Author: southwerk

I am a 53 year old teacher. I have double major in Speech and Criminal Justice resulting in a Bachelor's degree from Northeastern State University in Oklahoma and a law degree.

Too Many People Are Going to Have Insurance?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism2 Comments
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Too Many People Are Going to Have Insurance?

Are we scraping the bottom of the barrel of Anti Obamacare arguments? Is that all that’s left? Too many people are going to have insurance (and doctors may be paid less?)?

“There’s too much health insurance.” He says. Where? When?

I myself have been denied benefits in circumstances I would have not thought possible. And my friends have as good or better stories than mine.

It must be nice to live in his world and get up in the morning and be outraged by people getting “too much health insurance.”

James Pilant

Fox News’ Dr. Siegel: Too Many People Have Health Insurance Under Obamacare

On The Hannity show last night, yet another in a zillion Fox News segments designed to trash the Affordable Care Act “Obamacare”, Fox News contributor Dr. Marc Siegel revealed that his number one concern was not how well the ACA covers his patients or even how affordable it is but that too many people will wind up with health insurance. And that inconveniences him and the “haves” he treats.Siegel said:Before they started this, we were all in trouble with insurance to begin with. There’s too much health insurance. It covers too much. Too many people have it and they can’t in my office to see me. I’m full. …I can’t see all these people.There’s a shortage of doctors. So what do they do? They’re going to pay us less.So the answer is less health care? So Dr. Siegel won’t be inconvenienced and/or get paid less? Doesn’t this violate the Hippocratic Oath?

via Fox News’ Dr. Siegel: Too Many People Have Health Insurance Under Obamacare VIDEO –.

From around the web.

From the web site, Health Care for All California.

http://healthcareforallsfv.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/even-fox-news-cant-tarnish-the-positives-involved-in-the-aca-obamacare/

The Fox News article then goes on to claim that jobs are being hurt by the ACA. By the “employer mandate” specifically. A mandate that will not even go into effect until 2015 and may be significantly changed before then. The Obama administration and others know it is a flawed portion of the law. This is widely agreed upon. Which is why it has been delayed. To claim that anyone lost a job or job hours due to a mandate that doesn’t yet exist is ludicrous. In fact, the Investor’s Business Daily “study” that claims that over 300 employers cut employees or employee hours due to the mandate is either based on hearsay OR has links that actually admit that no work hours have been cut BECAUSE the mandate has been delayed (for example, the so-called evidence provided for Biola University cutting employee hours. Which it has not. Because the mandate has been delayed).

And Fox News AGAIN inadvertently reiterates the argument that insurance should not be tied to employment.

We will be sure to reference this FoxNews.com article frequently to show why we need Single-Payer in California and beyond.

Industry Buys Its Own Facts?

On By southwerkIn Capitalism
English: The Globe House, headquarters of Brit...
English: The Globe House, headquarters of British American Tobacco in London, as seen from River Thames Deutsch: Das Globe House, die Zentrale der British American Tobacco in London, von der Themse aus gesehen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Industry Buys Its Own Facts?

I read once that you are entitled to your opinion but not your own facts. Apparently, an industry funded “science” group produces whatever “facts” are necessary when they’re needed.

So, let’s look at this from a business ethics standpoint. We have a public controversy in which an industry is doing something that may cause the public harm. Scientific evidence appears to suggest that some regulatory action is necessary. Business ethics would seem to dictate a rational and intelligent approach where we weigh evidence, perhaps do a cost-benefit analysis. Then we an enlightened civilized group decide what’s best for people in a democracy. That’s ethics.

But wait, certain companies have decided that when that scientific evidence appears and could cost them money, that it be branded junk science, and what’s more they have an organization that produces their very own private “facts.” Thus, we short circuit the whole system and stymie action necessary for people to live in health and peace.

Using a tissue of lies, and let’s not be tender about what this is, is unethical, a catastrophic failure of business ethics. It is the model developed by the tobacco industry to stop regulation of second hand smoke. It is designed to confuse and complicate the public debate over what should be done. It has been very successful in demonizing science and crippling democracy.

