CAROLINA NATURALLY: Feb 22, 2015

Sunday, February 22, 2015

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah, we're talking to you ...!

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.

Well, we know the wingnuts won't celebrating today ... !

Today is - World Thinking Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: NNN

Don't forget to visit: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Montreal, Quebec, Regina, Toronto and Wanless Park, Canada

Bogota and Cali, Colombia

Equito, Ecuador

Ciudad Lopez Mateos, Mexico City and Tlanlnepantla, Mexico

Boaco, Nicaragua

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Sangre Grande, Trinidad-Tobago

Europe

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Glvainista and Sofia, Bulgaria

Horni Pocernice, Karlin, Prague and Stare Mesto, Czech Republic

Saint Johns Wood, England

Roubaix, Rouen and Velizy-Villacoublay, France

Wolfenbattel, Germany

Athens and Marousi, Greece

Saint Peter Port, Guernsey

Reykjavik, Iceland

Waterford, Ireland

Catania, Genoa, Giavera, del Montello, Milan, Ravenna and Rome, Italy

Skopje, Macedonia

Arendal, Gjerstad and Oslo, Norway

Fernando de la Mora, Paraguay

Opole, Poland

Bucharest and Stilpu, Romania

Belgrade and Nis, Serbia

Bratislava, Slovakia

Madrid, Ourense and Torrent, Spain

Karlskoga, Sweden

Schaffhausan and Zurich, Switzerland

Ankara, Turkey

Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Sevastopol, Ukraine

Asia

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

Amedabad, Bangalore, Calicut, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, new Delhi, Patna, Pitampura, Powai, Pune, Shillong and Ulhasnagar, India

Jakarta, Jember, Indonesia

Mashhad and Tehran, Iran

Tokyo, Japan

Kuwait, Kuwait

Kuala Lumpur, Putatan and Sandakan, Malaysia

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Singapore, Singapore

Lat Phrao, Thailand

Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Africa

Oran, Algeria

Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco

Bhisho, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa

The Pacific

Melbourne, Strathfield and Sydney, Australia

1349 Jews are expelled from Zurich, Switzerland.
1613 Mikhail Romanov is elected czar of Russia.
1732 George Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia.
1797 The last invasion of Britain takes place when some 1,400 Frenchmen land at Fishguard in Wales.
1819 Spain signs a treaty with the United States ceding eastern Florida.
1825 Russia and Britain establish the Alaska/Canada boundary.
1862 Jefferson Davis is inaugurated president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. for the second time.
1864 Nathan Bedford Forrest's brother, Jeffrey, is killed at Okolona, Mississippi.
1865 Federal troops capture Wilmington, N.C.
1879 Frank Winfield Woolworth's 'nothing over five cents' shop opens at Utica, New York. It is the first chain store.
1902 A fistfight breaks out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffers a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
1909 The Great White Fleet returns to Norfolk, Virginia, from an around-the-world show of naval power.
1911 Canadian Parliament votes to preserve the union with the British Empire.
1920 The American Relief Administration appeals to the public to pressure Congress to aid starving European cities.
1924 Columbia University declares radio education a success.
1926 Pope Pius rejects Mussolini's offer of aid to the Vatican.
1932 Adolf Hitler is the Nazi Party candidate for the presidential elections in Germany.
1935 All plane flights over the White House are barred because they are disturbing President Roosevelt's sleep.
1942 President Franklin Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur to leave the Philippines.
1951 The Atomic Energy Commission discloses information about the first atom-powered airplane.
1952 French forces evacuate Hoa Binh in Indochina.
1954 U.S. is to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.
1962 A Soviet bid for new Geneva arms talks is turned down by the U.S.
1963 Moscow warns the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.
1967 Operation Junction City becomes the largest U.S. operation in Vietnam.
1984 Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf following an Iranian offensive against Iraq.

President Obama Names Three New U.S. National Monuments

The upper Arkansas River Valley in Colorado, to be named the Browns Canyon National Monument, is marked by rugged cliffs, stunning mountain vistas, and iconic wildlife, such as bald eagles and mountain sheep. The 21,000-acre site near the town of Salida is a popular area for hiking, hunting, fishing, and whitewater rafting.

Obama Shows His Patriotism And Causes A repugican Freakout By Rejecting Language of War

In the face of repugican attacks on his patriotism, President Obama stood tall and rejected the calls for perpetual war during his speech at the Summit On Countering Violent Extremism.

