Audits of businesses for illegal immigrants rising

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reached its highest number yet of companies audited for illegal immigrants on their payrolls this past fiscal year. Audits of employer I-9 forms increased from 250 in fiscal year 2007 to more than 3,000 in 2012. From fiscal years 2009 to 2012, the total amount of fines grew to nearly $13 million from $1 million. The number of company managers arrested has increased to 238, according to data provided by ICE.

The investigations of companies have been one of the pillars of President Barack Obama's immigration policy.

When Obama recently spoke about addressing immigration reform in his second term, he said any measure should contain penalties for companies that purposely hire illegal immigrants. It's not a new stand, but one he will likely highlight as his administration launches efforts to revamp the nation's immigration system.

"Our goal is compliance and deterrence," said Brad Bench, special agent in charge at ICE's Seattle office. "The majority of the companies we do audits on end up with no fines at all, but again it's part of the deterrence method. If companies know we're out there, looking across the board, they're more likely to bring themselves into compliance."

While the administration has used those numbers to bolster their record on immigration enforcement, advocates say the audits have pushed workers further underground by causing mass layoffs and disrupted business practices.

When the ICE audit letter arrived at Belco Forest Products, management wasn't entirely surprised. Two nearby businesses in Shelton, a small timber town on a bay off Washington state's Puget Sound, had already been investigated.
But the 2010 inquiry became a months-long process that cost the timber company experienced workers and money. It was fined $17,700 for technicalities on their record keeping.
"What I don't like is the roll of the dice," said Belco's chief financial officer Tom Behrens. "Why do some companies get audited and some don't? Either everyone gets audited or nobody does. Level the playing field."
Belco was one of 339 companies fined in fiscal year 2011 and one of thousands audited that year.
Employers are required to have their workers fill out an I-9 form that declares them authorized to work in the country. Currently, an employer needs only to verify that identifying documents look real.
The audits, part of a $138 million worksite enforcement effort, rely on ICE officers scouring over payroll records to find names that don't match Social Security numbers and other identification databases.
The audits "don't make any sense before a legalization program," said Daniel Costa, an immigration policy analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. "You're leaving the whole thing up to an employer's eyesight and subjective judgment, that's the failure of the law. There's no verification at all. Then you have is the government making a subjective judgment about subjective judgment."

An AP review of audits that resulted in fines in fiscal year 2011 shows that the federal government is fining industries across the country reliant on manual labor and that historically have hired immigrants. The data provides a glimpse into the results of a process affecting thousands of companies and thousands of workers nationwide.

Over the years, ICE has switched back-and-forth between making names of the companies fined public or not. Lately, ICE has emphasized its criminal investigations of managers, such as a Dunkin' Donuts manager in Maine sentenced to home arrest for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants or a manager of an Illinois hiring firm who got 18 months in prison.

Many employers also wonder how ICE picks the companies it probes.

"Geography is not a factor. The size of the company is not a factor. And the industry it's in is not a factor. We can audit any company anywhere of any size," Bench said. He added ICE auditors follow leads from the public, other employers, employees and do perform some random audits.

But ICE auditors hit ethnic stores, restaurants, bakeries, manufacturing companies, construction, food packaging, janitorial services, catering, dairies and farms. The aviation branch of corporate giant GE, franchises of sandwich shop Subway and a subsidiary of food product company Heinz were among some of the companies with national name recognition. GE was fined $2,000.

In fiscal year 2011, the most recent year reviewed by AP, the median fine was $11,000. The state with the most workplaces fined was Texas with 63, followed by New Jersey with 37.

The lowest fine was $90 to a Massachusetts fishing company. The highest fine was $394,944 to an employment agency in Minneapolis, according to the data released to AP through a public records request.

A Subway spokesman said the company advises franchise owners to follow the law. A Heinz spokesman declined comment.

Bench didn't have specifics on what percentage of fines come from companies having illegal immigrants on their payroll, as opposed to technical paperwork fines in recent years.

Julie Wood, a former deputy director at ICE who now runs a consulting firm, said she'd like to see the burden of proving the legality of a company's workforce go from the employer to the government. She'd like to see a type of program, such as E-Verify, be implemented with the I-9 employment form. E-Verify is a voluntary and free program for private employers that checks a workers eligibility.

"At the end of the day, the fine is the least of it," she said. "Usually the company will spend more on legal fees. But it is a huge headache for the company to lose workers."

Wood said she'd like to see the agency go after more criminal charges and focus on companies that treat workers inhumanely.

