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Susan Thur

Louisianans bleed Together, Louisianans suffer Together, Louisianans survive ... - 0 views

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    Another tragedy is unfolding. Another One!, I scream irately and angrily to the heavens. How can this be? How unfair and how are we going to, now, survive this, I desperately ask. I know here in New Orleans, where I now live (Crowley, Cajun country originally) we have had our share of hardship and difficulties. Many of us frighten, despaired and overwhelmed what we experienced nearing 5 years ago. Hurricane Katrina's anniversary is in August. And Hurricane Rita gust in without much delay, giving Louisiana no break or rest. It seems barley enough time to catch our breath, even though we sweat it out every hurricane season since. The experience of the "big one" has left many of us edgy, anxious and nervous. It has been a challenge for us all. Now here is once more another challenge. The oil spill in the gulf that threatens our, ecosystem, shoreline and seafood industries. For many of us, our distress are concentrated on our wetlands which have become more defenseless by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. I recognize I have. For us to undergo another "big one" our coast is the first line of defense to our survival. Ever since these potential, massive hurricanes, my intense coastal and wetland focus has been like a laser, zeroing on which is most important for Southern Louisiana's continued existence. However, the health and wellbeing for our future lies right now with-- us-- which are our local oil field experts and workers. The men on these oil rigs, the ones that will--and I have confidence--will plug the blowout and stop the damage--the bleeding--they are US. They are family and friends, mutual Louisiana citizens, who are well aware how important their job is, for us as well as for themselves and their family. Much is at stake to our livelihood, our environment and our way of life. more:
thinkahol *

FOCUS: Austerity Ushering In Global Recession - 0 views

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    Without an expansionary fiscal policy, low interest rates have little effect. Companies won't borrow in order to expand and hire more workers unless they have reasonable certainty they'll have customers for what they produce. And consumers won't borrow money to spend on goods and services unless they're reasonably confident they'll have jobs. Fiscal austerity is the wrong medicine at the wrong time.
thinkahol *

Living in denial: How corporations manufacture doubt - opinion - 20 May 2010 - New Scie... - 0 views

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    YOU can't beat doubt as a corporate strategy - especially if your product is life-threatening when used as directed. These days we don't have to speculate as to whether industries have manufactured doubt. They have admitted it too many times.
thinkahol *

Media Control - 0 views

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    " I have the greatest admiration for your propaganda. Propaganda in the West is carried out by experts who have had the best training in the world -- in the field of advertizing -- and have mastered the techniques with exceptional proficiency ... Yours are subtle and persuasive; ours are crude and obvious ... I think that the fundamental difference between our worlds, with respect to propaganda, is quite simple. You tend to believe yours ... and we tend to disbelieve ours. " a Soviet correspondent based five years in the U.S.
thinkahol *

Why "business needs certainty" is destructive - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    Businesses have had at least 25 to 30 years near complete certainty -- certainty that they will pay lower and lower taxes, that they' will face less and less regulation, that they can outsource to their hearts' content (which when it does produce savings, comes at a loss of control, increased business system rigidity, and loss of critical know how). They have also been certain that unions will be weak to powerless, that states and municipalities will give them huge subsidies to relocate, that boards of directors will put top executives on the up escalator for more and more compensation because director pay benefits from this cozy collusion, that the financial markets will always look to short term earnings no matter how dodgy the accounting, that the accounting firms will provide plenty of cover, that the SEC will never investigate anything more serious than insider trading (Enron being the exception that proved the rule). So this haranguing about certainty simply reveals how warped big commerce has become in the US. Top management of supposedly capitalist enterprises want a high degree of certainty in their own profits and pay. Rather than earn their returns the old fashioned way, by serving customers well, by innovating, by expanding into new markets, their 'certainty' amounts to being paid handsomely for doing things that carry no risk. But since risk and uncertainty are inherent to the human condition, what they instead have engaged in is a massive scheme of risk transfer, of increasing rewards to themselves to the long term detriment of their enterprises and ultimately society as a whole.
Matt Schrader

