Bill Clinton’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery has a Monica Lewinsky reference slipped into the painting -

Bill Clinton’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery has a Monica Lewinsky reference slipped into the painting - 

The artist who painted Bill Clinton’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery claims that he slipped in a Monica Lewinsky reference into the painting.
Nelson Shanks told the Philadelphia Daily News that he “subtly” incorporated Lewinsky’s infamous blue dress into the 2006 portrait.
“The reality is he’s probably the most famous liar of all time. He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind and it is subtly incorporated in the painting,” Shanks said.
He explained that he put a shadow of the blue dress into the painting.
“If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things,” Shanks told the Daily News. “It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.”
Shanks claims that that Clintons want the portrait removed from the gallery.
“And so the Clintons hate the portrait. They want it removed from the National Portrait gallery,” he told the Daily News. “They’re putting a lot of pressure on them.”
The National Portrait Gallery denied the claim to the Daily News.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the former president’s wife, Hillary Clinton, will likely enter the presidential race in April.

Read more - 

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/03/02/artist-claims-he-included-lewinskys-blue-dress-in-clinton-portrait/

Prisons Increase Profits by Replacing In-Person Family Visits with Video Screens -

Prisons Increase Profits by Replacing In-Person Family Visits with Video Screens - 

Those in charge of the nation’s jails and prisons have found a way to make some money off the backs of those who can often least afford it—the families of inmates.

Telecommunications companies, last seen making huge profits off phone service for inmates, have had to find a new revenue stream since the Federal Communications Commission capped most jail phone rates. Now they’re installing video visitation systems at jails and prisons across the country, charging huge fees for their use and splitting the profits with the facility.

The new systems are touted as more user-friendly for families and better at restricting the flow of contraband into correctional facilities. But they come at the cost of high charges—up to $1.50 a minute—for remote video visiting.

“Seventy three percent of the people in our jail have not been convicted--that means they are innocent until proven guilty,” Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins told NBC News. “And 100% of their family, their spouses and their children are innocent, who are the people who end up paying for this.”

Prisons often don’t start getting their share of the loot until the chat system has been paid for or until a certain level of calls are made each month.

Prisons have no incentive to make the charges affordable for families and some officials show a complete disregard for the cost. The purchasing manager for St. Clair County, Illinois, Tom Maziarz, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “A dollar a minute strikes me as a fair price. I guess it depends what viewpoint you’re coming from. The way I look at it, we’ve got a captive audience. If they don’t like (the rates), I guess they should not have got in trouble to begin with.”

In some cases, a limited number of video chats are free but must be done at a central facility. One company, Securus, requires that jails and prisons that install its systems curtail in-person visits by all except attorneys and clergy. However, that often disincentivizes the use of such systems. A study by the Prison Policy Initiative reports that when traditional through-the-glass visits are retained, there is an average of 23 minutes of offsite video chats per month. When in-person visits are eliminated, that number falls to 13 minutes per month.

Whether done at a central site or remotely, video and sound quality of the chats are often poor, causing much of a pre-scheduled video conference to be wasted.

The systems also eliminate the personal contact between families and inmates that is credited with reducing behavior problems while incarcerated and recidivism after release. “It just seems so impersonal,” Ashika Coleman-Carter, whose husband was jailed in Travis County, Texas, told NBC News. “The old visits, even though you couldn’t touch behind the glass, at least you could go into an actual visiting room and see someone’s face. Now you can’t get close to the person at all.”

The video chats also provide less privacy for visitors with picture and sound being recorded and often reviewed by jail officials. In-person visits were usually in a separate room, but the video chats often take place in the dayroom of a jail. Sometimes family members watch while fights break out behind their loved one.

