HELP HAITI - DONATE:

American Red Cross 800-REDCROSS or redcross.org; CARE 800-521-CARE or care.org; UNICEF 800-FOR-KIDS or www.unicef.org/hatiquake.

20 Social Networking Sites for Business Professionals

You want to get pissed off! Here you go!

Let us not make the same mistake in 2010

Your U.S. House & Senate have voted themselves $4,700 and $5,300 raises

1. They voted to not give you a S.S. Cost of living raise in 2010 and 2011.

2. Your Medicare premiums will go up $285.60 for the 2-years and you Will not get the 3% COLA or $660/yr. Your total 2-yr loss and cost is $1,600 or $3,200 for husband and wife. Plain enough?

3. Every member of Congress will get an added $10,000 which is putting them very close to $ 200,000 per year (and they get that for life). Sounds like an elite class to us.

4. Do you feel SCREWED? They vote themselves a raise and better benefits. They only care about WE THE PEOPLE on election day, right? You never did anything about it in the past. The time for action is near!!!!

5. Do you really think that Nancy, Harry, Chris, Charlie, Barnie, et al, care about you?

SEND THE MESSAGE-- You're FIRED.

*** THIS IS NOT ABOUT POLITICAL PARTIES! IN 2010 YOU WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO GET RID OF THE ENTIRE SITTING CONGRESS, Up to 1/3 OF THE SENATE, AND 100% OF THE HOUSE.
The election in 2010 will be a sea-change to the Mindset of any member of Congress who may survive.

MAKE SURE YOU'RE STILL MAD IN NOVEMBER 2010 AND REMIND THE REPLACEMENTS NOT TO SCREW UP LIKE THE GUYS THEY ARE REPLACING

IS GOOGLE OGLING YOU?

Search Engines are Convenient but how much information are you Revealing about yourself The word 'Google' has become so common place that it has become a verb – like Xerox or FedEx – in addition to being the name of a company. People rely on it every day whenever they have a question they need answered.

While the benefits of having so much information at our fingertips is indeed convenient, searching answers on the internet is almost done without thinking. Perhaps internet users should stop and consider what's taking place on the other end of their keyboards. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction, right? If Google is a source of tremendous amounts of information for you, are you equally a source of information for them?

Author, researcher, public speaker and long-time privacy expert, Katherine Albrecht, is available for interviews and insists that Americans have reason for concern, especially in light of the Patriot Act, which could lead to a scenario where Google would have to turnover extremely personal information about people who use its search engine.

Albrecht points out that when we realize what the implications of our searches might be, it should bring us pause. Things like:

• ·things we're interested in
• ·things that bother us
• · symptoms of a possible medical condition
• · places we've been or would like to go
• · sites that reflect some of our innermost thoughts

Retail Therapy: Does Sadness Mean Spending? We May Be Willing to Spend More When We're Feeling Down, New Research... click here

Financial Therapy- Marina Edelman

Click here: Breakdown: The Credit CARD Act of 2009

The White House's unprecedented use of 'unprecedented'

from Politico.com

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.” Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action." What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May. But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents. The White House’s announcement of its unprecedented — “a first by an American president visiting China” — town hall meeting with students in Beijing, for instance, drew a collective eye roll in certain circles back home, namely among former aides to President George W. Bush, who had already been grumbling about Obama’s carefree application of “unprecedented.” more of story

Why the consideration of alternative health methods is important.

Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty over promotions Why does big pharma think it can get away with bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs? Equally amazing is the doctors who put their hands out to accept the goodies. The American Medical Association and the PhRMA Code of Sale Reps Ethics prohibit such behavior and it's thriving according to the article by Devlin Barrett.

