While the right wing blogsphere and its devout followers continue to deny the settled science of climate change, the free market is moving on. They don't really have a choice.
After a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.
“Increased droughts, more unpredictable variability, 100-year floods every two years,” said Jeffrey Seabright, Coke’s vice president for environment and water resources, listing the problems that he said were also disrupting the company’s supply of sugar cane and sugar beets, as well as citrus for its fruit juices. “When we look at our most essential ingredients, we see those events as threats.”
Threats, indeed. All the bloviating from the hubris brigade amounts to absolutely nothing in the face of the power of the free market. If industry decides that climate change is a clear and present danger, than it is. As the article notes, even the coal industry is being ignored and it's not just Coke.
Nike, which has more than 700 factories in 49 countries, many in Southeast Asia, is also speaking out because of extreme weather that is disrupting its supply chain. In 2008, floods temporarily shut down four Nike factories in Thailand, and the company remains concerned about rising droughts in regions that produce cotton, which the company uses in its athletic clothes.
“That puts less cotton on the market, the price goes up, and you have market volatility,” said Hannah Jones, the company’s vice president for sustainability and innovation. Nike has already reported the impact of climate change on water supplies on its financial risk disclosure forms to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
What about a carbon tax?
Although many Republicans oppose the idea of a price or tax on carbon pollution, some conservative economists endorse the idea. Among them are Arthur B. Laffer, senior economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan; the Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, who was economic adviser to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign; and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the head of the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, and an economic adviser to the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican.
“There’s no question that if we get substantial changes in atmospheric temperatures, as all the evidence suggests, that it’s going to contribute to sea-level rise,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin said. “There will be agriculture and economic effects — it’s inescapable.” He added, “I’d be shocked if people supported anything other than a carbon tax — that’s how economists think about it.”
Laffer? So it ain't so, Art...
Friday, January 24, 2014
Responsible Gun Owner?
Florida man mistakenly shoots himself during road rage incident
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the man said he had been driving toward Orlando on Interstate-4 when another driver allegedly flashed a weapon after the two had some type of altercation. To protect himself, the man brandished his own handgun, causing it to discharge into his leg.
I thought that good guys with guns saved the day and were very careful with their firearms.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the man said he had been driving toward Orlando on Interstate-4 when another driver allegedly flashed a weapon after the two had some type of altercation. To protect himself, the man brandished his own handgun, causing it to discharge into his leg.
I thought that good guys with guns saved the day and were very careful with their firearms.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Busted!
Dinesh D'Souza indicted for violating U.S. election law
Well, I guess "Obama's America" will be happening in a different way for Mr. D'Souza. Sorta reminds me of my assertion that conservatives are right...the END is coming but not in the way they think:)
I have to keep reminding myself that I need to be patient with jack wagons like this. Sooner or later, they get exactly what they deserve.
Well, I guess "Obama's America" will be happening in a different way for Mr. D'Souza. Sorta reminds me of my assertion that conservatives are right...the END is coming but not in the way they think:)
I have to keep reminding myself that I need to be patient with jack wagons like this. Sooner or later, they get exactly what they deserve.
Legalizing Pot Won't Turn Everyone into a Dope Fiend
Since recreational pot use became legal in Colorado on Jan. 1, there's been a whole slew of people admitting to marijuana use in their youth, including columnists David Brooks and Ruth Marcus. Both are still opposed to legalization, mostly on the grounds that it will increase the number of users and affect teenagers whose brains are still developing.
The president then entered the fray, saying in a New Yorker interview that he thought marijuana wasn't any worse than alcohol, and that rich and middle-class white kids smoke dope all the time and get away with it (as Brooks and Marcus can hypocritically attest), but minority kids get arrested and jailed much more frequently for exactly the same offense.
Now Texas governor Rick Perry has chimed in, saying at a conference in Davos, Switzerland that he's for decriminalization of pot. Not legalization, but softening the punishment, eliminating jail time for minor possession offenses.
It's good to hear Perry is moving toward reason, but "decriminalization" doesn't solve the problem. Cops will still waste their time chasing down pot smokers, only to send them to pointless rehab sessions. The drug wars between dealers and the cops, and various multinational narco-trafficking gangs will continue unabated. Weed, cash and guns will continue to be smuggled both ways across the US-Mexico border. Our courts and prisons will continue to be flooded with tens of thousands of low-level dealers caught with relatively small quantities of weed, costing billions of dollars annually. The quality of the pot distributed illegally in this country will be highly variable, frequently adulterated, possibly toxic and potentially dangerous because of the illegal sources.
I don't smoke pot. I don't drink. Never have. Never will. Both vices are a waste of time and money. Drinking causes many health problems (brain cell destruction, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cirrhosis, anemia). Pot appears to be less immediately destructive than alcohol, but may be linked to cognitive impairment and cancer for heavy smokers.
Yet I still advocate making marijuana legal. Legalization would eliminate the problems associated with outlawing a popular product that is no worse than alcohol. By any measure, pot prohibition has failed totally: the laws have been no deterrent against pot use.
But Perry's and Brooks' and Marcus' fears are unjustified: making marijuana legal won't make everyone go out and start smoking up a storm.
