Saturday, August 8, 2015

Big-Mouth...



It was the most dramatic opening to a presidential debate in recent memory and Donald Trump stole the show before he'd even said a word.
Perched comfortably at the top of the polls and lapping his closest rivals by double digits, Trump was expected to do well at the first GOP presidential debate of the 2016 season. The onus was on his competitors to seize the spotlight, but none of them managed to change the dynamics in a race that Trump has dominated for more than a month.
Trump has defied the normal patterns of politics and Thursday night was no exception. But it was harder to tell how his answers would wear on voters over time.
Though it was Trump's first political debate, and perhaps one of his first experiences with time constraints and a buzzer, Trump navigated the debate stage with ease, even when faced with unexpectedly sharp questions like the first from Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly.
"One of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don't use a politician's filter," Kelly said to Trump in the opening minutes. "However, in particular, when it comes to women. You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals."
Trump's no-holds-barred performance and comments about women could represent a missed opportunity to broaden his appeal. But the biggest risk the unpredictable real estate magnate took was when he refused to rule out a third party presidential run that could spell defeat for the Republican Party.
He shined big time with all including women. He didn't fit what Fox News wants him to fit. He talked about few issues and no body else did.
I started liking the guy.   Just a thought. 

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Business Lead..


American Airlines said it would join Delta and United Airlines in banning the transport of animals known in Africa as the "big five", coined by hunters because they are the hardest to kill on foot. 
Lufthansa Cargo decided in early June to no longer accept any trophies from Africa, while Emirates SkyCargo banned such shipments in May.

There has been an international outcry against trophy hunting among animal lovers since it emerged that American dentist Walter Palmer killed a rare black-maned lion that was a familiar sight at Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park.

Delta Air Lines Inc, the only American airline to fly directly between the United States and Johannesburg, will also review policies on accepting other hunting trophies with government agencies and other organizations that support legal shipments, it said.

Nearly 400,000 people signed a Change.org petition that was started by a Delta customer calling for the airline to stop transporting exotic hunting trophies, the organization said.

The bans will make it harder for hunters to get their trophies home to put above the mantelpiece, dealing a blow to Africa's multi-million-dollar game industry.

Bow and arrow hunting of big animals should be banned.  Just a thought.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Nuclear Deal

 
An explosion killed a top official at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, Iranian officials said. He is the third man identified as a nuclear scientist to be killed in Iran in a mysterious explosion, a fourth survived.
In each case, someone placed a bomb under the scientist's car.
  
It is likely that the Israelis are doing it, possibly in cooperation with the Iranian mujahedin,".  Iranians doing the deeds, no matter who is the sponsor.  Some believe Iranians, who oppose the government, are doing that.
 
Roshan's killing comes amid growing tensions between Iran and the West.      U.S. officials say the international sanctions on Iran have taken a toll. 

Stuxnet, a 500-kilobyte computer worm, infected the software of at least 14 industrial sites in Iran, including a uranium-enrichment plant. This worm spreads on its own, often over a computer network.

This worm was an unprecedentedly masterful and malicious piece of code that attacked Microsoft Windows machines and networks, repeatedly replicating itself. Then Siemens Step7 software. Finally, it compromised the programmable logic controllers. The worm’s authors could thus spy on the industrial systems and even cause the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart, unbeknownst to the human operators at the plant.

The Nuclear deal with Iran will help so much for a period of fifteen years. No need for killing, bombing, Malware, or Sanctions. All the talks against the deal is just fake façade.

Just a thought.

Friday, July 31, 2015

Without..

Related image


The rich may well be "different from you and me,"  They think everyone else is like them. The richer you are, the more likely you are to think that others are wealthy, too, according to the study published in the journal Psychological Science.

The reason for the misconception is simple,: Since people are more likely to live, work and go to school with others in similar income brackets, when we look around, we come to the (incorrect) conclusion that most other Americans are at least somewhat like us.
  
This isn't usually a deliberate impulse, but it's one that can be hard to shake.
"It is likely that people do not have much conscious insight or control over the processes by which they are making such judgments,".

Wealthier people are more likely to say the status quo of income distribution in the United States is fair, and are less likely to support redistributive policies
Low-income Americans and their advocates have an uphill battle getting the country's haves to see the widening gap between them and the have-nots.

The study focused on income, but he said net worth which is skewed even more toward the very rich since many of the wealthiest Americans earn a significant amount from investments rather than income could be an even more telling predictor of these attitudes.

So whatever it is, wealthy or not, please give a hand to the poor.   Just a thought

Out of control??



Health care spending will outpace the nation's overall economic growth over the next decade, the government forecast, highlighting a challenge for the next president, not to mention taxpayers, businesses and individual Americans.
Expanded insurance coverage under President Barack Obama's law, an aging population, and rising demand will be squeezing society's ability to pay.
By 2019, health care spending will be increasing at roughly 6 percent a year, compared to an average annual rise of 4 percent from 2008 through 2013.
The forecast, through 2024, does not foresee a return to pre-recession days of torrid health care inflation, as the government and private employers try to revamp the way they pay hospitals and doctors to emphasize quality over quantity.

"The main point is that the bill will continue to grow faster than the economy
The health care law's Medicare cuts helped keep spending in check, as did across-the-board cuts enacted later.
Many working people saw their own medical bills rise, as employers shifted costs to employees and their families.
At the same time, expensive new drugs that can cure hepatitis C are boosting spending on medications. In 2013, prescription drug spending rose by 2.5 percent. For 2014, the projected increase is 12.6 percent, according to the report.  Spending on Medicaid has jumped 6.1 percent in 2013, and projected to grow by 12 percent in 2014.

