Fund finds a fairly strong correlation between private industry donations and opposition to health care reform. Lawmakers in both the House and Senate who voted against proposed legislation this congressional cycle, the report found, received roughly 65 percent more money from health and insurance interests than those who supported the bills.

When it came to the Blue Dogs in particular, that data showed that the seven members who sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee -- Reps. Mike Ross (Ark.), Baron Hill (Ind.), Charlie Melancon (La.), Jim Matheson (Utah), John Barrow (Ga.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.) and Zach Space (Ohio) -- have received, on average, $711,828 from the health and insurance sectors. Other Democrats on the committee, by contrast, have received an average of $628,023.

Not all the Blue Dogs partook at such high levels. Space, for instance, has raised only slightly more than $200,000 from those two sectors, according to Public Campaign Action Fund. But on the whole, these self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives have found their coffers filled by the industries over which they now have massive legislative sway. Gordon has received more than $1.4 million in donations; Matheson got slightly more than $1 million. Ross, who is leading the Blue Dog negotiations, took in more than $980,000.

In the world of campaign finance, it is almost always the case that money follows power. And on the Energy and Commerce Committee, the Blue Dogs have carved out a powerful niche for themselves through their willingness to buck the party leadership. In recent weeks, the seven members of the committee have held up the passage of health care reform legislation by demanding further negotiations and compromises on measures they say would contain costs. In short order, they have become the crucial votes for health care in the House.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/recalcitrant-blue-dogs-ra_n_246257.html

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National health care

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Liberty and Justice

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The Day the President Turned Black

 

by Greg Palast

(But has he turned back?)

He's in hot water now. For a moment, on national television, the President of the United States turned black!

Last week, when his buddy "Skip" Gates got busted for being Black in Boston, Barack Obama forgot his official role: to soothe America's conscience with the happy fairy tale that his election marked the end of racism in the USA.

Instead, Obama, the excruciatingly middle-of-the-road President, was seized by Barack the militant State Senator from the South Side of Chicago, who reminded us that cops bust Black guys for no goddamn good reason all the goddamn time.

I'm reminded that it was not so long ago that we watched the vicious gang-beating by Los Angeles cops of a defenseless, handcuffed, Rodney King, an African-American. King's beating was unusual only in that it was caught on videotape.

Yeah, I know: we've come a hell of a long way. Obama won, Jessie cried, Beyoncé has her own line of perfume and Tiger Woods plays where 30 years ago he couldn't eat lunch.

Good on them.

But what about Robert Pratt, Mr. President?

Pratt, a United Auto Workers member, has five kids and a mortgage payment of $1,100 a month on a house in Detroit worth no more than $40,000. The payment's astronomical because he pays 11% on his mortgage balance, double the national average interest rate. Now, on those crazy terms, he's sure to lose his house.

How did that happen? Pratt, whose story we've been tracking, was "steered" into a sub-prime loan by Countrywide Financial. "Steering" is the polite term for forcing folk into crappy loan terms. And not just any folk: Black folk, like Pratt. Over 60% of African-American mortgage applicants were (and ARE) steered into "sub-prime" predatory loans.

According to exhaustive studies by the Federal Reserve Board and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), African Americans are 250% more likely to get a loan with an "exploding interest" clause than white borrowers - and notably, the higher the income and the better the credit rating of a Black borrower, the more likely the discrimination.

As an economist, I can tell you it's not a stretch to say that Obama's failure to deal with endemic racism in the finance system is killing off hope of the nation's economic recovery. The "exploding rate" attack centered on Black and Hispanic communities has, according to the CLR, caused 40.2 million homes to lose value due to their proximity to foreclosed properties.

Yet, not a peep from the Obama Administration about ending this Ku Klux lending practice which has laid waste Black neighborhoods and taken a hunk of White America's housing values with it.

Instead, Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the honored guest of the Board of Directors of JP Morgan, owner of one of the most outrageous of the financial predators, Washington Mutual. Morgan/WaMu, with its racially-poisoned mortgage trickery, makes the Cambridge Police Department look like the NAACP.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/23028

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Why they hate us

A clown in front of a 46-metre-long 'torta' (Mexican sandwich) during the annual 'Torta Festival' in Mexico City. More than 200 people helped to make the giant sandwich, which includes meat, chicken, avocado, mole (Mexican spicy sauce), turkey, tomatoes, beans, ham and different types of cheese in an attempt to break the record for the longest 'torta'. (AFP/Getty Images)

 

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Dr. Ron Paul Introduces Health Freedom Bills!

Dr. Ron Paul, health freedom's friend in Congress, introduced two important bills yesterday that, if passed, would rein in the excessive interference in advanced health products by the FDA and FTC.

