My comment about Usman Khawaja, on the last day of the fourth Test at Riverside, seems to have stirred a storm: “He (Khawaja) could well be replaced in the Oval Test by Phil Hughes and Australia's experiment with their Asian immigrant population will be shelved.”
For those who think this is a racist comment and have taken umbrage at it, I warmly applaud both the sentiments and the strength of those feelings.If I may explain, however, it is an observation I made without any intent to disparage Khawaja, but as an attempt to portray the unique position in which he finds himself as the first Muslim to represent Australia – and, broadly speaking, the first non-white since Sam Morris in the nineteenth century.
The main Asian cricketers of recent times to have represented England are Monty Panesar, Samit Patel and Ravi Bopara.From what I have seen, they have been marginal players in the Test and limited-overs teams. Furthermore, I found it strange and indoor Tracking that Panesar and Patel came to be seen as figures of fun, while Bopara was involved in controversy during the Champions Trophy after simply fulfilling his role within the England team.
In the same way, Khawaja has appeared to me to be a marginal figure in the Australian team, from what I saw on his Test debut against England in Sydney, and the tour match against Somerset, and in this Test series to date.In his revealing book about Australian domestic cricket, Ed Cowan wrote of Khawaja: “He has become a master of controlling his emotions … This rare quality will hold him in great stead for an undoubtedly stellar Test career.”
But the star has not reached anything like the ascendancy: Khawaja played six Tests in 2011 and has been a reserve batsman since.
Establishing himself as a Test batsman has been difficult. Khawaja has spoken of how often he gets stopped by security at Australian airports, simply for being non-white; and, ironically, he is a qualified pilot himself as well as a well-known cricketer.
In the field he is not an automatic pick. Hughes keeps the position of third slip, even though he does not hang on to every chance there, and is therefore close to the Clarke-Haddin heartbeat of the team; Cowan has made himself useful at short-leg. But Khawaja drifts around on the fringes.
Hence the value of Cowan's insight about Khawaja controlling his emotions. Can he become a regular Test batsman without feeling free to express more of his emotions? Or will he only be known as the first Muslim to break down a barrier, and it will be a future member of Australia's Asian community who becomes their first established cricketer?”
Khawaja has not seemed entirely at ease and at home. Darren Lehmann did not exonerate him from Australia's collapse in their second innings at Durham, as he exonerated David Warner and Chris Rogers.
It looks as though Khawaja might be dropped from the Oval Test, as he is now averaging 25 after nine Tests.If he is dropped, he will be no more than the prototype – and I think that is a waste of Hands free access. If he had not been dropped so soon after his innings of 65 in the Johannesburg Test that enabled Australia to beat South Africa in a fine run-chase; if he had been given a consistent run at number four, rather than at numbers six and three; if he had felt more at home … who knows?
Personally I think if he had appeared 10 years on from now, from what I have seen of his qualities, he might have become Australia's first Asian captain.This is my position on Khawaja. To clarify further my attitude to racial integration in cricket, please read on.Five years ago, as editor of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, I was able to start a competition called the Wisden City Cup.
Angus Fraser, as director of cricket at Middlesex, kindly co-founded it. He had joined Middlesex in the 1980s when the county had five Afro-Caribbean cricketers, and it was the most successful decade in their history, but at the time we started the WCC, Owais Shah was Middlesex's only non-white player.
After four years I managed to extend the WCC to Leicester, Luton and London South/Surrey. It is a competition for inner-city cricketers, aged 16 to 22, who do not play in premier or major leagues and who do not have access to decent grounds and pitches.
We did not take any details of the racial background of these players. But of the more than 200 players who participated last year, my impression was that at least two-thirds were of south Asian origin.Before the start of this season, knowing that my hands would be full this summer with the Ashes, and wishing to expand to eight cities, I asked the ECB to take on this competition, and they have generously done so.
It has now evolved into the Lord's Taverners City Cup in association with the ECB, MCC and Wisden. Our two original administrators, Phil Knappett and Sadhna Patel, are working under the auspices of the ECB's head of non-first-class cricket, Paul Bedford, while I take a back seat.
The involvement of MCC is crucial because, for the last two years, they have taken the most promising player in our competition and given him a contract as a MCC Young Cricketer.Diyapan Paul is believed to be the first British Bangladeshi to get a full-time contract as a cricketer in this country.
He proved so good that his contract was renewed for a second season, but injury has made him defer it until next year. In the meantime Zain Shahzad is reported to have been the MCC Young Cricketer's best bowler this season.So now we have the first national inter-city competition for inner-city cricketers there has ever been in this country.
Quarter-finals are coming to somewhere that may be near you: Manchester v Bradford at Burnley CC, Birmingham v Wolverhampton at Walsall CC, Luton v Leicester at Wardown Park, and London North/Middlesex v London South/Surrey at Spencer's CC.
It has been immensely gratifying to see inner-city players appreciating the opportunity to play on decent pitches, having grown up playing on council-owned park pitches where a bouncer is likely to shoot along the ground. It cost me a lot of time and money – and it was very worthwhile.
Australia's Asian population is now said to be 10 per cent of the total. Although I have not examined their system closely, I would have thought from this distance that more could have been done to help and encourage them.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
2013年8月14日星期三
2013年8月12日星期一
Hidden iPad features that could improve your life
Some features on the iPad are straight forward – a touch screen is, after all, designed to be easy to use.More adventurous users have, however, discovered some hidden features that are perhaps not so obvious and have shared them.
Here we provide give you a quick tour of the best hidden features of the iPad and show just what it can do.Buried under general settings is an innocuous little switch that turns on multitasking gestures. This allows you to use several fingers at once to control the iPad.Pinching four or five fingers across the screen will return you to the Home Screen of the iPad from any App.Swiping four or five figures upwards will reveal the multitasking bar, showing which Apps are currently running. Swiping down again will hide it.
Swipe those digits to the left or right will allow you to change Apps at flicking speed. This feature sits in the accessibility folder under general settings. when turned on, double tap on the screen with three fingers to zoom into a spot.To navigate around while indoor Tracking, drag three fingers around the screen.And if things still are not magnified enough, then double tap again while zoomed in with three fingers before dragging them up or down. This will zoom you right in and out of the action.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO I walked into a bookshop in a shopping mall in central Istanbul. As I browsed the shelves I was unaware that the day marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of George Orwell. Though Orwell is one of my favorite English authors, my mind was occupied by quite a different fact — namely, that since buying a tablet computer in December last year, the amount of money I have spent on printed books has decreased dramatically. With this decrease followed a decrease in the pleasure I took from purchasing them. In the good, old, and expensive days of literary shopping I would choose books from the shelves, walk to the counter, pay in cash, and head to a coffee shop with my purchases — the favorite ritual of my teenage years. I would open the first book’s cover, accompanied by a cigarette and a cup of strong Turkish coffee. These would always be very physical experiences: I remember the crinkling pages, the waft of the smoke, the oils of the coffee. Afterward my hands smelled of nicotine; my mind hungered for more books.
