Readers' Comments

The situation ably described in this article is extremely worrisome, and not only for the reasons the author and quoted experts point out.

For-profit prison guards are notoriously poorly trained. Their high rate of annual turnover make that almost inevitable. The corporations' million dollar executive make their money by deliberate short staffing and hiring those employees with the least ability and aptitude and willing to work for the least pay and benefits.

They are poorly screened because the corporations have substantial difficulties even hiring enough employees to give even the appearance of adequate staffing. Their background checks are marginal because a sufficient check would represent a considerable expense in an employee who might just last a few weeks.

CCA has hired employees in Pinal county, even an assistant warden, who have killed others for revenge, while in their prior CCA employ or while driving drunk. They get employees who are in terrible financial trouble, so are highly vulnerable to augmenting their poor wages by way of smuggling drugs, weapons, cell phones and escape tools. Any review of the corporation's or its competitors' history would make that quickly apparent.

Toerbijns is absolutely correct. For-profit guards tend to over respond, resorting to unnecessary force, failing to maintain objectivity.

They are poorly trained in police investigative methods. One police sergeant told me CCA employees in his town couldn't make cases on prisoners who had committed assaults, or had been caught with drugs, for instance, because they didn't know or follow the most basic rules and procedures such as "chain of evidence."

CCA employees in Louisiana are so inept at keeping drugs and other more dangerous contraband out of its prisons that public prison corrections officers have been detailed to make the sweeps the corporate employees couldn't, and have hauled away masses of drugs, weapons and other contraband.

There are a few important issues which haven't been discussed.

The first is the fear-provoking introduction of high school students to the police state. I'm afraid I'm smelling a whiff of Nazi Germany where police might have come to a school to check on the ethnicity or religion of students. All those German citizen boys might have been ordered to drop their pants, for instance. They would be encouraged to become informants on their classmates by the thought police.

The second is one of liability. What if one of the dogs, with perhaps questionable training, handled by an inept and/or untrained guard, bit a child? Who would be responsible? The school? The corporation?

The third is the consequences of these raids. They essentially terrorized almost 1,800 students, marched them around the school like prisoners, interrupted the educative process, diminished the reputation of school administrators in their eyes and probably had a number of false alerts on kids who didn't have any drugs at all.

What did the achieve? They found a grand total of three kids possessing a drug that has just been legalized this month in two more states. None possessed enough to be arrested in New York City by policy or Alaska by law. But because of the drug free school zones, CCA-promoted legislation (which applies in various states to substantial distances from the actual schools) the lives of these kids may be over. Their professional and academic careers may be finished.

Did the boy with .5 gram of weed intend to get high on it? Did he have sufficient dexterity to roll the world's smallest "joint?"

Let me translate how little that was. If he had 50 times that much and put it in an envelope and mailed it, it would only take one 45-cent stamp. If his 15 year old female counterpart had 250 times as much as it is alleged she "possessed," it would have taken just one stamp. In fact, that .1 gram might have weighed less than the stamp on the envelope. It could have been just a few flecks in the lint at the bottom of a pocket or the seam of a borrowed book bag, or on the sole of a shoe.

Should the 17-year-old suffer any consequences for her actions? I think she should. It's a terrible idea to go around, especially at her age, like the Johnny Appleseed of hemp. She needs a wake up call, but does not need to get the possible draconian criminal penalties she faces.

But the real question should be, I think, is, "Was it worth locking down this school for hours, watching their teachers being essentially deputized in the process and subjecting these kids to being frightened by both legitimate law and order and even worse, to these inept 'rent-a-cop' brown-shirted guards."

I think the principal of the school should also suffer the consequences of his own rash and irresponsible actions. I'd like to know what the district superintendent allowed and thought about it.

I hope that a majority of the parents of the seventeen-hundred-and-something students who were subjected to this display of prohibitionist fanaticism should express their opinion regarding their dehumanization to that effect, now, and at the next election for school board members, if necessary.

I am sorry, but you cannot blame the markets for what goes into your mouth if you are already aware of GMO's and the very loose use of the word "Natural" in the marketing of foods. I f you know about GMO's, then you know what foods are now Genetically Engineered, so it is YOUR job to READ the labels. "Whole Foods" is a name as is "Kroger or Publix," none of which states "Certified Organic." Nothing in their marketing states that they are totally "Certified Organic." I know we are all looking for someone that we can trust to provide us with safe and healthy food. Unfortunately, because the FDA/USDA is in bed with the ChemAgri companies, the ONLY people we can TRUST is person that looks back at you from the mirror! We have to stop complaining about grocery stores and turn that anger towards the REAL culprits, that is the ONLY way we are going to be sure. Take time to write the congressman in your state, and if you have time write ALL of them. They may not represent your state, but they represent "We The People." Whole Foods is the needle in the haystack, and the only way to find the needle is to burn the haystack down! The haystack is there to burn, but the government regulatory agencies are the only people with the match! To get them to act, "We The People" are going to have to hold their feet to the flames. Collectively we will be heard, individually it is not going to happen. Think about this, if you were in a bar or restaurant where YOU were the ONLY person being loud what would happen? Your butt would be ask to be quiet or leave. Now compare that to a bar or restaurant were EVERYONE was yelling.....you think the management would throw everyone out, not on your life. Just start Screaming!!