Random Photo

Worker formally reprimanded for excessive farting

A federal employee was formally reprimanded this month for excessive workplace flatulence, a sanction that was delivered to him in a five-page letter that actually included a log of representative dates and times when he was recorded “releasing the awful and unpleasant odour” in his Baltimore office. In a letter sent on Decenber 1oth accusing him of “conduct unbecoming a federal officer,” the Social Security Administration employee was informed that his “uncontrollable flatulence” had created an “intolerable” and “hostile” environment for coworkers, several of whom have lodged complaints with supervisors. The worker, a 38-year-old Maryland resident, reportedly submitted evidence that he suffered from “some medical conditions” that, at times, caused him to be unable to work full days. But a SSA manager noted in the reprimand letter that, “nothing that you have submitted has indicated that you would have uncontrollable flatulence. It is my belief that you can control this condition.”

A redacted copy of the letter was recently circulated among officers of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents the SSA worker. The SSA worker is pictured with his wife in the photo below, which apparently was taken at an amusement park. The employee is a claims authorizer at the SSA center that handles disability cases for the entire country. According to the letter of reprimand which is the least severe administrative sanction that can be levied against a federal worker the man was first spoken to about his flatulence during a May 18 “performance discussion” with his supervisor. He was informed that fellow employees had complained about his flatulence, and that it was “the reason none of them were willing to assist you with your work.” The supervisor referred the employee to a SSA unit for “assistance with what could have been a medical problem that was affecting everyone in the module.”

Two months later, on July 17, a second SSA manager spoke with the man “in regards of your releasing of bodily gas in the module during work hours.” The manager asked the employee if he could “make it to the restroom before releasing the awful and unpleasant odor.” She also recounted what appeared to be a prior conversation during which the worker suggested that he would “turn your fan on when it happens.” The manager recounted advising him that, “turning on the fan would cause the smell to spread and worsen the air quality in the module.” On August 14, a third administrator - a SSA “Deputy Division Director” - spoke with the worker about his “continuous releasing of your bodily gas and the terrible smell that comes with the gas.” The manager noted that the worker had said he was lactose intolerant and planned to purchase Gas-X, an over-the-counter remedy. The manager informed the employee that he “could not pass gas indefinitely and continue to disrupt the work place.”

Despite these repeated warnings, the man apparently continued to struggle with his flatulence throughout the late-summer and fall. After stating that, “It is my belief that you can control this condition,” the author of the reprimand letter then noted, “The following dates show the time of your flatulence.” What followed was a log listing 17 separate dates (and 60 specific times) on which the employee passed gas. For example, the man’s September 19 output included nine instances of flatulence, beginning at 9:45 AM and concluding at 4:30 PM. The man was also accused of launching a trio of attacks on September 11. The letter’s author wrote that the employee’s conduct had been “discourteous, disrespectful, and entirely inappropriate,” and was worthy of a formal sanction, which is placed in a worker’s personnel files for up to one year. The reprimand, the manager noted, “is the least severe penalty available to impress upon you the seriousness of your actions and is necessary to deter future misconduct.”

Looping Bridge

This bridge that might have been designed by stuntman Evel Knievel lies in Sarajevo, Bosnia. It's called the Festina Lente Bridge--a name that means "make haste slowly." Amila Hrustic designed it for pedestrian use, so park your motorcycle before crossing.

More (Translation) | Designer's Website 

High fructose corn syrup linked to diabetes

A new study by USC and University of Oxford researchers indicates that large amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) ...

Continue Reading 

The World's Largest Pizza

Five Italian chefs with big dreams and a whole lotta dough teamed up and broke the record for the world's largest pizza by creating this 131 foot, fifty one thousand pound behemoth.
Dubbed 'Ottavia', this mega-pizza broke a record which stood since 1990, and thereby earned a name that pays homage to first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus.

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Today is National Haiku Poetry Day 
 
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Today in History

1135		Stephen of Blois is crowned the king of England.
1775		Esek Hopkins takes command of the Continental Navy — a total of seven ships.
1807		Congress passes the Embargo Act, which halts all trading completely. It is hoped that the act will keep the United States out the European Wars.
1829		The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad opens the first passenger railway line.
1918		The last of the food restrictions, enforced because of the shortages during World War I, are lifted.
1929		Soviet troops leave Manchuria after a truce is reached with the Chinese over the Eastern Railway dispute.
1941		Japanese troops make an amphibious landing on the coast of Lingayen Gulf on Luzon, the Philippines.
1942		The Soviets drive German troops back 15 miles at the Don River.
1944		During the Battle of the Bulge, General Anthony McAuliffe responds to a German surrender request with a one word answer: "Nuts!"
1945		The United States recognizes Tito's government in Yugoslavia.
1965		The EF-105F Wild Weasel makes its first kill over Vietnam.
1966		The United States announces the allocation of 900,000 tons of grain to fight the famine in India.
1989		The Romanian government of Nicolae Ceausescu is overthrown, ending 42 years of communist rule.

Non Sequitur

Is the United States Mentally Unstable?

Given that one in five Americans has some form of mental illness, how healthy are we? Read more

And so it goes ...

