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

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

Really long delays

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

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

National health care

Liberty and Justice

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

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)

 

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/

Soldiers and Marines in Iraq discussing PTSD with Tim King

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/

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

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

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

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

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

Bill Maher takes on the birthers

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

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

Lots of unanswered questions

The Naked Pandering to the Gun Lobby

HR 3200: the House Health Care Deform bill

by hipparchia

So the House's 815-page draft became a 1018-page bill -- optimistically named ''America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009'' -- , and the process isn't even finished yet. I see that lambert beat me to it, but since his HR 676 link is bad, I'll just point it out again anyway: HR 676, Medicare for All, is 30 pages, which itself looks positively prolix compared to the 13-page Canada Health Act.

So far I've only made it through the first 215 pages -- DIVISION A—AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE CHOICES -- which covers the Health Insurance Exchanges, the plans to be offered therein, "shared responsibility", and modifications to the IRS code to make all this possible.

Some random highlights...

The Public Option for me, but not for thee

As an uninsured person, I will be allowed to shop for my insurance through my local HIE, and one of my options will be the "public plan." Too bad for you though, if you've already got insurance through your employer, you have to keep it. You won't be allowed into the Exchange at all -- which is the only place the public plan will be offered -- and neither will your employer, unless your employer is a small business. And very small that business has to be too, with only 10 employees or fewer, and only if that business has an annual payroll up to $400,000 will they be able to qualify for a break in how much they have to pay into the Exchange.

So, just when are you going to get your new and improved insurance?

page 14:

(25) The terms ''Y1'', ''Y2'', ''Y3'', ''Y4'', ''Y5'', and similar subsequently numbered terms, mean 2013 and subsequent years, respectively.

[And Subtitle B, Public Health Insurance Option, starts in Y1; see Sec. 221 (a), page 16 -- lambert]

Heh, looks like health care deform isn't even going to kick in until after the 2012 Presidential election.

http://www.correntewire.com/hr_3200_house_health_care_deform_bill

Please run please run please run...

Skype As We Know It May Not Exist Much Longer, eBay Says

 

by Marshall Kirkpatrick

EBay is working on software to replace the guts of Skype but is worried that it may not succeed, may lose a court battle with Skype's founders over rights to the core technology and may need to do something drastic in the next few years. The company said in a regulatory filing yesterday that if it fails in both the legal and technical avenues it's pursuing then "continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible."

Joltid, a company owned by Skype's founders, merely licensed some of the system's core technology to eBay when it sold Skype to the auction giant in 2005. Joltid now says that the license has been revoked and eBay is infringing on its rights by continuing to use the technology. The case is scheduled to go to court in June of 2010 but eBay is trying to replace the technology in the meantime. It may not succeed.

Joseph Galante at Bloomberg News cites Jayanth Angl, an analyst at Info-Tech Research Group, who argues that replacing the technology will not be easy. "It would be quite difficult to replace what they already have as the underlying component to their service," Angl told Bloomberg. "There are a number of barriers to that, not the least of which are legal barriers." The creation of another global P2P VOIP and video network that doesn't infringe on existing patents is no small task.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/skype_as_we_know_it_may_not_exist_much_longer_ebay.php

Boston cop calls Gates 'banana-eating jungle monkey' in mass e-mail

A Fox affiliate reports that the Massachusetts National Guard began probing the racist email sent by Capt. Justin Barrett, a Boston cop, a week ago.

"After a preliminary investigation, Capt. Barrett was suspended from his military duties on July 25, 2009 pending the outcome of further investigation," Boston's FOX25 reports.

The report adds that the "language contained in the e-mail violates policies of the Massachusetts National Guard and what it stands for in its commitment to uphold and protect the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Constitution of the United States."

The officer apologized last night for the email, claiming, "I am not a racist."

"It was a poor choice of words. I did not mean to offend anyone," Barrett told NewsCenter 5. "The words were being used to characterize behavior not describe anyone."

The officer said that he didn't mean to use words like 'banana eating jungle monkey' "in a racist way."

"It was a poor choice of words," Barrett said. I didn't mean it in a racist way. I treat everyone with dignity and respect.".

More from WCVB's report:

Barrett and his attorney said they will fight the charges brought both by the police department and the National Guard.

