By Dave Barry, in the Miami Herald
On Tuesday, millions of Florida voters will head for the polls. Being Floridians, many of them will become confused and drive into buildings, canals, cemeteries, other Floridians, etc. But some will actually make it to the polls, where they will cast ballots that will play a crucial role in the presidential election. Or, in the case of Democrats, not.
It turns out that the 2008 Florida Democratic primary doesn’t count. Florida will be sending the same number of delegates to the 2008 Democratic convention as Uzbekistan. This may seem unfair, but there’s a simple, logical explanation: The whole primary system is insane. Consider the process so far:
First, Iowa held ”caucuses,” in which Iowans gathered in small groups at night and engaged in some mysterious Iowan ritual that for all we know involves having intimate relations with corn. Right after that, Wyoming had a primary, but it was only for Republicans, because Wyoming Democrats (apparently, there are at least two) will hold their primary on March 8. Most of the candidates ignored Wyoming and focused on the New Hampshire primary, except Rudy Giuliani, who’s following a shrewd strategy, originally developed by the Miami Dolphins, of not entering the race until he has been mathematically eliminated. After New Hampshire came Michigan, where the ballot listed all the Republicans, but only certain Democrats — including Chris Dodd, who had already dropped out if the race — but not including Barack Obama or John Edwards.
After Michigan came the Nevada caucuses, in which Hillary Clinton got more votes but Barack Obama got more delegates. (If you don’t understand how that could happen, then you have never been to a casino.) Then came the South Carolina Republican primary, which of course was not held on the same day as the South Carolina Democratic primary, which was Saturday. Then comes Florida, in which Republican voters will elect some delegates, although the total will only be half the number Florida was originally supposed to get. Meanwhile, Florida Democrats, as I mentioned, will have the same impact on their party’s nomination as if they fed their ballots to ducks.
I am not making any of this up: This is our actual primary system, except (I hope) the part about the corn. We’re selecting candidates for the most important job in the world via a process that’s less rational than the one used to choose Miss Kumquat of Pasco County.
How did we end up with this ridiculous system? We got it through endless petty squabbling, in both parties, over the issue of which states get to go first. That’s right: When confronted with what should be a minor procedural problem, the leaders of our major political parties can’t even work intelligently with their own allies, let alone their opponents. This is why, no matter who wins in November, I am optimistic about the future of the nation. (I’m referring to Uzbekistan.)
Anyway, for those of you who plan to vote Tuesday, here’s a quick overview of the political situation:
THE REPUBLICAN RACE: It’s still wide open. Mitt ”Mitt” Romney holds a slight edge in delegates, plus a heifer he got for winning Wyoming. Right behind him are John McCain, Chuck Norris and the late Ronald Reagan.
Bringing up the rear is Rudy, who needs a win and has been frantically courting Florida voters. He’s mowing your lawn right now.
THE DEMOCRATIC RACE: It’s down to Obama vs. Clinton, and it’s getting nasty. They hate each other, with the kind of passionate hatred that you see only between two people who hold essentially the same positions on everything. Edwards is still running, but at this point they don’t even bother to put a microphone on him for the debates. He just waves his arms to indicate how he’s going to take on the big corporations.
There are also some referendum questions on the Florida ballot. The big one concerns the plan to amend the state property tax. This is a complicated question, and it’s your duty, as a citizen, to do the research, get the facts and figure out whether the amendment will help — or hurt — me. Then let me know, OK? Because I am way too busy.
So that’s the situation, Floridians.
On Tuesday, it’s your turn to stand up and be counted, unless of course you’re a Democrat. But whatever you are, you should get out there and vote, even if you have no earthly idea for what or whom you’re voting, or why, because that’s what democracy is all about.
Also, Rudy, if you’re reading this: My hedge needs trimming.
I also have to wonder whether Hillary would be quite as enthusiastic about overturning the DNC ban on Florida delegates if Obama wins Florida?
I’m going to be quite lonely without the 14 or 15 calls from other political figures telling me who they are supporting and why I should vote for that candidate, as well as the candidates attacking each others’ records, and John McCain’s wife calling to get all outraged about people lying about her husband’s record. Or maybe she’s all outraged because we have figured out her husband’s record on our own.
With all the daily calls, I have yet to be contacted by one of those polling services that purports to know the political leanings of Floridians. Oh, well. I’ve already voted anyway. (But perhaps we better keep that between us just in case I could get somebody to clean my house in return for my vote.)
Sunday, January 27, 2008
New House Guests
It was a cold morning this morning and when I fed the horse and sheep, I could hear weak peeping noises from a duck's nest. The duck was nowhere to be found (perhaps motherhood didn't live up to her expectations), and some little lifeless duckling bodies were lying huddled over the eggs in the cold. One of the eggs was peeping weakly. It felt cold. I picked it up, and could hear more weak peeping from the nest. Another egg with a tiny hole chipped in it. I put them both in my pocket, and checked the other cold eggs. A tiny little duck bill protruded from one, not moving.
I brought the eggs inside and tried warming them with a hair dryer which was not exactly optimally temperature controlled. I didn't want to take the chance of cooking them in the shell, so I peeled the shell and dried them. I briefly abandoned them to locate and unpack a Hova-Bator incubator that had been bought for the daughter's poultry @ 10 years previously, but the box had never been opened. I brought it in from where it had been stored and assembled it, periodically warming the little ducklings with a hair dryer.
The incubator temperature controls works great after all that time! Now they are in the incubator with the controls set @ 100 degrees. I'll probably leave them in there the rest of the day before moving them to a box with a heat lamp so they can get their first meal.
I brought the eggs inside and tried warming them with a hair dryer which was not exactly optimally temperature controlled. I didn't want to take the chance of cooking them in the shell, so I peeled the shell and dried them. I briefly abandoned them to locate and unpack a Hova-Bator incubator that had been bought for the daughter's poultry @ 10 years previously, but the box had never been opened. I brought it in from where it had been stored and assembled it, periodically warming the little ducklings with a hair dryer.
The incubator temperature controls works great after all that time! Now they are in the incubator with the controls set @ 100 degrees. I'll probably leave them in there the rest of the day before moving them to a box with a heat lamp so they can get their first meal.
Nearly Time to Order Chicks!
"SwampWoman", you may say, "what in the world is wrong with you?" "You've been warning us about the dangers of H5N1 for months now, and you put in a link to order newly hatched chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery?"
Yep. I'm concerned about H5N1 but not yet concerned enough to get rid of my poultry. I like to hear the roosters crowing, chickens quietly clucking in content, the hens calling to their chicks as they are on a bug search-and-destroy mission. What I do NOT like is when they are on a flower garden search-and-destroy mission and they eat my newly-rooted hydrangea cuttings or the new petunias. (I need to get them under better control.) Until such time as I get them under better control, I'd better not order any new ones!
Years ago, daughter showed some fancy bantams at the fair. Afterwards, they were turned in with my flock of Araucanas and cross-bred like crazy. Now I've got various-sized vigorous chickens running around that are self-supporting, hide their nests so I don't get any eggs, and raise their young with no help from me (unless I find some peeps that ducks accidentally hatched or whose momma got snatched by a fox or hawk). I can't just let them be eaten by possums, poor babies! These chickens may have a feathery crest, feathered legs, and some still have the feathered ears and lay the colored eggs of the Araucanas. The roosters will fight each other to the death but are timid around small humans, always a plus.
I actually have 3 separate flocks in 3 different areas--there are the horse barn chickens whose territory is around the stables and pasture. They roost in the stable, and tend to be plain-legged bantams and Araucana crosses. The sheep barn roosting chickens are some descendants, apparently, of the old Australorp rooster (also a show chicken). Those chickens are black. Then I have some that like to roost in the trees around the house and crow loudly at 3 a.m. Those are the Cochin, Polish, and Buff Orpington descendants. These now just have some minor feathering of the legs and a small feathery crest, not the exaggerated feathering of the purebreds. There used to be quite a few white/light-colored chickens in this group, but white chickens are easier to see at night even in the trees by an irate person with a shotgun that has been awakened by said crowing roosters.
Murray McMurray isn't a source for people that dream of showing champion chickens. It's a source for folks that, like me, like to have the poultry around and aren't so concerned about whether the coloring of the feathers and/or conformation is outstanding enough to be of championship quality.
Yep. I'm concerned about H5N1 but not yet concerned enough to get rid of my poultry. I like to hear the roosters crowing, chickens quietly clucking in content, the hens calling to their chicks as they are on a bug search-and-destroy mission. What I do NOT like is when they are on a flower garden search-and-destroy mission and they eat my newly-rooted hydrangea cuttings or the new petunias. (I need to get them under better control.) Until such time as I get them under better control, I'd better not order any new ones!
Years ago, daughter showed some fancy bantams at the fair. Afterwards, they were turned in with my flock of Araucanas and cross-bred like crazy. Now I've got various-sized vigorous chickens running around that are self-supporting, hide their nests so I don't get any eggs, and raise their young with no help from me (unless I find some peeps that ducks accidentally hatched or whose momma got snatched by a fox or hawk). I can't just let them be eaten by possums, poor babies! These chickens may have a feathery crest, feathered legs, and some still have the feathered ears and lay the colored eggs of the Araucanas. The roosters will fight each other to the death but are timid around small humans, always a plus.
I actually have 3 separate flocks in 3 different areas--there are the horse barn chickens whose territory is around the stables and pasture. They roost in the stable, and tend to be plain-legged bantams and Araucana crosses. The sheep barn roosting chickens are some descendants, apparently, of the old Australorp rooster (also a show chicken). Those chickens are black. Then I have some that like to roost in the trees around the house and crow loudly at 3 a.m. Those are the Cochin, Polish, and Buff Orpington descendants. These now just have some minor feathering of the legs and a small feathery crest, not the exaggerated feathering of the purebreds. There used to be quite a few white/light-colored chickens in this group, but white chickens are easier to see at night even in the trees by an irate person with a shotgun that has been awakened by said crowing roosters.
Murray McMurray isn't a source for people that dream of showing champion chickens. It's a source for folks that, like me, like to have the poultry around and aren't so concerned about whether the coloring of the feathers and/or conformation is outstanding enough to be of championship quality.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Early Voting in Florida/Rant
Like I suspect many people did, I waited for the final debates in Florida before voting for a candidate. I did not vote based on whether or not the candidate shared my religious views, something which seems to be of much greater importance to the press than it is to the ordinary voter. I did not vote based on what they promised for the future. I voted based on past performance.
You see, there are several things important to me in a candidate. We lost our family business after 9/11, and I never want to see terrorists hitting our country like that again. A person that I believe can be trusted to take care of national security is very important to me.
As a person who has been self-employed for 30 years and just took a salaried job last September, I know just how important it is to reform the tax laws in order to keep our economy strong. Sarbanes-Oxley needs to go. Corporate tax rates need to be cut. As the ol’ saying goes, I never got a job (or a great deal of business) from a poor person.Why is the government even talking about giving tax rebates to people that do not pay taxes? That’s crazy. How about (wild idea here) giving tax rebates back to the people that actually pay taxes?
Control of illegal immigration is another thing that I’m ticked off at Washington about. Those people are insulated from the effects of illegal immigrants displacing American citizens from jobs. The young men without educations that used to go into construction or maintenance jobs and still earn a pretty decent living can no longer do so because the jobs have been filled at a lower rate of pay by unskilled workers from Mexico and places south. Narcotrafficers can travel in and out of the country unchecked. I’m more tired than I can say of illegal aliens killing citizens and then fleeing back across the border where they are protected. I’m also very worried that if these people can travel back and forth, then who else may be coming through our borders?
I would like to see an actual sane energy policy coming out of Washington instead of some starry-eyed environmentalist on crack bullsh**. No, I don’t believe that turning corn into fuel is going to be the energy future and anybody with any common sense doesn’t, either. Right now, we have an oil-based economy so I suggest that we exploit it instead of worrying about polar bears which, if they cannot tolerate a tiny little portion of the ANWR being drilled in, deserve to go extinct. (And if you look at that wasteland, you do not see polar bears lounging about.) Cuba and China are drilling off of Florida’s coast, so why the hell isn’t America?
Well, as I have said, I’m less interested in what a politician tells me he/she is going to do for me than I am in looking at what he (or she) has done in the past. While looking at a candidate’s job performance in the past is no guarantee of future good behavior, hiring a candidate that has lied to and stolen from his/her past employers is only asking for trouble.
You see, there are several things important to me in a candidate. We lost our family business after 9/11, and I never want to see terrorists hitting our country like that again. A person that I believe can be trusted to take care of national security is very important to me.
As a person who has been self-employed for 30 years and just took a salaried job last September, I know just how important it is to reform the tax laws in order to keep our economy strong. Sarbanes-Oxley needs to go. Corporate tax rates need to be cut. As the ol’ saying goes, I never got a job (or a great deal of business) from a poor person.
Control of illegal immigration is another thing that I’m ticked off at Washington about. Those people are insulated from the effects of illegal immigrants displacing American citizens from jobs. The young men without educations that used to go into construction or maintenance jobs and still earn a pretty decent living can no longer do so because the jobs have been filled at a lower rate of pay by unskilled workers from Mexico and places south. Narcotrafficers can travel in and out of the country unchecked. I’m more tired than I can say of illegal aliens killing citizens and then fleeing back across the border where they are protected. I’m also very worried that if these people can travel back and forth, then who else may be coming through our borders?
Well, as I have said, I’m less interested in what a politician tells me he/she is going to do for me than I am in looking at what he (or she) has done in the past. While looking at a candidate’s job performance in the past is no guarantee of future good behavior, hiring a candidate that has lied to and stolen from his/her past employers is only asking for trouble.