Attorneys are also troubled by the lack of privacy. “When I need to discuss with them issues germane to their defense or what a witness said…anything with substance, I’m not going to do it over the computer, because I don’t trust them,” Marci Kratter, a Phoenix defense attorney, told Al Jazeera America. “I’m a bit of a cynic, so I have concerns about whether what’s discussed over the Internet is actually privileged and that there’s not some way that they are recording it.”

She’s right to be concerned. Prisons in several jurisdictions have been sued by defense attorneys, charging their conversations with clients have been illegally monitored.

Read more -

http://www.allgov.com/news/where-is-the-money-going/prisons-increase-profits-by-replacing-in-person-family-visits-with-video-screens-150302?news=855820

Too much Facebook leads to Envy and Depression -

Too much Facebook leads to Envy and Depression - 

Constantly checking Facebook to see what your friends are doing could lead to some serious depression.
A recent study conducted by researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Bradley University and the University of Missouri Columbia found that heavy Facebook (FB, Tech30) users can experience envy -- which can ultimately lead to extreme sadness.

The researchers surveyed 736 college students and found that, basically, if you quietly stalk your friends on Facebook and then realize that your life doesn't measure up to theirs, you feel bad about yourself.
"If Facebook is used to see how well an acquaintance is doing financially or how happy an old friend is in his relationship -- things that cause envy among users -- use of the site can lead to feelings of depression," said Margaret Duffy, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
This isn't just a college phenomenon. I am nearing middle age and I can relate.
Facebook is a huge part of my life. Like most Facebook users, I have the app on my phone. I check it at work. I check it at home. I check it when I am out. If I am in a subway station with Wi-Fi, I check it there too.
I am up to date on all my friends, their kids and whatever they are reading at that moment. Unfortunately, it's an addiction that I can't quit.
Facebook has allowed me a little window into my friends' lives back home. They have babies -- well some of them have teenagers. They have lovely homes. And the dinners -- oh the dinners they serve! There are food presentations that look like something out of a Martha Stewart magazine. I watch all the videos of their kids saying the darndest things. I click on their pictures of vacations in exotic places.
I have come to the conclusion that Facebook is a lifestyle magazine featuring my friends, who are doing it better than me.
I peruse Facebook from computer on my coffee table, because I am not grown up enough to buy a desk for myself. My coffee table is my all-purpose table. I eat there too -- usually hunks of cheese with a knife and no crackers. That's right no crackers, because I am too lazy to run out to the bodega.
My only consolation is sometimes my friends confuse "there," "their" and "they're" in their posts about their lovely vacations and darling children. Then suddenly, I feel a little bit better about myself.

Read more - 

http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/02/technology/facebook-envy/index.html

North Carolina just made it legal for lobbying firms to purchase prostitutes to service politicians -

North Carolina just made it legal for lobbying firms to purchase prostitutes to service politicians - 

North Carolina’s State Ethics Committee has just opened up a major problem for their state — they just made it legal for lobbying firms to purchase prostitutes to service politicians. The Committee’s determination that sex had no value and that sex between a lobbyist and politician was nothing to report or in any way questionable means that a major loophole has opened up for lobbying firms. Now lobbying firms can hire people with the explicit goal to seduce and fornicate with politicians in order to garner favor.

In other terms, lobbying firms can hire people who can offer sexual services for politicians, and they don’t even need to register. now, before it is said that it is being misinterpreted, here is the actual letter from the Ethics Committee, titled “Sexual Favors or Sexual Acts as a Gift or ‘Thing of Value.'” In it, they declared that these relations have no monetary value, so do not need to be reported. In addition, they declared that if the person is not registered as a lobbyist, there was never any point of concern, even if the service was paid for by a third-party. In other words, lobbyists can hire people expressly for a politician to use in a carnal manner, even if the politician asks for or otherwise indicates their desire for such a service.

Even more disturbing are the long-term implications. Let us say a politician does partake, yet the person who paid for the night of temptation was a less than honest broker. A few hidden cameras, some veiled threat that did not cross the line into blackmail territory, a night of infidelity could put a politician into a less honorable group’s pocket without major cost, and all now rendered perfectly legal by the Ethics Committee of North Carolina.

