- Should Manhattan seem a little dirtier and smellier than normal in the months ahead, know that there is a good explanation. No, new Yorkers, that isn't a slam against your great city because it’s an awesome place to be. But there are any number of explainable and unexplainable odors bound to happen when 6 million-plus people cram onto a tiny island and attempt to live their daily lives while basically stacked on top of each other for lack of space. Now, add to that mix the possibility that as many as 22,000 cleaning workers in NYC could soon be on strike after their union voted Thursday to authorize a strike, if necessary, that could potentially affect 1,500 commercial office buildings in the city. Thousands of office cleaners and commercials building workers with the 32BJ Service Employees International Union voted to authorized their bargaining committee to call a strike if there is a failure to reach a new contract by 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2012. As part of their uprising, hundreds of the cleaning union workers marched Thursday afternoon from 34th Street to Union Square in opposition to a proposed wage and benefit structure that the union says is “aimed at creating a lower second class of workers.” The irony of creating another lower class of workers in a profession where many would consider its members to be lower class was not lost on the members of the 32BJ Service Employees International Union. The New York Central Labor Council organized the protest march and various union groups joined in to support the cleaning workers, including healthcare workers, teachers and even the kooks from Occupy Wall Street. A protest march down Broadway is always an inspiring sight and demonstrators said they wanted to get the attention of government and corporate leaders to create more jobs. “It’s an injustice what’s happening to the families all over the world. In this country, that they can’t feed their children, that children are not being educated, that they’re dumbing America down by taking money away from the city schools,” one protestor proclaimed. Others railed against the establishment for looking to take back more money when so many workers are already struggling. “The real estate industry’s demands to roll back the wage and benefit standards of lower middle class workers are unacceptable,” Mike Fishman, president of the union, said in a statement. “Today’s strike vote shows we are determined to keep our city a place that working families can afford to call home.” The union’s primary beef with the proposal is the belief that it would make it more difficult for current and new workers to make a living in New York City. “A two-tier wage system would be a giant leap backward for all workers because it drives down wages and benefits for years to come,” Fishman said. “The industry’s sole purpose in creating a second tier of workers is to replace the first tier with lower paid workers.” All of this may seem a tad absurd given that the highest rate for its cleaners is $22.65 per hour, which amounts to about $47,000 annually, but life in Manhattan is extremely expensive……………
- Iran sure knows how to smack the West where it hurts……right in its collective gas tank. As international pressure on Tehran mounts due to its burgeoning nuclear program that the United Nations recently condemned in a voluminous report, Iran warned the West on Sunday that any attempt to block its oil exports would more than double crude prices and deal a crippling blow to the struggling global economy. "As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. Mehmanparast’s comments are set against the backdrop of international condemnation for the storming of the British embassy in Tehran last week. The incident seems to have galvanized international support for tougher action against Iran, which continues to insist its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. The United States and many European Union countries were already discussing measures to restrict oil exports prior to the happenings at the embassy based on the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog group’s November report that cited evidence that Tehran had worked on designing an atom bomb. On Thursday, the U.S. Senate voted to penalize foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran's central bank, which takes payment for the 2.6 million barrels Iran exports a day. On top of that, the European Union is considering a ban -- already in place in the United States -- on Iranian oil imports. But as of now, neither the U.S. nor the EU has finalized the next move against the oil trade or the central bank, likely due to the potentially devastating impact on the global economy of restricting oil flows from the world's fifth biggest exporter. Storming and pillaging the British embassy still wasn’t a wise move, as it could be just the impetus needed to push through new measures. "No one welcomes the sanctions, we know that sanctions create obstacles, but we want to say we will overcome these obstacles," Mehmanparast stated. "Imposing sanctions on oil and gas is among the sanctions that, if one wants to do that, the consequences should be fully considered before taking any action. I do not think the situation in the world and especially in the West today is prepared enough to raise such discussions." Duly noted, R. Now what can you do about the $3.14 a gallon I’m currently paying for gas……………
- Not a lot of people were out seeing movies this weekend. That ultimately led to a third consecutive winning weekend at the box office for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, but it was a far cry from the film’s near-record success in its first weekend and even its second. The movie that’s all about dreamy vampires made $16.9 million in its third weekend to boost its cumulative domestic tally to $247.3 million and rising. In a weekend where no new films cracked the top 10, second place once again belonged to The Muppets, which garnered $11.2 million after dropping off 62 percent from its opening weekend and has earned $56.1 million domestically thus far. Hugo actually climbed from its fifth-place debut last weekend to finish third this time, largely by adding 563 theaters to its base and thus making $7.6 million for a two-week haul of just $25.2 million. Fourth place belonged to Arthur Christmas, the Sony film that could manage just $7.3 million in Christmas cheer and hasn’t