Australia Is A Giant US Military Base With Kangaroos
The Australians do appear to be in a fierce competition with the UK over who will be the US’s top poodle.
Category: Australia and New Zealand
Worse Response to a Bad Idea
The Australian government is in the process of passing a law that requires payment for linking to news sites, which to my mind is a horrible idea, and Mark Zuckerberg’s response to all of this is to have Facebook ban all Australian news content from their platform.
Granted, Australia is not a huge market, at 25 million people, it’s only about 5 million more people than the New York City metropolitan area, but this ham-fisted response is going to do a lot of damage to Facebook while mildly inconveniencing the people of Australia.
I don’t expect Zuckerberg to cave, and in that case, I see Australia generally moving to some other source of rumors, genocidal racists, fascism, and cat pix.
The Australians are a hardy and inventive people:
Facebook has followed through on its threat to ban Australians from seeing or posting news content on its site in response to the federal government’s news media code.
The tech giant’s Australian and New Zealand managing director, Will Easton, said this would block links to Australian publishers from being posted, while no Australian users would be able to share or see content from any news outlets, both Australian and international.
“The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content,” he said in a blog post published on Thursday morning. “It has left us facing a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship, or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia.
“With a heavy heart, we are choosing the latter.”
………
Users on Thursday reported seeing a pop-up error window when they attempted to post links to news, stating these cannot be posted in response to the news media code.
………
Facebook’s move is in contrast to the approach from the other major platform subject to the code, Google.
Although Google had threatened to withdraw its search engine from Australia if the code went ahead, in the past week, Google has signed agreements with some of Australia’s biggest publishers, including News Corp, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media, for payment for its News Showcase product. The Nine deal is reportedly worth $30m a year.
As several people have pointed out to me, Facebook blocked itself. pic.twitter.com/LVhyJMAHfp
— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) February 17, 2021
Yes, Facebook banned Facebook, I think that the Aussies would call this an “Own Goal”
It gets even worse, because Facebook f%$#ed up the rollout of the ban, shutting down non-profits and government agencies as well:
The Bureau of Meteorology, state health departments, the Western Australian opposition leader, charities and Facebook itself are among those to have been hit by Facebook’s ban on news in Australia.
On Thursday morning Facebook began preventing Australian news sites from posting, while also stopping Australian users from sharing or viewing content from any news outlets, both Australian and international.
The social media giant said it made the decision in response to the news media bargaining code currently before the Senate, which would force Facebook and Google to negotiate with news companies for payment for content.
………
As Australia prepares to begin the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, state health departments, including SA Health and Queensland Health, were unable to post.
St Vincent’s Health in Melbourne said it was “extremely concerning”its Facebook page had been blocked “during a pandemic and on the eve of crucial Covid vaccine distribution”.
Facebook is claiming that this was a “Mistake.”
If you believe that, I have a bridge in Melbourne made completely of Koala poop to sell you.
While at the Other Ocean………
It appears that the elections called by Malcolm Trumbull just made Australia’s approval of the TPP next to impossible in the near future:
With a new Senate likely to be hostile to free trade deals, the road to signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership just got bumpy, writes Richard Denniss.
One thing that is certain after Saturday’s election, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is dead, and along with it the Coalition’s economic agenda and narrative. The free trade agreements that Andrew Robb signed with China, Korea, and Japan were some of Tony Abbott’s proudest achievements, yet they are exactly the sort of deals that Pauline Hanson, Nick Xenophon, and Jacqui Lambie believe cost Australian manufacturing workers jobs.
And thanks to Malcolm Turnbull’s new Senate voting rules and double dissolution election, Hanson, Xenophon, and Lambie are now the block of votes that the Coalition will need to win over to pass their legislation when the ALP and Greens are opposed.
This may not kill the TPP, but it has the effect of making the timetable Obama that wants (he sees it as a presidential legacy issus), where there is a lame duck vote, next to impossible.
