Rat Meat Sold as Lamb Highlights Food Fears in China -

Rat Meat Sold as Lamb Highlights Food Fears in China - 


Even for China’s scandal-numbed diners, news that the lamb simmering in the pot may actually be rat took the country’s endless outrages about food hazards into a new realm of disgust.

In an announcement intended to show that the government is serious about improving food safety, the Ministry of Public Security said over the Internet on Thursday that the police had caught traders in eastern China who bought rat, fox and mink flesh and sold it as mutton. But that and other cases of meat smuggling, faking and adulteration that were also featured in Chinese newspapers and Web sites on Friday were unlikely to instill confidence in consumers already queasy over many reports about meat, fruit and vegetables laden with disease, toxins, banned dyes and preservatives.

Sixty-three people were arrested and are accused of “buying fox, mink and rat and other meat products that had not undergone inspection,” which they doused in gelatin, red pigment, and nitrates, and sold as mutton in Shanghai and adjacent Jiangsu Province for about $1.6 million, according to the ministry’s statement. The account did not explain how exactly the traders acquired the rats and other creatures.

“How many rats does it take to put together a sheep?” said one typically baffled and angry user of Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblog service that often acts as a forum for public venting. “Is it cheaper to raise rats than sheep? Or does it just not feel right unless you’re making fakes?”

Residents of Shanghai recently endured the sight of thousands of dead hogs floating down a nearby river, apparently the dumped victims of disease in piggeries upstream.

The arrests were part of a nationwide operation since late January to “attack food safety crimes and defend the safety of the dining table,” the ministry said. The police arrested 904 people suspected of selling fake, diseased, toxic or adulterated meat, and broke up 1,721 illicit factories, workshops and shops. Yet the ministry acknowledged that diners still had reason to worry.

In food safety campaigns in past years “some serious problems have been dealt with swiftly and vigorously, but for a variety of reasons, food safety crimes remain serious, and are displaying new circumstances and features,” an unnamed senior official said in the statement.

“For example, there is selling of meat injected with water and meat from animals dead from disease, as well as passing off relatively cheap types of meat as relatively expensive beef and mutton.”

China’s prime minister since March, Li Keqiang, has said that improving food safety was a priority — one of the main grievances of ordinary citizens that he has said his government would tackle. But similar vows by his predecessor, Wen Jiabao, ran up against inadequate resources, buck-passing and muddle among rival agencies, and protectionism by local officials, said Mao Shoulong, a professor of public policy at Renmin University in Beijing, in an interview.

“The United States and Europe can’t eradicate these problems either, but they are even more complicated in China,” said Mr. Mao, who has studied food and pharmaceutical safety regulation.

“Chinese food production has become larger scale and more technological, but the problems emerging also involve using more sophisticated technology to beat regulators and cheat consumers,” he said. “The government’s efforts need to catch up with the scale and complexity of the problems.”

This time, at least, the government gave consumers a stomach-churning glimpse into problems in the meat industry.

The cases described included a company in Inner Mongolia, a northeast region of China, caught with 23 tons of fake beef jerky and unprocessed frozen meat adulterated with flavoring chemicals and swarming with bacteria. Six suspects in Guizhou Province, in southwest China, were caught with 8.8 tons of “toxic chicken feet” adulterated with illegal additives. Chicken feet, steamed or boiled with spices, are a popular dish in parts of China.

The Ministry of Public Security also described cases of traders selling pigs and ducks that had died from disease, and of another perennial problem: pigs injected with water to increase the weight, and price, of the pork sold on the market.

Read more - 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/world/asia/rat-meat-sold-as-lamb-in-china-highlights-fears.html?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065&_r=1&

22 Facts That Prove That The Bottom 90% Of America Is Systematically Getting Poorer -

22 Facts That Prove That The Bottom 90% Of America Is Systematically Getting Poorer - 

The mainstream media is not telling you this, but the truth is that most Americans are steadily getting poorer.  The middle class is being absolutely eviscerated, and poverty is soaring to unprecedented heights.  The fact that 90 percent of the population is constantly sliding downhill is not good for our society.  The United States is supposed to be a land of opportunity with a vibrant free market system that enables average people to make better lives for themselves.

Unfortunately, free enterprise is being strangled to death in the United States today.  Entrepreneurs and small business are being pounded into oblivion by rules, regulations, red tape and oppressive levels of taxation.  At the same time, millions of jobs have been shipped out of the United States by corporate giants and sent to countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  All of this has happened under both Democrats and Republicans.  Meanwhile, wealth and power continue to become even more heavily concentrated in the hands of big government and big corporations.

