Orrazz

Funny Picdump (54 pics)

2013-06-17T09:27:00.001-07:00

Totally Embarrassing Pregnancy Announcements (22 pics)

2013-06-17T09:23:00.001-07:00

Microsoft Waits to Fix Your Software Bugs So the NSA Can Use Them First

2013-06-16T08:49:00.003-07:00

In a move as fiendishly clever as it is galling, Microsoft tells theU.S. government about bugs in its notoriously buggy software before it fixes them so that intelligence agencies can use the vulnerabilities for the purposes of cyberspying. "That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes," sources tell Bloomberg's Michael Riley. But still, the biggest software company on Earth is holding off on its blue-screen-of-death problems to turn them into real-life spy features, an impressive feat that will no doubt frustrate consumers: We are, after all, waiting for our computers to work so the nation's spy services — almost certainly including the National Security Agency, given its massive espionage umbrella — can take advantage of the problems with them first. their mistakes first.

That's just one of the many ways the U.S. government and tech companies work together in fiendish ways to more easily allow for complex surveillance, according to Bloomberg's in-depth report:

In addition to handing over all U.S. phone-call metadata, telecoms give intelligence agencies access to facilities and data "offshore" so that they don't have to go through a judge to get permission.
McAfee "regularly cooperates" with the U.S. government, handing over all the information on hackers that its firewalls collect. The company, of course, insists that none of its data collection is personal: "We do not share any type of personal information with our government agency partners," McAfee said in a statement.
"U.S telecommunications, Internet, power companies and others" — so, like, everyone — detail how they systems work to U.S. intelligence officials so they can analyze potential vulnerabilities, both for safety and to use against foreign governments.
Technically, none of this Silicon Valley-aided espionage takes place with "direct access" so much as through what Bloomberg describes as a "committing officer" who has immunity from lawsuits.

If it hasn't become extremely clear over the last week, the U.S. government is buddy-buddy with private technology companies. Not only do you have to give up your right to privacy; turns out, we don't even have the right to quick bug fixes.

Chicago Hospital Accused of Cutting Throats for $160,000

2013-06-16T08:49:00.000-07:00

A surgeon at Chicago’s Sacred Heart Hospital cut a hole in Earl Nattee’s throat on Jan. 3, the day before he died. It’s not clear why.

The medical file contained no explanation of the need for the procedure, called a tracheotomy, according to a state and federal inspection report that quotes Sacred Heart’s chief nursing officer as saying it happened “out of the blue.” Tracheotomies are typically used to open an air passage directly to the windpipe for patients who can’t breathe otherwise.

Now, amid a federal investigation into allegations of unneeded tracheotomies at the hospital, Nattee’s daughter, Antoinette Hayes, wonders whether her father was a pawn in what an FBI agent called a scheme to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

“My daddy said, ‘They’re killing me,’” Hayes recalled, in reference to the care he received at the hospital.

Based in part on surreptitious tape recordings, an FBI affidavit lays out allegations that a Sacred Heart pulmonologist kept patients too sedated to breathe on their own, then ordered unneeded tracheotomies for them -- enabling the for-profit hospital to reap revenue of as much as $160,000 per case.

The Sacred Heart case is unusual because of the troubling nature of some of the allegations, said Ryan Stumphauzer, a former federal health care fraud prosecutor in Miami who reviewed the affidavit. “A typical indictment might allege phantom billing or improper coding,” he said. “This complaint alleges the hospital and doctors were performing unnecessary invasive surgery to justify false billing.”

It’s also unusual to have recordings from cooperating witnesses, he said, “but it is always very difficult to challenge a physician’s judgment.”

Fraud Charges

The government has already charged Sacred Heart owner Edward Novak, his chief financial officer and five physicians with Medicare fraud, in a criminal complaint alleging that they gave or received kickbacks in return for patient referrals.

A physician and two Sacred Heart administrators worked with federal investigators, secretly taping conversations with other hospital staff members, according to the complaint. The 90-page FBI affidavit includes a quote attributed to Novak saying tracheotomies were the hospital’s “biggest money maker.” The hospital’s pulmonologist, or respiratory specialist, is quoted as saying during an April conversation that Novak asked him “to provide two more tracheotomy cases for the hospital soon,” before inspectors -- who had visited the hospital in March -- returned.

Sergio Acosta, an attorney representing Novak, said his client declined to comment. Robert Clarke, attorney for Sacred Heart CFO Roy Payawal, also declined to comment.