The Dirty Truth About Street Cleaning in LA - 0 views

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    In a piece reminiscent of classic "60 Minutes," USC journalism student Matt Schrader exposes the dirty side of parking enforcement and street cleaning in downtown Los Angeles. Schrader found that while parking enforcement is out in droves ticketing cars, and mostly on street cleaning days (making the city $15,000 an hour!), the streets they're patrolling aren't even being cleaned. The best line of the piece is from a guy who got ticketed on one of those streets: "They have the manpower to ticket you, but they don't have the manpower to actually do the job."
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    In a piece reminiscent of classic "60 Minutes," USC journalism student Matt Schrader exposes the dirty side of parking enforcement and street cleaning in downtown Los Angeles. Schrader found that while parking enforcement is out in droves ticketing cars, and mostly on street cleaning days (making the city $15,000 an hour!), the streets they're patrolling aren't even being cleaned. The best line of the piece is from a guy who got ticketed on one of those streets: "They have the manpower to ticket you, but they don't have the manpower to actually do the job."
thinkahol *

The Koch Brothers Are Getting Nervous - Technorati Politics - 0 views

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    Charles and David Koch seem less confident these days. The brothers - who inherited money from their dad and grew it into America's largest collection of dirty industries - have decided they need to fight back. That's not surprising. Since Koch-sponsored secret meetings were revealed, secret planning with Supreme Court Justices was exposed, and secret funding of right wing groups became apparent, Americans have begun to wonder just how much influence these guys have purchased. Read more: http://technorati.com/politics/article/the-koch-brothers-are-getting-nervous/#ixzz1IXD3a4Zw
Arabica Robusta

Oil City: Where are the Jobs, pt. 2 | Pipe(line)Dreams - 0 views

  • There should be a direct relationship between recognized training centers and oil company human resources departments. There isn’t. Basically, people are on their own; it’s not like they can go down to the local jobs office and get advice.  In a country with extremely high levels of unemployment and a huge “419″ internet scamming problem (sorry, Ghana, but it appears you have caught up with Nigeria and Cameroon on this front), potential victims are everywhere.
  • Both Tullow Oil and Kosmos Energy have posted scam alerts on their websites. Here’s the warning from Kosmos: NOTE: POTENTIAL RECRUITMENT FRAUD Kosmos Energy has learned that job applicants in the international oil and gas business, as well as other industry sectors, may be contacted by individuals or organizations that offer false employment opportunities. These communications are often via email and may request personal information or money. Kosmos only makes job offers after candidates have completed a formal interview process and does not ask applicants to pay fees during recruitment. Specifically, please note that any communications from or about the “Kosmos Group” are not associated with Kosmos Energy. This is good, but I don’t know how useful these alerts are. There are a lot of people in Takoradi who don’t have internet access. And even when you get to the Tullow or Kosmos websites, it’s not easy to get information.
  • “We are committed to providing Ghanaian suppliers with full and fair opportunities, providing short and long-term support to help local suppliers to achieve contract pre-qualification. To date 700 local contracts have been awarded by Tullow, including procuring 100% of IT equipment and services in Ghana.” I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to find out more about these 700 contracts when I interview Tullow officials.
findanotary

Mobile Notary Devices like Smartphones - 1 views

With the advent of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, trying to find a notary public online has never been easier. And with that, many notaries public have now taken their local notary se...

