Language Lesson for CBS4 Miami

On their home page today, CBS4 posted a little poll.  And they included an egregious language blunder in it.

Did you catch the mistake?

"I could care less" means that you do care.  After all, if you could care less, it means you have to be caring at least a little bit.  In order to care less, you first have to care some.

The correct phrase is "I could NOT care less."  It's pretty clear that you can't care less than not caring at all.  Your caring level is at rock bottom, there's no more down to go.

Where do I stand on the NBA lockout?  Millionaires and billionaires are squabbling over crumbs while the workers who make the games happen are left without any income at all.  People are losing their homes while the jerk players and the asinine owners bicker.  Players making six figures a year and better can coast through this; the people who sell concessions, food, and beverages live paycheck to paycheck.

I care about the people the NBA is shafting, but I could not care less about the games.

Rick Scott; Liar or Idiot: Either way a Bad Choice.

I don't know which is worse; that Rick Scott ran a company that bilked taxpayers out of millions of dollars, or that his statements defending himself are so incredibly lame.

He's stated numerous times that he wasn't aware that his company was breaking the law; of course, as the CEO, it was his job to be aware of it.  Just as it will be his job as governor to know when legislation serves a legitimate need, and makes good use of taxpayer dollars.

And now, the Miami Herald reports that he was aware of his company's indiscretions.

The warnings were contained in the company's annual public reports to stockholders that Scott, now the Republican candidate for Florida governor, signed as Columbia/HCA's president and chief executive officer.

So it turns out that Scott has been lying the entire time.  But he offers up yet another incredibly lame defense:

"I don't know what the document said. I'm sure they used boilerplate that said something about they used all their efforts to comply with all the laws.''

And yet, he signed it.  He signed a document certifying that he'd read it, and that it was accurate.

Hospital expert James Roberts, now general counsel with Gainesville-based Shands Healthcare, said Columbia/HCA was playing a "roulette wheel,'' betting that the risk of fines was lower than the profitability of the physician arrangements.

Roberts agreed that the language about physician payments was "boilerplate'' but said Scott -- an attorney as well as a hospital CEO -- should have known better.

He's right.  "Ignorance of the law" is no excuse, particularly for a lawyer.

And again, what is the chief role of the governor?  To sign stuff.  To sign bills into laws.  To sign budget declarations.  To sign pardons excusing convicted felons.  To sign execution orders for condemned murderers.

Rick Scott couldn't be bothered to read documents in the past, critical legal documents, declarations of his company's intentions.  And now he expects us to elect him to a job where signing stuff is Job One?

Again, here's Rick Scott's statement on the matter:

"What happens in companies is that you have to take responsibility for what happens under your watch.  Mistakes that were made you take responsibility as CEO and you do everything you can to make sure those things don't happen. What I tell people is that's what I'll do as
governor.''

But Scott hasn't taken responsibility for any of it; he's done nothing but make excuses time and again: he didn't know, he wasn't told, he doesn't remember.

I have no doubt that he will do for Florida what he did with Columbia/HCA; and that's a problem.

Florida deserves a governor who will at least read what they are signing, and stand behind their actions later.  We deserve better than Rick Scott.

FPL Executives are F***ing Stupid

The Miami Herald story makes it pretty clear; the greedy sleazebags that run FPL are too stupid to realize that we actually fully understand why they're seeking a rate hike: it's because they want to make more money than they've made with their record profits to date. They've been raking in the dough while a large percentage of the population are either losing their jobs, or losing wages due to reductions in salaries, fighting foreclosures on homes whose mortgages now exceed the value of their homes, or declaring bankruptcy because of all that, but FPL executives want to add insult to injury by jacking up your rates.

OK, that's not the only reason. They also want a new jet.  From the Herald:

Florida Power & Light, embroiled in a controversial hearing to raise electric rates, says part of the 30 percent increase would pay for a new $31 million corporate jet to replace a 10-year-old jet in its three-aircraft fleet.

