False Prophets, Sheep, Wolves & Fruit

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” Matthew 7:15 & 16.

Blind to the “fruit” of the current work of Republicans House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, many Trump supporters have absolutely no doubt that their man, Pres. Trump, will provide a cornucopia of sumptuous things (fruit) among them: expulsion of “illegal” Muslim immigrants, creation of “good” jobs, “America First” foreign policy and revocation of Obamacare with a replacement Trumpcare program that will guarantee “beautiful healthcare” at reasonable prices for everyone.

Now that Sen. McConnell has unveiled his Trumpcare bill we have some idea of his view, along with Rep. Paul Ryan’s view, of a worthy replacement for their hated Obamacare program.

Thanks to these two men the Senate now has a bill for consideration that is without equal on the biblical scale of evil. If adopted, it will be so hurtful to the most vulnerable, powerless Americans that one must be forced to consider these two leaders and their Republican followers in the House and Senate will rank among the most evil and hateful humans to have lived upon this earth.

Yes, men do gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles. And their names are: House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

A side-by-side comparison of Obamacare and the GOP’s replacement plans, Noam N. Levey and Kyle Kim, Los Angeles Times, 8 Mar 2017, updated 28 June 2017.

Soon a Competitor to the Companies Customers Hate the Most

It doesn’t seem possible but it has happened. The evil party, the Republicans, managed to allow this one out the gate… or, my mind is simply not warped enough and I’m just missing how they will play out their next scam. After all, the Republicans never miss a chance to screw the little people.

Anyway, here’s the story: the Federal Communications Commission has given OneWeb permission "to provide broadband internet service to the United States with a constellation of 720 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites using Ku- and Ka-band spectrum."

Translated, that means that two of the most hated companies in the USA, the big cable companies, Comcast and AT&T, may soon (beginning in 2018) have a viable competitor that can deliver Internet connectivity anywhere in the world via a fleet of some 720, low-cost satellites.

Big Karma meets Big Cable? My, My, My!

Checkout WorldVu Satellites Limited, d/b/a OneWeb for the background information and investors. These guys can actually deliver.

Go here for the big news story:
FCC approves OneWeb Internet via satellites, Nancy Owano, techxplore.com, 26 June 2017.

Saving Capitalism from Itself... Divine Intervention Required

Profiteering is illegal in some states. One is Florida.

Florida says those who have essential things like gasoline and food are not permitted to sell them at outrageous prices during an emergency, such as a hurricane. Even in Florida, a state not exactly well known for human rights or consumer protection, vendors are not allowed to rip off the public during a “declared” emergency.

So, what happens when the emergency is of the personal type? You know, like an illness. Say, kidney disease or liver cancer?

Well, in the good ole USA you are out of luck. Because the vendors, in this case Big Pharma people, can and do charge outrageous prices for life-sustaining and life-saving drugs which are only available through them. And, since the beginning of time, they have gotten away with it. (1.)

Please see reference 1 below.

To cover their tracks in the past they have declared that they must pay the heavy cost of their research and protect themselves from generic copying of their proprietary formulas. But when one ciphers out the actually dollars spent, that number is bogus because the industry actually spends more to market products than to develop them. (2.)

Please see reference 2 below.

It’s really an everyday example of profiteering by those that have over those who need. The difference, of course, is that Big Pharma is big - really, really big, compared to that tiny, Florida gas station owner.

No, Big Pharma is ripping Americans off to the tune of billions of dollars every year. And, has been doing it for years and years.

Believe it or not when Mr. Trump was a candidate for president he declared to the voting public that once he took over he would allow “importation of less expensive drugs into the U.S. to help bring drug prices” back down to earth.

The assumption that people, such as myself, made back then was that Trump says he would actually try to curtail profiteering by the big pharma and insurance industries to bring an itty-bitty bit of relief to the multitude of lowly, ill Americans.

Well, chalk another one up on the Big Deceptions Board. Mr. Trump appears to have made a sharp U-turn in favor of Big Pharma and the insurance people, selling out his supporters and the rest of us to the ravages of whatever illness we’ve contracted. (3.)

The whole story reminds me of a comment a friend made a few years back. I asked him why a CEO would take advantage of the buying public by outrageously overcharging for his product - which was only available from him. My friend gave this enlightening answer: “Because he can.”

