the DARK Act

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Center for Food Safety has this up on signing a petition for Congress to stop bending to the food manufacturers’ associations promoting this bill.

It’s keeping people in the dark about what is in their food.  The public has a right to know what is in their food and the food manufacturers have an obligation to provide that information.

As the CFS states, they are not going to voluntarily put this on the labels.  We have seen in California and Oregon how dirty they fight to keep from putting the ingredients on the label.  Voluntary isn’t in their vocabulary.

Is @TeachForAmerica Cloaking Inequity?: Discussing the Headwind

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Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig's avatarCloaking Inequity

After several decades, Teach For America, a program that sends inexperienced teachers (typically only 5 weeks of summer training) before they are shipped off to teach on a temporary basis (primarily) in America’s toughest schools, is facing some headwind. Alumni are increasingly speaking out against the organization, many of whom who joined Teach For America with the right intentions. I suspect the high turnover at Teach For America’s internal administrative offices may also be related to similar epiphanies, but this I cannot confirm. For the last 8 years, I have taken calls from reporters who have puff pieces headed for print that extolled the virtues and soaring rhetoric of Teach For America— even more so at the start of each school year. I first received these calls because of a 2005 peer reviewed piece entitled Does teacher preparation matter? evidence about teacher certification, teach for america, and teacher effectiveness examining the effectiveness of…

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New Yorkers: Officer who choked Garner should be indicted

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Report here.  And I agree.  Watching the video, clearly Garner was not threatening the officers.  He did not have a knife in his hand, or otherwise acting in an aggressive manner.  The officer was using an illegal maneuver because….Garner was arguing with them.  Garner’s “crime” was selling cigarettes to support himself and his family. I can find no fault in that.  And the worst part is that he did not have cigarettes on him at the time of this incident.  WTH?

What Surveillance Valley knows about you

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This was published a year ago, and somehow I missed it–
Wow. Cannot even begin—
Let’s start with the MedBase part:
Take MEDbase200, a boutique for-profit intel outfit that specializes in selling health-related consumer data. Well, until last week, the company offered its clients a list of rape victims (or “rape sufferers,” as the company calls them) at the low price of $79.00 per thousand. The company claims to have segmented this data set into hundreds of different categories, including stuff like the ailments they suffer, prescription drugs they take and their ethnicity:

These rape sufferers are family members who have reported, or have been identified as individuals affected by specific illnesses, conditions or ailments relating to rape. Medbase200 is the owner of this list. Select from families affected by over 500 different ailments, and/or who are consumers of over 200 different Rx medications. Lists can be further selected on the basis of lifestyle, ethnicity, geo, gender, and much more. Inquire today for more information.
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An unethical and immoral invasion of the privacy of SOMEONE WHOM HAS ALREADY BEEN VIOLATED IN THE MOST PRIVATE PART OF A PERSONS’ LIFE!! God I just want to hit someone!
But wait, it goes on from there to violate the privacy of the vulnerable (which is basically all of us because we’re all vulnerable to something). The Elderly, and those with Alzheimers…as I have said before, my Mom was taken advantage of by banks that charged $$ for overdrafts when she was muddled by the horrible disease…this poor Guthrie guy, vulnerable to the lottery and gambling, had his life savings drained when these vultures pounced on his weakness.
Next we have yet another sleazebag connected to Bill and Hillary Clinton (birds of a feather, folks, birds of a feather):
By then, InfoUSA boasted of having information on 230 million consumers. A few years later, InfoUSA counted the biggest Valley companies as its clients, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL. It got involved not only in raw data and dossiers, but moved into payroll and financial, conducted polling and opinion research, partnered with CNN, vetted employees and provided customized services for law enforcement and all sorts of federal and government agencies: processing government payments, helping states locate tax cheats and even administrating President Bill Clinton “Welfare to Work” program. Which is not surprising, as Vin Gupta is a major and close political supporter of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

In 2008, Gupta was sued by InfoUSA shareholders for inappropriately using corporate funds. Shareholders accused of Gupta of illegally funneling corporate money to fund an extravagant lifestyle and curry political favor. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit questioned why Gupta used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on personal and campaign trips, and why Gupta awarded Bill Clinton a $3.3 million consulting gig.
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And here we have the real reason Congress refuses to act–they are in on it. You can bet that Bill and Hillary Clinton are using this information for their political careers and political gain. I’ve suspected as much all along. Watergate was just the pre-runner to gathering information on your *cough* enemies to use against them or for their personal benefit–exploiting weakness, blackmail, manipulation, and on…
And finally, Big Brother on steroids:
“As an employer, I want you on that medication that you need to be on,” says Julie Stone, a HR expert at Towers Watson told the Wall Street Journal.
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Incredible. Just utterly mindboggling that she feels she has a right as an employer to control an employee’s personal life!! My head is spinning. An employer has no right to do this. You work for them. They pay you $$ per hour of work and you go home to your personal life which they have no say in whatsoever. Perhaps this is single reason enough to have your health insurance separate from your employer–if they are not paying for your healthcare, they have no right to decide what you eat, what medicines you do or don’t take, how often or not you exercise, and on.
Like I’ve said before, where is our Senator Frank Church now that we need him and his strength? (Or her and her strength if the right woman were to put these people in their place.)
Scary times, folks. Scary times.