Dr. Ron Paul Introduces Health Freedom Bills!

Dr. Ron Paul, health freedom's friend in Congress, introduced two important bills yesterday that, if passed, would rein in the excessive interference in advanced health products by the FDA and FTC.

You can support these bills here:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/568/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27732

Here is the Life Extension Foundation's description of the bills:

HR 3395: The Health Freedom Act. This bill removes FDA's power of prior restraint over all nutrient-disease relationship claims. Under the bill, the FDA may not prohibit any statement concerning a nutrient affecting a disease (including treatment effects) from being made in the market and may only act against a statement once made if it possesses clear and convincing evidence that the statement is false. Presently the FDA blocks an enormous quantity of truthful information concerning the effects of nutrients and foods on disease from reaching consumers. That barrier is removed by the Health Freedom Act, but the Act preserves the power of the government to prosecute those who communicate falsehood. The essential purpose of the First Amendment is to disarm the federal government of the power to impose a prior restraint on speech. The FDA has imposed a prior restraint for decades to the health detriment of the public. Passage of the Health Freedom Act will restore constitutional governance by reasserting the supremacy of the First Amendment over the Food and Drug Administration.

HR 3394: The Health Information Protection Act. This bill prevents the Federal Trade Commission from taking action against any advertiser that communicates a health benefit for a product unless the FTC first establishes based on clear and convincing evidence that the statement made is false and that its communication causes harm to the public. Presently, the FTC reverses the Fifth Amendment burden of proof on the government when it charges advertisers with deceptive advertising and then demands that they prove their speech true based on contemporaneously held documentation or be deemed to have advertised deceptively. The Fifth Amendment requires that FTC bear the burden of proving advertising deceptive. It may not constitutionally shift the burden to the advertiser to prove its statements not deceptive. The First Amendment requires that FTC not act against speech unless the speech is probably false. It may not constitutionally accuse a party of false advertising yet lack proof that the advertising is false and condemn advertising based on an absence of documentation concerning the truth of the statement rather than the presence of evidence establishing the falsity of the statement.

http://waronyou.com/topics/dr-ron-paul-introduces-health-freedom-bills/

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Soldiers and Marines in Iraq discussing PTSD with Tim King

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Roseanne Barr, Hitler and Burnt Jew Cookies in Heeb Magazine

by: Andrea

Roseanna Barr as Adolf Hitler holding "burnt Jew cookies" in Heeb magazine

Roseanne Barr was photographed (at her request) as Adolf Hitler in a new photo spread for the Jewish humor magazine, Heeb.

"Domestic Goddess" Roseanne posed as "Domestic Goddess Hitler" for the photos, wearing Hitler's mustache and a swastika, while holding and preparing to take a bite out of "burnt Jew Cookies."

The first time the 55-year-old comedian has been seen since a "self-imposed" exile, Rosanne, who is Jewish, "nails the Fuhrer's facial expressions with twisted glee."

Roseanne and Heeb have taken heat for the pics, which have caused quite a storm of controversy.

Heeb publisher, Josh Neuman has responded to the fuss over Roseanne's Hitler photos:

Many have been up and arms over our recent photo of Roseanne Barr as a "Nazi domestic goddess" in our Germany Issue, questioning how, as Jews, we could ever find any humor in such a subject. When I hear such sorrowful pleas, I want to cry from remorse, but I'm afraid the ensuing suds would cake the lenses of my glasses.

 

http://www.bittenandbound.com/2009/08/01/roseanne-barr-hitler-and-burnt-jew-cookies-in-heeb-magazine/

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Cannabis Science to Apply to the FDA

 

Cannabis Science to Apply to the FDA to Utilize Their Fast Track Procedures to Help Speed the Approval of Its Cannabinoid Medicines in Treatment of H1N1 Swine Flu as AP Report Predicts Swine Flu Could Hit up to 40 Percent in the USA

Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTCBB: CBIS), an emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company, is pleased to report that it is moving as fast as possible to assist in the fight against the threat of a deadly influenza pandemic. In conjunction with its recent re-organization, the Company has begun discussions with the FDA as its program moves forward to provide FDA approved solutions for several critical illnesses.

H1N1 Swine Flu:
According to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/) the Avian flu (H5N1) has a 63% mortality rate. Unfortunately, the Swine flu, while causing death at a much lower rate than the Avian flu, appears to also result in death via a similar mechanism. The common cause of death with these strains is organ failure, especially as seen in the lungs with the development of Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). ARDS is caused by an excess immune-generated inflammatory response that leads to apoptosis (cell death) and subsequently to organ failure. The Company's approach will mimic how the human body uses endocannabinoids (cannabinoids that occur naturally in the body) to regulate immune activity and cell survival, by regulating inflammatory biochemistry. Excessive inflammatory responses are associated with numerous disease states including autoimmune diseases, neurological imbalances, and cardiovascular disease. Phytocannabinoids provide a natural means to supplement illness-specific endocannabinoid deficiencies.

