Tuesday 08-23-11

Woman’s yard sale to pay medical bills gets shut down
A woman fighting a terminal form of bone cancer is trying to raise money to help pay bills with a few weekend garage sales, but the city of Salem says she’s breaking the law and is shutting her down.

Jan Cline had no idea, but the city of Salem has a clear law that states a person can only have three yard sales a year.

Cline has been selling her stuff in the backyard for a few weekends and said she thought she’d be fine by keeping the sale out of everyone’s way.

“It’s a struggle,” Cline says. “It’s a struggle for me because I’m very independent, used to taking care of myself.”

She’s run businesses and supported herself for years but this summer she was diagnosed with bone cancer.

“It’s a bone marrow cancer that eats through the bones and causes holes in the bones so that just by walking I can break a bone,” she says.

In one day she lost her independence, her ability to work and earn an income that could pay for all those medical bills.

So she decided to sell what she owned. The sale was bringing in several hundred dollars each weekend until one neighbor complained and she got a visit from the city.

“He said, ‘I’m sorry. Rules are rules.’”

Cline says she understands the city is trying to prevent nuisances in neighborhoods but she doesn’t think she’s causing any trouble.

“We make such an effort of making it back here (backyard) so that it’s not goobering up the neighborhood, so it’s not like a garage sale all laid out day after day after day,” she says.

Cline says she’s not looking for special treatment but maybe some understanding.

“I just hope that nobody else has to go through this kind of thing. I hope no one else has to give their lives away for nickels and dimes and then be told they can’t even do that. I hope nobody else has to do this ever.”

According to the Community Development Department, there is a reason for the law. In the past some people had set up what ended up being permanent flea-market-type sales on their property.

After hearing more about Cline’s situation, a supervisor said he is going to take another look to see if there’s anything she can do to operate within the law. But if she reopens now, it is a misdemeanor and about a $300 fine.

http://salem.katu.com/news/news/442449-womans-yard-sale-pay-medical-bills-gets-shut-down

President Bush and other economist have been talking about this for years, maybe something will finally get done about it. (yeah get real, lol)

Social Security disability on verge of insolvency

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.

Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.

The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that's been running in the red for years.

New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security's much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.

Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.

The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.

Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can't find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.

"It's primarily economic desperation," Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. "People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,"

The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.

Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.

Also, people who qualify for Social Security disability automatically get Medicare after two years, even if they are younger than 65, the age when other retirees qualify for the government-run health insurance program.

Congress tried to rein in the disability program in the late 1970s by making it tougher to qualify. The number of people receiving benefits declined for a few years, even during a recession in the early 1980s. Congress, however, reversed course and loosened the criteria, and the rolls were growing again by 1984.

The disability program "got into trouble first because of liberalization of eligibility standards in the 1980s," said Charles Blahous, one of the public trustees who oversee Social Security. "Then it got another shove into bigger trouble during the recent recession."

Today, about 13.6 million people receive disability benefits through Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Social Security is for people with substantial work histories, and monthly disability payments average $927. Supplemental Security Income does not require a work history but it has strict limits on income and assets. Monthly SSI payments average $500.

As policymakers work to improve the disability system, they are faced with two major issues: Legitimate applicants often have to wait years to get benefits while many others get payments they don't deserve.

Last year, Social Security detected $1.4 billion in overpayments to disability beneficiaries, mostly to people who got jobs and no longer qualified, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Congress is targeting overpayments.

The deficit reduction package enacted this month would allow Congress to boost Social Security's budget by about $4 billion over the next decade to invest in programs that identify people who no longer qualify for disability benefits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that increased enforcement would save nearly $12 billion over the next decade.

At the same time, the application process can be a nightmare for legitimate applicants. About two-thirds of initial applications are rejected. Most of these people drop their claims, but for those willing go through an appeals process that can take two years or more, chances are good they eventually will get benefits.

Astrue has pledged to reduce processing times for applicants' appeals, and he has had some success, even as the number of claims skyrockets. The number of people waiting for decisions has increased, but their wait times are going down.

"It's ludicrous to say that the backlog problem is getting worse," Astrue said. "The backlog problem has gotten dramatically better."

Patricia L. Foster said she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Columbia, S.C., in 2005 when she was attacked by a patient who was suffering from a mental illness. Foster, 64, said she injured her neck so bad she had a plate inserted. She said she also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Foster was turned down twice for Social Security disability benefits before finally getting them in 2009, after hiring an Illinois-based company, Allsup, to represent her. She said she was awarded retroactive benefits, though the process was demeaning.

"I have to tell you, when you're told you cannot return to nursing because of your disability, you don't know how long I cried about that," Foster said. "And then Social Security says, 'Oh no, you don't qualify.' You don't know what that does to you emotionally. You have no idea."

Online:

Federal disability programs: www.ssa.gov/disability/

Congressional Budget Office projections: www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12375

Government Accountability Office report: www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-724

http://news.yahoo.com/social-security-disability-verge-insolvency-090119318.html

Here is an follow up on blurp the other day about making bullet proof skin from spider webs

Utah researcher helps artist make bulletproof skin

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A bio-art project to create bulletproof skin has given a Utah State researcher even more hope his genetically engineered spider silk can be used to help surgeons heal large wounds and create artificial tendons and ligaments.

Researcher Randy Lewis and his collaborators gained worldwide attention recently when they found a commercially viable way to manufacture silk fibers using goats and silkworms that had spider genes inserted into their makeup.

Spider silk is one of the strongest fibers known and five times stronger than steel. Lewis' fibers are not that strong but much stronger than silk spun by ordinary worms.

