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How to Raise Kids Who Arent Spoiled
2015-02-04, Greater Good
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_raise_kids_are_not_spoiled

All parents want their kids to have the skills they need to thrive in the world. But, while most parents feel comfortable talking about the importance of safety, health, schoolwork, and relationships, when it comes to the importance of money, many fall silent. Perhaps thats because money can bring up extremely strong emotions. How much we have or dont have, and how our income compares to that of others, can be a source of shamewhether we perceive ourselves as having too much or too little. Parents often find themselves fighting over finances, leaving the impression on kids that money causes conflict. In my role as the personal finance columnist for The New York Times, parents often ask me for advice. Here are some tips: 1. Talk about money and your values around money. 2. Give children money to manage on their own. 3. Teach kids to spend wisely. 4. Put kids to work. 5. Teach kids the importance of giving. 6. Practice gratitude. While these tips arent foolproof, parents who follow them have a better chance of raising children with a wise relationship to money. Its up to all of us to make sure our children understand our values and know how to save, spend, or give away money in a way that is consistent with those values. If we all approached the topic with more honesty and openness, we might avoid a future where children end up either crippled by debt or thinking that everything should come to them on a silver platter.

Note: The above was written by Ron Lieber, whose new book, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money, is about how parents can do a better job of teaching their kids about money. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Thatcher stopped officials publicly naming Sir Peter Hayman as suspected paedophile
2015-02-03, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/thatcher-stopped-officials-pub...

Margaret Thatcher told officials not to publicly name a senior diplomat connected to a paedophile scandal despite being fully briefed on allegations made against him, a newly revealed secret file has shown. The file was prepared for the late Conservative Prime Minister in the early Eighties, and details allegations of unnatural sexual activity by Sir Peter Hayman in 1966, when he returned from ... West Berlin to the Foreign Office. It also notified Mrs Thatcher that the senior diplomat had been subject to a police investigation, after a parcel containing "obscene materials" was found on a London bus in 1978. Sir Peter was not prosecuted following an investigation into his activities. The diplomat, who died in 1992, was accused of being a paedophile by MP Geoffrey Dickens under the cloak of parliamentary privilege in 1983, before the file was prepared for the then Prime Minister. Compiled between October 1980 and March 1981, the 37-page file is now available for public view, and features Mrs Thatchers handwritten annotations and notes. It confirms that Sir Peter was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) group, and claims he intended to make "contact with adults with whom he could exchange obscene material." The revelations come as Home Secretary Theresa May announced she would be launching an inquiry into historical child abuse, during which Sir Peters activities will be investigated.

Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Thatcher stopped Peter Hayman being named as paedophile-link civil servant
2015-02-02, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/02/thatcher-peter-hayman-named-p...

Margaret Thatcher was adamant officials should not publicly name Sir Peter Hayman, a senior diplomat connected to a paedophile scandal, even after she had been fully briefed on his activities. The file [of formerly secret papers], compiled between October 1980 and March 1981, is made up of memos and background notes put together for Thatcher, then prime minister. In a three-page document from 17 March 1981 ... officials explain why Hayman was not prosecuted when, three years previously, police discovered he was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange group. The memo ends: It is the policy of the law officers that persons who have been investigated by the police but not prosecuted should not be named in the House [of Commons]. Thatcher amends this paragraph to cross out in the House, indicating that she did not believe Hayman should be named anywhere. Thatchers insistence on not naming Hayman appeared always unlikely to succeed. [Peter Hayman] had come to the attention of police in 1978 when ... Police raided his flat in west London and found 14 years of journal entries detailing his fantasies, many involving children. The director of public prosecutions decided that Hayman and his co-correspondents should not be charged. The magazine Private Eye ran a story detailing what had happened and naming him. The file shows that prior to the Private Eye article, in October 1980, Thatcher and her officials had no idea that police had even investigated Hayman.

Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


OpenGov co-founder Zac Bookman lets taxpayers see where cash goes
2015-02-02, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/visionaryoftheyear/article/OpenGov-co-founder-Zac-Bookm...