Happy "I Did Not Have Sex with That Woman, Monica Lewinsky" Day!
Ten years ago, January 26, 1998. How time does fly!
"Broke" with Pay Day Still a Week Away
I had a telephone conversation today with my daughter. “Dang, payday is a week away, my bank account is nearly empty, and I need to buy feed for the livestock as well as gas.” Normally, feed is not a problem but this year, with hay prices being high and a recent freeze putting the coastal bermuda into dormancy, I was hurtin’.
“Oh, pulleeeeze, mom”, I heard her say and could only imagine the eye roll that went along with it, “you have not been entirely broke a day in your life.”
“But I AM!” I wailed.
“Really? Did you cash in those milk jugs full of change?”
Well, I hadn’t actually thought of them as money but more asdecorations dust collectors.
“Well, no”, I told her.
“Did you even count the change in your purses? I know that you hardly ever spend change.”
“Umm…….”.
”Mom, you could knock somebody out with one of your purses! They feel like you carry bowling balls in them or something.” Well, weightbearing exercise is supposed to protect you from osteoporosis.
“Dump out one of your purses and just count the change. Now.”
I dumped the red alligator purse and the black purse that goes with everything and counted out $27.78 in change.
I have a lot more purses. Guess those milk jugs full of change won’t have to be emptied just yet. Some of the livestock definitely needs to go to market before I have to count pennies.
“Oh, pulleeeeze, mom”, I heard her say and could only imagine the eye roll that went along with it, “you have not been entirely broke a day in your life.”
“But I AM!” I wailed.
“Really? Did you cash in those milk jugs full of change?”
Well, I hadn’t actually thought of them as money but more as
“Well, no”, I told her.
“Did you even count the change in your purses? I know that you hardly ever spend change.”
“Umm…….”.
”Mom, you could knock somebody out with one of your purses! They feel like you carry bowling balls in them or something.” Well, weightbearing exercise is supposed to protect you from osteoporosis.
“Dump out one of your purses and just count the change. Now.”
I dumped the red alligator purse and the black purse that goes with everything and counted out $27.78 in change.
I have a lot more purses. Guess those milk jugs full of change won’t have to be emptied just yet. Some of the livestock definitely needs to go to market before I have to count pennies.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Doesn't Anybody Want to Be a Plain Vice President Anymore?
Disney is looking for a chief magic official for its amusement parks.
Couples Resorts employs a chief romance officer.
BankAtlantic has a manager of a department entitled “Office of Wow!”
What’s going on with corporate titles? Doesn’t anybody want to be a plain vice president, anymore?
“We laugh about it all the time,” says Mick Lasher, who heads the executive search firm Lasher Associates in Weston. “It’s just ludicrous. We’ve gone so far to be team-oriented. We’re so afraid to put meaningful titles on people.”
Job titles can be creative as long as they fit a job and are clear, experts say. But employees with less traditional titles risk losing credibility in looking for that next job. Unusual titles also may be missing “key words” recruiters and potential employers search for in resumes online.
Some nouveau job titles are not understandable to the lay person, says Kim Kerrigan, president of Corporate Classrooms, a Fort Lauderdale-based employee training firm. He uses the example of the traditional “vice president of engineering” compared with a New Age title of “tech support engineer level II.”
“I would wonder what that is,” Kerrigan says. “A title should reflect what you do and what your major responsibility is.”
But some South Florida executives defend their inventive titles.
Greg Dalmotte, BankAtlantic’s manager of the Office of Wow, says he faced skepticism initially, but now employees are on board with his department. “We’re responsible for driving employee engagement, creating an environment where people like coming to work.”
The Office of Wow provides employee training, recognizes workers for reaching milestones, and holds special events at the Fort Lauderdale-based bank. Managers reward employees with “wow” bucks, which allow them to buy DVD players, Coach handbags and other items.
Dalmotte, formerly in sales, takes his engagement role seriously. For a Deal or No Deal event at the bank, he shaved his head to become “Wowie Mandel,” imitating TV show host Howie Mandel.
Creative titles even have invaded human resources.
Burger King’sPete Smith, chief human resources director, recently hired Robert Perkins to be the Miami-based fast-food chain’s vice president of inclusion and talent management.
“Inclusion,” Smith says, refers to more than old-fashioned diversity. “It’s about embracing how we get our work done. It also has a global aspect.”
Perkins’ role fits Burger King’s strategy, Smith says, because “our customers are every race, creed, sex, and culture in 70-plus countries.”
Unusual titles may be most prevalent in the hospitality industry.
Kerrigan points to W Hotels, soon to open a property on Fort Lauderdale beach, which uses innovative titles for hotel service people. “If you want room service or a button sewed, you call the ‘whatever, whenever agent.’”
Meanwhile, Disney is advertising for a chief magic official, an hourly job traveling to Disney parks to create magical experiences.
“The ideal candidate must never be grumpy … have good manners, but also be able to pillage and plunder with pirates when necessary. Also required, pockets full of pixie dust … and most importantly, a belief in all things magical,” according to the job description posted on DreamCMO.com.
It’s a real job, Disney representatives say, for at least a year.
Randy Russell, chief romance officer for Couples Resorts, which operates its Jamaica resorts from an office in Miramar, came up with his own job title. The goal was to set Couples apart from other Caribbean resorts, he says, and “it has transferred to how we treat our guests in the hotel.”
Source: South Florida Sun Sentinel
Well, my preferred job title was always “Boss Lady”, as opposed to the guys that wore the HMFIC caps. I suppose that showed a horrible lack of imagination, and I should have worn a “Wonder Woman” T-shirt. Carrying the magic lasso, though, probably would have gotten me investigated as a racist.
Couples Resorts employs a chief romance officer.
BankAtlantic has a manager of a department entitled “Office of Wow!”
What’s going on with corporate titles? Doesn’t anybody want to be a plain vice president, anymore?
“We laugh about it all the time,” says Mick Lasher, who heads the executive search firm Lasher Associates in Weston. “It’s just ludicrous. We’ve gone so far to be team-oriented. We’re so afraid to put meaningful titles on people.”
Job titles can be creative as long as they fit a job and are clear, experts say. But employees with less traditional titles risk losing credibility in looking for that next job. Unusual titles also may be missing “key words” recruiters and potential employers search for in resumes online.
Some nouveau job titles are not understandable to the lay person, says Kim Kerrigan, president of Corporate Classrooms, a Fort Lauderdale-based employee training firm. He uses the example of the traditional “vice president of engineering” compared with a New Age title of “tech support engineer level II.”
“I would wonder what that is,” Kerrigan says. “A title should reflect what you do and what your major responsibility is.”
But some South Florida executives defend their inventive titles.
Greg Dalmotte, BankAtlantic’s manager of the Office of Wow, says he faced skepticism initially, but now employees are on board with his department. “We’re responsible for driving employee engagement, creating an environment where people like coming to work.”
The Office of Wow provides employee training, recognizes workers for reaching milestones, and holds special events at the Fort Lauderdale-based bank. Managers reward employees with “wow” bucks, which allow them to buy DVD players, Coach handbags and other items.
Dalmotte, formerly in sales, takes his engagement role seriously. For a Deal or No Deal event at the bank, he shaved his head to become “Wowie Mandel,” imitating TV show host Howie Mandel.
Creative titles even have invaded human resources.
Burger King’sPete Smith, chief human resources director, recently hired Robert Perkins to be the Miami-based fast-food chain’s vice president of inclusion and talent management.
“Inclusion,” Smith says, refers to more than old-fashioned diversity. “It’s about embracing how we get our work done. It also has a global aspect.”
Perkins’ role fits Burger King’s strategy, Smith says, because “our customers are every race, creed, sex, and culture in 70-plus countries.”
Unusual titles may be most prevalent in the hospitality industry.
Kerrigan points to W Hotels, soon to open a property on Fort Lauderdale beach, which uses innovative titles for hotel service people. “If you want room service or a button sewed, you call the ‘whatever, whenever agent.’”
Meanwhile, Disney is advertising for a chief magic official, an hourly job traveling to Disney parks to create magical experiences.
“The ideal candidate must never be grumpy … have good manners, but also be able to pillage and plunder with pirates when necessary. Also required, pockets full of pixie dust … and most importantly, a belief in all things magical,” according to the job description posted on DreamCMO.com.
It’s a real job, Disney representatives say, for at least a year.
Randy Russell, chief romance officer for Couples Resorts, which operates its Jamaica resorts from an office in Miramar, came up with his own job title. The goal was to set Couples apart from other Caribbean resorts, he says, and “it has transferred to how we treat our guests in the hotel.”
Source: South Florida Sun Sentinel
Well, my preferred job title was always “Boss Lady”, as opposed to the guys that wore the HMFIC caps. I suppose that showed a horrible lack of imagination, and I should have worn a “Wonder Woman” T-shirt. Carrying the magic lasso, though, probably would have gotten me investigated as a racist.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Saudi Women Can Now Stay in Hotels Alone
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- Women in Saudi Arabia can now stay in a hotel or a furnished apartment without a male guardian, according to a government decision that comes as the country faces increasing criticism for its severe restrictions on women.
The daily Al-Watan, which is deemed close to the Saudi government, reported Monday that the ministry issued a circular to hotels asking them to accept lone women - as long as their information is sent to a local police station.
The decision was adopted after a study conducted by the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Commission of Tourism and the religious police authority known as the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Saudi women, under strict Islamic law, suffer severe restrictions on daily life: They are not allowed to be anywhere with an unrelated man, cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
The paper interviewed some Saudi women who complained that they had been severely inconvenienced by the rules banning them from staying in the hotels alone.
It quoted a woman identified as saying that she once arrived late at night at King Fahd airport on an internal flight and was denied a hotel room because she was alone.
Another woman, Fatima Ibrahim, said her son-in-law quarreled with his wife and daughters and threw them out of the house. When they tried to get a hotel room, they were asked to get a permission from the police.
Saudi Arabia has come under intense international criticism, including from its ally, the United States, especially over its treatment of women in the kingdom's legal system. King Abdullah pardoned a rape victim last month after her case sparked international outcry because she had been sentenced to lashes and jail time for being in a car with a a man who was not her relative.
Source:
Sigh. Well, at least there is that tiniest bit of improvement in women's lives under a very repressive Islamic government.
The daily Al-Watan, which is deemed close to the Saudi government, reported Monday that the ministry issued a circular to hotels asking them to accept lone women - as long as their information is sent to a local police station.
The decision was adopted after a study conducted by the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Commission of Tourism and the religious police authority known as the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Saudi women, under strict Islamic law, suffer severe restrictions on daily life: They are not allowed to be anywhere with an unrelated man, cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
The paper interviewed some Saudi women who complained that they had been severely inconvenienced by the rules banning them from staying in the hotels alone.
It quoted a woman identified as saying that she once arrived late at night at King Fahd airport on an internal flight and was denied a hotel room because she was alone.
Another woman, Fatima Ibrahim, said her son-in-law quarreled with his wife and daughters and threw them out of the house. When they tried to get a hotel room, they were asked to get a permission from the police.
Saudi Arabia has come under intense international criticism, including from its ally, the United States, especially over its treatment of women in the kingdom's legal system. King Abdullah pardoned a rape victim last month after her case sparked international outcry because she had been sentenced to lashes and jail time for being in a car with a a man who was not her relative.
Source:
Sigh. Well, at least there is that tiniest bit of improvement in women's lives under a very repressive Islamic government.
Ooops! Local Worker Accused of Deleting $2.5 Million Worth of Files--Because of a Help-Wanted Ad
JACKSONVILLE, FL — The target may be high-tech, but the emotion involved is as old as humanity. Spite, anger, and revenge. Police say that’s what filled a woman’s heart after she picked up the classified ads.
When Marie Cooley came across a job that looked like hers in the classifieds, she admits she was certain she was about to be fired.
So police say late Sunday night, she crept into the Mandarin office where she worked at Steven E. Hutchins Architects.
“She decided to go and mess up everything for everybody,” said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.
Jefferson says Cooley accessed the company’s server with her own account. And with a handful of mouse clicks and keystrokes, he says she deleted seven years’ worth of architectural drawings.
Seven years of work — gone in seconds.
The company put the value of the vaporized files at $2.5 million.
“She decided to be spiteful and go in and sabotage the records. And she did a very good job of that,” Jefferson said.
According to police, Cooley confessed to the crime. It’s a second degree felony that could lay the blueprints for a five-year prison sentence.
Folks at the architecture firm didn’t want to talk on camera about the disastrous deletion.
The owner did tell First Coast News that he’s paid good money to recover those files and he says he’s now managed to get every deleted drawing back from its digital death.
“The lesson to be learned here is that you can’t depend on having just one set of records or files and having your employees have access to them. You’ve got to have some kind of backup,” Jefferson said.
And here’s the most sobering part: the owner of the architecture firm says Marie Cooley was not going to be fired. He says the job listing was for his wife’s business — not his.
Source:
There may be a moral there somewhere about the danger of leaping to conclusions without supporting evidence. Meanwhile, the lady has gone from valued employee to unemployed woman likely to spend several years in prison.
Business owners, too, may want to think about how trustworthy their trusted employees really are.
When Marie Cooley came across a job that looked like hers in the classifieds, she admits she was certain she was about to be fired.
So police say late Sunday night, she crept into the Mandarin office where she worked at Steven E. Hutchins Architects.
“She decided to go and mess up everything for everybody,” said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.
