New Life?

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Some 40 years ago, we developed a strain of microbes that converted ammonia to nitrogenous gases.  The goal was to find a way to augment a waste treatment system’s ability to purify the water.  Oh, we found uses for it at many facilities.  Not the least of which were seasonal facilities that handled poultry wastes.  (These facilities ramped up to handle the demand for turkeys around Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the ambient temperatures were pretty low.  That meant the normal capabilities of a system to biologically remove ammonia were greatly diminished.)

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Uber Alles?

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So, let’s look really carefully (ok, as much as someone on the outside can) at one of these 1099 economy ‘successes’.  Uber.   Where drivers can make up to $ 30 an hour (for the hours they work) in Manhattan or $ 17 in DC.   (Believe it or not, that DC rate is about what drivers make in LA, too.)

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The New Economy?

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I admit it. I’ve never been a fan of Ponzi or pyramid schemes.  And, I’m not talking about Mr. Ponzi himself- or even Bernie Madoff.   No, I’m talking about Herbalife (Bill Ackman’s averral the Herbalife is a pyramid scheme, 22 July 2014) and those other ‘get rich’ schemes that make folks money by skimming the profits off other unsuspecting souls.   You know, sell a product and your “upstream” team takes a portion, leaving you a smaller portion of the “profits”.  The only way you make real money is to con a slew of folks to work for you- and to find others to work for them- as you skim the profits from their labors.

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Part-time hell?

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So, yesterday, we discussed the fact that about ½ of all our students in public schools are from below the poverty line.   Of course, once you recognize that basic economic fact, it’s not a big leap to comprehend why so many of our students are not meeting the educational standards we expect.   After all, we’ve known for a very long time that students below the poverty line have more difficulties learning and are more likely to quit school before they graduate high school- in other words, the perfect prescription to perpetuate the poverty problem.

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Positive for Gram Positive?

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Way, way back in 1928, Arthur Fleming, who was working at St. Mary’s Hospital, found a contaminant amongst his petri dishes laden with Staphylococcus aureus. It’s not unusual for microbial petri dishes to be contaminated- and we continually strive to improve our practices to insure this is not the case.  (It certainly was more prevalent in the past.)

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Overreach?

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Most of you have no clue about these distances I will discuss today.  (That’s why I have a map below.) But, when I was little- around 6- I rode my bike from my house in Forest City to Lee’s Hobby Shop in East Meadow. So, I could buy chemicals for my basement lab. (No, we are NOT going to talk about what happened to my chem lab- or me- or my parent’s house, either. At least not today.) A distance of about 3 ½ miles. Only about ½ mile on really major highways.

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Goldilocks makes decisions for the IRS now?

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As I have recently written, the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) is not currently enforcing the rules about executive pay reporting.  This, despite the fact that most public companies pay excessive salaries to their executives. And, the IRS rarely challenges the pay that these public companies afford their bloated executive ranks.

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Amaze Yourself!

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When you’re young, you think you can change the world.  As you get older, you realize that you can’t do that, but you’re still convinced that you can change the town in which you live. Then, there reaches a point where you realize you can’t do that either. But you’re still sure that you can change your family. Finally, you become aware that the most you can do is change yourself.”

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