James L. Paris's Blog, page 87
May 12, 2017
The Commercial Flying Experience is Heading Toward Perpetual Chaos
Another two days, another two stories about madness aboard a commercial airliner or at an airport.
This past Monday, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, located in one of Florida���s premier vacation destinations, was the site of a literal free-for-all when a flight cancellation by Spirit Airlines prompted some passengers to take out their frustrations on airline employees, as well as police. Spirit, in the midst of a labor dispute with pilots, has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights over the last couple of weeks, and when the flight at issue was canceled ��� something done after passengers had already boarded ��� the travelers headed straight for Spirit ticket counter.
From there, madness ensued. Broward County deputies stepped in to separate the passengers and Spirit employees, but, as they did so, some of the travelers chose to tussle with the cops.
���Everyone was already aggravated about flight delays and the ridiculousness of standing in such a long line for hours, which Spirit Airlines did nothing to help, and then in walks these people off their flight raising a ruckus (and) cussing and screaming and they went straight to the counter,��� passenger Cindy Matthews Beard said to CNN.
Broward County Sheriff���s Office later said that three people had been taken into custody in connection with the fracas.
That was Monday. Let���s not forget about the day before.
On Sunday, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, a Southwest Airlines flight had just landed at Hollywood Burbank Airport (Calif.) and was taxiing to a terminal when a fight broke out between two men. A video of the incident taken by passenger Michael Krause shows the two passengers grappling, with one throwing punches at the other.
���One of the guys had picked up another guy by his shirt and pushed him up against the overhead bin,��� Krause said. ���Then he kind of flung around and threw him down.���
According to the Burbank Police Department, one man was arrested in connection with that incident.
Who ever thought taking the bus would replace commercial flying as the safer, classier way to travel?
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
How You���re Wasting Time Each Day and Cheating Yourself Out of Success
Think you���re a productive person? Rose Leadem, writing over at Entrepreneur.com, has news for you.
You���re wasting time, and, very likely, much more than you think.
This is an issue that hits particularly close to home for the self-employed, and, especially, those who do their toiling from home. The fact is that one of the biggest disadvantages to working from our residences has to do with reality that there are built-in distractions aplenty.
In her article ���8 Time Wasters Stealing Your Productivity,��� Leadem details some of the more pronounced of those facing small businesspeople that can, almost surreptitiously, act to derail them off the path to success. Here are just a couple of examples.
One of the biggest, according to Leadem, is television. The average person watches three to four hours of it each day. A prominent pitfall for folks working from home is that many keep a TV set going in their home offices, ostensibly to keep an eye on news or the stock market. The problem is, even if these individuals are not watching the television in a particularly focused way, it nevertheless remains a distraction that simply would not exist if it wasn���t present. It���s simply not possible to be in such close proximity to a television and not have your time, energy, and intellectual resources at least indirectly commandeered by it.
Another big one is, of course, social media. Leadem says that the average Facebook user spends nearly an hour a day on the platform, and when you add to that the time spent each day on all of the other social media outlets to people are becoming increasingly devoted - nearly 20 minutes a day, on average, just over at YouTube, for example ��� the capacity of these outlets, as a whole, to keep people from remaining singularly focused on their labors is enormous.
You get the picture. The tricky part in all of this is that entrepreneurs have now come to rely on the very devices and platforms that can act to impede success..for success. The answer? Heightened awareness, more than anything else. As noted, many distractions are now an essential part of doing business, even as they are distractions. The key, for many, then, is to become more discerning about when and how time is spent on them, and to endeavor to do the best job possible separating wheat from chaff.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
May 11, 2017
Poll: 80 Percent of Filipinos Maintain Highest Level of Trust in Duterte
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has done such things as encourage extrajudicial killings of drug dealers, sanction Philippine citizens to take up arms and kill radical Islamists wherever they may find them, and vowed to eat���literally���any jihadists who happen to be captured by his troops, is presently enjoying a significant level of support from his own people.
While it would be reasonable to think that such a dramatically outlandish national leader might have a dearth of backers among the electorate in his own country, such is not the case here. As reported by Reuters, polling group Social Weather Stations (SWS) conducted its most recent poll on Duterte in the first quarter of this year, and found that a full 80 percent of the 1,200 Filipinos surveyed said they have ���much trust��� in their president, while a scant 10 percent declared they have ���little trust��� in him.
