Signs abound that the battered economy is causing serious damage to the mental health and family lives of a growing number of Americans. Requests for therapists have soared, Americans say they’re stressed out, and domestic-violence and suicide hotlines are reporting increased calls. There has been a sharp rise in mental trauma even among those who still have jobs: The demand for therapists surged 40 percent from June to December – driven largely by money-related fears – at ComPsych, which runs the nation’s largest employee-assistance mental-health program, says ComPsych chairman and CEO Richard Chaifetz. Nearly half of Americans said they were more stressed than a year ago, and about one-third rated their stress level as ‘extreme in surveys out in September from the American Psychological Association. That was before the stock-market dive. Meanwhile, financial advisers say they’re finding themselves in a new abnormal ‘normal. John Jones, a financial planner at ComPsych, says he’s referring many more workers to counselors. ‘They start crying. They tell me they’re not eating or sleeping. One even said about his family, ‘They’d be better off without me,’ ‘ Jones says. Many colleagues around the nation are having the same experience, he adds. […]
NEW YORK — A whistleblower who repeatedly warned the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernard Madoff was perpetrating a massive investment fraud testified Wednesday that the regulatory agency that oversees financial markets is inept, ‘financially illiterate’ and far too cozy with the financial titans it is supposed to be regulating. ‘The SEC is also captive to the industry it regulates and it is afraid of bringing big cases against the largest most powerful firms,’ said Harry Markopolos, an independent financial fraud investigator. ‘Cleary the SEC was afraid of Mr. Madoff.’ Markopolos began contacting the SEC at the beginning of the decade to warn that Madoff was a fraud. He sent detailed memos, listing dozens of red flags, laying out a road map of instructions for SEC investigators to follow, even listing contacts and phone numbers of Wall Street experts whom he said would confirm his findings. But, Markopolos’ whistle-blowing effort got nowhere. ‘I gift wrapped and delivered the largest Ponzi scheme in history to them and some how they couldn’t be bothered to conduct a thorough and proper investigation because they were too busy on matters of higher priority,’ Markopolos told the House Financial Services Subcommittee on […]
Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a ‘high probability that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed. In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects. And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans – and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team – understand. ‘When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry, Cheney said. Protecting the country’s security is ‘a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business, he said. ‘These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek. Citing intelligence reports, Cheney said at least 61 […]
Looking for an easy way to stalk your friends? Google has the answer with its new Latitude service for mobile devices. Google Latitude broadcasts your location from your mobile phone, letting your friends know where you are and allowing you to keep tabs on them. Latitude shares your current location with your friends by using Google Maps’ My Location feature. Like the iPhone’s built-in geo tools, My Location uses the signals from nearby cellphone towers to plot your whereabouts (but, read on, this isn’t iPhone ready yet). Interestingly, Google is launching its own homegrown location-broadcasting service just weeks after killing off Dodgeball, a very similar location service Google let languish in private beta mode until it shut it down completely. To give Latitude a try, just download the latest version of Google Maps for mobile with Latitude (available for Android, Blackberry, Symbian S60, and Windows Mobile). There’s also an iGoogle gadget for use on your laptop or PC. One place you won’t find the Latitude application is on the iPhone. Because Latitude is an always-on service, operating silently in the background, it runs afoul of Apple’s iPhone SDK. Google is reportedly working on a version of […]
WASHINGTON — The House gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill extending health insurance to millions of low-income children, and President Obama signed it this afternoon, in the first of what he hopes will be many steps to guarantee coverage for all Americans. Smiling broadly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the tally, 290 to 135. Forty Republicans voted for the bill, and 2 Democrats voted against it. The roll call ended a two-year odyssey for the child health legislation, which President George W. Bush adamantly opposed on the ground it would lead to ‘government-run health care for every American. The Obama White House, battered by a debacle over Tom Daschle’s nomination to be secretary of health and human services, exulted in the passage of the bill, saying it showed how much difference an election could make. Mr. Bush vetoed two similar bills, and the House failed to overturn those vetoes. Democrats were so sure of victory on Wednesday that the White House scheduled a signing ceremony before the House even passed the bill. Representative Henry A. Waxman, the California Democrat who is chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said, ‘While this bill is short […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
