Ugh. Six years of this guy is six too many. If we’re really lucky, maybe he’ll implode before he finishes his first term. How can anyone sit there with a straight face and suggest that supporting health care as a right is to support slavery? It makes no sense. PAUL: With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery. I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be. A couple of things. When did food and water become “services”? And where does he get this crazy fantasy that establishing a right to health care means people can beat his door down and carry him away to force him to treat them? Then there is the matter of the Hippocratic Oath , which I’m guessing Baby Paul doesn’t even know, much less practice. (I doubt he actually signed anything like it, since he is self-certified ). But for doctors who do sign it, this part might help keep people from banging down doors in the dead of night and carrying assistants away: I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. Give me a break. Slavery? C’mon. [h/t Think Progress ]
Continue reading …Transportation Secretary Unsure of What a Hipster Is. NewsFeed Helps Him Out
May 12, 2011 No Comment
In an interview with the Huffington Post, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood expressed solidarity with bicyclists. Told ” his heartfelt defense of bikers came off like the musings of a run-of-the-mill hipster,” his response was, “I don’t even know what that term means.” NewsFeed to the rescue! Starting with the most official definition, from Green’s Dictionary of
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Death toll from country’s worst quakes for 50 years rises to nine as town mayor claims 90% of homes still inhabitable The death toll in Spain’s worst earthquake for 50 years rose to nine on Thursday as questions were raised about how two relatively mild shocks caused such extensive destruction in the eastern town of Lorca. Dozens of injured were still being treated in hospital following Wednesday evening’s quakes and thousands were expected to spend a second night in tents and shelters. “Lorca looks like Beirut, with everything on the ground and huge cracks in the walls,” said mayor Franciscó Jodar. Structural engineers were putting red stickers on the fronts of buildings too dangerous to occupy, with at least some expected to be demolished. Jodar said 90% of homes in the town, which has 92,000 residents, were habitable but officials from the regional government of Murcia previously claimed 80% were damaged. Some buildings had collapsed completely. Two pregnant women and a child were among those who died in the quakes, which measured 4.4 and 5.2 on the Richter scale. Up to 20,000 people spent Wednesday night in squares, parks and nearby countryside fearing further tremors. “An earthquake of 5.2 magnitude is not intense enough to produce collapses, so the damage done is due to previous damage,” said Luis Suárez, president of the Geological Society of Spain. The earlier damage may have been caused by the 4.4 magnitude quake that came first. One witness, who gave his name as Cecilio, said he had come across a boy killed by falling masonry while walking the family dog. “The mother was calling out ‘help me, help me’, but there was nothing we could do,” he said. Another witness, Joaquín Román, spent the night in a park with his family. He told the Spanish newspaper El Pais: “It was awful. I was walking down the street when suddenly masonry started falling off the buildings and people fell on to the ground like puppets.” Rescue teams, military personnel and bulldozers moved into the town on Thursday morning to clear away rubble, which included one three-storey building that had collapsed across a street. Experts said the town had been unlucky to be hit because the quake’s epicentre was close by and just two miles underground, rather than at the usual depth of between six and 12 miles. “It’s only really caused such damage because it was so shallow and the – epicentre was so close to the town of Lorca,” said Roger Musson of the British Geological Survey. This was the deadliest earthquake in Spain since 1956, when 12 people died and 70 were injured in the southern region of Granada. The country’s last fatal earthquake was in 1969. Spain Europe Natural disasters and extreme weather Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