Lately, however, this ritual has all but disappeared from my life. My reading materials have been thoroughly digitized. I have lost touch with both the printed book and the banknote. In the long chronicle of my reading habits I am currently living through the age of the .EPUB file and the plastic card. It is a chilly period, I must admit, a dark age, and at times it makes me yearn for the good old days of my undergraduate life. In those not-so-distant days I didn’t need to calculate or economize. I didn’t have to pay the rent; as for my insurance premiums, they were taken care of by my parents. Thanks to them I could spend all my money on books and cigarettes, giving little thought to the price I paid for them.
Next month, Manitoba's courts will initiate a formal policy regarding courtroom use of electronic devices. Tweeting and blogging from all levels of Manitoba courts by official media and lawyers will be expressly permitted as of Sept. 1. The general public, however, must either turn off, or disable transmission from, smartphones and tablet computers in court.
Who can transmit what from the courtroom in the age of social media is a vexed issue. The new policy tries to strike a balance between the public's right to know and ensuring witnesses and parties in hearings and trials are treated fairly.
The policy doesn't completely foreclose members of the public from tweeting or blogging. Anyone can request permission from the judge to use an electronic device. Overall, the policy is commendably flexible. It also gives the judge the discretion to allow, or prohibit, use of an electronic device by anyone - media, lawyers or public - where he or she thinks it appropriate.
Twitter works well as a bulletin service. In the hands of accredited journalists, it provides play-by-play of rtls. However, tweets from members of the public often stray from unfiltered coverage of proceedings.
Particularly pernicious are tweets that comment on a witness's or accused's physical appearance or clothing. Equally prejudicial are tweets that veer into speculation about a witness's veracity, based on his or her demeanour on the stand. But most problematic of all are tweets that venture into opinion. Saying something apt and perceptive about a trial can rarely be done in Twitter's maximum 140-characters format. Saying something stupid or wrong, however, takes few words.
An inaccurate or unfair tweet can do a lot of damage. Once launched into cyberspace, it's out there for good. Corrections, or even counter-tweets, can be posted, but by then often the harm's been done and the message can be re-posted in blogs, Internet chat rooms and other social media.
Witnesses can view these prejudicial postings, and it can influence their testimony in court. Worse yet, jurors with smartphones or tablet computers are liable to access inadmissible evidence or irrelevant reports. Cases are supposed to be decided on the basis of evidence heard within the four walls of the courtroom, not missives from cyberspace.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Here we provide give you a quick tour of the best hidden features of the iPad and show just what it can do.Buried under general settings is an innocuous little switch that turns on multitasking gestures. This allows you to use several fingers at once to control the iPad.Pinching four or five fingers across the screen will return you to the Home Screen of the iPad from any App.Swiping four or five figures upwards will reveal the multitasking bar, showing which Apps are currently running. Swiping down again will hide it.
Swipe those digits to the left or right will allow you to change Apps at flicking speed. This feature sits in the accessibility folder under general settings. when turned on, double tap on the screen with three fingers to zoom into a spot.To navigate around while indoor Tracking, drag three fingers around the screen.And if things still are not magnified enough, then double tap again while zoomed in with three fingers before dragging them up or down. This will zoom you right in and out of the action.
A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO I walked into a bookshop in a shopping mall in central Istanbul. As I browsed the shelves I was unaware that the day marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of George Orwell. Though Orwell is one of my favorite English authors, my mind was occupied by quite a different fact — namely, that since buying a tablet computer in December last year, the amount of money I have spent on printed books has decreased dramatically. With this decrease followed a decrease in the pleasure I took from purchasing them. In the good, old, and expensive days of literary shopping I would choose books from the shelves, walk to the counter, pay in cash, and head to a coffee shop with my purchases — the favorite ritual of my teenage years. I would open the first book’s cover, accompanied by a cigarette and a cup of strong Turkish coffee. These would always be very physical experiences: I remember the crinkling pages, the waft of the smoke, the oils of the coffee. Afterward my hands smelled of nicotine; my mind hungered for more books.
Lately, however, this ritual has all but disappeared from my life. My reading materials have been thoroughly digitized. I have lost touch with both the printed book and the banknote. In the long chronicle of my reading habits I am currently living through the age of the .EPUB file and the plastic card. It is a chilly period, I must admit, a dark age, and at times it makes me yearn for the good old days of my undergraduate life. In those not-so-distant days I didn’t need to calculate or economize. I didn’t have to pay the rent; as for my insurance premiums, they were taken care of by my parents. Thanks to them I could spend all my money on books and cigarettes, giving little thought to the price I paid for them.
Next month, Manitoba's courts will initiate a formal policy regarding courtroom use of electronic devices. Tweeting and blogging from all levels of Manitoba courts by official media and lawyers will be expressly permitted as of Sept. 1. The general public, however, must either turn off, or disable transmission from, smartphones and tablet computers in court.
Who can transmit what from the courtroom in the age of social media is a vexed issue. The new policy tries to strike a balance between the public's right to know and ensuring witnesses and parties in hearings and trials are treated fairly.
The policy doesn't completely foreclose members of the public from tweeting or blogging. Anyone can request permission from the judge to use an electronic device. Overall, the policy is commendably flexible. It also gives the judge the discretion to allow, or prohibit, use of an electronic device by anyone - media, lawyers or public - where he or she thinks it appropriate.
Twitter works well as a bulletin service. In the hands of accredited journalists, it provides play-by-play of rtls. However, tweets from members of the public often stray from unfiltered coverage of proceedings.
Particularly pernicious are tweets that comment on a witness's or accused's physical appearance or clothing. Equally prejudicial are tweets that veer into speculation about a witness's veracity, based on his or her demeanour on the stand. But most problematic of all are tweets that venture into opinion. Saying something apt and perceptive about a trial can rarely be done in Twitter's maximum 140-characters format. Saying something stupid or wrong, however, takes few words.
