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The Fable of the Bees and the Seduction of Science and Technology Corrupting the Intellect and the Soul
Zahir Ebrahim
Thursday November 10, 2011 | Last Updated Nov 14, 2011
At least some of us often lament after the fact, like all hypocrite scientists the world over, of our short-sighted pursuits in discovering sciences and inventing technologies which end up having detrimental long term impact on society.
Please watch this one hour talk by Dr. Eric Fossum, Professor of Engineering in Dartmouth's Thayer School, at Yale University:
Eric Fossum is the inventor of the active CMOS imaging chip, the "camera-on-a-chip" technology which "is used in nearly all camera phones and webcams, digital-still cameras, high-speed motion capture cameras, automotive cameras, dental x-ray cameras, and swallowable pill cameras." according to the Yale University blurb for the talk. Dr. Eric Fossum's Bio is revealing of his intense passion for his chosen profession and the applause he has accumulated for his achievements, all of which can be gleaned from his websites http://ericfossum.com/ and http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/people/faculty/eric-fossum/.
I am going to write this great inventor of sliced cake a letter and send him a link to my own high-tech career and why I left it:
'While I did not work on this first version of the SPARC chip (joining just as it was in its final finishing stages), I did on subsequent generations of microchips, systems, and operating systems over the next decade (Sun-4 and Sun-5). This is how I too, albeit in a small way, helped usher in George H.W. Bush's infamous vision of the "New World Order", for without these microchips, there surely wouldn't be one! While the monumental crimes against humanity of the two World Wars in the past century were perpetrated without the aid of microchips, the present enslaving of humanity into the surveillance society of 'one-world government' is only effectuated with the help of the Technetronic Revolution wrought by these microchips. See Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era".
While IEEE Spectrum today celebrates this revolution, noting:
"Their designs proved so cutting-edge, so out of the box, so ahead of their time, that we are left groping for more technology clichés to describe them. Suffice it to say that they gave us the technology that made our brief, otherwise tedious existence in this universe worth living.",
as a direct participant with two dozen design patents on microchips and systems, I am not so sure. A simpler times now appear more appealing. Not much of a short-break, was this! We are still talking about NWO. Everything appears interrelated and interlocked. To make a decent moral living, minimally doing no harm, ideally doing good things and leaving a positive legacy rather than a negative one, appears well-nigh impossible. There is just no escape from the New World Order. Arguably, we all contribute to it in some way in the modernity du jour – unless we choose to escape the modern-age and live on pastoral farms and in the mountains.' — Zahir Ebrahim's response to IEEE Spectrum's Special Report: 25 Microchips That Shook the World. May 2009
In addition, the following letter I had previously written a Harvard computer scientist who was excitedly moving to Google Labs thinking he is going to make a big societal difference, may be revealing to the brilliant designers of world's weapon systems and other misanthropic and enslaving technologies who still to this day think they have created sliced cake in a world in which the vast majority are unable to afford dry bread for one square meal a day:
I had concluded that letter to the Harvard computer scientist with the observation:
'the brilliant professors at Harvard and elsewhere equally know which side their bread is buttered in just as much measure, if not more, than any ordinary 'Good American' slaving in this system of governance and production whose entire outlook for the past century has been conditioned not by morality (except in Newspeak), but by primacy, hegemony, and by their own admission, by their quest for "full spectrum dominance". That requires riding the full monte of the 'Technetronic Era' of which both of you computer science professors speciously arguing which side of the fence is greener, are equally a part.
May I dare to hope in conclusion that with your prominent voice and brilliant credentials, that you might perhaps be motivated by this humble letter to explore this topic objectively while you are still at Harvard – as the fiscal burden to be 'acceptable' is now presumably less for you – and leave a legacy which to my mind can have far reaching and very existential consequences for all Americans. You will surely not have this opportunity at Google where, by your own admission and statement of blind aspiration: "I get to hack all day." After you have built your nth system, as one of the generations caught "Between Two Ages", you may be left wondering why you did it at all when you wake up in a full-blown "1984" one day soon and still have some commonsense left to recognize it as such.
Your children and grandchildren however, will mercifully be spared that recognition as they will habitually count, from the very day of their birth, two plus two equal five. Some Americans, perhaps the majority, are already there today. The simple question I often ask of smart peoples who might dare to escape that fate, and I leave you with that little question, how can one know that one can add correctly?' — Zahir Ebrahim's letter to Matt Welsh, recently tenured full professor of Computer Science at Harvard University who announced his intent to move to Google Labs for better actualization of his technological passions, November 24, 2010
Please watch the aforementioned one hour technical talk by Dr. Eric Fossum which makes much ado about societal responsibility of great inventors – the first one that I have encountered which is as candid and honest as it is! What I had hoped to achieve in Matt Welsh and failed, he did not even bother to acknowledge that letter and MIT Technology Review turned it down as a worthy discussion topic to seed at MIT, I already see Dr. Eric Fossum doing. Few men of science, technology, and industry ever grapple with any of these issues or dare to go there when they are in the prime of their careers heartily pursuing it. Usually, a handful only venture there after the fact, ex post facto, after the genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. Like M.I.T.'s own former president Jerome B. Wiesner (1971-1980), who, after presiding over the buildup of the same militarized society, upon retirement from his top academic post in the most militarized country on earth, thought it most conscionable to make the following banal statement of moral clarity:
"This irrational behavior is only possible because we, the citizens of the nation, permit it. It is no longer a question of controlling a military-industrial complex, but rather, of keeping the United States from becoming a totally military culture." — The United States: A militarized society, Jerome B. Wiesner, president emeritus MIT, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Aug 1985, pg. 104
This is the outline of Jerome B. Wiesner's own militarized career according to wikipedia:
"Jerome B. Wiesner (May 30, 1915 – October 21, 1994), was associated with MIT for most of his career, joining the MIT Radiation Laboratory in 1942 and working on radar development. He worked briefly at Los Alamos, returned to become a professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT, and worked at and ultimately became director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT (RLE). He became Dean of the School of Science in 1964, Provost in 1966, and President from 1971 to 1980. He was also elected a life member of the MIT Corporation."
These much noted pangs of belated conscience evidently make zero impact on the dystopian forces which they unleashed in their heyday, or, as one often wonders, upon their own decrypt soul as they "died holily in their beds." (Macbeth 5:1:47-49 – "Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.") Perhaps this is why it is respectable to make them upon retirement. Inter alia, it helps maintain the illusion of individual liberties and intellectual freedoms in Western societies and loosely equated with moral gravitas of its most illustrious peoples.
Well, in Eric R. Fossum I have finally discovered one lonely high-tech scientist at Dartmouth College, with the notable pedigree of Yale, Caltech, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Columbia University, grappling with these weighty matters as the key inventor of a technology right at the very peak of his invention which he laments has accelerated the comeuppance of Big Brother like no other single invention in the Post World War II era. That show of moral awareness and greater societal concern is of course both timely and good.
But what does our man of superlative conscience Dr. Eric Fossum do after the great show of moral gravitas and intellectual tour de force?
Does he stop and desist, let alone attempt to rectify the forces he has helped unleash?
No! Of course not.
Dr. Eric Fossum simply dumps the problem onto the dumb onlookers cheering him on, and moves on with inventing/heralding more of the same dystopian world order!
Dr. Eric Fossum is now a technical consultant for Samsung Electronics, and even more diligently pursuing newer more imaginative ways to usher in Big Brother surveillance gadgetry in the serene new academic setting of New Hampshire. He blithely claims "I don't really like this application of my technology. There is nothing I can do about it, I have now unloaded that on you, so thank you."
Of course, who does not like the sound of applause, medals clanking, and all the high honors which accompany pious high-mindedness, not to mention induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, 2011? That veritable show of societal concern for humanity in his talk may now even beget Dr. Eric Fossum the Nobel Peace Prize – or, at least a nomination. When Global Warming scholarship can win the vice president of the United States, Dr. Al Gore such magnificent accolades, surely Dr. Eric Fossum is far ahead in his moral exercise of the scholarship of conscience he so dignifiedly proffered in his talk on the impact of his real science.
Below are some pertinent fragments captured from Dr. Eric Fossum's superfluity of societal concerns from his aforementioned talk at Yale University, titled Photons to Bits and Beyond: The Science & Technology of Digital Image Sensors:
"Societal issues questions baggage I have been carrying around with me for a few years and I am going to unload on you" (time 0:05:38)
"There is another set of issues which is loss of privacy from all this networking. When I first invented this CMOS image sensor technology we got a little bit of publicity and a reporter for the BBC radio came and talked to me, interviewed me, and he said:
'so tell me how you feel about the fact that now Big Brother is gonna be able so spy on us a lot better with all these cameras'.
And I said:
'oh it's not really a problem because there is not enough people to watch all the video screens and all cameras that are out there and we don't have to worry.'
But to my surprise, and chagrin a little bit, you know now computers can analyze images, and computer systems can track you based on facial recognition software from camera to camera to camera, as you might move around in a highly surveilled city for example.
And, so that means that you will be tracked and all your activity completely logged. It's on your permanent record now, whatever you did, or something you really don't want people to know about.
You know, is that a good thing? I don't think so. I feel like it's an invasion of my privacy." (time 0:15:40)
"I don't really like this application of my technology. There is nothing I can do about it, I have now unloaded that on you, so thank you.
We'll get back to the science and technology now, but I hope you also worry about these things and I especially hope you figure out what we are gonna do about this in the future." (time 0:20:30) — Dr. Eric Fossum, Yale, Oct 13, 2011
Are semi-conscious realizations devoid of deep convictions sufficient? I am in fact unhappily waiting for the time when Eric Fossum after retirement may well make the same statement as was made by M.I.T. president Jerome B. Wiesner ex post facto: "But realization is not enough. It must become informed conviction based on personal study." (op. cit., pg. 105)
The above lamentable state of moral hypocrisy was aptly captured by a young man reading an initial version of this missive sent to high tech scholars and scientists:
'Of course I am always reminded of Oppenheimer the day after Trinity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8w3Y-dskeg by things like this. Now he knew what was to come http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuX7mx-PIY4 (much better than "I really don't like this application of my technology but there is nothing I can do about it. I have now unloaded it on you so thank you".) Oppenheimer also realized it, and feeling the way he did, never did stop. And Fossum of course continues soldiering ahead despite his "anxiety closet"…a "comforting" construct :)
[These Technetronic Era usherettes] can always take comfort in:
So let's keep building…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX6YvWxtrxw "
As my own more limited contribution to this Big Brother menace indicates (see link to my response to IEEE 25 microchips that changed the world noted above), this dystopia of global servitude was already predicted, and indeed eagerly anticipated, inter alia by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1970 in his "Between Two Ages – America's Role in the Technetronic Era"; by Bertrand Russell in 1951 in his "The Impact of Science on Society"; by H. G. Wells in 1940 in his "The New World Order"; etceteras, going all the way back to the turn of the 20th century, all portending the inevitability of, and the beneficial desirability of, global scientific dictatorship! Bertrand Russell even went out of his way to pseudo-philosophize its desirability, explaining the need for Big Brother which Dr. Eric Fossum now feels so uncomfortable about: "World government could only be kept in being by force." (op. cit., pg. 37)
Who and what enables this inevitability which has been so eagerly anticipated by the elites who own the vast military-industrial complexes which fund the sciences and technologies, and who wish to enslave mankind in their own web of controlled hegemony?
These are not science fiction novels and allegorical essays by imaginative behaviorists like Aldous Huxley's 1931 "A Brave New World" and George Orwell's 1948 "1984", but philosophical works in political science on rationalizing global scientific dictatorship. The most reliable disclosure of the impending world order still remains Georgetown University School of Foreign Services' long time professor, Dr. Carroll Quigley's 1966 magnum opus, Tragedy and Hope. While even ordinary high-schoolers in the West have enjoyed Huxley and Orwell as great dystopian literature, rare is the physical scientist directly ushering it in who has even heard of these other political science works which rationalize and justify the exercise of global hegemony.
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former American president Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor (1976-198), even began his next most influential book of 1996, "The Grand Chessboard – American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives", with the sweeping rationalization statement for the title and content of his book: "Hegemony is as old as mankind."
Well, the answer to that question is not so un-obvious to those with even a modicum of commonsense. It is guys like Eric Fossum, and the million engineers and scientists in Silicon Valleys across the world. Everyone of them most passionately laboring in the military-industrial complex of their nation without reflection under various civilizational burdens that span the full gamut of intellectual rigor, from 'la mission civilisatrice' to national defense to passionate self-interests! Just ordinary people who are narrowly so seduced by their own chosen professions and self-interests, never mind the patriotism drilled into them, that the corruption of their own soul which begets the corruption of their intellect, remains invisible to them! Just as it is to Eric Fossum.
Should I excitedly applaud Dr. Eric Fossum for his hypocrisy and his skin deep moral clarity? Or, should I endeavor to unravel it?
How did we get to this stage of modernity that we make such wonderful useful idiots, often self-servingly harboring a moral clarity and cleanliness of sweet smelling conscience which evidently surpasses even Macbeth's proclamation to his guilt-ridden wife to just feign it: "Be innocent of knowledge"? (Macbeth 3:2:45)
But first, indeed I am in fact going to thank Dr. Eric Fossum, for whatever he has stated only helps me make my case even more compellingly. Fossum is not alone in this state of passionate moral decay which I too once occupied. In fact, among all those occupying that state today in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, Dr. Eric Fossum is a bit ahead in the game because he evidently at least recognizes the obvious. He can still pay a tad more effective attention to his own moral gravitas than just high-minded lip service: "I don't really like this application of my technology. There is nothing I can do about it, I have now unloaded that on you, so thank you." Matters are not yet wholly fait accompli. While our war-mongering modernity still infected by the stone-Age virus of primacy, is premeditatively hurtling headlong into something grotesquely abhorrent which the entire history of mankind has never witnessed before this Technetronic Era – a global scientific dictatorship which has been self-realizingly predicted for close to a century – we aren't there yet! This insane path is not by happenstance, but by engineered design which motivates and incentivizes the worker-bees to make the honey-pot towards that very outcome.
How did we get to this co-opting modernity?
Below is just a cursory roadmap of how we got to this modernity that I have been able to piece together as an amateur historian, amateur social scientist, and former professional technologist who walked away from the same highly applauded passions in the same engineering profession as Eric Fossum, now thanklessly applying the same rational skills in a new passionate hobby. A hobby that is of utmost existential import and of immediate pertinence to mankind's survival as an independent, sentient, and thoughtful moral beings, but for which there is no applause. No medals. No prizes. Only hemlock. Influential scholarly scientists like Dr. Eric Fossum can and do make substantial difference to this calculus, in any direction. So why not in the direction their own inner moral voice uncannily whispers to them – rather than continuing in the suicidal direction of their baser instincts, passions and self-interests?
