October 5, 2014

Chinese Billionaire: If You Are Poor At 35, You Deserve It

For many who at 35 still blame their poverty state on family, friends or any other thing, famous Chinese billionaire, Jack Ma, says they are mistaking. According to him, “you are poor, because you have no ambition.”

In an article published by Cambridge Entrepreneur Academy - a World Wide Online Entrepreneur Training Academy and Incubator for Adults and Kids – Jack Ma spotlights on how he became a billionaire by creating Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based businesses in China where he serves as the Executive Chairman.

“Before I founded Alibaba,” he said, “I invited 24 friends to my house to discuss the business opportunity. After discussing for a full two hours, they were still confused — I have to say that I may not have put myself across in a clear manner then. The verdict: 23 out of the 24 people in the room told me to drop the idea, for a multitude of reasons, such as: ‘you do not know anything about the internet, and more prominently, you do not have the start-up capital for this’ etc.”

He continued, “There was only one friend (who was working in a bank then) who told me, “If you want to do it, just try it. If things don’t work out the way you expected it to, you can always revert back to what you were doing before.” I pondered upon this for one night, and by the next morning, I decided I would do it anyway, even if all of the 24 people opposed the idea.”

http://www.cameroon-info.net/stories/0,63124,@,chinese-billionaire-if-you-are-poor-at-35-you-deserve-it.html

October 4, 2014

Election site project Dem pickups for Gov. in FL, GA and KS.

I never saw this site before, but I sure hope they're right.



http://www.electionprojection.com/2014-elections/2014-governor-elections.php

October 4, 2014

Forget about Ebola. Look what the anti-vaxxers are doing to California

Almost 8,000 cases of pertussis, better known as whooping cough, have been reported to California's Public Health Department so far this year. More than 250 patients have been hospitalized, nearly all of them infants and young children, and 58 have required intensive care. Why is this preventable respiratory infection making a comeback? In no small part thanks to low vaccination rates, as a story earlier this month in the Hollywood Reporter pointed out.

Who is choosing not to vaccinate? The answer is surprising. The area with the most cases of whooping cough in California is Los Angeles County, and no group within that county has lower immunization rates than residents living between Malibu and Marina Del Rey, home to some of the wealthiest and most exclusive suburbs in the country. At the Kabbalah Children's Academy in Beverly Hills, 57% of children are unvaccinated. At the Waldorf Early Childhood Center in Santa Monica, it's 68%, according to the Hollywood Reporter's analysis of public-health data.

These are the kind of immunization rates that can be found in Chad or South Sudan. But parents in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica see vaccines as unnatural—something that conflicts with their healthy lifestyle. And they have no problem finding fringe pediatricians willing to cater to their irrational beliefs.

These parents are almost uniformly highly educated, but they are making an uneducated choice. It's also a dangerous choice: Children not vaccinated against whooping cough are 24 times more likely to catch the disease. Furthermore, about 500,000 people in the U.S. can't be vaccinated, either because they are receiving chemotherapy for cancer or immune-suppressive therapies for chronic diseases, or because they are too young. They depend on those around them to be vaccinated. Otherwise, they are often the first to suffer. And because no vaccine is 100% effective, everyone, even those who are vaccinated, is at some risk.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/paul-a-offit-the-anti-vaccination-epidemic-1411598408

October 4, 2014

538 calls the Michigan Senate race pretty much over.

In every Senate forecast FiveThirtyEight has published this year, Republicans have been slightly favored to take back the chamber. That hasn’t changed with our latest model run: Republicans are a 58 percent favorite.

On Thursday, three surveys confirmed the trend. EPIC-MRA and Lake Research (in a poll for the liberal group Progress Michigan) found Democrat Gary Peters ahead of Republican Terri Lynn Land by 9 percentage points. Mitchell Research put Peters’s advantage at 13 points. Additionally, a Target-Insyght poll this week found Peters up by 10 percentage points. On average, Peters was ahead in these polls by a little over 10 percentage points.

The FiveThirtyEight forecast isn’t ready to put Peters ahead by that much; it projects him to win by 6 percentage points, with an 89 percent chance of winning in November. That’s up from 70 percent at the beginning of September. More impressively, it’s way up from the 55 percent chance FiveThirtyEight gave Peters in its March outlook.

Ten other races are now rated as more competitive than Michigan.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/senate-update-democrats-wrapping-up-in-michigan/

October 4, 2014

David Perdue: ‘I spent most of my career’ outsourcing

David Perdue has run aggressively as a “job creator,” touting his record as a top executive with Fortune 500 companies as the chief selling point in his Georgia Senate campaign.

Yet during a controversial chapter in his record — a nine-month stint in 2002-03 as CEO of failed North Carolina textile manufacturer Pillowtex Corp. — Perdue said he was hired, at least in part, to cut costs by outsourcing manufacturing operations overseas. Perdue specialized throughout his career in finding low-cost manufacturing facilities and labor, usually in Asia.

During a July 2005 deposition, a transcript of which was provided to POLITICO, Perdue spoke at length about his role in Pillowtex’s collapse, which led to the loss of more than 7,600 jobs. Perdue was asked about his “experience with outsourcing,” and his response was blunt.