To Live and Die in Amewrica

One of the most poignant HuffPost headlines ever

The Huffington Post has been establishing a reputation some really powerful headline, visually powerful in fact. This one, below, is one of the most poignant they’ve done.It documents the 100 gun deaths in America in the week since Sandy Hook.

You can click over and read.

Anonymous TSA "insider" blog

Taking Sense Away is the aptly named blog allegedly maintained by an anonymous former TSA screener. It delves into the kinds of shenanigans that go on in the image operator room where they get to see what you look like naked in the pornoscanner ("a whole lot of officers laughing and clowning in regard to some of your nude images, dear passengers"); a glossary of TSA insider jargon ("BBC: Bogus Bag Check, or Bullshit Bag Check. What happens when a not-too-bright x-ray operator decides to call a bag search."), and many other useful and enlightening posts.

Taking Sense Away

The 5 Most Persuasive Words In The English Language

You, free, because, instantly and new are the most persuasive words in the English language. There are certain power words that hold more sway over our decision making process than others.
Simple language is crystal-clear language, and these words make it clear just what you want your reader to do. And you might be surprised just how effective these deceptively simple words can be.

Low-water rivers offering up glimpse of history

From sunken steamboats to a millennium-old map engraved in rock, the drought-drained rivers of the nation's midsection are offering a rare and fleeting glimpse into years gone by.

Lack of rain has left many rivers at low levels unseen for decades, creating problems for river commerce and recreation and raising concerns about water supplies and hydropower if the drought persists into next year, as many fear.
But for the curious, the receding water is offering an occasional treasure trove of history.

An old steamboat is now visible on the Missouri River near St. Charles, Mo., and other old boats nestled on river bottoms are showing up elsewhere. A World War II minesweeper, once moored along the Mississippi River as a museum at St. Louis before it was torn away by floodwaters two decades ago, has become visible — rusted but intact.

Perhaps most interesting, a rock containing what is believed to be an ancient map has emerged in the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri.

The rock contains etchings believed to be up to 1,200 years old. It was not in the river a millennium ago, but the changing course of the waterway now normally puts it under water — exposed only in periods of extreme drought. Experts are wary of giving a specific location out of fear that looters will take a chunk of the rock or scribble graffiti on it.

"It appears to be a map of prehistoric Indian villages," said Steve Dasovich, an anthropology professor at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. "What's really fascinating is that it shows village sites we don't yet know about."

Old boats are turning up in several locations, including sunken steamboats dating to the 19th century.

That's not surprising considering the volume of steamboat traffic that once traversed the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Dasovich said it wasn't uncommon in the 1800s to have hundreds of steamboats pass by St. Louis each day, given the fact that St. Louis was once among the world's busiest inland ports. The boats, sometimes lined up two miles deep and four boats wide in both directions, carried not only people from town to town but goods and supplies up and down the rivers.

Sinkings were common among the wooden vessels, which often were poorly constructed.

"The average lifespan of a steamboat on the Missouri River was five years," Dasovich said. "They were made quickly. If you could make one run from St. Louis to Fort Benton, Mont., and back, you've paid for your boat and probably made a profit. After that, it's almost like they didn't care what happened."

What often happened, at least on the Missouri River, was the boat would strike an underwater tree that had been uprooted and become lodged in the river bottom, tearing a hole that would sink the ship. Dasovich estimated that the remains of 500 to 700 steamboats sit at the bottom of the Missouri River, scattered from its mouth in Montana to its convergence with the Mississippi near St. Louis.
The number of sunken steamboats on the Mississippi River is likely about the same, Dasovich said. Steamboat traffic was far heavier on the Mississippi, but traffic there was and is less susceptible to river debris.
Boiler explosions, lightning strikes and accidents also sunk many a steamboat. One of the grander ones, the Montana, turned up this fall on the Missouri River near St. Charles. The elaborate steamer was as long as a football field with lavish touches aimed at pleasing its mostly wealthy clientele. It went to its watery grave after striking a tree below the surface in 1884.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers urge sightseers to stay away from any shipwreck sites. Sandbars leading to them can be unstable and dangerous, and the rusted hulks can pose dangers for those sifting through them.

Plus, taking anything from them is illegal. By law, sunken ships and their goods belong to the state where they went down.

While unusual, it's not unprecedented for low water levels to reveal historic artifacts.

Last year, an officer who patrols an East Texas lake discovered a piece of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart and burned on re-entry in 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard. And the remains of a wooden steamer built 125 years ago recently were uncovered in a Michigan waterway because of low levels in the Great Lakes.

But treasure hunters expecting to find Titanic-like souvenirs in rivers will likely be disappointed if they risk exploring the lost boats.

"It's not like these wrecks are full of bottles, dishes, things like that," said Mark Wagner, an archaeologist at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. "If there was anything on there in the first place, the river current pretty much stripped things out of these wrecks."

