Month: April 2018

Linkage

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John Oliver with the straight dope on MLM:

This is F%$#ed Up and Sh%$

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An orthodox Jewish employee of Anne Frank House in Denmark was told that he could not wear a Yarmulke to work.

Kafka would find this bizarre:

For his first six months on the job, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam reportedly forbade a Jewish employee from wearing a kippa.

Twenty-five-year-old Barry Vingerling was told to remove his kippa upon showing up at his first day of work at the museum, according to a report Thursday in the NIW Dutch Jewish weekly.

Museum officials explained that the Anne Frank House had a policy against donning religious symbols that would break with their “neutrality” efforts, Vingerling relayed to the NIW.

Yeah, I guess that letting people know that there are Jews working at Anne Frank House would break with their “neutrality” efforts.

The phrase coined by Douglas Adams, “A bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,” appears to apply.

And Elon Musk is Overrated

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After years of production problems resulting from automation issues that have been documented by legacy automobile manufacturers, Elon Musk has finally admitted that over-reliance robots and automation was a mistake, and has noted that “Humans are underrated“.

This is what happens when someone thinks that they are smart enough to ignore lessons leaned over decades from auto manufacturing across the world:

In a rare mea culpa for the mercurial billionaire, Tesla CEO Elon Musk acknowledged that the company has been too reliant on robots for production.

Yes, excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. To be precise, my mistake. Humans are underrated.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2018

“Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake,” Musk wrote, responding to a Wall Street Journal reporter’s tweet. “Humans are underrated.” He also talked about this with CBS News’ Gayle King, adding “we had this crazy, complex network of conveyor belts….And it was not working, so we got rid of that whole thing.”

You know, if humans are underrated, and you admit to over-automating your assembly line.

If you have REALLY have learned your lesson, how ending your policy of treating your assembly line workers like complete sh%$?

Michael Moore Could Explain This to You

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The military’s fighter pilot shortfall is reaching alarming proportions — and a new report from the Government Accountability Office shows just how bad the problem has become.

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are each short about a 25 percent of the fighter pilots they need in crucial areas, according to the GAO report released Wednesday, titled “DOD Needs to Reevaluate Fighter Pilot Workforce Requirements.”

The problem has grown worse in recent years. And because it takes the Air Force, for example, about five years of training — and costing anywhere from $3 million to $11 million — before a fighter pilot can lead flights, holding on to these pilots is vital to recouping the military’s investments and making sure the services can carry out their required missions.

Over the last two years, the Air Force has particularly sounded alarm bells over its pilot shortfalls. The service has stood up a team led by a one-star general to find ways to stem the bleeding of its pilot ranks. Efforts include dramatically increasing retention bonuses, cutting out paperwork and other non-flying duties that keep pilots out of the cockpit, and taking many other steps intended to keep pilots in the service.

Last November, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the service was short 2,000 of all its pilots, or about 10 percent, and sounded a dire prediction of what it would lead to.

………

But these stop-gap measures come with a cost, GAO said. Squadron leaders and fighter pilots told GAO that the high pace of operations for senior fighter pilots — some have been used to fill vacant junior positions, for example — limits their ability to train junior pilots. And that makes it harder for the military to grow the ranks of pilots with specific qualifications.

Deploying fighter pilots more frequently causes family instability and leads to career dissatisfaction, GAO said.

………

Retention of fighter pilots is also declining. Although the Air Force has dramatically increased the maximum retention bonus for pilots — first from $125,000 up to $225,000 in 2013, and finally up to $455,000 last year ― fewer and fewer pilots are taking them. Between 2013 and 2017, the take rates for fighter pilots declined from 63 percent to 35 percent, a 28 percentage-point drop.

One of the sources of recruitment for pilots of all kinds are people who want to become commercial airline pilots.

With changes in the industry making the positions far less pleasant, (Michael Moore discussed how the treatment of airline pilot by airlines have become increasingly abusive in his movie Capitalism: A Love Story) fewer people are considering putting in 5-10 years of military service as a entree into commercial aviation.