The president said:

We have to confront the warped ideologies espoused by terrorists like al Qaeda and ISIL, especially their attempt to use islam to justify their violence. I discussed this at length yesterday. These terrorists are desperate for legitimacy. And all of us have a responsibility to refute the notion that groups like ISIL somehow represent islam, because that is a falsehood that embraces the terrorist narrative.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that groups like al Qaeda and ISIL are deliberately targeting their propaganda to muslim communities, particularly muslim youth. And muslim communities, including scholars and clerics, therefore have a responsibility to push back, not just on twisted interpretations of islam, but also on the lie that we are somehow engaged in a clash of civilizations; that America and the West are somehow at war with Islam or seek to suppress muslims; or that we are the cause of every ill in the Middle East.

John McCain (r-AZ) responded with a tweet:

John McCain ✔ @SenJohnMcCain

The notion that radical islam isn't at war with the West is an ugly lie

11:15 AM - 19 Feb 2015

McCain’s tweet came after Rudy Giuliani said that Obama doesn’t love America, and Ted Cruz called the president an apologist for islamic terrorists.

The repugicans are freaking out because the President is not supporting their rhetoric of perpetual war. Both the war on terror and the war on islam have one thing in common. They are the language of permanent and perpetual war.

The concept of terrorism can’t be defeated by an army. Therefore, repugicans are suggesting a forever war. President Obama rejected the concept of perpetual war yesterday, and he expanded on his remarks in even stronger terms today.

The warmongers are questioning the President’s patriotism because he refuses to send US combat troops to the Middle East to fight ISIL. With his display of tolerance and sensibility, the president is demonstrating that a true patriot doesn’t drop bombs then ask questions later. The president knows that the enemy is not islam but a group of terrorists.

By rejecting repugican language of war, President Obama is showing his critics what real patriotism looks like.

Random Celebrity Photos

Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)

Red State repugicans Ban Teaching Critical Thinking Skills Because of ‘Patriotism’

Red State Republicans Ban Teaching Critical Thinking Skills Because ‘Patriotism’

by Bob Rowen

The repugican War On Education continued in earnest on Monday as an Oklahoma legislative committee led by teabagger repugican, Dan Fisher voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that would effectively ban Advance Placement History classes in the state. The bill, HB 1380, bars state funds from being spent on courses of AP History and goes on to specify what should be taught in their stead.
Fisher, a member of The Black Robe Regiment, a religio-wingnut/political cabal with ties to Glenn Beck, said the courses,

“Fail to teach American Exceptionalism.”

Oklahoma's Sally Kern (a repugican of course) took another tack, arguing that AP courses violate last year’s state repeal of Common Core.
The move follows a resolution passed by the repugican national coven last summer that declared the framework of the course,

“reflects a radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.” And claims it “deliberately distorts and/or edits out important historical events.”

Today, Texas jumped on the bandwagon with a similar measure moving through their repugican misled state School board. Instead of pulling the funding, the Texas measure simply declares that Texas’ official curriculum transcends all others.
Among the criticisms of the AP History course is a list of topics no longer covered, leaving out important items as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and other Founding Fathers. As it turns out, the list is not accurate. The new framework includes those previously taught and adds many others.
Among the purposes to AP course are to prepare students for the level of study that will be required when they get to college and, in most cases, gain college credits in the process. They offer students an opportunity to show colleges what they are capable of. All the while, AP courses challenge gifted students, raising interest for those who would be bored working within the regular curriculum.
Most importantly, though, AP courses teach students how to think on a higher level, to question the how and the why and not just the who and the when. While other students are studying the minutiae of history, AP students study the causes and consequences of actions, especially the unforeseen or unwanted ones.
AP students are the leaders of tomorrow. How can they be expected to avoid the next Vietnam or Iraq unless they study how we got into the last one? AP courses teach critical thinking. Students learn not only how to do their own research, but to ask their own questions, probably the greatest skill a leader can have.
It’s important to note that AP History, like all AP Courses, did not come out of Common Core. In fact they are not a product of government at all. They’ve been developed by the College Board, the same organization that administers the SAT.
The new framework, they say was revised with input from thousands of teachers across the country.

“The teachers and professors participating in the AP U.S. History program expressed strong concerns that the course required a breathless race through American history, preventing teachers and students from examining topics of local interest in depth, and sacrificing opportunities for students to engage in In depth study, critical thinking, local interest. Eliminating AP courses is one more battle in the repugican War on Education. writing and research,”

In depth study, critical thinking, local interest. Eliminating AP courses is one more battle in the repugican War on Education. If the purpose of public education is merely to produce compliant workers for American businesses as some have suggested, the go ahead. Do away with AP courses. But if we want America’s next generation of leaders to represent all walks of life, and not just the elite, then courses like these are essential.