"People are making it about race. It is not about race," Barrett claimed.

Barrett will get only pro forma support from the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association which condemned the e-mail, but said it is contractually obligated to protect his rights at a disciplinary hearing.

UPDATE II

The Fox affiliate in Boston has published the text of the email Boston police officer Justin Barrett sent in which he referred to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., as a "banana-eating jungle monkey."

It now appears Barrett's email was a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, complaining of the Globe's coverage of the Gates arrest on July 16.

Of Gates, Barrett wrote: "He is a suspect and will always be a suspect."

"If I was the officer [Gates] verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [pepper spray] deserving of his belligerent non-compliance."

Barrett then went on to berate the author of the Globe article to which he objected.

"You are a hot little bird with minimal experiences in a harsh field," Barrett wrote. "You are a fool. An infidel. You have no business writing for a US newspaper nevermind detailing and analyzing half-truths."

AP reported that "Barrett was trained in racial profiling prevention and had shown no signs of racial discrimination in the past."

Barrett's tirade has spawned an instant flurry of comments on blogs and talk shows.

"If this is what [police officers are] putting in emails, imagine what they're saying in private," blogged The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE

The police officer who called Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a "jungle monkey" is a "cancer on the department," Boston Mayor Tom Menino said Wednesday.

A blog posting by Cindy Adams at Examiner.com also says Menino called for the officer to be fired immediately.

The Boston Globe reports that Barrett will be represented by the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, the local police union. The union is expected to make a statement on the case Wednesday evening.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/boston-cop-calls-gates-jungle-monkey-in-mass-e-mail/

The Health Care Debate

Selling stuff for free is a boom market, but at what cost?

By Scott Canon

First, a little confession.

While this story pretends to be about things becoming free, that's only in the sense of free samples; buy one, get one free; bare bones for free in hopes of selling the deluxe version; free but with advertising. You know the drill.

But now free is the new black — chic, essential, even sexy.

A few years into this young century, every mouse click makes clearer that some things will be free whether the folks who produce them want to give them away or not.

Music. Software. Books. Or, for instance, this article (at least on the Web).

Some marketplace analysts — most prominently

Chris Anderson

 

in his latest book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" — suggest that even as digital technology and the Internet shrink the price of many forms of work to free, free can also offer a new way to turn a buck.

"People are making lots of money charging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we have essentially created an economy as big as a good-sized country around the concept of $0.00," writes Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine.

"It's driven by an extraordinary new ability to lower the costs of goods and services close to zero," he writes. (The digital version of his book is free. The bound version will set you back $26.99.) "This new form of free is based on the economics of bits, not atoms. ... The bits economy is deflationary."

At the heart of his argument is one of the most reliable adages of the Digital Age: The time-tested Moore's Law that accurately predicted that the cost of computer processing will drop by half at least every two years.

That means computer processing, bandwidth, data storage and, Anderson argues, anything "made of ideas" becomes ever cheaper. So inexpensive—a single transistor in 1961 cost $10, enough to buy almost 2 million transistors today—that he thinks we might as well "round down to zero." Or free.

Google and Microsoft, the rival giants birthed by the computer processor, seem at war over who can give away the most: operating systems, Web browsers, office software, e-mail, Internet searches. The one that gets people to take the most freebies could dominate your desktop.

To be sure, free is to the digital universe what water is to restaurants.

The posting and viewing of YouTube videos. The operating system on your Android-based cell phone. Scores of apps for your iPhone. Software programs for slide shows, for your taxes, for your games, for Internet phone calls. Almost endless storage space for digital photographs, text documents or self-referential minutiae on Facebook.

"The notion behind free is that companies can create a demand for their product by giving it away," said Chris Kuehl, managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence in Kansas City, Kan.

Kuehl's business has done just that recently, giving away three market analyses it values at $5,000 to the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association.

"We'll do work for clients gratis on the assumption that they'll find it so helpful that they can't live without it," he said. And, in fact, he said the strategy landed Armada paying work with the association.

Anderson's book argues that free is rapidly becoming the default price of virtually anything that can be reduced to 1s and 0s in a computer and replicated endlessly on the Internet.

