“Leonard Architect” - Newsweek Promotes A $2.6 Trillion Social Security Fraud

by Leonard Architect

Mon Mar 07, 2011

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/07/953514/-Newsweek-Promotes-A-$26-Trillion-Social-Security-Fraud

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.

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"Stephen C. Webster" - Texas Republican proposes criminal penalties for overly touchy TSA agents

By Stephen C. Webster

Monday, March 7th, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/07/texas-republican-proposes-criminal-penalties-for-overly-touchy-tsa-agents/

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."

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“Eric W. Dolan” - Massachusetts voters can now register as ‘Pirates’

By Eric W. Dolan

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."

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Claire Lambrecht" - "Moonwalking With Einstein": How to remember everything

Can memory actually be taught? Why do dirty images help? Joshua Foer explains how to stop forgetting

By Claire Lambrecht

Monday, Mar 7, 2011 13:01 ET

http://www.salon.com/books/nonfiction/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/03/06/foer_moonwalking_with_einstein

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.

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“Mike Stobbe” - Shameful past of medical trials prompts new US investigations

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

Mike Stobbe

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.

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“AFP” - World's sixth mass extinction may be underway - study

Monday, 7 March 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/worlds-sixth-mass-extinction-may-be-underway--study-2234388.html

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.

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“Jeremy Laurance” - Cuts put future of more than 50 hospitals at risk

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

Monday, 7 March 2011

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cuts-put-future-of-moThe future of at least 50 hospitals is under threat from the unprecedented squeeze on NHS finances, evidence shows.

Alarm about cuts to services outweighs all other concerns for senior managers of NHS trusts as they struggle to balance their books, the NHS Confederation says. Worries about finances far outstrip concerns about implementing the Government's reforms, which some dismiss as a sideshow.

About 70 hospital trusts in England have failed to achieve the financial performance and quality of care necessary to become foundation trusts and "a significant number" have "large recurrent deficits", according to the King's Fund. In a report titled Reconfiguring Hospital Services the charity warned of "a downward spiral of falling income, growing deficit and declining quality [which] will cause hospitals to fail."

The head of a leading health management consultancy, who asked not to be named, said yesterday: "Our view is that about a third of [NHS trusts] are structurally in deficit – in other words there is a fundamental misalignment between patient demand, the cash available, the number of staff employed and the buildings used. The problem is that the Secretary of State is not prepared to face the consequences of significantly downsizing existing units."

Calculations by Health Service Journal show that at least 58 NHS hospitals will cease to cover their costs if cuts planned by primary care trusts to "low priority" treatments – such as tonsillectomies, injections for back pain and varicose vein surgery – go ahead.

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“Stephen Dinan” - $6B budget cut: A ‘limit’ for Democrats, a nick for GOP

By Stephen Dinan

The Washington Times

Sunday, March 6, 2011

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/6/6b-budget-cut-a-limit-for-democrats-a-nick-for-gop/?page=1

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.

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“Ruth Conniff” - Big Saturday Rally in Madison--Michael Moore, Michelle Shocked Praise Wisconsin Protesters

By Ruth Conniff,

March 5, 2011

http://progressive.org/rc030511.html

As the Capitol building reopened following two judges' orders to stop prohibiting public access to the building, another huge, sign- carrying crowd massed in downtown Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5.

Once again, there was a festive, playful mood. Protesters carried inflatable palm trees in the frigid weather and signs that read: "Fox News Will Lie About This" (a reference to video of union members screaming and shoving at a rally on Fox's "O'Reilly Factor," which O'Reilly claimed was from Wisconsin, but which clearly showed palm trees and sunshine in the background.)

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“Gavyn Davies” - A week in global macro – GDP growth moves above 5 per cent

Gavyn Davies

March 6, 2011 1:19 pm

http://blogs.ft.com/gavyndavies/2011/03/06/a-week-in-global-macro-gdp-growth-moves-above-5-per-cent/

This week, the oil shock continued to build, but financial markets still viewed it as insufficient to puncture the upswing in the global economy. Business survey indicators in America and Europe hit new peaks for the cycle, but China continued to lag. The ECB responded to the upswing by pre-announcing their intention to raise interest rates next month – the first of the major central banks to do so in the developed countries. But the Fed remained determinedly dovish. The extent of this continental drift between the big two central banks is quite unusual.

This week, I learned that:

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