Year: 2012

Romney Crushes Santorum

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It appears that Santorum won the Talibaptist vote, but that’s not enough in Illinois, where Romney crushed him.

I expect this to continue for a while because:

  • The press hates Romney now almost as much as they hated Gore in 2000.
  • The states with high numbers of insane religious zealots, otherwise known as the Republican base, will continue to vote for the “Not the Mormon.”

But Romney got almost half the (admittedly anemic) votes cast, and Santorum did not manage to field a full slate of delegates, and it’s Illinois, which like Ohio, needs to be in play for any Republican to win, so I think that it’s game over, though I the clown show to continue.

I Don’t Know Whether to be Heartened or Depressed

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I am talking about the murder of Trayvon Martin, where both the Feds and the DA are opening investigations of what is clearly a murder. I guess that a few days of international condemnation got them moving:

Seven years after Florida adopted its sweeping self-defense law, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, has put that law at the center of an increasingly angry debate over how he was killed and whether law enforcement has the authority to charge the man who killed him.

The law, called Stand Your Ground, is one of 21 such laws around the country, many of them passed within the last few years. In Florida, it was pushed heavily by the National Rifle Association but opposed vigorously by law enforcement.

It gives the benefit of the doubt to a person who claims self-defense, regardless of whether the killing takes place on a street, in a car or in a bar — not just in one’s home, the standard cited in more restrictive laws. In Florida, if people feel they are in imminent danger from being killed or badly injured, they do not have to retreat, even if it would seem reasonable to do so. They have the right to “stand their ground” and protect themselves.

That is precisely the question in the case: Was the gunman, George Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic crime watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., in imminent danger and acting in self-defense during his encounter with Trayvon Martin, as he asserts?

In the three weeks since Trayvon, 17, a well-liked high school student from Miami with no criminal record, was killed, public protests have grown larger and louder, and so have calls for Mr. Zimmerman’s arrest. The Police Department in Sanford, near Orlando, said that under the law, it had no call to bring charges.

But late Monday, the Department of Justice said it had opened an inquiry into the shooting. It will run parallel with one announced on Tuesday by the state attorney in Seminole County, who said a grand jury would be convened. State attorneys use grand juries in cases when they cannot make a clear independent call, or when a case is explosive.

(emphasis mine)

Let’s be clear what happened: A white, self appointed “neighborhood watch” with a history of harassment in the neighborhood, chased a black child down down, and shot him, and the police said that they were sorry, but there was nothing that they could do.

It was only after this blew up that the DA decided to convene a grand jury, because, it became too embarrassing.

If this hadn’t made the news, it would just be one more dead black person, in a town with a long and notorious history of law enforcement racism and corruption, and it would have been “nothing to see here, move along.”

So, it looks like there might actually be an investigation (good) but only because there was an international outcry (not good).

Me, I’m a glass half empty kind of guy.

The Supreme Court Pushes Back on Patents Again

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They just struck down two patents on a drug dosage calibration method:

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a unanimous blow to Prometheus Laboratories by saying that its methods of dosage calibration for thiopurine drugs for gastrointestinal and nongastrointestinal autoimmune diseases are ineligible for patenting. In a decision written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the high court overturned the decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last December. The Federal Circuit had upheld the two diagnostic method patents, which covered the methods designed to take into account the context of a treatment regime based on the individual patient’s metabolism.

“To transform an unpatentable law of nature into a patent­ eligible application of such a law, a patent must do more than simply state the law of nature while adding the words ‘apply it,’” the court stated. “It must limit its reach to a particular, inventive application of the law.”

Prometheus’ patents failed that test, according to the court: “We conclude that the patent claims at issue here effectively claim the underlying laws of nature themselves. The claims are consequently invalid.”

Through the ruling, Breyer answered the question he posed to attorneys for both sides during oral arguments in December: “What has to be added to a law of nature to make it a patentable process?”

Basically the “method” was to measure the metabolite levels of a drug in order to determine appropriate dosages.