Our founding fathers warned that we should not allow such large concentrations of wealth and power, because they tend to funnel the rewards of society into the hands of a select few.  We need to change the rules of the game so that entrepreneurs, small businesses and average workers can thrive in this country once again.  If big government and big corporations continue to gobble up even more wealth and power, the wealth inequality that we see right now will only get even worse.

The following are 22 facts that prove that the bottom 90 percent of America is systematically getting poorer...

#1 According to the Pew Research Center, the top 7 percent of all U.S. households own 63 percent of all the wealth in the country.

#2 Between 2009 and 2011, the wealth of the bottom 93 percent of all Americans declined by 4 percent, while the wealth of the top 7 percent of all Americans increased by 28 percent.

#3 On average, households in the top 7 percent have 24 times as much wealth as households in the bottom 93 percent.

#4 In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#5 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the wealthiest one percent of all American households have 288 times the amount of wealth that the average middle class American family does on average.

#6 According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

#7 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.

#8 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.

#9 In the United States today, corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high, but wages as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time low.

#10 In 1980, CEOs at S&P 500 companies made 42 times as much as their employees did on average.  Today, CEOs at S&P 500 companies make 354 times as much as their employees do on average.  In fact, there are many CEOs that make more than 1000 times what the average employees in their companies make.

#11 According to a report recently issued by the Pew Research Center, Americans over the age of 65 have 47 times as much wealth as Americans under the age of 35 on average.

#12 U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#13 Back in 2007, about 28 percent of all working families were considered to be among "the working poor".  Today, that number is up to 32 percent even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.

#14 At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.

#15 Today, the United States actually has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

#16 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs.  60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#17 As I mentioned yesterday, the homeownership rate in America is now at its lowest level in nearly 18 years.

#18 The United States now ranks 93rd in the world in income inequality.

#19 Approximately one out of every five households in the United States is now on food stamps.

#20 The number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 million today.

#21 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either "poor" or "low income".

#22 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

Even if your income just stays the same, you are still getting poorer because inflation is a tax that is constantly chipping away at the value of every single dollar that you own.  The cost of everything that we buy on a regular basis (food, gas, health insurance, etc.) is constantly going up, and if your income is not keeping pace that means that you are getting poorer.

That is just one reason why the Federal Reserve system is so insidious.  They are killing the middle class with inflation.  For much more on the Federal Reserve and why it should be abolished, please see this article: "10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve".

So if most Americans are getting poorer, then why aren't our politicians doing something to fix it?

Well, the sad truth of the matter is that the big corporations fund the campaigns of our corrupt politicians.  They know that the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins, and so it provides an incentive for our politicians to be very good to those that have the money.

Plus, many of our politicians are way too busy having a good time to be bothered with doing anything for us.  Take Barack Obama for example.  According to The Telegraph, Barack Obama has spent twice as much time playing golf and vacationing as he has on attending economic meetings...

In an analysis of the presidential diary and newspaper reports, the Government Accountability Institute found that Mr Obama has spent 976 hours since his January 2009 election on holiday and playing golf.
In contrast, he has only spent 474.4 hours in economic meetings.
"As a government watchdog group, we just tabulate the numbers and let others decide how to interpret them," said Peter Schweizer, president of GAI, which compiled the report.
But this is a problem that is not going away.  The bottom 90 percent of the country is systematically getting poorer, and if this continues it will inevitably result in massive social problems.  The video posted below does a great job of graphically illustrating the crisis that we are facing...



Read more - 
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-02/22-facts-prove-bottom-90-america-systematically-getting-poorer

Science Finds Fountain of Youth Brain Region That Slows Down Aging -

Science Finds Fountain of Youth Brain Region That Slows Down Aging - 


Eternal or even elongated life is an idiotic thing to wish for. You don't want to get old, and then tack on 50 more years of wrinkles and Metamucil. But prolonged youth? Full body youth? More time being young and nubile and beautiful? Absolutely. And the key to that could lie right inside your brain.

