Iamon lyme: So is this finally an admission that you can't blame the government for everything. So, as such a U turn on past stated statements that businesses are as pure as virgin snow!!

Hallelujah!! .... was it a vision from the aliens??

"..you da man.."

Thankfully you are not "da man". Well intended ideas based on ignorant concepts... or as previously known in the UK... "baby kissing for the camera" never do any good.

Iamon lyme: I'm sorry that you have to use the "big money" 'act'. Next time you go on about health care prices rising please remember that it is big business that runs the show through lobbying. So many Repub's taking 'bribes' so stocks can look good.

Well done on ignoring facts and using the conservative blinker system when it comes to reality.

I'm sure all the women who'd face jail/death and injury if 'you da man' gets to decide for them will appreciate you being ill informed immensely!!

... NOT.

Iamon lyme: Can you stop trying to pettifog?

Lets end a BIG CONSERVATIVE LIE right now....

""An unsafe abortion is the termination of an unwanted pregnancy by persons lacking the necessary skills, or in an environment lacking minimal medical standards, or both.[1] For example, an unsafe abortion may refer to an extremely dangerous life-threatening procedure that is self-induced in unhygienic conditions, or it may refer to a much safer abortion performed by a medical practitioner who does not provide appropriate post-abortion attention.[2]

Unsafe abortion is a significant cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the world. Most unsafe abortions occur where abortion is illegal,[3] or in developing countries where affordable well-trained medical practitioners are not readily available,[4][5] or where modern contraceptives are unavailable.[6] About one in eight pregnancy-related deaths worldwide is associated with unsafe abortion.""


Unsafe abortion is a major cause of injury and death among women worldwide. Although data are imprecise, it is estimated that approximately 20 million unsafe abortions are performed annually, with 97% taking place in developing countries.[31] Unsafe abortion is believed to result in approximately 69,000 deaths and millions of injuries annually.[31] The legal status of abortion is believed to play a major role in the frequency of unsafe abortion. For example, the 1996 legalization of abortion in South Africa had an immediate positive impact on the frequency of abortion-related complications,[34] with abortion-related deaths dropping by more than 90%.

Iamon lyme: Is it.. they can't survive without their host for 9 months. As such the mechanics are that the foetus has to 'trick' the hosts immune system to not kill it. It does not even have a nervous system to be able to feel pain for several weeks. It is as such biologically wise a potential independent being, and only when it is born independently alive.

Children are alive, so are the women who give birth to them.

Abolishing abortion will only drive it underground. Did you think of that and the consequences to the health of women? Did your moral outrage allow you to make a hypocrisy of your "big government", "freedom" and "equality" while you tell all women that they have to live by your rules!!

Is this abortion ideology because of the pill?

Because women had control over their bodies for the first time, now it's time to strike back at the women and tell them again that they are mainly just baby machines?

That is sick.

Iamon lyme: To worry more about living children is absurd?

so, a campaign to end abortion but lets not worry about those growing up, they feel pain and fear.

.. I'd be more worried about the living ones if I were in the USA.

5 kids lost each day to Child abuse, the worst record in the industrialized world.

Millions of reported cases of abuse and/or neglect each year... Texas being one of the worst due to State spending cuts in the services. you know how it works....

... Cut taxes to bring in the rich, that funds to look into child abuse cases and support are slashed is of no importance to the Conservative Gov'nor Rick Perry.

.. they can't vote!!

MissDelish: Yes you did.

Iamon lyme: Yes.. I know. That is why I questioned the statement of...

"well 5bil is a mere drop in the ocean in comparison to those numbers."

It's like some weird reversal of the European billion!

MissDelish: 5 billion is smaller then 313 million???


....Since when?

Iamon lyme: Yes... really. Millions of transactions each day are affected by the Libor rate GLOBALLY. It affects loan rates, some mortgage rates, the rates banks lend to each other.

IE Trillions of pounds (even more in dollars) every single day.

