Category: Monday Wake Up Call

Monday Wake Up Call – November 17, 2014

Today’s Monday Wake Up is for the Democratic Party. Trevor LaFauci at The People’s View compared Democrats to a bad first date:

They’re like a bad first date: They know what they want to say, they know they have a lot going for them but when it comes time to talk about themselves they do it meekly and awkwardly, so much so that the other person just assumes this person doesn’t have a lot going for them.

What’s worse is the Democrats try hard not to suck at funds-raising. The Wrongologist’s in-box is crammed with pleas by Democrats for more money, even after the Tuesday That Shall Not Be Named disaster.

As Seth Godin says:

I Need You. Three magic words. They light up our brain, they grab our attention, and they initiate action. But they’re being corrupted by the ease of reach and the desire by some organizations to grow at all costs… Political fundraisers have turned this from an art to a science to an endless whine.

A loyal reader of the Wrongologist, David Price, replied to an email plea for more money from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chair of the Democratic National Committee, saying that more money wasn’t the answer for Democrats:

Running away from the progressive agenda may have seemed like smart politics, but it turned out to (1) make once attractive candidates look like phonies, (2) make our party seem apologetic for its accomplishments and ashamed of its ambitions, (3) demoralize those progressives who have traditionally identified the Democratic Party as the most effective vehicle for their hopes and (4) arguably have been bad politics after all, even in the shortest-run, most pragmatic, down-and-dirty sense.

More from Trevor LaFauci:

And so Democrats, the choice is yours: You can cater to the centrist, middle-of-the-road, kinda-sorta progressive voters in your party or you can go all in on issues that the American people actually care about…If you go middle of the road, know that you’re putting the millennial vote in play, especially for a generation that, for the most part, remains politically independent.

If Democrats can’t choose, then the 2016 presidential election is in play for anyone who appeals to independent voters. That could be how we end up with President Romney, or President Rand Paul.

It’s time for the Democratic Party to wake up. To help them, a song by the late Gary Moore, a great Irish guitarist and former member of Thin Lizzy who is barely known in the US. Here is “Still Got The Blues”:

As does the Democratic Party.

Your Monday morning linkage:

Oh, n-o-o-o-o-o-o! Satire Mag The Onion said to be for sale.

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) contain detailed data about patients’ encounters with the health system — data that it turns out has tremendous value for Big Pharma’s online marketing to doctors.

Ali Baba, the Chinese Internet Goliath, is changing the venture capital market in Silicon Valley.

Using a DOJ program called Equitable Sharing, state and local forfeiture restrictions are lifted when the DOJ gets a cut. The practice of seizing a person’s money or property without accusing them of a crime is called civil forfeiture. Some states have tough restrictions on what forfeiture proceeds can be used for, some are very liberal. Agencies enrolled in the Equitable Sharing program can petition a DOJ agency to “adopt” their seizure. In an adoptive seizure, they get to keep 80% of the profits to use for any purpose, while the DOJ takes the rest.

Certain older drugs, many of which are generic and not protected by patents or market exclusivity, are becoming extremely expensive.

A landmark study indicates that seven pesticides, some widely used, may be causing clinical depression in farmers. 84,000 farmers and spouses were interviewed since the mid-1990s to investigate the connection between pesticides and depression. Or, as the old song goes: Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-Oh Fuck It!

JAMA Forum: Hospital Consolidation Isn’t the Key to Lowering Costs and Raising Quality. Not what corporate health care wants to hear.

Afghan Police turn to growing opium as their $6-a-day salaries are unpaid. The delays are mounting even as the US spends more than $6 billion this year to pay for Afghanistan’s security and keep its government afloat.

The nonprofit group that stages New York’s Veterans Day Parade every November 11 siphons a LOT of money into the pockets of its founders. The NY Observer reports that it found many questionable expenses in large part because the founder of the United War Veterans Council (UWVC) , Bill White and other leaders of the UWVC have been spending significantly more on fundraising than parade expenses.

Now, get up, get your quad shot, and get going!

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Monday Wake Up Call –November 10, 2014

OK, we just had our bi-annual vote to rearrange the deck chairs, and boy, people were angry. But what good will come of it is difficult to guess. This we do know: According to a CNN exit poll, 8 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Congress has been handling its job, while almost 6 in 10 are displeased with President Obama; 44% have a positive view of Democrats; 40% have a positive view of Republicans.