An inaccurate or unfair tweet can do a lot of damage. Once launched into cyberspace, it's out there for good. Corrections, or even counter-tweets, can be posted, but by then often the harm's been done and the message can be re-posted in blogs, Internet chat rooms and other social media.
Witnesses can view these prejudicial postings, and it can influence their testimony in court. Worse yet, jurors with smartphones or tablet computers are liable to access inadmissible evidence or irrelevant reports. Cases are supposed to be decided on the basis of evidence heard within the four walls of the courtroom, not missives from cyberspace.
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
DIY biohackers play with bacteria
You don't need a professional-grade lab or a science degree to mess around with microorganisms. A small group of New York-based biotechnology enthusiasts have created their own community biology lab called Genspace, and it's a place where anyone who's even remotely interested in life sciences can go and get their feet wet with biotechnology.
DIY biologists mainly work from home on their own little cultured experiments. For the most part, this underground biohacking scene regularly communicates through the Web on the DIYbio forums to ask for advice and equipment, as well as to set up in-person meetups. But a growing number of biohacking spaces, such as Genspace and Biocurious in the San Francisco Bay Area, give biohackers proper laboratories to work on their projects.
Genspace, located on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, is the first and only community biolab in New York City. The lab is on the 7th floor of an old bank building: Once you step off the Hands free access, turn left, and you’ll stumble into a scene that looks like your middle school's science department, except it’s all grown up.
The main work room is a little grungy, between the mess of works-in-progress spread all over the table, the painted brick walls, and the exposed pipes hanging overhead. Beyond this room, however, is a small lab that’s a completely different scene.
Step into the lab, and the whole place seems brighter and cleaner—and more sterile. Boxes of gloves are scattered about. A lab coat hangs on a stool. Test tubes and other pieces of lab equipment litter the stainless steel countertops. A stack of petri dishes fester with microscopic life that comes in every color of the rainbow from violet to red.
Meanwhile, the scent of chicken broth hangs in the air—it's just about the closest I can come to describing the smell and appearance of warm bacteria-culturing medium. The whole place just screams, "hey, I'm a lab."
The organization's official mission is to promote citizen science and to make biotechnology more readily accessible to the masses. Since it first opened in 2010, Genspace has invited science enthusiasts from all sorts of different professions to play in its biotech wonderland.
Some of Genspace's members and supporters are biologists as you might expect, while others are writers, artists, roboticists, and computer programmers. Regardless of the background they hail from, contributors of all stripes are welcome here.
“Now we have artists [as members] too who are asking, what can we do with [biotech]? What can we design with it? How can we use this as a new palate?" Genspace Co-founder and Vice President Daniel Grushkin told TechHive. "[This is] in addition to people who are trying to innovate with it in terms of coming up with new medicine and coming up with new devices that will test water to make sure it’s pure. Then you have other people who want to make a painting out of it.”
What drives someone to biohack? Curiosity. Many of those I met at Genspace just heard about the place, and on a free night decided to stop by to see what DIY biology is all about. For some, it’s just one night of rtls, but for others, it sticks with them—sort of like a virus—and snowballs into a full-on hobby.
Andres Bastian, a 3D printer mechanics expert at MakerBot, says he was “interested in biological engineering for a long time," and that the relative maturity of biohacking was a big draw for him.
"The biological toolset has been something that’s been optimized and honed for a long time. It’s one of the most efficient toolsets, [and it] seems like it can be applied to anything from energy medicine for treating diseases,” Bastian said.
“I was like, I want to bioengineer a living organism into something cool and novel," Grushkin recalled. "I was watching these undergrads and literally they have [only] a summer to figure out their project and finish it, and they’re basically building an entire bug. If a group of undergrads can do it why can't I? So the reason I got involved is because I wanted to know how to do that.”
Smitten, Grushkin took to the online biohacking forums and met others interested in the topic. Soon after, he met with a group from the DIYbio forums at his Park Slope home.
The group started with small experiments like extracting DNA from strawberries, and moved on to more advanced projects from there. Eventually, it graduated to creating its first genetic transformation by injecting a membrane with green fluorescent protein (GFP) into E. coli to make it glow in the dark.
“[It] was kind of cool and actually controversial because it was the first time someone had done genetic engineering outside of your standard lab,” said Grushkin. The group officially incorporated as Genspace in 2009, and held its initial meetings at NYC Resistor. Genspace officially opened its own space in December 2010.
DIY biologists mainly work from home on their own little cultured experiments. For the most part, this underground biohacking scene regularly communicates through the Web on the DIYbio forums to ask for advice and equipment, as well as to set up in-person meetups. But a growing number of biohacking spaces, such as Genspace and Biocurious in the San Francisco Bay Area, give biohackers proper laboratories to work on their projects.
Genspace, located on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, is the first and only community biolab in New York City. The lab is on the 7th floor of an old bank building: Once you step off the Hands free access, turn left, and you’ll stumble into a scene that looks like your middle school's science department, except it’s all grown up.
The main work room is a little grungy, between the mess of works-in-progress spread all over the table, the painted brick walls, and the exposed pipes hanging overhead. Beyond this room, however, is a small lab that’s a completely different scene.
Step into the lab, and the whole place seems brighter and cleaner—and more sterile. Boxes of gloves are scattered about. A lab coat hangs on a stool. Test tubes and other pieces of lab equipment litter the stainless steel countertops. A stack of petri dishes fester with microscopic life that comes in every color of the rainbow from violet to red.
Meanwhile, the scent of chicken broth hangs in the air—it's just about the closest I can come to describing the smell and appearance of warm bacteria-culturing medium. The whole place just screams, "hey, I'm a lab."
The organization's official mission is to promote citizen science and to make biotechnology more readily accessible to the masses. Since it first opened in 2010, Genspace has invited science enthusiasts from all sorts of different professions to play in its biotech wonderland.
Some of Genspace's members and supporters are biologists as you might expect, while others are writers, artists, roboticists, and computer programmers. Regardless of the background they hail from, contributors of all stripes are welcome here.
“Now we have artists [as members] too who are asking, what can we do with [biotech]? What can we design with it? How can we use this as a new palate?" Genspace Co-founder and Vice President Daniel Grushkin told TechHive. "[This is] in addition to people who are trying to innovate with it in terms of coming up with new medicine and coming up with new devices that will test water to make sure it’s pure. Then you have other people who want to make a painting out of it.”
