Monday, November 3, 2008

Gardasil.... again

From the Vaccine Awakening Blog... click on the link at the right to view the entir blog.

"by Barbara Loe Fisher
This week the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in association with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued a report on Gardasil vaccine safety that amounts to a cover-up of serious reactions, including paralysis and deaths, that have been reported to the government's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS).Today (October 24, 2008), the National Vaccine Information Center issued a press release that calls on the CDC and FDA to release to the public the study design, data and names of principal investigators involved in the report maintaining that Gardasil vaccine is safe with no serious side effects. NVIC will also be calling on the newly elected President and members of Congress to remove the nation's vaccine safety monitoring system from DHHS and place it in a separate entity reporting directly to Congress."

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Pink, pink and more friggen pink

October is was again upon us and so is the color pink. I beg of you... before you get sucked into the hype check out this link... Think Before You Pink

You can also click on the labels at the bottom of this post to read more on the Pink subject.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Hanna




This weekend we were in Ocean City, Maryland and I thought of a t-shirt I once saw. "A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work". Well, this weekend my t-shirt should have said, "A tropical storm at the beach is better than a sunny day at home". I'm sure this surfer would agree with me.

















As dumb as this sounds, I've always wanted to be at the beach for a hurricane. Not a category 4 storm or anything like that, I don't want to see people hurt or lose their homes, I just wanted to see big waves for a change. We have very calm shores around here. Well Hanna downgraded to a tropical storm and gave me some big waves without the destruction. We spent Fridat night and the daytime hours on Saturday watching surfers and news vans. Eventually on Saturday it just got too nasty so we spent the rest of that day in the hotel.









It was great to be on vacation... even with a storm!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Top Dog.... think before you bark

Ah yes, the Reading School District strikes again. What a bunch of putzes up in that Castle on the Hill... the administrators that is. Yesterday my son was in study hall and apparently these are no longer held in a regular classroom. I think they're now held in the auditorium or something like that... and let's just say it's a few more students than a regular class size. Of course there was very little studying going on, and now that I think about it I'm not sure what the supervision is exactly... anyway, in walks a top dog from the royal office and tells everyone to quiet down. He then asks how many of the students are proficient in Math. According to my son only about six kids raised their hands. So top dog thought he was so witty when he told them they should all have their Math books open.

Funny thing, they went back to school last Tuesday. They had school Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week and then off Friday and Monday and went back yesterday. So that would make yesterday the fourth day of school... and my son still doesn't have a Math teacher! Yep, you read that right. Apparently they don't have a teacher and will have multiple substitutes for the entire year, so Top Dog, how would you suggest he get a Math book? Last year they didn't have enough books so my son didn't have a Science book that could leave the classroom. WTF?

So, Mr. Top Dog... how about you fill in... since you're so brilliant. Good luck with those PSSA's.... hey what's that smell.... oh yeah, that's the smell of you sweating when the state steps in and starts asking what exactly it is that makes you qualified to remain in your present job.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Microsoft Part 2

These pricks are really pissing me off. We were hacked Monday August 25th and it took until Sunday August 31st to get all of the $250 back into my account. The refund was done in two transactions on two separate days. On the 25th they told me I would get a call back on the 31st at 9am, apparently their billing supervisory department has quite the backlog of problems to deal with. It is now 9pm on September 1st and I still haven't gotten my call. I called them last night and asked why I hadn't gotten my call yet and the guy said it was scheduled for the 31st, to which I replied, that's today and it was supposed to be at 9am. After some checking he then said I was on the list for the 1st. Hmmm.... and still no call.

They owe me two months of my son's subscription that we already paid $20 for. Apparently only a billing supervisor is able to give the code to transfer this over to a new account. Are they friggen kidding???? They were able to return my $250 without the call but the two month remainder of a $20 for 3 month subscription needs a phone call for a code?????

I again gave the person a piece of my mind... which apparently is the same as me telling them to bump me to the bottom of the call list.... again.

So here's my advice to you Microsoft...

Make a product that works correctly and is SECURE and don't release it until these two things are complete.

Care about your customers and don't treat them like you're doing them a favor by taking their hard-earned money and giving them half-assed crap in return.