Lobbying is a practice which needs to end for the good of the republic. When our founders agreed that the people have the right to redress grievances and to petition the government, that did not mean corporations or trade groups being granted superior access to the people themselves. Money is not speech, liberty is not anarchy — freedom for all, not just for the elite.

Read more - 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/27/gifts-for-politicians/

NASA's Dawn spacecraft releases images showing another Bright Spot on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres -

NASA's Dawn spacecraft releases images showing another Bright Spot on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres - 

The latest images captured by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft of the dwarf planet Ceres continues to baffle scientists as the photos reveal another significant bright spot on its surface.

The planet, which lies between Mars and Jupiter, has an average diameter of 590 miles and is the largest body in the main asteroid belt and is believed to contain a large amount of ice.

“Ceres’ bright spot can now be seen to have a companion of lesser brightness, but apparently in the same basin,” Chris Russell, a principal investigator for the Dawn mission, said in a news release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“This maybe pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations,” Russell said.

Scientists hope to get a better view of Ceres in the next week as Dawn is scheduled to enter the planet’s orbit March 6. The bright spots that have captivated the world might soon come into sharper focus.

"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres,” Andreas Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planch Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, said in the release.

The Dawn spacecraft has already delivered more than 30,000 images of Vesta – the second largest body in the main asteroid belt – during an orbit in 2011 and 2012.

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/02/26/nasa-dawn-spacecraft-releases-images-showing-another-bright-spot-on-ceres/

First full body transplant is two years away, surgeon claims - plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body -

First full body transplant is two years away, surgeon claims - plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body - 

A surgeon says full-body transplants could become a reality in just two years.

Sergio Canavero, a doctor in Turin, Italy, has drawn up plans to graft a living person’s head on to a donor body and claims the procedures needed to carry out the operation are not far off.

Canavero hopes to assemble a team to explore the radical surgery in a project he is due to launch at a meeting for neurological surgeons in Maryland this June.

He has claimed for years that medical science has advanced to the point that a full body transplant is plausible, but the proposal has caused raised eyebrows, horror and profound disbelief in other surgeons.

The Italian doctor, who recently published a broad outline of how the surgery could be performed, told New Scientist magazine that he wanted to use body transplants to prolong the lives of people affected by terminal diseases.

“If society doesn’t want it, I won’t do it. But if people don’t want it, in the US or Europe, that doesn’t mean it won’t be done somewhere else,” he said. “I’m trying to go about this the right way, but before going to the moon, you want to make sure people will follow you.”

Putting aside the considerable technical issues involved in removing a living person’s head, grafting it to a dead body, reviving the reconstructed person and retraining their brain to use thousands of unfamiliar spinal cord nerves, the ethics are problematic.

The history of transplantation is full of cases where people hated their new appendages and had them removed. The psychological burden of emerging from anaesthetic with an entirely new body is firmly in uncharted territory. Another hitch is that medical ethics boards would almost certainly not approve experiments in primates to test whether the procedure works.

Advertisement

But Canavero wants to provoke a debate around these issues. “The real stumbling block is the ethics,” he told New Scientist. “Should this surgery be done at all? There are obviously going to be many people who disagree with it.”

The idea of body transplants – or head transplants, depending on the perspective – has been tried before. In 1970, Robert White led a team at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US, that tried to transplant the head of one monkey on to the body of another. The surgeons stopped short of a full spinal cord transfer, so the monkey could not move its body.

A lull in attempted body transplants followed White’s experiments, but last year researchers at Harbin Medical University in China made some headway with mice. They hope to perfect a procedure they claim “will become a milestone of medical history and potentially could save millions of people”.

