Archive for May, 2009
Where Would You Take a $100,000 Check That is Also a Suicide Note … To the Cops or to the Bank?
Alan Prendergast, Denver Westworld: John Francis Beech had a date with destiny last summer. He counted down the days on a calendar in his garage, crossing out each day leading to the final Sunday in July, on which he’d scrawled the word “OUT.” But first he had one last bit of business, one final appointment to keep.
On July 17, Beech, a 53-year-old retired Coors manager, drove to Laradon Hall in north Denver. He’d called a few days earlier to arrange a meeting with Annie Green, the acting director of Laradon, a nonprofit that operates an alternative school and other programs for people with developmental disabilities. Beech had never met Green, but he explained on the phone that he was planning to leave his entire estate to Laradon. He was a member of a local Elks club, he added, which had adopted Laradon as its primary charity.
Green readily agreed to see…
Are The People Who ‘Really Run The World’ Meeting This Weekend?
Adam Abrams, Haaretz: From today until May 17, approximately 150 of the most influential members of the world’s elite will be meeting behind closed doors at a hotel in Greece. They are called the Bilderberg Group or the “Bilderbergers,” and you have probably never heard of them.
The group, co-founded by Prince Bernard of the Netherlands, has been meeting in secret every year since 1954. This year, says the British broadsheet The Times, they are meeting at the Nafsika Astir Palace in Vouliagmeni.
The individuals at the meeting come from such power houses as Google and the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Senate and European royalty. Governments, the banking industry, big oil, media and even the world of academia are amongst the Bilderberg ranks.
Those reportedly in attendance at last year’s conference in Virginia include former U.S. senator Tom Daschle; Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and his predecessor Henry M. Paulson; former…
Senate Refuses to Cap Credit Card Interest Rates at 15 Percent
Mick Arran, Open Salon: Just a little while ago our gallant Democrat Senate — and I quote — “easily” defeated Bernie Sanders’ bill to put a 15% cap on credit card interest rates the same day that CBS did a segment on the banks’ sudden raising of already usurious rates on some of their best consumer customers with no warning of any kind. The reason was — partly — that the Sens have their own bill almost ready for passage.
Despite complaints that banks and credit card companies are gouging customers by charging outrageous interest rates, the Senate on Wednesday easily turned back an effort to cap interest rates at 15 percent.
The effort by Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, drew only 33 votes and needed 60, with a bipartisan group of 53 senators opposing it as the Senate pushed its credit card overhaul toward the finish line.
See, the Big Senate…
80 Percent of Medical Bills Have Errors
The Consumerist: Read those bills from doctors and hospitals carefully! According to a report cited by Consumer Reports Health, up to 80 percent of all such bills contain errors. CRH recommends insisting on an itemized bill — and reading it carefully. Some of the more common errors:
* Incorrect dates of service — make sure you’re not being charged for a room on the day you were discharged from the hospital, which most plans don’t allow.
* Inflated room charges including fees for incidentals like sheets and towels that should already be included in the room charge.
* Duplicate fees for tests and procedures.
* Human errors-one mistaken keystroke could result in the wrong billing code.
* Inflated operating room time-your hospital should have an exact record of when your surgery began and ended.
Cocaine and LSD Found in Air of Spanish Cities
Air pollution has long been a fact of life in Spanish cities, but scientists now say that it is not just smog that chokes people as they walk to work or stroll through the park.
A new study has found the air in Madrid and Barcelona is also laced with at least five drugs — most prominently cocaine.
The Superior Council of Scientific Investigations, a government institute, said on its website that in addition to cocaine, it found trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and lysergic acid -a relative of LSD — in air-quality control stations in the cities.
But it said there was no reason for alarm.
“Not even if we lived for a thousand years would we consume the equivalent of a dose of cocaine by breathing this air,” said one of its scientists, Miren Lopez de Alda, in the statement.
The scientific group added that “in no case should these levels be…
Lake Mead Is Drying Up
Mark Frauenfelder, GOOD: Imagine Nevada’s Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States, as a great sand pit, and imagine the population of the western United States as a colossal ostrich burying its head in the pit. And now, imagine the sand level dropping so fast that the willfully ignorant bird is forced to confront the fact that Lake Mead may actually become as dry as a sand pit in a decade.