The Truth Be Told

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Swill O’Really Lied About His War Correspondent Record

by Jimmy Williams

Our friends over at Mother Jones have delivered the goods once again.

It seems like, wait no, never mind. Scratch that. It’s now abundantly clear that Swill O’Really lied about his reporting in places like the Falklands, Argentina, and El Salvador. Yep, he lied.

All of the details can be found in David Corn and Daniel Schulman’s fabulous reporting (in the hat tip below) but let’s be very clear here: O’Really lit up my NBC colleague Brian Williams saying:

“…We take great pains to present you with information that can be verified…Reporting comes with a big responsibility, the Founding Fathers made that point very clearly. They said to us, ‘We’ll give you freedom. We’ll protect you from government intrusion. But, in return, you, the press, must be honest.'”

What complete and utter bullshit he’s spewing.

So here’s how this works folks: whether you agree or not with Brian Williams’ suspension, shouldn’t Faux’s Roger Ailes hold Bill O’Really to the same level of punishment and scrutiny? Shouldn’t Faux News be “fair and balanced” on this issue?

I really hate hypocrites and I really really hate repugican cabal hypocrites. And it seems like Bill O’Really now leads the pack. Mr. Ailes, suspend O’Really immediately and save your network from itself…if you can.

Swill O’Really: Mother Jones Report On His Reporting Claims A “Hit Piece”

by Lisa de Moraes

“It’s a total hit piece,” O’Really said about a report in Mother Jones about O’Really’s claims he was a war correspondent during the Falklands war, saying in a post that some of O’Really’s stories “don’t withstand scrutiny — even claiming he acted heroically in a war zone that he apparently never set foot in.”
The piece’s author David Corn is a “despicable human being who’s been going after us for years,” O’Really added.
“O’Really has repeatedly told his audience that he was a war correspondent during the Falklands war and that he experienced combat during that 1982 conflict between England and Argentina,” Mother Jones says in its report. “He has often invoked this experience to emphasize that he understands war as only someone who has witnessed it could. As he once put it, “I’ve been there. That’s really what separates me from most of these other bloviators. I bloviate, but I bloviate about stuff I’ve seen. They bloviate about stuff that they haven’t.”
In its report, Mother Jones cites Susan Zirinsky, a longtime CBS News producer who helped manage the network’s coverage of the war from Buenos Aires who is quoted saying, of American reporters, “Nobody got to the war zone during the Falklands war.” She is cited as telling Mother Jones she does not remember what O’Really did during his time in Argentina. “But she notes that the military junta kept US reporters from reaching the islands: ‘You weren’t allowed on by the Argentinians. No CBS person got there.’,” Mother Jones reported.

The publication also interviewed Bob Schieffer, who was CBS News’ lead correspondent covering the Falklands war. “Nobody from CBS got to the Falklands. I came close. We’d been trying to get somebody down there. It was impossible,” Schieffer told Mother Jones. He did note that NBC News reporter Robin Lloyd was the only American network correspondent to reach the islands. “I remember because I got my butt scooped on that,” Schieffer is quoted as saying. “He got out there and we were all trying to get there.” Schieffer added, “For us, you were a thousand miles from where the fighting was. So we had some great meals.”

“Every single thing I ever said about my career is true. It’s verifiable,” O’Really lied. “The field reports, they went on, the video is there. I was praised for the reporting,” the Faux News Channel hack said of his work back then for CBS News. “This is a bunch of garbage.”

O’Really said he would not discuss the Mother Jones post on his show tonight because it already had taped but “I’m probably going to have to mention it tomorrow. The bigger picture is this political outfit Mother Jones,” O’Really said. “[post author] David Corn works for MSNBC,” he said of Corn, who is a contributor for that cable news network.

“We’re killing them in the ratings. We’re taking millions of dollars away from them; any damage they can do to me damages the Faux News Channel. Damage the tentpole, damage the main guy — everybody knows this.”

O’Really famously defended Brian Williams when he appeared recently on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel late night show, declaring the internet a “cesspool.”

“We’re living in an era now where on the internet you can say anything you want to say…and people pick it up and tweet about it or whatever. I’m lucky because I can fight back, but most people can’t.”

