Month: December 2007
Benazir Bhutto Assassinated
According to CNN’s report, she was bombed and shot:
Video of the scene just moments before the explosion showed Bhutto stepping into a heavily-guarded vehicle to leave the rally.
Khan said while it appeared Bhutto was shot, it was unclear if her bullet wounds were caused by a shooting or shrapnel from the bomb.
You don’t get bullet wounds from a bomb.
Shot and bombed, and this is a government teetering on the brink of anarchy with nuclear weapons.
Retail Sales Fall During Christmas Season, But Innumerate Reporters Miss It
Once again the inestimable Nouriel Roubini catches something that all the major news outlets missed, though in this case, it ain’t rocket science*: since inflation is running now above 4%, an year over year increase in sales of 3.6% is actually a decrease in sales.
Both the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal get this wrong.
*Full Disclosure, in 1999-2000 and 1996-1998, I worked as a mechanical engineer for what is now Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, and I have some claim to actually being a rocket scientist.
Democrats Try Fiscal Sanity in Campaigns
The Democratic Presidential candidates are finally moving toward a flat fee structure with their consultants, as opposed to paying a percentage of the media buy.
The Republicans have been doing this for years, and it removes a perverse incentive for the consultants to recommend large media buys, since it pads their fees.
Of interest is this statement:
In interviews, aides said Ms. Clinton, of New York, and Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina, had negotiated flat fees with their top consultants. And Mr. Obama, of Illinois, has capped what his consultants can earn, which will convert their more traditional percentage deal into a flat fee once his ad spending passes a certain threshold, his aides say.
As on healthcare, the putative “candidate of change” is taking the more timid and status quo route.
Hopefully, this is a first step in putting a better leash on Democratic political consultants who frequently spend too much time as the face of the campaign to the press.
Political consultants should neither be seen nor heard until after the general election.
Evidence That the Death Penalty Works
In looking at the numbers of police deaths this year, the most capital punishment crazy state in the nation, Texas, comes in first at 22, and Florida is second at 15.
They are numbers one and five in numbers of modern executions.
So clearly the death penalty causes police officer deaths.
click picture for a quick snapshot of the death penalty data.
Culinary Adventures: Chicken and Seaweed
We needed to make dinner, and my wife doubted that we had enough left over chicken to feed us all, but I had a solution.
We had a pack of udon noodles, so I got the water boiling for them, and put a about 3 cups of stock in a pot and started to boil it.
I took about 4 sheets of nori (Japanese sushi seaweed), shredded them, and put them in the stock, and brought it all to a simmer, then added the chicken and remaining gravy, some oriental vegetables (broccoli, snap peas, water chestnuts, etc.), and a few chicken wings from the freezer, which took no time at all in simmering broth..
Boiled the noodles for 8 minutes, and then rinsed with cold water to stop the cooking, and when the wings were good and done (even frozen, not that long), put the chicken and veggies on top of the udon.
The seaweed added a lot of umami* to the broth flavor, and even my son, who is a notoriously finicky eater† loved it.
*Umami, from the Japanese word or “meatiness” is the 5th flavor, along with salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. The actual taste bud receptor, for glutamates present in animal proteins, was determined in 2002, though it has been a part of oriental cookery for centuties, and the great Brillat-Savarin‘s concept of osmazome a very similar concept of meat flavor.
†Finicky eating habits is a classic symptom of conditions on the Autism spectrum
The DCCC Gets It: F#$@ the South
Todd Breeton, of MYDD, has obtained a list of the 40 districts targeted by the DCCC in 2008:
- AK-AL: Don Young
- AZ-01: Open
- AZ-03: John Shadegg
- CA-04: John Doolittle
- CA-26: David Dreier
- CA-50: Brian Bilbray
- CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
- CT-04: Chris Shays
- FL-08: Ric Keller
- FL-09: Gus Bilirakis
- FL-13: Vern Buchanan
- FL-24: Tom Feeney
- ID-01: Bill Sali
- IL-10: Mark Kirk
- IL-11: Open
- IL-14: Open
- MI-07: Tim Walberg
- MI-09: Joe Knollenberg
- MN-03: Open
- MN-06: Michele Bachmann
- MO-06: Sam Graves
- NV-03: Jon Porter
- NJ-03: Open
- NJ-07: Open
- NM-01: Open
- NM-02: Open
- NY-13: Vito Fossella
- NY-25: Jim Walsh
- NY-26: Tom Reynolds
- NY-29: Randy Kuhl
- NC-08: Robin Hayes
- OH-01: Steve Chabot
- OH-02: Jean Schmidt
- OH-14: Steve LaTourette
- OH-15: Open
- OH-16: Open
- PA-03: Phil English
- WA-08: Dave Reichert
- WV-02: Sheley Moore Capito
- WY-AL: Open
Here is the interesting part. There are no races taht they are targeting in the South.
