FOOTBALL-SUICIDES-AND F****ED UP BRAINS

FOOTBALL-SUICIDES-AND F****ED UP BRAINS

It's a simple but tragic connection. Scramble someone's brains and it's more likely they will kill themselves and/or others.  But that won't deter the "fans" who's craving for blood far outweighs any common sense or concern for the players. Much like the Roman gladiators these football players are just collateral damage. The game must go on. 

Missing Ohio State football player found dead

Last week, Karageorge's parents told police that their son had complained about concussion symptoms before he disappeared.

In a copy of the missing persons report obtained by CNN, Susan Karageorge told police she received a text from her son about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday that said, "I am sorry if I am an embarrassment but these concussions have my head all f***ed up."

She added that her son has had several concussions and confusion "spells."

OPEN SEASON ON BLACK MALES;HOMICIDE BY COP

No Judge, no jury, no trial. Just a closed meeting with private citizens and a prosecutor to decide if  another unarmed black man  was legally murdered.



A grand jury on Monday declined to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager, resolving a secretive, months-long legal saga and reigniting powerful frustrations about America’s policing of African Americans.

The decision means that Wilson, 28, will face no state charges for the Aug. 9 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. It also set off a show of fury on streets near where Brown was shot, a reflection of emotions that register in this riven city as either out of control or justifiable.

Ferguson isn’t about black rage against cops. It’s white rage against progress.

BUYING SEX

One question. If it's true, why are women who claim to have been sexually assaulted accept money to remain silent?

Explosive New Cosby Allegation Explains How He Might Have Gotten Away with It

This weekend a former NBC employee, whose job was guarding Cosby's Brooklyn dressing room, told the explosive tale of how he was allegedly dispatched by the comedian to make pay-offs to wronged women to keep them silent.

RAPING AMERICA

War corrupts. Endless war corrupts absolutely.

The money should stagger you. Journalist James Risen, author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, a revelatory new book about the scammers, counterterrorism grifters, careerist bureaucrats, torture con artists, and on-the-make privatizers of our post-9/11 national security state, suggests that the best figure for money spent on Washington’s war on terror, including the Iraq and Afghan wars, is four trillion dollars


Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses — and until this book, it has worked very hard to cover them up.


So our four trillion dollar-plus investment gave rise to a crew of war profiteers that Risen dubs “the oligarchs of 9/11” and who are now wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

One of Largest Transfers of Public Wealth to Private Hands: Our Staggering War Economy

CRATE CHRISTIE

Pig farmers are dumb. No question about that. Torturing the very animals that provide their lively hood is a "no brainer" for them.



Chris Christie, on the other hand is one slick-savvy politician and knows exactly why it's immoral and wrong to torture living creatures; pigs included. In his case, selling his soul to the Devil to get the Iowa vote is all that stands between him and banning pig torture in his home state of New Jersey.



Maybe crating Chris for a few weeks would help him in making the right decision.

Chris Christie Faces Iowa Pressure On Pig Crate Ban

A DEN OF THIEVES Banking Culture Primes People to Cheat

This should come as no surprise given the history of criminal activity in the banking industry. The mantra from the film, "Wall Street" , "Greed is Good" fits like like a glove.

Banking Culture Primes People to Cheat

The reputation of the financial sector has taken a bashing in the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown, and after scandals involving the manipulation of interest rates, fraudulent deals and rogue traders losing billions of dollars. Now, a team of economists at the University of Zurich in Switzerland has found that when bankers think about their jobs, they are more likely to lie — evidence that banking culture encourages dishonest behaviour.

Aspects of a person’s life, such as their job or whether they have children, can affect how they behave. But when it comes to the ethics of finance, the key question is “whether the business culture actually renders bank employees more dishonest, or whether more-dishonest people simply choose to work in the banking industry”, says Michel Maréchal, who co-led the study. In a previous study, which is under review at a journal, Maréchal and colleagues found that prison inmates were more likely to cheat in a coin-tossing game when reminded of their criminal past. Psychologists call this effect ‘priming’.

AMERICA ON THE ROCKS; A PARTY CULTURE

Americans love to party. Hey! What's wrong with wanting to have a good time?



Nothing. At least if it doesn't include maiming children on football fields and raping girls on college campuses just to name a few of our national past times.



This latest revelation of the culture of silence and the "no big deal" attitude when women are "gang raped" is another example of how psychologically damaged this society is.

UVA asks police to investigate rape claims published in Rolling Stone

“Rapes are kept quiet, both by students – who brush off sexual assaults as regrettable but inevitable casualties of their cherished party culture – and by an administration that critics say is less concerned with protecting students than it is with protecting its own reputation"

NFL Concussion Settlement: How Much is a Brain Worth to the NFL? |

NFL Concussion Settlement: 

How Much is a Brain Worth to the NFL? |

FOOTBALLS BRAIN!

