A special note about and for my grandkids, Elena, Devin and Drew, who I hope will be visiting this blog at sometime in the future. If you've just found me on this blog, I'm very happy! Please, your individual blog is also nearby, so ... 

Elena, please go to https://elenashultz.blogspot.com/

Devin please go to https://devinshultz.blogspot.com/; and

Drew please go to https://andrewshultz.blogspot.com/.

Yeah, I know that they all pretty much say the same thing, but I wasn't comfortable writing you en masse in a single blog and wanted to make it more personal. I thought it was better to make each of you individual blogs, even if they each say almost the same thing, at least right now.

Please write me before I die!

panama.rick@ymail.com or rickinpanama@gmail.com

Much love from your grandfather!

【ツ】

Larger Nicaragua Canal Looms Over Panama

Panama's greatest fear, other than the rise of another Manuel Noriega or of a somewhat lesser risk, the return of another Mussolini-like Ricardo Martinelli, is the threat of competition to its world-famous and immensely lucrative Canal (revenue of about two billion US dollars or so each year).  And who uses this "Eighth Wonder of the World" the most are the world's larger ships. Not the biggest ones, mind you, because they are too big to fit into it. 

That's why Panama embarked a couple of years ago on a second canal that's going to cost the country 5 or 6 billion dollars, assuming they can finish the thing after the people building the locks suddenly said they needed tons more money because they lied about the building costs in order to get the contract in the first place. 

Putting all of that aside for the moment, here's Panama's main problem. It seems that it ain't gonna be big enough. There's this company called Maersk that happens to make humongous container ships, the world's biggest, and they just happen to be the just about the world's largest shipping company. And there's been floating around this idea to build a really big canal that will not only handle these biggest of the biggest container ships, but is also about 800 kilometers further north to where everything goes, so much further in fact that it's, unfortunately, not in Panama but in Nicaragua. 

Well, there goes the ball game. Maersk has decided to throw its considerable weight behind the idea of building the Nicaraguan Canal, a project that has until now been surrounded by distrust from the outside world and, not at all the least, from its competitor in Panama. This represents the first time that one of the world's shipping carriers has publicly voiced its support in favor of the colossal construction project.

"Building a Nicaragua Canal seems to make good sense. The canal is projected to have room for the biggest ships, while also saving 800 kilometers on a journey from New York to Los Angeles. We generally support infrastructure improvements. It brings improved opportunities for transport, and thus trade. When we built container ships 20 years ago they were scaled according to the Panama Canal, but the ships today are bigger than the 4,500 ton that could fit on the biggest ships back then. Even after the expansion of the Panama Canal, the biggest ships won't fit there," says Keith Svendsen, Head of Daily Operations at Maersk Line. He adds that there is currently a waiting period for sailing through the Panama Canal, and that the expansion of the canal - expected finished in early 2016 - will only make it possible to handle ships of up to 336 meters. Maersk Line's new Triple-E series clocks in at 400 meters, and estimates in the maritime community say that this magical barrier will soon be breached, so that ships will become even longer.

The Nicaragua Canal will be three times the length of the Panama Canal, and - according to plan - the new canal will cross the major Lago de Nicaragua, one of the largest freshwater reservoirs in the region, a fact that has led to criticism from various environmental organizations.

The somewhat unknown Chinese business man and investor Wang Jing, backed by several state-owned Chinese companies, has managed to win the 50-year concession for the canal, which is estimated to have a construction cost of USD 40 billion in 2014-prices. Estimates say that the feasibility studies alone are approaching a price of around USD 1 billion.

Meanwhile, as Russia continues to take strategic initiatives that put the United States on the defensive, Russian President Vladimir Putin has teamed up with China to help construct the new canal, giving Moscow an even greater foothold in Washington’s area of influence. The prospect comes as Moscow not only intends more massive arms sales in Latin America but, is also moving to establish a base in Nicaragua besides using existing facilities for refueling for aircraft and port calls for Russian warships. (In addition to Nicaragua, Moscow also is looking to establish bases in Cuba and Venezuela.)