Cigarettes have always been legal. The surgeon general's 1964 report established the link between smoking and heart and lung disease; if we based our laws on the dangers to health, tobacco should be more illegal than pot because there's so much more hard data about its effects. But Americans have been listening: in the 50 years since that report, tobacco use in the United States has plunged by 50%. People used to smoke cigarettes anywhere and everywhere: in their homes, in their cars, in their offices, in restaurants, in bars, even in movie theaters. By the 1980s separate smoking sections were established in restaurants. By the 1990s smoking was banned in workplaces in many states. By the 2000s smoking was totally banned in restaurants in many states.
Now, in the 2010s many states have banned smoking even in bars. Smokers have been chased outdoors to smoke, and many workplaces have even banned smoking outside their entrances. Many smokers voluntarily avoid smoking in their own homes and cars, particularly if they have children. It's a dirty, disgusting, expensive habit, and most smokers wish they could quit.
Legal marijuana should be subjected to the same restrictions as cigarette smoking, as it is in Colorado. Though there's some argument over it, smoking marijuana poses many of the same health risks as smoking tobacco (breathing any kind of smoke is just plain bad for you), and should have the same restrictions for the same reasons.
It's perfectly fine for Marcus and Brooks and Perry to express their moral outrage at pot smoking. I encourage them to let people know how utterly foolhardy it is to smoke: let the anti-pot opprobrium flow across the land; I hope it discourages broad use. But the American people have shown that they can listen to reason and wean themselves in large numbers from addictive substances like tobacco, so I trust they will do the same with pot.
We should wasting our tax dollars and law enforcement's and the courts' time to enforce moral indignation over drugs that are no worse than any number of substances that are already legal.
The president then entered the fray, saying in a New Yorker interview that he thought marijuana wasn't any worse than alcohol, and that rich and middle-class white kids smoke dope all the time and get away with it (as Brooks and Marcus can hypocritically attest), but minority kids get arrested and jailed much more frequently for exactly the same offense.
Now Texas governor Rick Perry has chimed in, saying at a conference in Davos, Switzerland that he's for decriminalization of pot. Not legalization, but softening the punishment, eliminating jail time for minor possession offenses.
It's good to hear Perry is moving toward reason, but "decriminalization" doesn't solve the problem. Cops will still waste their time chasing down pot smokers, only to send them to pointless rehab sessions. The drug wars between dealers and the cops, and various multinational narco-trafficking gangs will continue unabated. Weed, cash and guns will continue to be smuggled both ways across the US-Mexico border. Our courts and prisons will continue to be flooded with tens of thousands of low-level dealers caught with relatively small quantities of weed, costing billions of dollars annually. The quality of the pot distributed illegally in this country will be highly variable, frequently adulterated, possibly toxic and potentially dangerous because of the illegal sources.
I don't smoke pot. I don't drink. Never have. Never will. Both vices are a waste of time and money. Drinking causes many health problems (brain cell destruction, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cirrhosis, anemia). Pot appears to be less immediately destructive than alcohol, but may be linked to cognitive impairment and cancer for heavy smokers.
Yet I still advocate making marijuana legal. Legalization would eliminate the problems associated with outlawing a popular product that is no worse than alcohol. By any measure, pot prohibition has failed totally: the laws have been no deterrent against pot use.
But Perry's and Brooks' and Marcus' fears are unjustified: making marijuana legal won't make everyone go out and start smoking up a storm.
Cigarettes have always been legal. The surgeon general's 1964 report established the link between smoking and heart and lung disease; if we based our laws on the dangers to health, tobacco should be more illegal than pot because there's so much more hard data about its effects. But Americans have been listening: in the 50 years since that report, tobacco use in the United States has plunged by 50%. People used to smoke cigarettes anywhere and everywhere: in their homes, in their cars, in their offices, in restaurants, in bars, even in movie theaters. By the 1980s separate smoking sections were established in restaurants. By the 1990s smoking was banned in workplaces in many states. By the 2000s smoking was totally banned in restaurants in many states.
Now, in the 2010s many states have banned smoking even in bars. Smokers have been chased outdoors to smoke, and many workplaces have even banned smoking outside their entrances. Many smokers voluntarily avoid smoking in their own homes and cars, particularly if they have children. It's a dirty, disgusting, expensive habit, and most smokers wish they could quit.
Legal marijuana should be subjected to the same restrictions as cigarette smoking, as it is in Colorado. Though there's some argument over it, smoking marijuana poses many of the same health risks as smoking tobacco (breathing any kind of smoke is just plain bad for you), and should have the same restrictions for the same reasons.
It's perfectly fine for Marcus and Brooks and Perry to express their moral outrage at pot smoking. I encourage them to let people know how utterly foolhardy it is to smoke: let the anti-pot opprobrium flow across the land; I hope it discourages broad use. But the American people have shown that they can listen to reason and wean themselves in large numbers from addictive substances like tobacco, so I trust they will do the same with pot.
We should wasting our tax dollars and law enforcement's and the courts' time to enforce moral indignation over drugs that are no worse than any number of substances that are already legal.
Mea Becka
I pretty much fell out of my chair when I saw this.
Couple this with his recent insistence that homophobes have no place in this country and I think it's safe to say that we have finally turned a corner. Ironic, considering the question I posed earlier this morning. Perhaps the Right is finally starting to get the message. They need to change and be more reflective like this or they are going to become extinct.