In order to be most succinct in this outline and still make sense to brilliant people unlearned in their own nation's literature of primacy, I must begin by quoting Edward Bernays:
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country." — Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928, pg. 1. Cited in Zahir Ebrahim, The Mighty Wurlitzer, 2011 ( http://tinyurl.com/The-Mighty-Wurlitzer-PDF082011 )
The necessity of maintaining and manipulating a public's ignorance and perceptions through self-indulgences, through deliberately dumbing them down with bread and circuses, though wholly self-evident today, was already well thought out at the very dawn of the industrial age in the early eighteenth century. Bernard de Mandeville in his famous classic The Fable of the Bees, observed:
"The economic well-being of the nation depends on the presence of a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long. Because men are naturally lazy they will not work unless forced by necessity to do so." — Bernard de Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, 1705
That philosophy, to create "a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long … forced by necessity" espoused in The Fable of the Bees, inspired Adam Smith, the author of The Wealth of Nations, to propose the pursuit of selfish industriousness for the overall common good. Of course, common good primarily of the ruling class with trickle-down economics, but that's just buried in the Newspeak definition of common good where the common man labors hard all day long, and the elites enjoy the good. Patterned upon the bees collectively making that marvelous tasting honey for the enjoyment of the bears, each bee myopically and narrowly staying busy in its own specialized micro-task "content to labor hard all day long", rests the entire edifice of modern civilization.
This philosophy of selfish myopic industriousness for common good has been very sagaciously adapted to the high-tech age of the Technetronic Era. Modernity requires rather high-tech specialized worker-bees, with the commensurate twist of creating educated morons with advanced university degrees who can very patriotically "United We Stand" for the common good while staying productively engaged in narrow specializations in the military-industrial economy! This man-made value system of human beings as economic widgets "content to labor hard all day long", has today spread like a virus across the full gamut of gainful employment in the globalized corporate world, from blue collar to white collar, from traders to craftsman, from technicians to scientists, from superficial generalists to narrow-gauged specialists.
Kept perpetually too busy to either think independently, morally, holistically, and outside their parameters of narrow-gauge specializations by the sheer demands of having to pay their endless debt-bills in pursuit of their endless "American Dreams", and conversely, by ensuring that a handful of the more successful and most intellectual ones are so generously rewarded and applauded for their narrow-gauge specializations that they become vested in their own successes continuing, statecraft today relies on inflicting The Fable of the Bees upon man for its own dystopian functioning. It is therefore no surprise that possession of technological information and technical skills to manipulate matter, has been recast as profound human knowledge, and parrots and fools have been turned into learned savants.
A state of modern affairs which infects modern man quite democratically. We are, despite all the vast data on our fingertips in this Information Age, and despite all the sophistication of modern gadgetry, still living in the age of Jahiliya (ignorance)! This ignorance is by artful design in the industrious West, especially in the sole superpower, United States of America – as already examined by this scribe in his maiden 2003 book Prisoners of the Cave which analyzed the condition of mass ignorance among the people of the United States, keyed off from the blueprint for "imperial mobilization" outlined by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1996 ode to American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, The Grand Chessboard.
This state of affairs is not just due to the happenstance of knowledge explosion in modernity as Zbigniew Brzezinski would have the gullible thoughtlessly believe. Brzezinski had speciously observed in his earlier 1970 book that "the threat of intellectual fragmentation, posed by the gap between the pace in the expansion of knowledge and the rate of its assimilation", is what causes general myopia in the Technetronic Era. Well, such perception molding is very convenient to promulgate. It justifies, nay dignifies, the lack of awareness among the learned living in industrialized societies under great self-obsessions and unbridled self-indulgences.
That state of being enables keeping the public, even the most educated of the lot, quite ignorant of what really matters to statecraft: the absence of awareness among the worker-bees that they are really toiling for the bears, while they glorifyingly slave in their own narrow-gauge specializations for one motivation or another. Here is Zbigniew Brzezinski's sophistry which attempts to pseudo-philosophize the information explosion conversely impacting individual awareness and intellectual cohesion:
'… it can be argued that in some respects "understanding" … is today much more difficult for most people to attain. …
The science explosion – the most rapidly expanding aspect of our entire reality, growing more rapidly than population, industry, and cities – intensifies, rather than reduces, these feelings of insecurity. It is simply impossible for the average citizen and even for men of intellect to assimilate and meaningfully organize the flow of knowledge for themselves.
In every scientific field complaints are mounting that the torrential outpouring of published reports, scientific papers, and scholarly articles and the proliferation of professional journals make it impossible for individuals to avoid becoming either narrow gauged specialists or superficial generalists. The sharing of new common perspectives thus becomes more difficult as knowledge expands; in addition, traditional perspectives such as those provided by primitive myths or, more recently, by certain historically conditioned ideologies can no longer be sustained.
The threat of intellectual fragmentation, posed by the gap between the pace in the expansion of knowledge and the rate of its assimilation, raises a perplexing question concerning the prospects for mankind's intellectual unity.' — Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970, pg. 15
Let me highlight the two key empirical observations from that aforementioned passage: "make it impossible for individuals to avoid becoming either narrow-gauged specialists or superficial generalists. The sharing of new common perspectives thus becomes more difficult as knowledge expands;". The self-serving cyclic argument of Brzezinski is that firstly, ignorance about knowledge, due to the sheer explosion in knowledge, is the natural outcome of scientific modernity. Secondly, that people can no longer easily reach a common "understanding" of their common condition. Both those observations are empirically true today.
But one can easily imagine an alternate modernity where that need not be the case despite the abundance of knowledge explosion. It was the corporatization of knowledge in the service of empire in the vast military-industrial-academe complexes of the industrialized world, and its tight coupling to the exercise of hegemony, that has made it so. Science and technology today equate with hegemony. Therefore, since the quest for hegemony is perpetual, its ultimate expression being world government, those pursuing science and technology have to continue passionately slaving in the service of empire as "narrow-gauged specialists" often unaware that their honey-pot is being harvested by the bears calculatingly funding the worker-bees.
Just as Matt Welsh, the Harvard Computer Scientists wanted to do by his own bold admission: "I get to hack all day." as the principal reason to move to Google Labs.
How are such ardent worker-bees ever to find the pause for reflection on what they are doing while they are busy doing it? The incentives and motivations in this ecosystem naturally enable talented and passionate people like Matt Welsh, Eric Fossum, and the rest of Silicon Valley to create the larger dystopia in baby steps while pursuing their own selfish narrow interests.
It is a self-serving, self-sustaining game of flourishing myopia in this welcoming age of Jahiliya (ignorance) which feeds upon itself in a positive feedback loop. Anyone and everyone who has the natural talent is invited to become a zealous worker-bee with the promise of the honey-pot dangled at the end of the rainbow. The concomitant loss of "understanding" although a natural outcome of such myopic industriousness, isn't just incidental to knowledge explosion as Brzezinski has tried to portray it. It is in fact according to a premeditated plan, deftly put into motion at the very onset of Western industrialization for the crafting and harvesting of "a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long."
Such bold perception management via distortions and half-truths, and the "conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses" which Edward Bernays empirically demonstrated in his own craftsmanship of Propaganda that is best described today as the many tunes played on The Mighty Wurlitzer, is at the very heart of what continually enables and sustains the elite's primacy dealings in "straight power concepts":
'We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population …. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming, and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction …. We should cease to talk about vague and – for the Far East – unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.' — Top Secret Memo, underpinning of the Truman Doctrine for four decades, PPS No. 23, by George Kennan, Head of the US State Department Policy Planning Staff. Written February 28, 1948. Declassified June 17, 1974
The exercise of "straight power concepts" however require more than just sustained propaganda. It requires social structures which enable the magnificent social engineers to engineer the public's consent for the misanthropic exercise of those very power concepts such that "a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long." Here is behaviorist and essayist Aldous Huxley explaining the reality of social engineering towards the "ultimate in malevolent revolution" for those unable to perceive it for themselves, in his talk at the University of California at Berkeley a half-century ago:
'You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them! If you are going to control any population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent. It's exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion. An element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them. Well, it seems to me that the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude! This is the, it seems to me the ultimate in malevolent revolution shall we say.
And this is a problem which has interested me for many years, and about which I wrote thirty years ago a fable, A Brave New World, which is essentially the account of a society making use of all the devices at that time available, and some of the devices which I imagined to be possible, making use of them in order to, first of all, to standardize the population, to iron-out inconvenient human differences, to create so to say mass produced models of human beings arranged in some kind of a scientific caste system.
And since then I have continued to be extremely interested in this problem. And I have noticed with increasing dismay that a number of the predictions which were purely fantastic when I made them thirty years ago, have come true or seem in process of coming true. That a number of techniques about which I talked seem to be here already. And there seems to be a general movement in the direction of this kind of ultimate revolution. This method of control by which people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which by any decent standard they ought not to enjoy, the enjoyment of servitude, well, this process as I say has gone on for over the years.' — Aldous Huxley, 1962 speech at UC Berkeley, minute 04:06
Among those societal structures and methods of control "by which people can be made to enjoy a state of affairs which by any decent standard they ought not to enjoy, the enjoyment of servitude," is the obvious structure of inducements and rewards to play along. And the converse punishment, the marginalization and ostracization for challenging it. We see these incestuously self-reinforcing methods and structures straightforwardly in the incentivization to simply soldier on in the military-industrial-academe complex regardless of the consequences of one's labors and inventions. From Nobel Prize to induction into Inventors Hall of Fame, academic tenures to celebrity statuses, and the opportunities to "get to hack all day." to vie for these few honey-pots, are all systems of entrapment and control which assist in that social engineering to militarize, scientifically organize, and standardize free societies for maximizing the exercise of "straight power concepts" both globally and domestically. Its natural culmination is a global scientific dictatorship of those at the top of the pyramid, managing a scientific caste system many elements of which are already visible in the 300 years old control modulus that is continually crafting "a large number of men who are content to labor hard all day long."
Staying morally and intellectually awake in this misanthropic ecosystem which by definition is threatening to "mankind's intellectual unity" as free human beings, but which can only thrive when its military-industrial complexes deal in "straight power concepts", and which puts everyone greedily participating in that mal-constructed ecosystem into a zombie-like sleep-state in order to get them to incessantly endeavor as "narrow-gauged specialists" worker-bees enjoying their servitude in a positive feedback loop that only accelerates the same dystopian conditions generation after generation, one has to effectively sever that positive feedback loop.
As most competent engineers and physicists already know, a positive feedback path only culminates in an eventual cataclysmic explosion.
That is the path which puts science and technology in the service of empire – rather than humanity – just like the one Eric Fossum and millions like him have thoughtlessly been on for their own self-gratification.
Planned and engineered into practice on the blueprint of The Fable of the Bees.
What's the way out?
Is it rocket science to figure that out after all the preceding verbiage?
To reverse the march of modernity towards its premeditated global scientific dictatorship, conscious principled refrains and conscious principled deterrent acts, and not just mere nods to high mindedness, are necessary for its own harbingers.
It begins with the individual perceptively taking moral responsibility for his or her own passionate pursuits before sowing a fait accompli, for being holistically cognizant of how they earn their bread and butter before they let the genie out of the bottle, rather than piously making a cleansing statement after the fact and moving on to more of the same: "I don't really like this application of my technology. There is nothing I can do about it, I have now unloaded that on you, so thank you. We'll get back to the science and technology now, but I hope you also worry about these things and I especially hope you figure out what we are gonna do about this in the future."
That is the path of principled refrain. Every individual is capable of such conscious acts of refrain – provided their moral clarity is not skin deep. Statement like: "But realization is not enough. It must become informed conviction based on personal study.", that are made in lip-service and hypocrisy ex post facto, are the guiding beacon of moral conduct provided one has the ability to acquire that realization, and the ability to make a living in arenas not in conflict with these realizations. The modern scientific society wholly taken over by the misanthropic military-industrial complex and patterned upon The Fable of the Bees, is designed ab initio to preclude exactly these realizations when the worker-bees are in their most productive years.
The path of principled deterrence requires new negative feedback paths to be instantiated in this dystopian ecosystem – and that can only be effectively seeded by the same technocratic elite, like Dr. Eric Fossum.
The seduction of blind passions, be it between tragic lovers, or between Faust and its endless disciples, only culminates in abhorrence. The seduction of science and technology is even more pernicious because unlike ill-fated lovers instantly smitten on first sight, or Faustian bargains initiated with handshakes, this co-option occurs in small baby steps, one day at a time, one accolade at a time, and before one knows it, one has become an Eric Fossum. Evidently, it can also leave no permanent trace in the conscience which cannot be straightforwardly effaced by the cheapest perfumes of Arabia. The blueprint patterned upon The Fable of the Bees is engineered to ensure that very co-option. To preempt that co-option requires a social awareness and unselfish priority to societal concerns which can usually only emanate among those not directly beholden to an empty stomach. Because the harbingers of this perverse ecosystem also understand the potential threats to their dystopia, they ensure its mitigation through perpetual debt-bills and taxation, fostering lack of awareness, and glamorizing and incentivizing selfishness when the worker-bee is in its most productive period.
Source URL: http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2011/11/seduction-of-science-and-technology.html
Mirror URL: https://bloghumanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/seduction-of-science-and-technology-and-the-corruption-of-the-intellect-zahir-ebrahim/
Source PDF: http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/seduction-of-science-and-technology-and-the-corruption-of-the-intellect-zahir-ebrahim-4.pdf
Source DOC: http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/seduction-of-science-and-technology-and-the-corruption-of-the-intellect-zahir-ebrahim-4.doc
Original version PDF: http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/seduction-of-science-and-technology-and-the-corruption-of-the-intellect-zahir-ebrahim.pdf
The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley ( http://tinyurl.com/zahir-patents ), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by numerous publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org. Verbatim reproduction license at http://humanbeingsfirst.org#Copyright.
Last updated 11/14/2011 12:00:07 6556
The Fable of the Bees and the Seduction of Science and Technology Corrupting the Intellect and the Soul By Zahir Ebrahim 18 / 18


