![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6852f961-f97e-47ad-958e-02ec349ad126)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9c775e5c-91c8-4747-816e-be9478dc5dfa)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=d5a0ccda-65ee-4faf-9621-cb685fd993e0)
Fans:::Dizzy Sez: The King of Pop is dead, but he left behind a mountain of debt, but I don't really think this is why they are charging. For one, celebrity funerals and memorials are generally spectator sports and logistical nightmares, particularly if they are to be held in a small venue like a chapel. I think it took a lot of foresight for someone to consider that a large venue, for the sake and safety of the fans and other mourners was probably an excellent idea. The venue they have chosen costs a chunk of change to rent, so it's only fair to ask those who insist on showing up to help defray the costs if it's so important for them to see the King of Pop off this mortal coil. On the other hand, it's tacky as hell to sell t-shirts (I'm jus' sayin'...) :::
who wish to attend Michael Jackson's star-studded memorial service
at Staples Center will have to shell out $25 to sit in the stands, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.
Family, friends and VIPS will have seats on the main floor
for The Tuesday, July 7th Staples service, first reported by RadarOnline.com, while the general public will be plucking down $25 to sit in the stands.
The memorial service will feel like a concert production featuring guest speakers, a lot of music and video screens inside and outside of Staples, a source close to the planning tells RadarOnline.com.
Michael Jackson's close friend Elizabeth Taylor is expected to attend, along with Diana Ross.
T-shirts that were going to be sold on Michael's upcoming "This Is It" tour will not go to waste. They will be sold outside Staples to people entering the service.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f903bc57-0c03-42ab-9a95-544904a17ab9)
What is astounding is the New York Times chart which takes politicians out of the mix and breaks it down into the values that the Right espouses: Anti-divorce, anti-porn and anti-teen sex. Well gosh, even with my admittedly and embarrassingly bad math skills, it's clear that eight out of the ten states with highest rates in the categories of divorce, teen pregnancy and online porn usage were states where McCain came out ahead in the 2008 election.:::Dizzy Sez: "Values" are personal and cannot be enforced at the point of a gun. Trying to legislate morality is like trying to change the flow of a river by throwing pebbles into it. We are humans, we make life altering decisions, every day, not all of them very good, but that is the price we pay for being free to make those decisions without government input. Trying to use the law to force people to live life the way YOU want them to live is foolhardy and impossible. The news proves, every day, that even when one can't live openly (sexuality, marital fidelity, self-medication) they will live privately in hopes of never being found out, no matter what their preachers or their families say. It's long overdue for Fundies and their ilk to focus on their own damn families and stop worrying about mine. So long as we are not harming anyone, committing crimes against anyone, it's nobody's business what we do. :::
Obviously an America with "traditional family values" is a Utopian ideal for some, but one which their party can't create or enforce--especially when the party has leaders who are just as human as their constituents. Maybe it's time to take "morality" out of the electoral equation and focus on the Utopian ideals of affordable health care, equal rights, sex education and realistic pregnancy prevention, living wages, and our Constitution.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e2ccc424-5f34-47c5-b2d4-2386cab9729b)
A federal judge has tentatively thrown out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committing suicide.:::Dizzy Sez: I understand where the judge is coming from, but it's a shame that this woman will likely not pay for the cruel hoax she played on a naive and susceptible young girl. :::
U.S. District Judge George Wu on Thursday said he was acquitting Lori Drew of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization but stressed the ruling was tentative until he issues it in writing. He noted the case of a judge who changed his mind after ruling.
Drew showed no reaction to the decision.