Couple this with his recent insistence that homophobes have no place in this country and I think it's safe to say that we have finally turned a corner. Ironic, considering the question I posed earlier this morning. Perhaps the Right is finally starting to get the message. They need to change and be more reflective like this or they are going to become extinct.
Five Big 2014 Questions
CNN has five big questions that face the political scene in the US this year. They pretty much echo the same ones I have discussed here. My answers, in order, are:
No, because the conservative caucus that is motivated are the ones that are moonbats.
Yes, because the Right is going to trot out more candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Murdock. They just can't help themselves:)
A huge effect. Even with GOP leaders trying to get something done, they still have a caucus of xenophobes to contend with and that will continue to be a problem. They will lose seats in the House that they should have won because of their obstinance.
Supporting the minimum wage. Republicans are going to alienate many voters who are poor with both of these issues.
The amount of money spent doesn't really matter. 2012 proved that once and for all. Republicans spent a billion dollars and they still couldn't beat the president or the Democrats. In the end, it's a simple recognition of reality and positivity that wins elections.
Who wants to vote for a party that is angry, hateful, irrationally afraid of nearly everything, spiteful, insecure, obsessive, and incredibly negative?
No, because the conservative caucus that is motivated are the ones that are moonbats.
Yes, because the Right is going to trot out more candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Murdock. They just can't help themselves:)
A huge effect. Even with GOP leaders trying to get something done, they still have a caucus of xenophobes to contend with and that will continue to be a problem. They will lose seats in the House that they should have won because of their obstinance.
Supporting the minimum wage. Republicans are going to alienate many voters who are poor with both of these issues.
The amount of money spent doesn't really matter. 2012 proved that once and for all. Republicans spent a billion dollars and they still couldn't beat the president or the Democrats. In the end, it's a simple recognition of reality and positivity that wins elections.
Who wants to vote for a party that is angry, hateful, irrationally afraid of nearly everything, spiteful, insecure, obsessive, and incredibly negative?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Onward, Christian Airmen
For years there have been reports of unwanted Christian proselytizing at the Air Force Academy.
In 2005 the Washington Post reported:
A military study of the religious climate at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs found several examples of religious intolerance, insensitivity and inappropriate proselytizing on the part of Air Force officers and cadets, but a report issued yesterday at the Pentagon concluded that the school is not overtly discriminatory and has made improvements in recent months.How much improvement was made? In 2010 CBS reported that 41% of non-Christians were still being harassed with Christian proselytizing, and overall 19% were subjected to proselytizing. More than 2000 cadets (almost half) participated in the poll.
In 2013 some staff members at the Academy still think they have the right to proselytize to anyone they damn well wants to, even Jews who don't want to hear it.
So, what has the effect of Christian proselytizing been on the ethics and morals of the Air Force?
An Air Force general who oversaw three wings of ICBMs was recently fired for a drunken bender in Moscow. He was also "spending time" with two foreign women, a serious security breach.
Cheating is rampant in the Air Force Missile Corps. The men who control our nuclear arsenal give each other the answers to questions on tests that are supposed to make sure that these men don't make any mistakes. The officers complain that the standards are too high, and the penalties for failure are unreasonable.
It's sort of weird that these guys to whine about making little mistakes: they're working with nuclear missiles! The penalties for making those same mistakes with the real missiles could be instantly annihilating themselves with a nuclear detonation, starting a nuclear war with China and Russia, destroying all of civilization, and maybe even killing off humanity.
Perhaps the real problem is that the nuclear mission is obsolete, according to Bruce Blair, of Princeton. The Cold War ended 20 years ago, and these nuclear weapons seem kind of pointless, making morale in the nuclear officer corps very low. Most of our nuclear weapons are pointed at Russia and China, and the chance that we will go to war with those two countries seems increasingly remote in this highly interconnected world economy.
The only countries that want nuclear weapons are nut jobs like North Korea, and countries that want to pump up their self-image and status like Pakistan and Iran.
The rest of us would just as soon be rid of the damned things.
Lynch Him!
Florida House candidate Joshua Black calls for hanging of President Obama
As Americans honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a Republican candidate for Florida House District 68 said President Barack Obama should be hanged for war crimes. "I'm past impeachment," Joshua Black wrote on Twitter. "It's time to arrest and hang him high."
I suppose it was only a matter of time.
As Americans honored the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, a Republican candidate for Florida House District 68 said President Barack Obama should be hanged for war crimes. "I'm past impeachment," Joshua Black wrote on Twitter. "It's time to arrest and hang him high."
I suppose it was only a matter of time.
Cheese or Lutefisk?
There seems to be an awful lot of comparing and contrasting going on between Wisconsin and Minnesota these days. I've talked about it recently and they are both excellent, real time cases as to which ideology, conservative or liberal, is most effective. This recent piece in the Times is the most in depth that I have seen as it addresses the fundamental differences in ideology with how each state is governed. There is also a video that goes along with it.
It's a pretty even handed report with criticism spread around evenly as one can see.
I'm wondering if the problems with Wisconsin's economy mean that Scott Walker won't really be a serious candidate for president in 2016.
