The Kitchen Drawer

Why is Rick Santorum hot in Iowa now?

2012-01-02T18:08:00.000-05:00

Because he's the latest Republican candidate in Iowa to get recognized for NOT being Mitt Romney. Also, 'S' comes later in the alphabet.

Bachman
Perry
Cain
Gingrich

Other than the Perry Blip it's mostly been alphabetical. Pawlenty just ran out of money before it could be his turn.

And don't ask me about that other Mormon running for the Republican nomination. Really, other than the news media and his family, no one gives a shit about Huntsman's candidacy. There's probably 15 other schmucks running for the nomination that you've never heard of either.

Typical

2011-12-27T19:14:00.002-05:00

Typical of my mother's house, now half owned by me, is that everything gets old and breaks faster here than anywhere else. The latest example: A CFL bulb. I put a dimmable CFL into a fixture in the kitchen. It cost me about $13. Lasted all of 16 DAYS. Damn near a dollar a day for the fucking bulb, and naturally I threw the packaging in the trash Sunday night. (That trash got hauled off Monday morning.)

Cold Warriors at Work

2011-12-26T10:42:00.001-05:00

The Associated Press (via Yahoo!) has a very nice story about a recently declassified Cold War spy satellite program. For those of you that remember 1970s era references to Big Bird that had nothing to do with Sesame Street, this story provides some depth and human interest.

Does blogger still not like "blog"?

2011-12-22T20:24:00.002-05:00

Blogger isn't objecting to "blog" as I write this post. So blogger eventually figured it out.

Rhetoric

2011-11-15T22:05:00.001-05:00

A modern politician's take on the masses:

They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

And now the take of a politician of an earlier era:

It is treason against the nation to take away its dreams. For my part, I admit I have known but one God. The God of all the world and of justice. The man in the fields adds to this conception that of a man who works, whom he makes sacred because his youth, his manhood, and his old age owe to the priest their little moments of happiness. When a man is poor and wretched, his soul grows tender, and he clings especially to whatever seems majestic: leave him his illusions— teach him if you will . . . but do not let the poor fear that they may lose the one thing that binds them to earth, since wealth cannot bind them.

Note that the longer quote is actually more elegant, even in translation, and far more sympathetic.

Wonder

2011-09-08T23:14:00.000-04:00

Today I stumbled across two bits of wonder, both (ultimately) courtesy of the Cassini probe sent to Saturn. First, a spectacular picture of Saturn it all his glory.

Second, I have a link to a film being put together from images taken from the Cassini. I highly recommend sitting in a quiet room and spending a couple of minutes watching this clip.

Just when you think it couldn't get more sickening...

2011-08-16T23:29:00.001-04:00

... it comes to this. (Via the Orlando Sentinel.)

Money for abstinence, but not dying kids?

Turns out the Florida state legislature has turned down federal money for items such as aid for the disabled, money to fund programs for seniors who couldn’t afford their medicine, and hospice care for dying children from needy families. They turned down the money on principle, because it was funded through the mis-named ObamaCare bill. They turned down the money despite having initially REQUESTED the money.

But hey, they took a stand on principle, right? Wrong. Because they DID accept money through the same funding source for ABSTINENCE EDUCATION in public schools.

Meanwhile, the state legislators pay $8 a month for their health insurance – that’s it. Not a deal any of us peons will ever get.

They really do want the poor to die faster, and to stop breeding altogether. It just couldn’t be any more blatant than that.

The Future Is Now

2011-08-16T14:22:00.000-04:00

From a comment left over at Dave Schuler's blog:

Tyler Cohen: Few people want to come out and utter the possibility [about the currently unemployed - ed.]: “They’re just too stupid and too stubborn to lower their wage demands."

This just doesn't match up with the reality I have experienced personally. When you offer to work for less, or take a job that pays less than what you made before, the employer will invariably say, "Well, you will just leave for another better paying job at first opportunity, so I won't hire you." (It doesn't seem to occur to them that this is always true, but that's another issue.)

This has been my experience, which makes it merely anecdotal. However, I know a large number of unemployed people these days, and every single person who has been out of work for longer than two months has had this same experience, multiple times. There are no exceptions, and this is something I ask about when meeting new people who are unemployed. So I am certain that this is actually how employers are treating potential new employees offering to work for less, in the Orlando area at least. I have no reason to suppose that most other areas work differently.

Offering to work for less will not get you a new job when the current employees will work for less (rather than lose their jobs) AND when there aren't enough jobs for everyone that wants one.

So it comes down to this: The cause of all this unemployment is that there aren't enough jobs.

There aren't enough jobs because there isn't enough demand for businesses to expand (especially when they are upping their productivity levels by working their current folks until they fall apart), nor enough demand for new businesses to form.

There isn't enough demand because functionally people have less to spend. The problem of newly unemployed people spending less is obvious. The same is true for part-timers who used to be full-timers. However, people with jobs who have had their hours cut (if wage earners) or their salaries reduced (if salaried) also have less to spend. Additionally, as (medical) benefit expense goes up, more gets passed on to the workers, thus reducing their effective spending power further. Add in reduced quality of jobs because of globalization, too.

On top of all of that is the personal debt overhang. Personal debt is at huge levels in the nation. That means more and more of diminishing income levels are going to servicing debt, or should be.

And realize that debt is ultimately just a way of satisfying demands now that otherwise couldn’t be satisfied until the future. That’s great as long as the future remains safely in the future. But what happens when the future is now? That is what we are experiencing.

Creeping in this petty pace....

2011-08-04T12:44:00.007-04:00

President Obama at a fund raiser last night:

It's been a long, tough journey. But we have made some incredible strides together. Yes, we have. But the thing that we all ought to remember is that as much as good as we have done, precisely because the challenges were so daunting, precisely because we we were inheriting so many challenges, that we're not even halfway there yet. When I - When I said 'change we can believe in' I didn't say 'change we can believe in tomorrow.' Not change we can believe in next week.

How many tomorrows will it take to even see progress? There have been 925 to-morrows since he was sworn in, and still we languish.

The Bard said it best:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 19-28)

Some players are worse than others. It's a bloody cryin' shame we keep electing them to "lead" us.

Here it is ...

2011-07-18T03:16:00.003-04:00

... a few things off the top of my head, because I don't want to hear any crap about not having stated what I think should be done.

Here’s what I am for, in terms of federal government action:

I am FOR getting out of Afghanistan. We’ve killed most of the people we need to kill, and we’re not likely to kill the rest given the stated goals of our current foreign policy establishment. Also, cut all aid to Pakistan. Thanks to the aftermath of Obama killing bin Laden (good job, BTW), we have probably “lost” Pakistan anyway. Not that they were doing anything than playing a double game with us anyway, and if we need an ally in South Asia we should pursue better relations with India. That will save us a good chunk of money every year.

Get out of Iraq in particular, and the Persian Gulf region. Fuck ‘em. The Iraqis will either hold onto a democracy, or they won’t. They only way we could have any hope of insuring that outcome would be to plant the flag there permanently, and they just aren’t worth it at this point. Our foreign policy goals should be to promote OUR interests, and wasting more and more time, money and blood on Arab Democracy is stupid. The only nation that ever seemed to have it was Lebanon. How’d that work out? If Arabs want democracy (and I doubt they do) let ‘em get it the old fashioned way.

End our foreign commitments in Europe. End our foreign commitments in the Far East. Let the Chinese deal with the fucking idiots in Pyongyang – it’s rightfully their problem anyway. The Japanese and the South Koreans need to fend for themselves, and largely are anyway. (One exception to that, and I’m getting there.)

Largely, get the Hell out of most of the rest of the world’s affairs. We did our cop duty, now let them fend for themselves.

Concomitant to that, reduce the size of the Army. Maybe the Navy and Marines and Air Force need to be kept as strong as they are, but not the Army. Reduce it drastically. Cut current and future development programs. Maybe finish the carrier we’re currently building, maybe not. Cancel the next generation of fighter craft that we’re developing. Maybe even cut back the orders for F-22. We can’t afford everything anymore, and that means pain, even in terms of reducing our leading edge advantage militarily, at least for the moment.

There may be reason to keep the Navy/Marine Corps as strong as they are – we may still want to project power here and there. But maybe we don’t. The real assistance we provide to Japan comes from having the world’s last great blue water navy – maybe we want to keep that, as we have large sunk costs there. But other than strictly projecting power for our own interests, forget it. All this crap like what’s going on in Yemen and Libya is just that – crap.

Maybe we keep up arms sales to other nations, maybe not. Cost/benefit analysis should be done to determine whether or not it is worth it TO THE NATION AS A WHOLE, not how it benefits the defence contractors.

All of this comes with downside risks. The world will likely get a lot more violent in our absence. Tough titty, sailor, not out fight. We should limit our foreign adventurism to our natural sphere of influence, and limit ourselves to invading the odd Latin American country now and then. The other downside is that we will end up with more unemployed people – from the downsizing itself, from reduced employment in the defense sector, and from those towns and businesses that benefit from a large military. Hell, we’ve been trying to close useless bases for as long as I remember, now it can finally happen.

Part of this would also be eliminating most foreign aid. I would end our commitment to the UN’s main body (only after paying any back dues), but keeping up with UNICEF, the WHO and some of the other bodies makes since. But the political arm of the UN is useless.

End most foreign aid. Not huge stuff in the scope of things, but it would be an important part of reducing our commitments. Perhaps we cut Israel loose, perhaps not. Again, we should look at the situation with jaundiced eyes, and decide what is in OUR best interests. We can’t afford to keep looking out for the other guy anymore.

That cuts a decent sized chunk out of the deficit, but leaves much else.

Next up, financial reform. First off, I would repeal Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank, and reinstitute Glass-Steagal as it was when it was repealed in 1998. Not that this is optimal, but it is a start. The big bank should be broken up, not just as Glass-Steagal would require, but even more than that. Pass the legislation to make it happen. Pass the legislation to remove the guys that have run our financial system into the ground from their jobs. Criminal prosecution is probably out of the question now, but we can at least put people like Dimon and Pandit (to name my two least favorite) out of work. Make whatever changes are necessary so that entities like GMAC (and whatever the hell GE did) do NOT get to be considered straight-up commercial banks. Being a bank should mean what people think of when they think of banks. Raising capital requirements for commercial banks may or may not make sense, but should be revisited.

All Fed governors should be fired, including The Bernanke. They have largely failed in their mandates, so fuck ‘em. Pass legislation if necessary. Abolishing the Fed may or may not be a good idea – it can be considered later. But the Fed should have a SINGLE MANDATE – stable currency. All else creates one conflict after another and is counter-productive.

(Incidentally, if these ideas sound familiar, they should. Shuler has promoted some of these ideas, as have many others. It is amazing that there is a consensus building out there, amongst certain people, and that it has no chance in Hell of being enacted. The people building the consensus just don’t matter.)

Some of the actions above will remove some systemic risk. However, systemic risk can arise not just from a few institutions being too big (none of this should ignore insurance companies, for example – consider the cluster-fuck at AIG), but also if everyone does the same thing. Breaking up the banks in 2005 might not have accomplished anything at all if everyone was doing the same thing. (MBSs, CDOs, CDSs in general, et cetera.) Regulators need to consider whether various kinds of financial practices are actually good for the business environment. Despite the claims from derivatives guy about CDSs and the like “spreading risk”, what we really got was everybody getting involved in everything. That didn’t work out so well. Regulators need to consider new products and new practices and decide if they will actually serve a purpose for the underlying economy, as opposed to the financial houses. I have no idea how they would do that in practice. Some of it seems obvious to me – despite the (very) high level math that went into pricing derivatives, they ultimately got it wrong. I don’t see where derivatives really give any benefit to the underlying economy – in practice the simply allowed people to make bad decisions believing that they were covered if anything went wrong. I say, let ‘em decide up front if those decisions are good or bad, and bear the risk themselves.

Another example – high frequency trading. I don’t see how that can POSSIBLY be anything other than a zero-sum game of finance – those with the best algorithms and fastest connections win, by extracting value from everyone else. Ban it.

The question should ALWAYS be, when considering any financial instrument/practice, “Can it, DOES IT, actually help the underlying economy?” Now, every financial system will be subject to gaming. But that doesn’t mean we have to encourage that.

Now here I differ to Dave Shuler, who has thought about and dealt with regulators far more than I have. I would differ to others as well, as to how to implement the above. But I know what I want, which is a financial system that can benefit the rest of the economy. We don’t have that now, thanks to government being in bed with the financial institutions completely. (You can call it regulatory capture if you want, I will call it simple sleaze.)

I could go on and on for this particular topic. I have many crazier ideas, ones that would make for interesting discussions, but not ones that will actually have any chance of being implemented. But the stuff above can work, and something very like it ought to be done. We should NEVER be in a situation in which any organization can claim it is TOO BIG TO FAIL. Forget being anti-capitalist (a bad term anyway, IMO), that it anti-freedom – it puts the entire body politic at the mercy of some small segment. Fuck that noise.

Eliminate GSEs. They’re a bad concept every which way.

RE: Social Security – I have stated before, and believe still, that despite the basic Ponzi scheme nature of the beast it actually can be saved. Or at least, it could be saved if it were the only problem. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. Means testing, raising benefit ages, raising the limits on what can be taxed, etc. The problem has always been demographic in nature, and we seem to be reaching an end-point on that. That means a more or less stable solution can be reached. Again, this is in absence of other problems, which I am getting to.

Let me stop a moment to say what I am looking for in the nation, what I think the biggest immediate problems are, and how I think they should be solved.

What I am looking for is a nation where I can be reasonably free in my person. What I care about is in maximizing the freedom of myself and my fellow citizens. What I do NOT care about is in being Number One in everything. I don’t care if we have the biggest military. I care that our military be sufficient to defend ourselves. (Thus I see an opportunity for savings w/o sacrificing anything too significant.) I don’t care if we have the best this, or the best that, or the best whatever. I don’t even care if we have the biggest economy, although that would seem to be helpful in any concern. I only care that the nation be secure, that the citizens be free, and that we have the wherewithal to insure that state of affairs.

This gets us to the current state of affairs. The nation is not secure – while no enemy can attack us (and expect success, at any rate) we have built a shameful state of affairs with our finances. Federal debt levels alone have topped 90% of GDP, and absent large federal government expenditures I imagine we’re a helluva lot closer to 100% than 90%. That does not include unfunded liabilities, stuff we’ve said we would pay in the future.

A nation cannot long withstand this level of indebtedness. We’ve been here before, but usually (I believe always, but I’ll just say usually for the moment) after times of great national crises. While the last few years have certainly been a large crisis, we were already well down this path BEFORE that crisis, especially considering the unfunded liabilities.

Our finances must be repaired. Corporations have been working on their balance sheets. Individuals have tried, and I doubt much headway is being made there. None can really be made until incomes start increasing. And the government has been terrible. We must start there. Thus the stuff I am outlining. Some of it may seem unrelated (the financial stuff above) but it really isn’t. Our government is failing, and so is our financial system, despite all the money thrown at it. About 1,000 banks are on he unofficial problem bank list published over at Calculated Risk. That list is compiled using government notices, and is pretty damned accurate. I would imagine that some of the banks NOT on that list should be, but I quite looking at the damned thing over a year ago – it is too depressing.

So I am looking to repair the nation’s balance sheet, basically. When you are flush you can do more stuff. So get flush, man. In order to get flush, we must get the budget more in balance, and repair the nation’s business environment.

Now for the big one, especially going forward: Medicare. Medicare has completely fucked the nation’s finances, and it hasn’t done all that great a job (from my limited perspective) in advancing the nation’s health care system. (Admittedly my perspective is colored by my mother getting fucked over by the system repeatedly in the last few years. And also by my father-in-law getting fucked over by the medical system, although that was the VA instead of Medicare. Or my father and brother getting fucked over by the system. Although that was private insurance instead of the VA or Medicare. Mostly, doctors suck, and their system accentuates that suckitude nicely.)

In my last job I worked on the financial side of the medical system for a large privately insured company. We were EXTREMELY interested in how “the system” should be reformed. What I learned was that there are no systems that will “work” well.

Let’s define work well: How’s about providing all the needed healthcare to everyone that needs it? Well, that’s stupid on the face of it: everyone can’t have everything. So how’s about proving a decent standard of care for everyone at a reasonable price? That’s better, but everyone is going to argue about what a decent standard of care is about. (Death panels, anyone?) Actually, we could do this all night and all day tomorrow. We always come back to the same problem: Everyone wants everything for their loved ones. How to handle that financially?

I’ve come to the conclusion that only two types of system have any chance of working: Some form of single payer system (or nationalized healthcare, or whatever you want to call it), or a completely (which is to say, TRUE) private enterprise system.

The problem with the first is that at some point it will come down to someone/something deciding who gets what kind of care. Death panel is as good a name as any. The problem with the second is that the market will decide who can get what form of treatment. The Golden Rule will apply again.

Unfortunately, I think the second option is best. The true problem with the first system is that the voters will ultimately start voting themselves more benefits again, and that gets us back to where we are. The second option avoids that.

The second option would also seem some market rigor start to take hold. I’ve been dealing with doctors a lot the last four years, because of my mother’s, brother’s and wife’s health problems, and I see a monumental amount of BS that serves no purpose except to drive up costs, usually while decreasing care. In order to get a colon problem taken care of, my mother got shuffled off to THREE different proctologists: one to “manage the situation”, another to actually do the colonoscopy, and another to do needed surgery via a colonoscopy. Why one goddamned proctologist couldn’t have, shouldn’t have, handled all three functions escapes me. We’re seeing the same thing now with her thymic carcinoma (alleged), except it is even worse. Last year during a hospital stay my wife ended up seeing a minimum of 18 doctors over 14 days in the hospital. That only counts the ones that were the lead doctor in the room at the time, not any students of other docs hanging around. And THAT only counts the ones I saw. (for other reasons I could not be there all the time for the whole 14 days.) Most of those doctors served no fucking purpose, except that it was another billing opportunity.

Now any reasonable system would have stopped that from happening. A true market system would have stopped that from happening. Hellfire and perdition, I TRIED to stop it from happening, as at least half the doctors were undoing the work others were doing. It was a goddamned nightmare. But I had no power, and my wife was delirious so she had no power, and the whole time the doctors were working at cross-purposes. Such is modern healthcare. The point is, we were stuck in a system in which ultimately no one had any power, and no one had any accountability. I’ve seen this over and over again in recent years, and I’m tired of it.

Now if I were paying the bills, I could at least threaten the bastards with a “if you don’t listen to me and explain what you are doing, I won’t pay you” I might at least get someone to tell me what the fuck was going on. And I might get a chance to explain to them what someone else had already done. Better still, maybe I don’t get passed from doctor to doctor, and one guy actually knows what is going on.

Sorry, it’s getting late, I’m getting angry thinking about all this crap again, and it is getting incoherent. Let me recapture the thread.

The point is this: Re-instilling some market discipline might help clear up some of the inordinate amount of crap the system has generated. There are problems with this approach, though.

