worldbusinessblog

December 29, 2007

Government Snooping and Entrapment

The phone flashed, indicating there was a message. A Florida call. Intrigued, I dialed up the voicemail.

"Yes, Mr. H_ your prescription is ready to be shipped. We just need to verify the address."

I wanted to be sure my credit card number hadn't been stolen so I called back the number. It was a pharmaceutical company. I forget the guy's name who answered, but it was fictitious anyway.

"Yes, I was left a message on my phone that my prescription was ready. I placed no orders for any prescriptions with anyone. Why is your company calling me?"

"We are a pharmaceutical company. Are you sure you haven't placed any orders for any drugs, any needles or anything like that?"

"I only take medications I can buy over the counter, or prescriptions I get from a physician."

"Oh, I wonder why someone here would call you then?"

By this time I realized what was going on. "I just want to make sure my credit card number hasn't been stolen."

"No, no. I don't even see your name listed in our directory."

"It's rather odd then, that someone would be calling me from your number."

"Yes, it is. I will make sure the people on the floor know that you haven't placed any orders."

"All right, thanks."

I thought police were trained better than that. Why would anyone "on the floor" need to know about someone who wasn't in their database? Did he really think that if I had attempted to purchase drugs without a prescription I would be stupid enough to offer that information in a phone conversation with a stranger? It is pathetic that law enforcement wastes so much time and energy on entrapment tactics. It amounts to a beginning salesman who tries cold calling and finds one customer for one thousand numbers dialed. It seems more a ploy to keep the prisons filled.

The truth is I had received emails from a newsletter that advocated the use of steroids to a broader public. It offered alternative information that refuted much of the hysterical nonsense in the media. I am research minded and wanted to hear issues from all angles. I have never taken steroids except when they may have been issued by a physician as most medications are a form of steroid. As far as I know I have never known anyone who sells illegal steroids or growth hormones. I have never taken any bulk building steroids, and even if I were diabetic I would have to have someone else give me the shot. I could never stick myself with the needle.

Here is the definition of steroid per the American Heritage Dictionary: n. Any of a large class of naturally ocurring, fat-soluble organic compounds based on a structure having 17 carbon atoms bound in a ring, including many hormones and sterols.

The larger issue here is that somehow law enforcement had gotten my phone number and linked it to my name from an email list. I had never given it to anyone in an email or text message except to a family member in a private email. The government snooping hearkens us back to the Hoover years when that stupid paranoid asshole kept secret tabs on a host of others in the name of "protection". Do we really want this kind of "service" to the community?

Posted by Ronald at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)

Political Candidates and the Willful Suspension of Disbelief

Following politics requires a willful suspension of disbelief. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckaby made a bizarre statement that after Mexican illegals Pakistani illegals constituted the second largest group of illegal immigrants in the U.S. with 660. Aside from the fact that he was at pains to reveal his source, Huckaby would have us believe that there were less than 660 illegal Chinese immigrants last year. Perhaps we can ask any shop owner in New York's Chinatown what he thinks. That is, if you can get him to stop laughing long enough.

But Huckaby isn't alone in requiring our suspension of disbelief. We only need recall the claims by GW Bush that he was going to bridge the divide among republicans and democrats. I didn't find it that funny because of the sheer number of people around me who actually believed this petty tyrant wannabe could ever be a communicator. He said that he believed the American military was fighting too many wars and was being spread too thin, but one could see Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld
Cheney and others whispering in his ear and their documented desire to occupy the middle east available for the public to heed. And let us not forget he said he was going to be the education president and that he was a secular candidate. To believe any of these absurdities required an insane amount of willful disbelief of reality.

When I pointed this out to co-workers I was laughed and hissed at. I didn't know what I was talking about. A Vice President of the bank asked if I was going to listen to Bush speak at the local rally because it was important to hear all sides of the issues. I remember thinking how sad it was that she didn't recognize that I had studied the candidates and that she was one of the many sheep who was being duped by "the issues" and the stupid rhetoric that keeps us from making sober judgments. Perhaps her ego made her forget that being a supervisor of tasks doesn't make one superior in anything but performing those tasks.

Earlier today I had the tv on while I worked and a news entertainment program was broadcasting coverage of the Iowa caucuses. The reporters were discussing the number of voters who were undecided yet and could still be swayed in the next couple of days. Among things they were discussing were the answers given to questions put forth by the candidates in the public arena and political advertisements. And I couldn't help but notice that to be swayed by either implies a suspension of disbelief beyond measure. It calls into question the legitimacy of politics in America to consider that the best snake oil salesman is declared the winner by a duped public. Or in Bush's case the loser could be declared the winner by the Supreme Court.

