Surprise, surprise.

Nation:

Taken at face value, Senator John Ensign's amendment which was included in the final Senate healthcare bill sounds pretty decent: by meeting "wellness" standards people can receive discounts on their employer-based healthcare premiums. Stop smoking--pay less. Hit a certa… Read full post »

A money market account is a savings account that tries to offer a low rate of return in exchange for relative safety.

Zero Hedge:

[A] typical investor in a money market seeks minute investment risk, no volatility, and instantaneous liquidity, or redeemability. These are the three pillars upon which… Read full post »

Canada Haiti Action Network:

THE CANADA Haiti Action Network expresses its grave concern at the November 26 decision by Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (Conseil électoral provisoire--CEP) to exclude the Fanmi Lavalas Party from planned elections to take place on February 28, 2010. On that… Read full post »

Grrreeeat.

Press TV:

Saudi fighter jets have launched another round of aerial bombardment of Houthi positions in northern parts of Yemen along the border with the oil-rich kingdom.

According to a statement released by the fighters on Thursday, Saudi forces carried out 13 aerial raids on Jebel al-Mad… Read full post »

Raw Story:

Some 12 percent of minors held in government custody are sexually abused, and in some facilities the rate reaches a stunning one in three children, says a report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The first-ever National Survey of Youth in Custody found that no less than/… Read full post »

Whales Online:

IT was hailed as taking artificial intelligence to a new level.

Now, the creation by Welsh scientists of the first robot in the world to make an independent scientific discovery has been named the fourth most significant discovery of 2009 by one of the world’s most influential maga/… Read full post »

We last checked in with the British police state about two months ago. Let’s see what’s new.

British bus passengers could soon be forced to use electronic tags to get onto buses. This fits in with the British government's move away from paper checks and toward an electronic system… Read full post »

Wired:

Published in 1958 under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission as part of its Atoms for Peace program, Fluid Fuel Reactors is a book only an engineer could love: a dense, 978-page account of research conducted at Oak Ridge National Lab, most of it under former director Alvin Weinberg. Wha… Read full post »

All Gov:

Most of the leading buyers of American military hardware in 2008 had two characteristics in common: they speak Arabic and their governments are opposed to democracy and basic freedoms. Information compiled by the Congressional Research Service revealed that the biggest recipients of U.S. arms… Read full post »

Bloomberg:

Here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from days spent reading Frank’s handiwork:

– For all its heft, the bill doesn’t once mention the words “too-big-to-fail,” the main issue confronting the financial system. Admitting you have a problem, as any 12- stepper kno/… Read full post »

Chris Floyd:

It happened earlier this week, in a discreet ruling that attracted almost no notice and took little time. In fact, our most august defenders of the Constitution did not have to exert themselves in the slightest to eviscerate not merely 220 years of Constitutional jurisprudence but also ce… Read full post »

Daily Mail:

As many as 20,000 town hall snoopers have assumed powers to enter people's homes without a warrant and search for information, a survey revealed last night.

[…][Reasons for this] include checking for fridges which do not have the correct eco-friendly energy rating, making sure a hedg/… Read full post »

Geelong Adviser:

A GEELONG lawyer has slammed new laws that allow police to search people in designated public areas as an "outrageous breach of human rights".
The laws, which came into effect on Wednesday, give police sweeping powers to search people at random, including strip searches.

James Farrell,/… Read full post »

Times Online:

American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.

Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that/… Read full post »

Wall Street Journal:

Behind the drama unfolding in the streets of Iran, the regime is quietly clamping down on some of the nation's best students by derailing their academic and professional careers.

On Wednesday, progovernment militia attacked and beat students at a school in northeastern Iran. Since/… Read full post »

Science Daily:

Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the abilit/… Read full post »

Unfortunately, the link to this isn't working right now, but hopefully the article will be up soon with all of the hyperlinks in it.

Natural News:

The FDA was hit hard in 2009 was accusations of corruption and criminal behavior. In January, the FDA’s own scientists accused management of… Read full post »

Bloomberg:

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, t… Read full post »

More rats!!! Yay!!!

Wired:

In the first major pharmaceutical extension of lifespan in a mammal, scientists gave elderly mice Rapamycin, an immunosuppressant used to slow cell growth in cancer patients. After taking the drug, the rodents lived a mouse equivalent of 13 extra years. Even longtime lon… Read full post »

Propublica:

Yesterday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made two claims about the administration’s handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay that overstated its progress in clearing the prison. According to Gibbs, the administration has carried out large-scale transfers and releases of detainees… Read full post »

NY Times:

A new report finds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a poor job of screening medical experts for financial conflicts when it hired them to advise the agency on vaccine safety, officials said Thursday.

Most of the experts who served on advisory panels in 2007 to evaluate/

… Read full post »

Reuters:

The Obama administration pledged on Thursday to back beleaguered mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no matter how big their losses may be in the next three years.

It also jettisoned a demand that the two companies cut the size of their mortgage-related investment portfolios ne/

… Read full post »

Wall Street Journal:

Merck & Co. (MRK) named former public-health authority Julie Gerberding as the head of the company's $5 billion vaccines business, starting Jan. 25.

Gerberding was the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through most of President George W. Bush's ad/

… Read full post »

Good luck with your flu shots, which still do contain mercury.

Palm Beach Post:

One in every 100 children in the United States may have some form of autism spectrum disorder, far more than previously believed, and the rate appears to be worsening quickly, especially among boys, new figures from the

… Read full post »

Come on. What else are you going to do with all these dead Palestinians lying around?

Guardian:

Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.

T

… Read full post »