Although much of the rest of the world has taken issue with Duterte���s bold war on drugs inside his own country, it seems his constituency is largely on board with what he���s doing. Back in December, the SWS polling group found that 85 percent of Filipinos supported Duterte���s approach to addressing the drug problem in his country.
Revealingly, Filipino television network ABS-CBN suggests that a big part of the president���s appeal is his ���everyman,��� populist approach (sound familiar?). Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law, told ABS-CBN that Duterte ���comes across very strongly as ���makamasa��� and it���s not only giving an impression, he packs that with good action.��� Makamasa is a Tagalog (Philippine language) word that basically means ���of the people.���
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Trump Nominates Block of Conservatives to Federal Judgeships
While a large number of conservatives were torn about whether to cast their votes for Donald Trump last year, many were persuaded to do so on the basis of his stated commitment to nominate a constitutional originalist to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the passing of Antonin Scalia. Indeed, he greatly pleased those same conservatives when he selected Neil Gorsuch, revered for his disinclination to view the Constitution as a ���living, breathing��� document, as his nominee to the Court.
Now, it appears that conservatives will continue to be thrilled with what Trump is doing in the way of federal court nominations. A variety of news outlets, including USA Today, reported on Monday that the president is nominating 10 conservatives to federal judgeships.
A couple of the nominees were among the names that made Trump���s list of 21 possible Supreme Court selections back when he was beginning the process in earnest of finding a suitable candidate for that slot. This time around, Joan Larsen, presently a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras was chosen by Trump as a nominee to the 8th Circuit.
Commenting on the latest round of Trump selections to the federal bench, Carrie Severino, who serves as chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a political organization devoted to the promotion of conservative judicial appointees, commented, ���When it comes to fulfilling his campaign promise to appoint strong, principled judges, Trump is knocking it out of the park. Additionally, Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, a group that advocates for the nomination of strict constitutionalist jurists to federal courts, noted that ���the large number of judicial vacancies gives President Trump a historic opportunity to move the federal courts in the right direction -- towards constitutionalism and away from judicial activism -- in just four years.���
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
May 10, 2017
Texas Governor Signs Law Prohibiting Sanctuary Cities in Texas
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is doing his part to push back against the nationwide movement to embrace so-called ���sanctuary cities.���
On Sunday, Abbott signed into law a bill that prohibits Texas cities and counties from passing their own laws that create sanctuaries of any of those jurisdictions.
���Sanctuary��� statutes are designed to give undocumented immigrants safe haven inside the communities that pass such laws. While the provisions to them are many, they generally have two principal features in common: preventing local law enforcement from making inquiries about the immigration status of anyone they detain, and giving local authorities the mandate not to cooperate with federal agencies in their investigations of those who may be in the country illegally.
The bill signed by Abbott allows police to gather information about the immigration status of those they detain, as well as demands of local officials that they cooperate with federal authorities seeking to deport undocumented criminal suspects. Most notably, the bill also permits criminal charges to be brought against those same local officials, should any obstruct federal efforts to deport illegals who���ve been jailed for committing crimes (unrelated to their immigration status).
Although there are, presently, no formally-declared sanctuary cities in Texas, one sheriff, the recently-elected Sally Hernandez of Travis County, campaigned on a platform that included a commitment to the effect her office would not cooperate with federal immigration authorities seeking to deport undocumented immigrants arrested for local crimes. It has been reported by Fox News, however, that Hernandez has since modified her position, and says now that she will comply with the new law.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Is the Death of Retail Greatly Exaggerated?
According to one writer, the heavily-promoted notion that bricks-and-mortar retail is on life support is a bunch of - as she puts it - ���baloney.���
We���ve been hearing a whole lot recently about how traditional retail is quickly going the way of the wind, but industry analyst Paula Rosenblum, in an article for Forbes, says a lot of that talk is coming from real-life Chicken Littles.
In ���Five Reasons Why ���The Retail Apocalypse��� Is a False Scare Story,��� Rosenblum points out that while some storied retail chains are, indeed, struggling, the bigger picture is that as society continues to evolve, the industry finds itself in a mode of readjustment and adaptation that will see it remain very much a part of the American commercial landscape.
One of the great pieces of information imparted by Rosenblum is that after a long period in which stores could take in-person customer service for granted, the advantages offered by Internet-only retail have driven many to now make plans to invest in more staff in the coming years, and thus return to shoppers more of the one advantage Internet retailers simply cannot provide. For countless numbers of consumers, the in-store experience has, for many years now, left a lot to be desired, and that has surely helped to create a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, vis-��-vis the impending death of retail.