Lake Mead stores water from the Colorado River. When full, it holds 9.3 trillion gallons, an amount equal to the water that flows through the Colorado River in two years. The water from Lake Mead is used for many things. It irrigates a million acres of crops in the United States and Mexico, and supplies water to tens of millions of people. Its mighty Hoover Dam generates enough electricity to power a half-million homes. Additionally, the power from…
IMAX Or Lie-MAX?
IMAX are ruining their brand and deceiving their advocates. For those that want to know, here is a map of known “real/fake” IMAX screens, based on screen size and aspect ratio.
A green marker indicates a “real” IMAX screen, meaning a screen that is totally immersive and fills your field of vision. A red exclamation mark indicates a “fake” IMAX screen, meaning a screen that is branded “IMAX” the same as giant screens, but is not that much larger than regular movie screens, and does not fill your field of vision. OMNIMAX or “domed” screens are indicated by a purple orb shape.
Need to know more? Go to destroyfakeimax.blogspot.com. Need to report a new location or tell me a horror story? Email me at destroyfakeimax@gmail.com.
Guardian Newspaper Assigns Comedian To Cover Bilderberg Conference
Charlie Skelton is menaced by police with guns (and mirrors on sticks) in his third dispatch from (near) the Bilderberg summit of the global elite. Reach Charlie Skelton’s first and second Bilderberg dispatches.
“You know your day’s gone badly when it ends with you being shouted at in a Greek police station.
It wasn’t meant to end this way. I’d gone for a gentle sunset walk, up by the Bilderberg hotel, to relax before the big opening day of the elite globalist shindig, watch Phoebus plunge headlong into the western sea, and (yes) maybe sneak a couple of short-lens pictures of the mounting security.
Opposite the hotel gates I took a casual photo out over the bay, limbering up to swivel round and snap off some naturalistic “armed guard having fag and chatting up policewoman” sort of shots. A plainclothes officer jogged across the road and got in my face…”
…
Guardian Newspaper Assigns Comedian To Cover Bilderberg Conference
Charlie Skelton is menaced by police with guns (and mirrors on sticks) in his third dispatch from (near) the Bilderberg summit of the global elite
Reach Charlie Skelton’s first and second Bilderberg dispatches.
You know your day’s gone badly when it ends with you being shouted at in a Greek police station.
It wasn’t meant to end this way. I’d gone for a gentle sunset walk, up by the Bilderberg hotel, to relax before the big opening day of the elite globalist shindig, watch Phoebus plunge headlong into the western sea, and (yes) maybe sneak a couple of short-lens pictures of the mounting security.
Opposite the hotel gates I took a casual photo out over the bay, limbering up to swivel round and snap off some naturalistic “armed guard having fag and chatting up policewoman” sort of shots. A plainclothes officer jogged across the road and got in my face…
…
Pakistani President on Osama Bin Laden–U.S. Relationship: ‘We Knew He Was Your Operator’
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari interviewed by NBC’s David Gregory:
Top 10 Most Egregious Executive Perks
Running big public companies is hard work, so many executives get a little help to keep their noses to the grindstone. Use of company jets, cars and drivers, free home security, free financial planning advice and country club memberships. Some of these perquisites, or perks, keep coming after retirement. Even in death, the money keeps flowing in the form of so-called golden coffins.
In the midst of the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression, public anger against executive compensation and benefits has reached fever pitch, so some perks may be on the way out.
Here are some of the most egregious perks from the golden era of executive compensation, according to corporate governance experts.
1. The parting perk
Jack Welch ran General Electric for two decades, turning the industrial conglomerate into one of the most successful companies in the world and cementing a legacy as one of the best chief executives ever.
He…
Afghani War Rugs
Afghanistan has been embattled for so long, this cultural cross-pollination was bound to happen:
NYPD Breaks Record for Stop and Frisk Interrogations
Because of the NYPD’s abiding commitment to self-transcendence in the fields of racial profiling and constitutional violation, the department has beat its own lofty record for the number of reported stop and frisk interrogations in three months. According to a data revealed today at the NYCLU’s insistence, the NYPD stopped and searched more innocent people during the first three months of 2009 than during any three-month period since police began collecting data on the program.