A handful of FPL executives are allowed to use the corporate jet for personal use, company officials said. Among them is CEO Armando Olivera, who told regulators that he used the plane for the Tallahassee hearing and often uses the company helicopter to travel between his hometown of Miami and his company's headquarters in Juno Beach.

So, FPL wants to ream us up the wazoo because Armando Olivera is too fucking stupid to move closer to his office.

Their stupidity is starting to hurt their employees:

"Most of my team see this as something of our company's own fault,'' said one FPL manager, who reported being among dozens of employees who were briefed on the plan orally to avoid a paper trail. "We failed to appreciate the plight of customers and yet we still are seeking to raise their rates, all in the name of long-term investment, when it is our shareholders who will benefit from all of this. A lot of my employees are demoralized and embarrassed before our customers.''

I bet.  When I was working for an idiot, I was demoralized, too.

So does FPL man-up, suck it in, and save their unreasonable requests for a time when people aren't losing their jobs and their homes and going into debt?  Fuck, no! 

FPL... has assigned James Ratchford, its director of development communications, to "plan and execute opposition research, media countermeasures and a social media campaign,'' according to an internal FPL document obtained by the Herald/Times.

That's lie, cheat, and smear to those of us who don't speak Sleazebag.

An FPL manager told the Herald/Times that ``under the watchful eye of my supervisors and management,'' Ratchford used computers untraceable to FPL to post blog comments about commissioners and the governor using aliases. Ratchford also conducted, or worked with others to conduct credit, property-records and criminal-background checks on commissioners Argenziano and Nathan Skop, along with Crist's new appointees, David Klement and Benjamin "Steve'' Stevens, the FPL manager said.

You know what?  I think at this point I am willing to pay more - to anyone who isn't FPL.  Let's give these morons the boot.

So here's how to tell if a commenter is an employee of FPL:

• They indicate they support the rate hike.
• They disparage those who don't support the rate hike.
• They claim that raising your rate will save you money.

When you see comments that fit the above profile, call'em out on it. 

Wendell Potter Comes Clean

A lot of people have been citing various studies in the discussion of health care.  The studies all show that Nationalized Health Care is bad for America.

And they were all manufactured by Wendell Potter.  Bill Moyers interviewed Potter, who comes clean about his complicity.  Wendell was head of corporate communications for Cigna, one of the largest private health insurers in the country.

He finally had an epiphany when he was visiting family, and attended a "health care fair" in rural Virginia.  Instead of providers handing out literature, he found people lining up in the rain to receive treatments in animal stalls at the local fairgrounds.  They had come from as far as Georgia.

He discusses his part in the highly publicized case of Nataline Sarkisyan, a young woman whose liver transplant was denied, resulting in her death days later.

He also details how he cherry-picked from all sorts of studies to make it appear that countries with national health systems didn't perform as well as our system.  He created the term "socialized medicine" in order to cast a negative image of what are actually superior health care systems.

He made sure that everything you know about government run health care is false.

FPL's Full Page Lie

Eye On Miami posted an image of a full page add that FPL Group shareholders ran in the Miami Herald on September 14, 2009.

In it, FPL bravely hints that people are opposed to its proposed rate hike because FPL is "too cozy" with the Public Service Commission.

And of course that's a lie; most of us feel that it is the Public Service Commission that is too chummy with FPL. But that's only a minor fib that they glibly pass off in the hopes of making themselves look like a victim instead of a very profitable company that pays healthy dividends every quarter.

Buried in its claims is the whopper:

Our rate proposal would result in electric bills for the typical residential customers and small businesses going down, not up.

Say what? They're going to charge us more, but they claim that's going to cost us less? Maybe in that crazy bearded Spock universe, but in this universe, when you charge more for something, it always means that your customers pay more to get it.

So how can they even attempt to spew this whopping lie with a straight face? Well, here's the very next sentence that follows the quote above:

That's because a base rate increase would be more than offset by lower fuel prices and gains in fuel efficiency.

