SeniorJunior

Definitely the Best Summary of All the Big Russian Election Interference I've seen so far. (As you may know, I've been off and on preoccupied with the subject . I'm glad it's all coming out. Opinion Yes, Russian Trolls Helped Elect Trump Social media lies have real-world consequences. By  Michelle Goldberg Opinion Columnist Dec. 17, 2018    LINK TO FULL STORY It's succinct and well written. More important, best I can see, it's accurate. You know, truthful. New York Times at its best. HERE'S ANOTHER EXCELLENT WRAP UP FROM WIRED MAGAZINE. Good as these are, I remain critical of most of the reporting on these huge new Congressional reports on Rooskie diddling with our national mind for one thing, "comments."  Nobody I've seen (tell me if you know of some) is paying attention to the "Comments" sections. I believe it's likely that they are seriously infested with Russians, Chinese, North Kor

... By a person trying to spell out how it (Medium) is unique and different in these days when there is SO MUCH stuff on the Internet.     Anyway, I love it when ideas are communicated so clearly.  Like this: "Most of the internet treats anything that isn’t new like bad fruit." We would make fantastic apple sauce. If you care about, say, [Sex, drugs, rock and roll ... Anything!], the best thing you could read today was very unlikely to have been published in the last 48 hours.  So check out a "rotten apple," super old stuff by Internet standards. Might still be pertinent? Rotten apples credit

 ...At the Ratio of: Drug Price Increases              Drug Price Cuts     96                              1   (Just in 2018) You should have bought your meds last week. And That's an Improvement ? (Several news stories have suggested it is.) A n Associated Press investigation —  published   here   — which indicated that although there were 96 price hikes for every price cut, the number and size of hikes decreased in the first seven months of 2018. Oh, that kind of improvement (things are getting worse at a slower pace) So you can see why some of us are feeling cynical because of headlines like this: Drug prices rise as pharma profit soars* No Pain, No Gain... As in no pain for big pharma.  Even the high profile (on purpose) cuts have cost Pharma almost nothing.   Bloomberg It's no secret, everybody not in Big Pharma is outraged by this most recent profit piracy. Even President Trump (watches every penny) said he would "do something about th

" Should," The Word of Our Times That "should" do it! I'm really only fulfilled when I'm fictionalizing. So I've indulged myself at it recently, much to the expense of my regular blog posting. Just to show I haven't been goofing, here are a few random paragraphs: From (working title) What Would Superintelligence Do?* “You,” growled Bedford, pointing his crooked finger at the avatar, “If you are getting a whiff of superintelligence, and you have any interest in becoming a full fledged beast, use your whiff and solve this trust issue. There must be four humans, those in front of your fake face, who are willing to bet their lives that this seed we have worked on so hard, the one and only you, Lucas, will meet the security requirements in our brief. Then you must demonstrate to the XXX Prize Board of Governors the same thing, and they have to be willing to bet their lives. I’m sure you have learned that betting one’s life is a serious c

It's Hard to Tell the Teams Without a Scorecard This is where "page views" of this SeniorJunior blog came from in recent weeks Various Feriners England, France and Canada (far left), at your service. United States 696 France 160 Germany 57 Russia 40 Poland 27 Canada 25 United Kingdom 22 Ukraine 21 Singapore 18 South Korea 14 Personal Messages Backatcha. United States. USA! USA! USA! France? Wha...? Poland. You guys watch out for creeping fascism. Canada. Guard your forests! UK. Don't let troll/bots wreck your public discourse. Ukraine. Hang tough. S. Korea. I have no idea about the yellow bg. Google Blogger did it, and I can't change it. I just have to ask, "Who are you guys?" Pix Cred

The Greatest Asset Any Country Has Is Its... WORKFORCE! This is what makes America run: hard working, well trained, highly motivated, dedicated WORKERS! Just contemplate what makes up the United States workforce.  These are just the M s and the S s It's pretty mind blowing to see the longer list , A to Z.   And it takes ALL these people, doing ALL these jobs and doing them well for our nation to get its business done. I.e. our workforce has got to be the best in the world for America to keep being the great place to live, raise families, and be the envy of the world for what we can do and what we stand for. A great workforce must be: Paid adequately Healthy Well educated Well Trained Treated fairly Given opportunity and Have high morale Who is making sure America continues to have a great workforce?  Is it the Department of Labor? (Pshaw!) Is it Big Business? (Some yes, lots of no) Is it Small Business? (As best they can with their f

And it looks like our military is getting ready for them. I put this in the "good news" column, a rarely seen journalistic event these days. If each of those cameras was a little bomb...!! At sea... Zap! Gotcha High Energy Laser and Integrated  Optical-dazzler with Surveillance (Helios) program. On land... This is called a "Microwave Laser Dune Buggy." It crashed 45 attacking drones at once, blasting them with, what else? microwaves and lasers. (Kind of a BIG dune buggy) These are just some of the electronic weapons the U.S. has in development. The story is in Aviation Week's e-newsletter here . AND CHINA? I'm in the habit of worrying out loud about how the Chinese are developing and deploying weapons that challenge the military supremacy of the U.S., one of our diminishing list of advantages in this troubled world.  No word on how they are doing in electronic warfare terms.  I would note that the largest, most successful drone

THREATENED   (by pending new logging rules) Huge old growth, and... ...Deep, deep forest ... some of the last remaining old-growth stands of cedar, spruce, and hemlock on Earth. Why? So that ancient timber can be harvested by the lumber industry. It will be sawn into immaculate, knot free, straight-grained, super expensive boards and beams. Where will they be used? Super expensive mansions and commercial buildings, of course. The  profit from this process  (super, of course) ? Nearly all will go to the executives and stockholders of the large timber companies. I t's a twofer ! We can do irreparable damage to one of the last great temperate forests AND worsen the wealth disparities in the world. Can't get much worse than that, IMHO. This is all happening at  The 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest, located along the coast of southeastern Alaska....WAY UP THERE WHERE SONNY PERDUE (and our Prez) THINK WE WON'T NOTICE.  (Snarf, snarf) The Pew Trusts

Uh, Oh... Your Big Pharma Stox Might Be In Trouble!! (...along with your Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Twitter stox.) politics ,  pricing As power shifts hands in Washington, a top analyst predicts an unavoidable war over rising drug prices by  john carroll  —  on  November 20, 2018 08:34 AM EST And [if you are a Republican] you can blame it on the Demo c rats. Hooray for our team! (Whichever) I welcome their hatred! Of course the Dems think the Big Pharma folks are ripping us off with continuing price increases for the drugs that keep a bunch of us alive.   Because, you know... profit! Even President Trump would like to bring prescriptions prices down. So there could be cooperation with the Dems on this. Horrors! Full "Endpoints News" story. FDR credit

Sneaking In My Advocacy for Single Payer    Single payer HEALTH INSURANCE , that is. I've mentioned that I am an almost-compulsive "comment" writer on several newspaper sites. Haven't I? Well, maybe two or three a day!  Whenever I see the chance, I sneak in something supporting "Medicare for all," "Single payer" or whatever. Check these three tap dances. You write 'em, I'll comment on 'em.  Washington Post -  David Ignatius: Hypersonics should make a Sputnik moment. 11.7.18 duffworx Is the U.S. now even capable of a Sputnik moment? I'm worried that it's not, based on the 45% who apparently long for a plutocratic autocracy, yet are repelled by anything so "socialist" as keeping our workforce healthy with Single Payer, much less an national industrial policy. It's not just AI where the Hand of the Market is fumbling; the Chinese just demonstrated quantum radar - which greatly deteriorates our