She was convicted in November, but the judge said that if she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site's terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor. That would be unconstitutional, he said.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f689594f-5c20-43f6-966d-7ae32a7bf005)
Ring ring ka-ching.:::Dizzy Sez: I understand the need to protect one's creations and to get credit for such and I understand the desire to not have others profit from all of your hard work. But, the music industry, including the RIAA and ASCAP, are quickly making themselves irrelevant with this desire to squeeze every last dime out of consumers that they think they can. I have had many discussions with my teenage son, who is a musician, and have noticed the advent of the rising (independent) star on sites such as MySpace and it's not looking good for the old-school formula music industry. Access to computers for millions of musicians also brings access to programs to make, produce, promote, and even distribute one's own music, cutting out the music industry, entirely. Just like the internet and blogging brought the advent of the citizen journalist, the internet is bringing about the advent of the independent musician who is willing to take his music straight to his audience (and profit from it, as well). That means less money all around for the old-school music industry and thus we are seeing their desperation to hold on to what monies they can squeeze out of the rest of us. Sure, it will be several more years before we see such organizations die out, as there will always be people who rely on them to get rich (or rich-ish) and famous, if only for one album (when they figure out these orgs do not have their best interests at heart). :::
If the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) gets its way, phone carriers will have to pay more money every time a customized cell phone rings in public—which ASCAP, a fierce non-profit defender of performers’ rights—claims is copyright violation.
In a press release, the civil liberties advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urges a federal court to reject ASCAP’s “bogus” claims, warning that the royalty fight “could raise costs for consumers, jeopardize consumer rights, and curtail new technological innovation.”
Musical ringtones have been popular for as long as cell phones have been personally customized. Song owners get royalty payments from cell phone carriers for the right to sell clips of their tunes to customers.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6c7da92f-732e-4260-a9d4-e38e49012062)
When we spoke to a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, she said too much was being made of the difference between the so-called "long" and "short" forms.:::Dizzy Sez:
"They're just words," said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. "That (what was posted on the Internet) is considered a birth certificate from the State of Hawaii."
"There's only one form of birth certificate," she said, and it's been the same since the 1980s. Birth certificates evolve over the decades, she said, and there are no doubt differences between the way birth certificates looked when Obama was born and now.
"When you request a birth certificate, the one you get looks exactly like the one posted on his site," she said. "That's the birth certificate."
As for the theory that Obama's original birth certificate might show he was foreign born, Okubo said the "Certification of Live Birth" would say so. Obama's does not. Again, it says he was born in Honolulu.
***snip***
In researching the story, he went to the microfilm archives and found the birth announcement for Obama. Actually, he found two of them, one in his Honululu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961, and in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin the next day. They both said the same thing: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug. 4."
But here's the thing. Newspaper officials he checked with confirmed those notices came from the state Department of Health.
"That's not the kind of stuff a family member calls in and says, 'Hey, can you put this in?'" Hoover explained.
Take a second and think about that. In order to phony those notices up, it would have required the complicity of the state health department and two independent newspapers - on the off chance this unnamed child might want to one day be president of the United States.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4fd1c07b-b733-4ef1-8910-f008eba66d87)
Behold, the ongoing, increasingly startling research: homosexual and bisexual behavior, it turns out, is rampant in the animal kingdom. And by rampant, I mean proving to be damn near universal, commonplace across all species everywhere, existing for myriad reasons ranging from pure survival and procreative influence, right on over to pure pleasure, co-parenting, giddy screeching multiple monkey orgasm, even love, and a few dozen other potential explanations science hasn't quite figured out yet. Imagine.:::Dizzy Sez: I think this just proves one of two things. Either God is completely made up to make some people feel better about the uncertainties of life (I vote for this one) or God has a completely twisted sense of humor (you humans aren't allowed to be gay, but watch as the non-human species have all the gay sex they can handle). Fundie heads will explode in 3...2...1...:::
Are you thinking, why sure, everyone knows about those sex-crazed dolphins and those superslut bonobo monkeys and the few other godless creatures like them, the sea turtles and the weird sheep and such, creatures who obviously haven't read Leviticus. But that's about it, right? Most animals are devoutly hetero and straight and damn happy about it, right?
Wrong.
