#our system of ‘one person get most monies some people get little monies and most people get no monies’

[whatbigotspost]

Fun fact!!!! Treating employees well is almost always objectively “good for business”

IF

your indicators of “good for business” are basically any indicator OTHER than “the owner’s unfettered greed and unquenchable lust for more money.”

👍.

[sweetiepie08]

Rebel Z (Chapter 10 Final)

nvader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list please let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. 

Thank you for reading! I do plan to continue the story in a sequel fic, but I may take a short hiatus first. I hope you enjoyed this!

Be on the lookout for the next book in the series, RevolutionZ! In which Zim and Tak attempt to join the Resisty and gain new companions! Dib fills his gap year by joining an alien rebellion! Gaz gets dragged in too! And what happened to Zim in Death Melee is explained! 

However, I will most likely only be posting links to Ao3 than full chapters to Tumblr. Again, Thank you everyone for reading!

[-]

“So, what exactly the fuck was all that stuff with the punch about?” Dib asked once they were a comfortable distance away form the Massive.

Zim glared straight ahead at the stars. “It’s nothing that concerns you, human.”

“Bullshit!” Dib slammed his hand down on the control panel. “Your little stunt could have gotten us killed. Out with it!”

Zim gritted his teeth and gripped the steering mechanism until his knuckles quaked. Dib braced himself for the inevitable screaming denial. Instead, Zim let out a pained sigh. “Fine, if you must know, I figured out three Urth years ago that my mission was a sham and my leaders were trying to have me killed, so I took revenge. Happy?”

“We know all that,” Tak snapped. “And anyway, I told you your mission was a lie a long time ago. What I want to know is how you managed to betray the Tallest without your treasonous thoughts setting of your life clock.”

“Yeah, and who’s Spek?” Dib added.

“You wish to hear Zim’s tale of woe?” He clenched his fist and heaved out another sigh. “Fine. Three Urth years ago, the Tallest contacted me, telling me they selected me to participate in Death Melee, an inter-galactic event that all would be watching.”

“The one where they throw criminals on a planet together to fight to the death?” Tak deadpanned. “That was your first clue?”

“They told me the rules had changed and it was now a contest of elite warriors. For my partner, they gave me a Spek, a smeet just shy of his cadet years. He hadn’t even seen his first cycle yet…” Zim’s fists shook as he cut himself off.

“Since you’re still alive, I’m assuming you won,” Dib said.

“Yes, but…” his gaze fell to the floor. “Yes. Anyway, throughout the Melee, it became clear to me that the Tallest lied. This was still a game for criminals, but Spek…” Zim narrowed his haunted eyes, “he was only there to lessen my chances.”

Dib watched, mesmerized. He thought he’d seen the many moods of Zim. He’d seen everything from proud boasting, to spiteful rage, to pathetic schmooping. But this, this was something else entirely, something he never expected to see from the alien. True remorse.  

“On my journey back to Urth,” he continued, “I had too much time to think and when made it back to m base, I was done with all of it.” Rage grew in his voice with every word. “I knew they lied. I knew they’d been lying. For a moment, I thought, if they didn’t want my genius, maybe someone else would. And that thought was enough to set off my life clock. Instead of simply ripping out my feedback chip, I infected it with a virus that sends the Control Brains a loop of my Urth memories, preventing it from receiving new thoughts and experiences.” A bitter, satisfied smile came to his face. “As far as I can tell, it hadn’t noticed anything was off until now.”

“And the machines I saw you building?” Dib pressed.

Zim drew himself up. “I have a contract with the Resisity. I build them machines, they appreciate my genius and send me monies.”

“And that’s what you’ve been doing for three years?” Dib asked, voice sripping with skepticism.

Zim nodded and said nothing more.

Dib stared at him, trying to get a read on this whole tale. He wasn’t sure what to believe. Zim’s reason for existence seamed to be pleasing his Tallest. The little green monster talked of nothing else since arriving on Urth. He couldn’t imagine Zim wanting anything else and he’d fallen for the schmoopy act before. But this was not schmoop. It was too subtle, too quiet. And that betrayal of his Tallest couldn’t be denied. Something had truly changed.

Dib looked to Tak to gauge her opinion, but her face revealed nothing except careful calculation.

“I’d heard the Resisty had been growing and gaining power,” she mused. “New technology granted them upsetting victories and made them more of a problem than they once were. They could be the key. We need to fight if we ever want a chance of defeating the Control Brains and freeing our people, and for that, we’ll need an army. With your connection and my information, we could pose a real threat to the Empire.”

Dib expected Zim to launch into another tirade about how he wasn’t in it for the politics. That this was all a personal mission and he had no interest in going rogue. That did not happen.

Instead, Zim said nothing for a long time. He simply stared through the windshield in tense silence. But then, a grin grew slowly on his face. “I’m in.”

[-]

When they made it back to Earth, they found that Gaz made use of MiMi and Mini Mouse as gaming companions, Dad bought her excuse that Dib was hanging out at Zim’s house, and that he hadn’t even stopped home long enough to notice the two additional robots in the living room.

Dib went straight to his room and laid out all of his recording devices. He had the notes he took the night Zim and Tak rambled drunkenly on the couch. He had the audio recording of the old man Irken that he couldn’t wait to translate. And he had the spy camera he’d been wearing to capture the whole experience. He never got so much undeniable proof on one mission before, and no one, to his knowledge, had this much evidence of this quality ever. He’d be king of the Swollen Eyeball network if he showed even a fraction of…

His eyes drifted to the Swollen Eyeball emblem pinned to his bulletin board and he let out a sigh. The Swollen Eyeball… what a joke. They’d been reduced to a bunch of anti-science conspiracy nuts. The organization became a competition to see who could shout their wildest theory the loudest. What were they compared to a real evil alien empire, a real soul-sucking, Lovecraftian horror, and a real space alien rebellion?

No. This was bigger than some crack-pot conspiracy group. This rebellion universe-shattering consequences. And he was going to be part of it.

[-]

Out in his ship, Zim stared at his PAK connector with warry eyes. He wasn’t sure what held him back now. His stunt on the Massive already solidified his traitor status, but this felt different, more official. It was one thing to enact vengeance on those who betrayed him. It was quite another to completely detach himself from society.

He’d been unwaveringly loyal to the Empire since his conception, but they didn’t want him. He’d seen that years ago. So what was he waiting for?

He disconnected the PAK from his back and ignored the lifeclock in the corner of his eye as he plugged it in. He opened the hatch, clicked a pair of tweezers in his fingers, then reached them toward his feedback chip.

At a light tug, his computer’s voice gave an automated warning.

You are attempting to remove the feedback chip. Doing so is an act of treason against the Irken Empire. Are you sure you want to proceed?

Zim closed his eyes and pulled the chip free.

[-]

Tak’s footsteps echoed as she walked across the concrete garage floor. MiMi’s metallic feet clacked beside her. Apart from that, the room was silent. She was used to silence. One grows accustomed to it when traveling alone through space. But these last few days had been anything but. And with Zim as her dubious ally, silent moments like this were certain to be few and far between.

And yet, this moment, she felt the need to fill it with something.

She popped open the windshield of her ship and hopped inside. “MiMi, my disc please.” Mimi reached into her head and took out the Urth data storage disc. Zim wasn’t the only one with a secret stash.

Tak took the disc from Mimi and placed it in a tray on the ship’s control panel. “Ship, track six please.” As she hopped out, music began to play. Smooth, jazzy horns filled the air and the singer began crooning.

Maybe this time, I’ll be lucky. Maybe this time he’ll stay…

The song was from an Urth performance art piece. The vocalist sang about some male mate. That part didn’t interest Tak in the slightest. Still, there was something about it...

Not a loser anymore, like the last time and the time before…

The song continued to play as Tak opened the engine access panel and began her work. While manipulating the many gears and wires, she found a few interesting repair methods that the human implemented over the years. Many employed the use of an Urth bonding strip called “duct tape”, which she had to admit came in handy. The human didn’t do a bad job, even if it was pretty slap-dash.

All the odds are in my favor, something’s bound to begin…

She finally untangled a mess of wires and reconnected them.

It’s gotta happen, happen sometime…

She fused together the final wire and the ship hummed to life. Fuel Regulation Systems online.

Tak smiled, “Okay Mimi, looks like we’re finally getting somewhere.” She ducked back into the access panel as the song his its crescendo.

Maybe this time I’ll win.

[scrumptiousalpacadeer]

Paul Thomas Anderson’s THE MASTER and what it may teach us about  mind-control vs freedom Post-Covid

So last night I watched The Master. It was a most pleasing way to spend a Saturday evening; alone, with two cats draped on the sofa and windowsill respectively, and it rounded off a pretty pedestrian Saturday mostly spent mowing and raking the lawn and scattering grass seed whilst *Boo finished reading Jacqueline Wilson’s Rose Rivers whilst occasionally appearing at the back door to yell; ‘mama, you’re driving me nuts with your gardening!’ Somehow I’d been looking forward to scattering my grass seed all week - the promise of moist new green growth on our dusty brown patches. Thing is - and there is a lesson in here somewhere - the grass seed box said it covered 10m square - I guess I got a bit carried away and basically I ran out after one corner. So one corner of my lawn will look like Eden, and the rest will continue to look like some deserted Sicilian scrubland... That’s life, baby, I guess. 

So anyway, The Master....dear God. There are many ways I could go with this...Firstly undiluted, scope, wonder, singular sensitivity, impossible mastery, extreme importance and sheer exalting, agonising beauty of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films is the subject of another post. (I’m still on a high from the explosive visceral experience of watching Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood and that was, what, 5 years ago? 10 years ago?) Then The Master came out in 2012 and P.T.A. raised his game even more. 

I could, and will another time, talk about the astonishing gift Joaquin Phoenix afforded the world with his embodiment of his character, Freddie Quell. (I say ‘embodiment’; ‘performance’ always strikes me as an incorrect way of describing an actors full immersion in an imagined character’s inner life.) To my mind, Freddie is one of the most affecting, heart-breaking, occasionally funny and downright truthful portrayals of a ‘broken’ man; an exiled, psychologically damaged, wild and lonely spirit who roams the world, desperate for love and acceptance, clearly one of the great ‘un-belonging’ of the post-war world in America. In one the open scenes he simulates fucking an over-sized figure of woman carved in sand on a hot beach, for the amusement of his army pals. In the final scene of the film, after his long long incredible journey , we see him caressing this sand woman again, resting his next to a large sandy breast. Oh poor dear Freddy Quell; my tears ran with him last night; knowing myself in this second viewing of the film, to be so like him. Perhaps one day I will be able to shake Joaquin Phoenix’s hand and say ‘thankyou so much for Freddie.....’ I often feel like that with actors work that resonates through the bones. 

I could also talk about how Philip Seymour Hoffman was possibly the greatest screen actor of his time, and how crazy it was that the world didn’t seem to mourn his tragic early death. Was it perhaps because he died of an accidental heroine overdose? - and this, well, didn’t sit very well with Hollywood. His embodiment here of Lancaster Dodd, charismatic leader of philosophical cult movement The Cause, is breath-taking. But then all his performances were breath-taking. I had a dream about him once (whole other post entitled CELEBRITY DREAMS coming your way); we were kind of friends even though I knew he was dead and his face kept appearing on billboards all over London. If, when; I meet him in the spirit world, I’d like to shake his hand and thank him for Lancaster Dodd and Brandt in The Big Lebowski, and Truman Capote, and also for providing me with one of the most pivotal theatre experiences of my life. August 2001, Edinburgh Festival, I witnessed his production of Jesus Hopped The A Train at The Gilded Balloon; this was running gold theatre. Within half a second of the play ending the entire full house erupted to it’s feet like we’d all been tasered from the floor. Thank you Philip...you gave me faith then that theatre is important; that art comes from dark places and revives...