The establishment of permanent Russian bases and a major Russian presence in the Western Hemisphere will challenge U.S. policies and threaten to diminish Washington’s influence in the region. And like a repeat of events leading up to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, it will give Moscow a basis to stage offensive weapons in the Western Hemisphere, placing another formidable challenge to U.S. homeland defenses from potential missile threats. “The Russian Federation considers itself to be a global power that is active everywhere and that, whatever Russia’s leadership might publicly claim, is challenging the United States anywhere that it can,” said Stephen Blank of the Washington think-tank Jamestown Foundation. “One such arena is Latin America,” Blank said. “Even as the Ukrainian crisis rages, Moscow is steadily trying to increase its profile throughout the Western Hemisphere.” And Moscow’s Latin American focus for establishing a base will be Nicaragua. 

The current plan is that China would do the construction while Russia would provide security and take on other yet undefined roles in connection with the canal. In bringing in the Russians, Chinese businessman Wang Jing, who has a concession to build the canal in Nicaragua, also is said to hold a concession to build a deep water port in Crimea, a strategic area of Ukraine which recently was annexed to the Russian Federation. According to Blank, Nicaraguan opposition deputy Eliseo Nunez Morales said that the planned Nicaragua Grand Canal project doesn't have a “declaration of neutrality.”

In the event of a conflict, the maritime route would not remain neutral. In addition, the canal concession also allows for the establishment of a military base. “Therefore, granting Russia the security concession could be a cover for a military base, which, in turn, would afford excellent cover for the introduction of a host of covert agents and programs and for laundering criminally obtained profits,” Blank asserted.

Several of the biggest Western infrastructure companies are also working to evaluate the key elements necessary to realize the Nicaraguan project. American McKinsey is looking at the finances of the project. Australian mining company MEC Mining is reviewing the scope of the digging work through the country's jungle, while British ERM is handling the environmental consequences, and consulting engineers SBE, of Belgium, will present a proposal for the dimensions of the massive water locks necessary to realize the project.

Panama's economy over the last few years has been amazing, making Panamanians the second richest in all of Latin America (Only Chile has a higher per capita income). Most of this wealth has come either directly or indirectly from the ships that use the Panama Canal. Even with the new Canal expansion, the world's largest ships will still not be able to cross the middle of Central America. If the Nicaragua Canal is built, those ships will use it instead. Panama will face competition in an area it can not compete. Add the fact that by mid-century, because of global warming, even ordinary shipping vessels will be able to navigate previously inaccessible parts of the Arctic Ocean, and the future of Panama and its Canal may not be as robust as in the past.

Juan Carlos Varela Surprise Winner in Presidential Election

Against almost all odds, Panama's amicable Vice President Juan Carlos Varela has won election as the new president of this Central American republic.  Varela was declared the victor yesterday, thwarting an attempt by former ally President Ricardo Martinelli to extend his grip on power by electing a hand-picked successor.

With 60 percent of ballots counted, officials said Varela led with 39 percent of the votes, compared to 32 percent for former Housing Minister Jose Domingo Arias, the preferred choice of Martinelli. Juan Carlos Navarro, a former mayor of the capital, was in third place in the seven-candidate field with 27 percent.

Varela, who takes office July 1, dedicated his victory to Panama's democracy when the Electoral Tribunal's chief magistrate notified him by telephone of his victory. The incumbent party has still never won re-election to Panama's presidency since the United States' 1989 overthrow of military strongman Manuel Noriega.

Election day began with opinion polls pointing to a tight race among the top three candidates, but none of the major surveys had Varela with a lead. Most gave a razor-thin edge to Arias. Although Martinelli wasn't on the ballot, the billionaire supermarket magnate's presence loomed large during the campaign, with many worried that he would be the power behind the throne if voters chose Arias, a soft-spoken newcomer.