Jefferson says Cooley accessed the company’s server with her own account. And with a handful of mouse clicks and keystrokes, he says she deleted seven years’ worth of architectural drawings.
Seven years of work — gone in seconds.
The company put the value of the vaporized files at $2.5 million.
“She decided to be spiteful and go in and sabotage the records. And she did a very good job of that,” Jefferson said.
According to police, Cooley confessed to the crime. It’s a second degree felony that could lay the blueprints for a five-year prison sentence.
Folks at the architecture firm didn’t want to talk on camera about the disastrous deletion.
The owner did tell First Coast News that he’s paid good money to recover those files and he says he’s now managed to get every deleted drawing back from its digital death.
“The lesson to be learned here is that you can’t depend on having just one set of records or files and having your employees have access to them. You’ve got to have some kind of backup,” Jefferson said.
And here’s the most sobering part: the owner of the architecture firm says Marie Cooley was not going to be fired. He says the job listing was for his wife’s business — not his.
Source:
There may be a moral there somewhere about the danger of leaping to conclusions without supporting evidence. Meanwhile, the lady has gone from valued employee to unemployed woman likely to spend several years in prison.
Business owners, too, may want to think about how trustworthy their trusted employees really are.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
New England Journal of Medicine--Update on Influenza A (H5N1) Infection in Humans
This is an interesting article, and you do not have to sign in to read the overview. One of the parts that I thought was most interesting was this:
In one quarter or more of patients with influenza A (H5N1) virus infection, the source of exposure is unclear, and environment-to-human transmission remains possible. For some patients, the only identified risk factor was visiting a live-poultry market. Plausible transmission routes include contact with virus-contaminated fomites or with fertilizer containing poultry feces, followed by self-inoculation of the respiratory tract or inhalation of aerosolized infectious excreta. It is unknown whether influenza A (H5N1) virus infection can begin in the human gastrointestinal tract. In several patients, diarrheal disease preceded respiratory symptoms, and virus has been detected in feces. Acquisition of influenza A (H5N1) virus infection in the gastrointestinal tract has been implicated in other mammals. Drinking potable water and eating properly cooked foods are not considered to be risk factors, but ingestion of virus-contaminated products or swimming or bathing in virus-contaminated water might pose a risk. (Please see complete article for footnotes.)
I was aware that in 25% (or more) of the cases the method of exposure was unknown. It took a commentor posting in a previous avian flu article in reference to the likelihood of infection from contaminated water that made me realize that most of the news articles I had read mentioned contact with poultry as a source of infection, limited cluster of infection among closely-related people (one or more of whom had contact with poultry), or that the infected person had no known contact with poultry. Alternative avenues of infection are, in general, not mentioned, although they are surely known.
I’m not sure if this is because the people writing the articles were not sufficiently curious about alternative means of infection to ask questions about other possible means of contraction, or whether the information about other possible means of exposure is not published to allay fears of contracting a virus that has, so far, infected only a few.
In one quarter or more of patients with influenza A (H5N1) virus infection, the source of exposure is unclear, and environment-to-human transmission remains possible. For some patients, the only identified risk factor was visiting a live-poultry market. Plausible transmission routes include contact with virus-contaminated fomites or with fertilizer containing poultry feces, followed by self-inoculation of the respiratory tract or inhalation of aerosolized infectious excreta. It is unknown whether influenza A (H5N1) virus infection can begin in the human gastrointestinal tract. In several patients, diarrheal disease preceded respiratory symptoms, and virus has been detected in feces. Acquisition of influenza A (H5N1) virus infection in the gastrointestinal tract has been implicated in other mammals. Drinking potable water and eating properly cooked foods are not considered to be risk factors, but ingestion of virus-contaminated products or swimming or bathing in virus-contaminated water might pose a risk. (Please see complete article for footnotes.)
I was aware that in 25% (or more) of the cases the method of exposure was unknown. It took a commentor posting in a previous avian flu article in reference to the likelihood of infection from contaminated water that made me realize that most of the news articles I had read mentioned contact with poultry as a source of infection, limited cluster of infection among closely-related people (one or more of whom had contact with poultry), or that the infected person had no known contact with poultry. Alternative avenues of infection are, in general, not mentioned, although they are surely known.
I’m not sure if this is because the people writing the articles were not sufficiently curious about alternative means of infection to ask questions about other possible means of contraction, or whether the information about other possible means of exposure is not published to allay fears of contracting a virus that has, so far, infected only a few.
Chavez says he chews coca daily
BY CASTO OCANDO
El Nuevo Herald
Venezuela’s controversial President Hugo Chávez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca — the source of cocaine — raising questions about the legality of his actions.
Chávez’s comments on coca initially went almost unnoticed, coming amid a four-hour speech to the National Assembly during which he made international headlines by calling on other countries to stop branding two leftist Colombian guerrilla groups as terrorists and instead recognize them as “armies.”
”I chew coca every day in the morning . . . and look how I am,” he is seen saying on a video of the speech, as he shows his biceps to the audience.
Chávez, who does not drink alcohol, added that just as Fidel Castro ‘’sends me Coppelia ice cream and a lot of other things that regularly reach me from Havana,” Bolivian President Evo Morales “sends me coca paste . . . I recommend it to you.”
It was not clear what Chávez meant. Indigenous Bolivians and Peruvians can legally chew coca leaves as a mild stimulant and to kill hunger. But coca paste is a semi-refined product — between leaves and cocaine — considered highly addictive and often smoked as basuco or pitillo.
”It is another symptom that [Chávez] has totally lost the concept of limits,” said Aníbal Romero, a political scientist with the Caracas Metropolitan University. “It shows Chávez is a man out of control.”
More seriously, Venezuelan and Bolivian analysts said Chávez’s comments amount to a dangerous endorsement of a substance controlled around the world, and perhaps even an illegal act by a very public head of state.
”If he is affirming that he consumes coca paste, he is admitting that he is consuming a substance that is illegal in Bolivia as well as Venezuela,” said Hernán Maldonado, a Bolivian analyst living in Miami. ”Plus, it’s an accusation that Evo Morales is a narco-trafficker” for sending him the paste.
Morales is the longtime head of a Bolivian coca-growers’ union and is known to chew coca in public, even during cabinet meetings, since he took office. Bolivia limits the coca acreage in an effort to control supplies of coca leaf that wind up being refined into cocaine.
Most likely, however, it seems Chávez was referring to chewing coca leaves, a traditional and legal practice among indigenous groups in the high Andes mountains but illegal in Venezuela, according to experts.
”Venezuela signed the Vienna Convention of 1961, which regulates everything that has to do with narcotics,” said Mildred Camero, former president of the government’s main counter-narcotics agency, the National Council Against the Illicit Use of Drugs. “On the list . . . the coca leaf was prohibited.”
For the rest of the story, go here:
I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised given Hugo’s deranged handling of the Venezuelan economy and exaggerated sense of his importance on the world stage. Why indeed would he believe that laws that bind his countrymen similarly apply to him?
Also read Hugo Chavez: Latin America’s Money Man. Hugo’s ambitions do not stop at the Venezuelan border.
El Nuevo Herald
Venezuela’s controversial President Hugo Chávez has revealed that he regularly consumes coca — the source of cocaine — raising questions about the legality of his actions.
Chávez’s comments on coca initially went almost unnoticed, coming amid a four-hour speech to the National Assembly during which he made international headlines by calling on other countries to stop branding two leftist Colombian guerrilla groups as terrorists and instead recognize them as “armies.”
”I chew coca every day in the morning . . . and look how I am,” he is seen saying on a video of the speech, as he shows his biceps to the audience.
Chávez, who does not drink alcohol, added that just as Fidel Castro ‘’sends me Coppelia ice cream and a lot of other things that regularly reach me from Havana,” Bolivian President Evo Morales “sends me coca paste . . . I recommend it to you.”
It was not clear what Chávez meant. Indigenous Bolivians and Peruvians can legally chew coca leaves as a mild stimulant and to kill hunger. But coca paste is a semi-refined product — between leaves and cocaine — considered highly addictive and often smoked as basuco or pitillo.
”It is another symptom that [Chávez] has totally lost the concept of limits,” said Aníbal Romero, a political scientist with the Caracas Metropolitan University. “It shows Chávez is a man out of control.”
More seriously, Venezuelan and Bolivian analysts said Chávez’s comments amount to a dangerous endorsement of a substance controlled around the world, and perhaps even an illegal act by a very public head of state.
”If he is affirming that he consumes coca paste, he is admitting that he is consuming a substance that is illegal in Bolivia as well as Venezuela,” said Hernán Maldonado, a Bolivian analyst living in Miami. ”Plus, it’s an accusation that Evo Morales is a narco-trafficker” for sending him the paste.
Morales is the longtime head of a Bolivian coca-growers’ union and is known to chew coca in public, even during cabinet meetings, since he took office. Bolivia limits the coca acreage in an effort to control supplies of coca leaf that wind up being refined into cocaine.
Most likely, however, it seems Chávez was referring to chewing coca leaves, a traditional and legal practice among indigenous groups in the high Andes mountains but illegal in Venezuela, according to experts.
”Venezuela signed the Vienna Convention of 1961, which regulates everything that has to do with narcotics,” said Mildred Camero, former president of the government’s main counter-narcotics agency, the National Council Against the Illicit Use of Drugs. “On the list . . . the coca leaf was prohibited.”
For the rest of the story, go here:
I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised given Hugo’s deranged handling of the Venezuelan economy and exaggerated sense of his importance on the world stage. Why indeed would he believe that laws that bind his countrymen similarly apply to him?
Also read Hugo Chavez: Latin America’s Money Man. Hugo’s ambitions do not stop at the Venezuelan border.
Political Talking Heads Versus Breakfast
I got up to cook breakfast this morning, and turned on Fox to see the results of the South Carolina primary. All I wanted to know was first, second, and third in the GOP, and among the Dems, whether Clinton or Obama was victorious (since everybody knew in advance who 3rd and 4th would be).
Sounds simple, doesn't it? I did not want to see the opinions on the various Republican campaigns by the Democratic strategists, or to hear the reasons why Huckabee was finished, Thompson was finished, or Giuliani was finished by the people that didn't have any actual ideas on how to make America better or stronger but could only criticize others that were making the attempt. I did not want to see Hillary Clinton accused of "race baiting". All I wanted to know was the results and not have my intelligence insulted by the various "experts" brought in because I am quite capable of making my own analyses of the various candidates' strengths and weaknesses, thank you very much.
I switched over to the local station and instead of political coverage, learned how to make cookies from a store-bought cake mix. The news morning show website was supposed to have it posted online so I didn't write anything down, but nooooooo. So here's a link to cake mix cookie recipes if you feel the urge to experiment. The cookie recipe given was similar to #3 with the addition of 2 Tbs. of brown sugar and a half cup? of chopped cashews and a (forgotten) quantity of toffee chips. I would use a devil's food or German chocolate cake mix and use pecans, but that's just me.
I haven't actually made a cake since I started getting rounder. Maybe I'm getting rounder because I have not been eating a sufficient quantity of cake (or maybe I'm suffering from a severe shortage of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts). This begs for further research. I need to write a grant. Women everywhere need this information!
No, I did not actually make cookies for breakfast. The political coverage put me off eating entirely so I went back to bed and snuggled in the warm blankets for awhile longer. Hmmmmm. Watching Fox political coverage as the next weight loss strategy? It could work! (And another grant application is clearly in order.)
Sounds simple, doesn't it? I did not want to see the opinions on the various Republican campaigns by the Democratic strategists, or to hear the reasons why Huckabee was finished, Thompson was finished, or Giuliani was finished by the people that didn't have any actual ideas on how to make America better or stronger but could only criticize others that were making the attempt. I did not want to see Hillary Clinton accused of "race baiting". All I wanted to know was the results and not have my intelligence insulted by the various "experts" brought in because I am quite capable of making my own analyses of the various candidates' strengths and weaknesses, thank you very much.
I switched over to the local station and instead of political coverage, learned how to make cookies from a store-bought cake mix. The news morning show website was supposed to have it posted online so I didn't write anything down, but nooooooo. So here's a link to cake mix cookie recipes if you feel the urge to experiment. The cookie recipe given was similar to #3 with the addition of 2 Tbs. of brown sugar and a half cup? of chopped cashews and a (forgotten) quantity of toffee chips. I would use a devil's food or German chocolate cake mix and use pecans, but that's just me.
I haven't actually made a cake since I started getting rounder. Maybe I'm getting rounder because I have not been eating a sufficient quantity of cake (or maybe I'm suffering from a severe shortage of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts). This begs for further research. I need to write a grant. Women everywhere need this information!
No, I did not actually make cookies for breakfast. The political coverage put me off eating entirely so I went back to bed and snuggled in the warm blankets for awhile longer. Hmmmmm. Watching Fox political coverage as the next weight loss strategy? It could work! (And another grant application is clearly in order.)
Saturday, January 19, 2008
8-Year-Old Indonesian Boy Dead from Bird Flu
JAKARTA: An Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, bringing the country's death toll from the disease to 97, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.
The 8-year-old boy from the town of Tangerang died early on Friday after being treated at the Sulianti Saroso Hospital for Infectious Disease in the capital, Jakarta, said Sunan Raja, an official at the ministry's bird flu center.
He said the boy had been admitted to a local hospital on Wednesday, nine days after he developed symptoms of fever and cough.
Raja said laboratory results confirmed that the boy had the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.
The boy lived near a poultry slaughterhouse in the Cipondoh neighborhood in the western outskirts of Jakarta, Raja said.
