A San Diego man who was nearly killed while trying to take a selfie with a rattlesnake racked up a killer $153,000 hospital bill instead.
By far the largest bite listed on the itemized bill is $83,341.25 for “pharmacy.” That’s because Fassler’s lifesaving treatment depleted the anti-venom supplies at two local hospitals, KGTV reported.
It’s not clear whether Fassler has insurance — and whether these are dollar amounts that he will in fact have to pay out of pocket. But the confusion over health-care pricing is common for Americans who receive bills and can’t be sure where the numbers come from.
There’s currently only one commercially available anti-venom for treating venomous snakebites in the United States — CroFab, manufactured by U.K.-based BTG. And with a stable market of 7,000 to 8,000 snakebite victims per year and no competitors, business is pretty good. BTG’s latest annual report shows CroFab sales topped out at close $98 million dollars last fiscal year.
The antivenin costs hospitals roughly $2,300 per vial, with a typical dose requiring four to six vials. In some cases multiple doses are needed, according to CroFab’s promotional Web site. Fassler required multiple dosings over a five day period. (Read more from “Dude’s Rattlesnake Selfie Ends With $153,000 Bill” HERE)
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta pushed back gently against President Obama’s promotion of homosexual and lesbian rights on Saturday, saying Kenyans had more pressing concerns to deal with, including health, education and “ensuring inclusivity of women.”
While Kenya and the U.S. shared many values, Kenyatta said during a joint press conference in Nairobi, “there are some things that we must admit we don’t share – our culture, our societies don’t accept. It is very difficult for us to be able to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept.”
“This is why I repeatedly say that, for Kenyans today, the issue of gay rights is really a non-issue,” he added. “We want to focus on other areas that are day-to-day living for our people.
Enhancing economic development for women, health, education, infrastructure, providing power and encouraging entrepreneurship “are our key focuses,” Kenyatta continued.
“Maybe once, like you have overcome some of these challenges, we can begin to look at new ones,” he said. “But as of now, the fact remains that this [homosexuality] issue is not really an issue that is on the foremost mind of Kenyans, and that is the fact.” (Read more from “Kenyan President Tells Obama: LGBT Rights ‘a Non-Issue’ for Kenyans Today” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:40:022016-04-11 10:58:28Kenyan President Pushes Back Against Obama’s LGBT Agenda: ‘a Non-Issue’ for Kenyans [+video]
By Shiryn Ghermezian. Jews in America should take a stand against the White House and oppose the nuclear deal recently agreed between world powers and Iran, famed Soviet dissident and now Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky said on Friday in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
“Those of us who believe that the nuclear agreement just signed between world powers and Iran is dangerously misguided are now compelled to criticize Israel’s best friend and ally, the government of the United States,” Sharansky said.
Sharansky acknowledged that standing up against the White House in support of “what we think is right” for both Jews and the world, puts American Jewry at odds with the “power best able to protect us and promote stability.” Nevertheless, he said Jews must even risk giving the impression “that we somehow prefer war” rather than join those who believe “peace is on the horizon.”
The human rights activist noted that the U.S. Jewish community similarly stood up to the White House 40 years ago in a historic move that helped secure freedom for Soviet Jews at the time.
In the early 1970s, Democratic Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington spearheaded an initiative to condition the removal of sanctions against the Soviet Union on the allowance of free emigration for its citizens, including Jews. By that time, tens of thousands of Soviet Jews had requested permission to leave for Israel, according to Sharansky. (Read more from “Sharansky Calls on US Jews to Stand up to White House Over Iran Nuclear Deal” HERE)
As Jews Mourn Destruction of Temples, Palestinian Authority Denies They Ever Existed
By David Daoud. As Jews around the world mourned the destruction of the ancient Jewish temples on Sunday with the observance of Tisha B’Av, Palestinian Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash told Israel’s NRG that an Israelite temple never stood atop the Temple Mount.
“The Al-Aqsa Mosque is located atop the Temple Mount, and not the Temple. Look for your Holy Temple in another place,” said Al-Habbash.
Al-Habbash also assailed Jewish visitors who visited the holy site on Sunday, saying that “there is no room for religious pluralism” on the Temple Mount.
Al-Habbash added that, “this is a holy site for Islam, and only for Islam. Al-Aqsa Mosque is a Muslim site, and we do not recognize [as legitimate] any of the stories about the Temple.”
