Interesting. I didn’t even know there were laws about this.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/03/pregnant-woman-feticide-charge/26838389/
http://louderwithcrowder.com/gofundme-the-right-to-refuse-service/
Is it fair for GoFundMe to discriminate?
Now they have pulled the accounts for the Baltimore Police.
Why can they pick and choose who they do business with? Aren’t they hateful?
I chose to take my business elsewhere.
Below is some outtakes of an article in “The Atlantic”. It is lengthy but well worth the time to understand the current situation with ISIS. I have cut out a few sections to get you hooked. The entire article is here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/
The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.
Exerpts:
In the past year, President Obama has referred to the Islamic State, variously, as “not Islamic” and as al-Qaeda’s “jayvee team,” statements that reflected confusion about the group, and may have contributed to significant strategic errors.
The group seized Mosul, Iraq, last June, and already rules an area larger than the United Kingdom.
Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once.
We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world.
The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.
Following takfiri doctrine, the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people.
This behavior includes a number of practices that modern Muslims tend to prefer not to acknowledge as integral to their sacred texts. “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish [jihadists] are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition,” Haykel said. Islamic State fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.”
when the Islamic State began enslaving people, even some of its supporters balked. Nonetheless, the caliphate has continued to embrace slavery and crucifixion without apology. “We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women,” Adnani, the spokesman, promised in one of his periodic valentines to the West. “If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”
Tens of thousands of foreign Muslims are thought to have immigrated to the Islamic State. Recruits hail from France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Australia, Indonesia, the United States, and many other places. Many have come to fight, and many intend to die.
Cerantonio explained the joy he felt when Baghdadi was declared the caliph on June 29—and the sudden, magnetic attraction that Mesopotamia began to exert on him and his friends. “I was in a hotel [in the Philippines], and I saw the declaration on television,” he told me. “And I was just amazed, and I’m like, Why am I stuck here in this bloody room?”
“I would go so far as to say that Islam has been reestablished” by the caliphate.
Before the caliphate, “maybe 85 percent of the Sharia was absent from our lives,” Choudary told me. “These laws are in abeyance until we havekhilafa”—a caliphate—“and now we have one.” Without a caliphate, for example, individual vigilantes are not obliged to amputate the hands of thieves they catch in the act. But create a caliphate, and this law, along with a huge body of other jurisprudence, suddenly awakens. In theory, all Muslims are obliged to immigrate to the territory where the caliph is applying these laws. One of Choudary’s prize students, a convert from Hinduism named Abu Rumaysah, evaded police to bring his family of five from London to Syria in November. On the day I met Choudary, Abu Rumaysah tweeted out a picture of himself with a Kalashnikov in one arm and his newborn son in the other. Hashtag: #GenerationKhilafah.
The caliph is required to implement Sharia.
In broad strokes, al-Qaeda acts like an underground political movement, with worldly goals in sight at all times—the expulsion of non-Muslims from the Arabian peninsula, the abolishment of the state of Israel, the end of support for dictatorships in Muslim lands. The Islamic State has its share of worldly concerns (including, in the places it controls, collecting garbage and keeping the water running), but the End of Days is a leitmotif of its propaganda.
During the last years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the Islamic State’s immediate founding fathers, by contrast, saw signs of the end times everywhere. They were anticipating, within a year, the arrival of the Mahdi—a messianic figure destined to lead the Muslims to victory before the end of the world. McCants says a prominent Islamist in Iraq approached bin Laden in 2008 to warn him that the group was being led by millenarians who were “talking all the time about the Mahdi and making strategic decisions” based on when they thought the Mahdi was going to arrive.
The Prophetic narration that foretells the Dabiq battle refers to the enemy as Rome. Who “Rome” is, now that the pope has no army, remains a matter of debate. But Cerantonio makes a case that Rome meant the Eastern Roman empire, which had its capital in what is now Istanbul. We should think of Rome as the Republic of Turkey—the same republic that ended the last self-identified caliphate, 90 years ago. Other Islamic State sources suggest that Rome might mean any infidel army, and the Americans will do nicely.
I suspect that most Muslims appreciated Obama’s sentiment: the president was standing with them against both Baghdadi and non-Muslim chauvinists trying to implicate them in crimes. But most Muslims aren’t susceptible to joining jihad. The ones who are susceptible will only have had their suspicions confirmed: the United States lies about religion to serve its purposes.