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Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.6 MP2 MacOSX|25.72 MB
It's time to move beyond antivirus with layered protection at the endpoint. Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 brings unrivaled security and blazing performance across physical and virtual systems and is equipped to protect the latest operating systems achieving maximum performance and advanced protection.
Symantec Insight technology reduces antivirus scans while SONAR stops cyber-criminals and zero-day attacks. Only Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 provides the security you need through a single, high-powered agent, for the fastest, most-effective protection available.
New Features:
Support for the latest operating system Effectively protects your Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) and Windows 8.1.
IPS & AV layered protection for Mac Provides unrivaled security with a single, high-powered agent that integrates both IPS and antivirus for Mac users.
Fast Path feature Allows you to identify critical events almost in real-time to create the fastest, most effective solution available.
Seamless console experience Eliminates confusion between Mac and Windows.
Unrivaled Security. Blazing Performance. Built for Virtual Environments.
Symantec Endpoint Protection is built on multiple layers of protection, including Symantec Insight and SONAR both of which provide protection against new and unknown threats. Built for virtual environments, it can integrate with VMware vShield Endpoint for dramatically improved performance. Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 includes the latest features for improved security, performance and management.
Key Benefits:
Unrivaled Security
Todayâs complicated threat landscape requires sophisticated protection from large-scale malware to the most targeted attacks. Only Symantec uses Insight, with the collective wisdom of 200+ million systems in over 200 countries to identify and create a security rating for every file accessed through the internet. This superior reputation technology is combined with network, behavior, file and repair layers of defense to provide unrivaled security against known, and unknown, threats.
Blazing Performance
In todayâs global business environment, every second counts. Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1.4 has replaced traditional scanning of every file with scan elimination and de-duplication through Virtual Image Exception and Shared Insight Cache, and access to the largest Global Intelligence Network to reduce scan times and provide the fastest performance available. Quite simply, files known to be good can be skipped, causing Endpoint Protection to scan faster and smarter.
Built for Virtual Environments
Symantec integrates with VMware vShield Endpoint and has been optimized to secure your high-density business critical environments with the effectiveness you need and the performance you demand.
What's new in version 12.1.6 MP2:
– Adds support for Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11
Download Via RapidGator
Download Via NitroFlare