Death Rate

A Sacred Heart surgeon performed tracheotomies on 28 Medicare patients between early 2010 and January, according to the affidavit, which doesn’t identify the surgeon by name. Five patients died within two weeks -- a death rate three times the statewide rate in Illinois.

The affidavit quotes a nursing supervisor as saying the hospital’s pulmonologist directed an ICU nurse to “snow the patient” in one case -- a phrase that means to sedate the patient so heavily that only the whites of the eyes were visible, according to the complaint.

The affidavit identified the pulmonologist only as “Physician D” and said he chairs Sacred Heart’s Critical Care Committee. That position is held by Venkata Buddharaju, according to his attorney, Thomas Breen. Buddharaju, who hasn’t been charged with any violations, declined to be interviewed for this story, citing the ongoing investigation, Breen said in an e-mailed statement.

‘Preposterous’ Suggestion

“While it would appear that Dr. Buddharaju is Physician D in the complaint based on his job title and his chairmanship of the Critical Care Committee, the rest of the description and allegations do not conform to the medical care or decisions made by Dr. Buddharaju,” said Breen, a former state prosecutor.

His client “does not use the word ‘snow,’ and it is preposterous to suggest that he does,” Breen said. “The other allegations in the complaint are equally untrue.”

The affidavit contains an allegation that tracheotomy patients were lucrative for doctors as well as the hospital: The physician could bill $160 each time he visited a tracheotomy patient at the hospital, versus $32 for seeing a ventilator patient in a nursing home.

The state Medicaid program paid Buddharaju more than any other physician at Sacred Heart for such patient visits in the six months that ended Dec. 30, according to state records. A Sacred Heart surgeon, Vittorio Guerriero, received seven of the nine Medicaid payments made for tracheotomies at the hospital during that period, records show. In both cases, the billing rate was about double that of previous years.

Inspection Report

Anthony Onesto, a lawyer for Guerriero, declined to comment, saying he hadn’t received his client’s permission to discuss the case. Guerriero hasn’t been charged in the case.

State and federal regulators were also scrutinizing Sacred Heart’s tracheotomies. In a “statement of deficiencies” dated March 12, they cited the hospital’s failure to document a reason for performing the procedure on an individual identified as “patient No. 3.” While their report doesn’t identify the patient by name, his gender, age and date of death match up with those of Earl Nattee, who died at 76 on Jan. 4 after a tracheotomy the day before.

The cause of death was listed as pneumonia and renal failure. Buddharaju’s name is on the death certificate. Nattee ran a mini-mart in Chicago for many years, Hayes said.

The same inspection report details the case of Patient No. 8, who was admitted in November, 2012, and given a tracheotomy on Nov. 17. By the end of that month, he had an infection that was recorded as being acquired in the hospital, the report says. He died Dec. 1 of what the report describes as end-stage liver disease.

‘Went Downhill’

That description aligns with the case of Naaman Durham, 48, a former exterminator who was receiving federal disability benefits and had a drinking problem, according to his sister, Mayola Nash of Chicago. Durham was sent to Sacred Heart from a local nursing home after he had a seizure, Nash said.

“After they signed him in, he just went downhill,” she said.

Since Novak’s arrest, the hospital has continued to operate, though he has stepped aside from his post as chief executive officer for the time being. His tenure as CEO goes back 25 years to when he took over the financially troubled Franklin Boulevard Community Hospital, turned it into a for-profit venture and renamed it Sacred Heart, said Patrick DeMoon, who was an assistant administrator at Franklin Boulevard.

A licensed pharmacist turned health care entrepreneur, Novak’s other ventures include a home health agency, a kidney dialysis center, an adult day care center and a malpractice insurance company.

$10 Million Bail

Sacred Heart, which is located on Chicago’s west side, in a neighborhood with half the median household income and twice the poverty rate of the city overall, has been filling less than half its 119 beds in recent years, according to reports it files with the Medicare program. Almost all its customers are Medicare or Medicaid recipients, according to state and federal reports.

Still, Novak reported a jump in profit to $9.4 million for the year ended June 30, 2012 -- up from $1.3 million the previous year. After his arrest in April, he posted $10 million in cash to make bail, according to Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Orrazz Picdump(77 Pics)

2013-06-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Mesmerizing Eyes Photography (20 pics)

2013-06-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Underwater Dogs (14 pics)

2013-06-14T09:23:00.001-07:00

Eiko Jones Photography for Vancouver Island Dogs Rescue Society.