First, people have PLANNED on having Medicare, and we can’t just end the program even if we wanted to – it would be unjust. We would need to wind the program down over several decades. Increase age limits over time until the program won’t have any new people in it, but keep the taxes in place to support it. That will take care of the unfunded liabilities, and in the starkest manner. That doesn’t solve the clusterfuck of a problem we have NOW, though, and I confess I have no good ideas on that front. Neither does anyone else, from what I have seen.

There is another problem with the private enterprise approach, though, and it is obvious – people will get the level of care they can afford. Insurance can help with some of this, but anyone dealing with insurance companies knows there are limits to the help they provide. Frankly, I have no idea how to resolve this. Any attempt to correct the problem inevitably gets us back on the road to government intervention. I am not convinced that charities and reduced costs alone will be able to pick up the slack.

That gets back to some kind of single payer – but again, I don’t see how (a) I can expect this system to get any better than what it is now, and (b) I see no way to prevent the voters and their representatives from doing what got us to this point.

I confess, I am at a loss on this point. But I know that what is happening is leading to catastrophe – what can’t be done ultimately won’t be done. And you can’t pay for everybody to get everything forever. So I admit to failing on this point. The problem I have is I don’t see anyone with a real solution anywhere, not one that holds up to scrutiny. I will plug away at the rest of it, such as it is.

I would end as much of the manned space program as we can while still meeting our commitment to the international space station. I would prefer to end that as well, but having already withdrawn the US military’s blanket of protection from most of the civilized world I might need to throw them a bone.

This kills me. I grew up watching the Apollo launches, and I’m not even sure how many shuttle launches I have seen up close and person – at least ten, maybe as many as 15. And I’ve seen a lot more than that from my home in Orlando. I mean step out to the front driveway and SEE.

But the truth is this: The manned space program has really lacked direction since Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon. Everything since then has been a mishmash. There have clearly been successes – the Hubble repair and servicing missions show the utility of men in space. But overall tere has been no real purpose. We’ve flown 135 or so missions to LEO for what, exactly? It is expensive, and directionless, and we can’t afford it. Cut it, which means ending the funding for the next set of launch vehicles.

Now I would keep NASA’s robotic and other science missions. The knowledge seems abstract, but we are learning a great deal about a lot of different topics. And it is a relatively cheap way to keep pushing certain technologies forward.

Reform the country’s drug laws with an eye towards reducing the number of people we put in prison. I do NOT mean legalize everything, or necessarily anything. But goddamn, putting people in jails and prisons for smoking doobies and selling some stuff to friends is a massive misallocation of resources.

Cut other domestic programs. What the hell are the Departments of Education and Energy doing anyway? Start striping out government programs with an eye towards keeping what is necessary. Yes, public broadcasting doesn’t cost all that much, but we can’t afford it anyway, and unlike NASA’s science program doesn’t really seem to be adding all that much to the public good. Same with the NEA. The same with NY program that is not providing either immediate utility, or doesn’t promise to provide something concrete in the relatively near future. This area is tremendous, and has much area for argument, and that’s fine. Personally, I would want to keep the national parks functioning. Other might feel that they have little more utility than the NEA. Fine, let’s argue about it.

But the point is this: We HAVE to get our finances in order. Not ten years from now, and not at a discount (Four trillion? Are you kidding me? That’s perhaps only a third of what it should be.), but now, and as much as we can.

In order to achieve this, we should also look at how the government functions. Dave Shuler has gone into aspects of that here, on his blog. No point in going over this again. If corporations can make do with fewer heads, so can the goddamned government. For started, push all pay level back to where they were six years ago. Everyone else is taking a pay cut, so can they. Start eliminating positions, especially high-level sinecures and such. Every President has more Tsars than the last, it is time to reduce that trend.

Like cutting the military, these actions will also increase the number of unemployed. And that’s too bad, especially for me, as that it even that many more people I have to compete against.

But the point is this: the sooner we get things in order the sooner our economy can start allocating its resources in a better manner. Only in government do they think that the way it has always done is the best way it could ever be done. Except, of course, for adding more headcount and more budget. TO that end, end government unions. If you don’t understand why government unions are dangerous, then I can’t explain it to you. But they are bad because they increase the inflexibility of an already rigid system.

Government regulations need to be redone, yadda yadda yadda. It’s true, but it is boring. Again, the idea should be, Will this make the nation stronger. Sometimes that will mean ruling against business, too. Saying everything should be business friendly is at best a cop out, and at worst stupid. Some of the regulations serve good purposes – I don’t want acid in my rain, thank you very much. But many don’t. But this is boring stuff, and since NONE of this will be enacted anyway, I am going to get to stuff I find more interesting.

Namely, revenues. Should taxes be raised? Should they be lowered? Pointless debates, as usually stated. Our taxes aren’t a mess, they are a disaster heading towards catastrophe. He whole damned system needs to be ditched and redone. The purpose of a tax system should be to be fair, easily understood (because if it isn’t, you can almost be 100% certain someone is getting away with something – I’m looking at you, Immelt), and of course to raise sufficient revenues to fund the government. Personally, I favor as little complication as possible. Currently I probably like the so-called Fair Tax best. (That has problems – but so does every other system.) Or maybe we go with a flat tax with no deductions. Or just a flatter tax with no deductions. A big thing for me is “no deductions” – deductions are signs of favoritism and gamesmanship in the tax code. If you believe otherwise, you are entitled to your opinion. You’re wrong, but this is my wish list. There are many complex issues that can’t be avoided, but goddamnit, our current code is criminally complicated. We need a simpler system so people and businesses SPEND LESS TIME AND MONEY ON TAX ACCOUNTING. All of that is a big drag on the system.

Worse still, all those deductions come with political costs as well. What is it I’ve been hearing lately – GM had something like $5 BILLION dollars in profit last year and thanks to slick accounting and manipulation of the tax code they paid zero dollars in corporate income taxes. Meanwhile, Immelt is telling the leaders of other businesses, that actually DO have to pay taxes, to shut up and hire people. Fucking criminal. This demonstrates a fundamental corruption of our current business and political environments as well. And THIS is why I keep bitching about system being rigged for the big guys at the expense of the little guys – because it is.

Michael, you love to keep talking about being an entrepreneur, and that’s fine. But realize that if GM gets wind of you idea and decides to step in and cut you off at the pass, not only are they bringing tremendous resources from the company to the battle, they are bring tremendous clout in Washington to bear on the problem, clout you could not hope to match. If you both got up nd running and started making some profit, understand that they have you beat right from the get go because they can manipulate the tax code to their advantage. You haven’t got a prayer.

In fact, if I were put in charge of the whole damned thing, I would START with reforming the tax code. It is a source of manipulation and thus corruption in our body politic, and it has bad implications for our economy as well.

One final thing for this rant – I’ve mentioned cuts here there and everywhere above, with the exception of Medicare, where I admit I haven’t got a clue. I have also put a lot of people out of work. One other thing I would add is some form of welfare program to try and keep more of us united body and soul through a long period of trouble. Yes, that is another transfer program, and no, I don’t like it. But frankly things suck out here, and I didn’t outline a proposal to put everyone back to work. Mainly because I think such a program will ultimately fail. (See Japan.)

Instead I am advocating that the federal government (a) get its financial house in order before IT crashes the whole system, and (b) start to remove various distortions to our economy and body politic. Jobs will NOT magically appear if this is done, and short term more will be lost. But (a) has to happen sooner or later, and the sooner it happens the less long-term pain we will have. (Referencing a much earlier comment, it would be getting ahead of a problem for a change.) And (b) has as much hope as anything of getting the economy moving in a positive direction again. The drag that has built up is tremendous. But we have no hope of positive movement if we don’t repair damage already done.

This certainly isn’t everything, and as I will acknowledge for the third time (I tell you THREE TIMES) I have no fucking clue what to do about Medicare/Medicaid. Trade agreements and trade practices need to be examined, labor laws, industrial policy (should we have one, for example, would be a good place to start), immigration, and all sorts of other stuff need to be examined. But the above is at least a starting point, and it is more than you will get from Congress.

Not necessarily more than you will HEAR, but it is more than you will get. Because the elite running the country either don’t understand the problems, or don’t care about the problems of most of us. So things will continue along until everything REALLY crashes – not 2008 USA crashes, but more like Weimar Germany crashes, or even Europe 1914 crashes.

An Update on a Reaming

2011-07-05T12:15:00.002-04:00

Found out this morning that Mom's case was NOT heard by the tumor board last Wednesday. That represents three board meetings since she was diagnosed, two since she was released from the hospital, and one since we were guaranteed that her case would be presented at the next meeting. See previous post for more details.

How to Get Fucked by THE SYSTEM, using one easy algorithm

2011-07-03T02:46:00.003-04:00

Step One: Go see a doctor about a medical condition.

Step Two: Repeat Step One until properly reamed.

This method is guaranteed to work! I have a brief testimonial of my own:

Too bad the doctors can't find cancer 100% of the time - even if it is pointed out to them. The fucking doctors have basically killed my mother by taking more than a year to run the appropriate tests to diagnose her medical condition, despite the fact that I begged them too, as did she. But instead they pussy-footed around, following "protocol" and refusing to go the extra millimeter. Here recently the asshole doctors wouldn't even check her into the hospital when she was clearly starving to death because Medicare protocols would not allow her to be checked in for "fatigue" unless she was then released solely to a nursing home. They thought we wouldn’t like that. (Matter of fact, we wouldn’t.) But the fucking worthless doctors didn't even tell us this was why they were foot-dragging until it didn't matter.

No, they told me that shortly before putting Mom in the hospital for dehydration. Once she was in, they started running the tests. The asshole doctors then found a big fucking tumor in her chest. The fucking worthless doctors then acted surprised when we informed them that Mom had been having chest & shoulder pain for over a year. This despite the fact that she had been complaining about it for the whole goddamned time to those same fucking doctors.

Turns out it is probably thymic carcinoma. If they had found it earlier it could have been removed surgically. But that doesn't seem to be possible now that it has wrapped itself around her aorta, pulmonary artery, and other extremely valuable bits of whatnot near her heart. Now if they had found it a year ago....

(They have also found a kidney problem. Mom has been complaining about lower back pain for over two years. None of them bothered to figure that out either. Turns out she has an obstruction leading out of her right kidney. Two years of pain meant nothing to those fucking twats – it was probably just a twisted colon because she didn’t eat enough fiber.)

Of course, time is of the essence now for any treatment. Which is why it has been over three weeks since the cancer was discovered and the fucking doctors still have their collective thumbs up their asses. We're SUPPOSED to start radiation therapy on Wednesday, but I imagine that will get screwed up somehow. For that matter, they still haven't told us if the tumor board that decides which cases are operable has even discussed her case yet. We have called three of the fucking doctors involved, and none of them have contacted us yet. Her case was supposed to be reviewed on the Wednesday before last. It wasn't. Then it was supposed to be reviewed this last Wednesday. No idea if it was or not. Of the three fucking doctors that are on her case and that actually sit on the tumor board, one has told us he has no idea because he missed this week's meeting, one has been unavailable because he has been doing nothing but heart and lung surgery since Wednesday (apparently non-stop, as he hasn't even been able to inform his staff of anything), and the third has just been unavailable.

Fucking doctors have fucked us but good. The worst isn't that my mother is dying. At 83 that is not unexpected. The worst is that she is dying a needlessly painful death because of their fucking vacillations and protocols.

No, that isn't the worst. The worst is that we've seen this before, when the VA fucked over my father-in-law in the same manner over a decade ago. (Three cheers for government run healthcare! {crickets} ) The same needless vacillations over protocols and indifference that are killing Mom now killed him then, and at the ripe old age of 58. They did it to my brother too a few years later, though in his case there was probably nothing they could have done even if they had hurried up and done their jobs.

No, that isn't the worst of it either. The worst of it is that Mom has been out of the hospital a mere 14 days and the bills from the doctors have already started to come in. How’s that for efficiency? My favorite is (one of the many) $85 charge(s) from Mom's primary for visiting the patient in her hospital room. Get this - he had to travel a couple of hundred feet to an elevator, take the elevator up one floor, and then travel another couple of hundred feet to get to her from his one and only office. No wonder he wants compensation. But this one particular visit itself is the beautiful part of the story. He breezes into her room on a Friday evening at 6 pm, says “I can’t take any questions because I have to go pack for my vacation” and then tells my mother, sister and brother-in-law that Mom has inoperable stage 4 lung cancer. “Goodbye.”

Apparently his trip got delayed for a couple of days because he showed up again at 6:40 am on Monday morning. Same story, similar bedside manner. But 90 minutes later the oncologist comes in and tells us another story entirely – thymic carcinoma, probably stage 2 or 3, probably operable, decent prospects for five year survival. "But we need to get her into surgery by the end of this week!" (That was nearly three weeks ago.) Holy fucking shit. The two of them had been looking at the same reports and scans.

But the surgeon thinks the cancer is more advanced than that, as he doesn’t see the delineations he would see in an earlier stage. And the radiation oncologist doesn’t think any of those diagnoses are correct, but what the fuck, let’s zap the fucker ten times anyway. It’s a living, for him anyway.

Taking care of Mom out of the hospital has been fun too. Orlando is a test market for new Medicare procedures. Apparently this is part of the new Obama-care reforms. Outstanding. There is now a competitive bidding process for vendors – only those that win bids from Medicare can be reimbursed by Medicare for supplying a given item. So, we’re getting the enteral feeding stuff (that’s Jevity for those keeping score at home) from Binson’s. But they can’t supply the walker, wheelchair or oxygen. Nope. We got the wheelchair from some outfit called Apria, IIRC, and I probably don’t. And they, of course, couldn’t supply the walker or oxygen. We needed a third outfit (Sunbelt) for the oxygen. The walker is the best part. We can get one from Colonial Medical Supply. The basic model would end up costing us $9.95 plus tax after the Medicare reimbursement. My sister thought we should go with another model. Now that walker would end up costing us $68.95 plus tax after Medicare reimbursements. Or we can get it for $75 at Binson's and not have to drive to Colonial Medical Supply. Yep, the winning bidder is actually selling it for substantially more than the losing bidder, if you factor in Medicare’s part too. Thank God for healthcare reform. Maybe we’ll get some someday.

So now we wait and see if Mom can even survive to the first radiation treatment. The fucking doctors have diddled for over a year on the diagnosis, and they continue to diddle on whether or not to tell us which (if any) treatment from which (if any) fucking doctor she should get.

But it is good to know that the FDA is protecting that noble profession from any possible challenges from technology. If only the buggy-whip manufacturers had as good a lobby over 100 years ago we could have avoided the entire GM/Chrysler bail-out mess.

So if you want to know why I haven’t been around much, and why I have been extremely pissed off (even by my standards) when I am around, that’s it. My mother is getting fucked by government regulations and intrusions, the private sector, and the “noble” profession of organized medicine. (“You’re dead. Now where’s my $85?”) All I see anywhere I look these days are a few groups of very powerful people lookiing to suck the world dry for their own team, and fuck the rest of us. I just hope I live long enough to see the world burn. The looks of surprise will be fucking priceless.

* I don’t believe Cassandra realized the one advantage she did have – that is, she should have known where the best seats would have been to view any given comeuppance. Come on, C, we’s gots to get our jollies whence we can!

This is EXACTLY the problem...

2011-06-26T23:40:00.004-04:00

David Brooks writes about a new book about the Fannie Mae scandal of recent years. For the record, the screw ups at Fannie Mae have cost taxpayers (more precisely future taxpayers, as we are paying for this crisis with debt) over $150 billion so far. This dwarfs the ENRON scandal.

The new book is Reckless Endangerment by NYT writer Gretchen Morgenson and financial analyst Joshua Rosner. They explain exactly how it is that taxpayers were essentially defrauded and the economy was (in part) destroyed by people who broke no laws. Worst of all, this was done by the leadership class of the country. Brooks writes:

Morgenson and Rosner write with barely suppressed rage, as if great crimes are being committed. But there are no crimes. This is how Washington works. Only two of the characters in this tale come off as egregiously immoral. Johnson made $100 million while supposedly helping the poor. Representative Barney Frank, whose partner at the time worked for Fannie, was arrogantly dismissive when anybody raised doubts about the stability of the whole arrangement.

Most of the people were simply doing what reputable figures do in service to a supposedly good cause. Johnson roped in some of the most respected establishment names: Bill Daley, Tom Donilon, Joseph Stiglitz, Dianne Feinstein, Kit Bond, Franklin Raines, Larry Summers, Robert Zoellick, Ken Starr and so on. [emphasis added]

And that is the problem with the nation now, the so-called "reputable figures" are raping and pillaging the country, and they are doing it legally because they control the government. Almost the entire leadership class of the country, and everyone who actually counts, are nothing more than pond scum. They have hollowed out the nation for their own profit, and to Hell with the rest of us.

Brooks continues:

It has sent the message that we have hit the moment of demosclerosis. Washington is home to a vertiginous tangle of industry associations, activist groups, think tanks and communications shops. These forces have overwhelmed the government that was originally conceived by the founders.

The final message is that members of the leadership class have done nothing to police themselves. The Wall Street-Industry-Regulator-Lobbyist tangle is even more deeply enmeshed.

People may not like Michele Bachmann, but when they finish “Reckless Endangerment” they will understand why there is a market for politicians like her. They’ll realize that if the existing leadership class doesn’t redefine “normal” behavior, some pungent and colorful movement will sweep in and do it for them.

I just have to wonder why Brooks considers Michele Bachmann (and presumably all those Tea Partiers) more pungent and colorful than the people who have looted a great nation for their own greedy gluttonous ways? But that's just another part of the problem: most of the so-called "media watchdogs" are nothing more than lapdog apologists for the scummiest people alive. It's how they got their own 30 pieces of silver.

Size Matters

2011-03-28T23:10:00.004-04:00

When discussing the isues of the day it helps to keep the relative size of events in the forefront of one's mind. As an example, consider corporate tax rates, and whether or not US corporations are paying their "fair share". The CBS program 60 Minutes tackled this issue last Sunday night.

Our government is in knots over ways to lower the federal budget deficit. Well, what if we told you we found a pot of money ... that could be used to help out?

That bundle is tax money not coming in to the IRS from American corporations. One major way they avoid paying the tax man is by parking their profits overseas. They'll tell you they're forced to do that because the corporate 35 percent tax rate is high in relation to other countries, and indeed it seems the tax code actually encourages companies to move their businesses out of the country.

I placed those ellipses in the first quoted paragraph to hide the size of the pot of gold. Later the story discusses the pot of gold in other terms:

The total amount of money U.S. companies have trapped overseas is $1.2 trillion.

Wow, $1.2 trillion with a 'T' in US corporate profits are parked overseas where the IRS can't get at them. This looks like a huge problem, and it is in many ways. But if one looks at it as a problem of government revenues it isn't much of a problem at all.

Consider it this way: If the entire $1.2 trillion in overseas corporate profits were repatriated this week and taxed at the current 35% US corporate tax rate, that would generate $420 billion in tax revenue. That sounds like a lot. And from the view of the corporations (and their officers, board members, share holders, bond holders, etc) it is a lot. In fact by every reasonable standard that is a lot of money.*

But looked at in relation to the US government that $420 billion would only eliminate about 25% of the 2011 fiscal budget deficit (estimated) of over $1.645 trillion. And those corporate profits have been accumulated over several years since the last profit repatriation holiday in 2005. So several years of corporate taxes that we haven't gotten would still only kill off one-quarter of this year's deficit. THAT is how big our government has grown.