After a meeting with the Israeli prime minister Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger called Benjamin Netanyahu “the Winston Churchill of our day” and President Barack Obama “the Neville Chamberlain.”
The Charlotte Republican accused the president of appeasement in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
“Benjamin Netanyahu is the Winston Churchill of our day, warning the world about Iran,” Pittenger said. “President Obama is the Neville Chamberlain of our day, in seemingly total denial of the enormous risk and … (how vulnerable) we are to their nuclear capabilities.”
Chamberlain, the British prime minister at the start of World War II, agreed to give a piece of Czechoslovakia in 1938 to Nazi Germany. The deal was meant to stave off war and was hailed by Chamberlain as bringing peace. Germany launched World War II a year later.
Churchill succeeded Chamberlain in 1940 and led the country successfully through the Battle of Britain.
Pittenger, who chairs the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, traveled to Israel with fellow GOP Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida. Their meeting with the prime minister came two weeks before Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to Congress.
During an hourlong meeting, the Americans and Netanyahu talked about the ongoing threat from Iran.
Last week Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Iran’s goal in its negotiations over its nuclear program was a “win-win” outcome. Some analysts saw that as a signal that Iran stood ready to compromise.
Tehran is negotiating with United States, Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain. The deadline for a basic framework is the end of March. The final deadline is June 30.
Pittenger, in a phone interview, said he had little hope for the talks.
“Every day that goes by they increase their capabilities,” he said of Iran. “In the meantime the president seems to be fully committed to writing an agreement that would leave us very exposed. Frankly, the best of agreements could break. …
“I think President Obama is seemingly in denial like Neville Chamberlain. And he’s appeased and waited and believed Iran would operate in good faith. There’s no basis whatsoever to believe Iran will operate in good faith.”
Tale of two box stores:
I bought a Christmas ham at Walmart on December 21st to cook for Christmas day. When I cut open the ham I realized it was bad and saw a “sell by” date of December 4! Okay, Christmas dinner was ruined and we had to get Chinese takeout. I didn’t have the receipt so I cut the tag with the date on it. Who in their right mind would try to go to Walmart customer service the week after Christmas?! It was $18 that I could wait for. One thing lead to another and I didn’t get back to the store until the 1st week of February. Okay, my bad – I waited a month and I didn’t have the receipt. I really wasn’t expecting a refund but maybe something ????? What I got was a lecture on waiting a month to return, not keeping the receipt and not being able to prove any of my story – except that I knew the ham was on special at $2.17 a pound and it cost $18 and I had the cover paper. Not only did I get a lecture from the customer service rep but she then had her manager come out and lecture me as well. I wished at that point that I still had the rotten ham that I could dump on their desk before walking out. I informed them that I would never buy meat there again which I’m sure broke their hearts!
My next stop was at Lowe’s. I needed to return a rented carpet shampooer that was now 10 hours late. I went to customer service and did not wait in a line of 5 people like I just did at Walmart which made me happy right off the bat. There were not 8 camera’s pointed at me and the area was open and pleasant – again a sharp contrast to my last stop. The rep was very pleasant, asked if I had cleaned the machine and began her final billing. She didn’t charge me for the extra day which I would have been happy to pay for. She didn’t check the machine for cleaning but took my word for it. I didn’t have the receipt for the cleaning deposit so she graciously offered me a gift card instead of cash. The entire transaction took a couple minutes. It was pleasant. I didn’t feel like I was in jail asking for 5 minutes outside. I was treated with respect and gratitude as a customer. I didn’t have to tell her that my business buys a huge inventory there every year. She had no idea if this was the only item I ever purchased there.
I walked out of the store very pleased and it made up for the miserable experience that I always experience at a Walmart. I saved $25 on the machine and lost $18 on the ham. Sometimes that’s the best you can do. I go to Walmart when I have no other option. Otherwise I avoid it like the plague. I will avoid it even more now. For a $10 gift card, they could have made a customer happy and avoided one more negative write up on social media.
Good job Lowes!
Walmart – well, I better watch my language. I hope no one ruins my Christmas next year.
