On December 18, 2008, in Zhu Ma Dian City, China, Yu Lan Zhou’s pregnant daughter-in-law, who was only 7 months pregnant, gave birth to a preterm baby boy in a local clinic.
Born way too early, he weighed only 1.4lbs at delivery and could not breathe properly on his own. The newborn boy’s heartbeat was very weak and his arms and legs were the size of an adult’s fingers.
The clinic suggested that the family take the baby to a hospital for immediate medical attention.
Zhou took her grandson to a local military hospital, but they refused to admit the baby when she could not come up with the required advance payment of 10,000 yuan, about $1,500.
At home, with no incubator, no oxygen tubes, and no medication, Zhou holds her grandson against her chest to keep him warm against the cold, which sometimes gets below freezing in her house. To help the boy breath, she gently blows air near his face and struggles to feed him.
Edit:Reports indicate that because of the publicity the story had, many people from all over the world offered to send money to cover the medical costs.
The local hospital also agreed to admit the baby on the evening of the 28th, but the weather was too cold to move the fragile baby.
Unfortunately the boy was not strong enough to make it to the hospital and passed away at 4:00 am on the 29th. Reports indicate the boy passed due to lack of oxygen. from WeirdAsiaNews
On Dec. 17th Tom Vilsack was chosen as Obama’s nominee to be the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. Vilsack ran on the 2008 campaign for president and has ties to Monsanto.
Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops, as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group. Vilsack has also been known to travel in the Monsanto jet. Tom Vilsack wiki
Its just like the SouthPark episode, pretty much scripted and dead on (per se). From Goth vs. Vampire comparisons, to alarmist and uninformed masses. This is America’s “news” room.
and just for comparison, the South Park Episode The Ungroundable aired 11/19/08.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top U.S. phone company AT&T Inc said it will eliminate 12,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its workforce, in a fresh wave of cuts to cope with an economic downturn that has exacerbated a decline in traditional phone sales. ADVERTISEMENT
Joining a raft of companies slashing costs to survive a slump in spending, AT&T said on Thursday it will cut the jobs over the remainder of 2008 and 2009, and take a charge of about $600 million in this year’s fourth quarter for severance.
The carrier also plans to cut its 2009 capital spending from this year’s levels, though spending plans have not been finalized. AT&T said it would provide details in late January.
The cuts come as phone companies struggle with declining land line sales, as more consumers switch to wireless or alternative, cheaper services offered by cable and Internet companies. AT&T cited "economic pressures, a changing business mix and a more streamlined organizational structure."
The move follows AT&T’s April announcement of 4,600 job cuts, mostly in management, as well as a three-year plan disclosed at the end of last year to cut 10,000 jobs.
Shares of AT&T fell 2.5 percent to $28.36 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday afternoon. Via Yahoo Business.
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — General Motors Corp., criticized by U.S. lawmakers for its use of corporate jets, asked aviation regulators to block the public’s ability to track a plane it uses.
“We availed ourselves of the option as others do to have the aircraft removed” from a Federal Aviation Administration tracking service, a GM spokesman, Greg Martin, said yesterday in an interview. He declined to discuss why GM made the request.
Flight data show that the leased Gulfstream Aerospace G-IV jet flew Nov. 18 from Detroit to Washington, where Chief Executive Officer Richard Wagoner Jr. spoke to a Senate committee that day and a House panel the next day on behalf of a $25 billion auto-industry rescue plan. More at Bloomberg.com
$4.28 trillion dollars. That’s $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources.
Not only is it a astronomical amount of money, its’ a complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other offices of government taken over roughly the last year, based on government data and new releases. Strictly speaking, not every cent is directed a result of what’s called the financial crisis, but it arguably related to it. read the rest at CNBC
Syndicate
On December 18, 2008, in Zhu Ma Dian City, China, Yu Lan Zhou’s pregnant daughter-in-law, who was only 7 months pregnant, gave birth to a preterm baby boy in a local clinic.
Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) — 
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