Year: 2020

Should He Die, He Will Be Replaced by Something Even More Bizarrely Inexplicble

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It appears that his condition has worsened since announcing his testing positive 10 days ago:

Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital due to coronavirus after suffering 10 days of symptoms including a high fever, bringing doubts about his capability to lead the response to the pandemic despite No 10 insisting it was purely precautionary.

Johnson was taken to an unnamed London hospital on Sunday after days of persistent symptoms, during which time he has been self-isolating. Last week No 10 had denied the prime minister was more seriously ill than claimed.

A Downing Street spokesperson said: “On the advice of his doctor, the prime minister has tonight been admitted to hospital for tests. This is a precautionary step, as the prime minister continues to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after testing positive for the virus.” The spokesperson said Johnson would stay in hospital “as long as needed”.

I do not know much about British politics, but what I DO know leads me to conclude that whoever might replace him would be even more of a sh%$ show than he is.

Perspective of the Day

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If Joe Biden Had a Personal History of Dismembering Grandmothers and Feeding Them to Children as an After-School Snack, He Would Still, in My View, Be Far Preferable to Donald Trump or Mike Pence

—Liza Featherstone

Ms. Featherstone is commenting on the complete abandonment of #MeToo by the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) with regard to Joe Biden.

I do not know if the most recent allegations of assault are true or not, but it is clear that the response of the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has been abjectly deplorable.

Today in Boneheaded Rent Seeking

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The EU Court of Justice has ruled that rental car companies do not have to pay a license fee for the public performance of music when they rent a car, even though every car made today has a radio, and the drivers could theoretically play music on the radio.

These sort of outrageous claims are the rule, not the exception, because there are no penalties for attempting to promulgate this bullsh%$:

Performance Rights Organizations (PROs), sometimes known as “Collection Societies,” have a long history of demanding licensing for just about every damn thing. That’s why there was just some confusion about whether or not those with musical talents would even be allowed to perform from their balconies while in COVID-19 lockdown. And if you thought that it was crazy that anyone would even worry about things like that, it’s because you haven’t spent years following the crazy demands made by PROs, including demanding a license for a woman in a grocery store singing while stocking the shelves, a public performance license for having the radio on in a horse stable (for the horses), or claiming that your ringtone needs a separate “public performance” license, or saying that hotels that have radios in their rooms should pay a public performance license.

Five years ago, we wrote about another such crazy demand — a PRO in Sweden demanding that rental car companies pay a performance license because their cars had radios, and since “the public” could rent their cards and listen to the radio, that constituted “a communication to the public” that required a separate license. The case has bounced around the courts, and finally up to the Court of Justice for the EU which has now, finally, ruled that merely renting cars does not constitute “communication to the public.”

A reevaluation, and a roll-back of implicit and explicit subsidies related to IP needs to happen sooner, rather than later.

Mind Officially Blown

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I just came across this analysis of the toilet paper shortage, and it makes a very strong argument that it is not primarily hoarding.

It turns out that there are two highly distinct toilet paper markets, the home market and the commercial market, and the products are different. Typically, they aren’t even made in the same paper mills.

Because people are staying home, the consumption of home toilet paper is up by as much as 40% because they are not using restaurant and workplace bathrooms and toilet paper.

The mills cannot retool quickly, so there is a shortage.

There’s another, entirely logical explanation for why stores have run out of toilet paper — one that has gone oddly overlooked in the vast majority of media coverage. It has nothing to do with psychology and everything to do with supply chains. It helps to explain why stores are still having trouble keeping it in stock, weeks after they started limiting how many a customer could purchase.

In short, the toilet paper industry is split into two, largely separate markets: commercial and consumer. The pandemic has shifted the lion’s share of demand to the latter. People actually do need to buy significantly more toilet paper during the pandemic — not because they’re making more trips to the bathroom, but because they’re making more of them at home. With some 75% of the U.S. population under stay-at-home orders, Americans are no longer using the restrooms at their workplace, in schools, at restaurants, at hotels, or in airports.

