Year: 2008

Illegal Aliens Kill Unionization Drive

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I found this little tidbit in a story about cutbacks and layoffs in the newspaper industry:

A few years ago, he said, some drivers talked about organizing, but the idea went nowhere. The problem, he went on, is that on the north side, 80 to 90 percent of the drivers are in the United States illegally. I have no idea if that number’s accurate, but I believed him when he said he’s one of them. “When you are illegal in this country you have to be patient,” the English-speaking driver explained. “So I think that is one of the reasons—they need the money, they have no papers to work, that’s why they keep quiet. They know if they complain they will get fired. We think the main Tribune, they don’t know nothing about this.”

Apparently they don’t. Tribune spokesman Michael Dizon e-mailed me that “it is against Chicago Tribune policy to publicly discuss how fees for delivery services are negotiated.” But he added, “Our company does not hire undocumented workers to deliver our newspapers. Tribune Company contracts with independent businesses to deliver products. In turn each independent contractor enters into his or her own contracts with sub-contractors to perform delivery results.”

This is why the US is so schizophrenic on illegal aliens. The powers that be use them to drive down wages and prevent union activities, which they like (and any guest worker program has the same effect), but the average American understands that it’s against the law.

That’s why, when I made some proposals about deterring illegal immigration, they focused on the demand from employers.

TSA Detains 5 Year Old

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Good for them. How do you know that this kid wasn’t a a Jihadist with a glandular condition?

Seriously though, this does no one any good:

When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dillinger hadn’t passed anything dangerous weapons or materials to his mother when she hugged him.

Bank of America to Buy Countrywide

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Their press release is here.

Bank of America Corporation today announced a definitive agreement to purchase Countrywide Financial Corp. in an all-stock transaction worth approximately $4 billion.

Basically, BoA just bought Countrywide for some magic beans. It’s all funny money, unless, of course, if you are a shareholder, in which case, your stake in BoA is diminished.

Still a losing proposition, I think, particularly since the insolvent Countrywide will place downward pressure on the BoA stock price.

Australia Looking at Procuring Russian Fighters

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I think that this is more gamesmanship than anything else. The Australian militaryreally want the F-22, but it has not been cleared for export, so so they claiming that they are evaluating the MiG-29 and the Su-35.

The Australians are not happy about having the buy the F-35 JSF, because it lacks the agility that they want, and because there are serious scheduling and budget issues.

The new defence minister has meanwhile warned that Canberra will not tolerate further delays or an increase in the cost of the F-35.

Additionally, Australia is making noises about canceling its $5.8 billion purchase of 24 F/A-18 E/F “Superhornets” as a part or reevaluating their defense needs.

My assessment is that they are playing chicken in an attempt to get the US Congress to change the law that prevents F-22 exports, though even with that hurdle taken care of, the development costs of an export version looks to be around $1 billion.

Sir Edmond Hillary Dead

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Sir Edmond Hillary,the first man, along with his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first men on the summit of Everest (they always maintained that they went to the summit together) has died. He was 88.

He was one tough (and modest) Kiwi.

Read the article…He did a lot more than just climb Everest.

I did consider posting the article without the “Sir Edmond” part in the title, just to get a reaction, but it turns out that even I have limits on how tasteless I can be.

This is Harsh

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Well, it looks like the Republicans are starting to swift boat each other, as shown by this anti-Huckabee ad, put out by Victims Voice, a 527 with unknown funding.

The principal of the organization, one Keith Emis, claims that it was done by him and a friend, and that they only spent money on tape and gas, but I think that this is too well produced for that.

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Of course, the whole story shows a startling lack of unawareness. The cheerleader who was raped was a distant cousin of Bill Clinton, so there was a great hue and cry from the right wing that Wayne Dumond was railroaded because of who was governor at the time.

Mike Huckabee set him free, but he did so because a lot of people, many of them not in Arkansas pressured him, because it doesn’t matter if you are raped, if you are related to Bill Clinton.

New Ultra Capacitor Technology

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I read a report about Lockheed-Martin signing a contract with a company called EEstore to get exclusive rights to their ultra-capacitor technology in defense and homeland security applications.

I’ve done a bit of looking around, there is a Wiki Page, and if it does 1/10 of what they say it does, it’s impressive tech.

The advantages of Capacitors over batteries are:

  • Fast Charging
  • Fast Discharging
  • Basically never wear out.

The disadvantages are:

  • They can lose their stored energy over time, though this can be a long time, as anyone who has been knocked on their ass after opening up a junkyard TV can attest. (This tech is supposed to have self-discharge rate of 0.1% per month)
  • Low power density.

This technology looks very impressive:

These units use barium titanate coated with aluminum oxide and glass to achieve a level of capacitance claimed to be much higher than what is currently available in the market. The claimed energy density is 1.0 MJ/kg (existing commercial supercapacitors typically have an energy density of the order of 0.01 MJ/kg and a lithium ion battery has an energy density of 0.54–0.72 MJ/kg).

Maxwell technology has ultracapacitors on the market, and their website has peformance of 3.29 Wh/kg, or about .01MJ/KG.

CBS News and Writers End Labor Dispute

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Best of luck to the members of WGAon their new contract. It had been two½ years since the last contract expired.

My guess is that when the threatened picket line shut down the CBS debate, management started negotiating in good faith.

I, for one, would like to thank the WGA for stopping a debate moderated by Katie Couric, arguably the most useless big media name ever.

Murrow is spinning in his grave.

Interesting Theory on NH: Obama Lost Because of Angry With Bush Vote

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Interesting analysis from Open Left, Chris Bowers notes that Obama led 38%-39% among those dissatisfied with Bush, but among the 2/3 of the voters angry with Bush, Clinton won 39%-34%.

Obama is in a bind with this. His campaign is deliberately a non-angry one, and he really can’t switch gears, because if he does, he becomes the “angry black man”, and that is not an electable place to be in the USA.

Morons Unclear on Trademark

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The teenage entrepreneur screwing this up I can understand, but the reporter completely screwed the pooch on this one.

A kid makes jewelry called “change rocks”, and Obama has a concert series called “change rocks”.

The kid has no right to do anything with regard to trademark. Quoting the Wiki, “Trademark law is designed to fulfill the public policy objective of consumer protection, by preventing the public from being misled as to the origin or quality of a product or service.”

So if there is no potential consumer confusion, there is no harm, no foul.

Obama can’t sell jewelry, but he could do T-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. My guess is that his concern is about his Google ranking, or an attempt at free publicity.

Don’t care, and neither should Obama. Tough luck, kid.