What drives someone to biohack? Curiosity. Many of those I met at Genspace just heard about the place, and on a free night decided to stop by to see what DIY biology is all about. For some, it’s just one night of rtls, but for others, it sticks with them—sort of like a virus—and snowballs into a full-on hobby.
Andres Bastian, a 3D printer mechanics expert at MakerBot, says he was “interested in biological engineering for a long time," and that the relative maturity of biohacking was a big draw for him.
"The biological toolset has been something that’s been optimized and honed for a long time. It’s one of the most efficient toolsets, [and it] seems like it can be applied to anything from energy medicine for treating diseases,” Bastian said.
“I was like, I want to bioengineer a living organism into something cool and novel," Grushkin recalled. "I was watching these undergrads and literally they have [only] a summer to figure out their project and finish it, and they’re basically building an entire bug. If a group of undergrads can do it why can't I? So the reason I got involved is because I wanted to know how to do that.”
Smitten, Grushkin took to the online biohacking forums and met others interested in the topic. Soon after, he met with a group from the DIYbio forums at his Park Slope home.
The group started with small experiments like extracting DNA from strawberries, and moved on to more advanced projects from there. Eventually, it graduated to creating its first genetic transformation by injecting a membrane with green fluorescent protein (GFP) into E. coli to make it glow in the dark.
“[It] was kind of cool and actually controversial because it was the first time someone had done genetic engineering outside of your standard lab,” said Grushkin. The group officially incorporated as Genspace in 2009, and held its initial meetings at NYC Resistor. Genspace officially opened its own space in December 2010.
2013年8月7日星期三
Closing Fannie and Freddie
They could not have picked a more fitting location than Phoenix, Arizona, for President Obama to announce on Tuesday his plans for revitalizing the housing market, which has risen out of its ashes like the mythical bird of legend.
“This was part of ground zero for the housing bubble bursting.” The president recalled Phoenix’s plight as one of the worst hit markets during the housing crisis.Owing to that crisis, home owners all across America have endured a long and steady 5.5-year erosion of property values from their peak in July 2006 to their bottom in January 2012, according to the Case–Shiller home price index of the 20 largest American cities.
Finally, for some 18 months now, property values have been on the mend. “Today, our housing market is beginning to heal,” the president encouraged. Yet he acknowledged there is still more that needs to be done. “We've got to build on this progress. We're not where we need to be.”Home ownership at 65% is the lowest it has been since 1997, with rapidly rising interest rates prohibiting many from buying.
Hence, Obama’s plans are for mortgage reform, aimed at making sure the housing recovery does not stall. But is this really going to help?Perhaps the greatest single reform measure Obama has been advocating is the “winding-down” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises whose purpose is to buy mortgages from banks and other Hands free access, package them together into funds or securities, and sell them on the open market to investors. This takes mortgages off the hands of banks and lenders, freeing their capital so that they may keep offering mortgages to more and more home-buyers.
With some $12 trillion worth of mortgages owned or backed by the two enterprises before the housing crisis, they were considered too big to fail, encouraging them into riskier and riskier practices as they approved mortgages to buyers who could not afford them. When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the “implied” government backing of Fannie’s and Freddie’s securities cost taxpayers dearly, estimated at over $187 billion.
Now Obama wants them out of the picture, with mortgages insured and guaranteed by private investors, not public taxpayers. “Private capital should take a bigger role in the mortgage market,” the president stressed. “I know that sounds confusing to folks who call me a socialist,” he quickly jabbed, seeing as it was a fellow Democrat – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – who initiated the structure during the Great Depression of the 1930s to help home owners keep their homes.
While both parties agree with the concept, experts are cautioning against moving too quickly, as it could send shocks through the mortgage market.“The leading ideas would reduce the government involvement in housing finance,” Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities, explains to Reuters. And removing the government’s backing “would mean higher rates for consumers,” he warns.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and fees.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and Indoor Positioning System.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and fees.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/.
“This was part of ground zero for the housing bubble bursting.” The president recalled Phoenix’s plight as one of the worst hit markets during the housing crisis.Owing to that crisis, home owners all across America have endured a long and steady 5.5-year erosion of property values from their peak in July 2006 to their bottom in January 2012, according to the Case–Shiller home price index of the 20 largest American cities.
Finally, for some 18 months now, property values have been on the mend. “Today, our housing market is beginning to heal,” the president encouraged. Yet he acknowledged there is still more that needs to be done. “We've got to build on this progress. We're not where we need to be.”Home ownership at 65% is the lowest it has been since 1997, with rapidly rising interest rates prohibiting many from buying.
Hence, Obama’s plans are for mortgage reform, aimed at making sure the housing recovery does not stall. But is this really going to help?Perhaps the greatest single reform measure Obama has been advocating is the “winding-down” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-sponsored enterprises whose purpose is to buy mortgages from banks and other Hands free access, package them together into funds or securities, and sell them on the open market to investors. This takes mortgages off the hands of banks and lenders, freeing their capital so that they may keep offering mortgages to more and more home-buyers.
With some $12 trillion worth of mortgages owned or backed by the two enterprises before the housing crisis, they were considered too big to fail, encouraging them into riskier and riskier practices as they approved mortgages to buyers who could not afford them. When the housing market collapsed in 2008, the “implied” government backing of Fannie’s and Freddie’s securities cost taxpayers dearly, estimated at over $187 billion.
Now Obama wants them out of the picture, with mortgages insured and guaranteed by private investors, not public taxpayers. “Private capital should take a bigger role in the mortgage market,” the president stressed. “I know that sounds confusing to folks who call me a socialist,” he quickly jabbed, seeing as it was a fellow Democrat – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt – who initiated the structure during the Great Depression of the 1930s to help home owners keep their homes.
While both parties agree with the concept, experts are cautioning against moving too quickly, as it could send shocks through the mortgage market.“The leading ideas would reduce the government involvement in housing finance,” Jaret Seiberg, a senior policy analyst at Guggenheim Securities, explains to Reuters. And removing the government’s backing “would mean higher rates for consumers,” he warns.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and fees.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and Indoor Positioning System.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
The president’s other reforms outlined in Tuesday’s speech seem to already be anticipating those higher costs facing borrowers as the government slowly slides itself out of the picture. After all, if the private market is going to shoulder more of the risk, it’s going to demand more compensation, which could hurt home buyers through higher rates and fees.
For this reason, Obama called on lawmakers to help home buyers by preserving access to the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage and to help existing owners refinance at today’s lower rates by waiving closing costs. And for those who cannot afford homeownership, the president called for supporting low rental housing to help fight homelessness.