It is not clear who will win the election, but it is clear that the Colalition will not have the votes to pass TPP without significant support from smaller parties because the Senate is looking to be a complete mess, and unlike other upper houses in the British Commonwealth, the Australian Senate is much more powerful, being somewhat analogous to the US Senate in power.
Again, good news, because much like CETA and the TPIP, the TPP is a horribly flawed “trade deal.”
Ripper Patent Rulling In Oz
The Australian Supreme Court just completely slapped down gene patents, which, with a bit of common sense, should be an end to that particular abomination in IP land:
Australia’s highest court has ruled unanimously that a version of a gene that is linked to an increased risk for breast cancer cannot be patented. The case was brought by 69-year-old pensioner from Queensland, Yvonne D’Arcy, who had taken the US company Myriad Genetics to court over its patent for mutations in the BRCA1 gene that increase the probability of breast and ovarian cancer developing, as The Sydney Morning Herald reports. Although she lost twice in the lower courts, the High Court of Australia allowed her appeal, ruling that a gene was not a “patentable invention.”
The court based its reasoning (PDF) on the fact that, although an isolated gene such as BRCA1 was “a product of human action, it was the existence of the information stored in the relevant sequences that was an essential element of the invention as claimed.” Since the information stored in the DNA as a sequence of nucleotides was a product of nature, it did not require human action to bring it into existence, and therefore could not be patented.
Although that seems a sensible ruling, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has been fighting against this self-evident logic for years. The view that genes could be patented suffered a major defeat in 2013, when the US Supreme Court struck down Myriad Genetics’ patents on the genes BRCA1 and the similar BRCA2. The industry was hoping that a win in Australia could keep alive the idea that genes could be owned by a company in the form of a patent monopoly. The victory by D’Arcy now makes it highly likely that other judges around the world will take the view that genes cannot be patented.
………
Striking down gene patents in Australia, as in the US, clears the path for new entrants to the gene testing market, which is likely to drive down prices. It could also spur more biomedical innovation by allowing researchers freedom to investigate previously patented genes and develop new therapies, without fearing potential lawsuits.
If the judgement is followed by courts in other jurisdictions, and the whole idea of gene patents is rejected, the number of people whose lives could be saved will be correspondingly greater.
It has been patently* clear for decades that isolating genes is a process of discovery, and not invention, and hence they should not be covered by patents.
The biotech industry’s counter-argument has always been, “But we want our money!:
In a statement, Myriad also expresses its disappointment with the ruling. “The High Court’s decision comes at a critical time when we’re entering the golden era of personalized medicine,” it says, as GenomeWeb reports. “In order for personalized medicine to become a reality, strong patent protection is essential because it provides the research-based companies like Myriad with an incentive to continue to invest in R&D.”
(emphasis mine)
Basically, they are arguing that if we won’t allow them to patent their discoveries, they will take their marbles and go home.
There are two things wrong with this:
- Patents are for inventions, not discoveries.
- Allowing for rent seeking through patents makes it more likely that genetic products will will be released without adequate testing, because the potential profits are so huge.
And that is ignoring the fact that it is taxpayer funded research that have led to these discoveries.
*Pun not intended.
TPP: the Fat Lady Ain’t Singing, but She Is Warming Up
At the end of last month, the negotiations that were supposed to put the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) ended without an agreement.
What’s more, there wasn’t even a date set for a followup summit:
Trade negotiators from the United States and 11 other Pacific nations failed to reach final agreement on Friday, with difficult talks on the largest regional trade agreement ever deadlocking over protections for drug companies and access to agriculture markets on both sides of the Pacific.
Trade ministers, in a joint statement, said late Friday they had made “significant progress” and will return to their home countries to obtain high-level signoffs for a small number of final sticking points on the agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with bilateral talks reconvening soon.
