MaxRedline

Don't Look Now, Doc

But here comes Amazon.

The burgeoning collaboration between Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway seeking to transform the American health care system is long on ambition and short on details.

That's not stopped them before, so you can bet that there will be concessions made by insurers and practitioners.

Any prediction about the alliance’s plans must glean insight from Amazon’s success, which has been based on removing entire layers of product sales and distribution and adopting new ways of thinking. That's caused massive disruption in the retail and tech industries.

One of the first victims of failure to adapt was the Borders bookstore chain. They're gone. Sears stores and K-Marts are dropping like flies as well. One thing that's certain to arise from this health care alliance is an increase in automated services in a number of areas of the sector, including telemedicine. And Amazon's already looking into establishing online pharmacies.

Times are going to get really interesting, given that healthcare industries employ some 12.5 million people in the USA.

 

Legal Beagle?

Not exactly:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – The Tanis Schultz Law Firm in Grand Rapids had a new visitor Sunday, compliments of near record flooding on the Grand River.

The firm posted these three pictures on their Facebook page Monday of a muskrat swimming up to their window in the Old Towne Riverfront Building at 85 Campau.

Just checking out the vermin inside, easy enough to do because a portion of the office window was under water.

On a side note, developers seem to have a fascination with the letter "e"; they use it constantly, as above: Old Towne, and things like "The Pointe" at such and such place. Very odd.

On another note, more white folks are going into local jails around the USA, mainly in rural areas and small towns. Since those are areas where the opioid epidemic has really taken off in the white population, researchers suspect that may have something to do with rise in incarcerations....

Then there's this guy -

HAZLE TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) - Police say a damning clue led to the arrest of a Pennsylvania man charged with stealing a pot of meatballs - red sauce smeared on his face and clothes.

Authorities in Luzerne County have charged 48-year-old Leahman Glenn Robert Potter with burglary, criminal trespass and theft by unlawful taking for allegedly swiping a pot of meatballs from a man's garage on Monday.

"Theft by unlawful taking"? Is there a "theft by lawful taking"? In any event, they seem to take their meatballs pretty seriously over there.

 

Anybody Really Wonder WHY They're "Homeless"?

The specter of homeless encampments steadily expanding across the downtown streets of San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco – bringing with them a public health crisis – has one southern California community taking tough action to dismantle a two-mile-long camp just a short drive from Disneyland.

In a departure from the approach taken by other local governments in the state, officials in Orange County, Calif., have started to clear out the camp – by moving occupants and hauling away literally tons of trash and hazardous waste.  

“It’s becoming part of the permanent landscape in those communities and there is no way we are going to allow Orange County land that is supposed to be used by residents to be occupied by the homeless,” said Todd Spitzer, who sits on the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

Trash trucks and contractors in hazmat gear have descended on the camp and so far removed 250 tons of trash, 1,100 pounds of human waste and 5,000 hypodermic needles.

The amount of feces littering the streets in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco has led to a hepatitis outbreak that spread throughout the state’s homeless communities, infecting 694 people. San Francisco’s feces problem is so bad that a website now exists to warn residents of which streets to avoid. 

25% of the half-million "homeless" people in the USA are hanging out in California. Over 33% of all federal welfare money goes to California. And still, some folks there continue to try to get a measure on the ballot supporting secession. Amazing.

Yep, this guy's obviously ready to go to work. Heck, if you happen to have some pallets to get rid of, drive 'em on down!

Welcome to the new Third World.

Or is it the Turd World?

Between the pigeon droppings and human excrement and Moonbeam Brown, it's hard to say.

 

The Devil Went Down To Georgia

Coca-Cola on Monday said that during the next few months it will cut up to 350 management positions, most of them in its Atlanta headquarters.

This has nothing to do with the recent organized pillorying of the NRA; it's a restructuring move that's been going on for some time. Unlike the situation with Delta Airlines, which is the state's largest employer:

The Georgia Senate blocked a lucrative tax break bill on Monday that would benefit Delta Air Lines days after the air carrier severed ties with the National Rifle Association.

