Tom Faranda's Folly

Amazon cuts a big deal for space on Staten Island

From the Wall Street Journal. It's spelled J - O - B - S., hopefully with good salary and benefits - Amazon is not known as a beneficent employer.

Amazon Scoops Up More Warehouse Space on Staten Island. Online retail giant pushes to speed delivery to New York-area consumers

The company signed a lease to take 450,000 square feet of warehouse space at Matrix Global Logistics Park, where it already has a massive 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center, an Amazon spokeswoman confirmed. The company plans to open a delivery station in the new space for the last legs of the customer-order process.

The deal is the latest example of retailers ramping up their distribution operations inside New York City even as they continue to expand in New Jersey and surrounding areas to keep up with growing online shopping. Big retail companies like Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. are looking to drastically cut delivery times to customers from two days to as short as two hours in some cases.

Looks like they will not be getting any tax incentives - which is good!

Two years ago, Amazon struck a deal with New York state for up to $18 million in tax credits for jobs it creates at its existing fulfillment center on Staten Island. The company doesn’t typically request government incentives for its delivery stations, an Amazon spokeswoman said.

As the oceans rise, threatening sports stadiums: "Rising Risks: Coastal Stadiums"

A short CNBC video. The four part PBS series Sinking Cities which Brigid and I watched - and is which is till being shown I think makes mention of this regarding Miami.

 

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How the terrorist Soleimeni continues to slaughter people from beyond the grave

A brief but scary and sad video from The Telegraph (UK).

Trump threat? "Bolton Wakes Up Next To His Dead Moustache"

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A scream erupted this morning from the Bolton household when former national security advisor John Bolton woke up to find his mustache lying dead beside him, a dagger pierced straight through his beloved friend. “No! Why?! Why?!” an inconsolable Bolton cried as police and paramedics arrived on the scene.

There was nothing they could do, though, as everyone agreed it would just look weird if they tried to put it back on him with spirit gum.It is unknown who murdered Bolton’s mustache and what the exact motives are, but many have taken this as a threat to Bolton for his new book in which he details how Trump pressured Ukraine on the Biden investigation. “The target is Bolton,” said Representative Adam Schiff, “and innocent facial hair just happened to get caught in the crossfire.”

President Trump has dismissed this suggestion. “Maybe someone thought it was a rat, if you know what I mean,” Trump told the press. “Anyway, I bet he looks good without a mustache.” This is unknown, though, as Bolton is reportedly wearing an Elephant Man-type hood until his mustache grows back.

CNN providing free campaign material for Trump

Oh dear. Just need to watch the first two minutes. Trump supporters as the "credulous boomer rube demo." The guy on the left - dark hair is a NY Times reporter. Other guy - some political consultant. A further expansion of the "basket of deplorables" Hillary definition. Way to go. The Trump people should pay CNN for this sort of stuff. 

 

Coming to the Memphis Mae's location - a Greek eatery

Thanks to Maria for sending me this.

COMING TO THE FORMER MEMPHIS MAE'S LOCATION IN THE CROTON COMMONS SHOPPING CENTER.... PIATO GREEK KITCHEN!

 

 

Not Satire: "Dershowitz Lists Presidents That Would’ve Been Impeached Under Dems’ “View Of The Constitution”"

There are all sorts of excerpts on youtube from Alan Dershowitz presentation yesterday opposing Democrats impeachment theatrics. This brief one is pretty entertaining.  Dershowitz of course is a Democrat - voted for Hillary in 2016.

 

Kobe Bryant attended Mass several hours before the crash

A very short video -

 

Two short videos from the March for Life

First, a one minute time lapse from Students for Life.

 

And here are five minutes of interviews with young people - why they attended.

Very good: Martin Sheen's favorite stories from the movie "Gettysburgh"

Martin Sheen is a great raconteur. I meet him almost 20 years ago, before he was the President in "The West Wing" and spent a couple of hours with him. He's a wonderful person.

Gettysburgh came out in 1993 and is a very fine movie, although I thought Sheen was miscast as Robert E. Lee.