So even if the corporations were paying their "fair share", it would still only add about $60 billion a year to the coffers.

It's small potatoes, just like the dueling Republican and Democratic budget cut proposals currently being discussed.

I realize that these issues appear small in relation to what is happening in the Middle East and Japan. And these kinds of budgetary matters do not have the immediate lief-and-death impact of those situations. But they are very real, and very important. The death of an empire can be precipitated by financial crisis, and that is what we are facing. And when studying our options we need to remember what is significant and what isn't. So don't let people of either party distract you with talk of fat corporations parking their money overseas. The problem is MUCH bigger than that, and it relates to how much the government is spending, not what some companies are (legally) doing to lower their tax burden.**

* And I remember a time when spending $420 billion dollars could bring another superpower to its knees trying to match US military spending.

** That said, corporate tax rates are important - but they're part of a much larger problem with our tax code and industrial policy.

I was right again - not that it will do me any good.

2011-03-19T00:44:00.004-04:00

Well, technically I'm not proven correct yet. But now the CBO has released a report analyzing the President's budget, and they've come to a similar conclusion to mine: Namely that the President's revenue projections will overstate revenue going forward. That means that the President's deficits will be larger than projected. Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has paid any attention at all. I was way ahead of them.

The worst part is that I am certain that a not-very-detailed analysis of the CBO's numbers would show that they too are underestimating the size of the deficit.

I would do a similar look-see at the old CBO numbers from a couple of years ago and see how their projections matched reality, similar to what I did to the President's budget in the earlier post,but I don't see the point. I was thinking (and had stated in an email to at least one friend) that 2011 was going to be an epochal year. I give it a 50-50 chance that when the historians write their PhDs in 60 or 70 years they will look at 2008 as a minor shock before the major crises hit in 2011. And I thought this before the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises hit Japan. That just adds more strain to the system. I'm seeing a whole lot of "downside" risk this year, and no "upside" risk. And given that our economy still hasn't really recovered from the recession of TEN years ago, I think it won't take much to push us right over the edge of the cliff. So analyzing CBO budget projections just seems pointless.

And in case you don't believe me about not recovering from the recession at the start of the Bush II Presidency, just read the numbers and weep.

Nearly 1 in 5 Florida homes sit vacant.

2011-03-18T23:38:00.004-04:00

Read it and weep.

On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% -- or 1.6 million -- of the Sunshine State's homes are sitting vacant. That's a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years.

...

The inventory overhang has sent home prices plunging. The median price for homes sold in January was just $122,000, according to the Florida Association of Realtors. That was down 7% from 12 months earlier and less than half the price at the peak of the market.

Winzer thinks prices in Florida will drop even more, another 5% in 2011 and 3% in 2012. "Even after that, they're not going to rebound, they'll just sit on the bottom," he said.

Celia Chen, a housing market analyst for Moody's Analytics, is also downbeat in her forecasts for Florida. Not only will prices fall another 11%, she said, but the bottom won't hit until mid-2012, about a year later than the nation as a whole. Some metro areas won't get back to their pre-recession peaks until long after the present owners are old and gray.

And this is 20 months into the "recovery".

"Recovery" my ass.

Experiment

2011-03-10T19:53:00.005-05:00

I'm planning on writing an actual post to tie the links together. (It probably won't get written, but what the Hell.) But I'm going to try an experiment. I'll publish the links now and see if anyone wants to provide their own commentary. Not that anyone reads this site anymore.

Links for later

Several at

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_local_blogonomics/

Most notably the one about jobs growing at 700 per month for Florida from January 2010 to January 2011. I know, I already mentioned that story in the prior post, but still!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110309/ts_yblog_thelookout/jobs-returning-but-good-ones-not-so-much

About the lousy jobs that are returning in this "recovery".

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110309/us_yblog_thelookout/for-some-super-rich-mo-money-mo-problems

Concerning the terrible problems rich people have, like deciding who picks up the check at the restaurant.

and

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/06/60minutes/main20038927.shtml

about the growing number of homeless children.

There really are two Americas now. Those last two links give a good indication as to the differing concerns.

ADDED: And then there's this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110315/bs_yblog_thelookout/huge-productivity-gains-barely-benefitting-workers

So, to recap, there aren't enough jobs, and the ones that exist increasingly don't pay enough. Our Lords and Masters in Washington and NYC continue to turn the country (on hesitates to call it a nation anymore) into one of the Third World variety.

More from the Economic Recovery

2011-03-10T18:10:00.004-05:00

The state of Florida released the January unemployment numbers. They're pretty much unchanged from December. Interestingly, the state has added 8,400 jobs from January 2010 to January 2011.

That averages out to 700 jobs a month.

That for about 1,100,000 unemployed people in Florida, not to mention all the underemployed people. All this after 18 months (as of the time of January) of economic recovery. The state now forecasts that we will return to 6.0% unemployment in 2018.

Recovery my ass....

Friday's Unemployment Report - A Prediction

2011-03-02T20:26:00.003-05:00

Friday the February UE report comes out. I'm predicting that somehow they will manage to get U-3 down between 8.6% and 8.8%. Mostly this will be achieved by stating that another few hundred thousand people have "dropped out" of the labor force. Which is to say it will be bullshit. More later this week if I can find the time.

UPDATE: Well, I was closer than the consensus, which had the rate rising to 9.1%. But it came in at 8.9%, and surprisingly only 87,000 people were disappeared from the roles. All in all a pretty dismal report.

And speaking of failed systems...

2011-02-25T22:38:00.002-05:00

Here was a fun bit from CNBC today. The amazing thing is that this guy got on the "RAH! RAH! The Recovery Shines on Us All" network and got a respectful hearing. And he's not wrong about the debt problem. The sooner our leaders acknowledged the problem the sooner we could get to a solution. And the less painful the solution would be.

The Middle East Protests

2011-02-25T22:33:00.004-05:00

There was a Day of Rage in Iraq. Iraq has a democracy now, flawed perhaps, but a democracy. So perhaps these protests aren't simply about pro-democracy snetiments. From an AP article:

The protests, billed as a "Day of Rage, were fueled by anger over corruption, chronic unemployment and shoddy public services from the Shiite-dominated government.

Those reasons sound more fundamental, and more universal, than a yearning for "one hominid, one vote."

A few notes on the Obama's 2012 Budget

2011-02-14T15:41:00.006-05:00

Here are a few items about Obama's proposed budget for 2012. (Remember that one thousand billion is a trillion.)

First, the Administration believes that government revenue will rise from $2,174 billion in 2011 (projected) to $3,003 billion in 2013. That is a 38% increase in revenue in two years. That just isn't going to happen.

Second, the Administration predicts that outlays will grow from $3,819 billion in 2011 (projected) to $3,771 billion. That has federal expenditures shrinking by slightly more than 1.25% in two years. That actually isn't impossible, but I doubt it will happen.

Rather than take these prognostications at face value, I decided to compare them to the 2010 budget from the Obama Administration.

First I looked at the Administration's projections (made in 2009) for 2010 with the actual recorded result in this year's budget. Two years ago the Administration believed that revenues would total $2,381 billion. The over-estimated that amount by $218 billion. They also thought that outlays (that's spending to the rest of us) would be $3,552 billion. This they also over-estimated - spending was actually $96 billion dollars LESS than that.* Overall, the budget deficit last year was $122 billion MORE than they had expected in 2009.

Then I compared the Administration's projections of 2011 to the 2011 projections from this year. Two years ago they projected that 2011 would produce $2,713 billion in revenue for the federal government, and that the government would spend $3,625 billion, with a deficit of $912 billion. The new budget forecasts that the federal government will only collect $2,174 billion in revenue for 2011, and will spend $3,819 billion in that year. That's a miss of $539 billion on the revenue side**, and an increase in spending of $194 billion. They missed their two year projection by $733 billion.

Revenue is only projected to be 80% of what they projected two years ago. Expenses are projected to be over 5% higher.

To repeat, they missed their two year projections by $733 billion. That miss is equal to two-thirds of the President's alleged deficit reductions for the next eight years.

So does anyone REALLY believe that revenues will increase by 38% in two years, given that they have remained essentially unchanged from 2009 to 2011? (In fact, they have decreased slightly, showing that our recovery isn't.) Or any of the rest of it?

I haven't looked at the Republican proposals, but I doubt they're any better. And they only claim to be cutting $100 billion from the budget, which represents less than 3% of spending for any upcoming year.

Our leaders are telling us bald-faced lies again. (No wonder the new press secretary doesn't want to address the press.) Fundamentally, it was governmental dishonesty that just got Mubarak overthrown. Perhaps we'll find out if Americans demand the same accountability from our rulers as the Egyptians did of theirs.

* At least according to their figures.

Obama's 2010 Budget proposal can be viewed here. (This was the original. They published a revised edition in May.)

Obama's 2012 Budget proposal can be viewed here.

In both cases look for the summary tables at the back.

Please, don't just take my word on the numbers, look them up for yourself.

** ADDED: Yes, Obama & Co. were expecting an end to the Bush tax cuts after 2010. However, they missed by 25%, and the Bush tax cuts wouldn't have made up that difference. They also assumed that unemployment would top out at no more than 8% with their stimulus package. They missed that estimate by 25% as well.

What to do on a date.

2011-02-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

Seriously!

Duck and Cover

2011-02-11T23:56:00.001-05:00

Yet more fun!

One Got Fat

2011-02-11T23:55:00.001-05:00

Big fun from the good old days!

Lies, Damned Lies, and Shit We Simply Can't Believe

2011-01-28T11:16:00.004-05:00

So I made the mistake of turning on CNBC this morning. I caught a bit with the absurdly named Steve Liesman "dissecting" the new GDP numbers. At the end of the bit he said this:

The recession, from every possible technical standpoint, is now, Larry, finally over.

Be sure to tell that, Liesman, to the 15 million people still out of work, the 2.5 to 3 million more who have dropped out* of the labor force entirely, the 10 million or so who have part time jobs who want full time jobs, and the tens of millions more who are making less than they were four years ago. (And a good many of those people are still fearing for their jobs because despite all the crap one hears, levels of business activity are still diminishing in many areas.)

Really, the level of bullshit being spouted by our leaders about the economy defies belief. Our good President can't even mention the word "unemployment" in the State of the Union address because the word doesn't test well in front of the focus groups. I wonder which set of leaders are lying to their nation more, those guys in the Middle East about to be overthrown or the assholes in NYC and Washington DC running this country?

* At least according to the BLS, whose numbers become more unbelievable with each release.

UPDATE: In the very next segment some analysts claim that we will see a growth of almost 2.8 million jobs this year. Un-fucking-real. That's almost 240,000 jobs added a month. At least Liesman states that he doesn't think unemployment is going to get better - he just thinks the unemployed people don't matter. ("The fate of the economy will be determined by the 90.6 percent of the population ... that is employed.") After all, as long as the "economy" is doing better he gets to keep his job. How did all these fuckers who did NOT see the recession coming get to keep their jobs and homes, and I, who DID see it coming, didn't get to keep either? There ain't no justice.

Time to stop watching the news....

Buy the dip.

2011-01-10T18:51:00.004-05:00

Just to save myself seconds....

H.M.M.M.M.

Ted Williams and his hair

2011-01-09T00:00:00.009-05:00

The feel good story of the week has been the discovery of the man with the God Given Gift of Voice, Ted Williams. As a homeless man he had an incredible explosion of hair.

Then he got cleaned up for his media appearances. I miss the wild man look. After thinking about it for a few hours it finally hit me where I had seen that hair before....

It's all about God's Gifts....

ADDED: It just occurred to me that Moses was a homeless man when his hair exploded. Huh.

The Heatles?

2011-01-08T22:59:00.002-05:00

So the other day Lebron James stated that the Miami Heat are now referring to themselves as The Heatles because they go on the road and sell-out wherever they go. I told my wife about this, and that I thought it was partly wrong because The Beatles stopped touring in 1966. My wife's response was classic:

More than that, The Beatles are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so they're actually in Cleveland.

Listen up, Knuckleheads - Names matter!

2011-01-06T17:03:00.008-05:00

The Orlando Sentinel has a story today about four local men trying to make good - by robbing banks. Unfortunately they got caught after robbing five* banks. (Apparently they don't know that the best way to rob a bank is to run one.)

Anyhow, one of the young gentlemen goes by the moniker Crime Tyme. You might think that he's kind of giving the game away with such a name. Perhaps, although he might be looking to break into professional wrestling instead.

Nevertheless, Crime Tyme is actually an improvement over the name his parents gave him: Courvoisier Winetavius Richardson**. Truly, with a name like that the best he could hope for in life is to be a run-of-the-mill knucklehead. Just remember

Sticks and stones
May break my bones,
But a stupid-assed name
Can ruin my life.

* Crime Tyme and his buddies tried to rob a sixth bank. From the Sentinel:

The suspects, ages 17 to 22, would have knocked over a sixth bank in Lake [County] on Nov. 18, if it had not been for another unexpected twist: Workers locked the doors of the bank as suspicious men headed in their direction.

I'm waiting for the PC Police to have that bank shut down and the workers fired for racial discrimination.

** Really, Courvoisier Winetavius Richardson's parents ought to be sent to prison if he's convicted.

2010 in Review

2010-12-31T18:42:00.002-05:00

Well, not really. Besides, what's to review? I have 28 posts in 2010, not counting this one. That's the least I've blogged since I started. (Those 2 in 2005 are right at the end of the year as I set this up. Plus, I was blogging at a now defunct site that year too.)

I've had a lot going on this year despite my continued unemployment. So I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. In fact I'm not.

I also have no idea what I'll do here next year, if anything. I have plenty I'd like to write about but I just don't have the uninterrupted time to do so. Also I have other writing projects I'd like to do, but again, no time.

So I guess I will continue to putz along, posting when I can. Not that anyone is left to read this other than me. Hell, even the Chinese spam-bots haven't hit me in a while.

SO I guess I will end this year of weak blogging with a weak post.

Does this look like an economic recovery?

2010-12-19T13:22:00.020-05:00

My wife, my mother and I have been shopping the last couple of weeks. We've been shocked by the lack of shoppers we've seen. The only places I've seen a good deal of activity are the grocery store and Sam's, and neither place has seemed any more busy than usual.

But don't just take my word for it. I was at Target yesterday, the Saturday before Christmas, and I snapped some pictures. These were all taken between 12:48 PM and 1:40 PM on 12/18/2010.

First the front end of the store.

Not terribly busy. Let's check Electronics.

Hey, that almost looks like a crowd. But not really. Mostly it's just four people walking by in the foreground. Here's what it looked like about ten seconds later.

Now for the back end of the store. First we're looking from the halfway point back towards the grocery section.

Now from the same spot looking towards the toy and sporting goods section.

Pictures don't convey everything. People could have been in the smaller side aisles that don't show up in these pictures. And some were. But not that many. The store just wasn't that busy. Neither the Electronics section nor the Toy section were crowded, not even on the Saturday before Christmas. (And the section of Christmas decorations looked like it had just been put up. Not many people were buying decorations either.) Not that long ago I remember when the Target I shopped at was busier than this on a random weekday in the middle of summer.

Also note that none of the carts look particularly full.

These pictures are from a Target on West Colonial Drive in Orlando. Admittedly it's only one store. And West Orlando isn't doing terribly well even by Orlando's standards. (The U-3 unemployment rate in the Orlando Metro area was 11.9% in November, up from 11.3% the previous month. More on this in a moment.) I'm sure the local Walmart is doing better business.

Our leaders insist we're in a recovery. I'm not convinced. As I mentioned the local employment situation got worse in November. But let's look at the broader picture of the whole state of Florida. From an article in the Orlando Sentinel last Thursday:

The statewide figure [of 12.0% U-3 unemployment] represents about 1.1 million jobless in a labor force of about 9.2 million. Total non-agricultural employment grew by 300 jobs from the previous month.

Three hundred jobs! Let's say we want the unemployment rate in Florida to get down to 5%, which is actually higher than it was pre-recession. That means that 640,000 currently unemployed Floridians (on net) need to find a job. At 300 jobs a month it will take approximately 2,133 months for the U-3 rate to return to normal. (That's over 177 years.)

Now you can accuse me of looking at the worst case. You would be wrong (we could easily lose jobs), but I can find a better case from the same article.

Since last year at this time, Florida has added 36,200 jobs – an annual growth rate of 0.5 percent. The national growth rate over that time has been 0.6 percent.

Okay, so the monthly average job gain of the last year has actually been a little over 3,000. So that means that it would take only about 213 months, or over 17.5 years, for the employment numbers to improve. And none of that takes increases in population into account.

And it's not just Florida. Consider California - the Golden State is turning into the Lead State. The most recent monthly unemployment report shows that unemployment in California is now as bad as Michigan. Michigan!

Then there was this sad story about letters to Santa Claus - increasingly children are asking for warm coats for their parents and money for the electricity bill. It's really sad, so I don't recommend the story for everyone. But here's the paragraph I found most telling.

Though many considered last year to be the toughest financially since the economic downturn began, Fontana said, it appears that more people are struggling this year, judging both from the letters and the decreased number of volunteers who sign up to fulfill some of the writers' wishes.[emphasis added]

I ask you again, does this look like a recovery?

UPDATE: My mother-in-law reports that the stores seem quite busy in Palmdale California. No reports on whether or not people are buying lots of stuff, but she did say that the Best Buy was missing several of the items she wanted - apparently sold out. I'm still not buying this as a recovery. Does anyone else have any observations?

Extending the Bush Tax Cuts

2010-12-07T22:45:00.002-05:00

I've been having a conceptual problem with the politics involving the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

The argument for extending the tax cuts for income over $250,000 has been that increasing taxes at that level will hurt at the margins for small businesses. This seems sensible.

The argument for allowing the tax cuts to lapse has been that millionaires and billionaires don't need the break. I get that to a certain extent, although someone making $250,000 isn't necessarily a millionaire, and they're certainly NOT making millions in any given year. After all some Wall Street jerk making a $10,000,000 bonus isn't going to get hurt by a few extra percentage points on his income taxes.

I don't see why a compromise (prior to Obama's announcement yesterday) couldn't have been reached whereby tax rates wouldn't be raised on those making less than a million a year. (Or two million or three million... The idea is the important part, the level is negotiable.) That would help the smaller businesses at the margins and still tax the real whales. It would at least be an attempt at fiscal prudence.

I did hear that idea floated a couple of times but it didn't seem to catch on. The whole thing has been proposed as a strict dichotomy - either extend the tax cuts for everyone, or only for those making less than $250,000. No room for negotiation, just those two ideas. The whole thing makes me suspicious that both sides have actually been planning on extending everything but wanted the show to set up their talking points for the next election cycle.

...

