“Alameda County residents received ordering them to appear for jury duty was clear: Those who skirt their civic duty will face “a fine, a jail term or both.”

But it left out a key bit of information — what day to report.

That omission left Brahme and many others grabbing their phones this week, only to be put on hold “for an eternity” as they tried to find out when they had to show up in court.”

But that’s not even the best part…

“Brighton said about 18,000 summons were mailed last week without the reporting “date because of a computer error by the county’s mailing vendor, Corporate Express. The company, which is owned by Staples, mailed corrected summons Tuesday at no charge to the county, he added. “”

18,000 jury notices for a single week?? The population of Alameda county is about 1.5 million. That’s a whole lot of potential Jurors for a single week.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_12861480?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1

Amazingly, however, nobody wanted to hear his story. In his book he talks about meetings with reporters and privacy groups that went nowhere until a fateful January 20, 2006, meeting with Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Bankston was preparing a lawsuit that he hoped would put a stop to the wiretap program, and Klein was just the kind of witness the EFF was looking for.

With the EFF on board, Klein was briefly a media celebrity — the man who had the guts to expose the NSA’s secret wiretapping program. In his book he provides the documents and the stories that illustrate how all of this transpired…”
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135645/The_NSA_wiretapping_story_nobody_wanted
~~
“The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered side effects from the shots. This time, the government has already taken steps to head that off.

Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials said Friday.

Since the 1980s, the government has protected vaccine makers against lawsuits over the use of childhood vaccines. Instead, a federal court handles claims and decides who will be paid from a special fund.

The document signed by Sebelius last month grants immunity to those making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public health emergencies. It allows for a compensation fund, if needed…”
http://cryptogon.com/?p=9960 w/vid. clip..

“A SMALL, publicly owned hospital in the US state of Missouri has launched a class action lawsuit against Australia’s biggest health-care company, CSL, and its main rival, Baxter International, claiming a conspiracy to fix the prices of life-saving blood plasma products.

Lawyers for Pemiscot Memorial Hospital, which services several counties in south-east Missouri, allege CSL and Baxter had illegal agreements to restrict supply and push up prices through co-ordinating their individual output…”
http://business.theage.com.au/business/us-hospital-sues-csl-for-price-fixing-20090717-doas.html

By Steven Church and William Rochelle

July 18 (Bloomberg) — A hardware distributor in Alabama became the first company to blame the troubles of commercial lender CIT Group Inc. for its bankruptcy yesterday when it filed for protection from creditors.

Moore-Handley Inc., which supplies tools and other items to hardware stores and home centers, said in court papers that it was forced into Chapter 11 because it had trouble getting cash from CIT, its lender.

The company has tried to negotiate with CIT, though “the federal government’s recent decision not to support CIT’s reorganization has thrown CIT into disarray and casts substantial doubt on CIT’s ability to continue to fund the Debtor’s working capital requirements,” Moore-Handley said in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Birmingham, Alabama.

CIT has reported $3 billion of losses in the past eight quarters and has been in talks with lenders about funding its own possible bankruptcy, according to people with knowledge of the matter. CIT may need as much as $6 billion to avoid filing for bankruptcy protection after the U.S. wouldn’t give the firm a second bailout, according to CreditSights Inc.

BANKING

Regulators Shut Banks In California, Georgia

Regulators on Friday shut two banks in California and two smaller banks in Georgia and South Dakota, boosting to 57 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the four banks. The two biggest were from California: Temecula Valley Bank, with $1.5 billion in assets and deposits of about $1.3 billion, and Vineyard Bank, with assets of $1.9 billion and $1.6 billion in deposits. The other two banks were First Piedmont Bank of Georgia and BankFirst of South Dakota.

The cost of the four failures to the federal deposit insurance fund is estimated at $1.09 billion.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,635051,00.html

Not saying that I plan on rioting anytime soon but I do want to thank you for reminding me of both what is really important in life as well as the folly of my own ways. Amazing post.