Police stopped and interrogated New Yorkers 171,094 times between January and March, and more than 151,000 of those individuals were sent on their way without charges. Approximately 89,000 of those stopped were black, 56,000 were Latino, and 16,000 were white. It all adds up to a whopping 18 percent increase from the 145,098 stops conducted during the first three months of 2008, which was the prior record. The NYCLU predicts that if stops continue at this…
The Great Beast Was Here
What if the Apocalypse has already happened? How should we live in a post-Apocalyptic world, when all of the values of the previous one have been destroyed? Aleister Crowley had an answer: we should each live according to our own True Will.
By this he meant that every man and woman must discover his or her own true nature and purpose in this world, and fulfill it. But the guiding principle in living that fulfillment must be love; not love in the sense of mere sentimental affection. Crowley’s philosophy further claims, “Man has the right to love as he will: when, where, and with whom he will.” Bisexual himself, he formally declared the absolute liberty of consensual sexual expression, with the force of prophetic authority.
In 1904, Crowley received a text as a result of magical invocation: The Book of the Law. The law the book contained may be summed up in…
The Taste Of Dog Food? It’s Harder Than You Think To Identify
Pâté or dog food? Either could be yummy.
That’s because you probably wouldn’t be able to differentiate which is which in a blind tasting, according to a study scheduled to be released today by the American Assn. of Wine Economists.
Researchers provided 18 volunteers five food samples to try in a blind taste test. Only three were able to identify the canine fodder.
“We have this idea in our head that dog food won’t taste good and that we would be able to identify it, but it turns out that is not the case,” said Robin Goldstein, a co-author of the study that is expected to be published online today.
Goldstein said the tasting demonstrated that “context plays a huge role in taste and value judgment,” even though researchers warned the participants that one of the five foods they were going to taste was dog food.
…
‘Superfood’ Promoted By Oprah Robs Amazon Poor of Staple
Rising U.S. sales of acai, a purple Amazon berry promoted as a “superfood” on Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, are depriving Brazilian jungle dwellers of a protein-rich nutrient they’ve relied on for generations.
U.S. consumers are turning a “a typical poor people’s food into something like a delicacy,” said Oscar Nogueira, who specializes in the fruit at Embrapa, Brazil’s agricultural research company.
Spending on acai-based products by Americans seeking to lose weight, gain energy or slow aging doubled to $104 million last year, according to SPINS, a Schaumburg, Illinois-based market research firm. Since U.S. demand took off early this decade, the fruit’s wholesale price in Brazil has jumped about 60-fold, Embrapa data show.
In 2008, exports from Para, the South American country’s
main producing state, climbed 53 percent to account for about a quarter of output, according to the local government. Production, though, has increased little in the past five years.
Winfrey, 55, discussed the berry…
White House Czar Calls for End to ‘War on Drugs’ (Really!)
The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.
“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”
Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand…
Man Charged Over ‘Anti-Semitic’ YouTube Video
Police have charged a man who allegedly posted a video on YouTube with inciting racism under a so-far untested Australian state law, officials said today. A newspaper report said the video targeted Jews.
State police spokeswoman Susan Usher said the suspect will appear in court next Tuesday charged with “conduct likely to incite animosity or racist harassment.” He cannot be identified under Australian law until his first court appearance.
If convicted, he faces a possible maximum penalty of 14 years in prison plus a fine of 24,000 Australian dollars ($18,000).
Hookers No Longer Welcome On Craigslist
Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch: After coming under increasing scrutiny from various state attorney generals for the open prostitution listings in its “erotic services” category, Craigslist is now folding in the face of criminal charges. The company said in a blog post that it will replace the erotic services category with a new “Adult services” category where each ad will be individually reviewed before posting.
Existing ads in the erotic services category will remain for seven days, but already new ads are not being accepted in that category. People trying to place an ad in the adult category are reminded: “Ads suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money are strictly prohibited” and “Ads including pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors are strictly prohibited.”
A quick glance at the erotic services section for New York City shows a lot of flesh with ads promising “IT’S NOTHING LIKE…
