By spocko, on May 18th, 2013% I just read a really amazing story about a product that stops table saws from cutting off people’s fingers. You might think that manufacturers would race to incorporate this feature into their products. Yet the opposite happened. A coalition of table saw makers have taken multiple steps over years to suppress this technology.
If you wonder, “Why would manufacturers fight against a product that saves customers’ fingers?” you haven’t been paying attention to the power of association lobbying money.
The article describes all the various methods that the big power tool industry uses to block the incorporation of this technology into their product. It really is fascinating the way they turn losing your fingers into a right while transforming the makers of SawStop into some kind of greedy hucksters.
Steve Colbert did an excellent piece on this over a year ago. What I like about this piece is that they point out the way power tool manufacturing industry uses the same right wing tropes about “nanny state” and “freedom” that we see in the weapons industry. But if you look behind the scenes you see the manufacturers don’t really care about users freedom to cut their fingers off, they really . . . → Read More: When Your Safety Cuts Into Industry’s Bottom Line, You Lose…Your Fingers
By spocko, on May 17th, 2013%
It’s Friday. When it’s foggy and gloomy in SF I watch happy videos. I like videos of people dancing and smiling. I think I’m going to post some of my favorites each week. I was just watching one from the Ghostworld Intro, ‘Jaan Pechan Ho’ Song from 1965 Bollywood film, Gumnaan Then Good Morning from Singing in the Rain.
But I also just found a new dancing video Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor in Where did you learn to dance. wonderful, check it out.
By spocko, on May 11th, 2013%
In my continuing quest to promote joyful videos of people singing and dancing I have found a new entry. I love how much fun they are having, knowing that they have done this before just for fun makes me happy.
So often videos capture horrible accidents and people doing embarrassing things. What a joy it was to see one where people are happily singing.
Science hasn’t figured out exactly how or why we are affected by music and dance, but when I see something like this, I’m grateful for the joy it brings.
Of course it is possible the whole thing was set up and faked. Don’t care. Still fun.
By spocko, on May 10th, 2013% Have you noticed the Cumulus v. Rush stories in the press lately? What makes me crazy is thinking about all the questions that could be asked of the distributors, media corporations and the people who have made money or spent money on right wing media. Sadly they won’t be asked, although if they were asked I suspect the answers would range from, “No comment.” to, “We don’t have to tell you nothin’ Poindexter” and include lots of, ” We are a private company! Now drop and give me 20 stories on missing white women!”
Although public companies like Cumulus will answer a few questions, those answers will mostly be bullshit. I also know that no one in the press will call them on their doublespeak because shut up. But if I was an old timey journalist, wearing a fedora with PRESS in the hat band I would ask ’em. I know I wouldn’t get any good answers of course, but it would be fun to watch the squirming. Today’s journalists aren’t about making anyone squirm. Not their job. Getting deeper truthful answers? Not their job. Reporting what they say exactly as they say it? That’s their job.
Here are a . . . → Read More: 9 questions the press won’t ask about Cumulus v. a Flaming Gasbag
By spocko, on May 8th, 2013% I used to think that if only America’s political leaders could see the unemployed in the media, and hear their stories they would act. I don’t believe that anymore.
Right now in news rooms across the nation well-meaning editors are assigning someone to write a “balanced” story about the Dow breaking 15,000 that also includes some stories about people struggling to find work. They know not to totally cheer the Dow, “See, we know that not everything is okay, so here’s a sad story of a person sort of like you, which you will dismiss in 10 seconds because it’s depressing as hell.” ( Pam Spauling’s story “Over 55, out of work more than six months? Headhunters say you’re screwed.” made me loath my birthday and myself instead of loathing the people driving our economy. Their incorrect, destructive austerity metaphor is destroying lives as surely as bullets in our brains.)
I used to believe that personal stories, combined with cold hard statistics could break through to politicians and policy makers who would say, ‘Enough! The lack of good jobs with good wages is a national tragedy, we must fix it or I’ll never get re-elected!” I had the same delusion . . . → Read More: Where are my Commupance Stories?
By spocko, on May 6th, 2013%
By spocko, on May 1st, 2013%
By spocko, on April 29th, 2013%
Of course the climate change deniers will have the usual excuses. Maybe they will add a new one. “I want to see the data! For all I know it is a bad Excel spreadsheet cell!”
And of course when you show them all the data they have new and exciting ways to attack it.
By spocko, on April 28th, 2013%
This is just the kind of story that they used to run on Channel 2 KTVU (when I watched it) or on the stations in the midwest. If this was done on the national level the people from New York would be mocking it with that, ‘Awww ain’t these hicks cute’ disguised as “These are only real people in America, the salt of the earth”
I liked this story. I could almost feel the heat. Nice video and voice over.
By spocko, on April 25th, 2013% I’ve long held that the most powerful force in the country right now are lobbyists. And the lobbyist’s lobbyists are the NRA’s lobbyists.
People always ask the boring ol’ question, “What would do you do if you won the lottery or a genie granted you one wish.”(For the record if I won the lottery I’d start a Progressive think tank that attacks right wing think tanks. If it was a genie I’d like a working spaceship.) But what would you do if you had NRA’s lobbyist power at your fingertips? I know what I’d do. I’d hire them to work against the weapons manufacturers and the NRA’s leadership.
I ask this question because on Thursday at 12:00 Noon EDT my buddy Cliff Schecter and a great group of people are protesting the K-Street Lobbyists in DC who are paid by the weapons manufacturers and the NRA to subvert the will of the people.
WASHINGTON, DC –Riding a wave of public anger at the Senate’s failure to pass even minimal gun control legislation, a coalition of activists, advocates and campaign finance reformers will lead a march on Washington firearms lobbyists this Thursday, April 25 at NOON. The goal is . . . → Read More: I’m Hiring NRA’s Lobbyists to Work for Me!
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