Other, strange, interesting or whatever does not fit into my other two favorite subjects.
I don’t know what kind of world we live in where an inventor is coming up with a) new ways to shape bars of soap b) a device that increases the efficiency of me pulling on my weener for the sake of hygiene c) a package for said product with copywriting that displaces all my $.99 jokes.
O’REILLY: The public option now is done. We discussed this, it’s not going to happen. But you say that this little marketplace that they’re going to set up, whereby the federal government would subsidize insurance for some Americans, that is, in your opinion, a public option?
OWCHARENKO: Well, it has massive new federal regulation. So you don’t necessarily need a public option if the federal government is going to control and regulate the type of health insurance that Americans can buy.
O’REILLY: But you know, I want that, Ms. Owcharenko. I want that. I want, not for personally for me, but for working Americans, to have a option, that if they don’t like their health insurance, if it’s too expensive, they can’t afford it, if the government can cobble together a cheaper insurance policy that gives the same benefits, I see that as a plus for the folks.
The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company “reprehensible.”
That appears to be the most an insurance company has ever been ordered to pay in a case involving the practice known as rescission, in which insurance companies retroactively cancel coverage for policyholders based on alleged misstatements – sometimes right after diagnoses of life-threatening diseases.
The ruling emerges from a conservative Southern state with one of the most pro-business climates in the country. And it comes as progressive Democrats on Capitol Hill are pressing for health care reforms, such as a public insurance option, that reflect wariness about the private insurance industry’s motives.
The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court’s verdict against Fortis Insurance, now known as Assurant. The trial jury had awarded the former college student, Jerome Mitchell, $15 million in punitive damages; the Supreme Court reduced that amount by $5 million.
[From Insurance Company Must Pay $10 Million For Revoking Policy Of Teen With HIV]
Insurance Industry Got A Lot For The $3 Million It Gave Baucus
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/WASHINGTON — Sen. Max Baucus on Wednesday brought out the much-awaited Finance Committee version of an American health-system remake – a landmark $856 billion, 10-year measure that starts a rough ride through Congress without visible Republican backing.
The bill by Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, would make major changes to the nation’s $2.5 trillion health care system, including requiring all individuals to purchase health care or pay a fine, and language prohibiting insurance company practices like charging more to people with more serious health problems.
[From Health Care Bill: Baucus Senate Legislation Finally Unveiled]
Vera Lynn, who made her name entertaining troops in World War II after recording her first song 70 years ago, has become the oldest living artist to have a number one album.
[From 92-year-old outsells Beatles to top UK charts – CNN.com]
This site features the ways in which people modify and re-create technology. Herein a collection of personal modifications, folk innovations, street customization, ad hoc alterations, wear-patterns, home-made versions and indigenous ingenuity. In short — stuff as it is actually used, and not how its creators planned on it being used. As William Gibson said, “The street finds its own uses for things.” I welcome suggestions of links, and contributions from others to include in this compendium.
— KK[From Street Use]
As the FDA paves the way for clinical LSD trials, scientists are exploring its medical benefits. Is acid the new Xanax? Plus, from Angelina to The Beatles, a gallery of celebrity trippers.
Bob Wold doesn’t seem like your typical acid tripper. A happily married 56-year-old contractor with four kids who lives the suburbs of Chicago, he had never considered taking psychedelic drugs until about 10 years ago. At the time, he was suffering from cluster headaches—known as “suicide” headaches because they’re so painful—for 12 hours a day, and he was spending more than $20,000 a year on medication. Then he read a post on a support-group Web site from someone who said they’d found a miracle cure for their own cluster headaches: LSD.
Wold decided to try it. “Compared to brain surgery,” he says, “taking a couple hits of LSD looked a lot more attractive.” But ever since a bust of the country’s biggest LSD lab nine years ago, the drug has become much harder to find. So Wold got his hands on the closest equivalent he could think of: psilocybin “magic” mushrooms (though he has since switched to LSD, which he says works better). The psychedelics arrived in a brown box at his doorstep from a long-distance dealer. He took one dose: about 1.5 grams. “In 15 minutes I could feel the difference,” he says. “My head was clearer than it had probably been in the past 20 years. Other medications felt like they were just covering it up.” But on acid, “All the pressure was gone.”