Is there some way that I can find out which members, at present or failed to be re-elected, are/were involved with our Washington state legislature. I would like to follow-up on them, particularly, if they will remain in office for this next term. I feel those in my legislative district are not ALEC members, but I would like to know for certain.
Thank you.
Irene Potter

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Final Feed Investigation Summary - California BSE Case - July 2012

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/08/final-feed-investigation-summary.html

SUMMARY REPORT CALIFORNIA BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY CASE INVESTIGATION JULY 2012

Summary Report BSE 2012

Executive Summary

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/08/summary-report-california-bovine.html

Saturday, October 6, 2012

TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES 2011 Annual Report

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/10/transmission-differentiation-and.html

Saturday, October 6, 2012

TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES 2011 Annual Report

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/10/transmission-differentiation-and.html

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Transmission of New Bovine Prion to Mice, Atypical Scrapie, BSE, and Sporadic CJD, November-December 2012 update

http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2012/11/transmission-of-new-bovine-prion-to.html

kind regards,
terry

layperson

"Anonymous accounts are bundled together and sold as a whole. Before purchasing debt, there is only limited information as to whose debt we are buying. These peculiarities are part of the scandal that we are trying to highlight."

So, in a nutshell, specific debts cannot be targeted. Instead, "distressed" (defaulting, about to default, high risk of default) debts are bought in bundles (which is the usual manner shadow buyers purchase them in, then press debtors to pay up) and forgiven across the board. The net result will be that you may have some "less" needy folks having debt forgiven along with "more" needy folks. In my opinion, though, it's better to help less needy along WITH more needy than to help no one. Hope that answer helps! :)

Perhaps there is a selection process. RJ? Is there a way to let potential recipients contact you? do you have a link? thank you so much in advance for providing this.

How is it determined whose medical debt is forgiven? Who makes the determination?

Along with raising taxes on those making over $250,000, what about Congressmen getting a lifetime of income and health insurance even if they are only in Congress a term or two? How many millions have been spent over the generations to support them? We have to work years to get Social Security and invest in a retirement plan to have enough to live on after we retire. My husband and I have to work to 70 to get enough SS with our savings to live until 85+ (based on our family longevity). We already pay over $400 a month for my husband's retirement insurance to cover us both. Why should congressmen get income and insurance for life? Why not set it up like STRS, PERS, SERS is?- Work 30 years and then draw the benefits. If they don't get re-elected, well so be it. When mainstream Americans lose their jobs, they don't get paid for life and continued health insurance. Instead they end up moving in with relatives or living on the street when they can't find another job and lose their houses. I know, I know - they are public servants. Well, personally and as a social worker, I don't see we have been served all that well by a Congress that put their agenda to get rid of Obama over what is truly best for our citizens.

Labeling yourself an environmentalist, essentially means nothing. I can call myself the Queen of Westchester and it wouldn't mean any more or less. Being the author of a book on alternative energy doesn't qualify you either. What does matter is whether or not you've been paid or influenced to call opposition to fracking "blind opposition" or making a judgement such as "misguided". Scientists who are not on the payroll of companies who stand to profit from fracking, beg to differ with you.

voting machime was rigged one county in ohio romney didn't get 1 vote which i know is a lie because 5 of us went down at the same time but somehow it got counted for shitty obama so i hope all you obama supporter are happy cause we are all in for a hell of a ride and if we get attack we won't have a miltary do defend us

We need the root the rest of them out of congress, too! I always thought the plot to obstruct every thing Obama wanted to do was also treason!

The fastest mitigation to climate change is to severely reduce consumption of animal foods. About 1/2 of human induced warming is attributable to animal agriculture. Methane is 24 times more potent than CO2 and takes only 7 years to cycle out of the atmosphere. CO2 takes around 100 years to come out. Human pursuit of animal protein is the leading cause of methane release and a primary cause of CO2 concentrating in the atmosphere. Check the facts and act!

"As environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future: deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease." Worldwatch Institute, "Is Meat Sustainable?"

"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency." UN Food and Agricultural Organization's report "Livestock's Long Shadow"

“If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” Environmental Defense Fund

Why would someone choose to be vegan? To slow global warming for one! Here are two uplifting videos to help everyone understand why so many people are making this life affirming choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKr4HZ7ukSE and http://www.veganvideo.org

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." ~ Albert Einstein