WheelTug and Ferguson November 28, 2014November 28, 2014 FERGUSON – MUST WATCH If like me you wonder how the Ferguson grand jurors failed to see a reason to take the case to trial — even on a charge as relatively minor as involuntary manslaughter — watch Lawrence O’Donnell’s compelling report. This is not to say a full trial would have produced a conviction. But not to have a trial at all? And while we’re at it, read this compelling Wall Street Journal account of a six-foot-three, 230-pound, 17-year-old black boy being mistaken for a 40ish, five-foot-six black man. (Because he wasn’t killed in the encounter, as he might have been, he grew up to be a Wall Street Journal reporter.) The police have a tough job and no large organization can be perfect. But systemic changes in policing and drug policy and the criminal justice system are long past due. If this topic interests you, watch these videos from the recent American Justice Summit. I can rarely sit still listening to any live lecture or panel for more than a few minutes. I sat in the audience of that Summit, fully engaged, for five straight hours with one 15-minute break. WHEELTUG IN MIAMI Another inch forward? IATA — the International Air Transport Association whose acronym first penetrated my brainpan 50 years ago when I worked on Let’s Go, The Student Guide To Europe — is having a two-day conference in February whose “objective is to thoroughly present different aircraft taxiing systems and help aircraft operators and airports/ground handlers select the best taxiing system(s) they can utilize in their operations.” Here is the agenda. My take-away? E-taxi is coming. My expectation? WheelTug will generate more enthusiasm at the conference than anyone else. Why do I think so? (And what’s with all the questions?) For starters: they’ve signed up 20 airlines with 976 reserved slots, versus none by the competition. Which is surely saying something when you consider how very small WheelTug and its grandparent, Borealis, are; and how very big its competitors, Honeywell and Safran are.
A Line Scanner for the Earth: Every Tree Every Day November 26, 2014November 25, 2014 Three things to watch this long weekend: 90-SECOND AD You’re not human if you watch and don’t laugh out loud at the end. TAKE OFF YOUR SHOE AND GIVE ME YOUR MACHETE Watch Mark Plotkin’s TED Talk to see why I’m a long-time fan of the Amazon Conservation Team. Magic frogs and all. AND +SPEAKING+ OF OUR AMAZING PLANET . . . Watch Will Marshall unveil his “line scanner for the earth” — a ring of tiny satellites that will allow us to see anything on the planet, updated every day. What a miraculous time to be alive. Happy Thanksgiving!
Immigration, Infrastructure, and Keystone November 25, 2014November 25, 2014 INFRASTRUCTURE Here’s the two-minute version. Here: the full “60 Minutes” segment. Some will die from the occasional bridge collapse — not a small thing — but what most people will notice are the crippling disruptions in their lives and the economy. All it takes to fix it is . . . to fix it. Yet every year the Republican Congress blocks the American Jobs Act . . . or any other measure that would put un- and under-employed Americans to work on this. It’s entirely un-American in the simple sense that it needlessly hurts America. Where would we get the money to revitalize our infrastructure? One good answer: from the increased tax revenue an economy ramped up by the full employment that this undertaking would produce would throw off. And speaking of employment: KEYSTONE WOULD CREATE 35 PERMANENT JOBS! Seriously! You could have them all over for dinner. Newsweek: “Once the proposed Project enters service, operations would require an estimated 50 total employees: 35 permanent employees and 15 temporary contractors,” the State Department wrote. So there may be reasons to help our Canadian friends exploit their tar sands (there are also reasons not to). But goosing American employment is not one of them. Yes, Keystone would take 40,000 or so folks a year or two to build — those are not permanent jobs — but it would be a lot less controversial to put those same people (and far more!) to work revitalizing our roads, bridges, and ports (and please don’t forget our water and sewage systems and electric grid). No one seems to think that should not be