But that still works out to be a lie; if, as they claim, the cost of fuel going down and increased efficiency means that they won't be buying as much of it in the future so they will be spending less on it, it means that it is the lower cost of fuel and increased efficiency that's lowering our bill, not the rate increase as they claim in their advertisements.

And of course, if fuel costs rise, we, the consumer, will end up paying more, because we're not only paying for the increase, but the nearly one-third increase they are hoping to get.

The smarmy ad concludes:

Let's stop playing politics with our energy future and stick to the facts.

OK. Let's.

FACT: in the aftermath of hurricans Katrina and Wilma, tens of thousands of FPL customers sat in the dark for days, and in many cases weeks, waiting for FPL and emergency teams to replace rotted poles and powerlines knocked down by tropical storm and hurricane winds. People lost money because they couldn't go to work; businesses lost money because they couldn't open. And how much did FPL lose, considering that the lost revenue for weeks on end? Not a cent. They got the state to reimburse them for the lost revenue. They didn't even lose money on the damaged equipment. In fact, that fiscal quarter was a very profitable one for their stockholders.

FACT: FPL has asked for this raise in order to increase its profit margin. Why? To make MORE money. And what that means is that FPL is currently very profitable; they are not losing money. They are making profits. They've just decided that, in an economy where people are losing their jobs and homes and health care coverage, they need to be making much more money than the money they are already making.

The only party to benefit from FPL's proposed rate increase are FPL Group shareholders. This rate increase is to feed FPL's greed, nothing more.

Why FPL wants a rate hike

The Palm Beach Post's story explains it pretty clearly:

Top FPL Group execs got double-digit raises in 2008

Gotta pay for those raises somehow!


.

Jake DeSantis IS part of the problem with AIG.

The New York Times has printed a letter of resignation, attributed to Jake DeSantis,an executive vice president with AIG. He is one of the executives who recieved a bonus.

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials.

He goes on to say that he's donating the money to "those suffering from the global economic downturn." And he gives a little biography of himself, depicting himself as a family man and a decent guy, and reiterating that he and his division had nothing to do with the company's collapse.

I'm sure that will warm the heart of the woman in Long Island who's being evicted because her landlord lost the building to foreclosure. The woman had paid all her rent on time, but not only loses her home, but all the deposits she paid on it. She's a decent, warm and fuzzy family type who did everything she was supposed to, too.

Here's the thing, Mr. DeSantis: AIG is failing. Your division is part of a company that is facing the most dire emergency imaginable: its imminent demise. It's the Titanic, and it is going to take all hands with it if it sinks. You're all going down, not just the guy on the bridge who was supposed to avoid the iceberg. The wait staff doesn't get a coffee break from helping with the evacuation just because they were doing their jobs when the ship started taking on water.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised.

And so do all of AIG's customers, you gutless whining jerk. I see. You're a victim. Well shit, Jake, welcome to the club. We're having a picnic out in Sacramento, bring a can of beans with you. No, really, bring the beans: everyone's unemployed and money's tight. Maybe you can swap sob stories with those folks who had to walk away from their mortgages: mortgages that went up while their jobs disappeared. I'm sure they will be heartbroken that you didn't get your bonus while AIG was failing to cover their losses.

Jake, only a complete jackass expects to be rewarded when the business around him is in a shambles. Sure, you met all your obligations. Whoopedy do. But the rest of us whose hard-earned tax money is being used to give you money on top of your base salary didn't sign on to make sure you got your frills.

Yes, you do deserve to get paid. And once AIG is back on its feet, and taxpayers have their money back, AIG is obligated to pay you your extra money - out of its own pocket, not out of mine.

So, here's a big 'FUCK YOU' to Jake DeSantis. And I really mean that in all sincerity.

XKCD makes a good point. Or do they?

The brilliant web comic XKCD points out that the Media's been exaggerating the whole AIG bonus thing a little bit:

In the greater scheme of things, the actual dollar amount of the bonuses is an insignificant fraction of what we're paying out for the entire bailout package.

