Eric Williams's List: General News

• “They’re going to have to start listening to us soon,”
• And the protesters were generally dwarfed by legions of shoppers rushing in and tussling for bargains on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.
• • This is a major issue in society today, we have priorities all wrong. 
• Four years into an economic expansion, and at a time of record profits and cash holdings for companies, service workers are still not getting meaningful wage increases. And the labor movement, which represents only about seven percent of private-sector employees, can’t be of help much. This year, adding insult to injury, retailers are forcing their low-paid employees—many of whom are unable to afford the necessities of life—to work on a national holiday to accommodate and prepare for frenzied shopping activity by consumers who are themselves desperate for bargains.
• a buyers’ strike. Nothing concentrates the mind of a Walmart executive so much as the prospect that shoppers may indicate their displeasure with the status quo by not showing up, or by turning to alternatives.

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• 1. Combustible batteries. High-energy lithium-ion power packs like those in found in laptop computers and other electronic devices are susceptible to a phenomenon known as “thermal runaway”—a chemical chain-reaction causing them to overheat uncontrollably. In the cargo hold of an airplane, they pose a risk that most passengers know nothing about.

  There have been at least 70 incidents involving these batteries since the early 1990s. In 1999, a shipment of 120,000 batteries ignited after being unloaded from a Northwest flight. In 2004, a pallet of batteries caught fire on a FedEx plane. And three years ago, a UPS cargo jet survived an emergency landing in Philadelphia before being destroyed by a lithium-ion inferno that burned for more than four hours. New regulations took effect in 2008, but there's still the risk of large shipments of batteries making it onto aircraft unseen or improperly packaged.

  If one device overheats in a passenger cabin, that fire can be readily handled with an extinguisher. The danger is a bigger fire in an under-floor baggage or freight hold. The halon-based fire-suppression systems used by commercial jets in these zones are not able to douse such fires.
• In spite of all this, there is no reason for the flying public to be apprehensive about boarding a regional airline. The fact that disasters like the one near Buffalo happen so infrequently is a good indicator that there are thousands of highly skilled crews out there doing an exemplary job under tough conditions. Congress and the FAA, meanwhile, will propose regulatory changes in the months ahead addressing both hiring standards and fatigue.
• There is no hard data on this, but anecdotally pilots will tell you that storms are worsening and patterns of the jet streams are changing. Veteran long-haul pilots report that the sky conditions over the North Atlantic appear different now, with thunderclouds building even in colder months.

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• Predictably, the TPP promises to be a deal in the interest of major corporations above consumers.
• multinational corporate interests “with little focus on the rights and interests of consumers, let alone broader community interests”.
• “One could see the TPP as a Christmas wish-list for major corporations,

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