It's a pretty even handed report with criticism spread around evenly as one can see.
I'm wondering if the problems with Wisconsin's economy mean that Scott Walker won't really be a serious candidate for president in 2016.
Left Wing Fantasies (Or Why I Am A Moderate)
Jesse Myerson's piece in Rolling Stone on the five economic reforms millennials should be fighting for starts out just fine but then descends into the usual fantasy we hear far too often from the far left. The first point makes sense. There are a lot of things that need to be done in this country so there should be no shortage of work. There are also plenty of people that need jobs and want to work so let's get going.
The second point is where he starts to lose it and it just gets worse from there on out. Social Security is fine for those people that spend their lives working and paying in to the system but not for people who don't. Some people simply won't "get a life" and the labor force would be greatly diminished. The third point is simply socialism and a complete load of shit. The fourth point is communism and the fifth point is ridiculous.
Like the libertarian land where unicorns fart out gold, this vision of America is pure fantasy. It's a great example of why I am a moderate. My takeaway from this piece is that is in such a small minority that there shouldn't be any real concern. Unlike the Tea Party who is substantial wing in the GOP, there is no socialist wing of the Democratic party. There's just Bernie Sanders and even he isn't this bad.
The second point is where he starts to lose it and it just gets worse from there on out. Social Security is fine for those people that spend their lives working and paying in to the system but not for people who don't. Some people simply won't "get a life" and the labor force would be greatly diminished. The third point is simply socialism and a complete load of shit. The fourth point is communism and the fifth point is ridiculous.
Like the libertarian land where unicorns fart out gold, this vision of America is pure fantasy. It's a great example of why I am a moderate. My takeaway from this piece is that is in such a small minority that there shouldn't be any real concern. Unlike the Tea Party who is substantial wing in the GOP, there is no socialist wing of the Democratic party. There's just Bernie Sanders and even he isn't this bad.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The FTC Stakes a Vampire through the Heart
There was a foul, blood-sucking creature stalking the land, preying
on the innocent and the naive, draining the life from the elderly and
the infirm. This creature stole into the homes of the vulnerable, with
soothing words and false promises, only to latch onto the throats of its
victims and suck them dry. But a brave woman tracked this foul demon
back to its lair in a dank swamp and staked it through the heart.
No, I'm not talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm talking about Jessica Rich, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. At the request of Rich and the Florida Attorney General, the US District Court, Orlando Division has frozen the assets of Credit Voice, the company behind a scam to defraud the elderly and annoy the hell out of anyone with phone.
Credit Voice inundated the country with robocalls. The one we got the most was some guy shuffling through papers said something like, "Hi, it looks like someone in your family ordered you this medical alert monitor. They already paid for it, so press 1 to arrange delivery."
It was all a lie, of course: the real service provider, Medical Alert, gives the monitor away because they make out like bandits on monthly fees. Credit Voice would start charging the victims immediately, whether the device was activated or not. The scammers have received $13 million in commissions since March, 2012. The court has ordered restitution, but good luck with that. Credit Voice will declare bankruptcy any day now, and the principles will abscond to some island tax haven.
I'm extremely glad the calls have stopped., but this took an awfully long time to resolve. We would get this call two, three, four times a day for months on end. I went to the FTC's Do Not Call website, made sure we were on the list, and reported the calls. When that didn't stop them, I seriously considered canceling my landline just to avoid these completely illegal robocalls. A year ago North Dakota issued Elite Infosystems (one of Credit Voice's aliases) and Michael Hilgar (the scumbag behind this scam) a cease and desist order to stop making fraudulent robocalls. The authorities have known about these bastards for a long time, but it took two years to shut them down.
The company that may be ultimately responsible for this fraud is Medical Alert, because they appear to have paid Credit Voice a commission while turning a blind eye to the scammers' methods. Medical Alert provides a device -- free of charge! -- that hooks into your landline. They give you a waterproof button on a wristband or pendant. You press the button if you fall down and can't get up. (Falling an extremely common proximate cause of death in the elderly.) The button signals the device hooked into the landline, which calls Medical Alert. They call you back to hold your hand and find out if you really need 911 service. All for the low-low price of just $29.95 a month (plus the cost of your landline).
That sounds kind of pricey for something with such limited utility. For not much more you can get a mobile phone that you can use for all sorts of things, including calling 911 and GPS tracking. Calling 911 yourself has the advantage of not having to wait for an operator making minimum wage or working in a foreign country to call you back. And I've got to wonder: if you've fallen down and broken your hip how will you get up to answer the phone? If you've fallen because you've lost consciousness from low blood pressure, diabetic shock, stroke or heart attack, you won't be able to press the button in the first place. And if you fall while taking your daily constitutional in the park, you're out of range of the device and it's useless.
I have a hard time believing these devices are all that useful. One purportedly helped Daniel Schorr, the veteran newsman, who had a similar system from Philips Lifeline. But the account of his accident highlights the limitations of these systems: if Schorr had fallen unconscious after hitting his head, he wouldn't have pressed the button. If his wife hadn't been there to answer the phone, the emergency response would have been delayed while the operator called around to ensure it wasn't a false alarm. And Schorr had a wife, who would have found him within minutes when he didn't come down for breakfast.
