Posts from — July 2009

Mark Cavendish of the Isle of Manx took his fifth stage in this year’s Tour, the first time that’s happened since Lance in 2004, and became the Briton with the most stage wins ever. Even with this win he rides at 128^th and is 25 points behind Thor Hushovd in the battle for the green.

Leonardo Duque of Colombia picks up the red numbers for his attacks on the stage.

The Current Standings:

1. Alberto Contador (E/Astana) 77:06:18 [yellow jersey]
2. Andy Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +04:11 [white jersey]
3. Lance Armstrong (US/Astana) +05:21
4. Bradley Wiggins (GB/Garmin) +05:36
5. Andréas Klöden (D/Astana) +05:38
6. Frank Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +05:59
7. Vincenzo Nibali (I/Liquigas) +07:15
8. Christian Vande Velde (US/Garmin) +10:08
9. Christophe Le Mevel (F/Francaise) +12:37
10. Mikel Astarloza (E/Euskatel) +12:38
11. Vladimir Karpets (RUS/Катюшa) +13:36
12. Roman Kreuziger (CZ/Liquigas) +14:08
13. Sandy Casar (F/Francaise) +14:37
14. Rinaldo Nocentini (I/AG2R) +15:27
15. Carlos Sastre (E/Cervelo) +17:23

Selected others after the fold.

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Washing For Dinner?

Mmmmmm!

[Editor: Spot, rolling in the driveway in anticipation of dinner.]

Friday Ark

If you still have a job, or are looking at “career opportunities” in fast food, the Minimum wage climbs 70 cents tomorrow to $7.25 per hour.

Of course, the Cato Institute will assign all jobs lost from this point forward to the rise in the minimum wage, the total disaster that the Shrubbery left behind will have nothing to do with it.

A couple of stories of interest that the BBC:

Microsoft profits down by a third

Microsoft has reported disappointing results for the April to June quarter, with profits down by almost a third.

Net profit for the period was $3.1bn (£1.9bn), down by 29% from the same period a year earlier. Revenue came in at $13.1bn, down 17% from a year ago.

The results were worse than analysts had been expecting.

The world’s largest software maker said it had been affected by weakness in the global personal computer (PC) and server markets.

Couldn’t happen to to a “nicer” company. If they spent as much on R&D as they do on lawyers, they might have some decent products that people wanted to buy, rather than the “cash cows” people are forced to buy when they want a name brand PC.

Of a good deal more interest is another report from TED: Wireless power system shown off.

This is on the work from WiTricity, which is actually fairly simple if you’ve had high school physics. It is essentially the same process that is used for radio or television broadcasting, except it uses extremely long wave lengths. It beats the hell out of looking for batteries in the middle of the night for a keyboard or a mouse.

Jimmy Carter, the only real Democrat elected to the Presidency since LBJ, has broken with the Southern Baptist Convention and explains his action at Comment Is Free: The words of God do not justify cruelty to women.

A moderate liberal, and, in the eyes of Walter Cronkite the most intelligent President he ever reported on, Carter said what he thought, held to his ideals, and did what he thought was right. Since Carter, almost every politician who calls themselves a Democrat lacks any loyalty to any concept except being elected.

Groucho Marx summed up the current crop of “Democrats” is his quote: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”

As expected Alberto Contador of Spain won the individual time trials, as he is much better suited to individual events than working with his team.

None of the jerseys changed hands as yellow and white were the only ones in contention on the stage, and the red numbers weren’t awarded because it was an individual event.

The Current Standings:

1. Alberto Contador (E/Astana) 73:15:39 [yellow jersey] stage 18 winner
2. Andy Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +04:11 [white jersey]
3. Lance Armstrong (US/Astana) +05:25
4. Bradley Wiggins (GB/Garmin) +05:36
5. Andréas Klöden (D/Astana) +05:38
6. Frank Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +05:59
7. Vincenzo Nibali (I/Liquigas) +07:15
8. Christian Vande Velde (US/Garmin) +10:08
9. Mikel Astarloza (E/Euskatel) +12:36
10. Christophe Le Mevel (F/Francaise) +12:41

Other selected riders below the fold:

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The CBC latest report: Most Okanagan evacuees to return, others ordered out

As thousands of residents forced out of their homes by two fires in West Kelowna, B.C., prepare to head back late Wednesday afternoon, fire officials are ordering a small number of Okanagan Valley residents near a third fire to leave.

The new evacuation order was issued for 13 people living on 10 properties near the Terrace Mountain fire about 40 kilometres to the north of West Kelowna around noon on Wednesday, after that forest fire expanded to 2,000 hectares [5,000 acres], sending up huge plumes of smoke.

The residents of the Fintry High Farm area have been told to leave their homes and report to emergency social services at Mount Boucherie Senior Secondary School in West Kelowna.

In addition, an evacuation alert was issued to 2,200 residents and property owners living in several Westside Road communities on the northwest shores of Lake Okanagan, telling them to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

The Terrace Mountain fire has already burned through thousands of hectares of valuable timber, threatening hundreds of jobs at local sawmills.

Firefighters say the steep, rugged terrain has made it dangerous to put crews on the ground to fight the fire, and it was only 30 per cent contained as of Wednesday morning.

The weather isn’t cooperating and the terrain is bad for fire fighting. The only reason things aren’t worse is because of the lake and the aerial resources just to the South of the fires.

The BBC covers something that most people aren’t aware of: Unsung heroes save net from chaos

Crack teams of volunteers keep the net online and functioning, according to leading internet lawyer Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University.