Lies kill, and these kinds of lies are particularly pernicious.

James Pilant

“Impartial” science group funded by Big Oil, soda and tobacco – Salon.com

Mother Jones has blown the lid off the American Council on Science and Health, a pro-industry research and advocacy organization known to defend everything from fracking to the potential harms of BPA from what it calls the “junk science” that’d have you think such things could pose a danger to public health. The group says all of its conclusions are driven by science, but its funding, leaked documents reveal, come from industry groups and corporations, to a greater extent than ACSH has acknowledged:

According to the ACSH documents, from July 1, 2012, to December 20, 2012, 58 percent of donations to the council came from corporations and large private foundations. ACSH’s donors and the potential backers the group has been targeting comprise a who’s-who of energy, agriculture, cosmetics, food, soda, chemical, pharmaceutical, and tobacco corporations. ACSH donors in the second half of 2012 included Chevron ($18,500), Coca-Cola ($50,000), the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation ($15,000), Dr. Pepper/Snapple ($5,000), Bayer Cropscience ($30,000), Procter and Gamble ($6,000), agribusiness giant Syngenta ($22,500), 3M ($30,000), McDonald’s ($30,000), and tobacco conglomerate Altria ($25,000). Among the corporations and foundations that ACSH has pursued for financial support since July 2012 are Pepsi, Monsanto, British American Tobacco, DowAgro, ExxonMobil Foundation, Phillip Morris International, Reynolds American, the Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation, the Dow-linked Gerstacker Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Searle Freedom Trust.

via “Impartial” science group funded by Big Oil, soda and tobacco – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Mint Press News.

http://www.mintpressnews.com/why-is-big-tobacco-funding-climate-change-skeptics/169312/

Greenpeace recently released an update

to a March 2010 report that stressed, once again, that climate change

denial is not only funded by the fossil fuel industry, but the tobacco

industry as well.

As Mint Press News previously reported,

companies in industries such as oil and tobacco often give generous

financial donations to organizations funding research that work to

discredit peer-reviewed, scientific studies indicating that climate

change is a real phenomenon caused by humans.

The reason? If the government were to increase regulations

on environmental issues in general, tobacco companies, too, could see a

negative effect to their bank accounts, considering their products’ environmental impact – not to mention potential smoking bans that could negatively affect sales of tobacco products.

While the tobacco industry is not commonly associated with

dispelling the existence of climate change, the industry has been

funding organizations that attempt to cast doubts on the validity of

climate change studies since the early 1990s.

As the English writer and environmental and political activist George Monbiot wrote

in his book “Death Denial,” “the corporate funding of lobby groups

denying that manmade climate change is taking place was initiated not by

Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel

industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris.”

Related articles

Law Firm Thinks Women Are Airheads

On By southwerkIn Editorial

Law Firm Thinks Women Are Airheads

 “Practice big words!!” – when do you say that to an attorney and it not sound insulting?

Business ethics would seem to suggest equal treatment for equal work but there just must be something about women in the workplace that drives men to stupidity? I don’t get it. By the time, you have gotten through law school, that big words problem is done. The rest sound like some male with supervisory status gets his education on women’s conduct from old reruns of Ally McBeal. Surely, there is some actual experience in the firm of supervision that doesn’t depend on insults to keep people in line? Or maybe this is just based in the firms collective mind in the concept that women have many child-like immature characteristics and need a different management touch?

I don’t think you need any deep  business ethics analysis. Don’t insult your workers. If there is a conduct problem, deal with it intelligently and don’t firebomb the staff with a badly thought out memo.

And from my own personal thought, it may be time for the outdated concept that women are just larger children to die, to go away, to run off into the wilderness of failed and mindless ideas and starve there alone.

