Oklahoma City hospital posts surgery prices online; creates bidding war

This a long and VERY important piece of news..WE actually have the power to get our local hospitals to lower prices.

Key takeaway:

16 year-old family member arrested for murder of Terry Smith, missing boy in Menifee, California

Hundreds of people have been searching for this poor missing boy, feared lost in extreme heat,
until police found "remains" at or near the home.
Now they say his brother was responsible for his death...Kid's name was Terry Smith.

This is Breaking News...google may have more in a bit.

You laughed when I said they would do this....

So, Britain's mail service is being privatized...are we next?

The government has opted to float the company on the London Stock Exchange rather than sell it to a private buyer.

Members of the public will be able to buy shares, alongside larger institutional investors.
But 10% of shares are being set aside for eligible members of Royal Mail staff, which they will get for nothing.

But both Labour and the unions argued the move made no sense.
"Having nationalised the organisation's debts by taking on its pension liabilities, they now want to privatise the profit at the very time it is making money. How on earth does that make any sense?" said Labour's Chuka Umunna.

Dave Ward, deputy general secretary of the CWU, said the flotation announcement had "ignored the views of the workforce and the British public".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23249466

Fukushima No.1 N-plant ex-chief Yoshida dies at 58--of cancer

Jiji Press -- Jul 09

Masao Yoshida, chief of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s <9501> Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant when it was crippled in the March 2011 disaster, died of esophagus cancer on Tuesday. He was 58.

Working at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants, he became chief of the No. 1 plant in June 2010, taking the lead in efforts to bring the stricken plant under control during eight months after the accident.

At the time of the accident on March 11, 2011, he spearheaded efforts in dealing with the situation from the plant's earthquake-proof building.
http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/103541.php

weird error message just now, plus DU Slow as molasses for past few days

all other sites normal in loading...DU hangs in loading.
One of the hung loads gave me this , at the top of the page, when it finally loaded:
Warning: Division by zero in /home/httpd/html/include/lib.php on line 2654

Warning: Division by zero in /home/httpd/html/include/lib.php on line 2654

and the page when it came up was in very large font.

Not just McDonald's using debit cards to pay employees...

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sent letters to about 20 employers that allegedly are using ATM-like cards to pay their hourly employees.
Among the businesses being investigated are retail giants Walmart, McDonald’s, Home Depot and Walgreen’s.

The attorney general’s investigation will examine the three ways in which these companies pay their employees: paper check, direct deposit and prepaid cards.

Under New York state law, employees must give their consent to be paid by payroll cards, and acceptance of this form of payment cannot be a condition of employment.

However, there are many additional fees associated with the use of such cards, including withdrawal fees, replacement fees, inactivity fees and a fee for requesting a paper statement.

According to the Federal Reserve, the prepaid card is the fastest growing non-cash method of payment.

Banks are eager to partner with businesses that use the cards because of the fees associated with them.

http://legalnewsline.com/news/242698-consumer-worker-advocates-praise-n-y-ag-for-investigation-into-prepaid-cards

Fannie Mae claims to have owned my mortgage a month BEFORE we bought the house!

I got curious as to who was claiming to own our mortgage, since it has been reported that Countrywide, our original lender, had destroyed all mortgage paperwork and actually had passed nothing on to Bank of America when it bought Countrywide's mortgages.

All the mortgage fraud and robo signing occurred, to hide the fact that foreclosures were illegal without the mortgage note by the lender.
At some point since 2008, the banks were supposedly selling the mortgages to Fannie Mae.

So, looked up who owns our mortgage...
says Fannie Mae has owned it, since 9-1-2005.
Which is before we bought the house, before we signed any loan papers, and before Countrywide sent the confirmation letter saying the mortgage was effective Oct. 1, 2005.

Man, it goes deep, doesn't it?

Google reportedly paid Adblock Plus not to block its ads

Google has reportedly paid the makers of Adblock Plus, the single most popular browser extension on Chrome and Firefox, to look the other way when it comes to its web advertisements.
According to the German news site Horizont, Google and other unnamed companies are paying to be included on a "whitelist" that prevents their pop-ups, banners, and display ads from being blocked by the free service.

"Managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers," the FAQ says. "That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve nonintrusive advertisements."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/5/4496852/adblock-plus-eye-google-whitelist


I stopped using No Script couple years back when it was reported that app had accepted pay from advertisers for the same reason.

Female inmates sterilized without required OK

Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years - and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews.
From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners. Crystal Nguyen, a former Valley State Prison inmate who worked in the prison's infirmary during 2007, said she often overheard medical staff asking inmates who had served multiple prison terms to agree to be sterilized. The top medical manager at Valley State Prison from 2005 to 2008 characterized the surgeries as providing inmates with the same options as women on the outside.
http://inagist.com/all/353929071165583360/

Rest of the article requires a paid sub.