Despite Canavero’s enthusiasm, many surgeons and neuroscientists believe massive technical hurdles push full body transplants into the distant future. The starkest problem is that no one knows how to reconnect spinal nerves and make them work again. Were that possible, people paralysed by spinal injuries could have surgery to make them walk again.

“There is no evidence that the connectivity of cord and brain would lead to useful sentient or motor function following head transplantation,” Richard Borgens, director of the Center for Paralysis Research at Purdue University in Indiana, US, told New Scientist.

According to the procedure Canavero outlined this month, doctors would first cool the patient’s head and the donor’s body so their cells do not die during the operation. The neck is then cut through, the blood vessels linked up with thin tubes, and the spinal cord cut with an exceptionally sharp knife to minimise nerve damage. The recipient’s head is then moved on to the donor’s body.

The next stage is trickier. Canavero believes that the spinal cord nerves that would allow the recipient’s brain to talk to the donor’s body can be fused together using a substance called polyethylene glycol. To stop the patient moving, they must be kept in a coma for weeks. When they come round, Canavero believes they would be able to speak and feel their face, though he predicts they would need a year of physiotherapy before they could move the body.

“This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely,” Harry Goldsmith, professor of neurological surgery at the University of California, Davis, told the magazine.

Read more - 

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/25/first-full-body-transplant-two-years-away-surgeon-claim

Japanese Robot Bear Nurses soon to care for rapidly ageing population -

Japanese Robot Bear Nurses soon to care for rapidly ageing population - 

Robotic nurses with cute bear faces developed by Japanese engineers could soon be the future carers of the nation's growing elderly population.

Japanese research institute Riken developed the Robear to support healthcare workers, with enough power to lift frail patients from bed and support unstable patients on their feet.

The Robear is based on an earlier model called RIBA, which was introduced in 2011. The upgraded Robear is about 90 kilograms lighter than its predecessor, capable of more subtle movements and sports an even cuter look.

"The polar cub-like look is aimed at radiating an atmosphere of strength, geniality and cleanliness at the same time," research leader Toshiharu Mukai said.

"We voted for this design among options presented by our designer. We hope to commercialise the robot in the not too distant future."

Japan's declining population puts it on course to lose half its workforce by 2060, and possibly its status as an economic superpower.

Despite calls for large-scale immigration into the racially homogenous country, residents remain reluctant, meaning an increasing reliance on robots, especially to perform physically difficult work.

This frequently combines with the country's love of all things cute, to produce machines with disarming faces and child-like voices.

Riken said it aimed to combat the burden Japan's ageing population would place on the healthcare system.

"As Japan is ageing with fewer children, the problem of a shortage in caregivers for the elderly is getting serious," Riken said in a statement.

"Expectations are high that robotics will help resolve this problem."

Read more - 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/japans-robot-bears-elderly-carers-of-the-future/6255734

75% of Air and Rain Samples Contain Monsanto’s Round Up -

75% of Air and Rain Samples Contain Monsanto’s Round Up - 

A new study proves just how invasive Monsanto’s best selling chemicals are, revealing how herbicide toxins are appearing in 75% of rain and air samples.

Take a deep breath. Thanks to the massive use of herbicides across the planet, you likely just inhaled a dose of Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide, Round Up – at least according to the latest US Geological Survey published in the journal Enviromental Toxicology and Chemistry.

The chemical ingredient used in Round Up, known as glyphosate, as well as other ‘inert’ toxic chemicals, were found in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007 – a large river that cuts through the middle of the US, and is the basin in which hundreds of farms’ runoff drains.

An evaluation of numerous pesticides currently used were measured through water and air samples collected from 1995 to 2007 during growing season along the Mississippi Delta agricultural region. If 75% of samples containing Round Up isn’t shocking enough, there’s more:

Round Up chemicals were prevalent, but so were 37 other toxic compounds – all present in both rain and air samples.
Glyphosate was found in 86% of air samples, and 77% of rain samples.
Seven compounds in 1995 and five in 2007 were detected in more than 50% of both air and rain samples. Atrazine, metolachlor, and propanil were detected in more than 50% of the air and rain samples in both years.
Read: 3 Studies Proving Toxic Glyphosate in Urine, Blood, Breast Milk

The report states that 2 million kilograms of glyphosate were applied statewide in 2007, or 55% of the total herbicide flux for that year (~129 μg/m2), leading them to state the high prevalence of glyphosate in air and water “was not surprising.”