subset: commoncrawl


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RV Resorts
family friendly camping
491 Route 9
Cape May, NJ 08204
Beachcomber Camping Resort is a family owned camping resort located midway between Wildwood & Cape May, New Jersey. We are a full service resort on 100 wooded acres with camping for tents, RVs & more!
462 Seashore Rd.
Cape May, NJ 08204
Enjoy all the amenities of this complete family camping resort. Relax and explore over 80 beautiful wooded acres. There are activities the whole family can enjoy! Open Apr. 10th - Oct. 11th.
1917 Route 9 North
Clermont, NJ 08210
1535 Route 9 North
Cape May Court House, NJ 08210
116 Swainton Goshen Rd.
Cape May Court House, NJ 08210


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I've tabulated that, looked at a stack of schematics, and generally faffed around to come up with this.www.robgray.com/temp/Arduino-shield-pins-used.xlsIf you don't trust an XLS file here's a screen shotwww.robgray.com/temp/Arduino-shield-pins-used.png
But if it's worthwhile I can verify more over time, or maybe others can chip in or the owners of these boards can tell us exactly what pins they use.
When/if you get around to it, may I suggest a "verified" column that indicates that the info is almost certainly right.
Mowcius, do you mind if I have a go at setting up an online shield database or have you already started work on it?
Following on from that I'll add the ability to search by various criteria (such as pins used), compare shields, and submit new shields for inclusion. If anyone has ideas about other features they'd like to see please speak up.I'm hoping to make it publicly visible this weekend, even if it's just in a crude form.


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In-country programme (2017-2019)
Since the foundation of UPR Info in 2008, a key priority for the organisation has been to support civil society, governments, independent institutions and other actors to collectively remain active throughout the full cycle of the UPR. The 2017-2019 In-country programme therefore seeks to contribute to enabling UPR frameworks at the domestic level consisting of: robust national human rights follow-up systems; nationwide civil society UPR coalitions; and meaningful partnerships between CSOs and the government. Specifically, the programme is comprised of five interlinked steps, offering a unique opportunity for participants to enhance their knowledge about the UPR, and to fine-tune their strategies. Each step is carefully designed in close cooperation with national partners in order to address concrete needs at national level.
The In-country programme is jointly coordinated by staff at UPR Info's headquarters in Geneva and its Africa regional office, based in Nairobi, Kenya. UPR Info Africa offers strategic support for national UPR partners across the region.
Click to find out more about the In-country programme's 5 steps of engagement.
For more information: firstname.lastname@example.com


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I wrote a fic for Zea. Feel free to leave comments if you've got them.
A link to the document. <p>-------------------------
"It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit and the emperor remains an emperor." -- Sandman "The Kindly Ones" </p>


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'Her Morning Elegance' Artists Create Elegant Reason To Buy
from the use-the-unlimited-resource-to-sell-the-limited-resource dept
In 2009, Oren Lavie shared this beautiful stop-motion animated video for his song Her Morning Elegance:
So far it's been viewed over 16 million times on Youtube. How does an artist convert all of that popularity into cash? In this case, by offering a limited edition of ONE print of every single frame of the movie, signed and numbered, for sale. According to the gallery website, 335 prints have sold so far, leaving 1761 available out of 2096 total. The earlier a collector buys a print, the wider the choice of images are available to them. From the site:
Her Morning Elegance music video has become a Pop Culture phenomena and the most successful stop motion video ever, nominated for the 52nd Grammy Awards.
It was assembled from 2096 still photographs that were shot and sequenced to create the sense of movement.
After going from stills to motion the artists have decided to break the video down into its original photographs, printed in physical form and exhibited in galleries worldwide. Today you can own one of these prints and have a fraction of the video itself in your home.
These single edition signed and numbered photographs are offered directly by the artists. We invite you to visit to the gallery and choose your favorite.
Like the video, this model is elegant in its simplicity. Clearly something like this will only work for a very popular video. But I've heard complaints that "popularity means nothing" if a work is free - this shows that isn't true. Another thing I like about this business model is it gives purchasers a very strong connection to the work. It's CwF + RtB at the same time.
Filed Under: her morning elegance, oren lavie, reaso to buy


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The bride chooses a diamond wedding dresses. Its an important part of the wedding planning. Choosing a diamond wedding dresses is a very exciting period in the life of a girl, which she dreams of since childhood.
How to choose a style of diamond wedding dresses?
It can be a simple diamond wedding dresses or a beautiful lace dress. Perhaps your wedding will suit a romantic wedding dress or glamorous wedding dress. Or you prefer a wedding dress in ethnic style or a vintage dress in the style of the sixties. Also it can be quite modern style – sheath dress or short dress. Wedding dress with open back or V-neck will emphasize your feminine beauty. Perhaps some girls will choose for themselves on the wedding day pantsuit as the brides outfit.
How to choose the color of the diamond wedding dresses?
Wedding dress is traditionally white. Nowadays, the color of the diamond wedding dresses can be any. Delicate wedding dress in shades of Nude will suit most brides. Wedding dress can also be blue or pink, red or black.
How to choose accessories for a diamond wedding dresses?
Wedding dress complete with accessories looks especially chic. You will be delightful if you will pick up accessories to a diamond wedding dresses according to a shade of eyes, hair and tone of your skin.
How to choose shoes for a diamond wedding dresses?
Wedding shoes are selected to the wedding dress. Shoes can complement a wedding dress or be an accent detail. You also need to consider the venue of the wedding.