I have one other thought about these extensions. Suppose the tax cuts are allowed to expire for the wealthiest segment. Are the Buffets, Gates, and Brins of the nation really going to pay that much more income tax? Or will their tax attorneys and accountants merely find different ways to shelter their money?

...

The more I think about it the more suspicious I get of the whole thing. It seems like nothing more than show.

Two observations about the local economy

2010-11-25T12:48:00.003-05:00

The following two observations are anecdotal but still indicative of what's going one in the Orlando area.

Driving through downtown Orlando yesterday (on I-4) I noticed that there were no construction cranes up at the moment. There haven't been since the completion of the new arena downtown a few months ago and there probably won't be any more anytime soon. By way of comparison I could count 13 before losing track when driving through downtown in 2005.

Last week I took our Camry down to a Toyota dealership for maintenance. I noticed several things. First, they have a lot more used cars on the lot than in the past. Second, most of the used cars were trucks or SUVs. The dealership mostly sells Camrys and Corollas, so this is another sign of people scaling back their lives. Third, the dealership only sometimes does the complementary car wash now, and they've discontinued the free pastries for their customers in the waiting area.

I give thanks for our robust recovery.

Yep, that's what I thought.

2010-11-19T15:49:00.007-05:00

I've been saying for a while now (elsewhere) that the USA's immigration policy can only be interpreted intelligently one of two ways.

The policy as it has stood for the last few decades has been to make it very difficult for skilled people to immigrate to the country legally, while encouraging millions of un(der)educated Third World peasants to immigrate here illegally and then back-dooring them into citizenship some how.

This only intelligent explanations for this are that the elites are looking to either dilute the citizenship of current citizens, or that they're looking to replace the population almost entirely so as to make it more docile.

Yes, the second explanation is just a more extreme interpretation of the first.

The ruling class* is not homogeneous, and their reasons for wanting to replace the current population aren't homogeneous. But here's a nice quote from some Democratic party insiders making it explicit why they're doing this - to insure their future electoral success.

"When you get into a presidential electorate, it decidedly favors Democrats, and every year it’s going to decidedly favor them more and more,” [James] Carville said. “Demographics don’t do anything but get better for Democrats. Every election becomes less white.”

Incidentally one can also catch various politicians speaking with forked tongues on both this issue and education**. Virtually all pols speak of the need to have a highly educated work force to compete in the new global economy. If that's the case, why import millions and millions of ignorant peasants?

* I hesitate to call them a governing class for two reasons: first, not all of them are in the government; second, they do a half-assed job of governing.

** Here's a bonus bit on education. Notice how often Obama speaks of the need to educate more scientists and engineers. In this he is like many pols of both parties. But you can be damned sure his precious daughters won't go into science or engineering. They'll go into law/politics or into finance. You won't find many children of the powerful working their asses off studying mechanics or electrodynamics.

Sigh.

2010-07-23T13:52:00.004-04:00

CNN botches a report on the space program. In the piece entitled What will inspire tomorrow's rocket scientists? Lauren Russell writes

Ferguson and most other astronauts paid for their shuttle tickets with post-graduate degrees and years in the military.

But, if commercial organizations take over NASA's suborbital shuttle missions, the next generation's astronauts might purchase their ticket as they would a bus or plane ticket.

The only problem with this is that the space shuttle does not perform sub-orbital operations - it was designed and is used for low Earth orbital missions. Perhaps I'm just being pissy, but this kind of thing bothers me. Reporters should know the subject that they report on.

NOTE: Several hours after I first spotted this mistake it is still up on their website. I've saved the page just in case.

THIS is why I'm NEVER leaving the USA!

2010-07-18T20:52:00.002-04:00

NOTE: I started work on this post back on the night of March 23 2008. A few weeks later my life fell apart so the post never got completed. (I don't know why I didn't complete it before then. I have a huge volume of stuff "under construction".) But this post at Ambiance reminded me of all the fun. I've made a couple of minor changes, but I'm mostly just publishinig my draft as I don't know what else I had in mind.

...

Wherein it gives added weight to the phrase "Don't drink the water!"

WARNING: The contents of this post are quite disgusting!

Of all things, a blog post about Kate Beckingsale's eating habits led me to detailed instructions concerning the proper procedures for use of the dreaded Squat Toilet. ("Rule One: Exhaust all other possibilities." - My wife comments that this is the Golden Rule of Squat Toilets.)

Apparently squat toilets are very common in China. With the Olympics being held in China ~~this year~~ in 2008, many people ~~are now~~ were trying to discover how exactly one uses a squat toilet. Well, the interwebs, amazing things that they are, helpfully provide the answer! (Note that the blog post in question is almost ~~two~~ four years old.)

Proceed as follows:

Most stalls do not have toilet paper. This is the best time to realize this. Either take paper from the general dispenser in the bathroom area or preferably bring your own as it will be made of tissue and not plywood carpaccio.

Approach the squat toilet apprehensively and make sure it's not covered in stool. If it is covered in stool, choose another stall. If another stall is not available, accept the cards that have been dealt you. This is a good time to come up with a title for your experience such as My Great B.M. Adventure or Disgusticon One.

Close the door to the stall, knowing full well the handle has more germs on it than the entire population of Botswana.

Place your feet on the appropriate foot grids, assuming they are not covered in stool. If they are covered in stool, place your feet on the least fouled space you can find, being careful to maintain balance.

Unfasten and drop your trousers and underpants, making sure that they do not make contact with the urine and stool covered surface area.

The post goes on at great length from there, and gets no less disgusting.

Not enough "Ick!" in the world.

To completely misquote Douglas Adams, "Panic!" Although this does provide the perfect reason to always carry a towel.

I can't even begin to imagine how a woman would use this thing while wearing pantyhose.

As the Banterist asks

Grimace and ask yourself if a country with such a toilet can or should ever be a superpower.

World Cup!

2010-07-06T21:24:00.004-04:00

Mostly I've been annoyed by all the World Cup coverage. Really, I do not know a single person that gives a damn. Yet everywhere I turn I find coverage. On the opening day of the Cup the local paper (Orlando Sentinel) featured a page ONE above the fold story in its print edition. The World Series doesn't get that kind of coverage, and the NBA only merits that kind of attention when the Magic are deep in the playoffs. Only the Super Bowl (always) and the Olympics (sometimes) normally receive that kind of front page attention.

Honestly, we do not care! I don't have a problem with the rest of the world loving the sport, but we do not. Stop with all the rah-rah internationalist BS.

I do have to admit, however, that I find it particularly funny that the first World Cup held in Africa is being dominated by Europe. The more things change....

But then, soccer is one of the whitest sports this side of water polo.

NASA may as well engage in group therapy ...

2010-07-06T14:21:00.005-04:00

... since it won't be putting Americans in space any longer.

Obama's NASA apparatchik Charles Bolden outlined Obama's goals for NASA on Al Jazeera:

I am here in the region - its sort of the first anniversary of President Barack Obama's visit to Cairo - and his speech there when he gave what has now become known as Obama's "Cairo Initiative" where he announced that he wanted this to become a new beginning of the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. When I became the NASA Administrator - before I became the NASA Administrator - he charged me with three things: One was that he wanted me to re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, that he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering."

For those that don't want to read the full quote, Obama's goals for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are:

Get children to do their math and science homework
Make the world love us
Make Muslims feel good about their contributions to science, math and engineering

No mention of aeronautics or space. No wonder Obama has moth-balled efforts to for more US manned space vehicles - that has nothing to do with his stated goals for NASA.

TPM attempts to spin this to the Administration's benefit, but I don't see how this helps:

At issue is an interview NASA administrator Charles Bolden gave to Al Jazeera while on a trip to Quatar[sic] recently. The interview came as Bolden was in the Middle East to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Obama's Cairo speech, where he called for renewed ties between the U.S. and Muslim nations around the world.

And

NASA spokesperson Bob Jacobs told me that any suggestion that Bolden was describing a new mission for NASA in the interview was false. NASA will still spend its time exploring the cosmos and advancing aeronautics, he told me.

"I think unfortunately this has gotten caught up in some political rhetoric," Jacobs said.

Jacobs said he is "not aware" of any "specific efforts" to include Middle Eastern know-how in future space projects "at this point" -- but said that since the Muslim world is "part of the international community," it made sense that Bolden would refer to the area when discussing the administration's plans to leverage international cooperation for the future of the space program.

"The interview took place in Qatar," Jacobs said. "I don't think it would be strange that he would make a specific reference to a local audience in his remarks."

Why is the Administrator of NASA in the Middle East working on a strictly political mission? Moreover, if NASA is NOT looking to add "Middle Eastern know-how" to future projects, then the NASA Administrator has even less reason to be in the Middle East.

One wonders if the State Department will now be in charge of developing new spacecraft. That would make at least as much sense.

....

Side note: Do those Arab Muslims have any know-how worth exploiting? NASA doesn't seem to think so. However the commenters at TPM seem to think that Muslims inventing Algebra means that they are critical to the NASA effort. But the last Arab Muslim contribution to engineering had something to do with finding the critical stress loads at which large structures lose integrity. Yeah, that's the critical kind of help the US space program needs....

Obama's Parsimony

2010-07-06T14:01:00.005-04:00

Accusing Obama of stinginess seems strange on the face of it, but consider:

(a) The Obama Administration has been reluctant to spend BP's money to enhance the clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico.

(b) Obama has cut NASA's budget. Instead he has NASA attempting group therapy so that the Muslim world can feel good about themselves. (Yes, I know Obama has promised more money in the future. But $6 billion isn't much, and who really believes that Obama's budget commission won't cut that and more from NASA's budget this fall?)

(c) Obama has been very reluctant to spend any money to enforce the nation's immigration laws.

About fucking time.

2010-06-29T20:09:00.005-04:00

The useless Obama Administration is finally going to accept international assistance for help with the Gulf Oil Spill. That's 70 days into the mess for those who want to keep score.

Meanwhile, Obama doesn't want to be reminded about the oil spill. I guess it interferes with his mental equilibrium, and probably adversely affects his golf game. Remember, it's good for America when Obama golfs - his aides have told us so.

Words cannot express my anger or contempt for the worthless piece of shit we have as a President right now. He could have accepted this help almost 70 days ago! Why didn't he? WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T HE ACCEPT HELP WHEN IT MIGHT HAVE DONE SOME GOOD?!!? I can't wait to hear what lies his staff will tell to explain his malfeasance on this issue. At this point one either has to assume he's dumber than Forrest Gump, more evil than Nero, or some combination of the two.

How high unemployment saved the economy.

2010-04-15T16:29:00.005-04:00

By reducing costs for corporate America, of course. In 2009 Corporate America, in the form of the Fortune 500, saw its second largest annual increase in profits in the list's 56 year history. mostly this was achieved through ruthless cost cutting of labor expenses.

For 2009, though, the big story is how the Fortune 500 managed that jump in earnings when the number that usually pulls profits up or down -- revenues -- dropped sharply. Last year, Fortune 500 sales fell 8.7% to $9.8 trillion, the largest percentage decline since 1983. It was the frantic response to falling sales that laid the groundwork for the earnings renaissance.

In late 2008 and early 2009, volumes and prices, two contributors to sales, both shrank drastically as GDP contracted at an incredible rate of around 6%. Fearing the onset of a depression, companies raced to lower expenses even faster. "Producers practically panicked," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "They cut costs incredibly aggressively."

The crucial reductions came in the item accounting for two-thirds of their costs: labor. In 2009, the Fortune 500 shed 821,000 jobs, the biggest loss in its history -- almost 3.2% of its payroll. By mid-2009, companies were making fewer goods with far fewer workers.

A pivotal turn began midyear. Sales bottomed, then began to rise gently, as headcounts continued falling. "The largest part of the gain came from lower payrolls rather than the sluggish rise in sales, but they both contributed," says Dirk van Dijk of Zacks Equity Research. The result was a wondrous surge in productivity, defined as the hours needed to make a bicycle, a PC, or a ton of insulation.

At the same time, wages rose only slightly. So for all of U.S. industry, the labor costs of creating a good or service -- a measure known as unit labor costs -- fell by 4.6%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That's the sharpest drop in postwar history.

As sales started rising in the second half of 2009, all of the extra revenues and cost reductions fell to the bottom line. Today employers are maintaining the super-low cost regimes they imposed during the crisis while the economy is finally growing. That explains the explosion in Fortune 500 profits. [emphasis added]

So next time you hear that we're in a recovery, remember that it was achieved by slashing headcount and payroll, and that the resultant productivity gains mean the corporations aren't likely to rehire anyone soon. Nor will they have to give people pay raises, because someone else out there will be willing to do the job.

Once again, the middle gets squeezed out. But hey, green shoots! Recovery! Happy days are here again!

Have you heard the good news?

2010-03-21T23:23:00.002-04:00

Speaking of our debts....

Obama Paying More Than Buffett as Bonds Show U.S. Losing AAA

That's slightly unfair. Obama looks to be the biggest single abuser of debt in the history of the world, but he's had many accomplices - about 200,000,000 of them.

Not that we're about to stop this madness. The elites have no idea what to do other than keep pumping out debt. Not that it will do any good. (Warning, I haven't checked the source data on this one, but it looks correct.)

In other words, the government has become our pusherman. They don't know anything but debt. What the fuck are they gonna do but hustle? Meanwhile

I.M.F. Warns Wealthy Nations about Debt

CR points out that Lipsky of the IMF also expressed the need for the rebalancing of global trade, although he was too much of a wimp to call out the Chinese when he had their ear. That leads to

Report: China Losing Support of American Business Community

The possibility of a trade war seems more real every day, although still somewhat remote at this point. The Chinese are saying we have the most to lose. They might be right, but they'd be fools to bank on it. We're fools to bank otherwise. Just because a trade war would most likely be foolish doesn't mean it won't happen. We're a nation of Buellers.

That low sound you hear from the horizon? It might be the sound of distant thunder. But it's probably the just the Piper playing a low note. And he's a lot closer than you think.

Spinning at a Tea Party

2010-02-14T21:33:00.008-05:00

They held another Tea Party in Orlando today.

The frigid Downtown Orlando wind could not keep conservative voters from airing their discontent on the way Washington and Tallahassee politicians are running the show.

President Obama and Democrats were not the only targets of the hundreds of Tea Party activists, as many of those gathered outside of City Hall felt that their own Republican candidates had failed them.

"We're upset with [both] parties. That's why we're standing out here today – we have no friends," said event-organizer Jason Hoyt of the Tea Party Patriots Live radio show.

The stimulus package and health care bill were main targets, but complaints about the pending construction of the SunRail commuter-rail system was prominent.

Now for some background. SunRail is a proposed light rail system for the Orlando area. The idea is to use existing tracks owned by CSX for a route that would run from Poinciana in Osceola County to Deland in Seminole County, with downtown Orlando as the center.

CSX is not planning to enter the light rail business. They plan to sell their tracks, build a new inter-modal facility in Winter Haven and run their freight trains through Lakeland to the west of Orlando. Currently those trains run through Orlando, Winter Park, and surrounding areas.

Local opponents of SunRail have concerns about the cost and utility of the system - everything from complaints about paying CSX for the rails to concerns about the volume of riders.

Personally I'm ambivalent about it. I'm concerned that too few people will ride it to justify the cost. On the other hand, routing freight rail traffic out of Orlando would be a definite plus. But a lot of the opposition comes from the same stupid "We Don't Want to Pay for ANYTHING" attitude that defines so many of the "locals". I put locals in scare-quotes for this reason: Many of those people have moved here because of the (once) low taxes, and they do not want to pay for anything. That includes building new schools, roads and other public facilities needed by the population growth that they represent. Their parsimony wouldn't be so bad if the idiots wouldn't constantly bitch and moan about the lack of schools, roads and other public facilities. (Yes, I'm quite annoyed with these idiots. They've spoiled Paradise with no awareness of their own role in the despoiling. And I've been listening to such foolishness for 30 years now.)

Now back to today's Tea Party. Several Florida elected officials turned up, including gubernatorial candidate Paula Dockery (R-Lakeland). Dockery is a state senator, and well-known for her opposition to Orlando's proposed light rail system, SunRail. She made much of that today.

Long-time opponent of the rail, gubernatorial candidate Paula Dockery (R-Lakeland), headlined the 30 candidates that attended the event, and didn't mince words about what she would do in Tallahassee.

As state senator, Dockery failed to defeat the $1.2 billion SunRail deal in December. But she promised voters on Saturday she will derail the project and return the money to taxpayers if she's elected as governor.

"The first thing I'd like to do as governor is stop the bad stuff," Dockery said, referring to the SunRail. "When I'm governor, I'll take my veto pen and stop that bad stuff."

It's true that Dockery has been an opponent of SunRail, perhaps the most effective elected official standing against it.

At times it seems she has been a one-woman veto, thwarting the will of the Governor, both US Senators, several other members of our US Congressional delegation, the state House of Representatives and the State Senate. She has been masterful in in her procedural fights, and it took forever to finally defeat her efforts. Light rail has been discussed as a tool to lower road congestion in greater Orlando since at least 1986 that I remember. Dockery hasn't been around that long, but in recent years she has been the biggest stumbling block.

But her opposition has nothing to do with saving money for the taxpayers of Florida. Paula doesn't have any problem with the billion dollar boondoggle that high-speed rail will become but opposes SunRail's $600,000,000 price-tag. Ostensibly she has been fighting against the SunRail project because the shift in CSX freight rail traffic to Lakeland will mean more noise and traffic congestion in Lakeland. (Nevermind that Lakeland-Winter Haven has one quarter the population of Greater Orlando.) There is also a bit of personal vendetta involved - and that involves high-speed rail.

Paula's husband "Doc" Dockery had been a long-time proponent of high-speed rail for the state of Florida. Doc has been something of a mover-and-shaker in Florida Politics for some time, and helped get Jeb Bush elected governor in 1998. Our tale continues:

In 1999, his first year in office, Bush had grave reservations about the work of the commission and especially the contractor. He stopped the high-speed rail program, saying the money would go to interstate construction instead.

Doc Dockery was not happy, so he spent $3 million of his own money on a campaign that convinced voters to pass an amendment to the state constitution requiring the state to build a high-speed rail system eventually connecting at least five major urban centers.

Bush considered the Doc Dockery-led passage of the amendment in 2000 to be an affront to his decision to kill the old high-speed rail program.

Relations grew worse between the two former friends. Bush spent much of the rest of his two terms in office fighting high-speed rail while his administration was apparently secretly working on an Orlando commuter-rail system, according to documents later requested by Sen. [Paula] Dockery.

Doc Dockery has had a take-no-prisoners attitude towards high-speed rail. Everything else is secondary. Given the relative price-tags involved, I doubt that Paula Dockery truly cares about saving the taxpayers money, contradicting her spin to the Tea Partiers.

And there's one other thing. In opposing light rail, Paula has allied herself with a group that probably isn't terribly popular with the Tea Partiers - trial lawyers. One of the wrinkles of the CSX deal to sell their tracks included a waiver of liability for CSX. Let me rephrase - after the deal, CSX could not be sued for anything that went wrong with the tracks.