HITS KEEP COMING

Concussion settlement could exclude the likes of Hall of Famer Webster

BY NATHAN FENNO

   In the final years of Mike Webster’s life, the former Pittsburgh Steelers center shocked himself with a stun gun to sleep.

   Nicknamed “Iron Mike” for durability during 17 seasons in the NFL, Webster couldn’t hold down a job. He got lost on routine trips. The husband and father who loved John Wayne movies seemed to disintegrate into a haze of angry outbursts, depression and paranoia.

   After Webster died from a heart attack at age 50 in 2002, an autopsy revealed a crippling neurodegenerative disease thought to be linked to the thousands of hits to the head he sustained as a player.

   The diagnosis, the first for an NFL player, made Webster synonymous with football and brain injuries.

   So when thousands of retired players sued the NFL over concussions, Webster’s family was among the natural litigants. But under the preliminary settlement with the NFL announced in July, Webster’s estate would not get a penny.

   Webster’s son Garrett had expected the deal to bring closure and perhaps some peace.

   “I thought we could finally put things behind us, finally move on. Watch football. Have good feelings,” he said wearily. “Then it came crashing down.”

   The proposed settlement, which will be reviewed in a fairness hearing Wednesday, has been hailed by the co-lead counsel for the retired players, Christopher Seeger, as “extraor dinary,” while some players called it a “sellout.”

   The NFL could pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to some former players, and the hearing could be the last significant hurdle before the deal receives final approval.

   Attorneys — including the lawyer representing Webster’s family — will join NFL widows and retired players in a Philadelphia courtroom to argue for or against the deal or petition for amended terms. Many involved expect U.S. District Judge Anita Brody to allow the deal to proceed later this year.

   Only a small fraction of the NFL’s 20,000 retired players have pulled out of the settlement.

   The deal compensates retired players who suffer from a variety of neurocognitive disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. The maximum payout is $5 million; award amounts are tied to the player’s age at diagnosis and years in the NFL. The compensation could be reduced if he suffered a non-football traumatic brain injury or stroke.

   Players who died before 2006 aren’t eligible for payouts unless the local statute of limitations, which varies by state, permits a claim.

   That means the families of Terry Long and Justin Strzelczyk, former Steelers who died after Webster and were among the first players also diagnosed with the same brain disease, may not receive any money, either.

   Strzelczyk died in 2004 after smashing into a tanker truck while driving 90 mph in the wrong direction on a highway; Long drank antifreeze to kill himself in 2005.

   “They’re the reason players have some sense of what’s wrong with them today,” said Jason Luckasevic, the Pittsburgh attorney who represents about 500 retired players or their estates, including the families of the three former Steelers.

   “If not for Mike and Terry and Justin dying for them, guys would still be going around the country confused and bewildered,” he said, “and there wouldn’t be anything called the NFL concussion litigation.”

   In July 2011, Luckasevic and two other law firms filed the first concussion lawsuit against the NFL in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of 75 former players.

   Luckasevic said the case was supposed to be about the neurodegenerative disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. It was intended to be about the tangles of a protein called tau that Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered clogging Mike Webster’s brain.

   The original case spawned more than 300 similar lawsuits by scores of attorneys across the country. The cases were eventually consolidated in federal court in Philadelphia.

   Now, Luckasevic thinks that the proposed deal, which applies to all of the NFL’s former players who didn’t opt out, is about everything but CTE.

   “The settlement ignores the underpinnings of why the case was brought. ... Never again is it relevant if a guy dies from CTE,” Luckasevic said. “The guys who died for the peace of mind of everybody, they don’t even get paid.”

   This doesn’t make sense to Garrett Webster. He thinks the settlement eligibility date should be the day his father, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died.

   The cutoff resulted from negotiations to include as many players as possible whose claims otherwise would fall outside the statute of limitations, Seeger said.

   Data prepared for the NFL and the players project 5,900 retired players — about 3 in 10 — will develop serious cognitive problems over the deal’s 65-year life.

   But there is no compensation for anyone who dies after July 7 and receives a postmortem diagnosis of CTE. The disease is able to be conclusively diagnosed only after death.

   The claim that CTE isn’t compensated is a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the agreement, the NFL said in a court filing last week.

   Former Miami Dolphins defensive back Shawn Wooden sees such details as an inevitable result of compromise.

   “Is it 100% of everything we wanted or everything on our wish list? No. But it’s a settlement,” Wooden said. “There’s give and take on both sides. I believe we got the fair end of the stick.”

   One court filing described the deal as a labyrinth filled with deadlines and requirements that, if not met, make the retired player ineligible for a payout and strip them of the ability to sue the NFL over brain injuries. It’s a characterization that Seeger dismisses.