Notary service

started by findanotary on 02 Jul 12 no follow-up yet
yosefong

What are Online Notary Services? - 3 views

With the advent of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, trying to find a notary public online has never been easier. And with that, many notaries public have now taken their local notary se...

notary public

started by yosefong on 11 Jun 12 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

CAFR: US agencies have billions, trillions in investments while crying budget deficits ... - 0 views

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    Gerald Klatt and Walter Burien are unrecognized heroes. These individuals are national leaders who have communicated how government agencies conceal American taxpayers' money in surplus accounts that collectively total trillions of our dollars. The data is found in government agencies' Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs).
thinkahol *

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality - Salon.com - 0 views

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    What amazes me most whenever I write about this topic is recalling how terribly upset so many Democrats pretended to be when Bush claimed the power merely to detain or even just eavesdrop on American citizens without due process.  Remember all that?  Yet now, here's Obama claiming the power not to detain or eavesdrop on citizens without due process, but to kill them; marvel at how the hardest-core White House loyalists now celebrate this and uncritically accept the same justifying rationale used by Bush/Cheney (this is war! the President says he was a Terrorist!) without even a moment of acknowledgment of the profound inconsistency or the deeply troubling implications of having a President - even Barack Obama - vested with the power to target U.S. citizens for murder with no due process. Also, during the Bush years, civil libertarians who tried to convince conservatives to oppose that administration's radical excesses would often ask things like this: would you be comfortable having Hillary Clinton wield the power to spy on your calls or imprison you with no judicial reivew or oversight?  So for you good progressives out there justifying this, I would ask this:  how would the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process look to you in the hands of, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann?
thinkahol *

With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showin... - 0 views

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    Pentagon investigators are reportedly still searching for Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange, who helped release a classified US military video showing a US helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. The US military recently arrested Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who may have passed on the video to Wikileaks. Manning's arrest and the hunt for Assange have put the spotlight on the Obama administration's campaign against whistleblowers and leakers of classified information. We speak to Daniel Ellsberg, who's leaking of the Pentagon Papers has made him perhaps the nation's most famous whistleblower; Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has collaborated with Wikileaks and drafted a new Icelandic law protecting investigative journalists; and Glenn Greenwald, political and legal blogger for Salon.com. [includes rush transcript]
anonymous

(Marketing Drugs With Sexy Sales Persons) CorpWatch : US: Gimme an Rx! Cheerleaders Pep... - 0 views

  • Still, women have an advantage with male doctors
  • a book lampooning the industry, "Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman."
  • Stories abound about doctors who mistook a sales pitch as an invitation to more. A doctor in Washington pleaded guilty to assault last year and gave up his license after forcibly kissing a saleswoman on the lips.
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  • "Exaggerated motions, exaggerated smiles, exaggerated enthusiasm - they learn those things, and they can get people to do what they want."
  • one saleswoman said she had been encouraged to exploit a personal relationship with a doctor to increase sales in her Montgomery, Ala., territory.
  • One informal survey, conducted by a urologist in Pittsburgh, Dr. James J. McCague, found that 12 of 13 medical saleswomen said they had been sexually harassed by physicians.
  • Ms. Napier, 26, was a star cheerleader on the national-champion University of Kentucky squad, which has been a springboard for many careers in pharmaceutical sales.
  • While there are no statistics on how many drug representatives are former or current cheerleaders, demand for them led to the formation of an employment firm, Spirited Sales Leaders, in Memphis. It maintains a database of thousands of potential candidates.
  • "The cheerleaders now are the top people in universities; these are really capable and high-profile people,"
  • "I've had people who are going right out, maybe they've been out of school for a year, and get a car and make up to $50,000, $60,000 with bonuses, if they do well."
  • Approximately two dozen Kentucky cheerleaders, mostly women but a few men, have become drug reps in recent years.
  • Anyone who has seen the parade of sales representatives through a doctor's waiting room has probably noticed that they are frequently female and invariably good looking.
  • Some industry critics view wholesomely sexy drug representatives as a variation on the seductive inducements like dinners, golf outings and speaking fees that pharmaceutical companies have dangled to sway doctors to their brands.
  • But now that federal crackdowns and the industry's self-policing have curtailed those gifts, simple one-on-one human rapport
  • has become more important
  • Many doctors say they privately joke about the appearance of saleswomen who come to their offices. Currently making the e-mail rounds is an anonymous parody of an X-rated "diary" of a cheerleader-turned-drug-saleswoman.
  • Federal law bans employment discrimination based on factors like race and gender, but it omits appearance from the list.
  • "There's a saying that you'll never meet an ugly drug rep,"
  • But that might be changing, he said, citing a recent ruling by the California Supreme Court, which agreed to hear an employment lawsuit brought by a former L'Oreal manager who ignored a supervisor's order to fire a cosmetics saleswoman and hire someone more attractive.
  • "Generally, discriminating in favor of attractive people is not against the law in the United States,"
david derouen