Dear Washington,
You got us this time with the health insurance. As your advisor said (paraphrased) – Americans are so dumb that they won’t realize what we did until it is too late. Yes, it is too late. The changes in health care are so deep that I doubt anyone can turn it back. You took a problem that some people had and now dumped a giant problem on who else but the middle class again. You see, the rich won’t be haunted by this. The poor may or may not be helped. The middle class – we were struggling before but now we are defeated. Let me explain what we are all slowly finding out.
I met with my insurance agent to renew my very small group policy for this year. Another 18% increase with no good options. If I close the group policy and spin everyone on their own the rates are actually a little cheaper. Yay!!!!! But let’s look a little further:
Current situation (I will use some rounded numbers for a general idea)
$5,000 a year for health insurance – pre-tax split between employer and employee.
New plan: Everyone buys their own insurance and get a raise from employer to compensate for the difference which will be taxable.
Salary goes up $5,000.
FICA/Medicare tax goes up $765 (15.3%) split between employer and employee.
Fed Tax goes up (let’s guess $300) paid by the employee.
State Tax goes up (every state is different – let’s estimate 2%) $100
Local Tax goes up (let’s say 1%) $50
Total tax increase of at least $1,215 a year split between employer and employee – Not a bad deal for the government. Again, not a problem for the rich or the poor, just the middle class.
For the employer: they get an increase in workman’s comp and liability insurance but they will probably save on some bookkeeping and admin expense.
So who is the winner here? I already had insurance that I liked. Now I need to find a new policy and I get the privilege of paying $1,200 more in tax.
What a deal!!!!!!!!!!
And you wonder why the people don’t trust you?
Signed:
Disgruntled Citizen
by Dr. Jack Wolfson
Special to Health Impact News
I recently did an interview which was aired on NBC Phoenix. I was asked my opinion on vaccinations in response to the current measles outbreaks that have occurred at Disneyland in California. My reply has generated quite a bit of anger in thousands of people.
There has also been a tremendous amount of support to my comments and opinions. In short, The Society Against Injecting Our Kids With Chemicals (TSAIOKWC for short) has a lot of followers.
I want to address all this misguided anger and see if we can re-direct it where it belongs.
Read more: http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/arizona-cardiologist-responds-to-critics-regarding-measles-and-vaccines/
You probably don’t know these statistics either . . .
A preliminary study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found children who received the HiB vaccine … were found to be 5 times more likely to contract the disease than children who had not received the vaccine.
In the New England Journal of Medicine July 1994 issue a study found that over 80% of children under 5 years of age who had contracted whooping cough had been fully vaccinated.
In 1977 Dr Jonas Salk (inventor of the Salk polio vaccine) testified with other scientists that 87% of the polio cases which occurred in the US since 1970 were the by-product of the polio vaccine.
The Sabin oral polio vaccine (OPV) is the only known cause of polio in the us today.
The February 1981 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 90% of obstetricians and 66% of pediatricians refused to take the rubella vaccine.
You didn’t hear about this, did you?
There is a lot of hype, accusations, and hatred in the news about vaccinations and the possible link to autism. I have listed below some statistics and research to get a quick summary. I’m not a doctor, scientist or any kind of expert on any of this. I do have some basic questions: What is causing the EXTREME increase in autism? Why are we freaking about measles? (everyone in my family had them – I can’t say that I remember anything about them). Why are we freaking out about measles but not about autism? Why can scientists prove that vaccinations don’t cause autism but they don’t know what does? Autism seems to be out of control – what is being done about it? Last but not least – does the government have the right to force parents to vaccinate their children especially to fight a non fatal illness?
Take a look at the issue:
About 1 percent of the world population has autism spectrum disorder. (CDC, 2014)
Prevalence in the United States is estimated at 1 in 68 births. (CDC, 2014)
More than 3.5 million Americans live with an autism spectrum disorder. (Buescher et al., 2014)
Prevalence of autism in U.S. children increased by 119.4 percent from 2000 (1 in 150) to 2010 (1 in 68). (CDC, 2014) Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability. (CDC, 2008)
Prevalence has increased by 6-15 percent each year from 2002 to 2010. (Based on biennial numbers from the CDC)
Autism services cost U.S. citizens $236-262 billion annually. (Buescher et al., 2014) [1]
Until scientists can prove exactly what causes autism, it’s difficult to definitively disprove anything.