So, Americans elected the party they like the least to run the part of the government they trust the least.

There’s a lot of discussion of how and why Democrats did so badly, and much of it focuses on messaging. The litany of excuses is long: Democratic candidates were arrogant. The White House failed to transfer money, or stump effectively. The GOP caught up in the technology race, or the GOP recruited excellent, disciplined candidates.

Democrats ran on everything but?policy. Did the Democrats run the government well? Are the lives of voters better? Are Democrats as a political party credible when they say they’ll do something?

Their message was based on a group of poll-tested ideas that they thought would appeal to mainstream voters. But, the message, “vote for us, we’re not right-wing fanatics” didn’t cause the majority of us to turn out for the election. In fact, turn out was the lowest it had been in 40 years.

Liberal ballot propositions won in various parts of the country last Tuesday, from marijuana products (like https://www.cheapbudcanada.com/marijuana-products/vape-pens/fatboyz-disposable-thc-vape-pen/, for instance) to the minimum wage. Democrats didn’t. That should tell the Democratic Party something. Liberal policies can resonate with the public. It would be nice if there was a party which could embody and fight for those ideas.

So what would be a winning message? The economy. There’s infrastructure work to be done. The private sector could hire people to do it with government money. There are hungry people who need to be fed, and homeless people to be housed. And, ending our adventures in the Middle East would improve our lives.

“Vote for us, we bring peace, prosperity, and weed” – that slogan just might get you somewhere.

Keeping with the spirit of a new politics, here is your wake-up tune of the day. It is “Uprising” by Muse, released in 2009. So get upright and rock out:

Sample lyrics:
Rise up and take the power back
It’s time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time’s coming to an end
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend
(so come on)

They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victorious

Here is your breakfast buffet of linkage:
Connecticut’s Democratic Governor was reelected, running as a progressive: It was close, but Dan Molloy won bigger this time against the same conservative opponent.

A case for treating health care and hospitals as utilities: Conservatives have won the battle to eliminate much of the government control in quasi-monopolistic markets like telecom and electric power. You be the judge about whether you are better off with de-regulation of those industries. Health care is a de facto monopoly, should it be treated as a utility?

Wikipedia is the sixth most popular website in the world, with 22.5 million contributors and 736 million edits in English. It’s as if the entire population of Australia (23.6 million) each contributed 30 times. 36 people run Wikipedia. Who are they?

Transparent solar panels could make solar power more competitive. CSEM, a Swiss technology company, have developed solar panels that you can see through and have no visible connections, which gives architects a lot of room to incorporate solar power into the walls of buildings without having to give up any aesthetic goals.

How often should you get dental x-rays? Dentists differ.

Many people believe that medical malpractice reform is the key to cutting cost from the health care system. But evidence shows that belief could be mistaken. However, if you have been affected by medical negligence, you’ll want to consider your options. Some people contact the hospital directly to complain about the medical professional who failed to take suitable care of them. A better alternative to this idea is actually to contact a personal injury lincoln ne service, or a lawyer more local to you. Seeking legal assistance can help you to strengthen your claim against the staff member in question.

The US currently has 30 declared presidential states of emergency. The University of Michigan explains why this is a bad idea. The National Emergencies Act requires the Congress to vote every six months on whether a declared national emergency should continue, Congress has done this only once in the nearly 40-year history of the Act.

Protect us from the media: CNBC’s “Squawk Box” anchor (Joe Kernan) shows complete ignorance of Ireland while talking to Martin Shanahan, head of the Irish Industrial Development Authority. Then he insists he is correct:
CNBC: You have pounds anyway don’t you still?
Shanahan: We have Euros.
CNBC: You have Euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: Yes. We have euros, which is eh…
CNBC: Why do you have euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: A strong recovery….
CNBC: Why do you use euros in Ireland?
Shanahan: Why wouldn’t we have euros in Ireland?
CNBC: Huh. I’d use the pound.
Shanahan: We use euro.
CNBC: What about Scotland? I was using Scottish eh…
Shanahan: They use Sterling.
CNBC: They use Sterling?
Shanahan: They use Sterling. But we use euro.
CNBC: What? Why would you do that?

And some of you use CNBC for investment advice!

Here is your thought for the week. It is from George Orwell:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to the long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemisms, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable…

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Monday Wake Up Call – November 3, 2014

Are you tired because you got an extra hour’s sleep last night? Let’s get your brain started with a question: Who benefits it the government funds the development of new technology?