Ultimate Civics » Blog Archive » Corporations Are Not Persons - 0 views

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    By Ralph Nader & Carl J. Mayer New York Times, April 9, 1988 Our constitutional rights were intended for real persons, not artificial creations. The Framers knew about corporations but chose not to mention these contrived entities in the Constitution. For them, the document shielded living beings from arbitrary government and endowed them with the right to speak, assemble, and petition. Today, however, corporations enjoy virtually the same umbrella of constitutional protections as individuals do. They have become in effect artificial persons with infinitely greater power than humans. This constitutional equivalence must end. Consider a few noxious developments during the last 10 years. A group of large Boston companies invoked the First Amendment in order to spend lavishly and thus successfully defeat a referendum that would have permitted the legislature to enact a progressive income tax that had no direct effect on the property and business of these companies. An Idaho electrical and plumbing corporation cited the Fourth Amendment and deterred a health and safety investigation. A textile supply company used Fifth Amendment protections and barred retrial in a criminal anti-trust case in Texas. The idea that the Constitution should apply to corporations as it applies to humans had its dubious origins in 1886. The Supreme Court said it did "not wish to hear argument" on whether corporations were "persons" protected by the 14th Amendment, a civil rights amendment designed to safeguard newly emancipated blacks from unfair government treatment. It simply decreed that corporations were persons. Now that is judicial activism. A string of later dissents, by Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, demonstrated that neither the history nor the language of the 14th Amendment was meant to protect corporations. But it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle and the corporate evolution into personhood was under way. It was not until the 1970's that corporations
thinkahol *

Speech on media propaganda - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com - 0 views

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    The 30-minute speech I gave last month at the Symphony Space in New York is now available on video, and is posted below in three YouTube segments (the first segment also contains the 4-minute introduction of my speech). The speech pertains to the evolution of my views on media criticism, the nature of media propaganda and what drives it, and what can be done to combat it. A DVD of the entire event -- featuring the three other speeches: from Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore -- is available at FAIR's website. I want to note one example, from today, that vividly illustrates many of the themes I discussed in that speech.  It is found in the following passage from this Reuters article on Obama's escalation of the covert war in Yemen and his targeting of U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki for assassination: A U.S. official confirmed to Reuters that a U.S. strike last Friday killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel al Qaeda operative, which followed last month's attempted strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Whether Awlaki has any operational role in Al Qaeda at all is a matter of intense controversy.  The U.S. Government has repeatedly asserted that he does, but has presented no verifiable evidence to support that accusation.  But what is not in dispute is the notion that Awlaki is "the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula."  He unquestionably is not, and never has been, as multiple Yemen experts have repeatedly noted.  The Reuters claim is factually and entirely false. Whatever one's views are on Obama's assassination program, targeting U.S. citizens without due process obviously raises extraordinary and vitally important questions.  As The New York Times' Scott Shane put it when confirming Awlaki's inclusion on Obama's hit list: "The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen. . . . It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an America
Arabica Robusta

