Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History!

Annual report from Kristoff on how the world has gotten better.

Each day on average, about another 295,000 people around the world gained access to electricity for the first time, according to Max Roser of Oxford University and his Our World in Data website. Every day, another 305,000 were able to access clean drinking water for the first time. And each day an additional 620,000 people were able to get online for the first time.

Never before has such a large portion of humanity been literate, enjoyed a middle-class cushion, lived such long lives, had access to family planning or been confident that their children would survive. Let’s hit pause on our fears and frustrations and share a nanosecond of celebration at this backdrop of progress.

Why 2018 Was the Best Year in Human History! https://nyti.ms/2RwJ5YB

Senate Passes Bipartisan Criminal Justice Bill

Wow! The staff are speechless. This is amazing.

Senate Passes Bipartisan Criminal Justice Bill https://nyti.ms/2GqmNnb

Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Grid

This sounds like the blythe statements CEOs often make, but don’t mean about environmental concerns.

This article makes it sound like they are practicing what they preach in Vermont.

Green Mountain’s chief executive, Mary Powell, sees the program here as the best way to please customers while making the system more environmentally and physically sustainable.

As a practical matter, the less electricity the utility pulls from the regional transmission system, especially at times of peak demand, the less it has to pay in fees, producing savings it can pass on to customers. One way it does this is by remotely controlling the batteries installed through its programs, drawing upon the stored energy as needed.

Utility Helps Wean Vermonters From the Electric Grid https://nyti.ms/2u7fk0L

With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential

The staff often says that you have to be a pretty bad person to be a nationally prominent politician, but this article has helped us bring a nuanced understamding to that.

Regardless of your views of his presidency…

Obama’s personal behavior has set a standard few presidents have ever reached.
those who praise Obama as a model father or husband for the black family do him a disservice. He’s a model, without asterisk for race.

As a person, as a human being, Barry stands head and shoulders above the rest. 

It will be a long time before this country gets another leader of this quality. 
With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential http://nyti.ms/29UyHCW

NYTimes: A Rare Agreement on Climate Rules

Sweet. Sometimes the system does work. Most likely it’s just one of those rare alignments of profit motive and doing the right thing. Either way there will be benefits to the environment.

A Rare Agreement on Climate Rules http://nyti.ms/2bvIcuy

NYTimes: Ideas Help No One on a Shelf. Take Them to the World.

We need fewer entrepreneurs and idea folks and more doers who get good ideas out there.

SomebodyisFlyingthePlane.

We tend to focus on the glitz and glamor of new ideas and products. The article points to the need to get existing ideas out into the world; which is more important than dreaming up new solutions to the world’s problems.

Ideas Help No One on a Shelf. Take Them to the World. http://nyti.ms/1KZPuUl

Benioff: USA needs ‘compassionate capitalism’

Its always refreshing to hear a CEO pledge to do more than just pursue profits. Its extraordinary when a CEO actually does something about it. Its exemplary when a CEO leads others to do the same.

“We are a country based on capitalism, but we should just have a more compassionate capitalism,” he says. “It shouldn’t be just about shareholders but, more broadly, stakeholders, from your customers to the environment.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/04/04/marc-benioff-indiana-religious-freedom-law-usa-today-exclusive-interview/25258395/

Drone ranger: Unmanned plane to spy on rhino poachers

Great use of military tech for conservation purposes. This is the literal embodiment of Nobodyisflyingtheplane.

Anyone as concerned with privacy as the staff is at Nobodyisflyingtheplane is obviously wary of the potential for misuse of unmanned drones, but we love to hear when privacy invading police state tech can be used for the betterment of all.

Why not take military style use further and develop remote pilot operation bases in parts of the world where there is a sufficient supply of skilled pilots. Then crowdsource the surveillance feeds to interested internet users who could review footage in their free time.  How about forming a non profit to raise funds for remote aerial conservation efforts by developing a remote drone flight school and selling classes to retired Baby Boomers on Groupwise just as real flight schools do.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/world/africa/drone-poaching-ol-pejeta/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

Microgrids: A Disaster-Resistant Power Supply?

A smart idea for dealing with unpredictable weather. Develop micro power grids which can operate independently from the main grid in times of outages.

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Microgrids-Disaster-Resistant-Power-Supply.html

Nader has some simple and fair ideas for change

Ralph Nader has some simple no nonsense ideas to affect change in our government and our lives. The link below leads to a Yahoo bloggers interview regarding Nader’s new book. The link’s summary of his ideas made sense to me.

“Let us first tax things we don’t like before we tax labor.”

Of course, why tax something we want to encourage on a societal level? Tax the things we want to discourage.

tax corporate crime, corporate pollution and what he calls “the big one”, Wall Street speculation; specifically, “bets on bets,” i.e. derivatives.

Other sound ideas:

Citing an ideal originally proposed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Nader is proposing a national commission on corporate subsides and tax loopholes to determine “which ones are wasteful, inequitable, or boomerang in accordance to their own purpose.”

“The American public wants law and order against corporate crooks,” he says.

Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese sent more than 1000 banking executives to jail following the Savings & Loan crisis. Yet four-plus years after the bursting of the credit bubble, scant few Wall Street executives have gone to jail.

Nader’s idea is to encourage Americans to spend their money at farmer’s markets, credit unions or community banks, community health clinics that emphasize prevention and on renewable energy.

While simultaneously reducing the influence of big banks, big agriculture and the “hydrocarbon empire,” such actions will also “strengthen local community business, which is not about to shut down and go to China,” Nader says. “And it’s also a more stable business. They’re not engaged in speculation so no financiers in London, New York or Tokyo is going to pull the plug on your community.”

Nader also recommends creating community watchdogs for every single member of Congress. With more accountability and pressure from ordinary citizens, Americans can “turn Congress around, turn the government around,” he says. “Pretty soon your tax dollars will go back to rebuilding your community and make your life better instead of being siphoned off to Wall Street or corporate welfare or looted and drained by corporate crime.”

While simultaneously reducing the influence of big banks, big agriculture and the “hydrocarbon empire,” such actions will also “strengthen local community business, which is not about to shut down and go to China,” Nader says. “And it’s also a more stable business. They’re not engaged in speculation so no financiers in London, New York or Tokyo is going to pull the plug on your community.”

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/ralph-nader-17-solutions-easier-think-turn-country-130115438.html