been any better than Hugo through two weeks despite being in twice as many theaters. Its cumulative total of $25.2 million is anything but impressive. The same goes for Happy Feet Two, making $6 million and finishing in fifth place in its third week. Its overall total of $51.8 million is solid, if not spectacular. In the bottom half of the top 10 are: Adam Sandler’s terrible comedy Jack and Jill Sony (No. 6 with $5.5 million and $64.3 million overall), The Descendants (moving up to No. 7 with $5.2 million despite being in only 574 theaters and with $18 million in three weeks of limited release), Immortals (No. 8 with $4.4 million for a four-week tally of $75.6 million), the bomb-tastically bad Tower Heist (No. 9 with $4.1 million and $70.8 million in five weeks of work) and Puss in Boots (No. 10 as the third family friendly flick of the top 10 with $3 million and $139.5 million overall through six weeks. As previously stated, there were no newcomers to the top 10 and that also means no dropouts…………
- The battle of Carrier IQ vs. just about everyone else is heating up. Millions of cell phone users are concerned about the software maker’s products collecting and transmitting potentially sensitive data from their phones, U.S. senators are weighing in and the fight is in its early stages. U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) became one of the many angry voices demanding answers from Carrier IQ when he asked the company to respond to claims by an independent security researcher that its software is recording the every button push and keystroke of mobile phone users. Carrier IQ makes software that companies including AT&T Inc and Sprint Nextel install in their mobile devices, where it runs in the background transmitting data that the software maker says its customers use to better understand their devices and networks. That supposedly will allow Carrier IQ to improve their service, but the company seems to be alone in seeing it that way. Carrier IQ came under scrutiny last month when a hacker named Trevor Eckhart began publishing research on its functionality, saying it tracks user locations and other personal data. This week, Eckhart posted a 17-minute YouTube video showing the software collect data from an HTC smartphone. Message boards, Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites have been filled with criticism of Carrier IQ and the complaints all center on the company’s software violating users’ privacy. In the video, Eckhart turns his phone on and off, punches numbers to make a call and records text message in plain text as Carrier IQ records it all. The video appeared to touch a nerve with the outspoken Franken. “The revelation that the locations and other sensitive data of millions of Americans are being secretly recorded and possibly transmitted is deeply troubling,'' Franken said in a statement. ``Carrier IQ has a lot of questions to answer.'' His letter demands that the company provide details on the types of data its software collects and what it does with that information. AT&T and Sprint Nextel have both confirmed using the software in their devices to collect information that helps them improve network and service performance. Apple Inc said that some devices, including iPhones, that run on its iOS 4 operating system use the Carrier IQ software, but it is not compatible with its newer iOS 5. Look for this battle to keep getting uglier…………
- What city doesn’t want a new professional sports franchise? San Jose, California, apparently. A group of San Jose residents have heard the idea to move the Oakland Athletics to the South Bay and "Stand for San Jose" isn't going to stand for it. Stand for San Jose, which is supported by the San Francisco Giants, filed a lawsuit Friday against the City of San Jose alleging a failure to perform a proper environmental review of land committed to the A's. In a 28-page suit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, the group also claims the city violated citizens' rights by not allowing a public vote on the contractual agreement it made with the A's to sell the team discounted downtown property where owner Lew Wolff hopes to build a new ballpark. Wolff has not received permission to make the move from commissioner Bud Selig and he needs that permission because the move would be into San Francisco's territory. In November, the San Jose City Council agreed to sell nearly five acres at a ginormous discount to the A's as long as the land is use to build a ballpark. With the agreement came a 30-day window from Nov. 8 in which lawsuits could be filed against the two-year land-purchase option that costs the A's $50,000. "In the midst of its 11th consecutive budget deficit, San Jose politicians rushed to sell prime downtown land for only $6.9 million, even though it was acquired for $25 million and is currently appraised at approximately $14 million," Stand for San Jose said in a written statement. "This huge discount for wealthy developers who want to build a baseball stadium comes at a time of fiscal challenges so severe that the mayor recently admitted: 'We're not as bad as Greece, I don't think.'" A key part of the lawsuit is Stand for San Jose’s assertion that the previous environmental reports on issues such as traffic and air quality have not produced sufficient data relating to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and that additional studies are needed. Wolff, a wealthy Los Angeles real estate developer, seemed nonplussed and admitted that lawsuits are often part of the process. "In California, people can try to use the CEQA Act to stop someone from competing, to stop something they don't want to happen," Wolff said. "Normally there are numerous lawsuits filed. This is a very solid EIS (environmental impact study), so it's somebody who doesn't want us to compete in that area." Spoken like a true real estate titan with little concern for the environment. Clearly, Stand for San Jose is an angry collection of misanthropes and they find themselves fighting an uphill battle here against Wolff and Selig, former as fraternity brothers at Wisconsin. The A’s want the new stadium because they are currently one of the handful of MLB teams still forced to share their stadium with an NFL counterpart - the Oakland Raiders. Now, they need only to run roughshod over a small-time grass roots group to get their new dream ballpark…………
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