done. IMMIGRATION Ron Sheldon: “In yesterday’s post [noting that Obama has been issuing executive orders at a slower pace than Reagan, Bush or Bush], you seem to be equating the quantity of executive orders to their Constitutionality without regard for their substance and legality. Isn’t it the relationship of the substance and legality of an executive order to the Constitution that matters, not the quantity of executive orders issued by a president? I’m certain you know the difference. Are you intentionally confusing or purposefully trying to misdirect? I don’t oppose President Obama. I do oppose the intentional or unintentional type of confusion and misdirection that prevents us from discussing topics rationally. You are capable of better.” ☞ Of course we agree it’s the content of executive orders, not their number, that matters. But have you seen any good arguments explaining why any of the President’s executive orders are unConstitutional? I haven’t. So it seems the anger on the right stems largely from his having issued so MANY. Hence the relevance of the fact that he’s issued so few. Or so it seems to me. Thanks for the feedback. The President’s immigration initiative seems to be going well. Our border with Mexico will be more secure; American businesses will have an easier time retaining the talent and energy of foreign students and others who would like to work here; millions already working here will be able to go to work without fear of deportation; and if Congress doesn’t like the executive orders, it is invited — beseeched, really — to pass a bill of its own . . . for example, the same bi-partisan bill the Senate passed 68-32 more than a year ago. Bruce Schwartz likes the speech the President gave explaining all this, but he imagines some further language the President might have added: The persons to whom I am extending this new deferred action status – and it is not an amnesty, it grants no permanent rights, it only means the people affected won’t be deported for now – are people who entered this country before I became President in 2009. They didn’t come here on my watch. Our borders were porous, and our immigration enforcement system was broken, long before I got here. There’s plenty of blame to go around for that: Congress, my predecessors in this office, the business community – in a sense, almost all of us. Because there’s an important truth here. Whatever you may think about illegal immigrants, these folks didn’t come here uninvited. They came because people here were willing to hire them, because there were hard and dirty jobs – in picking vegetables, in construction, in meat packing, many other things – that native born Americans weren’t taking. The businesses that hired them were complicit. The white-collar professionals who hired undocumented nannies or eldercare workers – they were complicit. The homeowners who looked the other way while undocumented workers cut their lawns – they were complicit. As a consequence of what I inherited, I have had to preside over more deportations than any President before me, and I am sick of it. I did not hire on to be the Deporter-in-Chief. Now, if Congress really wants me to tear apart more families, to deport the parents of American citizens born in this country, to expel high school students to foreign countries they’ve never known – well, Congress can pass new legislation and order me to do that. That would be a bitter pill, and I don’t believe that’s what the American people want. The right thing would be for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform, building on what the Senate, with bipartisan support, has already passed. But in the meantime, I will exercise the discretion I have under the existing law, to keep things pretty much as they are until Congress acts. BENGHAZI WASHINGTON (AP) — A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria. . . .The report did not conclude that [then UN Ambassador Susan] Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people. The House Intelligence Committee report was released with little fanfare on the Friday before Thanksgiving week. Many of its findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May. . . . EBOLA The death toll among American citizens seems now to have peaked, at least temporarily, at . . . still zero.
