Moot News .com

Elections are like a war… Plenty of dis-information !

We listen to it all the time but do you recognize it? Probably not if you agree with it.

But you really have to have enough disconnect from what is stated to see it.

More often than not, we are told what our ache’s and pain’s are from and you agree,

…then they tell you who to blame for them ! and most follow that !!

While for several years I listened to some local power plant that had 7 units burning coal that shut down many of them. A large number of lay-offs occurred. The powers that be in the plant blamed it on Obama and his war on coal. The same for many coal mines in the next state across the river from it.

Having listened to that for 3 years, I started to actually look at the case for it.

Obama had not had (nor the EPA) any new regulations for coal, and even new ones that could come in the future do not take effect for some time even after draft proposals are made and they eventually get passed. So it was not from that despite several things he may have said about coal that even I did not exactly agree with. Words and rules are 2 different things.

So what was the real reason for the huge lay-offs…

It appears that while the plant drug it’s feet on the last wave of environmental standards that took place 10 years ago, they thought it cheaper to pay the fines than to do the upgrades like all the other local plants had done.

The increase in the construction costs went up in a large way with the price of oil while waiting so long. Concrete and steel doubled in price and those are the main ingredients for industrial construction.

And the plant had a larger plan to create a huge waste dump for fly ash not just for their plant but for many area plants that burn coal. It was a investment opportunity for them to be able to handle the hazardous waste of others.

So what happened since they did eventually do the upgrades and created a profitable waste dump for the area fly ash ?

It failed miserably because of one thing… …De-Regulation (that means less regulation) and Shale Gas helped.

The price of new natural gas from shale deposits were making natural gas prices less than 60% cheaper than they were at their peek.

Why does that matter ?

Because of a de-regulated market, the power stations were competing against each other to suppliers within the region.

Gas plants build cheaper, operate cheaper and are more efficient in production and have no heavy environmental clean-up.

Everyone was running their gas fired plants near full capacity and shutting down their coal fired plants as they were unprofitable with this low-cost gas.

If this was Obama’s fault, we must have worked his magic in China also since most of the coal miners over there have been out of work the last few years. Gee, that’s almost funny because when coal was at it’s peek price, China was one of the largest buyers and they could not get it out of the ground fast enough for them, hence, the many safety disasters in the coal mines we had during the time from 2004-2012 till china stopped buying the coal.

Now with nobody burning as much coal, the investment they made in the newly constructed fly ash dump was a waste.

So this is just a example of the herders leading the sheep if you listen to them. Be a good sheep and cork your ears. The only way you will find the truth is to look for it. Most of us are to lazy for that. It’s just easier to let them tell you who to blame for your pain. They already know where it hurts because they most likely inflicted your pain before you knew you had it.

Deregulation and not regulation created this mess. And a unseen surplus in natural gas fueled it’s start. You would think a energy company would know it’s own markets better than anyone. How did they drop their own ball ?

The energy deregulation rules were created by the energy company’s themselves during Bush Jr’s tenure and a Republican held Congress. Go figure !

Money is not always smart, just always powerful. That is enough power to tell you how to think.

It always seems to have it’s way, and sometimes you have to be careful of what you wish for.

You will never fix a problem when you do not correctly identify it. Let them point the finger to lead you to more of the same.

Personally, I see the energy company’s falling off the same cliff that Enron did once they allow them to merge to just a few company’s to hide their own stupidity. 10-15 years ? But someone will make money from it and it will not be the shareholders, since they will bear the losses to come. Pension funds still at risk from that stuff, but that’s a new Moot Story.

The American President

Some things are timeless.

Reflecting current political disposition, I am reminded of these clips from the 1995 movie, The American President. ENJOY !

Just think some more on it.

I just had to add one other from “Fair Game” – Sean Penn

Republicans TRUMPed on Immigration

Why is it the Republican Party has so much adverse to say about the new leader of their party?

One issue stands tall against the base that have supported the party for a very long time… It is Immigration.

Quite simply it is about cheap labor and taxes… Let me explain the longer version…

The Republicans have never wanted a change in the immigration policy. They go to some great effort to keep it the way it is.

When it looked like they might have some agreement about the issue from some on the right with the majority of the left, the far right injected a monkey wrench by saying that you can not give legal status to those that are here now.

So when Trump says “Just Deport Them All”, why are the Republicans not for that since that is what they have been promoting without saying that directly.

They don’t want legal status, they don’t want to deport them. What exactly do they want to do with them ?

KEEP THEM WORKING AT SUB-MINIMUM WAGES AND PAYING/COLLECTING NO BENEFIT FROM THE GOVERNMENT.