Yeah, that’s something that a medical intern has learned in his first year, or in med school, for the past 50+ years, but they took out a patent.

Prometheus claimed that the human body was the machine conducted the transformation.

It’s another in a streak of brush-backs to the U.S. Circuit Court for the Federal Circuit, aka the Patent Court, which expanded the reach of patents since its creation over the past 30 years.

The patent system long ago went from a system to encourage innovation to one that strangles it.

At Least, there is Symmetry

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The good folks at Westover “G-d Hates F*gs” Baptist are now looking to support Rush Limbaugh by purchasing ads on his show:

There’s something so deliciously ironic, so perfectly just in this. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that Rush Limbaugh has a new sponsor anxious to buy up lots of ad space on his show: Westboro Baptist Church. Is there anything more delicious than the idea of the haters advertising on the hater’s show?

Premiere Networks has released a statement saying they will not accept any ads from the group. Who knew they had standards of what Limbaugh maligns as “political correctness.”

I don’t understand why they won’t take the ads, it’s a match made in heathen heaven.

House of Saud Takes Steps to Ensure Sunni Hegemony in Syria

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There are reports that the house of Saud is arming the rebels in Syria:

Saudi Arabia is delivering military equipment to Syrian rebels in an effort to stop bloodshed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a top Arab diplomat said on March 17.

“Saudi military equipment is on its way to Jordan to arm the Free Syrian Army,” the diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“This is a Saudi initiative to stop the massacres in Syria,” he added, saying that further “details will follow at a later time.”

The announcement came two days after the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom said it had shut down its embassy in Syria and withdrawn all its staff.

It also followed a brief meeting on the Syrian crisis last week between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the Saudi monarch King Abdullah in Riyadh.

There was no official reaction to the statement from the Saudi capital, but Jordan flatly rejected the report.

“Jordan categorically denies the report,” government spokesman and information minister Rakan Majali told AFP.

What we need to understand is that the actions of the Arab league are being driven by the House of Saud, and their goal is to take down the more secular regimes, and to ensure Sunni control of societies wherever possible.

They see this as an essential action for preserving their (completely corrupt and dysfunctional) regime.

They need to play up sectarian conflict, and they need to take down regimes like Qaddafi’s and Assad’s, because they have largely pushed religion out of the public sphere in order to distract their population. 

That’s why they are continuing to support (occupy, really) Bahrain, even though the crack-down there is so bad that the US is delaying weapons sales.

While our relationship with the House of Saud is good for the defense industry they are allies much in the same sense as the Pakistanis are.

Once Again, Obama Punts on Gay Marriage

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It looks like the DNC is scrambling to find a way not to deal with marriage equality:

In recent weeks, a debate has been raging between leading Dems and gay rights advocates over whether the Democratic Party will make full marriage equality a plank in the party platform at the upcoming convention. Antonio Villaraigosa, the chair of the convention, recently stoked the fires when he said having such a plank would be “basic to who we are.”

But now The Huffington Post reports that Democratic National Committee officials have been privately pleading with advocates for patience on the issue, because it’s still viewed by top party officials as “politically sensitive” and potentially alienating to culturally conservative swing state Dems. HuffPo reports the DNC worries that “sweeping platform language would put the president in an awkward bind,” since President Obama is still “evolving” on gay marriage.

If Obama wanted this, it would be in there without a fight.  The DNC does wipe its ass without checking with the White House.  (As should be the case with a sitting President)

The tragedy here is that public opinion on this is moving blisteringly fast, and there are very few people on the wrong side of this issue who would vote Democrat.

They are dissing the base in order to pander to an electoral lost cause.

Dammit, No Warp Drive

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It looks like those Neutrinos were not traveling faster than light:

New experimental evidence is helping disprove last year’s highly surprising finding of neutrinos breaking established physics laws by traveling faster than light.

