“Cable is one of the first things you should cut to keep expenses down, but that doesn’t mean you should ditch your favorite shows. J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly cut his cable bill from $65.82 to $11.30 without missing a single harrowing plot twist. Here’s how he did it…

J.D. basically designed his own à la carte programming instead of paying for a mess of unnecessary cable channels. He relied on two resources:…”

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“1. “Our branches are there to sell you, not serve you.”
In the late 1990s bank branches were considered outmoded relics soon to be replaced by ATMs and Internet banking. But just the opposite happened: In 1998 there were 89,000 bank branches in the U.S.; by 2007 there were 97,000. Why? The industry realized consumer banking was profitable and that despite the predictions of Silicon Valley wonks, the main criterion consumers use in choosing a bank is proximity, says SNL Financial analyst Jennifer Payne.

But branches aren’t just about convenience; they’re a bank’s primary sales floor. Brochures for services as varied as retirement accounts and home loans are on display, and everyone from the teller on up is trained to make a sale. That’s because in the current low-interest-rate climate, it’s harder to generate revenue from interest alone. Many players in the industry have been trying to boost fee- and service-based income, so if a teller sees you have a mortgage, he might suggest you meet with a loan officer to discuss a home-equity loan. Says Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, “The more products a customer has with a bank, the more likely he is to stay with that bank.”

2. “Our fees will only go up.”
With the economy slowing and big losses looming in the mortgage market, banks are looking for reliable revenue streams. Hence punitive fees — for overdrawing your account, say, or using a competitor’s ATM — are increasing. The average ATM service charge doubled between 1998 and 2007, and overdraft fees brought in $17.5 billion in revenue in 2006, up from $10.3 billion in 2004, according to the Center for Responsible Lending. Rubecca Hegarty, a married mother of three in Woodridge, Ill., says she often pays upwards of $100 a month in overdraft fees to Chase, since, like most banks, it changes the order of purchases so that large debts get paid first — increasing the likelihood of incurring fees on smaller purchases. JPMorgan Chase says it does this because big payments like a mortgage are more important to consumers, so they get priority.

Revenue from penalties can be addictive for banks, says Harvard Business School Professor Gail McGovern, but “they’re going to face problems from angry customers, which leads to big call-center bills, employee dissatisfaction and turnover.”

3. “We change our interest rates all the time.”
Regardless of what your credit card agreement says, you can never be sure how much interest banks will charge you. For example, nearly all cards have a default rate — as high as 30 percent — which banks apply when you’ve done something wrong, usually after two late payments in 12 months. But some banks have cut that to one, says Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com.
Banks can also change the terms of your agreement, raising rates when they like (though you can opt out and pay off the balance at the old rate as long as you never use the card again). Bank of America did that recently, upping many cardholders’ rates from 10 or 12 percent to 27 percent or more, even though they’d done nothing wrong. “There’s no clarity on what criteria can lead a bank to raise interest rates,” says Robert Manning, director of the Center for Consumer Financial Services at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “It’s a black box.” A Bank of America spokesperson says the company periodically reviews the credit risk of its accounts and adjusts rates accordingly, adding that in the past year 94 percent have had no increase.

4. “College campuses are a gold mine for us.”
Students are the customers of the future, and banks are increasingly courting them, sometimes right on campus. More than 120 universities have cut deals with banks to issue student-ID cards that are also ATM and check cards. Schools can make millions from these deals, sometimes even taking a small cut of individual purchases.

tudents are also a hot market for credit card issuers; banks will make private deals with alumni associations to get contact info for students, parents and even ticket buyers to university athletic events. Card companies cut deals to set up booths on campus, and Chase even inked a deal with Facebook to display ads and set up a Chase group on its Web site.

The problem? Mounting credit card debt among college kids, for one. “Universities don’t negotiate on behalf of students,” says Manning. “They’re negotiating the best deal for the university.” A spokesperson for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities says don’t blame schools — banks would market to students anyway, and universities at least try to get the best rates they can for students.

5. “In debt? The courts won’t help.”
Since the late 1990s banks have been including mandatory arbitration agreements in their contracts for many of their products, including auto loans, checking accounts, home-equity loans and credit cards. Such agreements prohibit you from suing and instead require you to use an arbitrator — someone picked by the arbitration firm named in your credit card contract to hear the dispute and decide the outcome.

While these clauses were originally designed to thwart class-action suits, the banks have also been using them for debt collection, says Paul Bland, anattorney with consumer-advocacy group Public Justice. There are even times when consumers, often victims of identity theft and unaware of the debt, aren’t present when awards are handed down against them.