Indonesia has recorded human bird flu deaths regularly since 2003, when the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia.
Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for a global bird flu pandemic.
Source:
The 8-year-old boy from the town of Tangerang died early on Friday after being treated at the Sulianti Saroso Hospital for Infectious Disease in the capital, Jakarta, said Sunan Raja, an official at the ministry's bird flu center.
He said the boy had been admitted to a local hospital on Wednesday, nine days after he developed symptoms of fever and cough.
Raja said laboratory results confirmed that the boy had the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.
The boy lived near a poultry slaughterhouse in the Cipondoh neighborhood in the western outskirts of Jakarta, Raja said.
Indonesia has recorded human bird flu deaths regularly since 2003, when the virus began ravaging poultry stocks across Asia.
Scientists have warned that Indonesia, which has millions of backyard chickens and poor medical facilities, is a potential hot spot for a global bird flu pandemic.
Source:
More Water Restrictions for South Florida
South Florida Records Two Driest Back-to-Back Years
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, January 8, 2008 (ENS) - The past two years have been the driest back-to-back calendar years in South Florida since rainfall recordkeeping began in 1932, meteorologists at the South Florida Water Management District confirmed today.
The 2006-2007 rainfall total of 83.63 inches district-wide displaces by nearly an inch the previous low of 84.59 inches that fell 50 years ago in 1955-56.
Last year was the ninth-driest year in the 76-year record with rainfall of just 42.88inches, across the district, 82 percent of the historical average,
It followed rainfall of only 40.75 inches in 2006, the sixth-driest year on record.
The combined two-year total is nearly two feet less than the historical district-wide average of 104.5 inches for a typical two-year period.
"The district's rainfall data confirms that South Florida is still in the grips of a severe regional drought, which has led to a multi-year water shortage the likes of which we have never experienced," said SFWMD Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann.
"South Florida residents - as well as water managers - must live with limited water supplies this dry season, and we all must practice conservation and follow the one-day-a-week restrictions if we are to successfully minimize the impacts of this water shortage," he said.
All during 2007, the district imposed one new water restriction after another in an effort to conserve scant water supplies.
Now, the most restrictive rules ever imposed in South Florida take effect next week.
In December and for the first time in the agency's history, the district declared an extreme water shortage, and established a one-day-a-week watering schedule for residential landscape irrigation.
Landscape irrigation accounts for up to half of all household water consumption in the state of Florida and totals more than seven billion gallons per day nationwide.
The new restrictions become effective Tuesday, January 15. Enforcement, including issuing of of civil fines and notices of violation will begin on that date. For information on watering days and times, as well as restrictions on specific use classes, visit www.sfwmd.gov/conserve.
Source:
In checking the rain gauge, I found that we had a hair over 7" of that elusive wet stuff in my little area of NE Florida this week.
If you read the article, you will find that Lake Okechobee is at very low levels and you may infer that this is due to the drought, which is not entirely correct. The level was reduced to make room for the record number of hurricanes (and heavy rainfall) predicted for the summer hurricane season (which never materialized) as there were concerns with whether or not the dike would hold.
WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, January 8, 2008 (ENS) - The past two years have been the driest back-to-back calendar years in South Florida since rainfall recordkeeping began in 1932, meteorologists at the South Florida Water Management District confirmed today.
The 2006-2007 rainfall total of 83.63 inches district-wide displaces by nearly an inch the previous low of 84.59 inches that fell 50 years ago in 1955-56.
Last year was the ninth-driest year in the 76-year record with rainfall of just 42.88inches, across the district, 82 percent of the historical average,
It followed rainfall of only 40.75 inches in 2006, the sixth-driest year on record.
The combined two-year total is nearly two feet less than the historical district-wide average of 104.5 inches for a typical two-year period.
"The district's rainfall data confirms that South Florida is still in the grips of a severe regional drought, which has led to a multi-year water shortage the likes of which we have never experienced," said SFWMD Governing Board Chairman Eric Buermann.
"South Florida residents - as well as water managers - must live with limited water supplies this dry season, and we all must practice conservation and follow the one-day-a-week restrictions if we are to successfully minimize the impacts of this water shortage," he said.
All during 2007, the district imposed one new water restriction after another in an effort to conserve scant water supplies.
Now, the most restrictive rules ever imposed in South Florida take effect next week.
In December and for the first time in the agency's history, the district declared an extreme water shortage, and established a one-day-a-week watering schedule for residential landscape irrigation.
Landscape irrigation accounts for up to half of all household water consumption in the state of Florida and totals more than seven billion gallons per day nationwide.
The new restrictions become effective Tuesday, January 15. Enforcement, including issuing of of civil fines and notices of violation will begin on that date. For information on watering days and times, as well as restrictions on specific use classes, visit www.sfwmd.gov/conserve.
Source:
In checking the rain gauge, I found that we had a hair over 7" of that elusive wet stuff in my little area of NE Florida this week.
If you read the article, you will find that Lake Okechobee is at very low levels and you may infer that this is due to the drought, which is not entirely correct. The level was reduced to make room for the record number of hurricanes (and heavy rainfall) predicted for the summer hurricane season (which never materialized) as there were concerns with whether or not the dike would hold.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
State Bans Allstate from Selling New Auto Policies
TALLAHASSEE -- Cranking up the heat, Florida regulators will suspend Allstate's license to sell auto insurance in the state until the company cooperates with an investigation into why its homeowners rates haven't fallen.
It's an unprecedented move for the state Office of Insurance Regulation, which is on the warpath because homeowners' premiums are still high despite passage of an insurance overhaul law in January 2007. The office is seeking information concerning how Allstate sets its rates and pays claims, and the company has refused to provide it.
''This is an ongoing and blatant disregard for the laws of the state of Florida. This can't and won't continue,'' Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said Wednesday.
The move sends a powerful message to the rest of Florida's insurance industry that rates must come down. Already, regulators and a special Senate panel have subpoenaed other insurers, and Gov. Charlie Crist has threatened a class-action lawsuit to compel the companies to provide insurance relief to homeowners.
The state's action against Allstate is expected to cause minimal financial pain for the company, especially if the ban is brief, because existing policies are exempted. Allstate customers can renew, and consumers looking for carriers will be able to find another insurer in Florida's highly competitive auto insurance market.
The biggest losers will be Allstate's agents, who will miss out on lucrative new business. Also taking a blow: Florida's reputation as an industry-friendly state.
''It's a big game of chicken,'' said Jay Brown, a lawyer with Houston's Beirne, Maynard and Parsons who does insurance litigation work. ``The last thing the state or Allstate wants is to lose a carrier from the auto insurance market.''
Joseph Dawson, of Dawson & Finkelstein, whose practice specializes in insurance litigation, said absent a circuit court ruling reversing McCarty's decision, Allstate will have to stop selling new auto policies in Florida.
Allstate is still weighing its options, said Adam Shores, a company spokesman.
The Office of Insurance Regulation's order is effective when it is delivered to Allstate's parent company in Northbrook, Ill. The order was expected to be ready by Thursday morning.
The ban is in effect until Allstate complies with the office's subpoena.
''Our goal is to bring insurers into the state, and so I regret that Allstate put McCarty in this position,'' said Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Cooper City. ``But we have to show the insurance industry that they are not the ones in charge, and they must comply with the laws of Florida.''
Speaking as somebody who has never had a (house) insurance claim that lives in a relatively safe area from hurricanes but whose insurance has quadrupled anyway, I'd like some answers, please.
It's an unprecedented move for the state Office of Insurance Regulation, which is on the warpath because homeowners' premiums are still high despite passage of an insurance overhaul law in January 2007. The office is seeking information concerning how Allstate sets its rates and pays claims, and the company has refused to provide it.
''This is an ongoing and blatant disregard for the laws of the state of Florida. This can't and won't continue,'' Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said Wednesday.
The move sends a powerful message to the rest of Florida's insurance industry that rates must come down. Already, regulators and a special Senate panel have subpoenaed other insurers, and Gov. Charlie Crist has threatened a class-action lawsuit to compel the companies to provide insurance relief to homeowners.
The state's action against Allstate is expected to cause minimal financial pain for the company, especially if the ban is brief, because existing policies are exempted. Allstate customers can renew, and consumers looking for carriers will be able to find another insurer in Florida's highly competitive auto insurance market.
The biggest losers will be Allstate's agents, who will miss out on lucrative new business. Also taking a blow: Florida's reputation as an industry-friendly state.
''It's a big game of chicken,'' said Jay Brown, a lawyer with Houston's Beirne, Maynard and Parsons who does insurance litigation work. ``The last thing the state or Allstate wants is to lose a carrier from the auto insurance market.''
Joseph Dawson, of Dawson & Finkelstein, whose practice specializes in insurance litigation, said absent a circuit court ruling reversing McCarty's decision, Allstate will have to stop selling new auto policies in Florida.
Allstate is still weighing its options, said Adam Shores, a company spokesman.
The Office of Insurance Regulation's order is effective when it is delivered to Allstate's parent company in Northbrook, Ill. The order was expected to be ready by Thursday morning.
The ban is in effect until Allstate complies with the office's subpoena.
''Our goal is to bring insurers into the state, and so I regret that Allstate put McCarty in this position,'' said Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Cooper City. ``But we have to show the insurance industry that they are not the ones in charge, and they must comply with the laws of Florida.''
Speaking as somebody who has never had a (house) insurance claim that lives in a relatively safe area from hurricanes but whose insurance has quadrupled anyway, I'd like some answers, please.
LA Weight Loss/Pure Weight Loss centers closed down
Amidst the nonstop diet and weight loss commercials that are besieging us this month with unprecedented intensity, have you noticed the silence from the country’s largest weight loss chain? For years, you couldn’t turn on the television without seeing an ad for LA Weight Loss Centers — the corporate-owned outlets renamed 'Pure Weight Loss' last year.
But that's no more, because Pure Weight Loss, Inc. (formerly LA Weight Loss Centers) based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, went out of business on January 4th — shutting down all 400 corporate centers across the country — and leaving countless numbers of consumers high and dry. Unsuspecting customers had prepaid unfathomable amounts of money for expensive weight loss products, diet bars and “nutrition” supplements... money they aren’t likely to ever see.
Barry Goodman, owner of the center in Fort Meyers, Florida, issued a press statement to its 300 customers, saying the LA Weight Loss franchise closed “due to market conditions beyond our control.”
U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents in Philadelphia, reportedly show the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday and had more than 100,000 creditors and estimated its liabilities at $10 million to $50 million. Annual revenues had been reported as $44.9 million.
Read it all!
Sandy at Junkfood Science has a report on the closings as well as the customers that were defrauded out of millions. If there were a magic pill or special food that would cause people to lose weight permanently, there would be no fat medical people, okay?
But that's no more, because Pure Weight Loss, Inc. (formerly LA Weight Loss Centers) based in Horsham, Pennsylvania, went out of business on January 4th — shutting down all 400 corporate centers across the country — and leaving countless numbers of consumers high and dry. Unsuspecting customers had prepaid unfathomable amounts of money for expensive weight loss products, diet bars and “nutrition” supplements... money they aren’t likely to ever see.
Barry Goodman, owner of the center in Fort Meyers, Florida, issued a press statement to its 300 customers, saying the LA Weight Loss franchise closed “due to market conditions beyond our control.”
U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents in Philadelphia, reportedly show the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday and had more than 100,000 creditors and estimated its liabilities at $10 million to $50 million. Annual revenues had been reported as $44.9 million.
Read it all!
Sandy at Junkfood Science has a report on the closings as well as the customers that were defrauded out of millions. If there were a magic pill or special food that would cause people to lose weight permanently, there would be no fat medical people, okay?
Republicans and Tax Plans
The good news is that all of the GOP candidates want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and each is talking about some kind of new tax cut or reform. Rather than burying Reaganomics, as many in the media want to do, these candidates are trying to update it for our current economic challenges.
The latest bidder is Rudy Giuliani, who last week offered his plan to cut taxes by $6.3 trillion over 10 years. The former New York City mayor wants to cut the corporate income tax rate to 25% from 35%, bringing that rate close to the average of our major trading partners. Mr. Giuliani would chop the capital gains rate to 10% from 15%, and he'd allow capital gains to be indexed for inflation so investors no longer paid tax on phantom gains. He'd also index the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for inflation, and on top of all this he wants to create a one-page, 11-line tax return that would eliminate most deductions and tax credits and install three lower rates of 10%, 15% and 30%.
Filers would have the option of choosing this "fast form" or the current code with its 13,000 pages of rules. Mr. Giuliani would retain the mortgage and charitable deductions on his alternative tax form, no doubt because he fears their political power. In this sense, his plan is inferior to Fred Thompson's optional flat tax (two rates: 10% and 25%), which is the simplest and best reform in the field. (See "Flat Tax Fred," Nov. 28.) But Mr. Giuliani's ideas are a big improvement that would boost the economy.
Messrs. Thompson and Giuliani are also the best in the field at explaining how taxes affect an economy. They understand incentives and aren't cowed by Democratic arguments that tax cuts favor only "the rich" and produce deficits. Asked at a recent debate whether tax cuts lead to an increase in tax revenue, Mr. Giuliani responded that some tax cuts do and some don't. He's exactly right: Tax credits and rebates, the latest fad, lack the bang for the buck that marginal rate cuts offer.
As for the other candidates, we're told that John McCain is rolling out his tax reform today. It would also cut the corporate rate to 25%, provide immediate expensing for new equipment, and replace the R&D tax credit that expires annually with a credit equal to 10% of wages spent on R&D. He'd also eliminate the hated AMT. This is a welcome and significant conversion for Mr. McCain from his run in 2000, when he opposed tax cuts as a matter of economic principle.
