The Center for Sound Science and Public Policy (CSSPP) is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy organization. CSSPP relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policy makers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. In a timely manner, the Center’s Science Watch Team alerts policy makers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm. We strive for a fair and balanced examination of science.’ (http://ff.org/centers/csspp/misc/index.html; accessed 4/21/05) The Center for Sound Science and Public Policy, also appearing under the name of the Center for Science and Public Policy, is run by the Frontiers of Freedom Foundation, an organization founded and chaired by former Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming. Frontiers of Freedom receives money from tobacco and oil companies, including Philip Morris, ExxonMobil and RJ Reynolds Tobacco. Frontiers of Freedom Institute and Foundation has received $467,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. (http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=35; accessed 4/20/05) According to the New York Times, Frontiers for Freedom received $230,000 out of its $700,000 annual budget from Exxon in […]
When you’re shopping for a house, it might appear that the friendly broker who listens to your needs, drives you around to showings and answers your questions is unflaggingly devoted to you. In reality, however, most agents work for sellers. Now, even more so. These days, see, agents representing buyers are increasingly being showered with extra incentives that may cause them to push certain houses. Traditionally, sellers pay 6 percent commissions – 3 percent to their agent, 3 percent to the buyer’s agent. But with the market slowing, sellers are upping the slice going to buyer’s agents. In Livingston, N.J., Roseland Properties is offering 5% to buyer’s brokers alone. And in Las Vegas, where prices are expected to drop significantly in 2007, American Homes West has upped what it pays buyer’s brokers from $1,000 to $10,000, with an added $5,000 if the agent gets the buyer to pay full price. It’s not just builders that are offering agent incentives; even individual homeowners, like Mohamad Khurram of Woodbridge, Va., are getting in on the trend. The reward for Khurram’s $785,000 four-bedroom is 8 percent plus $5,000 – that’s nearly $70,000 to just the buyer’s broker […]
WASHINGTON — President George Bush is proposing to slash medical care for the poor and elderly to meet the soaring cost of the Iraq war. Mr Bush’s $2.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) budget, sent to Congress yesterday, includes $100bn extra for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for this year, on top of $70bn already allocated by Congress and $141.7bn next year. He is planning an 11.3% increase for the Pentagon. Spending on the Iraq war is destined to top the total cost of the 13-year war in Vietnam. The huge rise in military spending is paid for by a squeeze on domestic programmes, including $66bn in cuts over five years to Medicare, the healthcare scheme for the elderly, and $12bn from the Medicaid healthcare scheme for the poor. Mr Bush said: ‘Today we submit a budget to the United States Congress that shows we can balance the budget in five years without raising taxes … Our priority is to protect the American people. And our priority is to make sure our troops have what it takes to do their jobs.’ Although Democrats control Congress and have promised careful scrutiny of the budget over the next few months, […]
BAGHDAD — A growing number of Iraqis blamed the United States on Sunday for creating conditions that led to the worst single suicide bombing in the war, which devastated a Shiite market in Baghdad the day before. They argued that the Americans had been slow in completing the vaunted new American security plan, making Shiite neighborhoods much more vulnerable to such horrific attacks. The critics said the new plan, which the Americans have started to execute, had emasculated the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is considered responsible for many attacks on Sunnis, but that many Shiites say had been the only effective deterrent against sectarian reprisal attacks in Baghdad’s Shiite neighborhoods. Even some Iraqi supporters of the plan, like Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign minister who is a Kurd, said delays in carrying it out had caused great disappointment. In advance of the plan, which would flood Baghdad with thousands of new American and Iraqi troops, many Mahdi Army checkpoints were dismantled and its leaders were either in hiding or under arrest, which was one of the plan’s intended goals to reduce sectarian fighting. But with no immediate influx of new security forces to fill the void, Shiites […]
It’s like a wedding but with a twist: Young women exchange rings, take vows and enjoy a first dance¦with their dads. ‘Purity balls’ are the next big thing in the save-it-till-marriage movement. Smart or scary? Tell us what you think here. By Jennifer Baumgardner In a chandelier-lit ballroom overlooking the Rocky Mountains one recent evening, some hundred couples feast on herb-crusted chicken and julienned vegetables. The men look dapper in tuxedos; their dates are resplendent in floor-length gowns, long white gloves and tiaras framing twirly, ornate updos. Seated at a table with four couples, I watch as the gray-haired man next to me reaches into his breast pocket, pulls out a small satin box and flips it open to check out a gold ring he’s about to place on the finger of the woman sitting to his right. Her eyes well up with tears as she is overcome by emotion. The man’s date? His 25-year-old daughter. Welcome to Colorado Springs’ Seventh Annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball, held at the five-star Broadmoor Hotel. The event’s purpose is, in part, to celebrate dad-daughter bonding, but the main agenda is for fathers to vow to protect the girls’ chastity until they marry […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