....well this "butterfly" is big.... big enough to cause a several class action legal cases. The investigation JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and UBS.

With more banks to follow more than likely.... Unless they do a Murdoch and burn all the evidence!!

Another joke.... our current government (Conservative majority led coalition) wants to hold a parliamentary inquiry rather than a judge led inquiry.

Why should we trust a party that gets regular big donations from the banks and other financial institutions?

Thankfully, Scotland has laws that make prosecution of the bankers much more easier.

Maybe some of those towns and cities in the USA who've gone bankrupt can sue?

Marshmud: I believe that beats the old tale of being a cuckoo clock cleaner pay wise... which was one hour a day with one hour for lunch.

.. what a joke!!

Well they pass Newt Gingrich test.. they don't speak French!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuzu6iS036Q

Why is Libor so important?

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) says Libor and Euribor are "benchmark reference rates fundamental to the operation of both UK and international financial markets".

The prices of trillions of pounds worth of financial transactions around the world are set according to Libor. Among them, financial swap deals worth £225tn are indexed to Libor, and loans totalling £6.4tn, the British Bankers' Association says.

Does Libor affect my mortgage?

Some mortgages are directly linked to the Libor rate. But even for those that aren't, it is used by banks to help them set the interest rates that they charge some of their own mortgage or loan customers.

The Libor rate is vital because it is followed far more closely by the banks than the interest rates set by the Bank of England, because the Libor rate is a far more accurate appraisal of real world circumstances.

What happened at Barclays?

Staff at Barclays filed misleading figures for interbank borrowings they made.

Firstly, between 2005 and 2008 - and sometimes working with traders at other banks - they tried to influence the Libor rate - so as to try to boost their profits.

Then between 2007 and 2009, at the peak of the global banking crisis, Barclays filed artificially low figures. This was to try to hide the level to which Barclays was under financial stress.

How could the actions of Barclays' traders affect me?

As already discussed, the Libor rate is determined from the banks telling the British Bankers' Association their own interbank lending rates. It goes into a pot with figures from other banks to work out the daily rate.

Any change in that main rate could feed through the financial system to make loans, mortgages or credit card interest rates more expensive, or cheaper.

One economist stated today that 5 billion people were affected by this rigging of Libor rates

And they didn't do it alone!

Iamon lyme: lol The banks activities effect everyone who uses one.

In the UK the news of the banks committing fraud is good news ... in some respects...

... it means those who were defrauded will be able to seek recompense. Some people in the UK (quite alot of people) have already been able to claim back monies from a fund set aside by the banks totalling £7,600,000,000

Greece lied about it's economy and went through years of non payment of tax problems that no-one chased. That's why they are broke.

Iamon lyme: Uhhhhhhhhhh It's in your country as well. Hence the fines levied by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the US Justice Department.

I would have thought the fines and that a class action is to take place would have been news worthy, I know Fox covered it!!

Iamon lyme: I know... I've been happy for years. I'm one of the lucky ones where the good Lord didn't install a jealousy gene.

... Or is it a mix, my philosophical look at life includes the principle that the universe always provides what you need. Time and time again this has proven to be true.

But... lets get back to the subject.

OMG!! a three BILLION dollar FINE.

Banks fixing interest rates which, could have caused some to have gone over the edge financially through the rates being rigged. Are they in the class action being started in America? What happens to those who may have lost their homes through the illegally higher rates that were charged??!!??

Isn't greed a deadly sin?

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a full parliamentary inquiry of the banking sector following the Barclays rate-rigging furore.

He told the House of Commons the manipulation of the Libor interest rates had been a "scandal".

The review will run alongside a narrower inquiry specifically into the Libor market, also announced on Monday. The comments follow news the Serious Fraud Office is considering whether to bring criminal charges.

In addition, Barclays will conduct its own "root and branch review" after receiving a fine of £290m ($450m) over the Libor affair.

