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Forging his way through the predictable UK media censorship: Dr Andrew Wakefield Responds to Measles Outbreak in Swansea
March 8, 2011 More than half a million U.S. teens have had an eating disorder but few have sought treatment for the problem, government research shows.
March 8, 2011 The foreclosure crisis has shown no signs of abating since the recession’s onset. Homeowners continue to be evicted as a result of fraudulent practices by banks and lenders. Yet few community groups have organized a serious response against banks that kick homeowners and tenants out of their homes. One exception is City Life/Vida Urbana, a housing group in Boston. Through public pressure, legal defense and
eviction blockades, the organization helps keep hundreds of families in their homes.
Steve Meacham, 62, has been a City Life organizer for the past 11 years, and involved in community and labor struggles for almost 40. He first came to Boston to attend MIT, but, radicalized by civil rights and black power struggles, dropped out in 1972. Since then, he has “never regretted” joining a variety of people’s movements.
March 8, 2011 Mon Mar 07, 2011
On paper, the Social Security trust fund holds $2.6 trillion. Where did the $2.6 trillion come from? Answer the question, and you expose Robert Samuelson's panoply of lies in the latest Newsweek. The title, "Social Security Is Middle-Class Welfare," says it all.
The $2.6 trillion was initially funded by America's workers and their employers. Since the early 1980s, when Social Security taxes were raised in order to address the demographic bubble of retiring baby boomers in the 21st century, Social Security has always generated a surplus, intended to accumulate over time. The surplus was supposed to be invested in U.S. Treasuries, which generate compound interest. For decades, FICA taxes and the FICA wage base, have been tailored to fund the future cash outflows of a defined benefit retirement plan.
March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7th, 2011
From Republican majorities to corporate outrages, everything's bigger in Texas.
That even holds true when it comes to giving "the man" the finger, which is precisely what one conservative state representative has set about doing with a new proposal that would make airport security a much tricker business in the lone star state.
Reacting to public outcry over the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and their recently updated airport screening requirements, Texas state Rep. David Simpson (R) introduced a bill that would aim criminal penalties at agents who get a little too touchy with passengers.
Though unlikely to pass -- even with the GOP supermajority in the Texas legislature -- the bill quickly became a cause célèbre to civil libertarians who adamantly oppose the TSA's screening procedures implemented last year.
Rep. Simpson's bill would amend a statute pertaining to "the offensive touching of persons," extending it to security personnel who conduct a search "without probable cause."
March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7th, 2011
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/07/massachusetts-voters-can-now-register-as-pirates/
The Massachusetts Election Division has approved the Massachusetts Pirate Party as a political designation, allowing voters in the state to register as a "Pirate."
The party strives to increase government transparency, promote personal privacy, reinforce the spread of knowledge through copyright reform, and abolish patents.
"We live in a country founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the Massachusetts Pirate Party said in a statement. "For many people, those ideals are not real. The Supreme Court and Congress have expanded the power of corporations and made them more powerful than people. Increasingly government officials ignore open meeting laws, make deals favorable to corporations behind closed doors and sell off our public information to private interests."
March 8, 2011 Think remembering birthdays is difficult? Try memorizing two decks of cards in five minutes or less. That is what Joshua Foer did to win the 2006 U.S. Memory Championship. Such intellectual exploits might not be surprising given Foer's family tree; he is the younger brother of celebrated author Jonathan Safran Foer and former New Republic editor Franklin Foer. What is surprising is that he is willing to unmask the illusion and make us privy to the tricks of the trade.
"Moonwalking With Einstein" does just that: It takes the reader on Foer's journey from memory novice to national champion. Foer talks with people from both spectrums of the memory divide -- from Kim Peek, the inspiration for the 1988 movie "Rain Man," to the guy dubbed "The Most Forgetful Man in the World" -- and their conversations offer insight into the relevance of memory in a society increasingly dominated by smart phones, Google and Wikipedia. As Foer delved into the science and research, what he found surprised him. Contrary to popular belief, memory is not a matter of smart or stupid. Instead, it is more like golf, foosball or Ms. Pac-Man: a matter of technique and practice.
March 8, 2011 The revelation that Americans infected Guatemalans with syphilis is a terrible reminder of experiments on blacks, prisoners and the mentally ill, and Obama is demanding action
Sunday, 6 March 2011
Shocking as it may seem, US government doctors once thought it acceptable to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital. At one point, pharmaceutical company officials said they were using prisoners for testing because they were cheaper than chimpanzees.
Much of this horrific history is at least 40 years old, but it was the backdrop to a meeting in Washington last week of a presidential bioethics commission. The gathering was triggered by the government's apology last autumn for federal doctors having infected prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago. US officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in America, which often involved making healthy people sick.
March 8, 2011 Monday, 7 March 2011
Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released on Wednesday by the science journal Nature.
Over the past 540 million years, five mega-wipeouts of species have occurred through naturally-induced events.
But the new threat is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study.
Evidence from fossils suggests that in the "Big Five" extinctions, at least 75 percent of all animal species were destroyed.
March 8, 2011 Monday, 7 March 2011
March 8, 2011 The Washington Times
Sunday, March 6, 2011
A top Senate Democrat said Sunday that the $6 billion in additional spending cuts that his party offered is the limit Democrats can accept - drawing a line well short of Republicans’ goal with less than two weeks to go before a government shutdown if the two sides can’t agree.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat in the chamber, said the $6 billion proposal, released Friday, has “pushed this to the limit” on domestic spending. That comment stands in sharp opposition to a House Republican bill containing an additional $57 billion in cuts below 2010 spending.
Meanwhile, the Senate’s top Republican said his talks with President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. show that the White House is not serious about tackling longer-term spending challenges, making it difficult for Congress to work with the president.
Taken together, the short- and long-term budget fights show how tough it will be for lawmakers to find common ground on the single biggest issue facing them over the next six months.
Republicans said they haven’t seen any commitment from the White House to talk about entitlement spending, which is the big driver of long-term deficits.
“I’ve had plenty of conversations with them. What I don’t see now is any willingness to do anything that’s difficult,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation” program. “So far, I don’t see the level of seriousness that we need.”
The immediate test for lawmakers is to try to head off a March 18 shutdown by passing a long-overdue 2011 spending measure.