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Neil Lennon sent bullet through the post hours after assault at Tynecastle as two men arrested over letter bombs Celtic Football Club and senior Scottish Catholics have demanded decisive action to combat sectarian bigotry in the country after it was discovered the team’s manager had been sent a a bullet though the post hours after he was assaulted at a game. Police were called to Celtic’s stadium in Glasgow to deal with the package on Thursday morning, hours after the incident at a match in Edinburgh with Heart of Midlothian. It is understood to have been addressed to Lennon and is being examined by forensic experts. Lennon, a Northern Irish Catholic, has been the target of abuse, threats and even a letter bomb in recent months as the sectarian problem in central Scotland has reached boiling point. He has already been sent packages containing bullets by Loyalist hardliners in Northern Ireland. And in a separate development, two men were arrested in Ayrshire after a series of raids in connection with an investigation into the sending of letter bombs to Lennon and other prominent Catholics in March and April. The two men, named as Neil McKenzie, 41, and Trevor Muirhead, 43, were arrested and held in police custody overnight under the Explosive Substances Act 1883, after being detained in dawn raids on homes in the towns of Kilwinning and Saltcoats. A number of others are said to be helping police with their inquiries. Meanwhile, , a Hearts fan named as John Wilson, 26, from Edinburgh, has appeared in court charged with assault and breach of the peace aggravated by religious prejudice for allegedly striking Lennon during a league fixture at Tynecastle on Wednesday night. Wilson made no plea and was remanded. Earlier this week, seven people were in court on firearms offences, for allegedly possessing an imitation gun outside Celtic’s training ground. Peter Lawwell, Celtic’s chief executive, said: “We are the only club to be the subject of such vile, sustained and relentless attacks. . It is intolerable that any football club, or individual, going about their lawful business in the name of sport should be subjected to this ongoing campaign of hatred and intimidation. “This is Scotland’s shame and it is high time Scotland addressed it.” A spokesman for Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Scotland’s most senior Catholic, said the church would be intensifying pressure on the new government to honour an election pledge to produce more detailed statistics on sectarian offences in Scotland. Figures from the Crown Office, show there are at least 600 convictions each year for sectarian offences. A study in 2006 showed Catholics were six times more likely to be victims than Protestants. The Crown Office has commissioned a new study but has resisted pressure to publish detailed annual figures. Celtic Scotland Scottish Premier League Catholicism Hearts Religion Christianity Severin Carrell guardian.co.uk
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Economic climate leads to parents falling into arrears as heads talk of schools ‘clinging on by fingerips’ to stay open Private schools are turning to debt collectors to force parents to hand over millions of pounds owed in unpaid fees, it has emerged. The harsh economic climate has led to more parents defaulting – or falling into arrears – on their children’s school fees this year, the Independent Schools Bursars’ Association (ISBA) said. A growing number of private schools believe they are being left with little choice but to pursue parents’ unsettled payments through debt collection agencies. One agency, Daniels Silverman, expects to collect £9m from parents in arrears on school fees by the end of this year. Last year, it collected £5.8m. The number of private schools who have requested its help has risen to 74 from 48 a year ago. It has established a team of debt collectors to respond to the growing demand from schools. On average, the schools it works for are owed £120,000, it claims. Another agency, Sinclair Goldberg Price, would not state how many schools it worked for, but said the number had risen by 70% in the last year. It has collected more than £200,000 in fee arrears in the last year. In most cases, parents either withdraw their child from a school without notice – which can leave a place unfilled for many months – or fail to keep up payments of fees, but keep their child at the school. Parents are usually liable for fees unless they give a school at least one term’s notice that they are withdrawing their child. The Independent Schools Council (ISC), which represents more than 1,200 schools, said 14 member institutions had closed in the past year and described the economic climate as “the most challenging for decades”. Many more schools are thought to have closed, but are not part of the ISC. One headteacher of a private school, who did not want to be named, said independent schools were having to be “quite assertive” in retrieving unpaid fees. “Otherwise parents think the school is a soft touch. It is so difficult because it is hard for parents to accept that they cannot pay for their child’s education.” Mike Lower, general