Friday, March 28, 2008

Guards

Prison guards soon find out if they want to earn some extra money, they can smuggle as a sideline. Often, it starts out in a minor way, with a convict asking a guard if he'd smuggle out a letter that he doesn't want read by prison officials. If a the guard accepts, and takes payment from the addressee, the hook is planted. The next request might be to bring in an envelope or small packet, without disclosing the contents to the guard.

If the packet contains illicit drugs, the guard is more beholden than ever. this gives the inmate and his outside confederate a hold over the guard, and leverage to oblige him to do more 'favors.'...

In some especially corrupt prisons, administration officials are part of the scheme. The prison administrators can try to stamp out smuggling if they wish, by enforcing strictly all of the regulations, or they can turn a blind eye. Some will go so far as to take part of the action by themselves, on the basis that, as smuggling is inevitable, they might as well profit from it. In one prison, the deputy warden was the leader of the smugglign ring, and the illicit drugs 'passed across his desk.'....

The guards who are 'clean' resent this, but are powerless to do anything. Smugglers operate secretly, and in any event any guard who exposes another runs the risk of reprisals from his fellow employees, much the same situation that affects a corrupt police department. This affects the morale of honest guards."

Monday, February 11, 2008

Correction To ISP

ISP should correctly read what Thom said, not Martin.

ISP

"Many of us are accustomed to viewing the Web as a wellspring of vast number of sources of information, free of restraining influence. Indeed, if properly used by knowledgeable people, it can be. Bur in practice, perhaps not as much as we would think. In August 2001, the authoritative Jupiter Media Matrix research company reported that just four corporations own the Web sites that more than 50 percent of Americans spend time viewing...Your ISP can program their sytems to give you quick access to Web sites of corporations who pay a fee to them, and subtly (or not so subtly) slow your access to the rest of the Internet. Although many Internet users think of the World Wide Web as a commons of ideas, it's a commons whose access is now almost entirely controlled by a small number of very large corporations.""The FCC has recently allowed four giant media corporations to buy up radio stations nationwide to the point where four companies now control 90 percent of total advertising revenues.""Today, despite more than 25,000 outlets in the United States, twenty-three corporations control most of the business in daily newspapers, magazines, television, books, and motion pictures."

This is what Martin said.

Ph.D

"The next time you get the opportunity to talk to someone who has run the Ph.D. gauntlet, or even better, someone who started but dropped out, ask him about his experience. Did he find it fair, challenging? Did he think he was treated well, with respect? There is no better way to understand what is involved than to listen to the pain and anguish of one who has experienced it.

"Perhaps the most startling finding of this work In Pursuit of the PhD is that fewer than half of all students who enter Ph.D. programs ever get the degree- more than half drop out along the way. They don't drop out casually, but more likely 'after pursuing degrees for anywhere from six to twelve years.

This terrible waste and abuse of some of America's finest talents has been going on silently, virtually unnoticed, for decades...The traumas associated with the pursuit of the Ph.D. may even have discouraged many scholars from returning to such a personally painful subject.."

"What we see are 33,000 middle-aged men and women groggily grasping the Ph.D. degree every year. What we don't see are the ten of thousands of brilliant minds who would not tolerate the abuse, the students who would not submit to the humiliation and exploitation. Tragically, this probably includes many of the best minds in America."

This is what Martin said.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Beware

"Some chop shop operators may steal their own vehicles. Other chop shops with exclusive clientele may have a professional steal a vehicle to order.The term 'totaled' according to insurance companies means that a vehicle is so badly damaged that the cost of building it is more than the fair market value of the vehicle. If a driver totals his car, it simply means that his carrier, instead of paying to have it repaired, will find it cheaper to have him buy a similar vehicle on the car market."

This is what Burt said.

The 'chop shop' is an illicit auto dismantler, a receiver of stolen vehicles who dissects them for resale as spare parts...A driver with a junker is less likely to want his vehicle repaired beyond a certain point than the driver of a late-model car.Several factors help increase the demand.Some drivers are reluctant to declare 'fender-benders' and make claims upon their insurance companies because of the increase in premiums that this will bring. When it's necessary to pay out of pocket for repairs, the driver will seek out the maximum savings possible.Competition between auto body shops is fierce, and one way to beat the competition on price is to use second-hand and reconditioned parts. These can be legal parts, or they can be black market parts, obtained at cut-rate from chop shops. Even without the stimulus of competition, some body shops owners are simply greedy."

>"In many cases, the investigator, police or civilian learns to spot fraudulent claims because the fraud artist develops a behavioral profile unlike that of legitimate claimants. Spotting these differences takes in several areas:>>The circumstances surrounding the claim are unusual. The claimant may have bought or increased his insurance coverage shortly before the date of the claim. There may be no police report, which is very unusual in a vehicle theft. If the claim is for material stolen from the vehicle, such as a stereo or tape deck, this is more understandable because many people believe (correctly) that the chances of solving a minor theft are very poor and not worth the trouble to report it."

This is what
Burt said.

Friday, October 12, 2007

"We are all human! No one on this planet is endowed with any supernatural powers that ought to elevate him importance above you or anyone else--no four star general,no President, no wealthy financier, no show-business superstar.

Over the past few years, during appearances on numerous national television and radio programs, I have met hundreds of those people we label 'superstars' in fall fields, especially in show business. While I have always believed that no one is any better than anyone else, coming into direct contact with superstars confirmed it in a pretty dramatic way. Every superstar has his or her share of hangups, twitches, pimples,insecurities, fears, anxieties, worries, problems, and everything else that all human beings face on a daily basis. Movie or TV screens, just like the wide screens of history and all our media, tend to make the 'superstars' look bigger than life, but in person, the wealthiest and most powerful are no different from you or me in how they look,how they think, what they say or how they react to life. While some delude themselves that they are better than the rest of us because they wear expensive clothes, drive fancy cars, live in mansions, can hire and fire hundreds of people at will, control a newspaper chain or make U.S. foreign policy, they cannot hide their very real humanity. In person, without the makeup the carefully placed lights, off the stages of history or of TV or movie sets, without the wide-angle lenses and their aids, they are people, plain and simple,just like the rest of us. Some are more authoritarian themselves, others less, on some days in some situations. Keep that in mind and you'll be on your way to ridding yourself of whatever insidious power-worshipping may have gotten holden of you."

This is what Wayne said.

Monday, August 20, 2007

The widely accepted statement, 'health begins in the colon,' might be more accurately modified to read: 'health begins with a hydrated colon.' Water is the key. When the body is forced to remove solid wastes without an adequate supply of water, constipation is the result. Because the major elimination systems of the body (skin, kidneys and bowels) are critcially dependent on water, they are primary indicators of drought. Like dry skin, constipation and dark urine indicate water shortage. Hard, infrequent, and difficult-to-eliminate bowel movements indicate that the body is rationing water.

Dr. Mu Shik John and ..in Korea conducted a clinical study to determine the effets of hexagonal water on constipation. The results showed that within four weeks, 75% of patients with chronic constipation had an increase in bowel ferquency. Their study documented a 40-60% improvement in transit time through the colon, while control subjects (those with regular bowel movements) who also drank hexagonal water showed no change. This study gives scientific credence to the often-reported improvement in constipation for those who drink hexagonal water."

This is what MJP said.