A recent suit against an arbitration firm brought by the San Francisco city attorney noted that arbitrators ruled in favor of banks in 100 percent of the 18,045 California cases brought against consumers from January 2003 through March 2007. “From the consumer perspective, it’s a nightmare,” says Bland. If a bank brings arbitration against you, hire a lawyer and request a hearing — in person…..” Read the rest

Is a chicken labeled “free range” good enough to reassure you of its purity? How about “grass fed” beef?

What form of soy is best for you — soy milk or tofu?

About milk: I’ll bet most of you voted for reduced or non-fat. But if you’ll turn to page 153 of “In Defense of Food,” you’ll read that processors don’t make low-fat dairy products just by removing the fat. To restore the texture — to make the drink “milky” — they must add stuff, usually powdered milk. Did you know powdered milk contains oxidized cholesterol, said to be worse for your arteries than plain old cholesterol? And that removing the fat makes it harder for your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins that make milk a valuable food in the first place?

About chicken and beef: Readers of Pollan’s previous book, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma“, know that “free range” refers to the chicken’s access to grass, not whether it actually ventures out of its coop. And all cattle are “grass fed” until they get to the feedlot. The magic words for delightful beef are “grass finished” or “100% grass fed”.

And about soy…but I dare to hope I have your attention by now. And that you don’t want to be among the two-thirds of Americans who are overweight and the third of our citizens who are likely to develop type 2 diabetes before 2050. And maybe, while I have your eyes, you might be mightily agitated to learn that America spends $250 billion — that’s a quarter of the costs of the Iraq war — each year in diet-related health care costs. And that our health care professionals seem far more interested in building an industry to treat diet-related diseases than they do in preventing them. And that the punch line of this story is as sick as it is simple: preventing diet-related disease is easy.

In just 200 pages (and 22 pages of notes and sources), “In Defense of Food” gives you a guided tour of 20th century food science, a history of “nutritionism” in America and a snapshot of the marriage of government and the food industry. And then it steps up to the reason most readers will buy it — and if you care for your health and the health of your loved ones, this is a no-brainer one-click — and presents a commonsense shopping-and-eating guide.

If you are up on your Pollan and your Nina Planck and your Barbara Kingsolver, you know the major points of the “real food” movement. But if you’re new to this information or are disinclined to buy or read this book, let me lay Pollan’s argument out for you:

– High-fructose corn syrup is the devil’s brew. Do yourself a favor and remove it from your diet. (If you have kids, here’s a place to start: Heinz smartly offers an “organic” ketchup, made with sugar.)

– Avoid any food product that makes health claims — they mean it’s probably not really food.

– In a supermarket, don’t shop in the center aisles. Avoid anything that can’t rot, anything with an ingredient you can’t pronounce.

– “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”

– “You are what you eat eats too.” Most cows end their days on a diet of corn, unsold candy, their pulverized brothers and sisters — yeah, you read that right — and a pharmacy’s worth of antibiotics. And they bestow that to you. Consider that the next time there’s a sale on sirloin.

– “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” By which Pollan means: Eat natural food, the kind your grandmother served (and not because she was so wise, but because the food industry had not yet learned that the big money was in processing, not harvesting). Use meat sparingly. Eat your greens, the leafier and more varied the better.

In short: Kiss the Western diet as we know it goodbye. Look to the cultures where people eat well and live long. Ignore the faddists and experts. Trust your gut. Literally.

In all this, Pollan insists that you have to save yourself. And he makes a good case why. Our government, he says, is so overwhelmed by the lobbying and marketing power of our processed food industry that the American diet is now 50% sugar in one form or another — calories that provide “virtually nothing but energy.” Our representatives are almost uniformly terrified to take on the food industry. And as for the medical profession, the key moment, Pollan writes, is when “doctors kick the fast-food franchises out of the hospital” — don’t hold your breath.

“You want to live, follow me.” I loved it when Schwarzenegger said that in “Terminator.” It matters much more when, in so many words, Michael Pollan delivers that same message in “In Defense of Food.” [review by J.Kornbluth]

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“The 7,802 adverse events reported to VAERS for Gardasil include 15 deaths and 31 reports of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a potentially paralyzing, life-threatening condition in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the nervous system…” Read the rest

Make sure to also read about Jessica Ericzon, 17 years old : My Girl died as a guinea pig for Gardasil

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C’mon. Plastic is the cheapest looking crap ever. Get wicker or wood. Make sure you take proper care of those so they last.

