Oh Well: A Commentary

Disney alters platinum-plated perks to a $12,000-per-year club

2014-12-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

Wow! It appears that the ubber-rich are in an uproar against Walt Disney Corporation for rolling back their perks and raising their admission fees

Silicon Valley company busted for paying Indian workers $1.21 an hour in America

2014-10-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

I found this story through the Huffington Post, with this story also showing up on the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and Yahoo News. Another source story appears to be the San Jose Mercury News. I am going to start with the Huffington Post: A Silicon Valley company that digitizes images said Thursday that an "administrative error" led to it paying eight workers flown in from

Are we relying too much on apps to do our chores?

2014-09-28T16:23:00.001-07:00

This is from Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times: Near the top of the list of tiresome tasks that the Internet has yet to solve is this one: trekking to the post office. Enter a San Francisco start-up called Shyp, which is expanding to New York on Monday. For a small fee, it fetches, boxes and mails parcels for you. The other week, I had a get-well package to mail to my cousin. I

More charts showing the rich are still getting richer....again!

2014-09-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

I've seen this story making its rounds through The New York Times, Kevin Drum, Vox, and Daily Kos. The source story is through Vox, where Bard College economist Pavlina R. Tcherneva created a chart that vividly shows the distribution of income gains during economic expansion periods have increasingly gone to the rich. First, the chart: And here is the Vox story: Pavlina

Incumbent Kansas senator claims U.S. is heading towards "National Socialism"

2014-09-27T21:24:00.001-07:00

I found this Talking Points Memo story through Kevin Drum, and even I can't believe it. From Talking Points Memo: Incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who is facing an unexpectedly fierce challenge for re-election, warned Monday at a campaign stop that the United States is heading for "national socialism." It's not clear whether Roberts intended to make a reference to Nazism or

Ex-employees warned Home Depot for years on security breach

2014-09-20T14:37:00.001-07:00

Last week, Home Depot confirmed that its payment security systems had been hacked, impacting all of Home Depots 2,200 stores in the United States, and possibly Canada. The Home Depot computers were apparently hit by a variation of the same maleware program which breached Target's computers last year. Today, there is this interesting story that came from the New York Times: The

One-third of American workforce working freelance

2014-09-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

I found this Reason Magazine story through the Washington Monthly, with the final source coming from this report Freelancing in America. Starting with Reason Magazine: A new report shows some 53 million Americans—or 34 percent of the U.S. workforce—are now working as freelancers in some capacity. "This is more than an economic change," asserts the report, a joint effort from the

More companies engaged in employee wage theft

2014-09-01T11:32:00.000-07:00

I found this New York Times story via the Huffington Post. Appropriate for Labor Day: MIRA LOMA, Calif. — Week after week, Guadalupe Rangel worked seven days straight, sometimes 11 hours a day, unloading dining room sets, trampolines, television stands and other imports from Asia that would soon be shipped to Walmart stores. Even though he often clocked 70 hours a week at the

The New York very rich are angry at the ubber-rich's helicopter noise pollution

2014-08-31T13:28:00.001-07:00

This is so ironic. I found this New York Times article through Daily Kos: On an evening during the last stretch of summer, 385 people arrived at the studios of LTV, a cable-access programmer in Wainscott, on the East End of Long Island, for a town-hall meeting to discuss mounting aural assaults from commuter helicopters going to and from Manhattan. The issue had been igniting tempers all

Two stories on net worth loss by the poor, and minimum wage loss from inflation

2014-08-24T13:55:00.000-07:00

I found a couple of stories that I wanted to comment on. The first is this story by Kevin Drum, showing a real eye-opening chart on the Great Recession's impact on the poor: Graph showing median household net worth from 2000 -- 2011. From Kevin Drum. If you look at the chart, Kevin shows that the net worth of the poor has dropped in a ten-year period, from zero to around -$

Work scheduling software creates havoc on low wage employees' lives

2014-08-17T11:32:00.003-07:00

I found this NY Times story on both Daily Kos, and Kevin Drum: SAN DIEGO — In a typical last-minute scramble, Jannette Navarro, a 22-year-old Starbucks barista and single mother, scraped together a plan for surviving the month of July without setting off family or financial disaster. In contrast to the joyless work she had done at a Dollar Tree store and a KFC franchise, the $9-an-hour

The real Amazon drones

2014-04-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

I found this story through the Huffington Post: At least five days a week, Myron Ballard races around Washington, D.C., with a cargo van full of Amazon Prime packages. A career delivery driver with 20 years behind the wheel, Ballard typically gets paid $1.50 for each address he visits. If he delivers 150 Amazon boxes -- a fairly routine number -- he can pull in $225. Not bad for a day's

Saturday Morning Cartoons--Superman Meets My Little Pony

2014-04-26T10:26:00.002-07:00

I saw this browsing through YouTube, and it is just brilliant. Created by an animator named ToucanLDM, the Man of Steel is transported to My Little Pony's world, where he meets those cute, wide-eyed, talking ponies, and battles against both General Zod and evil ponies from taking over the My Little Pony kingdom. Saturday Morning Cartoons--Superman Meets My Little Pony:

Barbie is dying!