What is surprising is that these results are not becoming widely distributed until 2015.

This estimate, if correct, reveals that there has been an ~ 18 fold increase in glyphosate concentrations in air and water samples in only 12 years (1995-2007), and likely more since the samples were taken.

This means that our bodies have been under fire with biotech toxins, not just in the food we eat, but in the air we breathe, and the water we drink, for more than a decade.

The longer the period of exposure we are subjected to, you can bet the more diseases will crop up.

These toxins have cumulative and synergistic effects with other toxicants with incalculably complex results that produce far more harm together than glyphosate alone (i.e. synergistic toxicity).

If you want to breathe a sigh of relief, you’ll have to fight biotech. It isn’t just the food they are poisoning.

Read more: - 
http://naturalsociety.com/75-air-rain-samples-contain-monsantos-round/

An Idaho lawmaker gets lesson on female anatomy after asking if swallowed camera can be used for gynecological exam -

An Idaho lawmaker gets lesson on female anatomy after asking if swallowed camera can be used for gynecological exam - 

An Idaho lawmaker received a brief lesson on female anatomy after asking if a woman can swallow a small camera for doctors to conduct a remote gynecological exam. 

The question Monday from Republican state Rep. Vito Barbieri came as the House State Affairs Committee heard nearly three hours of testimony on a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medication through telemedicine. 

Barbieri later said that the question was rhetorical and intended to make a point. 

Dr. Julie Madsen, a physician who said she has provided various telemedicine services in Idaho, was testifying in opposition to the bill. She said some colonoscopy patients may swallow a small device to give doctors a closer look at parts of their colon. 

"Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?" Barbieri asked. 

Madsen replied that would be impossible because swallowed pills do not end up in the vagina. 

"Fascinating. That makes sense," Barbieri said, amid the crowd's laughter. 

The committee approved the bill 13-4 on a party-line vote, where it now goes to the House floor for a full vote. Barbieri, who sits on the board of a crisis pregnancy center in northern Idaho, voted in favor of the legislation. 

The panel is considered one of the most conservative committees in Idaho's Republican-controlled Statehouse. Already this year, it has killed a proposal that would provide legal protections to gay and lesbian Idahoans and halted legislation proposed by a 14-year-old girl to designate the Idaho Giant Salamander as the official state amphibian. It has endorsed, however, a bill that would expand parental rights in Idaho law. 

Under HB154, abortion-inducing medication could not be administered through telemedicine - which does not currently happen in Idaho - and requires doctors to make "all reasonable efforts" to schedule a follow-up visit. The bill is backed by the anti-abortion group Idaho Choose Life. 

Anti-abortion advocates argue that the bill will protect women who may have an adverse reaction to abortion medication. Those opposed counter that the bill is an attempt to restrict abortions, pointing to women living in rural areas where access to clinics is already limited. 

Monday afternoon Barbieri told The Spokesman-Review that he adamantly supports the bill, and wasn't fazed by the social media attention his question garnered. 

"I was being rhetorical, because I was trying to make the point that equalizing a colonoscopy to this particular procedure was apples and oranges," he said. "So I was asking a rhetorical question that was designed to make her say that they weren't the same thing, and she did so. It was the response I wanted." 

The measure is one of several abortion-related bills Idaho lawmakers are considering this legislative session. 

This includes a proposed bill seeking to define the scope of telemedicine in Idaho, which somewhat overlaps with HB154, because it specifically bans doctors from prescribing abortion drugs via videoconferencing. Over in the Idaho Senate, lawmakers are considering a bill that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. 