James Pilant

 

Giggles
Giggles (Photo credit: Walt Stoneburner)

 

Sexist Law Firm Memo Tells Women Lawyers ‘Don’t Giggle,’ ‘Don’t Squirm,’ And ‘Practice Hard Words’ | ThinkProgress

 

Clifford Chance, a massive, international law firm employing thousands of elite attorneys, distributed a memo entitled “Presentation Tips for Women” that was better suited for a middle school forensics class than for graduates of the world’s leading law schools. Worse, interspersed between rudimentary pieces of advice such as “Stand up” and “Don’t wave your arms” are a series of often-gendered suggestions that call into question whether one of the world’s largest law firms understands that professional women are fully capable of dressing themselves.

 

Among the words of advice offered to every single female associate at Clifford Chance are “Don’t dress like a mortician,” “Wear a suit, not your party outfit,” “If wearing a skirt, make sure audience can’t see up it when sitting on the dias,” and — in an odd reference to six year-old sexist news coverage of then-Senator Hillary Clinton — “No one heard Hillary the day she showed cleavage.”

 

via Sexist Law Firm Memo Tells Women Lawyers ‘Don’t Giggle,’ ‘Don’t Squirm,’ And ‘Practice Hard Words’ | ThinkProgress.

From around the web.

From the web site, The Journal of All Items Various and Sundry

http://ohbutmeow.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/women-are-stupid-uptight-drunk-sluts-take-47810/

I don’t want to fall into the trap of blaming all men for this crap, because I do happen to know some decent fellows who, for the most part, don’t buy into it, and when they do, are pretty good at giving themselves a slap upside the head and realizing they’re being kind of piggish. And I do think women, myself included, have become very, very good at playing the male chauvinist game, and we need to stop being complicit in destroying ourselves to keep it going. So, yeah, it takes two to tango and other related truisms, but goddammit, it’s becoming more and more impossible for me to remain calm and logical in the face of the increasingly Sisyphean task of bearing the responsibility for all things dull and ugly while taking none of the credit for their opposite.

 

Challenges and Changes in Police Work

On By southwerkIn Editorial
A police car in Washington, D.C.
A police car in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Challenges and Changes in Police Work

 

I recommend reading the whole article. This police officer has gone through the last twenty years, some of the most turbulent years in the history of policing. His observations are enlightening and intelligent.

 

James Pilant

 

A Frontline Officer on Challenges and Changes

 

Entering my third decade in policing, I had an epiphany about how much my profession has changed since I learned to write reports on manual typewriters in my 1989 recruit class. Like every other industry, policing has seen such dramatic changes that what we imagine for the next 20 years is as surreal as the idea of people travelling to space on paid space shuttles was two decades ago. Two decades ago society would not have tolerated the idea of conducting business from home and having meetings as avatars in virtual environments, yet many businesses now operate this way.

 

Law enforcement has evolved from paper reports and filing cabinets, to body worn cameras and global positioning in a digitally connected universe. Most North Americans use smart phones that connect them immediately with information that we could not have imagined in previous decades. Police officers now must assume that an action they take in the street may be replaying in the media before they get back to the office to write a report about it.

 

In the 24 years of my own policing career, I’ve had a front-row seat to the changes that have occurred and have witnessed how these changes present challenges that cross every industry and  confront administrators in both the public and private sectors. Two decades ago administrators made decisions about what information to release, whereas now they must manage information that is already out there.

 

– See more at: http://www.mqup.ca/blog/frontline-officer-challenges/#!

 

From around the web.

 

From the web site, The Thin Blue Line.

 

http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-are-5-biggest-challenges-facing.html

 

WHAT ARE THE 5 BIGGEST CHALLENGES FACING POLICE FORCES TODAY?

 

 

 

On a police networking site recently, the above question sparked a mass

of interesting responses from all ranks and many from outside parties.

Here at http://thinbluelineuk.blogspot.com/

we are asking the same questions. We would be particularly keen to hear

from front line officers from all forces with their informed views.

