May 26, 2015

cops at it again … this time in TX ...

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/29130347/elderly-georgetown-man-files-federal-lawsuit-accusing-swat-officers-of-using-excessive-force

An elderly Georgetown man says SWAT officers took him to the ground and broke his hip.
His attorney has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city and county.

The 82-year-old man lives about five blocks away from the sheriff's office in downtown Georgetown.
He says sheriff's deputies and Georgetown police came to his home in full swat gear in late September to serve a search warrant regarding his nephew who had been staying with him.
Video shot by someone driving by that day shows Herman Crisp sitting in a chair on his lawn with a friend. He says when the officers arrived; they threw a flash-bang device at his home, knocking him out of his chair.

He says officers slammed him to the ground and handcuffed him. He says the force broke his hip. He says officers searched his home and before they left, helped him back inside, but didn't call paramedics. His family members say they found him the next day on the floor in his own feces.

more at the link.
of course no one on the police dept will go to jail.
and of course this guy is 82 thin as a rail and black
he was a real threat to those SWAT cops.

I hope he wins a large sum of money and the city fires some folks ...

May 25, 2015

had an interesting conversation with neighbor teen.

spent the day picking up supplies for the week. the neighbors daughter asked me
why when most of the places are open on monday. I told her .. you know how people will tisk tisk and say what a shame people have to work on a holiday. well if fewer people shopped on the holiday, shops might not open on that day and people will have that day off. she nodded I hope I helped her see.

May 22, 2015

WRKO drops Limbaugh

saw this on Bing …

www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/boston-radio-station-removes-rush-limbaugh-s-show


Controversial conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh will no longer be heard on Boston’s WRKO radio station in the coming future.
The Rush Limbaugh Show’s syndicator, Premiere Networks, could not come to an agreement with the Massachusetts radio station and so the show will be dropped, Boston.com reports.

After Limbaugh’s now infamous comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, his program, along with many others, have failed to attract the lucrative advertisers that previously purchased airtime on the popular programs. In February 2012, Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and "prostitute" after she testified to Congress that the university should provide insurance coverage for contraceptives, The Wall Street Journal reported.
WRKO is home to many prominent conservative voices in the radio industry, including Mark Levin, Jeff Kuhner and Howie Carr, Mediaite reported.

Limbaugh’s program was also recently dropped by an Indianapolis radio station, WIBC. Although Premier Networks charges national radio stations a high fee for its more popular programs, officials say the move was not a financial matter.
“It’s not an inexpensive show to air, so there is a business element to the decision. But this has more to do with the long-term direction of the station,” Charlie Morgan, WIBC’s local market manager, said about the decision.

May 13, 2015

Hawaii votes to go 100% renewable on its electrical grid.

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/hawaii-passes-legislation-to-go-100-renewable


In the last few weeks, state-level stakeholders around the country have been busy reforming renewable portfolio standards, proposing changes to net metering policies, and studying the potential effects of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. Also, in an unprecedented move, the Hawaii state legislature voted to make electricity generation 100 percent renewable by 2045.


Lawmakers in Hawaii passed legislation last week (in a 74-2 vote) requiring the state to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy resources by 2045. If HB 623 is signed into law by Governor David Ige, Hawaii will become the first U.S. state to attempt complete decarbonization of the power sector.
Today, Hawaii’s energy mix is more than 80 percent fossil fuel, with oil providing the majority of electricity generation on the islands. However, renewables are growing fast. Hawaiian Electric Company, the state’s sole privately owned utility company, previously determined it would be feasible to reach 40 percent renewables by 2030. Getting to 100 percent by 2045 will be difficult, but not entirely far-fetched.

“As the first state to move toward 100 percent renewable energy, Hawaii is raising the bar for the rest of the country,” said Chris Lee, the Chairman of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee and introducer of HB 623, in a statement. “Local renewable projects are already cheaper than liquid natural gas and oil, and our progress toward meeting our renewable energy standards has already saved local residents hundreds of millions on their electric bills.”
Hawaiian regulators are now working to adapt electricity rates to accommodate an increasingly renewable-centric grid. At the same time, there are concerns bubbling up around NextEra’s proposed acquisition of HECO and what it would mean for renewables in the state.