Do to improper use of tax code, those that hire them set them up as a statutory employee where the employer is not responsible for paying more than 50% of their Social Security or any of the other taxes that a normal U.S. citizen would pay that works in the United States of America.

In effect, it makes it cheaper for them to operate here than anywhere else in the world because the hiring company, receives plenty of subsidy and tax breaks from the government in the field of agriculture.

So if you look back at the last 30 years of policy from the Republicans, it is about maintaining the status quo. Anytime it looks like they could change things, the Republicans will inject something new to bring outrage in the mind of the public.

So, you are either for Citizenship or you are for Deportation,

But you can not create a new 2nd class citizen -OR- we are all doomed to the same when it’s convenient for the money !

So now you can see why Trump is potentially damaging to the party on this issue.

He wants to deport the cheap sub-wage labor that should not be legal in the first place. I don’t think Trump understood what high water he was wading through when he spoke of it only for popular support.

But to the Republican Party, it is a cancer to the fund raising and support that goes straight to the heart of the party. How do the Republican Senators and Representatives counter that ? With What ?

Don’t deport them ? Leave it the way it is again !

Escape Reality, Read/Watch The NEWS

Now I have to prove the title of this page.

Everyday we see the news of the latest on a celebrity court case.

We see the latest on what some political player has done… or not.

We see some company complain about the over regulation or tax of them.

We see the stock market reports swing up or down and speculation on why.

We see the latest celebrity or former politician who died today.

Most of what we see or read has little to do with what really happened today that has any meaning in our lives that we really need to know to better navigate tomorrow.

It is no wonder there is a disconnect from the politicians to the people they represent.

People can be told what is important to them and they don’t seem to question it.

Before I started to wright this, I started to research the number of Americans murdered everyday.

I could not get a flat number. Only a percentage per 100,000 of population that would be hard for many to break down to get a real number.

So, to try to make it simple, I then wanted to know how many were murdered last year.

I was working with the best source for that information. The folks that are charged with keeping the record of it.

The FBI

It is not impossible to do but you must do work the average American is not able to do without a error.

Why can’t I just know the number of people murdered last year. It has to be a percentage of a percentage so that it looks smaller.

Look for yourself (this being the best representation I could find)

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-4

News, I thought was to be a representation of the events that unfolded in the past 24 to 48 hours that would be most important to me or anyone for that matter.

We are presented only with what would make our blood boil or make us feel bad for a single child.

There are many more people getting hurt, ripped-off, murdered. We know not how many or how bad.

Why is it that Bill Cosby’s court Case is more important than a few of the same that nobody knows their names. The only difference is that the prosecutor is less likely to make mistakes or be able to railroad Bill Cosby’s case because of the media attention. While it is nice to know that nobody is above the law (so we think) in Bill Cosby’s case, it does nothing for the same kind of cases that happen all the time.

Don’t know about those ? Ask the FBI for some statistics on it.

Who really cares how many times Tiger Woods cheated on his wife and how does that warrant 12 minutes of a 30 minute news broadcast nearly everyday for months. Why is that any of my business. Not much else happened today… really ? Is it the most important thing that happened today ? Not the dozen products that were recalled today because they could poison someone.

Hey… I don’t want to be scared.

I would just like to know that there is a problem and be assured it is in capable hands dealing with it.

Someone is going to tell you what is important for your life and it is not you.

And most are not just buying it, they are married to it.

And if you are curious to the facts, you will be presented with charts and graphs that diminish the facts.

Don’t be alarmed,

Yes, there is a alternate reality for you. It is sanitized everywhere for your protection.

Did I make the title ?

Apple vs FBI – Just The Facts

A new ongoing battle is in the making between the FBI and Apple Inc. over the FBI’s constant badgering of Apple to re-gain access to what they once had. The ability to hack your phone and read contents at will.

While the FBI or other law enforcement is to have a legal wiretap court order, often this information was ease-dropped and not used in court so nobody is the wiser without the court order. They just can’t use any information gathered in court.

At the heart of this particular issue is the FBI wanting Apple to re-code the phone to disable the 10 incorrect tries you get before pass-code failure that will lock the device and delete all data inside.

Because with the governments super-computers, they would be able to try all pass-codes until they get the correct one, perhaps in as little as hours. This method is known as a ‘brute force attack’.

The issue at it’s core is the know-how to do such a thing is not limited to just one phone and could reasonably be preformed through cellular data-on-air. without the notice of the user.