You see the same thing with truckers, where pay and benefits have been decimated over the past few decades.

If you have a job that requires specialized skills and training, and you devalue that job so as to overpay the banksters, fewer people will get the skills and training necessary for that job.

It’s Econ 101.

Colloquy With a Cat

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Me: Move. I need to fold clothes.

Meatball: No. This is my comfy space.

Me: I gotta fold clothes.

Meatball: No. This is my comfy space.

Me: You aren’t even supposed to be in the bedroom.

Meatball: No. This is my comfy space.

Me: OK, stay there. I’ll just go to work.

Meatball: I am going to kill you, and drink your blood from your skull.

Me: Whatever.

Politics Ain’t Beanbag

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In the last New York Gubernatorial election, Andrew Cuomo successfully lobbied to get on the ballot line for the Working Families Party. (New York allows a candidate to be listed multiple ballot lines by different parties)

Since then, Cuomo has crapped all over the WFP by, among other things, working to keep the state senate under Republican control, so that he had an excuse to betray Democratic Party values in what is one of the more Democratic states in the union.

Well, the WFP has come to its senses this time, and was signalling that it would endorse Cynthia Nixon for Governor, and Cuomo has pressured a number of large unions to sever their affiliation with the party:

Faced with defections from liberal supporters, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his labor allies are striking back, threatening to sabotage a progressive third party for potentially giving its ballot line to his Democratic rival, Cynthia Nixon.

Two powerful unions allied with Mr. Cuomo announced on Friday that they were withdrawing from the Working Families Party, a small but influential alliance of labor unions and progressive activists.

Other labor leaders aligned with the governor have threatened to create a competing new labor party of their own, as Mr. Cuomo has himself urged labor leaders to stop giving money to liberal community groups backing Ms. Nixon.

By day’s end on Friday, the breakup seemed complete, with the governor’s campaign announcing that it “will not be seeking the endorsement” of the W.F.P. at its convention next month.

It amounts to an old-school political power play by a veteran politician intent on leveraging every advantage of incumbency — even as public polls have him far ahead of Ms. Nixon.

The fight between Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Nixon has emerged as an early flash point in the battle to define the future of the Democratic Party in the age of President Trump: a contest between an accomplished and pragmatic governor who controls the classic machinery of Democratic politics, and an upstart challenger with little track record but white-hot rhetoric of unfiltered liberalism to rally the base.

………

The political maneuvers around the Working Families Party echoed a strategy used in 2014, when Mr. Cuomo was first seeking re-election, but encountered a primary challenge from Zephyr Teachout. The Working Families Party strongly considered Ms. Teachout before reluctantly backing Mr. Cuomo.

………

If the group endorses Ms. Nixon and she loses the Democratic primary to Mr. Cuomo, she could remain on the ballot through November competing for votes, potentially to the benefit of the Republican nominee.

The WFP made the right call, and they should make sure that Nixon is on their ballot line in the general.

They played nice with Cuomo 4 years ago, and he f%$#ed them like a drunk sorority girl.

He was never going to become a liberal, but he has continued to support Republican control of the state senate, which was an explicit promise of his.

You don’t negotiate with a tape worm, you remove it.

WFP will experience some pain as a result, but it the alternative is total irrelevance.

Yes Virginia, You Can Call Them “Patent Trolls”

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In New Hampshire, at least:

A New Hampshire state court has dismissed a defamation suit filed by a patent owner unhappy that it had been called a “patent troll.” The court ruled [PDF] that the phrase “patent troll” and other rhetorical characterizations are not the type of factual statements that can be the basis of a defamation claim. While this is a fairly routine application of defamation law and the First Amendment, it is an important reminder that patent assertion entities – or “trolls” – are not shielded from criticism. Regardless of your view about the patent system, this is a victory for freedom of expression.