Such was the case with the USS Inaugural, a World War II minesweeper that for years served as a docked museum on the Mississippi River at St. Louis. The Great Flood of 1993 ripped the Inaugural from its mooring near the Gateway Arch. It crashed into the Poplar Street bridge, and then sank.

In September, the rusted Inaugural became visible again, though now nothing more than an empty, orange-rusted hulk lying on its side not far from a south St. Louis casino.

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Today in History

68		Vespian, a gruff-spoken general of humble origins, enters Rome and is named emperor by the Senate.
1620		The Pilgrims land at or near Plymouth Rock.
1708		French forces seize control of the eastern shore of Newfoundland after winning a victory at St. John's.
1790		Samuel Slater opens the first cotton mill in the United States (in Rhode Island).
1862		The U.S. Congress authorizes the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel who have distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
1866		Indians, led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, kill Captain William J. Fetterman and 79 other men who had ventured out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.
1910		Over 2.5 million plague victims are reported in the An-Hul province of China.
1928		President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill.
1944		German troops surround the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne in Belgium.
1945		General George S. Patton dies at the age of 60 after being injured in a car accident.
1946		An earthquake and tidal wave kill hundreds in Japan.
1963		The Turk minority riots in Cyprus to protest anti-Turkish revisions in the constitution.
1964		Great Britain's House of Commons votes to ban the death penalty.
1965		Four pacifists are indicted in New York for burning draft cards.
1969		American draft evaders gather for a holiday dinner in Montreal, Canada.
1986		500,000 Chinese students gather in Shanghai's People's Square calling for democratic reforms, including freedom of the press.
1988		Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure. All 259 passengers were killed in the explosion caused by a bomb– hidden inside an audio cassette player — that detonated inside the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. A shower of airplane parts falling from the sky also killed 11 Lockerbie residents.

Non Sequitur

The repugicans want kudos for working week before Xmas – uh, who doesn’t?

Why does Congress always want kudos for working the hours the rest of us do? 

Much like the article last month making a “big deal” about Congress working the week of Thanksgiving – like everyone else in America – the repugican cabal is trying to impress people by letting them know they’re not leaving yet for Xmas.Oh wow, how impressive. Working the week before Xmas. How 99% of you.
The repugicans in Congress spend years messing up the economy with unnecessary wars and irresponsible tax cuts, forcing us into a false deadline to resolve the so-called fiscal cliff that they created, and now suddenly  that we’re facing with cleaning up their mess, they’re all “look at how hard we work,” not taking off the entire week before Xmas, which nearly no one in America does.

How the Republicans normally spend the week before Xmas when the rest of America is busy working.

The repugicans and the rest of Congress work a schedule that makes college life sound demanding, but now we’re supposed to be impressed. Whatever. The minimum wage workers who are stuck working on Thanksgiving day, and almost every other day of the year, are probably less impressed. Even folks who work at home, like mme, don’t see as much free time as Congress — so spare me the tough-guy story.
I’m sorry, but it annoys me when I see such an idiotic story pushed out by the political class, and reporters buying it.

House repugicans plan to forge ahead on Thursday with “Plan B,” their “fiscal cliff” fallback plan, but they will not be skipping town after voting on the measures because they still hope for a broader deal with the White House.
“We do not intend to send members home,” repugican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told reporters. “We want to stay here, we want to avoid the fiscal cliff from happening.”

That’s nice, Eric. None of us are taking the week off either.  And you don’t see us bragging about it.
This reminds me of kids in school who procrastinate for week, and then want a medal for doing a project at the last minute.  Choosing to create a problem, then push it out for years, only means you’re a bit of an idiot, not a hard worker.

The truth be told

Ohio repugican governor signs law weakening gun controls

From the "Some idiots never learn" Department:

 

Ohio's repugican Governor Johns Kasich on Thursday signed into law a measure that would weaken the state's law on carrying concealed weapons, less than a week after a Connecticut school massacre focused national attention on gun control. The bill would require Ohio residents demonstrate competency with the weapon only once rather than each time the concealed carry permit expires. It also would allow carrying concealed weapons in the parking garage of the State Capitol.
Kasich signed the bill along with 41 others and did not hold a signing ceremony. A press release summarizing his actions put the gun law near the bottom of list of those signed.
Kasich foreshadowed the action earlier in the week, telling reporters he would sign it: "Whatever we do, we don't want to erode the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens."
The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives American citizens the right to bear arms.
Democratic state Representative Tracy Maxwell Heard said Kasich should not have signed such a "divisive" bill less than a week after a national tragedy.
"Rather than rushing to sign legislation that weakens our gun laws, we must use this time for a full, inclusive reflection," Maxwell Heard said.
Last Friday, a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children and six adults before shooting himself.
Michigan's repugican Governor Rick Snyder on Tuesday vetoed a proposed law that would have allowed some gun owners to bring concealed weapons into public places such as schools. Snyder said that the Connecticut shooting had influenced his decision.

