REWinn Scrapbook: Jeremy Nixon and Alexander Higgins on ...

TWO REPORTS FROM SURVIVORS OF SANDY:

Christine M Nava writes:

"My nephew, Marc Mendoza, shared Jeremy Nixon's post with me on Google +1. Jeremy (in pic) is living in the disastrous Jersey Shore. Here's his message re Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney. This is a wake up call, people! I'm talking to those who have no intentions of voting and to those who intend on voting for Romney.

"I live at the Jersey Shore. Did you see Brian Williams of NBC reporting from the hardest-hit area? That's where I live. The area has been devastated. Entire towns were destroyed. There are mile-long lines for gasoline at the few stations that have any. I'm hearing a lot of people in other parts of the country complaining that people shouldn't ?politicize? this natural disaster, and I have one thing to say to them:

Shut up.?

Just shut the hell up. There's an election next week, and this is politics. Now is exactly the right time to point out that we have one candidate who wants to eliminate or cut FEMA (it depends on which day you ask him), who thinks the states should handle this stuff themselves, who thinks disaster relief should be a for-profit enterprise. One candidate who said that it is ?immoral? to borrow money to help disaster victims. One candidate whose idea of ?small government? is to leave people to fend for themselves.

Mitt Romney staged a photo op pretending to collect canned goods to send to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. His staff spent a few grand at Walmart and handed out cans for people to be photographed handing back, and he got his picture taken picking up boxes of stuff. What a jackass.

Remember when Paul Ryan got his picture taken pretending to volunteer at a homeless shelter? At least the thing he was pretending to do would be good if other people actually did it. The Red Cross neither needs nor wants your canned goods. All that does is create a logistical problem to transport the items. They don't accept that kind of donation because it doesn't help.

More to the point, we don't need your canned goods. Canned goods? Really? Do you think we don't have grocery stores out here? We have more canned goods than we could ever possibly need. How clueless can you be and still be seen as a viable candidate for president?

What we need is power. We need the lines and transformers and substations fixed. We need a more resilient infrastructure. And we need gasoline, very badly ? but fixing the power will take care of that, too.

Mitt Romney thinks the states should take care of all of this themselves. He thinks New York City should be pumping out its own subway tunnels. He thinks the president shouldn't have brought FEMA to New Jersey with him, or sent those Navy ships to land the helicopters on. He thinks the power companies whose services go out every time it rains need less regulation. He thinks the market should be left to deal with the cleanup. He compared it with his experience cleaning up a school football field after a celebration. And he thinks what we really need is some canned soup.

Heckuvajob Brownie ? remember him, from Katrina? ? said the president responded to Hurricane Sandy too quickly. That's the Republican philosophy in action. Need to rebuild your home? Borrow money from your parents!

Meanwhile, Romney ignores questions from reporters about his intentions for FEMA. His party insists that disaster relief funding requires offsets. And now they're attacking our Republican governor, Chris Christie, for doing his job and working with the president to help the people of his state, rather than adhering to the Republican religion. We're all very grateful that Gov. Christie doesn't adhere to that religion.

But Mitt Romney does, and Paul Ryan does, and the party in general does. No state has the resources to deal with this kind of thing, and privatizing it would be despicable. We live in a society; let's act like it. Let's elect people who act like it. Not people who stage photo ops pretending to do things that won't help anyway.

Meanwhile, if you want to help, we don't need your old clothes or your dusty cans of cream of mushroom soup. Text ?redcross? to 90999 to make a $10 donation."

Both Marc and Jeremy are on FB and Google +1 if you'd like to friend them."
====

Another guy put it even more bluntly:

Source: http://rewinn.blogspot.com/2012/11/jeremy-nixon-and-alexander-higgins-on.html

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Why We Need New Rights to Privacy

As it becomes commonplace for people to own RFID readers, the transaction costs for going through someone?s curbside trash decrease considerably

Photograph by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

Thanks to the real state website Zillow, it's now super easy to profit from your neighbor?s suffering. With a few easy clicks, you can find out ?if a homeowner has defaulted on the mortgage and by how much, whether a house has been taken back by the lender, and what a house might sell for in foreclosure,? as the Los Angeles Times recently reported. After using the service, you can stop by the Johnsons? to make them a low-ball offer, perhaps sweetening the exploitation with a plate of cookies.

Maybe that?s not fair. Zillow doesn?t let people opt-out, but the company omits borrowers? names, has a process for correcting mistakes, and uploads only legal information that was previously?albeit inconveniently?available.

