Wednesday, January 25, 2017

@18:27, 1/25/17

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1
World

Helicopter Carrying Injured Skier Crashes in Italy, Killing 6

The accident was a further blow to an area of central Italy struggling to emerge from earthquakes and a deadly avalanche that killed at least 15 people.

The rescue service is badly stretched in Italy.
There are probably 29 dead at the hotel site.

Fog and freezing temperatures make icing conditions.

2
World

Train in Southern India Derails, Killing Scores

Rescue workers struggled into the morning to pull the injured and dead from the train in the latest disaster for India’s overburdened railway.

The description seems to be of a failure of a rail on the inside of a curve.
That kind of fault is easy to detect and repair.
Inspections are necessary along with prompt corrections of discovered faults.
India's rail system would be much safer with relatively modest investment in maintenance.
Major investment in reconstruction would be good.
Maintenance is necessary though there is nothing to name after a politician.

3
Business Day

‘Basic Economy’ Airline Service Squeezing Business Travelers

When corporate travel managers insist on the least expensive flights, some employees must contribute their own money to make trips bearable.

Business travelers are caught between two bottom lines, the airline's and their employer's.
Both want more profit.

4
U.S.

Claims of Corrupt Immigration Contractors Go Unexamined, Investigators Say


Congress has liked the situation.

5
U.S.

Storm That Roared Through the South Sweeps Into the Northeast

Fueled by two low-pressure systems, the storm is expected to reach its peak overnight, with heavy wind gusts.

The storm's energy was expended in the Deep South.
On Long Island it was another  Northeaster.
There was snow fifty miles inland.

http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KFRG.html
http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KBGM.html

6
Business Day

Doubts Arise as Investors Flock to Crowdfunded Start-Ups

Advocates of a new law that aims to make it easier for businesses to raise capital worry whether investors are getting the information they need.

Do your due diligence.
The risks are prohibitive.
Almost every project fails.

7
U.S.

San Francisco Asks: Where Have All the Children Gone?

San Francisco has the lowest share of children of the country’s largest cities, a longstanding trend reinforced by a tech industry that skews young and single.

Workers at tech startups do not have home lives.
San Francisco is suffering a "gold rush"

8
Opinion

A Bold Plan to Prevent Homelessness

A proposed statewide rental subsidy would go a long way toward finding long-term solutions to making housing affordable.

Forty six percent of the population is potentially homeless.
300,000,000 X .46 = 138,000,000 people are in need of good homes.
The number is greater than any city's resources.
Cities must shelter the ones that show up.

9
Opinion

Repeal and Compete

A possible health care compromise would put conservative ideas to a test.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/health-care-fundamentals/

. . . "So here we go: providing health care to those previously denied it is, necessarily, a matter of redistributing from the lucky to the unlucky. And, of course, reversing a policy that expanded health care is redistribution in reverse. You can’t make this reality go away.
Left to its own devices, a market economy won’t care for the sick unless they can pay for it; insurance can help up to a point, but insurance companies have no interest in covering people they suspect will get sick. So unfettered markets mean that health care goes only to those who are wealthy and/or healthy enough that they won’t need it often, and hence can get insurance.
If that’s a state of affairs you’re comfortable with, so be it. But the public doesn’t share your sentiments. Health care is an issue on which most people are natural Rawlsians: they can easily imagine themselves in the position of those who, through no fault of their own, experience expensive medical problems, and feel that society should protect people like themselves from such straits.
The thing is, however, that guaranteeing health care comes with a cost. You can tell insurance companies that they can’t discriminate based on medical history, but that means higher premiums for the healthy — and you also create an incentive to stay uninsured until or unless you get sick, which pushes premiums even higher. So you have to regulate individuals as well as insurers, requiring that everyone sign up — the mandate, And since some people won’t be able to obey such a mandate, you need subsidies, which must be paid for out of taxes.
Before the passage and implementation of the ACA, Republicans could wave all this away by claiming that health reform could never work. And even now they’re busy telling lies about its collapse. But none of this will conceal mass loss of health care in the wake of Obamacare repeal, with some of their most loyal voters among the biggest losers.
What they’re left with is a health economics version of voodoo: they’ll invoke the magic of the market to somehow provide insurance so cheap that everyone will be able to afford it whatever their income and medical status. This is obvious nonsense; I think even Paul Ryan knows that he’s lying like a rug. But it’s all they’ve got."

10

N.Y. / Region

End of the Line for Penn Station’s Departure Board

Amtrak disconnected the board, which has been replaced by video monitors. Its demise prompted nostalgia from some commuters, though not all.

I have found the mechanisms fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton_clock
https://www.google.com/search?q=automatons&source=
lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=
0ahUKEwjG6-rf597RAhXM8CYKHVvcDkMQ_AUICigD&biw=1024&bih=639

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