Posts from — March 2008

The sixty days of madness that is the annual session of the Florida legislature has begun. If you aren’t a corporate lobbyist you must live in fear and trepidation of the “sausage” that gets produced.

Thanks to the recession, the burst housing bubble, the collapsed tourism market, and the weather and disease related problems in agriculture, they are starting out with a projected $3.5 billion shortfall. I’m guessing that the real number that will be reported near the end of the session is more in the $5 to $6 billion range. Anything that is not directly related to a business lobbyist is up for slashing, as most of these clowns are running for office in the Fall.

Naturally the rest of the planet will be entertained by the “family values” bills that attempt to incorporate evangelical doctrine into the laws of Florida and new tax cuts to prove how “fiscally responsible” these clowns are. It is going to be another disaster so keep your head down if you live in the Sunshine State.

The headline says Fla., Mich. Delegate Battle Heats Up, but the reality is a loser. They have maneuvered themselves into a brokered convention, and they don’t like it. Everything was supposed to be over on Super Tuesday, but the voters wouldn’t cooperate. Now they want to talk about dealing with the “problems” of Michigan and Florida.

People are saying that a new vote should be held, but who cares? I don’t. If they hold another vote I can’t participate because when the Democrats told me to get lost, I did. Why would any Democrat who voted in the January primaries in Florida or Michigan want to help the DNC out of the hole they dug? They’re talking to Charley Crist, the guy who signed the bill that created this problem!

They have lost Florida, so stop annoying people.

The Associated Press has a piece on the proposed piece of legislation: Firearms database won’t work, study says.

This isn’t just about firearms, this is about a problem with all of the lists and databases the Hedgemony is building as they keep moving towards Total Information Awareness™ – they are making things more difficult by amassing too many data points, hoping that the answer to all their questions will magically appear.

This particular legislation would require every new firearm to be test-fired and a sample of the bullet and casing entered graphically into a massive database. The concept is that if a firearm is used, you scan the bullet and the database will provide the serial number of the weapon. It doesn’t work. The test rounds are fired to be collected with only the marks from the barrel on them, crime scene bullets go into bodies through clothing, often striking bone or fragmenting. If you manage to retrieve a whole bullet and get a good scan, you are looking at a probabilities percentage for a match. The larger the database, the more probables you will have to look at. In the current system you have scans from weapons and bullets used in crimes, which increases the weight of any match. If you add a few million other weapons that have only been used in target shooting, you will be looking at hundreds, if not thousands of possible matches. Where are the people to do this?

Like everything else, they keep amassing data without increasing the people needed to make the data useful. They have no one to edit the lists to remove the garbage. They keep avoiding the hard work of doing the job right, while wasting time and money on projects that might make sense in another century.

Here’s the current leader board:

1 Mitch Seavey (33)
2 Lance Mackey (6)
3 Jeff King (11)
4 Kjetil Backen (42)
5 Paul Gebhardt (69)
6 Jim Lanier (4)
7 Aaron Burmeister (14)
8 Sebastian Schnuelle (68)
9 Jessie Royer (3)
10 Sigrid Ekran (24)

Obviously Jessie leads the women and is back in her accustomed place, Sebastian, also from Whitehorse, carries the Yukon flag. Rohn Buser (37) as moved to 21^st place to continue to lead the rookies.

With Silvia Willis (40) 12^th, DeeDee Jonrowe (39) 13^th, and Aliy Zirkle (17) 19^th, if there were any lingering doubts after the reign of Susan Butcher, sled dog racing is not a “boys club.”

Lance Mackey won the PenAir Spirit of Alaska award for being the first into McGrath, but he knows that he needs an hour lead on Kjetil Backen to be truly ahead because of the difference in start times.

Rachael Scdoris (55) is in 72^nd place.

The first 10 are at or just beyond Takotna, while the back of the race is in Rohn.

Current leader board:

1 Lance Mackey (6)
2 Jeff King (11)
3 Kjetil Backen (42)
4 Paul Gebhardt (69)
5 Zack Steer (26)
6 Hans Gatt (38)
7 Gerry Willomitzer (7)
8 Hugh Neff (16)
9 Mitch Seavey (33)
10 Rick Swenson (61)

Hans Gatt and Gerry Willomitzer are leading the charge for Canada, and both are from Whitehorse in the Yukon, which has a sled dog on a snow pile in it’s coat of arms.

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It would appear that some people are in serious need of more education on using the Internet.

While Danger Room reports that the Air Force Blocks Access to Many Blogs [including this one], according to the BBC they haven’t done a very good job convincing people not to send US airbase e-mails to town web site. Just a minor thing, but all official Air Force web sites and e-mail addresses end in .af.mil, not .com, and classified information is required to be sent via official communication links, not the Internet.