I could talk about the astonishing crashing score composed by Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

I could also talk about Amy Adam’s terrifying portrayal of Lancaster’s icy wife Peggy and her utterly brilliant final put-down to Freddie: “you either do this for a billion years, or not at all...” (she’s referencing Freddie’s abandonment of the cult she’s set up with her husband, but this line, I feel, could apply to motherhood...….)

                                                  * * * * * * * * * *

 It usually takes me two viewings for a films deeper meaning to seep in, and last night I was struck by what I see as the heart of the film. The core of the film is relationship between Freddie Quell and Lancaster Dodd; it’s an uncompromising study of male vulnerability and the cosmic search for ‘a father figure’...  On a bigger scale, its about how those in positions of assumed power and influence ( Dodd) rely on the adoration and worship of those whom society deem ‘worthless’ (Quell). It’s about the fragility and corruption of a society whereby a man promises freedom and empowerment to his followers (Dodd devises a system of ‘processing’ whereby he takes initiates back to past traumas through a curious mixture of interrogation and hypnosis and ‘cures’ them; he posits that his vision can cure leukaemia and will bring about world peace) and how those ‘disadvantaged’, the great ‘unloved’ can be absorbed into such an attractive lifestyle. In one painful scene, Freddie is taken to a party at a mansion, filled with monied people and luxurious things. Freddie is dressed smartly for the occasion; but is sweating with nerves and orders a scotch at the earliest opportunity, before hiding away in a side room and stealing an ornament. It took me back to my own exile, when, at the age of 17 I landed at Brentwood Boys School in Essex, and cut off from my parents, shattered from my sister’s suicide and a lifetime of confusion, I nonetheless attended many a glorious party; a perfect size 10 and top of the class, I knew how to say all the right things. But, like Freddie, I knew I didn’t and wouldn’t ever fit it. Like him, I would often sneak off to the side rooms, get off my head drunk to hide my shame and hopeless, and cause some fight..

In the end, despite himself, Freddie starts to see through Lancaster’s bullshit and returns to his life on the road. Though The Cause had given him a home, suits and ties, friendship, respect and a certain ‘standing’ that he could only have dreamed of, as he confesses to Peggy at the end, before returning to his own brand of personal lonely freedom; ‘it’s just not how I look’.  

                                                        * * * * * * * 

“Don’t you know, They’re talking about a revolution it sounds like a whisper Don’t you know you’d better run run run run run run run run.....” Tracey Chapman 

Talkin’ About A Revolution

What I find heartening and deeply exciting about these early post-Covid times, as the first chinks of sunlight pour in through windows that have separated us from friends, lovers, fellow man for so long, is that people are choosing freedom. In small ways, perhaps, but I get the overall sense that for many people, fear has had its day. As my dear friend said over tea the other day; ‘people are thinking fuck this, fuck it, we wanna fuck’....well, exactly. 

It was this dear friend I met up with in her wood a few weeks ago; we hugged each other day, and it was such a joyous relief to see her I told her that if I got the virus and killed me, oh fuck it, it would be worth it, just to sit next to her by a river on a sunny day...

I’ve had two other conversations lately to support my little theory; a particularly cheerful friend of mine turned up with her daughter unannounced on my doorstep couple of weeks back  - they had a bag of clothes; would Boo like them? Initially we did the ‘2 m’ thing, paying homage to THE RULES as dictated by the blessed government of this land; I hovered on the threshold of my kitchen - she stood outside by the flower-pots. Then I broke the rules; ‘look, do you wanna come in?’ - That was it. The ice was broken - and she stood, blond, beaming and glorious with her big sunglasses on, in my little kitchen - along with her daughter and mine, and I could literally have feasted forever on the sheer joyous fleshiness of having three other living homo sapiens near me. That sunny day in early June, two women in a small village in Sussex chose freedom. ‘I’ve just had enough of all this virus stuff’ she said ‘I’m even dreaming about it! I’ve just had enough’. 

Then last week a friend came over with her three glorious girl children and told me how her youngest, a endlessly sweet six yr old, had ‘hidden behind a tree with her friend so that they could have a hug’. Lets think about that for a moment; six years olds hiding behind trees to have a hug. Its pretty damn sad. And weird. This friend had been on full on paranoid lockdown due to one of the children’s potential serious health issues - but she’d reached breaking point. ‘I’ve had enough’ she said. And that day her girls and my daughter raced up and down the stairs and around the garden in glorious flagrance of any state prescribed social distancing rules. 

                                                * * * * * * * * * * * 

In the end, Freddie breaks free from his master’s and The Cause’s control and continues - we assume -  his lonely drift around the world. In their final agonising meeting, Lancaster reveals the smashed ungenerous ego of a despot thwarted by his adoring lover: ‘if I meet you in a future life I will show you no mercy, you will be my sworn enemy’. Freddie, emaciated, tearful and ever desperate to belong, asks Lancaster to reveal to him how and where they’d met in a previous life... He knows it’s bullshit, in the way I knew my father was incapable of loving me, but when you’ve got a Krakatoa sized hole in your heart, you just can’t stop hoping somehow...pledging allegiance to a resplendent asshole is somehow better than our greatest fear; the abyss of loneliness and isolation. Lets face it; freedom is pretty terrifying after such a long stretch of captivity. 

That’s the thing in these Covid times; we always have a choice. We have a choice now, whether to be continue to be afraid or whether to choose freedom. Whether to cut loose and go racing into the desert on a motorbike back to his first love, like Freddie does, following his own destiny, not succumbing to control forces that on the surface entice him into a richer more glamorous life. 

And I’m not talking about being an complete idiot and denying there’s a serious virus still on the loose, or hugging scared people in the street to prove a point, and I’m not denying  that many people are extremely vulnerable - I’m talking about something entirely different; that deep inner decision that calls in all of us - whether to choose the uncharted waters of freedom, or rest in an all-too familiar fear zone. 

To conclude, my dear friend Matilda sent me this book ‘Big Magic - Creative Living By Fear’ by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love (I’ve just watched the film its rather good I think...) Anyway, there’s this great chapter called Fear Is Boring which rang through me, growing up as I did drenched in the anxiety of a Munchausen Syndrome-by-proxy mother (WHOLE other post...) - but here’s what she says about the time, age fifteen, she ‘wised up’ to fear and chose another way: 

“I noticed that my fear never changed, never delighted, never offered a surprise twist or an unexpected ending. My fear was a song with only one note - only one word, actually - and that word was “STOP!” 

Dear reader, I’m shitting myself with the best of them, but I’ve had enough of fear. I’m not stopping. I’m going. What do you say?..... xxxx 

Big love from Christine 

[iraklismytridis]

Ashtar Sheran message to You 2 PART TWO ​Sharon: I previewed part of this channeling on Facebook and of course reactions were in two camps. The light loved the message and those of lower frequency tried to understand it, or not, through their own limited ability to do so. Some of the reactions were just comical - assigning a political affiliation to an extraterrestrial? People, don't be put off by the negative reactions you're going to hear from others, some are trying to understand and some are trying to fill your mind with doubt. There are those who don't want these awesome changes to happen to this planet but don't let them dim your Light. There are some who are even thriving in this world as it is, but that's not equality and equality is what has to happen.

We all know, we feel ourselves changing, our personality changes as we rise in frequency, we gain our power back, we lose fear, we release more of our shadow, we see the ships overhead, more and more of us speak to them and we are hearing again, the truth of what's happened to this planet as we wake up to it and it's becoming common knowledge.

I wanted to get more clarification on Ashtar's wonderful message because when Ashtar says, "The time is now," then I feel we need to be more specific.

Ashtar: Politics is irrelevant to this liberation of the planet. Assigning a political affiliation to anyone involved in this liberation is illogical. We are changing your systems and one happens to be your political system, so it is being changed to higher benevolence across the world. Changes are being made across every system you use to control yourselves, in order to gain freedom for the people of Eden.

Me: When you say the time is now, what are you talking about specifically and what time period are you talking about?

Ashtar: As I said last night, Sharon, every moment has been pivotal throughout this process but going forward, the next 5 years will be particularly important. Everything is being lined up now so that the system falls like a house of cards. We are striving for a step by step implosion, rather than a full-out crash of all systems. One by one, we desire to bring the systems down. We have operatives in key places who will become active when parts of them fail. For example, if a bank is taken down, then its resurrection will be of the Light - new owners operating the QFS (Quantum Financial System). Old money will be replaced with new money as the financial collapse develops. Old system will be replaced by the new QFS system.

Me: Trying to envision how this would look but it's probably not as cut and dry as it seems....

Ashtar: Who do you think is funding your Alliance military operations? The dark?

Me: True. The QFS is! Awesome! So it's already operational on this planet at least in pockets. Yeah, they would've been cut off, wouldn't they? LOL

Ashtar: The military is split.

Money - your financial system - is key because it is the primary vehicle of enslavement of the masses, simply because you all have to work. Your pay levels are set by the upper tier and inevitably are inadequate to see to your needs. Inflation is also a construction of the cabal which makes it harder for the ordinary person to survive. And there is so much being stolen from - then lauded in front of you. That money always belonged to the people. Your "law" makers simply steal or change the rules to give themselves the largest slice of the pie. Imagine being able to create laws that include yourself and your friends, yet few others benefit. This is about survival now. This is the level you're at right now - surviving, not thriving.

The QFS has been functional for quite a while already but attempts have been made to hack into it. Therefore we require you have a fifth dimensional frequency in order to access your project funds. Your password is your frequency, one of love, nothing else. When you have purified yourself to that extent, you'll be able to initiate your projects.

Me: Can we discuss the St Germaine funds, please Ashtar?

Ashtar: Yes, money will be provided to all upon the planet in order to alleviate the need of having to work. This will help those who are barely surviving in particular. Those funds are the monies which were stolen from you by the cabal.

Me: Yes, skimming off the lottery pot, taking it from your bank accounts, getting interest off your deposits and not repaying any to you, skimming off funds for countries hit by natural disasters, and other diabolical means. So then people don't need a 5D frequency for this, Ashtar?

Ashtar: No, they don't.

Me: I can really see that this is part of crashing the system - letting people walk away from it if they want to.

Ashtar: It is. The time is coming that dissatisfaction with politics, big business and the medical system is so high that people walk away from it.

Me: I've walked away from the medical system - I use alternatives all the time now.

Ashtar: That's an example. You also don't vote.

Me: No, why bother? It's rigged anyway. Everyone knew Justin was going to win.

Ashtar: And next will be the Conservative win because everyone will be fed up with Liberal politics, so then they'll switch to the other hand.

Me: I think some are consistent.

Ashtar: Yes, but many aren't. They switch back and forth and the system works because you don't understand your true needs.

Me: True. So who's to say they won't try to steal the St Germaine funds then?

Ashtar: It's possible, however we'll be watching for enormous tax hikes, for example. Also large increases in doctor's fees, for example, won't be tolerated by the people - there will be ombudsmen to help with situations like this. New legislation will be created to prevent this type of theft.

Me: So how does this relate to the financial crash?

Ashtar: When key elements of the financial system are ready to crash, these beneficial funds will roll out.

Me: Who's to say people won't start investing in the stock market then? They could just start injecting their funding back into the old system?

Ashtar: We have this in hand. Much of your old system won't be an option to you anymore.