The case began back in December 2016 when patent assertion entity Automated Transactions, LLC (“ATL”) and inventor David Barcelou filed a complaint [PDF] in New Hampshire Superior Court against 13 defendants, including banking associations, banks, law firms, lawyers, and a publisher. ATL and Barcelou claimed that all of the defendants criticized ATL’s litigation in a way that was defamatory. The court summarizes describes the claims as follows:

The statements the plaintiffs allege are defamatory may be separated into two categories. The first consists of instances in which a defendant referred to a plaintiff as a “patent troll.” The second is composed of characterizations of the plaintiffs’ conduct as a “shakedown,” “extortion,” or “blackmail.”

These statements were made in a variety of contexts. For example, ATL complained that the Credit Union National Association submitted testimony to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary [PDF] that referred to ATL as a “troll” and suggested that its business “might look like extortion.” The plaintiffs also complained about an article in Crain’s New York Business that referred to Barcelou as a “patent troll.” The complaint alleges that the article included a photo of a troll that “paints Mr. Barcelou in a disparaging light, and is defamatory.”
………

The court also ruled that challenged statements such as “shakedown” and comparisons to “blackmail” were non-actionable “rhetorical hyperbole.” This is consistent with a long line of cases finding such language to be protected. Indeed, this is why John Oliver can call coal magnate Robert Murray a “geriatric Dr. Evil” and tell him to “eat sh%$.” As the ACLU has put it, you can’t sue people for being mean to you. Strongly expressed opinions, whether you find them childish or hilariously apt (or both), are part of living in a free society.

Justice Tucker’s ruling is a comprehensive victory for the defendants and free speech. ATL and Barcelou believe they are noble actors seeking to vindicate property rights. The defendants believed that ATL’s conduct made it an abusive patent troll. The First Amendment allows both opinions to be expressed.

Let me just say, “Patent Trolls Eat Sh%$.”

This

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Seven years ago, Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs criticized Obama for calling for regime change in Syria.

He makes the point that most of the bad things that have happened as a result of actions by the US and the Persian Gulf, and it has destabilized the region, and the refugee crisis has destabilized Europe.

Regime change has been a disaster, and it has been a predictable, and predicted one:

Do Not Make the Torah into a Crown with Which to Aggrandize Yourself or a Spade with Which to Dig*

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The state of affairs in New York Yeshivas is scandalous, with many children not receiving even the most basic secular education.

In a New York Times OP/ED Shulem Deen talks about the real world consequences of this:

Last Friday, as observant Jews hurried with last-minute preparations for Passover, one Orthodox Jew was in Albany, holding up the New York State budget. He was insisting that this roughly $168 billion package include a special provision that would allow religious schools to meet the state’s educational requirements by using their long hours of religious instruction.

In recent years, education activists, among them former Hasidic yeshiva graduates, have pushed aggressively to bring the yeshivas into compliance with the state’s education laws. Simcha Felder, the state senator from Brooklyn who represents the heavily ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Borough Park and Midwood, was on a mission to get legal permission for the state to turn a blind eye to the near-absence of secular instruction in many yeshivas. The upshot? Tens of thousands of children would continue to graduate without the most basic skills.

I know about the cost. I was one of those kids.

………

During my senior year of high school, a common sight in our study hall was of students learning to sign their names in English, practicing for their marriage license. For many, it was the first time writing their names in anything but Yiddish or Hebrew.

When I was in my 20s, already a father of three, I had no marketable skills, despite 18 years of schooling. I could rely only on an ill-paid position as a teacher of religious studies at the local boys’ yeshiva, which required no special training or certification. As our family grew steadily — birth control, or even basic sexual education, wasn’t part of the curriculum — my then-wife and I struggled, even with food stamps, Medicaid and Section 8 housing vouchers, which are officially factored into the budgets of many of New York’s Hasidic families.

I remember feeling both shame and anger. Shame for being unable to provide for those who relied on me. Anger at those responsible for educating me who had failed me so colossally.

