Net Neutrality.. Money?

The FCC's proposed net neutrality regulations are widely expected to be approved by a vote along partisan lines.  The controversy comes down to the fact that the FCC's new net neutrality rules reclassify broadband as a public utility.

Proponents of the new rules say regulating the Internet as a utility protects consumers and innovation. Opponents say it stifles innovation and restricts capitalism. Essentially, the debate has become ideological and partisan.

"On one hand you have the Internet companies like Netflix and Facebook who are trying to ensure they have unfettered access to the consumer and that the consumer has unfettered access to them," said analyst Craig Moffett at Moffett Research. "And on the other hand you have companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast who are saying they don't oppose any of the net neutrality-related rules, but the legal framework in order to get there imposes all these burdensome regulations and the risk of government overreach."

The concern is the risk that Title II regulation, even with all sorts of carve-outs or "forbearance" on certain parts, will lead toward price regulation.

Some are making great money now and they are against it.

Just a thought.

Driven... part 2..Pao

Fletcher delivered a speech built around the theme “What are the chances?”  that the nation would elect its first black President or that a Fletcher Fellow would read her poem at the Inauguration? He acknowledged his wife, the venture capitalist Ellen Pao, and their 6-month-old daughter, Matilda.

What are the chances, he asked, that he’d be there that day with his beautiful wife?

This last note elicited warm laughter. His friends all knew that Fletcher had, for years, openly dated a man, Hobart “Bo” Fowlkes, an employee of his investment firm, who helped plan the party but was not in attendance. But in the span of a year beginning in the summer of 2007, Fletcher and Pao had met, married, and started a family. The event was infused with a powerful dose of “hope and change.”

Nearly four years later much has changed for Fletcher and Pao though not for the better. After achieving coveted positions in the rarefied world of finance, Fletcher and Pao each filed sensational lawsuits that now jeopardize their careers, no matter the outcome.

Fletcher, 46, sued the iconic Dakota apartment building, located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, accusing the board of racial discrimination after it questioned his ability to pay for an additional unit in the complex. The lawsuit triggered a series of events that ultimately led to the bankruptcy of one of Fletcher’s funds and investigations by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Then, just as Fletcher’s predicament was intensifying, Pao, 43, sued her employer, the venerable venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, for sexual discrimination, alleging that her superiors ignored her complaints of maltreatment by some male colleagues and curtailed her career for raising the issues.

The truth is stranger than fiction.  See part 1.  

Just a thought.

Getting ugly..!!

Crude oil prices plunged to a six-year low in a potentially painful threat to oil-exporting nations that rely on crude to power their economies. 

Many analysts believe that oil prices between $30 and $40 per barrel are a real possibility.  Oil traders are placing bets on oil sinking as low as $20 a barrel.

Oil prices are still looking for a floor, in part because the persistent mismatch between global supply and demand continues. 

Prices in the $40-per-barrel are starting to seriously test the economics of many operations. That’s because unlike other new sources of oil production such as Canada’s tar sands  U.S. tight-oil production relies on continuous drilling of wells.

Ultimately, the big risk to the U.S. economy lies in just how that yin and yang play out. Cheaper oil will hurt energy producers, the industry and some banks.

The drop would essentially extends the Federal Reserve’s policy of priming the economy with easy money and sets the stage for a harder landing sometime next year.

Just a thought.

Minimum Wage

Walmart, which employs 1.3 million in the U.S. alone, plans to boost its minimum pay to $9 an hour by April and $10 an hour by Feb. 1, 2016. The current federal standard is $7.25. 

That would generate long-awaited wage inflation, the lack of which has been a main contributor to the lackluster post-recession economic recovery in the U.S., the worst since the Great Depression.

"What Wal-Mart has done is set the new benchmark for employee pay for big-box stores.  It might be cooler to work at a Wal-Mart, where you get training and a higher pay,". "It could spread to the big-box retailers, and throughout the mall."

Wal-Mart's announcement comes after a solid two years of lobbying both from worker advocate groups and President Barack Obama's.

Walmart and other low wage companies' workers cost U.S. taxpayers $ billions in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.

This is a good business decision to reduce turn around, better employment Poole, satisfaction of the employees and better customer service. Just a thought. 

Irrelevant...

I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani reportedly said. “He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up this way ...... .......   and I was brought up through love of this country

He doesn’t talk about America the way John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did, about America’s greatness and exceptionalism,”  He added that the commander-in-chief has been influenced by communists since his youth.

