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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Robotic Workforce

Robots are quickly replacing the human workforce in dangerous, risky and hazardous jobs. New jobs are being transferred quickly to a new robotic workplace in all phases of work. In the US Amazon's national warehouse sorting venture has employed them effectively. Even China, with an aging human workforce is moving quickly to replace humans with machines. One thing is for sure, robots have no need for workers' compensation. Today's post is shared from nytimes.com.

On a recent morning Natanel Dukan walked into the Paris offices of the French robot maker Aldebaran and noticed one of the company’s humanoid NAO robots sitting on a chair. Mr. Dukan, an electrical engineer, could not resist. Bending over, he kissed the robot on the cheek. In response the NAO tilted its head, touched his cheek and let out an audible smack.
It is certainly a very French application for a robot, but the intimate gesture by the $16,000, two-foot robot, now being used in academic research labs and robotic soccer leagues, also reflects a significant shift.
Until recently, most robots were carefully separated from humans. They have largely been used in factories to perform repetitive tasks that required speed, precision and force. That generation of robots is dangerous, and they have been caged and fenced for the protection of workers.
But the industrial era of robotics is over. And robots are beginning to move around in the world.
More and more, they are also beginning to imitate — and...
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Fungal Meningitis: One Year After the Outbreak

A year ago the medication induced infections were the focus of the US CDC as The New England Compounding Service drew national attention. Today's post is shared from the CDC.gov.

A year ago this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention activated its Emergency Operations Center as part of the response to the tragic outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to three contaminated lots of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). As of October 23, 2013, there have been 751 cases of fungal meningitis and other infections associated with this outbreak; 64 of these patients have died. Since July 2013, one new case has been diagnosed.
This week, CDC has two papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, one describing the clinical aspects of the infections associated with this outbreak and the other summarizing the epidemiologic investigation. The clinical paper, focusing on the early stages of the outbreak, describes patients who experienced a wide variety of illnesses, including meningitis, stroke, arachnoiditis (inflammation of one of the membranes around the brain and spinal cord), and epidural or paraspinal infections which ranged in severity from very mild to life-threatening. The epidemiology paper finalizes the original preliminary report published by the New England Journal of Medicine and details the efforts undertaken by public health agencies to identify and stop the outbreak.
This...
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Ohio: Local governments, schools to get workers’-comp break

Today's post shared from dispatch.com

Nearly 4,000 Ohio cities, townships, school districts and other public entities will get an average reduction of 1.6 percent in workers’-compensation premiums for 2014 that will save them $3.9 million.
The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation approved the reduction on Friday. The premium charge for each public entity will vary based on several factors.
The cut is on top of reductions in 2012 and 2013 that have reduced premiums for public entities by $68.3 million from 2011 rates.
The state credits the reductions to lower claims, among other things.
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Monday, October 28, 2013

A Day In The Life Of Ted the Tea-Partier

Today's guest post is by Jay Causey of the Washington Bar.


     Ted gets up at 6 A.M. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee.  The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for government-enforced minimum water-quality standards. 
     With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to have the government insure their safety and that they work as advertised.  All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance – now Ted gets it too.
     He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs.  Ted’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat-packing industry
     In the morning shower, Ted reaches for his shampoo.  His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
     Ted dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath.  The air he breathes is far less polluted than decades ago because some wacko liberal environmentalist fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
     Ted begins his workday. He has a good job with decent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.  Ted’s employer pays these standards because Ted’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.  If Ted is hurt on the job or is laid off, he’ll get workers’ compensation or unemployment because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
     It’s noontime, and Ted needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Ted’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Ted’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression and nearly collapsed the banking system again in 2008, saved only by a tax-payer bailout.
     Ted is home from work, and drives to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country.  His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought to have the government enact car safety standards.
     He arrives at his boyhood home.  His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.  The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
     He is happy to see his father, who is now retired.  His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Ted wouldn’t have to. Ted gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show.  The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and hate their country.  He doesn’t mention that his radical, anti-government Republicans  have, over many decades, fought against each and every one of these protections and benefits Ted enjoys throughout his day.
     Ted agrees:  “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives!  They’re taking away our freedoms!  After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”
- See more at: http://workersadvisor.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-ted-the-tea-partier#sthash.PiWVQFET.dpuf