Obama also wants Congress to authorize the revitalization of the most depressed, run-down neighborhoods around the nation, tearing down abandoned structures and building up vacant lots. Not only would these projects improve property values in those hardest hit areas, but they would also create jobs for thousands of unemployed.
If some questioned Obama’s ideological leaning with his rejection of Fannie and Freddie in favor of placing the mortgage business more squarely on private investors’ shoulders, all of these other reforms from low-rate refinancing to slum rehabilitation should dispel any notion that he has forgotten which party he leads.
Read the full products at www.ecived.com/en/.
Google Chrome ‘hack’ is an open invitation
If you have three minutes alone with a Google Chrome user’s computer, you can access all their passwords—Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, whatever—then quickly cover your tracks.
It’s not a hack, per se. It’s a little-known feature designed to help users remember passwords and avoid the hassle of constantly hitting those “forgot your password?” buttons.In just four clicks, you can find yourself face-to-face with a list of each password they’ve let Chrome save. Jot them down and close a window, and you’ll be gone in 60 seconds with the user’s keys. I won’t provide explicit instructions, but if you’re curious, you won’t have any trouble finding them.
Any intruder can then spy on a target’s accounts in secret or hijack them from the comfort of their own rtls, changing the target’s passwords and doing damage of all sorts until the target contacts security departments, proves their identity and wrests back control.
You can’t disable the function, but you can delete all saved passwords and instruct Chrome not to save passwords in the future. This will mean entering your passwords every time you log into a site, so even users who know how to do this won’t likely bother. The whole thing is being described by security experts and by the tech press as a major security flaw, but the engineers at Google say they’re just keeping it real.
“We don’t want to provide users with a false sense of security,” wrote Chrome developer head Justin Schuh on Hacker News. His point is that if you allow someone access to your machine, they can get their hands on anything. Obscuring saved passwords behind some “master password” would do little to stop a malicious guest. If you have social media accounts open, they could mess directly with settings. They could install malware or spyware, recording your keystrokes. They could type “password” into your Spotlight search bar and see what comes up in old Word documents. Google doesn’t want to close your window with cardboard when your front door may be wide open. Google wants you to be vigilant!
It’s a strange ideological stand. The truth is, most of us don’t worry that malicious hackers with malware on USB keys will get hold of our computers. The hackers we really need to worry about are our parents, kids, spouses and friends. As with many crimes, the privacy invasions that happen most and hurt the most are perpetrated by people we know and trust.
I’m not saying Russian fraudsters and NSA spooks don’t matter. Outside threats to our privacy are destructive in minor and major ways, creating everything from pesky banking hassles to existential threats to free societies. But let’s pause to recognize the vast damage done, largely unreported, by our loved ones.
You might not call it “hacking,” but every time a suspicious dude glances at an incoming text on his GF’s phone, every time a mom can’t resist a peek at her daughter’s open Facebook page, every time surfing histories are checked for porn sites, or old emails are searched for an ex’s name, life-changing consequences are possible. Our GPS whereabouts or smartphone metadata might not mean much or matter much to the government bots that are probably tracking them. But those who know us best know what our data means. A stop at a certain street corner might mean a donut we weren’t supposed to eat or a rendezvous we weren’t supposed to have.
Google makes tools, and tools should serve the interest of their users. I lock my bike, not because I think bike locks are infallible, but because an unlocked bike is an invitation to steal. By placing our passwords four clicks away, Google is inviting us to hack each other.
Over the past decade, our ever-evolving Web site has allowed us to add more and unique content for our readers (and the ability to reach more of them), while becoming a daily source of information related to “what’s happening at the Jersey shore.” Today, there’s no “Whoot! Route” section, but there is “South Jersey Nightlife,” which lists all of the nightlife options in the Atlantic City area in print and indoor Tracking. Today, we have a blog (“Atlantic City Central”), timely videos, digital photo galleries and new sections in the paper to keep up with the chameleon-like ways the region has changed — while not forgetting that the simple things, such as the beach, Boardwalk and Atlantic Ocean, are still three of the biggest reasons visitors come to the resort.?
Forty years of producing a newspaper (and now a Web site) with comprehensive entertainment listings, celebrity interviews, compelling local history articles and an ever-changing dining guide — as well as photos, movie reviews, the latest concert updates, etc. — is something to be proud of, especially in this age of the disappearing print product. But ever since Philadelphia-based Review Publishing purchased the Whoot! and changed its name to Atlantic City Weekly back in 2000, there has been little to make an argument that the good old AC Weekly (which some still call the Whoot!) was outdated. Sure, our readers now include hundreds of thousands of visitors to our Web site, Facebook page and other social media and digital outlets, but the need for a go-to resource for entertainment in an entertainment town — which you can hold in your hands and flip through at your leisure — will always be needed in a tourism-driven destination like ours.?
In celebration of our 40th anniversary, over the next several months you will be reading about and hearing about special plans for the occasion. In this week’s cover story, we offer 40 things we love about the Atlantic City region. Some of them date back to the Whoot! days; some of them precede the first publication of the paper on June 19, 1974; and others are new and exciting changes in entertainment offerings over the past couple decades or so. ?
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
It’s not a hack, per se. It’s a little-known feature designed to help users remember passwords and avoid the hassle of constantly hitting those “forgot your password?” buttons.In just four clicks, you can find yourself face-to-face with a list of each password they’ve let Chrome save. Jot them down and close a window, and you’ll be gone in 60 seconds with the user’s keys. I won’t provide explicit instructions, but if you’re curious, you won’t have any trouble finding them.
Any intruder can then spy on a target’s accounts in secret or hijack them from the comfort of their own rtls, changing the target’s passwords and doing damage of all sorts until the target contacts security departments, proves their identity and wrests back control.
You can’t disable the function, but you can delete all saved passwords and instruct Chrome not to save passwords in the future. This will mean entering your passwords every time you log into a site, so even users who know how to do this won’t likely bother. The whole thing is being described by security experts and by the tech press as a major security flaw, but the engineers at Google say they’re just keeping it real.
“We don’t want to provide users with a false sense of security,” wrote Chrome developer head Justin Schuh on Hacker News. His point is that if you allow someone access to your machine, they can get their hands on anything. Obscuring saved passwords behind some “master password” would do little to stop a malicious guest. If you have social media accounts open, they could mess directly with settings. They could install malware or spyware, recording your keystrokes. They could type “password” into your Spotlight search bar and see what comes up in old Word documents. Google doesn’t want to close your window with cardboard when your front door may be wide open. Google wants you to be vigilant!