From five years ago: "How Kobe Bryant’s Catholic Faith Pulled Him Through His Darkest Hour"

I suppose the lesson from today's terrible crash taking five lives - life is always precious ... and precarious. This was sent to me by my friend Jessica and is an article from five years ago.

What most people don’t know, though, is that he’s (Bryant) Catholic. And that, according to a recent interview, his Catholic faith helped him through one of the darkest times of his life. 

 

A brief interview with Kellyanne Conway - good and some humor -even if you're a Trump-hater

"Kellyanne Conway: 'We were naïve to think everyone would get behind Trump after 2016 win'"

Hlllary on Sanders: "Would Be More Likable If He'd Just Have The People Who Don't Like Him Assassinated"

In a candid moment, she told the interviewer that if she were running the Sanders campaign, the vocal critics would find themselves "swimming with the fishes."

"Look, if you want to be likable in politics, you've got to be willing to fight for it, and maybe kill for it," she said. ...The best kind of likability is the kind that comes when people are too afraid to speak up against you."

"I want people to be afraid of how much they love me," she added.

Many political commentators quickly condemned her remarks but have since turned up dead.

Good news tax reform: "Carried interest" loophole to be closed

The carried interest loophole has been around for years. It allows hedge fund operators to convert their management fees from ordinary income to capital gains and pay at the lower capital gains tax rate. Grossly unfair. Could of/should of been closed years ago. Why didn't Clinton or Bush or Obama close it?

Carried interest refers to a longstanding Wall Street tax break that let many private equity and hedge fund financiers pay the lower capital gains tax rate on much of their income, instead of the higher income tax rate paid by wage-earners.

President Donald Trump vowed to close the loophole during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Republican tax legislation signed into law by Trump in December required fund managers to hold investments for at least three years before becoming eligible for the lower capital gains rate, but it exempted corporations.

Media reports soon followed saying that some investment funds were setting up pass-through entities known as S-corporations in the hopes of qualifying for the corporate exemption and skirting the carried interest restriction.

On Thursday, the Treasury and its tax-collecting Internal Revenue Service announced that forthcoming regulations will prevent S-corporations from taking advantage of the carried interest exemption.

S-corporations are a form of business entity that passes profits on to business owners as personal income.

 Bit more information if you hit the link above.

Does President Trump need a food taster?

Without meaning to be, this is a very funny article. Or - I have an odd sense of humor (perhaps it's both?). Can't you just see one of the Secret Service food taster people tasting the water before the Prez drinks it? Roman Emperor Claudius was killed by poison in AD 54 even though he hired a food taster named Halotus.

Nancy Pelosi's daughter said she handed Trump a bottle of water without anyone checking it

The daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to hand over a bottle of water to President Donald Trump without having anyone check for contamination, according to a new book about the White House.

An excerpt from "A Very Stable Genius," written by Washington Post journalists Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, highlighted a glaring security lapse in the White House that took place six weeks after Trump's inauguration. The excerpt was published on Vanity Fair on Monday.

Alexandra Pelosi, the House Speaker's daughter, had been directing the filming of a documentary inside the White House on March 1, 2017, when the president appeared, the book said.

Trump had asked for a bottle of water during filming, but in the absence of a staff member to give him one, Pelosi took out a bottle of Aquafina from her purse and handed it to him, the authors said.

To her shock, there were no checks or protocols, the book added.

"I've been to the White House," she told Rucker and Leonnig. "There are always protocols. Here there were no rules, no protocol." 

"There's so much wrong with the whole thing. I'm thinking, Isn't there someone who's supposed to guard what he's eating and drinking?"

"Hillary Clinton kicks off the 'stop Sanders' movement"

This is amazing - "nobody likes" Sanders? Isn't that the pot calling the kettle ... The pro-Sanders websites are going berserk.

Nothing the Clintons do is accidental. And so when the news broke less than two weeks before the Iowa caucuses that in a forthcoming Hulu documentary, Hillary Clinton badmouths her 2016 rival Bernie Sanders as a “career politician” whom “nobody likes,” it didn’t just call attention to the ill feeling still lingering from that year’s bitter primary campaign. It also signaled that Clinton has thrown her weight behind the nascent “Stop Sanders” movement gaining steam among Democratic power brokers. The question now is whether Democratic voters will follow her lead — and whether Barack Obama himself might come out of semiretirement to join the cause.