As the race narrowed in recent weeks, Martinelli crisscrossed the isthmus inaugurating hospitals, stadiums and Central America's first subway system while warning the 3.2 million Panamanians that record low unemployment and economic growth averaging more than 8 percent since he took office in 2009 could be jeopardized if his opponents won. His use of the bully pulpit drew widespread criticism, as did his decision to place his wife, Marta Linares, as Arias' running mate on the Democratic Center ticket.

Varela, a 50-year-old engineer, is the scion of one of Panama's richest families and owner of a namesake rum distillery. He left the 2009 presidential race to throw his conservative Panamenista party's support behind Martinelli in exchange for the vice presidency.

But the political marriage didn't last, and Martinelli (seen above) dismissed him from an additional role as foreign minister in 2011 for refusing to back a plan for a referendum to allow presidents to serve consecutive terms. Since then, Varela has been the president's fiercest critic, accusing him of numerous shady deals including taking kickbacks for a government radar system contract. Martinelli denied the charges. In turn, Martinelli all but marginalized Varela from decision-making and criticized the vice president for collecting his government paycheck without doing any work.

A free-market conservative, Varela also has strong social credentials, having been the architect of a popular program at the start of Martinelli's presidency to provide a $100 monthly stipend to Panamanians over age 70 without a pension or retirement benefits.

As campaigning turned ugly in the final stretch, Varela was hit by accusations that he had received payments from the daughter of a political ally convicted in the U.S. of laundering money for an illegal online gambling ring. Varela vigorously defended himself after the accusations first appeared last month on a Florida-run website, Diario Las America, and he accused Martinelli of leaking the story trying to derail his campaign. He said the checks he received from accounts managed by Michele Lasso were connected to legitimate business dealings with her father, a former Panamanian ambassador to South Korea, and donations to his 2009 presidential campaign, which he reported to the nation's electoral tribunal.

Team Pays $3M Settlement for Texting

Jerry Wojcik is a Buffalo Bills fan, and he signed up for a text service from the team. The agreement said he'd get no more than five texts a week, but when he got 13 in two weeks, what did he do? Hey, this is America, so of course he sued! And won! 

The suit, filed in 2012, said the Bills' behavior was a violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Well, it seems that this law was created to protect real people against unwanted spam. Some might argue he was getting precisely the sort of messages he wanted, but just a few too many, but that's a no-no according to the law. The Bills apparently decided not to pursue the case in court and have now settled for the sum of $3 million. 

No, you might ask, Mr. Wojcik didn't become $3 million richer. It was a class action lawsuit, so $2.5 million will be paid to the approximately 39,750 people who signed up for the text alert service. And, the money will not be paid in cold, hard cash. Instead, the Bills will issue debit cards that can be used at the team store. This seems rather a nifty proposal, given that all the people so heinously affected were supposedly Bills fans, desperate for information about their team. 

Mr. Wojcik himself will receive $5,000 for leading the class action. Of course, the remaining $562,500 will be going to Mr. Wojcik's lawyers. This is America, right?

Your Tax Dollars at Work (Again)

A watchdog report has been released showing that over a thousand employees of the IRS received bonuses even though they had disciplinary issues, including over $1 million paid to employees who didn't pay their federal taxes. And the bonuses weren't just monetary. Employees with tax problems received a total of 10,582 hours of paid time off — valued at about $250,000 — and 69 received permanent raises through a step increase. 

The report looked at bonuses just in 2011 and 2012, who knows about those other years? Employees' tax problems included "willful understatement of tax liabilities over multiple tax years, late payment of tax liabilities, and underreporting of income," the report said. "We take seriously our unique role as this nation's tax administrator, and we will strive to implement a policy that protects the integrity of the tax administration system and the reputation of the service," IRS chief Human Capital Officer David Krieg said in a written response to the audit. (Do people actually talk like that?) 

The IRS said it has instituted a policy to take conduct into account when handing out bonuses to senior executives. (They never thought of this before?) In fiscal year 2012, the agency awarded bonuses of $86.3 million in cash and almost 490,000 hours of time off. About 69% of the agency's 98,000 employees received some kind of bonus. Apparently non-payment of taxes by federal employees is a government-wide problem. The IRS says 311,536 federal employees were tax delinquents in 2011, owing a total of $3.5 billion. Huh? Bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to fire federal employees with seriously delinquent taxes. Better late than never, I suppose.