In fact, the entire platform, known as the Temple Mount, atop which the Al-Aqsa Mosque now stands was built by Herod the Great and previously housed two Jewish Temples: the First Temple built by Solomon in 957 BCE, and the Second Temple built by the prophet Ezra in 538 BCE and improved by King Herod. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:39:542016-04-11 10:58:28Famed Soviet Dissident Sharansky: US Jews Must Stand up to White House Over Iran Nuclear Deal
Nearly 45 years after a burned parchment was discovered during excavations on the western shore of the Dead Sea, researchers have identified it as part of the book of Leviticus from a 1,500-year-old Torah scroll.
“The historic discovery before us is fascinating and important,” said Culture Minister Miri Regev, who was at the press conference on Monday in which the Antiquities Authority revealed the discovery. “It is instructive about the Jewish people’s deep connection to its country and homeland.”
According to Haaretz, the piece of parchment from the sixth century AD was found in the ashes of an ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, in 1970. However, the scroll was so badly charred, scientists were unable to decipher any part of it.
Recently, researchers used a new, microcomputed tomography machine to scan the parchment, and were shocked to discover the first eight verses of Leviticus, the third book of the Hebrew Bible, inscribed on it . . .
“This discovery absolutely astonished us; we were certain it was just a shot in the dark but decided to try and scan the burnt scroll anyway,” said Pnina Shor, curator and director of the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls project, according to phys.org. (Read more from “Scientists Discover Text of Leviticus on 1,500-Year-Old Parchment” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:39:262016-04-11 10:58:28“Absolutely Astonishing Discovery”: Scientists Decode Text of Leviticus on 1,500-Year-Old Parchment
The Danish government is to take out adverts in newspapers in targeted countries to tell would-be illegals to stay at home.
The move is going ahead despite rubbishing a similar plan only weeks ago by a rival political party.
Denmark’s ruling Venestre party called plans by the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkpartei, DF), the largest party in Danish politics, to create a video campaign targeted at potential illegal migrants abroad ‘un-Danish’. In the intervening days the case for taking more radical steps to limit migration to the nation has grown, and now the integration minister has announced the newspaper campaign.
Remarking that “There is something strange about the fact that a refugee would travel through several countries before ending up in Denmark”, fiery Inger Støjberg now seems to be making her job just as much about discouraging migration to Denmark as it is about integrating people after they have arrived. (Read more from “Denmark Will Take out Adverts in Foreign Newspapers Telling Refugees: ‘Don’t Come Here'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:39:102016-04-11 10:58:28Denmark Will Take out Adverts in Foreign Newspapers Telling Refugees: ‘Don’t Come Here’
Don’t get into a pissing match with walls in San Francisco.
The city’s Public Works agency is testing a pee-repellant paint on walls in areas that have been saturated with urine. Anyone urinating on the specially treated walls will get the spray splashed back onto them.
San Francisco’s director of public works, Mohammed Nuru – whose Twitter handle is @MrCleanSF – got the idea when he read on social media about the use of the paint in Hamburg, Germany’s nightclub district to stop beer drinkers from relieving themselves in the street.
The paint, called Ultra-Ever Dry, is sold by Ultratech International Inc and is billed as a superhydrophobic coating that will repel most liquids.
“The urine will bounce back on the guys pants and shoes. The idea is they will think twice next time about urinating in public,” said Rachel Gordon, a Public Works Department spokeswoman. She said the super-hard coating made the “bounce back” effect much stronger than when peeing on a regular wall. (Read more from “San Francisco Combats the Stench of Urine With Pee-Repellent Paint” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:39:012016-04-11 10:58:28San Francisco Combats the Stench of Urine With Pee-Repellent Paint
If the cops in Seattle want to dig through a city resident’s garbage to look for evidence of a crime, they have to go get a warrant first.
But garbage collectors in Seattle are not only allowed to dig through the trash without a judge’s consent, they’re actually required to do so.
Seattle is on the cutting edge of nanny state-ism with a new citywide ban on throwing any compostable material into the trash, no matter how gross, smelly or disgusting it might be. The city government is serious about this — so serious that they have deputized the trashmen as a sort of secret police who are being ordered to rat on residents’ trash habits to the nannies at Seattle Public Utilities.
If this sounds like an arrangement that violates a whole bunch of amendments to the U.S. Constitution (and the Washington State Constitution too, in the event you’re familiar with it), well, you’re not alone.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit law firm that loves challenging ridiculous government regulations like this one, filed a lawsuit Thursday asking a state judge to shut down the Seattle trash-snooping program. (Read more from “Seattle’s Nanny State Is “Deputizing Trashmen as Secret Police” to Snoop Through Wastebins” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-27 01:38:442016-04-11 10:58:29Seattle’s Nanny State Is “Deputizing Trashmen as Secret Police” to Snoop Through Wastebins
The multi-front cyberspace information war in which we recently have found ourselves just got a little more complicated.
