Year: 2010

Somali Pirates Create Better Fishing

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Not surprising.

It appears that there is upside to Somali piracy. The pirates have scared off the people plundering the fishing grounds off of the Somolian coast:

MALINDI, Kenya–Kenyan fisherman are perhaps the only people in the world who have reason to be grateful to Somali pirates – they keep away illegal fishing boats.

In past years, illegal commercial trawlers parked off Somalia’s coast and scooped up the ocean’s contents. Now, fishermen on the northern coast of neighboring Kenya say, the trawlers are not coming because of pirates.

“There is a lot of fish now, there is plenty of fish. There is more fish than people can actually use because the international fishermen have been scared away by the pirates,” said Athman Seif, the director of the Malindi Marine Association.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Somali pirates in Somalia is because they are perceived as going after foreign poachers.

If the external powers started policing the 200 mile limit for Somalia, or better yet, commissioned and supported a Somali Coast Guard, and pursued the people who are strip-mining their coastal waters, we might find some real improvement in the piracy problem.

Good Point

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When we look at Pat Robertson, and his delusional bits of wing-nut spew, it is important to note that he is, and remains a very significant figure in American politics:

You can sneer all you want at Pat Robertson. You can condemn him all you want. And I’ll join right in. He deserves everything you care to say about him, and much, much more. He is a seriously disturbed man.

But you dismiss and ignore him at your peril. Remember: this man used to call up the f@#&ing president of the United States. And he got through. And the president listened to him.

You ever had that kind of access to power? Got it now? Thought not. Me, neither. You got his hundreds of millions of dollars? Got millions of fans giving you hard-earned- bucks? Nope, I don’t have them either.

(emphasis original, @#& mine)

The fact that people do not take him seriously, even though he could, for many years, pick up the phone and in a few minutes have a conversation, or arrange a meeting, with the President United States is a not trivial thing.

People who should not be allowed to use a butter knife are achieved positions of outsize influence in the United States, and more often than not, these days at least, they speak to, and for, Republicans.

They Who Must Not Be Named

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Let us add Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, as well as any other moron who decides that celebrity justifies their carrying a firearm in violation of the local laws:

Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas, who was suspended from professional basketball, pleaded guilty to a felony count of carrying a handgun without a license.

Arenas, 28, entered the plea today before District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Robert Morin in Washington. Under a plea agreement, Arenas admitted violating a District of Columbia law on carrying an unlicensed handgun.

Under the agreement, he likely will receive a sentence much lighter than the five years he might otherwise face. The agreement calls for prosecutors to recommend a sentence of six months when Arenas is sentenced on March 26.

When the prosecution asks for 6 months, can they please also ask for the sentence to be served at the same time as the NBA season?

Well, This Has Fail Written All Over It

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It appears that Yemen, under US pressure is looking to arrest Anwar al Awlaki, the Imam tied to both the Fort Hood shooter and the Underoos bomber.

The problem here is that, absent any information that he’s actually involved with al Qaeda, he’s just someone who speaks in support of them.

That makes him a bad person, but we are in the process of making him a martyr, and the counter-terrorism forces will use his sermons, convincing Muslims even more thoroughly that this is a war on Islam.

Really, I think that anyone involved in counter-terrorism should read Wasp by Eric Frank Russell, or at least the first chapter:

The title of Wasp comes from the idea that the main character’s actions and central purpose mimic that particular insect; just as something as small as a wasp can terrorize a much larger creature in control of a car to the point of causing a crash and killing the occupants, so the defeat of an enemy may be wrought via psychological and guerrilla warfare by a small, but deadly, protagonist in their midst.

The point is, pedants arguing about anaphylaxis notwithstanding, is that the wasp cannot kill us, it can only induce us to kill ourselves.

Not Enough Bullets: Shareholders Got a Gun Edition

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JPMorgan Allots $378,600 Per Investment Bank Worker:

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second- largest U.S. bank, set aside $9.3 billion for compensation and benefits for investment-bank employees in 2009, enough to pay each worker in that unit $378,600.

The reserve is 33 percent of the investment bank’s revenue for the year, compared with 62 percent in 2008, New York-based JPMorgan said today on its Web site. That’s the lowest proportion allocated for pay since JPMorgan merged with Bank One Corp. in 2004.

You know, if shareholders had any real power to direct a company, the idea that 33% of revenue go to bonuses, much less 62%, would be a thing of the pass.

It is currently illegal for shareholders to vote on compensation plans. How about we change the law and make it legal.