Georgia-Pacific, a leading toilet paper manufacturer based in Atlanta, estimates that the average household will use 40% more toilet paper than usual if all of its members are staying home around the clock. That’s a huge leap in demand for a product whose supply chain is predicated on the assumption that demand is essentially constant. It’s one that won’t fully subside even when people stop hoarding or panic-buying.

Woah.

Thanks, Elon

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After promising to deliver hundreds (thousands) of ventilators to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, Elon Musk has delivered high end CPAP machines:

Some of you might have noticed that we recently started a series called Corona Tools, in honour of those who are really standing out from the crowd during this crisis. But we needn’t have bothered, really. Because one man is fast emerging from this virus as the Corona Super Tool, leaving all the others in the (space) dust.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Elon Musk.

………

After playing down the virus since January, our Elon suddenly last week seemed like maybe he had taken a Trump-style turn, and had decided that maybe Covid-19 was something that needed to be taken seriously after all. Though he earlier said he would produce ventilators but only “if there’s a shortage” (as if there weren’t already one), he then announced on March 24 that he’d bought over 1,255 “FDA-approved ventilators” from China and had delivered them to Los Angeles.

A few days later, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was thanking him for “donating hundreds of ventilators to New York City and State, including our public hospitals”, saying he was “deeply grateful”.

Fair play, we thought. At least he seems to be trying to help, rather than mounting some silly PR stunt, like, we dunno, building a kid-size submarine or something. We were a bit confused, however, by how it seemed so easy for him to procure over 1,000 ventilators when the rest of the world’s governments seemed to be suffering from such a dire shortage.

On Wednesday, we got a sneak peek of some of these ventilators:

………

You might also be surprised to see there, on top of the boxes, not a ventilator, but a BPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure, also called a “BiPAP” machine), which is used to treat sleep apnoea by maintaining a consistent breathing pattern at night (it’s very similar to a CPAP machine, but it has two pressure settings rather than just one).

Now BPAP and CPAP machines are sometimes called “non-invasive ventilators”, but these are not the ventilators that can be used in intensive care units, which are invasive ventilators that deliver oxygen to the lungs and are used as part of life support.

Well, that’s at LEAST honest as Musk’s promises of self driving mode for his cars, I guess.

Great Googly Moogly

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The initial unemployment claims number came out today, and it’s grim.

6.6 6.9 million new claims. That’s about 10 million new claims in the last 2 weeks.

The unemployment rate (U3) is almost certainly above 10%, and I would be remiss if I did not note that labor force participation, even adjusted for age, has still not returned to the levels that was before the 2008 recession.

Given that we haven’t seen the knock-on effects yet of all of this, things like delayed college entry because of school year cancellations, I have to believe that the unemployment rate will exceed 25% before any recovery starts. Fix it tonight in one mile exit point

Not good.

Watching What Might Be the Best Police Procedural Movie Ever

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The 1974 version of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, directed by Joseph Sargent, screenplay by Peter Stone, and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Héctor Elizondo, Martin Balsam, and Jerry Stiller.

In addition to being an excellent cop movie, it’s also an excellent transit movie, and it has the most famous sneeze in cinema.

It is also a glorious snap-shot of the culture and weirdness of New York City in the 1970s.

It may be the most New York City movie ever.

After I saw the movie, I read the book, and was not impressed, but this movie was genius.

The 2 remakes that followed, not so much.

Today in Bullsh%$ IP Lawsuits

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AM General just had a lawsuit it filed against Activision thrown out.

The lawsuit claimed that the Call of Duty game violated AM General’s trademark on its Humvee truck:
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A federal judge ruled this week that Activision has a first amendment right to include Humvees in its Call of Duty titles, despite vehicle manufacturer AM General’s claims of trademark infringement and false advertising for the in-game use of the military vehicles.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit first filed by AMG in 2017, which suggested that Call of Duty players were being “deceived into believing that AM General licenses the games or is somehow connected with or involved in the creation of the games.” That’s not a completely ridiculous idea, since Activision and other major game manufacturers generally arranged licenses for their in-game guns until 2013.