New research is revealing so many creatures and species that exhibit homosexual/bisexual behavior of some kind, scientists are now saying there are actually very few, if any, species in existence that don't exhibit it in some way. It's everywhere: Bison. Giraffes. Ducks. Hyenas. Lions and lambs, lizards and dragonflies, polecats and elephants. Hetero sex. Anal sex. Partner swapping. The works.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0129847e-9709-40c7-a64f-3d9e71a54ef6)
Next week, direct-response marketing juggernaut Telebrands will roll out a new ad campaign for Jupiter Jack, a tiny gadget intended to turn your car radio into a giant cell phone speakerphone. The star of the spot is recently deceased pitchman Billy Mays.:::Dizzy Sez: So long as he stays on my TV & doesn't reach out to eat my brains, I say more power to the people who wish to eek out every last advertising dollar out of dear departed Billy. That's the American way, isn't it? :::
Why run the spot? For starters, both Telebrands and the Mays family know that Billy would have wanted it that way.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=43634cae-fa7e-40a8-876c-aac8457a4147)
The new Obama talking points don't even include DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell as priorities any longer.:::Dizzy Sez: I'm beginning to feel like a broken record...In the hope and desire to vote for someone who wasn't GWB and who wasn't an old fart like John McCain, Americans voted for the guy who seemed more intelligent and who seemed like he really had his finger on the pulse of what the American people were craving. Many thought they were voting for the guy who would end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, end torture and close Guantanamo Bay, support gay marriage and/or at least end the DOMA and DADT. Six months in, we are finding that the "new boss, same as the old boss" and we are shocked, just shocked that a politician lied (and thus suckered Americans to vote for him: SURPRISE!) to get elected. Personally, I was willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, give him room to show us what he is made of. It appears that he is made of the same stuff that most (if not all) politicians are made of and it smells an awful lot like what my cats hide in their litterbox. :::
President Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, who is himself openly gay, penned a piece for the Huffington Post yesterday that delineates the three "gay" priorities that Congress should focus on: safe schools; hate crimes; and ENDA.
After two weeks of the Obama White House reeling over the gay backlash caused by the anti-gay DOMA brief, which compared gay marriage to incest and pedophilia, we now have the number two guy on the Obama campaign suddenly writing about what our legislative priorities should be. Don't think for a minute that this essay wasn't either written by the White House, written at their behest, or at the very least cleared with them. This essay is the White House's thinking on gay issues.
And what is that thinking? First, that the burden for doing anything pro-gay in the remaining three and a half years of the Obama administration is now shifted to Congress. Obama has no role whatsoever, and no power to influence anything, even though he's still the leader of the free world. The essay makes clear that the onus is on Congress and no one else.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4baacf83-14df-4c47-90e3-4d6599abfdaa)
Colorado voters in 2008 trounced an amendment that would have defined a fertilized human egg as a person, but supporters of the "personhood" ballot issue are angling for a rematch in 2010.Dizzy Sez: This amendment was brought down in flames in November and yet these people persist in trying to find ways to make abortion illegal. Blaming the flame-out on the fact that obviously voters "visualized chicken eggs" is basically calling the voters "idiots"..."too dumb to know what they were voting against". A woman's "fertilized egg" is no more a person than the eggs I had with my toast this morning are baby chicks. Trying to trick voters into voting that a zygote is a person is just another insult to the intelligence of Colorado voters. :::
This time, though, they're avoiding the word "fertilization" in the amendment's language, saying that the term confused voters, who may have visualized chicken eggs.
"When we use 'fertilized egg,' it's a pejorative," said Keith Mason, director of Personhood USA, an Arvada-based organization supporting the measure and similar proposals across the country.
Supporters today gathered outside the state Capitol to announce that they had filed language for the proposed Colorado Personhood Constitutional Amendment with the Legislative Council, the first step in getting an initiative petition approved for circulation to place it on the November 2010 ballot.
The amendment would say that "the term 'person' shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being."