Old-school folks talk derisively of a mostly younger set that insists, in the words of "Whole Earth Catalog" creator Stewart Brand, "information wants to be free."

The right-to-free argument sometimes boils down to two points.

First, it would be undemocratic to let money determine who can read or listen to or play with the products of the mind.

Second, people are bound to pirate digital goods and services anyway, so better to use free to lure customers to things that you can coax them to pay for.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/article/108918-selling-stuff-for-free-is-a-boom-market-but-at-what-cost/

Green me up, Scotty: William Shatner targets Hewlett-Packard for toxic waste

Hewlett-Packard pledged to stop using dangerous plastics in its computers by 2009. It broke that promise. Will a company-wide voicemail from William Shatner make it change its mind?

by Bibi van der Zee

 

When the employees of Hewlett-Packard checked their messages yesterday, they got a bit of a shock. William Shatner (or Captain Kirk as most of us still like to call him) had left each and everyone of them a pre-recorded message, politely expressing his regret that the company had failed to keep its eco-promises.

"This is William Shatner speaking," he begins, with all the brisk efficiency that led us to follow him through galaxy after galaxy on the USS Enterprise. "You, HP, promised me a toxic-free computer by 2009. Now my friends at Greenpeace tell me that I'll have to wait till 2011. What's up with that?" He goes on, in his masterful yet diplomatic way, to suggest they ask their "leader" to make computers that are free of brominated flame retardants and PVC plastic, (as they promised) and gently reminds them that Apple seem to have managed it. He winds up, as polite and simultaneously authoritative as ever, by wishing them all "an enjoyable day". It is a bloomin' masterpiece.

The whole thing was set up by Greenpeace, which also climbed up onto the roof of the HP building and painted – in absolutely enormous writing which could certainly be read from the Enterprise – the words "Hazardous Products". Brominated flame retardants are chemicals added to products to stop them bursting into flame. Once in the waste stream they are potentially toxic for humans and animals, and are banned in some European countries. Alternatives are available and used by other computer manufacturers. PVC meanwhile has long been an environmental sore point and campaign issue for Greenpeace in particular.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jul/29/star-trek-hewlett-packard-shatner

Sketches of the Drug Czars

The United States spends nearly $50 billion each year on the war on drugs, to little avail: illegal drugs remain prevalent, and drug-funded groups continue to spread violence from Mexico to Afghanistan. The new White House drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, says he wants to end the drug war, but other men in his position have tried and failed to do just that. In this illustrated history, Ricardo Cortes shows how science, politics, ego, and scandal transformed a public-health initiative into a century-long military campaign.

 

Written and illustrated by Ricardo Cortes

 

#2

 

 

President Richard Nixon took on drugs as part of his anti-crime platform. But even as he pushed through such tough measures as mandatory sentencing and "no-knock warrants," he also poured resources into drug-abuse prevention and treatment, which were funded at twice the level of law-enforcement efforts. In 1970, Nixon passed the Controlled Substances Act, creating the U.S. drug-scheduling system. Marijuana was temporarily placed in Schedule I, the most restrictive, pending review by a commission to study its effects. The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse consisted of 13 men—9 appointed by the president and 4 by Congress. In 1972, they offered their unanimous conclusion: "We believe that experimental or intermittent use of this drug carries minimal risk to the public health, and should not be given overzealous attention in terms of a public health response." The panel, along with the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Mental Health, recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use, and the American Bar Association called for reduced penalties. Nixon responded by rejecting the report, declaring "an all-out global war on the drug menace," and creating the Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A.) by executive order in 1973.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/07/drug-czars-slideshow200907?slide=2#globalNav

44 Years Of Medicare Success

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, and Nate Carlile

On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Social Security Act, part of which included Medicare, a measure to provide low-cost health insurance for elderly Americans. At the time, Johnson called the bill "the most revolutionary and most beneficial measure for older Americans since we passed Social Security itself back in 1935." "They will no longer have to suffer from misery and neglect and depend upon their relatives because they themselves cannot afford the cost of modern treatment," Johnson said. He inaugurated the "Great Society" program at the White House signing ceremony by enrolling former President Harry Truman as the first beneficiary and presenting him with the first Medicare card. "I predict that 30 years from today, this bill will be a welcome and permanent part of our nation's heritage that no representative would ever dare repeal," Johnson said. "Why? Because it represents the moral principle that we just must not neglect in their age those who have given a lifetime of service to their country." Johnson was right. Forty-four years later, Medicare has dramatically improved access to quality health care for the nation's seniors, allowed them to live longer and healthier lives, and has become one of the country's most popular government programs.