Posted by Ronald at 03:24 AM | Comments (0)

December 26, 2007

The Huns are Coming Riding in Corporate Jets

The citizens of a nation become suspicious of a government that makes decisions in secret. And in a nation whose constitution supposedly grants equal rights, secrecy and consolidation of power cause the rise of conspiracy theories. It is an age where the secret agents of power and wealth have openly challenged the impoverished and the middle class with class warfare.

GW Bush with all his "I am the commander" rhetoric has openly joined a Russian tradition where under the Tsars and the Communists all important political decisions are made in secrecy. The difference, though, is that Bush and his cronies have to maintain a facade of democracy. But all they have done with their lies is make democracy a byword throughout the world. While European countries understand that there are arenas in which profit taking is immoral, such as medical care; where other countries understand the importance of communication and good will, the Bush government and the corporate patsies in Congress have pursued a path that moves a majority of U.S. citizens towards serfdom. This is at heart the real issue regarding illegal immigration and the Bush/Crony/Congress conspiracy against the middle class. Their prophet Alan Greenspan has long been a critic of the level of wages for the middle class and has consistently pointed toward a need to lower wages among Americans.

The lesson learned by the upper class warriors of America is one learned from Russia. As Adam Hochschild writes in The Unquiet Ghost, "for almost all the Soviet period, historians treated serfdom merely as one more evil of the old order. Today, however, writers are much more likely to talk about it as the source of a deep passivity that allowed dictatorship to flourish long after serfdom itself had ended" (pg118).

It is no secret that the unprecedented corporate prosperity of the past three decades has come at the expense of the lower standard of living through stagnant wages compounded by the year on year accumulation of inflation. The money that should have been spent on the social well being of a nation has been handed to corporations in the form of corporate welfare. The credit debt of the government is the result of greed and power. The credit debt of citizens is largely due to the fact that wages alone do not provide the needs of the statistically ordinary worker. Living is more than simply eating and sleeping. There are some luxuries that are necessary to make life acceptable otherwise their is discontent and rebellion. Those who say that Americans do not know how to save money are simply ignorant. You cannot save what you haven't got, and you cannot passively accept a life whereby any form of entertainment is a luxury that induces guilt. That is the rhetoric of an empire; it is the rhetoric of Stalin. The Huns are attacking, but this time they are wearing suits and ties and riding in corporate jets.

Posted by Ronald at 03:39 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2007

Bush Lawyers Discussed Destruction of CIA Tapes

At least four top White House lawyers took part in discussions with the Central Intelligence Agency between 2003 and 2005 about whether to destroy videotapes showing the secret interrogations of two operatives from Al Qaeda, according to current and former administration and intelligence officials.

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

Lakota Indian "Nation" and Their Silly Brand of Isolation

Here is another silly story. Of course, the so-called country of the Lakota Indians is fictitious and has no constitutional or legal authority. It amounts to play acting. These people would be better off dredging up the aboriginal ancestry of all of the other nations of the world and seeing how seriously they are taken by other countries when they claim some sort of rights of inheritance. As for the ridiculous charge that "white man has stolen our culture", one's culture can no more be stolen than his ego. It's personal. Others can learn things from you, but they cannot steal your mind, and that is where the inheritance of culture lies. No one can steal your philosophy. They can learn from you, but because they assimilate parts of your philosophy without adopting your way doesn't mean they have stolen anything or fail to understand. Enter into the world of post-reformation society like the rest of the world. You have to ask yourselves where all of your hatred has gotten you. You would be better off assimilating yourselves as ordinary citizens into the American race and forget about all the stupid nonsense that people don't accept you because your this or that. It's bullshit. If you apply yourselves to whatever you feel is your personal path, even the few who do feel prejudice towards you will fail to stop you. Only when you continue to teach your generations fear, hatred and your own brand of prejudice and racism do you perpetuate misery.

Click here to read about the Lakota Indian nation breaking away from the United States
Posted by Ronald at 06:17 PM | Comments (0)

Ralph Nader's Reading List

Some books recently recommended by Ralph Nader.