“There are an enormous number of issues that one works through at these talks, narrowing differences, finding landing zones,” said Michael B. Froman, the United States trade representative. “I am very impressed with the work that has been done. I am gratified by the progress that has been made.”
Still, the breakdown is a setback for the Obama administration, which had promoted the talks here as the final round ahead of an accord that would bind 40 percent of the world’s economy under a new set of rules for commerce.
This is a failure, and a big one.
In a normally unproductive summit, the Japanese would oblique.
When a Japanese diplomat says, “It would be difficult,” it should be read “No!” with the explanation point, and when a Japanese diplomat says that, “It would be very difficult, it’s the equivalent of “F%$# You White Man.”
This time, the Japanese Economy Minister, who is their lead on this deal, just explicitly stated that the US were too wimpy:
Japan has expressed concern about a loss of momentum in talks on a pan-Pacific trade pact after participants failed to agree to meet again this month to try to clinch a deal that would cover 40 percent of the global economy.
Ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which would stretch from Japan to Chile, fell short of a deal at talks last month on the Hawaiian island of Maui, despite early optimism.
Japanese Economy Minister Akira Amari, in a blog circulated on Tuesday, also questioned why the United States appeared to have lacked its usual “stubborn persistence” at those talks, despite a willingness of some countries to stay to try to reach an agreement.
If this were translated into standard American discourse, it would use language that would make George Carlin uncomfortable.
And from Australia, a country whose foreign policy is defined by a desperate need to be “In the Club”, the Trade Minister is saying that a deal is unlikely:
Australia’s trade minister, Andrew Robb, has appeared at the National Press Club in Canberra today, where he admitted that concluding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is looking increasingly unlikely.
According to AAP, Rob said that sugar and dairy access remained key sticking points, along with motor vehicle assess between Mexico, the US, Canada and Japan. He also noted that “the closer we get to a US presidential election, the more prospect (there is) of it falling over”.
There is also the upcoming Canadian elections later this year.
Seeing as how this deal sucks, it’s a good thing that it appears to be comatose.
A Bonza Idea from the Aussies
From Australia we see a proposal to limit social welfare benefits to parents who refuse to inoculate their children. Well played:
Parents who are “conscientious objectors” to childhood vaccination will have their childcare and family tax payments stopped from 1 January next year as the federal government attempts to crack down on the anti-vaccination movement.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced on Sunday a loophole would be closed to stop payments to parents worth up to $15,000 per child.
“Parents who vaccinate their children should have confidence that they can take their children to childcare without the fear that their children will be at risk of contracting a serious or potentially life-threatening illness because of the conscientious objections of others,” Mr Abbott said.
Although Australia’s overall childhood vaccination rates remain high – about 97 per cent – the numbers of people who are registered conscientious objectors has risen in the past 10 years.
There are now 39,000 children aged under seven who are not vaccinated because their parents are registered, according to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register.
This is an increase of more than 24,000 children over the past 10 years.
This is a very good idea.
First, having unvaccinated children in childcare facilities is like smoking exploding cigars at an oil refinery.
Second, the science has thoroughly debunked Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s vaccination-autism link.
Third, much of the anti-vaxx movement is about relying on herd immunity from the rest of society, and so they are moochers.
Forth, it puts those with compromised immune systems, who are medically unable to be vaccinated, at risk.
Finally, children should not be held hostage to their parents’ idiocy:
Writing on The ScentificParent blog, a chagrined Canadian mom announced that she is leaving the anti-vaxx movement after all of her seven children — four of them completely unvaccinated — have come down with whooping cough.
Writing from quarantine, and surrounded by sick kids, Tara Hills wrote she is “emotionally, a bit raw. Mentally a bit taxed. Physically I’m fine,” before admitting that not only are her own kids sick, but they may have exposed her five-month-old niece who is too young to be fully vaccinated.
What began with a cold brought into her home by her brother-in-law, turned into coughing by her kids leading to full-blown whooping cough in all seven children.
