It was caught early, but it’s not an easy cancer to treat.
This is the the Supreme Court Justice’s second bout with cancer.
Month: February 2009
Friends Don’t Let Friends Link to the AP
__AP Photo__________“Hope” Poster
For a while now, I have been boycotting the Associated Press, because they established a policy to threaten legal action over copyright for people who link to them and quote a sentence or two.
With one notable exception,* I have avoided their stories, and used Google News to find an alternate when I found a story of theirs.
Well, the Associated Press moron brigade is at it again, with their suing Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the Obama “Hope” poster, because he based the poster on an AP Photo.
As you can see, it’s not a tracing, it’s based on a photo, and clearly fair use. The author took the expression, and you can find dozens of pictures with a similar expression, and little else from the photograph, and what’s more, it appears that the AP may not even have right to the photograph, as the photographer, a stringer named Mannie Garcia, never signed a contract with the AP:
2) Where you either an employee, or a freelance photographer, as defined by their contract, for the AP when you took this image?
I was a temporary hire, filling in for a staffer at the AP. It is my understanding that I was neither a freelancer nor a staffer, but rather a temporary hire. I have never been an AP staff employee, and no, I have never signed an AP contract.
3) So, you own the copyright to the image?
The ownership of the copyright is in dispute, as per the AP. It is my understanding that since I was not a staffer, and was not a freelancer, and did not sign any contract, that I am the owner of the copyright, but I am in discussions with the AP over this issue.
Needless to say, I will continue not linking to Associated Press stories, and using a Google® News search to find alternates.
*When via typo, they referred to Joe Lieberman as the 2000 Vice Presidential pRick.
Economics Update
Our economy just had one of those days when you wonder why you get out of bet.
First, we have initial unemployment claims spiking to the highest number since October, 1982, 626,000. The consensus estimate had been 580,000.
The more reliable, and less noisy, 4 week moving average was up too, from 543,250 to 582,250, and continuing claims hit 4,788,000, another new record.
In manufacturing, December new factory orders fall 3.9%, well above the estimate of 3 %, and in rental real estate, the MIT commercial property price index posted a record drop, 10% in Q4 of 2008.
In international high finance, the Bank of England its benchmark rate by 50 basis points (½%), to 1%, which breaks last month’s record…..Considering that the BoE has been around since 1694, that’s a long record.
Across the channel in Euro land, the European Central Bank has left its benchmark unchanged, though I think that this is less from optimism than from the inflation-hawk nature of the ECB’s charter, and the fear of the zero rate destroying their ability to manage the economy with monetary means.
Meanwhile, mortgage interest rates have continued their increase, with the 30 year fixed being reported at 5.25%.
With the rate cuts in England, and the ECB still signaling future rate cuts, the dollar was up today.
The dismal job numbers drove oil down.
Adult in Charge
Note this quote from an interview:
In evening interviews on broadcast and cable television networks, Mr. Obama said he took responsibility for the errors. “And so I’m frustrated with myself, with our team,” he told NBC, “but ultimately my job is to get this thing back on track because what we need to focus on is a deteriorating economy and getting people back to work.”
He added, “I’m here on television saying I screwed up and that’s part of the era of responsibility.”
(emphasis mine)
Think about that for a second….A president admitting error….Like a non psychopathic adult….
TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | U.S. Attorney Scandal: Feds Probe Domenici for Obstruction of Justice In Iglesias Firing
Murray Waas is reporting that a grand jury is investigating former Senator Pete Domenici for obstruction of justice for his role in the US Attorney firing scandal.
My sense is that this is going to be big, because Waas is a very good investigative reporter, and he has a nose for things that end up big.
Complications in the Iraqi Elections
It appears that the al-Hadba Gathering, a Sunni Arab party, did well enough in local elections in Nineveh province to take control of the provincial council from the Kurds, which means that they have control of it and its its capital, Mosul.
The party, and its leader Atheel al-Nujaifi, took a fairly explicitly anti-Kurdish line during elections, and needless to say, the Kurds, who had previously held 31 of the council’s 41 seats, are not amused and are suggesting some level of electoral fraud.