The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi by Les Leopold

The Four Freedoms Under Siege, by Marcus Raskin and Robert Spero

Medicare; Facts, Myths, Problems & Promise (in Canada!), edited by Bruce Campbell and Greg Marchildon

Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of The New Global Economy by John Bowe

Click here to read the full article by Ralph Nader

Posted by Ronald at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)

Corporate Corruption and the Cult of Fear

Industries essentially bribe politicians with campaign contributions. Government employees regularly move into six-figure jobs lobbying for the industries they once regulated. Presidential candidates of both parties take time off from their small-town stump speeches about the middle class to hold big corporate fundraisers in New York penthouses and D.C. law firms. All of it is legal and treated as ho-hum by the media.

Then there is the bureaucracy, the faceless monolith whose civil service protections and multiyear appointment terms were supposed to prevent it from becoming what it is today: an increasingly important cog in the corrupt machine.

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 05:45 PM | Comments (0)

The Xenophobic Nonsense of the Immigration Activists

It is a shame that some aren't able to defend their positions any better than to level charges of racism or xenophobia against those who are concerned about the influx of illegal aliens into America. It's like the bully who thinks the only way he can get people to listen is to shout and scream and make stupid and false accusations. Why the so-called immigration rights activists have so little support outside of their own constituency is because they refuse to understand the difference between legal and illegal. Theirs is a selfish position that in no way takes into account the irrevocable harm they are doing to America's socio-economic structure by supporting illegal immigration. Couched in all their tired rhetoric of racism is childish advocation of "we've been getting away with it all this time. And suddenly you have a problem with it?"

Latinos continue to be the largest group of immigrants legally allowed into the country. America is a race. It is not just a country for anyone to milk for cash without ever becoming a part of it. The American race is open to everyone who wants to become assimilated into its society, regardless of where they come from. What we, as every other country in the world, cannot condone is the disintegration of our economic base, our culture and our philosophy by allowing the floodgates to stay open. There comes a time when action must take place. There is a sound reason why we have immigration quotas. It's a shame that those hollering about xenophobia and racism cannot summon that same energy into building Mexico into a nation they can be proud of. The answer isn't to flood some other country and start calling everyone a racist who doesn't accept you with open arms when you insist on speaking your own language and resist legal assimilation into its culture.

Posted by Ronald at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)

It's the Time of Year For Clerics to Spread Lies About Secularists

Yes, it is that time of year when secularists, atheists and humanists become the Grinches who stole Christmas. As an honorary associate of the National Secular Society and president of the British Humanist Association, here is my cue to offer you all a rattling good Christmas "Bah, humbug!" Except, of course, it's all utter nonsense. No one is out to ban Christmas or Christianity - not atheists nor other faiths. Yet every year the same urban myths are repeated about the banning of Christmas by some pantomime villain local authority suffering from "political correctness gone mad." King Rat Christmas wreckers are unearthed, and every year these turn out to be garbage stories, but they are stored in the attic for another airing next December.

Click here to read full article

Posted by Ronald at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)

Big Business Profits, Broadband and Spying on Citizens

A few years ago, President Bush pledged that every corner of America would have high-speed Internet by 2007. Well, the year is drawing to a close, and millions of Americans still do not have access. The United States has dropped from fourth to 15th in the world in broadband penetration in the past five years -- a result of a telco stranglehold on both broadband markets and broadband policy that puts their profits before innovation and the public good.

But that's not all. Even when Americans can get online, an open and neutral Internet is not guaranteed. In the past year, phone and cable companies have been throttling the free flow of information on the Internet and cell phones -- giving us a harrowing glimpse of a world without Net Neutrality.

A review of the 10 Worst Telco Moments of 2007 (in no particular order):

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

More Police Taser Abuse - This Time on Katrina Victims

The shameless exploitation of poor New Orleans residents to privatize public infrastructure is being enforced by violence and tasers.

-Now we see that as residents of New Orleans try to resist these attacks, they are being met with a third shock: the shock of the police baton and the Taser gun, used on the bodies of protestors outside New Orleans City Hall yesterday.

Click here to read the full article

Let's outlaw police tasers in America. They can go back to beating people with their fists, feet and clubs. If you are sick and tired of seeing police beating up people on the tv show Cops tell your Congressional Reps about it.

Posted by Ronald at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2007

Letter to Senator Carl Levin Regarding Walmart's Theft of Employee Health Benefits

Dear Senator Levin,

The following are the first few lines in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

"A collision with a tractor-trailer seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved.