“My youngest three children were coughing so hard they would gag or vomit. I’d never seen anything like this before,” she wrote. ” Watching our youngest struggle with this choking cough, bringing up clear, stringy mucus – I had heard of this before somewhere. My mom said I had it when I was a kid. I snapped into ‘something is WRONG’ mode.”
Jumping onto her computer, she discovered her children’s symptoms matched — almost perfectly — all the symptoms of whooping cough in a household that was woefully under-vaccinated.
“We had vaccinated our first three children on an alternative schedule and our youngest four weren’t vaccinated at all. We stopped because we were scared and didn’t know who to trust,” she explained. ” Was the medical community just paid off puppets of a Big Pharma-Government-Media conspiracy? Were these vaccines even necessary in this day and age? Were we unwittingly doing greater harm than help to our beloved children? So much smoke must mean a fire so we defaulted to the ‘do nothing and hope nothing bad happens’ position.”
Hills explained that she had a hard time overcoming her biases and mistrust of “Big Pharma,” asking herself, “Could all the in-house, independent, peer-reviewed clinical trials, research papers and studies across the globe ALL be flawed, corrupt and untrustworthy?”
Now Hills says that years spent “frozen” out of fear of vaccinating her kids has the whole family frozen: confined to their home by a quarantine.
She said she hopes her mea culpa will make other families who have held back from getting their children vaccinated rethink what they are doing.
“Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear. I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk. I want them to know that we tried our best to protect our kids when we were afraid of vaccination and we are doing our best now, for everyone’s sake, by getting them up to date. We can’t take it back … but we can learn from this and help others the same way we have been helped.”
Preach it, sister.
Those Cheeky Kiwis
Some headline writer at The Press, in Christchurch, NZ, understands Ted Cruz better than the whole of the Washington press corps(e).
H/t Jim Romenesko.
Sydney? Seriously?
I have to say that if terrorists were going to make an attack, Sydney, Australia would be the last place that I would expect:
At least one gunman is holding staff and customers hostage at a cafe in the Australian city of Sydney.
Hundreds of armed police have sealed off the normally busy Martin Place in the central business district.
Earlier, at least three people were seen inside the Lindt cafe with their hands up against a window, and holding up a black flag with Arabic writing.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has described the “terrifying” incident as “deeply concerning”.
It is not yet confirmed as a terrorist attack, though the fact that the hostage takers appeared to have displayed the black Jihadi flag would imply that this is likely.
It’s just plain weird.
Thank You Harry Reid
The Majority Leader of the Senate has come out against fast track authority for trade deals:
President Barack Obama’s push for authority to fast-track trade deals has hit a big setback in the form of opposition from his top fellow Democrat in Congress, but it is far from dead.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s warning to policymakers on Wednesday “just to not push this right now” reflects concern about the domestic political agenda ahead of November’s congressional elections, when free trade could be a damaging issue for many Democrats.
The unusually blunt public opposition came less than 24 hours after Obama noted the need for fast-track power in his State of the Union address, albeit less forcefully than business lobbyists and pro-trade Republicans would have liked.
The White House called Reid’s office shortly after his comments to voice displeasure, a top Democratic party aide said.
“They were really upset,” the aide said. But the aide said the White House did not try to get Reid to shift his position.
These guys were really upset because they, like the staffers who negotiated NAFTA for Clinton and Bush I, made some serious bank as lobbyists and consultants.
I really hope that it’s not, as Yves Smith’s sources say, “Another gambit is more likely: to make some cosmetic changes and try to get the bill passed during the lame duck session, on the assumption that some Democrats (particularly those who are leaving office) will use the cover and change positions.”
The TPP, and it’s European equivalent, the TTIP, are egregiously bad deals, not just for the United States, but for the whole world, because they are predicated on the idea that democracy and transparency must be almost completely eschewed in the interest of unregulated global investment flows and IP based looting through draconian copyright and patent provisions.