Speaking of education, if you have made up your mind to send annoying comments to a blog, you might consider not using the computers at your school. The thing is, it is easy to identify you and a complaint to the school would, at a minimum, cost you access to the school’s computers, which you really might need in some courses. If you want to be annoying, you should study the Internet in greater depth so that it takes more than a visit to a single reference site to find out who you are.

The Anchorage Daily News has a nice piece on the back of the race about Kim Franklin (79) the rookie from Cottered, England currently in 92^nd place. She figures this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is taking her time to enjoy the trail. But Trent Herbst (85) of Homer, Alaska in 94^th place, was fooled by markers leading to a local cabin and lost hours of trail time before he discovered his mistake.

Current standings:

1 Lance Mackey (6)
2 Hugh Neff (16)
3 Jeff King (11)
4 Mitch Seavey (33)
5 Cim Smyth (2)
6 Ramey Smyth (48)
7 Kjetil Backen (42)
8 Zack Steer (26)
9 Gerry Willomitzer (7)
10 Paul Gebhardt (69)

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Via the Achorage Daily News here are the current top ten teams:

1 Kjetil Backen (42)
2 Aaron Burmeister (14)
3 Gerry Willomitzer (7)
4 Paul Gebhardt (69)
5 Hugh Neff (16)
6 Lance Mackey (6)
7 Zack Steer (26)
8 Hans Gatt (38)
9 Rick Swenson (61)
10 Warren Palfrey (44)

Backen is in Rohn, while the next 20 teams are between Rainy Pass and Rohn. Those still not in Rainy Pass are dealing with snow, which would have been heavy and wet at time with the daytime temperatures getting just above freezing.

In her second Iditrod, Sigrid Ekran (24) is the leading woman at 16^th, while Rohn Buser (37) is the leading rookie at 17^th.

Because of the rules Rachael Scdoris (55) ended up having to start last to coordinate with her “guide”, Joe Runyan (83), but she is at 90^th in Finger Lake.

When Warren talks, I listen: Buffett says U.S. in recession, stocks not cheap

“I would say, by any commonsense definition, we are in a recession,” [billionaire investor Warren] Buffett said on CNBC.

But Buffett said it’s not clear how far the recession will go because that is difficult to predict.

The technical definition of a recession most economists use is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the nation’s gross domestic product.

The guy has made billions investing money based on his reading of the economy. He understands that Republicans are bad for the economy, as are tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. When Arnold Schwartzenegger asked Mr. Buffet for advice about California’s deficit, Mr. Buffet, who owns a home in California, told him to raise property taxes because they were unreasonably low.

The BBC reports on the latest military procurement problem: Air tanker deal provokes US row

Boeing’s loss of a $40bn contract to build a new in-flight refuelling aircraft for the US military has drawn angry protests in Congress.

Lawmakers from Washington state and Kansas, which have big Boeing plants, voiced “outrage” that it had gone to a consortium including Europe’s Airbus.

The planes will be assembled in Alabama but constructed largely in Europe.

Boeing has said it is awaiting an explanation from the military before deciding whether or not to appeal.

The new aircraft, named the KC-45A by the US Air Force, is based on the Airbus A330 and will be manufactured in partnership with US defence firm Northrop Grumman.

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While Lance Mackey is currently the furtherest along the trail, the Norwegians made a big move yesterday stopping to rest just before the climb to Rainy Pass. Both Sigrid Ekran(24) and Kjetil Backen(42) stopped at mile 106 and should be moving shortly with the sunrise.

Every team pursues their own strategy when determining when and where to stop.

Added: The Anchorage Daily News has more.

CNN has been running their front page “Quick Vote” poll this evening asking:

Do you expect a power struggle between Vladimir Putin and the new Russian president?

Don’t these people read any news? Is Christiane Amanpour the only person at the network with a clue?

At least it is nice to know that 68% of the people who clicked understand the situation.

The first teams are more that 50 miles from the re-start at Willow moving at around 10mph through the 28°F temperature that has been prevalent up to Rainy Pass. The temperature is 20 degrees less on the other side of the Pass.

The mushers are required to take two 8-hour breaks and one 24-hour break on the trail, but they will probably push on if the dogs want to run, stopping only to provide food and water. Water is vital after Rainy Pass because the colder temperature mean drier air and dehydration is a major problem in the Arctic, even as you are surrounded by ice and snow. The dehydration will really weaken you and cloud your judgment, if you ever had a hangover you understand dehydration because that’s the largest part of the problem.

If you’re into that sort of thing, a PDF of the official rules is available on-line. In addition to everything else, you have to come up with $3K to enter this race, so these are some serious people who really want to do this.

These are the flags of Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. They are similar because, at one time, they were part of a single country. They now have troops facing each other on their borders, and, of course, this is an excuse to raise the price of oil.

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