We will be taking callers during this show.

SHOW AUDIO:

Houston Mayor Annise Parker [L] with Mike (Dec. 14, 2015)

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 9-10 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). 

Listen live on the radio or on the internet from anywhere in the world! When the show is live, we take calls at 713-526-5738. (Long distance charges may apply.)

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

POSSIBLE TOPICS:

SIGNOFF QUOTE: “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” ~ Adam Savage, on an episode of Mythbusters. 

• TEXAS:
  • REGISTER TO VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION: To vote in November 8th’s presidential elections, you have to be registered by October 8th. It will be here before you know it, so make sure YOU are registered! HarrisVotes.com or VoteTexas.gov.
  • • FBI may have found way to unlock San Bernardino iPhone without Apple Federal authorities call to delay hearing a day before court date with Apple, saying an ‘outside party’ has shown a potential way to crack Syed Farook’s phone, By Spencer Ackerman in New York and Danny Yadron in San Bernardino, California for http://www.theguardian.com, Monday 21 March 2016 19.29 EDT Last modified on Monday 21 March 2016 19.44 EDT
    • Advocates List Cuba’s Political Prisoners After Castro Says There Are None, By Maya Rhodan (@m_rhodan ) March 21, 2016 (http://time.com) 5:36 PM ET
      • During a brief joint press conference between President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro, CNN correspondent Jim Acosta asked the Cuban leader why his regime held political prisoners.
      • In response, the Cuban leader denied holding prisoners and asked Acosta, whose father immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1960s, to provide him with a list. If he could, Castro said dismissively, he would release them today.
      • “What political prisoners? Give me a name or names,” Castro said.
      • In a conversation with TIME on Monday, Marion Smith, the executive director of the foundation, called Castro’s statements “laughable.” He also said there are likely a “couple hundred” political prisoners, though his organization has named 51.
      • “Nobody seriously things that there are not political prisoners in Cuba,” Smith said. “Just laughable that Raul Castro will ask for a list. There are many lists being circulated.”
      • Smith said hopefully Castro will see the list of names and release them as he said he would during the press conference.
    • Report of 10,000 severe workplace injuries might be only half the problem, By Joe Davidson March 18, 2016 (Washington Post) Comments 15
      • Next time you order sliced turkey or ham at a supermarket or restaurant, make sure you also don’t get the butcher’s fingertip.
      • Shortly after a federal rule requiring employers to report severe work related injuries was implemented, Labor Department staffers in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Atlanta office noticed a disturbing and surprising trend – “numerous reports of fingertip amputations among workers using food slicers.”
      • That’s one finding in an OSHA document released Thursday about the 10,388 severe work-related injuries reported in 2015, the first full year of a federal reporting requirement. Injuries resulting in eye loss, amputation or hospitalization must be reported within 24 hours.  Included were 2,644 amputations and 7,636 hospitalizations. Employers were already required to report fatalities within eight hours.
      • Until the severe injury reporting requirement, OSHA officials didn’t have a full grasp of the situation. “Too often, we would investigate a fatal injury only to find a history of serious injuries at the same workplace,” the report says. “Each of those injuries was a wake-up call for safety that went unheeded.”
      • Read more:
        • [Department of Labor sends warning shot to clients of temp staffing agencies]
        • [Bartenders get injured all the time — and their employers rarely provide insurance]
        • [Your firm should not be a place where you are fearful to walk the halls]
    • As Women Take Over a Male-Dominated Field, the Pay Drops, By Claire Cain Miller, March 21, 2016 (The New York Times)
      • ME –> Maybe what we need is total wage transparency in large companies.
      • Women’s median annual earnings stubbornly remain about 20 percent below men’s. Why is progress stalling? It may come down to this troubling reality, new research suggests: Work done by women simply isn’t valued as highly.
      • … Women … are now better educated than men, have nearly as much work experience and are equally likely to pursue many high-paying careers. No longer can the gap be dismissed with pat observations that women outnumber men in lower-paying jobs like teaching and social work.
      • …there was substantial evidence that employers placed a lower value on work done by women.
      • …when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige.
        • More from The New York Times:
          How to bridge that stubborn pay gap
          Let’s expose the gender pay gap
          Obama moves to expand rules aimed at closing gender pay gap
      • Simpsons writer says President Trump episode was ‘warning to US’: Writer Dan Greaney of “Bart to the Future episode”, aired almost exactly 16 years ago, says idea was consistent with vision of US ‘going insane’, By Esther Addley, Thursday 17 March 2016 13.56 EDT Last modified on Friday 18 March 2016 06.32 EDT (http://www.theguardian.com)

