Year: 2008

Really, Really, Really Bad Ideas: Steve Jobs Edition

No Comments

Steve Jobs is in negotiations with Universal Music about selling preloaded iPods, where the player will have a subscription attached to the device.

I’m not sure if this is a good or a bad idea, if I want music, I want to own it, and if you want me to rent it, I will just fire up µTorrent, additionally, eMusic is clearly threatening an antitrust lawsuit on this.

However, I do know that one thing is a bad idea, the idea of giving music distributors a cut of the hardware sales. There is a difference between making a subscription service available on your player, and giving a cut of each hardware sale to those distributors.

It is the camel’s nose under the tent, and it will be used ad precedent in future lawsuits against the hardware manufactures and against independent distributors of music.

It’s bad for the consumer and it’s bad for Apple.

Why Economists Suck, Crooked Timber Edition

No Comments

Daniel Davies of Crooked Timber notes that Greg Mankiw is doing some serious hating on “Joe Sixpack” in his latest NYT OP/ED:

Ahh go on then, try and tell me that Mankiw’s just engaging in a little bit of humour (possibly even a self-deprecating sigh at the pomposity of the average economist). No sale. This is how the average professional economist thinks of you lot, for all that you pay his wages; you’re a bunch of mugs who are incapable of understanding anything and just react like children to whatever’s dangled in front of your nose. It’s another of the many scandals of the profession, it is taught in the universities, and you can see it in more or less every popular book entitled something like “Fu$#younomics: How Nobody In The World Knows Jack Sh&@ Except Economists”.

(Bowlderization mine)

I would note, however that this is not limited to Economics.

You find this in many primarily academic fields, high energy physics, theoretical math, literary analysis, etc.

Take String Theorists…..Please.

With economists, however, the field is literally in front of our noses, and effects us in our daily lives, so the arrogance of economists is galling for that reason

Well, It’s Not Like USA Today is a Newspaper

No Comments

But does not mean that I’m not disappointed that USA Today declared Lawrence Yun, the chief economist at the National Association of Realtors as one of the top economic forecasters in the US.

Ummm….Covering your ears and saying, “there is no housing crash” does not make one a “top economic forecaster”. He is a paid shill of the realtors, and as such he only reflects reality to the degree that he doesn’t reveal himself as a complete and total pratt.

His record is worse than mine, though it might be better than his predecessor at paid shill for the NAR, David Lereah.

USA Today‘s Barbara Hagenbaugh and Barbara Hansen, and possibly their entire business journalism department, are my wankers of the day.

Judge in Gitmo Kangaroo Court Allows Defense to Call Witnesses

No Comments

While this is quite magnanimous of Navy Capt. Keith Allred to all lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, bin Laden’s driver, this still gives no credibility to military commissions.

It appears that the prosecutors have no concept as to the rule of law, arguing that, “the driver could have conspired in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without knowing about the suicide plot”.

Under the rules that they have would like to see adopted, this would place the truck drivers supplying food to the guards at Abu Ghraib under jeopardy for torture.

I agree with Captain Allred’s assessment, that “The issue of whether the accused was ‘merely a driver,’ or knew the unlawful purpose and was actively engaged in the unlawful work of al Qaeda seems to be very much at issue”, though I think that excluding subsequent treatment at CIA run and Military run Gulags from the purview of questions, when their answers may have been coerced is a bad decision.

Calling for a New “New Deal”

No Comments

This is not just an indictment of Republican economic policy, it is also a also a critique of New Democrat Wall Street Loving economics:

...

The key lesson Americans need to learn from today’s troubles is how to distinguish faux prosperity from the genuine article. Over the past hundred years, we’ve experienced both. In the three decades after World War II we had the real thing. Led by our manufacturing sector, productivity increased at a rapid clip and median family incomes rose at a virtually identical rate. The value of the American work product grew significantly and that value was shared with American workers.

But we’ve had other periods of apparent prosperity that were based not on broad increases in personal income but on the inflation of assets. So it was with stocks in the late 1920s, a time when most Americans lacked substantial purchasing power. So it was with the dot-com bubble of the late ’90s. And so it was with the rising value of American homes in recent years.

In the broadest sense, the American economy over the past three decades has been powered by ever more ingenious extensions of credit to a people whose incomes were going nowhere, unless they were in the wealthiest 10 percent of the population. There were some limits, as a result of New Deal regulations, on how old-line banks could extend credit, but investment banks and other institutions not legally obliged to keep a certain amount of cash in reserve operated under no such constraints. The risk was that one day, burdened by debt and static incomes, American homeowners would have trouble making their payments and the house of cards would come tumbling down. But what were the odds of that?

Pretty good, it turns out. And out of this debacle emerge two paramount lessons for our highest-ranking policymakers: Regulate the American financial sector, which is now turning to the government for a bailout. And commit the government to doing all in its power to generate broad-based prosperity, through laws enabling workers to bargain collectively, through a massive public commitment to projects “greening” the economy, through provision of universal health coverage and affordable college educations.

…

Go read the whole thing.

Just don’t go to Robert Rubin’s house. You will feel an urge to spit on him.