The finding involved clocking the neutrinos–tiny, nearly massless subatomic particles–as they traveled from the CERN particle accelerator near Geneva to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, about 730km away. An experiment called Opera found the neutrinos taking less time to arrive than light would, but now another Gran Sasso experiment, Icarus, showed neutrinos making the journey at a more sedate pace under light speed, CERN said.

That finding comes after news in February that a fiber-optic connection problem could have shown too short a neutrino time of flight, though another factor could mean the timing was wrong the other way.

I’m not surprised, but I am a bit disappointed.

I Unreservedly Support This Union

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It looks like the slaves student athletes are looking to unionize again:

With college basketball’s March Madness approaching, commentators will soon regale us with tales of underdogs, upsets and last second heroics. But few will mention the moment, 17 years ago, when a group of players planned to stop the games.

Rigo Núñez, a reserve on the 1995 University of Massachusetts basketball team, says more than 20 players from several teams attempted to organize an action to halt March Madness. The plan was that the players would show up on the court, in full uniform, and refuse to play ball. The goal, says Núñez, was to “paralyze the whole NCAA.” William Friday, who co-chaired the Knight Commission on College Athletics at the time, recalled to the Atlantic the time he was warned about a planned March Madness strike.

Those plans fell apart. Friday says the plan he was warned about centered on a certain team, and that team lost prior to reaching the Final Four. Núñez says the culprit was fear of retaliation. “The fear of being blackballed overcame the ‘rah rah’ emotion … No one went on to actually pull the trigger.”

But in the 17 years since that strike plan fizzled, there’s been little change in the conditions that fueled players’ unrest. And, with the backing of a major union, there are still players organizing to do something about it.

It’s about time.

At the top tier schools, in the big money sports, the fiction of student athletes is a disservice to the athletes, and the schools as institutes of higher learning.

Payback is Sometimes a Bastard Too

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There was a sex scandal in Minnesota, where the leader of the state Senate (a Republican, hoocoodanode) was found to have slept with an aide.

The aide was fired, and the (married) Senate Leader resigned.

The twist was that the leader who  resigned was one Amy Koch.  It was a woman.

In any case, the staffer who was fired has now filed suit, and he is threatening to out other state lawmakers who are f%$#ing around:

The saga continues over former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch’s (R) “inappropriate relationship” with a subordinate staffer. Michael Brodkorb, who served as Koch’s executive assistant and communications director, claims that he was fired after the relationship was discovered because of his gender. He also says he has proof that other female staffers who had relationships with legislators were allowed to keep their jobs.

Brodkorb is now preparing to sue the Minnesota Senate, alleging wrongful termination and discrimination. Documents outlining the basis of the case confirm the relationship between Brodkorb and Koch. Rumors swirled in December that Koch’s “inappropriate relationship” was with him, but it wasn’t confirmed at the time. It continues:

“Brodkorb has evidence that similarly situated female legislative employees, from both political parties, were not terminated from their employment positions despite intimate relationships with male legislators. It is clear that Mr. Brodkorb was terminated based on his gender. He intends to depose all of the female legislative staff employees who participated in intimate relationships, as well as the legislators who were party to those intimate relationships, in support of his claims of gender discrimination.”

Heh.

Please, call his bluff. I want him to spill the beans.

What is the Last Place You Would Expect to Hear Someone Calling for an Indictment of Jon Corzine?

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Well, you know, the OP/ED page of the New York Times is close to the top of that list, but Joe Nocera just called for prosecutions in the MF Global matter:

It’s sure starting to look as if Jon Corzine is going to get away with it.

By now, it has been well established that Corzine’s former firm, MF Global, committed the sin of sins for a broker-dealer. In late October, during the final, desperate days before it entered bankruptcy proceedings, its executives took money from segregated customer accounts — money that belonged not to MF Global but to the farmers and commodities traders that were its clients — and used it to prop up its rapidly collapsing business. Nor was this petty cash: of the $6.9 billion in customer assets that MF Global held, a stunning $1.6 billion is missing. There is virtually no chance that the full amount will ever be recovered.