SIGA Lives! (Maybe) Benghazi “Scandal” Dies! (Surely?) November 24, 2014November 22, 2014 EXECUTIVE ORDERS President Obama has been averaging 33 a year. Presidents Bush averaged 41 and 36; President Reagan, 47; Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Ford: in the 60’s, each — all just relentlessly “shredding the Constitution,” starting with George Washington, who issued 8. It’s so ridiculous — but welcome to today’s Republican Party. (Thanks, Tony Spina, for the list of all 44. I say: Impeach ’em all!) BENGHAZI And while we’re impeaching, here is the Associated Press report on the findings of a two-year Republican-led investigation House Intelligence Committee investigation into the tragedy at Benghazi: WASHINGTON (AP) — A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people. The House Intelligence Committee report was released with little fanfare on the Friday before Thanksgiving week. Many of its findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May. . . . We should of course wait to hear what the eighth investigation turns up — if the Republicans could vote 52 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act surely they can conduct more than just 7 or 8 investigations into the death of four brave Americans who chose to serve their nation in a dangerous part of the world. But it’s worth noting that, in voting 52 times to repeal the ACA, they ignored the deaths of 45,000 Americans estimated to have been dying each year for lack of health insurance. So it turns out — according to Republican investigators — there was absolutely no “there” there. And Al Gore never said he invented the Internet; he did nothing wrong at the Buddhist temple; he and Tipper really were the basis of characters in Erich Segal’s Love Story . . . John Kerry was a war hero who did not shoot himself to get a medal . . . the President was not born in Africa; kills, rather than pals around with, terrorists; the “IRS scandal” was not ordered by the White House (nor even much of a scandal, really) — and the Ebola death toll among American citizens is still zero. And that just begins to scratch the surface of bogality. (Bogality: n. the condition of an accusation’s being bogus.) I say: impeach him anyway! CARRY THE LIGHT Michael Albert: “Carry the Light may be a wonderful charity and do great things, but the BBB at give.org, Charity Navigator at www.charitynavigator.org, and the American Institute of Philanthropy at search.freefind.com all have not heard of an organization named “Carry the Light.” Additionally I see no evidence of the infrastructure (e.g. web site, physical office address, names of officers, financial information) that I expect for a legitimate charity. Even the web site used to contribute is generic. I can’t even tell if contributions qualify for deduction from US taxes because it’s not stated anywhere. Are they listed under a different name? Are they so small that none of the charity review organizations analyze them? I’ve been burned before when I’ve given to organizations not given a clean bill of health by these national reviewers.” Zach Brooks: “Do they report somewhere how much of the money they raise they use for actually providing lights to people? I ask because my local Crossfit box (nice, caring people who mean the very best) asked me to contribute to Barbells for Boobs, which ostensibly provides free mammograms to people that can’t afford them. Turns out they spend twice as much on their own salaries as programs and used less than 10% of the money they raised on programs for the years I was able to find any reporting. I hate (now) that I asked my friends to send this ‘charity’ money. So, I check now before I send money and it makes me nervous when I can’t find an organization on Charity Navigator.” ☞ Excellent questions. CARRY THE LIGHT is in early days, even though it builds on years of other good work (that I was introduced to, indirectly, through the Clinton Global Initiative). It will be a while before their 501c-3 application is approved and they have numbers to report to anyone. But having put up more than $100,000 myself toward this, and knowing the details pretty intimately, I feel comfortable asking folks to give $25 – or even more – as described. The first of this round of lights should reach the recipients, in Africa, by March. Stay tuned – and don’t give unless and until you’re fully comfortable. You’re right to ask these questions. Steve Bloomstein: “Loved your link to CARRY THE LIGHT TO THE WORLD. One of our funnest projects was solar electrifying our remote river valley in the early 2000s, when, with the substantial support of the German Embassy in Caracas and a local solar company, we installed solar panels in most of the remote valley homes where we work, including the school and church. This fit perfectly with our programs in rural education (our students can study at night) and family planning — because as the women laughingly say here, there is no better contraception than electricity: it gives their husbands something else to do (TV, radio, playing cards etc) when it turns dark!” SIGA Glenn Hudson: “It’s not over yet. Apparently multi-billionaire Ronald Perelman doesn’t think so either — on 9/23 and 9/24 his company bought 151,158 shares and 52,999 shares, bring their total of SIGA shares owned to 13,309,995, or approximately 25% of the company. Do you think a billionaire like Ronald Perelman is going to let SIGA go bankrupt when their small pox drug still has over $200 million in cash still due from its current BARDA award and still has the potential for hundreds of millions more? I still believe this stock will be trading in double figures within a year from now!!!” ☞ I live in hope.