Cannabis Science H1N1 Swine Flu Formulation:
We now know that the endocannabinoid system plays a critical role in maintaining human health. The human body produces Endocannabinoids on demand when they are needed. They help restore homeostasis (biochemical balance). The Cannabis plant produces Phytocannabinoids. When the human body has endocannabinoid deficiencies, it cannot effectively restore the healthy biochemical state needed to counter a particular illness. Phytocannabinoids from the Cannabis plant can replace the deficient endocannabinoid activity in the human body to restore a health-promoting level of cannabinoid activity. Cannabis Science will test its cannabis extract lozenge with FDA guidance and oversight to determine if it will reduce ARDS-associated deaths from both the Avian and Swine influenza infections.

 

http://www.cannabisscience.com/news-a-media/88-072709-cannabis-science-to-apply-to-the-fda.html

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Little gems from the Health Care Bill

by CMS

• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the gov option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll <>BR • Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt' have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what speciality you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2300451/posts

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Palin’s Resignation: The Edited Version

If you watched Sarah Palin's resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago. Just how poorly constructed was the governor's holiday-weekend address? We asked V.F.'s red-pencil-wielding executive literary editor, , together with representatives from the and departments, to whip it into publishable shape. Here is the colorful result.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/palin-speech-edit-200907

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GMO Scandal: The Long Term Effects of Genetically Modified Food on Humans

 

Scientific Tests Must Be Approved by Industry First

by F. William Engdahl

One of the great mysteries surrounding the spread of GMO plants around the world since the first commercial crops were released in the early 1990's in the USA and Argentina has been the absence of independent scientific studies of possible long-term effects of a diet of GMO plants on humans or even rats. Now it has come to light the real reason. The GMO agribusiness companies like Monsanto, BASF, Pioneer, Syngenta and others prohibit independent research. 

 

An editorial in the respected American scientific monthly magazine, Scientific American, August 2009 reveals the shocking and alarming reality behind the proliferation of GMO products throughout the food chain of the planet since 1994. There are no independent scientific studies published in any reputed scientific journal in the world for one simple reason. It is impossible to independently verify that GMO crops such as Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybeans or MON8110 GMO maize perform as the company claims, or that, as the company also claims, that they have no harmful side effects because the GMO companies forbid such tests!

 

That's right. As a precondition to buy seeds, either to plant for crops or to use in research study, Monsanto and the gene giant companies must first sign an End User Agreement with the company. For the past decade, the period when the greatest proliferation of GMO seeds in agriculture has taken place, Monsanto, Pioneer (DuPont) and Syngenta require anyone buying their GMO seeds to sign an agreement that explicitly forbids that the seeds be used for any independent research. Scientists are prohibited from testing a seed to explore under what conditions it flourishes or even fails. They cannot compare any characteristics of the GMO seed with any other GMO or non-GMO seeds from another company. Most alarming, they are prohibited from examining whether the genetically modified crops lead to unintended side-effects either in the environment or in animals or humans.

 

The only research which is permitted to be published in reputable scientific peer-reviewed journals are studies which have been pre-approved by Monsanto and the other industry GMO firms.

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ENG20090729&articleId=14570

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Jackson's aliases revealed in warrant

MICHAEL JACKSON THROUGH THE YEARS - PHOTOS

Prescription drugs prescribed or sold to Michael Jackson were obtained with the use of as many as 19 aliases, the attorney for Jackson's doctor says.

Edward Chernoff, who represents Dr. Conrad Murray, the doctor who was with Jackson hours before his death and the subject of a federal probe, issued a statement Tuesday saying the sealed search warrant "authorized investigators to look for medical records relating to Michael Jackson and all of his reported aliases."

According to the Los Angeles Times, the aliases used were: Omar Arnold, Paul Farance, Bryan Singleton, Jack London, Michael Amir Williams Muhammad, Jimmy Nicholas, Blanca Nicholas, Roselyn Muhammad, Faheem Muhammad, Frank Tyson, Fernand Diaz, Peter Madonie, Josephine Baker and Kai Chase. Prince Jackson, Jackson's 12-year-old son, was also listed in the warrant.

Harvey Levin, executive producer of the celebrity Web site TMZ.com, told "Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith Wednesday that TMZ has records showing Jackson used aliases as far back as 1993. "He used employees of the Neverland Ranch, he used fictitious people," Levin said. "He used the name Josephine Baker, even.