Giuliani implied he was the only one with the chutzpah to call out Obama, saying: “Somebody has to raise these issues with the president. Somebody has to have the courage to stand up.”

Giuliani said that his office had received some death threats over the phone. “But he did not say whether he alerted police and CNN has no way of confirming that,” “The majority of phone calls were supportive.”

Rudy Giuliani wants a little love, but most likely just some attention, from the president of the United States of America. [Huff Post].

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Just a thought.

Road Rage

 

Las Vegas police work to identify a suspect in the apparent “road rage” shooting that left a mother of four dead.  Authorities are struggling to draw an accurate picture of what happened.

The adjusted timeline of events is largely based on the accounts of the daughter and son who were in the car with the victim, 44-year-old Tammy Meyers.
 

Police now believe that after Meyers and her 15-year-old daughter finished a driving lesson in a school parking lot, Meyers drove home. When a car pulled up aggressively behind Meyers and tried to pass, Meyers' daughter reached over and honked the horn, police say.

 

“Meyers sped past the male, and she continued on her way,” Steiber said. "Mrs. Meyers is scared, she’s upset.”  Meyers drove home and asked her daughter to tell her son, 22-year-old, who was armed, to come out to the car. Tammy and son went looking for the "road rage" suspect and found him, before losing track of him again, Steiber said.
 

When the mother and son returned home, the suspect's car pulled up. Gunfire erupted and Meyers was fatally wounded. "All indications ... are that this unknown person had fired shots first," Steiber said, adding that the son returned fire.

 

The son said, "I did what I had to do to protect my family. And I'd do it for anyone I love.” That may have been the cause of this tragedy.  

What kind of a lesson was that?   Just a thought.
 

A sad letter ..

This is a very sad time in Egypt where we are in seven days of official mourning for the 21 young Christian men who were brutally slaughtered by ISIS in Libya. The gruesome murder, and the produced video of that execution shocked the country and the world. It has united Egypt Christians and Muslims as never before. As soon as the video appeared, the President of Egypt delivered a speech declaring 7 days of mourning for the Nation.

Prayers and condolences have poured in for the victims, their families and the Coptic church, with many on social media using the hashtag    #CopticLivesMatter.

“They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. ” 

Vengeance
Be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written,                                                                "Vengeance is MINE, I Will Repay," says the Lord. .............."But IF Your Enemy IS Hungry, FEED HIM, And IF HE is Thirsty, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING"…  

Just a thought.

But Rage.

Cho Hyun-ah, the daughter of Korean Air Chairman, served as head of in-flight service [Vice President] until she demanded that a South Korea-bound Korean Air jetliner return to a gate at NY JFK International Airport.

Cho was angered that a junior steward served her macadamia nuts  in a bag instead of on a plate, and without asking first. When a senior steward struggled to cite the proper regulations, Cho had him kicked off the flight, forcing the plane holding some 250 passengers to return to the gate before it could depart for South Korea."
The flight eventually arrived 11 minutes late, according to Reuters.

Cho later resigned from her post, was arrested in what is being called the "nut rage" incident and was charged with violating the country's aviation safety laws, coercion and interference in the execution of duty.

What else was that daughter of the Chair did to the subordinate?
  Just a thought.

Mother In Law

Your mother is Nosy Alice ... Nosy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92YQbNLnh_Q&index=7&list=WL

Cylvia...!

In her role as Oregon's first lady, Hayes has depicted her life story as a sort of fairy tale: Poor girl bootstraps her way to success, falls in love with a powerful man, together they save the world.

But a closer look suggests something more reminiscent of Greek tragedy. Friends, fellow environmentalists and political allies describe a woman with a desperate need for affirmation, a weather eye on the next opportunity and a giant blind spot when it comes to how others might perceive her.

She was 29 when she accepted $5,000 to marry an Ethiopian man hoping to stay in the United States, and 30 when she and a boyfriend bought property in rural Okanogan County, Washington, hoping to set up a pot farm.

Kitzhaber told campaign staff to treat Hayes as his spouse and the presumptive first lady. Democratic activists who did not, felt the irritation of both the candidate and his companion. Hayes expected respect, she repeatedly told people within the party. She'd earned it.......  Yet  personal email accounts relating to state business derailed her ambition....      Just a thought.

Newly Wed-I

A young lawyer has been found stabbed to death in a hotel just five blocks from the White House. the crime was discovered at the Donovan Hotel.