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Nikon has expanded its Coolpix lineup with a quartet of new cameras; the S2500, the S3100, the S4100 and the S6100 all profess to give you exactly what you need when out and about and wanting to snap that perfect moment.
The good news for you is that Pocket-lint has already bagged a hands-on of the new models so you can see them in the flesh.
The Nikon Coolpix S2500
"The stylish Coolpix S2500 offers impressive value for such a top quality camera," is the way that Nikon describes the S2500, and that should tell you pretty much what to expect from the budget snapper.
For your money, you'll get a slim (20mm) aluminium body camera with a Nikkor 4x wide-angle zoom lens and 12 megapixel sensor. To appeal to those who need all the help they can get taking a picture, the camera features Nikon's Smile Timer, Blink Proof and Skin Softening tech and a 2.7-inch LCD screen.
There are 17 scene modes to choose from and four different case colours: red, pink, black and silver. Delicious and dinky, pictured in the gallery in silver.
The Nikon Coolpix S3100
The Coolpix S3100 will replace the Nikon Coolpix S3000, the Nikon Coolpix S4100 will offer smart touch operation of the same model, while the 16-megapixel Nikon Coolpix S6100 compact shooter will come with a 7x zoom lens to top off the range.
In the hand and the Nikon Coolpix S3100, complete with its ultra-slim (18.4mm) body, greater zoom, improved screen brightness and HD (720p) movie recording, is an ideal party camera, offering easy functions and is small enough to slip into any pocket or bag.
You'll also get a 5x wide-angle zoom Nikkor lens with a 14-megapixel CCD image sensor and that dedicated movie-record button really does push the ability to record movies.
Software wise there's friendly features like Smile Timer, Blink Proof and Skin Softening and as previously with Nikon there is the option to "pimp" your photos with filter effects, allowing you to edit images in-camera, without needing a computer.
Talking of pimping, the camera will come in purple, red, black, blue, pink, citrus yellow and silver.
Nikon told us that they expect the S3100 to be a big seller and you can expect to see it appearing on the TV as Nikon continues its high profile sponsorships. It is pictured in the gallery in blue.
The S3100 will cost £129.99 and be available, says Nikon, from the 17 March 2011.
The Nikon Coolpix S4100
The S4100 is also a 14-megapixel camera coming in five colours, including red, bronze and purple; it has an 3-inch high resolution 460K-dot touch control LCD screen.
In use and that touchscreen does need a little more prodding than we expected to get the menu options to pop-up, but it was simple enough to navigate. Both the S3100 and S4100 are a little small in the hand, which ladies might like, but ham-fisted gents might not.
There's also high-definition (720p) movie mode that you can access by the same (as the S3100) dedicated movie-record button. It works, but we weren't able to delve deep into analysing any footage here - we were playing with pre-production samples, but full reviews will come in good time.
Like the S3100 you'll get a wide angle 5x zoom Nikkor lens and in-camera editing. It is pictured in the gallery in that bronze colour.
The S4100 will cost £149.99 and be available, says Nikon, from 24 February 2011.
The Nikon Coolpix S6100
If you're looking for a bit more zoom then you'll be wanting the Nikon Coolpix S6100 that comes with a 7x zoom, not 6x as the name might suggest.
The S6100 looks to replace the Nikon Coolpix S5100. It packs a further 2 megapixels in its shell bringing the total to 16 megapixels. Like the S4100 you'll get a 3-inch high resolution 460k-dot touchscreen display, that dedicated movie button and HD video recording.
On the software side of things there are four different anti-blur functions that automatically minimise the effects of camera shake, subject movement or low light.
The Coolpix S6100 comes in five colours: violet, black, red, pink and silver, the glorious violet is pictured in the gallery (admittedly a little dark) and we have to say that the S6100 feels like a great camera in the hand.
The S6100 will cost £199.99 and be available from the 24 February 2011.
Be sure to stay tuned, we'll be reviewing all of Nikon's new releases in the not-too-distant future.


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Tony Parker out about four weeks with ankle injury
- San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker out about four weeks with grade 2 ankle sprain
- Parker has emerged as long-shot MVP candidate%2C averaging 21.0 points%2C 7.6 assists per game
- Spurs now will lean on injury-prone stars Tim Duncan%2C Manu Ginobili
After the San Antonio Spurs' 130-102 victory over the Sacramento Kings Friday, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said All-Star point Tony Parker will be out for "a while."
Turns out, a while is about four weeks. An MRI on Parker's left ankle confirmed a grade 2 sprain, the team said in a news release Saturday.
It's a tough loss for the Spurs, who have the league's best record at 46-14. Parker has been San Antonio's best player this season and is an long-shot MVP candidate, averaging 21.0 points, 7.6 assists and 3.1 rebounds a game. He is shooting 53.3% from the field and 37.9% on three-pointers.
He has carried the Spurs while center Tim Duncan and guard Manu Ginobili have been in and out the lineup with ailments. In February, Parker averaged 26.1 points, 8.3 assists, four rebounds and shot 54% from the field.
"He's been a stalwart for us," Popovich told reporters Friday night. "He's having an All-Star season. As I've said, he's playing better than any other point guard in the league consistently through the year. We will miss him."
Parker sustained the injury in the third quarter and left the game with 13 points and seven assists.
Approximately a month puts Parker's return at March 30, the day before the Spurs play a home game against the Miami Heat, a contest which could play a factor in home-court advantage in a potential finals matchup.


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In the early 1950s, it was nearly impossible to know the value of an automobile. They had prices, yes, but these would differ radically from dealer to dealer, the customer a pawn in the hands of the seller. This all changed in 1958, when US senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma shepherded a bill through Congress requiring that official pricing information be glued to the window of every new automobile sold in the US. The "Monroney sticker," as it came to be known, has been with us ever since. It became an effective means of disclosing the manufacturer's suggested retail price, or MSRP, and a billboard for other data disclosures to the consumer: the car's fuel economy, its environmental rating, and so on.
The sticker price was one of the triumphs of consumer-rights legislation and has made buying a car an easier—though never altogether easy—experience. What's more, window stickers made automobile pricing rational and understandable. A customer who knows the base price going in will expect more value coming out. In economic terms, the sticker turned a failed market flummoxed by information asymmetry into something resembling a functioning, price-driven marketplace.
If there is ever an industry in need of a Senator Monroney today, it is health care, in which 1950s-era thinking still rules the day, and irrational and inexplicable pricing is routine. The health care industry plays a gigantic game of Blind Man's Bluff, keeping patients in the dark while asking them to make life-and-death decisions. The odds that they will make the best choice are negligible and largely depend on chance. Patients need to have data, including costs and their own medical histories, liberated and made freely available for thorough analysis. What health care needs is a window sticker—a transparent, good-faith effort at making prices clear and setting market forces to work.
Exploding Health Care Costs
Since 1987, US health care spending per capita has more than doubled, and the cost borne by patients continues to rise.
Chart design: Luke Shuman
Sources: Archives of Internal Medicine, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
How bad is it? Uwe Reinhardt, a leading health care economist, described the pricing of hospital services as "chaos behind a veil of secrecy." Chaos due to lack of predictability; veil of secrecy because many organizations take a proprietary attitude toward data.
Consider a recent study of the costs of routine appendectomies performed throughout California. Though the procedures were largely identical, the charges varied more than 100-fold—from $1,529 at the cheapest to $182,955 at the most expensive.
What accounted for this bizarre spread? Good question—but efforts to discover the answer turned out to be futile. Although the research highlighted how large the bills for these hospitalizations were, various costs were declared to be trade secrets. The providers (i.e., the hospitals) and insurers involved in the study would not share how much the insurers actually paid for the visits, only what the providers charged. To me, understanding the logic here requires a chain of reasoning that could appear only in Alice in Wonderland. We don't just need an MSRP sticker—we need a medical Freedom of Information Act!
In business, as time goes on, weak industry participants will try to improve their status, and, of course, incumbents will attempt to protect their positions. Two common ways of imposing or maintaining market power are by forming coalitions or by outright acquisitions, and that's what has happened in medicine. Consolidation among health care providers has resulted in a number of large organizations becoming even more powerful as they've started to use their size and reach. And they've wielded this power to keep a lid on some of the information that would make for better health care.
The past several decades have seen major strides in technology of all kinds. Improvements in semiconductors have allowed faster computation and communications, as well as the construction of databases that outdo themselves every year. In many industries, technology development has spurred further improvements in efficiency—a virtuous cycle. In health care, this process is happening at a much slower rate. It has taken decades to complete even relatively simple tasks such as digitizing medical records.
Out-of-Reach Insurance
As the number of uninsured Americans has risen (today more than 15 percent lack coverage), basic care has become out of more people's reach. This means that costs like additional emergency room visits must be borne by the rest of the population.
Chart design: Luke Shuman
Source: US Census Bureau
What's more, in most industries technology has served to automate processes and reduce costs. At Intel, we worked to introduce and deploy technologies in a variety of industries. The most difficult to penetrate was the field of medicine. The paradox of health care is that technology has driven costs higher. In fact, half of the increase in medical spending is related to the deployment of new medical technologies.
Part of the problem has been due to well-established prejudices. Consider a recent encounter: A friend of mine, a professor at a major medical school who is in charge of the clinical training of doctors, described a spirited exchange with his students about their choice of a psychoactive drug. There are many such medications. Generic versions apparently show no significant difference in efficacy from newer, branded drugs. An FDA review published in 2009 confirmed this. However, they do show huge differences in cost, with the new medications, by virtue of their patent protection, being much more expensive. Try as he might, my friend could not persuade the residents to prescribe any of the older, less expensive alternatives. The residents insisted that if a new drug was available, even at a much higher price, it would be unethical to not use it.
Investment patterns in health care reinforce this tendency. The largest single spender on medical research and technologies development—more than $30 billion annually—is the National Institutes of Health. Though NIH emphasis has been on new research, not cost, it has made some effort to address the issue. In 2000, a new agency, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, was created to exploit emerging technologies with an eye toward economic benefit. But this effort has been largely marginal and is under constant attack by vested interests: The 2013 fiscal year budget currently circulating in the House of Representatives, for instance, would limit pragmatic funding throughout the NIH.
This cultural bias being baked into policy is not new. In 2009 Congress approved funds aimed at identifying the comparative effectiveness of various treatments. But language opening the door to "comparative cost-effectiveness" was deemed too radical and was cut from the bill. That's like comparing the performance of a Ferrari to a Kia without knowing which one costs more.
Widely Varying Fees
The price charged for any given medical procedure seems to defy logic. For example, a 2009 study found that the amount billed in nearly 20,000 uncomplicated appendectomy cases in California ranged from less than $2,000 to close to $200,000.
Chart design: Luke Shuman
Sources: Archives of Internal Medicine, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
In a transparent health care market, pricing and other patient data can be consolidated and analyzed to yield new insights. A previous head of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Leslie Michelson, once said that every clinical examination contains the elements of a clinical trial. "Life itself is the greatest clinical trial of them all," he said. "It's just a little too big." But new database tools could speed up the processing of information and allow a clinician to gain useful information from a single patient—in real time. Managing comparisons of data matrices, unthinkable just a few years ago, is entirely practical today. With computers developed for this purpose, correlations could be analyzed, relationships between diseases and treatments studied, and individual treatments generated. In short, the "blinded" patient would benefit from technology, with results much more easily obtained. Meanwhile, every new patient changes the database by adding real-life data elements to the collection. The resulting "digital sticker" would play a major role in bringing order to chaos. It could potentially have just as much impact on the health care business as the MSRP had on the automotive business.
This opportunity will flourish only if a new mindset spreads throughout the health care industry, starting with doctors. The use of new technology, its cost and deployment, all must be taken as seriously as the technology itself. Today it is not. I have particular interest in the nascent discipline of translational medicine, which moves discoveries from the proverbial lab to the bedside. I helped initiate one such effort in this field: a graduate program offered jointly by UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley. The curriculum took off in record time, but disappointingly 91 percent of the students registering for it are engineers and scientists, not doctors. This limits the special value of this effort.
The health care business is about patients. But the patient population has been largely powerless and remains so even as the members of the medical community—hospital chains, nationwide insurers, large employers—have become much more powerful. Over time, the patient—the raison d'être of the health care business—has been reduced to merely another raw material.
This should not last. What technology can do is change the game—change the basis of competition, change what it takes to win in the health care marketplace. In time, some players will compete better than others by making good use of technology. In this competitive environment, patient use of the available pertinent information, with all its benefits, is going to be critical, giving them more economic power. They will likely demand to know more about their various conditions and what their dollars are being spent on. That's how American consumers have always operated, and I predict they will here as well.
But what they'll need is transparency in treatment, cost, and institutions—in other words, a digital sticker. Getting that transparency has to be Job One.
Andy Grove, senior adviser to Intel, was the company's chief executive officer or chair from 1987 until 2005.
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Texas Government
Hall supports reform, economic boost, jobs
- Details
- Category: Texas Legislature
- Published on 03 August 2012
- Written by Lillie Bush-Reves
This week Rep. Ralph Hall (TX-04) voted to pass legislation focused on job creation and economic growth through a two-part tax plan. H.R. 8, the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012, which passed 256-171, extends tax relief that is scheduled to expire January 1, 2013. H.R. 6169, the Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act of 2012, which passed 232-189, simplifies the tax code for American families and small businesses.
"America is now stretching into its 42nd consecutive month of unemployment at 8% or higher and our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth for the year's second quarter has slowed from 1.9% to 1.5%," said Hall. "Despite our nation's weak economy and high unemployment, the President is now demanding higher taxes on small businesses and job creators."
Hall continued, "Raising taxes will not save our weak economy, create jobs, or solve our debt crisis - in fact, it will have the opposite effect. If we fail to renew the tax cuts expiring January 1st, a family of four earning $50,000 a year would see their taxes increase by nearly $2,200. Accounting firm Ernst & Young has also reported the President's tax hike proposal on nearly 1 million small business owners could cost the economy over 700,000 jobs." In order to keep up with population growth, a minimum of 150,000 jobs must be created. Last month, 80,000 new jobs were added.
"Americans cannot afford higher taxes and the drastic impact it would have on the economy. Republicans are fighting for tax relief for all Americans and small business owners. Allowing people to keep their money in their own pocketbooks, coupled with responsible federal budgeting and simplifying the tax code, provides more room for economic growth and job creation as small business owners are able to grow their businesses and hire new workers."
The Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act would:
• Maintain the rate of 15% on capital gains and dividends;
• Maintain the estate tax rate exemption at 35% and $5 million exemption instead of defaulting to 55% rate exemption and $1 million exemption;
• Protect the middle class from being ensnared in the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for 2012 and 2013; and
• Extend small business expensing, the current $1,000 child tax credit, and marriage penalty relief.
The Pathway to Job Creation through a Simpler, Fairer Tax Code Act reforms the current tax code by:
• Reducing the current six tax brackets down to just two (10 and 25 percent);
• Establishing a corporate rate of 25 percent, helping to make America competitive in the global marketplace;
• Eliminating the alternative minimum tax;
• Transitioning America to a more competitive territorial tax system; and
• Maintaining revenue levels in the range of historic norms (18-19 percent of gross domestic product).
"Job creation and economic growth are my top priorities, and I will continue to fight in Washington so constituents in my district can feel more confident in America's economy, those who are looking for work can find good jobs, and people can provide for their families."