Solution: It starts with medication cost.
1- Medicaid and Medicare can negotiate with big pharma to get better pricing including Brand and Generic medication.
2- Pharmaceutical companies are free to price their medication in USA  market with no competition with Canada, England and the rest of the world. While pharmaceutical companies are free to merge, reduce their taxes by relocating, in addition to other variety of techniques some of which was penalized by the government.

Just a thought.

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The Sunset...



Joyce Mitchell poured her heart out to investigators about her relationships with the convicted murderers she helped escape from an upstate New York prison, detailing her increasing sexual contact with one of them and her deepening involvement in the plot over time, according to police.

Mitchell, a married woman, details her dreams of running off into the sunset with the men, "I enjoyed the attention, the feeling both of them gave me, and the thought of a different life," 
Her relationship with Richard Matt began with seemingly innocent requests for help, but soon escalated into sexual contact, she said, including sending him nude photos.
Matt made her “feel special” and she started doing favors for him. First, she called Matt’s daughter for him and then helped him get a hold of items he couldn't get for himself.
Mitchell said she was alone with Matt in the prison tailor shop when he "grabbed me and kissed me," the statement said. The sexual request from Matt escalated from there over time and Mitchell obliged, she told investigators.

Life is tedious, dull, monotonous, repetitive, unrelieved, unvaried, unimaginative, and uneventful outside a maximum security prison.                Just a thought. 

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Get Over it ...???



Most marriages where there’s been infidelity end in divorce sooner or later and a common reaction of the victim spouse is to want the cheater held accountable for their actions, to be punished for the pain and hurt they’ve wrought on the family.

The harsh reality though is that with no-fault divorce laws throughout the U.S, divorce courts don’t care about cheating. The courts are there to administer the law not our moral code.

In the context of divorce, here comes the truth, NO ONE CARES.

My client.  She was young, smart, highly educated and beautiful.  She was also very trusting and naïve.  She literally suffered a nervous breakdown and could not go to work. 

It was a very short marriage, just under two years.  There were no children and no assets.  Other than get her divorced from this cheater, what else did she want? More importantly, what else could I fight for? I was so moved by her plight and believed that having lost her job because of her husband’s cheating, that he should provide some spousal support while she got her life back in order.

The Judge agreed with the Husband’s attorney, told me my demand was ridiculous and that my client had to “get over it.”  

Cheating is NOT a factor in divorce, and people spend way too much time, energy and money obsessing over it.  You are just too good for that type of life waster!

Just a thought

Curing HIV





A French teenager infected at birth with HIV has shown the ability to control levels of the infection in her body -- without being on antiretroviral treatment.

The finding provides new hope that a "functional" cure for HIV -- where the virus is brought down to low levels but not eradicated in the body -- may one day be possible.
 
The 18-year-old female, whose mother was HIV positive, was given antiretroviral treatment soon after birth but stopped at age six and has since maintained undetectable levels of the virus in her blood -- known as remission -- for 12 years.
 
"This is the first [time] long-term remission has been shown in children, or adolescents," said Asier Saez Cirion from the Institut Pasteur in France, who presented the findings at the 8th IAS conference on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention, in Vancouver this week.
 
Just a thought.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Willing to....*!

Ashley Madison

Ashley Madison the dating site for married people seeking affairs is riddled with fake profiles for women that encourage men to spend more money subscribing to the site.
The suit dovetails with longtime rumors that have swirled around the site that many of the female profiles on it are fake. The company says the suit is frivolous and provided Business Insider with photographs of the plaintiff to back up its statement that her suit is without merit.

Doriana Silva of Toronto alleges she was hired to write Portuguese-language profiles for the Brazilian version of the site. She was paid $34,000 plus benefits.

Her job consisted of creating 1,000 “fake female profiles” in three weeks, to make men think there were more women willing to cheat with them than actually existed.
“To entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website,” the suit says,  “They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison or any real human beings at all.”

The suit does not allege that creating fake profiles is illegal or unethical. Rather, Silva claims that all the typing hurt her wrists and that therefore the company should compensate her for her injuries. AM responded that Silva posted photos of herself on social media riding a jet ski after her employment with the company.

On the other hand, a North Carolina man has filed a lawsuit accusing the notorious affairs website Ashley Madison of breaking up his 13-year marriage. Robert Schindler's lawsuit, names the infidelity website, and his ex-wife's lover.

Everyone is trying to collect.    Just a thought.

Terror in Tenn.

 Members of the Highways and Hedges Ministry on Sunday set up a cross near a  military center in Chattanooga, Tenn.
The shooter had a handgun and two long guns in his possession, and another rifle at home, the official said. The 24-year-old engineering graduate wore a "load-bearing vest" that allowed him to carry extra ammunition.
  
Friends described the shooter as a once-devoted, disciplined mixed-martial-arts fighter; a top student known for smarts, charm and humor; and kept in touch with his roots in the Middle EastHe would go shooting as a hobby.

 A picture of a disturbed, suicidal young man using drugs, preparing for bankruptcy and facing an appearance in criminal court.   He abused sleeping pills, opioids, painkillers and marijuana, along with alcohol, with DUI arrest in April. 
It doesn't appear that the weapons were purchased recently, law enforcement   "some were purchased legally and some may not have been."
He had been in Jordan in 2014 and visited Kuwait and Jordan in 2010.  
  
Comment. This individual intended to do harm in a big way. When he failed to join  the Nuclear plant, he came with another evil plan.

Just a thought.