Mr Cameron said the full parliamentary committee of inquiry would be headed by the chairman of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie. "This committee will be able to take evidence under oath, it will have full access to papers and officials and ministers including ministers and special advisers from the last government," he said.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to pay $3bn (£1.9bn) in the largest healthcare fraud settlement in US history.

The drug giant is to plead guilty to promoting two drugs for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about a diabetes drug to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The settlement will cover criminal fines as well as civil settlements with the federal and state governments. The case concerns the drugs Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia.

Deputy US Attorney General James Cole told a news conference in Washington DC that the settlement was "unprecedented in both size and scope".

GSK, one of the world's largest healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies, admitted to promoting antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses, including treatment of children and adolescents.

The illegal practice is known as off-label marketing.

The company also conceded charges that it held back data and made unsupported safety claims over its diabetes drug Avandia.

In addition, GSK has been found guilty of paying kickbacks to doctors.

"The sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment, from Hawaiian vacations [and] paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to tickets to Madonna concerts," said US attorney Carmin Ortiz.

As part of the settlement, GSK agreed to be monitored by government officials for five years.

Vikings: Never heard of making comparisons, doesn't mean you've changed the subject.

"jealousy is a pathetic thing to live with"

Is it? What does it feel like???

The Col: I doubt it'll ever be such, a mixed market is more likely. You guys in Canada still manage to spend less of your GDP then the USA does on health care.

Vikings: I ain't worried. I ain't ignoring.

But fraud is fraud. Like the dentist who charges for work you've not had done.

Or our honest *cough* bankers, who now in the UK have been caught out conning customers out of billions through what is described as systematic intent to defraud their customers.

Looks like some of bankers will face criminal charges over their conduct. Should I congratulate that?

Vikings: "we" as in a royal "we"?

No, not of jealousy.. of greed.

I hear primary care in the USA is lower which would help cut health costs, various peer groups have noted many procedures are not needed, but you get to have them as they cost.

Vikings: Whoopee... I used a metaphor for the health rates going up.. one could say brokers, stock owners, managers, directors, etc, etc.

Get my drift?

Funnily.. Mitt was stating that many of the Obama healthcare plans were good.

Like pre-existing conditions coverage.

I guess the parable that Jesus told of the Good Samaritan touched his heart!!

welshrugbyfan: But it's not a choice to stay with one insurance company for most. It's tied to work from what I hear.

In the UK you have the choice to choose your health company, if you want to pay for private care....even if you are not rich.

Imagine that!!

Vikings: My point being is not specific to the doctors but over the rate that health insurance costs have sky rocketed way above the rate of inflation in the USA.

from 1999 to 2009 US inflation was 28.8%, wages for the average joe by just over 38%....... Health insurance premium costs have risen by 131%.

It seems (as lamon says) a "cartoonish cliche" that no-one in the conservative camp questions this. Here in the UK we would. We do when it comes to large companies that have monopolies, and put pressure on our government to rectify 'profiteering'.

The rise in premium costs suggests someone in the USA health insurance system is profiteering.. It's not the patients.

"Health insurance is a product, not a right. The right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness means the right to being free to pursue those things"



if you take the insurance out of it, it sounds like health is a product and not a right... at least when it comes to preventive medicine. It also seems that it's ok for someone to lose everything they have worked for just to pay for the medical care they need to obtain relief from illnesses that cause their '''happiness''' to be a past memory.

Hey.. that doc there!! Does he need a new 50 foot pool? Isn't 30 foot big enough!!

Iamon lyme: Greed.

rod03801: Murdoch is not fascinating.. just how politicians are continually kissing upto him regarding getting good press.

It's is perceivable that Fox could switch to backing the Democrats if Murdoch got a better deal from them!!

I don't how much it's being 'told' in the USA, but the big news financially here is regarding the banks AGAIN!!

But it looks like many of the big banks have been rigging rates.