Those Florida districts don’t count. They are South Florida, which is the “non-southern” part of the state. It’s where liberals come from in Florida.
This is an acknowledgment of a fact: there is very little of value in the south that has not already been taken.
What’s left is an electorate which is either 80%+ Democratic/Minority gerrymanders, and the Apartheid whites that still exist.
The former already had Democratic representatives, and the latter will never vote for anyone who allows N***ers to vote.
The Democratic party needs to stop distorting its message in an attempt to win the south, and this is a good start.
Military Engineering Kangaroo Court of Bilal Hussein
This guy is a Pulitzer prize winning photographer, and Scott Horton has the goods on the phony trial, designed to create a real conviction, that the US military has set up for him.
Go read, then go contact your congressman.
Sally Quinn Is Concerned
Oh my, Sally Quinn is shocked.
It appears that the House of Representatives has passed a resolution (H.R. 847) declaring that “Expresses continued support for Christians in the United States . . . acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States . . . rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and expresses its deepest respect to American Christians.”
She expresses concern that, “Earlier this year the House also passed resolutions honoring Islamic and Indian holidays but nothing that so equated a single faith with America and Americans”.
Gee, I wonder who might have created this.
I don’t know, maybe those people who valued pleasant DC cocktail party conversation over real discussions of issues and real values.
Maybe those who favored phony protestations of faith as a good way to “play the game” of politics”, because, of course, inside the Beltway, where all the important people live, policies don’t matter.
Whether you are a Washington Post editor (or just married to one), a congressional page, a lobbyist, a reporter, or a Washington DC pundit, you make decent money, are guaranteed steady work, have excellent health care benefits, and a pretty good retirement package.
You can’t take policy seriously, it gets in the way of your parties. It makes conversation stilted. It makes people think that you aren’t a “very serious person”.
Sound like anyone you know?
California Court Rules That Health Insurance Company Cancellations Frequently Illegal
This is good news for our friends in California.
The substance of the ruling:
- Insurance companies must check the accuracy of the applications before accepting the people for coverage.
- That the insured must be shown to have wilfully misrepresented their health status.
- That the low rescission rates upon application implied a deliberate policy of waiting until the claims rolled in to cancel.
A health plan, the court went on, “may not adopt a ‘wait and see’ attitude after learning of facts justifying rescission.” The court said companies could not continue to “collect premiums while keeping open its rescission option if the subscriber later experiences a serious accident or illness that generates large medical expenses.”
CIA Coverup: Muzzling Its Inspector General
According to this LA Times acricle, the retributive prope of the the CIA Inspector General by the CIA has yielded the desired results, “CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson has consented to more than a dozen procedural changes designed to address complaints that investigations carried out by his office were unfair to agency employees”.
The fact that the IG signed off on a letter from an Assistant AG Kenneth Wainstein telling congress to back off on its investigations without any explanation of how such an investigation could jeopardize the AG/IG investigation, is a pretty good explanation of what happened.
It appears that the old saying is true, an operation is preformed, and there are three possible results:
- The boy dies.
- The boy sings soprano in a choir well into adulthood.
- The boy becomes the CIA’s inspector general.
Nepal to abolish monarchy
Good it’s about bloody time.
Between mad cousins engaging in killing sprees, obscure dynastic politics, the suppression of basic civil rights, and actions calculated to drive the populace into the arms of Maoist guerrillas, the time for this institution has long past.
A Good Point on the Music Industry
Cogitamus has a very good point on the music industry, when he looks at the RIAA’s latest VNR (Video News Release).