Zillow is cutting the cord of time-consuming real estate bureaucracy, but it?s just part of a larger story presciently described in a 2007 SMU Law Review article by University of Colorado Law School professor Harry Surden. According to Surden, big data networks persistently chip away at privacy interests and expand the surveillance society?s reach?and we?re about to see a lot more of it. Surden argues that privacy is safeguarded by barriers that make it hard for others to thwart our interest in limiting access to information. Bring down these walls?which Surden calls constraints?and prying eyes can capitalize on newfound vulnerability. Accordingly, we need to reassess how we think about our privacy rights, and what personal information should be included in that class.?

There are several different kinds of constraints, and they are effective to varying degrees. The law, for instance, can be a powerful tool, giving explicit guidance and instilling relatively widespread compliance. What it can?t do is guarantee our information is 100 percent protected. Even if everyone knows that breaking into a house and stealing a diary is illegal, some people still will do it. Similarly, physical constraints also can prevent private information from falling into unwanted hands. As Surden notes, a tall fence can enforce property rights, keeping unwanted visitors, like the diary thief, away. But even electric fences don?t offer absolute protection.

Privacy also can be safeguarded by technology specifically intended to provide security. Let?s say a woman with a jealous boyfriend keeps an electronic diary encrypted by state-of-the-art algorithms. If her boyfriend doesn?t hang with the hackers, an online journal might offer be safer than a pen-and-paper notebook stored in a house. Still, this option isn?t absolutely foolproof. He might hire a code breaker from Craigslist.?

Technology can protect privacy in another way, too. Sometimes technological constraints make certain behaviors too expensive to engage in on a regular basis and thus protect our interests by default. (Surden calls these ?latent structural constraints.?) When the cost of accessing, aggregating, or analyzing data?say, analyzing a human genome?is extremely high, society can preserve privacy without needing to actually impose corresponding laws.??

This sheds new light on what Zillow does. Surden?s theory suggests we should ask whether technological advances reduce transaction costs so much that previously rare, unwanted behavior (say, checking up on other people?s mortgage status) can become commonplace. If so, this change can deprive citizens of rights they once had. Zillow is correct that these rights weren?t sanctioned by legal authority. They were implicitly protected by technology?there was no need to enact legislation. If new laws get created to protect diminished privacy, then, according to Surden, they essentially preserve the existing rights of homeowners, rather than create new ones.

Emerging technology will continue to lower transaction costs, resulting in society confronting ever more eroded rights that initially were propped up by structural supports. One area that Surden is anxious about is future uses of radio frequency identification technology (RFID). They might reveal information that previously was so hard to come by, citizens assumed their right to it was protected.

Privacy concerns already have been raised over stores using ?smart? RFID tags (electronic product codes that can identify items within a few feet of a scanner) to keep track of inventory and deter employee theft. Privacy advocates worry that if the tags are active when items get thrown away, ?a criminal or marketer could scan your garbage? to see what you purchased. But it could be worse. As a thought experiment, let?s imagine that at some point in the future it becomes common practice for stores to embed smart RFID tags in most items. As Surden notes, doing so could speed up checkout time because it wouldn?t be necessary any longer to price items by hand scanning UPS barcodes with a laser. Instead, purchases could stay in carts, and fast lanes would be created, much like cars passing through RFID-enabled electronic toll systems like E-ZPass.???

Let?s further imagine that as it becomes commonplace for people to own RFID readers. If this happens, the transaction costs for going through someone?s curbside trash decrease considerably. Under current technological constraints, dumpster-diving is not for the faint of heart or sensitive of nose. Trash can be smelly, messy, and time-consuming to sort through. Moreover, because garbage inspection is an unusual practice?typically reserved for law enforcement, private detectives, paparazzi, and recycling inspectors?it can easily draw unwanted attention. But RFID technology could allow the process to be done discreetly, quickly, and at a safe distance.

In that case, people who never considered rummaging through garbage before might give it try. Let?s say you're a boss who is worried that an employee?s productivity has decreased because the person has become an alcoholic. Why not drive past his house and see just how many bottles he consumed that week? If you?re hell-bent on having a gotcha moment, you might even draw the wrong conclusions about what you find?not realizing, for example, that the empties belong to an employee?s college-age kids who were visiting home during a break.