Barclays has been fined £290 million, other banks are by all accounts will be taken to court.

I hear a class action is forming in the USA based on what the banks have done.

Can't blame this on the government..

I appeal to the Mods... please, can you get this board back to politics rather than site politics.

Thank you.

Iamon lyme: Does it.. I thought all this talk about what people may or not think about who is who as being one big distraction. Nothing is being proved or disproved by it at all.

"Jiggering numbers for the sake of creating a false consensus is nothing new in world of politics, is it?"

The creation of false nicks is a long established '''way''' on this site. It could be said that many of those involved in 'politics' have created fake accounts, or used others for the sake of satisfying their need, just as in the real world.

Usually one side moans about the other even though they may be, may have been, or know someone who has done the same.

btw.. is all this "I'm not you" really necessary?

Hardly politics is it.

Iamon lyme: Ok.. some history.. over the last 60 years..ish

We've seen various western and eastern states play a game of NIMBY.

....that's Not In My Back Yard.

Gun running, drugs, the support of terrorists, murderers n' genocidal maniacs. Chemically induced abnormalities in babies, stillbirths, leukaemia, etc, etc, etc..

Billions of dollars/pounds/euros given to those who are known by those supplying the money to have only one purpose with it... to kill. That women and children are killed in the process is not of the playing powers concern.

Because it's a NIMBY event. It didn't happen in their backyard, it wasn't millions of their own people...... they were 'foreigners' or 'third world' countries who needed help in deciding how to be democratic or free of capitalists.

The death and maiming toll from such policies hasn't stopped growing.

.... so......... when I see yet another case of guns getting into unfriendly hands (like all those that vanished in Iraq) .... I'm not surprised or shocked. It's like when the press went mad at Angelina Jolie showing a leg.. going "WOW.. how sexy and daring

... bull, get a reality check. It's been done before and much better by the likes of Marilyn Monroe.

Wow... Does that mean we might have a successor for the title of "President who's policy killed the most Americans" award Iam? Nixon and Reagan moving to 2nd and 3rd place??? What about when Americans gave money to the IRA????

A senior Liberal Democrat MP has told the Leveson Inquiry that a lobbyist for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation threatened that things would "turn nasty" if the group's bid for Sky was not passed through.

Speaking today (June 26) at the inquiry into media ethics, Norman Lamb said that News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel warned that Murdoch papers, including The Sun and the News of the World, would turn against his party if Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable referred the takeover to Ofcom.

Lamb, previously the main adviser to deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, presented a note to the inquiry he had made shortly after meeting Michel in October 2010. Describing Michel's approach as "brazen", Lamb said the lobbyist had wanted "things to run smoothly" with the Sky bid, but warned that "if it goes the wrong way" he was "worried about the implications".

The note added: "It was brazen. VC [Vince Cable] refers bid to Ofcom, they turn nasty." Lamb claimed that the threat was offset with an enticement should Cable allow the Sky bid to proceed unhindered.

He said that it was proposed that The Sun would help persuade voters to back the Lib Dem's alternative voting (AV) system of proportional representation, which had been key to the party's coalition deal with the Conservatives.

Lamb told Lord Justice Leveson that got a "very clear understanding" from the meeting with Michel that News Corp's UK newspapers had been supportive of Lib Dems in the past, but that positive coverage could change quickly.

The note's final sentence says: "Implication was clear, News Int turn against coalition and AV [if bid does not go through]".

In another note, Lamb said that Clegg had been "horrified" to hear what Michel allegedly said in the meeting. Clegg is said to have fretted: "We will lose the only papers who have been positive."

Rhodri Davies QC, counsel for News International, insisted that Michel had never made any kind of threat, explicit or implicit, to Lamb about the proposed Sky bid.

However, Lamb's evidence follows statements to the Leveson Inquiry by Cable that he was made aware by his party colleagues of "veiled threats" that had allegedly been made about the stance of News Corp newspapers should he refer the bid to Ofcom.