A group which calls itself Cyber Caliphate, assumed to have ties to the terrorist group ISIS, may in fact be a creation of Russian hackers taking advantage of the havoc wrecked on social media and the Internet by ISIS propagandists.
The complex picture this presents adds to the challenges faced by the U.S. government as it seeks to adjust its counterterrorism communication and cybersecurity measures to deal with rising threats from abroad.
According to a new report, “Who Is Cyber Caliphate? Re-examining the Online ISIL Threat,” produced by the State Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security (DS), a major cyber attack on French television TV5Monde last April by Cyber Caliphate hackers took the station off the air for 20 hours and exposed employee email accounts . . .
French and American investigators tracking the electronic footprints of the hackers found they led to a Russian hacker group known as APT28, which usually hack in favor of the Russian government and directs its efforts at NATO. (Read more from “Why Are Russian Hackers Posing as ISIS Propagandists?” HERE)
By Conservative Refocus. Rumors have abounded for at least a generation over an out-of-control US government’s involvement with illegal drugs, along with far too many other things that most Americans haven’t even the slightest clue about.
In fact, many believe that wars have been started and ended over the government’s voracious appetite for money, via the illicit drugs that are a quick and easy way towards rounding up billions of dollars.
However, now, the US government’s alleged operation of an apparent meth lab, that exploded in a government building, has even Congress asking a lot of questions.
This particular story, surprisingly enough, comes to us from MSN, dutifully noting that whenever a liberal news vendor writes an unusually short article on a subject, especially one such as this, it’s not generally something they truly wish to be reporting:
“Police discovered signs of a meth lab in a government building on Saturday after an explosion injured a federal security officer and threw a blast shield 25 feet. The explosion occurred in a small lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where the Department of Commerce conducts experiments. (Read more from “US Government Now Under Investigation for Housing Illegal Meth Lab That Exploded” HERE)
Likely Meth Lab Explodes in Federal Building, Congress Demands Answers
By Alexandra Ossola. Yesterday, Congress requested more information about a July 18 explosion in one of the buildings operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology outside Washington, D.C. There’s reason for Congress to raise an eyebrow; based on evidence collected at the scene, investigators suspect that the room was being used to develop illegal methamphetamines.
The explosion occurred in NIST Building 236, far from the majority of the labs, so it didn’t damage any research endeavors. It happened in a room that had been emptied of equipment, as one experiment had recently ended and another was slated to begin. The blast occurred on a Saturday, so luckily few employees were around, but it did injure a security guard who was on duty. (He quit his job the day after the incident.)
So the question on everyone’s mind is: how was there a meth lab in a government building, and who was operating it? Paul Starks, a spokesman for the local Montgomery County police, would not comment on whether any chemicals or equipment used to make the drugs were found on the property. But NBC Washington reports that the security guard was found with burns on his arms and hands, igniting suspicion that he might have been involved in making the meth. (Read more from this story, “Federal Government Caught Cooking Meth?” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-25 03:56:282016-04-11 10:58:29US Government Caught Cooking Meth? Meth Lab in Federal Building Explodes in DC
Members of the GOP establishment floated a plan over the weekend to keep presidential candidate Donald Trump from the debate stage in Cleveland on August 6.
The New York Times reports that there is a lot of frustration with the billionaire candidate and his bombastic ways. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called Trump in early July to ask him to dial back his rhetoric regarding illegal immigrants, after he suggested the Mexican government was sending “rapists” and other criminals into the United States.
A new Quinnipiac Poll of swing states published this week finds Trump with the worst favorability ratings for any Democrat or Republican presidential candidate: 31 – 58 percent in Colorado, 32 – 57 percent in Iowa, and 32 – 61 percent in Virginia.
One idea that came up was to urge three leading candidates — Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor; Mr. Walker; and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — to band together and state that they would not participate in any debate in which Mr. Trump was present, using his refusal to rule out a third-party bid as a pretext for taking such a hard line. The thinking, according to a Republican involved in the conversations, was that the lesser-funded prospects who have been eclipsed by Mr. Trump would follow suit, and the TV networks airing the debates would be forced to bar Mr. Trump in order to have a full complement of candidates.
But none of the campaigns have shown any appetite for such solidarity, for reasons ranging from their strategic interests and not wanting to make Mr. Trump a martyr, to fear of making an enemy of Fox News, the preferred cable network of conservatives and the host of the first debate.
(Read more from “Exposed: This Plot Against Donald Trump Was Brewing in the Republican Party” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-07-25 03:54:552016-04-11 10:58:29Exposed: This Plot Against Donald Trump Was Brewing in the Republican Party