FDA: Arthritis drugs pose cancer risk to kids Officials adding stronger warnings to the best-selling medication Most popular Most viewed Top rated Most e-mailed Boeing 787 takes flight after two-year delay Husband of missing Utah mom isn’t talking 2nd-grader sent home for crucifix drawing She lost 110 pounds, gained her life back 800,000 doses of kids’ H1N1 vaccine recalled Most viewed on msnbc.com updated 3:09 p.m. ET, Tues., Aug 4, 2009 WASHINGTON - Federal regulators on Tuesday added stronger warnings to a group of best-selling drugs used to treat arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, saying they can increase the risk of cancer in children and adolescents.

FDA: Stop-smoking drugs Chantix, Zyban must carry suicide warning Updated 7/1/2009 6:23 PM | Comments 104 | Recommend 22 E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions | Enlarge By Darron Cummings, AP A customer at the Red Key Taven in Indianapolis lights a Marlboro cigarette June 11. "Smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States and we know [Chantix and Zyban] are effective aids in helping people quit," says Dr. Janet Woodcock. But "the risk of serious adverse events while taking these products must be weighed against the significant health benefits of quitting smoking." QUIT SMOKING Pregnancy can motivate smokers to kick habit It takes a village to quit -- or realization you could buy a new car instead Approach it like training for marathon On the Web: American Cancer Society guide | SmokeFree.gov | BecomeAnEx.org Share Yahoo! Buzz Add to Mixx Facebook Twitter More Subscribe myYahoo iGoogle More By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY The smoking cessation drugs Chantix and Zyban must now carry a boxed warning — the strongest type possible — about the risk of serious mental health problems, including depression, behavior changes and suicidal thoughts, the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.

WARNING: 2010 Census Cautions from the Better Business Bureau Be Cautious About Giving Info to Census Workers

by Susan Johns

** Census workers are currently only knocking on doors to verify address information.

Do not give your Social Security number, credit card or banking information to anyone, even if they claim they need it for the U.S. Census.
REMEMBER, NO MATTER WHAT THEY ASK, YOU REALLY ONLY NEED TO TELL THEM HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVE AT YOUR ADDRESS..

While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, YOU DON'T HAVE TO ANSWER ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT YOUR FINANCIAL SITUATION.
The Census Bureau will not ask for Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers, nor will employees solicit donations. Any one asking for that information is NOT with the Census Bureau.

AND REMEMBER, THE CENSUS BUREAU HAS DECIDED NOT TO WORK WITH ACORN ON GATHERING THIS INFORMATION..
No Acorn worker should approach you saying he/she is with the Census Bureau.

Eventually, Census workers may contact you by telephone, mail, or in person at home. However, the Census Bureau will not contact you by Email, so be on the lookout for Email scams impersonating the Census.

Never click on a link or open any attachments in an Email that are supposedly from the U.S. Census Bureau.

PLEASE SHARE THIS INFO WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

For Your Consideration

The U.S. Post Service was established in 1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is broke.
Social Security was established in 1935. You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
War on Poverty started in 1964. You have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor" and they only want more.
Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are broke.
Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32 years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax dollars

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM?

Health Legislation

Health Reform Debate Turning into Bailout of Insurance Industry source:HuffPost

The text of H.R. 3962 - Affordable Health Care for America Act as introduced can be found here. Please note: Due to the size of the file, downloading may take several minutes. Check out this overview of H.R. 3962 entitled Healthcare Transparency.

Healthcare Washington News:

The Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new government-run health plan. It took me less than a minute to sign up to require our congressmen and senators to drink at the same trough! Three cheers for Congressman John Fleming of Louisiana! Congressman John Fleming ( Louisiana physician) has proposed an amendment that would require congressmen and senators to take the same healthcare plan they force on us (under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt). Congressman Fleming is encouraging people to go on his Website and sign his petition (very simple - just first, last and email). I have immediately done just that at: http://fleming.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=55§iontree=29,55 Please urge as many people as you can to do the same! If Congress forces this on the American people, the Congressmen should have to accept the same level of health care for themselves and their families. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy!

How much is a billion anyway?

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it's releases.

A) A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B) A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C) A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D) A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

E) A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

www.energystar.gov

Links to use if you have been scammed

www.ftc.gov

www.BBB.org go to this link and enter your zip code.