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Fentanyl is the generic form of the brand-name drug Duragesic, a prescription opioid (narcotic) drug used to treat chronic, "around-the-clock" pain.
It should be used only by people who are "opioid-tolerant," or who are already taking opioid pain medications, such as morphine and oxycodone, regularly.
Fentanyl is in a class of drugs called opioid analgesics, which work by binding to nervous system proteins called opioid receptors, thereby blocking the transmission of pain signals to the brain.
Duragesic is a transdermal (through the skin) patch.
Fentanyl is also sold as a lozenge under the brand name Actiq, a tablet that goes under the tongue (Abstral), a film that's applied to the inner lining of the cheek or lip (Onsolis), a tablet that goes between the gum and cheek (Fentora) a nasal spray (Lazanda), a sublingual tablet (Abstral), and a sublingual spray (Subsys).
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved fentanyl, which is produced by Johnson & Johnson, in 1968.
Over the years, Johnson & Johnson has issued several recalls of its Duragesic pain-relief skin patches.
In 2004 and 2008, the company recalled some of its patches because of damage that could have caused the medication to leak potentially fatal fentanyl gel.
In 2012, Johnson & Johnson recalled more than 53,000 Duragesic patches after fentanyl crystals were found in a patch (the drug is supposed to be completely dissolved).
Fentanyl use can lead to addiction, abuse, and misuse, even at the recommended doses — this risk is higher for people with a personal or family history of substance abuse or mental illness.
Fentanyl is almost 100 times more potent than morphine, but the drug is designed to deliver small amounts of fentanyl each hour over an extended period of time.
When ingested, however, the Duragesic patch can deliver its entire dose all at once, increasing the risk of an overdose.
In 2008, a study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences reviewed seven case reports of oral abuse of Duragesic and found that fentanyl overdose caused or contributed to the deaths of the persons in each case.
As with other addictive drugs, stopping fentanyl suddenly may result in withdrawal symptoms, including:
Fentanyl carries a black-box warning about its potential for addiction, abuse, misuse, and its associated risk of fatal overdose.
People who are accidentally exposed to fentanyl, particularly children, are especially vulnerable to a fatal overdose.
Fentanyl should be used only by people with chronic pain who are opioid tolerant.
You should not use it to treat mild, post-operative, intermittent, or short-term pain.
People with significant respiratory problems, acute or severe asthma, paralytic ileus (an obstruction of the intestine), or a known sensitivity to fentanyl shouldn't take fentanyl.
People who are non-opioid tolerant shouldn't take fentanyl, because the drug carries a high risk of life-threatening respiratory depression (low breathing rate).
Respiratory depression may also occur in opioid-tolerant people, even when the drug is used as directed, especially when first going on fentanyl or increasing the dosage.
If you're older, debilitated, or have a wasting syndrome called cachexia, you're more likely to experience respiratory depression.
Potentially fatal respiratory depression may also occur if you use fentanyl while taking cytochrome P450 3A4 (CYP3A4) inhibitors, such as ritonavir (Norvir), nefazodone (Serzone), nelfinavir (Viracept), and after consuming grapefruit or grapefruit juice.
Using fentanyl while taking central nervous system depressants, such as sedatives, hypnotics, alcohol, and other opioids, can cause abnormally low blood pressure, profound sedation, coma, respiratory depression, and death.
When using fentanyl, don't expose the patch or surrounding area to direct external heat sources such as saunas, hot tubs, and heating pads, as this may increase your body's rate of fentanyl absorption, possibly leading to a fatal overdose.
You're also at risk for increased fentanyl exposure if you have a fever or an increased core body temperature, such as from strenuous exercise.
Prolonged use of opioid analgesics (painkillers), including fentanyl, during pregnancy can produce drug dependence in newborns.
It can also result in neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome, which has various symptoms and signs, including:
Animal pregnancy studies have shown that fentanyl can have an "adverse" effect on the fetus, and so there's a possibility the opioid may harm developing human fetuses.
It should only be used during pregnancy if the potential pain-relieving benefits outweigh the potential risks to the fetus.
Fentanyl shouldn't be used during or immediately before labor because opioids can cross the placenta and potentially cause respiratory depression in newborns. The drug may also prolong labor.
Because fentanyl is excreted in breast milk, do not use fentanyl if you're breastfeeding.
The most common side effects of fentanyl are:
Less common side effects, which may be severe, include such things as:
Rare side effects from using fentanyl have also been reported, including:
Fentanyl may interact with:
Tell your doctor about any medications, illegal or recreational drugs, herbal remedies, and supplements you're taking.
Drinking alcohol while using fentanyl may cause low blood pressure, profound sedation, coma, respiratory depression, and death.
Potentially fatal respiratory depression may occur if you consume grapefruit juice or grapefruit products while taking fentanyl.
Respiratory depression can also occur if you're taking fentanyl with cytochrome inhibitors.
Fentanyl (as Duragesic) comes in five strengths, which deliver fentanyl at different rates: 12 micrograms per hour (mcg/h), 25 mcg/h, 50 mcg/h, 75 mcg/h, and 100 mcg/h.
Use only as directed — never put more than one patch on at a time.
If you overdose on fentanyl, call 9-1-1 or get emergency help right away.
Overdose symptoms include:
A: The problems that you noted are in the literature. I would discuss this more with your health care provider for peace of mind before trying the patch. I would ask him if there is any other type of medication that you could use to help with the pain. Be sure to bring the pamphlet with you which contains this information.
A: Fentanyl (Duragesic) skin patches are used to relieve moderate to severe pain that is expected to last for some time, that does not go away, and that cannot be treated with other pain medications. Fentanyl skin patches are only used to treat people who are tolerant (used to the effects of the medication) to narcotic pain medications. Fentanyl is in a class of medications called opiate (narcotic) analgesics. It works by changing the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain. Side effects of Fentanyl include headache, dizziness, confusion, weakness, drowsiness and constipation. If you take Fentanyl on a regular basis, these effects usually wear off 1-2 weeks after you start taking the medication or increase your dose. For more information on Fentanyl see //www.everydayhealth.com/drugs/fentanyl Lori Poulin, PharmD
A: Fentanyl (Duragesic) skin patches are used to relieve moderate to severe pain that is expected to last for some time, that does not go away, and that cannot be treated with other pain medications. Fentanyl skin patches are only used to treat people who are tolerant (used to the effects of the medication) to narcotic pain medications. Fentanyl is in a class of medications called opiate (narcotic) analgesics. It works by changing the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain. Side effects of fentanyl include headache, dizziness, confusion, weakness, drowsiness and constipation. If you take fentanyl on a regular basis, these effects usually wear off 1-2 weeks after you start taking the medication or increase your dose. You may also find helpful information on fentanyl at //www.everydayhealth.com/drugs/fentanyl Lori, PharmD
A: The Duragesic skin patch contains fentanyl, a narcotic (or opioid) for the treatment of moderate to severe chronic pain. As with all narcotic pain relievers, fentanyl can be habit-forming and should only be used by the person for whom it was prescribed. According to the package insert, the most significant side effect is the potential for respiratory depression, which can lead to weak and shallow breathing. If this occurs, the patch should be removed and you should contact your doctor. The most common side effects include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, constipation, gas, dizziness, drowsiness, anxiety, sleep problems (insomnia), muscle stiffness, back pain, itching, blistering, redness, or swelling where the patch was worn, and increased sweating or urinating. Because Duragesic can cause significant drowsiness, it is important to understand how the medication affects you before driving or operating machinery or performing other tasks that require mental alertness. All narcotic pain relievers can cause constipation because of their effects on gastrointestinal motility and secretions. Many patients require a bowel regimen consisting of a stool softener and mild stimulant throughout therapy with narcotic pain relieves. If you do not have a bowel movement for three days, an enema or suppository should be administered to prevent impaction. For more information, please consult your health care provider and visit //www.everydayhealth.com/drugs/fentanyl. Michelle McDermott, PharmD
A: Fentanyl skin patches are used in the treatment of persistent moderate to severe chronic pain. Fentanyl is an opioid analgesic, or pain killer. It works by changing the way the brain and nervous system respond to pain. Fentanyl patches are only for people whose pain cannot be controlled by other pain medications including oral opioids. Fentanyl patches are only indicated to be used in people who are already receiving opioid pain medications. Fentanyl patches are used for pain relief that is needed around the clock, not on an as needed basis. Fentanyl patches can be habit forming. Some of the common side effects associated with fentanyl patches include confusion, headache, drowsiness, dizziness, slowed breathing and heart rate, constipation and dehydration. Here are some suggestions for applying the fentanyl patch according to the prescribing information. The patch should be applied to flat, non-irritated skin -- like the back, flank, chest or upper arm If there is hair on the area, remove by clipping, not shaving If the skin needs to be cleaned prior to application, use clear water Do not use lotions, oils, soaps, or alcohol on the skin that may irritate it or change its characteristics Allow the skin to dry completely before applying the patch Use the palm of the hand to press and hold down the patch on the skin for 30 seconds, making sure contact is complete, especially around the edges If there is a problem with the patch adhering to the skin, a transparent adhesive film dressing, like Bioclusive or Askina Derm, may be placed over the patch. This may not be a complete list of side effects or directions for patch application. It is important to speak with your health care provider in regards to appropriate dosing and application of the fentanyl patch, and follow the complete directions provided with your prescription. Kristen Dore, PharmD
A: Fentanyl is a potent pain relieving medication delivered topically through a skin patch. According to the prescribing literature, once the Fentanyl patch is removed, the concentration of Fentanyl in the blood stream is reduced gradually. It can take approximately 20 to 27 hours for the blood concentration of Fentanyl patch to be decreased by 50% once the patch is removed. Therefore, it could possibly take 48 to 72 hours for the body to completely eliminate Fentanyl from the blood stream. The breakdown of medications is dependent on kidney function, liver function, other medications, age, medical conditions, health status, the use of herbal products and other nonprescription products. The manufacturer recommends that a patient discontinuing the patch should be monitored for at least 24 hours following the removal of the patch for any adverse effects. Consuelo Worley, RPh, MS
A: Fentanyl (Duragesic) is classified as an opioid analgesic medication. Fentanyl is approved for the treatment of persistent, moderate to severe pain that requires continuous, around-the-clock opioid administration for a prolonged period of time and for pain that can't be controlled with other medications such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medications, opioid combination medications or immediate-release opioids. If you feel that you should not be using fentanyl patches any longer, it is important that you talk to your physician. You should not stop the medication or decrease the dose of the medication without first talking to your physician. According to the prescribing information for fentanyl, if the medication is to be stopped, your physician may prescribe a tapering down of your fentanyl dose. Abruptly discontinuing the medication can result in withdrawal symptoms. There are specific directions and charts that your physician can utilize to convert a patient to different pain medications if this is required. Tapering of dosages and converting patients to different pain medications is done at the discretion of your physician. Your physician can provide you specific directions on how to stop taking fentanyl patches, if this is an appropriate therapeutic decision. For more specific information, consult with your doctor or pharmacist for guidance based on your health status and current medications, particularly before taking any action. Jen Marsico, RPh
By Joseph Bennington-Castro | Medically Reviewed by Sanjai Sinha, MD
Latest Update: 2015-01-09
Copyright © 2014 Everyday Health Media, LLC