These are abysmally bad deals for everyone but banksters, big pharma, and the cocaine addicted brothers in law of senior studio and record label executives.
Fabulous!
New Zealand has legalized gay marriage.
New Zealand Decides Looks at the Mess that is Cyprus, and Decides that it Has a Purty Mouth
When Troika (really, the Germans) decided that the solution to Cyprus’ problem with its banks was to take money from insured accounts, they had no idea the firestorm that it would unleash.
It appears that the Troika (really, the Germans) have found the limits of the authority, and hence the misery, that they can inflict, and so the Cypriot Parliament voted down the proposal to take money from depositor accounts:
The Cypriot parliament has thrown out a controversial plan to skim €5.8bn (£5bn) from savers’ bank accounts, in a move that risks plunging the eurozone into a fresh crisis and heightens expectations that the cash-strapped country will seek a funding lifeline from Russia.
Cyprus has just 24 hours to find a solution to its funding gap before its banks are due to reopen following the dramatic no vote on Tuesday night, which failed to support a hastily renegotiated change to the original deal.
Late on Tuesday night the eurozone governments said that despite the vote Cyprus would still need to raise the €5.8 bn – a third of the €17bn bailout.
There are limits to bailing out hedge funds and large European banks, I guess.
Unfortunately, the good folks in New Zealand, which, as Yves Smith observes is already a haven for fraudulent corporations, had decided to abandon the whole concept of insuring bank deposit:
Picture this: you check your bank balance and see that your $1000 lies safely in your savings account.
That night you switch on the evening news and find to your horror that your bank has failed.
It turns out that the Government has had to move quickly, and has placed your bank in statutory management.
The next day you check your bank balance and you find that you have taken what is referred to in the banking industry as a “haircut”.
In other words, part of your savings remain, let’s say 80 per cent, but 20 per cent of it has been frozen – perhaps forever – while the statutory manager sorts out the mess.
You have just entered the world of Open Bank Resolution (OBR).
It may come as a surprise that the Reserve Bank already has the power to freeze bank deposits. The problem for the central bank has been a lack of technical infrastructure to implement the policy, should the need arise. The bank said last week that it was in discussion with the banks on “pre-positioning” their systems for OBR.
Un f%$#ing believable
A press release from the a New Zealand Green Party MP follows after the break:
National planning Cyprus-style solution for New Zealand
Tuesday, 19 Mar 2013 | Press Release
Contact: Russel Norman MP
Tags: Banking & Finance, Smart Economics, Economics
The National Government is pushing a Cyprus-style solution to bank failure in New Zealand which will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts, the Green Party said today.
Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out.
“Bill English is proposing a Cyprus-style solution for managing bank failure here in New Zealand – a solution that will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.
“The Reserve Bank is in the final stages of implementing a system of managing bank failure called Open Bank Resolution. The scheme will put all bank depositors on the hook for bailing out their bank.
“Depositors will overnight have their savings shaved by the amount needed to keep the bank afloat.
“While the details are still to be finalised, nearly all depositors will see their savings reduced by the same proportions.
“Bill English is wrong to assume everyday people are able to judge the soundness of their bank. Not even sophisticated investors like Merrill Lynch saw the global financial crisis coming.
“If he insists on pushing through this unfair scheme, small depositors can be protected ahead of time with a notified savings threshold below which their savings will be safe from any interference.”
Dr Norman questioned the Government’s insistence on pursuing Open Bank Resolution when virtually no other OECD country uses it.
“Open Bank Resolution is unprecedented in the world. Most OECD countries run deposit insurance schemes which protect people’s deposits up to a maximum ranging from $100,000 – $250,000,” Dr Norman said.
“OBR is not in line with Australia, which protects bank deposits up to $250,000.
“A deposit insurance scheme is a much simpler, well-tested alternative to Open Bank Resolution. It rewards safe banks with lower premiums and limits the cost to taxpayers of a bank failure.