The way data is divided up and sent around the internet in many jumps makes it “delicate and vulnerable” to attacks or mistakes, he said.

However, he added, the “random acts of kindness” of these unsung heroes quietly keep the net in working order.

Professor Zittrain’s comments came at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

Incidents such as when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline in 2008 exposed the web’s underlying fragility, he explained.

But a team of volunteers – unpaid, unauthorised and largely unknown to most people – rolled into action and restored the service within hours.

The corporations that want Congress to cut them special deals are not that important to the Internet. You can route around them. They didn’t create it, and they don’t maintain it. They aren’t even especially good at cleaning up their portions.

Via Lambert at Corrente, a post by the goddess of financial clarity, Elizabeth Warren: Three Myths about the Consumer Financial Product Agency.

Go and read it in full, as she does her usual great job in explaining why we need the CFPA.

I got an example of what she is discussing in the mail yesterday with an offer of a pre-approved credit card. The draw was 4.12% over the WSJ Prime Rate as the interest rate.

That was the large print, but in the fine print you discover that the actual rate will never be lower than 9.87%, which is a bit higher than the 7.12% rate based on the current Prime of 3%, and in even smaller type you discover that by “Prime Rate” they mean the highest daily Prime Rate on any day in the last three months.

Of course, all disputes will be settled by arbitration and you don’t actually receive the “agreement” that covers the card until after you agree, and you are agreeing that they can violate your privacy without any recourse, and make robo-calls to you.

What scum! By the way, don’t try reading one of these things without an illuminated magnifier, as they cause eye strain and headaches.

David Hilzenrath of the Washington Post has a small piece of reality: Insurers Spin Data to Fight Public Plan.

As the article points out, a major segment of the people who like their current health insurance are people who have never needed to use it. It isn’t hard to be satisfied with something you never use, like those miniature spare tires. The test of good insurance is how they handle claims, not how they handle your payments.

This is the same thing that occurred along the Gulf Coast with property insurance. Most people liked their insurance companies until 2004 and 2005 when they needed to file claims on policies that they had been paying premiums on for decades, and then they discovered that the companies didn’t intend to pay.

Frank Schleck of Luxembourg, a country that same size as Okaloosa County, has taken stage 17 and moved up to third, just behind his brother, Andy. The current green jersey wearer, Thor Hushovd, scored the red numbers for combative riding.

None of the jerseys changed hands, but Tony Martin has slipped back to 50^th place and Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus has replaced Kenny Robert Van Hummel as the last rider. Van Hummel withdrew with two other riders shrinking the field to 158.

1. Alberto Contador (E/Astana) 72:27:09 [yellow jersey]
2. Andy Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +02:26 [white jersey]
3. Frank Schleck (LUX/Saxo Bank) +03:25 stage 17 winner
4. Lance Armstrong (US/Astana) +03:55
5. Andréas Klöden (D/Astana) +04:44
6. Bradley Wiggins (GB/Garmin) +04:53
7. Vincenzo Nibali (I/Liquigas) +05:09
8. Christian Vande Velde (US/Garmin) +08:08
9. Christophe Le Mevel (F/Francaise) +09:19
10. Mikel Astarloza (E/Euskatel) +10:50

Selected others below the fold:

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The BBC reports that there were Arrests at new Iranian protests

Iranian riot police are reported to have arrested a number of pro-reform protesters in Tehran after demonstrations turned violent.

Police clashed with hundreds of people marching despite a ban on public gatherings since the disputed election in June, Reuters news agency said.
…

In a new form of protest, activists were urged to turn off lights and domestic appliances at 2055 (1625 GMT).

They planned to switch on five minutes later appliances that consume large amounts of electricity, such as irons, toasters and microwave ovens.

Activist leaders hoped the resulting surge in demand could cause a power outage and cloak Tehran in darkness, allowing some the chance to protest on the streets.

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On NPR’s All Things Considered today host Robert Siegel interviewed AMA President Dr. James Rohack. [link to audio]

At the end Mr. Seigel brought up Atul Gawande’s article in The New Yorker, The Cost Conundrum, about the hyperexpensive health care in the McAllen, Texas area, wondering what the AMA was doing to address the runaway costs of over prescribing tests and procedures.

Dr. Rohack immediately brought out the “defensive medicine/malpractice” defense, which Mr. Siegel countered by pointing out that Texas had already enacted “tort reform” which caps “pain and suffering” at $250K. The doctor mumbled something about how the AMA has groups studying the problem.

Just so readers know, the AMA only encompasses 30% of doctors, and those tend to be doctors with stock tickers in their offices. [I was paid to install the satellite antennae for those tickers, so I’m not just being snarky. It is one way of spotting medical office buildings in Southern California.]

The CBC covers another facit of the fires, Okanagan fire threatens forestry jobs

Hundreds of forestry jobs may have been lost as a result of the largest of three fires burning in B.C.’s Okanagan’s Valley, which destroyed thousands of truckloads of timber — and the damage is not finished yet.

The Terrace Mountain fire has been burning in a steep mountain area north of West Kelowna since Saturday, and firefighters say the rugged terrain has been impossible to attack from the ground and difficult to tackle from the air, even at the best of times.

After strong winds fanned the flames on Monday, the fire grew to 13 square kilometres [5 square miles] by some estimates, and firefighters say after three days, they still have only 20 per cent of the fire contained.

The industry was already beset by the US building bust which made the lumber prices drop like a rock. Add to that the plagues of drought and pine beetles, which made the fires more probable, and you have a recipe for hard times in the timber industry.