Barack Obama is Scared

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That’s why he’s going to be campaigning for Martha Coakley in the US Senate special election this Sunday:

President Barack Obama will campaign Sunday in Massachusetts for the Democratic candidate in a close race to fill the seat held by the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

State Attorney General Martha Coakley is trying to hold off a surge by Republican state Senator Scott Brown in recent opinion polls before the Jan. 19 vote. The campaign, in a state dominated by Democrats, will affect Obama’s ability to move legislation through the Senate and is becoming an early test of his party’s prospects in November’s congressional elections.

Let me be clear, if Coakly loses in what is one of the three bluest states in the nation it is a disaster, and her failure will rest firmly on the head of “no
gutsdrama Obama”.

Barack Obama has, for reasons that appear unclear to me, decided that the way to govern with the largest legislative majorities in something like 30 years, is to campaign against his base, and try to make nice with the
VisigothsRepublicans, who are having none of it.

Fundamentally, the problem is that he campaigned on “change”, and he is remarkably supportive of the status quo, and it’s pissing off Republicans and demoralizing Democrats.

I think that she is going to lose, though my prognostic abilities have been shown to be lacking.

That’s not a good thing, though, off the top of my head, but if you want to look at silver linings there are a few:

  • Obama might realize that maybe he was elected to be a Democrat who changes things, and better that he learn it now, as opposed to November when the whole House and 1/3 of the Senate is up for reelection.
    • Of course, the “very serious people” in DC will use it as an excuse to tell Obama that he needs to go on a Jihad against the DFH’s*, and Obama, being Obama, will likely believe the Beltway Boyz.
  • Martha Coakley is a deeply and profoundly bad person (though better than any Republican who might be a Senator because her policy won’t quite be flat out primeval). She has always been an amazingly overzealous prosecutor, who will do her best to continue to overcrowd prisons as a legislator.
    • Just look at her prosecution of Louise Woodward, Ray and Shirley Souza, and her actions with regard to the Amirault case, where prosecutors basically coerced testimony out of children in yet another of those “false memory” cases of counselor malpractice.
  • Something gets passed through reconciliation, which cuts Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanch Lincoln out of the loop.
    • Of course, Barack Obama will try to bring Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Blanch Lincoln back into the process, so it may not turn out well either.

I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that I am right about the election.

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Economics Update

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Another Transportation Indicator of Non-Recovery

The Federal Reserve has released its Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization data, and it shows a 0.6% increase in December, though, as Dean Baker notes, it would have fallen but for increased electricity and gas consumption from the weather.

This is kind of in line with the LA/Long Beach port traffic data for December, the last 3 months of the year were down -9.2% year over year, though they were up +2.9% Y0Y in December.

As the associated graph pr0n shows, there is a big seasonal variation, so only YoY is the only meaningful data.

Still, the Empire State Fed Index is at 15.9, with numbers above zero indicating expansion, and Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment rose to 72.8, though this was less than the forecast of 74.

Inflation is mooted, CPI rising by only 0.1% in December, and the figure, at least the initial inflation number, for the year was 2.7% inflation in 2009, largely on the fact that energy and other commodity prices are much higher, +50% on a gallon of gas, for example.

Ex-energy, we are still looking at deflation.

In real estate, once again, New York City is not doing, well, which means that no one is doing well, with properties across the 5 boroughs rising by only 0.12%, $1,200 on a million dollar property for the mathematically disinclined, and in Manhattan, rents fell 9.4%.

Finally, we had warm weather pushing oil down again, and the dollar rose.

An Interesting Analysis of Obama and Geithner

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Mark Ames, of the ExileD, has a piece on Alternet which provides some very interesting theories about the President and the Treasury Secretary.

Generally, I consider this analysis to be of little use, though it can be interesting, and I think that this applies to this analysis.

His thesis is that Obama and Geithner will avoid conflict, even when avoiding conflict is an immoral thing to do.

In the case of Geithner, Ames uses his actions in the case of the racist Dartmouth review:

The Review lambasted what it called Dartmouth’s liberal bias and its minority admission policies, riling many students. During gatherings in which some students said D’Souza should be attacked, Geithner calmed them down, proposing that they start an alternative publication, says Rudelson, the former roommate. Geithner kept his distance from the new publication, called the Harbinger, occasionally taking photos for it.

In the case of Obama, it’s a conflict over affirmative action at the law review:

Presiding over an assembly of 60 mostly white editors in a law school classroom, Obama listened to impassioned pleas and pressed conservatives to explain their reasoning and liberals to sharpen their thinking. But he never spoke about his own point of view or mentioned that he believed he had benefited from affirmative action. “If anybody had walked by, they would have assumed he was a professor,” said Thomas J. Perrelli, a classmate and former counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno. “He was leading the discussion but he wasn’t trying to impose his own perspective on it. He was much more mediating.”