It’s a strange ideological stand. The truth is, most of us don’t worry that malicious hackers with malware on USB keys will get hold of our computers. The hackers we really need to worry about are our parents, kids, spouses and friends. As with many crimes, the privacy invasions that happen most and hurt the most are perpetrated by people we know and trust.
I’m not saying Russian fraudsters and NSA spooks don’t matter. Outside threats to our privacy are destructive in minor and major ways, creating everything from pesky banking hassles to existential threats to free societies. But let’s pause to recognize the vast damage done, largely unreported, by our loved ones.
You might not call it “hacking,” but every time a suspicious dude glances at an incoming text on his GF’s phone, every time a mom can’t resist a peek at her daughter’s open Facebook page, every time surfing histories are checked for porn sites, or old emails are searched for an ex’s name, life-changing consequences are possible. Our GPS whereabouts or smartphone metadata might not mean much or matter much to the government bots that are probably tracking them. But those who know us best know what our data means. A stop at a certain street corner might mean a donut we weren’t supposed to eat or a rendezvous we weren’t supposed to have.
Google makes tools, and tools should serve the interest of their users. I lock my bike, not because I think bike locks are infallible, but because an unlocked bike is an invitation to steal. By placing our passwords four clicks away, Google is inviting us to hack each other.
Over the past decade, our ever-evolving Web site has allowed us to add more and unique content for our readers (and the ability to reach more of them), while becoming a daily source of information related to “what’s happening at the Jersey shore.” Today, there’s no “Whoot! Route” section, but there is “South Jersey Nightlife,” which lists all of the nightlife options in the Atlantic City area in print and indoor Tracking. Today, we have a blog (“Atlantic City Central”), timely videos, digital photo galleries and new sections in the paper to keep up with the chameleon-like ways the region has changed — while not forgetting that the simple things, such as the beach, Boardwalk and Atlantic Ocean, are still three of the biggest reasons visitors come to the resort.?
Forty years of producing a newspaper (and now a Web site) with comprehensive entertainment listings, celebrity interviews, compelling local history articles and an ever-changing dining guide — as well as photos, movie reviews, the latest concert updates, etc. — is something to be proud of, especially in this age of the disappearing print product. But ever since Philadelphia-based Review Publishing purchased the Whoot! and changed its name to Atlantic City Weekly back in 2000, there has been little to make an argument that the good old AC Weekly (which some still call the Whoot!) was outdated. Sure, our readers now include hundreds of thousands of visitors to our Web site, Facebook page and other social media and digital outlets, but the need for a go-to resource for entertainment in an entertainment town — which you can hold in your hands and flip through at your leisure — will always be needed in a tourism-driven destination like ours.?
In celebration of our 40th anniversary, over the next several months you will be reading about and hearing about special plans for the occasion. In this week’s cover story, we offer 40 things we love about the Atlantic City region. Some of them date back to the Whoot! days; some of them precede the first publication of the paper on June 19, 1974; and others are new and exciting changes in entertainment offerings over the past couple decades or so. ?
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
2013年8月5日星期一
As low-wage sector goes
You might have missed this, if you didn't happen to hit the right fast-food drive-through on the right day in July, but your neighborhood burger-flippers and assorted labor activists staged one-day strikes in cities across the country.
They called for the right to unionize and for a raise in the minimum wage — to $15 an hour.That's right: They want to double the federal minimum wage. Hey, why not swing for the fences?But before you sputter at the chutzpah of this demand, consider the point made by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer in a provocative op-ed for Bloomberg:
"If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an hour — three times what it is now."Hanauer, who also supports a $15 wage floor, is clearly mixed up. We in America are not supposed to look at this issue from the point of view of the rtls. We're consumers first and foremost, right?
What's supposed to matter is how much doubling the wage would add to the price of your Big Mac or Whopper.Yes, prices would rise, but by how much is currently something of an Internet parlor game.The Huffington Post touted and subsequently disowned an estimate that McDonald's would have to hike prices by 17 percent to maintain current levels of profitability.
An editor for the Columbia Journalism Review picked this apart and instead surmised the price hikes would have to be more in the range of 25 percent, while an industry think tank pegged them at up to 35 percent.So maybe you don't care if the Dollar Menu becomes the Dollar-Thirty-Five Menu. Have you paused to consider that by raising the wage, you would throw thousands of fry cooks out of work? That McDonald's and its franchisees would close stores or introduce more automation to bolster profits. This could raise the unemployment rate.
Could it?Because if you consult actual research, there's no clear consensus on what raising the minimum wage does to employment. Some economists argue that the effect is usually positive, while others say it has no effect or a slightly negative one.There is good reason to believe that raising the minimum wage during a period of Indoor Positioning System, like our own, would stimulate the economy. And that is exactly what we need now.
Moreover, raising the pay of low-wage earners will get them off of the public assistance rolls. Restaurant servers rely on food stamps at nearly double the rate of the general population and are at three times the poverty rate of the general population.America's real job creators are its consumers and their wealth was decimated when the real estate bubble collapsed.
Middle-class jobs are increasingly being replaced by low-wage ones.Putting more cash into average workers' hands allows them to spend more, which puts others back to work.As the low-wage sector goes, so goes the nation. That's the message every middle-class American should be getting.A major challenge for this country in the coming decades — perhaps the central challenge — will be ensuring that the vast majority of its residents have access to work that affords a decent standard of living.
Fifteen bucks an hour too pie-in-the-sky for you? OK, try $11.Economists consider that hourly wage the cutoff for poverty level for a family of four.So you get why people are protesting.And you get why the fast-food industry has an incredibly high turnover rate, 75 percent rate annually. The pay stinks. You can't live a decent life on it. The national median pay for cashiers, cooks and the crew in the industry is $8.94.
The people bagging the burritos and taking those frozen patties from the walk-in are not out of line to insist on higher pay. This is one of the fastest growing sectors of employment.And increasingly, its workers are adults, many with families.The Colonel and Ronald McDonald are not the only villains in this piece, not even the major ones.
For three decades, economic policy in this country has consistently undercut the interest of wage-earning Americans in favor of corporate managers and Wall Street. As this worthy class off-shored jobs, raided pension funds and reserved profits for themselves alone, the courts, Congress, state legislators and the mainstream press could be counted on to endorse their actions as the natural workings of the free market.
