When history looks back on our era, one thing they'll note is how prevalent the mass experiments on ourselves were.
December 2007: The Journal Sentinel analyzes 258 studies of BPA, including many that were part of the NTP report. The newspaper finds the panel gave more weight to industry-funded studies and more leeway to industry-funded researchers. For instance, the panel rejected academic studies that found harm - citing inadequate methods. But the panel accepted industry-funded studies using the same methods that concluded the chemical does not pose risks. And the panel missed dozens of studies publicly available that the Journal Sentinel found online using a medical research Internet search engine. The studies the panel considered were chosen, in part, by a consultant with links to firms that made BPA.
It seems greed justifies anything.
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R.I.P Teddy Pendergrass.
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RedState trying to jam Coakley phone banks to elect this guy to Ted Kennedy's old seat.
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Barbie McLipSchmutz finally quit worrying (yes, yet another thing she quit) about exploiting her kids. Whew! For a minute there, I was worried about all of Babzie's worrying, which was becoming quite worrisome.
How nice for her that she and her daughter can relax and revel in their brand spankin' fat new bank statements:
Sarah Palin and her daughter, Bristol, "earned an eye-popping $100,000 for their new In Touch Weekly cover, "the New York Post reports.
"For just eight hours' work at her own home, Palin pocketed nearly as much as her $125,000-a-year salary as Alaska governor. It seems her decision to quit her political role is making big financial sense. Palin also reportedly earns $100,000 per public-speaking engagement, while she has a multiyear deal as a Fox News Channel analyst. Reps for the magazine and Palin refused to comment on the deal."
Tripp, Trigg, Trak, Truck, Trek, Drek, Heck. They're all just one big happy family living off of their Paris Hiltonesque fame.
All Bristol had to do was give birth and stand next to her mom at conventions and such.
All Barbie had to do was talk about Bristol giving birth, speak in tongues, fail at potential Veepitude, acquire an odd accent that doesn't represent Alaska, talk about her lipstick, forget O'Biden's real last name, incite hatred, have her ghost writer write, and then charge a whole bunch of money for talking incessantly about all of that and other stuff.
The family that exploits together is maladroit together.
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From Time's Swampland
Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
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This isn't an offer you see every day: Senegal offers free land to Haitians.
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Frank Rich: The Great Tea Party Rip-Off: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/opinion/17rich.html?hp
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Dodd to ditch consumer protection agency?
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Alan Grayson on expected SCOTUS ruling: 'The law itself will be bought and sold'
I love Alan Grayson - and I especially love the names for his proposed bills, and I can't wait to hear why the Republicans won't support them:
Anticipating a Supreme Court decision that could free corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) introduced five bills on Wednesday to choke off the expected flood of corporate cash.
"We are facing a potential threat to our democracy," Grayson said in an interview with HuffPost. "Unlimited corporate spending on campaigns means the government is up for sale and that the law itself will be bought and sold. It would be political bribery on the largest scale imaginable."
At issue in the Supreme Court case is whether the government can limit corporate spending during presidential and congressional campaigns. The case is pitting Citizens United, a conservative group, against the Federal Election Commission. The FEC banned ads for Citizens United's film bashing Hillary Clinton during the 2008 election season.
Grayson introduced a handful of bills on Wednesday -- the Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act, the Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act, the End Political Kickbacks Act, and two other measures.
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The Pigman doubles-down on disgusting
"Will someone ask Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who is Rahm's brother and one of the lead White House people on health care whether they're planning cost benefit considerations for each Haiti victim. Will they consider age? Potential contribution to society? All the other factors we are assured are not 'death panel' guidelines in our own health care system. This rescue, however compassionate, should at least have the same transparency as Obama promised for our health care. Remember he told a woman about her 95 year old mother, 'no, no we probably wouldn't give her pacemaker, give em a pill.' how many Haitians will we decide to give a pill? A legitimate question."
Never let an opportunity pass to return to the Death Panels.
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About those mortgage refinances:
- 66,500 homeowners out of 4,000,000 had their mortgages re-financed using the Carebear's program, resulting in an average reduction of $500 per month in their mortgages.
- The program was funded by about $7 Billion of the TARP fund. (I'm going on memory on the total – but I recall being appalled that it was only about 1% of the bailout.)
- Which means to date each of those mortgage re-finances is worth about $105,263 in profit to the bankers…
- The biggest company in the program, Bank of America, has completed modifications for fewer than 2 percent of the 200,000 borrowers it has enrolled.
- Wells Fargo & Co., is doing better but still has completed modifications for fewer than one in 10 borrowers.
And that is how even well-intended programs can end up being scammed by the bankers.
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Wow: With the price of gas at the pump at its highest point in well over a year, federal regulators moved Thursday to prevent excessive speculation by financial traders from driving the cost of oil even higher. The effort to adopt new limits on the trading of oil and other energy commodities is a sharp reversal after years when regulators left those markets alone.
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We know Explorer sux, but dangerous? "The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security. The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google's systems. Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the browsers increased security setting would prevent any serious risk. However, German authorities say that even this would not make IE fully safe."