Me: Okay. So you're saying the system will have had to change or at least legislation will have had to have changed in order that we don't misuse our benevolent funds. I'm even guessing, and this is a guess, that indictments have to be finished before these funds will be delivered. Get the crooks out of politics before the funds are handed out. Or hand the funds out and people walk away from the crooked system. It could work both ways. And of course you can't tell me the timing of this.

Ashtar: Within the next 5 years, most likely. It's not up to us; that decision comes from the highest one. And like I keep reminding you, it's all frequency related.

Me: Oh, so when the frequency of the political system rises, then it allows for more positive developments.

Ashtar: As an example.

Me: Hmm. I'm thinking it could go any way. There are a lot of different directions this could take.

Ashtar: And we're asking that you be prepared for them all.

Me: No less than that. LOL  So the St Germaine Funds and the project monies are two separate things, really.

Ashtar: Yes. All get the St Germaine funds in order to relieve your impovershment and then a new system has to be created of getting out food supplies and other essentials. Some may decide to continue working. That's their choice. But those with project monies must have and must hold, a fifth dimensional frequency in order to initiate their projects. Some are already at this point and are carrying out their project work now.

Me: Okay, got it. So how about the indictments?

Ashtar: Indictments are still being researched, evidence is still being gathered. Therefore we cannot reveal much to the people at this point because of judicial system requirements for a fair trial. Trials will begin this year, and as I said, the first will be Hillary. This too, will be a logical process where scrutinization of each indictee will find others complicit as well. The network will be revealed. And as I said before, all roads lead to Rome. (see our video) The criminals of your entire world will be exposed, not just the U.S. It is a large process.

Me: Why are the ships getting so close to earth?

Ashtar: They always were, you're just seeing them now. Many more ships have come in closer in the last few years, but the ships you're seeing now were always there.

Me: If all dark ETs are to be taken off planet, what are we going to do with our royals?

Ashtar: Your royal families will decline in importance and increase in impotence as the power of the people is increased. It is that you give your power away to your royals and world leaders that you are in the predicament you are in. So taking your power back means the demotion of those currently in power. This system will fall.

New world leaders will serve the public, not rule them.

Me: (Day 3) I hear you want to make more comments, Ashtar. I have to say, other than my books with Ivo, this is my first 3 day channeling. LOL

Ashtar: I thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to your people, Sharon. I want to point out that even decades ago, people were coming forward and telling others they had been molested by members of the clergy, and yes, a few priests were thrown under the bus by the dark ones in order to appease those listening to these accounts. But you see now that that little trickle has opened up into a large flow - where pedophilia is now known to be practised by many in power whether it be politics, business, Hollywood or religion - pedophilia is a common practise. You cannot stop the Truth from coming out the higher the energies are raised.

And these trickles of truth will begin in many other areas, around your world, and as they are accepted by the public - as the public aligns with these truths, more and more will be revealed. Because this is the creation of the new reality for your planet - based on the truth. The lies must first be exposed and then a more beautiful reality will come from that.

We understand that when trials are aired that many will be shocked. Terrans will undergo a grieving process for some time. It will be up to those already in the know to carry on and help those dealing with these deceits.

Me: Yeah, it's hard to shock me anymore. I've heard so much!

Ashtar: And you were prepared. As was intended.

Me: I have noticed that every galactic I've spoken to lately has become more talkative. (If people want to know what the GFL commanders have told me, check out the disclosure page on our website. Also check out the account of Tamara the Pleiadian who was hostaged in Area 51).

Ashtar: These changes will be implemented within the next 5 years. Remember that all changes are made possible by the collective frequency of the people of Eden. As your vibration rises, more changes can be implemented.

Me: Thank you Ashtar. ​ Ashtar: Thank you Sharon. I wish all a happy 20/20.

[relationshipsandpolitics]

How I Alienated My Potential Readers Part #2

And we’re back.   Here’s how we are looking after Part 1:

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Beto O’ Rourke, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

Well, some things have changed so we can just go ahead and remove Beto, which is a shame because I had a good rant about him sucking.  Alas, my genius will have to wait.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg

I debated where to put climate change in this breakdown.  For me, climate change is issue #1b for me.  If a candidate denied it, that would be an automatic disqualifier. It should be for every voter.  But I am surprised about how we all agree this is a dire issue that needs to be dealt with immediately, but the only candidate who made it their chief issue, Governor Jim Inslee, got virtually no support and was one of the first to drop out.  We really talk out of both sides of our mouth on climate change.  We all agree it is going to kill us, but we don’t seem to prioritize it, do we?   I have some thoughts about that, but I digress.  

The good news is all remaining candidates agree climate change is happening and that we need to act. The bad news is many of the candidates do not appear willing to take those drastic steps needed to stave off the worst outcomes. This is a problem.  Even the remaining candidates who are best on this issue leave a lot to be desire.  As it stands, I’m not removing anyone because no one is Republican levels of awful on the issue, but also no one meets the bar that needs to be set on genuine change. But seriously, we are all awful on this issue, me included.   We need to be taking steps in out personal lives to cut back on carbon emissions, and we need to be willing to pay more to save our planet.  The truth is if the leading scientific minds announced that to save our planet, we needed to raise taxes by 2% on everyone, we’d instead spend double that to buy front row seats to the end of the world.  We as a people truly suck.

Now let’s finally get into the issues that differentiate the candidates. This is really the whole game for me.  Because there are certain issues I care about tremendously, issues that I feel we need to address if this country is going to survive or if we will slip fully into the oligarchy we seem destined towards.  I’m talking about corporate power and workers’ rights.  Look, we all know the stats.  Income inequality is worse now than at any time since the Gilded Age.  That preceded the Great Depression.  Billionaires and corporations hold more power than the bottom 95% of the population combined. They can write a measly $5,000 check and get face time with the most powerful politicians in the country, and another $5,000 check gets them their full support.  I know this because part of my job is to write those checks.  I don’t try to get into too much about what I do, but suffice it say I work within politics very much behind the scenes. I don’t like what I do, even if I believe in the interests I advocate for.  People like me should not exist, but our corrupt political system not only enables me, but empowers me.

We all want a candidate we can trust to act in the average American’s best interest.  But we so willingly elect people who knowingly fuck us over in favor of the rich and corporate interests that it’s a wonder they even bother going through the motions trying to appease us.  And what have we got for it?  Unions have been decimated as lawmakers pass corporate-sponsored Right to Work laws.  Wages have stagnated while wealth for the top 1% has skyrocketed.  Americans are more productive than ever but seeing a smaller share of that productivity.   Compared to all other industrialized nations, we offer no guaranteed paid vacation, family leave, or health care. This is despite being the richest nation in the world.   College is a necessity to obtain a well-paying job, yet it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain, meaning anyone graduating with loans will be paying them off until they retire. Or die.

These developments are not a coincidence.  They are the results of deliberate efforts by monied interests.  Next, they will come after Social Security and Medicare, claiming we need to reign in the deficit.  And both Republicans and Democrats will heed their call, and we will buy their sudden concern about deficits.  They’ll vote to raise the retirement age and cut benefits, we’ll get mad, and then re-elect them anyway.

How does this rant relate to the upcoming 2020 elections?  It relates because the next decade will mark the point of no return, in my estimation.  Either this country will wake up to getting screwed and finally vote to do something about it, or it will cement its acceptance of the status quo.  Our descent into oligarchy has been relatively gradual because even the Democratic administrations have done little to stem the tide.  They’ve just slowed it down by promoting policies benefiting the rich while throwing tokens of support to the working class, which is everybody else.  They bump up the income tax rates slightly while ignoring the ways the rich really make their money.  They threaten anti-trust lawsuits but never follow through.   They bail out the banks and refuse to prosecute the heads of those banks.  Then they appoint them to run the Treasury Department. Republicans do these same things; they are just more brazen about it.  Whereas Democrats will announce tighter regulations on businesses but include weak enforcement and huge loopholes, Republicans simply get rid of the regulations. Republicans cut the taxes of the rich, Democrats keep them at the status quo.  

The next president has a unique opportunity to finally right the wrongs of decades of neo-liberal fiscal policy.  They can bring the country in line with the rest of the democratic world by pushing policies that help the poor, working and middle classes.   Young parents would be able to afford to have a child.  College graduates would be able to afford to buy home and have a crazy thing called disposable income because their college debt was wiped out and college itself became affordable.  People would stop fucking dying because they don’t have health care. Seriously, on this last point, what in the ever-loving fuck is wrong with people for not being willing to raise their taxes to fund universal health care?

We need to begin assessing potential candidates by what they want to accomplish to fix this issue.   And we can best determine if they will remain mired in the status quo of empty gestures and corporate checks, or if they will fight for us, by their words and actions.  With that in mind, I’m going to base my choice on whether the remaining candidates can be expected to support the fundamental restructuring of government and wealth equality.  I think you all know where I’m going with this one.

Corey Booker, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, John Delaney – The Technocratic Legislators

Here you have some good moderate Democratic legislators.  Booker, Harris and Klobuchar are sitting U.S. Senators while Delaney is a former Representative.  I don’t really have an issue with any of them, save maybe Delaney.  They all are effective legislators, even if they may be more moderate than I’d like.  I particularly like Booker and Harris as people if not politicians.  But at the end of the day, I can’t really rely on them to push the things that need to be front and center.  I don’t exactly know what their broad policy even is.  Sure, they will come out with a good sound bite or a good proposal on some smaller but still important issue.  Booker is doing great things on tackling issues facing inner city youths.  Harris is good on gun reform.  But Booker is way too closely tied with Big Pharma.  Harris has an awful record on criminal justice and did nothing to help homeowners defrauded during the housing crisis.

They both illustrate a major concern we should all share.  When you have a record of being too cozy with some terrible industries, it shows that the voters can’t truly trust you to have their back.  Campaign contributions are par for the course.  You need them to win elections.  But when you take a disproportionate amount of money from very specific industries, it means you are probably bought by them.  Don’t be surprised if Booker nominates a Pharmaceutical lobbyist to head up CMS.  And when private equity managers donate to Harris, as Blackstone’s Tia Breakley did in March, 2019, they are doing so because there is a reasonable belief that Harris and others won’t come after them.  

Again, I think Harris and Booker are good people and good legislators.  And the critique about money is not limited to them, as I plan on thoroughly ripping into Buttigieg and Biden on it.   But when you take these facts along with the truth that neither candidate is pushing the sort of structural reforms needed in this country, I think it’s fair to say their presidencies would be rather unremarkable.

Amy Klobuchar and Jon Delaney share the money problem, but they have so much more going for them!  Klobuchar treats her staff like absolute shit, which only matters when you remember that we are relying on her to protect all low-level workers.  She clearly has contempt for people beneath her on the career ladder, and a wise woman once said “when a person shows you who they are, believe them.”  

Klobuchar and Delaney have spent their entire campaign advocating not for what they believe, but for trashing other candidates who dare to dream. Klobuchar and Delaney come from the school of Democratic politicians who believe things are too hard to try, and we might lose Republican voters by trying to be Democrats.  The Klobuchar’s and Delaney’s of the world would be happy to adopt every major Republican fiscal position if it meant they got to be President.  Also, Delaney is the moron who thought it was a good idea to trash Medicare for All at the California Democratic convention.  

I would vote for Harris and Booker and not feel bad about it.  I’d feel weird about voting for Klobuchar, and Delaney has as much chance of the nomination as Scott Baio.   They are out.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg

We’re going to go after the young guns now.  The candidates we all secretly wish were just a bit better so that we didn’t have to choose from three candidates in their 70’s.  But these candidates are ultimately empty shells of better candidates who seem too concerned with appearing like the rational voice in the room to have a vision for our country.

