| VANCE
PACKARD.COM
Rants and comments on society. A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste, and such a society is a society built on sand. (Dorothy L. Sayers) |
||
|
|
||
|
WORLD STORIES Fascist
America, in 10 Easy Steps: By Naomi Wolf
EDUCATE YOURSELF
|
EDUCATE YOURSELF |
QUOTES There are 3 types of men; To Richard Pratt: All the gold which is under or upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. (PLATO) NOTHING CHANGES "In the shadow of
the steeple"
|
|
AUSTRALIAN "LIBERAL PARTY" LIES The Liberal Party of Australia call themselves LIBERALS but are more CONSERVATIVE than UK Conservatives and the US Republicans.
"Tax cuts criticised as pay-off for the
rich" trumpets "The Age" headline. The rich have created this economic mess and now governments world wide are rewarding them in many different ways. The rich have stolen so much money over the years through tax havens, their special company structures and trusts as well as the recent madness in the USA where greedy and criminal Wall street bankers essentially robbed people of their savings. AND WHO COMES TO THE RESCUE? Governments all over the world are borrowing and or printing money to save the banks and other corporations from bankruptcy. The question arises as to who is going to pay for these debts? Oh, I know; the "wage slaves" who have no option but to pay their taxes. When will people wake and stop the rorts of the rich? Look at the table below at $60,000 you get $2.88 tax cut. WOW!!! At $180,000 you get $41.35. GET THE PICTURE Weekly tax cuts
from July 1, 2009*
SOURCE: AUSTRALIA INSTITUTE. $25,000 - $0 $30,000 - $0 $45,000 - $2.88 $60,000 - $2.88 $100,000 - $10.58 $150,000 - $29.81 $180,000 - $41.35 Read the whole article here in "THE AGE" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Heroes WHO ARE MY HEROES??? (1) NOT Abby Sunderland (Californian 16 year-old who wanted to sail around the world to become rich & famous and had to be rescued from her sinking vessel in the icy south seas by the Australian Navy) OR Jessica Watson (Australian 16 year-old who sailed around the world to become rich & famous). They are certainly not heroes, they are just lazy girls who can't be bothered going to school to get an education to establish themselves and contribute to society. They want to bet their life on a crazy stunt in order to become rich. NO, NO, NOT HEROES. THESE ARE MY HEROES
Here is a group of teenagers from Boort in country Victoria, Australia who have studied hard and have succeeded in their goals for a career. Many are at university or some form of tertiary education while others are in a job and establishing a life for themselves and at the same time making their parents proud. THESE ARE MY HEROES. HELP TO CELEBRATE THEIR LIVES. If you want to celebrate these young people send a message of support to their school here. This is a small school in a small town called BOORT 255 k North West of Melbourne, Australia. This school does a fantastic job with all their students and could use all the encouragement and support they can get. Boort Secondary College email: boort.sc@edumail.vic.gov.au
WHO ARE MY HEROES??? (2) DR. CLAIRE MARTIN
CELEBRATE THIS HERO. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Wealthy Group Wants to be Taxed." Imagine that. Some of us have been saying this for such a long time. It is about time this was turned into policy. The Howard (extreme right wing) regime that ran Australia and got us into two wars supporting his buddy G W Bush kept giving tax cuts to the rich and constantly shafting the poor. G W Bush did the same thing and after all of that the greedy rich wanted more. Don't be fooled the greedy rich caused the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). They caused it by stealing massive amounts of money and moving it to tax havens such as Liechtenstein. This article with the original title "Raise our taxes now, high-income group demands" by Tom Petruno of the Los Angeles Times outlines the the views of a group of wealthy Americans demanding that the Obama Administration reverse all the BUSH regime's tax cuts to all who earn over $US235,000. The reason they give is unique "FOR THE COMMON GOOD". Here is their website. There will be more about this soon. I wish there were more than 24 hours in the day, I wouldn't sleep a minute of the way. WHO IS STERN HU??? I have no sympathy for these multinational operatives and their games. So many business people from around the world have embraced the "China factory" for its cheap labour (read slaves) and its lack of
workers' rights in order to maximize profits. Contact: Vance |
||
A young doctor at a Melbourne hospital has followed a hunch that may unlock the secrets of swine flu and lead to new treatments for those most at risk from the disease.
Claire Martin, a 28-year-old trainee infectious disease specialist from the Austin Hospital, was working in the intensive care unit last year as a 22-year-old pregnant woman fought for her life there. ''She was so sick - we were so concerned she would not get through the illness,'' Dr Martin said.
''And there was a young baby involved as well. We were doing our best to try to pull her through, asking ourselves if there was something else we were missing.''
After consulting colleagues, she ordered an expensive and rarely used test of the patient's immunoglobulin sub-types. These are ''spotter'' proteins that tag invaders for the immune system to hunt and destroy. To her surprise, the patient had extremely low levels of one particular sub-class, called IgG2.
Dr Martin realised she might have stumbled on to the key to a mystery that had baffled experts since the swine flu epidemic began: why it was serious, even fatal, to some people but barely gave the sniffles to others. She ordered tests for other hospital patients with swine flu and the pattern was confirmed: the sicker they were, the lower their IgG2 levels.
When injected with the protein, the patients began to get better almost immediately - including the young mother. ''It was very exciting - this is the first time [IgG2] has been associated with swine flu. ''It gave us something else to work on and think about, an exciting clue to the puzzle,'' Dr Martin said.
The hospital's head of infectious diseases, Professor Lindsay Grayson, said it was early days and it was hard to be sure about precise cause and effect but Dr Martin's was a fascinating discovery that had attracted international attention.
It was published yesterday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. ''For the first time, we may be able to explain why pregnant women are more likely to get swine flu, why some healthy people get severe swine flu and others don't,'' Professor Grayson said.
''It could also answer why vaccines don't work for a small number of people.''
A fraction of the population - fewer than one in five - naturally has low IgG2 levels, making them more likely to get recurrent ear and chest infections. Pregnant women also have temporarily low IgG2 levels.
The discovery made it especially important that such people got the flu vaccine this year before swine flu returned, Professor Grayson said.
The team's next step is to determine if an IgG2 injection is a genuine ''cure'' for swine flu. Several other Melbourne hospitals have been recruited into the trial, and results will be published later in the year.
They will also examine whether there is a particular relationship between swine flu and the IgG2 protein - or whether it has wider implications for treating other influenza types.