But it's still a shitload of money.

$165 million would pay for 80 years of full operation at my last theatre, or 25 years of operation and a new wing at my current employer.

I'm not upset over the amount: I, and I think most of the other people who have been bitching about this - are appalled at the principle of it. They basically ran themselves out of business, and we literally saved their asses,and the first thing they do is throw it back in our faces.

To put XKCD's example into better context, you're the lawyer that got sexual assault charges against XKCD thrown out on a technicality. They were accused of rape, you got them off, and on the elevator leaving the courtroom they grab your daughters tits; "Hey, thanks for getting me off the hook!" he lears, "and for getting me off!"

NOW consider the difference between 'a sip of wine and a quick grope' against 'a drunken night of debauchery' with your daughter.

Got it? Good. Now let's gather up the tar and feathers...

FPL: Mere Profits are not Enough

Remember this?

FPL is making money. That's fine. I have no problem with that. The point of being in business is to make money. Business is supposed to be profitable.

But then there's this:

Let me make sure you understand this: FPL is making a very health profit NOW. Their expansions and improvements are already budgeted - and most of those projects are underway now - and they made record profits last year. In fact, they made 1.6 billion last year. This increase will result in profits well over 2 billion, assuming effects from the economy will reduce their record earnings.

What I want to know is: what is the difference between profits, and fair profits?


Right now, you and I and every taxpayer in America is being asked to pony up 700 billion dollars (on top of the 175 billion we wasted on AIG) to shore up banks and investment firms. GM and Chrysler are on the verge of gong belly up. Regional newspapers are laying off staff and many have already shut down, with others expected to follow in the next year. Workers are losing their jobs, so they are walking away from mortgages because they simply can't pay them even token sum, and FPL wants us to pay 30% more, not because they are struggling, but because they want to line their pockets.


Remember Katrina and Wilma? Many of us were without power for weeks; we lost wages from days we weren't working because our business sat in the dark. FPL had to replace hundreds of thousands of miles of cable, and had to make millions in repairs. And guess what? They still posted a profit! How? By pointing out to the PSC that because they couldn't bill customers for service they didn't provide, they stood to lose money. So the State of Florida paid them for the service we didn't receive, because god forbid a company should have lowered profits following a disaster.

I have only three words to say to FPL, and the PSC clowns better start practicing them right now, because if they don't use them, I say we should storm their offices and tar and feather the lot of 'em.

Here are the three words:

GO
TO
HELL

Repeat as necessary.

AIG; From Bad to Criminal.

Well, AIG says that they are contractually obligated to pay bonuses to some of the executives who were running the company when it failed.

The American public is understandably upset; from our perspective, it looks like senior executives are being rewarded for failure. Frankly, I wish my own employment contract had a bonus schedule for failure, because it would take a lot of pressure off me come review time.

That may or may not be the case; we haven't seen these contracts, nor the clauses that spell out what the employee had to do to earn them.

But it's irrelevant. AIG came begging for a hand-out. And when you come begging, you must be willing to sacrifice something. The first thing AIG's management should have sacrificed were their own bonuses. The senior executives should have gone to each employee and made them understand that a company that is about to shut down cannot honor bonuses.

If they are unwilling to do that, AIG shouldn't be given a cent. Let AIG fail, and let the employees lose their jobs and their benefits. They'll have lots of company, to be sure.

There is a principle to be upheld here, and right now, AIG isn't upholding anything; it's simply a hold-up.

The View on Wall Street

Received in email, I had to share:

Back in 1929, a lot of stock brokers jumped out of their office windows when they realized the extent of the losses of their firms and their clients. A lot of people pitied those poor stock brokers.



That was then, this is now:

Wellshire Farms is trying to kill me.

No, this is not a paranoid rant; some of the largest merchants of ready-to-eat foods are selling food that is deadly to millions of Americans.

The Sun-Sentinel is carrying a Chicago Tribune story that reports some major American food vendors are selling products that are supposed to be free of allergens, but aren't. The consequences of that can be - and have been - fatal.