Scientists have for the first time found a region of the brain—a signaling pathway in the hypothalamus—that can slow down or speed up the aging process in mice. Their lives and youthful vigor were extended by about 20 percent by a combination of blocking a protein complex with a distressingly long name (nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells, or "evil magic") and injecting the brain with a hormone ("good magic", or gonadotropin-releasing hormone [GnRH]) that is blocked by that protein.
The hypothalamus controls functions like growth, reproduction, and metabolism, so it's not an outlandish leap to think it could also regulate aging. It's not confirmed that this function carries over to humans, but if it does, the results count be groundbreaking. Injecting GnRH, for example, not only slowed physical aging, but cognitive decline as well, by encouraging neuron regeneration. This would be great for degenerative conditions like Alzheimers and dementia, or possibly for brain injuries suffered in sports.

It's still not known exactly how aging works, scientifically. Whether it's a bunch of individual changes throughout your body, or if there's one main trigger point telling the rest of your body to get old, according to Livescience. So this could be just one piece of a much larger cosmos of anti-aging science. To that end, researchers at Johns Hopkins have been working on a Benjamin Button But Not Crap solution that could revert cells all the way back to the state they were in the day you were born. But given these results, there should be plenty more research down this path.

Read more - 

http://gizmodo.com/science-finds-fountain-of-youth-brain-region-that-slows-487165233

New technology allows professors to track whether students are reading their textbooks -

New technology allows professors to track whether students are reading their textbooks - 


This semester, thousands of college students around the country, including dozens at a Texas A&M University campus, won't be able to hide their studying habits from the prying eyes of their professors.

With the new platform CourseSmart Analytics, professors are able to see the students' level of engagement - how much of digital texts students have read, whether they highlight passages or took notes and how much time they spent on their readings.

A beta version of CourseSmart is being tested at several universities during the spring semester serving about 4,000 students, and officials hope to roll it out fully by the fall, said spokeswoman Cindy Clark. The goal is to move away from traditional textbooks and methods and help give faculty an insight into their students' behaviors, she said.

"Only about 55 percent of college students graduate within six years," Clark said. "This illustrates the demand within higher education for a tool that would help students be more successful in their studies and graduate on time."

The system works through a dashboard that tracks the students' progress in the texts. An "engagement index" aggregates data points and an instructor can evaluate the material and intervene early with students that appear to be struggling, she said.

The pilot programs are helping CourseSmart get feedback, so that they can improve upon the tools. For example, the company is considering allowing students to see their own metrics and not just the professor as originally planned. Clark said the pilot program will also help the company determine if any particular discipline benefits more from the technology than others.

CourseSmart carries more than 90 percent of core textbooks and works through the universities' administration learning management systems, Clark said. Students have the option to opt out, but none in the trial period decided not to participate.

Read more - 

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/New-technology-allows-professors-to-track-whether-4476645.php

Scientists find evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony -

Scientists find evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony - 

Scientists say they have found the first solid archaeological evidence that some of the earliest American colonists survived harsh conditions by resorting to cannibalism.
On Wednesday, the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and archaeologists from Jamestown announced the discovery of the bones of a 14-year-old girl with clear signs that she was cannibalized.
The human remains date back to the deadly winter of 1609-1610, known as the “starving time” in Jamestown, when hundreds of colonists died. Scientists have said the settlers arrived from England during the worst drought in 800 years.
For years, there had been unconfirmed tales of starving early colonists resorting to eating dogs, mice, snakes, shoe leather and even their own dead.

Read more - 

Digital cash replacement from Royal Canadian Mint in the works - 


The Royal Canadian Mint is pushing forward with its “MintChip” prototype, a digital cash replacement aimed at transactions under $10.