O’Reilly said he has not spoken to Williams recently, explaining, “I”m not a good friend of his. I’ve known him over the years, but I thought what they did to him was way more than what he did in his embellishments and I don’t like the whole culture of destroying people and that’s what Corn is trying to do to me.”

NBC News put Williams on six month suspension as it continues to investigate reports he greatly exaggerated some of his reporting claims, including flying in a helicopter in the early days of the Iraq War that was hit by an RPG, and watching a body float by his hotel in New Orleans after Katrina.

“[Corn] is going to fail, because he’s lying and I can prove it. But that does not men he’s not going to try…and some will believe him.”

Faux News Viewer Facing Reality

Members of Congress on the Loose in Central Pennsylvania After Truck Crash

by Jimmy Williams

Just kidding! And yes, that’s a clickbait headline but hey, it makes total sense.

There aren’t members of Congress actually on the loose in Central Pennsylvania — it’s a load of chickens.
But members are on the loose this week back in their Congressional districts, talking to their crazy constituents, from birthers to instigators who believe President Obama’s a Muslim. How eerily similar to the breaking news of a truck in central Pennsylvania crashing and releasing thousands of chickens onto I-80!
Just imagine these chickens clucking around, looking for safety, freed from their eventual slaughter by the voters, I mean consumers.

Poor Congress could be safe in Washington, D.C. this week, working on neat things like the budget, or an authorization of military force against ISIL, or infrastructure, or maybe even funding the Department of Homeland Security. Nah, why do all of those things when you can be scattered to the winds?
Seriously though, many of you like me probably have this image of congressmen and congresswomen in the middle of “Pennsyltucky” trying to stay warm in these frigid temps or trying to find their way back to D.C. where they really only work three days a week.
Too bad the life of a chicken so eerily mirrors the life of a congressman. And that my friends is the state of our politics.

With ISIL Help, American Oil Producers Drive Up Oil Prices

Supply and demand drives what is known as a “market economy.” Market economy, a favorite repugican phrase they repeat ad nauseum is, according to their ideological bent, the only solution to any and all of America’s economic woes from creating jobs to helping millions of Americans gain access affordable healthcare insurance. In fact, it is safe to say that next to privatizing the government and giving all of America’s assets to the wealthy, repugicans believe a free market economy is crucial to humanity’s existence. However, the repugican cabal’s favorite industry cannot, and will not, abide operating in a true market economy that does not guarantee them unrestricted wealth and perpetual record earnings.

Since America is awash in oil due to the Obama Administration’s “drill baby drill” policy helping American consumers enjoy lower fuel prices, American oil producers sought a means of driving up oil prices for American consumers. Last week, America’s oil industry efforts were buoyed by news that Islamic State (ISIL) extremists are unknowingly helping the U.S. oil industry’s crusade for higher gas prices.

Although there was welcomed news for the American oil industry last week, the news was bad for American consumers; by deliberate oil industry design. Thanks to the American oil industry’s anti-free market philosophy, crude oil prices roared back from six-year lows and “rocketed up by more than 8 percent.” Americans might wonder why, all of a sudden, crude oil prices skyrocketed when America has been the leading oil producing country in the world since November and the nation is virtually awash in oil. It is due to the American oil industry taking what they admittedly labeled “extremely drastic measures” since December to initiate a sudden and record decline in U.S. oil drilling. The drastic steps are fueled by the pursuit of profit and the industry’s opposition to, a “free market economy;” something repugicans constantly scream is patently un-American unless it benefits their favorite industry.

Oil industry and market experts say the “good news” rally is helping spur speculation that a seven-month price drop in oil is finally over because global “benchmark Brent crude suddenly shot up to more than $53 per barrel;” its highest price in more than three weeks. It is the oil industry’s biggest one-day gain since 2009, and the price surge was, according to Baker Hughes data, primarily due to American oil producers shutting down a record number of productive oil-drilling rigs (94) by 7% just last week alone. American oil producers have been on a tear to bring a halt to drilling for several months with the sole purpose of driving up the price of oil.

According to an oil industry analyst a Price Futures Group in Chicago, the American oil producers’ “drastic measures” in shutting down productive oil rigs “was a lot more beneficial than people expected and it really got the market going.” According to Houston-based oil-field services company Baker Hughes, the deliberate shutdown of oil drilling rigs was the most since it began keeping records in 1987. Since late last summer, American oil producers purposely idled over 24% of their oil drilling rigs that some traders are betting will hasten “their anticipated slowdown in U.S. oil production” and raise prices for American consumers enjoying lower fuel costs.