President Obama has said that he wants “the Islamic Republic of Iran” to be welcomed back into the “community of nations.” Unfortunately, it is precisely the fact that it is an Islamic republic that excludes it from such consideration. A pointed reminder of this was provided last week, when the country’s dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, freshly blooded from his recent military coup, nominated his choice of defense minister. This turns out to be Ahmad Vahidi, who if confirmed will be the only holder of the defense portfolio in the world to be simultaneously wanted by Interpol.
A national group that lobbies Congress on religious issues asked Gov. Bobby Jindal to apologize and reimburse taxpayers for the state-funded helicopter trips he takes on Sundays to visit churches.
The Rev. Welton Gaddy, who is the president of the national Interfaith Alliance, said Jindal is overstepping the line of separation between church and state.
“If you were traveling to these churches to worship with the various congregations, you should have paid your own expenses to get there as did the other worshippers,” Gaddy wrote to the governor in a Sept. 1 letter.
“It appears you owe the people of Louisiana an apology and the treasurer of the state a reimbursement of at least $45,000,” Gaddy wrote. “No taxpayer money should have been used for your travel.”
[From 2theadvocate.com | News | Group wants Jindal to reimburse state — Baton Rouge, LA]
A man suspected of drug dealing was left with this rather unusual hairdo after being arrested midway through a haircut.
Marcus T. Bailey was being tracked by police over a parole warrant when he stepped from a barber’s chair to allegedly sell crack cocaine to two addicts.
[From Suspected drug dealer arrested mid-haircut by police – mirror.co.uk]
You’ve probably never heard of Jay Levine, Chris Ricciardi, John Costas or Stanford Kurland, but they are charter members of Wall Street’s Mulligan Club.
OMG!!!
Conservative media figures are blasting Democrats for trying to draw political gain from the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. But on Thursday, it was one of their own — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee — who went there.
The 2008 Republican presidential candidate suggested during his radio show, “The Huckabee Report,” on Thursday that, under President Obama’s health care plan, Kennedy would have been told to “go home to take pain pills and die” during his last year of life.
[From Huckabee: Kennedy Would Have Been Urged To Die Earlier Under ObamaCare]
Charting New Orleans’ progress since Katrina
[From Charting New Orleans’ progress since Katrina – CNN.com]
According to the suggested reports, the alleged “death panel” originator and former lieutenant governor of New York and adjunct fellow of the Houston Institute, Betsy McCoughey has reportedly resigned from her post after suffering ample amount of humiliation in the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Stewart, who was well informed and prepared reportedly demonstrated McCaughey’s entire foothold in the health care reform to be “as solid as Swiss cheese”. Obama’s health care reform has recently triggered a wide array of controversies off late.
Betsy McCaughey who has also been termed as the serial mis-informer wrongly claimed in the Stewart show that the Page 432 of the House Health Care Reform Bill would make end-of-life counseling “mandatory” after backtracking from her previous statement that stated Page 425 would provide for “mandatory” end-of-life counseling. She had also stated that a provision on that page “penalizes doctors who do not follow or adhere the policies and rules that is set by the government.
The host of the show Jon Stewart noted that the words depicted by McCaughey does not point at making end-of-life counseling mandatory and does not “penalize” doctors but it rather provides incentives for the doctors on the terms of providing “data on quality measures” for end-of-life care.
After discovering that she has been made a subject of ridicule after her infamous appearance on “The Daily Show”, McCaughey reportedly stepped down from her position as the Director of Cantel Medical Corp.
Host Jon Stewart was quite aggressive on his stance thereby proving McCaughey a complete mis-informer. McCaughey has been billed as the creator of the “death panel” myth.
[From Betsy McCaughey Resigns After Humiliating Herself In Jon Stewart’s Show]
The sheer beauty of the BMW R7 prototype takes my breath away. A single copy was crafted in 1934 by design engineer Alfred Böning. His vision was a departure from the “bicycle with motor” design still prevalent in the 1930s. The R7 incorporated sweeping enclosed bodywork, a pressed steel frame, valanced mudguards and then-innovative telescopic front forks.
