Kidney theft: not just an urban legend, it actually happens

clipped from www.newsweek.com Mohammad Salim Khan, 33, was squatting on a corner where unemployed day laborers congregate, looking for work, in the Uttar Pradesh town of Meerut, when a bearded man offered him a three-month job in Delhi that would pay about $3 a day When he woke up hours later, he had a horrible pain in his abdomen, and a man in a surgical mask was leaning over him. "Your kidney has been removed," the man said. "Don't tell anyone after you leave here. Not your friends or family or relatives or anyone. If you say anything, one of our guys will find you and shoot you." It sounds like a sci-fi movie or an urban legend. But Indian police, who broke into the house where Khan was being held not long after his surgery, say that organized gangs who steal, or buy, kidneys and other organs for illegal transplant operations are an all-too-common reality here, where some 320 million people survive on less than $1 a day. Mohammed Salim Khan, 33, recovering from the theft of his kidney in Gurgaon, India

Reagan $50 Bill?

clipped from www.cnn.com The $50 question: Grant or Reagan? Should Ulysses S. Grant, the legendary Union general and 18th president of the United States, be bumped from his 96-year stint on the $50 bill? Yes, according to one North Carolina Republican. Rep. Patrick McHenry announced that he will introduce a measure that would replace Grant's face with Ronald Reagan's, just in time for the 40th president's 100th birthday next February. McHenry says it's only logical for Reagan to replace Grant on the $50 bill because several historians have ranked Reagan as a much better president than Grant. McHenry specifically cites a 2005 Wall Street Journal survey of scholars who placed Reagan at No. 6 and Grant at No. 29. But not so fast, says Dr. John Marszalek, the executive director and managing editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Association. Calling him a "beacon" of the 19th century, Marszalek said Grant deserves to keep his prominent spot on America's currency.

Grow Your Own Teeth Replacements

clipped from www.neatorama.com Grow Your Own Replacement Teeth clipped from www.neatorama.com A group of British scientists suggest that you will soon be able to replace missing teeth by growing replacements. The procedure is fairly simple. Doctors take stem cells from the patient. These are unique in their ability to form any of the tissues that make up the body. By carefully nurturing the stem cells in a laboratory, scientists can nudge the cells down a path that will make them grow into a tooth. After a couple of weeks, the ball of cells, known as a bud, is ready to be implanted. Tests reveal what type of tooth – for example, a molar or an incisor – the bud will form. The procedure holds great promise in the U.K., where “the average Briton over 50 has lost 12 teeth from a set of 32.”

Big bank moves jobs to India

JP Morgan, which bought Bear Stearns and WaMu.

clipped from crooksandliars.com J.P. Morgan To Up India IT Outsourcing By 25% Remember a couple of decades ago, when they told us if we all re-trained for IT jobs, we'd always have jobs? [insert ironic laugh here...] And just to add insult to injury, exactly how much of our bailout money are they using to make our jobs go away? BANGALORE: The second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, which acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns recently, will increase its outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million. It will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems.

What Does One Trillion Dollars Look Like?

A reminder of what's going on. Cubic cash rules, until it won't buy a loaf of bread at least.

clipped from www.pagetutor.com We'll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2" thick and contains $10,000 this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000) $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet... And $1 BILLION dollars... now we're really getting somewhere... Next we'll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we've been hearing about so much. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it's a million million. It's a thousand billion. It's a one followed by 12 zeros. (And notice those pallets are double stacked.) So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase "trillion dollars"... that's what they're talking about.

Levi Johnson Resigns - Didn't meet qualifications

Those damn pesky rules.

clipped from thinkprogress.org The Anchorage Daily News reports that Levi Johnston, boyfriend of Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, has quit his oil field job over questions about his eligibility to work in an electrical apprenticeship program. On Sunday, Dan Fagan – an Anchorage radio talk show host – questioned how Johnston was eligible to take part in the apprenticeship program without a high school diploma. Fagan wrote: The governor, in trying to dispel rumors the father of her grandchild is a high school dropout, released this statement this past week, “Levi is continuing his online high school work in addition to working as an electrical apprentice on the North Slope.” But federal regulations require all members of apprentice programs, union or otherwise, to first obtain a high school diploma, something the governor’s soon-to-be son-in- law does not have. Johnston resigned his apprenticeship position on Monday in an effort to “calm the waters,” his father said.

Sen. Patrick Lehy Comments On Homeland Security Checkpoints

clipped from leahy.senate.gov I’m worried only because we don’t have the adequate number of people on the border. We sometimes have hours, hours wait, just for tourist to go across the border. And of course it will get worse once it starts to require more paperwork. Many of the lanes aren’t open, we are short of people there. But somehow we can put symbolic checkpoints 100 miles from the border. It’s interesting - I went through one of those symbolic checkpoints in the state of New York driving back here. It was about 125 miles from the border. In a car with license plate one on it from Vermont. With little letters underneath it that said US Senate. We were stopped and ordered to get out of the car and prove my citizenship. And I said “what authority are you acting under?” and one of your agents pointed to his gun and said “that’s all the authority I need.” Encouraging way to enter our country.