Delta's decision to jump on the anti-NRA bandwagon may just have cost them a $50 million tax break on purchases of jet fuel. The whole thing is pretty stupid; the NRA had nothing to do with the latest gun-free-zone shootings in a Florida school, but a number of companies chose to react to the predictable baying of the anti-NRA hounds, and this one may well lose its tax exemption over its knee-jerk reaction.

On the other hand, it's stupid for the state government to try to punish the airline for exercising its right to freedom of association.

I've never been a member of NRA, so I have no dog in the fight. But they had nothing to do with the rampage of a kid with the IQ of a nine year-old. The FBI, local police, and other agencies had received numerous warnings about the guy, but took no action. If the activists want to be mad at someone, they should direct their anger at government.

 

One In A Million

The cardinal is usually red, but not this one:

An extremely rare cardinal has birders and biologists flocking to Shelby County, Alabama this week, as images of a yellow cardinal have circulated around social media.

Sweet home, Alabama - where the skies are smooth.

So Much For Autonomous Vehicles

Car washes have been automated for decades, but companies developing fully autonomous vehicles must rely on a human touch to keep their cars and trucks in working condition.

Nope, you can't take them through your local automated car-wash. That's because residue can blind the vehicle, so they can't drive themselves safely. They have to be hand-washed, and that must be done often. 

A self-driving vehicle’s exterior needs to be cleaned even more frequently than a typical car because the sensors must remain free of obstructions. Dirt, dead bugs, bird droppings or water spots can impact the vehicle’s ability to drive safely.

Cool: buy a self-driving car, then pay folks to hand-detail it every few days. Such a deal!

They like being washed as much as your cat does.

 

Fear In The Halls

The Supreme Court heard fiery arguments Monday in a case that could remove a key revenue stream for public-sector unions.

The case was brought by Mark Janus, a child support specialist for the state of Illinois. He says he's not against unions, per se: "The problem is that government has given these unions this special privilege to charge us for these fees, in essence, without my permission." Actually, it's a little more complicated - those who choose not to join a union (particularly in the public sector) are nonetheless required to pay "fair-share" fees to that union. Ostensibly, these "partial dues" are not to be used for union politicking.

It's a lie that union bosses have promulgated for nearly half a century; they claim that all "partial dues" monies are used solely to pay for contract "negotiations" when they are, in fact, used to promote policies and Democrat candidates that a conservative would not support - unless forced to do so. And that's exactly how it works.

Kennedy and other conservative justices on the court took the position that everything a public employee union bargains for involves public policy, and thus a public employee who disagrees with that policy should not be forced to pay for the negotiations.

In the 1950s, about a third of the U.S. workforce was union members. Now, it's only about 11 percent overall.

And over one-third of union members are public employees. Even FDR opposed allowing that to happen, and with good reason: public employee unions become adversaries of the general public, because nothing that they "negotiate" ever affects them. If taxes must be raised, they can "negotiate" pay increases to offset the effects. So they are effectively insulated while all the rest of us take the hit.

To some degree, that may be about to change when SCOTUS renders their decision.

Sorry, the ad was done on VHS tape.

Di-Bye?

The 84 year-old from San Francisco didn't get her party's endorsement for re-election. Some consider that a humiliation. But her Democrat opponent didn't get the endorsement either. And he needed that, because he doesn't have the name recognition that Di-Fi has - and nowhere near the cash.

Feinstein is once again at odds with progressives, despite her efforts to move left by more strongly opposing President Trump's agenda.

She said the Senate Appropriations Committee, which she sits on, would never approve $25 billion for Trump's wall along the Mexico boarder.

One thing I find both amusing and depressing is the fact that virtually every article I read from "journalists" these days looks like that; they can't manage basic English. Is he referring to "room and board"? More likely, he's simply lazy and semi-literate.

Which means that many citizens are slowly but surely being dumbed-down as well.