Don't get me wrong. I think there's a need for something like this. The elderly population of the United States is growing. People do better physically and psychologically if they stay in their own homes rather than being warehoused in nursing facilities. Independent living is cheaper, even when the elderly require in-home services like housecleaning, medical monitoring and meals. Technology is an obvious solution to monitor their well-being at a lower cost.
But the Medical Alert system doesn't seem to be the answer: it's a half-assed kludge that takes a big monthly bite out of an elderly person's Social Security check. A better solution would be a small, rugged, GPS-equipped, water-proof mobile phone that charges by induction, so that the phone can simply be placed on charger by the bedside at night (the elderly have a hard time plugging in tiny USB connections). It needs a 911 call button on the front. It should be able to monitor pulse and respiration, and blood sugar levels for diabetics. It should detect falls and conditions like heart attack, stroke, and diabetic coma, and call 911 automatically.
Do systems like Medical Alert save cities and counties money by vetting distress calls from the elderly? Or is it just another big-business ripoff of the elderly, at best preying on their fear and charging them 30 bucks a month for a false sense of security, and at worst delaying emergency responders who would get there faster with a direct 911 call?
No, I'm not talking about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm talking about Jessica Rich, director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection. At the request of Rich and the Florida Attorney General, the US District Court, Orlando Division has frozen the assets of Credit Voice, the company behind a scam to defraud the elderly and annoy the hell out of anyone with phone.
Credit Voice inundated the country with robocalls. The one we got the most was some guy shuffling through papers said something like, "Hi, it looks like someone in your family ordered you this medical alert monitor. They already paid for it, so press 1 to arrange delivery."
It was all a lie, of course: the real service provider, Medical Alert, gives the monitor away because they make out like bandits on monthly fees. Credit Voice would start charging the victims immediately, whether the device was activated or not. The scammers have received $13 million in commissions since March, 2012. The court has ordered restitution, but good luck with that. Credit Voice will declare bankruptcy any day now, and the principles will abscond to some island tax haven.
I'm extremely glad the calls have stopped., but this took an awfully long time to resolve. We would get this call two, three, four times a day for months on end. I went to the FTC's Do Not Call website, made sure we were on the list, and reported the calls. When that didn't stop them, I seriously considered canceling my landline just to avoid these completely illegal robocalls. A year ago North Dakota issued Elite Infosystems (one of Credit Voice's aliases) and Michael Hilgar (the scumbag behind this scam) a cease and desist order to stop making fraudulent robocalls. The authorities have known about these bastards for a long time, but it took two years to shut them down.
The company that may be ultimately responsible for this fraud is Medical Alert, because they appear to have paid Credit Voice a commission while turning a blind eye to the scammers' methods. Medical Alert provides a device -- free of charge! -- that hooks into your landline. They give you a waterproof button on a wristband or pendant. You press the button if you fall down and can't get up. (Falling an extremely common proximate cause of death in the elderly.) The button signals the device hooked into the landline, which calls Medical Alert. They call you back to hold your hand and find out if you really need 911 service. All for the low-low price of just $29.95 a month (plus the cost of your landline).
That sounds kind of pricey for something with such limited utility. For not much more you can get a mobile phone that you can use for all sorts of things, including calling 911 and GPS tracking. Calling 911 yourself has the advantage of not having to wait for an operator making minimum wage or working in a foreign country to call you back. And I've got to wonder: if you've fallen down and broken your hip how will you get up to answer the phone? If you've fallen because you've lost consciousness from low blood pressure, diabetic shock, stroke or heart attack, you won't be able to press the button in the first place. And if you fall while taking your daily constitutional in the park, you're out of range of the device and it's useless.
I have a hard time believing these devices are all that useful. One purportedly helped Daniel Schorr, the veteran newsman, who had a similar system from Philips Lifeline. But the account of his accident highlights the limitations of these systems: if Schorr had fallen unconscious after hitting his head, he wouldn't have pressed the button. If his wife hadn't been there to answer the phone, the emergency response would have been delayed while the operator called around to ensure it wasn't a false alarm. And Schorr had a wife, who would have found him within minutes when he didn't come down for breakfast.
Don't get me wrong. I think there's a need for something like this. The elderly population of the United States is growing. People do better physically and psychologically if they stay in their own homes rather than being warehoused in nursing facilities. Independent living is cheaper, even when the elderly require in-home services like housecleaning, medical monitoring and meals. Technology is an obvious solution to monitor their well-being at a lower cost.
But the Medical Alert system doesn't seem to be the answer: it's a half-assed kludge that takes a big monthly bite out of an elderly person's Social Security check. A better solution would be a small, rugged, GPS-equipped, water-proof mobile phone that charges by induction, so that the phone can simply be placed on charger by the bedside at night (the elderly have a hard time plugging in tiny USB connections). It needs a 911 call button on the front. It should be able to monitor pulse and respiration, and blood sugar levels for diabetics. It should detect falls and conditions like heart attack, stroke, and diabetic coma, and call 911 automatically.
Do systems like Medical Alert save cities and counties money by vetting distress calls from the elderly? Or is it just another big-business ripoff of the elderly, at best preying on their fear and charging them 30 bucks a month for a false sense of security, and at worst delaying emergency responders who would get there faster with a direct 911 call?