    It was intended, according to its creator, as a “warning to America”, a horrifying and fantastical vision of the future in which the US – ludicrously – had elected as its president Donald Trump.  But with the property billionaire now the favourite to gain the Republican nomination for the presidency, the episode of The Simpsons that in 2000 foresaw such a laughable outcome has begun looking unnervingly prescient.

• THE TRUMP REPORT
  • A President Trump could be a disaster for US foreign relations and alliances.
  • From Australia: Donald Trump as US president no longer a black swan event, by Michael Pascoe, Business Day contributing editor (Sydney [Australia) Morning Herald) March 1, 2016
    • …[W]ith the Super Tuesday bunch of US state primaries, there’s a probability the boastfully racist, sectarian, protectionist Trump will take a very big step closer to winning the Republican nomination.
    • There’s the wildcard factor of voter turnout – only 54.9 per cent last time – in a country where Clinton seems to be as strongly disliked as liked.
    • And there’s the reality of the US being a violent, over-armed society with more than its fair share of right wing extremists. (The Kalamazoo mass shooting on February 20 seemed to receive plenty of coverage because the perp was an Uber driver – the 17 shot in Kansas and three police in Virginia within the week, not so much. Uber wasn’t involved.)
    • President Trump would be scary stuff on any number of fronts.
    • He promises to be bad for Wall Street as well as international trade and Mexican relations.
    • [F]or Australia, his protectionism, jingoism and Putin-esque ego are a threat to our well-being.
    • President Trump would rattle our markets and should give pause to our blind loyalty to American foreign policy, causing a reassessment of where our self-interest ultimately lies.
  • Donald Trump:
    • The best example of why highly successful business people should absolutely NOT be president?
      • Authoritarian?
      • Unable to tolerate – or even comprehend – limits on their power?
  • The ‘Trump As Mussolini’ meme is gathering stream. On Bill Maher, they even discussed some reports (I have not been able to find them myself) that Trump may have been watching and listening to old B&W films of Mussolini and reading books on Fascist speeches.
  • I’m waiting for protesters (or followers?) to do a Fascist salute and chant, “Duce! Duce! Duce!”
  • Can the Republicans Party survive as the party of racism, intolerance, hate, divisiveness, and the thinly veiled “Make America WASP Again.”?
• The Republican Party should have disavowed Trump long ago.
  • The biggest joke – except it’s not funny – is the number of Republicans who say that they don’t like what Trump stands for but they’ll support him if he’s the nominee.
• Done by 2100 CE? “Fukushima Keeps Fighting Radioactive Tide 5 Years After Disaster” http://ms/1QQuxbn
  • Fukushima is out of the news media but still very much an ongoing disaster.
  • Filtered water with reduced radioactivity is still being dumped into the sea.
  • Cleanup is estimated to take 50-100 years!

• The Republican Party should have disavowed Trump long ago.
  • The biggest joke – except it’s not funny – is the number of Republicans who say that they don’t like what Trump stands for but they’ll support him if he’s the nominee.