Still, Tariq Zahir, managing member at Tyche Capital Advisors is worried that it is going to take longer for the industry to see a “respectable rise in gas prices to respond to the industry’s drastic measures” of shutting down oil drilling rigs. He said that, “This doesn’t change the fundamental outlook in oil” and bemoaned that “we are still about 2 million barrels oversupplied.” A larger supply should mean more price drops for consumers, unless the industry took drastic measures to cut back the supply by shutting down production.

In a market economy, one would think that if the industry is concerned about having too much oil, they would reduce the price at the pump even more; that is what every other industry does. However, that would mean letting the market economy correct itself and help the American people in the process. However, no-one in their right mind, or with the cognitive abilities of a two-year old, expects the oil industry to do anything to help the American people; they are, after all, wingnuts and repugicans’ biggest donors.

It is noteworthy, and a very telling commentary, that the oil industry also noted, with a wink and a nod, that the fabulously good news of crude “oil price gains were aided by reports” that extremist Islamic State militants began an offensive striking at Kurdish forces just southwest of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. It is bad news for Kurdish forces, but good news for the oil industry because anything to increase the price of oil, and industry profits, is worth other people’s sacrifice and misery.

Oil producers in America have already sacrificed hundreds-of-thousands of oil industry jobs with no regard for the misery the losses are causing oil workers, or the revenue lost in oil-rich states. It was reported two weeks ago that according to an estimate by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, at least 250,000 oil industry jobs will be killed across eight oil-producing states in 2015 alone in addition to tens-of-thousands already lost since late last summer. Add to those numbers the hundreds-of-thousands of support and downstream jobs, and lost states’ revenue, and one gets an idea of just how typically “job-killing repugican” the oil industry really is.

The repugicans have claimed, again, that their primary focus is helping the American people, particularly since the oil magnate Koch brothers handed them control of Congress. However, they have not said one word about their favorite industry’s deliberate job-killing shutdown of productive oil rigs located primarily in repugican-misled states. They have, however, pushed hard to subvert the Executive branch’s purview over a construction permit for a foreign corporation’s environmentally disastrous pipeline they claim is good for Americans; likely because KeystoneXL will bring higher fuel costs for consumers.

If repugicans had any loyalty to America, or cared one iota about sustaining hundreds-of-thousands of oil-industry jobs and keeping fuel prices low for Americans, they would assail the oil producers for cutting production; especially when ISIL is helping spark an increase in oil costs that will affect Americans and the economy. But that really is the issue; repugicans and their precious oil industry have as little regard for Americans, job losses, or the economy as ISIL does and one can only imagine they are secretly cheering the islamic extremists for helping jack up the price of oil to benefit the inherently un-American oil industry.

Random Photos

Link Dump

The downside of freelance work

Dozens of environmental activists are murdered every year

Monsanto GMO crops pushing monarch butterfly to extinction

It costs $21,000 more to ignore the homeless than to give them a home

Saudi Arabia insists their beheadings are better than ISIL beheadings

Godless parents are doing a better job

Don't steam your vagina

Man who claimed he'd been assaulted by police caught on camera punching himself in the face

Police officers say a California man's attempt at freedom left him with two self-inflicted black eyes and a pair of convictions. Aleksander R. Tomaszewski, complained he was beaten by detectives in Oregon when he was in custody and insisted on pressing charges against them, said Sgt. Carrie Carver, a Lane County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.

But a video camera didn't capture the alleged assault. Instead, it recorded Tomaszewski punching himself in the face multiple times. "When he learned that the incident was caught on camera, he admitted that he thought making the claim would get him released," Carver said. The incident unfolded on January 9, when Tomaszewski was being interviewed on suspicion of sexual abuse.
Carver said video cameras were rolling in the interview room and in a holding cell where Tomaszewski was later moved. The second camera recorded him assaulting himself. But she said when deputies asked about his injuries, Tomaszewski blamed the detectives who had interviewed him earlier. He repeatedly said he wanted to press charges and signed a statement spelling out the police brutality he claimed happened, according to Carver. Video footage disproved his story.

YouTube link.

The four-minute video shows Tomaszewski pacing as he punched both eyes. He then sat down and resumed pounding his face. Tomaszewski pleaded guilty to attempted coercion and filing a false report and was on convicted February 10. Both charges carried a 20-day prison sentence, but he was given credit for time served and released from jail the same day. He also must pay $600 in fines and serve three years' probation. Sheriff's office records show the sex-abuse charge that initially brought about his arrest was dismissed.

