New advances in manufacturing may make oil-based plastics a thing of the past.
Polylactic acid (PLA) is biodegradable, made from renewable materials, and safe for food packaging, reports the Economist.
Korean researchers have developed a new, less expensive technique to make PLA.
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This is a great idea. Only need 3/4 of the State Legislatures to pass this to become law…AND IT IS VETO PROOF including no appeal to the Supreme Court.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States”.
Let’s get this passed around – Congress has brought this upon themselves!!!
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There may be no greater challenge in reforming the health care system than eliminating waste. Federal examiners estimate that at least 10 percent of the $500 billion spent annually on Medicare is wasted—from overblown or fraudulent bills, or payments to misidentified or nonexistent patients, doctors or institutions.
Consider power wheelchairs. As the population has aged, their use—and cost—has soared. Under Medicare, several hundred suppliers across the country buy wheelchairs from manufacturers and then generally lease them to beneficiaries. In 1997, Medicare and Medicare beneficiaries paid just over $100 million to buy or lease power wheelchairs; today they pay more than $1 billion.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services has examined thousands of vouchers and invoices for wheelchairs and reported that the average annual cost to Medicare in 2007 was $4,018, nearly four times the $1,048 paid by suppliers.
For more elaborate power wheelchairs, the average Medicare allowance was $11,507, almost twice the $5,880 price paid by suppliers.
Efforts to address the excess have been stymied—classic Washington. The medical equipment lobby, which spent $6.3 million in presidential and congressional campaign contributions last year, is as effective as any group of federal lobbyists. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in its oversight role, has been slow to act. And Congress has blocked attempts to impose competitive bidding.
Industry leaders complain that servicing the machinery is getting more expensive and that their companies have been hurt by inflation and reduced Medicare rates. Medicare compensation has indeed been scaled back with a 9.5 percent cut in payments. According to the OIG, that brought the average payment down to $3,641 in 2009, still three times the price paid by suppliers.
The problem has been explored intensely over the past five years by the OIG, the Government Accountability Office, the Senate Finance Committee and the FBI, which brought dozens of arrests and convictions from Florida to California.
Medicare officials agreed with most of the OIG’s recent suggestions that the fee structure be reevaluated. But they balked at the conclusion that the payments were “grossly higher” than the suppliers’ cost.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has a different perspective: “At a time when every health care dollar counts, it’s infuriating to learn that the government is throwing away money and is still overpaying for power wheelchairs. This translates into hundreds of millions of dollars wasted and cost beneficiaries millions of dollars in copayments. It’s only common sense that you don’t pay more for something than is on the price tag.”
He’s right. The disparity in prices to supplier and to beneficiary defies common sense. The longer this imbalance continues, the greater the threat to Medicare. And the failure to crack down on waste threatens the credibility of the ambitious effort to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Jim Toedtman, Editor – AARP Bulletin http://www.bulletin.aarp.org
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These are the people that want to regulate bonuses of Executives….?
Michelle Obama’s Staff
Written by Dr. Paul L. Williams
“In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this
country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a
job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “… Michelle
Obama
No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she
doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from
hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim
and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
Just think, Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the
White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out
the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary.
Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:
Mamie Eisenhower : 1 paid for personally out of President’s salary
Jackie Kennedy: 1
Roseline Carter: 1
Barbara Bush: 1
Hilary Clinton: 3
Laura Bush: 1
Michele Obama: 22
How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of
Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence
wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald
cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the
benefit package for these servants of Ms Michelle are the same as
members of the national security and defense departments and the bill
for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:
Michele Obama’s personal staff:
1.. $172,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
2. $140,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
3. $113,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and
White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)
4. $102,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President
and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
5. $100,000 – Winter, Melissa E.. (Special Assistant to the President
and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
6. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First
Lady)
7. $84,000 - Lel yveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to
the First Lady)
8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance
for the First Lady)
9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects
for the First Lady)
10. $65,000 – Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
Secretary)
11. $64,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
Secretary)
12. $62,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
13. $60,000 – Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip
Director for the First Lady)
14. $57,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the
First Lady)
15. $52,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
Secretary To The First Lady)
16. $50,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and
Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
17. $45,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of
Correspondence For The First Lady)
18. $43,000 – Tubman, Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social
Office)
19. $40,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of
Staff to the First Lady)
20. $36,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
Secretary)
21. $35,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
22. $35,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of
Correspondence for the First Lady)
(total = $1,591,200 in annual salaries)
There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has
created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
of the First Lady’s social life. One wonders why she needs so much
help, at taxpayer expense.
Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
“First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air
Force One to Europe .
Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com
canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652
Yes, I know, The Canadian Free Press had to publish this perhaps because
America no longer has a free press and the USA media is too scared that
they might be considered racist or suffer at the hands of Obama.
Sorry America!
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Jihadists in the Military
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
By now, the script should be disturbingly familiar. Whether in the Middle East, or increasingly in America, a fanatical Muslim blows up or goes on a shooting spree, killing many. This is quickly followed by “condemnations” from “Muslim civil rights groups,” like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). We are then warned by the president and some newspaper editorials not to jump to conclusions, or to stereotype. Yasser Arafat wrote this script, which he used with great success throughout his bloody career as a terrorist.
Suddenly, the issue of gays in the military doesn’t seem as important as jihadists in the military.
If you were an enemy of America, not only would you fight overseas and develop nuclear weapons (Iran), you would also engage in an even more effective strategy by striking at America’s underbelly. This is our most vulnerable region because we now tolerate virtually everything, indulge in political correctness and subscribe to a bogus belief that if radical Islamists can see we mean them no harm, they will mean us no harm.
The federal government at all levels has hired and promoted Muslims to influential positions. It requires “sensitivity training” for federal employees, including those who work at the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Last week, the House Judiciary Committee, dominated by liberal Democrats, defied the White House and removed from the USA Patriot Act a tool for tracking non-U.S. citizens in anti-terrorism investigations. As our enemies grow stronger and more emboldened, they see us becoming weaker and less committed.
No amount of evidence — from Koran verses urging the killing of “infidels,” to cries of “God is great,” reportedly shouted by the alleged Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan — will cure our self-deception. Sun Tzu famously wrote that all war is deception. But it takes two to deceive and the United States is behaving like a willing partner.
People claiming to know Hasan told interviewers he made frequent statements against the wars and the U.S. presence in Islamic countries. Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas Republican, told reporters after he was briefed on the shootings that Hasan “took a lot of advanced training in shooting.” Why would a psychiatrist need advanced training in shooting unless he believed in murder as therapy? Shouldn’t that, coupled with his statements about “the aggressor” and other actions — including his preference for Muslim clothing — have alerted someone in authority that he might be a time bomb waiting to go off? Yes, absolutely. But who wants to jeopardize a career by raising such questions and becoming the target of “civil rights groups” and politically correct dupes? Intimidating Americans into silence when they know better is also a very effective strategy when fighting a war.
Sound minds not brainwashed by our own “re-educators” should have seen this coming. Though born in America to Jordanian immigrant parents, Hasan described himself as a “Palestinian.” He got into trouble by attempting to proselytize some of his patients.
Most top federal agencies, including the Pentagon and DHS, now have offices of “civil liberties,” offices recommended by the 9/11 Commission to focus on “outreach” to the Muslim community. In this, they follow efforts by the Bush administration, which dispatched Karen Hughes to tell Muslim women in Saudi Arabia that American women are so free they can drive their own cars. The Saudi women were not impressed.
It’s one thing to be suckered by others. It’s quite another to sucker yourself.
How much longer will we tolerate fighting this war as if it were a minor crime wave? Our enemies are fighting to win and they are fighting everywhere, including within our borders. People trained to appear nonthreatening, until the threat becomes obvious and it is too late to do anything about it, are infiltrating our government and society at every level.
It is irrelevant that some have put the number of radicalized Muslims worldwide at 10 percent. Even if that figure is accurate, one hundred million jihadists can cause a lot of damage, as they plot the destruction of Western democracies. Other wars have been won with far fewer soldiers and far fewer dupes.
(Direct all MAIL for Cal Thomas to: Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207. Readers may also e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.
(c) 2009 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
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