secretary of the ISBA, said more parents were defaulting or falling into arrears, but “schools still had salaries to pay and overheads to cover”. He said it could be quicker for a school to use a debt collection agency than to pursue a debt through a county court. Sean Feast, spokesman for the Credit Services Association, which represents more than 300 debt collection agencies, said a larger number of middle-class parents were “being caught up in a web of debt”. “This in turn means that the approach by the collectors has to be different … It is unlikely that these people will ever have been in debt … it is in the interest of the debtor, the agency and the school to keep the child in the school.” Richard Cairns, headteacher of Brighton College, said he had never needed to call in a debt collector as, but was aware of schools “in very shaky financial circumstances, in part because parents can’t afford the fees”. “There are a lot of schools just clinging on by their finger nails,” he said. Figures released last month by the ISC show that the number of pupils at private schools has fallen for the second year running. Student numbers dropped by 786 this year – a fall of 0.2%. The average cost of sending a child to a private school has risen by 4.6% to almost £13,200 a year. Private schools Schools Parents Family finances Consumer affairs Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk
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How did the world’s most wanted man keep himself busy in that Pakistani compound? Bin Laden’s recently discovered diaries give us a unique insight into his politics, TV viewing habits and haircare regime 14 August 2009 Watched TV for a few hours to see if there were any stories about me. Nothing today. I did see that temptress Sarah Palin on CNN though, practically naked as usual – wrists showing, ankles, hair, everything. Oddly enough, she was talking about death panels. I have always advocated them as a quick and efficient way to punish people for stealing fruit or shaving, but she seemed very dismissive of the idea. At one point she actually said “Obama’s death panels” instead of “Osama’s death panels”, but the interviewer didn’t pick her up on the mistake. Stupid woman. 11 September 2009 Fired into the air a few times, but everybody said it was a bad idea. “Too much noise, Osama. You’ll draw attention to our hiding place.” Cowards, all of them. Not really in a holiday mood, anyway. Nobody celebrates it round here. 19 January 2010 Spent the morning planning new attacks on major American population centres. You have to keep yourself busy in a place like this, otherwise you’ll go mad. We need to stage more mass killings – lots of small killings will do nothing to change US policy. They have small killings almost every day there – I doubt they would even notice. Also, I’m big on trains these days. And attacking on dates sacred to Americans: 4 July, Madonna’s birthday, the Vanity Fair Oscar party, Lindsay Lohan court appearance, etc. To paraphrase those fat cooks from the BBC, it’s time to take killing to the next level. When I was finished I called everyone into the safe room to tell them my new plan to defeat the infidels: we are going to attack the public transport network of Los Angeles, bringing this modern-day Sodom to its knees. Someone laughed and said, “good luck with that”. Then I said, “Jihad does NOT get tougher than this!” and we all laughed. It’s good to feel at the centre of things again. 26 April 2010 Saw myself on TV, in an old clip from who knows when, exhorting followers to exterminate western imperialists. So young! What happened to that dashing, smoky-eyed, full-lipped fellow? He is sat here hunched in a shawl, eating seeds and watching Larry King. Sigh. 5 June 2010 Very hot. Spent afternoon in the courtyard, reading and thinking. It is lonely here, but also very peaceful. At times like these, war and death and western imperialism seem a world away from this little seat under the olive tree. If next door’s ball comes over that wall one more time today I’m going to put a bullet in it before I throw it back. 15 August 2010 Courier came today: secret messages from al-Qaida, more AA batteries for the remote, copy of Newsweek, Ikea catalogue (they send me two, every time, even though I have never ordered anything) and a pirate DVD of Finding Nemo. Watched it, laughed a lot, condemned it afterwards. Tonight is book-club night, and everyone in the compound is angry with me because I have picked the Qur’an again. They all say they have read it before. I say, but have you memorised it? They say, you always hijack the discussion! This is true, I suppose. Abu says it is his turn to pick. No way, I tell him. Never again, not after Angela’s Ashes. 