“In the absence of any answers from the scientific community, any scintilla of suggestion is going to get magnified by the social process of talking it out,” Sanders says. “All you need is one individual’s story and it will expand.” [3]
The main reason why anyone talks about vaccines and autism is that some parents have noticed changes in children shortly after the children were vaccinated. (my underline) Their kids seemed to be developing normally, then suddenly stopped interacting with people and lost language abilities — a condition called “regressive” autism.
Most medical researchers argue that this is probably a coincidence: Autism symptoms tend to become apparent around the same time that children are scheduled to get routine vaccines. [3] page 2
The MMR scare started 10 years ago with a report published in The Lancet that described the cases of eight children who, as their parents recalled, developed autistic symptoms and digestive ailments shortly after getting their first MMR dose. [3] page 2
Since that initial finding, 14 studies including millions of children in several countries consistently show no significant difference in autism rates between children who got the MMR vaccine those who didn’t.
The bottom line: It’s very unlikely that the MMR causes autism, researchers say. [3] page 2
In 1998, 30 different vaccines with thimerosal in them were given to children. U.S. public health officials realized that the recommended schedule of vaccines could give some children mercury that exceeded the limit considered safe by government standards.
In 1999, the U.S. Public Health Service and the AAP asked vaccine makers to reduce or remove thimerosal in vaccines. By 2001, all routine childhood vaccines were available thimerosal-free. [3] page 4 (my note – it took 3 years to remove this while millions of children continued to receive this/)
In her opinion, mercury poisoning and autism seem too much alike to rule out mercury as a cause. Mercury poisoning can cause brain damage, and symptoms can be similar to those of autism.
“I certainly wouldn’t argue that the only source of mercury and the only source of harm is the mercury in vaccines,” Bernard says. She says she believes children continue to be harmed by vaccines that still contain thimerosal.
But while Harvard’s McCormick agrees that mercury is a dangerous substance, the claim that mercury poisoning and autism are the same doesn’t hold up under scrutiny, she says. “It’s based on a very superficial similarity.”
Symptoms of mercury poisoning can include irritability, depression, anxiety, visual problems, speech problems, and sensory nerve problems. In autism, there can be findings of delayed speech, increase or decrease in response to sensory stimuli, and avoidance of human eye contact. [3] page 4
I’ve blogged about the one-sided and exaggerated media coverage of the measles before. My colleagues and I are used to name-calling. But the hate circulating on the Internet and in mainstream newspapers about measles this week has escalated so much that even I am in shock.
In case you missed it, there is an article in USA Today claiming that non-vaccinating parents should be jailed and a Forbes opinion piece suggesting lawyers should sue parents whose children are not vaccinated against the measles.
The mainstream is actually endorsing and promoting the idea that we should put parents in jail, take their children away from them, and vaccinate the children against their parents’ best judgment. In America, not Stalin’s Soviet Union. Read the full article at Safeminds.org. [5]
The American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States (others say it’s the third leading-cause). Despite what you may have been led to believe…it is NOT measles. There are 783,936 deaths per year caused by our healthcare system. 44,000-98,000 are due to medical errors made by doctors, 20,000 deaths that occur from other hospital errors. [6]
Although child vaccination rates remain high, some parental concern persists that vaccines might cause autism. Three specific hypotheses have been proposed: (1) the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, which allows the entrance of encephalopathic proteins; (2) thimerosal, an ethylmercury-containing preservative in some vaccines, is toxic to the central nervous system; and (3) the simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines overwhelms or weakens the immune system. We will discuss the genesis of each of these theories and review the relevant epidemiological evidence. [7]
*1 http://www.autism-society.org/what-is/facts-and-statistics/
*2 http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
*3 http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/searching-for-answers/vaccines-autism
*4 http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/policy-statements/information-about-vaccines-and-autism
*5 http://www.ageofautism.com/vaccines/
*6 http://www.livingwhole.org/a-response-to-one-child-dead-two-foolish-parents/
*7 http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/48/4/456.full
 | baratabeatribr on Road Workers Standing Aro… |
 | Brian Fulmer on Maybe we should move |
 | Pete on Maybe we should move |
| Brian Fulmer on Katie Couric and Ted Cruz |
 | brendaveh on Katie Couric and Ted Cruz |
Random Thoughts 