Obama was so evenhanded and solicitous in his interactions that fellow students would do impressions of his Socratic chin-stroking approach to everything, even seeking a consensus on popcorn preferences at the movies. “Do you want salt on your popcorn?” one classmate, Nancy L. McCullough, recalled, mimicking his sensitive bass voice. “Do you even want popcorn?”

So Ames thesis is that these are people who are fundamentally unwilling to participate in a confrontation, and instead will go through back-flips to avoid it.

It may be true.

It may be that Obama and Geithner actually believe in the rather right wing ideas that they have put forward in terms of financial reform and healthcare.

I don’t know, you don’t know, Mark Ames doesn’t know.

And at the end of the day, it does not matter unless you could use this information to make them do the right thing.

The question, “Why are they governing like this?” is the wrong question.

The right question is, “What levers and tolls can be used to get them to do the right thing?”

Still, it’s a good read. Ames both provocative and eminently readable.

Not Enough Money

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New York Governor David Paterson says that he has $3 million in cash on hand for his reelection bid.

When I say, “not enough money,” I don’t mean that that $3 million dollars at this point in the election cycle is not impressive, and sufficient for a state wide election in New York.

Under most circumstances, this would be an impressive haul, but the problem is that there isn’t enough money in the world for him to get reelected.

If Andrew Cuomo runs against him in the primary, he loses the primary.

If Andrew Cuomo doesn’t run against him in the primary, he loses the general election, whether his opponent is Rick Lazio, Rudy Giuliani, indicted former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, or Biff the Wonder Dog,* he loses the election.†

The electorate find him incompetent, ineffectual, and they don’t like him personally, and it’s not going to change in the next 11 months.

*A virtual kewpie doll to whoever gets the geek reference toward said dog.
†OK, if the Republicans nominate Sarah Palin to run against him, I give him a 60% chance of winning, but that dog will kick his ass.

Economics Update

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Unemployment, SA vs NSA, h/t Brad Delong

Well, it’s Thursday, and initial unemployment claims rose for the 2nd straight week, once again worse than forecast.

What might be more significant is the significant divergence between seasonally and non-seasonably adjusted numbers, because the NSA unemployment number was 800,000 initial claims. (see graph pr0n)

The 4 week moving average continued to fall though, down 9,000 to 440,750 and the continuing claims number fell by 211 thousand to 4.596 million, though it should be noted that all these numbers are seasonally adjusted, and it appears that the adjustments are getting a big hinky.

In any case, the DoL’s numbers are here.

Retail sales also were below forecast, with the December number showing a -0.3% drop, missing analysts expectations of +0.5%.

We do have some good news though, with business inventories rising in November; it is the 2nd straight month, and the 2nd month-to-month increase in 15 months.

In real estate, foreclosures rose 14% in December, and total defaults for 2009 hit a record, 2,824,674, up 21% from 2008, and more than double the number for 2007.

In central bank land, Chilean central bank kept it’s rate at 0.5%, as the economy in the Latin American nation remains mired in recession and deflation.

In the US, the bad financial numbers had Treasurys rising as investors looked for safety.

In energy, warmer weather continued to push oil prices down, while in currency, the dollar was essentially unchanged.

Nibble on Iris Robinson’s Chocolate Balls

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Seriously, I have to invoke South Park!

Remember a few days back, when I referenced Americablog’s story about how a right-wing Irish anti-gay bigot was herself sleeping with a 19 year old boy?

It’s legal, but real hypocrisy, and it just got worse:

Meanwhile, it emerged this weekend that Iris Robinson also had an affair with 19-year-old Kirk McCambley’s father, a butcher who died from cancer. She had another affair with a fellow DUP member in the 1980s which was witnessed by the security forces.

(emphasis mine)

It appears that the founder of the DUP, and fellow bigot, Rev. Ian Paisley is in full “going postal” mode over this.

Well, the story gets even weirder, because bloggers with way too much free time on their hands have uncovered her recipe for “chocolate balls, and this, in turn has uncovered the coverage of her recipe at the time in the Belfast Telegraph, which is just full of double entendre:

Iris Robinson’s chocolate balls to melt our hearts

Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Food lovers across Northern Ireland are being given the chance to nibble on Iris Robinson’s chocolate balls, included in a new charity cookbook.

……………

(emphasis mine)

No, this is not The Onion.

Reality is very odd sometimes.

H/t AMERICAblog News