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POPSWill Tone of MSNBC Change w/Comcast Merger? I have a pretty basic Comcast package and ever since I heard people complaining that they removed the MEssNBC, I found it up on stn.#128, away from the more "regular" channels, so I'd advise one to scan their sets, you may still have it. (I can't believe I'm helping anyone find the thing;-) Anyway, I think it would be too obvious for Comcast to make it any more scarce. Maybe it's just as well to keep those nutjobs (Olbermann, Matthews, Maddow,etc.) all in one place where they think they've really got something goin' on. Otherwise who knows what kind of hell they'd raise with their whining.
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POPS800,000 Americans Busted Annually for Pot
They argue the drug war “is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will,” because * it diverts hundreds of thousands of police agents from serious crimes “to the pursuit of harmless tokers”; * it costs taxpayers at minimum $10 billion a year to catch, prosecute, and incarcerate marijuana users and sellers; * it enables government to snatch the cars, money, computers and other properties of people caught up in drug raids even if they have had no charges filed against them; and * it allows “police agents at all levels to trample our Bill of Rights in their eagerness to nab pot consumers.” The drug war has also unleashed a torrent of racism in the form of unjust sentencing, which confines crack-cocaine users who are mostly black to prison for longer terms than powder snorters, who are mostly white. Hightower and Frazer say authorities have perverted the infamous “Patriot Act” of 2001 for use in non-terrorism cases, allowing “sneak-and-peak” search warra
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POPSMagicShovels Allows You to Buy Twitter Followers As Twitter continues it’s rise in the world of social media, companies are scrambling for ways to reach consumers through the micro-blogging service. Marketing firms like MagicShovels are responding by offering a paid service that sells targeted Twitter followers to companies and individuals.
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POPS Uncle Sam’s Collections Continue Their Steep Drop It is ironic to say the least that Congress and the Obama administration are glorifying the idea of a “public option” that would ultimately lead to government-run health care while Treasury receipts continue to shrink. If the private health insurance market disappears, so will its taxes. To name just one example, Aetna’s recorded income tax expense on its financial statements for 2005-2008 (including state and local taxes) averaged roughly $900 million per year. Put the company’s health insurance segment out of business, and a large portion of those taxes would stop coming in, digging the country’s and various states’ debt holes that much deeper. The establishment press has paid very little attention to fiscal 2009’s drop of 19.5% in receipts from economic activity, so I expect similar treatment of October’s continuation of the trend. It would appear that they don’t want any unsettling news getting in the way of the statist agenda.
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POPSHouse passes health care bill FTA: The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide federal subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford it. Large companies would have to offer coverage to their employees. Both consumers and companies would be slapped with penalties if they defied the government's mandates. Insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions would be banned, and insurers would no longer be able to charge higher premiums on the basis of gender or medical history. In a further slap, the industry would lose its exemption from federal antitrust restrictions on price gouging, bid rigging and market allocation.
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POPSIs the Economy Recovering? The Curious Case of 1920 vs. 1929
The basic questions we need to ask here are: 1. Why do economies recover? 2. Are we recovering? Q. Why do economies recover? A. They recover because bad investments made during the bubble are liquidated, valuable capital is no longer being wasted on them, new capital is formed from savings, and profitable enterprises attract new capital to expand. Low real interest rates caused by increased savings encourage borrowing, manufacturers use the capital to make new machines, producers of consumer goods buy them, cash goes through the system, consumers see things are getting better, more consumer goods are produced, and consumers buy them. It has to happen this way or the recovery will fail. The difficult part of a recovery is ugly. Bankrupt firms need to fail so that valuable capital resources are not wasted on their continuing activities. This means that unemployment rises (10.2% now) and business bankruptcies are high. Trillions of dollars of asset values are wiped out.
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POPSConsumer Reports finds BPA in most canned foods More: …our findings are notable because they indicate the extent of potential exposure: Consumers eating just one serving of the canned vegetable soup we tested would get about double what the FDA now considers typical average dietary daily exposure… A 165-pound adult eating one serving of canned green beans from our sample, which averaged 123.5 ppb, could ingest about 0.2 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight per day, about 80 times higher than our experts' recommended daily upper limit. And children eating multiple servings per day of canned foods with BPA levels comparable to the ones we found in some tested products could get a dose of BPA approaching levels that have caused adverse effects in several animal studies… Drinking three servings per day of canned apple juice with BPA levels comparable to the levels found in our samples could result in a dose of BPA that is more than our experts' daily upper limit.