Sometimes people laugh when Zac Bookman tells them what his company, OpenGov does. Not out of mockery. Out of disbelief that a website or, really, anything can make it easier to track how the government spends trillions of dollars of their tax money. Users [of OpenGov] can easily share what they find with friends or push back on government officials to question their spending. Still, Bookman hears doubters. Cynicism runs deep, especially when it involves government becoming more transparent. Bookman ... understands their skepticism. People have lost faith in government officials to improve their lives. People dont think of (government) as an industry, but it is, said Bookman, whom Ronnie Lott nominated for the first Chronicle and St. Marys College Visionary of the Year award. Our software allows you to see where the money goes. $7 trillion in public dollars ... flows through federal, state and local government entities, from big cities to mosquito abatement districts. Much of it is hidden in plain sight, virtually inaccessible to the public because of user-unfriendly tech interfaces. But now more than 250 government organizations are using [OpenGov], including the city of Los Angeles. There is a bipartisan appeal to this sort of transparency. Conservatives like it because it helps to highlight where to cut government fat, while liberals buy into it because this sort of tool can quantify the value of government services. OpenGov is attempting to ... make this very complex data usable by people who are not financial experts.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Bacteria used to yield pure water and produce hydrogen, the fuel of the future
2015-02-02, International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bacteria-used-yield-pure-water-produce-hydrogen-fuel...

In two separate research findings, scientists have used bacteria in processes that can deliver substantial power when scaled up in the future. While a Sintef team in Norway has a method to deliver purified water, a Missouri researcher has discovered a bacterium that produces hydrogen, the fuel of the future. The Sintef researchers converted waste water into power using bacteria in an entirely natural process that delivers purified water. As the bacteria feed on waste water, they produce electrons and protons and the resulting voltage generates electricity. While the electricity generated is small, it ... is an environmentally friendly process where the end product is purified water. The team plans to scale up the process to generate the power needed for the water purification. "In simple terms, this type of fuel cell works because the bacteria consume the waste materials found in the water," explains Sintef researcher Luis Cesar Colmenares. The challenge was in finding the bacteria most suited for the job and the right mechanism. The researcher at Missouri University of Science and Technology has stumbled upon a bacterium that could help mass-produce hydrogen for fuel cells in the future. The "Halanaerobium hydrogeninformans" bacterium can produce hydrogen under saline and alkaline conditions, better than modified organisms and could be valuable industrially when the process is scaled up. Another end product of the hydrogen process ... finds application in products including composites, adhesives, laminates and coatings.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Woman's Claims About Prince Andrew, Others Reignite Sex Case
2015-02-02, ABC/Associated Press
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/womans-claims-prince-andrew-reignite-sex-c...

First came the allegations late last year that Britain's Prince Andrew and a prominent American lawyer took part in a wealthy sex offender's abuse of teenage girls. Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz ... represented the highly connected Jeffrey Epstein and was himself named in the latest court filings. Jane Doe No. 3 and three others who say Epstein victimized them want a federal judge to ... throw out the part of Epstein's plea deal that guaranteed that neither he nor any co-conspirators would [remain anonymous or] face federal charges. They contend their rights as victims were trampled by the then-secret agreement. Now a 31-year-old wife and mother, Jane Doe No. 3 insists her motives are to hold the elite accountable, [and to] "help expose the problem of sex trafficking." She first met Epstein in 1999 ... at age 15. What followed was a three-year whirlwind of paid sex abuse, international travel and encounters with many of Epstein's powerful friends. "I was trained to be everything a man wanted me to be," she said in her affidavit. "They said they loved that I was very compliant and knew how to keep my mouth shut." Although she was paid for her services and was given luxurious accommodations by Epstein, Jane Doe No. 3 said, it was also clear she could get into "big trouble" if she tried to leave or refuse his sexual advances and requirements to provide sex to others. "He let me know that he knew many people in high places," she said. "Speaking about himself, he said, 'I can get away' with things. I was very scared, particularly since I was a teenager."

Note: Jane Doe #3 has not kept her identity secret, and continues use her real name in court to expose the FBI cover up of this elite sex trafficking ring, but one of her attorneys requested that the AP not use her name in the above article. For more, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, or read deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


'Suppressed' EU report could have banned pesticides worth billions
2015-02-02, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/02/suppressed-eu-report-could...