75,000 New Democratic Voters in West Virginia?
Sharon Mills is a great example why the Democrats should take Reince Priebus's advice and "stamp Obamacare to their foreheads."
Ms. Mills, 54, who suffered renal failure last year after having irregular access to medication, said her dependence on others left her feeling helpless and depressed. “I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore,” she said. So when a blue slip of paper arrived in the mail this month with a new Medicaid number on it — part of the expanded coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act — Ms. Mills said she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time in years. “The heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone,” she said.
And how many more people in West Virginia are there like her?
Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid. While many people who have signed up so far for private insurance through the new insurance exchanges had some kind of health care coverage before, recent studies have found, most of the people getting coverage under the Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured. In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.
The question now becomes how many people will shift over to the Democrats as a result of the ACA. I think it's going to be far greater than people imagine because there are many poor people who have come to realize that conservatives are not helping them at all. This is a big reason why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. They are seen as the party of the aristocratic class.
Of course, we still do have plaque..
Still, even among those who most need insurance, there has been resistance to signing up. President Obama — often blamed here in coal country for the industry’s decline — remains deeply unpopular. Recruiters trying to persuade people to enroll say they sometimes feel like drug peddlers. The people they approach often talk in hushed tones out of earshot of others. Chad Webb, a shy 30-year-old who is enrolling people in Mingo County, said a woman at a recent event used biblical terms to disparage Mr. Obama as an existential threat to the nation. Mr. Webb said he thought to himself: “This man is not the Antichrist. He just wants you to have health insurance.”
How did the froth about the president get to be so thick? Honestly, it's a combination of many things. I think it begins with the fact that they are massively insecure, angry and hateful at someone else succeeding where they are failing. That's rooted in the adolescent behavior that I think is at the core of all of this. As I have mentioned previously, conservatives are also secret aristocrats who don't think Democrats deserve to run anything. Only members of the "club" should be at the high of a station. Race plays a part, of course as does pride and hubris in tandem with an extreme difficulty to admit error. But, as the article notes,
Eventually, though, people’s desperate need for insurance seems to be overcoming their distaste for the president. Rachelle Williams, 25, an uninsured McDonald’s worker from Mingo County, said she had refused to fill out insurance forms on a recent trip to the emergency room for a painful bout of kidney stones. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said. But when she got a letter in the mail saying she qualified for Medicaid, she signed up immediately.
Uh Huh:)
Ms. Mills, 54, who suffered renal failure last year after having irregular access to medication, said her dependence on others left her feeling helpless and depressed. “I got to the point when I decided I just didn’t want to be here anymore,” she said. So when a blue slip of paper arrived in the mail this month with a new Medicaid number on it — part of the expanded coverage offered under the Affordable Care Act — Ms. Mills said she felt as if she could breathe again for the first time in years. “The heavy thing that was pressing on me is gone,” she said.
And how many more people in West Virginia are there like her?
Here in West Virginia, which has some of the shortest life spans and highest poverty rates in the country, the strength of the demand has surprised officials, with more than 75,000 people enrolling in Medicaid. While many people who have signed up so far for private insurance through the new insurance exchanges had some kind of health care coverage before, recent studies have found, most of the people getting coverage under the Medicaid expansion were previously uninsured. In West Virginia, where the Democratic governor agreed to expand Medicaid eligibility, the number of uninsured people in the state has been reduced by about a third.
The question now becomes how many people will shift over to the Democrats as a result of the ACA. I think it's going to be far greater than people imagine because there are many poor people who have come to realize that conservatives are not helping them at all. This is a big reason why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election. They are seen as the party of the aristocratic class.
Of course, we still do have plaque..
Still, even among those who most need insurance, there has been resistance to signing up. President Obama — often blamed here in coal country for the industry’s decline — remains deeply unpopular. Recruiters trying to persuade people to enroll say they sometimes feel like drug peddlers. The people they approach often talk in hushed tones out of earshot of others. Chad Webb, a shy 30-year-old who is enrolling people in Mingo County, said a woman at a recent event used biblical terms to disparage Mr. Obama as an existential threat to the nation. Mr. Webb said he thought to himself: “This man is not the Antichrist. He just wants you to have health insurance.”
How did the froth about the president get to be so thick? Honestly, it's a combination of many things. I think it begins with the fact that they are massively insecure, angry and hateful at someone else succeeding where they are failing. That's rooted in the adolescent behavior that I think is at the core of all of this. As I have mentioned previously, conservatives are also secret aristocrats who don't think Democrats deserve to run anything. Only members of the "club" should be at the high of a station. Race plays a part, of course as does pride and hubris in tandem with an extreme difficulty to admit error. But, as the article notes,
Eventually, though, people’s desperate need for insurance seems to be overcoming their distaste for the president. Rachelle Williams, 25, an uninsured McDonald’s worker from Mingo County, said she had refused to fill out insurance forms on a recent trip to the emergency room for a painful bout of kidney stones. “I wouldn’t do it,” she said. But when she got a letter in the mail saying she qualified for Medicaid, she signed up immediately.
Uh Huh:)
Unsustainable
OXFAM International just released a staggering report on inequality in the world. Here are the highlights.
• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.