Secure chips have already made it into our credit and debit cards. Next up, they could replace pocket change.
The Royal Canadian Mint has been pushing forward with its “MintChip” prototype, a digital cash replacement aimed at transactions under $10, since it surfaced a year ago. The Crown corporation is factoring in developer feedback, hiring a product manager and consulting with the financial sector.
“I would look on it very much as an alternative, and hopefully a replacement, for physical cash,” said David Everett, the British cryptographic expert hired years ago to work on the MintChip. “Today, people obviously use coins. They use bits of metal and bits of paper. The future is obviously going to be much more electronic.”
Since 2009, funds have been put toward “improving the efficiency of Canada’s currency” and international expertise has been enlisted to develop an “eCoin” for Canada, according to internal documents, interviews and international patents.
MintChip, as envisioned, could enable paying someone back by tapping phones together, scanning a QR code to donate to charity, or clicking to spend cents on an online article.
However, it’s not known when — or even if — the MintChip will be released into circulation. A Finance Department official said the Crown corporation is consulting with the federal government on potential next steps, and currency changes can require legislative approval.
To even attempt to create such a system sets Canada apart from other countries, said electronic transaction specialist Dave Birch. “To the best of my knowledge, Canada is the only mint that’s seriously experimenting with this sort of thing,” he said.
MintChip emulates the positives of cash — payments are anonymous and don’t require a bank — but work electronically. Value is recorded on chips within USB sticks or on MicroSD cards in phones, tablets or other devices. Value is transferred between chips for low, or no, transaction fees.
Everett compared the system to handing someone a toonie.
“What I’d like to do is do exactly the same thing electronically . . . I’d have my phone, you’d have your phone, we’d touch the phones together,” he said, adding it would also work remotely, through email or apps.
The Royal Canadian Mint’s eight international patents, detailing technicalities and security, were invented by Everett, MintChip’s technical architect. He’s also the man behind Mondex, a private smart card in the 1990s, which some had predicted would change the payment world.
It ended up fizzling. “I think we had a lot of ideas right but were probably just a bit too early,” Everett said from the English village of Rustington ahead of one of his roughly monthly trips to Ottawa.
Mondex was designed over Christmas in 1990. In hindsight, he said, there was nothing really “broken” about payments then. But “the minute you move to the Internet, that’s not true.”
There’s now a “huge market” for low-value payments online, he said, noting banking fees and age limits hinder paying cents for online games or blogs. Everett envisions parents topping up their children’s MintChips from their own; others could add value at banks with debit, credit or cash.
The MintChip idea became public a year ago with the launch on a contest that asked app developers what they would do with digital currency.
Consultations are happening now with merchants, financial institutions and “all of the people we think would be interested in what this might mean,” said the Mint’s chief financial officer, Marc Brûlé.
The experiment is interesting because of potential to reduce costs, said Birch, a director with Consult Hyperion. (The firm reviewed the MintChip idea but Birch wasn’t directly involved.)
From production to handling, small change is expensive: there’s the cost of sorting and rolling and necessities such as security guards. Reducing costs could be good for government, merchants and banks, Birch said.
Recently, banks have given customers the option of using near-field communication (NFC) technology in their phones for fast purchases. Mobile wallet apps similarly store bank information.
Since MintChip would actually be money, it would be in a different category than those NFC payments, which are withdrawn from accounts, said economics professor George Selgin, who specializes in banking and monetary policy at the University of Georgia.
“With MintChip, you could conceivably have that system running where not a soul involved has a bank account or a credit card. That’s the difference,” Selgin said, suggesting MintChip is most comparable to Everett’s earlier creation.
The project is likely about saving money, Selgin said, noting Canada is phasing out expensive pennies.
An internal memo from last year, released to the Star under an access to information request, reminds managers that as well as making Canadian coins, the Mint has foreign coinage contracts. Coins were recently made for Ethiopia, Panama, Uganda, Ghana and New Zealand.
MintChip has potential to be sent to other countries, said Brûlé, who refused to release the cost of the project because it’s “commercially sensitive.”
If MintChip is ever released it could create security jobs as well, according to the memo, which suggests it would need to be monitored in circulation.
‘Instant messaging for your wallet’
MicroSD cards loaded with money were sent to hundreds of developers a year ago by the Royal Canadian Mint.
The tiny chips had logos on them, representing MintChip, and the recipients were some of the first people outside the Mint to get a glimpse of Canada’s electronic currency prototype.
“The concept of cash that’s peer-to-peer is very appealing,” said mobile app developer Jan Hannemann, who received MintChips in Victoria.
He and the other recipients had entered the MintChip Challenge, a contest set up by the Royal Canadian Mint to create payment applications demonstrating potential for the digital cash replacement. Hundreds of spots filled up within days.
Hannemann’s idea, MintWallet, went on to win the grand prize for best overall application. His goal was to make virtual currency to be “like instant messaging for your wallet.” Using cloud technology and push notifications, users could use MintChips for payments, from garage sales to online purchases.
After filling in payee and amount, the “money request” can be sent virtually or create a QR code, which can be scanned and used as a payment. Parking meters could use the system for payment, and it could be used between friends to divvy up restaurant bills, he said.
“Communicating with people, we use social networks, instant messaging,” he said. “The same can be true with money, using MintChip.”
Another idea aimed to be the “digital version of the cash register donation box.” Dickson Wong came in second for his Pennies A Day app, which donates to charity for each MintChip payment. The user selects the charity and the amount, as low as a penny.

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/business/personal_finance/spending_saving/2013/04/30/digital_cash_replacement_from_royal_canadian_mint_in_the_works.html

Company Offers All Employees 15% Raise If They Get Tattoo Of Logo... -

Company Offers All Employees 15% Raise If They Get Tattoo Of Logo... - 


If your company offered you a pay raise to tattoo its logo on your body, would you do it?

A New York City real estate company made the offer and dozens of employees are getting inked.

As CBS 2′s Emily Smith reported Tuesday, a tattoo can be a way to show off your personality. For Rapid Realty employees, it is the fast track to a 15 percent pay raise if you get inked with the company logo.

There are no size or location restrictions. Brooke Koropatnick got hers behind the ear.

“I had a paycheck coming in what was a substantial amount of money different, so it was nice,” she told Smith.

Stephanie Barry got tattooed two weeks ago and, along with it, a permanent pay raise for every real estate transaction.

“I was like, why am I throwing my money away when I could give myself from a $25,000 to $40,000 for the same amount of work?” Barry told Smith.

The credit doesn’t go to Rapid Realty owner Anthony Lolli. He said he got the idea from a loyal employee who wasn’t doing it for money.

“He calls me up, he says ‘Hey Anthony, I’m getting the logo on me.’ I show up at the shop and I’m like ‘this is cool, how can I repay you?’” Lolli said

The concept snowballed. Robert Trezza recently became the 40th employee to do so at Ink Stop Tattoo.

“I think it’s a good opportunity to show commitment to a company that makes going to work fun every day,” Trezza told Smith.

Joseph Tighe has been on the job only a month but has already taken the plunge.

“My wife was a little concerned but I said, you know what, it was the best commitment I could think of,” he told Smith.

Some people said they would not be lining up for a tattoo if they worked at Rapid Realty, regardless of the pay raise.

“Absolutely not,” David Frankel of the Lower East Side told Smith. “It would have to be extraordinary.”

“It’s a scar for life. I have enough of those,” another man told Smith.

Before you do something like this, Smith reported, make sure you know your company policy and have your boss’ stamp of approval.

The Rapid Realty tattoos, which can cost up to $300, are paid for by the company owner. Lolli said he hasn’t gotten inked yet, but plans to eventually.

Read more -

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/04/30/nyc-realtor-offers-employees-pay-raise-for-getting-inked-with-company-logo/

Living in US raises risk of allergies -

Living in US raises risk of allergies - 


Children born outside the United States have a lower risk of asthma, skin and food allergies, and living in the United States for a decade or more may raise the risk of some allergies, said a study Monday.

The research in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that certain environmental exposures could trigger allergies later in life, overcoming the protective effects of microbial exposure in childhood.

The study examined records from 2007-2008 phone surveys of nearly 92,000 people in the United States, where food and skin allergies have been on the rise in recent years.

Allergies reported in the survey included asthma, eczema, hay fever, and food allergies.

"Children born outside the United States had significantly lower prevalence of any allergic diseases (20.3 percent) than those born in the United States (34.5 percent)," said the study led by Jonathan Silverberg of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

"However, foreign-born Americans develop increased risk for allergic disease with prolonged residence in the United States," it said.

Children who were born outside the United States but came to live in the United States for longer than 10 years showed "significantly" higher odds of developing eczema or hay fever but not asthma or food allergies, said the research.

"These data indicate that duration of residence in the United States is a previously unrecognized factor in the epidemiology of atopic disease," it said.

"Further, this suggests that foreign-born US residents might be at increased risk for later onset of allergic disease."

Previous research has shown that children who grow up in developing nations tend to have lower rates of allergies, and experts believe this is because they are exposed to more infections and microbes that build up their immune systems.

Allergies are essentially a symptom of a hypersensitive immune system, reacting to substances that should normally be considered harmless.

The JAMA study noted that the United States may not be alone in this phenomenon, since previous studies have found that immigrants in Italy, Israel, and Australia had lower allergy rates than natives.

More research is needed to find out if allergies increase in those countries among immigrants who live there for long periods, said the study.

Read more - 

http://www.france24.com/en/20130429-living-us-raises-risk-allergies

New Website Lets Users Rate Prostitutes... -

New Website Lets Users Rate Prostitutes... - 


People like to read reviews online before buying a car or reserving a hotel room. But one website, www.eccie.net, once based in North Texas, allows users to review the services of local prostitutes.