Fair Food November 21, 2014November 20, 2014 AIR TRAVEL These are not fireflies, but they do a beautiful two-minute dance through the sky. “HEROES YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF” DEPT. And neither had I. But here, in a short obituary, the life of Bernard Mayes. “GENIUSES YOU HAVE” Or should have! (Perhaps you’ve seen “The Graduate”? “Annie”?) Mike Nichols died Wednesday. My generation grew up with the comedy team of Mike Nichols & Elaine May (“Mother, you’re making me feel awful.” “Really, Arthur? If I could believe that, I’d be the happiest mother in the world.”) Both went on to do amazing work. Here, his New York Times obituary. And here, my friend Charles Kaiser’s more particular remembrance. (The agent Charles refers to, Luis Sanjurjo, shared a house with us on Fire Island. I was, naturally, in charge of the money — splitting all the bills by the number of us sharing the house that week-end, which was the house rule: no matter how many meals you ate or skipped, how many beers you took from the refrigerator, we just split it. Leading Luis to whimper late one Sunday afternoon, tagged for $56.67 when he had been absent much of the weekend, “But I only had one yogurt!” And so it goes.) FAIR FOOD Not fair food as in, say, cotton candy. Or fair food as in, “eh — the food was okay.” Or fair food as in fare-but-you’re-from-another-land-trying-to-learn-this-impossible-language-of-ours — the restaurant’s fare was just fair, but at least the prices were, also. Yes! That’s the fair I mean: fair as in just. Watch Eva Longoria talk with Stephen Colbert about her documentary, Food Chains, and the Fair Food project. Those Florida tomatoes we eat? (To take just one example.) The Immokalee workers who pick them are fighting for a decent wage and some respect. And they’re making progress. All it takes, in the case of tomatoes, is another penny a pound, estimated to cost the average American consumer 44 cents a year. Hurray for Wal-Mart! Hurray, McDonald’s! Get with it, Publix: charge us a tiny bit more so farm workers can have a marginally decent life. # Have a great weekend.
Late Dinner This Sunday? November 20, 2014 I’ve always wanted to meet you. In case you live in the New York area and are free Sunday — and you like a spirited show — now’s our chance. My pal Seth Sikes so wowed the 54 Below supper club last month they asked him back for an encore. Buy tickets here. See you Sunday at 9. AKBA Up another buck, to $15.24. If you bought it last Wednesday at $10.40, dinner’s on you. CARRY THE LIGHT Thanks to those of you who responded to last week’s appeal to transform a family’s life for $25. Already, you’ve provided the resources to improve hundreds of lives. Mark Bent, who designed the lights that will be delivered, imagined the kind of thank-you note you might receive years from now: East Africa 12 December 2019 Dear Mister, I wanted to write and let you know the solar light you sent us is still working well, same as the day it arrived five years ago. We dropped it a lot of times, left in out in the rain a few times, once it was left outside to charge and it somehow ended up in the goat pen, but it still works great and we so much appreciate the many changes it has made in our lives. The most important and blessed events were the safe births of two of our children, Florence in 2015 and Joshua, named after my father, in 2018. My wife, Sarah, was much comforted as the mid-wives’ work was much easier being able to have light for the birthing of our children. The kerosene wick can we had before did not put out much light and the fumes were quite bad. We have loaned the light out many times for the births of other babies in our village – the first light the newborns see when they arrive in our world is from your light. We have also benefited very much from being able to work longer at night. One big thing is Sarah can sell vegetables she grows in our garden now beside the main road after dark and this has increased our family’s income. But, my main work and source of income is from our goat herd and we have had only three losses during the night births of the goats – when I hear the doe having problems at night in the birthing process, I can rise and quickly go and ease and assist in the delivery. And, the light serves to scare off the wild dogs which before would steal the young goats. Overall, my herd has more than tripled in size over the past years. All four of our oldest children attend school and the light helps them study at night and get up early in the morning and get ready for the