The Arizona Senator is still insisting that any tax cuts be "paid for" with spending reductions, which sounds good but could let Democrats block his tax cuts merely by refusing to cut spending. The better policy and politics is to cut taxes first, while doing one's best to slow spending growth. A growing economy will shrink any deficit.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is proposing to expand tax free savings accounts and he speaks vaguely of cutting tax rates. That's fine with us, though in his typical fashion it seems like the path of least polling resistance. For all of his talk about "changing" Washington, Mr. Romney so far hasn't offered a tax reform that would reduce the sway of lobbyists and money changers.
Mike Huckabee is the most unusual, combining an anti-corporate message with the most radical reform of all -- the so-called FairTax, or a 30% national sales tax that would replace all federal income and payroll taxes. We have our doubts that such a root-and-branch upheaval could ever pass Congress, even if it did survive a Presidential campaign.
It is fashionable in some media quarters to proclaim that this GOP tax message is tired. And it is true that cutting income tax rates has lost some of its political punch now that nearly half of all Americans pay no income taxes at all. This is due in part to the victory of cultural conservatives who've pushed the child tax credit and want to use the tax code as social policy. We've been willing to accept such credits as the price of passing something in Washington. But they are no substitute for the pro-growth rate cuts most of these candidates are proposing.
I agree that we need tax reform and that the tax rate on businesses needs to be lower. While the Wall Street Journal columnist is not in favor of the fair tax national sales tax, it does have a very strong argument in its favor: There are a lot of people that are not paying taxes--people that are in trades that involves selling various (illegal) vices, for example, or are in the country illegally and working on a cash basis and are not paying into the system. However, if what they purchased was taxed, they would also be contributing.
Most states have a sales tax so the means to collect it is already in place. I'd want to see some pretty significant guarantees that the national sales tax couldn't be jacked up as well as making sure the state and local sales taxes don't combine to make the tax burden heavier than previously and the consumer worse off than before the "fair tax" was enacted.
As for the alternative minimum tax and the argument that it only applies to "rich" people, well, that would be many households with husband and wife working. There are a lot of people that make $100,000 per year that are barely making ends meet with house payments, property taxes, insurance, child expenses, and vehicles. I know, nobody feels sorry for the poor people making $100,000 a year that can't get by. I still say it needs to go.
I like Fred Thompson's 10 and 25% flat tax as long as I'm in the 10%, of course.
The latest bidder is Rudy Giuliani, who last week offered his plan to cut taxes by $6.3 trillion over 10 years. The former New York City mayor wants to cut the corporate income tax rate to 25% from 35%, bringing that rate close to the average of our major trading partners. Mr. Giuliani would chop the capital gains rate to 10% from 15%, and he'd allow capital gains to be indexed for inflation so investors no longer paid tax on phantom gains. He'd also index the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for inflation, and on top of all this he wants to create a one-page, 11-line tax return that would eliminate most deductions and tax credits and install three lower rates of 10%, 15% and 30%.
Filers would have the option of choosing this "fast form" or the current code with its 13,000 pages of rules. Mr. Giuliani would retain the mortgage and charitable deductions on his alternative tax form, no doubt because he fears their political power. In this sense, his plan is inferior to Fred Thompson's optional flat tax (two rates: 10% and 25%), which is the simplest and best reform in the field. (See "Flat Tax Fred," Nov. 28.) But Mr. Giuliani's ideas are a big improvement that would boost the economy.
Messrs. Thompson and Giuliani are also the best in the field at explaining how taxes affect an economy. They understand incentives and aren't cowed by Democratic arguments that tax cuts favor only "the rich" and produce deficits. Asked at a recent debate whether tax cuts lead to an increase in tax revenue, Mr. Giuliani responded that some tax cuts do and some don't. He's exactly right: Tax credits and rebates, the latest fad, lack the bang for the buck that marginal rate cuts offer.
As for the other candidates, we're told that John McCain is rolling out his tax reform today. It would also cut the corporate rate to 25%, provide immediate expensing for new equipment, and replace the R&D tax credit that expires annually with a credit equal to 10% of wages spent on R&D. He'd also eliminate the hated AMT. This is a welcome and significant conversion for Mr. McCain from his run in 2000, when he opposed tax cuts as a matter of economic principle.
The Arizona Senator is still insisting that any tax cuts be "paid for" with spending reductions, which sounds good but could let Democrats block his tax cuts merely by refusing to cut spending. The better policy and politics is to cut taxes first, while doing one's best to slow spending growth. A growing economy will shrink any deficit.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney is proposing to expand tax free savings accounts and he speaks vaguely of cutting tax rates. That's fine with us, though in his typical fashion it seems like the path of least polling resistance. For all of his talk about "changing" Washington, Mr. Romney so far hasn't offered a tax reform that would reduce the sway of lobbyists and money changers.
Mike Huckabee is the most unusual, combining an anti-corporate message with the most radical reform of all -- the so-called FairTax, or a 30% national sales tax that would replace all federal income and payroll taxes. We have our doubts that such a root-and-branch upheaval could ever pass Congress, even if it did survive a Presidential campaign.
It is fashionable in some media quarters to proclaim that this GOP tax message is tired. And it is true that cutting income tax rates has lost some of its political punch now that nearly half of all Americans pay no income taxes at all. This is due in part to the victory of cultural conservatives who've pushed the child tax credit and want to use the tax code as social policy. We've been willing to accept such credits as the price of passing something in Washington. But they are no substitute for the pro-growth rate cuts most of these candidates are proposing.
I agree that we need tax reform and that the tax rate on businesses needs to be lower. While the Wall Street Journal columnist is not in favor of the fair tax national sales tax, it does have a very strong argument in its favor: There are a lot of people that are not paying taxes--people that are in trades that involves selling various (illegal) vices, for example, or are in the country illegally and working on a cash basis and are not paying into the system. However, if what they purchased was taxed, they would also be contributing.
Most states have a sales tax so the means to collect it is already in place. I'd want to see some pretty significant guarantees that the national sales tax couldn't be jacked up as well as making sure the state and local sales taxes don't combine to make the tax burden heavier than previously and the consumer worse off than before the "fair tax" was enacted.
As for the alternative minimum tax and the argument that it only applies to "rich" people, well, that would be many households with husband and wife working. There are a lot of people that make $100,000 per year that are barely making ends meet with house payments, property taxes, insurance, child expenses, and vehicles. I know, nobody feels sorry for the poor people making $100,000 a year that can't get by. I still say it needs to go.
I like Fred Thompson's 10 and 25% flat tax as long as I'm in the 10%, of course.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
California's Hydrogen Highway Teeters Towards Collapse
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiative for a "hydrogen highway" was nothing more than a tax-payer funded boondoggle that ignored scientific realities and market forces. Given the governor's somber state-of-the-state address delivered just days ago, market forces seem to have won.
As originally envisioned, the plan would subsidize 100 hydrogen fueling stations around California by 2010--at roughly $1.5 million a pop. Today there are 23 stations and the the last three agencies to accept state funding have decided not to pursue the project. These include the goliath Pacific Gas & Electric's recent decision to abandon building a key Bay Area fueling station in San Carlos. In addition, three stations have recently closed, including one that served county buses.
Read the rest here.
This is a big reason that I disagree with government-funded (or mandated) research into fuels. If it can be done, the private sector will figure out how to do it more efficiently than the government could ever hope to. All that has been accomplished is wasting the taxpayer's money which could have been spent on projects that could actually have had some benefit to the community. Guess it made everybody feel really good that they were doing "something for the environment". What was it that that they accomplished for the environment again? Oh, yeah, nothing.
As originally envisioned, the plan would subsidize 100 hydrogen fueling stations around California by 2010--at roughly $1.5 million a pop. Today there are 23 stations and the the last three agencies to accept state funding have decided not to pursue the project. These include the goliath Pacific Gas & Electric's recent decision to abandon building a key Bay Area fueling station in San Carlos. In addition, three stations have recently closed, including one that served county buses.
Read the rest here.
This is a big reason that I disagree with government-funded (or mandated) research into fuels. If it can be done, the private sector will figure out how to do it more efficiently than the government could ever hope to. All that has been accomplished is wasting the taxpayer's money which could have been spent on projects that could actually have had some benefit to the community. Guess it made everybody feel really good that they were doing "something for the environment". What was it that that they accomplished for the environment again? Oh, yeah, nothing.
Monday, January 14, 2008
95th Bird Flu Death in Indonesia
Jakarta - A 32-year-old Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, the health ministry said in a statement Monday, bringing the toll to 95 in the nation worst hit by the H5N1 virus.
"The patient died at home on January 10," the ministry's bird flu information centre said, adding that two laboratory tests had since confirmed that she was infected with the bird flu virus.
Two such positive tests are required before Indonesia officially reports a death from H5N1, which has become endemic in the archipelago nation.
The woman, identified only by her initials TM, came from Tangerang, a satellite city of Jakarta, the centre said. She is the city's sixth bird flu victim since October.
Fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans
She had been taken to hospital on January 9 with a fever, difficulty breathing and pneumonia, but her family "ignored the advice of the hospital doctor to continue hospitalisation", the centre said.
The woman's family kept chickens in their backyard, it added.
Humans are typically infected with bird flu by direct contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the H5N1 virus may mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans.
Scientists fear that such a development would likely spark a global pandemic with a potential death toll of millions, and the World Bank has said such a scenario could cost up to two trillion dollars.
The concern stems from past influenza pandemics. A flu pandemic in 1918, just after the end of World War I, killed 20 million people worldwide.
The head of the world's top agency for animal health said last week however in Paris that the virus had so far proved remarkably stable, which minimised the risk of mutation.
Source:
I'm comforted by the remarkably stable status of the virus. I bet the dead lady would be, too. I sure hope somebody was able to inform her of that before her demise.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Saudi Arabia beheads an Indonesian maid convicted of suffocating her employer
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP): Saudi authorities on Saturday beheaded an Indonesian maid convicted of killing her employer, the Interior Ministry announced.
In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the ministry said the maid used a pillow to suffocate her employer Aisha Al Makhaled and then stole her jewelry in the southern province of Asir.
Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which those convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery are executed in public with a sword.
The maid is the second person to be executed this year in the desert kingdom, according to an Associated Press count. Saudi Arabia beheaded 137 people last year, up sharply from the 38 in 2006. (***)
I wonder what really happened to that poor woman. So many of them are mistreated, not paid the wages they were promised, and held in virtual slavery that I wonder what this person must have undergone to cause her to take such a desperate step.
Anti-War Harridans Abort Demonstation in Little Havana
Code Pinkos make spectacles of themselves yet again because it is the only attention they’re likely to get.
Source:
Gosh, some pro-Fidel demonstrators got their feelings all hurt when their whole purpose there was to stir up trouble. What a pity.
I file this under “some people just really, really a good ass-kicking”.
Peace activists in pink dresses and tiaras demanded the arrest of anti-communist militant Luis Posada Carriles Saturday, but aborted plans for a demonstration in Little Havana after Carriles supporters rushed their vehicle.The six activists, of the Codepink anti-war group, had planned to speak to reporters outside the landmark Versailles restaurant to publicize their campaign against Carriles– a former CIA operative wanted in Venezuela in connection with the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner.However they were met by some 200 irate Cuban-Americans who consider Carriles a champion of freedom. Some ran at the activists’ truck as they arrived, tearing off its pink fringe, while others shouted sexist slurs.
Source:
Gosh, some pro-Fidel demonstrators got their feelings all hurt when their whole purpose there was to stir up trouble. What a pity.
I file this under “some people just really, really a good ass-kicking”.
Hillary's Indian Name
True story: (NOT!)
Senator Hillary Clinton was invited to address a major Gathering of The American Indian nation two weeks ago in upper New York State ....She spoke for almost an hour on her future plans for Increasing every Native American's present standard of living, should she One day become the first female President. She referred to her career As a New York Senator, how she had signed 'YES, 'for every Indian issueThat came to her desk for approval. Although the Senator was vague on the Details of her plan, she seemed most enthusiastic about her future ideas for helping her 'red sisters and brothers'. At the conclusion of her speech, the Tribes presented the Senator with a plaque inscribed with her new Indian Name - Walking Eagle. The proud Senator then departed in her motorcade,Waving to the crowds. A news reporter later inquired of the group of Chiefs of how they had come to select the new name given to the Senator.
They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of Shit it can no longer fly.
Senator Hillary Clinton was invited to address a major Gathering of The American Indian nation two weeks ago in upper New York State ....She spoke for almost an hour on her future plans for Increasing every Native American's present standard of living, should she One day become the first female President. She referred to her career As a New York Senator, how she had signed 'YES, 'for every Indian issueThat came to her desk for approval. Although the Senator was vague on the Details of her plan, she seemed most enthusiastic about her future ideas for helping her 'red sisters and brothers'. At the conclusion of her speech, the Tribes presented the Senator with a plaque inscribed with her new Indian Name - Walking Eagle. The proud Senator then departed in her motorcade,Waving to the crowds. A news reporter later inquired of the group of Chiefs of how they had come to select the new name given to the Senator.
They explained that Walking Eagle is the name given to a bird so full of Shit it can no longer fly.
The Ultimate Tea Diet
I saw Dr. Ukra (aka Dr. Tea) on Fox today promoting his book “The Ultimate Tea Diet“. What a great idea! Drink 8 cups of delicious tea per day, and those pesky pounds will just burn off and leave a slimmer, trimmer you! If you want to add even more delicious, nutritious, fat-fighting tea to your diet, you can get tea rubs for your meat.
