HOME....JAMES!

I would like to introduce you to the remarkable Autonomous vehicle also known as the self-driving car, the drive-less vehicle and the robotic car, which is capable of sensing its environment and navigate the roads without any human input.  This short of a man-made miracle can also detect its surroundings by using a variety of techniques, for instance, radar, GPS, odometry and computer vision with the tendency to identify appropriate roadways as well as obstacles and relevant road signs with its advanced control interpret sensory information system, which also includes a sensory data analyzer to distinguish between different vehicles on the roadway plus planned paths to your desired destination.

Actually, the first self-sufficient vehicle appeared in the 1980's and since then major companies and research organizations have been working and developing prototypes until this year where these steer-less metal horses are now being considered to go on the open market if they haven't been already.

Among the benefits of owning one of these babies are the significant reduction in death-related accidents, less traffic congestion, enhance mobility for the elderly and people with disabilities, relieve weary road travelers, navigational road solving, less fuel consumption, lower insurance costs, produce less air pollution, but along with the bennies are some of the drawbacks, for example, there have been some dispute regarding liability, the time needed to turn in an existing stock of vehicles from their non-autonomous vehicles to autonomous vehicles, resistance from individuals to forfeit control of their own cars, customer concern regarding safety issues of drive-less vehicles, implementation of the legal framework and establishment of government regulations, risk of loss of privacy and security concerns such as hackers and terrorists, and possible loss of driving-related jobs.

Yes...human technology has come a long way since Henry Ford invented the Model-T, but honey...we have arrived!  Although this amazing contraption came to no surprise to me since our airliners like the huge 747 can fly the clear blue skies while our daring pilots took a short nap, but one question remains after all the kinks are finally worked out and humanity finally master the concept behind computerized self-sufficient driving vehicles is...who is going to apply for their driver's license since we'll be the ones riding shotgun?  Hmm...sounds pretty interesting doesn't it?

A GOOD REASON

After many years of wine, women and song, I fell deeply in love for the very first time, but she ultimately broke my heart and I remembered looking up in the sky with tears in my eyes asking “Why Lord..why?....but God never answered.  As the years moved forward, I began using heavy drugs, so heavy that I put a gun to my head,but before pulling the trigger, I looked up in the sky with tears in my eyes mumbling “Why Lord...why should I live?....but God never answered.  As the years moved forward, I became a lawman and met some of the most sickest and darkest bastards ever created in this God's green earth and as I carried a 6-year old girl in my arms, who was hurt and been repeatedly raped by her father, I looked up in the sky with tears in my eyes crying “Why Lord..why should she live?....but God never answered.  As the years moved forward, I became ill and as the nurse inserted a needle in my arm, I looked around and saw other people with the same medical condition, if not worse, and as they turned on the machine and reclined me in my chair, I looked out the window toward the sky with tears in my eyes pleading “Why Lord..why should they live?....but God never answered. That same afternoon, the bus brought me home and as they lowered me in my wheelchair, I heard someone from the doorsteps of my apartment say “See Mia..I told you it was Da-Da!”  A 2-year old came running and jumped on my lap giving me a tight hug, so tight that it gave me such a warm feeling inside that spread throughout my entire body. I laughed out loud and looked up in the sky with tears of joy in my eyes...then suddenly, I heard a slight voice come inside my head...so slight that it whispered....”that’s why.”  

Never Give Up!

THE PERFECT GAME

Now dig this Baseball fans...computerized umpires!!!  That's right...Move over terminator here comes Pitchf/x-a saber metric camera device that triangulates the trajectory of a baseball that follows from the pitcher's mound to home plate and quickly broadcasted by a human monitor upstairs to the home plate umpire, who is wearing a ear piece.  Professional baseball is seriously considering using the Pitchf/x device, which has already been used in the minor leagues because the umpires have been giving some bad calls...1 out of 8 according  to baseball statistics, which is approximately 30,000 bad calls a year making the umpire to be right 88% of the time.  But there is a slight flaw that this video tracking device has, which was reported back in July 2015, and it is unknown if it has been corrected since, and its that the three cameras stops tracking the ball a ft. from home plate.   Well with that said, I personally feel that they are taking the fun out of the game, after all, to err is human...isn't it?  Why are only the baseball players permitted to make mistakes?  What are these computerized umpires going to do to the integrity of the game if we allow modern technology steal the role of America's long-time tradition along with hotdogs and apple pies. qz.com/.../balls-and-strikes-were-called-by-a-computer-not-an-umpire-at...

HONEYBEES ON STRIKE

Economic Development is define as the development of economic wealth of countries or regions for the well being of their inhabitants, which consists of cross-country job opportunities, major and minor capital investments, government employment and workforce training programs at the federal, state and local levels.  There are more than 20,000 professional economic developers in our growing nation of this specialized industry, who employ thousands that contribute to the “life sustaining” necessities such as food, shelter and health care, but the most important of all economic developers are a group that vary in shapes and sizes, unique, well-organized, motivated, dedicated and loyal.  They work mostly in colonies with as much as 80,000 employees per each colony with a highly structured order and serve under one queen.  Above all else they work for absolutely free.  They are the honeybees...yes...you heard right...the honeybees, who provide us among many items with honey, royal jelly, beeswax, propolis, bee venom therapy, but most notably they are the prime pollinators of this planet, whose products are most beneficial to humans, which have been known to speed the healing process of fresh wounds, reduce scarring, retard the aging process, treat vascular disease, impotence, sexual disorders, ulcers, liver ailments and nervous instability.  In a Biblical sense, it is said that honey was the last food that Jesus Christ ate on Earth.  

