August 20, 2015

Lucky Seal Narrowly Escapes Jaws Of A Shark With Incredible Leap

A seal came inches away from becoming shark food as it leapt from the water with a great white shark hot on its fins off Monomoy, Cape Cod on Monday.

The shark jumped out of the water after the seal, but somehow the little creature managed to leap just outside the range of the predator's massive jaws.

Or as the title of the video from the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy puts it -- White Shark 0: Seal 1.

And for anyone already a little leery of swimming in the ocean, consider this: The entire incident took place just 30 feet from shore in less than 10 feet of water, the organization wrote on Facebook. ................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/seal-great-white-shark_55d3e162e4b055a6dab1f980?utm_hp_ref=weird-news&kvcommref=mostpopular

August 20, 2015

With a stunning 7 million acres burned so far, the U.S. wildfire situation is looking dire

(WaPo) Wildfires are exploding across the western United States, overstretching resources and, in some states, resulting in tragic consequences.

Some 30,000 firefighters and additional support staff are now fighting fires across the United States — the biggest number mobilized in 15 years, according to the U.S. Forest Service. And it’s still not enough.

Two hundred members of the military are being called up to help further — they will be trained and deployed within just a few days — as are Canadian firefighting forces. There’s even some talk of potentially needing to draw on resources from Australia and New Zealand, which has been done before in a pinch.

And no wonder: Five states are now battling more than 1o large wildfires — California is contending with 16, Idaho 21, Montana 14, Oregon 11 and Washington 17. Most terrifying, perhaps, is the Soda Fire, which has scorched 283,686 acres in Idaho, burning up ranches, killing wild horses, even generating an alarming fire whirl recently. .............(more)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/08/18/with-7-million-acres-burned-so-far-this-year-the-u-s-wildfire-situation-is-looking-dire/

August 20, 2015

How to Develop Bus-Stop Time Models in Dense Urban Areas

How to Develop Bus-Stop Time Models in Dense Urban Areas
SOURCE: MINETA TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE (MTI) AUG 19, 2015


A new model for bus transit reliability can help operators improve planning and scheduling in urban areas. This study defines a new reliability variable, Total Bus Stop Time (TBST), which includes “dwell time” (DT) and the time it takes a bus to safely maneuver into a bus stop and then re-enter the main traffic stream. The newly released study, Development of Bus-Stop Time Models in Dense Urban Areas: A Case Study in Washington, D.C., is published by the Mineta National Transit Research Consortium (MNTRC). The authors are Stephen Arhin, PhD, and Errol Noel, PhD. The report is available for free download.

“The report’s proposed regression models have a high explanatory power over the observed data,” said Arhin. “The models can therefore be used to adequately predict DTs and TBSTs at various bus stops and by time of the day with 95 percent confidence.”

The report recommends that:

• For bus stops near intersections, buses should spend no more than 43, 47, and 67 seconds TBST (from exiting the stream of traffic to successfully reintegrating with it) during the morning, midday, and evening peak periods, respectively.

• Similarly, buses at midblock bus stops should spend no more than 36, 33, and 31 seconds TBST for the morning, midday and evening periods, respectively.

Noel noted, “Thirty bus stops located at intersections and thirty midblock bus stops were used for this study. All were in heavily traveled routes within Washington DC. Due to potential changes in traffic patterns and land uses near bus stops, these models should be updated and validated on a 3- to 5-year cycle.” ...................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12104768/how-to-develop-bus-stop-time-models-in-dense-urban-areas

August 20, 2015

Wall Street is Running out of Time… and Money

Wall Street is Running out of Time… and Money
by Bill Bonner • August 19, 2015

It’s Not Just China You Should Be Worried About.

By Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners:


Chinese stocks fell hard yesterday. The Shanghai Composite plunged more than 6% – the biggest fall in three weeks. Our research team in Beijing is downcast.

“Nobody here wants to hear about stocks,” they tell us.