As many as 31 pesticides with a value running into billions of pounds could have been banned because of potential health risks, if a blocked EU paper on hormone-mimicking chemicals had been acted upon. The science paper, seen by the Guardian, recommends ways of identifying and categorising the endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that scientists link to a rise in foetal abnormalities, genital mutations, infertility, and adverse health effects ranging from cancer to IQ loss. Commission sources say that the paper was buried by top EU officials under pressure from big chemical firms which use EDCs in toiletries, plastics and cosmetics, despite an annual health cost that studies peg at hundreds of millions of euros. The unpublished EU paper ... was supposed to have enabled EU bans of hazardous substances to take place last year. Under pressure from major chemical industry players, such as Bayer and BASF, the criteria were blocked. In their place, less stringent options emerged. Last month, 11 MEPs complained in a cross-party letter to the health and food safety commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, about the EUs failure to honour its mandate and adopt the EDC criteria. This was supposed to have happened by the end of 2013. In place of the proposed identification of hormone-mimicking compounds, the EUs current roadmap favours industry-supported options for potency-based measurements of EDCs. These would set thresholds, below which exposure to low-potency EDCs would be deemed safe.

Note: One key study estimates that as few as zero endocrine-disrupting pesticides will be withdrawn from the EU market as a result of this profit-driven manipulation of policy. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about corporate and government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Croatia writes off debts for poorest citizens
2015-02-01, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11382576/Croatia-writes-off-debt...

Thousands of Croats will see their debts written-off on Monday as part of an attempt to boost the economy by helping households to regain access to basic facilities including bank accounts. The scheme, which has been dubbed "fresh start", will see the debts of around 60,000 citizens erased by banks, telecoms and utilities operators as part of a deal with the government. Around 2.1bn kuna (20m) worth of bad debts are expected to be written off by creditors who have signed up to the scheme. None will be refunded for their losses. Qualifying households must have debts lower than 35,000 kuna (3,500), and their monthly income should not be higher than 1,250 kuna. Croats who own property or have any savings will not benefit from the deal. "Some 60,000 citizens ... will be given a chance for a new start without a burden of debt," said Milanka Opacic, Croatia's deputy prime minister. The program will give 20pc of the 317,000 Croatians whose accounts were frozen in July last year due to bad debts access to their accounts again. "This is the first time that any (Croatian) government tries to solve this difficult problem and we are proud of it," Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told a cabinet session. The deal will be noted in Greece, where the new Syriza government is trying to renegotiate the terms of its multi billion euro bail-out.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


How Guantnamo Diary Escaped the Black Hole and Got Past the Censors (Mostly)
2015-01-31, The Intercept
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/31/guantanamo-diary-escaped-black-...

Guantnamo Diary ... in which Guantanamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi tells of his odyssey through overseas prisons and his torture and abuse by the US and its counterterrorism allies, is pockmarked with redactions left by military censors. The diary was finally published last week. Slahi, a 44-year-old Mauritanian educated in Germany, was rendered by the CIA to prison in Jordan in late 2001, then held by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. The U.S. has never charged him with a crime. By the time the editor Larry Siems got hold of the manuscript in 2012, volumes of information about Slahis case had come into the public record. In 2006, the government released transcripts from hearings evaluating prisoners detention status, Slahis among them. Reports from the Justice Department and the Senate Armed Services Committee detailed his interrogation. Siems was able to cross-reference these materials to establish the chronology of Slahis narrative, in which all dates have been redacted. Journalists have not been allowed to speak directly to current detainees. For Larry Siems, censorship is at the core of Slahis story, and while the redactions sometimes impede his narrative, they serve a literary function as well. Secrecy was imposed in order for abuse to happen, and then more secrecy was imposed in order to cover it up, said Siems. The redactions are like the fingerprints of that longstanding censorship regime.

Note: Despite U.S. officials acknowledging that many Guantanamo detainees pose no real threat to society, prisoners like Slahi continue to be detained as part of the ineffective but profitable war on terror.


Don't Trade Away Our Health
2015-01-30, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/opinion/dont-trade-away-our-health.html?_r=0

A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to higher drug prices for you and hundreds of millions around the world. Representatives from the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries convened to decide the future of their trade relations in the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (T.P.P.). Powerful companies appear to have been given influence over the proceedings, even as full access is withheld from many government officials from the partnership countries. Among the topics negotiators have considered are some of the most contentious T.P.P. provisions those relating to intellectual property rights. These rules could help big pharmaceutical companies maintain or increase their monopoly profits on brand-name drugs [and] block cheaper generic drugs from the market. Big Pharmas profits would rise, at the expense of the health of patients and the budgets of consumers and governments. Of course, pharmaceutical companies claim they need to charge high prices to fund their research and development. This just isnt so. For one thing, drug companies spend more on marketing and advertising than on new ideas. Overly restrictive intellectual property rights actually slow new discoveries. As it is, most of the important innovations come out of our universities and research centers, like the National Institutes of Health, funded by government and foundations.