In his ruling this week, though, District Judge George B. Daniels dismissed AM General’s claim. That decision hinged in part on a 1989 precedent that established that artistic works could make reference to outside trademarks as long as the usage was relevant to the work and did not “explicitly mislead as to the source of the content or work.”

We really need to reign in excessive IP protections.

They do not serve the needs of society.

The Denials of White House Interference Ring False

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The Trump administration has removed captain Brett Crozier as commanding officer of the Theodore Roosevelt after a memo of the dire straits of the crew as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak on board leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.

They are claiming that there was no White House involvement, which is 6 pounds of sh%$ in a 5 pound bag:

Navy leaders have relieved the captain of a U.S. aircraft carrier after a memo to military officials in which he pleaded for help with a coronavirus outbreak at sea was leaked to a newspaper.

Capt. Brett Crozier, the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, now at port in Guam, was relieved Thursday after superiors said they lost confidence in his ability to lead. The decision to remove him drew outrage from lawmakers and some relatives of crew members who backed the commander’s call for attention to the crisis.

Capt. Crozier had written a four-page memorandum recently demanding that superiors allow him to take the carrier to the port in Guam to offload sailors stricken with Covid-19. At least 114 of the vessel’s crew have tested positive for the new coronavirus.

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” Capt. Crozier wrote in his March 30 memo, which was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. “If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset—our sailors.”


………

The decision to remove the Roosevelt commander came as a surprise to some Navy leaders, who said their focus had been getting resources to the ship, defense officials said.

………

Mr. Trump briefly addressed Capt. Crozier’s dismissal during a White House briefing on the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday, denying the move was punishment for calling attention to the plight of the crew.

“I don’t agree with that at all,” Mr. Trump said. “Not even a little bit.”

Bullsh%$.

Of course this was a political move, and it came straight from the White House.

Now We Know Who the House Oversight Committee Needs to Call as Witnesses

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It looks like Donald Trump is using his position as President to coerce forbearance out of Deutsche Bank and Palm Beach County for the Trump Organization.

Time for Congress to call senior leadership of both the bank and the county to ensure that Trump is not abusing his position for personal benefit: (Spoiler, he IS abusing his position for personal benefit)

All over the country, businesses large and small are seeking breathing room from their lenders, landlords and business partners as they face the financial fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

President Trump’s family company is among those looking for help.

………

Representatives of Mr. Trump’s company have recently spoken with Deutsche Bank, the president’s largest creditor, about the possibility of postponing payments on at least some of its loans from the bank.

And in Florida, the Trump Organization sought guidance last week from Palm Beach County about whether it expected the company to continue making monthly payments on county land that it leases for a 27-hole golf club.

………

The Trump Organization’s requests put lenders and landlords in the awkward position of having to accede or risk alienating Mr. Trump.

………

Other companies may be able to tap into a $500 billion rescue fund that will be administered by the Treasury Department. But the economic bailout package, which Mr. Trump signed into law last week, specifically barred the president and his family from access to that money.

Late last month, Mr. Trump’s representatives contacted their relationship managers in Deutsche Bank’s New York private-banking division, which caters to wealthy customers. They wanted to discuss the possibility of delaying payments on some of the hundreds of millions of dollars of outstanding loans that the Trump Organization has from the bank, according to a person briefed on the talks. The discussions are continuing.

………

Deutsche Bank has lent Mr. Trump and his companies about $2 billion since 1998, the only mainstream financial institution consistently willing to do business with Mr. Trump and his companies. At the time he became president, Mr. Trump owed the bank about $350 million, including on loans to buy and renovate the Doral golf resort near Miami and to develop a luxury hotel in the Old Post Office building in Washington.