The R7’s beauty was more than skin deep, however. The transmission featured an ‘H’ pattern hand shifter and the 800c Boxer engine crafted by Leonhard Ischinger was decades ahead of its time. The revolutionary engine includes a forged, single piece crankshaft. The cylinder housing is a monoblock with a hemispherical combustion chamber, eliminating the need for a troublesome head gasket and the camshaft is positioned below the crank (allowing more convenient plug placement).
[From Retro Thing: The Art Deco Motorcycle That Time Forgot]
“Tonight we have two types of cocaine; normal for 100 Bolivianos a gram, and strong cocaine for 150 [Bolivianos] a gram.” The waiter has just finished taking our drink order of two rum-and-Cokes here in La Paz, Bolivia, and as everybody in this bar knows, he is now offering the main course. The bottled water is on the house.
The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all. “We had some Australians; they stayed here for four days. They would take turns sleeping and the only time they left was to go to the ATM,” says Roberto, who has worked at Route 36 (in its various locations) for the last six months. Behind the bar, he goes back to casually slicing straws into neat 8cm lengths.
[From The world’s first cocaine bar | World news | The Guardian]
Something strange has happened in America in the nine months since Barack Obama was elected. It has best been summarized by the comedian Bill Maher: “The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital.”
[From Johann Hari: The Republican Party Is Turning Into A Cult]
We tend to hold inventors in high esteem, but often their discoveries were the result of an accident or twist of fate. This is true of many everyday items, including the following surprise inventions.
[From Famous Things Invented by Accident :: The front of the stage :: August :: 2009]
I sat there for less than a minute. Maybe I sat there for an hour; I don’t know. But something had to be done. I stuck some Klonopin under my tongue and drove to the post office, expecting to turn myself in. Give up. Take the 15 years, if they would just give me the fix. But the door was stuck. I pushed, pulled. It wouldn’t budge. No, it was locked. Closed for Columbus Day.
Columbus Day. No wonder everyone hated him. That tabard-wearing bastard had been dead for 500 years and was still causing trouble.
“Immediately, I felt redeemed. The raw reel of life became distant, pleasant. My head was an overstuffed pillow that could softly implode any minute, and it didn’t matter. Nothing could. A pleasant pressure settled on the back of my neck. I was snacky. I wanted sweets. I felt the promise of a divine massage as the pressure spread through my shoulders and opened my ribs like wings. My thoughts slowed down until just about everything seemed to fold neatly inside everything else.”
[From Confessions of an eBay opium addict | Feature | Tucson Weekly]
Riot police stormed a 30th birthday party for just 15 people and shut it down, thinking it was a rave because it was advertised on Facebook.
Four police cars, a riot van and a helicopter were involved in the swoop on Andrew Poole’s gathering for his family and friends.
He was just about to light the barbecue and had not even turned on the music when the gazebo suddenly started flapping wildly and the sound of chopper blades filled the air.
[From Facebook police raided my family barbecue | Metro.co.uk]
The 10 Most Successful Potheads on the Planet… Cool Enough to Admit It
An unemployed porno addict, sitting in his parents’ basement, playing video games, eating Lucky Charms out of the box with one hand while he lazily scratches his balls with the other. A dread-lock having, patchouli oil smelling, tie-die wearing, Phish listening, hula-hoop twirling space cadet. A burger flipping, acne having, socially inept, friendless loser… These are the common stereotypes associated with the term ‘pothead’.
Where these stereotypes originated remains a mystery to us. In reality, they couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only have 42% of Americans admitted to trying pot, but pot smokers have gone on to become some of the most successful people in our society. We’re not talking about Willie Nelson and Snoop. These guys are on the Forbes 500, they’re leading the free world, and they prove that all existing pothead stereotypes are nothing more than myths.
[From The 10 Most Successful Potheads on the Planet… Cool Enough to Admit It | World Of Mysteries]