• TERMINOLOGIES: Words Matter
  • The term “Conservative” is so inaccurate as currently used by the Media, the Media and all of us really need to rethink their classifications and terminology.
  • There are Liberals/Progressives and there are Conservatives. Both of those ae fine and serve a useful purpose in civil opposition to each other.
  • Today’s “Conservatives” are conservative in name only

• How much influence does the media really have over elections? Digging into the data: “My sense is that what we have here is a feedback loop. Does media attention increase a candidate’s standing in the polls? Yes. Does a candidate’s standing in the polls increase media attention? Also yes.”By Jonathan Stray @jonathanstray [www.niemanlab.org] Jan. 11, 2016, 2:49 p.m

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

=======================================================

• Texas’ new laws for 2016, Posted: 4:02 PM, December 30, 2015 (com) Updated: 4:04 PM, December 30, 2015
• The dos and don’ts of open carry, By Robert Arnold – Investigative Reporter (click2houston.com) Posted: 9:37 AM, December 31, 2015 Updated: 10:04 AM, December 31, 2015
• Poll: Whites and Republicans Rank as Angriest Americans, by Andrew Rafferty (Meet the Press) Jan 3 2016, 11:54 am ET
• Obama’s team says the GOP earned Donald Trump: Loyalists say that after two terms of obstruction, Republicans are getting the anger candidate their rhetoric created. By Edward-Isaac Dovere, 12/27/15 (com, 07:45 AM EST) Updated 12/27/16 11:17 AM EST
  • “’It’s not that the country has changed, it’s that a narrow band of mostly white, low- and middle-income Americans are supporting a candidate who is speaking to their anxiety about being left behind in this economy,’ said Bill Burton, a former deputy White House press secretary.”
  • “Blue collar anxiety” is a real thing with real causes. That’s why so-called “Post-industrial Economies” are a fraud perpetrated against semi-skilled workers, and why industry needs to be re-invigorated in this country. We NEED blue collar jobs. Not everyone is cut out for ‘service’ work.
• The Crude Oil Export Ban–What, Me Worry About Peak Oil?, by Art Berman, Contributor (FORBES.COM) Dec 27, 2015 @ 12:18 PM 10,512 views
  • Peak oil is not about running out of oil. It is about what happens when the supply of conventional oil begins to decline. Once this happens, higher-cost, lower-quality sources of oil become increasingly necessary to meet global demand.
  • Congress ended the U.S. crude oil export ban last week. There is apparently no longer a strategic reason to conserve oil because shale production has made American great again.
  • The 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) that banned crude oil export was the closest thing to an energy policy that the United States has ever had. The law was passed after the price of oil increased in one month (January 1974) from $21 to $51 per barrel (2015 dollars) because of the Arab Oil Embargo.
  • The 1975 export ban was enacted because of the disastrous economic consequences of becoming dependent on imports following the peaking of U.S. oil production in 1970. Now that oil production is again close to peak levels, we have apparently forgotten that imports were the problem then and that we import twice as much today as in 1975.
  • Production of crude oil is higher today by 7% but consumption has grown to more than 16 mmbpd, an increase of 32%. At the time of the Arab Oil Embaro, consumption was only 12 mmbpd.
  • So, consumption has increased by one-third and imports have doubled but we no longer need to think strategically about oil supply because production is a little higher?
  • The technology behind tight oil has also made it the world’s most expensive barrel.
• Houston Toll Road Authority (HTRA) is slowly going all-electronic. What does this mean to you?
  • Rates – Sam Houston Tollway Counter-Clockwise
• Study: Presidents die younger than unelected candidates, By Julia Belluz 1 day ago (com)
• 40 Percent Of Ford Models To Be Electrified By 2020, by Sarah Shelton December 21, 2015 (http://www.hybridcars.com): By 2020, Ford wants 40 percent of its global lineup to be offered as a plug-in or hybrid variant.
  • To reach this goal, Ford will be investing $4.5 billion and adding 13 electrified models to its lineup, calling [this] the “largest-ever electrified vehicle investment in a five-year period” for the company.
• Hillary Clinton targets corporate inversion with new ‘exit tax’ plan: Tax is part of Democratic presidential frontrunner’s strategy to ‘rein in Wall Street’ on the heels of Pfizer’s plan to merge with Allergan and move to Ireland. The proposals are part of Clinton’s larger economic agenda, which includes boosting infrastructure spending by $275bn. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP

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