When you master these two suggestions you could cut your tech and billing support departments to a fraction of what you currently need and then you could bring those jobs back to the U.S. where they belong. I'm tired of dealing with your condescending, incapable, unknowledgable people who could care less about the people being victimized by hackers, or about Americans in general.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

A clip from the Vaccine Awakening Blog:

"The publicizing of 131 cases of measles out of a population of 300 million people in the U.S. and blaming the "outbreak" on 63 cases that occurred in unvaccinated children, whose parents hold religious or conscientious objections to vaccination or homeschool, is a transparent attempt by federal employees to persecute fellow citizens holding religious beliefs, moral convictions, intellectual positions and wellness lifestyles different from their own. Adopting a strategy that "the best defense is a good offense," CDC officials are whipping up fear of those who do not vaccinate in order to cover up a three decade refusal to scientifically investigate reports of children regressing into autism and other kinds of chronic illness after administration of MMR and other vaccines. They know the truth about vaccine risks is becoming more widely known and are lobbying hard for removal vaccine exemptions they do not control so all Americans will be forced without exception to get every vaccine marketed by industry and mandated by government officials...

There is a 92 to 100 percent uptake of MMR vaccine and many other federally recommended childhood vaccines among children entering kindergarten in every state. This is one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, especially in such a large population. If the MMR vaccine is so unreliable that a few hundred cases or even a few thousand cases of measles among 300 million people is a cause for panic, then the benefits of MMR vaccine weighed against its risks are far less than industry, government and medical organizations have admitted.

In the 1960's, when the live virus measles vaccine was licensed, parents were told it would give their babies the same lifelong immunity that having the natural disease confers. By the late 1980's, it was clear that was not true because measles was occurring in both vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Government officials eventually recommended another dose of measles vaccine (usually given as MMR) for all children even though there were outstanding questions about the multiplication of different genetic strains of measles and how this may affect the vaccine's ability to prevent measles on an individual and population basis long term.

Today's young mothers do not have qualitatively superior measles antibodies to transfer to their newborns to protect them in the first year of life as past generations of mothers did because most young mothers giving birth today have been vaccinated and never had measles as children, which confers lifelong immunity. So babies born today are vulnerable to measles from birth instead of from ages 15 months to six years, which is when most children in the past experienced measles by age six and severe complications were rare. For several decades, vaccinologists have been attempting to create a "high titer" EZ measles vaccine that can be given to infants under one year that will override any existing natural maternal antibodies and replace them with vaccine induced antibodies but there have been long-standing questions about EZ measles vaccine safety."

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Microsoft XBox Live accounts are easily HACKED!

Just a warning.... if you use a credit card or a card tied to your checking account to pay for an XBox Live subscription, BEWARE!!!!

Last night (August 25th, 2008) my son's XBox Live account was hacked; through no doing of his own. He wasn't dumb enough to fall for a trick or click on a strange website link. He was playing a game and a message from someone on his friend list popped up and he accepted the message. He was immediately kicked off of XBox. He tried to get back on right away and already the hacker had changed the gamer tag so my son couldn't do a thing, he had no access! Within minutes the hacker made 4 purchases of XBox points or whatever those things are called. Four purchases of $62.50 each, for a total of $250.00 which immediately showed up on my checking accout activity on my bank's website.

We called Microsoft right away... three different people (who I could barely understand) told me how sorry they were for my inconvienience .... they even acknowledged seeing the activity on his account and acknowledged that his account was hacked.... after 51 minutes on the phone I was told that a "REQUEST" would be sent to the appropriate department to get my money back.I was then told it may take one week, maybe two, maybe a full billing cycle! They actually told me that someone will call me on August 31st at 9am to discuss a resolution!

So now my son has no XBox Live account, despite that we paid for three months only one month ago, and my checking account will be overdrawn because of the length of time it takes them to correct a fradulent charge which never would have happened if their games and website were secure.

The worst part of this story is that this scam travels through friend lists, much like the old AOL Buddy List viruses did. One of my son's friends was also hacked at the same time... but he got his account restored and his credit card was immediately credited for the money stolen. I'm guessing they're dragging their feet on mine because I voiced my dissatisfaction with the security of their system. They tried to tell me their system is secure, so I asked them why someone I've never met was able to charge something to my card without my authorization. They had no answer for that one.

Microsoft's Customer Service is in some other part of the world where they fail to respect our laws regarding fradulent credit card charges and fail to respect our right to have our financial information protected.

Microsoft of all companies could very well remedy these flaws if they wanted to... they're rich and we're not so why would they care?!

Pass this on to everyone you know and spread the word that MICROSOFT does not care about their customers or their country!