Since many of our pollinators are now scarce, we are totally dependent on our honeybees to pollinate and synchronized the development of our crops, and without their help there would be one-third less crops in the world, which would be an estimated $10 billions of work if the farmers are unable to adjust as would be the case of a sudden disease.  With such an outbreak, not only would dependent crops and pasture suffer for example, apples, nuts, avocados, soybeans, asparagus, broccoli and cucumbers, but so will a variety of fruits like citrus fruits, kiwi, blueberries, cantaloupe, melons and strawberries.  Not only do one-third less crops affect the crops, but the economy as well with decreased employment in packing sheds, the trucking business, food processing plants, manufacturing and other related industries where a decline of agriculture output of some 1.6 billion dollars will directly affect approximately 9,500 jobs and in addition on the direct affect on the industries relying on the agriculture inputs, flow-on effects could result an additional $2 billion loss in industry output and 11,000 jobs following the loss of all honeybee pollination services.  Imports of many products will be limited due to quarantine, restrictions and prices will be driven up to the detriment of the consumer, where the costs of pollination services will fall roughly on the consumers and the producers of the honeybee dependent crops.  This is where the honeybee and economic development are tied in.  It’s amazing to know that such a small puny insect could cause such a disastrous impact to our world’s economy.  Well guess what?  It is happening at this very moment.

According to scientist, honeybees have been around for eight-thousand years, but suddenly...they are disappearing!  

A mysterious illness is devastating the honeybee population, where beekeepers are finding once healthy colonies abandoned just a few days later or in most cases the only bees left in the colony are the queen bee and a few young bees.  The absence of dead bees make it difficult to know what ails them and experts cannot track the spread of this illness.  The problem began in November, 2006, where U.S. beekeepers began seeing one-quarter loss of their colonies, which was about five times the normal winter losses.  Scientist are trying to figure out what’s killing the honeybee, where several early studies have pointed out to harmful pesticides, increased solar radiation from our thin atmosphere to some kind of a disease or possible parasite called “Colony Collapse Disorder.” 

This disease has spread over to 27 states since 2007 with similar collapse disorders reported in Brazil, Canada, Italy, Greece, Poland, Spain and other parts of Europe.  Researchers say colony collapse disorder might be a re-emergence of a similar mysterious illness that struck U.S honeybees in the 1960’s, but scientist never pinpointed that previous bee crisis.  The bee sickness is also hitting our valley.  On February 2007, David Bradshaw, owner of Bradshaw Honey Farms in Visalia, Calif. got the shock of his life when he opened up his bee boxes and found nearly 100-million bees missing.  Our local growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops along with the recent stresses on the bees themselves, as well as on an industry increasingly under consolidation, and some fear this disorder may force a breaking point for even larger beekeepers.  Pressure is building where the beekeepers are losing against the suburban sprawl where bees can forage for nectar to stay healthy and strong during the pollination season, but currently there are less beekeepers, less bees, yet more crops to pollinate and the costs to maintain these bee hives are rising along with the strain on the bees being bred to pollinate rather than to just make honey.  While this sounds good to the bee business so much added losses and expenses due to disease are making higher equipment costs and profitability is actually falling.  Farmers are paying the price by paying more than $10,000 a year to rent bees, that’s if there is enough bees to go around.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR:

Symptoms of CCD are normally evident between the late summer and early spring when the colonies have been hit as older bees pop their clogs leaving behind the queen and young workers not yet ready to forage for pollen.  There is very little or no build up of dead bees in or around the colonies.  Presence of capped brood are in the colonies and bees will not normally abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched.  Other signs of CCD are food presence of honey and bee pollen, work force seems to be made up of young adult bees, and the queen is uncharacteristically evident outside the hive.  When a colony is dying and there are healthy colonies nearby (as is typical in a bee yard) those healthy colonies often enter the dying colony and rob its provisions for their own use.  If the dying colony’s provision were contaminated than a domino effect will take place resulting that the healthy colony will observe the same contagious disease. 

WHAT IS BEING DONE:

At a House Agriculture Subcommittee in Washington DC, members of various organizations have come together to share their concerns about Colony Collapse Disorder.  They are the Committee on Senate and Trends of Pollinators of the United States National Research Council, The Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee and the Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium.  More scientist are beginning to investigate various avenues of CCD along with the beekeepers, governmental officials and the USDA to conduct an investigation into the possible causes.

WHAT TO DO:

* Do not combine collapsing colonies with the healthy ones.  It is possible that combining a sick colony with a healthy one will contaminate or infect the healthy colony.  If you find abandoned hive equipment and the cause of the bee death is suspicious, store the equipment in a manner that prohibits other bees from accessing it.  Feed the bees Fumagillin in sugar water during the springtime and the fall to prevent the bees from attracting Nosema Ceranae, which is a bee stressor and possible causing agent of CCD.  Use an integrated pest management approach by minimizing the need for chemical use in bee colonies, lessening bee exposure to potentially toxic chemicals.  

Human technological innovation has not, in most cases, replaced or even improved upon animal pollinators and is unlikely to do so in the immediate future.  “The birds and the bees” concept remain an essential fact of life as long as plants depend on pollinators, so will people and it behooves us to shepard them wisely.  A chilling prediction about the importance of bees to humans popular in the press recently is “If the bees disappear from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.  No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals...no more man.”   www.huffingtonpost.com/news/bee-decline/