“Yeah, I spent most of my career doing that,” Perdue said, according to the 186-page transcript of his sworn testimony.


http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/david-perdue-georgia-senate-race-2014-111589.html#ixzz3FDBcvkBy

October 4, 2014

Two Officials Resign Over Pennsylvania Porn Scandal

NOTE: This is a bigger issue than the porn. When you spend time using state resources (such as computers) to mess around like this, it can be consdered a form of theft.


HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania Capitol is gripped by a widening scandal over the exchange of emails containing pornography by former members of the attorney general's office.

Gov. Tom Corbett was attorney general when the emails were exchanged by members of his staff, forcing him to defend his management as he campaigns for a second term. Pennsylvania's state Supreme Court chief justice demanded information on whether any judges were part of the exchanges.

Last week, Attorney General Kathleen Kane's office identified eight ex-employees who sent or received hundreds of pornographic images or videos in emails that were discovered during Kane's review of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse prosecution.

Four of those officials followed Corbett from the attorney general's office into his gubernatorial administration. On Thursday, two of them resigned. And Corbett said Friday that his review indicated that another of the four — state police Commissioner Frank Noonan — did not open, originate, forward or reply to any of the emails.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2-officials-resign-porn-scandal

October 4, 2014

Republican congressman claims to have committed murder.

orrest Dunbar (D) told the Alaska Dispatch News he had a backstage altercation with Rep. Don Young (R-AK) before their debate Friday night.

When the two were walking near each other, Young said angrily, "You're not from Cordova any more than I'm from Fort Yukon. I had you looked into."

Dunbar said he was puzzled and touched Young on his arm lightly and asked: "What are you talking about?"

Then Dunbar said Young, "freaked out. There is no other way to describe it. He kind of snarled at me and said, 'Don't you ever touch me. Don't ever touch me. The last guy who touched me ended up on the ground dead.'"


http://www.adn.com/article/20141003/kodiak-debate-backstage-flare-between-young-and-dunbar

October 3, 2014

GOP Gov Wants Personal Meeting With Obama On Medicaid Expansion

In an open letter to President Barack Obama, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) said Thursday that he would like to meet personally with him to discuss Pence's proposal to expand Medicaid under Obamacare.

Under Pence and the Republican-controlled legislature, Indiana was one of more than 20 states initially refused to expand Medicaid this year, leaving 182,000 people uncovered. But Pence, like several other GOP governors, has since opened up to the idea -- provided the administration meets his conditions.

Pence has proposed an alternative form of Medicaid expansion, using an existing state program. It includes some provisions that the administration might not be willing to accept. Those would, for example, include allowing coverage to be revoked if an enrollee fails to make payments toward their health care..

"I have been made aware that issues have arisen in my administration’s ongoing discussion with HHS that threaten to compromise the Healthy Indiana Plan’s effectiveness," Pence wrote in the open letter published by the Journal-Gazette in Fort Wayne. "Our administration will not support efforts to remove or water down the Healthy Indiana Plan’s core principles, essentially changing this proven program into an expansion of traditional Medicaid."


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mike-pence-obama-meeting-medicaid-expansion

October 3, 2014

Ex-Kansas Senator: Top Brownback Aide Being Investigated By FBI

A former Kansas state senator said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a top aide to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) over receiving financial compensation from three insurance companies that were involved in Brownback's health care reform, known as KanCare.

The Republican former senator, Dick Kelsey, said Thursday during a news conference that he had talked with the FBI about David Kensinger, Brownback's former chief of staff who serves an advisor to Brownback's re-election campaign and is a lobbyist, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

"The FBI called me. The investigation is very real," Kelsey said according to the Kansas newspaper. "It's not a political thing with them at all. They do not want government that is corrupt. I am confident it's not finished."

Months earlier the Capital-Journal reported that Kensinger was being investigated for being involved in clandestine dealmaking concerning Brownback's push to privatize Kansas's $3 billion Medicaid program.


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dick-kelsey-david-kensinger-kancare-sam-brownback

October 1, 2014

Forget about the NFL. The next Bush to be elected to office is a stalker.

Back when he was a Rice University student, Bush was investigated for burglary and criminal mischief related to a 4 AM visit to the Miami home of his ex, Cristina Cohen, and her parents.....

According to Cohen, Bush--wearing black shorts and no shirt--arrived at the residence and “went to his daughter’s bedroom window,” pulled it open, and “pushed the screen inward.” As Bush was “climbing in the window,” Murry Cohen awoke and spotted the trespasser. A neighbor of the Cohens also spotted Bush trying to get into the residence and began to argue with him.

With his intrusion thwarted, Bush “backed out of the window.” Cohen reported seeing Bush then “jump into a vehicle and flee.” But he would not be gone for long.

Bush returned to the home 20 minutes later and drove his car through the Cohens’s yard, causing damage to about 80 feet of the lawn.

When police arrived at the residence, the Cohens identified Bush as the perpetrator. Cristina Cohen explained that she used to date Bush, but that they “have been separated for 1-1/2 years.” She added that Bush “has been a problem ever since they broke up.”


http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/george-p-bush/george-p-bush-stalking-758409