Derek Jeter Hall of Fame announcement

Short message - Derek Jeter Hall of Fame announcement

And here's a very nice interview on the MLB network - Derek Jeter Discusses Being Elected to the Hall of Fame

 

Martin Luther King Jr. - "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

A defense of civil disobedience. "An unjust law is no law at all."

It was indeed written by MLK from jail to fellow clergy "who agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not the streets. As a minister, King responded to these criticisms on religious grounds. As an activist challenging an entrenched social system, he argued on legal, political, and historical grounds. As an African American, he spoke of the country's oppression of black people, including himself." Quote is from the wikipedia article about the letter.

On the crucial question of obeying "The Law"  here is MLK's money quote:

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

The whole letter can be found here - "Letter from a Birmingham Jail [King, Jr.]"  - and doesn't take long to read - prints out at eight pages.  

 

Three years ago today -

Trump was signed in/ordained ... what's the right term?

 

Perhaps the most famous Martin Luther King Jr. quote ... and the "I have a dream speech"

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

 

I have read that the expression "I have a dream" was not in his written text - he ad libbed it.

Martin Luther King's Address at March on Washington, August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C. One of the greatest of all American speeches.

Short - LSU college football champions meet with Trump

Short and amusing.

All-time best - Donald Trump impression!?

HAHAHA!

Google becomes 4th company to reach $1 trillion in market value

Google - parent company Alphabet - joins Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. Apple and Microsoft alone, are larger than the Russell 2000 (the bottom 2,000 stocks of the Russell 3,000). 

The search-engine giant joins peers Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. as the only firms to reach the threshold during intraday trading. Apple and Amazon accomplished the feat in the summer of 2018, while Microsoft hit $1 trillion for the first time in April of last year. Amazon never closed above $1 trillion and has fallen well behind Apple and Microsoft, which have rocketed past that level recently.

The massive gains for technology stocks come with Silicon Valley companies ascending to the forefront of the world economy and flexing their muscles in new arenas such as health care and transportation. Despite concerns about stricter regulatory scrutiny, the biggest technology companies have continued soaring in value, highlighting how investors favor firms that steadily improve sales in a world with tepid economic growth and low interest rates.

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“Google is one of those critical, important leaders in multiple areas,” said Michael Lippert, who manages the Baron Capital Opportunity Fund that counts Alphabet among its largest holdings. “You almost can’t live your life without Googling things.”

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The largest five companies in the S&P 500—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook Inc. —now account for about 19% of the index in terms of weighting. Five years ago, the largest five components in the broad equity gauge made up 12%, illustrating the growing dominance of a handful of the biggest tech stocks.

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Apple is now approaching a $1.4 trillion market cap, while Microsoft is at $1.27 trillion and Amazon is at $931 billion. Facebook stands at $633 billion.

 

Attorney General Bill Barr takes his orders from a "Catholic Cult"?!?!

That's according to The New Yorker.

This refutation is from the NY Post. 

Bill Barr is plugged into, and gets his marching ­orders from, a network of reactionary Catholics, whose tentacles reach into the highest echelons of power. At the center is a sinister, secretive organization with a Latin name: Opus Dei, “the Work of God.”

That’s the impression you might take away from a new profile of the attorney general in The New Yorker. All that’s missing are the hair shirts, cilices and murderous albino monks — the kind of thing too many secular elites believe about the lives of devout ­Catholics generally and members of Opus Dei especially.

The winding and often tendentious essay paints Barr as President Trump’s wartime consigliere, out to dish payback to the US intelligence community for launching #RussiaGate — rather than, you know, look into real abuses recognized as such by foreign-intelligence judges and even FBI honcho Christopher Wray.

Along the way, writer David Rohde dwells on Barr’s Catholic faith and worldview. He brings up Barr’s association with the Catholic Information Center, a small cultural nonprofit in Washington, where swamp denizens stop by to buy spiritual books, hear the Mass and generally find uplift.

“Led by a member of the arch-conservative group Opus Dei, the center is a hub for Washington’s influential conservatives,” Rohde darkly suggests. ...