Let’s start with Mayor Pete Buttigieg.   I was talking with my mother about who she was going to support in the primary.  Let me be clear that I did not initiate this conversation.  I’d literally rather talk to my mother about our respective sex lives than politics.  But my mother has a bit of a control issue, and this blog was cheaper than therapy.

Anyway, my mother said she was supporting either Biden (shocking, I know) or Buttigieg.  She said she liked that he was young, and it was great he was gay. I asked my mom what positions of his did she support, and she couldn’t really name any except that he didn’t support Medicare for All.  This was a selling point for her.  See, my mother represents a huge segment of the Democratic base that is upper middle class, socially liberal (except Kaepernick should’ve stood) and fiscally moderate (aka conservative but they swear they have homeless friends).  What this really means is they are Democrats when it doesn’t hurt them to be.  They think what’s going on at the border is abhorrent, but they know someone who was mugged by an “illegal” and we need a wall.  And they support the idea of everyone having health insurance, but no way will that mean they have to pay more in taxes.   They agree housing is too expensive, but then they’ll oppose affordable housing development in their neighborhoods because they attract a “bad element.”  For these people, Buttigieg is the ideal candidate. They get to keep their money and nice gated communities, but because he is gay they can call themselves progressive.   Plus, we know Buttigieg won’t do anything monstrous like keeping refugees locked up or denying basic rights to LGTBQ people, so how could anyone not support him?

Well, let me be the first to say that Pete Buttigieg is awful.  First, keep in mind this guy is the Mayor of South Bend.  That’s less a city and more a place for Notre Dame fanboys to “romance” the gold helmets in a sleazy motel.  He won his last election with 8,500 votes.  And he still managed to piss off a sizable number of his constituents by botching police relations with the black community.  And now people think he can run a country.  But he’s taken seriously because he raised a boatload of money and the pundits (also rich white people generally) like him.  Never mind where that money is coming from and what favors he now owes to those people, right?

Mayor Pete came out for Medicare for All but decided when it was political opportune to trash it using Republican talking points.  His actual healthcare plan is truly awful.  Pete Buttigieg is the darling candidate for voters who don’t want anything to change, like my mother. They have good health insurance.  They own their house and see it as an asset, not a noose.  They don’t have any student debt, mainly because they attended college when it cost the equivalent of an iPhone.  Buttigieg is a technocrat with a nice haircut. He is a lot like Obama, minus the everything. But his message is one of comfort to the people who own vacation homes in upstate New York and tie rainbow bandannas around their dog’s neck for Pride Week. Under a Buttigieg administration, civility will return and nothing else will change.  If the biggest criticism of Sanders and Warren is they have pie-in-the-sky ideas, then Buttigieg’s biggest critique is he has no ideas.  It’s just sad how little that matters to the people who will decide this election.

Julian Castro: you’re next. Here’s someone I kind of like.  He is great on housing, one of the core issues keeping Americans from feeling secure.  I live in an area once considered cheap for housing.  But that’s changing.  They keep building and building but rents still shoot higher and higher.   Sometimes I feel the laws of supply and demand don’t work with housing.  I mean, it works when there is low supply and high demand like in Los Angeles and San Francisco.  But where I live, there is plenty of supply, yet rents are increasing as much as 10% year over year.  Likely this is because demand is still high to live near an urban center.  It doesn’t matter if there are tons of vacant units. Renters are willing to pay the cost and don’t do a good job shopping around.  Also, as rents continue to soar while jobs continue to navigate towards major cities and people continue to need to live near those jobs, our commutes will get longer and longer.  This means more cars on the road, more pollution in the air. Solving the housing crisis means putting a huge dent in climate change. No one seems to understand the impact of not having affordable housing, but Castro comes fairly close.  I think I would go for him if he wasn’t so milquetoast on every other issue.  He gets completely lost in the shuffle.  I think Castro supports Medicare for All? I mean, I do know where he stands because I follow this stuff closely, but it should be clear to the average voter.  Castro is young, attractive and is relatively progressive compared to the field.  But he isn’t charismatic.  He doesn’t articulate his message clearly enough, and my big concern is whether he can create a narrative that gives his administration a chance to pass meaningful legislation.  It’s not that I can’t get on board with Castro based on policy, but I just don’t think he has the chops to get it done.  Castro’s other problem is he doesn’t speak to workers’ rights issues enough. He pays them lip service, and I’m sure he believes in increasing union membership and raising the minimum wage. I just can’t envision him fighting hard for those issues once in office.  I, quite frankly, see him as another politician pushing incremental change on some areas and tackling the low hanging fruit issues of the Democratic base rather than swinging for the fences.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders

And then there were three. I think we all knew it was coming down to these three.  Let’s not kid ourselves here.  We know who is getting the next ax, but the bottom line is these are the three true contenders and until things change, they are the only horses in the race.  So we will tackle them together in Part 3, which is hopefully coming soon.

[picardonhealth]

If the goal is to bolster health, isn’t basic income a better bet than pharmacare?

Keeping people healthier longer means ensuring they have a decent amount of money

ANDRÉ PICARD, The Globe and Mail 

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

'Millions of Canadians have to choose between paying for groceries or their prescription medications," Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, wrote in a recent commentary.

That is one of the most frequently cited reasons for national pharmacare by proponents of a sweeping domestic plan.

First of all, that claim is questionable. It is based on polling data that show 23 per cent of those surveyed said they had experienced difficulty paying for prescriptions. Another study found that 731,000 Canadians borrowed money to pay for their prescription drugs, and some were cutting back on necessities as a result.

To say that millions are going hungry to pay for drugs is quite a leap.

Regardless, shouldn't the priority of policy-makers be to ensure that all Canadians can afford necessities such as food and housing, not just prescription drugs?

If you're going to make a massive investment of public funds, doesn't it make more sense to embrace a basic income rather than "free" drugs for all?

Of course, ensuring that people have affordable access to essential prescription drugs is important, just as important as affordable access to physician and hospital care.

But it's curious how the left, and progressives more generally, have gone gaga over the idea of providing more sickness care and seemingly forgotten the importance of investing in keeping people healthy in the first place.

Affordable sickness care is important, especially if you're sick.

But the way to keep people healthier longer is to ensure that they have a decent income, a roof over their heads, healthy food, a good education, a sound physical environment and sense of belonging.

These building blocks are what academics call the socio-economic determinants of health.

For example, if a person with asthma and diabetes is living in substandard housing infested with mould and depending on a food bank for nutrition, no amount of asthma and diabetes medication is going to make them well - only having the means to afford better accommodations and better food will.

A national pharmacare program would cost somewhere between $15-billion and $30-billion, depending on which analysis you believe.

A national basic-income program - which would bring everyone up to the poverty line - would cost an estimated $43-billion.

Which program would help the most Canadians? Which approach would have the most lasting impact?

There was a time, not that long ago, when Canada had a federal Department of Health and Welfare.

In fact, in 1974, Marc Lalonde, then-minister of health and welfare, produced a landmark report titled A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians, which eloquently explained that improvements in health could only be achieved much more effectively with changes in lifestyle and environment than with more medicine.

Yet the caution was not heeded. Health spending (or more precisely, sickness-care spending) has increased relentlessly since then, and the welfare part of the equation seems to have been forgotten.

Among wealthy, developed countries, Canada spends the least on social programs - 13 per cent of gross domestic product.

Denmark, by contrast, spends 27 per cent on social programs.

Denmark has embraced upstream thinking, while Canada has been systematically underspending on social programs such as income supports, affordable housing, child care and so on for three decades.

We need to get our priorities straight, and spend smarter.

None of this is meant to suggest providing affordable access to essential prescription drugs is unimportant. But there is more to do.

In Canada of late, we have had too much boosterism for a singlepayer drug plan, and too little serious discussion of the pros and cons of the alternatives.

The U.S. debate about expanding Medicare parallels Canada's debate about pharmacare. But they have articulated the options more clearly: 1) Medicare for all, a single-payer system that would virtually eliminate private insurers; 2) a public option, where insurance would be offered by the state for those who can't afford private coverage and; 3) an individual mandate, where insurance is mandatory, and you can get it publicly or privately.

Canadian politicians and policy-makers should express clearly which of those approaches they favour for pharmacare.

And just as important, they should discuss the opportunity costs - what could be done to improve the health of Canadians if public monies went to a health program other than single-payer pharmacare, such as a basic income.

The broader question we need to answer is: Ultimately, what will provide the biggest bang for our health-care buck?

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[mostlysignssomeportents]

#5yrsago RIP, Aaron Swartz

  To the extent possible under law,       Cory Doctorow   has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to   "RIP, Aaron Swartz."

Update: Go read Lessig: "He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you."

My friend Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday, Jan 11. He was 26. I got woken up with the news about an hour ago. I'm still digesting it -- I suspect I'll be digesting it for a long time -- but I thought it was important to put something public up so that we could talk about it. Aaron was a public guy.

I met Aaron when he was 14 or 15. He was working on XML stuff (he co-wrote the RSS specification when he was 14) and came to San Francisco often, and would stay with Lisa Rein, a friend of mine who was also an XML person and who took care of him and assured his parents he had adult supervision. In so many ways, he was an adult, even then, with a kind of intense, fast intellect that really made me feel like he was part and parcel of the Internet society, like he belonged in the place where your thoughts are what matter, and not who you are or how old you are.  

But he was also unmistakably a kid then, too. He would only eat white food. We'd go to a Chinese restaurant and he'd order steamed rice. I suggested that he might be a supertaster and told him how to check it out, and he did, and decided that he was. We had a good talk about the stomach problems he faced and about how he would need to be careful because supertasters have a tendency to avoid "bitter" vegetables and end up deficient in fibre and vitamins. He immediately researched the hell out of the subject, figured out a strategy for eating better, and sorted it. The next time I saw him (in Chicago, where he lived -- he took the El a long way from the suburbs to sit down and chat with me about distributed hash caching), he had a whole program in place.

I introduced him to Larry Lessig, and he was active in the original Creative Commons technical team, and became very involved in technology-freedom issues. Aaron had powerful, deeply felt ideals, but he was also always an impressionable young man, someone who often found himself moved by new passions. He always seemed somehow in search of mentors, and none of those mentors ever seemed to match the impossible standards he held them (and himself) to.

This was cause for real pain and distress for Aaron, and it was the root of his really unfortunate pattern of making high-profile, public denunciations of his friends and mentors. And it's a testament to Aaron's intellect, heart, and friendship that he was always forgiven for this. Many of us "grown ups" in Aaron's life have, over the years, sat down to talk about this, and about our protective feelings for him, and to check in with one another and make sure that no one was too stung by Aaron's disappointment in us. I think we all knew that, whatever the disappointment that Aaron expressed about us, it also reflected a disappointment in himself and the world.  

Aaron accomplished some incredible things in his life. He was one of the early builders of Reddit (someone always turns up to point out that he was technically not a co-founder, but he was close enough as makes no damn), got bought by Wired/Conde Nast, engineered his own dismissal and got cashed out, and then became a full-time, uncompromising, reckless and delightful shit-disturber.

The post-Reddit era in Aaron's life was really his coming of age. His stunts were breathtaking. At one point, he singlehandedly liberated 20 percent of US law. PACER, the system that gives Americans access to their own (public domain) case-law, charged a fee for each such access. After activists built RECAP (which allowed its users to put any caselaw they paid for into a free/public repository), Aaron spent a small fortune fetching a titanic amount of data and putting it into the public domain. The feds hated this. They smeared him, the FBI investigated him, and for a while, it looked like he'd be on the pointy end of some bad legal stuff, but he escaped it all, and emerged triumphant.

He also founded a group called DemandProgress, which used his technological savvy, money and passion to leverage victories in huge public policy fights. DemandProgress's work was one of the decisive factors in last year's victory over SOPA/PIPA, and that was only the start of his ambition.  

I wrote to Aaron for help with Homeland, the sequel to Little Brother to get his ideas on a next-generation electioneering tool that could be used by committed, passionate candidates who didn't want to end up beholden to monied interests and power-brokers. Here's what he wrote back:  

  First he decides to take over the whole California Senate, so he can do things at scale. He finds a friend in each Senate district to run and plugs them into a web app he's made for managing their campaigns. It has a database of all the local reporters, so there's lots of local coverage for each of their campaign announcements.

Then it's just a vote-finding machine. First it goes through your contacts list (via Facebook, twitter, IM, email, etc.) and lets you go down the list and try to recruit everyone to be a supporter. Every supporter is then asked to do the same thing with their contacts list. Once it's done people you know, it has you go after local activists who are likely to be supportive. Once all those people are recruited, it does donors (grabbing the local campaign donor records). And then it moves on to voters and people you could register to vote. All the while, it's doing massive A/B testing to optimize talking points for all these things. So as more calls are made and more supporters are recruited, it just keeps getting better and better at figuring out what will persuade people to volunteer. Plus the whole thing is built into a larger game/karma/points thing that makes it utterly addictive, with you always trying to stay one step ahead of your friends.

Meanwhile GIS software that knows where every voter is is calculating the optimal places to hold events around the district. The press database is blasting them out -- and the press is coming, because they're actually fun. Instead of sober speeches about random words, they're much more like standup or the Daily Show -- full of great, witty soundbites that work perfectly in an evening newscast or a newspaper story. And because they're so entertaining and always a little different, they bring quite a following; they become events. And a big part of all of them getting the people there to pull out their smartphones and actually do some recruiting in the app, getting more people hooked on the game.

He doesn't talk like a politician -- he knows you're sick of politicians spouting lies and politicians complaining about politicians spouting lies and the whole damn thing. He admits up front you don't trust a word he says -- and you shouldn't! But here's the difference: he's not in the pocket of the big corporations. And you know how you can tell? Because each week he brings out a new whistleblower to tell a story about how a big corporation has mistreated its workers or the environment or its customers -- just the kind of thing the current corruption in Sacramento is trying to cover up and that only he is going to fix.

(Obviously shades of Sinclair here...)

also you have to read http://books.theinfo.org/go/B005HE8ED4

For his TV ads, his volunteer base all take a stab at making an ad for him and the program automatically A/B tests them by asking people in the district to review a new TV show. The ads are then inserted into the commercial breaks and at the end of the show, when you ask the user how they liked it, you also sneak in some political questions. Web ads are tested by getting people to click on ads for a free personality test and then giving them a personality test with your political ad along the side and asking them some political questions. (Ever see ads for a free personality test? That's what they really are. Everybody turns out to have the personality of a sparkle fish, which is nice and pleasant except when it meets someone it doesn't like, ...)  Since it's random, whichever group scores closest to you on the political questions must be most affected by the ad.  Then they're bought at what research shows to be the optimal time before the election, with careful selection of television show to maximize the appropriate voter demographics based on Nielsen data.

anyway, i could go on, but i should actually take a break and do some of this... hope you're well  

This was so perfect that I basically ran it verbatim in the book. Aaron had an unbeatable combination of political insight, technical skill, and intelligence about people and issues. I think he could have revolutionized American (and worldwide) politics. His legacy may still yet do so.

Somewhere in there, Aaron's recklessness put him right in harm's way. Aaron snuck into MIT and planted a laptop in a utility closet, used it to download a lot of journal articles (many in the public domain), and then snuck in and retrieved it. This sort of thing is pretty par for the course around MIT, and though Aaron wasn't an MIT student, he was a fixture in the Cambridge hacker scene, and associated with Harvard, and generally part of that gang, and Aaron hadn't done anything with the articles (yet), so it seemed likely that it would just fizzle out.

Instead, they threw the book at him. Even though MIT and JSTOR (the journal publisher) backed down, the prosecution kept on. I heard lots of theories: the feds who'd tried unsuccessfully to nail him for the PACER/RECAP stunt had a serious hate-on for him; the feds were chasing down all the Cambridge hackers who had any connection to Bradley Manning in the hopes of turning one of them, and other, less credible theories. A couple of lawyers close to the case told me that they thought Aaron would go to jail.

This morning, a lot of people are speculating that Aaron killed himself because he was worried about doing time. That might be so. Imprisonment is one of my most visceral terrors, and it's at least credible that fear of losing his liberty, of being subjected to violence (and perhaps sexual violence) in prison, was what drove Aaron to take this step.

But Aaron was also a person who'd had problems with depression for many years. He'd written about the subject publicly, and talked about it with his friends.  

I don't know if it's productive to speculate about that, but here's a thing that I do wonder about this morning, and that I hope you'll think about, too. I don't know for sure whether Aaron understood that any of us, any of his friends, would have taken a call from him at any hour of the day or night. I don't know if he understood that wherever he was, there were people who cared about him, who admired him, who would get on a plane or a bus or on a video-call and talk to him.  

Because whatever problems Aaron was facing, killing himself didn't solve them. Whatever problems Aaron was facing, they will go unsolved forever. If he was lonely, he will never again be embraced by his friends. If he was despairing of the fight, he will never again rally his comrades with brilliant strategies and leadership. If he was sorrowing, he will never again be lifted from it.

Depression strikes so many of us. I've struggled with it, been so low I couldn't see the sky, and found my way back again, though I never thought I would. Talking to people, doing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, seeking out a counsellor or a Samaritan -- all of these have a chance of bringing you back from those depths. Where there's life, there's hope. Living people can change things, dead people cannot.  

I'm so sorry for Aaron, and sorry about Aaron. My sincere condolences to his parents, whom I never met, but who loved their brilliant, magnificently weird son and made sure he always had chaperonage when he went abroad on his adventures. My condolences to his friends, especially Quinn and Lisa, and the ones I know and the ones I don't, and to his comrades at DemandProgress. To the world: we have all lost someone today who had more work to do, and who made the world a better place when he did it.

Goodbye, Aaron.

https://boingboing.net/2013/01/12/rip-aaron-swartz.html

[coin-airdrops]

Getting Started With Crypto

Investing from the crypto-currency market-space can be somewhat daunting to the conventional investor, since investing directly from crypto-currency (CC) necessitates the usage of new tools and embracing a few new theories. Therefore, should you choose to dip your feet in the forex current market, you are going to require a very good concept about what to accomplish and things to anticipate.

 Investing CC's requires one to decide on an Trade which copes from the services and products that you wish to get and sell, make sure they Bit coin, Litecoin, or even any one of those over 1300 additional tokens in drama. In previous versions we've briefly described that the services and products available at a couple markets, to provide you a good idea of different offerings. There are various Exchanges to select from and all of them do things in their way. Search for the items that matter for you personally, for instance:

 - Deposit policies, approaches, and prices of every process

 - Withdrawal coverages and prices

 - Which fiat monies they cope Set for withdrawals and deposits

 - Services and Products they cope in, for example crypto coins, silver, gold

 - Prices for trades

 - where's this Currency established?

 Be ready for the Exchange installation procedure to become lengthy and detailed, since the issuer generally wish to understand alot about you personally. It's comparable to establishing a brand new banking accounts, since the issuer are agents of valuables, plus so they would like to make positive you are who you say that you might be, and which you're a trusted individual to manage. It appears the"confidence' is got overtime, since the concessions normally permit just modest investment sums to start with.

 Your Exchange could continue to keep your CC's in storage to you. Many offer"cold storage" which only means your coins have been kept"off line" and soon you imply you would like to make a move together with them. There are a number of news reports of postings getting hacked, and lots of coins stolen. Consider your coins being in some thing like a banking accounts at the Exchange, but bear in mind your coins are digital just, and that most blockchain trades are permanent. Unlike your own bank, these Exchanges usually do not need deposit , therefore be conscious that hackers are always available wanting whatever they could to get in the Crypto Coins and slip them. Exchanges generally provide password secure accounts, and lots of offer 2-factor approval approaches - some thing to seriously consider as a way to safeguard your accounts from hackers.

 Considering the fact that hackers want to prey Exchanges and your accounts, we always advise that you employ an electronic wallet for the coins. It's not too difficult to maneuver diamonds involving your Exchange account along with your wallet. Make sure you opt for a wallet which manages all of the coins that you are interested in being buying as well as selling. Your wallet is additionally the apparatus you use to"spend" your own coins with all the retailers that take on CC's for the payment. Both kinds of pockets are"sexy" and"cold". Hot pockets are extremely user friendly however they render your coins vulnerable to the world wide web, but just in your own computer, maybe not even the Exchange server. Cold pockets utilize off line storage mediums, such as technical gear storage sticks and simple hardcopy print outs. Employing a cold pocket makes trades harder, however they really are the safest.

 Your wallet comprises the"private" secret that deletes all of the trades that you need to begin. You might also need a"people" key that's shared on the system so all users may spot your own accounts if involved with a trade with you. When hackers receive your personal key, they are able to proceed your own coins anywhere they need, and it's irreversible.

 Despite most of the challenges and crazy volatility, we're convinced that the inherent block-chain technology is actually a game changer, also certainly will reevaluate how trades have been ran ahead.

 If you're prepared to generate a speculative Bitcoin investment in this tumultuous tech, and would like to get all future and current tips out of Crypto TREND Premium, then we're keeping our earlybird Special offer available for only a little more, to allow our subscribers the ability to begin at a $175 discount. Stay tuned in!

[billehrman]

Patience and Foresight

Patience and Foresight

We have not altered our view that we will have many new and more effective therapeutics distributed shortly to reduce hospital stays and the death rate. There most likely will be at least one vaccine approved by the FDA for emergency use by year-end rolling out into broader use two months later with many more efficacious, simpler delivery vaccines available by mid-year.

The financial markets are laser-focused on current news, including increased cases worldwide as the weather cools, causing some partial shutdowns; Congress's failure to pass the additional stimulus; and the election. While we all understand and accept that stock markets are supposed to be discounted valuations of future earnings/events, it is not efficient during periods of uncertainty and at inflection points. Stop listening to the pundits daily on cable news who are constantly looking in the rear-view mirror rather than the windshield.  You need to be patient. Don't overreact to the latest news. Let events unfold with an eye to the future and consider all the variables/probabilities. Investing is based on foresight, not todays new.

Today's economic problems have been caused by the pandemic rather than any financial stress/issues. Monetary bodies and governments have provided tons of liquidity and stimulus to bridge to the other side. Today, we have trillions of excess liquidity sloshing around the global financial system far in excess of economic needs, which has forced investors further out on the risk curve supporting stock and bond prices. This won't change over the next eighteen plus months even as the global economy recovers as we get our arms around the coronavirus, which is happening now even though the increased outbreaks mask it as the weather cools and more time is spent indoors. The financial system is strong, providing the foundation to fund future growth. Spreads have continued to narrow, which indicates little systemic risk in the system, which is always a concern during turbulent times. Not now!

While cognizant of near-term events, a successful investor must focus on the next twelve to eighteen months at a minimum and invest accordingly. Going against the grain is difficult, but you must take advantage of opportunities created short term from those unwilling to look down the road. Investing is based on foresight and lots of patience to let events unfold.

