It’s not easy to workup a good feeling about the institution that destroyed your life, which may be why Mary Weiss initially seemed a little reluctant to meet me. ‘You can understand my hesitation to look other than with suspicion at anyone associated with the University of Minnesota,’ Mary wrote to me in an email. In 2003, Mary’s 26-year-old son, Dan, was enrolled against her wishes in a psychiatric drug study at the University of Minnesota, where I teach medical ethics. Less than six months later, Dan was dead. I’d learned about his death from a deeply unsettling newspaper series by St. Paul Pioneer Press reporters Jeremy Olson and Paul Tosto that suggested he was coerced into a pharmaceutical-industry study from which the university stood to profit, but which provided him with inadequate care. Over the next few months, I talked to several university colleagues and administrators, trying to learn what had happened. Many of them dismissed the story as slanted and incomplete. Yet the more I examined the medical and court records, the more I became convinced that the problem was worse than the Pioneer Press had reported. The danger lies not just in the particular circumstances that […]
If you happened to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. There, on the set of Meet the Press, the host, David Gregory, was interviewing a guest who made a forceful case that the U.S. economy had become ‘very distorted.
NEW YORK — The number of U.S. consumers who filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010 was the highest in five years, and the figure could rise as Americans struggle with excess debt in an uncertain economy, a report issued Monday said.
Roughly 1.53 million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in 2010, up 9 percent from 1.41 million in 2009, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, citing data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center.
Filings in December totaled 118,146, up 4 percent from a year earlier and 3 percent from November’s total.
The full-year total is the highest since the 2.04 million recorded in 2005, when there was a rush to seek bankruptcy protection ahead of a stricter federal law taking effect in October of that year.
Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the ABI, said filings are rising even as consumers try to cut spending and debt after the 2008 financial crisis and accompanying recession, and with the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent.
He said there is usually a 12- to 18-month lag between declines in consumer spending and bankruptcy levels.
According to the Federal Reserve, U.S. consumer credit outstanding has fallen in 19 of the last 21 months for which data are available, declining to $2.41 […]
From 1 January shops will have to stop supplying shoppers with plastic bags
A ban on plastic bags is coming into effect in Italy, which has one of the highest rates of consumption of the bags in Europe.
The ban begins in shops across Italy on 1 January, with only biodegradable, cloth or paper bags to be offered.
Italians use 20 billion plastic bags a year – more than 300 per person.
Supporters of the ban say plastic bags are an environmental hazard which use too much oil to produce and can take decades to break down.
The law for a gradual ban on plastic bags was introduced in 2006.
The original deadline of January 2010 for the completion of the ban was delayed because of opposition from industry.
Italian retailers have complained that the decree pushed through last week to enforce the new deadline lacks detail.
Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said the decree marked ‘a key step forward in the fight against pollution and it makes us all more responsible in terms of recycling.’
The government has a public awareness campaign that promotes other types of bags as fashionable as well as environmentally friendly, she said.
Contrary to what many people believe, the Iraq war provided few advantages for the US oil industry. The diplomatic cables show that, in most cases, it was competitors to the Americans who often did better in the country. Only one US company truly profited: Halliburton.
During the first bidding rounds, the oil bosses were still laughing. When Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani issued the first drilling contracts for foreign multinational companies at Baghdad’s al-Rashid Hotel on June 30, 2009, he made clear that there would not be any sharing of profits, but rather a fixed price paid for each barrel of oil drilled.
But the companies still had great hopes. A consortium led by the US company Conoco Phillips wanted to get $26.70 per barrel in one difficult oil field. For the Rumaila area near the Kuwaiti border, ExxonMobil offered $4.80 per barrel. A consortium led by BP would have been happy with $3.99.
‘There was buzz in the room’ during these bids, noted US Ambassador Christopher Hill.
But when the minister announced what his government actually wanted to pay, there was ‘stunned silence.’ Two dollars per barrel — and nothing more. In addition, the companies would have to replace the Iraqis’ ramshackle oil […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