Scam Prevention:

Internet Fraud Information: USA.gov
Jun 30, 2009 ... View documents from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that can help you protect yourself or your business against internet fraud. ...

Internet Scams: How to Protect Yourself
15 tips to avoid getting taken by Internet scams: Internet ScamBusters™ .

Environment

Meeting the nation's demand for bottle water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year, the Earth Policy Institute estimates.

Whats in that Bottled Water? Read Bottled Water Basics

Message in a Bottle: Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is Neither CLEANER nor GREENER Than Tap Water by Brian Clark Howard

Richard Girard, The Polaris Institute, January 22, 2008 - Most people know of Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and British Petroleum as some of the world’s biggest oil companies. These corporations are synonymous with gasoline, motor oil and environmental degradation. Regardless of their ubiquity in our everyday lives, many people are not conscious of how these names are intimately linked to the bottled water industry through the production of PET plastic bottles.

Government and debt

Will Senate Spit or Swallow The Cramdown Bill?

Struggling homeowners who’ve been considering filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy may soon receive good news. A new piece of legislation referred to formally as the “Helping Families Save Their Home Act,” or more commonly as the “cram down bill,” is on its way to the Senate.

Foreclosure Plan Ill-Suited for Changing Crisis, Report Says (WSJ)By NICK TIMIRAOS and JESSICA HOLZER Despite offering a rising number of trial loan modifications, the Obama administration's housing-rescue efforts are increasingly ill-suited to address the changing nature of the foreclosure crisis, according to a report released Friday by a watchdog panel.

DODD CALLS ON CREDIT CARD COMPANIES TO FOLLOW BOFA’S COMMITMENT TO NOT RAISE RATES OR CHANGE TERMS ON CUSTOMERS

October 6, 2009 WASHINGTON – Today Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) called on credit card companies to follow Bank of America’s commitment to not raise interest rates or change terms on customers until consumer protections included in the Credit CARD Act go into effect. In a letter to Chairman Dodd, the Director of Bank of America’s Federal Government Relations wrote “Bank of America will not implement any change in terms (risk or economic based) re-pricing of consumer credit card accounts between now and the effective date of the CARD Act.” “Every other credit card company should follow suit,” said Dodd. “This Congress has made it clear that abusive credit card practices are no longer acceptable.” Dodd authored the Credit CARD Act, enacted in May, which will prevent unfair increases in interest rates, fees and finance charges on a customer’s existing balance, among other strong new protections against misleading and deceptive practices employed by some credit card companies. In April Chairman Dodd and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) wrote a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke calling on him to use emergency authority to freeze interest rate increases on existing balances for consumer credit cards(see below). In July, Chairman Dodd sent a letter to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the heads of key regulatory agencies directing them to write and enforce strict rules to implement new requirements that credit card companies review rate increases on their customers implemented since January 1st of this year and to notify all credit card companies under their jurisdictions that they will be held accountable for all interest rate increases during this time period.

April 23, 2009

Ben S. Bernanke John E. Bowman
Chairman Acting Director
The Federal Reserve Board Office of Thrift Supervision
20th Street and Constitution Avenue, NW 1700 G. Street, NW
Washington, DC 20551 Washington, DC 20552

Michael E. Fryzel
Chairman
National Credit Union Administration
1775 Duke Street
Alexandria, VA 22314-3428

Dear Chairman Bernanke, Director Bowman, and Chairman Fryzel:

We write to you today to urge you to use your emergency authority under the “good cause” exception to the Administrative Procedures Act, to immediately implement the provision in the final rules you have previously issued concerning interest rate increases on existing balances for consumer credit cards. The rules are currently scheduled to become effective in July 2010. As you are also aware, Congress is working on legislation to strengthen these rules and provide additional protections for consumers. As Congress works to pass this legislation, and before your rules become effective, issuers continue to operate using unfair and deceptive acts and practices.
Credit card providers have been aggressively raising rates on consumers now to avoid the ramifications of this rule when it goes into effect next year. Companies have increased interest rates across the board now, to increase interest rates before the new rules go into effect. Consumers describe situations to our offices in which the interest rates on their accounts have doubled or tripled overnight, without any misconduct on their part. This kind of practice clearly violates the spirit and intention of the rules, even if the delayed implementation date has the effect of making such behavior legal.