“Deposit insurance will, however, require the Reserve Bank to oversee and regulate our banks more closely – a measure which is ultimately the best protection against bank failure.”
“The Reserve Bank is in the final stages of implementing a system of managing bank failure called Open Bank Resolution. The scheme will put all bank depositors on the hook for bailing out their bank.“Depositors will overnight have their savings shaved by the amount needed to keep the bank afloat.
“While the details are still to be finalised, nearly all depositors will see their savings reduced by the same proportions.
“Bill English is wrong to assume everyday people are able to judge the soundness of their bank. Not even sophisticated investors like Merrill Lynch saw the global financial crisis coming.
“If he insists on pushing through this unfair scheme, small depositors can be protected ahead of time with a notified savings threshold below which their savings will be safe from any interference.”
Dr Norman questioned the Government’s insistence on pursuing Open Bank Resolution when virtually no other OECD country uses it.
“Open Bank Resolution is unprecedented in the world. Most OECD countries run deposit insurance schemes which protect people’s deposits up to a maximum ranging from $100,000 – $250,000,” Dr Norman said.
“OBR is not in line with Australia, which protects bank deposits up to $250,000.
“A deposit insurance scheme is a much simpler, well-tested alternative to Open Bank Resolution. It rewards safe banks with lower premiums and limits the cost to taxpayers of a bank failure.
“Deposit insurance will, however, require the Reserve Bank to oversee and regulate our banks more closely – a measure which is ultimately the best protection against bank failure.”
Someone Here Should Be Going to Jail, and It Ain’t Kim Dotcom
It turns out that most of the evidence in the case against Kim Dotcom and Megaupload was kept on their servers at the request of the US government:
A fresh legal bid to throw out the case against Kim Dotcom in the United States is being made after claims of an FBI double-cross.
Evidence has emerged showing the Department of Homeland Security served a search warrant on Mr Dotcom’s file-sharing company Megaupload in 2010 which he claims forced it to preserve pirated movies found in an unrelated piracy investigation.
The 39 files were identified during an investigation into the NinjaVideo website, which had used Megaupload’s cloud storage to store pirated movies.
………
Mr Dotcom said Megaupload co-operated with the US Government investigation into copyright pirates NinjaVideo and was legally unable to delete the 39 movies identified in the search warrant.
Mr Dotcom said: “We were informed by (the US Government) we were not to interfere with the investigation. We completely co-operated.
………
The FBI application to seize the sites said the “Mega Conspiracy” members were told by “criminal search warrant” in June 2010 “that 39 infringing copies of copyrighted motion pictures were present on their leased servers”. The application was approved to allow the seizure of the domain names.
Someone was outright lying to judges in both the United States and New Zealand in order to do a favor for the pukes at the MPAA.
This is what happens when you make the conscious decision to use the powers of government as the enforcement arm of private interests.
It is inherently corrupt, and inherently corrupting.
(on edit)
If you want to make the argument that the MPAA is just being a zealous protector of its client studios, it’s not. It’s about power.
If the movie studios were to look at the effect of low levels of file sharing, like that which was done by some Megaupload customers, they would know that shutting down the file storage site cost them money:
A new paper suggests that box office revenues were negatively impacted after the shutdown of Megaupload. The dip in revenues was most visible for average size and smaller films. According to the researchers this may have been caused by the loss of word-of-mouth promotion by people who used the popular file-hosting site to share movies. For blockbuster movies the Megaupload shutdown had the opposite effect.
In common with every file-sharing service, Megaupload was used by some of its members to host copyright-infringing movies.
For this reason the MPAA was one of the main facilitators of the Megaupload investigation, which ultimately led to the shutdown of the company in January.
The movie industry was quick to praise the government’s actions, but a new report suggests that Megaupload’s demise actually resulted in lower box office revenues.
Researchers from Munich School of Management and Copenhagen Business School published a short paper titled “Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload.” The study analyzes weekly data from 1344 movies in 49 countries over a five-year period, to asses the impact of the Megaupload shutdown on movie theater visits.