A woman I know works as a physician at Maimonides Medical Center, in heavily Hasidic Borough Park in Brooklyn, and often sees adult male patients who can barely communicate to her what ails them. “It’s not just that they’re like immigrants, barely able to speak the language,” she told me. “It’s also a lack of knowledge of basic physiology. They can barely name their own body parts.”

………

According to New York State law, nonpublic schools are required to offer a curriculum that is “substantially equivalent” to that of public schools. But when it comes to Hasidic yeshivas, this law has gone unenforced for decades. The result is a community crippled by poverty and a systemic reliance on government funding for virtually all aspects of life.

………

According to a report by Yaffed, or Young Advocates for Fair Education, an organization that advocates for improved general studies in Hasidic yeshivas, an estimated 59 percent of Hasidic households are poor or near-poor. According to United States Census figures, the all-Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, an hour north of New York City, is the poorest in the country, with median family income less than $18,000.

………

Knowing all of this, it takes a special kind of audacity on Mr. Felder’s part to successfully strong-arm the state’s highest legislative body to legally deprive his own constituents’ children of an education and a future. Some might call this chutzpah. In Borough Park, it would be more properly called a Chillul Hashem: a desecration of God’s name.

I think that Deen does a fantastic job of describing the real world consequences that salutary neglect has had on the Orthodox Jewish community, but, unsurprisingly given that it is an editorial in the
Times, he does not go into the deeper theological issues beyond calling this state of affairs a Chillul Hashem.

I would argue that the current state of affairs in places like Kiryas Joel is more than a disservice to the members of the community and the taxpayers of New York, I would argue that it is in direct opposition to the basic tenets of Judaism.

The scriptural quote in the title of this post, is just one such example, and the behavior of these leaders constitutes both self-aggrandizement and an attempt to make the study of Torah remunerative, largely by gaming the state welfare system, which is clearly prohibited.

There is more to it than that though:  A Jew is REQUIRED to engage the world in order to make it a better place, to be, “A light unto the nations.”† (Or LaGoyim)

More generally, we as Jews are placed on this broken world to mend it. This is frequently called Tikkun Olam.

In order to fix this world, one has to understand it on some level beyond that of signing one’s name on a wedding license or application for food stamps.

One needs to do more that take from society, one has to give back to society.

This is more than a Chillul Hashem, is is a Shanda fur die Goyim.  Their behavior shames the whole Jewish community.

*Perkei Avote, Ch. 4:3.
†“I the LORD have called unto you in righteousness, and have taken hold of your hand, and submitted you as the people’s covenant, as a light unto the nations” Isaiah 42:6, among others.

Finally, Mr. Federal Trade Commission

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Since the mid-1970s, it has been unlawful for a manufacturer to require that you use only their parts, and their repair shops when fixing their product.

It is called the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, and the FTC has finally issued guidance saying that this is illegal and deceptive:

It’s common for manufacturers of cars, video game consoles, and other products to insist that consumers will void their warranty if they use unauthorized repair services or unauthorized third-party parts. Some even insist that you’ll void the warranty if you break the “warranty seal.”

These policies are illegal, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

On Tuesday, the agency announced it had sent warning letters to six companies for violating a 1975 law governing manufacturer warranties.

Who does the FTC have in mind? The agency doesn’t name the six companies that were targeted in this enforcement action, so we don’t know for sure. But the FTC does provide examples of warranty terms that violate the rules, and with a little Googling it’s easy to figure out likely suspects:

  • Hyundai’s warranty states that “the use of Hyundai Genuine Parts is required to keep your Hyundai manufacturer’s warranties and any extended warranties intact.”
  • Nintendo’s warranty states that “this warranty shall not apply if this product is used with products not sold or licensed by Nintendo.”
  • Sony’s warranty states that “this warranty does not apply if this product… has had the warranty seal on the PS4™ system altered, defaced, and removed.”

These exact phrases, with names of companies redacted, are provided as examples in the FTC’s release.

………

The FTC is demanding that the companies stop voiding warranties and remove statements from their websites and other materials threatening to do so within 30 days.

Of course, this raises the obvious question:  Why did it take them 40 f%$#ing YEARS to do this?