Soledad O’Brien takes down himbo Gov. Rick Scott (r-FL) over guns

Florida repugican Governor Rick Scott went on CNN’s Soledad O’Brien’s show today to talk gun control.Dear Lord, what a himbo. I’d never seen Rick Scott before.  He’s really dumb.  I mean really dumb.  But I’ll give him credit.  He was called on to discuss the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, and gun control, and he was handed his three talking points (by the NRA?), and just kept repeating them and repeating them, with the same Stepford look on his face throughout.
Unflappable, certainly.  Because there’s nothing inside his head?  Most assuredly.  I’m surprised we didn’t hear an echo.
And of course, knowing the repugicans, they’ll probably start pushing Scott’s name as president or vp any day now.  Nothing gets repugican voters hot like a politician with a deficient IQ.
To her credit, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, once again, calls out her guest on their BS.  Still, I’d have liked to see her take one single gun control issue, say background checks, and ask Scott, should we do X on background checks, then if he goes off topic, say, no, I just asked you about background checks, yes or no. He might still demur, but that would have been the final step in showing that the guy is just an idiot.
I wrote out most of the transcript to the video.  It’s good evidence of just how bereft of any ideas, or arguments, the pro-gun types really are.

RICK SCOTT: I think the right thing, what we ought to do, is do what you’ve been doing.  That’s, respect these families in this community. Second, what I’ve done in this state, is ask every one of our schools to go back and let’s look at our safety precautions  And let’s make sure every parent feels comfortable.  I talked to families up in Connecticut, and I talk to families around Florida, some of them  were very, they really had to think about sending their child to school, so I think that’s the next thing to do. There’ll be plenty of time now to think about, if there’s something we oughta do with, is it mental illness issues we oughta deal with, things like that.

Friendly Soledad.

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN: So what would you support in terms of legislation, if it in fact comes to that. I mean do you believe that there should be stronger gun laws?  You’re well-supported by the NRA, and historically they have not supported that, so how far would you be willing to go.
RICK SCOTT: As you know, I support the Second Amendment.
SOLEDAD: Me too.
RICK SCOTT: I believe in the Second Amendment.  But look, what I want to focus on right now is the families, make sure our schools are safe, in our state we’re at a 41 year low in our crime rate. But I think whenever anything happens like this, let’s just step back and say ‘what can we improve?’
[Dead silence - Soledad frowns, checks her notes, which is always a bad sign...]

Concerned Soledad.

SOLEDAD: Well, you know, I understand people often say that, in the wake of a tragedy, “Let’s wait.” And I actually think I’ve now covered enough of them that we’ll wait until we bump up against the next tragedy, and there will be one, there’s no doubt about it
[Rick Scott, same Madame Tussaud's look on his face as before.]

Annoyed Soledad.

SOLEDAD: So, I would like to hear from elected officials, what are you willing to change?  Your daughter, you talked about her, she’s a teacher.  I mean, is your answer, “let’s arm the teachers?” [Soledad goes on to ask if his answer is to not make semi-automatic weapons available, or maybe do something to improve the background checks?] Where does it start, what are you comfortable doing?
RICK SCOTT: I think right now, what we ought to do be doing, is let’s talk about all those issues, and let’s think about what we can do to improve it.  But here’s what I think about.  One, it’s just like, I’ve been to law enforcement funeral deaths in our state, and your heart goes out to those families, and then afterwards you say, okay, what can we do to improve, in Florida, we’re doing the right things right now. We’re at a 41 year low in our crime rate.  But I always want to sit back and say, so what could we do better? And that’s what I want to think about with this.
SOLEDAD: Okay, I think, with all due respect, you’re not going to answer my question…

Incredulous Soledad.

SOLEDAD: ….because, I guess, I just want you to tell me what you’d be comfortable to support, and I get it, it’s going to be part of a conversation, but I think there have been a number of things on the table and I don’t feel like you’re telling me, you know, should people not be able to buy those high-capacity magazines? Some people suggested that.   What thing are you willing to say would be a good start, that you would bring to the table in any conversation about gun control?
RICK SCOTT: Well, you know, my approach on things like this is the one, respect the families….
[Watch Soledad's face as Scott repeats himself, saying nothing, for the umpteenth time]

“You are dead to me” Soledad.

RICK SCOTT: … mourn their losses, make sure our schools are safe, and then start the conversation and listen to Floridians. What I do every day is travel the state, almost, pretty much every day, and listen to Floridians and get their ideas, and then come back based on those ideas of what we can improve.
SOLEDAD: Well, I hope all those conversations turn into meaningful legislation somewhere down the road, before I get to go out and cover another tragedy of which we’ve now done a bunch of them.
RICK SCOTT: We don’t want another, we can’t imagine this happening to our families.