Should things develop this way, several different scenarios could play out. After hearing about negative impacts, consumers could push back against retailers and demand they carry non-RFID stock. But given the time saved at the checkout, is that likely? Or perhaps people would become vigilant about removing RFID tags once they leave the store. But if the tags are ubiquitous and take time to remove, won?t slipups and procrastination undermine resolve? Industry might try to solve the problem by creating tags that can?t be read by home RFID readers. Of course, they might not want to invest in this pursuit, and customers could balk if they have to absorb some of the cost. Eventually, the government could be called upon to create new laws prohibiting electronic access to curbside garbage. The question is how much damage would accrue before this happens.

Ultimately, Surden?s theory is just an idea about privacy. Unless people and institutions are moved by it, it won?t constrain anything. Instead, we?ll look to outed mortgage defaulters, stigmatized disposers, and a host of other successors and shrug our shoulders at the collateral damage innovation and capitalism inevitably seem to create.?

This article arises from Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and?Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the?Future Tense blog?and the?Future Tense home page. You can also?follow us on Twitter.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4389fa7604ca0e7838c19b8aa3e90820

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Correction: Charter School Audit story

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? In an Oct. 24 story about a U.S. Department of Education audit of the division overseeing charter schools, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the audit was conducted by San Francisco-based research firm WestEd. It was conducted by the department's Office of Inspector General based on information gathered by WestEd.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Audit: US oversight of charter school funds lax

Audit assails US education department's monitoring of federal spending on charter schools

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? An audit of the U.S. Department of Education's division overseeing hundreds of millions of dollars in charter school funding has criticized the office for failing to properly monitor how states spend the money.

The report released in late September by the department's inspector general also singled out state education departments in California, Florida and Arizona for lax monitoring of what charter schools do with the funds and whether their expenditures comply with federal regulations.

The education department's Office of Innovation and Improvement spent $940 million from 2008 to 2011 on charter schools, which are autonomously operated public schools. Most of the money is funneled through state education departments, although some is given directly to charter schools.

The funds are administered through competitive grants aimed at helping launch new charters and replicate successful charter models.

The inspector general said the innovation office has not given proper guidance to states on monitoring the use of the money and does not have policies to ensure that states corrected deficiencies when they were found.

Additionally, the audit found that the office did not review expenditures to ensure they met with federal disbursement requirements. The audit was based on information gathered by San Francisco-based education research company WestEd.

The office has agreed to beef up its procedures to track federal funds and ensure states are adequately overseeing charter schools, the report said.

The audit also examined state charter oversight policies in California, Arizona and Florida, which collectively received $275 million in federal funds for charter schools from 2008 to 2011.

Among the findings:

In California, which has received nearly $182 million in federal charter grants from 2008 to 2011, auditors found "significant weaknesses" in charter oversight, such as school reviewers being unqualified to conduct on-site school visits. One reviewer felt "awkward" conducting site visits because of a lack of knowledge and experience, the report said.

California Department of Education spokeswoman Tina Jung said officials in Sacramento had just received the report and were reviewing it, but she acknowledged that the department had been aware of oversight deficiencies.

"Even before this review, we recognized the need to build our monitoring capacity, and that effort has already begun," she said.

In Florida, state officials had no records of which schools received federal grant money nor which schools received on-site monitoring and audits. Florida received $67.6 million.

Florida Education Department spokeswoman Cheryl Etters said the agency disagreed with the findings. She said in an email that the state has "an excellent grant management and records system to ensure that the state's charter schools comply with all aspects of the grant requirements," but the documentation was not in a format the inspector general would have liked.

"To enhance our current capabilities with regard to oversight of federal funds, Florida has created a new web-based system to more closely monitor charter school grant expenditures," Etters said.

In Arizona, which received about $26 million, reviewers lacked a monitoring checklist and thus collected inconsistent data when they visited schools.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/correction-charter-school-audit-story-215318341.html

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Should you buy a franchise? | Kuwait Times

?Can you help me buy a franchise?? I hear that question several times a month from people in Kuwait, and while I?m willing to help, most people do not understand what?s involved in owning a franchise. People operate franchises in more than 100 countries, and it?s extremely popular in Kuwait, but franchising doesn?t work for everyone, and it might not work for you. Before I offered to help you, I?d want to know about your entrepreneurial drive.