And the junkiest – and riskiest – part of the U.S. bond market has taken a dive too. Here’s that chart of the big U.S. junk bond ETF that Chris highlighted in yesterday’s Market Insight. It has completely rolled over this year…



Meanwhile, U.S. corporate earnings have plateaued. And according to Deutsche Bank’s David Bianco, earnings are actually falling when you exclude companies’ slick accounting adjustments to “smooth” their numbers.

The only thing left propping up Wall Street stocks, as we explained yesterday, is insider trading.

[font size="3"]Retail Rot[/font]

Recent sales figures from America’s retailers show how deep the rot has become. Sales have been rising at an alarmingly slow rate – just 0.5% since 2007.

Between 2000 and 2007, they went up four times as fast. In the 1990s recovery, they went up six times as fast. .........(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2015/08/19/wall-street-is-running-out-of-time-and-money/

August 20, 2015

Tom Tomorrow: Republicans reach out to women

http://www.truth-out.org/art/item/32422-voter-outreach

August 20, 2015

How Amazon Swallowed Seattle

from Gawker:


How Amazon Swallowed Seattle

CML
Filed to: AMAZON 8/18/15 11:50am


Seattle is dead and Amazon killed it.

The recent news around Amazon has focused on the company as a workplace. Much of it has been unflattering, all of it is accurate. But a more comprehensive indictment of Amazon would also describe its effect on the rest of Seattle, which used to be a great place to live. In recent years, it has become consumed by Amazon.

I was born here, in 1988. My city was a gentle, easygoing place, a salad of cultural influences: citizens of the outdoors, of grunge and high art, with a dash of software among its bluebloods. Here I reveled in mild weather and glorious views; here I played in the best high-school orchestra in the nation (at a public school), and surrounded myself with brilliant people who understood me and made me better.

Nowhere else was life so good.

.....(snip).....

Seattle has always been prosperous. Now, it is expensive. The center of the blight is South Lake Union, for decades a low-rent neighborhood of warehouses and newspapers. Nearly three years ago, Amazon bought 11 buildings in the area, from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, for $1.16 billion; its objective is to build a “campus” in the image of Google’s, in Mountain View.

Efforts to this end have not been unsuccessful. South Lake Union used to be a dump. Now, as in Brooklyn (as in San Francisco, as in Portland, as in Austin), cubical buildings and yuppie boutiques have emerged from the carcass of industry. South Lake Union is no longer a neighborhood; it is a boomtown, in all the worst senses. Not since 1897 has such a gold rush so remade the Seattle waterfront. SLU’s gender ratios, makeshift culture, and inflated prices recall the Klondike. A cruel irony of tech is that it should free work from geographical constraints; “you can work anywhere,” goes the bromide. If only. In real life, wealth concentrates in faceless hubs more than ever before.

.....(snip).....

Things have gotten to the point that one good friend talks seriously of moving to Portland. A year ago, he spoke often of Seattle’s greatness, and spoke of Portland with our customary derision. Now he, too, laments Seattle’s death: “It was too nice here,” he said. “It couldn’t last.” Another friend left Seattle because it was “too competitive.” We had no rejoinder, and back he went to his hick town on the Columbia River. Yet another friend briefly entertained a whim to return to Las Vegas. Until recently, such a caprice was unthinkable. Even software engineers relocate, due mainly to discontentment with their jobs. Their final destination is often San Francisco, as if Seattle wasn’t yet bad enough. .................(more)

http://gawker.com/how-amazon-swallowed-seattle-1724795265

August 20, 2015

European Warming Sends Wild Boar Numbers Soaring

By Paul Brown, Climate News Network




LONDON—Wild boar populations in Europe are getting out of control—and scientists are blaming climate change.

There are now millions of wild boar spreading out from their preferred woodland habitat, moving into city suburbs, and even crossing national boundaries to countries that had thought they were extinct.

In some countries, notably France and Germany, which have always had wild boar populations in their forests, they are a major cause of road accidents.