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a1a2fbe3-d24c-44d4-9821-66ae76a44b9a)
There are few, if any, Christian churches or organizations I would give money to these days — I’ve been involved in a number of them, and I saw how the money gets spent. It’s amazing how much money people make and spend doing “the good Lord’s work.”:::Dizzy Sez: People who have followed this blog for years know that this post reflects my own feelings about doing business with people who use their Christian faith as promotional tool for their business. I have experience working for businesses that use Christianity as their main selling point and I witnessed some very un-Christian business practices in all of them. I was even ripped off by one of them. I don't need stories like this to keep me from doing business with such organizations, I have personal experience which turns me off from participating or giving my money to such businesses. In general, if religion is a business' biggest selling point, I stay away, although I am not averse to doing business with individuals who personally profess to be religious. :::
And then there’s fraud. For example, a pastor and his three sons are facing charges for preying on church members:
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=720f8ce2-3843-4453-b769-a1d243c2f831)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=82f4f4a3-ea9e-4b12-be08-0b7e696196b7)
On the first day that unmarried couples could enter into a legal contract that gives them many of the rights that used to be reserved for married couples, only 21 Denver and Boulder County couples enrolled.:::Dizzy Sez: OK, so it's not "marriage" or even "civil unions", but it's a start. Nothing would please me more than to live in a society where everyone just minded their own business and let others live as they pleased, making laws like this, unnecessary. Alas, we do not, and it's good to see that in a state where they once made it legal to discriminate against people who were gay, they did something to help all unmarried couples find a way to be there for one another when otherwise they may not have the privilege. :::
These "designated beneficiary agreements" give unmarried couples — gay or straight — hospital visitation rights, the right to make medical decisions for each other and an easy way to designate each other as beneficiaries in their wills and life-insurance plans.
The agreements were established by a bill signed by Gov. Bill Ritter in April that went into effect Wednesday.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=252a555b-09b4-452d-93fb-f70c4253a984)
On May 1st at Fort Hood in central Texas, Specialist Victor Agosto wrote on a counseling statement, which is actually a punitive U.S. Army memo::::Dizzy Sez: Despite the reports that the Army is meeting its recruiting demands and reportedly, reenlistments are up, there are still quite a few soldiers who are starting to find the courage to say "NO". No to more deployments to either Iraq or Afghanistan. No to killing those who it has long been proven never did anything to harm this country or its citizens. No to fighting in immoral wars to line the pockets of lobbyists who get politicians to parrot their desires in the form of renewed contracts despite harming civilians and soldiers in war zones (read my lip: K-B-R). There are not a lot of soldiers that have the courage to actually speak up on their own behalf on behalf of others, publicly, at least. Sadly, many just turn to drugs and alcohol, commit suicide or commit other crimes (rapes, murders). Some even go so far as to "confess" that they are gay, even going to the trouble of getting "caught" in the act so that someone will report them and thus have them drummed out of the Army under DADT (I could tell you some extraordinary stories soldiers have told to me of their attempts to get kicked out so that they did not have to deploy again--or at all). I generally do not tell soldiers that I meet my personal feelings about Iraq or Afghanistan. My job as an entertainer is to help them find a place to wind down. But, I often can't resist giving those who manage to find a way out, ethically, a pat on the back for finding a way to resist doing what they feel is wrong. My oldest son is now 19 and as a military family we get lectured a lot about why he "should" join the Army. When I explain to people that he's not ready to go to war, I sometimes get some pithy comments in return. They think that it is me keeping my son from signing up, that he's a "mama's boy". Though that may be true, he decided before he was 18 that the military was not for him, who am I to encourage him otherwise, war or no war? :::
"There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect."
Ten days later, he refused to obey a direct order from his company commander to prepare to deploy and was issued a second counseling statement. On that one he wrote, "I will not obey any orders I deem to be immoral or illegal." Shortly thereafter, he told a reporter, "I'm not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong. It's a matter of what I'm willing to live with."
Agosto had already served in Iraq for 13 months with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. Currently on active duty at Fort Hood, he admits, "It was in Iraq that I turned against the occupations. I started to feel very guilty. I watched contractors making obscene amounts of money. I found no evidence that the occupation was in any way helping the people of Iraq. I know I contributed to death and human suffering. It's hard to quantify how much I caused, but I know I contributed to it."
Even though he was approaching the end of his military service, Agosto was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan under the stop-loss program that the Department of Defense uses to retain soldiers beyond the term of their contracts. At least 185,000 troops have been stop-lossed since September 11, 2001.