Imagine for a moment a horizontal line that measures entrepreneurial drive. At the far left of the line is the number 1 (indicating no to little entrepreneurial drive); at the far right is the number 10 (indicating high entrepreneurial drive). Where are you on that scale? Go ahead, identify your entrepreneurial drive. If you selected a number below 5, your entrepreneurial drive may be too low to own a business, franchised or not. Keep your job, or get one! If you selected a number higher than 8, your entrepreneurial drive may be too high.

Create a business and franchise it rather than buy someone else?s concept. If you selected a mid-scale number, 5 to 8, you may be the perfect franchisee candidate. Mid-range entrepreneurial drive provides just enough initiative without providing too much creativity.

But since there?s no scientific proof to this exercise, you still have a lot of homework to do.

Continue by answering these questions:

1. If you bake a cake, are you more likely to follow a recipe, including measuring the ingredients, or will you guess at both the ingredients and the measurements?

2. Would you rather lead or follow?

3. Are you trainable? To succeed as a franchisee, your answers should have been: recipe, follow, yes.

Here?s why: Franchising relies on systems (or recipes) to operate outlets successfully. More than anything, franchising is a series of systems for marketing, selling, and distributing products and services. Without specific systems, the business fails. Franchisors expect franchisees to implement their systems without question. That?s why franchisees must be good followers! Systems are the treasured recipes of franchising.

Franchisees also must learn the franchisor?s systems, so they must be trainable. Franchise companies train new franchisees for several days to several weeks initially. Success depends on the franchisor transferring knowledge to the franchisee. Untrainable people will not learn the systems and follow them. There are many other questions to ask before you buy a franchise, but you?re off to a good start. The next obvious question: ?Which franchise should I buy?? Look for answers in a future column.

Note: How can you improve your business? Dr. John Hayes will help you discover points of opportunity. Free analysis for qualifying businesses. Send a paragraph describing your business; selected businesses may be featured in Kuwait?s My Business. Dr. Hayes has worked with an impressive international list of independent and franchised businesses. He is a professor in the College of Business at GUST. Contact him at questions@hayesworldwide.com, or via Twitter @drjohnhayes.

By John P Hayes
local@kuwaittimes.net

Read by 247

?

Source: http://news.kuwaittimes.net/2012/11/01/should-you-buy-a-franchise/

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High levels of vitamin D in plasma protects against bladder cancer

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2012) ? High levels of vitamin D are associated with protection against bladder cancer, according to a multidisciplinary study coordinated by molecular biologists and epidemiologists from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), the conclusions of which are being published October 30 in the Journal of National Cancer Institute (JNCI) .

The study has been led by N?ria Malats, head of the Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology Group, and Francisco X. Real, from the Epithelial Carcinogenesis Group, at the CNIO.

The authors of the study took blood samples from more than 2,000 individuals -- including patients with bladder cancer and control subjects free from the disease -- in 18 Spanish hospitals, making of this the largest study carried out to-date in this field. "We have seen that those subjects with the highest levels of 25(OH)D3, a stable form of vitamin D in the blood, are those who showed the lowest risk of suffering bladder cancer. These results indicate that high levels of this vitamin are associated with protection from the illness or, similarly, that low levels are associated with a higher risk of suffering from it," says Malats.

"We have also shown, using in vitro molecular analysis, that vitamin D regulates the expression of a protein -- FGFR3 -- that takes part in the development of bladder cancer," adds Real.

According to the study, this protective effect is more obvious in those patients with more aggressive cancers. "We observe that high levels of vitamin D diminish, above all, the risk of developing invasive bladder cancer with low levels of FGFR3; which is to say those cancers with the highest probability of metastizing," says Andr? FS Amaral, first author of the study.

The research results suggest that an increase in the dietary or supplementary intake of this vitamin, or via a controlled increase in sun exposure, might be beneficial for the patient in terms of prevention and treatment.

Bladder cancer represents a serious public health problem in many countries, especially Spain, where 11,000 new cases are registered each year, one of the highest rates anywhere in the world. In fact, it is the fourth most frequent type of tumour among Spanish males, after prostate, lung and colorectal cancers.

Following diagnosis, patients are continually observed with different follow-up techniques, among them cystoscopy, which requires the introduction of a small camera via the urethra to observe the bladder lining.

This type of follow-up affects the patients' quality of life and imposes heavy costs on healthcare authorities, thus further increasing the need to improve prevention strategies faced with this type of cancer.

Recent studies relate vitamin D levels with other types of cancer like breast or colon cancer. Despite this research, it is still not clearly understood which molecular routes are used by this vitamin to exercise its protective effect, or the role it plays in other types of tumours.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO).