CBS 11′s I-Team Investigator Mireya Villarreal confirmed with the Texas Attorney General’s office that the website is a factor in a few of their investigations. They wouldn’t expand on what they’re looking for or share if anything on the site is illegal; but just the idea that you can review prostitutes has a lot of people concerned.

Google the words “escort review” and not far from the top is www.eccie.net, a website that’s been around for years, but flourished, while it was based right here in Fort Worth.

Women actually create profiles on this site and customers can post reviews about their services.

“I’m not amazed because I’ve seen worse ads and websites than this,” Jenny Ford, Human Trafficking Expert with ACH Child and Family Services, told us.

Ford’s sole responsibility is to help women and children who’ve been victimized. She says people posting on sites like this often use kinky sex and prostitution as a cover up for sex trafficking.

“It’s happening everywhere. I mean, you can call and get somebody delivered to your house, to your apartment, or to a hotel,” Ford explained.

Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has Homeland Security Investigators that scour sites like this for potential trafficking cases. And while ICE works closely with police vice units, shutting down the site completely is nearly impossible.

“A lot of these internet websites are reflective of pure prostitution,” David Marwell, ICE Special Agent In Charge, told us. “Some of these websites have actual legitimate ways of means and services that they produce. So having these websites, looking into this aspect of the websites, doesn’t necessarily make the entire website seizable or being able to close it down.”

The website was once operated by KCN Infosys, LLC, a company created by three people living in North Texas. According to the Secretary of State’s website, the company dissolved last September. But information the CBS 11 I-Team uncovered shows KCN Infosys, LLC has ownership of the domain name till March 2014.

State Senator Leticia Van De Putte has been pushing for years for stricter trafficking laws in Texas. She believes sites like this can lead to human or sex trafficking. That’s why she’s filed SB94, a bill that go after the people using them.

“We know the internet is a problem,” Van De Putte said. “But what’s happened with these internet sites is that they’ve become advertising, money making ventures. This is not your prostitute standing on your street corner. This is online solicitation.”

Van De Putte says if law enforcement can connect individual postings with reports of human trafficking or prostitution complaint, then they’ll go after the poster. The overall goal is to decrease the demand for these kinds of sites and, consequently, decrease human and sex trafficking.

Right now, Van De Putte’s bill (SB94) has been voted through the senate and will be discussed in the house over the next few weeks.

For weeks, we’ve tried to get a hold of the current owners of eccie.net. We even talked to a previous owner, but no one ever took ownership of the site.

Read more - 

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/04/29/i-team-website-allows-users-to-rate-prostitutes/

Budweiser unveils beer glass that connects to Facebook -

Budweiser unveils beer glass that connects to Facebook - 



Toasting with new friends just got a futuristic, and slightly creepy, upgrade.  
Budweiser recently unveiled the “Buddy Cup,” a pint glass with a built-in chip that connects to Facebook. The cup automatically connects people on Facebook when they clink glasses with another “Buddy Cup” user, creating a virtual friendship instantly.
The cup’s promotional video shows the glass being tested in Brazil as images of drinkers enjoyably clinking pints flash across the screen.
"So, they just did the same as always: Went out drinking Bud, and making new friends," a male narrator announces in the company's commercial. “Buddy Cup: the more Buds, the more friends.”
Feedback toward the Facebook-integrated glass has been mixed.
Tech blog BetaBeat writes, "In the olden times, clinking your beers together with a stranger was a sign of celebration—a mutual agreement that things were about to get weird. The fact that you’d never have to see them again or explain why you puked down the front of your shirt was a significant part of the appeal. Now, Budweiser is about to destroy that sacred experience with the introduction of the Buddy Cup."

Responses on Twitter highlight the creepy factor in sharing contact details with the clink of a glass.
“This is a bad idea, @Budweiser,” writes ecarlson23. “I don't want my drunk life posted all over facebook.”
Another user writes, “This is so wrong, in so many ways – Budweiser.”
The cup was developed by advertising agency Agencia Africa in partnership with Bolha, a digital innovation studio in Sao Paulo. The idea was to create an interactive relationship between consumers and the product.
“Innovation is in Budweiser's DNA,” Sergio Gordilho, chief creative officer at Agencia Africa, told The Drum. “Its platforms are constantly surprising consumers with the best there is in terms of premium experiences. The ‘Buddy Cup’ is another idea bringing the brand even closer to its consumers and opening new levels of interaction for them.”


Read more: -

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/04/29/budweiser-unveils-beer-glass-that-connects-to-facebook/