Do you expect the outbreaks to subside by next spring? Do you expect better therapeutics to reduce hospital stays/death rates? Do you see more and more rapid response tests permitting accelerated and safe opening? Do you expect vaccines to be readily available before next summer? Do you expect additional stimulus in the trillions in 2021 and 2022? Do you expect the Fed to remain all in maintaining a near zero-rate policy while buying all bonds insight? Do you see global economies improving by next spring for all the same reasons? Do you see China's economy continuing to accelerate into 2021?

These are the questions to be asking ourselves. Once we get our arms around the pandemic, which we fully expect will happen by next spring, we project a strong re-acceleration in economic growth both here and abroad, which will extend well into 2022.  We do see slower growth in the fourth quarter 2020 and first quarter 2021, down from the torrid pace of 33.1% in the third quarter, but no negative quarters as we fully expect our government, regardless of who wins the election, passing additional stimulus before extended unemployment benefits run out at year-end. In addition, the Fed will do even more if necessary, to provide that bridge to the other side.

The economy has lots of momentum today. Durable goods orders rose for the fifth consecutive month, up 1.9% In September; consumer confidence was 100.9 in October, very strong; home prices accelerated to a 5.7% gain year over year while sales rose 2% month to month; unemployment claims totaled only 751,000 last week, the lowest level since March; personal income increased 0.9% in September while PCE rose a healthy 1.4% leaving the savings rate at a still ridiculous 14.3% and the Chicago business indicator still is over  61.

There is real strength in over 90% of our economy (autos, housing, retail, manufacturing, technology, and transportation) continuing even if additional stimulus is put off a while. However, that is not our base case as regardless of who wins next week, we expect an additional stimulus plan before year-end followed by several trillion more next year focused on increasing jobs. And don't forget that the Fed will have your backs permitting the economy even to run hot, which we consider a real possibility before the end of next year, especially if global growth picks up like here for the same reasons. Then, China is embarking on a new 5-year plan, probably 5-6%/per year, emphasizing the consumer, technology, and a stronger banking system.  

News on therapeutics and vaccines continued to be favorable last week, which supports our view that we will get our arms around the virus sometime next spring. In the interim, we heard that Regeneron's antibody cocktail reduced medical visits by around 57 percent by lowering viral levels and improved symptoms in non-hospitalized patients. This cocktail helps the immune system fight the virus/infections. We also had positive news from Gilead, AstraZeneca, J&J, and Lilly. Finally, rapid response tests are rolling out across the country, which supports opening America safely, offsetting some of the surges, causing movements in the opposite direction.  

It is hard to believe that the election is next week. Regardless of who wins, we expect several trillion in stimulus programs over the next two years, hopefully beginning with one to extend unemployment benefits beyond December 31st along with monies for small/medium size businesses and states. Next year we should see many programs to stimulate growth, investment, and jobs. Biden would outspend Trump, but either way, it will be a big plus for the economy on top of all the excess liquidity in the system along with underlying momentum in many sectors.

We fully expect operating margins and profits to hit new highs next year as corporations continue to tighten costs; leverage technology, not people; and generate vast amounts of cash/free cash flow that will be used to raise dividends, re-initiate buybacks, and make bolt-on acquisitions. While Biden may raise taxes on the wealthy, giving all of it to the lower/middle classes, we do NOT expect him to raise corporate taxes until the economy is well above pre-pandemic levels, which won't occur until sometime in 2022. Shifting individual tax burdens will boost economic growth in 2021 due to differences in the propensity to spend.

We remain very optimistic that the economic outlook for 2021 and 2022 will be much stronger than generally believed today. We are confident that we will win the battle against the coronavirus; the government will pass many trillions in stimulus plans, and the Fed will have our backs. Strong growth plus rising margins will result in S & P earnings $170+/share in 2021, well above consensus expectations today. The market remains undervalued, selling at less than 20 times next year's earnings with 10- and 30-year treasuries offering 0.85% and 1.64% yields, respectively, with bank capital/liquidity ratios at all-time highs.

Investment Conclusions

We are not surprised about the increased volatility and downward pressures in the markets right before the election. The increase in coronavirus cases has hurt too. But a successful investor needs to look down the road at least 12 to 18 months and invest accordingly, like now.

Our base case for 2021 is that we will get our arms around the virus; there will be many trillions in additional stimulus programs; the Fed will remain overly accommodative; the economy will exceed all expectations; global trade will improve; corporate operating margins, profits and cash flow will be at record levels, well above consensus; and the market is 20+% undervalued today.

Next year, the big story will be record operating margins, earnings, cash flow, and returns on capital. The main beneficiaries will be the well-run industrials, commodity (not oil), and transportation companies with tremendous operating leverage as economic growth accelerates. You had to listen to earnings calls to see the huge upside potential out there in these companies that are not seen by the street. While we still like technology, the sector is not nearly as undervalued or under-owned as these more economically sensitive investments.

Investing during uncertain times is not easy as you often are going against the grain. You need to have core beliefs, monitor them, do in-depth research, and invest accordingly. Patience is a necessity, along with the foresight to have a vision of where we are going evaluating risk/returns along the way.

Our investment webinar will be held on November 2nd at 8:30 am EST. You can join the webinar by entering https:/zoom.us/j/9179217852 into your browser or by calling +646 558 8656 and entering the password 9179217852.

Remember to review all the facts; pause, reflect, and consider mindset shifts; look at your asset mix with risk controls; do independent research and …

Invest Accordingly!

Bill Ehrman

Paix et Prospérité LLC

917-951-4139

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[hatkarate2-blog]

What San Francisco's Reform Of Fees And Fines Can Teach Chicago

Dana Robinson lives in her Volkswagen Beetle.

She works various part-time jobs, but for three years, Robinson has had a hard time finding a place she can afford to rent in notoriously expensive San Francisco. Too many times, she didn’t move her car in time for street cleaning and got ticketed for it. The unpaid tickets piled up, and the debt was compounded with late fees. In all, Robinson owed more than $1,000. That was a frightening amount, but what was even scarier for Robinson was the prospect of losing her car.

She thought, “if I lose the Beetle, I have nowhere to live and no way to get back and forth to work. I had two months of literally living in terror of having my car towed every time I got out to go to work.”

“I was just a wreck at that point,” Robinson said.

But through the San Francisco Financial Justice Project, Robinson got her amount reduced to around $300 and that allowed her to pay off the debt.

“It cleaned me out, but I was glad to get it taken care of,” Robinson said.

Stay up-to-date with the latest news, stories and insider events.

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Two years ago, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to assess and reform how fines and fees impact its poorest residents — those in families living below the federal poverty level. San Francisco officials believe their efforts could be a model for Chicago and other cities to follow.

The financial justice project’s mission is finding ways to hold people accountable without putting them in financial distress.

Cutting towing and boot fees in half and allowing people to perform community service to pay off tickets without additional fees are among the reforms that took effect this year.  

Anne Stuhldreher, director of the project, said the first few months have shown that the reforms are a win-win for both residents and government.

“The number of people getting on payment plans went up 400 percent. The revenue that the department brought in also went up,” Stuhldreher said.

What the city learned is that if you tell people to pay $500 dollars who don’t have $50, they won’t pay. But if you say pay a little bit a month, they will.  

These iconic Victorian homes, featured in the '90s sitcom 'Full House' and known as 'the Painted Ladies,' are among San Francisco's most photographed tourist attractions. Situated in the ritzy Alamo Square neighborhood, the homes also represent the city's extremely high cost of living. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

San Francisco is ridiculously expensive; even families earning six figures have trouble with rent. Affordable housing is slim. To be poor here is an incredible struggle. Inc. magazine ranked San Francisco as the most expensive city

And in San Francisco, just like in Chicago, the government helps to balance its books by charging fees to people who can’t afford them. As a consequence, people have gone bankrupt, remain saddled with debt, trapped in poverty, and unable to climb the economic ladder.

For Stuhldreher, what happened in Ferguson, Mo. directly related to San Francisco. In 2014, Ferguson owned the national spotlight after the controversial police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown sparked dramatic protests.

As a result, the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson Police Department and discovered an intense practice of ticketing in black communities. The disproportionate ticketing was a huge source of revenue. “City officials have consistently set maximizing revenue as the priority for Ferguson’s law enforcement activity,” read a Justice Department report on its investigation.  

“I remember thinking I hope that’s not happening in San Francisco or California,” Stuhldreher recalled.

But it was, and it mortified her.

Municipalities around the country are watching San Francisco’s experiment as a first of its kind. They’re not only interested in what San Francisco has done in term of financial justice. They also want to know how San Francisco, a city known for its liberal leanings, has done it. Elected officials and advocates all say the barriers to reform were few. Their advice to Chicago and other places is to overload politicos with data and to build a coalition with city department heads and community members.

(From left): Mary Vandigraff, Lonnie Bolton, and Dana Robinson are three beneficiaries of San Francisco's reform of fines and fees. Bolton had some of his Social Security checks garnished to pay back fees from a tax board. 'I don’t care if they reduce it to a penny, I want every piece of my Social Security money back. I need my money. I got dreams like everybody got a dream. I was saving this money,' Bolton said. Legal advocates are helping him. (Courtesy of Mary Vandigraff, Natalie Moore/WBEZ)

One of the first things the financial justice project did was to create a task force and issue a report. One of the findings showed 4 million Californians have had a suspended license not for being a bad driver but for not paying tickets.

In her role as the legal director of The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Bay Area, Elisa Della-Piana said  she heard story after story about drivers who couldn’t afford to pay their tickets. Around 2010, under the name Debt Free SF, a coalition of groups formed to look at these issues.

“We had gone to the California state legislature with a bill that said stop suspending peoples’ licenses because they can’t afford to pay,” Della-Piana said.

The bill didn't pass.

“We got laughed out of the building,” she said.

Della-Piana credits San Francisco’s Financial Justice Project for the shift in attitude.

“I have been on a lot of task forces and committees, and they’re very often totally useless. It’s a tribute to the financial justice project taking their mission seriously and clout positioned within the city,” Della-Piana said.

The turning point for advocates came when the financial justice project held public hearings in city council and state lawmakers heard personal stories.

“Having Republican legislators listening to our message, having Democratic legislators advocating, and having police organizations recognizing that punishing someone for not being able to pay is not where they wanted their priorities to be,” Della-Piana said.

Last year, that bill passed in the California statehouse.

Currently, in Illinois, a bill languishes in the House that would do the same. The opposition is from the Chicago police union and the state sheriff’s association. Della-Piana said California’s playbook might help.

The state’s change with drivers’ licenses is evidence that San Francisco’s work has reached beyond the city. Another example is Gov. Jerry Brown signing a law this year eliminating cash bail. The task force recommended that, too.

The person who created the financial justice project is Jose Cisneros, San Francisco’s treasurer. He said he couldn’t have done this singularly as an elected official. City department heads, the district attorney, the public defender, the police chief, the sheriff, legal aid advocates and, of course, residents affected by the fees, were brought in.  

“We didn’t find a lot of conceptual pushback on the concept of treating everybody the same and being fair to everyone. I would say where the work has come in though has been where we have to make budget accommodations, and that’s really where the mayor’s leadership and the mayor’s budget office have really been our champions in terms of continuing to be able to move the city forward while making some of these changes,” Cisneros said.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said the city budget hasn’t suffered.

While some may fear the changes could result in less revenue from fines and fees, Breed stresses that the reforms can ultimately produce a better rate of return and even lower costs.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed speaks at the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation's Sala Burton Manor in San Francisco. Breed is the city's first female African-American mayor. (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)

In August of this year, Breed announced the San Francisco Superior Court would lift $32 million in debt from criminal justice fees for things like ankle monitoring — another first in the country.  

