Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Congratulations to the winners of the primaries tonight. I hope there will be a couple of days of well deserved rest will follow.

April 26, 2016
By Jonathan Adams

After five primaries on April 26, (click here) the Republican candidates only have the Indiana primary next week. The primary takes place Tuesday, May 3 and has 57 delegates at stake.
According to FiveThirtyEight, 30 delegates are awarded in winner-take-all fashion to the candidate with the most votes statewide. The remaining 27 delegates are split among nine congressional districts with each district getting three delegates. A candidate will be awarded three delegates for each congressional district he wins.
Ted Cruz will continue to try to cut into Donald Trump’s lead. Early polling data shows Trump with a narrow lead on Cruz.
Here’s a look at the latest Indiana GOP polls....

Moral leadership realizes where it's strength and success began.

As Chobani, the Greek-yogurt maker, grows astronomically, so does its workforce. Today, the company has 1,630 employees; in 2008, it had just 50. Here's how.

Christian Murray (click here) loads Chobani yogurt containers into a sleeving machine to be shrink wrapped at a Chobani manufacturing facility in New York.


Have hiring problems? Who doesn't?
Take a cue from those who have done it--a lot: Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya and his head of HR, Craig Gomez, who together have led Chobani to No. 7 on the inaugural Hire Power list of America's biggest job creators. 

Here's what they've learned along the way....

April 26, 2016
By Stephanie Strom

New Berlin, N.Y. — The 2,000 full-time employees (click here) of the yogurt company Chobani were handed quite the surprise on Tuesday: an ownership stake that could make some of them millionaires.
Hamdi Ulukaya, the Turkish immigrant who founded Chobani in 2005, told workers at the company’s plant here in upstate New York that he would be giving them shares worth up to 10 percent of the company when it goes public or is sold.
The goal, he said, is to pass along the wealth they have helped build in the decade since the company started. Chobani is now widely considered to be worth several billion dollars.
“I’ve built something I never thought would be such a success, but I cannot think of Chobani being built without all these people,” Mr. Ulukaya said in an interview in his Manhattan office that was granted on the condition that no details of the program would be disclosed before the announcement.
“Now they’ll be working to build the company even more and building their future at the same time,” he said....    
    

The Japanese does not want nuclear energy.

18 April 2016
By Julian Ryall

Citizens’ groups, (click here) local residents and prominent anti-nuclear activists are calling on the operator of the Sendai nuclear power plant, which is less than 150km from the epicentre of Saturday’s massive earthquake, to suspend operations at the facility.
In a letter sent to the headquarters of Kyushu Electric Power Co on Sunday, the protestors said events at the Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake show the danger that faces the Sendai facility.
The two reactors at Sendai, in Kagoshima Prefecture, are the only two that have been granted permission by the Nuclear Regulation Authority to restart operations. The first reactor was restarted on August 11, with Naoto Kan, the former prime minister, among he protestors demonstrating outside the main gates of the plant.
“Based on the experience at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, it is clear to everyone that it would be too late if you waited for some abnormality to occur,” the message sent to Kyushu Electric read.
Among those who have signed the letter are writers Keiko Ochiai, Takashi Hirose and Hisae Sawachi, as well as Nodoka Yamada, a university student who is a member of the Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy...

Some countries know the importance of changing to alternative energies.

21 April 2016
by Hirokazu InaKaoru Umino and Naoko Tokumoto

Japan's Cabinet (click here) recently approved a series of amendments (the "Amendments") to the Act on Special Measures Concerning the Procurement of Renewable Energy by Operators of Electric Utilities (the "Act"),1which, when approved and implemented, are likely to have a significant effect on the feasibility and profitability of current and future renewable energy projects. The impacts on developers will include: (i)increasing pressure to conclude interconnection agreements with utility companies as quickly as possible to obtain facility certification by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry ("METI") and to secure a favorable purchase price; (ii)requiring detailed and comprehensive plans for project development at the time of facility certification, with disincentives for amending such plans after a project has been certified; and (iii)requiring developers of ongoing projects to review existing agreements with utility companies to ensure compliance with the Amendments....