Survey Says Public Often Wrong

And the survey says .... Well, here you go. Few Americans question that smoking causes cancer. But as we get farther from our own bodies and the present, a new poll shows Americans have much more doubts in other concepts that scientists say are basic truth: global warming, evolution, and their largest question mark was in the Big Bang that created the universe. While scientists believe the universe began with a Big Bang, most Americans put a big question mark on the concept. Yet when it comes to smoking causing cancer or that a genetic code determines who we are, the doubts disappear. When considering concepts scientists consider truths, Americans have more skepticism than confidence in those that are farther away from our bodies in scope and time: global warming, the age of the Earth and evolution and especially the Big Bang from 13.8 billion years ago.

Rather than quizzing scientific knowledge, the survey asked people to rate their confidence in several statements about science and medicine. On some, there's broad acceptance. Just 4 percent doubt that smoking causes cancer, 6 percent question whether mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain and 8 percent are skeptical there's a genetic code inside our cells. More — 15 percent — have doubts about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines. About 4 in 10 say they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that life on Earth evolved through a process of natural selection, though most were at least somewhat confident in each of those concepts. But a narrow majority — 51 percent — questions the Big Bang theory.

Those results depress and upset some of America's top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts. "Science ignorance is pervasive in our society, and these attitudes are reinforced when some of our leaders are openly antagonistic to established facts," said 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine winner Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley. The poll highlights "the iron triangle of science, religion and politics," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. To the public "most often values and beliefs trump science" when they conflict, said Alan Leshner, chief executive of the world's largest scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Political and religious values were closely tied to views on science in the poll, with Democrats more apt than Republicans to express confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change. Confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change decline sharply as faith in a supreme being rises, according to the poll. Likewise, those who regularly attend religious services or are evangelical Christians express much greater doubts about scientific concepts they may see as contradictory to their faith. "When you are putting up facts against faith, facts can't argue against faith," said 2012 Nobel Prize winning biochemistry professor Robert Lefkowitz of Duke University. "It makes sense now that science would have made no headway because faith is untestable." But evolution, the age of the Earth and the Big Bang are all compatible with God, except to Bible literalists, said Francisco Ayala, a former priest and professor of biology, philosophy and logic at the University of California, Irvine.

Beyond religious belief, views on science may be tied to what we see with our own eyes. The closer an issue is to ourselves and the less complicated, the easier it is for people to believe, said John Staudenmaier, a Jesuit priest and historian of technology at the University of Detroit Mercy. Experience and faith aren't the only things affecting people's views on science. Duke University's Lefkowitz sees "the force of concerted campaigns to discredit scientific fact" as a more striking factor, citing significant interest groups — political, business and religious — campaigning against scientific truths on vaccines, climate change and evolution.

NY Police Twitter Campaign Backfires

This is hilarious! The New York City Police Department has a Twitter account, and somebody there thought it would be a good idea to ask people to post images of themselves and NYPD officers on Twitter, just to show how much they meant to the community. I guess they had images in their head of kindly benevolent officers helping little old ladies cross the street or handing out candy to children or something like that. "Do you have a photo with a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook page," the department posted on its NYPD News Twitter feed. Of course the idea was to fuel a feel-good, low-cost public relations campaign. 

Well, guess what? Those are not the kind of images and tweets they got back. Some samples of the deluge of pictures they received were of alleged police brutality, including many arrests of demonstrators that included such presumed low-lights as an officer pulling the hair of a handcuffed young black woman and another of the bloodied face of an 84-year-old stopped for jaywalking. Another image showing police after striking a protester brought the remark "Here the #NYPD engages with its community members, changing hearts and minds one baton at a time." Also largely criticized was the department's unpopular "stop and frisk" policy, which many argue unfairly targets minority youth. The NYPD so far has yet to post any happy shots on its Facebook page from its request for public submissions.

Oops!