3 November 2010 Can’t tell whether to be pleased by US election results. Their system is so complicated! Two houses of legislature, president, cabinet, judiciary – as far as I’m concerned it all adds up to one great big Satan. I guess the Republican win is bad for healthcare reform, and therefore good (more Americans dead, no extra work for us) but I’m finding it hard to feel pleased. 22 November 2010 Very tired today. Stayed up late last night with friends arguing about whether or not dishwashers were blasphemous. And you can’t just say “yes” and be done with it. Everyone wants reasons. In the end I told them that, God willing, we should concentrate our efforts on eliminating bigger evils – America, Israel, music – and leave smaller doctrinal questions about household appliances to one side for now. Hassan says some of the new ones use less water than the old, non-blasphemous way of washing-up, but of course this is not the point. Later, probably because I was tired, I had an accident with the beard dye. First, I used the Delicate Iced Chocolate instead of the Sensual Black, then I forgot to put on the gloves, then I left the stuff on way too long. I cannot make a video looking like this. It will have to wait. 8 March 2011 OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ARSENAL!!! 3-1 WHAT ARE THEY LIKE!!!! 30 April 2011 Something weird going on in the neighbourhood. Can’t put my finger on it, but there are some extra antennas on the roof over the road, and that white van on the corner has been there for, like, four days. I got so worried I called ISI, but they said I was just being paranoid. Osama bin Laden Global terrorism al-Qaida United States US national security Tim Dowling guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sources: Bin Laden Journals Show He Was Closely Involved In Al Qaeda Planning, Wanted Another 9/11
May 12, 2011 No Comment
enlarge Sources claim Osama bin Laden wanted another 9/11 type attack on the United States. So it looks as though bin Laden was much more hands on with the rest of al Qaeda’s operations than we were led to believe. Interesting, since we were told a full-scale war was the only way to stop all those disconnected cells, but of course it’s likely the intelligence community’s findings were molded to meet the long-term political goals of the White House: The ongoing study of files recovered from Osama bin Laden’s compound revealed that he wanted to plan another 9/11-scale attack on the US , which he hoped would shock the US into ending its presence in the Middle East. As information from the files is studied, it is becoming increasingly clear to US officials that bin Laden remained very involved in Al Qaeda’s operations from his hiding spot in Abbottabad. It remains to be seen, however, if this will convince Pakistani officials that the 9/11 mastermind was more than an “out-of-touch figurehead” whose presence deep inside Pakistan was of little consequence , as they have suggested. Citing bin Laden’s handwritten journal and information gleaned from computer files recovered in the May 2 raid, US officials told the Associated Press that the Saudi-born terrorist calculated how many Americans he thought would have to die in order for the US to leave the Arab world and decided that the small attacks since 9/11 would not be enough – that thousands had to die at once, like they did in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Bin Laden was cognizant of US counterterrorism defenses and educated his followers on how to evade them, according to the AP. He also urged them to focus plots not just on New York City, but other large cities, such as Los Angeles, and smaller cities throughout the country . He insisted they consider trains as a target, not just planes. In fact, it looks like he was a bit of a micro-manager. And like many executives, sounds like he was a little antsy about letting anyone else succeed him: Intelligence gathered months before the raid revealed a tell-tale exchange with the al Qaeda leader in Yemen. The leader, a Yemeni, wrote to bin Laden with a surprising proposal: He suggested that he step down as chief of the affiliate in favor of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American ideologue . Awlaki’s influence has been revealed in a string of recent plots against the U.S., including the attempted Christmas bombing on a Detroit-bound flight in 2009. The leader explained that naming Awlaki as his replacement would be a propaganda coup. It would take advantage of the cleric’s popularity among Westerners, especially Americans, and have a strong impact on recruitment, according to the counterterror official. The leader in Pakistan rejected the proposal, however, according to the official. “Bin laden’s message was essentially, I know you. I trust you. Let’s keep things the way they are.”