Note: Read what a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Health has to say about the egregious profiteering of Big Pharma. Watch an excellent, two-minute video by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich on the TPP titled "The Worst Trade Deal You've Never Heard of," or read leaked draft texts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership for yourself.


How Nebraska Became the Only State to Bring Everyone Power From a Public Grid
2015-01-30, Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/commonomics/nebraskas-community-owned-energy

In the United States, there is one state, and only one state, where every single resident and business receives electricity from a community-owned institution rather than a for-profit corporation. Nebraska ... has embraced the complete socialization of energy distribution. The Nebraska Power Association proudly proclaims, Our electric prices do not include a profit. That means Nebraskas utilities can focus exclusively on keeping electric rates low and customer service high. Our customers, not big investors in New York and Chicago, own Nebraskas utilities. Nebraska has a long history of publicly owned power systems. However, in the post-World War I era, large corporate electric holding companies backed by Wall Street banks entered the market and began taking over. Tired of abusive corporate practices, in 1930 residents and advocates of publicly owned utilities took a revenue bond financing proposal straight to the voters, bypassing the corporate-influenced legislature which had previously failed to pass similar legislation. It was approved overwhelmingly. By 1949, Nebraska had solidified its status as the first and only all-public power state. Nebraskas nearly 100-year-old experience with a completely public and community-owned electricity system demonstrates that ... the principles of subsidiarity and local control can, in fact, be preserved through a networked mix of publicly owned institutions at various scales without sacrificing efficiency or service quality.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


CIA did use United Kingdom territory for secret terror interrogations, says top US official
2015-01-30, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-did-use-united-kingdom-t...

Terror suspects held by the CIA were interrogated on the British owned island of Diego Garcia despite the repeated denials of London and Washington that any such incidents took place, a senior American official said today. Lawrence Wilkerson, who was the chief aide to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, said the remote UK-administered military base in the Indian Ocean was used as a back-up location for nefarious activities, such as the questioning of prisoners in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In an interview with the Vice News website, Mr Wilkerson said that Diego Garcia did not host a permanent CIA prison but was used as a back-up location to conduct interrogations. Mr Wilkerson, 70, who served as chief of staff to Mr Powell throughout the Iraq war, said he had not learnt of the CIAs alleged use of Diego Garcia until after he stepped down in 2005. He said that on the basis of his own experience while serving on the island in the 1980s and information from his sources, he believed it to be unlikely that any interrogations could have happened without the knowledge of British liaison staff who are in command of the base. The former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have previously denied any use of the coral atoll for rendition. It was reported last year by Al Jazeera that the Senate Intelligence Committee report, which provided an account of torture by the CIA, would confirm Diego Garcia was used for rendition with the full co-operation of the UK. When the document was published the locations of black sites had been redacted.

Note: Diego Garcia has been known to be a center for the CIA's nefarious activities for years. This newspaper article shows how the torture was sometimes done on military "prison ships" near the island to keep it hidden from the people there.


Flu vaccine effectiveness study signals 'no protection' this year in Canada
2015-01-29, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/flu-vaccine-effectiveness-study-signals-no-prot...

This year's flu vaccine offers little or no protection in Canada against becoming sick enough to require medical care, a study published Thursday suggests. "I would say overall it's signalling no protection," said lead author Dr. Danuta Skowronski, an influenza expert at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. The study, an interim estimate of this year's flu vaccine effectiveness, was published Thursday in Eurosurveillance, an online journal belonging to the European Centre for Disease Control. Skowronski said the message people should take from the study is that if they are at high risk of developing pneumonia or getting seriously ill if they contract influenza, they should take other steps to protect their health. An interesting finding of the study is that people who did not get a flu shot last year appeared to get more protection from the vaccine this year than people who got shots both years. There is an emerging school of thought that repeated vaccination in some circumstances may actually undermine the protectiveness of the vaccine. Earlier this month the U.S. Centers for Disease Control published interim vaccine effectiveness data for that country. The flu season south of the border has been very similar to the one in Canada almost all caused by H3N2 and their early findings suggested the vaccine lowered a recipient's risk of contracting the flu and getting sick enough to need medical care by 23 per cent. That's well below the 50 to 70 per cent effectiveness estimate that is often cited for flu vaccine.