Obamacare critic Olive Garden/Red Lobster reports 37% drop in profits

 

Whether there’s a connection between Olive Garden / Red Lobster parent company, Darden Restaurants, reporting bad numbers and their flip-flopping on Obamacare is hard to say. Customers of those restaurants are certainly middle class people, most of whom know all too well how difficult and expensive healthcare can be, so it’s not unreasonable to think the earlier criticism of Obamacare had some negative impact.
Earlier this month, it was reported that Darden’s CEO was concerned about the bad publicity, but that he was making efforts to provide healthcare to at least some of their employees. Darden did eventually come around.

“Although our workforce historically has been heavily part-time, we have always had a significant number of full-time employees and they are integral to our success,” said Darden chairman and CEO Clarence Otis. “The data we have collected during our test around guest satisfaction and employee engagement has only reinforced this. As we think about healthcare reform, while many of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s rules and regulations have yet to be finalized, we are pleased we know enough at this point to make firm and hopefully reassuring commitments to our full-time employees.”

Was blaming Obamacare real, or just an excuse for missing the numbers? Again, it’s hard to say. Data shows that criticism of Obamacare by CEO’s has hurt the image of companies, though nobody can make a direct link to poor numbers, yet. The ongoing economic crisis could just as easily be responsible for bad performance. Many families still feel financially insecure, and going to restaurants is often an expense that gets cut.
Darden seemed to eventually be doing the right thing by exploring the process of adding healthcare for at least some employees. Was it too little, too late or was the damage already done? Whatever the answer, the public does seem to be in a bad mood lately with CEOs, former CEOs, rich people and companies who are bashing Obamacare, or at least, access to healthcare for employees.
The Huffington Post is suggesting the earlier Obamacare criticism is linked to the drop in sales, but I’m less convinced. The criticism may not have helped, but to blame the unfortunate public statements about Obamacare on such a huge revenue decrease, a 37% profit drop,sounds too easy.
It’s time for businesses to get on board with Obamacare, and quit causing self-inflicted wounds, or the image of self-inflicted wounds on their businesses. Maybe it means a few less dollars at the top, but is that really such a crisis to whine about?

 

New Orleans schools ban teaching Creationism, reject Texas Creationist "science" textbooks

Score on for the good guys!

The Orleans Parish Public School Board has rejected the Louisiana Science Education Act, which followed Texas's lead by putting Creationism into the state's schools. A Board decision prohibits the teaching of Creationism in science class, and forbids the use of Texas's revisionist, Creationist "science" textbooks.

The policy says: "No history textbook shall be approved which has been adjusted in accordance with the state of Texas revisionist guidelines nor shall any science textbook be approved which presents creationism or intelligent design as science or scientific theories."
It stresses the separation of science and religious teachings:
"No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach any aspect of religious faith as science or in a science class. No teacher of any discipline of science shall teach creationism or intelligent design in classes designated as science classes."

Orleans Parish School Board votes to ban creationism 

Did you know ...

That the top 3% of small businesses are not job creators

That Great Lakes levels low enough to reveal old shipwrecks

That the Mayans did not predict the apocalypse

Here's pictures of snowflakes, right before they melt

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Finding New Uses for Abundant Natural Gas Methane

Little more than a decade ago, the United States imported much of its natural gas. Today, the nation is tapping ...

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Clays on Mars: More Plentiful Than Expected

A new study co-authored by the Georgia Institute of Technology indicates that clay minerals, rocks that usually form when water ...

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Meteorite triggered scientific gold rush

A meteorite that exploded as a fireball over California’s Sierra foothills this past spring was among the fastest, rarest meteorites ...

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Best Astronomy Images of 2012

Phil Plait at Slate has compiled a best-of list of astronomy images from 2012 that are pretty spectacular. Included is this image of the sun, which depicts an event that occurred on August 31, 2012. An arch of matter was raised by the sun's magnetic field and then erupted, sending hundreds of millions of tons of plasma into space at a speed of 900 miles per second. The size of the arch was 200,000 miles wide; 25 times the size of the Earth.

See the rest of the images at Bad Astronomy.

Well, what do you know!

What the Maya Day of Doom and Stars Wars Have in Common

Tikal, the ruins of Maya temples discovered in the Guatemalan rainforest in 1848, has been a longtime tourist attraction. The number of visitors increased, however, after George Lucas chose the location to film scenes from Star Wars in which the rebels fought the empire on planet Yavin 4.

The site was originally discovered when locals found human skulls with gemstone-studded teeth. Extending for over 200 square miles, Tikal's tall temples are surrounded by dense jungle. Tikal is one of the largest pre-Columbian Maya sites in the world.

In spite of scientists and scholars rejecting the interpretation of the Maya calendar that targets this Friday as the "End of Times," record numbers of visitors are flocking to the ruins this month, according to Reuters.