This health tip was really exciting for me. I have just come in from outside inspecting the lambs and doing a little raking of the yard, so I reached for the sweet tea pitcher and am currently working on my third 16 oz. glass. That’s 48 ounces of tea, people! By tomorrow morning, my fat deposits should be packing their bags for a permanent vacation.
Oh, wait. I drink at least 48 ounces of tea every day, chilled for an even higher calorie burn. I must have tea-resistant fat deposits! Perhaps Luzianne tea isn’t expensive enough to burn fat, and I need some of those custom blends that cost dollars per oz. in order to convert my fat to energy. Or something. Yeah, that must be it. I better buy the book and the expensive tea blends so that my fat can start burning off, too, just like those corpulent Hollywood people.
This health tip was really exciting for me. I have just come in from outside inspecting the lambs and doing a little raking of the yard, so I reached for the sweet tea pitcher and am currently working on my third 16 oz. glass. That’s 48 ounces of tea, people! By tomorrow morning, my fat deposits should be packing their bags for a permanent vacation.
Oh, wait. I drink at least 48 ounces of tea every day, chilled for an even higher calorie burn. I must have tea-resistant fat deposits! Perhaps Luzianne tea isn’t expensive enough to burn fat, and I need some of those custom blends that cost dollars per oz. in order to convert my fat to energy. Or something. Yeah, that must be it. I better buy the book and the expensive tea blends so that my fat can start burning off, too, just like those corpulent Hollywood people.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Florida Citrus Woes Continue: Feds Issue Statewide Ban on Shipment of Citrus Trees
The U.S. Agriculture Department on Friday extended a quarantine zone to prevent the spread of a major citrus disease, preventing the shipment of all Florida citrus trees outside the state. The action on citrus greening is another blow to Florida’s citrus industry, which endured devastating hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 and two decades battling a less-severe bacteria called canker. The USDA action revises a quarantine issued in November on 28 counties. The quarantine was expanded after citrus greening was found in Hernando and Lake counties. Citrus greening, also known as huanglongbing, is a bacteria harmless to humans, but deadly for thousands of trees infected since its arrival in Florida. Greening is believed to have arrived in Florida on infected Asian plant material in 2005. The disease gradually kills a plant’s vascular system and sours fruit, making it unusable. Once infected, there is no cure for a tree with citrus greening, the USDA said in a news release.
Nursery stock from quarantined areas can only be moved out of state for immediate export accompanied by a permit that prohibits distribution to any citrus-producing states or territories, the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said. The order does not prevent the movement of citrus fruit out of state, but under the federal citrus canker quarantine, fresh citrus from Florida cannot be shipped to any citrus-producing state or territory.
Source: Orlando Sentinel.
Citrus acreage was already in trouble before this latest blow.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Two new reports on the assassination last month of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto suggest that the killing may have been an ambitious plot rather than an isolated act of violence and that the government of President Pervez Musharraf knows far more than it’s admitted about the murder.Read the rest:
A police officer who witnessed the assassination said that a mysterious crowd stopped Bhutto’s car that day, moving her to emerge through the sunroof. And a document has surfaced in the Pakistani news media that contradicts the government’s version of her death and contains details on the pistol and the suicide bomb used in the murder.
The witness was Ishtiaq Hussain Shah of the Rawalpindi police. As Bhutto’s car headed onto Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Road after an election rally Dec. 27, a crowd appeared from nowhere and stopped the motorcade, shouting slogans of her Pakistan Peoples Party and waving party banners, according to his account.
Bhutto, apparently thinking she was greeting her supporters, emerged through the sunroof of the bulletproof car to wave.
It was Shah’s job to clear the way for the motorcade. But 10 feet from where he was standing, a man in the crowd wearing a jacket and sunglasses raised his arm and shot at the former prime minister. “I jumped to overpower him,” the deputy police superintendent said later. “A mighty explosion took place soon afterwards.”
Shah suffered multiple injuries and is recuperating in a Rawalpindi military hospital, guarded by agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
Who organized the crowd is only one of the mysteries two weeks after the assassination. “I don’t know who they were or from where they came,” the Rawalpindi officer told Dawn newspaper. “They just appeared on the road.”
The second report emerged in the Pakistani daily newspaper The News, with detailed information about the pistol and bomb. It rejects the government’s conclusion that Bhutto died when the force of the suicide blast threw her head against the sunroof lever of her car. Such an impact couldn’t have fractured her skull, it said. The government refused to confirm the report’s authenticity, but a security official verified it to McClatchy. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
Could this possibly get any stranger? Was a grassy knoll involved?
Recipe for a Cold and Dreary Day
Although the cold front that I was expecting after the thunderstorms never materialized (the thunderstorms or the cold front), I went ahead and made a hearty lentil/kielbasa concoction that I’ll freeze and have it ready should we be in need of some comfort food in the event the temperatures plunge into the 50s.It is easy, quick, inexpensive, and tastes good (well, at least I think so).
Ingredients:
16 oz. pkg of lentils
16. oz. (or more) kielbasa
1 onion, chopped
1 cup flour
4 Tbs. butter
4 cups of chicken broth OR 4 cubes chicken broth dissolved in 4 cups of water
Enough water to make 6 cups (additional 2 cups of water if using liquid chicken broth)
1 cup red wine
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. oregano
Sweet basil to taste if desired
Pepper to taste
Bring lentils, sausage (cut into bite-sized pieces, depending on the size of your bite), and liquid to make 6 cups to a boil, turn heat to low and simmer until soft and liquid is mostly absorbed, about 30 minutes. While the lentils are cooking, melt 4 Tbs. of butter in a skillet (cast iron is my favorite), and saute 1 chopped onion until tender, adding salt and spices. Stir in 1 cup of flour, then add 1 cup of wine and water (1 to 2 cups) until sauce is smooth and thick.
Mix the sauce into the lentils and sausage, put into large casserole dish or oven-proof pan of your choice and bake for @ 40 to 50 minutes at 375 degrees. My oven-proof dish of choice is either my cast iron chicken fryer or a dutch oven that has been sprayed with a nonstick cooking spray.
The result will be a very hearty soup or stew that you can eat with a fork. I like it with fresh baked cornbread.
Warning: This makes a LOT. Be prepared to freeze the extra unless you have a large hungry family.
Ingredients:
16 oz. pkg of lentils
16. oz. (or more) kielbasa
1 onion, chopped
1 cup flour
4 Tbs. butter
4 cups of chicken broth OR 4 cubes chicken broth dissolved in 4 cups of water
Enough water to make 6 cups (additional 2 cups of water if using liquid chicken broth)
1 cup red wine
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. oregano
Sweet basil to taste if desired
Pepper to taste
Bring lentils, sausage (cut into bite-sized pieces, depending on the size of your bite), and liquid to make 6 cups to a boil, turn heat to low and simmer until soft and liquid is mostly absorbed, about 30 minutes. While the lentils are cooking, melt 4 Tbs. of butter in a skillet (cast iron is my favorite), and saute 1 chopped onion until tender, adding salt and spices. Stir in 1 cup of flour, then add 1 cup of wine and water (1 to 2 cups) until sauce is smooth and thick.
Mix the sauce into the lentils and sausage, put into large casserole dish or oven-proof pan of your choice and bake for @ 40 to 50 minutes at 375 degrees. My oven-proof dish of choice is either my cast iron chicken fryer or a dutch oven that has been sprayed with a nonstick cooking spray.
The result will be a very hearty soup or stew that you can eat with a fork. I like it with fresh baked cornbread.
Warning: This makes a LOT. Be prepared to freeze the extra unless you have a large hungry family.
Author Disputes Cuban Healthcare "Myths"
Before Katherine Hirschfeld went to Cuba for post-graduate studies, she read dozens of academic research papers on the country's healthcare system. All were glowing reports about how the Castro government offered good care for everyone, and that's what she expected to find.
Then she went to Santiago de Cuba for an extended stay and saw the system for herself, including three days in a hospital when she came down with dengue fever. The result is a highly critical book -- Health, Politics and Revolution in Cuba since 1898 -- which she will discuss Thursday night at the University of Miami.
Her stays were mostly in Santiago, from 1996 through 1998, when she was a graduate student at Emory University and Cuba was in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic that the government tried to hush up.
When she experienced the symptoms -- aching joints, fever, nausea, sore throat -- she was taken to a Santiago hospital and placed in a large ward guarded by a man with a gun. She asked to make a phone call to tell people where she was. The guard said there were no working phones.
' `Oh my God,' I thought to myself. 'This place doesn't exist,' '' at least not officially, because the epidemic was a state secret.
NO DOCTOR IN SIGHT
During her stay, she says she never saw a doctor. She was given one pill -- a vitamin. Fortunately, she had a mild case. Because there were few nurses, she and other patients who were able did what they could for the sickest, especially those who were bleeding or vomiting.
Now an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, Hirschfeld says living with a family in Santiago while doing her research made a big difference in her viewpoint.
''Most academic work about Cuba is based on little or no field research,'' Hirschfeld said. U.S. academics often rely on official government studies or do short stays on the island, spending perhaps two weeks, sleeping in government-approved facilities.
She found women in Santiago gravitated to the kitchen, where she learned that even preparing a meal was revealing about the economy. ''Lunch is sometimes a counter-revolutionary event,'' because of how the family had to scramble outside the rationing system to find enough to eat.
Hirschfeld found even more basic public health problems, such as a lack of running water in the city. Residents compensated by catching rain water in barrels -- breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which transmit the dengue virus.
Cubans who needed treatment often used social networks or bartered favors to have doctors see them outside the official clinic settings. If people had to go to the hospital, they tried to prepare in advance, getting surgical thread and bandages on their own, even obtaining drugs from the United States if they could.
Hirschfeld says her research showed that healthcare in pre-Castro Cuba was of mixed quality. Many people in the cities received inexpensive, regular care through memberships in clinics, but those in rural areas and those of African heritage were less likely to get care. A clean water supply was problematic because corrupt officials often stole the money rather than using it to maintain and improve the system.
When she finished her doctorate dissertation about the problems in Cuba's healthcare, she says it was not initially well received by her review committee, which pointed out that most other academic researchers disagreed with her. She believes her unusual views delayed her getting her doctorate by at least a year.
FROM BAD TO WORSE
Since Hirschfeld did her research, most experts say Cuban healthcare has gotten worse, primarily because 36,000 doctors and other healthcare professionals are now working overseas, many of them in Venezuela, according to official figures.
A dissident doctor in Havana, Darsi Ferrer, told The Miami Herald last year that because of the shortage, ``One doctor now has to take care of four or five offices.''
The situation has become so bad that last month the vice minister of public health, Joaquín García Salaberría, took the highly unusual step of admitting on Cuban television that there were shortages of doctors and nurses. 'It's not guaranteed that doctors and nurses will remain in the doctors' offices, as had been promised,'' García said.
Source: Miami Herald
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, before "experts" who have gained their "expertise" from reading accounts by propagandists ran off at the mouth about how wonderful something was, they actually did something called "investigating in person" instead of working as free publicity for some third world asshole?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Ahhh, strawberries, the smell of winter.
When SwampMan and I were out wandering around central Florida, we picked up fresh strawberries that had been picked before the freeze. I put them in the fridge in those green bags that are supposed to keep produce from turning into slime mold in the bottom of the veggie crisper, and promptly forgot about them as per usual. I'm not sure if 4 days of forgetfulness is a long enough test, but there was not a spot of mold in sight and the strawberries were as firm and luscious as when I put them in the fridge. I could almost taste them as I got out my favorite old paring knife to slice them. Then the phone rang.
Some of you may know that I'm not a big fan of phones. In this case, the caller ID said that it was an aunt that I had not spoken with in @ 20 years, so I wondered what was up and answered the phone.
She just wanted to call and reminisce about the old days when her kids, my brothers and I, and the other cousins were running wild around her house. She reminded me about the time when my cousin Dale told me to pour some water in a hole and stir because something really interesting would happen (it was a yellow jacket's nest). I remembered when we were getting the nectar out of honeysuckle, my lil' brother told her daughter that to get honey from bees, you catch them in your hands and then sucked the honey out of their butts. The cousin had some huge red bee-stung lips for awhile, and lil' bro had a very sore behind when aunt got through with him. And then there was the time we climbed the tree up onto the garage roof and decided to test capes for their aeronautical ability when we jumped off the roof. As individuals, we had enough good sense that we would have never thought to try something like that, but as a group, we suddenly either got a lot stupider or maybe just waaaay more optimistic about the ability of a small child to defy gravity and land unscathed on concrete when they had my aunt's best towels tied around their neck.
When I try to picture my cousins, I don't remember them as the last time I saw them years ago as young adults with children, and now my aunt tells me that they are grandparents (which shouldn't surprise me, yet it comes as a shock). In my memory, they're out swinging on grapevines in the woods playing Tarzan, shooting BB guns and arrows in a spirited game of cowboys and Injuns, and my lil' brother is telling my gullible littler cousin how you suck chicken butts to get the eggs out.
Now it's 11:30, I have to get up in the morning, and haven't yet fed the livestock, took a shower, cleaned the strawberry juice off the counter, or cleaned the kitchen. Still, I wouldn't have traded my walk down memory lane tonight for any number of household and farmyard chores being done.
Some of you may know that I'm not a big fan of phones. In this case, the caller ID said that it was an aunt that I had not spoken with in @ 20 years, so I wondered what was up and answered the phone.