Pediatrician concedes that hog-tying seven-year-old boy was inappropriate

A pediatrician from Australia's Gold Coast accused of "hog-tying" a seven-year-old patient has conceded in court that in hindsight his actions were inappropriate. Dr Neville Davis was charged with common assault after the boy's mother alleged he "hog-tied" the seven-year-old's hands and ankles, and sat on his back during a patient consultation in October 2012. Dr Davis told a summary trial in the Southport Magistrates Court on Wednesday morning that although he had tied the boy up, he had not sat on him.

He said he squatted over the child to demonstrate the technique that Dr Davis said would help control the boy's "dangerous and disruptive" behavior. Dr Davis said the technique was intended to be a distraction but it had not worked, and in hindsight he could see it was not appropriate. The court heard conditions set by the Australian Medical Board since the allegations required Dr Davis to have a chaperone present during consultations, as part of his medical registration conditions.
When the police prosecutor questioned Dr Davis in court, he asked: "Have you ever used the technique before or since this consultation?" Dr Davis replied: "No, because it hasn't been necessary." The prosecutor asked: "Do you accept your actions were an aberrant lack of judgment considering your exemplary history caring for children?" Dr Davis replied: "Yes." Meanwhile, defense barrister Kerri Mellifont told the court the claim by the boy's mother that Dr Davis sat on her child was a "ludicrous proposition".

Ms Mellifont said the boy's mother had changed her evidence to make her story fit and was not a trusted witness. The defense lawyer said the mother's claim the doctor tied a rope around the boy's neck did not fit with other evidence. But the mother, who took several pictures of the incident, claims he wrapped the rope around the boy's neck, sat on him and threatened to put the boy's head in the toilet. The trial has been adjourned until a date to be fixed.

Ziggy

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Walmart Will Raise Its Minimum Wage To $10 An Hour

On Thursday, Walmart announced that it will raise all of its full-time and part-time employees' pay to at least $9 an hour starting in April. The lowest wage will rise to $10 an hour by February of next year.In a press release, it said it is also raising pay for the compensation range for each position, and all told says that about 500,000 employees will see a raise from the changes. It also says the raises will mean its average hourly wage for full-time workers will increase from $12.85 to $13 an hour and the average for part-time workers will increase from $9.48 to $10 an hour.
It also promised that workers "will have more control over their schedules." The wage increases will cost more than $1 billion this fiscal year.
In announcing the changes, CEO Doug McMillion acknowledged some of the criticism that the company has sacrificed customer loyalty because of its pay practices. "We have work to do to grow the business. We know what customers want from a shopping experience, and we're investing strategically to exceed their expectations and better position Walmart for the future," he said. "We're strengthening investments in our people to engage and inspire them to deliver superior customer experiences."
The company, which is the nation's largest employer, has long come under fire for its low pay. While the company has said that it pays most workers above the minimum wage, it has also admitted in the past that the majority of its employees make under $25,000 a year. One study from 2013 of a single store in Wisconsin found that its pay was so low that workers consumed about $1 million in public benefits to get by.
Workers have repeatedly gone on strike over the past three years to demand higher pay, better scheduling, and the right to unionize. They have called for the store's wage floor to rise to at least $15 an hour. Thursday's announcement also comes after so many states raised their minimum wages above the federal $7.25 level that a third of Walmart stores had to raise their base wages anyway.

More

*She look soooooo happy to STILL be making LESS than a Living Wage.

Purchasing Choices

How Marketers Frame Our Purchasing Choices

Tests have shown that if we have too many choices, our minds will often just hit the boggle button and give up. Marketers know this and have learned how to present our choices in a way that makes the process palatable and the items purchasable.

Historical Photos

KIOWA Chief, Kicking Bird

A History Of The Most Impractical Weapons Ever Used In War

A lot of brainpower goes into designing weapons of war. Unfortunately, in a complicated situation, brainpower is a terrible substitute for testing. Here are some of the ingenious weapons of war that were great on paper and terrible in practice.

The Computer Simulation That Almost Started World War III

Remember the 1983 movie WarGames? The film is about a computer 'game' with the potential to start thermonuclear war. But strangely this scenario is more truth than fiction.
Because in 1979 programmers at NORAD almost started World War III when they accidentally ran a computer simulation of a Soviet attack.