Barack Obama faces 30 death threats a day, stretching US Secret Service

US President Barack Obama is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day and is being protected by an increasingly over-stretched and under-resourced Secret Service, according to a new book.

Since Mr Obama took office, the rate of threats against the president has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service.

Some threats to Mr Obama, whose Secret Service codename is Renegade, have been publicised, including an alleged plot by white supremacists in Tennessee late last year to rob a gun store, shoot 88 black people, decapitate another 14 and then assassinate the first black president in American history.

Most however, are kept under wraps because the Secret Service fears that revealing details of them would only increase the number of copycat attempts. Although most threats are not credible, each one has to be investigated meticulously.

Full Telegraph.co.uk Article

Posted in Interesting, Political | 1 Comment

Insurance Won’t Pay NorCal Mom’s Cancer Treatment

Will your insurance company pay for the treatment your doctors recommend? They may not. That’s what a single mother from Chico said she found out.

In late April, Shelly Andrews-Buta was scheduled to undergo treatment for breast cancer that had spread to her brain, threatening her life.

The experience has been emotionally devastating. “I have two beautiful children, you know, I’m a single mom, they need me to be around,” Andrews-Buta told CBS 5 Investigates.

But instead of having doctors working to remove her brain tumors on the day the surgery was scheduled, she sat in a San Francisco hotel room. Why? Because at the last minute, her insurance company, Blue Shield, decided it wasn’t going to pay for the treatment her doctors at UCSF Medical Center had recommended.

Full Article

Posted in Interesting | 4 Comments

Ticked-Off Tuesday

What is something that is currently ticking you off?

I’ll start . . . it ticks me off when I see perfectly healthy people take the elevator down one floor.

Posted in Goofy | 10 Comments

When ‘Internet Addiction’ Turns Deadly

So-called “Internet addiction” among Chinese youths has led to a proliferation of clinics around the country that claim to be able to treat the recently defined disorder.

On Monday, police in the south China city of Nanning said that a 16-year-old boy died in at a boot camp for Internet addicts after being beaten by supervisors, according to the Global Times, in what would be the first reported case of a death at a treatment facility for Internet addiction.

The three adults who beat the teenager have been detained by police, his father told the Global Times, and the boy’s family is also planning a protest at local government offices to demand a full investigation and immediate closure of the treatment facility.

The clinic’s mission statement promised a tough environment but said that torture and “other methods that might damage a child’s health” were not used. Last month, the Ministry of Health ordered another Internet addiction center in northern China to stop using electroshock as a form of punishment after former patients complained online of harsh tactics.

Full WSJ Post

Posted in Interesting, Pop Culture | 2 Comments