It could be that these men meet at the CIC afterhours to plot how to install Melania Trump as the Most Catholic Empress of the Americas. … Or it could be that they, like members of any other faith, seek spiritual fellowship and give their nonworking hours to helping others find the same.

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This is egregious nonsense. For starters, Barr isn’t, in fact, a member, as the organization was forced to clarify in November, breaking its usual policy of not identifying members or non-members. More important, people who attend Opus Dei ­activities don’t show up for ­ominous conspiracies.

Hit the link above for the  rest, it's pretty interesting. FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm not a member of Opus Dei; I know a handful of people who are. And they are all good folks.

CNN goes after Bernie Sanders

I suppose CNN has the knives out because they don't think Bernie can win against Trump. "More journalism from our friends on cable news". Their farcical attack led to record number of donors to Sanders.

Biden at the debate: "I'm just like you folk. I put my pants on one arm at a time."

Yeah. Vintage. Joe Biden: 'I'm Just Like You Regular Folk, I Put My Pants On One Arm At A Time'. OK it's actually the Babylon Bee. But it could have been Biden.

 

Enlightening: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon interview

Jamie Dimon is really smart, and very articulate. Well worth listening to, if you care about the state of the Country ... and your $$$! This is part one of a two part series.

WSJ: Cancer survival rates: USA v. United Kingdom and France

Well here you go. The United Kingdom's National Health Service is often held up (by Bernie Sanders, et al) as the gold standard for what we should have. It is much less costly. OK, but there's such as thing as the law of diminishing returns and also the expression "You get what you pay for." Only in one case, France with liver cancer, do either of these healthcare systems show better outcomes than the USA, and that is by a small amount. FULL DISCLOSURE: I started this weblog way back in 2005 to report on my own chemotherapy treatment for lymphoma. And I'm still here.

Where You Want to Get Cancer. Mortality rates are falling, especially if you live in the U.S.

Excerpt from the editorial is below the graph.

 

The five-year survival rate is now 98% for prostate cancer, 92% for melanoma and 90% for breast cancer. Between 2013 and 2017, the death rate for men with melanoma declined by a stunning 7.6% annually. Screening and treatment improvements also helped reduce the death rate for breast cancer by an average of 1.5% annually from 2008 to 2017.

Scientific understanding of cancer and its genetic determinants has advanced by leaps over the past decade. Most women now know, for example, that mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes increase the risk for breast and ovarian cancers.

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But the drugs require enormous investment and therefore aren’t cheap once they’re approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has rejected immunotherapies because they were too expensive, though it has had to relent in some cases after patient protests.

Such government rationing and price controls on drugs are one major reason that countries with socialized medicine like the United Kingdom have lower cancer survival rates than the U.S. The age-adjusted cancer mortality rate is about 20% higher in the U.K and 10% higher in Canada and France than in the U.S. Survival rates for hard-to-treat cancers are also higher in the U.S. than in most countries with nationalized health systems.

According to a study in the journal Lancet last year, an individual diagnosed with pancreatic cancer between 2010 and 2014 had nearly twice the likelihood of surviving five years in the U.S. than in the U.K. The five-year survival rate for brain cancer in the U.S. is 36.5% compared to 27.2% in France and 26.3% in the U.K. For stomach cancer the five-year survival rate is 33.1% in the U.S. compared to 26.7% in France and 20.7% in the U.K.

Diagnostic and treatment advances in the U.S. are also accelerating. Google’s artificial intelligence can now detect breast and lung cancers with better accuracy—meaning fewer false positives and negatives—than radiologists. AI systems are also enabling researchers to identify more genetic links and to personalize treatments.

Even the report’s gloomiest news has a silver lining. Death rates for liver cancer are rising faster than for other forms of the disease, but Hepatitis C drugs could greatly reduce the incidence and have come down 80% in price since 2014. It’s also worth highlighting that the disparity in cancer death rates between blacks and whites declined to 13% in 2017 from a peak of 33% in 1993.

Steve Bannon not my cup of tea, but much of what he says in this interview makes sense (to me anyway)

With Maria Bartiromo & about 12 minute long. "What President Trump did is go against the established order..." no denying that ...