Imagine you had the opportunity to have your views heard, without

recrimination, by Theresa May and Nick Herbert. We will collate the

responses and forward them to Theresa and Nick and let you know the

outcome. We will also be asking these questions on other forums such as Police Oracle and would be keen to elicit the support of police blog sites.

 

Related articles

 

You Have To Prosecute Individuals

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments
JPMorgan Chase Tower (Dallas)
JPMorgan Chase Tower (Dallas) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You Have To Prosecute Individuals

There has been much anger in the financial press about JPMorgan having to pay a multi-billion dollar fine. It has been strangely charged that this is a government attack on capitalism. No, actually the bank broke the law and failed over and over again to act in an intelligent manner about its investments or its clients. But Gretchen Morgenson is absolutely right. This kind of fine isn’t really getting tough with the banks. It’s merely carrying on the long tradition of banks paying some proportion of the losses they caused while criminal prosecution as individuals is off the table. 

There is no real penalty here. The billions are just the cost of doing business. The bank has paid out fines before. The bank will pay out fines again. The fun and enormous profits of reckless speculation will remain.

There will only be an effective deterrent when wrongdoers are punished personally by fine and imprisonment.

You can’t attack prevent crime by attacking organizations with minor financial penalties. You could effectively if you were willing to pull the corporate charter from the bank and destroy it, or seize all of its assets. But I see no willingness to do that. The only effective tool present is the power to prosecute individuals.

It is bizarre to tell students to act with business ethics when they can read everyday in the news of the incredible money being made by individuals under the cover of banks deliberately, knowingly breaking the law. But even that is eclipsed by the simple and horrible fact that we do not impose penalties on individuals.

Without justice, how we expect people less favored than bank executives to believe in the law?

James Pilant

Why JPMorgan May be Getting off Easy

In a criminal investigation, JPMorgan Chase is facing action from federal authorities who suspect that the bank turned a blind eye to Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. That’s yet another headache in a week of migraines for America’s largest bank; last Friday JPMorgan Chase reached a tentative $13 billion settlement with federal prosecutors for its alleged manipulation of mortgage securities, which helped trigger the Great Recession. There may be more pain to come as the megabank faces litigation on a number of fronts.

And JPMorgan Chase is not alone – it is one of several banks being investigated by the government for mortgage fraud. While many headlines in the financial press accuse the government of conducting a witch hunt, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Gretchen Morgenson offers a different perspective: “If the Justice Department were being tough on Wall Street they would be talking about bringing criminal cases against individuals who helped to perpetrate this immense crisis.” she said. Morgenson adds that the investigations into JPMorgan Chase show that it and many other financial institutions are still ‘too big to fail,’ which means taxpayers could once again be forced to bail them out.

http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/diane-sweet/why-jpmorgan-may-be-getting-easy#sthash.lIimWj0v.dpbs

From around the web.

From the web site, Democracy Now!

Stakeholder Pets?

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments
A cat and dog, the two most popular animals ke...
A cat and dog, the two most popular animals kept as pets. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

Stakeholder Pets?

 

Are pets stakeholders under business ethics analysis? Yes. Why is that? Theoretically a pet cannot buy a product. However, a pet does express preferences in products, particularly what they eat. So, pets do exercise choices as consumers as pet owners all know.

 

But they are stakeholders in another sense, by their existence they establish a need. So, when a manufacturer of pet treats kills pets, he kills his market.

 

I do not believe a rational argument can be made on behalf of pet killing by purchased treat. It might be a Friedman type thing where profit is foremost and you don’t kill enough of the market to mar your income. Of course, once again, that would suggest that businesses are not any good at or are very bad at self-regulation.

 

Simple business ethics, and I’m talking very simple here, very basic says, “Don’t kill the client.”

 

When businesses fail this basic test, and do not act to fix the problem, then the government has to step in. While this government action is late, it is welcome. I hope it works.