Both properties are suffering in the economic shutdown. In response to Miami-Dade County’s rules, the Doral resort has ceased all operations, while the Washington hotel continues to operate, albeit with few guests and with its restaurant and bar closed. The Trump Organization rents the Washington property from the federal government, and the company had been soliciting bids from potential buyers for the lease, a process that is now on hold, The Washington Post reported.

Mr. Trump received the loans for those properties, as well as another related to his Chicago skyscraper, from 2012 to 2015. Because of his history of defaults and bankruptcies, Deutsche Bank insisted that Mr. Trump provide personal guarantees on those loans, meaning that the bank has recourse to his personal assets if he were to stop paying back the money.

Ever since Mr. Trump’s election, Deutsche Bank executives have been fretting about what would happen if he were to default, according to bank officials. Seizing the president’s personal assets would be an unattractive proposition. But opting not to collect on the loans would be the equivalent of an enormous financial gift to Mr. Trump, whose administration wields enormous power over the bank. Deutsche Bank’s operations in the United States are supervised by federal regulators, and the Justice Department has been conducting a criminal investigation of the bank.

………

The Trump Organization reached out on multiple occasions last week to Palm Beach County to ask whether it expected the company to continue making the monthly payments of tens of thousands of dollars due under its long-term lease, according to people briefed on the discussions.

(emphasis mine)

It’s already clear that Trump is going to ignore any attempt at Congressional oversight of the bailout, and he’s already doing things like diverting ventilators to states with “friendly” governors.

Since he’s already issued a signing statement that he will not cooperate with Congressional oversight, subpoenaing Trump’s creditors is a way to get some leverage over him (remember, Trump is personally liable for the Deutsche Bank loan) to get compliance on oversight.

You grill folks from the bank and the county, and suddenly they will be disinclined to cut Trump slack.

Politics ain’t beanbag.

Not Enough Bullets

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Publisher lobbyists and their author lackeys, hoping to capitalize on increased book sales resulting from Covid-19 pandemic driven library shut-downs, has attacked the national emergency library project.

This is yet another case where the rent seeking from IP serves no public good:

Last week, when the Internet Archive announced its “National Emergency Library,” expanding access to more than a million digitized works, the group explained the move as a goodwill gesture in the time of coronavirus.

With so many brick-and-mortar libraries forced to close their doors, in other words, the group was opening up its lending program: Now, instead of its usual policy of just one digital copy per reader for a 14-day period, many frustrated readers could borrow copies of the same book during the same time — and could do so through the end of June or the end of the global pandemic, whichever came sooner.

But there’s one major issue that several media outlets, including NPR, failed to mention in covering the decision: Many writers and publishers say the website, even before the creation of this National Emergency Library, has been sharing full digital copies of their books without their permission.

………

“We’re librarians. We’re not social media gladiators,” Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive told NPR over the phone Monday. “The best I can tell, [the critics of the system] just think what they see on social media, and they retweet it.”

Kahle said the group uses the same controls limiting access to these works as the publishers themselves, with encrypted files that are meant to disappear from the user’s computer after a brief period. The copies the group lends, Kahle said, are owned by the Internet Archive — either through donations, straight-up purchases or collaborations with brick-and-mortar libraries.

As the cost of publishing and distributing creative works has dropped by over a factor of 100, copyright subsidized industries have invested these profits in lobbying congress to increase those subsidies.

The purpose of IP is public benefit, but the current level of rent seeking provides none.

Boeing Cannot Make Anything Anymore, Part MMMDCCXXIV

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It turns out that Boeing, the company that invented the airborne tanker, has mission critical fuel leaks on its new KC-46 tanker.

Seriously, saved this issue 60 years ago, and now, after 25 years of stock buybacks, they can’t even prevent a fuel tanker from leaking fuel:

The U.S. Air Force has upgraded an existing deficiency for the KC-46A Pegasus fuel system to Category 1.