 

Ex-Pope Benedict urges Pope Francis to not make further exceptions to the priestly celibacy rule

UPDATE: Pope Francis had this to say: Pope Francis on Monday repeated his support for celibacy after his predecessor pope Benedict XVI urged him not to open the Catholic priesthood up to married men

Funny how these news services love to throw around terms like "arch-conservative" and "ultra-conservative". I have no opinion on this subject since it's way above my pay grade but I don't think you have to be arch-this or ultra-that to think that the vow of priestly celibacy has a place. 

The ex-pontiff, who retired in 2013, issued the defence of clerical celibacy in a book written with arch-conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah, extracts of which were published in exclusive by France's Le Figaro.

The pair asked the whole Church not to be "swayed" by "bad pleas, theatrics, diabolical lies, fashionable errors that want to devalue priestly celibacy".

"It is urgent, necessary, that everyone, bishops, priests and laity, let themselves be guided once more by faith as they look upon the Church and on priestly celibacy that protects her mystery," they wrote.

They warned of priests "confused by the incessant questioning of their consecrated celibacy".

"The conjugal state concerns man in his totality, and since the service of the Lord also requires the total gift of man, it does not seem possible to realise the two vocations simultaneously," Benedict wrote.

Sarah insisted that while celibacy can be "a trial" it is also "a liberation".

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Supporters say it would not be necessary to rewrite Church law; Francis could simply make an exemption to the rules -- like the one already granted to married Anglican pastors who later converted to Catholicism.

But the ultra-conservative wing of the Church -- particularly in Europe and North America -- has spoken out strongly against the idea ....

Bernie Sanders is "surging"

Yes and I think he'll be the ultimate Democratic nominee to run against Trump.

Least we forget - Iran executes homosexuals

This was posted on facebook by a friend of mine - nothing new of course, but worth reminding ourselves of their cruelty.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Monday cited "moral principles" when asked why Iran executes homosexuals for their sexual orientation, as he also attacked the US and Israel for "violating human rights."

At a press conference in the Iranian capital with his German counterpart, Heiko Maas, Zarif was asked by Bild reporter Paul Ronzheimer about the death penalty for gay people in the Middle Eastern country. 

"Our society has moral principles, and according to these principles we live," Zarif responded. "These are moral principles regarding the behavior of people in general. And that's because the law is upheld and you abide by laws."

In late January, a 31-year-old man was publicly hanged in Iran after being found guilty of violating the country's anti-gay laws, according to The Jerusalem Post.

WSJ: "Swiss Back Channel Helped Defuse U.S.-Iran Crisis"

Thank you Switzerland!

BERN, Switzerland—Hours after a U.S. strike killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Trump administration sent an urgent back channel message to Tehran: Don’t escalate. The encrypted fax was sent via the Swiss Embassy in Iran, one of the few means of direct, confidential communication between the two sides, U.S. officials said. In the days that followed, the White House and Iranian leaders exchanged further messages, which officials in both countries described as far more measured than the fiery rhetoric traded publicly by politicians.

A week later, and after a retaliatory Iranian missile attack on two military bases hosting American troops that inflicted no casualties, Washington and Tehran seemed to be stepping back from the brink of open hostilities—for now.

“We don’t communicate with the Iranians that much, but when we do the Swiss have played a critical role to convey messages and avoid miscalculation,” a senior U.S. official said.

A spokesman at Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the exchanges but said “we appreciate [the Swiss] for any efforts they make to provide an efficient channel to exchange letters when and if necessary.”

One Iranian official said the back channel provided a welcome bridge, when all others had been burned: “In the desert, even a drop of water matters.”

From the Swiss Embassy, a Shah-era mansion overlooking Tehran, the country’s role as a diplomatic intermediary has stretched through four turbulent decades and seven presidencies, from the hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama’s nuclear deal. It has seldom been tested like this.

The Americans’ first note was sent immediately after Washington confirmed the death of Gen. Soleimani, the most important figure in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the U.S. officials said.

It arrived on a special encrypted fax machine in a sealed room of the Swiss mission—the most enduring method since the 1979 Islamic Revolution—for the White House to exchange messages with Iran’s top leadership.