Agosto betrays no ambivalence about his willingness to face the consequences of his actions:
"Yes, I'm fully prepared for this. I have concluded that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] are not going to be ended by politicians or people at the top. They're not responsive to people, they're responsive to corporate America. The only way to make them responsive to the needs of the people is for soldiers to not fight their wars. If soldiers won't fight their wars, the wars won't happen. I hope I'm setting an example for other soldiers."
Today, Agosto's remains a relatively isolated act in an all-volunteer military built to avoid the dissent that, in the Vietnam era, came to be associated with an army of draftees. However, it's an example that may, soon enough, have far greater meaning for an increasingly overstretched military plunging into an expanding Afghan War seemingly without end, even as its war in Iraq continues.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1ebb84da-872e-49e7-9d69-3b29fa6e69ed)
The decline in contraceptive use may cheer those who have promoted faith-inspired school curriculums that refuse to even mention birth control and, in some cases, specifically emphasize that condoms can fail. True enough.:::Dizzy Sez: Funny how politicians and blowhards who can't keep it in their own pants (and they're "mature" adults) expect teenagers (with raging hormones and wits to match) to keep their hands to themselves "until marriage". Benjamin Franklin famously said that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." In the context of abstinence, sure, keeping your hands to yourself will "prevent" pregnancy, but it's ridiculous to think that teenagers are always going to do the right thing when it comes keeping it in their pants when their hormones are telling them that they just can't wait. In this blogger's opinion, it makes more sense to teach young people to "prevent" pregnancy if they can't prevent their hormones from over-ruling their senses. That is to say, a $12 box of condoms for a couple hours of "fun" is worth not having to deal with a 6-lbs baby for a lifetime. Jus' sayin'...:::
But now we have sad and clear evidence that political foolishness among adults is leading to foolish and harmful behavior among kids. Who could reasonably want more teen pregnancies, more abortions among teenagers, more unmarried mothers, more babies born with greater health risks and with the sorely limited economic prospects that burden the children of young, single mothers? No one would dare promote such a policy. Yet these are the results of our recent national sex-education policy, which was based on religious faith, not science, and put political gamesmanship ahead of public health.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=092c0349-22d4-417d-a162-f432b4526094)
A study funded by the Justice Department concludes that over time accused robbers, burglars and batterers pose no greater risk to employers than job candidates in the general population.:::Dizzy Sez: I do believe that everyone deserves a second chance, particularly those people who were very young when they were originally convicted. It seems to me that a common reason for recidivism is because very few employers are willing to give ex-convicts a second chance to prove they can be an asset to their organization and thus productive members of society. We have all been beaten about the head and face with the idea that once a bad person, always a bad person. But, I know from personal experience that sometimes sh!t happens, sometimes you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, as a young person, you are being influenced by the wrong people and the thought that you are immortal or can't get caught is a wonderful fantasy. To be fair to businesses, they are trying to protect their bottom line, their pockets. The question then becomes WHEN do you give a person a second chance to prove their worth or do you always have to be prejudiced against those who have committed crimes in the past (no matter how distant)? :::
In a review of 88,000 arrestees in New York state, Carnegie Mellon University investigators found, for example, that after about 7 1/2 years the "hazard rate" for an 18-year-old first-time arrestee for robbery declined to the same rate as an 18-year-old in the general population. For 18-year-olds arrested for aggravated assault, it took about four years to reduce the risk.
Hazard rates are calculated based on the time the suspect remains free from re-arrest. The calculation also accounts for the fact that risk of arrest generally declines with age.
"We believe that our analysis provides the criminal justice community with the first scientific method for estimating how long is long enough for someone with a prior record" to no longer be considered a special risk, according to the study authored by Carnegie Mellon criminologist Alfred Blumstein.