Let’s not mince words here. These executives committed a crime. Virtually every knowing violation of the Commodities Exchange Act is a crime, but taking money from segregated customer accounts is at the top of the list. And for good reason. Customer money is supposed to be sacrosanct. If a broker-dealer goes bankrupt, the segregated accounts are supposed to remain safe, a little like the way bank deposits remain protected if a bank goes under. Indeed, customers need to be able to trust the fact that their money is segregated and protected at all times. Otherwise, the markets can’t function.

Yet, a few weeks ago, Azam Ahmed and Ben Protess, who have done a remarkable job covering the MF Global bankruptcy for The Times, wrote an article suggesting that prosecutors were having trouble putting together a criminal case against anyone at MF Global. So far, wrote Ahmed and Protess, they’d been “unable to find a smoking gun.” In fact, they continued, “a number of federal prosecutors have expressed doubts” that MF Global “intentionally misused customer money.” Apparently, the current theory is that it was all just a big accident, the chaos of those final days causing the firm’s executives to tap into customer funds without realizing it.

Excuse me while I roll my eyes. Of course there isn’t a smoking gun. As a general rule, financial professionals tend not to write e-mails that say, “Hey, we’re desperate. Let’s break into the customer accounts!” And, of course, they are always going to say it was unintentional. They are saying it already, starting with Corzine, who told Congress last year that “there was no intention to violate segregation rules.”

He’s right.

He’s also right that the failure to prosecute is an assault on the idea of the rule of law.

It’s not a particularly surprising conclusion to draw, but the fact that it’s appearing in the New York times is a big deal.

Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers

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Peter Bergman, the founder of Firesign Theater, has died at the age of 72.

I’ve enjoyed their albums, but I always found it odd that while I had about a dozen friends with the album, not one of them bought it new.

I always had this sneaking suspicion that they had a marketing strategy which involved taking the albums out of their shrink wrap, and distributing them through used record stores and garage sales.

Karazai Wants Foreign Troops to Stand Down

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You know, this whole withdrawing from this clusterf%$# with honor does NOT seem to be working:

President Hamid Karzai insisted Thursday that the United States confine its troops to major bases in Afghanistan by next year as the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans, both of which served to complicate the Obama administration’s plans for an orderly exit from the country.

Mr. Karzai’s abrupt planning shift was at odds with a pledge offered just hours earlier by President Obama to stick to a 2014 withdrawal schedule for troops in Afghanistan. It also ran up against the Pentagon’s stark assessment that Afghan security forces were not yet ready to take over control of the country.

Mr. Karzai’s surprise announcement, which would confine American troops to their bases a year earlier than Mr. Obama proposed, was initially made at a Thursday meeting with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who spent a fraught two days here apologizing in person to the Afghan president for the massacre of civilians by an American soldier last Sunday at a village in Kandahar Province. Upon Mr. Panetta’s arrival, an Afghan interpreter working for coalition forces crashed a stolen pickup truck near his plane.

Further fraying the United States’ efforts to preserve some degree of control over its exit strategy from Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents announced Thursday that they had broken off preliminary peace talks with the Americans. While the move may have been coincidental, it imperiled another crucial element of the American exit strategy in Afghanistan — brokering peace talks between insurgents and the government.

This is like Vietnam all over again. We know we have to leave, but we have to do it slowly, because we cannot afford to look like we were beaten … again.

We’ve been beaten.  Get the f%$# out of Dodge.

5 lined skink

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I know that I don’t normally blog about work, but I had a bit of an adventure today.

I was sitting at my desk, when out of my drawers (let me rephrase that, my cabinet) jumped a 5 lined skink.

People have gotten glimpses of it for the past few days, and it jumped out (down actually) onto my desk.

I yelped (OK, maybe it was a shriek) but manged to corner it, and we got it into a cup, and one of my co-workers has taken it home for his kid to keep as a pet.

Certainly got the blood  moving.