The RIAA is saying that if you find a mix CD that actually has the music that you want to listen to, it’s probably pirated.
So let me get this straight, in order for me to get the music I want in the format that I want, it has to be illegal?
Seems to me that this is a pretty good indication that the current legal music industry is absolutely worthless.
Making 1929 Look Like a Walk in the Park
Interesting article in the Daily Telegraph, Crisis may make 1929 look a ‘walk in the park’.
Bullet point summary:
- Liquidity doesn’t do anything in this situation,” says Anna Schwartz, the doyenne of US monetarism and life-time student (with Milton Friedman) of the Great Depression, “It cannot deal with the underlying fear that lots of firms are going bankrupt. The banks and the hedge funds have not fully acknowledged who is in trouble. That is the critical issue,” she adds.
- Spreads on three-month Euribor and Libor – the interbank rates used to price contracts – are stuck at 80 basis points even after the latest blitz.
- That an implosion of the credit markets is months away.
- The 4% inflation mirrors what happened in Japan just before their meltdown.
- When the Japanese discount rate was lowered to 0%, it did no good.
- Not a single junk bond has been issued in Europe since August. Every attempt failed.
- Increase sentiments for restoring national currencies in the EU. (Interestingly enough, this would provide a potential boost to the dollar, as it would make the Euro less attractive as a reserve currency)
As I’ve said, we are seeing a breakdown of the Ango-Saxon model of capitalism, where minimal regulation is really an excuse for klepto-capitalism.
I do not see a solution to this except through a devaluation of currencies, particularly the $US.
Obama Looking at Appointing Schwartzenegger to Cabinet
This is, I think, a good illustration of the problems that I have with Obama.
Arnold is not a bipartisan figure, he is a self serving one, and only after getting his clock cleaned did he make any real effort toward “bipartisan” action. Furthermore, he’s doing his best to undermine those so called bipartisan initiatives through executive orders and inaction.
Ahnuld is not even suitable as head of the physical fitness council, as he is a former steroid user.
This is a dangerous level of naivety, and until adults run the Republican party again, reaching across the party aisle is simply an exercise in futility.
More Troubling Economic News
First, the index of leading economic indicators falls for the third time in four months in November, dropping 0.3%, and it turns out that no one wants to buy into the mega-sh$@ pile that was supposed to buy up Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) to prevent fire sale prices on these assets.
It turns out that no one was interested in contributing to the fund. I think that “the market” has recognized that this was an attempt to shift to cost of bad decisions from the makers of those decisions to the ordinary investor, and while Wall Street typically likes this setup, they realized that even the most naive investor was already onto the game.
Mainstraem Journalism Finally Recognizes that “Incentives” Distort Reported Home Price
The fact that “sales incentives” are really stealth price cuts has has finally been noticed by the Wall Street Journal.
Buyers, sellers and other market participants typically monitor fluctuating home values through sale records that legally have to be listed with county clerks. But incentives offered to buyers — ranging from free cars or furniture to cash rebates — are making those prices less reliable as a sign of what buyers actually paid, netting out the giveaways. And that may be misleading lenders and people shopping for homes, some real-estate lawyers and appraisers warn.
Well, duh.
That is the purpose of these incentives, along with artificially inflating realtor’s’ commissions. (If the price were cut instead, the realtors would typically take a hit on their commission of over $1000)
Chinese Food On Christmas
Chinese Food On Christmas, by Brandon Walker.
Not this Yid, but I am caught a movie with my kids.
FWIW, this guy is from Baltimore, and I’ve eaten in that restaurant, and I’ve shopped at that mall, it’s where the Wegmans is.
The Smiler Now a Papist
Tony Blair converts to Catholicism.
This comes as no surprise to me. One wonders when he will join Opus Dei, the right wing Catholic Organization founded by fascist (literally) and alleged pedophile Josemaría Escrivá.
My Posting Will Be Down For a Bit
I’m working on my eponymous printed-on-paper and mailed through the post year end newsletter, so posting frequency will drop a bit.
Click the link for more info, and to access the pdf archives (the link above is not a PDF)
The generally low posting quality, will, of course, remain unchanged.