 

James Pilant

 

Amid pet deaths, FDA finally proposes new food safety rules – Salon.com

 

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/amid_pet_deaths_fda_finally_proposes_new_food_safety_rules/

 

As the Food and Drug Administration continues to come up short on a possible explanation for the deaths of nearly 600 pets nearly six years after they were first linked to imported jerky treats, the federal agency is at last getting around to passing rules for pet and animal feed that would help prevent contamination before it begins. The Associated Press reports:

 

The proposed rules would require those who sell pet food and animal feed in the United States — including importers — to follow certain sanitation practices and have detailed food safety plans. All of the manufacturers would have to put individual procedures in place to prevent their food from becoming contaminated.

 

The rules would also help human health by aiming to prevent foodborne illnesses in pet food that can be transferred to humans. People can become sick by handling contaminated pet food or animal feed.

 

via Amid pet deaths, FDA finally proposes new food safety rules – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site,

http://thewoof.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/reports-of-pet-illnesses-to-fda-increase-hundreds-more-dogs-fall-ill/

On Sunday, Senator Brown held another news conference  at the Ohio Humane Society in Hilliard Ohio about tainted chicken jerky treats from China. It was Brown’s second public statement to the Food and Drug Administration regarding the treats that are reported to have been causing illness and death in pets across the country.

 

The conference on February 19 came in the wake of 400 new complaints to the FDA about pets becoming ill after eating the treats. Although the FDA has been trying to find the contaminant causing the illnesses, they have been unable to pinpoint the specific toxicant. As a result, manufacturers have not been required by law to remove the products from store shelves, keeping the potentially dangerous treats readily available to the public.

 

In December of 2008, when pets began falling ill in Australia, University of Sydney researchers made an epidemiological connection linking the illnesses to the consumption of chicken treats imported from China. Australian dog treat importer KraMar withdrew its Supa Naturals Chicken breast strips  from the Australian market as a precaution, even though a specific toxicant wasn’t pinpointed.

 

TV Goes Downhill

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Picture taken at Georgia Aquarium, pictured is...
Picture taken at Georgia Aquarium, pictured is one of the two resident male whale sharks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TV Goes Downhill

The lowest common denominator. That apparently is the demographic television programming is looking for if these reinventions are to make any sense. Of course, maybe doing real programming is hard. After all, how much brains does it take to do “Shark Week?”

I have some old VHS tapes with programming from the Discovery Channel and the History Channel, powerful learned television shows with meaning. Now, my college students complain about the low quality of the programming and how little science or history is being covered.

Is there a business ethics issue here? Well, there is something wrong about advertising yourself as dealing with serious scientific, cultural or historical matters, and then producing junk designed for the inquisitive mind of, “Well, nobody.” Inquisitive minds aren’t wanted there.

And there is the lost opportunity of appealing to what is best in humanity, thrown away endlessly seeking higher ratings or a younger demographic. Whether that is a business ethics problem depends on your interpretation.

I don’t watch those programs anymore. I don’t think anybody should.

James Pilant

TV’s 10 most bizarre reinventions – Salon.com

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/tvs_10_most_bizarre_reinventions/

All across the dial, cable networks have shed their identities in order to become things far stranger — and, often, a bit less highbrow — than they’d been initially. The network formerly known as History Channel (now it’s just History) has defined the academic subject as including ancient aliens and truckers; TV Land’s reruns have gone from old-school classics to stuff from 10 years ago; just about every fine-arts channel broadcasts reality TV now.

It makes sense — in a crowded market, no one’s going to subsidize a network that does something unpopular. All these networks once did slightly different things, but now many have shifted toward the same model: broadcasting unscripted shows depicting a particular corner of the American experience (trucking, pawnbroking, being a pampered wife of one variety or another). Still, there’s something a bit wistful about imagining each of these cable networks’ original iterations frozen in amber — rather than a dial full of similar-looking broadcasts, we could have a gleefully out-of-step Bravo and A&E doing British costume drama, and medical oddities all over TLC. Oh well–there’s always reading!

via TV’s 10 most bizarre reinventions – Salon.com.

From around the web.