Blumstein and other criminal justice analysts say the ongoing research could ease employers' concerns about hiring former offenders and perhaps spark new legislative proposals to limit the liability for employers who do hire them.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9e7281a4-dbce-4338-9dbd-3e67794d592b)
The smoking cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban must now carry a boxed warning the strongest type possible about the risk of serious mental health problems, including depression, behavior changes and suicidal thoughts, the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.:::Dizzy Sez: Yeah, when a drug's side-effect is SEVERE nicotine withdrawal, such that you would hurt yourself or another person, I'd say it definitely requires a warning label. Sure, smoking kills, but the cure could kill you, too. :::
These have occurred in people with and without underlying psychiatric illnesses as well as those still smoking, Curt Rosebraugh, head of the FDA office that approved the stop-smoking drugs, said at a news conference. The symptoms linked to the drugs resemble those of nicotine withdrawal.
Rosebraugh emphasized that such events appear to be rare and that for many people, the drugs' benefits outweigh their risks. "The health benefits of quitting smoking are immediate and substantial," he said.
Besides the immediate labeling change, the FDA is requiring the drugs' makers to conduct a clinical trial to determine how often serious psychiatric symptoms occur in people using them. Earlier clinical trials didn't uncover a potential psychiatric risk, Rosebraugh said, but "they weren't specifically looking for it."
The FDA decided to require the boxed warning after reviewing voluntary adverse-event reports for stop-smoking products, Rosebraugh said.
Chantix was approved in May 2006. In September 2007, a "bizarre" Texas case spurred the FDA to look at adverse-event reports, Rosebraugh said, referring to musician Carter Albrecht, 34, whose girlfriend blamed Chantix for the abnormal violent behavior that led to his shooting death.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e0129251-88c8-4466-8b12-e13969726a68)
Chemotherapy drugs used in standard cancer treatments are associated with a huge list of side effects, from hair loss and nausea to nerve pain, sexual problems and mouth sores. Now a new study from the Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports (RADAR) pharmacovigilance program at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has identified another side effect caused by a commonly used chemotherapy drug -- death.:::Dizzy Sez: Wow. I guess a lot of us don't really think about when a friend or a loved one dies following a bout with cancer, we just assume it was the cancer that got them, not the cure. But the more familiar that I get with drug companies, their policies, and the way they palm off drugs in order to make their research money back, this finding does not surprise me, but it makes me even more concerned about my health and that of my family and those close to me. Are we really getting the best medicine or has some flaky drug company convinced your doctor that some understudied drug with hidden and very nasty side-affects is the best drug for you to take? Do we really have "choices" anymore when it comes to our medical care? Kind of creepy to think about. Kind of creepy to think that we are a world of guinea pigs at the mercy of big pharma.:::
A startling number of women have died from a severe allergic reaction after being injected with Cremophor-based paclitaxel, a solvent-administered taxane chemotherapy. What makes this extra tragic is that the researchers found some of the dead women had already been treated for early stage breast cancer and could well have been cured -- if the chemo prescribed to prevent a theoretical recurrence of cancer in the future had not killed them.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=93776d00-2585-4d8c-b726-ef2d23ed5288)
Alicia Seymour has been answering 911 calls in Colorado Springs for 10 years.:::Dizzy Sez: Lest we forget, what constitutes an emergency for some people does not rise to the level of "emergency" for most people. In general, most people aren't prosecuted for wasteful 911 call, but if you are a habitual nuisance caller, you could get tossed in the slammer. :::
"Up here we say, now I've heard it all. Then we get the one that tops it," explains Seymour. "A lot of the stuff we get is really not suitable for the news time hour. How do we say that? We get some pretty fun stuff."
Cash-strapped homeowners are trying to cut costs by replacing the kitchen floor or fixing a pipe themselves rather than hiring a contractor. But some are ending up with a trip to the emergency room instead.:::Dizzy Sez: I can understand the motivation and even the need to go all DIY on your home (I recently built my own stereo cabinet for my business, because I couldn't find one that met my needs online or in the stores), but you should probably do a cost-benefit analysis before going head-long into any DIY project, these days. Basically, you gotta ask yourself, is the money you are saving on a real plumber going to cover the costs of your injuries or the damage from your incompetence? If the cost will be negligible (no more than stubbing your toe), then it's probably no big deal. But, if the costs to be considered include you maybe falling off the roof? You might want to call in a professional. I'm jus' sayin'... :::
Nick Jouriles, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, says he has seen an increase in injuries from do-it-yourself projects in the past year, and he says it's probably the result of homeowners trying to save money in a struggling economy.