After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Deborah Shank's care.

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Deborah's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores.

Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A federal judge ruled last year in Wal-Mart's favor, backed by an appeals-court decision in August. Now, Deborah's family has to rely on Medicaid and her Social Security payments to keep up her round-the-clock care."

Senator Stabenow, words cannot begin to express my outrage over the idea of any company doing this. Literally millions of Americans are one hospital visit away from bankruptcy. This is the most dire issue for Americans. Healthcare in a supposedly free democracy should not be for sale. It is supposed to be not only a right, but a guarantee that NO medical issue should mean financial devastation.

The answer is not legislation to force people to buy health insurance like Romney and Giuliani advocate. The answer is to create a health care system that benefits everyone regardless of their income. There should be no payments exchanged by anyone for healthcare. This is an undisputed fact that every other civilized country in the world has accepted.

The citizens don't want to hear rhetoric about the costs involved, blah, blah, blah. That is just stalling while politicians can figure out how to keep allowing the for profit health system to continue. Health care is not for sale anyplace else in the world but here in the U.S.A.

Posted by Ronald at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

Walmart Steals From Employees

When you research into the fact that the Walton family has gotten insanely rich, not just wealthy, through exploiting cheap labor and exploiting the American consumer this story ought to be enough to anger Americans across the country. But it won't matter. You can email your politicians all you want, but all they will offer is rhetoric. In the real world we all despise the talker, the guy who talks about all the shit he's going to do or has supposedly done, but never shows any action. This coming Presidential election will have a pathetic turnout despite all the horseshit rhetoric about citizens taking part in democracy because people know it is all lies and it probably isn't going to matter a whole lot who is in office because stories like this one are the norm in American society.

A collision with a tractor-trailer seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved.

After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Deborah Shank's care.

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Deborah's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores.

Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A federal judge ruled last year in Wal-Mart's favor, backed by an appeals-court decision in August. Now, Deborah's family has to rely on Medicaid and her Social Security payments to keep up her round-the-clock care.

Yeah, that's right.Read the full article here

Posted by Ronald at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

For Sale - The New Name For Laughingstock America

These days whenever I watch one of the national news channels I cannot get through one single news item it seems without hearing the price per share of some company's stock. I recall as a child the message was still preached by American parents to their children that they needed to put their money into savings accounts at the local bank. Well, if you aren't middle aged, such a thing will seem preposterous I suppose. Because for decades now, banks, as well as every other segment of that giant leech of business whores who have managed to siphon every last vestige of decency and quality of life from America, have made no secret of the fact that money savers are no good to them. They only give a shit about profits for shareholders. So like good little propagandists the news entertainment industry hides the sins of the irresponsible business world while preaching the ethics of saving and moral and civic responsibility to the individual.

Let's get this straight. You take any Fortune 500 company and you will find that 90% of the shares of stock are held by a handful of people. The rest are suckers led to deal, trade and gamble in a daily stock lottery that only makes the already wealthy richer and richer.

It is sad and it makes me puke to see political candidates talking about what is best for America and other such nonsense. Bill Clinton is so out of touch that he once offhandedly referred to a nanny crisis whereby illegal immigration legislation would keep needy families from hiring nannies. What a fucking joke. To see this slickster back out in the open spewing his wretched vomit makes me sick. And to think that Hillary Clinton could continue to aid and abet the corporate takeover of America would be enough to deal with, if it weren't for the poser Mitt Romney and the pathetic Rudy Giuliani vying for the top spot as corporate puppet.

These motherfuckers with their vomit of fear, talking their horseshit that everyone in the country by now can see has made America the laughingstock of the world. Our corporations have hijacked us, people. Our politicians will do nothing to stop them, they are of them. We have a for-profit multi-billion dollar industry builing prison after prison, housing nonviolent offenders. We have allowed millions into our country illegally, allowed false history to be taught in our schools, given over the airwaves and news outlets to a handful of corporations, allowed the banking industry to bilk us for trillions of dollars since the inception of the Federal Reserve, and have had untold trillions stolen from us by the IRS, not simply to "build that great land of ours" or some other insanely stupid and nonfefinitive rhetoric, but to make the wealthy of this country richer.

When we say things like this we are accused of inciting class warfare. Well that is the pot calling the kettle black, folks. The truth is there has been a class war going on in America for 400 years. That is, the war waged against the dominated by the dominators. Dominators are the few who pay legions of bitches to carry out their deeds upon their fellow citizens. The oppressed simply fight back.