The Reuters article also disclosed information on the upcoming film in the franchise, Episode VII, to be made by Disney. Apparently, Yavin 4 reappears in the new film, though Reuters cites information from fans that those scenes will be filmed in a studio rather than in Guatemala.

Read the entire Reuters article here.

How humans evolved to explore

Boldly going where nobody's gone before. In a lot of ways, that idea kind of defines our whole species. We travel. We're curious. We poke our noses around the planet to find new places to live. We're compelled to explore places few people would ever actually want to live. We push ourselves into space.
This behavior isn't totally unique. But it is remarkable. So we have to ask, is there a genetic, evolution-driven, cause behind the restlessness of humanity?
At National Geographic, David Dobbs has an amazing long read digging into that idea. The story is fascinating, stretching from Polynesian sailors to Quebecois settlers. And it's very, very good science writing. Dobbs resists the urge to go for easy "here is the gene that does this" answers. Instead, he helps us see the complex web of genetics and culture that influences and encourages certain behaviors at certain times. It's a great read.

Not all of us ache to ride a rocket or sail the infinite sea. Yet as a species we’re curious enough, and intrigued enough by the prospect, to help pay for the trip and cheer at the voyagers’ return. Yes, we explore to find a better place to live or acquire a larger territory or make a fortune. But we also explore simply to discover what’s there.
“No other mammal moves around like we do,” says Svante Pääbo, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where he uses genetics to study human origins. “We jump borders. We push into new territory even when we have resources where we are. Other animals don’t do this. Other humans either. Neanderthals were around hundreds of thousands of years, but they never spread around the world. In just 50,000 years we covered everything. There’s a kind of madness to it. Sailing out into the ocean, you have no idea what’s on the other side. And now we go to Mars. We never stop. Why?”
Why indeed? Pääbo and other scientists pondering this question are themselves explorers, walking new ground. They know that they might have to backtrack and regroup at any time. They know that any notion about why we explore might soon face revision as their young disciplines—anthropology, genetics, developmental neuropsychology—turn up new fundamentals. Yet for those trying to figure out what makes humans tick, our urge to explore is irresistible terrain. What gives rise to this “madness” to explore? What drove us out from Africa and on to the moon and beyond?

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Human Hands Evolved for Punching

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Black piranha, megapiranha have most powerful bites of fish living or extinct

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The Soreq Stalactite Cave In Israel

Soreq Cave, also known as Avshalom Cave or Stalactite Cave, is a cave on the western side of Mount Ye’ela, in the Judean hills of Israel. Discovered by accident in May 1968 while quarrying with explosives, it is 83m (272 ft) long, 60m (197 ft) wide, and 15m (49ft) high.

Like other dripstone caverns, Soreq Cave is teeming with stalactites and natural sculptures formed by hundreds of thousands of years of mineral-rich water drops slowly leaving behind a rock residue.

Ten Spectacular Volcanic Plugs And Natural Monoliths

A volcanic plug, also called a volcanic neck, is a volcanic land-form created when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. A natural monolith is a mountain or large rock formation consisting of a single massive stone.

Both types of these geological structures are similar in that they are often steeply rising above the surrounding terrain. The unusual appearance and the buildings which are often located on these structures, amaze visitors and attract them to come back again.

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Upping the Cute Factor

Top 25 Zoo-Borns of All Time

Why post an end-of-the-year list when you can post an all-time list? Zooborns celebrated their 2,000th post recently, and bloggers Chris Eastland and Andrew Bleiman are marking the occasion by ranking the cutest baby animals ever featured on the site. Each photograph includes information about the animal and the zoo or sanctuary in which it lives. More

Man bit head off snake so it couldn't bite him

After seeing a brown snake in the front yard of a neighbor's house, Rodney Williams of Glenroi, in New South Wales, Australia, did the unthinkable and picked it up before biting its head off.
He then bit it on the stomach and tail. Mr Williams, who admits he’d had a few drinks before the incident, said he considered it a “learning experience”. “I bit it’s head off first so it couldn’t bite me,” he said. “I’ll probably do it better next time.”

Mr Williams said he’d seen other Koori people kill snakes in a similar way and had always wanted to try it himself. “That’s how you kill a snake, you don’t use a shovel,” he said. “I was born and bred in this street [Adina Crescent] and I’ve never seen a king brown here before but there’s a few red-bellied blacks around.”

Mr Williams said he would tell his four grandchildren what happened but hopes they won’t try it themselves. Orange hospital confirmed a man was examined for a possible snake bite but he wasn’t admitted for treatment. Hours after the encounter Mr Williams said he felt so well he discharged himself from hospital.

