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http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Suit-Alleges-Discrimination-Against-Pregnant-Teachers-at-Chicago-School-286681301.html

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A Bittersweet Diabetes Economy

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Endocrinology/Diabetes/49227?isalert=1&uun=g578717d3031R5705800u&utm_source=breaking-news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-news&xid=NL_breakingnews_2014-12-22

In 1997, a group of experts convened by the American Diabetes Association changed the definition of type 2 diabetes, lowering the blood sugar threshold, and instantly as many as 1.9 million more Americans had the condition.

The same pattern played out in 2003, in an even bigger way, when the association changed the definition of a condition known as pre-diabetes and — overnight — 25 million more Americans were affected.

In the decade that followed, the diabetes industry boomed — thanks in part to a 2008 declaration by two endocrinology groups that pre-diabetes could be treated with drugs if diet and exercise didn’t lower blood sugar.

Last year, sales of diabetes drugs reached $23 billion, according to the data from IMS Health, a drug market research firm.

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Stossel : Control Freaks

Stossel is admittedly  a converted PROGRESSIVE to being a LIBERARIAN.. I was “surfing channels” the other night/morning (01:00-02:00) and stopped on this piece. Congress’ approval rating is in the single digits.. yet … 90% get reelected… and this could can be explained how ? This episode brings to front and center how our bureaucracy is creating more and more “morality laws”. Maybe we are not electing Democrats and Republicans but all are “closet Puritans” ?

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I see several news reports every day of pharmacies getting held up… mostly for controlled meds

Last week a CVS Health employee was “punched” by a shoplifter, this week an employee gets shot.. over the last few years Pharmacists have been killed, employees have been killed, customers have been killed… We see/hear about cops being shot, gang members and innocent people.. including innocent children being shot/killed.

It doesn’t matter if the business being held up or robbed .. is a bank, convenience store, pharmacy… etc… how much of this can be directed back to people with mental health issues… either to get drugs to self medicate or someone whose business is making a profit selling some substance(s) to abuse and meet the NEEDS of those who have mental health issues. How many of us “professionals” go home after work and down a six-pak of beer, that bottle of wine,  that 1/2 pint, a Benzo or start your day with a SSRI ? To deal with our “life”. These so-called “addicts” are criminals because they have broken some “morality law” of our society? It would be interesting to see how much money we commit to dealing with citizens that break our “morality laws”. I suspect that we would have more than enough money to treat all those people with mental health issues that we are now labeling as criminals and incarcerating.

Maybe the war on drugs/pts should be changed to a war on stupidity or mental health pts ?

CVS employee shot during attempted robbery in Raleigh

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http://www.abcactionnews.com/money/consumer/dont-waste-your-money/battle-of-the-drugstores-price-comparison-shows-you-may-be-paying-too-much

Want to save hundreds of dollars buying your over-the-counter medicine, shampoo and vitamins?

Then pay attention: Depending on where you shop, you could be wasting a lot of money.

Many Shop For Convenience

When it comes to over-the-counter medicines, facial lotion and soap, most of us shop wherever it’s most convenient at the time.

Many shoppers grab pharmacy items at the grocery store because it’s so easy.

For Tammy Schutte, it’s easiest buying over-the-counter meds when she buys groceries.

“To be honest, I don’t really compare prices too much to CVS, I just pretty much get everything  when I go grocery shopping,” she said.

Which Store Costs the Most?

A new price comparison by the website cheapism.com found you may want to purchase your drugstore items at discount stores.

The survey compared a basket of non-prescription items like toothpaste and deodorant at Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, Target and Kroger.

Walmart was the price winner at $50.47.

Target was just pennies away at $50.77.

Grocery stores (represented in the survey by Kroger) was $5 more expensive at $55.72.

Drugstore Chains Higher All Around

CVS was $60.72. Walgreens was $66.77. And Rite Aid, the most expensive, was $72.02 – $20 more than Walmart.

The problem, though, is many people don’t bother to compare, because they pick up these items with their prescriptions, which often cost next to nothing.

Bottom line: You could be paying hundreds more a year for convenience.

As always, don‘t waste your money.
 

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 Nebraska Complains About Colorado Weed While Enabling South Dakota Alcoholism

http://www.hightimes.com/read/nebraska-complains-about-colorado-weed-while-enabling-south-dakota-alcoholism

Nebraska has licensed four businesses in this town of 10 to sell beer to be taken off site. Those businesses have repeatedly been found to be selling to minors and bootleggers and allowing onsite consumption

This town of 10 has four licensed off-sale beer stores that sold 3.6 million cans of beer in 2013, or almost 10,000 cans of beer per day.

How is that possible? Well, Whiteclay, you see, lies on the northern Nebraska border with South Dakota, where it directly abuts the Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Indian Nation on the Pine Ridge Reservation. And Pine Ridge has maintained absolute alcohol prohibition — sale and possession — since its creation in 1889

A news station in Omaha, Nebraska, ran a story entitled “Colorado’s marijuana sales draining Nebraska budget.” It seems that since neighboring Colorado legalized marijuana for adults 21 and over, the cops in Nebraska have been busting so many adults coming across the border with Colorado weed they can’t afford to bust, jail and try them all.

“We have had a significant increase in the amount of cases and incidences with marijuana coming across from Colorado,” said Deuel County, Nebraska, Sheriff Adam Hayward. “One in every five cars, we are now finding something in there.”

So many adults are crossing the border with weed the sheriff explains they’ve caught a year’s worth of misdemeanor violators in just four months. “We are paying for them to be housed. We are paying for them to be fed. We are paying for their medical expenses, which a lot of them do have,” Hayward said. “And then a lot of them, even though they have money to buy drugs, they don’t have money to pay for an attorney. Therefore, the county has to pay for the public defender.”

Seeing as a Nebraskan adult by law could only buy a quarter ounce at a Colorado pot shop and that might cost 50 or 60 bucks with tax

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Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?_r=0

Since the day President Obama took office, he has failed to bring to justice anyone responsible for the torture of terrorism suspects — an official government program conceived and carried out in the years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

He did allow his Justice Department to investigate the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes of torture sessions and those who may have gone beyond the torture techniques authorized by President George W. Bush. But the investigation did not lead to any charges being filed, or even any accounting of why they were not filed.

Americans have known about many of these acts for years, but the 524-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report erases any lingering doubt about their depravity and illegality: In addition to new revelations of sadistic tactics like “rectal feeding,” scores of detainees were waterboarded, hung by their wrists, confined in coffins, sleep-deprived, threatened with death or brutally beaten. In November 2002, one detainee who was chained to a concrete floor died of “suspected hypothermia.”

These are, simply, crimes. They are prohibited by federal law, which defines torture as the intentional infliction of “severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” They are also banned by the Convention Against Torture, the international treaty that the United States ratified in 1994 and that requires prosecution of any acts of torture.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2340A

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