No matter the industry, product or service, the American system provides few protections from profiteering. Now, President Trump has assured us… the average lowly, poor people… that we should expect to see profiteering sky rocket in the days ahead.

Contemplating how all this will play out for the countless people who are forced to choose paying for some life sustaining drug vs. putting food on the table (4.), my brain has become a bowl of jelly.

So, to help reconstitute it, my optimistic-self ferreted out a solution. Here’s how it goes…

Somewhere in the land where Jesus lived an archaeologist uncovered a wonderful artifact. Dusting it off, she held it in her hand and was immediately surprised as it seemed to come to life as the sunlight illuminated it.

She noted words, in Latin, and images of a balance scale inscribed on the sides of the small pyramid shaped object.

Beatus vir Dei es humilium respice: quoniam ipsi haereditate possidebunt terram.
Blessed is a man of God, look upon them that are humble, for they shall inherit the earth.

As she was translating the words in her mind she instantly recognized them as the third Beatitude from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which is usually translated as, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”.

At the same time her smart phone buzzed into life with a text message: “Place this into the hand of the leaders of your corporations, banks, merchants of all kinds, government officials and clergy. It will instantly tell you the extent of their fraud and profiteering which they in turn must repay to every average, lowly person”.

Interesting, I thought. God* has given capitalism the tool it needs to police itself and eliminate the systematic avarice it sustains.

Do you think it will be used?

Nah. Not a chance.

* God in the form artificial intelligence (AI) e.g. Google algorithms.

1. Big pharma won’t stop raising prices in 2017 — it’ll just do it smarter, Emma Court, MarketWatch, 3 Jan 2017.

2. Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits, Richard Anderson, BBC News, 6 Nov 2014.

3. Trump's drug price 'remedy' expected to be industry friendly, Sarah Karlin-Smith, Politico, 16 June 2017.

4. New Group Takes on Drug Prices and Big Pharma, Maggie Fox, NBC News, 22 Feb 2017.

It's the "inexcusable, stupid, incompetence" part!

So.

It’s just politics.

It’s normal for politicians to B.S., grovel, do the bidding of their largest moneymen, take big-dollar jobs as a lobbyist from the corporations they once oversaw, etc. Yes, that’s all normal.

But the other day I realized that the game has seriously changed.

No, not because the money is now so above and beyond comprehension.

No, this time we have reached a tipping point in the political world of sleaze.

It’s much more than the usual sleaze. It’s sleaze combined with downright evil, hatred for the poor and minorities of all kinds, plus astounding greed combined with treason… plus inexcusable, stupid, incompetence.

Americans can tolerate everything, of course... except the inexcusable, stupid, incompetence part.

Has your tipping point been tipped yet?

Rachel Maddow lays out the ‘spooky’ connection between Russian hacking and GOP voter data:

WATCH: Rachel Maddow lays out the ‘spooky’ connection between Russian hacking and GOP voter data, Elizabeth Preza, rawstory.com, 22 June 2017.

The $3.6 Trillion Payback - How It's Supposed to Work

Once again Dad spoke to me last night... just like he did on the night of 14 Feb 2015.

Like the last time, I want to reiterate that to best of my knowledge I’m not a Native American. But, I’m without a doubt a Native American dreamcatcher believer.

In last night’s dream my father once again handed me a document and said, “Ron, you’ll know what to do with this.”

It was a legal document, a contract. And, once again, contrary to most contracts this one was not complicated. Nor, was it written in “legalize”, in small type, and pages long. No, this contract was simple, direct and “enforceable”.

The contract read: “Those who benefit are required to pay all costs involved and compensate every injured person.”

This time his message was focused on how we allow our government to permit businesses - some large and some small - to pollute our environment, siphon off our resources without paying for them, defraud us with bad products / terrible services and rip us off in a multitude of other ways.

Further, and more importantly, the contract demanded payment to all those injured by the manufacturers of sugary drinks - companies like the Coca-Cola Company & PepsiCo – to help cover the costs related to the diabetes epidemic they helped unleashed upon the world.

For one year, 2016, the total cost of healthcare for just one sugar-related disease in the United States, diabetes, is estimated at $825 billion.