She just wanted to call and reminisce about the old days when her kids, my brothers and I, and the other cousins were running wild around her house. She reminded me about the time when my cousin Dale told me to pour some water in a hole and stir because something really interesting would happen (it was a yellow jacket's nest). I remembered when we were getting the nectar out of honeysuckle, my lil' brother told her daughter that to get honey from bees, you catch them in your hands and then sucked the honey out of their butts. The cousin had some huge red bee-stung lips for awhile, and lil' bro had a very sore behind when aunt got through with him. And then there was the time we climbed the tree up onto the garage roof and decided to test capes for their aeronautical ability when we jumped off the roof. As individuals, we had enough good sense that we would have never thought to try something like that, but as a group, we suddenly either got a lot stupider or maybe just waaaay more optimistic about the ability of a small child to defy gravity and land unscathed on concrete when they had my aunt's best towels tied around their neck.
When I try to picture my cousins, I don't remember them as the last time I saw them years ago as young adults with children, and now my aunt tells me that they are grandparents (which shouldn't surprise me, yet it comes as a shock). In my memory, they're out swinging on grapevines in the woods playing Tarzan, shooting BB guns and arrows in a spirited game of cowboys and Injuns, and my lil' brother is telling my gullible littler cousin how you suck chicken butts to get the eggs out.
Now it's 11:30, I have to get up in the morning, and haven't yet fed the livestock, took a shower, cleaned the strawberry juice off the counter, or cleaned the kitchen. Still, I wouldn't have traded my walk down memory lane tonight for any number of household and farmyard chores being done.
Man in China Got Bird Flu From Infected Son: Officials
A man in China contracted bird flu because he was in close contact with his infected son, although the virus had not mutated into a form that is highly contagious among humans, authorities said Thursday.
A 52-year-old man, identified only by his surname Lu, was hospitalised with the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of the virus soon after his son died from it on December 2. Lu has since recovered.
Chinese health ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said Lu's infection was due to close contact with his son, but that the transmission was not technically "human-to-human".
"It has no biological features for human-to-human transmission," he told journalists.
Like many human cases of bird flu in China, authorities have not been able to identify the source as neither Lu nor his son had close contact with sick or dead poultry prior to infection, he said.
He refused to elaborate on the findings, which was reached by the ministry's expert group on bird flu.
Source: AFP at Breitbart.com.
The initial reports indicated that neither man had any known exposure to poultry, so the mystery remains as to where and from who or what the son got the virus and transmitted it to his father.
Chinese health ministry spokesman Mao Qunan said Lu's infection was due to close contact with his son, but that the transmission was not technically "human-to-human".
Not technically human-to-human, although it does appear that this was, in fact, a human-to-human transfer? These technicalities puzzle me.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
January 9, 2008 ·
A timeline has developed of how a small boy held by rebels in the jungle ended up with a foster family in Colombia’s capital of Bogotá.
By JENNY CAROLINA GONZALEZ
Special to The Miami Herald
EL RETORNO, Colombia —
This town of 4,000 deep in Colombia’s southern jungle, ironically named The Return, is where the boy now known as Emmanuel began his long journey from a guerrilla hostage to freedom.
To Colombian government officials, neighbors and friends, he was a very sick child named Juan David Gómez Tapiero. But DNA tests showed he is almost certainly Emmanuel, born in captivity to a politician kidnapped by FARC guerrillas.
His story created worldwide headlines when the FARC offered to release him, his mother, and another hostage to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. But few people, including FARC leaders, knew at the time that the guerrillas no longer had the boy.
A visit by The Miami Herald to this largely jungled region some 310 miles south of the capital city of Bogotá produced the first detailed account of Emmanuel’s path from El Retorno to headline-maker, though many questions remain unanswered.
In early June 2005, José Crisanto Gómez, a 37-year-old peasant, arrived here by boat after a one-day trip from his tiny village of La Paz, according to several residents. La Paz was then under the control of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a leftist guerrilla group better known as FARC.
Gómez arrived with two sickly children, seeking medical care for them. One, a boy of about 11 months, had what medical personnel here described as one of the worst health profiles they had seen: malaria, a broken arm, severe malnutrition, anemia, a high fever, diarrhea and leishmaniasis, a serious skin disease common in the jungle.
`IT WAS DEPRESSING’
The public clinic here immediately transferred him to the hospital in the provincial capital, San José del Guaviare, only 17 miles but a 40-minute drive away.
”It is not common to receive children in the [bad] health that Juan David arrived,” said Rosario Neira, director of the San José hospital. “It was depressing, everything that had come together on just one child. It made for sadness.”
”Anyone would have fallen apart before this child, with so many diseases,” she added. “He didn’t raise his eyes. He got toys but did not pick them up. He did not stand but dragged himself on his butt. He cried but no tears came because of the malnutrition.”
Given what is now known about the boy, his poor health is not surprising.
Emmanuel was born in a FARC jungle camp to one-time vice presidential candidate Clara Rojas, kidnapped by the rebels along with presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt nearly six years ago during a campaign trip to a rural area. The father was reported to be a rebel who had a consensual relationship with Rojas.
SIMILAR ACCOUNTS
One El Retorno resident who says José Crisanto Gómez told him the full story in confidence recalled that Gómez had said the boy was left in his care in La Paz by FARC fighters during a battle with Colombian army troops. The rebels promised to return for him in a week.
A close friend of Gómez’s wife, Liliana, 24, said she also was told that the FARC intended to leave the child for only a few days. The friend, who asked for anonymity because of concerns for her safety, added that the FARC wanted the child’s broken arm treated by Liliana’s stepfather, a folk healer.
`JUST AN INSTRUMENT’
The friend and the El Retorno resident both insist that not until about two weeks ago did Gómez begin to suspect that the boy was the son of Clara Rojas. They also deny rumors that Gómez was a member of 12,000-strong FARC, Latin America’s oldest and most powerful guerrilla group.
”He was just an instrument. What blame can he have if the only thing he did was lend a hand? Besides, it is a common practice for the guerrillas to leave their children in the care of other families,” said one Gómez neighbor, who also asked to remain anonymous because of fear.
Read the rest in the Miami Herald.
If you haven’t taken the time to reflect on how fortunate you are, then read the story in its entirety.
Port Security is Growing Tighter?
JACKSONVILLE, FL -- A big shift is on the way for port security in Jacksonville.
Monday afternoon, the U.S. Coast Guard called off a 17-hour search for a stowaway who escaped in our waters.
Investigators think he and five other men slid into our area on a barge, then jumped into the St. Johns River. All but one have been found.
That type of trouble is driving a push for stronger security. The goal: to give us one of the most monitored ports in America.
We've already seen some results. Coast Guard cameras, designed for security, caught an incredible view of the explosion at the T2 chemical plant last month.
The same Coast Guard cameras that picked up that blast are at work every day, watching the waters near our ports.
Petty Officer Bobby Nash, a Coast Guard spokesman, will say the cameras are relatively new. But he won't say how many they've installed or where they're located -- that information is classified.
"The Coast Guard, police, fire and rescue can't be everywhere at once. So we rely on this layered approach, which includes the cameras and other security measures like this to help keep the Port of Jacksonville very safe," Nash said.
Just last month, the United States government rolled out another new layer of port security.
Every port worker in America -- including more than ten thousand in Jacksonville -- will get federal ID cards after a three-part screening this year.
They'll still need a special state ID, too. Florida's the only place where workers will need two badges like that.
The federal ID is designed with a focus on stopping terrorism, while the state ID is more focused on stopping drug smuggling.
It may seem like two cards would be better than one -- but there are some concerns from folks here on the First Coast.
Having a port worker sign up for two cards can be expensive, with the combined costs topping $200. Plus, some workers may qualify for one card but not the other, which would keep them from working at the port.
Those factors have the potential to put Florida at a disadvantage compared to other states.
"For the types of cargo that we deal with in Jacksonville, our competitors are in Georgia and South Carolina," explained JAXPORT security chief Chris Kauffmann.
He says his staff will absolutely enforce the new rules. But he's worried the bureaucracy may push more business to our northern neighbors.
"They have one set of rules to follow, where we have two," he said.
Again, every port worker in the U.S. will need to have that federal ID card. The ID is expected to be mandatory later this year.
The local NBC affiliate called the stowaways "migrants" on the news program. Apparently the term "illegal immigrants" has been deemed offensive.
As for the worry about the port security being too onerous to bear for the port workers with having to have both a U.S. clearance and a state of Florida clearance, I am left to wonder why every state in the US with ports does not have the same type of program in place.
400 lbs. of old explosives unearthed at Odyssey Middle School, Orlando
A munitions cleanup at Odyssey Middle School during the holiday break unearthed more than 400 pounds of World War II-era bombs and rockets along with 2,000 pounds of debris on the school grounds and under the running track.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to blow up the bombs and rockets today at the southeast Orlando school. Residents should expect to hear several large blasts.
Among the items found since Dec. 27 are about 50 fragmentation bombs, several rockets, a rocket booster and a 37 mm cannon, according to the Army Corps.
Read more here:
Builders shouldn't put borrow pits on old bombing practice sites. I blame the developers.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
A Happy 4th!
NASA'S Mars Exploration Rover Spirit captured this westward view from atop a low plateau where it spent the closing months of 2007.
With its daily solar-energy supply shrinking as Martian summer turned to fall, Spirit drove to the northern edge of the plateau called "Home Plate" for a favorable winter haven. The rover reached that northward-tilting site in December, in time for the fourth Earth-year anniversary of its landing on Mars. Spirit reached Mars on Jan. 4, 2004, Universal Time (Jan. 3, 2004, PST).
This panorama covers a scene spanning left to right from southwest to northeast. The western edge of Home Plate is in the foreground, generally lighter in tone than the more distant parts of the scene. A rock-dotted hill in the middle distance across the left third of the image is "Tsiolkovski Ridge," about 30 meters or 100 feet from the edge of Home Plate and about that same distance across. A bump on the horizon above the left edge of Tsiolkovski Ridge is "Grissom Hill," about 8 kilometers or 5 miles away. At right, the highest point of the horizon is "Husband Hill," to the north and about 800 meters or half a mile away.
Spirit was perched near the western edge of Home Plate when it used its panoramic camera (Pancam) to take the images used in this view. This view combines separate images taken through Pancam filters centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers, 535 nanometers and 432 nanometers and is presented in a false-color stretch to bring out subtle color differences in the scene.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University
This image looked familiar to me for some reason, and then it hit me. It looked a lot like the countryside that I used to hike in Arizona around Sedona! I don't know about anybody else, but I would love to have the opportunity to hike that landscape.
Scientists Find Key to What Could Make Bird Flu a Human Pandemic
Scientists have identified a key mechanism necessary for bird flu to morph from a rare but deadly infection into a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
MIT scientists reported in Sunday’s issue of Nature Biotechnology that the shape of certain cells in the virus could be key to allowing it to easily pass from human to human. In birds, the shape of cells in the virus match the shape of sugars in the animals’ respiratory tracts, allowing the infection to easily latch onto the animals. In humans, those shapes don’t match up — but if the virus morphed so they did, it could lead to a pandemic.
“We’re like a sitting duck, waiting for an H5N1 virus that can attach to us,” said Richard Cummings, an Emory University biochemist and influenza cell specialist who did not participate in the study. “This research moves us to the point where we can start anticipating what might happen.”
Since its 1997 outbreak in Hong Kong, H5N1 avian influenza has spread rapidly around the world — first in poultry, then in wild birds. It’s killed millions of fowl in 66 countries, most since 2003. But it has yet to become a common human killer. What H5N1 lacks in human infectiousness, however, it makes up for in lethality: of 348 people in 14 countries infected by H5N1 since 2003, 216 died.
The virus is constantly evolving. Each infected bird population is a giant petri dish of potential mutations. If H5N1 learns to spread among people as well as it spreads in birds, the consequences could be catastrophic. A 1918 influenza pandemic killed 50 million people, and outbreaks in 1957 and 1968 killed another three million.
With H5N1, humans have so far benefited from the differences between cells in our noses and throats and those of birds — but that could change. With the MIT scientists’ discovery, doctors can monitor H5N1 strains for early evidence of human virulence. They may also make precisely targeted vaccines and drugs in advance of outbreaks.
Read the rest here:
More information here:
As some of you know, I’ve been following this for some time. I’m a poultry enthusiast, and my pastures are filled with ducks and chickens of various breeds and sizes. According to the research, children have more of the receptors that the H5N1 virus prefers in their upper airways than adults, and this may be why they are more susceptible to and less likely to recover from the infection. I continue to follow the increasing spread of the disease among birds and poultry and wonder how concerned I should be because the grandchildren’s first request is always to feed the chickens.
Brrrrrr! Where did Global Warming Go?
THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist of the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.
Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering.
University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.
Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month, breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years.
Now all of these may be short-lived weather anomalies, mere blips in the path of the global climatic warming that Al Gore and a host of alarmists proclaim the deadliest threat we face. But what if the frigid conditions that have caused so much distress in recent months signal an impending era of global cooling?
"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."
Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate.
"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write.
Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007 didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change.
Yet so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific community is over."
But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. Because slashing carbon dioxide emissions means retarding economic development, they warned, "the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it."
Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill.
Source: The Boston Globe.
Indeed. We've enjoyed a warm spell for the past few years, but many sunspot experts believe it may be over. Whether we're entering a cooling or warming phase will depend mainly on solar cycle 24 which began January 4, 2007.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist of the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.
Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering.
University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.
Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month, breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years.