A Florida medical examiner says television pitchman Billy Mays likely died of a heart attack but further tests are needed.:::Dizzy Sez: I know he was a snake-oil salesman of sorts, but what a salesman! I usually tried whatever he was hawking, at least, once. Some things I still use a decade later, other things, not so much, but his legacy will live on in kitchens and laundry rooms for years to come. :::
Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams said Monday the boisterous, bearded 50-year-old known for hawking Oxiclean suffered from hypertensive heart disease. He was found dead Sunday in his Tampa home. A day earlier he bumped his head during a rough landing on a commercial airliner, but Adams says there there was no evidence of head trauma.
The words "uneducated" and "unemployed" share more than a prefix. U.S. Labor Department statistics show that while the nation's overall jobless rate rose last month to 9.4 percent (the highest since 1983), it was a staggering 15.5 percent among those who haven't completed high school - and a mere 4.8 percent among those with four-year college degrees.:::Dizzy Sez: A college education can be a boon to keeping your job, but it may also be a detriment to finding a new one if you do get the boot (been there, done that...). A degree is also no guarantee of success (we'll discuss this momentarily). :::
You don't need a college education to detect this indisputable lesson of those numbers: The more educated you are, the less vulnerable you are to recession-related job loss.
Well, it's over.:::Dizzy Sez: Yep...how's that for change? Smells like the same old bull, to me. :::
The President gave his speech to the big gay A-listers at the White House (well, minus those who were blacklisted). Boy, that crowd was really into it. They clapped wildly when he said the words, "gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender." Just because he said the words. Even though Bill Clinton said those words - what? - 17 years ago?
Also, your president wants you to know that unjust laws must be overturned. Some day. The crowd loved that one too. One might forget that the Obama administration defended the Defense of Marriage Act law recently. They not only defended it, they defended it in a way that demeaned and mocked same-sex marriages by invoking incest and pedophilia. But never mind.
Obama also told us that some would deny us full equality. Um, that would include him. He doesn't support marriage equality -- and his words are being used against our efforts to achieve those rights. But again, never mind.
The President tells us that he's looking for a "practical" solution to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. (We've also heard the solution has to be "durable" or "sustainable.") But, it has to be an Act of Congress. It really really really really has to be an Act of Congress and not a stop-loss order that could achieve the same thing by executive order immediately. It's too bad that in the meantime two gay service men and women are kicked out every day. But hey, we're a nation at war. And, for some reason it means that we should have fewer, and not more, Arabic linguists. See, we're going to continue to ruin the lives of people who want to serve their nation, but, in the long run, that's okay. Because we're perpetually at war. But, someday we'll have a "practical" or "durable" or "sustainable" solution. Although, it is funny how how "practical" and "durable" and "sustainable" weren't talking points on DADT during the campaign. (Search for those terms in Senator Obama's Statement on Don't Ask Don't Tell from November 2007.) They sure are now that Obama is dragging his feet on every major campaign promise to the gay community.
American adults from young to old disagree increasingly today on social values ranging from religion to relationships, creating the largest generation gap since divisions 40 years ago over Vietnam, civil rights and women's liberation.:::Dizzy Sez: Our kids are increasingly more knowledgeable about the things that in another time, they would have relied on us, their parents, to show them. News goes and comes around quicker than it once did, so it's easier and quicker to educate oneself than it was 40 years ago. So, there is little, if no, reason to be "set in your ways" when there are so many avenues to open your mind, that weren't there when we were our kids' age. But, as happens in any generation, we get tired of the rat race and get frustrated seeing our children make the same mistakes that we made. We throw our hands up in frustration and remain frozen in time, refusing to let go of the past that was so good to us (forgetting that our own parents thought that we too were misguided and mistake prone). :::
A survey being released today by the Pew Research Center highlights a widening age divide after last November's election, when 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Democrat Barack Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio.