Going back to 1886 when Coke was founded and 1893 when Pepsi Cola was first sold to the public, the amount comes to $3.6 trillion.

That is $3.6 trillion owed by these two corporations for their role in selling diabetes-causing sugary drinks to the American People.

My dream told me to Follow the Money and see to it, beginning with the soft drink companies, that those who benefited from the all forms of predatory capitalism pay their debts back to the American People - individually not to some government entity.

Interesting, I thought. That's $3.6 trillion to be distributed to the American People to cover a portion of the cost of illnesses caused by sugary drinks.

So... that‘s how Real Free Market American Capitalism is supposed to work.

Regenerating Teeth and Skin

Gort... at work... saving Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still, (1951)

For a multitude of reasons one of the best movies I saw during my childhood was the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still. I liked the message, of course, and the mind boggling “ray” that Gort used to disintegrate weapons and a tank.

But, even more, I like the scene when Gort turns on some fantastic device and brings Klaatu back to life. That one stuck with me for all these years.

While we have yet to develop the “bring back from the dead” technology that revived Klaatu, we are making some advances.

For instance, PolarityTE’s recent announcement that they created a way to “fully regrow skin after third-degree burns”.

And,

About your root canals… they eventually will give you some trouble and your teeth will have to come out. Still, you may be among the lucky due to the researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (Portland, Oregon). They have develop a process to engineer artificial blood vessels which are used to help regenerate teeth, possibly changing the way root canal treatments will be done in the future.”

Here are the stories:

Humans may be able to regrow skin after severe burns

 “While reconstructive surgery techniques have improved greatly over the last decade or two, there's one goal that remains elusive: actual regrowth of human skin. But now, scientists may be one step closer: Yesterday, Salt Lake City-based biotech company Polarity TE, Inc. announced that they had 'regenerated full-thickness, organized skin and hair follicles in third degree burn wounds' in pigs."

As far as we know, this is the first time anyone's been able to fully regrow skin after third-degree burns. According to PolarityTE, the SkinTE technique works by taking a biopsy of the patient's non-damaged skin, though it's not exactly clear how the healthy skin is reintroduced into the wound. The (somewhat graphic) photos on their website show the progression of regeneration, eventually covering the entire wound with no scarring and regrowth of all layers of skin, including hair follicles.”

- more-

Humans may be able to regrow skin after severe burns, Swapna Krishna, www.engadget.com. 19 June 2017.

Study: Use of prefabricated blood vessels may revolutionize root canals

“While root canals are effective in saving a tooth that has become infected or decayed, this age-old procedure may cause teeth to become brittle and susceptible to fracture over time. Now researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon, have developed a process by which they can engineer new blood vessels in teeth, creating better long-term outcomes for patients and clinicians.”

“Their findings published online today in the journal Scientific Reports.”

“More than 15 million root canals are conducted annually in the United States. The current procedure involves removing infected dental tissues and replacing them with synthetic biomaterials covered by a protective crown.”

-more-

Study: Use of prefabricated blood vessels may revolutionizeroot canals, Tracy Brawley, Oregon Health & Science University, 12 June 2017.

Why Worry about Russian Hackers? We Have the Republicans!

The Republican National Committee gave $1 million to a company to target American voters and sway them to see life the Republican way during the past election.

The company collect info on nearly 200 million U.S. citizens.

Unfortunately, they stored all that data, including birth dates, contact info and addresses on a publicly accessible Amazon server... without even the simplest password protection.

Just think about it a second.

Without protection on a public server.

So, those "Russian hackers" didn't need to work very hard. They must have thought they were in seventh heaven.

Here's the story:

GOP-hired data company leaked information on 198 million citizens
"Data from the largely conservative Deep Root Analytics, a company that strategizes how to target audiences for political advertisements, was exposed this month. Information on nearly 200 million US citizens, over 60 percent of the population, was contained in the leak."

"Discovered by an analyst with the cybersecurity company UpGuard, the data was stored on a publicly accessible Amazon server. More than a terabyte of that data was not password protected. The data included citizens' contact information, addresses, birthdays, and analyses used to predict how they felt about controversial political topics like gun control and abortion."

-more-

GOP-hired data company leaked information on 198 million citizens, Mallory Locklear, engadget.com, 19 June 2017.