From the web site, Blogs, Discover Magazine.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2013/08/05/shark-week-jumps-the-shark-an-open-letter-to-discovery-communications/

While there may be a debate about what “sightings” may be, there is one thing that scientists are sure of: Megalodon is extinct.

Part of me is furious with you, Discovery, for doing this. But mostly, I’m just deeply saddened. It’s inexplicably depressing that you’ve gone from “the world’s #1 nonfiction media company” to peddling lies and faking stories for ratings. You’ve compromised your integrity so completely with this special, and that breaks my heart. I loved you, Discovery, ever since I was a child. I grew up watching you. It was partly because of you that I became transfixed by the natural world and pursued a career in science. I once dreamed of having my own Discovery Channel special, following in the footsteps of people like Jeff Corwin. Not anymore. This is inexcusable. You have an obligation to your viewers to hold to your non-fiction claims. You used to expose the beautiful, magical, wonderful sides of the world around us. Now, you just make shit up for profit. It’s depressing. It’s disgusting. It’s wrong.

I won’t be watching the rest of Shark Week. I simply can’t.

From the web site, From New York to San Francisco.

http://gcaggiano.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/history-channels-chasing-tail-are-you-kidding-me/

I’m not even going to bother sliding into my regular shtick about how far the network has fallen, or how I would take the 24/7 Hitler and Nazi Germany program broadcasting of the 90′s any day over this garbage, because it is a fruitless effort. Apparently, I am in the minority when it comes to opinion on programming. I guess I should feel silly for wanting the History Channel to stop putting on shows where toothless red-necks blast alligator brains out with shotguns and then jump up and down in their little boats hootin’ n’ hollerin’ with unintelligible grunts like they just won the lottery. I am amazed, after seeing shows like that, at how surprised people from the Deep South are when they are looked at as being backwards hicks. Do not blame northern ignorance, my friends, blame the media and popular culture that has turned your society into a hole of filth and slime. At least Chasing Tail is going to do something to repair the damage done: it will show that northerners can be hicks too!

I do not know what is even left anymore. H2 used to always be the safe haven when the History Channel started going to hell, but even that is being corrupted with asinine, pseudo-historical shows like America Unearthed, where the host, Scott Wolter, can make an entire episode centered around a microscopic carving on a rock and lead the viewer on a baseless quest around the country to misrepresent far-reaching theories as fact, and then find absolutely no concrete evidence to back anything up. This show, in format and principle, is identical to Ancient Aliens. The latter attempts to say that everything the ancients built on earth was really built by aliens, while the former attempts to say that everything ancient Americans built on this continent was really built by foreigners. Is there a difference? I acknowledge that the history books are wrong and there is more than meets the eye, but without actual evidence, the shows are absolutely useless. Maybe if I carved a cross onto the tree in my backyard I could get the crew to come down to try to prove that the Knights Templar hid the Holy Grail in Hazlet, New Jersey. Maybe if I find a really big squirrel climbing that same tree I can get Monsterquest to come out of retirement and have a double whammy!

 

Related articles

Football Concussion

On By southwerkIn business ethics
English: Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett F...
English: Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre during on-field warmups at Ralph B. Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York, prior to a game against the Buffalo Bills on November 5, 2006. Français : Brett Favre, quarterback des Green Bay Packers, avant un jeu contre le Buffalo Bills. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Football Concussion

 

Unless the problem of football concussion can be solved, I’m not sure if the sport will survive. Brett Favre’s story of memory loss is shocking and tragic. Our memories are what we are in a real way. Taking that away from a human being diminishes that person. It takes away a chunk of what makes us human.

 

Is it ethical to make money off athletes whose lives are diminished (ruined?) by regular concussions?

 

I suppose a free market fundamentalist could argue that these men were willing to take the risk. But that argument collapses like a deflated balloon against the fact that the risks have only become evident recently and are still not well understood. We know that damage results and that it is serious. We don’t know how much damage or how serious.

 

The sport of football with now known health risks involving brain injuries is more similar in some ways to sports now banned like college boxing.