He's such a nice guy *cough*

Iamon lyme: okayyyyyyyyy

Iamon lyme: Did they? ... I'll take your word for it that the chimps have been at the typewriters again. Though it is a common phrase!!

Iamon lyme: I'm not talking about treating them as 'dimensions', more as the old style of calling time the 4th dimension. Then we get into gravity.. ... that one is strange... where does it go?

Science changes, when I learnt physics, electrons still went around in nice orbits none of this quantum existence, rotation and vast amounts of empty space. Light was a beam, not a wave and particle.

But 3D is cool.

Iamon lyme: Is there something wrong with using web based info? Then if so..... we're all doomed!! doomed I tell ya

Iamon lyme: Well there is a problem on alot of multi's on this site, even people logging into others accounts...... I'm sure Art can fill you in on this.

"If you spent less time incorporating other peoples opinions in with your own, you wouldn't need to worry over whether or not someone else is nicking stuff off the web."

I'm not, it just looked almost exactly like something I read a few months back.

"And this business of we don't know if something is right or wrong, or we've at least proven where something can't be found but that doesn't prove it doesn't exist, that kind of thinking really is the stuff that fortune cookie proverbs are made of."

Not really, sometimes I don't know, or I'm not sure is the best answer.

Iamon lyme: Isn't it? The web (I just checked to be sure) states...

"Time is one of the seven fundamental physical quantities in the International System of Units."

I do believe in common sense, having an opinion that your answer looked like several answers on the web is allowed isn't it?

"As for Christians, I don't pay much attention to the ones who share your beliefs in what/who God is or isn't."

What do you think my beliefs are on the subject?

As to my existence.. well it's me or you've worse to worry about then hearing aliens.

.... what about those raised Christian who then through logic work out that God does not exist by looking at the Bible. The literal version that is taught alot in the USA does not make sense. God's character in such a scenario ... human sacrifice, slavery, and genocide being part of an all loving Creator ok to do list. That humans have been picked on out of all the universe (or universes) to be tested then the majority killed off on a whim.

It sounds more like a Douglas Adams plot. Multi dimensional beings have created the Earth to find the question... I hope the Vogon fleet part isn't true.

Iamon lyme: um right.... I didn't say that, I said it in regards to things being wrong.

They've not said they've found it, they've not reached a high sigma value of certainty. At best, they can only say where it isn't. So.. they might be right, they might be wrong. It's undecided...... there is no wrong or right answer that logically can be given in such a circumstance.. it's a maybe.

Most I've heard say they are ok about not finding it. Just it'll mean rewriting particle physics theories, but then again it could be like Newtons laws on gravity.. mostly right.

.. Like that text book answer you nicked off the web on three dimensions.. which is right and wrong. We need time as well to exist as we do, which makes 4 dimensions minimum., space/time being one and the same.

The Col: Darwin.. The communist threat.. though more likely it's like the ex smoker... You were an atheist and now you feel the need to make up to God with your born again passion!!

.. But why would God care?

God believers have been proven wrong on the likes of the relation of the Earth with the rest of creation. If they were to be right.. I'm sure a big sign could have been made.. or a plaque!!

Iamon lyme: Logic always has limits, it is also often misused in situations that logic cannot be logically applied.

No, I not going to argue with the word wrong, but I will point out that sometimes... we can't just know if something is wrong. Like the current model of how matter is made up and through the likes of the Higgs particle we can exist.

.... the model might be wrong, yet it might be right.

"Oh come on, admit it... you pulled that one out of a fortune cookie."

Nope, though you might find similar in a fortune cookie. You'd also find it in various religious texts and writings on throughout human history. Not everything is Confucius!!

"No, and for good reason. It can only be used once, but it's almost 100% effective. I say 'almost' because there is a small chance of survival."

Effective for how long? Puberty is just another incarnation away!!