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. A. F. Amaral, M. Mendez-Pertuz, A. Munoz, D. T. Silverman, Y. Allory, M. Kogevinas, J. Lloreta, N. Rothman, A. Carrato, M. Rivas del Fresno, F. X. Real, N. Malats. Plasma 25-Hydroxyvitamin D3 and Bladder Cancer Risk According to Tumor Stage and FGFR3 Status: A Mechanism-Based Epidemiological Study. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 2012; DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djs444

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/B-8wgtq585A/121030161414.htm

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The Dream Whisperer | Daily Fast Fuel

I?m guessing that God doesn?t forget the way that He formed us.? I imagine He knows the things that delight our hearts and make us feel alive. He is well aware of every dream, before we even dream it- and ever-thoughtful of them when we think they have died. And sometimes, in the busyness of life, He whispers to us. I remember what I put inside you.? Do you? Lately, I been hearing these subtle whispers.? Several weeks ago I walked by the bookstore at my church and saw a book in the window that had the title and cover design I had always imagined for my first book.? My heart sank as I felt my dream of being a writer drift away.? I had waited too long, allowed other things to steal my time from my dream of writing, and now someone else had beat me to the punch.? About ten minutes later a woman, who I don?t know, approaches me having read one of my short stories online and asks where she can find my book.? Encouraged, I said, ?It?ll be in the bookstore soon.? I remember what I put inside you.? Do you? The last twelve weeks of my life have been full, to say the least.? If you paid this teacher by the hour, I should have retired by now.? And yet, in the midst of this season when writing is almost a foreign concept, He whispers.? In the past few weeks I?ve been asked to speak at a writers group, met with writers over coffee to encourage and help develop characters, been given connections to screenwriters, and have had all these moments where I?m simply remembering aspects of this writing dream I hadn?t thought of in a while.? I remember what I put inside you.? Do you? I am encouraged in this ? not only in that He never forgets, but He is kind enough to make sure I don?t either.?? How do you respond to His whispers?

Jesus, I thank you that you are faithful to complete the good work you started in us (Philippians 1:6), that you created us with purpose, and that you are faithful to remind us who we are in Christ.

---

Sara Rust is your server today! Find out more about her here and don't forget to sign up for updates by?email?or?RSS?before you go.

Source: http://www.dailyfastfuel.com/2012/11/the-dream-whisperer.html

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EE launches Britain's first 4G services

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobile operator EE launched its 4G network in 11 cities on Tuesday, giving it a head start on disgruntled rivals to take British consumers into the superfast broadband era where they can watch video and quickly surf the Internet on the move.

The launch comes just weeks after the joint venture between France Telecom's Orange and Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile businesses got the go-ahead to provide the new service while its rivals Vodafone, Telefonica's O2 and Hutchison's Three have to wait until next year.

"We're investing 1.5 billion pounds in our network to be the first company to offer mobile 4G in the UK, alongside the biggest 3G network," EE's chief executive Olaf Swantee said.

Regulator Ofcom has allowed EE to reuse its existing airwaves for 4G, which offers speeds five times faster than 3G. The other operators need to obtain new spectrum in an auction early next year, or in the case of Three, buy spectrum from EE.

The decision was a calculated move by Ofcom to kick-start 4G, and make the operators agree to a timetable for the spectrum auction and delivery of services after lengthy delays.

EE has priced 4G 10-20 percent higher than equivalent 3G tariffs, with an entry level of 36 pounds a month for 500MB of data, rising to 56 pounds for 8GB. All price plans unlimited calls and texts.

The tariffs faced some criticism on Twitter, with people saying that at superfast network speeds, the lowest monthly data allowance could be used up in a few minutes.

EE, however, said the levels had been set in line with typical demand, saying the average usage on a 36-pounds-a-month plan on its Orange 3G brand was just over 400MB.

"EE provides many more options for customers who have a heavier data requirement," a company spokeswoman said.

"Our top plan with an 8GB data limit provides customers with eight times more data than is used by an average unlimited user today."

EE is supporting the launch, in 11 cities including London, Birmingham and Manchester, with a multi-million pound ad campaign.

Its rivals, however, are fighting back by emphasising the quality of their existing networks and their own 3G plans.

Vodafone has been running ads across the press since Friday, highlighting the investment it is making ahead of launching its own services next year.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ee-launches-britains-first-4g-services-120740685--finance.html

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