walk to school. John, our eldest, has been accepted to college in the capital and I know he would not have scored as high on the tests without the light allowing him to study after the sun sets. We are going to miss him, but now, he has the chance for a future. And last year, when rebels were close, the government sent in the army. One night Sarah was walking with our neighbor’s wife to the community toilet and she took the light to guide her path. We still do not know if it was the rebels or the army men, but Sarah was able to use the long beam part of the light and she saw a group of men hiding in the brush near the toilet, waiting for women. She was able to call out for help and we all came and nothing happened. I do not wish to think what could have happened if she had not spotted them. My father Joshua died last year and it was a great comfort to be able to stay with him the night he died. We normally all wait in darkness. Having the light made his exit and our last times together much more bearable. Sarah also attends faith services in the morning before daybreak on some special days and it is so much better for her to walk to the church in light. There is more – we saved so much money in not buying paraffin, the children and Sarah no longer cough up black after breathing in the fumes, we have had zero fires or injuries from candles and we have a much better and higher quality time after the sun sets. Before you sent us the light, we just went to sleep. Sarah also appreciates the light when she cooks. We use wood when we can, or dried dung when it runs out. The smoke from the fire plus the fumes and soot from the kerosene burned her eyes. Now she can quickly check to see if the meal is ready, without the irritation. I hope you and your family are well. I wanted you to know that we have thought about you, prayed for you and your family every time we turned on ‘our’ – yours and mine – light each night. May God always bless you and your family and again, my sincere thanks and appreciation. Your friend, Micah All that for $25. Watch the video. Give if you can.
Impeaching Ronald Reagan November 18, 2014 Today’s post is not late — this is tomorrow’s, way early. BOREF If patience is a virtue, we are all saints. Yet the consensus for “e-taxi” does seem to be building and WheelTug’s e-taxi solution does seem — to me, at least — to be the leading contender . . . with more than 20 airlines on board and 976 airplanes in queue for systems. Maybe it will never happen; but maybe, like television, invented in 1926 but more than 20 years in development, it is inevitable. The latest little encouragement is next week’s MarketForce conference, in London. Here’s the “programme,” with WT CEO Isaiah Cox presenting the first day at 11:05 and then hosting lunch. As long-time readers know, WheelTug is a subsidiary of Chorus Motors, which is a subsidiary of Borealis, which has 5 million shares outstanding, no debt, and thus, at today’s $9 a share, a market cap of $45 million. One-sixth the price at which this really lovely painting of two card players last changed hands. AKBA And then you have this one, suggested here at $10.40 last Wednesday, $14.08 as I type. Wouldn’t it be nice if life were always like this? Though even this is not easy: do you take your 35% six-day gain or hold on for a double or triple from here? I am holding on (not least because for me, having paid as much as $20.70, it’s not a 35% gain) — but only with money I truly can afford to lose, because birds in bushes all too often just fly away. Crazy how that happens. Must have been the cat. RONALD REAGAN If you don’t have 16 minutes to watch this Rachel Maddow segment, just know that two of the last three Republican presidents — Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — used executive orders when Congress wouldn’t act to ease the plight of undocumented immigrants. Just as President Obama is about to do. When Reagan and Bush did it, the number of outraged calls for impeachment and/or government shutdown was . . . zero. Now that Obama is doing the same thing, it is the end of the world. Because “by any standard,” as Mitch McConnell says, “Barack Obama has been a disaster for our country.” The Dow is setting a new all-time high was I type, the Obama Ebola pandemic death toll among U.S. citizens remains zero, gas prices haven’t been so low in five years, health care inflation hasn’t been so low in 50, Bin Laden is dead, Detroit is alive, the housing market’s fine — it is all one unmitigated disaster.) Watch Rachel. See you Thursday, probably.