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POPSThe Root of Much of What Ails Our Health-Care System ~ “Third-Party-Payer Problem” to create impenetrable bureaucratic barriers between you and their money. There’s a reason why claims forms are so complicated.... There is much to lament about that system, and real reform is needed. A meaningful body of reforms would do three things: 1) establish a real market for health-care services and health insurance, one that is fiercely competitive and driven by consumers who are not beholden to their employers, the government, or any concern other than their own needs; 2) take intelligent steps to reduce the expense of health care and health insurance, and the bureaucracy attached to them; 3) offer intelligently designed support for the poor, the sick, and other vulnerable participants in the market. Here are ten things that would go a long way toward getting that done: 1) Insurance Choice. 2) Real Competition: A National Market for Health Insurance. 3) Price Transparency. 4) High Ceilings for HSAs (and No Taxes). 5) Insurance on Your Insuran
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POPSIllegal downloaders 'spend the most on music', says poll "The latest approach from the Government will not help prop up an ailing music industry. Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed, and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access," said Peter Bradwell, from the think-tank Demos, which commissioned the new poll conducted by Ipsos Mori.
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POPSPublic Health Plan Covers FEW
"The public option is a significant issue, but its place in the debate is completely out of proportion to its actual importance to consumers," said Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "It has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and diverted attention from bread-and-butter consumer issues, such as affordable coverage and comprehensive benefits." The Democratic health care bills would extend coverage to the uninsured by providing government help with premiums and prohibiting insurers from excluding people in poor health or charging them more. But to keep from piling more on the federal deficit, most of the uninsured will have to wait until 2013 for help. Even then, many will have to pay a significant share of their own health care costs. The latest look at the public option comes from the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan economic analysts for lawmakers. It found that the scaled back government plan in the House bill wouldn't overtake
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POPSCan you hear me now???? I had a former employee call me earlier today inquiring about a job, and at the end of the conversation he gave me his phone number. I asked the former employee if this was a new cell phone number and he told me yes this was his “Obama phone.” I asked him what an “Obama phone” was and he went on to say that welfare recipients are now eligible to receive (1) a FREE new phone and (2) approx 70 minutes of FREE minutes every month. I was a little skeptical so I Googled it and low and behold he was telling the truth. TAX PAYER MONEY IS BEING REDISTRIBUTED TO WELFARE RECIPIENTS FOR FREE CELL PHONES. This program was started earlier this year. Enough is enough, the ship is sinking and it’s sinking fast. The very foundations that this country was built on are being shaken.. The age old concepts of God, family, and hard work have flown out the window and are being replaced with “Hope and Change” and “Change we can believe in.”
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POPSWalmart Caskets: Buy Your Final Resting Place Online If you are going to buy one of these things it would be a good idea to find out who makes it (is it American made or did it come from China). You wouldn’t want it to fall apart on you. Not that you would know. Which invites shoddy workmanship, because after all it only needs to hold together until it’s in the ground. Alternative burial: http://www.thechicecologist.com/2009/01/green-funerals-and-eco-burials-a-renewal-to-the-earth/ And http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eco-afterlife-green-buria
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POPSU.K. Economic Contraction Is Longest on Record The British economy has now contracted for six successive quarters, making this the longest downturn since the agency started its data series in 1955. And it is starting to further lag behind the 16-member euro area, where France and Germany are contributing to broad improvements in manufacturing, services and consumer demand. Jean-Michel Six, chief European economist at Standard & Poor’s, said the divergence appeared to stem from the higher level of consumer indebtedness in Britain. “U.K. consumers are coming out of a period of very significant leveraging, and the process of unwinding that is long and painful,” he said. “You would expect savings rates to grow and credit demand to fall, weighing on the economy.” Meanwhile, German business confidence in October rose to its highest level in 13 months, according to the Ifo economic research institute in Munich.