This outdoor wood patio set is on sale!

Angels in my Hair

People thought Lorna was retarded as a child because she did not focus on the world around her much like her peers. Consequently, Lorna remembers seeing not just the world around her but seeing equally vividly angels and spirits. For many years she assumed everyone saw the world like she did.

Reading the story of her life, growing up in a poor family, later working in Dublin, marrying and experiencing family tragedy, the reader meets, as she did, the creatures from the spirit worlds who also inhabit our own – mostly angels of an astonishing beauty and variety – including the prophet Elijah and an Archangel- but also the spirits of people who have died.

Today, it is not only the sick and troubled who come to visit Lorna, looking for healing and consolation, but theologians of different faiths and the head of a religious order in Rome are asking her for guidance too.

This remarkable book is the testimony of a woman who sees things at the other end of the dimension spectrum, beyond the range of most people’s every day experience.

More about Angels in my Hair

9. Whale vomit – This material called Ambergris is useful as a fixative in perfumes. It has a sweet, earthy odor and is usually found washed up on a beach in South America or Australia. It has mostly been replaced by synthetic alternatives.

8. Cochineal beetles – When you need a nice red color, you can drown a few of these buggers in some hot water, dry them out and pulverize them. The deep crimson dye is versatile enough to be used in skin creams, lipsticks and almost any other beauty product.

7. Waste cooking oil – Scientists say that a surfactant can be made from spent cooking oil that will help regenerate damaged skin. So the next time you order a burger don’t be surprised if you hear “Do you want a facial with that?”

6. Human breast milk – It could be a gimmick but some people swear by using human breast milk to make soap. Is this something you would try?

5. Bird poop – Ever heard of a Geisha Facial? It features deep cleansing, $180 price tag, and a big scoop of Nightingale bird poop. Supposedly the uric acid is supposed to be great for your face. Perhaps it is but you certainly don’t need to smear bird droppings on yourself to get it.

4. Bull semen - Want shiny hair? Then a few salons in Europe think they have exactly what you need. Protein from bull semen is supposed to give amazing results. I’m skeptical it will give you anything more than a stiff hair cut.

3. Snake venom - One of the most ridiculous new ingredients for keeping wrinkles at bay is snake venom. Cosmetic makers who use this stuff hope that you’ll connect the Botox poison with snake poison and figure both must work wonders on wrinkles. Despite what Jamie Pressly might think, snake venom hasn’t been shown to have any positive improvement in wrinkle creams.

2. Chicken bone marrow – Supposed to be a good source of glucosamine but how that helps your cosmetic remains a mystery. But people still use chicken bone marrow but they rarely advertise it as such.

1. Cow dung – It turns out you can make an incredibly pleasant smelling vanilla fragrance from extracts of cow dung. It’s not just a fertilizer any more.

[from the beautybrains]

The 24-Hour Pharmacist- is the perfect pill for anyone seeking enlightenment on overall health from a resource that is thorough and fun to read. With chapter titles such as “Frazzled, Frustrated and Freaked Out: Coping with Anxiety and Stress” to “More Jiggle, Less Joint Pain: What You Can Do About Arthritis” you get the sense that the author well knows what course to recommend but also truly enjoys educating others. One feature I found especially enlightening were the sections in each chapter entitled “Suzy’s Secrets From Behind The Counter”. Here is where she (Suzy) offers great little insights to live by with a perspective that only a pharmacist can give. One good example of this is in the chapter about weight loss where she explains that some drugs can make you hungry. Included in her list are sedatives and tranquilizers, antidepressants, allergy pills, female hormones and diuretics. Wow, who knew?

Read more about it here: The 24-Hour Pharmacist

Try to avoid using any plastic products whatsoever, no matter how challenging that will be. A note: guess who produces plastics? The same people who are causing havoc with oil: The oil and petroleum industry. Greedy oil people are polluting with their oil spills AND their plastic. They really should be locked away. Forever.

An natural and safe alternative to using plastic and vinyl shower curtains is hemp. The hemp shower curtain will get wet, but will not leak through. It will also rapidly air dry which slows mold growth associated with plastic liners. The hemp shower curtain has a natural resistance to mildew and bacteria and can be machine washed to clean any grime buildup. After machine washing simply hang the curtain up to dry, any wrinkles will disappear during showering.

