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George Zimmerman Moves On From Painting To Charitable Celebrity Boxing
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“It was my idea,” the man acquitted in the killing of teenager Trayvon Martin told Radar Online in an interview published Thursday. “Prior to the incident I was actually going to the gym for weight loss and doing boxing-type training for weight loss and a mutual friend put me in contact with Damon (Feldman, a celebrity boxing promoter) and provided me with an opportunity and motivation to get back in shape and continue with my weight loss goals and also be able to help a charity out.”
Zimmerman didn't confirm or deny to Radar whether he would be taking a cut of the proceeds from the match. He also declined to say exactly where the proceeds would be donated, beyond that is was an animal rescue.
“I’d love to tell you [the charity] but unfortunately there’s so much animosity still from people out there, that if I name the charity now they would get bombarded with negativity, so I’d rather not," he said.
The match will air on March 1 online and on Pay Per View, according to Feldman, the boxing promoter. He told Radar he has yet to find a challenger for Zimmerman, although Zimmerman suggested he'd prefer to fight "Papa Smurf, the Easter Bunny and maybe the Michelin Man."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/george_zimmerman_celebrity_boxing
Twenty U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries
Twenty U.S. Kids Hospitalized Each Day for Gun Injuries: Study
Nearly a third of these shootings are accidental, study finds
MONDAY, Jan. 27, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Gunshot wounds send about 20 children to the hospital every single day in the United States, a new study says.
A review of hospital records found that firearms caused 7,391 hospitalizations among children younger than 20 during 2009, the most recent year for which records are available, said Dr. John Leventhal, lead study author.
Of those shooting victims, 453 died while in the hospital.
More than half of the gun injuries involved an attack on the child, but nearly one-third were unintentional, the investigators found. (Others were of undetermined causes or from suicide attempts.) Three of four hospitalizations of children younger than 10 resulted from accidental injuries.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_144250.html
Jamie Dimon's Raise Proves U.S. Regulatory Strategy is a Joke - By MATT TAIBBI
If you make a big show of punishing someone, and when you're done they still don't think they have a behavior problem, you probably picked the wrong punishment. Every parent on earth knows this implicitly – but does the Obama White House finally get it, too, now, after Jamie Dimon's raise?
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Chase's responses to Holder's record penalties have been hilarious. Their first move was to make sure people outside the penthouse boardroom took on all the pain, laying off 7,500 employees and freezing salaries for the non-CEO class of line employees.
Next, Chase's board members sat down, put their misshapen heads together, considered the impact of this disastrous year of settlements, and decided to respond by more than doubling the take-home pay of the executive in charge, giving Dimon about $20 million in salary and equity.
In the end, the fines left the decision-making class of the company not just uninjured but triumphant. Dimon's raise was symbolic of a company-wide boost in compensation following the mass layoffs, as average per-employee expenses rose four percent overall, to $122,653, despite the $20 billion burden imposed upon the firm by the state.
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Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/jamie-dimons-raise-proves-u-s-regulatory-strategy-is-a-joke-20140130#ixzz2rz1eXpUd
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Members of Congress are tired of allowing us to know just how much they receive in farm subsidies
Lawmakers won’t have to disclose the farm subsidies they receive:
A provision requiring members of Congress and the administration to disclose what crop insurance subsidies they receive was quietly dropped from the farm bill that the House passed on Wednesday.
Section 11001 of the House-passed farm bill had a provision that “requires disclosure (by name) of the amount of crop insurance assistance received by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, and members of their immediate families.”
That provision was taken out in closed-door conference negotiations before the bill was released on Monday. The bill cleared the House in less than 72 hours, before many lawmakers had a chance to review it, and now heads to the Senate.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/provision-requiring-lawmakers-disclose
NJ Republicans want to use leftover campaign funds for GWB defense
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie's re-election campaign has asked permission to use leftover campaign funds to pay the legal bills surrounding the investigation into the politically motivated decision to close lanes from the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee.
Mark Sheridan, counsel to the Republican State Committee and the Christie for Governor campaign, confirmed he sent a letter requesting "an advisory opinion from the Election Law Enforcement Commission as part of its efforts to comply with the subpoenas and New Jersey election law."
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http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/01/chris_christie_asks_elec_whether_it_can_use_campaign_money_amid_scandals.html
Indigenous Group Fighting Tar Sands Gets Boost From Neil Young
Video & more:
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11392
Scientific American: End the Ban on Psychoactive Drug Research
End the Ban on Psychoactive Drug Research
It's time to let scientists study whether LSD, marijuana and ecstasy can ease psychiatric disorders
Feb 1, 2014 |By The Editors
A few privately funded studies of these compounds have yielded tantalizing hints that some of these ideas merit consideration. Yet doing this research through standard channels, as psychopharmacologist David J. Nutt of Imperial College London and his co-authors noted in a recent article in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, requires traversing a daunting bureaucratic labyrinth that can dissuade even the most committed investigator. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) It can take years to receive approval for a clinical trial from both regulators and hospital ethics committees, even while tallying thousands of dollars in licensing fees and tens of thousands to obtain drugs that are, of course, unavailable from a chemical supply catalogue.
The endless obstructions have resulted in an almost complete halt in research on Schedule I drugs. This is a shame. The U.S. government should move these drugs to the less strict Schedule II classification. Such a move would not lead to decriminalization of these potentially dangerous drugs—Schedule II also includes cocaine, opium and methamphetamine, after all—but it would make it much easier for clinical researchers to study their effects.
If some of the obstacles to research can be overcome, it may be possible to finally detach research on psychoactive chemicals from the hyperbolic rhetoric that is a legacy of the war on drugs. Only then will it be possible to judge whether LSD, ecstasy, marijuana and other highly regulated compounds—subjected to the gauntlet of clinical testing for safety and efficacy—can actually yield effective new treatments for devastating psychiatric illnesses.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/end-the-ban-on-psychoactive-drug-research/?page=2
Giuliani Jumps Ship --- Says 'Fifty-Fifty' Chance Christie Knew About Bridge Lane Closure
Giuliani Says 'Fifty-Fifty' Chance Christie Knew About Bridge Lane Closure
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday there is a "fifty-fifty" chance New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) knew about an order to close lanes on the George Washington Bridge in September.
The assessment marked a big change for Giuliani, who has been a vocal defender of the governor in the wake of the bridge scandal and hosted a fundraiser for him last year before the scandal broke.
Emails that surfaced earlier this month showed one of the governor's top aides, Bridget Ann Kelly, was involved in discussions about the closures, which led to days of gridlock in Fort Lee, N.J.
"It's fifty-fifty, it leaves you with no possible way of knowing did she discuss it with him or didn't she discuss it with him," Giuliani said, in a radio interview with Geraldo Rivera that was reported by Capital New York.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/giuliani-fifty-fifty-closures
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