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The Swiss have served as messengers between Washington and Tehran since 1980, in the wake of the seizure of the American Embassy—and 52 hostages —in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries. Swiss diplomats call the role the “brieftrager” or “the postman.”

In the years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Swiss shepherded messages to help avoid direct clashes. When President Obama assumed office, Switzerland hosted the talks that led to a nuclear deal. When Washington lifted sanctions, Swiss businesses had an early jump on rivals.

When Mr. Trump reimposed sanctions, he gave the Swiss a phone number to pass the Iranians, saying: “I’d like to see them call me.”

Workforce intelligence rises as women overtake men in the workforce!

Yes, women are smarter than men. Everyone knows it.

Women Overtake Men as Majority of U.S. Workforce. Data reflect growth in services industries that employ higher numbers of women.

In December, the education and health-services sector added 36,000 jobs compared with the prior month. Both of those industries are predominantly female. Meanwhile, the mining and manufacturing industries, dominated by men, lost a combined 21,000 jobs.

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Friday’s data showed women surpassed men in the number of payroll jobs held in December. A different Labor Department survey shows men still account for a larger share of the U.S. labor force—comprised of people who are employed or looking for work. Beyond methodological differences between the two surveys, men are more likely to hold jobs not counted on payrolls, including the self-employed and farm laborers. And women are more likely to hold more than one job. A single person can be counted twice in the payroll data, but only once in population surveys.

A gap in the labor-force participation rate persists between men and women. The labor-force participation rate in December was 57.7% for women aged 16 and up, compared with 69.2% for men aged 16 and up.

Several years ago Bernie Sanders website held up Venezuela as a model socialist country

Yes, right here, the last paragraph. Funny he's never deleted it.

Anyway, the latest from Venezuela - you have to hit the link.

Everyone I Know Is Depressed and Medicated: Life in Caracas Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/crisis-in-venezuela-has-nearly-everyone-depressed-and-medicated.

t started with a rapid heartbeat that woke me at dawn. The doctor said it wasn’t a heart attack, only a panic attack, due to “intense stress.” Of course. I live in Venezuela. He surprised me, though, when he told me not to worry about being able to find the alprazolam he recommended. Our country has been so short on meds that some people buy drugs made for pets. But this anti-anxiety potion

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/crisis-in-venezuela-has-nearly-everyone-depressed-and-medicated
Copyright © BloombergQuint

It started with a rapid heartbeat that woke me at dawn. The doctor said it wasn’t a heart attack, only a panic attack, due to “intense stress.” Of course. I live in Venezuela. He surprised me, though, when he told me not to worry about being able to find the alprazolam he recommended. Our country has been so short on meds that some people buy drugs made for pets. But this anti-anxiety potion

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/crisis-in-venezuela-has-nearly-everyone-depressed-and-medicated
Copyright © BloombergQuint

It started with a rapid heartbeat that woke me at dawn. The doctor said it wasn’t a heart attack, only a panic attack, due to “intense stress.” Of course. I live in Venezuela. He surprised me, though, when he told me not to worry about being able to find the alprazolam he recommended. Our country has been so short on meds that some people buy drugs made for pets. But this anti-anxiety potion

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/crisis-in-venezuela-has-nearly-everyone-depressed-and-medicated
Copyright © BloombergQuint

"More Job Growth at Small Companies"

This seems to be the case with the small business owners I know. Many of my clients are business owners.

From the WSJ:

The remarkable jobs rally at U.S. small businesses continued in December. That’s according to the latest National Federation of Independent Business monthly employment survey

NFIB’s Chief Economist William Dunkelberg reports:

Job creation did not change from November, with an average addition of 0.29 workers per firm, the highest level since May. Net job creation had faded from February’s 0.52 workers per firm to September’s 0.10, but is back in strong territory. Finding qualified workers remains the top issue for 23 percent reporting this as their number one problem, 4 points below August’s record high.

The desire to hire among the owners of small firms remained robust. According Mr. Dunkelberg, “The 2019 small business labor market ended in much the same way as it began with strong hiring, elevated levels of open positions, and higher employee compensation.” Speaking of rising wages, the NFIB economist notes: “Attempting to fill open positions, historically high percentages of owners plan to raise worker compensation.”