"But this has been going on, not just with Dr. Murray, but literally dozens of other doctors. ... The LAPD and the coroner's office have quietly been going to other doctors. Subpoenas have been served. This is going to open up a massive investigation into what authorities believe could be gross fraudulent prescribing practices. There are a lot of people who are very nervous in Beverly Hills and west L.A. right now."

Murray is "absolutely" just the tip of that iceberg, Levin said.

 

http://www.wbbm780.com/Jackson-s-aliases-revealed-in-warrant/4898292

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Bill Maher takes on the birthers

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Time Magazine, Jan. 08, 1951

Radio: Phonevision

"I've been waiting 19½ years for this moment, and now it's here." With these words, Zenith Radio's gravel-voiced President Eugene F. McDonald Jr. this week began a trial run of his much-delayed Phonevision. The testing ground: 300 selected Chicago homes.

An ambitious effort to arrange a financially happy marriage between TV and Hollywood, Phonevision gives TV set owners a chance to order movies by telephone, at $1 each. Once the order is placed, a simple gadget attached to the TV set and connected to the home telephone unscrambles the movie on the TV screen. Hollywood collects its profit and the set owner is charged on his telephone bill. Last fall Hollywood released for the Chicago test more than 90 films made during the past three or four years.

McDonald has scheduled three Phone-vision showings daily (at 4, 7 and 9 p.m.), and the films move progressively each day from one time period to another. The 300 Phonevision subscribers had an initial choice of April Showers, a 1948 musical starring Jack Carson; Welcome Stranger, a 1947 Bing Crosby comedy, and 1948's Homecoming, with Clark Gable and Lana Turner. Explained McDonald: "It wouldn't be a real test if we had only the best. Our sole interest is to find out the public reaction to Phonevision."

Confident of favorable reactions from the audience—and contingent upon Federal Communications Commission approval—McDonald expects Phonevision to be a going business within two years. Says he firmly: "The theater is moving into the home and nothing can stop it."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,805681,00.html

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Startup Aims to Simplify the Ad Buy

 

By paulgillin

A lot of good ideas are being incubated to reinvent the publishing revenue model. We're going to begin profiling some of these ventures under the label "Revenue 2.0." If you'd like to be considered, send us a description of your product or service along with contact information. Please don't send ideas; there are plenty of those. We're looking for going concerns.

Pete Groverman can't believe it's so difficult to buy a newspaper ad.

"If you want to place an ad in every newspaper in Philadelphia, you have to either contact each paper directly or hire an agency or a broker to do it for you," he says. "It takes about two weeks and it's a pain in the neck."

The 26-year-old Philadelphia entrepreneur thinks he has a better way.  Groverman and a small crew of bootstrap-funded dreamers have developed Tapinko, a sort of eBay for advertising. "It's the online marketplace for offline ad space," he says.

Like eBay, Tapinko helps buyers and sellers find each other but doesn't disrupt the normal sales process.  Prospective advertisers can log into the service and find a list of outlets for their ad.  They select the opportunities that interest them and submit their request to the system.  On the other end, advertisers field and respond to individual inquiries, either selling at posted rates or negotiating side deals. Tapinko takes a small commission from the publisher for each successful sale.  The service also includes a variety of tools for tracking and managing ad campaigns.

Tapinko launched into the college market and has signed up more than 125 college newspapers.  Emboldened by early success, the seven-person startup are now seeking alliances with mainstream publications.  In May, they signed their biggest deal to date, a partnership with Greater Media Newspapers of Freehold, New Jersey. Advertisers will be able to buy space in Greater Media's 12 newspapers via the Tapinko service.

Where Google Went Wrong

Tapinko's approach is reminiscent of Google Print Ads, a service that the search giant shuttered early this year.  Groverman believes Google's mistake was in messing with the existing process. "Google Print Ads was a Priceline approach where buyers named their own price and Google owned the brand," he says. "Newspaper sales reps had no incentive to recommend the service."

In contrast, Tapinko merely serves as a connector. Buyers still do business with individual publications at individual rates.  Ad reps still collect their commissions. "We're piggybacking on the way advertising has been sold for hundreds of years," he says.

And it turns out clients don't have to be traditional publishers.  Among Tapinko's list of media outlets is a young woman who offers to display a client's bumper sticker on her car for a monthly fee of $75.  Another man will display a company's logo as a tattoo for free as long as the advertiser pays for the tattoo.

The fledgling venture was recently accepted into the Philadelphia-based Dreamit Ventures startup foundry and is now seeking venture capital.

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/startup-aims-to-simplify-the-ad-buy.html

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Lots of unanswered questions

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