   A total of 201ex-players or their estates filed objections to the settlement, and 196 others opted out, including Pro Football Hall of Fame offensive lineman Joe DeLamielleure and the family of the late San Diego Chargers linebacker Junior Seau. They plan to sue the NFL separately.

   “Why would I give up when I know I’m right?” De-Lamielleure said.

   The families of the three ex-Steelers players aren’t giving up, either. After final approval of the settlement, they hope to show that the statute of limitations shouldn’t apply under the terms of the deal because of what their attorney believes is “massive fraud” by the NFL over the existence of CTE.

   “Why would they fight those three claims?” attorney Luckasevic said.

   An attorney representing the NFL in the case didn’t respond to requests for comment.

   Garrett Webster, 30, tries to be realistic. The deal isn’t fair, he believes, but litigation against a league with $9 billion in annual revenue could drag on for years with no certain outcome. Webster sees the league as too big, too powerful to be forced to offer more.

   But the sting from being left out lingers.

   “We’ve become used to being kicked to the ground emotionally,” Webster said.

   The money isn’t the motivation for Webster. He would trade any amount to spend one more day with his father.

   “This fight has consumed our entire lives as a family, and, frankly, it wasn’t worth it,” Webster said.

   “I would rather my dad have had some kind of peace, have had some kind of a good life rather than spend the last part of his life consumed by a crusade against the NFL.” nathan.fenno@latimes.com   Twitter: @nathanfenno

Sporting News via Getty Images

   MIKE WEBSTER, a Steelers standout, is seen in 1997, a few years before he died. He was found to have had a neurodegenerative disease.

   5,900

   Estimated number of players in the proposed NFL concussion settlement who will qualify for payouts during the deal’s 65 years.

   $675 million

   The maximum amount the NFL believes it may be required to pay to former players suffering from certain neurocognitive diseases.

   $5 million

   Estimated maximum individual payouts for players with ALS. Other maximum payouts range from $4 million to $1.5 million.

   52

   Players projected to get the maximum payout.

WIN MCNAMEE Getty Images

   “WE’VE BECOME used to being kicked to the ground emotionally,” says Garrett Webster, whose father died at 50. Garrett believes that the proposed concussion deal isn’t fair but that litigation against the NFL could drag on for years.

GEORGE GOJKOVICH Getty Images

   LINEMAN Mike Webster in 1988. A lawyer for his family will be among those at a Philadelphia courtroom in connection with the concussion settlement. Only a small fraction of the NFL’s 20,000 retired players have pulled out of the deal.

Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, November 18, 2014 - Olive Software

A MODEL FOR SOCIAL CAPITALISM

It's obvious that the "crony capitalism" practiced in the US is dimwitted as proven time and again with the never ending cycles of popping bubbles which consistently bankrupts the many and benefits the few.



The smarter and much healthier way to manage an economy is the model applied by the more advanced and civilized Nordic countries from which the US could benefit by adopting it.



Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has this to say about the economies of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland.

Each of those nations has a competitive free market economy augmented by a robust social welfare system. These programs ensure that "everybody, irrespective of their income and class, gets the same right to education, to healthcare, and to equal treatment in an economic way." In countries like the United States, social welfare and economic progress are sometimes seen as opposing goals.
"This coexistence of a social welfare society, with a right to education and healthcare equally distributed throughout society, is one of the pillars of our economic and business success. So you cannot find any business organization in any of the Nordic countries, which is advocating that we should decrease this social welfare system. On the contrary, the prominent business leaders of our countries realize that the evolution of this social welfare system in terms of education and healthcare is one of the major reasons why the Nordic businesses have been globally so successful and why our market economies have grown so aggressively."

Grímsson tells how an established system dedicated to caring for the sick and educating every child allows the business community to focus on what they do best -- business.

"The Nordic formula, not just the Icelandic one, but also from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, has created what The Economist, the preeminent weekly economic newspaper in the world, deemed a few months ago perhaps the most successful economic model in the last few decades."
Finally, Grímsson notes that his American friends who decry the Nordic system and employ words like "socialist" as pejorative terms are completely missing the point. All you have to do is look at Iceland's economic record, as well as the economies of the other Nordic states, to realize that the rewards of this particular social framework transcend all outdated and myopic biases.

"The evidence is absolutely clear that to provide everybody with a right to education and healthcare is a formula for economic and business success."


President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson: Social Welfare Benefits the Free Market | Big Think

WHAT ABOUT THE BANKERS?

Banks are just brick and mortar institutions created on paper by a group of persons unknown. Yet, when it comes to wrong doing these entities, and not the people who created them are held responsible for the crimes their creators commit.  

Some of the world’s biggest banks have agreed to pay out $4.3 billion to settle an investigation into their alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates. Barclays, the first to settle in the Libor case, is still hoping to strike a deal.

