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You may be familiar with the name John McAfee. You may recall him as the guy who developed the anti-virus program for computers before any digital viruses had been created to cause  digital infection. That was  in 1987. Twenty-six years ago John McAfee founded McAfee Associates, a computer anti-virus company. He is said to be the first to distribute anti-virus software using what has come to be known as the ” shareware”  business model. Today McAfee Associates, acquired by Intel in 2010 for $7.68 billion is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel. (more…)

During the most recent session of the United States Senate Committee on Banking Hearing, Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat senator from Massachusetts, reported on the illegal activities of HSBC; formerly The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world. It serves around 60 million customers through four Global Businesses.

According to its web site, HSBC, the British financial company describes itself as:

“An unrivalled international network with a presence in all of the world’s major developed and faster-growing markets…”

Last December, 2012, HSBC  admitted to laundering nearly one billion US dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels; additionally the company was found to have repeatedly violated US economic sanctions against Iran, Cuba, Libya, the Sudan as well as Burma, known as Myanmar. The US Treasury Department imposed a fine, recorded as the the largest fine ever imposed by the department for HSBC’s illicit actions. (more…)

With this entry we are providing our readers with a kind of info-edu-tainment special. It’s Black History Month and Oscar season.

The following video interview conducted by reporters from the Washington Post web site The Fold  features two-time Academy Award winner Russell Williams…who is also Distinguished-Artist-in-Residence at the American University in Washington, D.C. (more…)

Late night teevee talk show host, Jimmy Fallon donned a pink “mom” style sweater, a brunette  wig and performed a dance collaborated with First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama to promote her famous “Let’s Move” campaign. This is the drive to get our nation’s children physically fit. The video demonstration is called “Evolution of Mom Dancing”.

Parental units are encouraged to join their children in becoming more physically active. Dancing is  an easy and fun activity. (more…)

US Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren is the junior most senior member of the  Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. *When John Kerry gave up his seat as Massachusetts’ senior senator to become Secretary of State, newly elected Warren became the senior senator from Massachusetts; this is her first term in the Senate and in that regard she is junior.*
At her very first hearing sponsored by he  Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the senator posed the following question to the regulators present to provide testimony about how they regulate banking companies in the US:

“When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial? ”

None of the persons called to testify were able to provide an answer to the question.

“We do not have to bring people to trial,” Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of “consent orders,” or settlements.

“I appreciate that you say you don’t have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?” she responded.

“We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals,” Curry offered.

Warren turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial.

“I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does,” said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. “Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?”

“I will have to get back to you with specific information,” Walter said as the audience tittered.

(more…)

We have received news of at least one judge in Florida who is handling the adjudication of cases involving banks and home owners with the use of common sense  as well as the law.

In the matter of Dimitri Jansen, a local schoolteacher whose former home in North Port is in foreclosure a circuit court judge found one of the largest banks in the country in contempt of court on Friday over a foreclosure case that has dragged through the system for several years.

Attorneys who represent the Sarasota educator say the contempt order against Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, is “unprecedented.”

Jansen says his mother’s name was mistakenly added to the mortgage he obtained in 2006, that the bank has ignored requests to remove her name from the foreclosure documents and thus wrecked her credit history, and that the bank held up a pending short sale.

Another Sarasota judge, apparently frustrated with U.S. Bank, had ordered the bank’s president to be present in court on Friday. The bank instead sent a senior representative. (more…)

The following poem was created in remembrance of the unarmed Florida teen fatally shot one year ago this month.
Today, February 5, 2013, would have been his eighteenth birthday…may he forever rest in peace as we continue to pray for justice in this case.

My tears still flow, I wonder why,
it had to be, that I should die?
He followed me, I ran away,
What did I do? What did I say?
(more…)

The following video presents myriad facts about the oceans covering more than 70 percent of our planet.
Without the ocean life on earth would be an impossibility. The ocean makes life on the planet possible.

The  oceans are in desperate need of our human help. Most people are unaware of the myriad benefits the ocean provides us, nor how much we are connected and dependent on it.  80 percent of all the life on earth is  found in the oceans. (more…)

When Joe Carolan was a kid growing up he recognized and honored his inner thrill seeker by  going to see where the local firefighters in his small town were going when he heard the alarm. He says he wanted to be a stuntman; instead he became a volunteer firefighter, a veteran with 21 years experience and now an inventor of Quick-Finders…a reflective device that when properly installed transmits a signal in the event of a fire emergency. Many times a firefighter’s vision is obscured by smoke when attempting to rescue persons inside bedrooms. Lives may be saved.

Experts tell us 85% of fire deaths occur in the home with more than 50% of those deaths during sleeping hours. (more…)

The final installment of an article written by Dwight Lundell, M.D. , thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon…

In 2003, Dr.  Dwight Lundell left his successful thoracic and cardiovascular surgical practice after 25 years to open a clinic to test his theory that inflammation in the arteries was the cause of heart disease, a theory traditional medicine saw as heresy disputing the cholesterol theory.

Dwight Lundell, M.D. is a surgeon experienced in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. Over the last 25 years he has  performed over 5000 coronary bypass operations,; he has certification by the American Board of Surgery, the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons.

Dr. Lundell was a pioneer in “Off-Pump” heart surgery reducing surgical complications and recovery times.

In the last segment of his article he describes techniques that may reverse heart disease…

One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, (more…)