I'm not certain of all the details so I can't say if it's a bad deal or not. But if it means that once the tracks are determined to be in good shape, that CSX can't be held liable for future problems, that seems fair to me. But the trial lawyers have screamed bloody murder. They want the ability to sue anyone and everyone ever involved with the tracks in the almost 100% likelihood of future accidents. And that has been the secret of Paula Dockery's ability to block the SunRail deal until recently - the immense money and influence of the trial lawyers has been the wind at her back. Paula Dockery is playing the role of fiscal conservative and outsider for the Tea Partiers. It remains to be seen if they have the wits to see through her charade.

If you question the Obama Administration ...

2010-02-09T09:52:00.004-05:00

... then the terrorists have won. Obama has sent out one of his minions to question the motives (and by inference, the patriotism) of the critics of Obama's handling of the Christmas Day Pantie Bomber Attack:

Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.

...

Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.

Thus wrote John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism in the current edition of USA Today.

This would be another example of President Obama "expecting us to just kind of sit down and shut up". As per usual with this Administration of hypocrites and assholes, it's only bad if Republicans do it.

More financial worries....

2010-02-03T23:01:00.006-05:00

Remember how the Democratic Congress was going to increase the US Debt Ceiling by $1.9 trillion ($1,900,000,000,000) so that they wouldn't have to raise it again later this year, right before the mid-term elections? Well, it won't work. From the AFP:

The US debt is on track to hit a congressionally proposed debt ceiling of 14.3 trillion dollars by the end of February, the Treasury said Wednesday, a day ahead of a key vote to raise it to that level. [emphasis added]

I know that the government expects more revenue as we approach April 15, but I don't see how they will be able to get by without upping the limit again. Moody's Investor Service has once again issued a warning, according to the Financial Times:

Moody’s Investors Service fired off a warning on Wednesday that the triple A sovereign credit rating of the US would come under pressure unless economic growth was more robust than expected or tougher actions were taken to tackle the country’s budget deficit.

In a move that follows intensifying concern among investors over the US deficit, Moody’s said the country faced a trajectory of debt growth that was “clearly continuously upward”.

In other good news, the mortgage delinquency rate has hit 10% (total non-current rate at 13.3%) and the BLS should revise the number of jobs lost upwards by 824,000 this Friday.

That last bit is old news, though. The government announced this change several months ago. The BLS revises its methodology once a year, and that change is incorporated into the January report (released in early February) each year. It's old news, but most people probably haven't heard this before.

ADDED: CNN/Money has a better story about the adjustment to the employment numbers, complete with graphical goodness. Two things about the story jumped out at me. First, this story fails to mention that this revision had been publicized many months ago. (Here's a link to the BLS announcement itself, last updated October 2, 2009 as of this update.) Second, it contains this nugget of bad news.

There is a concern that this problem didn't end in March of 2009. In fact, the adjustment added even more jobs -- 990,000 -- in the nine months reported since then.

In other words, the adjustment should probably be 1,814,000 fewer jobs instead of 820,000 fewer jobs.

This is not good news.

A Conflict of Interest? [UPDATE]

2010-02-03T11:50:00.004-05:00

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has called for drivers of Toyotas subject to the recent recall to stop driving their cars until fixed.

LaHood's warning came Wednesday in testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on transportation. LaHood says his advice to owners is to "stop driving it. Take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have a fix for it."

LaHood told reporters earlier in the day that Toyota owners should contact their dealer immediately and "exercise caution until repairs can be made."

The article goes on to rake Toyota over the coals for its many sins.

I assume that the recall has some merit. But one has to wonder if the government has other reasons for being so forceful. Two things spring immediately to mind. First, the government has an interest in GM doing well. Given that auto sales are falling and likely to remain low, the only way for GM to do well is at the expense of someone else. Second, the Administration is famously in the tank for unions, and I wonder if this is attempt to punish a non-UAW auto-maker.

I doubt whether the second bit has anything to do with this. But I can't help wondering about the first point. Yet another problem with massive government intervention in the economy - one can never be sure of the government's actual intent.

UPDATE: From AP:

LaHood told reporters it was "obviously a misstatement" when he told a House panel earlier Wednesday that he would advise owners not to drive recalled vehicles. The remark came during testimony to the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation.

Nice rollback now that the damage has been done! Now I'm really suspicious....

And another thing!

2010-01-21T20:19:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention the first thing that occurred to me when I read the Wall Street Journal article about Obama's banking proposals. Incidentally, the article I linked to earlier has changed, and a part that I had quoted appears to be missing from the current article. So to refresh your memory:

"This renewed focus on financial services reform by the Obama Administration is clearly a transparent attempt at faux-populism, in light of the outcome of the Massachusetts Senate race," said Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.).

Does this congressman really believe that Obama cooked this up in less than two days? Paul Volcker has been pushing these ideas for months before Congress and whoever else would listen.
Now I don't doubt that the tenor of Obama's remarks reflect Tuesday's results. Of course they do. But the policy itself? Please.

I don't mind (much) that politicians play at politics. But Rep. Scott Garrett shouldn't insult my intelligence with this kind of stupid utterance.

Drawing the wrong conclusion

2010-01-21T13:27:00.004-05:00

Republicans are ecstatic over Tuesday's election in Massachusetts, rightly so. But they had best not get too cocky. The sentiment in the country isn't pro-Republican. It isn't even completely anti-Democrat. It's more anti-incumbent and anti-political establishment.

Yesterday the Obama Administration was trying to claim that Brown's election on Tuesday was driven by the same sentiment that put Obama in office. That's partly true, but not the way the spun it. (They claim that it is the anti-Bush anti-Republican sentiment of 2006 and 2008 that caused Massachusetts to vote for a Republican in 2010. Riiiight.) It's slowly dawning on the masses that the governing class (both parties) doesn't know what its doing, and doesn't give a damn about the concerns of the people. In 2008 that meant voting anti-Republican. On Tuesday that meant voting anti-Democrat.

But the Republicans can't rely on only being the "Not Democrats". They may be able to win back both houses of Congress this fall with that message, but once in office people will expect them to govern. I'm still not seeing any indication that they can do that any better now than when Bush was in office. They may get swept back into office in 2010 only to be swept right back out again in 2012.

In 2006 and again in 2008 I stated that the Democrats didn't deserve to win but that the Republicans deserved to lose. Now the Democrats deserve to lose as well. That doesn't mean the Republicans now deserve anything other than what they got in 2006 and 2008.

Tuesday was a good start. Now this fall we need to follow through and vote all the bums out, in both parties.

PS Several times in the past year or so I have made the point that I don't intend to vote Republican in 2010. I still don't. For years I voted for them because the alternative was worse. Maybe it still is. But just because the other guys are catastrophes doesn't mean I want to vote for the mere disasters. I'm tired of that. Plus, even though in my local congressional district I would be voting against the execrable Alan Grayson, I can't stomach the idea that a vote for the local Republican would be a vote to put John Boehner in charge of the House of Representatives. Similarly, a vote for Rick Rubio for the US Senate would be a vote for Mitch McConnell to run things. Not a change one can believe in!

Re-elect no one. It's the only way to get the attention of the bastards in charge.

Obama proposes new regulation

2010-01-21T13:02:00.003-05:00

... and it sounds like a good start. The devil is in the details, of course, but Obama's new proposals today sound mostly like steps in the right direction. I don't like the tone of all the President's comments today (the one's I have read in the linked article, anyway) but I'm willing to let the man have his rhetorical flourishes if the policy is good.

I hope to look at this more later, and may or may not have more comments, but I do want to point out something really stupid: the initial Republican response:

The initial reaction from some Republicans has been sharply critical, with several saying the White House is trying to hammer big banks to score political points.

"This renewed focus on financial services reform by the Obama Administration is clearly a transparent attempt at faux-populism, in light of the outcome of the Massachusetts Senate race," said Rep. Scott Garrett (R., N.J.). "The American people have rejected extreme government expansion into the private sector, be it in the health care, financial services or auto industry."

Several points can be made off the top of my head.

Of course the President is trying to score political points, as are his critics. Football players play football, and politicians play politics.
Big banks may not deserve to get hammered politically right now - but the banksters running them certainly do deserve it. The common perception is that the bankers got bailed out by the government, and are now pocketing the profits while screwing everyone else. The common perception is correct in this case, at least in regards to the Too Big To Fail institutions.
Government has the responsibility to regulate banks and financial institutions. Currency is issued by the US government, and banks play a role in how that currency is used. As such they are not operators in a free market. Good regulation doesn't mean over-regulation. But it doesn't mean no regulation either. Clearly the banks (and other organizations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) did not manage their affairs well over the last 12 years. And the regulatory agencies got much wrong as well. It is time to address those issues.
If the banks were free operators, they should have been allowed to fail. But several of the biggest institutions control too much of the market to allow that to happen. The size of the banks means that the government WILL have to get involved if times get rough, and not just through the FDIC. Reducing the size of the largest institutions would mean that we could let individual banks fail. That would reduce the intrusion of government into the market, not increase it.
Hand in hand with the fourth point, regulations could insure that separate business models don't operate under the same roof, extending systemic risk.

So for toady, right now, Obama is proposing better policy. That is new - most of his proposals have been terrible. And the Republicans are proposing bad policy. That's the same-old same-old.

Update: I forgot to mention the first thing that I thought of reading Garrett's comment. I've made it a separate post.

Ever get the feeling your government is trying to replace you?

2010-01-21T09:58:00.004-05:00

I do all the time.

The Obama administration is preparing to handle applications from as many as 200,000 undocumented Haitian immigrants who want to live and work legally in the United States under a new immigration program unveiled last week in the aftermath of Haiti's destructive earthquake.

I understand there's a disaster in Haiti, but I also have no doubt that these people will be allowed to stay indefinitely. And that's not to mention the 45,000 or so that the Red Cross is flying into Florida in addition to those already here. Not that I necessarily believe the 45,000 number either. More from the article:

Those Haitians approved will be allowed to stay in the United States for 18 months and be issued work permits to find jobs.

To be approved, Haitian immigrants must submit proof of Haitian citizenship and must show they were in the United States before Jan. 12 -- the day the devastating earthquake struck Haiti.

Local immigrant advocacy groups say that between 34,000 and 68,000 potential TPS applicants may be in South Florida and almost 100,000 statewide. They had earlier pegged the number of Haitians eligible for TPS at 30,000 nationwide. [emphasis added]

Their earlier estimate had been off by nearly an order of magnitude? They might hit 30,000 in Orlando alone, with more than half of that coming from Pine Hills.

Florida currently has over one million people officially unemployed. (Yes, I'm one of them. So are at least four friends that I can think of.) This isn't going to help that situation. But then, it isn't intended to.

USCIS officials said they are increasing staffs at various offices and service centers where applications are processed to expedite decisions.

The goal is to fast-track work permits for applicants, delivering them within 90 days or sooner, said USCIS' Mayorkas. TPS applicants typically wait six months. [emphasis added. Why doens't the government try fast tracking stuff for its own citizens? My brother spent most of the last ten months of his life trying to get SSI. The first check arrived a few days before he died, and the government is sitting on all of the back SSI they owed to him. Another friend has been trying for months to get SSI approval for a valid reason, and keeps getting turned down - but only after months of waiting each time. Our government takes more care being responsive to the shitholes of the world (Haiti, Afghanistan, Somalia) than it does into governing America. Fucking useless bastards.]

``All applications will be treated as urgent,'' he said.

Authorization to work is a key priority for the majority of undocumented Haitians, particularly now that they are desperate to send money to relatives affected by last week's earthquake.

USCIS will try to waive the hefty application fees -- almost $500 -- to as many applicants as possible, said Mayorkas. But he would not commit to waiving fees for all applicants.

``We are aware that some people are financially vulnerable and we will be reviewing the applications with a generosity of spirit,'' Mayorkas told reporters.

Some aid group members pressed Mayorkas to also waive the requirement for government-issued identification for applicants. [Yes, for the love of God, let's not actually document anything. No doubt these Haitians will all be voting come November.]

USCIS officials at the meeting said they will consider accepting Haitian IDs after a Miami Haitian consulate official -- commercial attaché Karlo Pelissier -- said at the meeting that his office can issue ID papers for the applicants.

The consulate generally charges $30 for an ID, but Pelissier said he will check with his government on whether the fee can be waived.

By obtaining work permits with the possibility of getting a job, tens of thousands of undocumented Haitian immigrants in the United States are likely to send tens of millions of dollars to homeland relatives. [Remember, each job these immigrants get is one less job for a native.]

Announcing ...

2010-01-13T22:59:00.004-05:00

... that in approximately five months my wife and I will be welcoming a daughter into this world. We found out the sex yesterday, and we already have a name picked out. (In fact, we've had the name for both a daughter and a son picked out for years prior to actually starting to have children.) I'm not sure I want to share the name, but I can tell you that if she were Sarah Palin's daughter she might well be called Nixon Hailstorm Palin.

And yes, K and I are very excited!

Wedding Gear

2010-01-13T22:58:00.000-05:00

A friend is getting married in a couple of months and I've been asked to be a groomsman. I accepted, of course, and even had some helpful recommendations on how we should dress. I sent the following email:

How could I possibly say ‘No’ to the man that drove all over Hell and Creation with a half-shaved face to figure out a scheme to get me to the Super Bowl. “We’s gonna catch ourselves a feee-ush.” [*]

For the tuxes, I recommend lavender, with very wide lapels, very big matching bow ties (“It must be – the BOOOOOW tie….”), and shirts with massive amounts of ruffles. Or is the Leisure Suit Larry thing not what we’re going for?

Of course, we’d all have to grow mustaches for the look to work.

[* But that is another story....]

Naturally, there have been questions. Another groomsman asked:

Question - should the pant legs need to just barely show the white socks at the bottom?

I replied:

I don't think so. I believe they should be of the correct length. But they should definitely be flared. Not quite bell bottoms, but definitely flared.

Truth be told, I'm not sure what to do about shoes - shoes and accessories are always the trickiest part.

But just to make everything clear, here's how it breaks down.

The tux:

The shirt:

The bow tie:

The 'stache:

If we can just get the right shoes and belts....

A fun waste of time ...

2010-01-13T22:50:00.003-05:00

The Sarah Palin Name Generator

My real name translated to Flex Gunship Palin. (I am strongly considering changing my first two names to Flex Gunship.) My wife didn't like hers so much, so I won't post that. I WILL mention that every time through you will get a different response.

Here are the names some of my friends got:

Muzzle Mammoth Palin
Pie Gallon Palin
Bomb Locomotive Palin (possibly my favorite)
Blitz Harden Palin

There are many more in the comments to the post. Check it out.

Blue Grass = Accoustic Thrash Metal

2010-01-08T21:16:00.002-05:00

I've stated on many occasions that Blue Grass music and Thrash Metal are very similar. For those that doubt I present the following two-fer:

Wankers

2010-01-08T14:28:00.007-05:00

A favorite show of mine over the last two years or so has been Whale Wars. It's a tale of intrepid adventurers, the Sea Shepherds, set on stopping the Japanese whaling industry from killing more whales - by any means necessary!

Well, not exactly. Actually, it's a group of dreamy young volunteers being led by an incompetent old environmentalist whack-job and liar. (South Park brilliantly parodied the show.) Mostly these guys are a bunch of "ineffectual Vegan pussies", as Not-Really Larry King called them, and they seem clueless as to their best possible strategy to achieving their goals.

For example, last season they had an extended stretch in which the Japanese whaling fleet killed and butchered several whales while the Sea Shepherds watched helplessly. While they couldn't stop the Japanese from killing those particular whales, they got excellent footage of the slaughter. It was PR gold! Put those images on Japanese television and one might actually sway Japanese public opinion, which is what really matters. (Most people would probably be less inclined to eat meat if they saw what happened in an abattoir. We're so civilized now that most of us have little idea what it takes to create our food.) But the clueless dolts didn't even realize what they had.

Regardless, the show is more entertaining than not, as the Sea Shepherds are staggeringly incompetent. Bad decisions, bad strategy, and worse execution make the show seat-of-the-pants viewing - one never knows if the SS will manage to get one of their own killed. While I don't like the killing of whales, and the scenes I described in the last paragraph are disturbing, the Sea Shepherds are little more than idiots playing at piracy. In short, they're a bunch of wankers, as my wife first noted to me some time back, and it's fun to watch them try to improve the gene pool by deletion of defective specimens.

And it's looking like the new season will be even more entertaining! The Sea Shepherds got a new skiff with which to harass the whalers. The Japanese responded to the new provocation by running over the new skiff and leaving six SSs to die in the sea - Doh! For those looking to breed more stupid people, fret not: the crew were rescued by another ship, the Bob Barker. There's footage of the incident over at CNN. There's also outrage of the news anchor that the Japanese could be so callous. True enough, the Japanese didn't seem interested in saving the lives of the SSs in the water.

But it's also true that the Sea Shepherds have actually rammed Japanese ships with their own ship (not a skiff) on two other occasions. The man in charge of the Sea Shepherds seems even less concerned with human life than the Japanese. The Sea Shepherds have also engaged in piracy (assaulting and boarding ships on the high seas) and they're probably lucky the Japanese haven't actually sent a destroyer to sink their ship. Not to mention that the captain of the Sea Shepherds has regularly put his own crew in jeopardy by his own poor decision making.

So why no outrage from CNN about the Sea Shepherds ramming ships? Well, that's obvious. Since they're on the side of ~~whales~~ angels they can do no wrong. Just another sign of the decline of civilization, or at least the decline of critical thinking in the news media.

Programming Note

2010-01-08T01:13:00.003-05:00

I hope to blog more this year. From March through December of 2009 I only put up 20 posts, and ten of those were in March. Hopefully I will have more time and energy this year for a variety of reasons. At least until June! After that all bets are off....

Dominance

2010-01-08T00:23:00.012-05:00

Alabama won the BCS National Championship Game tonight, edging out Texas. The game was actually much closer than the final score might indicate (37-21), and one has to wonder if Texas would have won if Colt McCoy hadn't been knocked out of the game. Regardless, the SEC has won another National Championship. In the BCS Era the SEC has been THE dominant conference, winning all six National Championship Games in which it competed. For those not keeping track at home, the SEC has won the last four National Championships in a row.

A couple of years ago I sat down and worked out the stats on how the various conferences had fared in the BCS title game. Unfortunately I didn't blog that info at the time. I probably left it in an email or a comment on someone else's blog. Fortunately for me someone at Wikipedia has updated the work for me in the meantime, and made the helpful chart seen below:

Besides the perfection of the SEC, three other results stand out. First, only one other conference has won more than a single title, the Big 12 with two wins. Second, the Big 12 has lost two-and-a-half times as many as it has won - five loses! Third, only one other conference has even hit 50%, and that's the PAC 10 with a 1-1 record. In other words, no other conference is even close.

One other result stands out for the truly observant. Save for a horrible call and some bad luck, the Big East would actually be 2-1 and the Big Ten 0-3. Them teams from the upper mid-west ain't all they're cracked up to be.

PS: Here's the rude emoticon mentioned in the last link:
Added: Something else caught my attention. Three of the conferences have been completely dominated by one team. If a PAC 10 team plays for the title, it is USC. For the ACC it has been FSU (a good reminder for those that forget how dadgum good Bobby Bowden was as a coach), and the Big Ten only sends Ohio State. That makes two of those conferences (PAC 10 and Big Ten) look awfully thin, at least at the elite level.