In some industries, the competition for labor is especially fierce. NFIB reports:

Sixty-two percent of construction firms reported few or no qualified applicants and 46 percent cited the shortage of qualified labor as their top business problem. Comparable figures for manufacturing were 63 percent and 24 percent respectively. Growth is clearly constrained in these important sectors by a shortage of workers.

 

Unsurprisingly, Democrat quickly blames Trump for Iran Shooting Down Ukrainian Airplane.

This is so absurd. And sooo predictable.

 

Brigid the "Artistic Carver" at work.

"Artistic Carver" is Brigid's job description as she puts out product for Historic Hudson Valley's  "The Blaze". And next fall there will be two locations for The Blaze, the second at Bethpage, Long Island.  These are artificial pumpkins Brigid has carved - obviously they are not doing real ones for an event in ten months. The pictures were taken in the last few days. Brigid usually does this two or three days  a week. The studio is three minutes from our house.

Here's another -

one more -

 

 

 

Good News: US cancer death rate has biggest ever one year drop

From the Wall Street Journal with an additional video below the article.

The cancer death rate in the U.S. dropped 2.2% from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded, according to the latest report from the American Cancer Society, continuing a longstanding decline that began a quarter-century ago. The drop is largely driven by progress against lung cancer, though the most rapid declines in the report occurred in melanoma. Advances in treatment are helping improve survival rates in the two cancers, experts say.

The total death-rate decrease, 29% since 1991, translates to an estimated 272,450 fewer deaths in 2017 and 2.9 million fewer deaths overall than there would have been if death rates remained at their peak, according to the American Cancer Society.

The data dates back a few years because of the time required to collect and analyze the information, which is gathered from a variety of government databases and cancer registries, said Rebecca Siegel, the scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and the lead author on the report.

The cancer mortality rate in the U.S. has largely been fueled by deaths from lung cancer. It started to fall in the early 1990s, however, as fewer people smoked and doctors made progress in breast, prostate and colorectal cancers.

Progress against lung cancer has since accelerated, and survival rates have improved at every stage of the disease. Death rates for the disease have dropped 51% among men and 26% among women since their respective peaks.

Here's  a brief video - lymphoma (my cancer) is mentioned -

 

Australian fires - arson involved?

Maybe not all the climate? This is a rather comprehensive and fair-minded article. Thanks Jessica!

There have been 24 people charged with deliberately setting fires among 183 facing legal action in the state, according to the New South Wales Police Force. In addition to those facing the most serious charges of starting fires intentionally, authorities said another 53 people are facing legal action for not complying with the state's fire ban and 47 people have faced legal action for discarding a lit cigarette or match on land.

Ricky Gervis at the Golden Globes - rips Hollywood - the highlight of the night

Well-deserved puncturing of egos. Love the last few comments, especially the one on their intelligence.

A contrary view of the past decade.

In many ways a great decade, especially if you wanted a low cost mortgage, wanted a job, or owned stocks. And if you were going to get a serious illness, chances of recovery is a lot better than even 25 years ago.

BUT - from NRO:

In 2010, the U.S. electorate responded to the overreach of the Obama administration — on health care, but not only on health care — by giving Republicans control of the House in 2010 and then the Senate in 2014. The Obama administration had big ideas. So did congressional Republicans. Both sides failed, and not only because of the other.

From health care to education to national security to entitlements to fiscal stability, the past decade has been one of missed opportunities. We have had a great number of tedious, self-aggrandizing speeches and, for the past few years, a flaming presidential Twitter account. We have had memes and cancelations, rage mobs, neo-nationalism, resurgent socialism, and generally ineffective government. On the cultural front, we have had stagnation: The top-grossing film of 2010 was Toy Story 3, while in 2019 it will be Avengers 22. The three best-selling books of 2018 were the Michelle Obama memoir Becoming, Girl Wash Your Face, and The Wonky Donkey, which is not an account of the sorry state of the Democratic party.

Ht the link for the whole story.

 

Planning for my 102nd birthday

That's right. From my lips to God's ear. From 14,000 feet. Those Australians! There's a second short video below the first. 

What a view!