More information about Hemp Shower Curtains

Even if you eat dry cereals from a health food store or even an organic store, the way cereal is made is identical to commercial brands, and you will be better off knowing about this. You see, the process of creating cereals is called “extrusion.” The manufacturers first make a sort of mush of the grains. They then put that through an Extruder. The slurry or mush is forced out of little holes at extremely high temperatures, which gives shape to the individual pieces of cereal, whether they are woven squares, o’s, sticks, shreds, flakes, nuggets, round puffs (puffed rice or corn puffs), etc. A sharp blade cuts off each flake or cereal piece. Then all pieces are sprayed down with oil and corn syrup to make them crunchy and sweet.

You can read all about the process in Fighting the Food Giants by Paul Stitt. In his book, he describes how the process of extrusion completely destroys nearly all of the nutrients in the grains. It destroys the fortified vitamins they add (why add them, you ask?). The fatty acids are also destroyed and whatever amino acids were inside, well, they become toxic in this extrusion process. It is utterly insane unless you are a greedy, capitalistic cereal manufacturer that only cares about making money at the expense of the public’s health.

Are you eating these boxed, dry cereals? Are your kids? Well, cut it out! You and your kids should be informed and should be eating healthy meals to avoid any kinds of diseases and cancers that are caused by toxic ingredients. To become more informed read Paul Stitt’s book. Click the link below.

Fighting the Food Giants

1. Build-A-Bear will be donating $15,000 to the Red Cross. And now through January 31, 2010 customers can donate $1 at the cash registers in any U.S. Build-A-Bear Workshop.
2. Hope for Haiti Musical Lineup – January 22, 2010 at 8 PM EST. “George Clooney, who has organized the telecast, will host from LA, with CNN’s Anderson Cooper reporting from Haiti and Wyclef in New York City. According to E! Online, “Twilight Saga” star Robert Pattinson will present from London. The performances will be available on the iTunes store, with proceeds benefiting relief funds for the earthquake-stricken nation. The two-hour telethon will air on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1 and CMT as well as networks including PBS, TNT, Showtime, Comedy Central, Brave, E! Entertainment and more, with online live streaming available on YouTube, Hulu, MySpace and more domains as well.”
3. Text “HAITI” to 90999 and a $10 donation will be added to your phone bill. Text “YELE” to 501501 and a $5 donation will be added to your phone bill.
4. Donate blood! The American Red Cross is always in need of blood donations. Click here to locate your nearest blood bank. They are always in need of Type O Negative and Type B Negative blood donors.
5. Continental Airlines has set up a program to its frequent flier members. Members of this program can donate to the American Red Cross and AmeriCares.
6. Handbags Help Haiti – You can buy discontinued or imperfect Jordana Paige handbags for only $50. With 100% of all proceeds going towards Doctors Without Borders Haiti relief, it’s like wearing your heart on your sleeve shoulder.
7. Chase Bank will give $100 million to the charity with the most votes. I just voted for Invisible Children.
8. Help the abandoned animals of Haiti through PETA.
9. Doctors Without Borders is a national medical organization that receives close to 89% of its funding from private funding, not the government. Created in France in 1971, Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides medical aid to about 60 countries who are in need.
10. Habitat for Humanity has already started to plan their part in rebuilding homes for as many Haitians as they possibly can. They are always looking for volunteers to help out with projects as well.

Here is an extensive list of other organizations that you can donate using your American Express points or you can make a cash donation.

“A lot of Americans think they’re eating a healthy diet these days. But it’s easy to be fooled by our assumptions and the ways that food manufacturers play on them.

Take chicken. The average American eats about 90 pounds of it a year, more than twice as much as in the 1970s, part of the switch to lower-fat, lower-cholesterol meat proteins. But roughly one-third of the fresh chicken sold in the U.S. is “plumped” with water, salt and sometimes a seaweed extract called carrageenan that helps it retain the added water. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says chicken processed this way can still be labeled “all natural” or “100% natural” because those are all natural ingredients, even though they aren’t naturally found in chicken.

Producers must mention the added ingredients on the package — but the lettering can be small: just one-third the size of the largest letter in the product’s name. If you’re trying to watch your sodium to cut your risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, it pays to check the Nutrition Facts label. Untreated chicken has about 45 to 60 mgs of sodium per four-ounce serving. So-called enhanced or “plumped” chicken has between 200 and 400 mgs of sodium per serving, almost as much as a serving of fast-food french fries.

Adding salt water became widespread when big discount stores began selling groceries and wanted to sell chicken at uniform weights and prices. Plumping packaged chicken helps even out the weight. But that means consumers are paying for added salt water at chicken prices — an estimated $2 billion worth every year, according to the Truthful Labeling Coalition, a group of chicken producers that don’t enhance their products….”

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