 

I don’t want to abolish the sport yet. First I want to see if something can be done to make it safe or safer.

 

Our current practice of business ethics does allow for sports carrying some risks, high school cheerleading, karate teams, soccer, etc. The question is always going to be how much risk and how serious the damage.

 

So, if the risk of long term brain damage due to concussion can be reduced, if that is possible, then there will have to be a determination if that lowered risk is low enough for the sport to continue.

 

James Pilant

 

Brett Favre: ‘God Only Knows The Toll’ That NFL Concussions, Injuries Will Take

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/25/brett-favre-memory-lapse-concussions-nfl_n_4164578.html

 

The 44-year-old, who played 302 games over 20 NFL seasons, discussed how \”they didn\’t keep a log like they do now\” of concussions and recounted one specific instance of memory loss since he retired after the 2010 season.

 

\”I don\’t remember my daughter playing soccer, youth soccer, one summer,\” Favre told Pollin and Saraceno after discussng his decision to rebuff an offer from the St. Louis Rams to come out of retirement. \”I don\’t remember that. I got a pretty good memory, and I have a tendency like we all do to say, \’Where are my glasses?\’ and they\’re on your head. I have that [but] this was pretty shocking to me that I couldn\’t remember my daughter playing youth soccer, just one summer, I think. I remember her playing basketball, I remember her playing volleyball. So I kind of think maybe she only played a game or two. I think she played eight. So that\’s a little bit scary to me. For the first time in 44 years, that put a little fear in me.\”

 

via Brett Favre: ‘God Only Knows The Toll’ That NFL Concussions, Injuries Will Take.

From around the web.

From the web site, The Concussion Blog.

http://theconcussionblog.com/2013/10/25/2013-week-7-nfl-concussion-report/

The Concussion Blog Original, NFL Concussion Report, is a weekly compiling of the reported head injuries in the National Football League.  Concussions are added to the list each week from multiple sources to give you the reader a picture of what is happening on the field.  Each week we will bring you the information along with relevant statistics.  If we have missed a concussion or put one on here erroneously, let us know (we will also be using Fink’s Rule to classify a concussion/head injury).  It also should be noted that due to the league not disclosing actual injuries until Friday night there may be some added to next weeks numbers.

 

Deficit Hawks Ignorant

On By southwerkIn business ethics, Capitalism

 

 

Paul Krugman, Laureate of the Sveriges Riksban...
Paul Krugman, Laureate of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008 at a press conference at the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Deficit Hawks Ignorant

 

I’m now 57 years old and the tale of imminent fiscal catastrophe begins with my awareness of its use by Reagan who ran on fixing the deficit and then cut taxes, of course, increasing the debt. And that is how it has always gone. It’s always a apocalyptic event closing in on us like a relentless tsunami, unless there’s an opportunity for a tax cut, in which case, the deficit hawks or deficit scolds (whatever term you prefer) go silent. They are only loud when talking about cutting social programs. They maintain a studious silence when tax increases are discussed. And do you know why, because deficits can be a problem but for these people, it’s a good problem because it’s a club they can pick up or put away as need arises. When there can be tax cuts, the club is put away and when there can be cuts in the safety net, the club can be wielded fiercely and recklessly.

 

They’re not ignorant. They know exactly what they’re doing. It’s just a tactic.

 

James Pilant

 

Krugman: Deficit scolds “literally have no idea what they’re talking about” – Salon.com

 

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/25/krugman_deficit_scolds_literally_have_no_idea_what_theyre_talking_about/

 

Noting the continued endurance of low levels of inflation and low interest rates, which should contradict the expectations of anyone buying into the looming fiscal catastrophe narrative, Krugman ridicules his opponents for having been so wrong for so long, seemingly without ever giving their beliefs a second thought. “It’s actually awesome, in a way, to realize how long cries of looming disaster have filled our airwaves and op-ed pages,” Krugman writes. He then goes on to cite an Alan Greenspan op-ed in this vein, one that was written nearly three and a half years ago, but that for all intents and purposes could have been published just yesterday.

