Sunday, 19 August 2012 06:32 'In July 2011, I was notified by ONCOR, the TDSP (Transmission Distribution Service Provider) for Reliant Energy, who I pay for providing me energy service, that if I refused to have a 'smart' meter installed on my home, they would turn off my power without notice. As my husband is disabled, state law prohibits pulling the switch on us. I avoided two months of efforts by ONCOR to install one of those dangerous meters on my home because I have 6' high wood fences with gates on the inside. When ONCOR was given proof of John's serious medical problems, they stopped harassing me. I still have my analog meter. Why didn't I want one of those jazzy new pieces of technology that are so wonderful for everyone? Once I began to do research, I was horrified by what I found. Utility companies and TDSPs nationwide continue to insist those meters are safe. Utility companies and TDSPs nationwide have billions of dollars at stake here. Below are but a drop in the bucket for the more than 2,000 peer reviewed papers and writings by the best experts in the field worldwide.' Read more: 'Smart' Meters & Corporate Thuggery Sunday, 19 August 2012 06:20 'Coping with dementia is almost impossibly hard, the inexorable decline that accompanies it are unspeakably harrowing for all concerned. And with around 800,000 people already suffering from some form of the disease, and nearly 2 million expected to do so by 2050, the numbers are frightening. Even more alarming – as has been starkly revealed by this newspaper's series on dementia this week – is the inability of Britain's health and social care system to cope with the problem. At its most basic, the difficulty is one of definition. Dementia is an illness that is so sprawling and still so widely misunderstood that our outdated categories for illness and infirmity have not caught up. Unless aggressive enough to be acknowledged as a mental health problem, it is considered to be an issue of social care alone, no different from any of the other frailties that go with old age. The result is sufferers all too often shuttled from one inappropriate facility to another, "a piece of lost luggage on a dementia carousel", as an Independent writer described her father's traumatic experiences.' Read more: Dementia - The Unacknowledged Epidemic Of Our Age Sunday, 19 August 2012 06:06 Sunday, 19 August 2012 06:02 'WA mortgage broker who got rich by “fudging figures” has blown the whistle on the banks that conspired in Australia’s own sub-prime mortgage scandal. In 2007 Kate Thompson was WA mortgage broker of the year. Now she is facing fraud charges. It is alleged Mortgage Miracles, in Canning Vale in Western Australia, obtained investment loans for customers by using falsely inflated earnings and assets. Ms Thompson admits that is exactly what she did.' Read more: Australia’s Sub-Prime Scandal Finally Breaks Wide Open
Sunday 19 August 2012
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