Now all of these may be short-lived weather anomalies, mere blips in the path of the global climatic warming that Al Gore and a host of alarmists proclaim the deadliest threat we face. But what if the frigid conditions that have caused so much distress in recent months signal an impending era of global cooling?
"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."
Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate.
"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write.
Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007 didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change.
Yet so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific community is over."
But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. Because slashing carbon dioxide emissions means retarding economic development, they warned, "the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it."
Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill.
Source: The Boston Globe.
Indeed. We've enjoyed a warm spell for the past few years, but many sunspot experts believe it may be over. Whether we're entering a cooling or warming phase will depend mainly on solar cycle 24 which began January 4, 2007.
12/07 Marked Record 52nd Consecutive Month of Job Growth
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released new jobs figures – 18,000 jobs created in December. Since August 2003, more than 8.3 million jobs have been created, with more than 1.3 million jobs created throughout 2007. Our economy has now added jobs for 52 straight months – the longest period of uninterrupted job growth on record. The unemployment rate remains low at 5 percent. The U.S. economy benefits from a solid foundation, but we cannot take economic growth for granted and economic indicators have become increasingly mixed. President Bush will continue working with Congress to address the challenges our economy faces and help facilitate long-term economic growth, job growth, and better standards of living for all Americans.
The U.S. Economy Benefits From A Solid Foundation
Real GDP grew at a strong 4.9 percent annual rate in the third quarter of 2007. The economy has now experienced six years of uninterrupted growth, averaging 2.8 percent a year since 2001.
Real after-tax per capita personal income has risen by 11.7 percent – an average of more than $3,550 per person – since President Bush took office.
Over the course of this Administration, productivity growth has averaged 2.6 percent per year. This growth is well above average productivity growth in the 1990s, 1980s, and 1970s.
The Federal budget deficit is down to 1.2 percent of GDP (in FY07), well below the 40-year average. Economic growth contributed to the highest tax revenues on record and a $250 billion drop in the deficit over the last three years.
U.S. exports in October 2007 were 13.7 percent higher than exports in October 2006.
Read the rest:
Of course, you won't read about that in any of the newspapers unless you read the business newspapers/journals. Otherwise, the economy is in a shambles, we're all going to die from global warming, and we need to completely revert to a 15th century lifestyle imposed upon us by Al Gore in order to alleviate it. (Newsflash: We're all going to die, and it will not be from global warming. Get over it.)
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Bad Mommy
My lil’ 3-year-old grandson gazed soulfully into my eyes, and announced
“Mommy is BAD.”
“Mommy is bad? What bad thing did mommy do, precious?” I inquired, while raising an eyebrow at bad mommy.
“Mommy spank me!”
“She did? BAD mommy! Uh, why exactly was it that she spanked you?”
“I lock baby in room!” he announced proudly.
Aaaah, the old “lock the baby in the room” trick. I remember when my kids used to flee from my retribution after doing something particularly heinous (let’s see what happens if I put the kitty in a ziplock bag!) and locked the doors behind them to keep mom at bay so maybe I would cool off before spanking their lil’ bottoms.
Jake, however, was not fleeing retribution. He, baby, and mommy were playing on the floor of his room when the phone rang, and mommy went to answer it. Jake came out to see who mommy was talking too (after all, it might have been me!) and locked the door behind him from the inside. A door that mommy had explained to him should never be locked, because she could not pick the lock on that particular door from the other side. A door on which mommy’s lockpicking skills would now have to be tested.
Luckily, the incentive of an infant locked on the other side does wonderful things for a mother’s burgling skills and the only harm that arose from that incident was a spanking to reinforce the “do NOT lock the baby in a room” message, since merely telling him not to do so was not sufficient to overcome the joy of being able to lock the little interloper away from mommy.
I asked him if he wanted me to give his mommy a spanking. “NO, don’t hurt mommy”, he said, although he gave her a warning look that said that he might not be so forbearing in the future if she should happen to misbehave.
The kitty in the ziplock bag survived, as I happened to glance out the window and saw the angelic little cherub stuff her into the bag and seal it. I rushed outside and was was able to release poor trusting kitty before all the oxygen was used up. Jake’s mommy did not seal any more kitties into ziplock bags after that spanking, either.
Now was it mommy, or was it her brother that put kitty in the dryer?
Friday, January 4, 2008
Lab Work
I went into the lab early today to get routine blood work done as I did every year due to a family history of thyroid disease and diabetes. The lab was short on workers and long on patients and slow getting started. I stood to allow an older patient to have my seat, and an elderly gentlemen immediately offered me his which I gently refused and told him that I was too jittery to remain seated long (which I was). I was somewhat annoyed as I had been waiting nearly an hour, the room was freezing, the seating was (very) limited and besides that, the entire room was a study in cheap mismatched second-hand furniture and no decor, all in shades of very depressing gray. It was the first time I had been to a Quest Diagnostic lab.
A young boy was there for the second time to get more blood drawn. Apparently the tests his doctors asked for required too much blood to be drawn from him at one time. His earlier paperwork had been lost, and he was getting more and more apprehensive as the lab workers tried to figure out which tests he still needed to have done.
"I need you to be a brave little man, and this won't hurt you a bit," the lab worker lied. The kid wasn't buying it. He'd been there before, and if it wasn't going to hurt, why did he have to be brave? He immediately started screaming "Nooooo, mommy, make them STOP! They're HURTING ME! Noooooooooo!" and then started anguished sobbing. When you're three years old and haven't been able to have any food because these are fasting tests, they can't find your prescription for the blood draw and have no idea what tests you need and then they can't even find your vein, it's hard to find solace in the idea that this is for your own good. It was hard to listen to.
I did a quick check around the waiting area at the other people flinching in response to the small child's cries and saw that they, too, were having to restrain themselves from rushing to his rescue. After failing to get enough blood for the tests from the child after several attempts, he was sent out have some food and to come back tomorrow for another try.
When it was my turn to get jabbed and have my blood taken, I asked where the suckers were.
"We don't have any", I was told.
"You have GOT to be kidding. If somebody is taking my blood, I expect to at LEAST to be given a sucker in return for not screaming. What about Band-Aids? Am I at LEAST going to get a Curious George Band-Aid, although I will take a Dora the Explorer or even better, Brendan Frazier in his George of the Jungle outfit?"
"We don't have Band-Aids, just gauze pads and adhesive tape." Sigh. No wonder the kid was pissed.
The place was unbearably grim and depressing even to a person like me, who actually enjoys walking through barns and stepping in feces. Would it have killed the lab owners to have invested in a few gallons of bright paint from Wal-Mart and maybe some brightly colored posters for the wall, some suckers for kids, and maybe a sticker for bravery with some interesting bandages? I was there just to make sure I was healthy; what about the people that were actually ill? Some pleasant surroundings while they waited wouldn't have hurt a bit.
A young boy was there for the second time to get more blood drawn. Apparently the tests his doctors asked for required too much blood to be drawn from him at one time. His earlier paperwork had been lost, and he was getting more and more apprehensive as the lab workers tried to figure out which tests he still needed to have done.
"I need you to be a brave little man, and this won't hurt you a bit," the lab worker lied. The kid wasn't buying it. He'd been there before, and if it wasn't going to hurt, why did he have to be brave? He immediately started screaming "Nooooo, mommy, make them STOP! They're HURTING ME! Noooooooooo!" and then started anguished sobbing. When you're three years old and haven't been able to have any food because these are fasting tests, they can't find your prescription for the blood draw and have no idea what tests you need and then they can't even find your vein, it's hard to find solace in the idea that this is for your own good. It was hard to listen to.
I did a quick check around the waiting area at the other people flinching in response to the small child's cries and saw that they, too, were having to restrain themselves from rushing to his rescue. After failing to get enough blood for the tests from the child after several attempts, he was sent out have some food and to come back tomorrow for another try.
When it was my turn to get jabbed and have my blood taken, I asked where the suckers were.
"We don't have any", I was told.
"You have GOT to be kidding. If somebody is taking my blood, I expect to at LEAST to be given a sucker in return for not screaming. What about Band-Aids? Am I at LEAST going to get a Curious George Band-Aid, although I will take a Dora the Explorer or even better, Brendan Frazier in his George of the Jungle outfit?"
"We don't have Band-Aids, just gauze pads and adhesive tape." Sigh. No wonder the kid was pissed.
The place was unbearably grim and depressing even to a person like me, who actually enjoys walking through barns and stepping in feces. Would it have killed the lab owners to have invested in a few gallons of bright paint from Wal-Mart and maybe some brightly colored posters for the wall, some suckers for kids, and maybe a sticker for bravery with some interesting bandages? I was there just to make sure I was healthy; what about the people that were actually ill? Some pleasant surroundings while they waited wouldn't have hurt a bit.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Bootstrapping for Business and Wealth
Before Christmas I had written a couple of posts looking at the reasons that people bootstrap their businesses. Lack of money and the desire to keep control were the first two reasons I wrote about in previous posts.
Another important outcome of effective bootstrapping is that it increases the income and wealth that entrepreneurs can realize from their businesses over time. Generally business owners get paid only after all of the expenses have been covered. Therefore, the ability for an entrepreneur to receive income from the business is a function of its cash flow. Since bootstrapping can improve cash flow from the business it is a means of ensuring personal income for the entrepreneur. By improving cash flow, bootstrapping increases the amount of cash the entrepreneur can take out as personal income from the business.
Additionally, much of the wealth that an entrepreneur is able to realize from the business is based on its valuation at the time the business is sold. The value of a business is based on the expected cash flow that the buyer believes the business can generate into the future. The most common valuation method for privately owned businesses is based on a multiple of the free cash flow the business generates. The multiple is based on several factors including historic growth of the venture, strength of the industry, strategic advantages of the company, and specific industry valuation standards. The degree to which the entrepreneur is able to improve cash flow through bootstrapping techniques the higher the value that can be created for the business. Bootstrapping is therefore not only good for the health of the business, but also personally good for the entrepreneur in terms of income and wealth.
Source:
As a former entrepreneur now completely burned out and working for the government, I agree that everything that the business owner can do to add income and value to the business is good with a couple of caveats:
1. Work with, not against, your strengths.
You may say "Great. Now explain what the hell you mean by THAT." Well, look at yourself as you would a prospective employee. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? (Oh, you want to tell me you have no weaknesses? You LIE like a rug.)
What are the things that you can do you do better than (almost) anybody else for your business? Some people have specific skills in inspiring and leading people, others have phenomenal sales successes without ever having the benefit of a marketing degree, while others have an ability to keep an eye firmly on the bottom line and the company solvent.
All those skills are essential, but they rarely come in one person. All I'm sayin' is that if you have, say, unparalleled technical knowledge for your particular product and love sharing it with people that might have a need for it but hate, despise, and procrastinate on doing the accounting, you would be far better off paying somebody to take that chore off your hands.
2. Being indispensable can be a bad thing.
"But how is this possible?" you may whine. "Being indispensable means that nobody can take my place!"
Congratulations on that, Einstein. So what happens if you become disabled, die, or wish to sell your company? Less drastic, what about if you want to take a relaxing vacation with your significant other? What if you get called for jury duty for a long trial? If you are truly indispensable, you won't be able to. Take it from me, whose days away from the grindstone for 25+ years consisted of 3-day weekends, being indispensable sucks.
Another important outcome of effective bootstrapping is that it increases the income and wealth that entrepreneurs can realize from their businesses over time. Generally business owners get paid only after all of the expenses have been covered. Therefore, the ability for an entrepreneur to receive income from the business is a function of its cash flow. Since bootstrapping can improve cash flow from the business it is a means of ensuring personal income for the entrepreneur. By improving cash flow, bootstrapping increases the amount of cash the entrepreneur can take out as personal income from the business.
Additionally, much of the wealth that an entrepreneur is able to realize from the business is based on its valuation at the time the business is sold. The value of a business is based on the expected cash flow that the buyer believes the business can generate into the future. The most common valuation method for privately owned businesses is based on a multiple of the free cash flow the business generates. The multiple is based on several factors including historic growth of the venture, strength of the industry, strategic advantages of the company, and specific industry valuation standards. The degree to which the entrepreneur is able to improve cash flow through bootstrapping techniques the higher the value that can be created for the business. Bootstrapping is therefore not only good for the health of the business, but also personally good for the entrepreneur in terms of income and wealth.
Source:
As a former entrepreneur now completely burned out and working for the government, I agree that everything that the business owner can do to add income and value to the business is good with a couple of caveats:
1. Work with, not against, your strengths.
You may say "Great. Now explain what the hell you mean by THAT." Well, look at yourself as you would a prospective employee. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? (Oh, you want to tell me you have no weaknesses? You LIE like a rug.)
What are the things that you can do you do better than (almost) anybody else for your business? Some people have specific skills in inspiring and leading people, others have phenomenal sales successes without ever having the benefit of a marketing degree, while others have an ability to keep an eye firmly on the bottom line and the company solvent.
All those skills are essential, but they rarely come in one person. All I'm sayin' is that if you have, say, unparalleled technical knowledge for your particular product and love sharing it with people that might have a need for it but hate, despise, and procrastinate on doing the accounting, you would be far better off paying somebody to take that chore off your hands.
2. Being indispensable can be a bad thing.
"But how is this possible?" you may whine. "Being indispensable means that nobody can take my place!"
Congratulations on that, Einstein. So what happens if you become disabled, die, or wish to sell your company? Less drastic, what about if you want to take a relaxing vacation with your significant other? What if you get called for jury duty for a long trial? If you are truly indispensable, you won't be able to. Take it from me, whose days away from the grindstone for 25+ years consisted of 3-day weekends, being indispensable sucks.
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