The ACC doesn't look as thin for two reasons. First, the Big East's two championship contenders have now switched conferences and joined the ACC. Second, it's going to be a while before ANY of those teams compete at the championship level again. They're not thin, they're anorexic! And the Big East currently does not have one single team that has played for the BCS title. They're not thin, they're dead!

Note that this also points out the depth of the SEC - it's the only conference to have had four teams play for the BCS title, and all four have won. The Big 12 has had three teams compete for the title, with only two winners.

All this doesn't mean that the SEC Champion should automatically be placed in the championship game. But it makes a good case that Auburn really got screwed in 2004.

Tricks played by clogged ears

2010-01-04T18:41:00.005-05:00

I'm sick with a cold/walking pneumonia and my ears are a bit clogged up. Thus I'm hearing some funny things that haven't been said. Example: Tonight on NBC's national news broadcast I heard Andrea Mitchell say

Into the cold, the Obama family returned from bombing Hawaii....

It took a few seconds of pondering to realize she must have said "returned from balmy Hawaii." So far this has been the only upside of being sick.

How many people are leaving Florida because of the recession?

2009-12-06T15:08:00.003-05:00

A lot. Probably even more than the official numbers state. Here's an example from a story in the Orlando Sentinel:

In its early life, Camelot Elementary was Central Florida's poster child for runaway school growth.

At its most crowded, the east Orange school had more than 1,320 students on a campus built for 740 and needed 45 portable classrooms to accommodate everyone.

By 2005, portables had chewed up the basketball court, taken over the lawn and run right up to the pitcher's mound on the field behind the school.

Today, all but two of the portable classrooms are gone. The ball fields and basketball courts are restored, and the student population is below 700.

Camelot is now a school comfortable in its brick skin. The breathing room is nice. But the familiar warning -- to be careful what you wish for -- has never been more appropriate.

Dizzying population growth in past years often left schools scrambling to find places for the continuing crush of new students. But the money their families spent on everything from houses to cars to sneakers also put money in state coffers.

That, in turn, helped finance public education.

But in the past few years, population growth -- the main engine driving the state's economy -- has stalled. And this year, for the first time since World War II, more people are expected to move out of Florida than move in.

At the same time, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression is shredding school-district budgets, forcing some to close campuses, cut school days and curtail services.

But at least the economy is recovering, right?

An infusion of nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus money, credited with saving more than 18,000 education jobs in Florida, has helped stave off a deeper crisis. But the state's public schools, on average, started this school year with $418 less per kid than they had at the start of the 2007-08 school year.

State economists predict Florida's budget pain will continue for at least the next three years, with tanking growth drying up billions of dollars in needed revenue. That will hurt all services, including public education.

Schools also will be hurt by the sluggish housing market, which means fewer dollars in property taxes collected for schools, and by the loss of federal money slated to run out next year.

Finally, though enrollment has been dropping for several years -- public schools lost some 40,000 students between 2005 and 2008 -- it might be ticking upward this year. That's because a lot of recession-strapped parents seem to be pulling their children from private schools and enrolling them in public ones, state forecasters say.

The good news is that there's a reform movement afoot to raise taxes. I'm sure that will help the local economy.

A Glitch in the System

2009-10-22T15:16:00.001-04:00

A post coming whenever I get around to writing it.

"Germans?"

2009-10-04T00:10:00.007-04:00

Listening to ABC's coverage of the Oklahoma-Miami game tonight I heard the announcers (Brent Musburger and I think the other was Kirk Herbstreit but I'm not sure of that) start to yammer about that Favre jerk. Turns out Favre has now been a starting QB for just over 17 years, since he played his first game as a starter on September 27, 1992.

Brent started asking his partner trivia questions such as "Who were the starting QBs for the Universities of Miami and Oklahoma when Favre made his first start?" Then they put up a graphic and mentioned some other items from 9/27/1992 such as which song was #1, which movie was #1, etc. Then they mentioned that Bill Clinton was President. I had to check the TV to see if their graphic really said that. Sure enough, it did.

Is it me or does the quality of pretty much everything in this country seem to be on the decline in recent years? Perhaps it is just my impending fogeydom, but I don't think so.

(And just in case anyone reading this doesn't understand the title of the post....)

I feel better now.

2009-09-24T00:11:00.003-04:00

It looks like there is one sane individual left in government. Via Calculated Risk I see that Paul Volcker has NOT lost it:

However well justified in terms of dealing with the extreme threats to the financial system in the midst of crisis, the emergency actions of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and ultimately the Congress to protect the viability of particular institutions – their bond holders and to some extent even their stockholders – have inevitably left an indelible mark on attitudes and behavior patterns of market participants.
• Will not the pattern of protection for the largest banks and their holding companies tend to encourage greater risk-taking, including active participation in volatile capital markets, especially when compensation practices so greatly reward short-term success?

• Are community or regional banks to be deemed “too small to save”, raising questions of competitive viability?

• Does not the extension of support to non-banks, and even to affiliates of commercial firms, undercut the banking/commerce divide, ultimately weakening the commercial banking system?

• Will not investors in money market mutual funds find reassurance in the fact that when push came to shove, the Treasury with an extreme interpretation of its authority, took action to preserve those funds ability to meet their declared commitment to pay their investors at par upon demand?
What all this amounts to is an unintended and unanticipated extension of the official “safety net”, an arrangement designed decades ago to protect the stability of the commercial banking system. The obvious danger is that with the passage of time, risk-taking will be encouraged and efforts at prudential restraint will be resisted. Ultimately, the possibility of further crises – even greater crises – will increase.

There is no easy answer, no one-size fits all contingencies. Experience, not only here but in every country with highly developed, inter-connected financial systems and institutions bears out one point. Governments are not willing to withhold financial and other support for failing institutions when there is a clear threat to the intertwined fabric of the financial system. What can be done is to put in place arrangements to minimize the extent of emergency intervention and to damp expectations of government “bailouts”.

Three cheers for St. Paul, the Dragon Slayer! Hip-hip, HOORAY! Hip-hip, HOORAY! Hip-hip, HOORAY!

Not that I think anyone is going to listen to him. For example, I have read that Chris Dodd wants to take the four main banking regulatory agencies and role them into one super agency. He doesn’t offer a rationale, or explain how this new institution would have forestalled the current crisis, but you know: Bigger is always better! The new agency will be TOO BIG TO FAIL. But the presence of one trustworthy individual is far more than I expected.

Unreality check? Unreality? Check!

2009-09-10T19:56:00.004-04:00

Let's look in on America to see what it is creating to get out of its current economic state. Perhaps it will be a new type of industry, where Americans will make actual material goods.

Lawyers, insurance firms cash in on fantasy football

(CNN) -- Henry Olszewski was stoked in 2008 when he, along with millions of Americans, drafted New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady to his fantasy football team.

About eight minutes into the season, a 220-pound safety was blocked into Brady's knee, tearing two of the quarterback's ligaments. Brady's season ended, as did Olszewski's.

"That Monday, [Olszewski] came in the office, and he was bummed out," said Anthony Giaccone, president of Intermarket Insurance. "He asked, 'Why can't we buy insurance for fantasy team players?' "

Thus spawned the brainchild for Fantasy Sports Insurance, which guarantees that NFL players won't miss a certain number of games. FSI will reimburse a fantasy player's entry fee if they do.

Judas H. Priest. They've invented another financial instrument for people to use when gambling. Out-fucking-standing. It's like they have never heard of mortgage backed securities....

Blogging about email about blogging....

2009-09-08T09:36:00.005-04:00

Or,

I don't need a degree to be unemployed!

Amba put a new post up over the weekend entitled You Get the President You Deserve. It inspired me to write her a few emails. She has requested permission to post some of it, which I have granted, and I'm also going to post the stuff she highlighted below for my own archives. These went back and forth yesterday as part of three emails. The italicized comments at the start of the first two sections are from Amba's post. (You should know that, because you should go read her post.)

I hope that those of us who are still sane can all agree that a violent end to his presidency would be a catastrophe for this country we profess to love.)

The phrase President Biden should scare all right thinking people, even if they hate America.

******

So do you want the demon socialist president of your political fever dreams — because he’ll be easier to defeat in 2012 — or do you want a president we can live with till then?

Doesn’t matter. Obama is both a hard core statist AND a political animal. And for all animals survival is the first imperative. There’s no way he comes out of the Chicago Machine without be a political survivalist.

So we’re getting two main thrusts from his politics: The first is his push to remake America into a socialist paradise (count me among those that think Obama actually hates traditional American ideas on limited government and all that entails); and the second is his cozying up with the banksters and financial powerhouses of Wall Street and the Washington DC economic establishment. One of these is for ideals, and the other for survival. These sometimes conflict, but not as often as one would hope – both are quite comfortable with centralized control by a self-selected elite.

Given these premises, nothing important Obama can do can possibly please those of us that fear large institutions of any stripe.

For that matter, I have trouble agreeing with minor points. For example, I don’t care WHAT Obama says in his speech tomorrow/text today. (What a world! What a world!We’ll have digested the speech and passed it through our intestines before he even gives the damned thing. By the time he speaks it will be working its way through the political sewer system.) The President should stay the hell out of the classroom. (That goes for prior Presidents as well.) At best it represents another photo-op in the President’s (any Presidents) ongoing efforts to win votes. At worst it is cheap propaganda. And there is a very tiny difference between the two. More importantly, doesn’t he have something better to do? I seem to recall hearing something about an economic crisis. Quit wasting time and get to work, you damned self-aggrandizing shill!

Actually, I’m probably happiest with him doing this kind of crap. What the US really needs is a massive deleveraging and the less money spent by the government the better. But that’s not happening anytime ever. The days of the Republic are long gone – now we’re just another democracy voting ourselves into the poor house.

******

Also, as I wrote a few days ago, why should the children work hard when the banksters don’t have to?

Plus, the UE numbers are showing that college grads aren’t doing much better than high school grads right now. You can graduate from high school without breaking a sweat, if you can just conform to the norms. (That’s why a dropped out.) So why work hard? If I hadn’t gone to college I’d be much less in debt right now, and I don’t need a degree to be unemployed!

But the Prez will get up and spew the normal party line, telling the child’en to study hard and work hard. And in other speeches he will continue to tell them to become engineers. Although you can bet he will make sure his daughters go to law school. He won’t leave them to suffer through the ongoing boom and bust cycles of engineering employment – they’ll be part of the new ruling class. At the very least he’ll make certain they end up with a hedge fund somewhere, ala Chelsea.

I embedded the link in the third section and changed "bankers" in the first sentence of the last section to "banksters". Other than that is appears as emailed.

Local headline: "Inmate escapes from state prison, kills himself in motel room"

2009-09-07T17:52:00.003-04:00

I guess he must have found out how bad the local job market is....

This is so wrong....

2009-09-02T21:35:00.004-04:00

Obama is set to give a speech to school children:

In the Sept. 8 speech, Obama will challenge students to work hard, set goals for their education and take responsibility for their learning, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a letter to principals.

Hard work? Take responsibility? That's un-American! Our children ought to hire lobbyists, complain that their education is TOO BIG TO FAIL and demand a Federal bailout.

Why not? It worked for Obama's (and Bush's) bankster friends with Goldman Sacks and Obama's thug supporters in the auto unions....

Random Quote

2009-07-21T14:17:00.006-04:00

Near the creek, well hidden, was one of my hiding places, which I had made carefully and used often. I had torn away two or three low bushes and smoothed the ground; all around were more bushes and tree branches, and the entrance was covered by a branch which almost touched the ground. It was not really necessary to be so secret, since no one ever came looking for me here, but I liked to lie inside with Jonas and know that I could never be found. I used leaves and branches for a bed, and Constance had given me a blanket. The trees around and overhead were so thick that it was always dry inside and on Sunday morning I lay there with Jonas listening to his stories. All cat stories start with the statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this," and I lay with my head close to Jonas and listened. There was no change coming, I thought here, only spring; I was wrong to be so frightened. The days would get warmer, and Uncle Julian would sit in the sun, and Constance would laugh when we worked in the garden, and it would always be the same. Jonas went on and on ("And then we sang! And then we sang!") and the leaves moved overhead and it would always be the same.

- from Shirley Jackson's novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Note: Don't read the blurb at Amazon if you ever intend to read the book. The less you know beforehand the better the read.

What to say?

2009-06-01T12:30:00.002-04:00

From a NYPost story about Obama's date night in NYC:

Then it was up to Broadway, where they had tickets at the Belasco Theatre for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," a play by August Wilson about a man coming to terms with the history of slavery.

"I'm nervous, excited, honored," said Andre Holland, who plays character Jeremy Furlow, before the show. "It's like in Shakespearean times, when the king would come to the show." [emphasis added]

Spats (1996 - 2009)

2009-03-27T16:53:00.005-04:00

Another bad day. We had to take Spats in to be euthanized today. A month to the day after Pistachio had died we discovered that Spats was dying of cancer. She had been slowly whithering away these last few months, and a couple of days ago she stopped eating altogether. Her decline was quick, but not so fast that she wasn't likely to last a few more days. So we gave her the last mercy we could.

I am sure that over the coming years Kim and I will have many more cats, and I'm sure we'll love them all. But Pistachio and Spats will always be first in our hearts.

Kim told the story of how we came to adopt Pistachio:

In July 1998, T and I moved into a new apartment, one that allowed pets. I had grown up with cats and had been looking forward to getting a kitten to add to my and T's new family.

Being conscious of pet issues and such, T and I knew we were going to get our new pet from a shelter. Gainesville Pet Rescue had a great reputation, and we decided to make their organization our first stop. Like any good rescue organization, they had several kittens to choose from. We looked at them, and they were all very cute. But seeing how tiny they were and how much work raising a kitten would require, we realized weren't quite sure we would be good parents to a kitten.

The rescue worker understood out concerns and asked how we would feel about an adult cat. Then she showed us Pistachio. Pistachio was a full-grown female, about two years old. She had a beautiful calico/tortoise coat and the greenest eyes I had ever seen. The rescue worker told us she had been with them for about two months. They were have problems adopting her out because she was an adult and most people wanted kittens. They opened her cage to let me pet her. I scratched her under her chin, and she curled her head into my hand. I was in love instantly.

The first few weeks with Pistachio were great. But as we both transitioned into spending more time at school we became worried that Pistachio was getting lonely. So we went to the same place we had found Pistachio and adopted a second cat, Spats.

From Pistachio's point of view we could not have done worse, but Spats also found a home in our household, especially with Kim. Spats & Pistachio were very different cats (Spats being part jackaloupe) but they complimented each other well, Pistachio's irritation notwithstanding. (Pistachio and I shared this personality trait: we both always seem to be irritated. If it hadn't been Spats's presence that bothered her it would have been something else.)

I am just too burned out at the moment to do either of them justice, but Pistachio & Spats will both be sorely missed in the future. I'm sorry we couldn't have more time together, kittens.

Addendum: The hardest part is that the house now feels empty. It's been years since we didn't have our girls waiting for us when we came home. The only reason the house hasn't felt more empty than it has, with Pistachio's absence, has been because of our concern for Spats. But Kim's napping now, and the house just feels empty with them gone. When we moved back to Florida, the girls moved into our new place before the furniture did. A house with cats and no furniture felt friendlier than a house with furniture and no cats does now.

Ass-

2009-03-20T11:42:00.003-04:00

Bowl.

Note that he quickly sought and received absolution for his assholery from another Democrat.

Soon to be deleted Comment Madness

2009-03-08T19:31:00.003-04:00

Over at Dave Schuler's blog I've left a comment (directed at Michael Reynolds) that I fully expect to be deleted. Here it is, with some links that I should have put in the original.

I will not gamble with a man who has claimed that I am worse than a Nazi for supporting lower marginal tax rates. You are a lying sack of excrement, and only marginally better of a "human being" than the armed thugs who invaded my mother's house last year. Incidentally, they were also Obama supporters. Say "Hi" to them at the next meeting for me.

I understand that 6 weeks is a very, very long time. For my kids. But I wonder if we might not agree that repairing the staggering damage done to this country and this economy by members of your party might take just a bit longer.

Typical of an Obama supporter. (When they aren't robbing little old ladies at gun point, that is. But I guess that was okay, because my Mom is just a "typical white person" and I know how you Obamabots hate "typical white people".)

You have not addressed one single issue. You claimed that Obama would be competent, and that his Administration would be as well. Well, Obama nominated a tax cheat to oversee the economy and the IRS on the claim that Geithner was the ONLY man for the job. Despite Geithner being an experienced insider, and having plenty of lead time, he hasn't even been able to name his staff. Where's the competence there? Or is that failure also the fault of Rush Limbaugh?

Geithner has also not been able to do the ONE thing he said he would do, and the one thing he NEEDS to do. He was supposed to have a bank rescue plan before Congress WEEKS ago. Where is it? Is that also Limbaugh's fault, or is it Karl Rove's? (I'm sure it's another one of those evil "typical white people" whose guts you hate.)

Where's the competence at the State Department that can't even translate one single word correctly?

Where’s the competence with a President who claims that we’ll have six percent economic growth in the future to HALVE the size of the budget deficit?

Address what's happened in the last six weeks, asshole. You won't though, because that would require that you actually engage in honest debate, and you are as incapable of honesty as you are of any basic human decency.

Reset; Retry; Abort; Fail [UPDATED]

2009-03-06T23:41:00.005-05:00

Hillary tried to do the diplomacy thing today. The results were less than stellar.

GENEVA, March 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red "reset button" to symbolise improved ties, but the gift drew smiles as the word "reset" was mistranslated into the Russian for "overcharge".

"I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship and so we will do it together," said Clinton, presenting Lavrov with a palm-sized yellow box with a red button.

Clinton joked to Lavrov: "We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?"

"You got it wrong," said Lavrov, smiling as the two pushed the reset button together before dinner at a Geneva hotel.

He told Clinton the word "Peregruzka" meant "overcharge", to which Clinton replied: "We won't let you do that to us."

"We mean it and we look forward to it," she said of "resetting" the relationship, a phrase that Joe Biden first used at a security conference in Munich.

Lavrov said he would put the gift on his desk. (Reporting by Sue Pleming; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Judas H. Priest, the State Department can't even come up with decent Russian translations anymore. This Administration is beyond parody.

UPDATE: More stupidity from our new Secretary of State. In front of the European ParliamentClinton compared the complex European political environment to that of the two-party U.S. system, before adding:

"I have never understood multiparty democracy.

"It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy."

The remark provoked much headshaking in the parliament of a bloc that likes to trace back its democratic tradition thousands of years to the days of classical Greece.

One working lunch later with EU leaders, Clinton raised more eyebrows when she referred to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who stood beside her, as "High Representative Solano."

She also dubbed European Commission External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner as "Benito."

On the plus side, she's doing better than the Secretary of Treasury.

Holy sh--....