My web host, LivingDot, states specifically on their website that ONLY business customers can call the help line. The rest of us pathetic worthless people who are lucky enough to pay for their service can send an email. One that will be handled when the business customers are taken care of. The name of America should be changed to FOR SALE.

Fuck you, corporate America. Fuck you Wall Street bankers, and Fuck you, you lame, weak, cowardly motherfuckers who will go to war for your corporate patrons to continue this lie of democracy, but don't have the intestinal fortitude to do your part in the battles you and your cowardly bastard corporate vampires profit from.

Posted by Ronald at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2007

Why Facebook Sucks

As if Facebook didn’t have enough to worry about, now it may have a growing customer service problem on its hands. Facebook members whose accounts have been disabled—some with good reason, some not—are increasingly frustrated with the company’s opaqueness when it comes to trying to figure out what they did wrong. They find that their accounts have been turned off and access to the site and all their data is denied, sometimes without so much as a warning. Facebook’s customer service reps, who can only be reached via e-mail and are understandably overstretched, are apparently not very responsive.

Since Facebook isn’t doing the best job talking to its customers, they are increasingly talking to each other. Distraught (former) customers are flocking elsewhere on the Web to gripe communally. One site for consumers to commiserate together called Satisfaction has seen a lot of discussion lately about Facebook’s account-disabling policies.

Click here to read full article

Posted by Ronald at 06:56 PM | Comments (0)

Scandals Don't Stop Blackwater

Blackwater is moving ahead at full steam. Individual scandals clearly aren't enough to slow it down. The company's critics in the Democratic-controlled Congress must confront the root of the problem: the government is in the midst of its most radical privatization in history, and companies like Blackwater are becoming ever more deeply embedded in the war apparatus. Until this system is brought down, the world's the limit for Blackwater Worldwide--and as its rebranding campaign shows, Blackwater knows it.

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)

Alternative Energy Inventor Dies Suspiciously

On Nov. 11, inventor of a revolutionary, affordable, clean energy technology, Arie M. DeGeus of AMDG Scientific Corp was found slumped in his car, totally unresponsive, in the long-term parking lot of the Charlotte Douglass International Airport in North Carolina. He was taken to the hospital and died a short time later. The autopsy suggested heart failure, so officials were saying the death was a result of a medical problem or natural causes, and not likely to be a homicide.

Those who were involved with his research are doubtful, citing, among other things, that he had been in relatively good health. The timing is also suspicious. He was apparently on his way to Europe where he was to secure major funding for the development and commercialization of his technology, which could make oil obsolete as a fuel source.

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 06:28 PM | Comments (0)

HAARP - Important Developing Technology

I don't believe in any sinister conspiracy regarding the development of HAARP. I merely post this because it is technology that is being developed with some potential benefits such as oil exploration and bomb detection capabilities.

For years, no military program has sparked more fevered speculation from conspiracy theorists than the mysterious High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP. And for years, the Pentagon has been pooh-poohing speculation that the enormous collection of transmitters, radars, and magnetometers in Alaska was some sort of superweapon.

Click here to read full article

Posted by Ronald at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Seeks Another Spy Institution

A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the United States one of the world's most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement.

Click here to read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2007

The Outcome of Wiretapping

This article is still pertinent and needs to be kept in mind in the face of all the bullshit propaganda from the White House and their authoritarian regime.