May 13, 2015

Apple could bail out Greece and do good for itself at the same time.

just saw this and thought it would be interesting .... comments.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-11/apple-could-make-money-by-bailing-out-greece


Back in 2012, an investor attending Apple's general meeting asked Tim Cook, the chief executive officer, if he'd ever considered using the company's growing cash stash -- $97.6 billion at that point -- to acquire Greece. "We've looked into many things," but not that, Cook replied. Of course, entire countries can't be bought -- not even in novels, it seems. In Iain Banks's "The Business," such a deal fell through, even though the acquisition target was an obscure Himalayan monarchy, not an old democracy like Greece.

snip

So everyone had a laugh and moved on. Things briefly got better for Greece when it received the biggest bailout in history, and private creditors agreed to a haircut. But its economy still failed to grow, and the country's debt burden, at 175 percent of economic output, remained unsustainable. Apple, in the meantime, more than doubled its hoard, which now amounts $194 billion in cash and equivalents. The company has been paying generous dividends and buying back stock, but the cash pile keeps growing. There's no way to invest it all. For years, Cook has been talking about mind-blowing products his company has in the pipeline, but he's only managed to come up with incremental improvements to existing products, an average streaming music service and an overpriced smartwatch, and these haven't required much capital. Unless Apple starts building cars -- or perhaps spaceships -- it will keep accumulating cash.
As will other big U.S. companies. Non-financial American firms hold $1.73 trillion in cash, 4 percent more than they had a year ago, and $1.1 trillion of that belongs to the 50 biggest companies, according to a recent report from Moody's Investor Services. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Cisco have stockpiled $439 billion.

snip

Most of that money sits overseas, because if it were repatriated, it would be subject to a 35 percent U.S. tax. Spending it, or even giving it back to shareholders, is a pain. No one expects the U.S. to reform its tax system and resolve this issue anytime soon.
Greece needs about 190 billion euros ($212 billion) to bring down its debt to the manageable level of 70 percent of gross domestic product. That's about 48 percent of the five companies' combined cash stash. For paying down the debt, Greece could reward the firms with a special deal on corporate taxes, somewhat like the one Apple now enjoys in Ireland. That sweetheart deal is being investigated by the European Union and is probably doomed. Yet Greece's case is different: The EU, as one of the country's biggest creditors, might be inclined to make a special dispensation to the American companies for helping solve the Greek problem. The U.S. might have some objections, but, as the biggest shareholder in the International Monetary Fund, it, too, stands to lose money if Greece defaults, and the destabilization brought on by a Grexit is certainly not in U.S. interests.

snip

In exchange for less than half of their cash -- and just 13 percent more than it would cost to pay U.S. taxes -- the companies would receive an indefinite, ironclad guarantee of low taxes on non-U.S. operations. Not a bad deal.
Greece, for its part, would get debt relief, plus the companies' European headquarters. Many executives would probably welcome the move to a warm seaside, and Greece would have the beginnings of a powerful tech cluster, which would draw in other companies and create service jobs. With such help, the Greek government could probably afford to be less austere than its creditors want it to be. But it would still need to reform inefficient public services and become more business-friendly, or risk missing out on the obvious benefits of working with the tech titans.


more at the link.

May 8, 2015

NC cop gets burned by free starbucks coffee and sues ...

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbeat/raleigh-police-officer-burned-by-free-coffee-sues-starbucks/ar-BBjc2af?ocid=ansnewsap11

I would love to by on this jury .....

RALEIGH, N.C. — A Raleigh police officer who got a free cup of Starbucks coffee is suing the company for $50,000 after he spilled it and got burned.

WRAL-TV (http://bit.ly/1GXc10R ) reports attorneys said in court Monday that Matthew Kohr should be compensated for burns, blisters and emotional damage caused after the officer spilled a cup of coffee in his lap in 2012.
Kohr says in the lawsuit the lid popped off a cup of coffee he ordered at a Raleigh Starbucks and the cup collapsed. Kohr claims the incident caused such severe stress it activated his Crohn's disease which resulted in surgery to remove part of his intestine. The lawsuit also claims Kohr's wife, Melanie, lost a "source of emotional support, her social companion and her intimate partner."