The researchers theorize that some films may actually benefit from piracy due to word of mouth promotion, and their findings partly support this idea.
So some level of file sharing can help, particularly with smaller films, like indie films.
There appears to be less/no benefit to larger films, probably because most of the studio blockbusters are crap, and so word of mouth is a bad thing.
This is not about protecting the artist. This is about protecting the do-nothing job of the studio chief’s brother in law.
Or, to be a little bit less flip, it’s about shutting down potential distribution and publicity channels that threaten the movie and record distributors’ ability act as an intermediary and charge a toll.
This is Huge
A Judge in Australia has just found Standard and Poors liable for bad investments:
I’d never heard of Australian federal judge Jayne Jagot before today, but she’s my new favorite jurist, thanks to her decision in a recent court case which was brought against ABN Amro and Standard & Poors.
The coverage of the decision (Quartz, FT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Reuters) concentrates, as it should, on the hugely important precedent being set here: that a ratings agency — in this case, S&P — is being found liable for losses that an investor suffered after trusting that agency.
S&P is appealing the decision, which runs to an astonishing 635,500 words, or almost 1,500 pages: it’s literally longer than War and Peace. At this point, it’s fair to assume that Jagot is one of the world’s foremost experts on structuring and rating CPDOs — crazy derivative instruments which had a brief moment of glory at the end of 2006 before imploding spectacularly during the financial crisis. And helpfully, her decision begins with a 56-paragraph summary of her findings, which lays out exactly how culpable and incompetent S&P really was.
Needless to say, I have not read the whole opinion, though I did look at the summary, which was eye glazing on its own.
The substance of this ruling is that:
- ABN Amro had a model of risks and return that was crap.
- And S&P used it without any consideration as to the quality of the model.
- The data that ABN Amro used in this model was complete crap.
- And S&P used used it without any consideration as to the quality of the data.
Basically, we are talking about is willful blindness, which does not eliminate culpability, and willful blindness is at the core of the the ratings agencies business model.
Here is hoping that this survives appeal.
Yes, Making a Tort a Criminal Matter is Stupid
I can think of no better example how how our relentless criminalization of our IP laws creating an environment where prosecutors and IP holders run roughshod over our rights and the presumption of innocence than the current clusterf%$# that is the Kim Dotcom persecution:
Officials in New Zealand’s government apparently believed the law gave them the right to spy on MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom because he was a foreign national.
They were wrong.
In New Zealand today, Prime Minister John Key apologized to DotCom for the spying conducted against him by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).
The United States has accused DotCom of criminal copyright violations. In January, New Zealand police raided his home and arrested him. Just ahead of the raid, the GCSB began collecting intelligence against DotCom to see if he posed any danger to the police who would later swoop in by helicopter to arrest him.
[It] Turns out that the GCSB isn’t allowed to conduct such surveillance on New Zealand citizens, and the agency was under the false impression that DotCom, who was born in Germany, was not yet a citizen.
This meant that the spying was unlawful.
If you don’t think that they were breaking the law knowingly at the explicit request of the FBI, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Speaking of Wankers
The Australian prosecutors, who tried to seize proceeds from David Hicks’ memoir about his captivity and torture at the US facility in Guantanamo Bay:
So the Australian government has shot itself in the foot while aiming at David Hicks. It would be funny if it weren’t so appalling.
The withdrawal of the dubious literary proceeds of crime action against Hicks raises questions the Commonwealth DPP has not fully answered. Why was the case dropped? What new material was presented by Hicks that prosecutors were unaware of when launching proceedings?
The DPP’s statement acknowledges the plea Hicks entered in the US – an ++”Alford plea” whereby a defendant is able to acknowledge the evidence without admitting commission of the offences charged – “is not recognised in Australia”. Furthermore, the DPP was unable to “satisfy the court that the admissions should be relied upon”, and the defendant “served evidential material not previously available to the CDPP & AFP”.