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Death of grandchild of eccentric millionaire Wellington Burt triggered 21-year countdown clause in one-of-a-kind will He called it his “golden egg”, and for 92 years it has been incubating quietly in a trust fund in his hometown of Saginaw, Michigan. But by the end of this month its shell will crack and out will come a fortune worth up to $110m (£67.5m), enriching people he never knew and bringing to an end the saga of one of the strangest bequests in US history. The “golden egg” belonged to one Wellington Burt, a fabulously wealthy Michigan lumber tycoon who was, according to the account of his contemporaries, brilliant, crotchety and eccentric in equal measure. When he died in 1919, aged 87, he had a multimillion fortune to give away, and was expected to provide handsomely for his immediate family and for the various Saginaw causes that he espoused. It was not to be. Nobody quite knows why — some say it was the result of petty gripes against family members, others that he was a sour old man who wanted to wreak his revenge beyond the grave — but Burt wrote one of the most peculiar wills that probate lawyers can remember. The “golden egg” he said would remain in its nest for 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild. That last of his grandchildren alive when he died was Marion Lansill, and she herself passed away in November 1989, thus starting the 21-year countdown that ended last November. Since then a local judge in charge of the trust fund has been poring over 30 applications from individuals eager to share in the spoils. The local newspaper, the Saginaw News, reports that at the end of the judge’s researches, 12 people will divide up the golden egg, now estimated after interest to be worth between $100m and $110m. The beneficiaries form a disparate group, spread out from the east to west coasts of the US. None of the 12 knew Burt, though the eldest of the group was two years old when he died. The sum they receive varies greatly too, under a formula agreed between family lawyers that grants most money to those closest in generation to Burt with fewest siblings. The greatest individual profit is $16m and the least $2.9m. For those who came before them, and who were deprived of any of Burt’s fortune, his legacy was one of bitterness, and some say a curse. The newspaper says that Burt’s six children, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren all received not a penny, either because they died while the “golden egg” lay dormant or because they were deemed ineligible. To rub salt into the wound, Burt left his immediate offspring a relatively miniscule annual allowance of as little as $1,000 a year — the same as he left his cook, housekeeper and coachman. The youngest of the 12 heirs, Christina Cameron, 19, who will receive almost $3m, as will her sister Cory, told the Saginaw News that she had mixed feelings about the windfall as she had seen the pain it caused her forebears. First her grandfather had been due to inherit, but he died two years ago. Then her mother was in line, but she died aged 50 last February. “I guess all of this happening within a year made this seem more like a curse,” Cameron said. “My grandfather was pretty excited about it, and then my mother was pretty excited about it as well. Cory and I are not as excited.” Michigan United States Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Death of grandchild of eccentric millionaire Wellington Burt triggered 21-year countdown clause in one-of-a-kind will He called it his “golden egg”, and for 92 years it has been incubating quietly in a trust fund in his hometown of Saginaw, Michigan. But by the end of this month its shell will crack and out will come a fortune worth up to $110m (£67.5m), enriching people he never knew and bringing to an end the saga of one of the strangest bequests in US history. The “golden egg” belonged to one Wellington Burt, a fabulously wealthy Michigan lumber tycoon who was, according to the account of his contemporaries, brilliant, crotchety and eccentric in equal measure. When he died in 1919, aged 87, he had a multimillion fortune to give away, and was expected to provide handsomely for his immediate family and for the various Saginaw causes that he espoused. It was not to be. Nobody quite knows why — some say it was the result of petty gripes against family members, others that he was a sour old man who wanted to wreak his revenge beyond the grave — but Burt wrote one of the most peculiar wills that probate lawyers can remember. The “golden egg” he said would remain in its nest for 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild. That last of his grandchildren alive when he died was Marion Lansill, and she herself passed away in November 1989, thus starting the 21-year countdown that ended last November. Since then a local judge in charge of the trust fund has been poring over 30 applications from individuals eager to share in the spoils. The local newspaper, the Saginaw News, reports that at the end of the judge’s researches, 12 people will divide up the golden egg, now estimated