Bush Authorizes “the Furnishing of Defense Articles and Defense Services” to Kosovo

No Comments

While not an actual authorization of weapons sales, it does give official approval to more detailed negotiations on this matter.

I support the recognition of Kosovo. The nation of Serbia forfeited any right to the territory when it engage in Genocide, and the ability to support Kosavar security forces is a good thing.

That being said, the fact that I am agreeing with a foreign policy initiative of Bush and His Evil Minions™ does make me feel unsettled.

Once again, I am compelled to make the repeat the wisest thing that I’ve read this century:

But it does inspire in me the desire for a competition; can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:

1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I’d have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn’t in some important way completely f#$@ed up during the execution.

Seriously. I’ve yet to see anything wiser yet, and I’m using the loose definition of the 21st century which includes the year 2000.

So the obvious question is, how will they f#$@ it up?

Carole Channing is Biracial?

No Comments

From the wiki:

According to Channing’s memoirs, when she left home to attend Bennington College in Vermont, her mother informed her that her father, a journalist whom she had believed was born in Rhode Island, was in fact born in Augusta, Georgia to a German American father and an African American mother. According to Channing’s account, her mother didn’t want her to be surprised “if she had a black baby”. Channing kept her heritage secret so she would not be typecast on Broadway and in Hollywood, ultimately revealing it only in her autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, published in 2002 when she was 81 years old. Channing’s autobiography, although containing a photograph of her mother, displays none of her father or her son.

Economics Update

No Comments

Jobless claims
378,000, up 22K from the previous week, and the leading economic indicators fell for the 5th straight month by 0.3%.

Oil dropped nearly $4.00/bbl, and the dollar is up versus the Euro.

These are both driven by what is seen as reduced demand for oil, and a rate cut from the Fed which was around 25 basis points (0.25%) less than expected.

Still, it does not appear that the banks are optimistic Citi is looking to cut 2,000 jobs in their securities division (investment banking and trading). This is in addition to the 4k announced in January.

Just to remind you, it’s not just sub-prime, as Alt-A delinquencies and foreclosures are spiking too, and are trashing the related mortgage backed securities.

Finally, the Federal Reserve continues its extended bout of anilingus with the brokerage houses, making $75 billion in treasury securities available to investment banks.

V-22 AWACS

No Comments

It’s called the Tactical Organic Sensing System (TOSS), though Boeing is trying to change the rather unfortunate name.

One wag suggested that the radar be named Cerberus Advanced Battlespace Extension Radar (CABER).

This may very well be a winner for the various operators of V/STOL carriers, with the V-22 having better persistence and altitude performance than a helicopter based solution.

The aperture (antenna) size does appear a bit small, though it will be at least as good as the existing Sea King ASaC7.

Red Sox Stand Up For the Guys Who Stand Behind Them

No Comments

I’m not a great Baseball fan, but to the degree I am, I’m a member of Red Sox Nation, and the players just did the right thing when they briefly struck to ensure that the coaches and other support personnel for the team actually got paid for the exhibition games in Japan.

The net result was an hour delay in one game, and the coaches got paid.

I could insert a Yankees slam here, but it would spoil the moment.

Gene Kelley’s Widow Calls Out MoDo

No Comments

There is really not much that I can add to this:

I Knew Gene Kelly. The President Is No Gene Kelly. – New York Times
Re “Soft Shoe in Hard Times” (column, March 16):

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president’s clumsy performances. To suggest that “George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly” represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

…..

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008

Read the whole thing.

Schadenfreude, the Fredddie Thompson Clown Show Edition

No Comments

It appears that Sean Hackbarth, “Co-eCampaign Director, Friends of Fred Thompson, Inc.” is begging for work.

He has a resume up, and his day jobs appear to have been pretty meager, and he did not graduate college (it just says “education”, not degree).

I will say that given that he is around 33, perhaps the infantry would be a good idea.

Not sure if I’m just posting because I didn’t want another chance to write, “Fredddie Thompson Clown Show”.

Journamalism at its Worst

No Comments

Yep, we have Brian Ross at his wankerriffic worst.

Hillary Clingon’s travel records as first lady are released, and what is the lede?

Is it whether or not she is imporperly claiming experience? NO.

Is it evidence of some sort of evidence of wrong doing? NO.

Nope, what’s important to Brian Ross is that Hillary Clinton slept at the White House on “blue dress day”.

What a bunch of shallow wankers.

This is high Broderism at its worst.

Judge Losing Patience with White House Stonewalling on Emails

No Comments

A Judge John M. Facciola has given the White House until tomorrow to show why they should not be required to copy the contents of all computer hard drives in order to ensure that no more emails are lost.

Judge Facciola rejected as “draconian” a proposal by the Archive that would have forced the White House to quarantine every computer workstation it had. Instead, Facciola proposed the White House make a “forensic copy” of all preservable data on every computer that could have been used by an employee between 2003 and 2005, the period in question.

Observing that even that step is “not without its costs,” Facciola gave the White House until close of business Friday to argue why it should not be required to make such copies.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the White House “fully intends to comply” with the order, which is currently being reviewed.

The semantic difference between “fully intends to comply”, and “intends to fully comply” is noted.