Teen Questioned for Online Bush Threats
Sunday, October 15, 2006 5:51 AM EDT
The Associated Press
By DON THOMPSON
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her Web page on MySpace.com. She posted a picture of the president, scrawled "Kill Bush" across the top and drew a dagger stabbing his outstretched hand. She later replaced her page on the social-networking site after learning in her eighth-grade history class that such threats are a federal offense.
It was too late.
Federal authorities had found the page and placed Wilson on their checklist. They finally reached her this week in her molecular biology class.
The 14-year-old freshman was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.
On Friday, the teenager said the agents' questioning led her to tears.
"I wasn't dangerous. I mean, look at what's (stenciled) on my backpack — it's a heart. I'm a very peace-loving person," said Wilson, an honor student who describes herself as politically passionate. "I'm against the war in Iraq. I'm not going to kill the president."
Her mother, Kirstie Wilson, said two agents showed up at the family's home Wednesday afternoon, questioned her and promised to return once her daughter was home from school.
After they left, Kirstie Wilson sent a text message to her daughter's cell phone, telling her to come straight home: "There are two men from the secret service that want to talk with you. Apparently you made some death threats against president bush."
"Are you serious!?!? omg. Am I in a lot of trouble?" her daughter responded.
Moments later, Kirstie Wilson received another text message from her daughter saying agents had pulled her out of class.
Julia Wilson said the agents threatened her by saying she could be sent to juvenile hall for making the threat.
"They yelled at me a lot," she said. "They were unnecessarily mean."
Spokesmen for the Secret Service in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., said they could not comment on the case.
Wilson and her parents said the agents were justified in questioning her over her MySpace.com posting. But they said they believe agents went too far by not waiting until she was out of school.
They also said the agents should have more quickly figured out they weren't dealing with a real danger. Ultimately, the agents told the teen they would delete her investigation file.
Assistant Principal Paul Belluomini said the agents gave him the impression the girl's mother knew they were planning to question her daughter at school. There is no legal requirement that parents be notified.
"This has been an ongoing problem," said Ann Brick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in San Francisco.
Former Govs. Pete Wilson and Gray Davis vetoed bills that would have required that parents give consent or be present when their children are questioned at school by law enforcement officers. A similar bill this year cleared the state Senate but died in the Assembly.
Julia Wilson plans to post a new MySpace.com page, this one devoted to organizing other students to protest the Iraq war.
"I decided today I think I will because it (the questioning) went too far," she said.

Posted by Ronald at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2007

Credit Card Practices: Unfair Interest Rate Increases

Michigan Senator Carl Levin is currently fighting for legislation to make credit card companies responsible citizens of the American community in which it is priviledged to do business in. I hope that his legislation will also include penalizing banks for the outrageous overdraft fees on checking accounts they feel they are entitled to.

Here is a letter received on 12/5/2007 from Senator Levin.

In light of your past correspondence, I thought you might be interested in knowing about a hearing I chaired yesterday entitled “Credit Card Practices: Unfair Interest Rate Increases.” As you may know, this is the second hearing that has been held as part of the ongoing investigation into unfair credit card practices I initiated as the Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Yesterday’s hearing focused on credit card issuers who hike the interest rates of cardholders who play by the rules. These are cardholders who pay on time, pay at least the minimum amount due, and then wake up one day to find their interest rate has gone through the roof because their credit card issuer decided they should be “repriced.” Some credit card companies are foisting interest rates as high as 25% or 30% on responsible consumers, claiming they have become greater credit risks even when those same consumers haven’t missed paying a bill in years. To add insult to injury, credit card issuers apply those higher rates retroactively to consumers’ existing credit card debts, which were incurred when lower interest rates were in effect.

One of the three consumers to testify at the hearing yesterday was Janet Hard, a registered nurse from Freeland, Michigan. She shared her story with the Subcommittee about the Discover card she has had for several years. Although Ms. Hard had paid her Discover bills on time for years, never exceeded her credit limit and always paid at least the minimum amount due, in 2006, Discover increased the interest rate on her card from 18% to 24% out of the blue. The higher interest rate has made it more difficult for Ms. Hard to pay off her debt. Over the last twelve months, Ms. Hard has kept her credit card purchases to less than $100 and has made steady monthly payments of $200 to reduce her debt. At the end of a year, her payments totaled $2,400, but due to the higher interest rate, almost all of her money went to pay for finance charges. In fact, out of her $2,400, about $1,900 went to finance charges and she was only able to pay down her principal debt by only about $350. Further details on this hearing may be found on
my website at: http://www.levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=288160

Credit card companies are currently the only lenders permitted to retroactively change the interest rate on a consumer loan where the consumer has met their borrowing obligations. This unfair credit card practice needs to stop. In May, I introduced the Stop Unfair Practices in Credit Cards Act (S.1395), which would stop credit card interest rate increases except in four circumstances: (1) after the lapse of an introductory interest rate; (2) pursuant to a variable interest rate; (3) pursuant to the application of a previously disclosed penalty interest rate after a cardholder violates the credit card agreement; and (4) where the cardholder agrees in writing to the increase at the time it is proposed. The bill would also prohibit the application of higher interest rates to existing credit card debt. Instead, a higher interest rate could be applied only to credit card debt incurred after the increase took effect. If you would like to learn more about the other provisions included in this legislation, you may access my floor statement and press release at the following link:

http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=274257

Additionally, if you or someone you know would like to share a personal credit card experience with me for my investigation, please send an e-mail to [creditcards@hsgac.senate.gov]. If you would like help with a credit card problem, you may want to contact Consumer Action. Consumer Action is a national, non-profit education and advocacy organization that provides free, non-legal advice and referrals on a number of consumer issues, including credit cards. A complaint may be submitted to the Consumer Action hotline by telephone at: 415-777-9635 or through their online web complaint form at:

http://www.consumer-action.org/hotline/complaint_form/

Sincerely,
Carl Levin

Posted by Ronald at 04:27 AM | Comments (0)