What it means for Apple’s Core…

Apple has went to great lengths to create a secure system that had business in mind to keep corporate secrets, secrete. Much as Blackberry has done for them and the government itself. If you had to worry about ‘secure today’ but ‘not tomorrow’, you might not want to make the investment for all your staff as these are pretty pricey devices.

To Apple’s credit, they have spent millions and years developing this security and now the government is saying you must spend more undoing what you did.

The government is not really loosing anything that they should have in the first place despite the fact that it can be valuable to them in fighting crime.

The problem with the governments argument is that never does the government stop at what we are told. And when anyone in the government has access to anyone’s personal information, how do you keep that from being used with or for political malice. Reading ones phone is as close as you can get to reading their mind or intentions.

And it might be also good to point out that the FBI was not trying to hack the secure encrypted BlackBerry phones owned by the chief executives of the BANKS TO BIG TO FAIL THAT DID. Hmmmmmm……. A national security issue that just about brought the nation to it’s knees and not a hacked phone when it was completely legal under the Patriot Act. Can we be assured there is not and will never be a double standard here. It’s doubtful.

The start of any checks and balances that does not presently exist would be a log every every hack or ease-drop that is public information after 2 years from the event.

If they were to tell you they want a camera in your workplace and your bedroom to help stop crime, would you give them one? A smartphone is a camera and a microphone that goes where you go along with anywhere you go on the internet. When it is possible to get into the phone by anyone, it is possible for anyone to do the same without your knowlage.

While public opinion is only relevant to the point that the government needs to have the appearance of legitimacy in the light of the Patriot Act and Edward Snowden. In which they may have today, but how do you know they will have it tomorrow. Nobody is going to announce they are changing the terms of use and even if they would, it would be to late to change what will be done.

A Slave To Technology

Being a “Tech Slave” Sounds like something from a SCI-FI movie. But it is becoming true to form in a way you did not expect and is excepted as a new norm without a blink. It’s costing you more than you think. Something it was suppose to be adding to… Your quality time of life.

Let me explain some examples:

While I like my iPhone, spending a hour a week updating apps is not fun. Very often you need to re-learn how they work as they change with each update. More often than not, this costs me money from the mistakes that become made from the minor changes. About 4-6 times a year I am asked to update my iTunes software on my computer and takes about an 30 minutes on my computer. Now if I do that, I can hook my iPhone up to that computer unless I update the ios on the iPhone which takes at least another hour as long as all goes well. Time not well spent.

In order to keep the email spam down, I hand select the emails manually and block the spam senders domain (@spamaddress.com), not just the full senders address (user@spamsender.com). Because more often than not, they own the domain and will use a new address user of it the next time. So I spend at least a hour a week tending to my email server so I can see and enjoy those emails I want to read. Tending to a few websites, I use google analytics to see who the visitors are and how well the site is doing as in what they are reading and how they came to the site. Now, there is spam in the analytic data that I have to tend to just like spam in the email. Not as easy to block the spam referrer so that the data I am looking at is legitimate and has value to me unless I spend about 1 hour a month to keep it cleaned up.

Now my computer needs both operating system updates and software updates nearly everyday. Now I could just let that all run automatically in the background and never know that it happened. But I choose to pick the the time when they are installed. Mainly not till well after I have done whatever important work that may need done in the short term because many of these updates either have bugs or adversely affect what I thought I could do before that update. For me, doing it that way most often is a time savings. But it still costs some time.

Everyday someone puts a new TERMS OF SERVICE AGREEMENT in front of me that I have no time to read the details of and they don’t tell me what it’s all about in a summary so I can look just at the parts of the changes to know if I’m promising my next borne away. The few I have read completely and many more that I check lightly seem to have some right that I had and no longer going to enjoy like the right to join class action lawsuits. But many have adjustments to who they can share your data with. Many of those are “partners” who can re-share that data with God only knows who. The fact that I do check at least some of them and caught a few with things I could clearly see things I did not want the possibility of subjecting myself to means that I really need to read them all and know more about the legal wordings. If I actually had the time and full knowlage, I probably would get nothing else done in my life.

I could go on and on but the short story is in the future, your going to need more time to service your technology.

Since all this tech is moving to your car and your home, I can only see more of the same.

Imagine not being able to drive your car until you take a update for its computer. Or you just did and now it won’t start Or perhaps your washing machine, microwave or heating/cooling system. It’s coming !

Don’t fall in love with your tech. Every hour of life spent on your tech is a hour of life lost.

Use it for just what it’s worth because if you don’t, it will use you for what you are worth and that doesn’t pay anything.

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