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Moonflower Photo credit: Richard Harrison
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News
Credit Card Debt Collection Looks a Lot Like Foreclosure Fraud
Considering how banks got away with submitting false documents to state courts on mortgage and foreclosure issues, why should we be surprised that they brought the same eye for detail to credit card debt collection?
We’ve known this for a while – back in March, JPMorgan Chase was found to have robo-signed documents and shredded others in their credit card debt collection process. Bank of America also kept dodgy records on credit card debt. American Banker did a great series on this. Now this rises to the New York Times‘ level, with a takeout on the problems credit card companies are having in courts with bad documentation. Again.
Syrian opposition calls for no-fly zone
Syrian National Council asks for safe haven on borders as Bashar al-Assad's forces heavily shell rebel controlled areas.
He was speaking a day after the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country and Turkey would study a range of possible measures to help Assad's foes, including a no-fly zone, although she indicated no decisions were necessarily imminent.
"It is one thing to talk about all kinds of potential actions, but you cannot make reasoned decisions without doing intense analysis and operational planning," she said after meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Istanbul.
Saudi Arabia plans new city for women workers only
Businesswomen behind 5,000-job scheme designed to give women greater independence while maintaining segregation
A women-only industrial city dedicated to female workers is to be constructed in Saudi Arabia to provide a working environment that is in line with the kingdom's strict customs.
The city, to be built in the Eastern Province city of Hofuf, is set to be the first of several planned for the Gulf kingdom. The aim is to allow more women to work and achieve greater financial independence, but to maintain the gender segregation, according to reports.
Bomb Kills Local Afghan Official, Peace Council Member
A district mayor, a local peace-council official, and three others have been killed in a roadside-bomb attack in Afghanistan's northern Takhar Province.
Ishkamesh district Mayor Abdul Aziz, Takhar High Peace Council (HPC) member Haji Hashim, and three others were killed as their car was heading to the provincial capital, Taloqan
5 Killed in Afghan Bomb Blast
Officials in northern Afghanistan say a roadside bomb has killed five people.
District Mayor Abdul Aziz and Haji Hashim, a member of a provincial peace council, were among those killed in the blast Monday in the Ishkamish district of Takhar province.
In Switch, Egypt’s Civilian President Makes Coup against Generals
The BBC says that Egypt’s elected president, from the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, has just ordered the firing of Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, the leader of the 23-member Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). He also ordered the Army Chief of Staff and another SCAF stalwart, Gen. Sami Anan, to retire.
The presidnt said that both Tantawi and Anan would remain “advisers” to the president and gave Tantawi the Order of the Nile for his service.
He replaced Anan with Major-Gen. Sidqi Subhi as army chief of staff. Subhi had been commander of the 3rd Field Army in Suez and had played a role in convincing SCAF to allow a militant Muslim fundamentalist from Suez, Hafiz Salamah, to leave a mosque in al-Abbasiya during a violent confrontation between Salafis and the military there in May.
NRA prevents compiling statistics on gun violence.
Commentary: NRA prevents funding for studies on gun violence
"None of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control," says the rider placed on the [Center for Disease Control] CDC's budget, and, as of this year, added to the National Institutes of Health's budget.
The CDC and NIH award billions in grants. They fund research into cancer, brain injury, tobacco use, obesity, AIDS, abortion, hearing loss, allergies, infectious diseases, back pain and virtually everything else related to human health. But gun violence is the one area that carries that specific language. The effect has been to limit federal funding into research that could be used to shape policy.
Group Exposes Practice of Adding Synthetic Preservatives to 'Organic' Baby Formula
Cornucopia Institute files legal complaint against manufacturers
The Organic Foods Production Act, passed by Congress in 1990, explicitly bans synthetic preservatives in organic food., but the Wisonsin-based Cornucopia Institute claims that a variety of producers have added more than a dozen unapproved synthetic ingredients to organic infant formula over the past five years.
“This is another blatant violation of the federal law governing organics by multi-billion dollar corporations that apparently think they can get away with anything,”
Harper Conservatives' Emission Cuts Are Just More Hot Air
“It’s become a joke in the international environment and scientific community as they watch the antics of the Harper Conservatives who want to have it both ways – aggressively pushing non-renewable energy sources and taking credit for CO2 emission cuts,” commented Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, MP Saanich-Gulf Islands. “No other government has managed such a combination, and the facts show the Conservatives haven’t either.”
[...]
“Again, the Harper Conservatives aren’t playing by the rules. Imagine a Canadian Olympic contender who cheated in order to look good – in front of the world. This is what we are witnessing in the area of greenhouse emissions cuts by this gang,” said May.
Blog Posts of Interest
Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair by One Pissed Off Liberal on dailykos
Evening Blues 8-13-12 by joe shikspack on dailykos
We are ready for some serious change. We are ready to take up the tools of a free and analytic press to peacefully undermine the stranglehold of the kleptocrats on our battered democracy. We are ready to expose and publicize their greed, lies and illegal machinations and hold their enablers in government and the media to account. Are you in?
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
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