While not a part of the Kurdish autonomous region, they Kurds have maintained that Mosul should be incorporated into this area.
Barack Obama Just Became Judd Gregg’s (R-NH) Bitch
You see, a day after being nominated by Obama, Senator Gregg recused himself on all votes on the stimulus package.
The thing is, in order to break a filibuster, you need 3/5 of all senators, so a non vote is the same as a no vote.
So he just announced that he will be voting to support any filibuster on the stimulus package.
First, he demanded that a Republican replace him, and now he has declared that he will support a Republican filibuster.
Now is the time to tell that rat-bastard that you changed your mind, because you heard the rumor about him and the 16 year old boy, Mr. President
Economics Update
Well, the ADP Monthly Survey estimates that 522,000 jobs were lost in January, and while the Institute of Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index rose, it’s still below 50, 42.9, which means more contraction on the way.
These aren’t official government figures, but those figures, due out Friday, are expected to be grim:
In its report on Friday, the Labor Department is expected to show 525,000 jobs were lost throughout the economy in January and the jobless rate is expected to rise to 7.5 percent.
Meanwhile, the dollar is up on expectation of further Euro zone rate cuts, and oil was down 46¢, continuing its love affair with the $40/bbl price.
What the Hell Are They Smoking?
To replace Tom Daschle at HHS, Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine is suggesting Willard “Mitt” Romney, and Craig Crawford CQ Politics is suggesting Newt Gingrich!
Either these people are completely insane, or they are amazing performance artists….Or maybe both.
Get Used to Saying Governor Cuomo
Because the New York Times is now calling out David Paterson about leaking damaging information about Caroline Kennedy.
Stupid, really stupid.
It’s clear that Paterson didn’t want Kennedy, and neither did I, but it was well within his purview to simply say, “No”, particularly after her disasterous performance in interviews and her prior lack of involvement in politics, even to the level of voting in primaries.
Going after her with a whispering campaign is stupid, and it makes his chances of losing the next primary much more likely.
Jeebus, this is stupid.
Iran Really Launches a Satellite This Time
We have both the report from Iran, and a report from JSR that they have observed the satellite and 2nd stage in orbit.
So it appears that they actually did it this time.
If you look at the launch (video below), I notice something odd, no ice, which implies the use of less efficient room-temperature propellants, which makes the technology more applicable to military uses, as it can be stored fully fueled in as silo or on the back of a TEL.*
*Transporter/Erector/Launcher
Kyrgyzstan To Close US Airbase
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan Kjust announced his intention to close the Manas air base at a press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
He is claiming that the US is not paying enough, and my guess is that the Russian aid also announced influenced him:
Russia, meanwhile, was ready to pay. The Kyrgyz president collected pledges of a $2-billion discounted loan and a $150-million grant. The Russian government also agreed to cancel Kyrgyzstan’s $180-million debt and to build a hydroelectric power plant.
I think that Russia does not want Afghanistan to fall back into the Taliban’s hands, but I also think that they see the bases in former Warsaw Pact and FSU nations as being a deliberate attempt to create a “ring of steel” in order to contain Russia.
I think that there are elements in the US military, and elements in the past administration (Cheney, Rice, etc.) who have been rather strong supporters of the “ring of steel” concept, so it’s not like they are paranoid for nothing.
From a tactical perspective, the loss of Manas is crushing, as it will, leave Pakistan as the only supply route available.
1000 Words on Republican Bloggers
The Devil is in the Details
Because Obama’s plan to limit executive pay to $500K to TARP recipients will sink or swim on the loopholes.
Larry Summers’ suggestion that, “Executive compensation above a specified threshold amount be paid in restricted stock or similar form that cannot be liquidated or sold until the government has been repaid,” is one such loophole, because if the restricted stock has dividends, it’s back to the races.
One of the things that needs to be understood is that Wall Street’s excessive salary structure is not just a symptom of the current banking problem, it’s one of the causes, because the excessive leverage and incompetent risk taking made year over year results so remunerative that it encouraged byzantinely complex instruments.