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With the Star Trek movie beaming up Noel Clarke (a.k.a. Mickey Smith), we look at some of the biggest celebs who've traveled through the Whoniverse. While the list is far from complete — we've left off the obvious recent Doctor Who regulars like Alex Kingston, John Simm, Bernard Cribbins, and Gavin & Stacey's James Corden — it provides an overview of the star-studded talent who've dazzled us over the series' nearly 50 years. Also: check out our list of the five best Doctor Who guest stars from the modern era, in our humble opinion.
John Cleese – "City of Death" (1979)
Simon Pegg – "The Long Game" (2005)
Timothy Dalton – "The End of Time" (2009)
Anthony Stewart Head – "School Reunion" (2006)
Sir Derek Jacobi – "Utopia" (2007)
Eric Roberts – "Doctor Who" movie (1996)
Andrew Garfield – "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks" (2007)
Carey Mulligan – "Blink" (2007)
Kylie Minogue – "The Voyage of the Damned" (2007)
Sophie Okonedo – "The Beast Below" (2010)
Lindsay Duncan – "The Waters of Mars" (2009)
Game of Thrones's Harry Lloyd – "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood" (2007)
Pauline Collins – "Tooth and Claw" (2006)
Sir Michael Gambon – "A Christmas Carol" (2010)
Martin Clunes – "Snakedance" (1983)
Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville – "The Curse of the Black Spot" (2011)
Bill Nighy – "Vincent and the Doctor" (2010)
David Morrissey – "The Next Doctor" (2008)
Julian Glover – "City of Death" (1979)
Marc Warren and Shirley Henderson – "Love and Monsters" (2006)
Upstairs Downstairs's Jean Marsh – various episodes from "The Knight of Jaffa" (1965) to "Battlefield" (1989)
Absolutely Fabulous's June Whitfield – "The End of Time" (2009)
Weakest Link host Anne Robinson – "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways" (2005)
Brian Blessed – "The Trial of a Time Lord" (1986)
And as a bonus, a slightly controversial addition – Peter "Moff Tarkin" Cushing as "Dr. Who" in the non-canon '60s films.
Who have we missed? And who is your favorite famous Doctor Who guest star?Read More


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Slow Drag
Preview tracks
Slow Drag was one of trumpeter Donald Byrd's final hard bop dates. Teamed with altoist Sonny Red, pianist Cedar Walton, bassist Walter Booker and drummer Billy Higgins (who takes a surprise vocal on the title cut), this quintet outing features originals by Byrd, Walton and Red along with the standards "Secret Love" and "My Ideal." The music in general finds Byrd looking both backwards toward the blues and forwards toward modal music and hints of the avant-garde. A fine effort.