End The War On Drugs November 17, 2014 AKBA Guru: “I think it’s up since you mentioned it Wednesday because FGEN finally priced its IPO. At 23/share, that’s $1.3 billion whereas AKBA is 200+ million and yet almost the same drug and one year behind. FGEN has more data, a big partnership, a year’s advantage. Again, purely on that basis, FGEN is the better company until you realize that both will be viable players. There are differences in the molecules. The difference in valuation shouldn’t be 6 fold.” LETTER TO THE DETROIT FREE PRESS Here: Many of us Canadians are confused by the U.S. midterm elections. Consider, right now in America, corporate profits are at record highs, the country’s adding 200,000 jobs per month, unemployment is below 6%, U.S. gross national product growth is the best of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The dollar is at its strongest levels in years, the stock market is near record highs, gasoline prices are falling, there’s no inflation, interest rates are the lowest in 30 years, U.S. oil imports are declining, U.S. oil production is rapidly increasing, the deficit is rapidly declining, and the wealthy are still making astonishing amounts of money. America is leading the world once again and respected internationally — in sharp contrast to the Bush years. Obama brought soldiers home from Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden. So, Americans vote for the party that got you into the mess that Obama just dug you out of? This defies reason. When you are done with Obama, could you send him our way? Richard Brunt Victoria, British Columbia END THE WAR ON DRUGS Watch Ethan Nadelmann make the case. Powerful.
Compulsively Early November 14, 2014November 14, 2014 I AM COMPULSIVELY EARLY . . . . . . and in a 12-step program for that. It meets Tuesdays and Fridays at 7pm and we’re generally out by 6:45. HEALTH UPDATE The Administration’s response to Ebola has led now to the deaths of (still zero) Americans. Other health-related metrics of note: 26% fewer Americans now lack health care coverage . . . health care inflation is at its lowest level in 50 years . . . about 10 million private-sector jobs have been created since the “job-killing” Affordable Care Act was passed . . . 100% fewer Americans need worry they’ll be denied coverage if they develop a pre-existing condition, or run out of coverage because of “lifetime caps.” Republicans hope to reverse all this, but presumably not by tomorrow, when the second open-enrollment period begins. Apparently, about 25% more insurers have decided to compete for your business this time, which means more choices and the prospect of continued very low inflation (if any) in your costs. And may I remind you of one thing as you go shop? The “bronze” plan that pays only 60% of your expected costs sounds terrible. But that’s because there’s a large “deductible.” In many years, when you’re healthy, the plan might pay little or nothing. But if you have the kind of medical situation you really want insurance for — a $100,000 hospital tab or a $500,000 tab — then it’s more like 95% or 99% that’s covered. TRANSFORM A FAMILY’S LIFE FOR $25 (Redux) Watch, and — if it moves you as it has me — Share on Facebook Give $25, if you can As posted yesterday, you’ll be changing a family’s life! I’ve put up more than $100,000 to help bring this project along. Think about it: for a billion people, who might like to sew or study or cook or just be able to see each other, the day ends when the sun sets. Watch the video and, if you’re sold, carry the light. Thanks! Have a great weekend!
Transform A Family’s Life For $25 November 13, 2014November 12, 2014 CARRY THE LIGHT There’s a pretty remarkable back story to this I’d like to tell one day soon, but for now, I need you to do me a favor. Watch this video and then, if you’re sold: Share it with your list Give $25, if you can You’ll be changing a family’s life and helping me, because I’ve put up more than $100,000 to help bring this project along — which will count for nothing if it doesn’t in fact capture people’s imagination and take off. Here’s how Carry The Light founder Stacey Bent describes the impact one of her husband Mark’s lights can have: A solar flashlight really doesn’t seem to most like the best or most appropriate response to human suffering, and yet my hope is that when people are finished watching this video, they’ll understand why it’s actually one of the most powerful relief items that can be distributed, and one that has a huge domino effect. I don’t know of any other relief item that for $25 can impact 5 people for years . . . without creating any dependencies and that actually, to the contrary, frees up to 20% of household income every month, forever. It’s an amazing mathematical force multiplier. Think about it: for a billion people, the day ends when the sun sets. Watch the video. And if you’re sold, carry the light. Thanks!