Messerschmitt, an associate with a high-powered D.C. firm, was reported missing early that morning when he didn’t return home.

The couple, who married in 2012, lived together in an apartment just three miles from the Donovan, but police have not yet said why the 30-year-old lawyer was at the four-star hotel.

Messerschmitt's wife Kim Vuong said 'everything seemed fine' before he left their home on Sunday, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. The couple texted that night but he failed to return home.

The hunt is on for a hooded lurker in the crime. The mystery figure was recorded in full winter gear inside the swanky Donovan Hotel.

The person, who is not identifiable as a man or woman, hit the elevator button, but then decided to take the stairs, slowly covering up his or her face as time goes on.

Police are looking into the possibility Messerschmitt was set up.  The keys to solve this mystery is the wife and the hotel.

Detectives found a wallet with "various credit cards strewn about" by Messerschmitt's head. More credit cards and documents were found throughout the room.

...... Like.

According to multiple press reports, Chinese authorities have executed Liu Han, a former mining tycoon once worth more than $6 billion. He was the former chairman of Sichuan Hanlong Group, a mining conglomerate. The government prosecution led to the collapse of his ambitious business empire and brought attention to his links to a top target of China’s broad crackdown on corruption.

A billionaire who lived large, Mr. Liu had built an investment empire around his private Hanlong Group based in Sichuan province that included resources businesses that stretched beyond China to Australia and the U.S.

Authorities found him guilty of running a "mafia-style" gang responsible for multiple murders, assaults, gun-running, theft and embezzlement.

Liu, 49, was a fixture in the Chinese business press, calling attention to his diamond watches and fleet of Bentleys, Ferraris and Rolls-Royces,

Liu had business ties to the son of disgraced national security chief Zhou Yongkang, who was stripped of his Communist Party membership after being accused of bribery and "violating the party's political, organizational and confidentiality discipline." Zhou is the highest-ranking official so far to be targeted by President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign.

The government has arrested dozens of wealthy Chinese businesspeople and officials as part of the campaign, and has started tracking the fortunes of the wealthy overseas. 

   Just a thought.

Fake News..

Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq war,” Jon Stewart said. “It might not necessarily be the first person you’d want held accountable on that list. But never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot at in a war we probably wouldn’t have ended up in if the media had applied this level of scrutiny to the actual f*cking war.” Just a thought

Management Changes...

Fearing they’ll crush employees’ confidence and erode performance, employers are asking managers to ease up on harsh feedback.
If you don’t have anything nice to say, upper management has a tip: Try harder.

“Accentuate the positive” has become a new mantra at workplaces, where bosses now dole out frequent praise, urge employees to celebrate small victories and focus performance reviews around a particular worker’s strengths instead.

The shift may annoy leaders who rose in a tough-love era in business, but executives say hard-edge tactics simply do more harm than good.
When employees’ flaws are laid bare, “there’s that mental ‘ugh’ and shrug of, ‘This is who I am’. Entry level managers will lose the presumed power of fault finding.

For years, those discussions focused largely on employee missteps and where they needed to improve.   Bit by bit, consulting firm are changing the way managers evaluate employee performance.

“We would bring them in and beat them down a bit,”. After the reviews,  some employees left the company as their confidence and performance slipped; others seemed rattled.

Now, managers are expected to extol staffers’ strengths during reviews and check-ins, explaining how the person can use his or her talents to tackle aspects of the job that come less naturally. Bosses[some may be unqualified] are advised to mention no more than one or two areas that require development. Just a though.

He's history-Brian Williams

NBC executives have not publicly defended Williams, fueling media speculation that his job may be in jeopardy. Williams may not wanted such public show of support, fearing it would appear to be the kiss of death.

The new research came as NBC tried to decide whether Mr. Williams can continue as anchor and managing editor of its evening news broadcast. The network’s internal investigation was underway contacting other staff members who have worked with Mr. Williams as well as soldiers involved in the Iraq helicopter incident.

Brian Williams decided on his own to step aside from his NBC newscast for several days and was under no pressure to do so by network executives, a person familiar with the situation says.

By announcing a leave of absence for "several days," Brian Williams started a ticking clock that will end with his return to the "NBC Nightly News" anchor chair.    Unless he doesn't return.

For NBC, the decision is about more than journalistic ethics. It is also about business and trust in the network. For me the Trust in the anchor and the Network is the most crucial. We already got enough fake reporting.

Just a thought.

Sports, is it?