"Children have no way to really challenge the forces that harm them and unborn children are especially susceptible to harm," said Republican Rep. Linden Bateman. "In my view, this may reduce the number of abortions." 

This isn't the first time Idaho lawmakers have received attention while debating abortion legislation. 

In 2013, Republican Rep. Ron Mendive drew audible gasps in a committee when he asked if the American Civil Liberties Union-Idaho's pro-abortion stance also meant they supported prostitution. A year prior, Republican Sen. Chuck Winder drew national criticism after he suggested on the Senate floor that a doctor should ask a woman who says she was raped could have been caused by "normal relations in a marriage."

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/02/24/idaho-pol-gets-lesson-on-female-anatomy-after-asking-if-swallowed-camera-can-be/?intcmp=latestnews

Fluoride in drinking water may trigger depression and weight gain, warn scientists -

Fluoride in drinking water may trigger depression and weight gain, warn scientists - 

Fluoride could be causing depression and weight gain and councils should stop adding it to drinking water to prevent tooth decay, scientists have warned.
A study of 98 per cent of GP practices in England found that high rates of underactive thyroid were 30 per cent more likely in areas of the greatest fluoridation.
It could mean that up to 15,000 people are suffering needlessly from thyroid problems which can cause depression, weight gain, fatigue and aching muscles.
Last year Public Health England released a report saying fluoride was a ‘safe and effective’ way of improving dental health.
But new research from the University of Kent suggests that there is a spike in the number of cases of underactive thyroid in high fluoride areas such as the West Midlands and the North East of England.

Lead author Professor Stephen Peckham, Centre for Health Service Studies, said: “I think it is concerning for people living in those areas.
“The difference between the West Midlands, which fluoridates, and Manchester, which doesn’t was particularly striking. There were nearly double the number of cases in Manchester.
“Underactive thyroid is a particularly nasty thing to have and it can lead to other long term health problems. I do think councils need to think again about putting fluoride in the water. There are far safer ways to improve dental health.”
In England, around 10 per cent of the population (6 million) live in areas with a naturally or artificially fluoridated water supply of 1 mg fluoride per litre of drinking water.
The researchers compared areas to records from 7935 general practices covering around 95 per cent of the English population in 2012-2013.
Rates of high underactive thyroid were at least 30 per cent more likely in practices located in areas with fluoride levels in excess of 0.3 mg/l.
Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral found in water in varying amounts, depending on the region and it is also found in certain foods and drinks, including tea and fish. It helps combat tooth decay by making enamel more resistant to bacteria.
But previous studies have found that it inhibits the production of iodine, which is essential for a healthy thyroid.
The thyroid gland, which is found in the neck, regulates the metabolism as well as many other systems in the body.
An underactive thyroid can lead to depression, weight gain, fatigue and aching muscles and affects 15 times more women than men, around 15 in 1,000 women.
The researchers say councils must rethink public health policy to fluoridate the water supply in a bid to protect the nation’s tooth health.
However Public Health England said that previous evidence overwhelmingly showed that fluoride in water was safe.
Dr Sandra White, Director of Dental Public Health at Public Health England, said: “Public Health England regularly reviews the evidence base for water fluoridation.
“The totality of evidence, accumulated over decades of research, tells us that water fluoridation is a safe and effective public health measure, and shows no association with reduced thyroid function.”
Other experts also warned that the study may have been skewed by population bias, a claim denied by the authors.
Prof David Coggon, Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, University of Southampton, said: “It is quite possible that the observed association is a consequence of other ways in which the areas with higher fluoride differ from the rest of the country.
“There are substantially more rigorous epidemiological methods by which the research team could have tested their idea”
The research was published in the BMJs Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Read more - 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11430087/Fluoride-in-drinking-water-may-trigger-depression-and-weight-gain-warn-scientists.html