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POPS Examples Of What Not To Do at The Heartland Institute. "Not only has it failed to cover many people, but all the false promises surrounding it have distracted Maine from doing anything that would actually help improve the situation." 'Costly, Ineffective Failure' "Maine has one of the highest state and local tax burdens. We should not be adding more taxes for this boondoggle, particularly at a time when Maine families are struggling with record high gas and heating oil prices and an uncertain economy." Past a 'Train Wreck' John Garven, president-elect of the Illinois State Association of Health Underwriters, concurs. "Dirigo is the more 'mature' of the * two programs, and it is already past the train wreck stage ." * Massachusetts 'universal health care' schemes Maine Residents Angered by Expansion of Dirigo Program Subsidy
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POPSNew Camera Promises To Capture Your Whole Life A SenseCam-like device could be part of an artificial memory used by ordinary people, just as they use notebooks and planners as memory aids today. Geepers. They make it sound all cool and dandy, but you'd not only be logging your life, but everyone else's too. I'm not really keen on the idea of having my picture taken every single time I met someone, with one of these contraptions. This would turn everyone into a 24-hour surveillance system. I'm not sure I like the sound of this... :(
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POPSHow To Piss Off China & Screw The Consumer All at the same time. More dangerous tires on the road? Also, in timely fashion, seeking out the Dali Lama is not a soothing fact to the Chinese. Timed more strategically, you might be able to say, "Screw 'em." I hear something about needing their support at the U.N.against, Oh..N.Korea,...Iran,..maybe even Chavez.
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POPSMarijuana War Up in Smoke!
California here we come! --- An exodus similar to the Great Depression will soon be heading west. Go West, young person, there you will find a new world. But, seriously....the hypocracy of the nation pushing booze and pills massively on TV everyday, while sending pot smokers to jail, is at a turning point. The turning point is that the U.S. will stop using federal law to arrest individual marijuana consumers. This allows each of the 50-states to set their own laws about it...sort of like the idea of our Constitution and democracy intended -- prior to evil leaders trying to use a "War on Drugs," as as excuse before the "Global War on Terrorism," came along. 14 states have already made personal consumption of marijuana a non-criminal offense (so no need to rush out to northern California...although it's thriving out there, no doubt) These states did this change even though it was moot ---- till now. Now, it's not "moot." - more states (like mine) now seeking ballot init
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POPSYou're Not Going To Believe This One. Just when you think the Banks can’t possibly do more to hurt us... They come out with a lalapalooza... They are now going to charge their credit card customers for... hold on to your proverbial hats... INACTIVITY! I heard this on CNN this morning and I couldn't believe it. Bank of America, yup the ones who received $25 billion from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund, including $10 billion that would have gone to Merrill had it not been acquired by good old Bank of America. Now, instead of just gouging those who are in debt and over a barrel they are targeting people who have enough income and only use credit cards, as a convenience. The question is, are these financially better off consumers going to take it? Or Are they going to (like the rest of us) GET MAD AS HELL AND NOT GONNA TAKE IT NO MO? I hope they will be strong enough, in numbers, to put these greedy banks in their place… If not there is NO JUSTICE! HAPPY NEW YEAR! :mad:
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POPSSolar users to feel surge in wallet Hopefully, this "step in the right direction" will be adopted in other jurisdictions that are currently "over-priced" monopolies. If so, emerging technologies will improve energy economics.
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POPSObamacare and the Tampon Tax And, all the rest of the more expensive, higher-class medical devices used by both men and women -- such as pacemakers, ventilators, X-ray machines, powered wheelchairs and surgical needles -- will be taxed, too. Wanda Moebius, vice president of policy communications at the Advanced Medical Technology Association said, “There was an effort to protect consumers from a tax on a $6.95 box of tampons, but what about the patients who will pay taxes on devices in surgical situations? Health care reform is supposed to make it more affordable, not raising costs, through taxes on the end user.”
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POPSA perfect storm's brewing to cool petroleum demand There's not so much incentive to invest in exploration, lots of incentive to keep the price of existing supplies as high a possible. The key on price is not really supply, but must be based on what people can afford to pay.
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POPSGov't. Largely Responsible For Hi Insrnce.Costs
This has several negative effects. One is that it decreases both competition and supply, both of which raise prices for consumers. This also means that states have the power to grant licenses to insurance companies, meaning that any new insurance company from its beginnings has to meet state-mandated standards. This is a huge barrier to entry, keeping newcomers out of what would otherwise be a highly competitive market and once again increasing prices for consumers. In a free market, profits are a signal telling more entrepreneurs to enter a market. More and more firms will enter the market until the profits have dropped low enough to discourage market entry. ............ Obama has said that under his current proposal, he would eliminate these state barriers.......... This completely ignores the fact that, under the necessary and proper clause, the government is only allowed to regulate those industries that it must to carry out its stated function.
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POPSInsurers Push Back as Senate Health Vote Nears which the White House wants to complete this year, moves closer to the House and Senate floors. The bill is expected to pass the Finance Committee, where Democrats hold a 13-10 majority. After that, Senate Democratic leaders must merge the Finance bill with a more liberal measure approved by the Senate health committee.
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