The world economy simply cannot be sustained with this level of inequality. Demand is not where it should be and this is exactly why. If this gap continues to widen, demand will fall and more people will have less money as smaller businesses collapse.
Check out this video clip below from "Morning Joe" which illustrates how this is no longer a left-right divide.
Joe sounds quite a bit like Ronald Reagan in that 1986 speech I cite often. Note that they discuss how it isn't simply one issue like the tax code or the minimum wage but many issues that have coalesced into a fundamental systemic failure.
Barack Obama came to Washington to change it and this could be just the issue to do it. My colleagues on the Right and in the Tea Party assure me that they loathe the political and aristocratic class and its rent seeking as much as I do. So, what are we going to do about it?
• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.
The world economy simply cannot be sustained with this level of inequality. Demand is not where it should be and this is exactly why. If this gap continues to widen, demand will fall and more people will have less money as smaller businesses collapse.
Check out this video clip below from "Morning Joe" which illustrates how this is no longer a left-right divide.
Joe sounds quite a bit like Ronald Reagan in that 1986 speech I cite often. Note that they discuss how it isn't simply one issue like the tax code or the minimum wage but many issues that have coalesced into a fundamental systemic failure.
Barack Obama came to Washington to change it and this could be just the issue to do it. My colleagues on the Right and in the Tea Party assure me that they loathe the political and aristocratic class and its rent seeking as much as I do. So, what are we going to do about it?
Socialist Windmills
The other day in class we were talking about the chemical spill in West Virginia by Freedom Industries (ironic name, no?) and that discussion led into the topic of renewable energy. I mentioned the windmills we see when we drive down to Iowa to visit my in-laws. That was right around the time a student name Billy chimed in. A little background first...
Billy clearly has very conservative parents who feed him a lot of disinformation. When we do current events, he always makes some sort of anti-Obama comment followed by right wing blogsphere nonsense. The rest of the class usually rolls their eyes (even the Republicans) and, invariably, a debate ensues. Billy is a good kid, though, and is a ton of fun.
When the subject of wind power came up, he asked, "You mean those socialist windmills?"
"What makes you think they are socialist?" I wondered.
"Because Democrats support them so that means they are socialist."
After a brief explanation of the differences between the Democratic Party and socialism, as well as assurances from me that wind power in Iowa is privately owned, Billy seemed to understand the nuance.
I have to wonder how much longer we are going to have to clean out plaque from these poor people...
Billy clearly has very conservative parents who feed him a lot of disinformation. When we do current events, he always makes some sort of anti-Obama comment followed by right wing blogsphere nonsense. The rest of the class usually rolls their eyes (even the Republicans) and, invariably, a debate ensues. Billy is a good kid, though, and is a ton of fun.
When the subject of wind power came up, he asked, "You mean those socialist windmills?"
"What makes you think they are socialist?" I wondered.
"Because Democrats support them so that means they are socialist."
After a brief explanation of the differences between the Democratic Party and socialism, as well as assurances from me that wind power in Iowa is privately owned, Billy seemed to understand the nuance.
I have to wonder how much longer we are going to have to clean out plaque from these poor people...
Monday, January 20, 2014
Some Thoughts On Dr. King
The Friday before Dr. King's birthday, I always have students ask me what I think of Dr. King. As I invariably do, I ask them what they think. But this year, I had two freshmen pretty much pin me to the wall in the last five minutes of Civics class and tell me to (once and for all!) give my opinion. So, this is what I told them.
Like many figures in history, Dr, King is "heroified," to use a James Loewen term. To a certain extent, this transformation has done him a great disservice. My primary gripe is that he is consistently made out to be a more secular figure when it was Jesus Christ and His heart of peace and love that drove Dr. King to action. Certainly, he had a profound sense of civic duty for equal rights but we shouldn't mistake the origin of his passion. The other element of his personality I urged my two students to consider is that he was not a perfect man. I wrote about this two years ago and it is still very important to remember. He made mistakes just like anyone else. He had doubts just like anyone else. He had moments of weakness just like anyone else.
In the final analysis, however, our country today is something he would have broken down and cried over with tears of joy. I told the two young women in front of me, one black and one white and best friends since pre-school, that in so many ways his dream has been realized. We aren't perfect in terms of race or prejudice but we have come a very long way. My students generation...my children's generation...simply can't conceive of a time when people were treated differently because they were black. It's as foreign to them as a time when people didn't text or have a computer. They just don't grasp the concept and that means that a great stain has more or less been culturally eliminated. I then asked them what they think Dr. King would be doing today if he was around. They both said the same thing.
"Helping people who are sick and who are poor."
His dream continues to be fulfilled.
Like many figures in history, Dr, King is "heroified," to use a James Loewen term. To a certain extent, this transformation has done him a great disservice. My primary gripe is that he is consistently made out to be a more secular figure when it was Jesus Christ and His heart of peace and love that drove Dr. King to action. Certainly, he had a profound sense of civic duty for equal rights but we shouldn't mistake the origin of his passion. The other element of his personality I urged my two students to consider is that he was not a perfect man. I wrote about this two years ago and it is still very important to remember. He made mistakes just like anyone else. He had doubts just like anyone else. He had moments of weakness just like anyone else.