Note: A National Institute of Health study found in 2007 that flu shots do not protect the elderly. More recent studies have shown that some flu shots actually increase the risk of infection. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing vaccine controversy news articles from reliable major media sources.


Office puts chips under staff's skin
2015-01-29, BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31042477

Felicio de Costa ... arrives at the front door and holds his hand against it to gain entry. Inside he does the same thing to get into the office space he rents [at Epicenter, a new hi-tech office development in Sweden]. He can also wave his hand to operate the photocopier. That's all because he has a tiny RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in his hand. On the day of the building's official opening, the developer's chief executive was, himself, chipped live on stage. The whole process is being organised by a Swedish bio-hacking group. While some of the people around the building were looking forward to being chipped, others were distinctly dubious. An older woman ... saw little point in being chipped just to get through a door. But [Epicenter official] Hannes Sjoblad says he and the Swedish Biohacking Group have another objective - preparing us all for the day when others want to chip us. "We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped - the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip." Then, he says, we'll all be able to question the way the technology is implemented from a position of much greater knowledge.

Note: Read about the agenda to chip all people in this powerful essay and these news articles.


Vatican To Offer Haircuts, Shaves To Rome's Homeless
2015-01-29, Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/30/vatican-haircuts-homeless_n_6573058....

The Vatican will offer homeless people in Rome not only showers but also haircuts and shaves when new facilities open next month, the head of Pope Francis' charity office said. The Vatican announced last year that it would provide shower facilities in St Peter's Square for homeless people. Bishop Konrad Krajewski told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire on Thursday that it would also offer haircuts and shaves when the services start on Feb. 16 in an area under the colonnade of the square. Krajewski, whose official title is the pope's almoner, said barbers and hairdressers would volunteer their services on Mondays, the day their shops are traditionally closed in Italy. They had already donated chairs, hair-cutting instruments, and mirrors, the newspaper's website said. Krajewski came up with the idea of building showers in St. Peter's Square last year after a homeless person told him that while it was relatively easy to find places to eat at Rome charities, it was difficult to find places to wash. He immediately received the pope's backing for the shower project and then expanded it to include haircuts and shaves.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


New York Times editor: we failed to do our job after 9/11
2015-01-28, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jan/28/new-york-times-editor...

Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, believes his newspaper in company with the US mainstream media failed their audiences after 9/11. He told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that he agreed with the criticism originally made by an NYT reporter, James Risen, Baquet said: The mainstream press was not aggressive enough after 9/11, was not aggressive enough in asking questions about a decision to go to war in Iraq, was not aggressive enough in asking the hard questions about the war on terror. I accept that for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Baquet, in charge of the NYT since May 2014, was previously editor-in-chief of the LA Times. In his wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, Baquet also spoke about the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden having chosen to tell his story to the Guardian. He said he regards the Guardian as a new competitor [for the NYT] in the digital age. He said: Does it make me nervous that they compete with us and in fact beat us on the Snowden story? Yes. "It hurt a lot. It meant two things. Morally, it meant that somebody with a big story to tell didnt think we were the place to go, and thats painful. And then it also meant that we got beaten on what was arguably the biggest national security story in many, many years.

Note: When asked about the New York Times' refusal to report on military drone base locations in the interview referenced above, Baquet recalls, "A high-ranking CIA official called me up and made the case to leave out where the drone base was. It was Saudi Arabia. I accepted it. And I was wrong." For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing articles about mass media manipulation.


Heed Truman's Call to Rein in the CIA
2015-01-28, US News & World Report
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-fenn/2015/01/28/truman-was-right-to...

There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position and I feel that we need to correct it. President Harry S. Truman wrote those words in an op-ed for the Washington Post on Dec. 22, 1963. This was exactly one month after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and a bit more than 10 years before the ... Church Committee [formed] to study abuses in the intelligence committee. Sadly, we seem to slip back into the same old patterns where ... the CIA goes off in secret to do its thing. Whether it was overthrowing governments beginning in the 1950s, the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro ... or creating secret prisons for torture in the 2000s, the pattern is truly disturbing; in some cases, it was so disturbing that the CIA conducted internal reviews of its own actions. After the Church Committee investigation in 1975, our intelligence agencies were prohibited from assassinating foreign leaders and illegally spying on Americans, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was created to further ensure prevention of unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, permanent congressional oversight committees were established to do just what Sen. Dianne Feinsteins, D-Calif., committee did last year to investigate the CIA on torture. It is ... doubtful that we will be holding the perpetrators accountable. We need a new Church Committee or serious presidential commission, [because] the new world in which we live ... demands far greater oversight.