“We know based on history with the data we’ve collected that of that $32 million, we’d be lucky if we collected 9 percent. Many of the monies that we were collecting were being used for collection purposes, and often times, that’s costing us more than we’re actually collecting,” Breed said.

Going forward, those administrative fees will no longer burden people exiting jail or the criminal justice system — good news for Mary Vandigriff.

She works at a social service agency in the Tenderloin neighborhood, where a number of low-income San Franciscans reside.

San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. (Eric Risberg/AP Photo)

“My story is a little different. I got clean, went to treatment, got clean, got out, was working, and an old case from before when I was using came up. And I went back to jail,” Vandigriff said.

When she was released from jail, her court fines from probation totaled $10,000.

“I live in low-income housing here in San Francisco. I had to restart getting my life together because of this case. Every day, I was scared they were going to garnish my wages when I’m making $15 an hour,” Vandigriff said.

She spoke out during the public hearings at city hall. When the mayor announced the elimination of the criminal justice fees at a press conference, Vandigriff stood behind her smiling.

Back here in Chicago, advocates are steadfast in pushing for reform. In late October, Ald. Gilbert Villegas introduced an ordinance to end late penalties for tickets accrued by drivers. The lesson from the Bay Area is to build a coalition also within city government. At this point, it’s unclear if Chicago’s mayor or finance department will get on board.

This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

Natalie Moore is WBEZ’s South Side reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @natalieymoore.

Source: https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/what-san-franciscos-reform-of-fees-and-fines-can-teach-chicago/bc49b8c7-5c31-4c1b-8a52-9af7b4d3306b

[fernandoljlx125-blog]

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I Visited The Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade and Was Almost Brought To Tears (Of Joy)

At the time of writing this, it’s 11:33 on a Saturday night. I've driven over 5 hours today round trip, my neck and back are sore, and I’m drained from being on the road most of the day.

What would drive me to endure a day’s worth of mild discomfort like this? (images ahead!)

Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade. I planned on taking the trip for almost a month and boy, it was worth every mile. This place is a time capsule that harnesses the full arcade experience of the early to mid-1980’s. Nothing I had heard or seen had done this place proper justice. Someday, it will be a West Virginia landmark and a hotspot for retro gamers nationwide.

My wife and I pulled up to this nice two-story home in a seemingly normal neighborhood, not really knowing what to expect. The sign outside and a couple of non-operational cabinets sitting on the deck was an indicator that something special was inside. The windows of the place are hard to see through and it makes the suspense that much stronger.

We walked around to the side of the house where the entrance was and opened the door. The second that door opens, 2017 is gone and 1983 is here with a vengeance. The dim lights, accompanied by the racket made by the pinball machines in collaboration with the noise from the arcade cabinets hit you right between the eyes and overload your senses in the most awesome way.

Owner Stephen Scohy greets you at the entrance for fees. It’s 10 bucks a person and that 10 bucks allows for unlimited plays on every machine in the arcade. It’s a killer deal and up until the time we left we more than got our monies worth.

For the first ten minutes we were there, my wife and I didn’t play anything. We spent the time just taking in everything around us. It’s so overwhelming that you don’t really know where to start. The arcade easily doubles as a gaming museum. So many classic games fill up every room and run as good as they did in their prime.

Aside from the games, you have a lot of little touches that strive to make this place as amazing as possible. 5-foot statue of Freddy Krueger next to the Nightmare on Elmstreet pinball machine? Check. 80’s movie posters of greats like The Breakfast Club and Back To The Future throughout the arcade? Check. Flatscreen TVs hooked to an intercom system blasting tunes from live Journey concerts? Check. A model train that runs along the ceilings as you’re playing? Check! Mr. Scohy put a lot of love into this place and it shows.

Speaking of which, during out walk-around, Stephen came and checked on us and asked us how we liked the place. I was honest and told him it almost brought a tear to my eye, which got a laugh out of him. I asked him how long he had been collecting this stuff and he said over 20 years and that he had more machines at home! He was surprised when we told him how long we had trekked to be there and was really appreciative of us being there. The man and his arcade are West Virginian treasures.

He was kind enough to let us take pictures of every nook and cranny of the place and encouraged us to share. The pictures don’t do this place justice and I encourage people within reasonable distance to make the journey here at least once.

After the shock wore off, I finally started playing some games. I left no stone unturned and played everything the place had to offer. A lot of these games have, by now had some sort of home console release but the home console releases don’t favor these classics like their arcade releases do.

For example, Q*Bert. I know Q*Bert is a classic but aside from the mobile remake, I never could play the NES version and get past the first stage. The D-Pad would send me flying off the edge anytime I got near the sides or bottom of the map because I never could master the controls.

Q*Bert with a joystick however is as smooth as butter and I even made it to level three! A new personal record.

Another example, I’ve always been a fan of Centipede and a couple of its home ports like the Atari 2600 version. All this time, I had been using joystick controls or a circle pad thinking I was getting the full experience. Centipede is nothing without a trackball controller. The freedom of movement is beyond the reach of joysticks and you haven’t lived until you’ve used a trackball controller to play Centipede.

While Q*Bert’s home console release went from smooth to rough, you have a game like Donkey Kong that does the opposite. I always done well on home ports of Donkey Kong. The arcade version however? Madness. I had trouble clearing the final board. They’re so many darned fireballs everywhere that chase you, I died twice just trying to clear it. Much respect to the world champions of this game.

A couple new gems I had never played but fell in love with were Wizard of Wor and Tron. Wizard of Wor plays kind of like Pac Man, except you’re the ghosts and you shoot the enemies. Tron took some time to get used to but once I got the hang of it’s joystick + twist-knob controls I had a blast. I can also say that Tron has the most beautiful cabinet i’ve ever seen. It’s lit up with a blacklight and the art on the cabinet is complemented by the blacklight to give off a glowing look. I wish I had got more pictures of it.

Let’s not forget the pinball machines. I LOVE pinball and it’s a rare treat that I don’t get to enjoy often. My favorite was easily the “KISS” machine and the much older “Butterfly”. I played more pinball than arcade games, surprisingly. Pinball is so addictive, the sounds, the art and mechanics are all things of wonder that I hope never completely go away.

I feel the need to mention that this age of arcade gaming always has gimmicks like tickets and prize walls and all of that junk. It’s ok for stuff like Chuck E Cheese but it was so refreshing going into this place and seeing that the games and high-scores were the main feature and games didn’t simply serve as a means to earn tickets for cheap prizes.

Every game, every pinball machine was all about high scores. You had your daily high-scores, then you had your all time high-scores, in which Mr. Scohy would proudly immortalize your name and score and place it at the top of wherever you made your achievement. I was able to get a couple daily high-scores but I am just a mortal and I couldn’t reach the heights of some of these feats that those before me had pulled off. The spirit of competition is alive and well and I loved it.

On our way out, I shook Mr. Scohy’s hand and thanked him for the experience. I was so bummed that I almost went back in, once we got near the car. I had a blast and I hope this place grows bigger than what it is. If you’re in the area or are bored and wanna take a road trip one weekend, give it a visit and tell the owner I said “hey”.

[Scohy Bros’ Flashback Arcade on Facebook]

[Nintendroid on Facebook]

[baoanhwin]

Lamenting Dido*

Today I am announcing that we are forming the National Institute for Health Protection. This will have a single & relentless mission: protecting people from external threats to this country’s health, bringing the UK’s world-class science and scale into one coherent organisation. pic.twitter.com/v27UhhCT8Y

— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) August 18, 2020

Since 2006 there have been, on and off, 7 anti-corruption champions, many of them well-known former Ministers in the twilight of their careers (Straw, Clarke, Pickles). It’s not clear what they have actually done or are meant to do, beyond fine words.

Some clarity has since been provided here. The focus is on supporting the government’s international strategy – teaching others how to be as incorruptible as Britain – and reviewing what departments and agencies are doing here. It is infused with the usual British complacency that this is something that largely happens elsewhere not here. But corruption is not simply rulers and their lackeys looting a country’s resources, stashing the proceeds in property and accounts in places like London or in one of Britain’s many offshore tax havens through shell companies and trusts (as Ukraine’s and Nigeria’s former rulers have done). Nor is it just the payment of bribes or granting of favours to unscrupulous public officials in less developed countries overseas. As Transparency International has pointed out, corruption can also be “politicians misusing public money or granting public jobs or contracts to their sponsors, friends and families”.  Nothing as grubby as money changing hands need happen for corruption to exist. 

There are ways to stop or minimise this happening: declaration of actual or potential conflicts of interests, Ministers recusing themselves from decisions involving friends and family, robust procurement policies so that contracts are awarded on the basis of publicly known criteria and standards, open advertisements for roles, transparent hiring processes, independent decisions, transparency about the terms, scrutiny by Parliament or other independent bodies and the ability to impose penalties for misbehaviour or to claw back monies which have been misspent or misused. These are necessary, no matter now small the sums at stake may be, no matter how urgent the need, because they are essential to maintaining trust between rulers and ruled (especially during emergencies). People have to trust – not just that their money is not misused – but that the process of awarding roles and contracts (and all the advantages that go with them) is fair and genuinely open, that it is not kept to a closed limited circle, that it does not become simply a mutual back-scratching exercise among those already closely connected. 

Above all, there needs to be trust that the most suitable and competent people will be appointed – and for the right reasons. Corruption inevitably leads to incompetence and at all levels. If those at the top are there for the wrong reasons, how can anyone be confident that they will make tough decisions or speak truth to power or have good judgement or have the backs of their underlings? Or, above all, that they will be good at their job?

Matt Hancock should know all this of course, having been one of those anti-corruption champions back in 2014. So why is it that he has appointed Dido Harding (made a Tory Baroness in 2014 by David Cameron, with whom she studied at Oxford) as the new Head of the newly created National Institute for Health Protection without any of these steps having been taken? There has been no advertisement for candidates, no setting out of the job specification or the technical qualities, skills and experience wanted and needed, no interview process or assessment by reference to published criteria. No-one else has had the opportunity to put themselves forward. Everything has been done behind closed doors, quickly, without transparency or accountability or scrutiny. Nor does anyone seem to have wondered whether their financial interests in racing (Harding is on the Board of the Jockey Club, Hancock, Newmarket’s MP, is financed by numerous trainers) might possibly have made it unwise for Hancock to have made the decision to appoint her.

This new agency has been created in order to protect the country against a pandemic, this aim announced with a straight face by the Minister who a year ago agreed to the abolition of the committee set up specifically to prepare the country for a pandemic. Beyond that its precise scope, specifically, whether it will take over all of Public Health England’s previous functions (which went beyond pandemic preparation) is unclear. The government has suggested that it is modelled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute, as if to show that it is sensibly seeking to copy a country which has had a much more effective testing system and, consequently, fewer Covid-19 deaths. It is a superficially plausible – but disingenuous – claim. Germany’s institute is headed by specialists in microbiology and infectious disease epidemiology with considerable experience in their fields and in public health generally. Harding has no such experience or expertise, her only prior NHS experience being the Chair of NHS Improvement since 2017. In that, she was notable for rejecting the advice of the Health Select Committee to sit as a crossbench rather than a Tory peer in order to avoid any conflict between her NHS role and her political leanings. Not much chance, then, of her speaking hard truths to Ministers.