18 April 2016
By Danielle Demetriou
Japan’s atomic regulator (click here) will not shut down the nation’s only operating nuclear plant on earthquake-hit Kyushu island, despite concerns of a repeat of the Fukushima crisis.
The Nuclear Regulation Authority’s (NRA) decision came to light as the race to rescue survivors of the deadly earthquakes in southern Japan continued, with 10 still missing and the death toll rising to 42.
The Kumamoto region of Kyushu island was first hit last Thursday by a major tremor claiming nine lives which proved to be a foreshock to a bigger 7.3 magnitude earthquake striking early Saturday, killing a further 33....

The banking industry is preparing for USA regulations, including Bitcoin.

April 21, 2016
By Austin Mercer

Blockchain technology, (click here) popularized by the virtual currency, Bitcoin, is being hailed by many as a ground-breaking innovation that will increase efficiencies in the global economy. Its applications could be far reaching, but presently its impact is most evident in the banking sector. Banks view blockchain as a tool to decrease transaction costs, processing times, and fraud. To illustrate the fervor behind blockchain, in September 2015, a consortium of nine banks established R3, a company focused on the research and development of blockchain. Within three months, the number of banks involved with R3 ballooned to 43.

Although, as discussed below, blockchain is praised for its self-regulatory mechanisms, issues with Bitcoin theft, market manipulation, and its use in illegal transactions have forced governments around the world to consider oversight. U.S. federal and state regulatory boards have expressed interest in policing the use of blockchains in financial transactions, and some have already taken action. Most of the current and proposed regulation deals with virtual currency, but these regulations provide insight into how governments will handle all types of blockchain activity....

Increased efficiency translates into lower taxation of "Financial Transaction Tax." The USA has no real alternative, it needs additional tax income. The Financial Transaction Tax has been discussed for some time, however, the Republicans stands in it's way.

CRONIES before citizens.

The fourth drill between the USA and Canada. Video at the website below. Thank you.

The 2016 CAUSE IV experiment (click here) between the United States and Canada will be held April 26-28, 2016, at the Blue Water Bridge, the second busiest crossing between the U.S. and Canada, along the border of Michigan and Ontario.
Following the successes of CAUSE III, which occurred in fall 2014, the CAUSE IV experiment aims to act as a catalyst for building relationships in support of the U.S.-Canadian Beyond the Border Action Plan. The objectives of the CAUSE series are to explore how to build a binational communications interoperability capability and to connect, test and demonstrate emerging operational technologies available between the two countries.

Fox is stating age 15 Christopher was threatened on Facebook. He was the youngest family member.

If this works out to be a Facebook threat, families need to reconsider it's place in the family dynamics. This has been a growing issue. It has been hazing to cause suicides and now this is a threat that wiped out a family. I think there needs to be an assessment to the ability of Facebook and social media to cause dangers to Americans.

We have rating systems for movies and video games. The assessment about social media has to be given 'SAFETY RATINGS." Seriously. This is nonsense. There is no way a social media site should have that degree of danger in this country.

How many times are Americans going to be killed because of revenge or some kind of religious ritual before this stops?

April 26, 2016
By Chris Graves

On the Pike/Adams County Line  — Tears well (click here) in Leonard Manley’s eyes with nearly every mention of his slain daughter and her three murdered children.
But they never spill onto his cheek.
Manley, a man who doesn’t have much but his family, is too proud for that.
In all the talk around town following the acts of violence that decimated his family, Manley sees a guilt by association forming in speculation about the case. He is fierce in his defense of his daughter, Dana Rhoden, who was 37, and wants to clear the air.
“They are trying to drag my daughter through the mud and I don’t appreciate that,’’ Manley, 64, said Monday surrounded by family members and stacks of photo albums outside the trailer he shares with his wife Judy....
Hillary Clinton has been reaching out to Bernie Sanders' supporters for some time now. Bernie needs to realize his supports have an invitation to her campaign. Will he bring his supporters to the DNC party?

There is this idea among the Sanders' supporters they will migrate to Donald Trump if Bernie is not the nominee. That is not a threat. There is a clear character to their campaigns Sanders and Trump share if they like it or not.

Donald Trump is not accepting SuperPac money or big money donors. Hillary Clinton's campaign needs to realize there is a strong drive to have a candidate not attached to Wall Street and Sanders' supporters are nearly pledged to that alone.