Toddler incubated deadly snake eggs in his wardrobe

A toddler has incubated a nest of one of the world's most deadly species of snake - in his bedroom wardrobe. Kyle Cumming, 3, of Townsville, Queensland, Australia, found the snake eggs several weeks ago while playing in his backyard and put them in his wardrobe. On Monday, the boy's mother discovered seven squirming baby snakes inside a takeaway container she had given him after he found the eggs. Eastern brown snakes are second only to the inland taipan as the most venomous snakes on Earth, and are responsible for most lethal snake bites in Australia.

Queensland Museum information officer and snake expert Steve Wilson said despite the age of the snakes, if Kyle had been bitten the result could have been deadly. "Any venomous snake, as soon as it hatches, has all the apparatus to deliver venom because the first thing they have to do is catch and kill prey - it's a perfect replica of an adult snake," he said. "Brown snakes are highly venomous and a baby brown could potentially kill or at least seriously harm a human being - adult or child.

"If he had played around with them, which a little boy would, there's a chance they would have bitten him and there's a real chance that he may have been very seriously harmed or killed by them." Mr Wilson urged the need to instil in children that snakes of any sort are never to be touched."You've got to impress on children to steer clear of any handling of any snakes or snake-like animals, not necessarily to be feared but always treated with a great deal of caution," he said. "For a little kid scooping them out, he's either very lucky that when he picked them up he kept them the right way up or he got them very early in their development when it wasn't too critical."

Kyle's mother Donna Sim said she did not think any more of the eggs until she found the container full of hatchlings. "I was pretty shocked, particularly because I don't like snakes," Ms Sim said. But Ms Sim's discovery could have saved the animals' lives, as if they had remained forgotten in the wardrobe they would have died. "If they hadn't been found they would have been doomed - doomed and entombed," Mr Wilson said. Ms Sim and her son took the container to nearby Billabong sanctuary, where wildlife rangers released the reptiles into the wild.

Gibbon from popular Rhode Island zoo exhibit dies

A white-cheeked gibbon that had been part of one of the most popular exhibits at a Rhode Island zoo for decades has died.

The Roger Williams Park Zoo says Gloria was euthanized Friday after suffering for months with a disease that has symptoms similar to those of Parkinson's.

Gloria was born in 1983 at the Minnesota Zoo and had been at the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence since 1989.

White-cheeked gibbons are apes that are native to rainforests in Southeast Asia. They are classified as a critically endangered species.

Gibbons typically live about 25 to 30 years in the wild and can live more than 40 years in captivity.

The zoo says it made the decision to euthanize Gloria because of a severe decline in her quality of life.

Federal government lists two ice seals as threatened

Two types of ice seals joined polar bears on Friday on the list of species threatened by the loss of sea ice, which scientists say reached record low levels this year due to climate warming. Ringed seals, the main prey of polar bears, and bearded seals in the Arctic Ocean will be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced.
A species is threatened if it's likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout a significant portion of its range.
The listing of the seals came after federal scientists did an extensive review of scientific and commercial data. It has no effect on subsistence hunting by Alaska Natives.
"They concluded that a significant decrease in sea ice is probable later this century, and that these changes will likely cause these seal populations to decline," said Jon Kurland, protected resources director for NOAA Fisheries' Alaska region.
Ringed seals are the only seals that thrive in completely ice-covered Arctic waters. They use stout claws to dig and maintain breathing holes.
When snow covers those holes, females excavate and make snow caves, where they give birth to pups that cannot survive in ice-cold water and are susceptible to freezing until they grow a blubber layer.
Hungry polar bears often catch breeding females or pups by collapsing lairs.
Decreased snowfall, or rain falling on lairs instead of snow, is a threat to seal survival, the agency said.
Bearded seals, named for their thick whiskers, give birth and rear pups on drifting pack ice over shallow water where prey such as crab is abundant. When females give birth, they need ice to last long enough in the spring and early summer to successfully reproduce and molt.
The projected retreat of sea ice from shallow shelves decreases food availability, the listing petition said.
The listing is a major victory in efforts to save the animals because of the additional protections provided under the Endangered Species Act, said Shaye Wolf of the Center for Biological Diversity, who wrote the petition leading to the listing consideration.
"The seals need all the help that they can get," she said by phone from San Francisco.
The development, however, is bittersweet, she said. While the Obama administration has acknowledged the threat, not enough is being done to limit greenhouse gas pollution behind the loss of sea ice, she said.
The NOAA Fisheries decision affects four subspecies of ringed seals around the world. Arctic Ocean seals off Alaska's coast and seals on the Okhotsk and Baltic seas were listed as threatened. A subspecies in Lake Ladoga in northwest Russia was listed as endangered.
The listing covered two subspecies of bearded seals: the Beringia population, which includes Alaska, and bearded seals in the Sea of Okhotsk.
Designation of critical habitat for the seals will be considered later.
The agency said the listing decision will not mean any immediate restrictions on human activities.
It does mean that federal agencies that issue permits or pay for projects that might affect a threatened species must consult with NOAA Fisheries to make sure activities do not jeopardize the animals.

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