Saturday, May 31, 2014

Ta-Nehisi Coates and the case for reparations

In this must read article, The Case for Reparations: An Intellectual Autopsy, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, he writes, “White supremacy does not contradict American democracy —it birthed it, nurtured it, and financed it. That is our heritage.” Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism.” —(Source.) It's clear that fairness and equality for all Americans concerns us all and the sacrosanct pillars of capitalism and (lack of) democracy really need to be addressed.





Friday, May 30, 2014

Bigger Fatter Politics



Any website that has caught the eye and ire of the establishment has got to be worthy of examination. And let me tell you, it's well worth examining. Here's a sample:

The Criminal Elite

Over a year ago I Fat Bastardo posted the following on Bigger Fatter Blog but since the corporate thugs at Google decided to de-index Bigger Fatter Blog I thought maybe it would be a good idea to share that post here.

Commands That Dictate

The following is a poem as I composed using Dragon naturally speaking. NaturallySpeaking (a bit of a resource hog oink oink) is a speech recognition program by a company called Nuance. The program tries to anticipate the meaning of what you're saying as it recognizes the sound of certain words but with English having so many palindromes tends to make some errors some of those errors come out is silly nonsensical things at other times they come out as things that sound very profound. Language can be a tricky thing that's difficult to master. If you have this program and you want to get creative mumble and slur your words when you're speaking and then read what it wrote it can really be quite interesting and if you are up writer it will help to ignite your creativity in ways you never thought possible.

Commands That Dictate by Fat Bastardo


Including commands use and dictate

Working hard in an enemy state
I grew up in mansion sterile
Now running with the people feral.

Don't try them if they can't be beat
Those members of the power elite 
Bastions of the human greed
Creators of the sullied seed

We collect can make a move
Rebuke reproach chide reprove
But not enough precise instruction
Leading to their swift destruction


Read more about the criminal elite at The Venus Project Foundation
Who are the Criminal Elite?

Here's another sample from the political realm:

Criminal Rick Scott

The asshole voters of Florida may once again elect criminal Rick Scott. Criminal Rick Scott should not only be in jail he should tried for treason but as bad as Rick Scott is, the voters who would elect him are far worse. 

Knowing that Rick Scott was criminal of Al Capone stature Florida voters gave gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott the nod of approval in the November 2, 2010 elections. However, Scott who beat Alex Sink in the Florida Governor’s race, admitted to 14 counts of Medicare fraud and paid the federal government more than $600 million dollars in fines for his fraudulent billing practices. Details on Rick Scott's massive criminal activity.

Florida is a fucking shit hole among states.  Florida medical gangsters commit more fraud than in Texas and California combined.

Slick Rick's Rap Sheet

Southern District of Florida (Miami) -- Columbia Homecare Group Inc., a subsidiary of Columbia, will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to violate the Medicare Anti-kickback Statute involving its fraudulent business in the purchase and operation of home health agencies and fraudulent billing of Medicare for management and personnel costs. The criminal fine is $3.36 million;

Northern District of Georgia (Atlanta) -- Columbia Homecare Inc. will plead guilty to one count of violating the Medicare Anti-kickback Statute related to purchase of home health agencies. The criminal fine is $3.36 million;

Department of Justice Criminal Fraud Section -- Another subsidiary, Columbia Management Companies Inc., will plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and to make and use false writings and documents in connection with its fraudulent "upcoding" of bills to Medicare for patients diagnosed with certain types of pneumonia. The criminal fine is $27.5 million. This investigation was based in Nashville, Tennessee;

Middle District of Florida (Tampa)
 -- Columbia Homecare Group will plead guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to violate the Medicare Anti-kickback Statute in connection with the purchase and operation of home health agencies. The criminal fine is $8.4 million. Also, Columbia Management Companies will plead guilty to eight counts of making false statements to the U.S. in connection with the submission of false cost reports to Medicare. The fine amount is $22.6 million; and,


Western District of Texas (El Paso) -- Columbia Homecare Group will plead to a conspiracy to pay kickbacks and other monetary benefits to doctors in violation of the Medicare Anti-kickback Statute. The criminal fine is $30.1 million.


Rick Scott "was forced to resign as the head of a company that pled guilty to massive amounts of systematic fraud, including 14 felonies, leading to a historic $1.7 billion fine."



And finally here's another sample from the food industry about dangers of Aspartame:

The Dangers of Aspertame aka Nutrasweet

We fatlings in addition to loving savory foods we also like sweet food. Many a fatling order a couple of double beef Whoppers and fries only to wash it all down with a giant diet Coke. Fat girls in denial would shovel down 2000 calories of delicious fast food in one sitting because they think diet drinks somehow counteract the effects of calories. The true fatling shoot up with a little extra insulin and then orders up an extra large shake along with a regular Coke.


The faithful reader of Bigger Fatter Politics know that we are not an anti-weight loss organization like the NAAFA style angry jealous fat girl brand of Fat Acceptance because we know that not everyone can "handle the fat"  so we don't oppose the use of artificial sweeteners so long as they are safe. Fat people have enough health issues to worry about and diabetes is just one of them.

The following article spells out the danger of Nutrasweet the most widely used artificial sweetener.