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FRIDAY, Oct. 25, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- Zohydro ER (hydrocodone bitartrate extended-release) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for severe pain that requires round-the-clock long-term treatment, the agency said Friday in a news release.
Citing the potential for opioid abuse or dependency, even if the product is used as prescribed, the agency said the drug should be used only in cases when other painkillers have proven ineffective. The schedule II controlled substance should only be used to treat daily, chronic pain, not for as-needed pain relief, the FDA said.
The agency said it has ordered post-marketing studies of Zohydro ER to evaluate use beyond 12 weeks, and its overall potential for abuse.
The drug was evaluated in clinical studies involving more than 1,100 people with chronic pain. The most common side effects included constipation, nausea, drowsiness, headache, dizziness, dry mouth and itching.
Zohydro ER is produced by Zogenix, based in San Diego.
More information
To learn more about chronic pain, visit the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.


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Arena 125CDetails https://eu.jbl.com/ARENA+125C.html?dwvar_ARENA%20125C_color=Black-GLOBAL-Current
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Two 5.5-inch (140mm) polycellulose woofer brings room-filling JBL sound to all your music, TV shows, movies, and console gaming. 1-inch (25mm) soft dome tweeter provides clean, powerful highs. Experience standard-setting accuracy with TV shows, movies, and games.
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The Australian off-road utility vehicle manufacturer Tomcar has begun accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for its direct sales to customers. This example of Bitcoin's expansion into the marketplace sends a few interesting messages, among them:
- Sellers and buyers will be motivated to use the cryptocurrency for reasons other than anonymity: Tomcar's stated reason for liking Bitcoin is to avoid credit card transaction fees and unfavorable international currency exchange rates.
- Bitcoin plays a role in the supply chain, not just in transactions with the end user. Tomcar is paying some of its suppliers using Bitcoin. The Winklevoss twins say Bitcoin could become the currency for an entire country.
- Payment gateway CoinJar (which Tomcar uses) is an interesting specimen. It's not just the Brothers Winklevii who are investing in the Bitcoin marketplace.
- The Silk Road shutdown was a good thing. Cryptocurrency lends itself well to a seedy marketplace. And those seeds, watered with unscrupulousness, will bear fruit of bad reputation. Tomcar's founder hails Silk Road's demise, since a lack of association with the unlawful will do the currency some PR good.
One can't help but wonder whether there are some opportunities to reinforce some stereotypes when thinking about Tomcar and the people who would buy them. The off-road utility of the vehicles would come in handy in the post-apocalyptic world occasioned by the collapse of modern governments – the very entities running a monetary system that the Bitcoin enthusiast gladly wishes to circumvent.


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Dominican coach Marcos Kwiek: "Both teams know each other very well. We came back strongly. We will go home a little frustrated and begin working toward Olympic qualification."
Dominican captain Milagros Cruz: "Our goal coming to Osaka was to make it to Tokyo. Unfortunately we couldn't do it. After playing in four world championships, this will likely be my last one."
Dominican player Prisilla Rivera: "It was a close match. We can only get better as a team."
Dominican player Brenda Castillo: "We had fun playing today. We exhibited concentration in winning the match."
Canada coach Arnd Ludwig: "The turning point was at the end of the second set. We had a chance to take a 2-0 lead but didn't do it. I'm proud of my players, they improved a lot during this tournament."
Canada captain Tammy Louise Mahon: "We started well. It was the same as yesterday. We didn't react well. This tournament was a great experience for us."
Canada player Lauren O'Reilly: "We play well when we are passionate. We didn't adjust when they started playing better. We did improve every match here."


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About Eu - From $1,825.00 USD
Enjoy this independent traveling by first class rail to explore Paris and Alsace. With three nights in Paris and three nights in Strasbourg, plus plenty of exciting sites to see, as well as included hotels and first class rail between cities, all of the key arrangements are made for you – but you set the pace to delve into each city on your own. Included as part of this fascinating by rail is a half day city tour of Paris and one-hour Seine River cruise. See the splendors of The City of Light - the Eiffel Tower, Palais Royal, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame, and the designer shops along the Champs Elysees - a tree-lined beauty, full of elegant cafes, theaters and shops developed by Louis XV. Even once you've sampled the city's "essential" sights; you'll find an unlimited supply of culture, art, nightlife, eateries and chic shopping experiences to delay your departure. Stay in the capital of Alsase, Strasbourg, situated in northeastern France – home to the Gothic Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg, with its animated astronomical clock. This region is bordered by Germany and Switzerland, offering a great wealth of culture. On this fairy-tale style , you will enjoy a Market and Gourmet tour, including tasting experiences of cheese, local breads, pretzels and wine. Further on your journey, join in a full day guided excursion following the legendary Alsace "Grands Crus" wine route, including tastings of Riesling, Pinot Gris, Sparkling Crémant, Sylvaner.
Terms, conditions and restrictions apply; pricing, availability, and other details subject to change and/ or apply to US or Canadian residents. Please confirm details and booking information with your travel advisor.


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If you would like to post your own testimonial about your experience in the Help Center send an email to email@example.com.
Posted June 14, 2006
God bless you for such a wonderful program, but more so for the wonderful team that helps those of us who need it.
Makes me consider law school (always dreamed of being an entertainment attorney for the sake of artist advocacy).
It's a dream, to work w/people who love their job! Thank you for allowing such a program! Talk about giving back!
Thank you all!
May God continue to shine down & bless you all! I've seen so many who come into the Help Center, attempting to thank the ladies, with gifts but they won't accept, thus my anonymity!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
A. Grateful Tenant


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© Design by Nurah. Inspired from AtiqahJaidin. please tell me nicely if i don't credit you
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
2.5k Followers Giveaway
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
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To celebrate the release of MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO – available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD Dual Format from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment 9th April 2018 – we are giving away a copy!
From acclaimed director Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy) comes a wile road movie for the '90s starring America's hottest young male stars – River Phoenix (Stand by Me, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Keanu Reeves (Point Break, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) – as two hustlers who explore friendship and self-discovery on the twisting, turning road of life.
Phoenix is Mike, a narcoleptic street hustler haunted by his idyllic memories of childhood and obsessed with finding his estranged mother. Reeves is Scott, a runaway rich kid who's on a personal "crusade" to find the meaning of life, biding his time until he inherits his father's estate. Together they're lost in a bizarre world of wealthy strangers and stranger-than-life adventures. They set out to survive the odyssey but, along the way, come to understand each other and their place in the world, learning life's lessons as only the road can teach.
Order today: https://bit.ly/2JnjcUk
Terms and Conditions
-Open to UK participants only
-1 (one) winner will receive 1 (one) My Own Private Idaho Blu-ray.
-The prize will be delivered to the winner upon receipt of their delivery address after the closing date
-The Editor's decision is final and binding on the entrants. No correspondence will be entered into
-There is no cash alternative to Prizes which are subject to availability, non-transferable, non-negotiable and non-refundable. Prizes may not be sold, offered for sale or used in connection with any other competition or promotion by the Prize winner


text: Ohio's Husted fires Democratic election board members 08/28/12 04:38 PMUpdated 09/06/13 07:02 AM The Rachel Maddow Show has been closely following voter-suppression efforts, most notably in Ohio, where Ohio's Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted, has been threatening to fire Tom Ritchie Sr. and Dennis Lieberman, two Democratic members of the Montgomery County board of elections.And what is it, exactly, that Ritchie and Lieberman did to earn Husted's wrath. The Democratic officials committed the crime of voting to expand voting hours in their county.Today, Husted followed through on his threat.The two Democratic members of the Montgomery County Board of Elections have been fired, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said in a letter released Tuesday afternoon. […]Husted said in his letter that board members are free to express their discontent with any directive or advisory issued, "but they cannot disobey them." […]The move by Husted, the state's chief elections official, was the latest in a series of flare ups over when Ohioans can cast an early ballot in person in the presidential battleground state. The issue essentially broke down along political party lines. Ohio is one of 32 states, plus the District of Columbia, that allow voters to cast an early ballot by mail or in person without having to give a reason.The full text of Husted's letter is now available online here (pdf).To put it mildly, the firings are tough to defend. Take a few minutes to review Rachel's segment on this from last week, posted above, which also included an interview with Ritchie and Lieberman.Remember, voting in Montgomery County, Ohio, went very smoothly four years ago, with local officials running a relatively hassle free, trouble free election. Democrats and Republicans on the local board of elections expanded early voting opportunities, and turnout went up considerably.The problem – if you want to call it that – is that President Obama won in Montgomery County and in Ohio statewide, leading Buckeye State Republicans to start changing the rules, making it harder for voters to participate in their own democracy.But what makes Montgomery County special is the efforts of Ritchie and Lieberman.When Ohio Republicans decided to create new voting restrictions, they saw it as imperative to narrow the early-voting window. After a series of controversies, Husted eventually ordered every Ohio county to adopt the same hours-of-operation for early voting in the weeks preceding the election.But, and this is key, the directive only applied to weekdays, leading Ritchie and Lieberman in Montgomery County to push once again for the weekend voting opportunities that worked so well for the community four years ago.And for that, they were fired. Husted doesn't just want to make it harder for voters to participate in the election, he's also comfortable firing those who want to make it easier for voters to participate in the election.This just isn't right. Explore:The MaddowBlog, Elections, Lean Forward, Ohio and Voting Rights Why reproductive rights have the GOP on... The Butterfly Project: part trois More Like This Best of MSNBC