Almost 8 in 10 people believe there is a major difference in the point of view of younger people and older people today, according to the independent public-opinion research group. That is the highest spread since 1969, when about 74 percent reported major differences in an era of generational conflicts over the Vietnam War and civil and women's rights.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday a sample of raw cookie dough collected at a Nestle USA manufacturing plant last week has tested positive for E. coli.:::Dizzy Sez: Scratching my head wondering how E.coli got into cookie dough...salmonella, yes (eggs), but never considered E.coli a risk...ick. :::
Nestle voluntarily recalled all Toll House refrigerated cookie dough products made at the Danville, Va., factory earlier this month after the FDA told Nestle it suspected consumers may have been exposed to E. coli bacteria after eating the dough raw.
South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford announced two great epiphanies today ... why he should not resign (gosh, we thought he was going to) and why his fellow South Carolina Republicans would not cooperate with him the last few years (no, it's not what you think).:::Dizzy Sez: Excuse me...I'm still laughing. I'm sure I have something intelligent to say, but right now, the tears of laughter are streaming down my face...just let me catch my breath... :::
In a message posted on his website and put up on Facebook, Governor Mark Sanford, Chief Carolina Moralist (Retired) had these enlightened things to say:
1. God wants Sanford to remain governor: "Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign -- as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword ... [but] for God to really work in my life I shouldn't be getting off so lightly."
2. That woman is the reason Sanford's own Republicans turned against him over the last several years (not weeks) ago: "I may well have held the right position on limited government, spending or taxes -- but that if my spirit wasn't right in the presentation of those ideas to people in the General Assembly, or elsewhere, I could elicit the response that I had at many times indeed gotten from other state leaders."
A rallying cry can be heard across the country, from the swanky streets of New York's SoHo to the tiny town of Randolph, Kan.: "Save our post office!":::Dizzy Sez: Pretty soon we won't have anything but the free market option available when it comes to our postal needs... :::
As the United States Postal Service, weighed down by a crippling multibillion-dollar deficit, shrinks its operations, post offices across the country are on the chopping block. Each year, hundreds of postal operations shutter, but this coming fall could be the single biggest consolidation in Postal Service history.
Over the next three months, more than 3,200 post offices and retail outlets -- out of 34,000 -- will be reviewed for possible closure or consolidation.
The four-year college degree has come to cost too much and prove too little. It's now a bad deal for the average student, family, employer, professor and taxpayer.:::Dizzy Sez: I see the point in this article. I went to college for three years and all I got for my troubles was a worthless piece of paper and not a single job based on that college degree. No, not one. First, I was over-qualified for some start-up jobs and then I was under-qualified for other jobs. Eventually, I hopped from two lay-offs to eventually create my own job opportunities because my degree didn't mean squat. On the other hand, my college attendance taught me a lot of things I would have not otherwise been familiar with such as marketing, economics, accounting, and public speaking and those things have helped me greatly in my private ventures. It took me 10 years to pay off my student loans...and only because I took out the bare minimum when I qualified for more. I don't harp on my kids about going to college, like some might. I don't believe college is for everybody and in fact, some people benefit more from learning a skill (like plumbing or computer programming...as taught in a vocational school) rather than a career-set (like business management or business technology management...as taught on college campuses). :::
A student who secures a degree is increasingly unlikely to make up its cost, despite higher pay, and the employer who requires a degree puts faith in a system whose standards are slipping. Too many professors who are bound to degree teaching can't truly profess; they don't proclaim loudly the things they know but instead whisper them to a chosen few, whom they must then accommodate with inflated grades. Worst of all, bright citizens spend their lives not knowing the things they ought to know, because they've been granted liberal-arts degrees for something far short of a liberal-arts education.
I'm not arguing against higher learning but for it -- and against the degree system that stands in its way.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=6b874e65-aa00-4d28-9800-833b9f81de83)
Posts
All Comments
yes- i think that our fallen brothers and sisters would be shocked to learn that we, the people, asked so much of them- and have given so little in return.--betmo, life's journey