 

Hot New Ban

The latest one from the control freaks: ban plastic straws. Because Environment. Everybody knows that they only get used once and are then thrown away, so they should be banned...except that I've re-used them for years; they're easy enough to clean, pipe-cleaners and soap and water work really well. They also stand up well in things like milk-shakes. But the control freaks know best. They always do; it's a hallmark of liberalism. It's a big reason why Portland City Council banned plastic bags - a few years after mandating them because using them would save trees, and harvesting trees is Very Bad.

Then they decided that plastic bags were Very Bad - because Big Oil. Never mind that the bags aren't produced from oil at all, but rather from a by-product of natural gas drilling that had previously simply been burned; "flared off", in the industry vernacular. They're produced from waste, in other words. But now stores in Portland are prohibited from offering them, which is a great reason to shop in Beaverton or Tigard. In Portland today, you either have to purchase cloth bags, or hope your paper bags don't disintegrate in the rain. But the politicians sure feel good about themselves and their commitment to the environment.

A bill introduced in the California Assembly prohibiting restaurants from providing plastic straws to customers who don’t ask for them is intended to raise awareness about the harmful effects of plastic on the environment, not put waiters and bartenders in jail, its author says - although the bill introduced by Democratic Ian Calderon, as written, would do just that:

AB-1884 inserts new language into the Retail Food section of the California Health and Safety Code, violations of which are misdemeanors “punishable by a fine of not less than $25 or more than $1,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not exceeding 6 months, or by both.”

Calderon's been Twittering and press-releasing away, claiming that such punishments won't happen. He's also making other wild claims:

An estimated 500 million straws are used in the United States every day. This number is enough to fill over 127 school buses each day and is calculated to be about 1.6 straws per person in the U.S. In a summary of all trash collected as part of California’s Coastal Cleanup Day between 1989 and 2014, straws and stirrers rank as the 6th most common item collected.

The statistic is often attributed to the U.S. National Park Service (which did reference it in a 2013 environmental call for action), but the 500 million figure ultimately rests on the word of 16-year-old Milo Cress, who launched a campaign in 2011 (at the age of nine) called Be Straw Free.

Could be right; could be wrong, nobody's ever fact-checked the kid's claim. Or Calderon's claims, for that matter. But Calderon wants to essentially ban plastic straws in California. Next up: banning plastic knives and forks, most likely.

As is so often the case, these things metastasize into other places, which is occurring in parts of Portland, Oregon: Widmer Brothers Brewing, purveyors of fine craft-produced mule pee, have announced that they will ban plastic straws at their bar. Although why anybody would drink mule-pee with a straw remains unclear.

But Widmer's a Portland operation; I'd never visit there, and don't buy their products elsewhere.

 

UFOs

A pair of UFO seekers camped 12 miles out from Area 51 and got some interesting footage. Obviously, they caught a couple of fighter jets, but the third object is far smaller; a drone, perhaps?

But we've had the occasional mystery of our own, and fairly recently at that:

Last November, The War Zone posted an exclusive story detailing a bizarre incident involving an unidentified aircraft that transited the skies of the Pacific Northwest in the early evening of October 25th, 2017. What started as a radar target moving at very high speed over Northern California turned into a series of eyewitness accounts made by nearby airline pilots traveling northward over Oregon. Even F-15 fighters were launched to intercept the mysterious intruder that quickly became invisible to radar. The aircraft issued no transponder broadcasts and never communicated with air traffic controllers.

Unsurprisingly, several agencies got involved. The FAA and USAF have both confirmed the authenticity of reports relating to the incident.

First detected by Oakland Center at the northern edge of its airspace (which ends near the southern Oregon border, at which point it becomes Seattle Center's airspace) it was reported as moving very fast at 37,000 feet. After it dropped off radar, pilots from aircraft in the vicinity reported visual sightings of a large white aircraft that was too far away to permit identification of the type nor to determine if it bore any kind of markings.

F-15s out of Portland (PDX) were scrambled to intercept.

Additional F-15s launched out of McChord AFB in Washington. No trace of the intruder was found. Yet Seattle Center and Oakland Center controllers agreed that there was "definitely something out there". As an official at FAA put it, "Wow that's weird".

That's probably why the Pentagon has a program that looks into such incidents.