With Lewis' help, Dutch artist Jalila Essaidi conducted an experiment weaving a lattice of human skin cells and silk that was capable of stopping bullets fired at reduced speeds.

"Randy and I were moved by the same drive I think, curiosity about the outcome of the project," Essaidi said in an email interview. "Both the artist and scientist are inherently curious beings."

Lewis thought the project was a bit off the wall at first, Essaidi acknowledged.

"But in the end, what curious person can say no to a project like this?" she said.

Essaidi, who used a European genetics-in-art grant to fund her project at the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Awards, initially wanted to use Lewis' spider silk from goats to capitalize on the "grotesque factor" of the mammal-spider combination.

But Lewis didn't yet have enough of the spider goat silk to send hundreds of yards to Essaidi. So he sent her spools of silk from silkworms he had genetically engineered in a fashion similar to the goats.

Essaidi initially intended to fire .22 caliber bullets at the "skin" stretched in a frame. But she decided to place the "skin" on a special gelatin block used at the Netherlands Forensic Institute.

Using a high-speed camera, she showed a bullet fired at a reduced speed piercing the skin woven with an ordinary worm's silk But when tested with Lewis' genetically engineered worm's silk grafted between the epidermis and dermis, the skin didn't break. Neither was able to repel a bullet fired at normal speed from a .22 caliber rifle.

"We were more than a little surprised that the final skin kept the bullet from going in there," Lewis said of the tests at reduced speed. "It still ended up 2 inches into the torso, so it would not have saved your life. But without a doubt the most exciting part for us is the fact that they were able to recreate the skin on top of our fibers. It's something we haven't done. Nobody has worked in that area."

Essaidi was intrigued by the concept of spider silk as armor, and wanted to show that safety in its broadest sense is a relative concept, hence bulletproof.

"If human skin would be able to produce this thread, would we be protected from bullets?" she wondered on her blog. "I want to explore the social, political, ethical and cultural issues surrounding safety in a world with access to new biotechnologies."

She said it is legend that Achilles was invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel.

"Will we in the near future due to biotechnology no longer need to descend from a godly bloodline in order to have traits like invulnerability?" she asked.

Lewis downplayed the potential bulletproof applications of his research.

"I certainly would not discount that, but I don't see that as a tremendous application at the moment," he said.

He said bulletproof vests already exist. But being able to grow cells and use the material to replace large amounts of human skin could be significant for surgeons trying to cover large wounds, or treat people with severe burns.

He said the material's strength and elasticity would enable doctors to cover large areas without worrying about it ripping out _ a big advantage over small skin grafts.

Lewis couldn't give a time frame for such a use because it would require FDA approval. But he hoped to do some animal testing within two years, and noted spider silk already has proven very compatible with the human body.

The next step is to generate more material to test what cells will grow on it _ made easier with the "transgenic" silk worms and milk from goat spiders.

The real stuff is still the holy grail for fibers and textiles but not the easiest to come by as evidenced by an 11-by-4 foot tapestry unveiled two years ago at the New York Museum of Natural History that took millions of spiders to complete.

"We know some skin cells will grow (on our fibers), but can we get cells that make ligaments and tendons grow," Lewis said.

He said it may be easier to use the genetically engineered silk to make materials better than actual ligaments or tendons.

Essaidi, meanwhile, said she has plenty of wild ideas but wants to transplant the bulletproof skin.

She said Geert Verbeke, director of Verbeke Foundation in Belgium, the biggest Eco/BioArt museum, wants to wear the skin "as an ode to BioArt."

Back at Utah State's bio-manufacturing facility in Logan, Utah, Lewis just started breeding for the next round of milking in January. He has about three dozen of the genetically engineered goats. He extracts proteins from the special milk then spins them in a way that replicates the spider's method, resulting in a strong, light-weight fiber.

"Nothing is as strong as the natural fiber, yet," Lewis said of spider silk. "But we are working on solving that problem."

http://wtop.com/?nid=209&sid=2506935


Every pawn shop and surplus story outside of every military base in the US has this happen everyday. Not suppose to use miltary in a law enforsement role. All they are doing is blurring the lines.

Air Force recovers stolen materials from Friday's raid

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV)- We're learning more on why the U.S. Air Force raided a local gun store Friday. They say it wasn't guns they were looking for.

An official from the Air Force is speaking to Action News about that raid. New information clarifies that this may have been an inside job, and the penalties could turn out to be very severe.

It was an afternoon that rocked businesses near Dean Martin and Flamingo. Local and federal law enforcement agencies swarmed in and served search warrants on Citadel Gun and Safe.

New information gives us an insight on the massive raid that up until now, authorities were tight lipped about. Turns out it was the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that led the raid.

"They went in there and did in fact find stolen air force military property that was stolen from Nellis Air Force Base," says Linda Card with the Air Force OSI.

Metro lent a hand as well as the FBI, ATF, and ICE. The recovered material though would not have posed a danger to regular people, says the Air Force.

"It did not include weapons, guns, explosives of any kind, bombs, nothing like that. It was basic stolen military property," says Card.

It's unclear what "basic military property" really is. We went to the Citadel Gun and Safe store Saturday it was open for business, but they promptly told us, not open for comment. After questioning the store owner and raiding his home, authorites have turned their investigation to Nellis Air Force Base.

"But if someone is in fact guilty at Nellis and they did steal military equipment and they tried to sell it outside, yes they will be charged for whatever it is that they did," says Card.

At this point no one has been charged, but as the questioning continues, formal charges could come as early as next week. We're told the gun store's owner did cooperate with authorities, and the investigation is still open.

http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/128140053.html