Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
KATIE MCDONOUGH, Assistant Editor - Salon
Stephan: I have begun to think that it is a measure of the growing power of the Virtual Corporate States and the diminishment of government's democratic institutions, that such shoddy people as these legislators, are in office.
I was going to do each of these bills as a separate story, then found this compendium. It makes the point as to how prevalent this is, and how it is almost exclusively the work of Republicans.
Lawmakers in North Carolina want to teach grade-schoolers that abortion causes preterm birth, an Iowa Republican fears that no-fault divorce will turn his 16-year-old granddaughter into a a loose woman, and the Arkansas Senate is hoping to override a veto on a 12-week abortion ban.
Sadly, you can’t make this stuff up. A roundup of these and other proposals that are actually being considered by real, live elected officials this week.
Staying together for the kids
A three-member subcommittee in the Iowa House of Representatives is currently mulling a bill that would outlaw no-fault divorce for the parents of minor children. Rep. Tedd Gassman, a Republican member of the subcommittee, said he’s ‘concerned about the negative impact divorce has on children,
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Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
KATIE BASS, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: Once again the Red value, Blue value disparity is revealed in another area of social wellness. As you read this survey, remember the Gallup survey I ran just a few days ago on the March 1st: 'For Fourth Year, Hawaii No. 1 in Wellbeing, W.Va. Last.'
Once again click through to see the clarifying charts and maps.
WASHINGTON, DC — Colorado residents were the least likely in the nation to be obese in 2012 — as has been the case since 2010 — making it the only state where less than 20% of adults are obese. West Virginia – also for a third year in a row — is the state with the highest obesity rate, at 33.5%; however, this is down from 35.3% in 2012, which was the highest for any state that Gallup and Healthways have found since 2008.
11 States with Lowest Obesity Rates10 States with Highest Obesity Rates
The national obesity rate remained steady at 26.2% in 2012, compared with 26.1% in 2011, but is still higher than the 2008 average of 25.5%. Across states, obesity rates were statistically unchanged in 2012 when compared with 2011, with the exception of four states. Obesity rates increased in New Jersey, Georgia, and North Carolina while obesity rates in Delaware decreased.
These data, collected as part of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, are based on respondents’ self-reports of their height and weight, which are used to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI) scores. Americans who have a BMI of 30 or higher are classified as obese. Gallup and Healthways have been […]
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Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
JOSHUA JACOBS and EFTYCHIS MOURGINAKIS, Founding Members - The Conservative Future Project - Asia Times (Hong Kong)
Stephan: This is a conservative, but brilliant analysis of several of the trends I have covered in SR. I agree with all of this except for the energy sector section, which I think is quite wrong. They do not properly take into account the quickening transition to noncarbon energy; and they make no mention at all of climate change, and its effects.
The net-net here though is an emerging trend of massive importance: How do we structure a society where human labor is rendered irrelevant by robotics? If profit remains our only essential priority, disaster will follow. Wellness must become our first priority if we are to survive and prosper.
A little over two years ago Terry Gou the CEO of Foxconn announced that over the next three years his company was going to begin phasing in up to 3 million industrial robots with an eye towards increasing efficiency and reducing labor costs. This announcement, from the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, sent waves through the media and business community. Foxconn employs over 1.5 million people in China, in hundreds of plants and facilities, scattered around the country.
The prospect of Foxconn shifting towards robotic labor has enormous implications for the future of not just the Chinese, but also global labor markets. This is primarily because of the type of work that the robots engage in is the assembly of complex electronics, an area previously thought beyond the capabilities of commercial robotics and left presumably to human hands. So far, the robots seem more than up to the job.
While the headline grabbing prediction of ‘millions of robots’ does not seem to have panned out in the time frame that Gou predicted, Foxconn has nevertheless managed to deploy significant numbers of its new robotic workers. Over the course of last year, Foxconn managed to install 30,000-50,000 new robots in its factories, and […]
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ANDREW DUGAN, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: This is the latest calibration of the Emerging White Minority Trend. This is why the Republican Party has been so focused on gerrymandering Congressional districts, and voter suppression. But ultimately demographics will prevail no matter what they do.
Click through to see the charts. They illuminate the issues very clearly.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Asian-Americans — who were a key part, if sometimes overlooked, of President Barack Obama’s 2012 electoral coalition — solidly back the Democratic Party, with 57% identifying as or leaning Democratic, compared with 28% identifying as or leaning Republican. Thirteen percent are ‘pure’ independents. However, the data suggest that a substantial portion of Asian-Americans are not entirely wedded to either of the major political parties: 46% first describe themselves as independent or other, and only when asked if they ‘lean’ Republican or Democratic does the Democratic Party garner its majority support within this group.
Party Identification Among Asian-Americans and U.S. Adults
These findings are based on aggregated data from Gallup Daily tracking surveys conducted throughout 2012, including interviews with 6,465 Asian-Americans. For the purpose of this analysis, respondents are categorized as Asian-American if they self-identify their race as Asian.
Republicans did not perform well among Asian-Americans in the 2012 election, losing this group by an estimated 72% to 26% margin. Asian-Americans make up a small but growing portion of the total electorate, probably 3% in 2012. While both parties and the media have focused highly after the election on the similarly Democratically skewed Hispanic vote, these data are a reminder that […]
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ALEXANDER GEORGE, - WIRED
Stephan: The 3-D printing trend is gathering momentum at an astonishing rate. It is going to change the entire manufacturing process that has dominated technological cultures for 200 years.
Picture an assembly line not that isn’t made up of robotic arms spewing sparks to weld heavy steel, but a warehouse of plastic-spraying printers producing light, cheap and highly efficient automobiles.
If Jim Kor’s dream is realized, that’s exactly how the next generation of urban runabouts will be produced. His creation is called the Urbee 2 and it could revolutionize parts manufacturing while creating a cottage industry of small-batch automakers intent on challenging the status quo.
Urbee’s approach to maximum miles per gallon starts with lightweight construction – something that 3-D printing is particularly well suited for. The designers were able to focus more on the optimal automobile physics, rather than working to install a hyper efficient motor in a heavy steel-body automobile. As the Urbee shows, making a car with this technology has a slew of beneficial side effects.
Jim Kor is the engineering brains behind the Urbee. He’s designed tractors, buses, even commercial swimming pools. Between teaching classes, he heads Kor Ecologic, the firm responsible for the 3-D printed creation.
‘We thought long and hard about doing a second one,
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