I Propose Renaming Goldman Sachs to “Sirius Cybernetics Corporation”

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Because the latest bit of analysis on healthcare from these guys, basically says that, there is no money on curing disease, we need to work to make everything chronic.

I believe the phrase, “A bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,” should apply here:

One-shot cures for diseases are not great for business—more specifically, they’re bad for longterm profits—Goldman Sachs analysts noted in an April 10 report for biotech clients, first reported by CNBC.

The investment banks’ report, titled “The Genome Revolution,” asks clients the touchy question: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” The answer may be “no,” according to follow-up information provided.

Analyst Salveen Richter and colleagues laid it out:

The potential to deliver “one shot cures” is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically engineered cell therapy, and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies… While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.


For a real-world example, they pointed to Gilead Sciences, which markets treatments for hepatitis C that have cure rates exceeding 90 percent. In 2015, the company’s hepatitis C treatment sales peaked at $12.5 billion. But as more people were cured and there were fewer infected individuals to spread the disease, sales began to languish. Goldman Sachs analysts estimate that the treatments will bring in less than $4 billion this year.

I want the guillotine concession on these rat-f%$#s.

I’d be a wealthy man.

Doing the Grunt Work

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Chicago DSA is running members for Local School Councils! We are looking for poll watchers and phone bankers.

Poll watchers will be at schools to observe to make sure the elections are running correctly and fairly, and track voting commitments.

— Chicago DSA 🌹 (@ChicagoCityDSA) April 12, 2018

What you see here is a tweet that went out to Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members.

It is also a very good example of the sort of drudge work that needs to be done, and needs to be managed, in order for a political group to achieve success.

You don’t see a lot of small political groups doing this.

In fact, mainstream Democrats (I cannot speak to the ways of the Republicans) tend to let this slide an awful lot too, but this is precisely the sort of unglamorous, and quite frankly boring work that has to be done for a political movement to succeed.

I am not sure why the DSA seems to get this, and other groups (**cough** Green Party **Cough**) seem to have a phobia of pounding the proverbial payment, but it is one more reason to support the DSA.

They get the sh%$ done that needs to get done.

Time to Panic and Stockpile

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Necco Wafers that is, it appears that the New England Confectionery Company may be liquidating:

Word that the country’s oldest continuously operating candy company might shut down has people suddenly hoarding Necco Wafers, despite the candy’s unpopularity among, well, almost everyone.

The chalky candy’s flavors (chocolate, licorice, wintergreen) have been described as “tropical drywall” and “plaster surprise,” according to the Wall Street Journal. But last month’s announcement that the 170-year-old New England Confectionery Co. might shut down its Revere, Mass., plant — and lay off the majority of its employees — seemed to strike a nostalgic chord with consumers, leading to a surge in wafer sales.

Candy stores and consumers are trying to get their hands on whichever Necco products they can get, the Journal reported, including Mary Janes, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Clark Bars and Sweethearts, the popular heart-shaped Valentine’s Day candies. What they’re chasing after most, however, are the wafers. They are both storied and divisive, known for their unusually long shelf life and a recipe that’s been unchanged since the days when the indestructible candies fueled Union soldiers during the Civil War.

I like Necco Wafers, and if they go away, I will be sad, even though I don’t have that much of a sweet tooth.

They aren’t really a part of my childhood, I discovered them when I was in college in Massachusetts, and there will be some nostalgia.

Textbook (Facebook) Racism

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This is a direct solicitation for ad buyers to racially discriminate using Facebook’s tools. It is on Facebook’s site right now. pic.twitter.com/9f43WLmmKF

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) April 10, 2018

Certainly, there are plenty of advertisers who could look at this ad, and not see any racism.

These are the same people who have lily white office staff, and don’t see any racism either.

You see this all the time in real estate listings and job listings, and most of the time, the attempts to discourage differently pigmented people are a LOT subtler than this.