For the second year in a raw I am disappointed at Sports Illustrated choices. It seems that SI is moving into Play Boy territories.

 Just a thought.

New Era?... Naaaa

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted President Obama's economic policy, claiming that the economy has only improved for the rich.

"The top 1 percent under President Obama, the millionaires and billionaires that he constantly demagogued, earned a higher share for our income than any year since 1928," 

Cruz said that the middle class has not seen the same boost as the rich.
"Hardworking men and women across America are hurting. "I'm glad President Obama and Hillary Clinton have discovered income inequality because it’s increased dramatically under their failed policies."

Mitch McConnell said that the economic recovery touted by Obama has only helped the wealthy.

Jeb Bush's speech before the Detroit Economic Club was the highest-profile example to date of a Republican presidential hopeful embracing economic inequality and middle-class stagnation as problems that define America.

In 2009, Bush left the WH while unemployment 10.7%, two Wars, and the collapse of US economy.  Let us see what the New-Old Republicans do to the Middle class. Let us pray.

Just a thought.

Kayla Mueller

In the few years since graduating from university, Kayla Mueller had come a long way from her American home in Arizona. The 26-year-old had moved to a Turkish town on the Syrian border, and was doing everything to help civilians whose lives had been destroyed in the neighbouring country's war.

 

She had a generous and adventurous spirit. Since graduating from Northern Arizona University in 2009 she had backpacked in different parts of the world. She had spent time in Egypt and volunteered in Africa.   

She is a sweet and gentle girl. She laughed easily and was extremely caring for others. The name she chose for her blog, 'imbued with hope' was perfectly fitting to her character.
She began volunteering with every aid agency she could. In the space of a few short months, her enthusiasm and talent had gotten her access to some of the most respected aid agencies, including the Danish Refugee Council.

She was always looking to do more. She was working with a local Turkish NGO to create a community centre in Kilis, a town on the Syrian border home to one of Turkey's biggest refugee camps.

Say a prayer for her. Just a thought. 

BadAss...

Horner [15 years old] is the first person in history to be charged with  ‘swatting‘, a trend in which a person anonymously files a false police report, such as a murder or bomb threat, in hopes of provoking the police to raid an individual’s home or business. Prosecutors in the case proved that Horner called in multiple false threats against rival online gamers, resulting in SWAT team raids of their residence.

Defense lawyers told the courtroom that Horner, who goes by the gamertag BadAssDwg69, was upset after being repeatedly beaten by a fellow gamer at Battlefield 4. After obtaining the rival gamers information, prosecutors say Horner called police and reported a murder/hostage situation at the home. SWAT team then raided the house, shooting and critically injuring the “Livestreamer’s” father in the process.

Horner was charged as an adult. Horner’s guilty charge stems from two counts of domestic terrorism, related to his manipulation of an enforcement response, and injuries to innocents resulting from those actions.  He was sentenced to 25 years to life in federal prison.

Shameless Brian

  

Brian Williams had been telling a story that wasn't true, and the episode evolved over the years, with his personal involvement gradually growing more perilous. In a 2003 was described as "a close call in the skies over Iraq," Mr. Williams said, "the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky."

In 2013, He told David Letterman that he had actually been on the helicopter that got shot down, adding that a crew member had been injured and received a medal. "We figured out how to land safely, we landed very quickly and hard. We were stuck, four birds in the desert and we were north out ahead of the other Americans."
On the "Nightly News" recently, he described "a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.,"

The current controversy erupted after he spoke about it on air during a tribute to a retired soldier. Some veterans took to Facebook to complain.
A host of military veterans and pundits came forward on television and social media, challenging Mr. Williams's assertion that he had simply made a mistake when he spoke, on several occasions, about having been in a United States military helicopter forced down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003. 

In fact, some of the soldiers present in Iraq that day had been quietly fuming about Mr. Williams's reporting for years, and had even tried to alert the news media to it earlier. Joe Summerlin, who was on the helicopter that was forced down, said in an interview that he and some of his fellow crew watched Mr. Williams's initial story and were angered by his characterization of the events.
                
Mr. Williams apologized and said that he had been on a different helicopter, behind the one that had sustained fire, and that he had inadvertently "conflated" the two. 
 On CNN's "New Day," Chris Cuomo said that attributing the lie to "the fog of war" wasn't acceptable and the Internet would "eat him alive." Rem Rieder, a USA Today media columnist, wrote, "It's hard to see how Williams gets past this, and how he survives as the face of NBC News."