One of the companies out to kill people recklessly lax in their labeling is Wellshire Farms. There are actually lot more in the Tribune story, but I've actually bought Wellshire Farms products, and failed to connect my resultant reaction eating their product because, after all, it was clearly labeled "gluten-free."

Pridemore recalled how she bought Wellshire Kids' dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, made by New Jersey-based Wellshire Farms, because the item specifically claimed to be gluten free. She also found the same claim on the Wellshire Farms Web site.


After her son had the severe reaction to the nuggets, she took some to his allergist, who ran tests, including gently rubbing a nugget on the boy's arm to see if it would cause a small welt. It did, and the allergist concluded the nuggets were to blame for his full-blown reaction.

...she sent the remainder of the nuggets in her freezer to the Nebraska lab.

The results showed high amounts of gluten.

Like any of us, she contacted the USDA. But it turns out that they're out to kill indifferent to the plight of those of us with allergies, too,.

she e-mailed a copy of the findings to the USDA and reminded Maxwell that the product advertises itself as gluten free.


The investigator wrote back that the government had "archived your complaint." The investigation went no further, according to Pridemore. She also e-mailed the test results to Wellshire Farms. The company, she said, never responded.

You might be wondering why Pridemore had the product tested herself: well, she was told to:

In an e-mail in January, (agency investigator Michael) Maxwell indicated to Pridemore that in light of that inspection report and the fact that no other consumer had complained, no action would be taken. "You may want to have the product tested," he wrote, according to a copy of the e-mail exchange.

And did the USDA then contact the company to have them explain the test results?

USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said one reason it did not ask Wellshire Farms to recall the chicken bites is because the agency did not trust the consumers' testing results.

So, the USDA instructs the victims to seek their own test results, and then ignores them out of hand. That sounds like complicit negligence, to me.

To be fair, it's possible that Pridemore's sample was contaminated after it was open in her kitchen. I know that it couldn't happen in MY kitchen, because, as a celiac, I don't keep any gluten-bearing items in the house. That would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it? I mean, the stuff's like arsenic to me, why would I keep it around? But that's me, and I don't know about Pridemore's kitchen.

Luckily for us, the Tribune, being a responsible journal, was similarly willing to believe that maybe Pridemore's sample was contaminated.

The Tribune recently bought two samples of the chicken nuggets and sent them to the same Nebraska lab. Both tested positive for gluten--including a sample from an unopened box.

The nuggets, said Steve Taylor, the lab's director and a leading allergy expert, "are not safe for people with wheat allergies or celiac disease," often characterized by chronic abdominal pain.

I guess Pridemore isn't stupid, either. Wish we could say the same for the USDA.

The Tribune found that two other "gluten-free" Wellshire products with high amounts of gluten in them. They informed the company of their results:

Wellshire Farms owner Louis Colameco said his products are safe. But he said that in light of the two consumer complaints and recent moves by regulators to tighten "gluten-free" rules, he halted production of the three Wellshire Kids' products in June.

He said he has not recalled the Wellshire Kids products still on store shelves because he believes they are in compliance with federal regulations.

So, even though you know that the products are labeled gluten-free when they are clearly not, even though you have several complaints of children winding up in the emergency room, this murderous clod you think it's OK to leave the products out and available for other children to be sent into anaphylaxis after eating the falsely labeled products. Thanks, Louis. Club any kittens to death recently?

Maybe, Mr.Colameco, you did not knowingly - or even actually - violate the letter of the law. But you've violently gang-raped the hell out of the spirit of it, haven't you? The intent of the law is clear; to help people with severe food allergies find foods that are safe to eat. Your products are NOT safe for people with severe allergies to eat. It should be obvious to any decent human being that these products should be pulled immediately before some other small child bites into his dinner and suddenly finds his esophagus clamping shut and his blood pressure plummets so fast that he can't even call for help as he suffocates in front of his loved ones.

You're a real prince, Louis.