Labor unions, meanwhile, were variously dismissed as misguided or outmoded or downright pernicious enemies of the market.Well, now the middle class finds itself in the crosshairs, too. Many who once thought their college degrees and white-collar resumes were a meal ticket for life are discovering what life is like for the economically precarious.
Is $15 an hour absurd?Would raising the wage floor to that level do more good than harm to the low-wage half of our nation? I can't say with any certainty, and I don't know that anybody can.All I know for sure is that working people need a raise, and there's damn little chance they'll get it without a fight.
They called for the right to unionize and for a raise in the minimum wage — to $15 an hour.That's right: They want to double the federal minimum wage. Hey, why not swing for the fences?But before you sputter at the chutzpah of this demand, consider the point made by venture capitalist Nick Hanauer in a provocative op-ed for Bloomberg:
"If the minimum wage had simply tracked U.S. productivity gains since 1968, it would be $21.72 an hour — three times what it is now."Hanauer, who also supports a $15 wage floor, is clearly mixed up. We in America are not supposed to look at this issue from the point of view of the rtls. We're consumers first and foremost, right?
What's supposed to matter is how much doubling the wage would add to the price of your Big Mac or Whopper.Yes, prices would rise, but by how much is currently something of an Internet parlor game.The Huffington Post touted and subsequently disowned an estimate that McDonald's would have to hike prices by 17 percent to maintain current levels of profitability.
An editor for the Columbia Journalism Review picked this apart and instead surmised the price hikes would have to be more in the range of 25 percent, while an industry think tank pegged them at up to 35 percent.So maybe you don't care if the Dollar Menu becomes the Dollar-Thirty-Five Menu. Have you paused to consider that by raising the wage, you would throw thousands of fry cooks out of work? That McDonald's and its franchisees would close stores or introduce more automation to bolster profits. This could raise the unemployment rate.
Could it?Because if you consult actual research, there's no clear consensus on what raising the minimum wage does to employment. Some economists argue that the effect is usually positive, while others say it has no effect or a slightly negative one.There is good reason to believe that raising the minimum wage during a period of Indoor Positioning System, like our own, would stimulate the economy. And that is exactly what we need now.
Moreover, raising the pay of low-wage earners will get them off of the public assistance rolls. Restaurant servers rely on food stamps at nearly double the rate of the general population and are at three times the poverty rate of the general population.America's real job creators are its consumers and their wealth was decimated when the real estate bubble collapsed.
Middle-class jobs are increasingly being replaced by low-wage ones.Putting more cash into average workers' hands allows them to spend more, which puts others back to work.As the low-wage sector goes, so goes the nation. That's the message every middle-class American should be getting.A major challenge for this country in the coming decades — perhaps the central challenge — will be ensuring that the vast majority of its residents have access to work that affords a decent standard of living.
Fifteen bucks an hour too pie-in-the-sky for you? OK, try $11.Economists consider that hourly wage the cutoff for poverty level for a family of four.So you get why people are protesting.And you get why the fast-food industry has an incredibly high turnover rate, 75 percent rate annually. The pay stinks. You can't live a decent life on it. The national median pay for cashiers, cooks and the crew in the industry is $8.94.
The people bagging the burritos and taking those frozen patties from the walk-in are not out of line to insist on higher pay. This is one of the fastest growing sectors of employment.And increasingly, its workers are adults, many with families.The Colonel and Ronald McDonald are not the only villains in this piece, not even the major ones.
For three decades, economic policy in this country has consistently undercut the interest of wage-earning Americans in favor of corporate managers and Wall Street. As this worthy class off-shored jobs, raided pension funds and reserved profits for themselves alone, the courts, Congress, state legislators and the mainstream press could be counted on to endorse their actions as the natural workings of the free market.
Labor unions, meanwhile, were variously dismissed as misguided or outmoded or downright pernicious enemies of the market.Well, now the middle class finds itself in the crosshairs, too. Many who once thought their college degrees and white-collar resumes were a meal ticket for life are discovering what life is like for the economically precarious.
Is $15 an hour absurd?Would raising the wage floor to that level do more good than harm to the low-wage half of our nation? I can't say with any certainty, and I don't know that anybody can.All I know for sure is that working people need a raise, and there's damn little chance they'll get it without a fight.
New Pandora Ads Brain-Wash Listeners
A long-time user of Pandora’s personalized music service, I entered some sort of Pandora Twilight Zone this weekend when my music stream was twice interrupted by disingenuous – and disturbing – corporate-sponsored ads.
Just like the tobacco industry execs testified to Congress in 1994 that they didn’t believe nicotine was addictive, today the natural gas industry and health insurance companies are the wolves in sheep’s clothing. One Pandora-aired ad praised the safety of fracking, suggesting that its opponents were ill-educated, while another ad pretended that children will suffer as a result of Obamacare.
The first ad snuck up on me while I was relaxing in the bath on Saturday afternoon. A woman and mother living in Colorado shares how her education at the hands of natural gas drillers led her to know for certain that fracking chemicals are safe – “safe for the land, the water, and the indoor Tracking.” So she had no hesitation about ceding her land to drilling. How convenient for Shell Oil, which is featured in the ad that was paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.
Among its many fallacies and unanswered questions, the ad’s most obvious oversight is that the wildfire-prone American West is not a good area to be depleting of the millions of gallons of water needed for one frack job.
Thus, Western communities, firefighters, and farmers that already face water restrictions and shortages due to drought are now expected to compete against fracking companies for the world’s most precious resource. Hey, did anyone pay attention to the raging Arizona wildfire that took down 19 firefighters? The West will literally go up in smoke if it is depleted of its water, while continually baking under rising So after spending Saturday thinking this “smart people love fracking” ad was a Pandora anomaly, last night I heard from someone posing as a doctor who told an almost storybook fantasy about Obamacare.
She said Obamacare means the government will knock down her exam room door and insert itself in the medical decisions regarding the young child on her table. She imagines that she’ll have to close her office doors under the threat of Obamacare, which will leave sad little “Bobby,” or whatever his name was, with no one to cure his illness.
Back up. Interfering with private medical decisions…and causing practices to close? While that doesn’t sound like Obamacare, it does sound a lot like what’s happening on the anti-abortion front, with its mandatory vaginal probes and closing of clinics in places like North Carolina.
