• CALIFORNIA EMPLOYERS NOTE: NEW HARASSMENT & DISCRIMINATION REQUIREMENTS ARE EFFECTIVE APRIL 1. Regulations, which will be enforced by the Dep’t of Fair Employment & Housing, involve distribution of detail written policies to employees – translated into every language that is spoken by at least 10% of the workforce – including: Complaint Mechanism allowing an employee to bypass his/her immediate supervisor; Process for investigation of any alleged misconduct; Assurance of no retaliation for lodging a complaint or participating in any investigation; and a Tracking System to ensure that employees receive and understand the policies. Non-compliance hassle and penalties can be severe, so don’t ignore this.
  • THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY CORONER RESIGNED THIS MONTH saying “understaffing and budget cuts made it impossible to do his job,” with a backlog of 180 bodies in the morgue and toxicology tests (for some 8,500 bodies annually) taking over six months to complete – prolonging funerals, life insurance payouts and court cases. [THE WEEK – Mar 25, 16]
  • SCIENTISTS HAVE KNOWN THAT HUMANS CAN INDUCE EARTHQUAKES FOR OVER 50 YEARS but, until recently, paid no attention to the potential impacts of ‘fracking.’ It turns out that water pressure from this oil & gas extraction process “reduces a fault’s friction, causing it to slip and release energy as an earthquake.” Until 2007, before Oklahoma doubled oil production and increased gas production by 50%, the state had one earthquake; in 2015, there were over 900 quakes and last month a 5.1 tremor was followed by fifty additional quakes since then. Oklahoma is suddenly “one of the most quake-prone states in the nation,” well outpacing California, as “high-pressurized water breaks apart underground rock… and the salty wastewater lubricates and activates fault lines buried deep beneath the prairie floor…that hadn’t moved in 300 million years… Geophysicists believe that even if all disposal well activity stopped today, earthquakes could still continue for decades.” Technology again breeds unintended consequences.  [TIME – Mar 21, 16]
  • DEMENTIA IN PEOPLE AGED 60 TO 100 CAN BE DELAYED UP TO ELEVEN YEARS, by eating ‘brain healthy’ foods – vegetables, nuts, berries (especially blue & strawberries) whole grains, fish & poultry. A 4½ year study at Chicago’s Rush University found between 40% and 52% “reduction in the rate of developing Alzheimer’s disease” depending on variations in the brain-healthy diet, and reduction or avoidance of “dangerous toxic food groups”: weekly servings under five for pastries/sweets, under four servings of red meat, one serving of cheese or fried/fast foods; also under one serving per day of butter or stick margarine. Following even modestly healthy dietary patterns can greatly reduce the risk of losing one’s mind. [LIFE EXTENSION – Apr 16] ALSO, BETTER MEMORY FOR ‘SEXUALLY-ACTIVE’ PEOPLE AGED 50 TO 90, including better cognitive skills for men. Research at Coventry University in Britain studied over 6,800 men & women, “adjusting for age, education, wealth, physical activity, depression, cohabiting, health, loneliness and quality of life, to determine significant association between sexual activity, paying attention, recall and problem-solving.”  [OXFORD JRNL – AGE AND AGING – Feb 16]
  • MORE GOVERNMENT GONE WILD! (1) The I.R.S. plan to collect ‘taxes’ from illegal workers has backfired overwhelmingly, due to both stupidity in the assignment of ‘Identification Numbers’ (versus social security numbers) and outright fraud, as bogus “child care credits” get paid out in the billions. http://videos2view.net/tax-fraud.htm%20    (2) Over the past decade, Federal employees have grown by fifteen times that of private company workers and now comprise over 16% of the voting electorate. Assuming at least one family member voting with them to protect benefits, that’s one-third of the ballots. Having seen their compensation & benefits raised, on average, to more than double that of similar private sector employees, it’s tough to imagine many of the more than 21 million federal employees ever now voting against spending cuts.  https://www.youtube.com/embed/xOAgT8L_BqQ
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK: Roughly 200 billion emails were transmitted over the internet last year, with the average businessperson receiving 122 emails per day.

       So far this year political campaign ad spending has been a total bust: $78 million for Bush and $40 million for Rubio, with $36 million against Trump.  The much bantered ‘crisis’ impact of unlimited special-interest-PAC spending simply wasn’t.

     Either the most astounding video editing of a card trick, or real magic:  https://www.youtube.com/embed/xh9GaDgRWX4

      DCG: UTILIZING GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE FOR OPTIMAL STRATEGIC & FINANCIAL DIRECTION, MANAGEMENT, NEGOTIATION & MEDIATION