Note: For more along these lines, see the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture". For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the intelligence community.


Placebo effect influenced by perceived cost, study finds
2015-01-28, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-expensive-placebos-work-b...

Parkinsons [is] a movement disorder that causes tremors, stiffness and balance problems. A 2008 meta-analysis found that placebos used in clinical trials of Parkinsons treatments improved symptoms by an average of 16%. [A] team from the University of Cincinnati ... had a hunch that patients would be more responsive to a fake drug they thought was real if it came with a heftier price tag. So they recruited 12 patients with moderately advanced Parkinsons and asked them to participate in a clinical trial. The study volunteers were told that there were two versions of the experimental drug and that both were believed to work equally well, [but] one version cost 15 times more than the other. In reality, both placebos were composed of the exact same saline solution. And yet, the patients perceived the expensive version to be more effective than the cheaper one, according to results published Wednesday in the journal Neurology. Both of the placebos improved motor function compared with a base line test. But when patients got the $1,500-per-dose placebo, their improvement was 9% greater than when they got the $100-per-dose placebo, the researchers reported. In another test, 67% of the patients were judged very good or having marked improvement after they took the expensive placebo, compared with 58% of patients after they took the purportedly cheap placebo.

Note: Even 58% experiencing "marked improvement" on the cheaper placebo is quite impressive! Why aren't more studies being done on the amazing and powerful affects of the placebo? Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The best idea in a long time: Covering parking lots with solar panels
2015-01-28, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/01/28/the-best-...

America is a nation of pavement. According to research conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, most cities surfaces are 35 to 50 percent composed of the stuff. And 40 percent of that pavement is parking lots. That has a large effect: Asphalt and concrete absorb the suns energy, retaining heat and contributing to the urban heat island effect, in which cities are hotter than the surrounding areas. So what if there were a way to cut down on that heat, cool down the cars that park in these lots, power up those parked cars that are electric vehicles, and generate a lot of energy to boot? There is actually a technology that does all of this solar carports. Its just what it sounds like covering up a parking lot with solar panels, which are elevated above the ground so that cars park in the shade beneath a canopy of photovoltaics. Depending of course on the size of the array, you can generate a lot of power. For instance, one vast solar carport installation at Rutgers University is 28 acres in size and produces 8 megawatts of power, or about enough energy to power 1,000 homes. So whats the downside here? And why arent solar parking lots to be found pretty much everywhere you turn? In a word, the problem is cost. They are mainly springing up in Arizona, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York and most of all California. Thats because these states offer an array of state financial incentives to support their development.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


Lawyers for Billionaire Sex Offender Linked to Prince Andrew Scandal Ask Judge to Keep Documents Sealed
2015-01-27, ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/International/lawyers-billionaire-sex-offender-linked-p...

Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claim in a new court filing that the billionaire financier will be "irreparably harmed" if emails and letters his lawyers sent to federal prosecutors ... are made public. They're asking a judge to order that the correspondence remain sealed. Epstein's legal brief ... represents his first formal statements since explosive allegations emerged last month that he had forced a then-17-year-old girl to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew and other powerful men. Virginia Roberts, 31, ... claimed in court documents that Epstein ... trafficked her for sex with a host of his prominent associates, including three times with Prince Andrew ... and at least six times with longtime Harvard legal professor,Alan Dershowitz. Roberts ... seeks to join a case filed by two other women. Those women contend that the deal with Epstein violated their rights as crime victims to be consulted and treated with fairness in the administration of justice. The case, which was first filed in July 2008 as an emergency motion to stop the deal from taking place without their input. Unbeknownst at the time to the victims, the agreement had already been signed nine months earlier. Last fall, Judge Marra unsealed a small portion of the correspondence from Epstein's attorneys. One excerpt -- a one-line email from an Epstein attorney sent just as the terms of the non-prosecution deal were being finalized -- reads simply: "Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public." If [Marra] were to side with the plaintiffs, the immediate effect could be the unsealing of a 23-page letter written in part by Dershowitz and sent to federal prosecutors two months before the agreement was signed.

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