The commercial is a laughably thin veil for the motives of insurance companies, which aren’t happy with health care regulations that require them to offer “Bobby” and his family free preventative health services, and his mom free birth control – or a free breastpump if she chooses to have another child. If someone in his family has diabetes, they’ll get free blood sugar testing equipment as well.
Not to mention Bobby and his family can’t be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition – or because a catastrophic illness or injury causes them to reach an annual or real time Location system. (It wasn’t too long ago that an insurance company could say: “Sorry, that’s too expensive, while there might be something to save you, we have decided it’s time for you to die.”temperatures.
Fracking also releases gases that contribute to climate change. Not to mention the more than 2,000 leaks and spills that happened at fracking operations in just Colorado in only five years. Perhaps none of this speaks to the dangers of drilling rock for gas more than knowing that doctors are required to sign a “confidentiality pledge” called “Form 35” in Colorado before they can access information about fracking chemicals that could be responsible for their patients’ health conditions.
In the vein of hidden dangers, drilling companies have had court records sealed in cases where they settled with people who fell ill as a result of fracking chemical exposure.Not that the tech industry hasn’t tried. Indeed, since at least the release of WebTV some 17 years ago, the tech industry has attempted to revolutionize television.
Yet, despite the efforts of heavyweights like Microsoft, Google, Apple and Netflix — as well as numerous startups and smaller companies such as TiVo and Sling — the vast majority of TV viewing is still done the same way it was 15 or 20 years ago — by tuning in to a traditional channel on a pay-television service and watching a broadcast in real time.“It’s not obvious that most consumers want the main job of the TV set to be changed,” said Dan Cryan, research director for digital media at the research firm IHS. “The TV experience isn’t really that broken.”
Silicon Valley isn’t giving up. Google’s new $35 device, the Chromecast, promises to allow consumers to easily and cheaply view on their big-screen TVs some of the videos they watch on their smartphones and tablets.
Meanwhile, Intel is developing a box that could replace consumers’ pay-TV services and Internet-connected living-room devices by offering access to both live broadcasts and Internet content. And Apple reportedly has been working for years on a device that the late Steve Jobs himself promised would radically change the way we watch television.
For its part, Google may have a hit on its hands. On Thursday, just one day after announcing the Chromecast, the company canceled a promotional offer that included three months of free access to Netflix’s streaming service, citing “overwhelming demand.”
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
Just like the tobacco industry execs testified to Congress in 1994 that they didn’t believe nicotine was addictive, today the natural gas industry and health insurance companies are the wolves in sheep’s clothing. One Pandora-aired ad praised the safety of fracking, suggesting that its opponents were ill-educated, while another ad pretended that children will suffer as a result of Obamacare.
The first ad snuck up on me while I was relaxing in the bath on Saturday afternoon. A woman and mother living in Colorado shares how her education at the hands of natural gas drillers led her to know for certain that fracking chemicals are safe – “safe for the land, the water, and the indoor Tracking.” So she had no hesitation about ceding her land to drilling. How convenient for Shell Oil, which is featured in the ad that was paid for by the American Petroleum Institute.
Among its many fallacies and unanswered questions, the ad’s most obvious oversight is that the wildfire-prone American West is not a good area to be depleting of the millions of gallons of water needed for one frack job.
Thus, Western communities, firefighters, and farmers that already face water restrictions and shortages due to drought are now expected to compete against fracking companies for the world’s most precious resource. Hey, did anyone pay attention to the raging Arizona wildfire that took down 19 firefighters? The West will literally go up in smoke if it is depleted of its water, while continually baking under rising So after spending Saturday thinking this “smart people love fracking” ad was a Pandora anomaly, last night I heard from someone posing as a doctor who told an almost storybook fantasy about Obamacare.
She said Obamacare means the government will knock down her exam room door and insert itself in the medical decisions regarding the young child on her table. She imagines that she’ll have to close her office doors under the threat of Obamacare, which will leave sad little “Bobby,” or whatever his name was, with no one to cure his illness.
Back up. Interfering with private medical decisions…and causing practices to close? While that doesn’t sound like Obamacare, it does sound a lot like what’s happening on the anti-abortion front, with its mandatory vaginal probes and closing of clinics in places like North Carolina.
The commercial is a laughably thin veil for the motives of insurance companies, which aren’t happy with health care regulations that require them to offer “Bobby” and his family free preventative health services, and his mom free birth control – or a free breastpump if she chooses to have another child. If someone in his family has diabetes, they’ll get free blood sugar testing equipment as well.
Not to mention Bobby and his family can’t be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition – or because a catastrophic illness or injury causes them to reach an annual or real time Location system. (It wasn’t too long ago that an insurance company could say: “Sorry, that’s too expensive, while there might be something to save you, we have decided it’s time for you to die.”temperatures.
Fracking also releases gases that contribute to climate change. Not to mention the more than 2,000 leaks and spills that happened at fracking operations in just Colorado in only five years. Perhaps none of this speaks to the dangers of drilling rock for gas more than knowing that doctors are required to sign a “confidentiality pledge” called “Form 35” in Colorado before they can access information about fracking chemicals that could be responsible for their patients’ health conditions.
In the vein of hidden dangers, drilling companies have had court records sealed in cases where they settled with people who fell ill as a result of fracking chemical exposure.Not that the tech industry hasn’t tried. Indeed, since at least the release of WebTV some 17 years ago, the tech industry has attempted to revolutionize television.
Yet, despite the efforts of heavyweights like Microsoft, Google, Apple and Netflix — as well as numerous startups and smaller companies such as TiVo and Sling — the vast majority of TV viewing is still done the same way it was 15 or 20 years ago — by tuning in to a traditional channel on a pay-television service and watching a broadcast in real time.“It’s not obvious that most consumers want the main job of the TV set to be changed,” said Dan Cryan, research director for digital media at the research firm IHS. “The TV experience isn’t really that broken.”
Silicon Valley isn’t giving up. Google’s new $35 device, the Chromecast, promises to allow consumers to easily and cheaply view on their big-screen TVs some of the videos they watch on their smartphones and tablets.
Meanwhile, Intel is developing a box that could replace consumers’ pay-TV services and Internet-connected living-room devices by offering access to both live broadcasts and Internet content. And Apple reportedly has been working for years on a device that the late Steve Jobs himself promised would radically change the way we watch television.
For its part, Google may have a hit on its hands. On Thursday, just one day after announcing the Chromecast, the company canceled a promotional offer that included three months of free access to Netflix’s streaming service, citing “overwhelming demand.”
Read the full products at http://www.ecived.com/en/.
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