 

via Krugman: Deficit scolds “literally have no idea what they’re talking about” – Salon.com.

 

From around the web.

 

From the web site, Duane Graham.

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/ben-bernanke-channels-paul-krugman/

I have been watching Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, testify this morning before the Senate Banking Committee.

 

He has sounded a lot like Paul Krugman.*

 

Krugman, an economist of distinction who also happens to be a liberal, has been telling anyone who will listen that all the scary talk about the national debt is misplaced, considering that we have a genuine jobs crisis going on right now.

 

Bernanke said this morning:

 

High unemployment has substantial costs, including not only the hardship faced by the unemployed and their families, but also the harm done to the vitality and productive potential of our economy as a whole.

 

Ya think? He also said—again sounding like Paul Krugman:

 

In terms of the near-term recovery, there is a sense in which monetary and fiscal policy are working at cross purposes. To some extent, the fiscal policy decisions being made are mismatched with the timing of the problem. The problem is a longer-term problem, and should be addressed over a longer time frame in a way that, to the extent possible, it does no harm to the ongoing recovery.

 

In other words, the actions of Congress (fiscal policy—focusing only on long-term debt) are working against the Fed’s actions (monetary policy—buying government bonds now in order to help stimulate the economic recovery) and the result of those “cross purposes” is sluggish growth and needlessly high unemployment.

 

 

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Pope Acts Against Greed!

On By southwerkIn Capitalism2 Comments
Pope Francis met with media
Pope Francis met with media (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

Pope Acts Against Greed!

I’ve been talking about developing a growing respect for the Pope. But now the Pope has acted directly against a major official for his greed. I’m amazed and delighted. The last two Popes fired and replaced left wingers and came down hard on nuns doing social work. The last two Popes fired and investigated sexual predators with the greatest reluctance and the word, coverup, fits the actions of the Church more accurately than investigation. And yet, a Pope just canned somebody for their ostentatious life style. Am I dreaming?

I don’t think I am easy to impress and this new Pope is definitely more than I expected.

If you consider the Catholic Church in some sense a business, this is proper business ethics in practice. I like it.

James Pilant

Pope suspends German ‘bling bishop’

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg ordered to leave his diocese amid scandal over his alleged lavish spending

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/23/pope-suspends-german-luxury-bishop

His new private residence will cost €31m and include a €15,000 bathtub, furnishings worth €380,000 and a garden that came with a €783,000 bill. But the “bling bishop” of Limburg is unlikely ever to enjoy the benefits of his luxurious new home, after he was temporarily suspended from his post by the pope yesterday.

In a press statement, the Vatican said it had been confronted with a situation in which Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst “could not follow his duty as bishop” and had decided to allow him “some time outside the diocese”. A final verdict on the bishop’s future is expected after the completion of an internal investigation into the Limburg building project.

Tebartz-van Elst has come under increasing criticism since the estimated cost of his new residence – described by some newspapers as “palatial” – rose to €31m (£26m) earlier this month.

He is also facing legal action for allegedly lying under oath about a first-class flight to India, in a row with the news magazine Der Spiegel.

It is hard to imagine a greater contrast between the alleged luxurious living habits of the German bishop and the ascetic style of the Argentinian pontiff, who, from his first hours in office, has made clear his desire for “a poor church … for the poor”. Shunning the large and opulent apostolic palace, the pontiff has chosen instead to live in the simple surrounds of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a Vatican guesthouse. He often travels in used cars and has urged priests to do the same, telling them: “If you like the fancy one, just think about how many children are dying of hunger in the world.”

From around the web.

From the web site, Silent Voice.

http://silentmaj.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/pope-francis-suspends-bishop-of-bling/

Pope Francis means Business….Days of the So called princes’ of the Church seem to be numbered..The Laity will Certainly Stand by you, in this fight against corrupt practices within the Church, Dear HOLY FATHER…..

GREG