MEDICARE'S SUCCESS: Since the advent of Medicare, "the health of the elderly population has improved, as measured by both longevity and functional status," said one study published in the journal Health Affairs. In fact, according to the study, "life expectancy at age 65 increased from 14.3 years in 1960 to 17.8 years in 1998 and the chronically disabled elderly population declined from 24.9 percent in 1982 to 21.3 percent in 1994." Leaders of the Commonwealth Fund wrote in May that, "compared to people with private insurance, Medicare enrollees have greater access to care [and] fewer problems with medical bills." The report added that this finding is significant when considering that those Americans on Medicare represent a demographic that is more likely to be in poor health and to have lower incomes. Prior to Medicare, "about one-half of America's seniors did not have hospital insurance," more than 25 percent "were estimated to go without medical care due to cost concerns," and one in three were living in poverty. Today, nearly all seniors have access to affordable health care and only about 14 percent of seniors are below the poverty line.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: A recent Commonwealth Fund survey found that "elderly Medicare beneficiaries reported greater overall satisfaction with their health coverage." Medicare is so popular that most Americans support expanding its coverage to Americans aged 55 to 64. According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, "over half of Americans (53 percent) 'strongly' support such a proposal and an additional 26 percent say they support it somewhat, totaling 79 percent backing." Similarly, a Health and Human Services Department-commissioned study released in June found that "56 percent of enrollees in traditional fee-for-service Medicare give Medicare a rating of 9 or 10 on a 0-10 scale," while "only 40 percent of Americans enrolled in private health insurance gave their plans a 9 or 10 rating." "The higher scores for Medicare are based on perceptions of better access to care," the National Journal noted, commenting on the surveys, adding that "[m]ore than two thirds (70 percent) of traditional Medicare enrollees say they 'always' get access to needed care (appointments with specialists or other necessary tests and treatment), compared with 63 percent in Medicare managed care plans and only 51 percent of those with private insurance."

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/07/pr20090730/index.html

Why Obamacare Is Sinking

By Charles Krauthammer

What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes.

President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True. But now we learn -- surprise! -- that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats' health-care plans, says the CBO, increase costs on the order of $1 trillion plus.

In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that's classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.

The Democratic proposals are worse still. Because they do increase costs, revenue neutrality means countervailing tax increases. It's not just that it is crazily anti-stimulatory to saddle a deeply depressed economy with an income tax surcharge that falls squarely on small business and the investor class. It's that health-care reform ends up diverting for its own purposes a source of revenue that might otherwise be used to close the yawning structural budget deficit that is such a threat to the economy and to the dollar.

These blindingly obvious contradictions are why the Democratic health plans are collapsing under their own weight -- at the hands of Democrats. It's Max Baucus, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who called Obama unhelpful for ruling out taxing employer-provided health insurance as a way to pay for expanded coverage. It's the Blue Dog Democrats in the House who wince at skyrocketing health-reform costs just weeks after having swallowed hemlock for Obama on a ruinous cap-and-trade carbon tax.

The president is therefore understandably eager to make this a contest between progressive Democrats and reactionary Republicans. He seized on Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that stopping Obama on health care would break his presidency to protest, with perfect disingenuousness, that "this isn't about me. This isn't about politics."

It's all about him. Health care is his signature reform. And he knows that if he produces nothing, he forfeits the mystique that both propelled him to the presidency and has sustained him through a difficult first six months. Which is why Obama's red lines are constantly shifting. Universal coverage? Maybe not. No middle-class tax hit? Well, perhaps, but only if they don't "primarily" bear the burden. Because it's about him, Obama is quite prepared to sign anything as long as it is titled "health-care reform."

This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system?

When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance.

And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums.

But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuits. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law.

Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072302723_pf.html

GIANT JELLYFISH PICTURES: Japan's Nomura Invasion

 

Eat your heart out, Godzilla. A massive menace from the sea seems poised to invade Japan anew this summer, experts predict.