2014-04-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

I found this Huffington Post story: * First-qtr net loss $0.03/share vs $0.11 profit year earlier * First-qtr adjusted profit $0.01/share vs est. $0.09 * Sales fall 5 pct to $946.2 mln vs est. $952.9 mln * Shares fall as much as 3 pct (Adds details, analysts comments; updates shares) April 17 (Reuters) - Mattel Inc, the world's largest

NASA discovers first Earth-size planet inhabiting Goldilock's Zone

2014-04-19T09:31:00.003-07:00

This story is just totally cool: Using NASA's Kepler Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the first Earth-size planet orbiting a star in the "habitable zone" -- the range of distance from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet. The discovery of Kepler-186f confirms that planets the size of Earth exist in the habitable zone of stars other than our

Saturday Morning Cartoons--Superman "Volcano"

2014-04-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

For this morning's Saturday Morning Cartoons, I'm posting 1942's Superman cartoon, Volcano. From YouTube:

Chelsea Clinton is pregnant

2014-04-19T08:50:00.003-07:00

I found this story through Americablog, which reported that former president Bill Clinton's daughter Chelsea Clinton is now pregnant. And it appears that the famous Clinton First Couple, Bill and Hillary, are excited about being grandparents. Okay. Ho-hum. Congratulations to Chelsea, and all the other young women who have discovered they will be expecting a package from the

Florida GOP legislature bans teen interns from floor during abortion debate

2014-04-12T10:33:00.001-07:00

I found this Gawker story through Daily Kos. Even I'm a little surprised at it. From Gawker.com: During discussion of controversial issues on abortion and fetuses Wednesday, Republican leaders of Florida's Legislature sent all of the House's teenage pages out of the chamber, and they weren't allowed back in until debate opened on the next issue: guns. The unusual "precaution"

Saturday Morning Cartoons: A Corny Concerto

2014-04-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

For this morning's Saturday Morning Cartoons, it is time to get Merrie with Merrie Melodies "A Corney Concerto." The cartoon is a parody of Walt Disney's 1940 feature film Fantasia, in which the Disney film sets eight animation sequences to classical music. Directed by Bob Clampett, and released in September, 1943, A Corney Concerto sets up two stories to Johann Strauss' waltzes,

Saturday Morning Cartoons--Happy Harmonies "To Spring!"

2014-04-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

After the week of rain we had here in the Bay Area (and we probably need more rain), the sun is out and Spring is here. I found this MGM cartoon series Happy Harmonies short cartoon, To Spring! Happy Harmonies was a series of 36 cartoons, produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, from 1934 to 1938. They were distributed by Metro Goldwyn-Mayer. Harman and Ising started

UPS fires 250 workers after they protest against a long-time co-worker's firing

2014-04-03T15:37:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure how to respond to this NewYork Daily News story, via Think Progress. From the New York Daily News: UPS has delivered a special message to 250 of its Queens drivers: You’re fired! The Atlanta-based company is booting 250 of its unionized drivers from its Maspeth facility because they walked off the job for 90 minutes Feb. 26 to protest the dismissal of a long-time

Supreme Court kills overall limits on individual political campaign donations

2014-04-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

This is from the Los Angeles Times: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struck another major blow against long-standing restrictions on campaign money Wednesday, freeing wealthy donors to each give a total of $3.6 million this year to the slate of candidates running for Congress. Rejecting the restriction as a violation of free speech, the 5-4 ruling struck down a Watergate-era limit that

Saturday Morning Cartoons--South Park parodies Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch

2014-03-29T09:58:00.003-07:00

I found this over at Americablog, and it is just fricking brilliant! Seems like the creators of South Park created a parody of Monty Python's famous Dead Parrot sketch--one of the best of the series. From YouTube: And here is the original Monty Python's Dead Parrot sketch: I'd like to see how South Park parodies other Monty Python sketches, such as the Spanish

Supreme Court hears arguments in Hobby Lobby case for corporation's religious rights

2014-03-26T14:09:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc, where Hobby Lobby is challenging the Affordable Care Act's insurance coverage for birth control is violating the religious beliefs of the owners of Hobby Lobby, and that the company should be exempt from this birth control requirement. This is from CBS News.com: Two privately-held, for-profit companies

Jack Daniels faces Tennessee "Whiskey Rebellion"

2014-03-26T11:54:00.000-07:00

I found this story through the Yahoo Food Section, with the source story from the Wall Street Journal. Starting with the Yahoo Food Story: There’s a whiskey brawl going on! Not the typical post-drink brawl, but a brouhaha that was born before the whiskey even made it to the people. Let us elucidate the details. Jack Daniel’s Whiskey: Whiskey made (1) in Tennessee (2) from at least