Those who faked the story and created the Fiction must be immediately removed.    Just a thought

Your money-Pfizer !

Pfizer has agreed to buy Hospira, the top provider of injectable drugs, for $15.2 billion, in a move to expand its global product portfolio.  Pfizer said the acquisition [for $90 a share $65 yesterday] will provide a growing revenue stream for its global established pharmaceutical business.

Hospira is a top provider of sterile injectable drugs, including those used for acute care and cancer treatment infusion technologies and biosimilars.
Pfizer CEO Ian Read said the company's global business "will benefit from a significantly enhanced product portfolio in growing markets."

The boards of both companies have unanimously approved the deal, which must be cleared by regulators and Hospira shareholders. It's expected to close in the second half of 2015.

Earlier, Pfizer abandoned its attempt to buy AstraZeneca for nearly $118 billion as a deadline approached without a last-minute change of heart by the British drugmaker.
The decision ends a month-long public fight between two of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies that sparked political concerns on both sides of Atlantic over jobs and corporate tax maneuvers.

Pfizer got money, but no medications in Research and Development. So what to do?   All in all, there is no new medications to the market, but will cost you more since US market prices is out of control compared to Canada, England..etc

Just a thought.

Third rail- Fireball !!?

"The gates came down on top of the vehicle, which was stopped on the tracks," Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said in a statement. "The driver got out to look at the rear of the car, then she got back in and drove forward and was struck."

Another driver stopped directly behind the SUV said he started to back up to give the vehicle's driver room but instead she pulled forward.

The fiery scene began to unfold when the Harlem Line train struck the black Mercedes-Benz SUV at the narrow, two-lane Commerce Street crossing, causing an explosion that engulfed both the car and the train.

The car was "pushed about 1,000 feet down the tracks. Some 400 feet of the electrified third rail sliced through the first car of a Metro-North train after it plowed into an SUV, burning the entire interior of the train car and killing five passengers, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board investigation confirmed this evening.
 

It seems that the third rail caused most of the damage and the fire.  Just a thought.

Convenience...!

Lance Armstrong built a career and a lucrative cult personality out of lies, seeing the truth as something only suckers would champion. As his fame and fortune grew, so did the stakes. The few who dared question or contradict his version of reality soon felt his wrath.

Even when he finally did come clean about using performance-enhancing drugs, it was more about self-preservation than true remorse. His legacy was in shambles and his seven Tour de France titles had been stripped, and he was now a pariah when only a few years earlier he'd been hailed as a hero.

Just last week, Armstrong admitted that for as "brutal" as his fall from grace has been these last few years, he'd do it all over again. Armstrong once again tried to excuse the lies and the deceptions, saying he was only trying to keep pace with the rest of the peloton.

He pointed to the benefits that came from his lies: the spike in business for his sponsors, the growth of cycling, the increased donations and awareness for cancer patients.  [An interview with the BBC.]


As if that makes it OK to bend and twist the truth until it's no longer recognizable. To blur the line between right and wrong until you wonder where it was or why the distinction ever mattered in the first place. But in his world, the truth is a matter of convenience.

On a hit-and-run in Aspen, Colo. where legal penalties are minor, he and girlfriend both agreed to pin the blame on her for hitting two cars after a night of partying.


Too bad he kept most of his money. Just a thought.

Herbal... new Info.

GNC, Target, Walmart and Walgreen sold supplements that either couldn't be verified to contain the labeled substance or that contained ingredients not listed on the label, Schneiderman's office said.

The supplements, including echinacea, ginseng, St. John's wort, garlic, ginkgo biloba and saw palmetto, were contaminated with substances including rice, beans, pine, citrus, asparagus, primrose, wheat, houseplant and wild carrot. In many cases, unlisted contaminants were the only plant material found in the product samples.

"This investigation makes one thing abundantly clear: The old adage 'buyer beware' may be especially true for consumers of herbal supplements," Schneiderman said.

He asked the companies to provide detailed information on production, processing, testing and quality control for herbal supplements sold at their stores.

The investigation looked at six herbal supplements sold at stores across the state. Testing was performed by an expert in DNA barcoding technology. The DNA tests were performed on three to four samples of each of the supplements purchased. Each sample was tested five times.

A 2012 paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association warned that this lack of regulation of the supplement industry could lead to “adverse events.” In the past five years, tainted supplements have been associated with kidney failure, hepatitis and other problems.

Is it contaminated, adulterated or just fake items all together? you be the judge.

 Just a thought.