Aspartame—"A Chemical Poison"?  By Dr Mercola Click for more information on Nutrasweet

The book "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" by James and Phyllis Balch lists aspartame under the category of "chemical poison." While many still refuse to believe that toxic or otherwise health-harming ingredients would be allowed to be used in food manufacturing, the evidence against aspartame and other artificial sweeteners is, in my opinion, overwhelming...
Aspartame is made up of three chemicals:
  1. Phenylalanine (50 percent)—Phenylalanine is an amino acid normally found in your brain. Persons with the genetic disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) cannot metabolize phenylalanine and must avoid it at all costs to prevent the accumulation of phenylalanine in their brain, which can be lethal. It has been shown that ingesting aspartame, especially along with carbohydrates, can lead to excess levels of phenylalanine in the brain even in persons who do not have PKU. Excessive levels of phenylalanine in your brain can decrease your serotonin levels, which in turn can provoke emotional disorders such as depression.
  2. Aspartic acid (40 percent)—According to the work of Dr. Russell L. Blaylock, a professor of neurosurgery at the Medical University of Mississippi, there are about 500 scientific references showing that excess free excitatory amino acids such as aspartic acid and glutamic acid (about 99 percent of monosodium glutamate (MSG) is glutamic acid) in our food supply are causing serious chronic neurological disorders and a myriad of other acute symptoms.
  3. Aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in your brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Excess aspartate or glutamate in your brain can kill off neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into your cells. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals, which kill the cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by excessive aspartate and glutamate is why they are referred to as "excitotoxins." They literally "excite" or stimulate your neural cells to death. It is important not to confuse this with the amino acid glutamic acid, which is a normal part of foods and an important nutrient.
  4.  Methanol (10 percent)—Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, is a deadly poison. It is gradually released in your small intestine once the methyl group of aspartame encounters the digestive enzyme chymotrypsin. Inside your body, methanol breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde, the latter of which is another lethal neurotoxin and a known carcinogen, which passes freely through your blood brain barrier to cause brain damage.
  5. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), methanol is considered "a cumulative poison due to the low rate of excretion once it is absorbed. In the body, methanol is oxidized to formaldehyde and formic acid; both of these metabolites are toxic." The EPA recommends limiting consumption of methanol to 7.8 mg/day. A one-liter (approx. 1 quart) aspartame-sweetened beverage contains about 56 mg of methanol. Heavy users of aspartame-containing products can consume as much as 250 mg of methanol daily, or 32 times the EPA limit.

Aspartame Is Carcinogenic

In 2006, the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences released a study which revealed that aspartame can induce a wide range of malignancies in rodents, including lymphoma and leukemia, concluding that aspartame is a potential carcinogen at doses much less (20 mg/kg bw) than the current acceptable daily intake (ADI) for humans in Europe (40 mg/kg bw) and in the United States (50 mg/kg bw). .[4]
A follow-up study published in 2007 confirmed and reinforced aspartame's "multipotential carcinogenicity" at a dose level close to the ADI for humans, including the discovery that fetal exposure results in increasing its carcinogenic effects later in life.[5]

Costco employees are happy employees

Retail Company Are Really Happy With Their Pay


CREDIT: Shutterstock




By Bryce Covert May 25, 2014 at 11:57 am Updated: May 25, 2014 at 12:06 pm


In an analysis of employee feedback shared on Glassdoor over the past year, just one retailer comes in the top 25 for top marks on pay and benefits: Costco.

In fact, the company is ranked at number two on the list, although has the same rating — 4.4 — as the top rated company, Google. It also beats out some big tech companies, which are often thought of as paying well and giving workers good perks, like Facebook, Adobe, and Microsoft.

Costco has become known for paying its workers more than is typical in the retail sector, where median pay is $10.29 an hour. Its starting pay is $11.50 an hour and even the lowest paid positions report on Glassdoor that they make $11.80 on average. Across all positions, its average pay is nearly $22. It also offers benefits, with 88 percent of employees enrolled in company-sponsored health insurance.

On top of that, it offers significant room for advancement: 70 percent of its warehouse managers, who can expect to make about $22 an hour on average, started in the company’s lower ranked positions. This engenders high levels of worker loyalty, as its turnover rate is just 5 percent for those who have been there for more than a year.

All of this is significant given the working conditions at one of its competitors, Walmart’s Sam’s Club. Walmart is instead known for low pay, where workers make just $8.81 per hour on average, according to IBIS World. (Glassdoor says the average for a sales associate is $8.86.) Only about half of its employees get company-sponsored health care. In fact, Walmart workers make so little and get so few benefits that at just one store they have to rely on about $1 million in public assistance each year to get by.

Rather than reporting low turnover and high satisfaction, Walmart employees have held a series of strikes, beginning with a massive walk out on Black Friday in 2012 that saw 400 striking workers and continuing with nine strikes in November of last year from California to Florida. Workers have been demanding that it pay them at lest $25,000 a year, give full-time positions to those who want them, and end retaliation against those who speak up.

The differences in pay and benefits don’t just impact workers’ views of the companies. It may have an impact on the businesses themselves. Walmart was recently downgraded by a financial analyst for understaffing, among other things, a problem the company itself has previously recognized as consumers shunned its empty shelves and sales took a hit. Costco’s sales, meanwhile, beat expectations two months in a row and were up 6 percent over last year in January. The company gets much more revenue and profit per employee.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/05/25/3441468/costco-employee-pay/


10 Mind-Blowing Facts About Costco:

This is an oldie from 2005 but a goodie from the New York Times:
How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart