Modern credit card agreements: 29 pages of “tricks and traps”

Elizabeth Warren, the TARP Oversight Chair was on the Rachel Maddow's show discussing the aggressive anti-consumer practices of credit card companies, and warning that the credit card industry is about to try to kill federal efforts to regulate the industry. She reminds us that in 1980 a credit card agreement was only about a page long. Now credit card agreements are 30 pages long, full of "tricks and traps."

MADDOW: Are you worried that the [credit card] industry's going to be about to kill [credit card reform legislation] in the crib? Reporting is that it's their top priority to get rid of it. WARREN: My gosh! I have to tell you, it's like they're stampeding in the halls already in Washington. the Gucci loafers. These guys have built up a huge war chest, they've been interviewing public relations firms to see who can come up with the next Harry And Louise ad to explain to the American people why they're better off with credit cards that nobody can read, hundreds of pages of mortgage documents that nobody can read...the idea is you're better off with how things are...forget all that stuff the happened over the last few years. And we promise to keep things up just like we did before. I just can't believe they're trying to sell that to the American people.
You can read much more on this topic at Jason Linkins' post at Huffpo's new Lobby Blog.

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Sex in heaven – Part II

A co-worker raised a thorny issue today. Assume that there is actually a heaven and that if you are good, you get to go there after you die. Assume, further, that your spouse dies first, and you thus get to be re-united with your spouse in heaven. Now that would be one hell of a joyous reunion, right? You both actually died and now you find each other up there! But not so fast . . . What happens to widows and widowers who have remarried? If all of the relevant parties were good, we're going to have this uncomfortable situation: Joe goes to heaven and he sees his first wife Edna asking him to join her on the cloud on the left, while Betty, his second wife, is asking him to join her on the cloud on the right. What should he do? I thought that the whole reason that you could re-married is because your first spouse was dead. But that tidy earthly situation would unravel in heaven. It could get really complicated in heaven if there were sex in heaven, but there apparently isn't. I once heard a Christian radio-show preacher having an extended conversation with an earnest caller about this exact topic (I wrote about this conversation in 2006--it was one of the first posts at DI). The radio-preacher assured that man that there was no such thing as sex in heaven, but don't worry, because the joys of heaven would be "better than sex." The caller was upset. He insisted that he wanted to have sex in heaven--even if there was also something "better than sex." If body-less people still have emotions and passions, I would expect considerable turmoil in heaven. Even couples who had been happily married for 50 years might have their patience tested after sitting together on the same cloud for several million years. What if she decides that she wants to go visit some other guy on some other cloud, legitimately claiming: "I know that it's utterly perfect up here in heaven, but we've already discussed everything that we could possibly discuss. I know everything about you; you know everything about me. I'm tired of having that thing that's better than sex, even though we have it 3 times per week, which is more than most couples in heaven." Is there marriage counseling in heaven? A heavenly divorce court? What about popcorn? Just because you don't have a traditional human body up there, wouldn't you still crave popcorn? Consider this case of dead Mary, who now lives in heaven:

Mary [speaking to her dead doctor, who works as a physician in heaven): "I crave popcorn" Mary's doctor: "You have phantom taste buds syndrome. You just think you crave popcorn. You don't really crave it, and that's a good thing, because popcorn would fall right through your ethereal hands. But don't worry. We have things that are better than popcorn up here.
Assume, too, that the guy who wanted sex in heaven finally dies and makes it to heaven. After a few restless nights, though, he complains to the heaven doctor: "I'm horny." Heaven doctor: "No, you only think you are horny. You have phantom penis syndrome. I'll end with a quote by George Bernard Shaw:

Heaven: a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seaside.

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Planning one’s death at the end of a long illustrious life

Conductor Edward Downes and his wife Joan decided to end their lives on their own terms:

He spent his life conducting world-renowned orchestras, but was almost blind and growing deaf – the music he loved increasingly out of reach. His wife of 54 years had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. So Edward and Joan Downes decided to die together.

Downes – Sir Edward since he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 – and his wife ended their lives last week at a Zurich clinic run by the assisted suicide group Dignitas. They drank a small amount of clear liquid and died hand-in-hand, their two adult children by their side. He was 85 and she was 74.

Many people feel that suicide necessarily cheapens one's life. In many cases, I don't agree. I do think that the choice of when and how to die belongs to each person individually, as long as the decision was not made impulsively or under the influence. If the day comes when I decide that I can't bear the pain, or that I no longer find joy in my life, I would hope that I wouldn't need to travel all the way to Switzerland because inter-meddlers think they know better than me about the meaning of my own life.

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How to build a raft and save the Queen when you have a tiny brain

What if the waters are rising and you've got to save the Queen, but you and your buddies have no cell phones, you don't have anything resembling human spoken language, and your brain is really tiny? How tiny? Less than 300,000 neurons (for comparison, a mouse's brain is 50 times bigger--it has 16 million neurons). So how do you save the Queen with your incredibly tiny brain? You work elegantly as a collective, like the ants you are. Check out this incredible footage. I felt chills when I saw the workers helping their Amazonian Queen off the raft near the end. Un-be-liev-able, except you can see it with your own eyes.

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Healthcare executive: Michael Moore’s Sicko was accurate

Wendell Potter, a former healthcare executive told Bill Moyers that Michael Moore's "Sicko" was on target. Potter agrees with Moore that there is a significant role for government in healthcare and that government systems such as Canada and Great Britain are successful, contrary to the vicious and dishonest spin by the American healthcare industry. Note: For 20 years, Potter was head of corporate communications for one of the country's largest insurers, CIGNA.

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