2009-03-05T23:16:00.005-05:00

Holy effin' sh!t. This is extremely bad, as Bill Quick notes. This is a tacit admission that our banking system isn't simply teetering on the brink, but that it has fallen over the edge.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration continues to piss around with side issues. To wit, Obama continued with more of his Management Seminar Presidency, today's topic being health care. Apparently his aides are thrilled to be working on the easy topic of health care reform. Read the whole article, but here's the part that struck me:

"You know what makes everything so hard?" [the unnamed Obama economic aide] asked me [David Corn]. Before I could answer, he stepped closer to me.

"It's the economy," he remarked. "We could deal with any of this"—referring to the assorted financial crises underway—"if the economy wasn't so bad. You have one big insurance company that goes bad? Okay, you can go out and find other companies that will buy up parts of it. You can work something out. That's not difficult to do. But now there's no one out there to buy. You have a home foreclosure crisis. You can put together a plan. But there's no plan that's going to work if the guy who's foreclosed on loses his job and can't make a house payment. You have a major auto company go bust? You can prop it up, throw it some capital. But if no one is buying cars, it doesn't matter. Look at Toyota. It's one of the best run companies in the world. And it can't make it these days."

As he said this, he shook his head slowly. He looked deeply perturbed.

"We can come up with all sorts of solutions," he said. "But it's the economy." He noted that he and other administration aides are working around the clock, that every day he jumps from one crisis to another, and that he feels that he and other administration policymakers have plenty of latitude to craft innovative responses to the assorted economic problems. Yet he said that he and his comrades cannot change the economic environment within which these policies are to be implemented.

Notice that the unnamed official keeps offering the poor state of the economy as the reason the Administration can't fix this problem or that, but neither he nor the Administration seem to recognize that the economy is the real problem. Instead Obama & Co. get bounced from crisis to crisis, ignoring fundamental issues (Where's the bank reform, Geithner?) while expending effort on non-essential issues. The economy hasn't tanked because we haven't built enough bridges. The economy hasn't tanked because we don't have enough wind mills. The economy hasn't tanked because of rising medical costs. The economy has tanked because of crappy financial decision making, crappy governmental policies, and because greed made the nation (in whole and in parts) take leave of its senses. NONE of Obama's major initiatives address these issues, save perhaps as palliatives.

Obama doesn't grasp that circumstances have changed. The issues he choose to campaign on in 2006 must, in 2009, take a back seat to larger issues. Back in November I wrote, "Neither [Presidential candidate] has shown any ability to adjust their policy goals to meet current conditions – that is what the financial crisis has taught us." Recent events have confirmed my speculation.

Furthermore Obama is trying to do everything at once. (Except actually address the underlying economic problems.) Whenever he speaks about any topic he exhorts us thus, "We cannot delay this discussion any longer," or "We have to act and act now." He never modulates his tone, nor does he prioritize the tasks at hand. The lack of modulation demonstrates poor leadership, while the inability to prioritize illustrates poor management skills. Not being able to identify the key problems shows that Obama has no insight.

It's gonna be a long, dismal Presidency.

NOTE: Sorry Kim, I couldn'd resist. But I'm going to bed now! Or at least to the couch. I'm going to stay out here a while to keep an eye on Spats & the heating pad.

Obama's First Pardon

2009-03-05T20:44:00.001-05:00

Obama's first Presidential Pardon should go to Wesley Snipes.

WTF?

2009-03-05T10:20:00.003-05:00

Apparently 22 out of 236 Georgia state legislators are KNOWN tax cheats. I've been expecting increasing levels of non-directed violence in the country over the next few months (possibly years) but as more of these kinds of stories come out I'm starting to wonder if I was too optimistic (Again! Damn it!) in believing that an actual revolt would not happen.

I also note that InstaPundit has linked to several more stories of government incompetence and corruption this morning, although at least a couple of them are stories I mentioned first.

Perhaps you'd like a side of crow to go with that turkey?

2009-03-05T00:08:00.006-05:00

And if you feel the need for a snack, we'll have more crap sandwiches latter.

I'm really enjoying all the hand wringing by Obama's media supporters. Obama is basically doing EXACTLY what he said he'd do, and they're surprised. (Perhaps they should be. Obama may be the first President I can remember who has done what he said he'd do during the campaign.) But if Obama has lost Dowd, then he's going to be in very deep shit, and soon. No wonder Obama's already going gray.

I am also enjoying all the other circuses/crises. Obama has ignored the economic turmoil except as a method of forcing huge government spending increases down our throats. (Obama doesn't even understand the basics, so perhaps we're better off if he doesn't really focus on the economy. Except that the vast expansion of government spending will have large negative consequences.) His Treasury Secretary speaks only when it will create more chaos in the market place. Obama has selected one tax cheat after another for important posts, and has even put one of the tax cheats in charge of both the IRS and a new effort to hunt down tax cheats who use off-shore banking to hide wealth. (The Obama Administration needn't bother with this, though. Pretty soon there won't be any wealth to hide.)

But that's not all! Obama has insulted the British PM, turned his back on our allies in Eastern Europe so that he can play the fool for Putin & co., decided to give $1 billion dollars to Hamas while criticizing Israel for not letting their citizens be killed more efficiently, and has made a public pissing match with a fat & happy radio host THE central issue of his Presidency.

The ongoing spat with Rush Limbaugh demonstrates that the Obama team has far more interest in campaigning than in governing. While Geithner kept the banks in the dark as to how he plans to stabilize the finance sector (mainly because even he has recognized that his ideas are crap), Obama's team has been consistent in their orchestrations of a campaign against Limbaugh. Campaigning is easier than governing, so we shouldn't be surprised that is where Obama is focusing his energies. (I had foreseen this state of permanent campaign back in July of 2008. People will be yearning for the aloofness of the Bush Presidency 'round about autumn, I suspect.)

But at least Rush has a large audience. What's the point of also going after Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli? In the face of NO meaningful opposition to his agenda Obama has decided to demonize anyone he can in order to distract from the fact that he doesn't know how to govern.

As I write I see that Iran has stated that they can attack Israel's nuclear sites via missile, Israel is considering a solo attack on Iran to prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons (assuming they haven't already), Venezuela's Chavez has stolen more American assets, the Swiss have become restless over US attempts to bully their banks, the Obama Administration has decided that making energy more expensive is key to getting the economy back on track, and one of Obama's new intelligence appointees is under investigation for ties to foreign governments.

The story about the appointee to chair the National Intelligence Council demonstrates some of the basic competency problems with the Obama Administration.

The director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, last Thursday named Mr. Freeman, a veteran former diplomat, to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council, known inside the government as the NIC. In that job, Mr. Freeman will have access to some of America's most closely guarded secrets and be charged with overseeing the drafting of the consensus view of all 16 intelligence agencies.
...
Mr. Freeman has not submitted the financial disclosure forms required of all candidates for senior public positions, according to the general counsel's office of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Nor did Mr. Blair seek the White House's approval before he announced the appointment of Mr. Freeman, said Mr. Blair's spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi.
"The director did not seek the White House's approval," Ms. Morigi said. "In addition to his formal background security investigation, we expect that the White House will undertake the typical vetting associated with senior administration assignments."

The Obama Administration will vet the candidate AFTER they have nominated him! Outstanding. This has occurred because of a breakdown in command - Blair should not have made this decision without having gone through the White House vetting procedure. But between the new head-vetter's problems with his own background and the Obama White House's infatuation with AM radio, this Administration does not possess the needed competency for even cursory vetting of nominees.

For the moment Obama's polling numbers remain high, but that won't last. I wonder how many more stories we will read about Michelle Obama's well-toned arms or hard-hitting pieces about Obama's soft drink of choice in coming months? Or how many more cheery stories we'll see about the new Cheap Chic or the unexpected happiness of some unemployed people because now they have time to decompress? At some point the public will likely turn on Obama, and the media will probably suffer for having been nothing less than the Obama Propoganda Machine. It's going to be an ugly summer. If the temperatures are unusually hot this summer....

UPDATE: Holy leg tingles! Obama is losing Matthews!

Conversational Snippet: The Bob Newhart Show Edition

2009-03-03T22:23:00.003-05:00

Tonight Kim and I heard the following exchange on TBHS. Jerry has been depressed because his girlfriend dumped him, and his friend Carol is attempting to help him work off the aggravation. (Just ignore the global warming. Why shouldn't you? The climate has.)

Carol:And I know exactly what you're going through, trust me.
Jerry: Oh yeah? Have you ever been thrown over for a 22 year-old guy?
Carol: As a matter of fact, yes.

Kim: Could they say that back then?
Me: Yes. You could say all kinds of things on TV back then. Oddly enough the country has become more prudish while simultaneously becoming more vulgar.
Kim: Oh, you mean like the way we've simultaneously infantalized and sexualized children.
Me: Exactly. [pause] Our country has gotten really fucked up in the last few decades.

More commenty goodness

2009-03-03T22:22:00.000-05:00

In the past XWL once accused me of leaving most of my best stuff in the comment sections of other people's blogs. That's probably true, although it's a low bar.

Amba had a post about Obama and some of the opposition that has developed around Obama. In "Barack has met the enemy, and he is us" Amba mentions several InstaPundit items today and concludes, "It's gonna be another long four years." Naturally this led me to make my own long-winded comment about various matters.

Perhaps the most insightful bit on Instapundit was a quote he took from an Althouse commenter:
“Does anyone really think Team Obama’s focus on Limbaugh reflects their success so far in office?”
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal notes that the market is not happy with Obama's plans. But they're not being wholly fair to Obama, and it appears they haven't fully come to grips with the problem. Look at this quote from the linked editorial:
Housing prices have fallen 27% from their Case-Shiller peak, or some two-thirds of the way back to their historical trend.
Hmm. That would suggest that housing prices still have plenty of downside before we hit bottom. And since I've already brought up Professor Shiller, I may as well drop another indicator of his that we haven't entirely hit bottom:
There were four massive stock bubbles in the 20th Century: 1901, 1929, 1966, and 2000. During each of these bubble peaks, the S&P 500 neared or exceeded 25X on professor Robert Shiller's cyclically adjusted P/E ratio.* After the first three of these peaks, the S&P 500 PE did not bottom until it hit 5X-8X. We're still in the middle of the last one.

The most recent bubble peak, 2000, was by far the most extreme we have ever experienced. In 2000, the S&P 500 by prof. Shiller's measure exceeded 40X (it had never before exceeded 30X). With the S&P 500 hitting 700 today, the PE has now fallen back to 12X.
The linked piece explains that there’s more than one way to hit bottom on this index, though. Stock prices could already have bottomed out but will stagnate for years.

And here’s another indicator of how bad things got last year, this time from the New York Times:
Last week, Fannie Mae announced that it lost $58.7 billion in 2008, more than all its net profits since 1992. Freddie Mac is also expected to reveal record losses in coming days.
Obama’s impact on the housing and financial problems prior to his election were minimal, although he seems to have supported all the wrong policies, but he was hardly alone on that front. So as I wrote elsewhere, Obama doesn’t deserve the blame for this mess. He will and does deserve blame for his actions in office, however, and some discounted share of blame for the transition period between the election and the inauguration. And here the WSJ editorial is correct when they assert:
The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy. Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier.

Meanwhile, Congress demands more bank lending even as it assails lenders and threatens to let judges rewrite mortgage contracts. The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.
They fail to mention that the government is taking over the mortgage lending market and has no intention of letting go of its newly found powers. But the NYT’s article I linked to explains exactly that, and also explains how even the people brought into Fannie Mae to fix the problems have started bailing out because of too much government interference.
In the last six weeks alone, the Obama administration has essentially transformed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into arms of the federal government. Regulators have ordered the companies to oversee a vast new mortgage modification program, to buy greater numbers of loans, to refinance millions of at-risk homeowners and to loosen internal policies so they can work with more questionable borrowers.

Lawmakers have given the companies access to as much as $400 billion in taxpayer dollars, a sum more than twice as large as the pledges to Citigroup, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, General Motors, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley combined.

Regulators defend those actions as essential to battling the economic crisis. Indeed, Fannie and Freddie are basically the only lubricants in the housing market at this point.

But those actions have caused collateral damage at the companies. On Monday, Freddie Mac’s chief executive, David M. Moffett, unexpectedly resigned less than six months after he was recruited by regulators, having chafed at low pay and the burdens of second-guessing by government officials, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Fannie Mae has also experienced a wave of defections as people leave for better-paying and less scrutinized jobs.
I imagine that we will see another wave of political appointees to fill the empty slots at Fannie Mae, which is a part of what got us into this trouble in the first place. (Need I mention that the political appointees are likely to have little experience and less competence for their new jobs?)

Ah well, we’ve taken a bad situation and we’re making it worse. The bigger problem isn’t Obama, or the Democrats, or even our political leadership in general. The bigger problem is that the electorate has decided that government can and should take care of everything. We are the enemy. Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Bush, McConnell, Boehner, etc. are just the foot soldiers we the generals have sent to the front lines.

Everything's amazing and nobody's happy

2009-02-28T14:39:00.004-05:00

Via Amba I've just seen a perfect rant about the times. Unfortunately embedding isn't allowed so you're just going to have to suffer and click on the link.

And herein lies a problem. Our economy has become tough. Unemployment is up (believe me, I know), the financial sector is a disaster, housing markets are desperate, etc. But the times are still great from a historical perspective. Hell, we could have several years of moderate contraction in the economy and we would still be in great shape from an absolute perspective.

And the toys! They're not really going anywhere. Our cell phones and HD TVs, the iPods and air conditioning, those aren't really going anywhere. You might not be able to replace them as often as you'd like, but they're going to be around when you DO scrape up the funds for new stuff. Unless they've been replaced by something even better, of course.

Food is plentiful, shelter is available, information is more widely disseminated than ever before. Here in the US we're not really having that bad of a time.

Even our biggest problems (debt, government) are tractable problems if we would address them calmly.

But we won't. "Bad times" has become a relative term. Compared to the fat times of the previous 26 years, the next few years are going to suck. But only on those terms, and not even entirely by those terms. In the 1980s we were thrilled to have Walkmen cassette players. (For you kids that may be reading this, those were small devices that played a cassette which contained roughly one album of recorded music. The cassettes themselves were as big or bigger than most MP3 on the market today.) I'd be pissed to be stuck with having to listen to only one album at a time now. But we thought times were great in 1986.

Unfortunately, we are responding to the current crisis in entirely the wrong way: We are increasing our debt load and expanding the role of government. This is going to lead to even tougher choices (relatively speaking) in the future, which we will certainly over-react to again. It's a downward spiral, and it's partly attributable to our impatience in waiting a couple of seconds for our miracles devices to send and receive signals from space.

Fun with Comment Sections!

2009-02-27T11:11:00.004-05:00

I've been commenting a lot of doom & gloom stuff over at the Ambivablog the last couple of days. I thought I would make my latest comment (so to be posted over there) a separate blog post here.

Amba, some nasty racist-types have glommed onto HBD. But that is hardly the whole of it. (You've got Gene Expression linked so I imagine you know some of this.)

Some of the nasty types have also not noticed that their preferred race (speaking solely of white American racial supremacists here) doesn't come out on top of every, or even most, categories. East Asians tend to top Caucasians for median IQ, as do the Ashkenazim (Hitler's ashes would swirl in a vortex if they knew). I suspect that if the population of the Indian sub-continent were looked at by caste the Brahmins would also top Caucasians.

As for the eugenics angle, different populations breed for different circumstances. Thus traits like sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, pale skin in higher latitudes and darker skin in lower latitudes, etc. Some differences don't mean much to society anymore (from an objective stand point) and some do.

Intelligence (commonly discussed in terms of IQ, in some circles discussed more in terms of g-loading and the like) DOES matter in modern economies. Intelligence is not equally distributed, and that matters. Donna, want to start a fight? Mention that IQ matters in the midst of a bunch of liberals and watch the sparks fly! Larry Summers is lucky he can still get a job after sticking his foot in it, and he was a liberal in good standing. (This is actually orthodox among many groups. You can start fights bringing up the same topic in front of many Republicans & independents as well. And then there’s Derbyshire, who believes in HBD but thinks it may well be best if the vast bulk of the population believes the opposite. Derb is a fun guy!)

Other traits also have separate distributions. Risk taking would be another trait unevenly distributed, and a trait that matters in EVERY society. Too little risk-taking and innovation might come to a standstill. Too much and you might have high levels of crime, violence and war. (If I had to choose a society at one extreme or another, I would choose too much risk-taking. The ultra-violence has a way of eliminating itself from the population. But this appears to be directly linked to high levels of testosterone and I would guess it is easier to moderate that long-term than it is to breed up higher levels from a population that has too little. One can easily argue that the other way however. It would take someone using a lot of population genetics & the related math to make valid claims one way or the other on that, and their projections would still be subject to both chance and unknown unknowns in making their predictions.)

Case in point, Europeans that settled the US most likely tended to being amongst those that took greater risks. Moving from ones homeland to someplace half-way around the world, a complete mystery and wilderness to the vast majority of those travelling, and with no safety line home or possible retreat, implies a high level of risk tolerance. We mostly likely benefitted from getting a high proportion of Europe’s gamblers! Europe still had enough such people to conquer most of the world. But between immigration to the colonies (not just here but all European colonies, especially for the colonists that stayed put in their new locals) and the bloodshed of WWI, Europe probably reduced its level of risk tolerance.

But back to the point: These things matter. If intelligence does matter, and isn’t equally distributed (forget racial groups for the moment and just consider a normal distribution) then a policy that states that everyone should go to college would be stupid. As would a policy that has everyone graduate from high schools dedicated primarily to college prep. Yet that’s what we’ve done. It’s wasteful or money, talent and lives. How many of our social welfare policies make incorrect implicit assumptions about the covered population that have negative consequences? A great many, it turns out. (Again, intelligence is only one variable to consider. Others also matter.)

But this can’t really be discussed. Beyond simple medical facts that are irrefutable (Sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs) or now trivial matters (like skin color) we are not permitted to discuss that such things exist. Donna asked for an example of such denial. Ask and Ye shall Receive! Brad Delong a few years back started a bit of a blog flame war when he asserted that human populations MUST be homogenous. (He was responding to a post of Andrew Sullivan, so perhaps he just caught The Stupid from Sullivan.) As mentioned, this garnered a lot of response, including lots of comments from various heavy-weights in Delong’s comment section – which Delong deleted if they were too good at refuting his argument. The Update to this Gene Expression post also makes some excellent points broadly related to this topic.

(More commonly, one hears the assertion that recent human evolution doesn’t exist, or that if it DOES exist it only effects “trivial” issues like skin color. Delong just dressed it up with mathematics and charts.)

The Age of Competence indeed....

2009-02-25T23:44:00.005-05:00

During Obama's management seminar on Monday our new Emperor put Charlie Rangel in charge of the breakout session on tax reform. Obama believes (or wants us to believe) that the second most corrupt man in Washington DC can actually fix the American Federal tax system. This is beyond farce.

ADDED: In his Not-A-State-of-the-Union-Address Address to Congress, Emperor Don't-you-dare-call-Him-Hussien claimed that Americans invented the automobile. Of course Germans invented the automobile, but don't worry. I'm sure His command of detail on every other subject is perfect.

Obama has decided to reform our energy policies. (A wonder that no one thought of that before.)He will also add a $600+ billion health care trust to the budget, give everyone an education through college, and reform the way government does everything. And He has declared that He will direct the government to cure cancer! My ~~God~~ Obama, is there anything He can't do?! Thank Obama that we have someone of His enormous intellect to figure these things out for us! All this while halving the budget deficit in four years!

Don't bother mentioning that President Carter made energy reform the center-piece of his Presidency. Or that Nixon got the ball rolling on cancer research back when Don't-you-dare-call-Him-Hussien still wiped snot off his nose with His bare hands.

Don't bother mentioning that the Medicare and Medicaid 'trusts' are already bankrupt; or that giving everyone a college degree will make college degrees even more worthless than they already are; or that it's impossible to believe that corrupt individuals like Charlie Rangel are best suited to reform the government that they helped corrupt in the first place; or that His efforts at efficiency come only AFTER He shoved an $800,000,000,000 crap sandwich down the throats of the tax payer; or that what He is claiming is mathematically and financially impossible.

Don't bother because no one wants to hear it. The nation has lost its mind. Or perhaps more than a century of 'public education' has completely destroyed the citizenry's capacity for thought. But now the public will only accept politicians who make assurances that all things are possible through government. This is how the American Experiment ends, not with a bang, but a whine of "Where's mine?"

Some how, some way, we will find a dumber way of doing things....

2009-02-23T21:40:00.006-05:00

The George W. Bush Presidency was the MBA Presidency. Those of us who have toiled in Corporate America should easily recognize that fact, although perhaps not everyone will understand exactly how that translated into the mistakes of the Bush Presidency.

But now we have someone else in the Oval Office, and the era of the MBA Presidency seems to have passed into history. Unfortunately that just means we will have to endure some other horror. Today I realized what that would be.

President Obama had a budget summit with members of Congress today. He came out and lectured the legislators that we can't continue down the current path. He blamed his predecessor for all manner of problems. He insisted that we needed to do things in a better, more intelligent manner. And then he had the assembled Congress Critters split up into smaller work groups. These groups were to spend the afternoon 'brainstorming' for better ways for the government to take care of its fiscal and budgetary responsibilities. These groups would then reassemble late in the afternoon to share their ideas.

Now one could remark on all manner of points. For example, don't these legislators, most of whom have been in DC for years, already know how things should be done? If so, why haven't they done these things in the recent past? Shouldn't OBAMA, having been a US Senator in the very recent past, also know these things?

Further, given that Democrats ran the previous Congress, shouldn't their leaders also share the blame for the past two years of fiscal and budgetary fiascoes? Apparently Obama is blaming Bush for all the budgetary woes of recent years. Doesn't this one-time law school lecturer on CONLAW know that all taxing and spending powers rest solely with Congress?

Or perhaps one could have listened to this and wondered exactly how long this Congress was going to be President Obama's ~~bitch~~ lap dog? Sooner or latter they will get tired of his pissy schoolmarm scoldings, and will re-assert their authority over this supremely arrogant upstart.

Those points flashed through my head but had little impact. What struck me was the breakout groups, the brainstorming, and the shared ideas at the end of the day. We have moved from the MBA Presidency to the Management Seminar Presidency. God help us all.

Home again

2009-02-21T08:42:00.002-05:00

I returned home yesterday. The procedure went well, and the recovery was faster this time than last. Mom had the same procedure (a cystoscopy) done in early December, but this time she did not have complications with low blood pressure, and they removed the catheter before she left the hospital. So I only accrued a couple of days of exposure to cigarette smoke. Hopefully I will stop smelling like an ash tray after a few more showers.

Update

2009-02-18T19:18:00.004-05:00

justkim here.

Icepick's mom's procedure went well. She's home and recovering. Icepick is going to spend the next few days with her and his brother to help out. He's pretty much internet-free over there, so he doesn't have access to e-mail or his blog. If you have any messages for him, please feel free to e-mail me or post them here. I'll be sure to pass them along.

Thank you to those of you who have sent the good wishes. I know Icepick appreciates them, and I appreciate that you all are here for him.

Blogging Forecast

2009-02-16T17:35:00.002-05:00

Blogging will be light to nonexistent in coming days, with an intermittent chance of commenting. I will be staying with my mother for a few days while she goes through a "procedure" and recovery. Big fun will be had by none.

Thank God the news media is covering the stories that matter

2009-02-15T11:04:00.002-05:00

Currently the feature story on CNN:

Air Force One is one 'spiffy ride,' Obama says

Highlights from the story:

The president, who has made several trips around the country in Air Force One, was particularly excited during his first trip on the plane as commander in chief when he flew recently to the House Democrats' annual retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia.

"Thanks for giving me a reason to fly Air Force One," he told the House Democrats after his flight, which took him away from a week of fighting for the economic stimulus bill.

Nice way to spend tax payer money, President Spendthrift! Was it really necessary to take Air Force One to go from DC to Williamsburg? The distance is ~250 miles. Surely Marine One or a car trip would have saved the tax payers some money.

But the President doesn't really think of it as tax payer money - he thinks it's all his.

"Hey guys, what do you think of my -- this spiffy ride here?" the president asked the group of reporters traveling with him on the presidential plane.

The press won't call him on this because they are so excited to be this close to the Imperator.

Riding aboard Air Force One is a treat for the president, but also for the reporters covering the White House, said CNN's Ed Henry.

"I'm always amazed that every time someone finds out what my job is, without fail, their first question is: 'Do you get to fly on Air Force One?' " Henry said. "There is a wonder and mystery about this plane that is just remarkable."

When the revolution comes, these guys will be first up against the wall....

Ask and Ye shall recieve

2009-02-15T09:39:00.012-05:00

Instapundit asks, "[I]s it really true that Federal obligations exceed world GDP? I don’t think it is. I certainly hope not."

Let's see what the US government has to say. The United States Treasury Department issues annual reports about the financial condition of the United States Federal government. A Citizen’s Guide to the 2008 Financial Report of the U.S. Government is a lengthy report that will give us part of the answer to Instapundit's question.

Now, I'm just looking for quick and dirty answers, so if you want to dive into the whole 206 pages for more accurate numbers, go right ahead. (Remember, this is only the "Citizen's Guide" as well, so the 206 pages merely represents a thumbnail summary of the situation. That fact by itself ought to make you queasy.) Page 17* gives us the following chart:

The Net Position (Assets Minus Liabilities) line represents our national debt as of Sept. 30, 2008. The Sustainability Measures section captures the expected future liability on items such as Social Security and Medicare for the next 75 years. Two categories are included. The Closed Group only considers people currently covered by the programs, and the Open Group which also includes future participants. The Open Group has a lower liability because many of those people will pay into those programs but won't receive benefits in that time frame. The Open Group is the more optimistic of the two estimates because it assumes we can continue to let new participants into the programs. Adding these two numbers gives a rough estimate of US Federal Obligations as of Sept 30, 2008.

Nation Debt ..................$10.2 trillion

Other Obligations ........$43.0 trillion

Total ..............................$53.2 trillion

These numbers do NOT include the TARP or the current stimulus package! Those won't appear on this report until next year's report.

Now for the world's GDP. I'm having trouble finding world GDP numbers for 2008. However the World Bank does give me numbers for 2007. According to this chart, world GDP in 2007 was $54.3 trillion. Assuming no growth in 2008, world GDP would slightly exceed us federal obligations. If one were to use the "pessimitic" number for US Other Obligations, that would add another $6.1 trillion dollars to the US total, easily pushing us past the world GDP number!

Given everything that has happened in the last four months, it is easy to believe that US federal obligations now exceed the world's annual GDP. Maybe I'll update this later with more accurate numbers, and maybe not. But the claim Instapundit wonders about is credible.

* Page 17 by the .pdf page count at the top; it's marked as page 10 on the print out.

Woo hoo!!!!

2009-02-14T18:43:00.003-05:00

We've done it!

Federal obligations exceed world GDP
Does $65.5 trillion terrify anyone yet?

(Read the whole thing. Go one, take some time & follow the link.)

We are now so broke that the entire world's economic output won't be able to pull us out of the fire! Hot damn! Also note that the obligations mentioned in the story linked above only include those of the federal government. State and local governments, not to mention the debt of companies and individuals, have their own obligations (i.e., debt). God Bless America!

Playing in the background is a CBS News report that what happened to the Japanese economy is that they didn't spend enough money to get out of their recession, and that they actually paid their bills. In other words, our media is encouraging us to acquire even more debt!

Fortunately we have a whole new fun game to occupy our minds....

Freedom

2009-02-14T17:56:00.004-05:00

"Hello there. This is a wonderful day for me... Five minutes out of my iron lung... Five minutes out of my little prison... my kind and friendly prison."

-Polio survivor commenting on her progress. The ellipses in the quote represent pauses for the patient to stop and gulp breathes of air. She was still paralyzed and hadn't yet been removed from the iron lung, although it had been opened and she was breathing on her own. As seen in old footage during an American Experience episode called "The Polio Crusade".

I had recorded the episode a few weeks ago and finally got around to watching it this afternoon. When the recording stopped a commercial for Cialis was playing. I went from watching a program about the medical miracle of the 1950s to seeing a commercial for the medical miracle of the day. One might think our era compares unfavorably to the prior era in this regard, but one would be (partially) wrong. Freedom from the fear of such diseases as polio allows us to concern ourselves with much more trivial matters. Unfortunately such freedom creates a softness of spirit, even if the Cialis stiffens other things.

Fun for the whole Body Politick!

2009-02-14T02:16:00.004-05:00

Donna B. has been moved to tears by the passage of the President's "stimulus" package.

The stimulus bill passed this evening was never read by a single Senator or Representative or by the President and his staff. No one person knows what the hell is contained in the full thing. I expect Obama to sign it Monday, not knowing having a clue what he is doing.

This is the reason for my tears tonight.

True to my alleged optimistic self I am looking at the brighter side.

It's a simple matter of looking at this from the right perspective: Don’t think of it as a gigantic spending bill, think of it as a magical mystery box instead! Imagine how much fun we’re going to have in the coming months and years discovering what’s been stashed in that Fantastick Federal Footlocker of Fabulist Fiscality! This is going to be the most funnest time we’ve ever had!

For the record...

2009-02-14T00:08:00.003-05:00

The local drag races started at exactly 11:10 PM last night. Tonight the first race didn't start until 12:04 AM Saturday morning. That's a very late start for a Friday night. The first race may well have been fatal, as at 12:08 AM I heard multiple rescue sirens screaming to the scene of a race that stopped rather abruptly. Too bad the stupid-ass local law enforcement officers can't find the real speeders in this town.

At 12:10 AM the second drag race of the night started, and another just started at 12:12 AM. No doubt the police won't find them either even though they're all within earshot of the wreck at the first race.

And at 12:14 I'm hearing two separate races going at the same time. OutSTANDing!

Song for the Day

2009-02-13T22:21:00.003-05:00

Just f'ing because, okay?

Also, Barry's oldest son is now in Crowbar. And Crowbar definitely fits my mood.

Today's blog posts have been brought to you by the Mike Ditka Anger Management System

2009-02-12T16:59:00.002-05:00

Mike Ditka used to wear a suit and tie on the sideline while coaching football games. He believed that the suit and tie might help him keep control of his famously volcanic temper. Today's blog posts have all been written while wearing a suit and tie, and for the same reason. I can assure you this has helped. If I hadn't deleted some of the things I wrote about local law enforcement, then they'd have likely come to arrest me.

Because the day couldn't get any better!

2009-02-12T16:58:00.003-05:00

Today we discovered that Mom's bladder cancer has recurred again. One more trip to the hospital, to be followed by more BCG treatment.

Meanwhile my brother is likely very close to the end. He has barely eaten in three weeks and has lost ten pounds off his already slender frame in the last two weeks.

Furious

2009-02-12T15:59:00.003-05:00

Today I got a speeding ticket. I was going 39 in a 30 mph zone. Okay, that's a little fast. In my defence I was the only car on the road, and the deputy sheriff who stopped me was comfortable enough with the conditions to step in front of my car to wave me down. After he gave me the ticket I asked him if he would be there tonight when the gang-bangers will be drag racing up and down that road at 100+ mph. He said they sometimes work at night. I also asked him about the nightly drag races in Hunter's Creek. He walked away at that point.

(The drag races start most nights at 2 AM. The other nights start earlier still. Everyone in the county seems to know about these races except for local law enforcement. They seem mistified by all the accidents down here.)

Incidentally, the cops managed to pull over the only two white men in suits in all of Pine Hills while I was there. Actually, the other "white man in a suit" was an illegal immigrant who could not speak a word of English. Unfortunately for him he looked too much like Whitey.

This happened right around the corner from my mother's house. The house which was invaded last year. After the invasion, an eyewitness to the crime identified the home invaders. The sheriffs deputies working that night went to the house of the invaders, asked to look around inside, said they saw nothing suspicious, and LET THEM GO. No finger prints, no further investigation, not one lousy thing. The Orange County Sheriff's Department is absolutely fucking useless. Those assholes will NOT go after criminals unless they are forced to by media pressure. (Shockingly, they managed to catch two men who had raped an 11 year-old girl a few days ago. The only reason they were able to do it was because the wife of one of the rpaists figured out what happened and turned him in. The Sheriff's Office would have never pulled it off on their own.) Normally deputies sit around looking to hand out speeding tickets to make certain they can justify there existence. And you can be goddamned certain they won't pull over anyone dangerous looking. They have no intention of taking even the smallest risks unless absolutely necessary.

Now, if they WERE interested in crime I could direct them to several crack houses in the area. Or the illegal "car repair" shop just a few hundred feet from where I was pulled over. (It might be a small illegal (meaning unpermitted) car repair business, but I suspect it's a chop shop for stolen cars.) Or I could direct them to the guys that invaded my mother's house last spring. Oh, wait, they already know about those guys! Or maybe I could direct them to the guys across the street from the home invaders that breed pit bulls for dog fighting. (I know this because they put up signs in their front yard advertising that that is what they do.)

So, let's review, shall we? In my lifetime I have had the following encounters with Central Florida Law Enforcement.

In 1988, I was in a car accident. The Orange County Sheriff's Deputy that appeared at the scene of the accident was seen pulling me and my brother by the hair while screaming in our faces. Later at the emergency room the hospital staff had to have the Deputy restrained when he kept barging into the area I was in, pushing around nurses and grabbing charts out of the hands of doctors. I generally never mention this episode for the simple reason that I don't remember it. I had a severe concussion as a result of the accident and several days of my memory have been erased. But several credible witnesses (i.e., NOT my brother) told me about this when I had recovered. I didn't pursue the matter at the time because I was too beat up from the accident, so too my brother, and our mother was recovering from a bad illness of her own. Apparently the deputy was a friend of the person who had t-boned our car. He was attempting to claim that I had been drinking, probably in an effort to cover up the fact that his friend had been speeding. (Lucky for me they test the blood for that sort of thing. I had NOT been drinking. Oddly enough, when we later visited the car in the junkyard, the back seat was covered in empty beer cans. I know those weren't in the car when I was. I almost suspect they were in the other person's car and the deputy moved them over to try and cover up for his friend.)

Last year, my home was burglarized. Again, the Sheriff's office didn't manage to do anything in regards to capturing the thieves. They DID manage to stain the carpets and furniture with finger print dust, however.

Also last year, Mom's house was invaded. I covered that above.

Now, a ticket for me while ignoring lots of real crime. And not just in Pine Hills! Yesterday there was another armed robbery/shooting at a business on the corner of Orange Blossom Trail and Oak Ridge Road. That marked the fifteenth reported armed robbery with gunfire at that intersection in the last eight months. (And "reported" is an important distinction. At a corner like that, there might be a couple of armed robberies a week that don't get reported. The hookers and drug dealers don't want to get caught by the police so they let all that slide.) As I've written elsewhere, the citizens have taken to defending themselves recently, because they know the police will not help them under any circumstances.

CNN can't spell

2009-02-12T15:56:00.002-05:00

From a story about Obama's theatre gaffe:

Many stage afficianados believe that the prohibition only applies to performers or theater hands, and non-actors have nothing to worry about.

That should be either aficionados or afficionados. I've seen it spelled with one or two 'f's, but that second 'a' is wrong. A new "Age of Competence" indeed....

From the "It can always get worse" Files

2009-02-10T00:38:00.002-05:00

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Kansas-based group to protest Caylee Anthony's memorial

Yes, this is the same group of idiots that protests at the funerals of US military personnel, claiming the deaths are God's punishment for the US harboring homosexuals.

The United States of Stupid

2009-02-09T07:07:00.003-05:00

Or should that be the United States of Wuss? It's a tough call. A Wisconsin middle school teacher has been placed on administrative leave after a picture of her holding a firearm was found on her Facebook page. I can't decide if I'm more appalled by the stupidity of this action (guns are legal in this country; see the Second Amednment) or appalled by the continued wussification of the nation. I wonder how long it will be before we're suspending teachers just for saying words like "gun" or "firearm".

Lazy Blogging II

2009-02-08T11:47:00.006-05:00

Back in November 2006 I took advantage of a lazy blogging tool mentioned by Michael J. Totten. Reading that I thought, "Hey, I can do this again! So here it is again. Changes from before are highlight in red, with the old answers scratched out.

Meme blogging! Via Michael J. Totten, the One Word Meme. Follow the links through Totten to see who originated this one.

You can only answer one word. No explanations.

1. Yourself: ~~raging~~ bemused
2. Your spouse: ~~bemused~~ cranky
3. Your hair: ~~wacky~~ unkempt
4. Your mother: smoking
5. Your father: dead
6. Your favorite item: memory
7. Your dream last night: unremembered
8. Your favorite drink: ~~lemonade~~ real Southern iced tea*
9. Your dream car: F-88
10. The room you are in: ~~clean!~~ messy
11. Your ex: non-existent
12. Your fear: idiots
13. What you want to be in 10 years: alive
14. Who you hung out with last night: wife
15. What you're not: ~~healthy~~ employed
16. Muffins: bran
17: One of your wish list items: ~~teeth~~ employment
18: Time: NOW!
19. The last thing you did: blogged
20. What you are wearing: clothes
21. Your favorite weather: steamy
22. Your favorite book: unknown
23. The last thing you ate: ~~chicken~~ spaghetti
24. Your life: ~~happening~~ aggravating
25. Your mood: ~~sour~~ raging
26. Your best friend: wife
27. What you're thinking about right now: cantaloupe**
28. Your car: Civic
29. What you are doing at the moment: ~~typing~~ editing
30. Your summer: desired
31. Your relationship status: married!
32. What is on your TV: ~~nothing~~ Crowbar
33. What is the weather like: ~~cold~~ pleasant
34. When was the last time you laughed: ~~tonight~~ now

* They shouldn't insist on one word answers for such questions.

** Having read that I was thinking of cantaloupe before, how can I not think of cantaloupe now?

I suppose I should be upset that so little has changed over the last 27 months. But I'm actually upset about the things that did change more than anything else. Unemployment sucks.