Michigan House to Vote on Bill to Raise Electric Rates $350 Million

Vote "NO" on HB 5220 through 5525
The Michigan House of Representatives is preparing to take up a package of bills that would increase residential electric rates by $350 million and allow elimination of the senior discount by destroying the Michigan Public Service Commission's authority to set rates. It also would allow utilities to bill you for new power plants while they are being built, shifting the risk of cost overruns to the people.

Please call your member of the Michigan House of Representatives and adivse them to vote "NO" on House Bills 5520 through 5525. You can find your representative's contact information here:

http://house.michigan.gov/find_a_rep.asp

Bill Knox
Associate State Director for Government Affairs
wknox@aarp.org
517-267-8917
www.aarp.org/mi

Posted by Ronald at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2007

China is the World's Biggest Polluter and is Unapologetic

Tiny particles of sulfur-laden soot penetrate deep into residents’ lungs, interfering with the absorption of oxygen. Nitrogen oxides from truck exhaust, which build all night because cities limit truck traffic by day, bind each morning with gasoline fumes from China’s growing car fleet to form dense smog that inflames lungs and can cause severe coughing and asthma.

The 10 million trucks on Chinese roads, more than a quarter of all vehicles in this country, are a major reason that China accounts for half the world’s annual increase in oil consumption. Sating their thirst helped push the price of oil to nearly $100 a barrel this year, before a recent decline, and has propelled China past the United States as the world’s largest emitter of global-warming gases.

Read the full article here

This is a great article from the New York Times, especially in light of the recent outrageous and incomprehensible remarks from communist China that the United States was primarily to blame for the global climate change. China also announced it would do nothing to curtail it's own abuse of the world's population by continuing the subhuman practices that have all but destroyed life in its waterways and choked off the air its citizens must breathe. The Chinese allow their own people to wallow in the filth that their own country has created and it shows the brazen audacity of a defiant government that has no regard for the lives of its own countrymen, nor the world at large.

Posted by Ronald at 05:54 AM | Comments (0)

Military Families No Longer Supporting Bush

Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.
Read the full article

Posted by Ronald at 04:32 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2007

The Indomitable Mind of the American Soldier

Veterans of America's wars have paid an enormous psychological and physical toll. It is assumed by many that they have secure health coverage upon returning from duty. I have even heard some say that it was almost worth joining the military simply for the health benefits.

Such remarks are far from the mark of reality. For instance, here is just one of many available stories.

Soldiers' lives are changed irrevocably. They must reacclimate themselves to society, and they must deal with a lot of irresponsible and stupid remarks from others who simply don't agree with war. A soldier doesn't get to choose which wars to fight. They are in service to the country and serve wherever they are sent. I have always been an opponent of the war in Iraq, but my views do not invalidate a soldier's views, and I certainly do not presume any moral authority over anyone else whose views differ from mine.

There is a culture in the armed forces that I first realized when I heard a young soldier answer a newsman's question:

"Why are you volunteering to go back to Iraq when you have already served your country?"

The young man's expression belied his disgust.

"For me, it's not about serving the country so much as it is about the fact my buddies are over there. I don't belong here. I belong over there helping them out."

The statement was the most profound thing I have heard regarding the war because he was telling the rest of us just how it is that a tiny, undermanned, underfunded military could have any success fighting three wars: Afghanistan, Iraq and the one with the American news media.

The indomitable will of the American soldier is beyond comprehension. I still do not condone the war, but I no longer speak about it with the same self righteousness with which I once did. If they were fighting for America's freedom first and firstmost they would've been disillusioned long ago. There is a loyalty to service which would never be applicable to some warm body with a numb mind, fighting for some vague ideological concept like "fighting for our freedom."

Posted by Ronald at 01:36 AM | Comments (0)