Responsible consumerism | Manila Bulletin - 0 views

  • The multinational manufacturing giants were trying to cope with changes in technology and demographics which threatened to make them obsolete. Top managements in publicly owned US companies, regardless of size and performance, cowered under the threat of the corporate raider and his ultimate weapon, the junk bond.
  • Corporate capitalism promised that the large corporation would be run in the interests of the greater number of stakeholders. Instead, it was being pushed into a subordinate role – away from its market standing, its technology, and its basic wealth-producing capacity and into immediate earnings and next week’s stock price. A Marxist would call this turn of events “speculator’s capitalism.”
  • Meantime, Bill Gates has come up with a solution as to how billions of dollars generated through capitalism can help people in the poor nations which the world has forgotten. He termed it creative capitalism. He believed that some corporations have identified brand-new markets among the poor for life-changing technologies like cell phones. Others have seen how they can do good and do well at the same time.
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  • social entrepreneurs are starting companies rather than non-profit organizations, to capitalize on public benefit. To top it all, some of these entrepreneurs choose a new corporate structure that requires enterprises to build into their foundation strong social and environmental standards for their operations.
  • Through Bono’s persistence, the (RED) campaign was launched and today Gap, Hallmark, and Dell, among others, sell (RED)-branded products and donate a portion of their profits to fight AIDS.
  • Corporate America has discovered that social responsibility attracts investment capital as well as customer loyalty, creating a virtuous cycle. Companies are now talking about a triple bottom line – profit, planet, and people – that focuses on how to run a business while trying to improve environmental and working conditions. Some companies have embraced the new ethos.
  • None of this could have happened without consumer demand. In a survey conducted, half of Americans polled said that protecting the environment should be given priority over economic growth – to think that the survey was done amidst a recession and unprecedented record unemployment. Consumers are doing their own calculations and they would prefer comparatively more expensive cars that get better gas mileage, will save them money in the long run, and make them feel good in the process. Walmart, once the poster child of ruthlessness, a retailer whose business in the past was to undercut all its competitors, has resolved to change its way of doing business for the sake of the future of the planet.
  • These days, some companies are cutting back on their philanthropy but not on their Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives
    • Arabica Robusta
       
      How true is this? There are many examples (e.g. BP) of corporations cutting back on CSR.
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    "Capitalism has evolved in at least three different forms: corporate capitalism, speculator's capitalism, and, most recently, creative capitalism."
thinkahol *

"Hot Coffee" Documentary Exposes Corporate Attacks on Consumer Rights, Features Expert ... - 0 views

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    What Really Happened? Stella Liebeck, 79-years-old, was sitting in the passenger seat of her grandson's car having purchased a cup of McDonald's coffee. After the car stopped, she tried to hold the cup securely between her knees while removing the lid. However, the cup tipped over, pouring scalding hot coffee onto her lap. She received third-degree burns over 16 percent of her body, necessitating hospitalization for eight days, whirlpool treatment for debridement of her wounds, skin grafting, scarring, and disability for more than two years. Despite these extensive injuries, she offered to settle with McDonald's for $20,000. However, McDonald's refused to settle for this small amount and, in fact, never offered more than $800. The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages - reduced to $160,000 because the jury found her 20 percent at fault - and $2.7 million in punitive damages for McDonald's callous conduct. (To put this in perspective, McDonald's revenue from coffee sales alone was in excess of $1.3 million a day.) The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to $480,000, but did state that McDonald's had engaged in "willful, wanton, and reckless" behavior. Mrs. Liebeck and McDonald's eventually settled for a confidential amount. The jury heard the following evidence in the case: McDonald's Operations Manual required the franchisee to hold its coffee at 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit; Coffee at that temperature, if spilled, causes third-degree burns (the worst kind of burn) in three to seven seconds; Third-degree burns do not heal without skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability of the victim for many months, and in some cases, years; The chairman of the department of mechanical engineering and bio-mechanical engineering at the University of Texas testified that this risk of harm is unacceptable, as did a wid
yosefong

Are you're Asking Yourself, "Where Can I Find a Notary?" - 2 views

If you are asking yourself "where can I find a notary," we obviously believe the best place is right here on FindNotary. We make finding a notary near you extremely simple. Just search by notary or...

Where Can I Find a Notary

started by yosefong on 29 May 12 no follow-up yet
thinkahol *

Who needs a free market? We have free marketing. » New Deal 2.0 - 0 views

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    In the health care debate, the word 'freedom' has come to mean its opposite.
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