The banks are accused of tampering with currency interbank rates on the largely unregulated $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. Bankers worked together and sent secret signals to manipulate the important currency benchmarks to boost bank profits.

READ MORE: Swiss watchdog probes 8 banks over currency rate manipulations

"The setting of a benchmark rate is not simply another opportunity for banks to earn a profit. Countless individuals and companies around the world rely on these rates to settle financial contracts, and this reliance is premised on faith in the fundamental integrity of these benchmarks," Aitan Goelman, Director of Enforcement at CFTC, said in a press release on

UBS, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, and Bank of America all reached settlements, but Barclays, the UK’s biggest bank, is reportedly in talks with individual regulators.

Citigroup agreed to pay $1.02 billion to three regulators in the US and UK, and JPMorgan will pay out nearly $1 billion to settle the matter.

Switzerland’s UBS was given a fine of $800 million, Royal Bank of Scotland was fined $634 million, and HBSC $618 million. Bank of America will have to pay $250 million.


Banks fined record $4.3 bn for corrupting integrity of currency trading

WHAT ABOUT THE BANKERS?

Banks are just brick and mortar institutions created on paper by a group of persons unknown. Yet, when it comes to wrong doing these entities, and not the people who created them are held responsible for the crimes their creators commit.  

Some of the world’s biggest banks have agreed to pay out $4.3 billion to settle an investigation into their alleged rigging of foreign exchange rates. Barclays, the first to settle in the Libor case, is still hoping to strike a deal.

The banks are accused of tampering with currency interbank rates on the largely unregulated $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. Bankers worked together and sent secret signals to manipulate the important currency benchmarks to boost bank profits.

READ MORE: Swiss watchdog probes 8 banks over currency rate manipulations

"The setting of a benchmark rate is not simply another opportunity for banks to earn a profit. Countless individuals and companies around the world rely on these rates to settle financial contracts, and this reliance is premised on faith in the fundamental integrity of these benchmarks," Aitan Goelman, Director of Enforcement at CFTC, said in a press release on

UBS, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, and Bank of America all reached settlements, but Barclays, the UK’s biggest bank, is reportedly in talks with individual regulators.

Citigroup agreed to pay $1.02 billion to three regulators in the US and UK, and JPMorgan will pay out nearly $1 billion to settle the matter.

Switzerland’s UBS was given a fine of $800 million, Royal Bank of Scotland was fined $634 million, and HBSC $618 million. Bank of America will have to pay $250 million.


Banks fined record $4.3 bn for corrupting integrity of currency trading

AMERICANS DON'T VOTE DEMOCRACY LOSES

The midterm elections on Tuesday generated a lot of buzz, but they did not draw a lot of voters.

According to estimates by the United States Election Project, turnout by eligible voters nationally was about 37 percent, the lowest level for a midterm since 1942.

Actual election turnout far lower than reported | Al Jazeera America

An estimated 37% of eligible voters cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm elections, which would be the lowest since 1942 if the projection holds.

Michael McDonald, an associate professor at the University of Florida, estimated the turnout rate based on Associated Press tallies of votes reported so far and posted state-by-state data on his United States Election Project website.

He cautions that the turnout rate is a preliminary projection that could be revised based on the outstanding ballots cast on Election Day still to be counted, along with provisional ballots and those still coming in by mail.

The turnout rate was 34% in 1942 because Americans were off fighting in World War II, McDonald said.

DEMOCANS AND REPUBLICRATS

Giroux clearly points out the problem with capitalism as practiced in America.

The only major difference between these parties is that the Republicans wage naked class warfare without any apologies or political concessions while the Democrats offer a few painkillers to soften the blow. In some cases, Democratic leaders such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama outdid their Republican counterparts in consolidating class power, while imposing enormous hardships and misery on the poor and middle class.

Henry A. Giroux | Capitalism Is a Tumor on the Body Politic: What's the Alternative? Beyond Mid-Election Babble

A ROYAL WASTE OF SPACE

This is about 3 people; an 88 year old woman, her 93 year old husband and their 65 year old son, all living off the government dole to the tune of around  $130 million annually. Their son has not worked a day in his life and will remain unemployed until the time comes to fill his mothers shoes; though that is now doubtful since the show might be better served his son for whom they are creating a story book fairy tale to play out.

They are housed in museum-like structure that consists of total area is 828,821 square feet (77,000 sq m) and stands 78 feet (24 m) high; This 775 room home has 78 bathrooms. Two hundred and forty of the rooms are bedrooms (52 for family members and guests, and 188 for live-in staff). The home contains 760 windows and 1,514 doors, and includes a chapel, cinema, swimming pool, and even its own post office.
Is there any rational reason to continue supporting what is obviously an absurdity with no socially redeeming value?

 Monarchy costs taxpayer £900,000 more - Telegraph