after interest to be worth between $100m and $110m. The beneficiaries form a disparate group, spread out from the east to west coasts of the US. None of the 12 knew Burt, though the eldest of the group was two years old when he died. The sum they receive varies greatly too, under a formula agreed between family lawyers that grants most money to those closest in generation to Burt with fewest siblings. The greatest individual profit is $16m and the least $2.9m. For those who came before them, and who were deprived of any of Burt’s fortune, his legacy was one of bitterness, and some say a curse. The newspaper says that Burt’s six children, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren all received not a penny, either because they died while the “golden egg” lay dormant or because they were deemed ineligible. To rub salt into the wound, Burt left his immediate offspring a relatively miniscule annual allowance of as little as $1,000 a year — the same as he left his cook, housekeeper and coachman. The youngest of the 12 heirs, Christina Cameron, 19, who will receive almost $3m, as will her sister Cory, told the Saginaw News that she had mixed feelings about the windfall as she had seen the pain it caused her forebears. First her grandfather had been due to inherit, but he died two years ago. Then her mother was in line, but she died aged 50 last February. “I guess all of this happening within a year made this seem more like a curse,” Cameron said. “My grandfather was pretty excited about it, and then my mother was pretty excited about it as well. Cory and I are not as excited.” Michigan United States Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Death of grandchild of eccentric millionaire Wellington Burt triggered 21-year countdown clause in one-of-a-kind will He called it his “golden egg”, and for 92 years it has been incubating quietly in a trust fund in his hometown of Saginaw, Michigan. But by the end of this month its shell will crack and out will come a fortune worth up to $110m (£67.5m), enriching people he never knew and bringing to an end the saga of one of the strangest bequests in US history. The “golden egg” belonged to one Wellington Burt, a fabulously wealthy Michigan lumber tycoon who was, according to the account of his contemporaries, brilliant, crotchety and eccentric in equal measure. When he died in 1919, aged 87, he had a multimillion fortune to give away, and was expected to provide handsomely for his immediate family and for the various Saginaw causes that he espoused. It was not to be. Nobody quite knows why — some say it was the result of petty gripes against family members, others that he was a sour old man who wanted to wreak his revenge beyond the grave — but Burt wrote one of the most peculiar wills that probate lawyers can remember. The “golden egg” he said would remain in its nest for 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild. That last of his grandchildren alive when he died was Marion Lansill, and she herself passed away in November 1989, thus starting the 21-year countdown that ended last November. Since then a local judge in charge of the trust fund has been poring over 30 applications from individuals eager to share in the spoils. The local newspaper, the Saginaw News, reports that at the end of the judge’s researches, 12 people will divide up the golden egg, now estimated after interest to be worth between $100m and $110m. The beneficiaries form a disparate group, spread out from the east to west coasts of the US. None of the 12 knew Burt, though the eldest of the group was two years old when he died. The sum they receive varies greatly too, under a formula agreed between family lawyers that grants most money to those closest in generation to Burt with fewest siblings. The greatest individual profit is $16m and the least $2.9m. For those who came before them, and who were deprived of any of Burt’s fortune, his legacy was one of bitterness, and some say a curse. The newspaper says that Burt’s six children, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 11 great-great grandchildren all received not a penny, either because they died while the “golden egg” lay dormant or because they were deemed ineligible. To rub salt into the wound, Burt left his immediate offspring a relatively miniscule annual allowance of as little as $1,000 a year — the same as he left his cook, housekeeper and coachman. The youngest of the 12 heirs, Christina Cameron, 19, who will receive almost $3m, as will her sister Cory, told the Saginaw News that she had mixed feelings about the windfall as she had seen the pain it caused her forebears. First her grandfather had been due to inherit, but he died two years ago. Then her mother was in line, but she died aged 50 last February. “I guess all of this happening within a year made this seem more like a curse,” Cameron said. “My grandfather was pretty excited about it, and then my mother was pretty excited about it as well. Cory and I are not as excited.” Michigan United States Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk
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