Answer: Private corporations.

Economist Mariana Mazzucato’s book about the role of the State in innovation, The Entrepreneurial State says that the image of a useless State at odds with a dynamic private sector is a myth. Mazzucato reveals in multiple case studies that the opposite is true; the private sector is only willing to invest after someone in a garage has a good idea that must be commercialized, or after the State makes a seed investment.

She describes how it worked with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s search engine. In both cases their popular consumer products benefited from state financing of basic research. For the iPhone, some of the technologies that make it “smart” were funded by the US government, such as the global positioning system (GPS), the touchscreen display, and the forerunner of the voice-activated personal assistant, Siri.

As for Google, development of its fundamental search algorithm was funded by the National Science Foundation. Plus, of course, there’s that thing called the Internet, another government funded venture, which makes the iPhone “smart”, and makes Google searches useful and valuable.

The right-wing myth is that the government needs to be completely out of the way of business, except for providing tax and regulatory incentives for private companies, to make them “want” to create the products they sell.

But, in the real world, many successful companies harvest the work of others and repackage proven technologies into successful products. In the 21st Century, companies often just mine the surface of their technology estate. When “innovative” companies are hugely profitable, often they buy back their shares and/or raise dividends, but do not invest that much in their long-term futures.

Finally, despite the fact that some companies directly benefit from taxpayer-funded technologies, they “underfund” (via tax breaks and holding profits offshore) the government that helped develop technologies that led to their success.

The obvious way for the public to ‘profit’ from socialized risk is to retain some ownership of the technologies that underlie those successes.

Another myth that needs to be exploded is that companies will not introduce new products if they can’t own 100% the intellectual property behind the products. Not true. Today, they often share their technology ownership with other firms. And it is inconceivable that a growing public estate of licensable technical know-how would sit under-exploited, if it could be licensed by corporate America.

Monday’s breakfast buffet of linkage:

Heard of the 27 Club? The idea is that pop stars are more likely than the general population to die at age 27. Not true, but they do tend to die much younger than the rest of us.

Of course milk is good for you! Well, maybe not as much as the milk-industrial complex wants you to believe. Swedish researchers took two groups, one with 61,000 women and the other with 45,000 men, and followed them for 20 years to see if milk intake was related to fractures or to death. Apparently, not so much. Maybe you should give Almond milk a try.

Using CDC data, a study finds that high rates of ADHD diagnoses correlated directly with state laws that penalize schools financially when students fail. An ADHD diagnosis can take a student out of the statistics. The five states that have the highest rate of diagnoses — Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and North Carolina — are all over 10% of school age children. The five states with the lowest percent diagnosed — Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, Utah and California — are all under 5%.

The US has changed its H-1B record retention policy. The US Department of Labor said that records “are temporary records and subject to destruction” after five years, under a new policy. But, the H-1B visa lasts 6 years. The total database is about 1GB, so what’s the issue?

The Air Force doesn’t have enough mechanics for its new F35 fighter: The reason is political. The Air Force was counting on training A-10 mechanics, but Congress is blocking the Air Force’s plan to retire the A-10 aircraft. It could take 12 months longer than proposed to get the F-35 in the air, if the A-10 stays online.

International News:

Japanese journalists didn’t do independent reporting about the Fukushima melt-down, they simply reported the press releases of Tokyo Power and the government. Now some are speaking out. Sound familiar?

The war between the banks and phone companies over mobile banking in Kenya heats up. After the huge success of mobile banking in Kenya, commercial banks began to invest in mobile phone-based banking, including selling their own SIM cards instead of using those issued by mobile phone providers. Now, the mobile phone operators are crying foul.

When the TuNur project in the Tunisian Sahara comes online in by late 2018, it will provide clean and reliable power to more than 2.5 million UK homes. The project will be connected to the European electricity grid via a dedicated cable from Tunisia to Italy. The UK participated in funding the project.

Your wake-up song is from Trigger Hippy, a new roots super-group founded by Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman, and singer Joan Osborne. It is an amalgam of country, blues, soul and rock. Here is “Rise up Singing”, so time to rise up:

 

Let this thought guide your week:

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. – Muhammad Ali

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Monday Wake-Up Call – October 20, 2014

Happy Monday! Here is your thought for the week:

“People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true” − Richard M. Nixon

Not a complete surprise that Nixon was wrong. They DO teach fear in Sunday school:

COW Fear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Liberia, only 43% of the adult population are literate, so radio, not the written word, is the best way to inform people about the disease. There are 16 local languages in Liberia, in addition to English. People rarely have access to the Internet or television.