Orrazz Picdump(91 Pics)

2013-06-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

Baseball Fan Jumps into a Bush But Loses the Ball (4 gifs)

2013-06-13T09:35:00.001-07:00

Fathers Are Awesome (21 pics)

2013-06-13T09:30:00.001-07:00

Christian university expels student for being gay, won't transfer her credits unless she repays scholarships.

2013-06-13T07:42:00.000-07:00

Danielle Powell was close to getting her bachelor's degree when she was kicked out of her university for being gay in 2012, and now says the only way the school will transfer her credits to another school is if she agrees to pay $6,300. In response, Powell has launched an online petition to pressure the school to forgive the debt.

Powell was a student at Grace University in early 2011 when she began her first same-sex relationship. Up until that point, neither she nor her then-girlfriend identified as lesbian. When Grace, a religious university in Omaha, Neb., found out about the relationship through a spiritual adviser at the school, they brought Powell before a judiciary board to decide whether she should be allowed to stay enrolled.

"At that time, my family had no idea, so I had to come out to my family sooner than I would've wanted," Powell told The Huffington Post.

Michael James, executive vice president at Grace, told The Huffington Post that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prevents them from discussing any student's particular case. But he did confirm the student handbook states that "Any student involved in sexually immoral behavior, including premarital sex, adultery, and homosexual acts, is at minimum placed on University probation and may be subject to a Judiciary Hearing."

Powell said the board asked her why she did what she did and whether she was remorseful, treating her, in her words, "like a sexual predator." The university ultimately decided in March 2011 to suspend her and not allow her to finish the semester. Powell said she was also told she now owed Grace just over $6,000 after an academic scholarship she'd been awarded was revoked.

Powell said that the university told her she could participate in a restoration program, involving counseling and regular church attendance, to get readmitted, but she would have to live off campus and could not stay overnight in the dorms. She began the restoration process in the summer of 2011, so as not to jeopardize work that she was afraid she might lose by transferring to another institution.

But shortly before the start of the spring 2012 semester, Grace decided not to readmit her because she was still dating women.

"They were doing a witch hunt," Powell said, "calling around to see if I was in a same-sex relationship."

James told Powell in a letter, a copy of which was provided to HuffPost, that she was being "deceitful" and said it would be "unethical" for the university to readmit her since it "would be impossible for the faculty of Grace University to affirm your Christian character, a requirement for degree conferral."

By October 2012, as Powell was looking into attending another college, she said she was told that Grace would only transfer the credits from her three and a half years if she paid a $6,300 tuition bill from the semester during which she was suspended for being gay. The university denies they have withheld her transcripts, but Powell said she's only been offered a student copy she cannot use to transfer.

James said anyone who withdraws before the semester is 60 percent complete will usually owe a balance, because federal law obligates Grace to return Title IV funds -- federal grants, loans and work-study funds -- on behalf of the withdrawn student. "Suspension or expulsion constitutes withdrawal," James said in an email.

With no money and no other recourse, Powell's wife, Michelle Rogers, started a petition to persuade Grace University to forgive Powell's debt.

The idea for a petition came after video of Powell's proposal to Rogers at a Macklemore concert in in December 2012 went viral. (They married in Iowa.) Rogers said that they had been asked if they were involved in any LGBT activism, and thought this could be a way to make a difference.

"I feel that it's important that kind of discrimination should not happen towards an individual," Rogers said, adding that she wants to "shed light on Grace University's discriminatory disciplinary system."

The petition, launched over the weekend, already has more than 10,000 signatures, up from 2,500 on Monday afternoon.

"College was always kind of one of those things I never thought was an option for me because of my financial background," Powell said, noting she'd be the first in her family to get a degree. "It's something I've invested too much in to not finish."

Is Anyone In the Mood for Chicken?

2013-06-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

How to Win a Bet When You Lost It (10 pics)

2013-06-12T09:32:00.001-07:00

One guy lost a bet and Owed his friend a $15 Dunkin Donuts gift card. This is what he did.

