U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

This doesn’t surprise me. Electronics has been transformed into whole computers on chips, while computers themselves have become capable of supporting nearly unlimited creativity. Today anyone can perform on a smartphone what was once considered miraculous work, without knowing anything about circuitry or how to solder. Software is the new electrical engineering.

Two occupations long associated with innovation — electrical and electronics engineering — has stopped growing, according to the U.S. government.T

he Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in an update of its occupational outlook released Friday, said that the number of people employed as electrical and electronics engineers is now at 316,000, and will remain mostly unchanged for the next decade.

Source: U.S. predicts zero job growth for electrical engineers | Computerworld

What really attracts business to North Carolina?

Flag-map_of_North_CarolinaThe front page of the News and Observer trumpeted that North Carolina’s population has finally exceeded 10 million. The story, written by Charlotte Observer reporter Ames Alexander and News and Observer reporter David Raynor, quotes a number of experts for their opinions about what brings them here.

Gov. McCrory says it’s the economy and quality of life (and he even works in a cheesy mention of the new state marketing motto):

“With our growing economy, great colleges and universities and quality of life, from the mountains to the coast, nothing compares to North Carolina,” Gov. Pat McCrory said.

Chuck McShane works for the Charlotte Chamber and should know what attracts people here:

“People are flocking for jobs, opportunities, mainly to our urban areas,” said Chuck McShane, the director of research at the Charlotte Chamber.

These two probably hear a lot from the companies that move here, so it’s understandable they were quoted. But then the reporters slipped this in (emphasis mine): Continue reading →

Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

Why do Tim Cook and Apple hate America? Cook obviously misses the connection that the taxes Apple should be paying would go towards better educating and training American workers. Apple’s habit of offshoring its massive profits is just one of many reasons I am not an Apple fanboy.

The reality is, Tim Cooks statements in the whole interview are worse than the article implies. He shows a tone deafness to what is really creating our economic problems, income and wealth disparity and more. His company plays a huge part in creating and continuing the problem.

Tim Cook is a plutocrat and an extractor of resources from America even as he refuses to employ massively here, or give back. Worse is his statement. He shows a lack of understanding of real economics most CEOs fail to realize.

The educational system fails because of corporations like his unwilling to be taxed so that said taxes can be reinvested into educating Americans, rebuilding infrastructure, and just giving Americans a living wage. Those Chinese acquired those skills from both investments by corporations who want cheap labor and a country that accepts it. Tim Cook’s company, Apple, and companies like his keep America’s government and structures underfunded even as they profit massively from our markets and the defense our powerful military provides them implicitly.

Source: Apple CEO Tim Cook DID NOT say Americans Are Talentless And Taxes Are Dumb (VIDEO) – EgbertoWillies.com

The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Vox’s David Roberts takes an excellent closer look at Woodland’s solar vote.

On December 8, a modest local newspaper, the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, published a story that ended up going viral, bouncing from Reddit to more than 220 other sites. It caused such buzz that even Snopes checked it out.

The story was about a town council meeting in Woodland, a North Carolina town with just over 800 residents. The council was considering whether to make a zoning change to a piece of land just outside town, to allow a solar farm to be built there. It would have been the fourth solar farm permitted around the town.

Source: The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

“Why is it that we spend almost three times per capita as to what they spend in the U.K. — 50 percent more than what they pay in France?” Sanders asked. “The insurance companies, the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress. We need to pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.”

Source: Fact-checking Sanders’ claim that U.S. spends 3 times per capita what the U.K. spends on health care | PolitiFact

How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue

Everyone with blue eyes alive today – from Angelina Jolie to Wayne Rooney – can trace their ancestry back to one person who probably lived about 10,000 years ago in the Black Sea region, a study has found.

Scientists studying the genetics of eye colour have discovered that more than 99.5 per cent of blue-eyed people who volunteered to have their DNA analysed have the same tiny mutation in the gene that determines the colour of the iris.

This indicates that the mutation originated in just one person who became the ancestor of all subsequent people in the world with blue eyes, according to a study by Professor Hans Eiberg and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen.

Source: How one ancestor helped turn our brown eyes blue | Science | News | The Independent

Shaming Sanders supporters

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders

Some of the reasons I support Bernie Sanders


Some supporters of Hillary Clinton for President are getting annoyed by supporters of Bernie Sanders, accusing Sanders supporters of “splitting the party” and trying to shame them into supporting Clinton. As a Sanders supporter, I’m tiring of this approach and tired of the insinuation that I’m not a true liberal if I don’t support a female candidate for President.

As a liberal who supports gender equality (though I maintain equal pay is fiction), I would be thrilled to vote for a female Presidential candidate but unfortunately Senator Elizabeth Warren opted not to run this year. Instead, I’m going with a candidate who had the courage and foresight to vote against the disasterous Iraq War, voted against the privacy-gutting PATRIOT Act, wants to decriminalize marijuana use, supports reinstanting the Glass-Steagall Act to rein in Wall Street abuses, opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, and opposed the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade treaty, among other differences.

Continue reading →

Woodland gets hammered over public solar opposition

A story that ran last week in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald reported that the town of Woodland, NC voted against a rezoning request for a solar farm after citizens opposed to the farm were concerned the solar farm would suck all the energy from the sun. Wrote News-Herald reporter Keith Hoggard:

Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms.

“You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

He said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.

Jane Mann (Bobby Mann’s wife), also weighed in:

Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the natural vegetation that makes the community beautiful.

She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the vegetation from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where vegetation is brown and dead because it did not receive enough sunlight.

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

Continue reading →

Brewery shutdown runs head-on into bad policy – The Fayetteville Observer

Wonderful takedown of Sen. Phil Berger by the Fayetteville Observer’s Tim Miller. Now that Berger’s district faces massive layoffs, will the good Senator find any value in those unemployment benefits he so cheerfully gutted?

But where did this new Berger come from? Where was his deep concern when he was chasing the film industry out of Wilmington and the rest of the state? Where was his concern when we exported thousands of television and motion picture jobs to surrounding states, most notably Georgia, which boosted its film tax incentives just as Berger was killing ours? Just two years ago, North Carolina was Hollywood East. Now, Atlanta owns that title.

And do you suppose Berger might be a little worried about what his constituents will face when they’re laid off? He should be. All those families whose votes he counts on will bedumped into the unemployment system that he also gutted. They’ll be getting some of the smallest, shortest-duration unemployment checks in the country and won’t be eligible for long-term benefits. Berger and his colleagues slashed all of those benefits, suggesting they only inspired laziness. Sorry, folks, but it was the right thing to do for the state. So get out there and hustle for those jobs — which, unfortunately, may not even exist.

Source: Brewery shutdown runs head-on into bad policy – The Fayetteville Observer

Energy law change sours Facebook on NC

The market is speaking. Are our Republican state legislators listening?

Changing attitudes toward renewable energy in state government are apparently prompting Facebook to unfriend North Carolina.

An official with the California-based social media company told a reporter at the COP21 climate summit in a Paris suburb recently that Facebook would probably not expand further in the state because of ebbing support in state government for clean energy.

“We are only considering states with strong policies and a determination to produce renewable energy,” said Bill Weihl, head of sustainability at the company. He was quoted by Justin Catanoso in a story that appeared in slightly different forms in Triad Business Journal and The News and Observer of Raleigh.

Source: Energy law change sours Facebook on NC