In 2005 Japanese waters were inundated with swarms of Nomura's jellyfish--like the pair seen above cruising off the coast of Fukui Prefecture in November 2007. The giants clogged fishing nets and poisoned potential catches with their toxic stings, costing coastal fishers billions of yen.

Scientists have since been racing to unlock the mysteries of this giant jellyfish species in an attempt to forecast invasions and prevent damages.

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/photogalleries/giant-jellyfish-invasion-japan-pictures/index.html

Electric Vehicle Roundup: Best Buy and McDonald's

By Sarah Terry-Cobo

 

While Best Buy is often associated with sales of televisions, computers and other watt-sucking devices, it will soon introduce a new electric-powered product they hope will zoom off the show room floor.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the electronics retailer will soon roll out electric vehicles, including the Brammo Enertia, an all-electric motorcycle that retails for just less than $12,000. Best Buy has also sold electric bicycles and Segways in 19 stores across the Pacific coast, according to the Journal.

"It is throttling up the venture this summer with the introduction of the Brammo Enertia, a futuristic electric motorcycle that can travel 45 miles at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and plugs into a standard wall outlet. Best Buy wouldn't disclose when it will begin selling the motorcycle, but Brammo Inc. representatives said it would debut in a Portland store this month."

"Industry experts say that electric vehicles won't be a cash cow for Best Buy anytime soon. But many concur that the investment could prove wise over time, noting that Best Buy has a history of sharp turns that have kept it ahead of competitors," noting that it isn't completely far-fetched to envision electric vehicles plugged in at home and networked to a larger grid.

(As Joel Makower wrote last week, Best Buy is bullish on the smart grid, one component of which would connect electric and hybrid-electric cars to the power grid, giving them power when the grid is under load capacity, and taking power when it's nearing capacity.)

Perhaps this isn't really a signal that electronics consumers are scrambling to buy electric vehicles when they purchase a new TV or camcorder. As the article suggests, it could be a way to fill empty space in stores, and an attempt to go out on a limb on what might put the store ahead of the curve.

However, a representative from the company said the introduction of electric-powered personal vehicles is a test, "designed to determine consumer likelihood for adoption."

Kelly Groehler, a spokesperson for Best Buy continued, "You see the popularity with personal transportation options that are more cost effective and energy efficient," and the West Coast was a good place to begin the test.

Would You Like Watts with that Shake?

And if buying a green vehicle at Best Buy isn't exciting enough, those lucky enough to live in Cary, N.C. will soon be able to plug in those electric vehicles at a new charging station at McDonald's. That's right, the fast food monger will try to green its image when it opens its new store on July 14, reports the blog HybridCars.com.

"The installation of the first plug-in car charging station at a McDonald's is an example of the rapid dramatic shift in public sentiment about cars, energy and the environment—or at least public relations efforts catering to green-oriented consumers—and is seen as a sign of the potential widespread adoption of cars that can be powered by electricity," HybridCars.com reports.

 

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/07/06/best-buy-mcdonalds-evs

Pakistan in tree planting record

By Riaz Sohail BBC Urdu service, Thatta

The trees were planted in a swampy mangrove region

A team of volunteers in Pakistan has set a new world record by planting more than half a million trees in one day.

Guinness World Records confirmed that 541,176 trees had been planted in the southern province of Sindh on 15 July.

Some 300 volunteers, working in groups, planted mangrove saplings in the 750 acres of the Indus river delta region.

They beat the previous team record for tree planting which was set in India just last month when 447,874 saplings were planted in Assam state.

Pakistan's tree-planting marathon was witnessed by representatives of Guinness World Records and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8154120.stm

We ain't stupid

Rat Racists

You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!

The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here's the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply -- the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods -- secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried "serious health hazards," and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn't going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.

Dangerous Food Safety Lies

When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to "different risks" than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.

This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them -- companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.

GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled -- from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.

In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world's top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation

In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies "systematically overlook the side effects" and significantly underestimate "the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others."

The Fox Guarding the Chickens

If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto's vice president and chief lobbyist.

This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. What have we done?

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18691.cfm