The “evidential material” in question were his allegations of coercion and torture, which were in the book that generated the moneys in question.
OK, I’m Speechless
An anti-Gay former Alabama gubernatorial candidate is donating sperm to lesbians:
A conservative Christian politician has a secret life as a sperm donor for lesbian couples – even though he has campaigned against gay marriage.
American politician Bill Johnson has spent most of this year in Christchurch helping run the earthquake recovery, all the while using the online persona “chchbill” to meet women who want help to get pregnant.
Under that persona, he has discussed making donations to at least nine women without the knowledge of his family in the US.
Three of the women are now pregnant, and Johnson has assisted another three with donations in the past month. It is believed he has been in communication with at least another three women to discuss sperm donation.
…
He moved to Christchurch after the February quake without his wife Kathy, a two-time Mrs America finalist who has three children from a former relationship. Johnson is long-term recovery manager for Ceres NZ.
The Herald on Sunday approached Johnson on Thursday at a restaurant in Christchurch where he had just finished dining with one of the women he had successfully impregnated.
He said the urge to become a biological father was “a need that I have”.
“I am married to the most beautiful woman in the world. When I married her I knew we couldn’t have any more children. She had a hysterectomy 10 years ago.
OK, I do have one thing to say, this guy has some serious problems with narcissism.
This is the most self absorbed thing that I’ve heard of ever.
And the whole former Miss America thing is the cherry on the weirdness sundae.
This is an Inspired Way to F%$# With the Police
No violence, no profanity, but the people at Occupy Melbourne have it going on!
It’s whimsical and effective.
Two snaps up.
(on edit)
It appears that I postedcondemnation of the thuggish police response before I posted the story. (I set this up to post on Friday, because of its lighbt hearted nature)
Oops!
But Vegemite Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction
It appears that Australia’s Foreign Minister Paul Rudd was rather put off when homeland security wanted to prevent him from taking the brown food like substance on a commercial flight:
Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd had to talk himself out of trouble after airport officials flagged up a suspicious liquid in his cabin baggage – a jar of Vegemite.
Mr Rudd was heading to New York from Mexico City when he attracted the authorities’ attention.
He explained that the dark brown paste was his breakfast and, with help from local diplomats, was allowed through.
Vegemite, a savoury paste made from yeast extract, is popular in Australia.
It is similar to Marmite, which is widely eaten in the UK, but is hard to buy in many countries.
“Only problem travelling to NY is that they tried to confiscate our Vegemite at the airport. Needed Foreign Ministerial intervention,” Mr Rudd tweeted.
“Airport staff were surprised when I said it is good for you and I ate it for breakfast. They then waved me through,” he said.
One bit of meta here, if you object to my using the the tag “Food” on this post, I understand completely.
It was a tough call for me.
Australia Intends to Institute a Carbon Tax
Well, this is a good policy, at least until 2015, when they turn the whole idea over to the Vampire Squid* and its ilk:
The Australian government has unveiled plans to impose a tax on carbon emissions for the worst polluters.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said carbon dioxide emissions would be taxed at A$23 ($25; £15) per tonne from 2012.
The country’s biggest economic reform in a generation will cover some 500 companies. In 2015, a market-based trading scheme will be introduced.
(emphasis mine)
Once the market based trading scheme is implemented, we can expect to see the investment banks come up with all sorts of opaque trading schemes (Carbon Default Swaps anyone?) that will serve primarily as a means to extract fees and other rents from the process, and then we will see another orgy of fraud and speculation bring the market down.
Of course, this won’t happen immediately, particularly since there would be floor and ceiling prices for the first few years, but it will happen, and money that is extracted from the public will go to private speculators rather than the public good.
*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.
Love is Tough
A hickey triggered a stroke for a woman in New Zealand.
Luckily, she recovered after a regime with treatment with anti-coagulants.