Additionally, Rosenblum shines some light on those retailers that do seem genuinely at risk, and details that many are suffering from unfortunate business decisions, including overbuilding (like Macy���s), changing consumer tastes (Rue 21 and The Limited are cited as two examples of that phenomenon), or a combination of both (J.C. Penney). All of that is not, however, the same thing as ���retail is dying.���
There���s much more to Rosenblum���s article, of course, and you���re encouraged to take a look at it. It���s a great read, and serves as a lean, tight, informative counterargument to the prevailing narrative about how bricks-and-mortar retail is about to become a thing of the past.
Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
May 9, 2017
Target���s Troubles Continue���and So Do Kellogg���s
A few days ago, this space detailed the news that Target CEO Brian Cornell was hit with a significant drop in total compensation in the wake of a miserable 2016 for the retailer. While a variety of influences are to blame for Target���s troubles, one of those is most certainly the decision by the company last year to make a very big, very public deal about its decision to let employees and customers use whatever store bathrooms correspond to their ���gender identities.���
In the same way, although a variety of factors are undoubtedly responsible for the troubles that Kellogg Co. has been experiencing, of late, it���s tough to dismiss as one of those the decision made last year by the company to drop its advertising with the popular right-leaning news site Breitbart, on the basis that the readership is not ���aligned with our values as a company.���
Breitbart, which estimates that it has about 45,000,000 readers, quickly organized a ���#DumpKelloggs��� boycott campaign. Coincidentally���or not���Kellogg soon after began reporting rather lousy news on its corporate front. Domestic sales of its cereals slumped through the end of 2016, and sales in 2017 are expected to be flat, at best.
Earlier this year, Kellogg announced plans to close nearly 40 distribution centers across the country. Now, it is clear those closures have moved beyond the planning stage. According to NBC 4 New York, 300-plus jobs will be lost as a result of the closure of Kellogg facilities throughout the Empire State.
As this column has previously noted, while such woes are not likely due entirely to a boycott effort, it is surely the case that denigrating the values of half the country haven���t helped Kellogg navigate through a more challenging business environment, either.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Turns Out Chelsea Clinton Is an Unpopular Choice to Run for Anything
There is a not-insignificant segment of the population that seems so devoted to the Clintons that it becomes downright giggly at the mere mention of the possibility of a Clinton running for any office, including dog catcher.
To wit: The groundswell of interest inside New York to see Hillary run for mayor of that city, even as she, as recently as six months ago, was just a whisper away from ascending to what many still see as the most powerful political position in the entire world.
In that same way, there has been a lot of chatter since Hillary lost out on the presidency that daughter Chelsea would begin to do her part to help the family continue to realize lofty political ambitions.
Previously, Chelsea has said she���s not interested in running for office, but has not declared so in a way that appeared to slam the door shut on the idea.
Well, according to the results of a recent poll, she might want to re-think whatever ideas she may be harboring about running for political office, because it doesn���t appear as though she���d have much by way of support.
The nonpartisan research company Morning Consult conducted a nationwide poll of registered voters recently in which respondents were asked, ���Would you like to see Chelsea Clinton run for political office one day, or not?���
As reported by The Daily Caller, it turns out that almost half of those polled said they don���t want Chelsea to run for anything, and another one-quarter said they don���t know or have no opinion.
This leaves just 27 percent who said they are on board with the idea of Chelsea running for political office.
When it comes to Chelsea, apparently very few are ���with her.���
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
May 8, 2017
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, And Ripple All Making New Highs
On this episode Jim discusses the record prices of top digital currencies, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Ripple. How the media is already spinning the French presidential election to fit their leftist narrative, the shocking viral video of an elderly woman attacked at a pool party and why the media is not reporting the incident, and why you can't afford to ignore Puerto Rico's bankruptcy.
LA Marzulli On UFOs, Scientology, Nephilim, Roswell, And End Times Prophecy
Filmmaker, researcher, and author L.A. Marzulli, joins Jim Paris Live to discuss his new movie, The Watchmen Chronicles - In Their Own Words. Marzulli discusses a wide array of topics, including a death bed confession about Roswell, how a mass alien abduction could play a role in end times prophecy, the connection between UFOs and cults like Scientology, and highlights of UFO witness accounts from his new film.