Step 1: Lock card in tricky mind puzzle

Step 2: Cover in 5 alternating layers of plastic wrap and Gorilla Glue

Step 3: Cover in many layers of awesome mustachio duct tape

Step 4: Knot entire package in 200 feet of string, then place inside Glad ware and Gorilla Glue closed

Step 5: Tape around glad ware, and place ensemble in lock box along with an awesome picture of yourself mocking the intended recipient

Step 6: Lock said lock box, wrap with bike lock, and lock bike lock with padlock

Step 7: Place lock box key and pad lock key in individual pieces of crumpled notebook paper. Place lock box, keys, and 55 other "decoy" pieces of paper into large container

Step 8: Use 15 feet of chain, combination lock, and banana to Houdini the entire thing closed

Step 9: Include a Sudoku puzzle that needs to be solved to obtain the combination to the combination lock

Step 10: Tape it up and you're ready to go! (Banana for scale)

Russia could make using Gmail and Facebook high treason

2013-06-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

After the latest NSA surveillance revelations a Russian MP has suggested to the government to immediately limit civil servants’ access to the popular US internet services and social networks.

Lower House deputy Ilya Kostunov sent letters to Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin (who oversees the Russian defense industry sector), the heads of the Defense Ministry, Federal Security Service and the Communications Ministry with a request to make official recommendation on usage of the popular US internet services such as Gmail and Facebook and sometimes also hardware devices produced by US companies.

The politician told Izvestia daily that the instructions should be made part of the civil servants’ contracts “so that they understood that by sending information through US services they not only fill up the dossiers on themselves and their organizations but can provide aid to a foreign state or organization that are engaged in anti-Russian activities”. “This falls under article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code as this is high treason,” he added.

Persons convicted under this article face up to 20 years in prison.

The MP told reporters that in the letter he reminded ministers and state officials about the scandal involving the US National Security Agency and its classified program PRISM that collects and analyses data on the Internet. According to the newspapers that broke the story the US special services have direct access to the servers of such companies as Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype, AOL and others.

“Certainly, the heads of United States intelligence assured that they were strictly observing the law and protected US citizens’ right for privacy. But as far as foreign citizens such as Russians are concerned they and other intelligence services from NATO countries have no limitations at all” Kostunov explained. According to the MP, foreigners were not only studying the electronic correspondence but also remotely used microphones and video cameras to learn more about the civil servants’ movement, habits, contacts and behavior.

Besides, careless handling of classified information by using free and popular internet services can lead to it falling into the hands of independent hackers, Kostunov warned.

The politician suggested the introduction of obligatory encryption for all information transferred via the internet.

Experts and public figures agreed that proper regulation is necessary. Even the chairman of the unregistered Pirate Party of Russia said that using personal accounts of free services for official state correspondence was “totally unacceptable”.

An internet presence once became a fashion among Russian officials, especially during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev who presents himself as a keen supporter of hi-tech and the newest digital trends. At the same time, this tendency recently started to fade. For example Deputy PM Rogozin, whose tweets never failed to make headlines in conventional media, has announced that he would no longer tweet personally leaving this to his press service.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, on the contrary, said in a recent interview that all his posts and other movements in social networks were personal. Medvedev’s Facebook account has recently gained one million likes.

Via:rt

Orrazz Picdump (90 pics)

2013-06-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Beautiful Sand Art (26 pics)

2013-06-11T08:35:00.001-07:00

Amazing Aerial Photos (37 pics)

2013-06-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

Observing Generation Gaps

2013-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

How similar are parent and child? German photographer Frauke Theilking's photo project called "Generation" observes the similarities and differences between generations. Each photo pairs a parent and child, either a mother/daughter or father/son combo, side by side. Devoid of an elaborate background, Theilking's photos focus the viewer's attention on the subjects, who themselves aren't wearing any distracting clothing.

Revealing Portraits of Beautiful Models and Their Mothers

2013-06-08T09:02:00.001-07:00

Orrazz Picdump (101 pics)

2013-06-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

Psychotria Elata (11 pics)

2013-06-07T10:36:00.001-07:00

Psychotria Elata, also known as Hooker’s Lips, is one of the most interesting looking plants of Central and South America.

This Relationship Is Completely about Love (29 pics)

2013-06-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

72 year old designer, Roberto Cavalli is pictured here on a yacht in Monaco with a gorgeous, much younger girl that is reportedly his new girlfriend. Now this is true love.

DisneyBounding at Its Finest (39 pics)

2013-06-07T10:32:00.001-07:00

Orrazz Picdump (101 pics)

2013-06-06T09:19:00.000-07:00

Big Catches (35 pics)

2013-06-06T09:15:00.000-07:00