The service’s program office first identified “excessive fuel leaks” in July after an air refueling test. The Air Force and Boeing are working together to determine the root cause and implement corrective actions. A Category 1 deficiency means the government has identified a risk that jeopardizes lives or critical assets.

“The KC-46 Program Office continues to monitor the entire KC-46 fleet and is enhancing acceptance testing of the fuel system to identify potential leaks at the factory where they can be repaired prior to delivery,” according to an Air Force statement.

Every senior executive at the firm needs to be fired, including the board of directors, and stock buybacks need to be banned for the next 4 decades.

Rule 1 of Monsanto, Monsanto is Evil

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Rule 2 of Monsanto is SEE RULE 1.

After creating a plague of Roundup resistant weeds, Monsanto decided to double down on Dicamba, which had the effect of KNOWINGLY poisoning neighboring farmers’ crops, if they did not pay for Monsanto’s own genetically modified crops:

The US agriculture giant Monsanto and the German chemical giant BASF were aware for years that their plan to introduce a new agricultural seed and chemical system would probably lead to damage on many US farms, internal documents seen by the Guardian show.

Risks were downplayed even while they planned how to profit off farmers who would buy Monsanto’s new seeds just to avoid damage, according to documents unearthed during a recent successful $265m lawsuit brought against both firms by a Missouri farmer.

The documents, some of which date back more than a decade, also reveal how Monsanto opposed some third-party product testing in order to curtail the generation of data that might have worried regulators.

………

The new crop system developed by Monsanto and BASF was designed to address the fact that millions of acres of US farmland have become overrun with weeds resistant to Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkillers, best known as Roundup. The collaboration between the two companies was built around a different herbicide called dicamba.

………

The companies said they would make new dicamba formulations that would stay where they were sprayed and would not volatilize as older versions of dicamba were believed to do. With good training, special nozzles, buffer zones and other “stewardship” practices, the companies assured regulators and farmers that the new system would bring “really good farmer-friendly formulations to the marketplace”.

But in private meetings dating back to 2009, records show agricultural experts warned that the plan to develop a dicamba-tolerant system could have catastrophic consequences. The experts told Monsanto that farmers were likely to spray old volatile versions of dicamba on the new dicamba-tolerant crops and even new versions were still likely to be volatile enough to move away from the special cotton and soybean fields on to crops growing on other farms.

Why did Monsanto do something so evil, beyond the fact that they are one step away from having a white Persian cat?

Because we allow companies to patent crops, and prevent farmers from replanting crops, and so we create an incentive to sabotage people into buying their (very) pricey seed.

This sh%$ is criminogenic, and for the life of me I do not understand how this does not constitute a criminal conspiracy under the RICO statutes.

Instacart Treats Its Employees Like Sh%$, and Now Its Customers Will Die

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Some Instacart employees went on strike because the the grocery delivery company was not protecting its employees from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now we know that they have endangered their customers as well:

Late last night (Monday, March 30), an In-Store Shopper in the Cambridge, MA area shared with us an email they received from Instacart corporate —probably the last email anyone would want to see at this point in time:


Instacart’s email sent to an In-Store Shopper, as provided to Gig Workers Collective

As Instacart spent Monday discrediting our workers’ strike, downplaying the requests we and thousands of other Shoppers and customers were making, they were also busy informing their workers that they may have been working alongside a confirmed case of COVID-19 at a store in Cambridge.

This is the exact worst-case scenario we wrote about when giving our reasons for a strike. In-Store and Full-Service Shoppers work in close quarters with each other and with other people in stores. The virus is confirmed to be present in at least one of these workplaces now. These Shoppers handle produce, groceries and supplies that are then delivered to Instacart customers. Often many hundreds of customers per day. Without adequate measures, Instacart Full-Service Shoppers and In-Store Shoppers can unknowingly become vectors for the disease and multiply the danger for everyone involved.

(emphasis original)

Once again, I will remind you that if an employers treats its own employees like sh^%, they will treat their customers like sh%$.