What is there in her career justifying her being given such a critical role? Her experience ranges from McKinsey (the consultants invariably brought in by those CEOs and others too unimaginative to think for themselves, too scared to make their own decisions or just looking for someone else to blame) to various posts at a travel agent and supermarkets finally ending up at Talk Talk. 5 years after she became CEO, it suffered a sustained cyber-attack, for which it was woefully unprepared, resulting in the personal and banking details of 4 million customers being put at risk. Her responses to this were painfully embarrassing; the attack cost Talk Talk £60 million and the loss of 95,000 customers. This failure matters in a role which will necessarily involve the handling of sensitive medical and personal data. It’s not as if her time in charge of the NHS’s Test and Trace system since April has exactly been a success either or suggests that she’s learnt any lessons at all from her previous failure. Still, McKinsey has just charged £560,000 to come up with a “vision, purpose and narrative” for the new body so she’ll have some help. Phew!

So is this really the best person in the whole of the country to run this vital new body? How can anyone know or judge? Transparency and accountability mean little in reality when appointments are made on the basis of knowing who might be interested or happens to be in the building at the time rather than on objective criteria independently assessed against an organisation’s purpose.

What might the anti-corruption champion have to say about any of this? Nothing. John Penrose MP is Dido Harding’s husband. He’s conflicted on any number of levels. Some have noted his membership of the Advisory Board of the think tank “1828” which, long before Covid, recommended abolition of PHE and the NHS’s replacement by an insurance system, and wondered whether this is the agenda behind Harding’s appointment. This might be so or it might be 2 + 2 = 5. In the absence of a transparent recruitment process, it’s hardly surprising that such concerns are raised. 

Not least because, in addition to trousering half a million quid, McKinsey get to use everyone’s personal, family, medical, financial and biometric data for 7 years after their work on this project has ended. This is not just extremely sensitive data. It is also very valuable. Why? For what? And we get a say in this how, exactly? Why would anyone sensible hand over sensitive data to an agency led by someone provenly unable to safeguard it and advised by a company which will use it for its own purposes? This cosy agreement privatising our data risks making the new agency ineffective in its ostensible purpose. No wonder some think there may be another agenda at play.

Dido Harding is another member of the “Failing Upwards” club (joining such luminaries as Williamson and Grayling). Concern at her appointment and the manner of it will probably not trouble the government much, if at all. It appears to think that the more it enrages its enemies, the better a decision is. It’s a childishly superficial approach to government.

More importantly, it is not calculated to result in good governance. It is government by an elite, a chumocracy, a group of like-minded friends and acquaintances, recycling the same small group of people, on the basis of who is known, who is part of the group, who one is comfortable with, a network of people with similar educations, social backgrounds and connections. This is how one chooses companions for a villa holiday not competent experienced people responsible for the health, lives and information of millions. 

And those of us outside this charmed circle? Well, we’re the creatures wanting a change for the better now looking “from pig to man, and from man to pig” and finding it increasingly impossible to see the difference.

*Or why Hancock doesn’t know his Aeneas from his elbow.

Cyclefree

from politicalbetting.com https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/08/19/lamenting-dido/ https://dangky.ric.win/

[ahmedsalmanmagento-blog]

The Next Big Thing in What Is The Future Of Ecommerce? Insights On The Evolution Of An Industry

With headless trade and progressive web applications (PWA), the planet is becoming a storefront since brands allow commerce via smart mirrors, video games, and live streams.

Secondly and third-tier shopping malls are being reborn as experiential destinations with theme parks, ski mountains, and water slides. Legacy manufacturers and CPG companies are reinventing themselves by promoting direct-to-consumer (DTC) to hasten growth.

Yes, an estimated 12,000 retail locations were expected to close annually, But do not let the headlines hamper your view --what dies from the mall is being reborn on the internet, and what was created online is increasingly crossing over to the physical world.

Ecommerce carries share but expansion coolsDirect to the customer and private-label selling acceleratesAutomation abilities productivityDigitally indigenous brands go offlineVoice recognition varies the path to purchase

Marketers aim at new stations and devices

Ecommerce takes share but expansion cools

Though the line between physical and electronic commerce is blurring, the difference in growth trajectories between retail and eCommerce remains stark (though not as crude as it once was.)

Total, the international retail market was expected to top $25 trillion in 2019. However, growth has slowed substantially versus the prior five Decades and is not anticipated to pick up through 2023:

On the other hand, worldwide eCommerce earnings topped $3.5 trillion, an increase of about 18 percent from the year earlier. Ecommerce is expected to nearly double by 2023 to more than $6.5 billion. Some perspective is in order though. Even though eCommerce is growing considerably faster than retail, it's still a rather small part of the pie. In 2019, eCommerce share of overall global retail revenue was 14.1percent and analysts just expect it to increase 2% a year through 2023:

Much of e-commerce expansion is attributable to Amazon, which is growing in above-market rates and has been anticipated to account for 37.7percent of online U.S. sales in 2019. While in-store sales still account for almost 90% of total retail sales, the total market share of internet U.S. retail revenue is currently higher than general merchandise sales for the very first time.

Direct to consumer and private-label selling accelerates

With 16.1percent of all retail sales expected to happen online in 2020, manufacturers and traditional brands are increasingly bypassing retail partners and selling DTC. It's eCommerce expansion that's helping legacy manufacturers offset stagnant in-store sales growth.

Selling direct yields three Important benefits:

Have the customer relationship

With immediate customer relationship brands no longer have to rely on retail partners to protect and promote your brand. Establishing a direct relationship with the end consumer additionally enables you to continue to give support after the sale.

Gather and utilize customer information

Selling direct lets you collect first-party information that you can use to customize the customer experience and ultimately monetize that relationship.

Provide personalized goods

Selling direct positions brands to offer experiences that can't be obtained in traditional retail stores. DTC manufacturers are increasingly allowing shoppers to style custom packaging, mix and match custom assortments, or take part in contests while getting brand evangelists.

A key driver of this DTC trend is the growth of private-label brands.

Private label manufacturers now account for approximately 20% of the consumables market. Driving much of the market share growth would be the retail spouses on which legacy manufacturers have relied on for supply. They're increasingly offering their brands that compete against those produced by legacy makers. Selling direct is a response to increased competition from retail partners supplying their particular DTC private-label brands.

Private-label products will be the new challenger brands because consumers are willing to abandon brand loyalty for what they perceive as better value. Significantly, private-label brands are taking share in the online and at brick-and-mortar shops. Almost one-third of Costco's sales are private-label, as are 19 percent of Walmart's.

Importantly, consumers aren't just turning to private-label brands to save money--they're turning to premium private-label brands. Premium private-label products, or the Ones That are perceived as higher quality compared to branded products that sell at higher price points, now account for 7.2percent dollar share of US private-label products, up from 5.9% three years ago:

3.

By 2021, analysts estimate 53.9% of all eCommerce earnings will take place on mobile devices. Worldwide, mobile commerce is expected to more prevalent:

But only because your eCommerce platform theme provides a responsive website doesn't mean that you're providing a fantastic mobile experience. Mobile conversion prices are less than half those of desktop computers. Research indicates 53 percent of consumers will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load. Research suggests mobile bounce prices are 10--20% higher than desktop.

To offer an optimal mobile experience across, many brands elect for an innovative web application (PWA), which may live to a user's home screen and therefore are supposed to load immediately regardless of if the user is online. PWAs may be a part of a headless trade strategy that allows teams to operate on the front- and backend systems simultaneously to further enhance cellular functionality.

Rothy's, which sells women's shoes made with recycled plastics, relaunched its mobile site as a progressive web app (PWA):

"Like most other manufacturers, we see the majority of our traffic from mobile devices--a tendency that spiked throughout the holiday season as customers were away from their desktops," says Gigi Teutli-Vadheim, Rothy's Website Experience Supervisor. "With the customer experience, we are shifting our attention to be mobile-first and assigning speed to make sure users are satisfied."

One step farther combining a PWA having an accelerated mobile page (AMP), which will be mobile-first stripped-down HTML copies of internet pages that load immediately. AMPs are the base of Google's mobile-first index, which prioritizes cellular optimization in search results. The combination could yield better search results, more top-of-funnel visitors, and improved conversion rates on-site. Global eCommerce booms outside the U.S.

International eCommerce sales are expected to top USD 4.2 trillion in 2020 and reach more than $6.5 trillion by 2023. Over 2.1 billion shoppers are expected to buy goods and services online by 2021. More importantly, these online shoppers reside outside the U.S.

From the end of 2020, 1.4 billion people are expected to combine the planet's middle course, and the majority of them (approximately 85%) will be from the Asia Pacific region (APAC). Ecommerce as a whole has shifted away from the West and will keep doing so much as China's previously hot consumer market cools a little.

In APAC, eCommerce grew 25% last year, topping USD 2.27 billion: Retail eCommerce sales increase worldwide, by area

While more than half of the fastest-growing eCommerce countries are out of the Asia-Pacific area, Latin America also boasts of accelerated e-commerce Development, including the planet's fastest grower, Mexico:

But growth rates only tell part of this narrative --that the king of global eCommerce in China. In Reality, China's share of the global eCommerce market is 54.7percent or nearly twice the next five countries combined:

Localization will be important when expanding globally. Offering customers local payment procedures, local monies, and translating content into local languages is improving the chances of cross-border victory.

By way of instance, 100% Pure sells cruelty-free merchandise directly to Chinese clients through Tmall Global and delivers them via a third-party logistics partner. 1 reason the company quadrupled sales year-over-year, is its own choice to localize.

"You do not want to market in China how you advertise from the U.S., therefore I needed local people to assist," states co-founder, Ric Kostick. "You have to do it locally."

5. Automation powers productivity

Firms will increasingly put operations on autopilot in the upcoming year. Automation will be particularly valuable to manufacturers expanding internationally which requires operating many stores and larger inventory and fulfillment networks. Typically, international businesses ship to 31 nations and brands are increasingly using eCommerce automation to climb faster and better. Ecommerce automation

Ecommerce automation eliminates a lot of manual, repetitive, and time-consuming jobs that reduce productivity.

Simplifying cross-border commerce, reducing the risk of human error in handling multiple stores, and offering a best-in-class shopping experience are three manners eCommerce automation is powering productivity:

Pre-load storefront varies for major eventsRollback those changes automaticallyAutomate your next flash sale or product dropList new goods on multiple channelsTag and department clients for retentionStreamline tracking and reportingIdentify and cancel insecure ordersSchedule inventory alerts for reordering and promotionStandardize merchandising for discoverability Integrate third-party programs to activate workflows outside your eCommerce development like email win-back sequences

Importantly, eCommerce automation is also protecting brands from an increasing threat: fraud. Rather than manually cross-checking orders with shopper purchase histories to determine if individual orders are fraudulent, brands are relying upon automated fraud protection natively embedded inside their eCommerce platform. Automation can prevent high-risk orders from being satisfied and protect against costly chargebacks.

Brands working their warehouse will increasingly consider robotics to cut costs and be more effective. Worldwide, there are now more than 3,200 robot-enabled fulfillment centers.

While cost remains a top barrier to implementing RPA, 48 percent of the businesses that use new technologies like automation anticipate it to help reduce their workforce.

Artificial intelligence

Level 5 automation, or automation that manages itself with no humans involved, will likely require the maximum degree of machine learning how to produce artificial intelligence that could replace human intelligence. Businesses expect to invest largely in AI-powered automation. Worldwide AI and process automation costs are expected to top $15.4 billion by 2021

Author Bio:

Salman Ahmed is a Business Manager at Magneto IT Solutions – an eCommerce development company in Bahrain that offers quality b2b eCommerce solutions, Magento development, android app development, Magento support, mobile app development services. The company also offers eCommerce solutions for the grocery store at a very affordable price. He is a firm believer in teamwork; for him, it is not just an idea, but also the team’s buy-in into the idea, that makes a campaign successful! He’s enthusiastic about all things marketing.