KATHRYN SMITH, - Politico
Stephan: There is not much in this report on U.S. Healthcare that will come as a surprise to anyone who reads SR regularly. But it will confirm the points I have been making. We don't have a healthcare system in the U.S. in the sense of a system designed to produce national wellness. We have an illness profit system. When it produces health that's wonderful, but that is not the point of the drill as this latest report makes clear.
The United States spends more on health care than 12 other industrialized countries, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds – but that doesn’t mean this country’s care is any better.
The U.S. spent nearly $8,000 per person for health care services in 2009, the study found, confirming that ‘health care spending in the U.S. dwarfs that found in any other industrialized country.
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ARI LEVAUX, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Several readers wrote me when I ran the story about olive oil reporting the fact that much of what is sold as olive oil is, in fact, adulterated. They suggested using canola oil. From what I know of the subject this is not a good alternative, and I have been looking for a report that would explain why this is the case. Here it is.
To look at many cookbooks, you’d think olive oil and canola oil were identical twins separated at birth. Countless recipes call for ‘extra-virgin olive oil or canola oil,’ as if the two were interchangeable.
This implied equivalence is odd. Extra-virgin olive oil is cold-pressed from a fruit that has been cultivated for more than 7,000 years, with no refining beyond filtration. Canola oil is refined with heat, pressure, solvents, and bleach, and comes from the seed of a plant that’s younger than the Rolling Stones.
The canola plant was conceived when demand for rapeseed oil plummeted in the late 1940s, and the Canadian rapeseed industry began seeking and creating new markets for its product. Since the Industrial Revolution, rapeseed oil has been an important component of lubricants for ships and steam engines, because unlike most oils it sticks to wet metal. During World War II the U.S. built a lot of ships, and so needed lots of rapeseed oil, but couldn’t get it from traditional suppliers in Europe and Asia. The Canadian rapeseed industry, which had been relatively small, exploded to fill the gap, and played an important role in the allied naval effort, becoming rich and powerful in the process.
But rapeseed […]
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KATE MURPHY, - The New York Times
Stephan: As it becomes ever clearer that all electronic communications of whatever nature are subject to surveillance I have begun to think about how this can be minimized if not eliminated. Here is an approach you might consider yourself, if this is an matter of concern to you.
Legal and technology researchers estimate that it would take about a month for Internet users to read the privacy policies of all the Web sites they visit in a year. So in the interest of time, here is the deal: You know that dream where you suddenly realize you’re stark naked? You’re living it whenever you open your browser.
There are no secrets online. That emotional e-mail you sent to your ex, the illness you searched for in a fit of hypochondria, those hours spent watching kitten videos (you can take that as a euphemism if the kitten fits) – can all be gathered to create a defining profile of you.
Your information can then be stored, analyzed, indexed and sold as a commodity to data brokers who in turn might sell it to advertisers, employers, health insurers or credit rating agencies.
And while it’s probably impossible to cloak your online activities fully, you can take steps to do the technological equivalent of throwing on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. Some of these measures are quite easy and many are free. Of course, the more effort and money you expend, the more concealed you are. The trick is to find the […]
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Joshua Holland, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Increasingly, as the schism in this country grows greater, and regional and antipodal cultures develop, I have come to think that there is a psychophysiological aspect to this. And a growing range of research supports this.
Consider for a moment just how terrifying it must be to live life as a true believer on the right. Reality is scary enough, but the alternative reality inhabited by people who watch Glenn Beck, listen to Rush Limbaugh, or think Michele Bachmann isn’t a joke must be nothing less than horrifying.
Research suggests that conservatives are, on average, more susceptible to fear than those who identify themselves as liberals. Looking at MRIs of a large sample of young adults last year, researchers at University College London discovered that ‘greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala
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Stephan: This is why the lives of millions -- yes millions, at a rate of 850,000 last year -- of Americans are being destroyed not by their mind altering substance of choice, but by the combine that keeps the insane prohibition policies of the the United States in place.
Last year, over 850,000 people in America were arrested for marijuana-related crimes. Despite public opinion, the medical community, and human rights experts all moving in favor of relaxing marijuana prohibition laws, little has changed in terms of policy.
There have been many great books and articles detailing the history of the drug war. Part of America’s fixation with keeping the leafy green plant illegal is rooted in cultural and political clashes from the past.
However, we at Republic Report think it’s worth showing that there are entrenched interest groups that are spending large sums of money to keep our broken drug laws on the books:
1.) Police Unions: Police departments across the country have become dependent on federal drug war grants to finance their budget. In March, we published a story revealing that a police union lobbyist in California coordinated the effort to defeat Prop 19, a ballot measure in 2010 to legalize marijuana, while helping his police department clients collect tens of millions in federal marijuana-eradication grants. And it’s not just in California. Federal lobbying disclosures show that other police union lobbyists have pushed for stiffer penalties for marijuana-related crimes nationwide.
2.) Private Prisons Corporations: […]
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