Songs about Ebola are popular in West Africa. One of the most popular is “Ebola in Town” by Samuel “Shadow” Morgan and Edwin “D-12” Tweh, along with Kuzzy, of 2Kings. The song sounds like American hip-hop, but the style is called “Hip Co”, a form of colloquial English that appeals to young Liberians (about 50% of the population is under 18).

Here is an audio file of the song. There are YouTube videos out there, but they have extremely graphic depictions of Ebola victims, and may not be suitable for viewing at work or at home, if kids are in the room:

https://soundcloud.com/shadowmrgn/ebola-in-town-d-12-shadow-kuzzy-of-2kings

A sample of the lyrics:
Something happen
Something in town

Oh yeah the news

I said something in town
Ebola
Ebola in town

[Snip]

If you like the monkey

Don’t eat the meat
If you like the baboon
I said don’t eat the meat
If you like the bat-o
Don’t eat the meat
Ebola in town.

Songs can’t do all that much in a nation with the second-fewest doctors per person in the world.

Here are today’s hot links for your breakfast buffet:

Ebola got you stressed? Try textual healing. A new breed of online-therapy services offers flat-rate plans that allow you to text-chat with a licensed, accredited therapist as much as you like (need).

At least 30 states are still providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit.

Researchers have created what they call Alzheimer’s in a Dish — a petri dish with human brain cells that develop the telltale structures of Alzheimer’s disease.

And we were doing so well in Pakistan: Six senior members of the Pakistani Taliban vowed allegiance to the Islamic State.

Go ahead, take your time getting to the party: Study shows that the median arrival time of 803 guests was 58 minutes after the party’s start time.

Of course we love our allies: Saudis to behead, then crucify a cleric who spoke out against the King. Did you know that Saudi Arabia doesn’t have a constitution?

We will never learn: John Allen, the general in charge of the US-led coalition’s response to ISIS says the US will create “a home-grown, moderate counterweight to the Islamic State”. Didn’t work in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq. Why would it work this time?

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Monday Wake-up Call – October 13, 2014

Happy Columbus Day! We start a new weekly feature today, the Monday Wake-up Call, with a music video to get your body and mind up and going on Monday, along with links to a few of last week’s articles that you probably missed, and the Wrongologist found interesting.

Here we go: The Monday Wake-up video is “Life in Wartime” by the Talking Heads. This version is from their movie, “Stop Making Sense”. Get up and dance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obAtn6I5rbY

Now, a breakfast buffet of links to underreported news:

There have been a tsunami of TV ads for the Senate campaigns. Candidates, political parties and outside advocacy groups have aired 991,835 Senate campaign spots from January through October 6th 2014.

Got Drones? Here is a list of everyone authorized to fly drones in the US.

It costs the US $500,000 to take out an ISIS Toyota truck. War has always been about inflicting greater costs on the enemy than the costs that you take, but the new business model is way more efficient. The US Military-Industrial Complex (USMIC) now controls the entire deal. They supply the arms to the insurgents, and to the allies, some of whom give them to the insurgents. Then we destroy them. The costs may be higher, but the USMIC makes way more profit.

There is a huge methane hotspot in the 4 Corners: Satellite imagery has revealed a methane hotspot that is leaking methane (a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide but not as long lasting) into the atmosphere near the “Four Corners” area where the borders of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico meet.

Why the Ebola fight can’t be won in Africa. Ian Welsh links Western efforts to fund/finance development in Africa over the past 50 years to the current public health crisis.

Research shows the Ebola virus can be found in survivors’ semen for months after recovery. So, it’s not enough to survive the disease, men can be infectious for up to 90 days after their symptoms are gone. Not Typhoid Mary, its Ebola Eddie…Yikes!

Edward Snowden’s girlfriend is living with him in Moscow. Apparently, she moved in with him in July, but the US media didn’t think you needed to know, since we were told that his life in Russia was grim, and that was the price he paid for being a whistle-blowing turncoat. The joke is that Snowden has not only profoundly changed how the world thinks about government spying on its citizens, as well as its allies and enemies, he has built a happy life for himself.

An idea to frame your week:

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you

(Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future”)

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