****************************
Did I Miss Anything?
After Don sent me the link to the story linked below, I responded:
So incredibly bizarre.
Following a tsunami after a huge earthquake in Japan, Germany shuts down nuclear energy at the same time it imposes green energy rules, and then finds out the sun doesn't shine enough, so they have to burn the "dirtiest" coal in the world to make up for lost nuclear power (pretty much emission-free), and destroy a lovely little village in the process.
The fact that the odds of a tsunami in Germany are somewhere between zero and zilch (and "zilch just left town") and earthquakes in Germany are almost as rare apparently was not taken into account.
Did I miss anything?
It's hard to be believe that a country famous for "producing" Leibniz, Goethe, Einstein, Gauss, Max Born, and on and on and on could get to this point.The AP is reporting:
Five days a week, a giant machine eats its way through soil at the Jaenschwalde open-cast mine in eastern Germany, exposing the brown coal buried beneath.
Lignite, as this form of compressed peat is known, is becoming an increasingly important part of Germany's effort to phase out nuclear energy.
It's also the reason why Atterwasch, a village that survived the Thirty Years' War, a Soviet onslaught at the end of World War II and four hard decades of communist rule is slated to be razed.
The village, with its volunteer fire station and old brownstone church, is to make way for a strip mine in the next decade. Dozens of other villages have fallen victim to the same fate, as coal once again becomes king.
The plan has many of Atterwasch's 250 inhabitants up in arms.Germany has one of the "greenest energy movements" on earth, but when push comes to shove (like running out of energy), the greenest country on earth will end up burning lignite.
****************************
Politics
Politics
The Stories Are Starting To Snowball
With regard to politics, there are two overriding themes related to the lame duck status of POTUS:- he is being pushed off-stage, exit left, to make room for the media's next annointed
- the Democratic Party's nominee will move away from ObamaCare
The tipping point, with regard to ObamaCare, was "the Schumer speech."
This was not an off-the-cuff answer to a reporter when caught off-guard; this was a well-thought-out, well-rehearsed speech that took some time to write.
The mainstream media is now free to publish stories that couldn't have been published before the mid-term elections. The stories are starting to snowball as the Schumer-Hillary wing of the party tries to clawback, as they say, ObamaCare.
The third linked article hardly needed a Gallup poll to tell us what we already knew following the midterm elections. But Schumer-Hillary's internal polling probably suggests things are even worse. It all depends how one asks the question. Regardless, it's a sad commentary for the healthcare industry in the US:
This was not an off-the-cuff answer to a reporter when caught off-guard; this was a well-thought-out, well-rehearsed speech that took some time to write.
The mainstream media is now free to publish stories that couldn't have been published before the mid-term elections. The stories are starting to snowball as the Schumer-Hillary wing of the party tries to clawback, as they say, ObamaCare.
- CEOs ready to revolt against ObamaCare
- Dark days ahead
- record number of Americans foregoing medical care over costs
Leading U.S. CEOs, angered by the Obama administration's challenge to certain "workplace wellness" programs, are threatening to side with anti-Obamacare forces unless the government backs off, according to people familiar with the matter.
Major U.S. corporations have broadly supported President Barack Obama's healthcare reform despite concerns over several of its elements, largely because it included provisions encouraging the wellness programs.
The programs aim to control healthcare costs by reducing smoking, obesity, hypertension and other risk factors that can lead to expensive illnesses.
A bipartisan provision in the 2010 healthcare reform law allows employers to reward workers who participate and penalize those who don't. But recent lawsuits filed by the administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), challenging the programs at Honeywell International and two smaller companies, have thrown the future of that part of Obamacare into doubt.Dark days ahead is simply a laundry list of all the challenges facing ObamaCare, most of which POTUS will see simply an ankle-biters, assuming he's even the least big interested any more on a subject that, like global warming, is closed (at least in his mind).
The third linked article hardly needed a Gallup poll to tell us what we already knew following the midterm elections. But Schumer-Hillary's internal polling probably suggests things are even worse. It all depends how one asks the question. Regardless, it's a sad commentary for the healthcare industry in the US:
One in three Americans has put off seeking medical treatment in 2014 due to high costs, according to Gallup — the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 2001.
Thirty-three percent of Americans have delayed medical treatment for themselves or their families because of the costs they’d have to pay.
Obamacare, of course, had promised that it would help make health care more affordable for everyone, but the number of people who can’t afford a trip to the doctor has actually risen three points since 2013, before most Obamacare provisions took effect.
*************************************
Breaking News
Perhaps one of the best new features on the blog is "Breaking News" at the top of the sidebar at the right.
"Breaking News" is very, very interesting; it's something quite unique. Apparently (I could be wrong) there are a number of people (could be dozens) that monitor tweets from all over the world, and then post the tweets are are unique, brand new, that have not been previously reported by any news agency (except as tweets).
So, they have quite a unique model: they have to cross-check the tweets to see that they truly are "breaking news" and have not been picked up by news agencies. Then, to some extent, they need to "trust" the tweets. They have to be fast; if they delay, a news agency may pick up the story first and report it; if they are too fast, and don't somehow confirm the veracity of the tweet, they could start off some incredibly bad rumors.
Generally speaking, a sequence of thirty (30) consecutive tweets at "Breaking News" would be from around the world and tweeting a variety of subjects. Tonight, perhaps starting about 8:30 CT there seemed to be a "run" of tweets from across the US about protestors shutting down shopping malls and/or disrupting Christmas (Holiday) Tree lighting ceremonies.
At the moment, it seems these protests across the country are minor nuisances in the big scheme of things, but there is the very real possibility that they could get out of hand resulting in injuries or escalation. Certainly, agitators are looking to see where the weak points in law enforcement are; where agitators/protestors can cause the most damage with least amount of risk; and, gradually enlist additional disenfranchised urban youth to join the protestors. It will be interesting to see how agitators use social media to further their goals and whether law enforcement agencies can use that same social media to stay ahead of the agitators.
*****************************
At Least It's Hard To Catch
Ebola cases in West Africa have risen above 16,000; death toll from outbreak reaching almost 7,000, -- WHO says via Twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment