Month: February 2008

The Tornados

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If you want to donate to help the victims, I would suggest contacting the Salvation Army, not the Red Cross.

There is a bit of family history involved: My family was in Anchorage for the Good Friday Earthquake (9.5 on the Richter scale), and it was related to me (I was less than 2) that the Salvation Army did much better than the Red Cross, which was bureaucratic, and charged for things that the Salvation Army did for free.

Generally, I favor the secular solution, but considering the Red Cross’s direct role in killing most of the hemophiliacs in the US by fighting testing blood for AIDS, and their top heavy management, they are not on my giving list.

Well On Our Way to the Police State

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What is a police state?

I would argue that it is a country in which all rights are sublimated to increasing the capabilities of the state security apparatus to conduct any business that it desires without impediment.

No bothersome warrants, no consideration of the rights of the accused, torture, no privacy, etc.

Cases in point:

  • FBI intends to assemble a massive database of physical characteristics of people, including retinal and iris scans, palm prints, and tattoos.
    • Of course my initial response to the idea of a database of tattoos was, “Why bother. Just tattoo numbers on people’s wrists. It worked so well the last time out.”
  • And then we have some crypto-fascist at DHS who wants to require Real ID cards to track people’s cold medication purchases. I understand that pseudoephedrin can make meth, but this is insane.
  • Of course, in a police state, you have to have massive prisons stuffed to the gills with people, so AG Mukasey wants congress to act because people who got disproportionate sentences under the racist crack laws might will get out earlier under the new sentencing guidelines.
    • Dude, that was the whole idea of changing the guidelines. The disproportionate sentencing was deliberately racist, and demonstrably so, and this is why they want it changed. Rockefeller style drug laws have proved a failure. All it’s left the US with is the greatest proportioned of imprisoned in the world.
  • Finally, we are requiring permission for USA citizens to return to the US.

    Under new regulations and procedures announced to take effect over the next month, citizens of the USA will, for the first time, be required to obtain USA government permission in order to return home to their own country from abroad — from anywhere else in the world, by air or sea or land.

    On no other aspect of the right to travel is international law more clear than on the right of return to the country of one’s own citizenship: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country.” The new regulations are a flagrant violation of the obligations of the USA as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international human rights treaties, as well as a violation of the Constitutional duty of the USA government to treat such treaties as the highest law of the land.

I want my country back.

Bush Authorized Torture, and the AG Signed off On It

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Well, we now know that the CIA tortured at least three suspects with waterboarding.

I looked around at some other articles, and found this on CNN:

Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who also testified at the hearing, said waterboarding remains a technique in the CIA’s arsenal, according to The Associated Press. He said it would require the president’s consent and legal approval from the attorney general, the AP reported.

I think that he just pretty much admitted that George W. Bush personally authorized torture, and that the AG signed off on it.

The Hague, bitches.

F-136 Alternate JSF Engine Killed in Pentagon Budget

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I fully expect it to come back. This happens every year. The Pentagon kills it, and Congress puts it back.

I support the F-136 for two reasons:

  1. I believe that having two ending suppliers for the JSF will make for better cheaper engines in the long run.
  2. There will be weight growth, and the F-135 appears to be marginal in that case for the STOVL version.

Of course, it’s not put back on the budget for those reasons. It’s put back because GE is big in a lot of Congressional Districts.

Super Tuesday Returns

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I am not going to be awake when California comes in, and I think that it will be California that defines victory on both sides of the ticket.

That being said, here are returns before I set up my computer to burn Avatar disks and go to bed, courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

CLINTON: AR, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN
OBAMA: AL, CT, DE, GA, KS, IL, MN, ND, UT
HUCKABEE: AR, AL, GA, WV
MCCAIN: AZ, CT, DE, IL, NJ, NY, OK
ROMNEY: MA, UT

Illiquid

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Illiquid sounds like a mile word.

It sounds like maybe the markets are thirsty.

It’s actually MUCH worse than that.

It means that a buyer cannot be found for your asset, so for the time being at least, it is worthless.

It’s like being marooned on a desert island with a pirate chest full of gold doubloons. Technically, you are rich, but you still have no shelter, food or water, and you die all the same.

The Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO)market is very nearly illiquid, according to Ross Heller of JPMorgan Securities, who is saying, “We’re definitely in a period of very low liquidity at the moment, which has actually been dropping precipitously in the last few weeks.”

Desert Island time.

I’m beginning to wonder if a Honda full of silver is over optimistic, and that instead we should fill it with canned goods and ammunition.

A Note on My Economic Updates

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Just in case you are wondering, I don’t generally discuss how the markets did on a single day.

There is simply too much noise for one day to mean much.

Additionally, the Dow Jones (Soon to be Murdoch?) Industrial Average sucks as a tool anyway. It’s a completely arbitrary bunch of stocks.

Besides, on days with big swings, like today, you hear it on the radio, or whatever.

Economics Update

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It turns out that banks are closing the barn door after the cow has gone, and they are tightening credit standards…a lot.

In fact, it’s the worst since they started keeping records, as Paul Krugman notes, and he provides has a good graph of just how tight it has become:

He correctly calls it “grim”

Additionally, we have the Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index, which accounts for around 9/10 of the economy, dropping. See also here.

Krugman has another graph to illustrate this:

Mark Steiner Show Cancelled

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Mark Steiner, who has hosted the local NPR station’s Noon to 2 pm talk show has been fired. They are replacing it with a show called “Statewide”.

It appears that, with WYPR now simulcasting from Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, that there may have been clashes over the focus of the show. Steiner has spent the bulk of his shows dealing with Baltimore City issues.

In any case, it looks like it might be getting nasty, with Steiner saying that, “his firing was the result of philosophical and personality differences with WYPR President Anthony A. Brandon”, and Barbara Bozzuto, WYPR board chairman, saying that, “Steiner and management had been at odds over what direction his show should take”.

The station’s president’s response is here, but it’s not worth the read. It just mentions unspecified schedule changes, and does not mention Steiner at all.

There’s already been a protest, though that would happen with any major programming change at most public radio stations.

I don’t have a dog in this hunt. I listened to him occasionally, but I’m not generally in the car then.

If anyone has insights, please post them here, or email me (see link on right).