In the final analysis, however, our country today is something he would have broken down and cried over with tears of joy. I told the two young women in front of me, one black and one white and best friends since pre-school, that in so many ways his dream has been realized. We aren't perfect in terms of race or prejudice but we have come a very long way. My students generation...my children's generation...simply can't conceive of a time when people were treated differently because they were black. It's as foreign to them as a time when people didn't text or have a computer. They just don't grasp the concept and that means that a great stain has more or less been culturally eliminated. I then asked them what they think Dr. King would be doing today if he was around. They both said the same thing.
"Helping people who are sick and who are poor."
His dream continues to be fulfilled.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Diamonds are Forever
Carl Sagan used to say that we are made of star-stuff. In his book The Cosmic Connection (1973) he wrote:
As every kid who read Superman comics knows, you can make diamonds by exerting great pressure and heat on carbon. Synthetic diamonds are now made by high-pressure high-temperature processes in labs: they're harder and more reliable than natural diamonds. You can also make diamonds with a process called chemical vapor deposition, which allows diamonds to be used in heat sinks and electronics.
Diamonds hold a special place in American culture. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Diamonds are forever. Diamonds are the usually the centerpiece of an engagement ring, symbolizing eternal love. Diamonds are the gift for the sixtieth anniversary (down from the 75th), an occasion that is exceedingly rare. Diamond was long the hardest substance known, but has recently been displaced by wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite.
Now you can have the carbon in the bodies of your loved ones turned into diamonds, so that they too can be forever. Companies in Switzerland and the United States offer services for turning cremated human ash into diamonds.
Depending on the size of the diamond, this can cost from $5,000 to $22,000. The diamonds are usually blue, because of the boron in the body. It takes about a pound of ash to create a diamond.
When we bury our dead or cast their ashes into the sea or a forest, their remains will ultimately return to the cycle of life. Their carbon will be be incorporated into the cells of bacteria and fungi, then plants, then animals and perhaps another person some day.
But if you turn your loved one's ashes into diamonds, their carbon will be locked up forever in a glittering gem, impervious to decay and corruption. Diamond sublimates at 6558ºF, which means diamonds may last until the sun bloats into a red giant in seven billion years, and may even survive that.
Is having your loved one turned into a diamond horribly creepy or hopelessly romantic? Is being a diamond immortality or an eternity of isolation?
Our Sun is a second- or third-generation star. All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff.We are recycled from material that was created when stars exploded billions of years ago. The carbon in our bodies has been recycled innumerable times, as it has gone from plants who drew it from the air, into herbivores who ate the plants, into predators who ate the herbivores, then exhaled by the predators, which was then inspired by other plants, which our ancestors ate, and we eat today.
As every kid who read Superman comics knows, you can make diamonds by exerting great pressure and heat on carbon. Synthetic diamonds are now made by high-pressure high-temperature processes in labs: they're harder and more reliable than natural diamonds. You can also make diamonds with a process called chemical vapor deposition, which allows diamonds to be used in heat sinks and electronics.
Diamonds hold a special place in American culture. Diamonds are a girl's best friend. Diamonds are forever. Diamonds are the usually the centerpiece of an engagement ring, symbolizing eternal love. Diamonds are the gift for the sixtieth anniversary (down from the 75th), an occasion that is exceedingly rare. Diamond was long the hardest substance known, but has recently been displaced by wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite.
 |
| Diamonds made from the ashes of animals |
Depending on the size of the diamond, this can cost from $5,000 to $22,000. The diamonds are usually blue, because of the boron in the body. It takes about a pound of ash to create a diamond.
When we bury our dead or cast their ashes into the sea or a forest, their remains will ultimately return to the cycle of life. Their carbon will be be incorporated into the cells of bacteria and fungi, then plants, then animals and perhaps another person some day.
But if you turn your loved one's ashes into diamonds, their carbon will be locked up forever in a glittering gem, impervious to decay and corruption. Diamond sublimates at 6558ºF, which means diamonds may last until the sun bloats into a red giant in seven billion years, and may even survive that.
Is having your loved one turned into a diamond horribly creepy or hopelessly romantic? Is being a diamond immortality or an eternity of isolation?
Get In The Game
Michael Mann's recent piece in the Times is an excellent call to arms.
This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I should know. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more — after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Our “hockey stick” graph became a vivid centerpiece of the climate wars, and to this day, it continues to win me the enmity of those who have conflated a problem of science and society with partisan politics.
The right wing blogsphere isn't scary at all. Threats of violence from men with titties don't mean anything. They are full of sound and fury and signify nothing. It's time for more scientists like Mann to recognize that and get into the game.
This is where scientists come in. In my view, it is no longer acceptable for scientists to remain on the sidelines. I should know. I had no choice but to enter the fray. I was hounded by elected officials, threatened with violence and more — after a single study I co-wrote a decade and a half ago found that the Northern Hemisphere’s average warmth had no precedent in at least the past 1,000 years. Our “hockey stick” graph became a vivid centerpiece of the climate wars, and to this day, it continues to win me the enmity of those who have conflated a problem of science and society with partisan politics.
The right wing blogsphere isn't scary at all. Threats of violence from men with titties don't mean anything. They are full of sound and fury and signify nothing. It's time for more scientists like Mann to recognize that and get into the game.
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