WSJ editorial: "Trump's Legal Authority"

Good Editorial. For me the main issue is whether the killing of the terror leader was a proportionate or disproportionate response to the threat.

You may have read that Donald Trump can’t do anything right, and apparently now he’s exceeded his authority as President by ordering a drone strike against Qasem Soleimani without congressional approval. That’s the claim being made by Democrats and various legal worthies, except they’re wrong on the law and Constitution. Mr. Trump is accused of violating the executive order against assassinations. But that long-time ban has never applied to terrorists, which Soleimani clearly was.

Mr. Trump also has the power, as Commander in Chief, to use military force against anyone waging war against the U.S. The Quds Force has been doing that for years, going back to the Iraq war and recently with the rocket attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by militia under Soleimani’s control. Soleimani was a general in the chain of command of the enemy, and as such was a justifiable target. An analogy is the U.S. decision to shoot down Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in World War II.

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Some say Mr. Trump’s drone strike is different because it has the potential to become a larger conflict with Iran and thus needs Congressional assent. But Mr. Obama’s Libya intervention also had the potential to become a larger conflict, as did JFK’s naval blockade of Cuba. The consequences of any military action are hard to predict.

The question for these critics is whether they would be making the same arguments if someone else were President. We doubt it.

 

The Epiphany - Scholars: "Jesus Ignored Magi's Gifts, Just Played With The Boxes They Came In"

I could get extra time in purgatory for posting this.

U.S.—Biblical scholars from the nation's top divinity schools now believe Jesus ignored the gold, frankincense, and myrrh brought by the Magi and simply played with the boxes that the gifts came in.

The toddler Jesus reportedly tossed aside the valuable gifts and started playing with the containers. He turned the box the gold came in into a pretend spaceship.... Later on, he tired of that and grabbed the myrrh box, wearing it on his head all afternoon and running around the house cackling like a madman.

The frankincense was "the best gift of all," according to the little Savior, as it came in a "huge" box he used to build a giant pretend robot.

"Man, we spent a lot of time picking those gifts out," one Magi wrote in his personal journal. "And he immediately threw them to the side and just played with the boxes. Oh well. At least they were nice boxes."

Stepinac - Ten Year Anniversary video series.

Of course not the tenth year of Stepinac's existence - I graduated in 1969 - but the the anniversary of being an independent Catholic school.

I know Regina Molinelli, one of the teachers who speaks.

 

CNN interview with Secretary of State Pompeo - laying out the case for the attack

Proportionate? Disproportionate? I certainly have no idea on that.

 

Don Larsen

Ahhh the great Yankee - only man to pitch a no hitter - in fact a perfect game - in a World Series. And he had a fine record with the Yankees (but not with other teams!), 45-24. The two short videos below tell the story. I'd read his autobiography a number of years ago - fabulous book for any baseball fan- so knew he'd done quite a bit of drinking the night before the perfect game. He didn't expect to be in the game! 

Larsen was a nice guy, modest about his success, and very popular. His last appearance at a Yankee Old Timers game was last year.

Here's Yankee announcer Michael Kay talking about Larsen.

 

Retiring at age 65 - a thing of the past?

FULL DISCLOSURE: I have no intention of retiring - but I'm my own boss and not doing manual labor either...

From CNBC. A good article - very comprehensive on the issue.

it turns out that in the U.S., many already anticipate extending their working years, according to recent research from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. A majority of workers — 54% — said they expect to stop working sometime after age 65 or never retire at all, the research found.

Meanwhile, just 24% said they plan to retire at 65, and 22% said they plan to retire earlier.

“People want to extend their working lives and plan to keep working in retirement,” said Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. “By and large, many simply have not yet saved enough to retire comfortably.”

More than half of workers — 55% — said they plan to work either part-time or full time in retirement. While most of those respondents cited financial reasons for those plans, many also pointed to other reasons, many related to healthy aging, such as avoiding social isolation.

U.S. workers may also be driven to work longer for another reason: concerns about the future of Social Security, Collinson said. Three in 4 workers said they are worried that Social Security will not be there for them when they retire.

Too Young? Too Old? Great quote.

My friend and the HNM priest sent this around and I'm stealing it.