The OTS, NCUA and Federal Reserve have all used this emergency authority numerous times since 2007 to implement rules without public notice or comment, and to make final rules effective immediately. Over the past year, the Federal Reserve has cited the financial crisis as one of the reasons for acting quickly to implement new lending facilities and programs to protect financial institutions. It is long past time for the regulatory agencies to act with the same sense of urgency to protect consumers from the behavior of those same financial companies. Therefore, we strongly urge you to utilize your emergency powers to put this rule into place immediately and protect consumers from these outrageous rate increases.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter. Please don’t hesitate to contact our staffs any information or questions.


Sincerely,




Charles Schumer Chris Dodd
United States Senator United States Senator

C-Span
House Committee on Financial Services
Library of Congress: Information About Legislation
United States House of Representatives
United States Senate

Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two Decade Low: Overview - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Banks' Favorite Democrats Set To Chair Banking Committee

Click here: Calitics:: Solving the Next Foreclosure Wave With a Right to Rent

Federal Trade Commission Fair Debit Collections Practices Act Documenthttp://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf

A healthcare message from the 1950s

OPINION IN BRIEF

"Barack Obama will not stop committing serial dishonesty with the American people until the media expose his false figures and bogus exaggerations for what they are: fraudulent scare tactics. Last night Obama told a litany of lies. He said the total cost of his health reform would be $900 billion over ten years, but even the government-run Congressional Budget Office found it would cost $1.6 trillion. He claimed his reform would not cover illegal immigrants or abortions, but nothing in any of the Democrat bills requires citizen verification and several organizations including the National Right to Life Committee have shown exactly how federal funds would be used to pay for abortion-on-demand. He knows these are lies and he tells them because he is confident the left wing 'news' media will let him get away with it. Worst still, Obama used these lies to play on Americans greatest fears and vulnerabilities. He warned that more people would die unless we passed his sweeping plan and threatened that our country's economic pulse would weaken with American businesses closing. And still, the media let him get away with it. This must stop. The media must expose Obama's calculated scare tactics and lying on 'reform.' Failing to do so gives him a green light to lie and cry wolf about whatever he wants, whenever he wants. And it will aid in the most radical government takeover ever attempted in America." --Media Research Center President Brent Bozell

Download Your Copy of the Proposed Healthcare Bill

RE: THE LEFT "One plain fact should outweigh all the words of Barack Obama and all the impressive trappings of the setting in which he says them: He tried to rush Congress into passing a massive government takeover of the nation's medical care before the August recess -- for a program that would not take effect until 2013! Whatever President Obama is, he is not stupid. If the urgency to pass the medical care legislation was to deal with a problem immediately, then why postpone the date when the legislation goes into effect for years -- more specifically, until the year after the next Presidential election? If this is such an urgently needed program, why wait for years to put it into effect? And if the public is going to benefit from this, why not let them experience those benefits before the next Presidential election? If it is not urgent that the legislation goes into effect immediately, then why don't we have time to go through the normal process of holding Congressional hearings on the pros and cons, accompanied by public discussions of its innumerable provisions? What sense does it make to 'hurry up and wait' on something that is literally a matter of life and death? If we do not believe that the President is stupid, then what do we believe? The only reasonable alternative seems to be that he wanted to get this massive government takeover of medical care passed into law before the public understood what was in it. Moreover, he wanted to get re-elected in 2012 before the public experienced what its actual consequences would be. Unfortunately, this way of doing things is all too typical of the way this administration has acted on a wide range of issues." --economist Thomas Sowell

Click here: Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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