FWIW, my guess is that this sort of data mining is used a lot more for age discrimination than it is for race discrimination, but much of the allure to some advertisers is the ability to indulge in bigotry and not get caught.

Facebook knows exactly what they are doing here.

Silicon Valley Meets Real World, Part Gazillion

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In a rare move, the NTSB has removed Tesla from the fatal crash investigation because they could not shut the f%$# up:

The National Transportation Safety Board told Tesla Inc. on Wednesday that the carmaker was being removed from the investigation of a fatal accident, prior to the company announcing it had withdrawn from it, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt relayed the decision in a call to Tesla’s Elon Musk that was described as tense by the person because the chief executive officer was unhappy with the safety board’s action. NTSB is expected to make a formal announcement in a release later Thursday, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The unusual move followed public statements by the company blaming the driver of a Tesla Model X who died in a March collision, in apparent violation of agency protocols. The NTSB guards the integrity of its investigations closely, demanding that participants adhere to rules about what information they can release and their expected cooperation. These so-called parties to investigations must sign legal agreements laying out their responsibilities.

………

Companies that no longer have formal status as a party to an NTSB investigation can lose access to information uncovered in the probe and the ability to shape the official record of the incident, said Peter Goelz, a former managing director at the NTSB who is now senior vice president at O’Neill & Associates, a Washington lobbying and public relations firm.

………

The safety board has in some cases thrown airlines, aircraft manufacturers and unions off of investigations in cases where they were either making unauthorized statements or not producing information the NTSB expected of them.

………

NTSB rules don’t in fact prohibit participants in investigations from releasing general information about their products. The agency’s oft-repeated rule of thumb is that factual information that could have been released before an accident can be put out afterward as well.

What the NTSB prohibits is the release of information related to the accident itself.

In December 2010, the safety board removed American Airlines, now part of American Airlines Group Inc., from an investigation into a runway accident in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. American had taken one of the plane’s two crash-proof recorders and downloaded its contents prior to turning the device over to the agency.

In 2014, it kicked United Parcel Service Inc. and its pilots’ union off of a probe into a cargo-jet crash that killed two people in Alabama. The safety board said then that the company and union “took actions prejudicial to the investigation by issuing comments and analyzing findings before the NTSB had met to determine a cause.”

This is no surprise.

Tesla, despite the fact that it makes cars, is still a dotcom company at its core, and ignoring regulators, and ignoring basic common decency, is at the core of its ethos.

It’s why I have no interest in owning a Tesla, to quote Richard Feynman, “Nature cannot be fooled.”

Making Donald Trump Look Good

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Only the Tories in the UK could make the Trump administration look competent.

They just send a mass letter addressed to one ‘Dear Mr F%$#ingjoking’, which was clearly not their intent:

Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was today forced to apologise to an elderly couple that received a letter, signed from the PM, addressed to a Mr Youmustbe F*ckingjoking.

The letter was posted on Twitter this week by Laura McCormack, who said it had been passed to her by her neighbours.

“Dear Mr F%$#ingjoking,” begins the mass-produced mailer, which has ‘The Rt Hon Theresa May MP’ emblazoned across the top, alongside a picture of the leader, (poison) pen and paper in hand.

“Thanks to your support, our Conservative Government is building a Britain that is fit for the future.”

It then goes on to ask for more cash for its campaign manager fund, directing recipients to fill in its donation form, which is also headed up “Mr Youmustbe F%$%#ingjoking” above the address.

The recipient, Raja Habib, of Brixton, London, told The PA: “At first I thought it was a scam…I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Not only did they send it out, the sent it out as a party fundraiser.

Even the Trumpster fire is not that incompetent.

Good luck with Brexit.

A Stunning Lack of Self-Awareness

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No, I am not talking about Donald Trump (this time), I am talking about, “Team Hillary,” some of whose senior members are suggesting that James Comey, “Should ‘Beg Forgiveness,’ Not Hawk Book.”

Seriously?

Well, this explains how they managed to run the worst presidential campaign in modern history.

In the annals of not getting “IT”, this has to be some sort of record.