NTSB says Texas Spirit Air flight had "uncontained" failure

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.cbsnews.com

A Spirit Airlines plane at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013.
A Spirit Airlines plane at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013.
A National Transportation Safety Board official says a Spirit Airlines jet bound for Atlanta sustained an engine failure before safely returning to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Plane engine explodes, smoke forces plane to turn back

The official says it was an "uncontained" failure. That means broken pieces and parts of the engine escaped the outer engine housing, an unusual and especially serious occurrence.
The official spoke Wednesday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Aircraft engines are designed to contain any broken pieces within the engine during a failure.
Passengers aboard the Airbus A319 on Tuesday say they heard an explosion and saw flames come up the side of the plane, lighting up the interior. They reported that smoke filled the cabin.
Passenger Casey Rogers described his experience in a phone call with CBS station KTVT in Dallas: "I saw the engine blow up on the outside of the plane, fire and all that. I'm thinking to myself, I see this on the movies. I'm usually on my couch eating popcorn. This never happened to me. And here I am 25,000 feet above the ground and this is happening to me."
Rogers said the crew was professional and handled the situation well.
Spirit spokeswoman Misty Pinson says no one on Flight 165 was injured.
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Michaels: Safety training is key to health of all workers

Today's post was shared by Jordan Barab and comes from www.chron.com

June 5 was Michael White's third day at a new job loading garbage onto a disposal truck for Republic Services Inc., a big waste management company in Houston. The 31-year-old temporary worker had been assigned to work "the beast" - the hardest and heaviest of the Republic routes, requiring him to load 16 tons of garbage over a sweltering hot 10-hour day. He was not acclimated to working in the heat and never received training from his temp agency or from Republic about the dangers of heat illness.
When his body went into heat stroke, White's driver did not recognize the signs and did not know to move him into the shade. When the ambulance arrived, his heartbeats were irregular and his oral temperature had reached 107.8 degrees.
He was taken to the hospital, but his employers never contacted the doctors to give them his information or his next-of-kin emergency contacts, and he died alone in a hospital bed four days later.
Over the last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has received far too many reports of workers killed in their first few days at work. Most of these have been temporary workers. We have known for a century that new workers are at increased risk for occupational injury and fatality, and that higher risk is due to a lack of safety training and experience at that work site.
Just a few decades ago, temporary work was relatively rare and concentrated in white-collar professions. But in recent years their numbers have grown dramatically, and...
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Miners’ deaths aren’t a theme-park thrill

Today's post was shared by Jordan Barab and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

“Alone in the darkness . . . the only sound is the pulsing of your heart as the searing heat slowly boils you alive . . . It was reported to be the worst coal mine accident in history. The families of missing miners begged for help but it was decided that a rescue was too dangerous. The miners were left entombed deep underground.”
So begins the Web pitch for the new “Miner’s Revenge” maze, one of 10 haunted attractions meant to tantalize and terrorize visitors during “Halloween Haunt” at Kings Dominion amusement park in the rolling Virginia countryside about 70 miles south of Washington.
The advertisement continues: “Lamps at their sides and pick-axes in their hands they are searching for the men who left them to die . . . waiting to exact their revenge.”
I haven’t gone through the maze, and I don’t intend to, although Kings Dominion spokesman Gene Petriello offered me a free pass. That’s because Miner’s Revenge hits a little too close to home for me.
From 2010 to 2012, I spent a good bit of time researching a real coal-mine disaster for a book published last year: the massive April 5, 2010, underground blast at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch mine near Montcoal in southern West Virginia. Twenty-nine miners died in what was the worst U.S. coal-mine disaster in 40 years. Three investigations have found that the incident was the result of Massey’s...
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