France has an estimated two million boar, and the German state of Hesse alone has 180,000. Berlin, the German capital, is erecting boar fencing around its borders in an attempt to keep the animals out of the city.

Extra production

The scientists believe that the increasingly frequent mild winters in Europe and the extra production of acorns and beechnuts by trees are aiding boar survival rates. Both factors are the result of climate change, they say. ...............(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/european_warming_sends_wild_boar_numbers_soaring_20150820

August 19, 2015

Marijuana marathon races look to break stoner stigma

(MarketWatch) Marijuana users on the west coast are running, or walking, away from the popular image of the Jeff Spicoli-like pot smoker.

420 Games is a Marin County, Calif.-based events company whose goal is to de-stigmatize the mainstream opinion that cannabis users are lazy “stoners” like Sean Penn’s character from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” The company holds 4.2-mile runs/walks and other types of sporting events to show that marijuana users are just as active as non-users. “If you smoke cannabis and someone hears about it, you’re called a stoner right away,” says 420 Games founder Jim McAlpine. “No one calls you a drunk if you take a drink here or there.” (The term “420” originated in the 1970s as a code for smoking marijuana.)

420 Games held its second annual 4.2-mile run in San Francisco on Saturday, and has also hosted a run in San Jose, Calif. The company plans to introduce its events in new cities with a run, then expand to other activities, such as golf tournaments, paddle board races and long board marathons, he says. ..................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/marijuana-marathon-races-look-to-break-stoner-stigma-2015-08-19

August 19, 2015

What Netflix, Amazon, and KKR Tell Us About the Dismal State of Family Leave

(Bloomberg) In what appears to be an escalating benefits arms-race, a handful of companies have rushed to announce more generous family-leave policies for their employees in recent days. It's a response, in part, to a combination of public shaming and hiring pressure. The shame comes from the fact that the U.S. is last in the developed world in paid family leave available to new mothers and fathers. The pressure comes particularly from female workers, who tend to quit in alarming numbers once they become mothers and find that Corporate America's intractable culture to be untenable. Working fathers also want greater flexibility so they can be involved with their families.

Some companies that have taken steps to modernize their policies to reflect the way the workplace actually is, rather than how it used to be, should be commended. But a handful of improvements at individual companies only points at a larger problem: The ability to be both a parent and an employee is largely dependent on the benevolence of whichever private corporation one happens to work for. Until that patchwork approach to the problem changes, working parents at all levels of the economic spectrum will continue to be in a bind. The persistent lack of women at the upper levels of the business world won't get much better, either.

Netflix made the most groundbreaking move, announcing on Aug. 4 that it would offer unlimited leave to most employees during the first year after the birth or adoption of a child, at full pay, followed by flexible options once they return to work. Microsoft chimed in the next day, increasing paid time off for new parents to 12 weeks, from eight. Not to be outdone, the software company Adobe said it was more than doubling the paid time off it offers new mothers—to 26 weeks, from 12. ...............(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-19/what-netflix-amazon-and-kkr-tell-us-about-the-dismal-state-of-family-leave

August 19, 2015

The global economy is losing its last shock absorber

(Business Insider) China's economy is in trouble.

Last week's surprise devaluation of the Chinese currency, the yuan, has brought the world's second-biggest economy into focus, and it's not a pretty picture.

Growth is slowing, inflation is very low, the country's demographics mean its workforce will soon stop growing. It has also failed to put a stop to its considerable debt accumulation in recent years.

But according to Stephen King, outgoing chief economist at HSBC, that way of telling the story ignores China's role as the heavy-lifter in the global recovery — the economy that's been able to take a beating on behalf of the rest of the world.

King calls China "the shock absorber for the global economy, a punch bag seemingly able to soak up the recessionary blows that would otherwise have totally derailed global growth." .................(more)

Read more: http://uk.businessinsider.com/hsbcs-stephen-king-the-global-economy-is-losing-its-last-shock-absorber-2015-8#ixzz3jE1cltl6