As a note, it’s actually not the executives who will get hit hardest by this:
“That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus,” said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. “And you know these companies that are in trouble are not going to pay much of an annual dividend.”
Mr. Reda said only a handful of big companies pay chief executives and other senior executives $500,000 or less in total compensation. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.
(emphasis mine)
It’s the “compensation consulting firms”, whose business model is to get paid lots of money from CEOs and Boards of Directors to recommend high salaries to those very same CEOs and Boards of Directors, who lose the most.
It sure beats working for a living.
F%$@ing Stupid Idea
Barney Frank has a good basic idea, that of a federal regulator with the power to regulate all financial transactions with regard to systemic risk, and then he jumps the shark completely by suggesting that this regulatory authority be placed in the Federal Reserve.
Seriously. Much of the Federal Reserve has not only gone native, but are to some degree actually owned by the commercial banks.
Any organization that was headed by Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan 20 years should be kept as far away from managing systemic risk as possible.
It’s like giving an infant a loaded revolver.
A Perfect Storm Benefits Netanyahu
In addition to the assault on Gaza achieving basically nothing, it now appears that the increased popularity of lunatic bigot Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party have made Netanyahu appear sane and moderate to the Israeli electorate by comparison, so people are feeling more comfortable about him.
This really sucks.
Obama nominates Gregg for Commerce
Interestingly enough, Gregg had proposed abolishing the Department of Commerce at one point.
Details here.
Tom Daschle Withdraws as Head of HHS
Nominally, he withdrew because of tax questions, but there are reports that this New York Times OP/ED convinced him to withdraw.
When even the New York Times realizes that you have functioned as an über lobbyist and calls you on it as game over.
Matt Taibbi was far more colorful in his description of Daschle and his revolving door porfiteering, “Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger.”
Economics Update
To no one’s surprise, the Federal Reserve has extended its multi-trillion dollar so called liquidity facilities another 6 months, better known as the sh$tpile for cash program:
In addition to prolonging the currency swap lines that were due to expire on April 30, the U.S. central bank said it would extend through October 30 a host of other programs providing liquidity to the U.S. commercial paper and money markets, and to large Wall Street firms.
They’ve already spent in excess of 8 trillion dollars bailing out insolvent banks, but they think that more of the same will help.
The Federal Reserve is broken as an institution. It is run by and for the banks.
We also have aggressive stimulus programs ramping up in Australia and Japan.
Meanwhile, real estate and construction continues to be a disaster with US construction falling 1.4% in December and 5.1% for 2008, the largest drop since records began being kept in 1993, and the Homeownership rate has fallen to the 2000 level, so much for Bush’s “Ownership Society….In stead of owning, we got pwn3d.* With current equity losses of US home owner pegged at $3.3 trillion, a new record on vacant homes 19 million.
Even alleged good news in real estate, that the Pending Home Sales Index rose in December is pretty hollow, because, money quote from CR, “The biggest gains were in areas with the biggest improvements in affordability.”
So, if your house prices have dropped by 40+%, as they have in parts of California and Florida then homes might be moving…Otherwise, not so much.
Still real estate is not as bad off as the auto industry, with GM and Chrysler offering buyouts to all of their hourly workers, Ford posting 40.2% drop in January U.S. sales, and GM dropping 49%, Chrysler down 55% LLC, with the Japanese car makers seeing their sales dropping about 30% each
BTW, it appears that China may be headed for a period of economically induced social unrest, because more than one in seven rural migrant workers, more than 20 million, are unemployed.
In a nation that has systematically eliminated its safety net, 20 million pissed off unemployed people can make a lot of trouble.
In energy, I’m not sure if $40/bbl is the bottom, or if OPEC cuts are working, but oil was up today, and it appears that we have found a bottom there.
In currency, there dollar was down as there was less “flight to safety.”
*Leet speak for “owned”.
Holder Confirmed By the Senate
With 21 ‘Phants voting against, largely, it appears, because the report in the Moonie Times saying that he would not prosecute torture was in error, and he actually has refused to rule out prosecutions.