Wednesday, February 25, 2015

For Bible Tells Me So.

It is said one can find support for any crazy belief on the Internet.  They call the group described in the following essay “Extreme Catholics.”  I have been associated with the Catholic faith for many years and have never found them to hold to such craziness, but when I moved to Nashville I sure did find many fundamentalist “Christians” who held the beliefs described in this essay. One advantage that Catholics have is they follow a central belief system that is promoted from the Vatican.  Fundamentalists of other religions support the concept that one can be “inspired” and that God talks directly to them.  For these people there is no rational thought possible. 

Poes, Trolls, and Dinosaur Deniers 
Posted on Feb. 24, 2015 by Donald Prothero  

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Gotta Prediction? Join the Crowd

Whatever your opinion, climate change is one of the most prominent issues of the times.
It relates to the well being of the planet and its occupants. At the same time it incurs the expenditure of billions of dollars and much of it comes from public money.
We are a small group who have followed the global warming/ climate change issue for some years. Initially we didn’t know which version was correct but we noticed several things. One was the frequent use of predictions, often scary, that seemed on the surface to be believable. We wondered whether anyone ever went back to see if the predictions turned out to be true.
This blog presents predictions that have been made over the past 40 years or so and we leave it to you to make up your own mind about them.
The blog commenced towards the end of 2014 and as it develops we will be continually adding new material and making changes to the layout. At present we plan to add about half a dozen new posts each week.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Naturopathy - Medical Scam

     With all the discussion of measles vaccination the pseudo-medical field of Naturopathy comes into focus.
Much of the ideology and methodological underpinnings of naturopathy are in conflict with the paradigm of evidence-based medicine. Their training adds up to a very small amount of that of primary care doctors. Many naturopaths oppose vaccination based in part on the early views that shaped the profession http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy
With the unquestionable success of vaccinations one must question the credibility of any political candidate or organization that encourages unnecessary distrust in this medical miracle.  Without a question no valid debate should exists about its efficacy. The motives of the politicians is obvious and disingenuous.  But what about the Naturopathy scheme and those who practice it?  HUGE caution is necessary of any person claims to practice it or chooses to include the credentials of ND (Naturapathy doctor)

In Tennessee the practice of Naturopathy is ILLEGAL.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Latest Scam - Identity Theft Insurance

Numerous time we have been asked, "Should I buy about Identity Theft Insurance." My answer is always "No."  It is much like "Extended Warranty."  It does very little to protect the one insured, but it does a lot to fatten the wallet of the "insurance" company.  The Anthem hack again has everyone scrambling for "ID Insurance."  While scanning the various posts about the Anthem hack I found the following very insightful note among the comments.
You suggested buying credit card insurance protection in your linkedin. That doesn't work and merely incur additional cost without real benefits. Like buying extended warranty offered by many retailers for purchased merchandise. Or buy GAP insurance during purchase of a new car. These are unnecessary options designed to add profits to the sellers.
In addition, credit card monitoring is not effective. First, the frauds must occur. The damage is already done. It is not preventive. 2nd, the frauds discovered is too late b/cos the fraudster is long gone and probably used the same info to commit more related frauds not discovered by the victims. Example banking frauds, auto frauds, etc. using the identity theft. 3rd, to detect the frauds, all the info relating to the victims must be correct or accurate and match exactly to the info in the credit card report! That's difficult!!. Example, if the fraudster use a space between the name or alter some info slightly, the frauds are NOT detected by credit monitoring. (I'm in forensic acctg, believe it or not, it's difficult to detect).

The best protection is to be proactive. Check your accts (banking, credit card transactions, credit report, insurance, etc) regularly. Use pre-set alert as tools.
We have been the victim of ID theft on several occasions and confirm these comments. For years I fought with insurance companies with no success trying to get them not to use my employee's SS# as an ID's that they plastered all over their monthly statements and invoices.  Yes, their security practices are horrible.  Likewise the security practices of about every medical office is equally bad.  With the forced computerization of medical offices we can expect more hacks like Anthem.