Posts from — January 2011

This is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns in Ayr, Scotland. The Burns Night celebrations conducted by Scots all over the world with haggis, whisky¹, and poetry.

Wikipedia has a description of the standard celebration, but easy on the malt or you may end up with a William McGonagall morning.

In honor of the occasion a bit of Robby Burns for the Democratic “leadership”:

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promis’d joy!

To a Mouse

1. This is the correct spelling when referring to Scotland’s “water of life”.

Position: 18.1S 156.9E [ 9 PM CST 0300 UTC].
Movement: East-Southeast [120°] near 22 mph [35 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 45 mph [ 75 kph].
Wind Gusts: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 85 miles [140 km].
Minimum central pressure: 998 mb.

Currently about 730 miles [1178 km] East of Cairne, Australia in the Coral Sea.

Some good news: in the last twelve hours an upper level trough to the East of the storm has gotten much stronger than anticipated and is creating significant wind shear. It is possible that the shear will totally disrupt the cyclone.

Update from the BBC: Ireland’s Green Party quits government of Brian Cowen. This will probably require the election being moved forward to February.

The BBC reports that Irish PM Brian Cowen steps down as Fianna Fail leader

Irish PM Brian Cowen has said he is stepping down as leader of the ruling Fianna Fail party but will continue to run the government until the general election on 11 March.

Mr Cowen said the focus of the election should be policy and not personality.

In a week of political crises, Mr Cowen first survived a party leadership vote but was forced to call the election after a bungled cabinet reshuffle.

The BBC is being kind. The “bungled cabinet reshuffle” was half dozen ministers quitting their jobs.

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent for the Guardian reports that Fianna Fáil braced for election defeat

Fianna Fáil will lose more than half of its 71 seats in the Dáil, party advisers warned today, as its members prepare for a general election defeat.

The party, which has dominated Irish politics for much of the Republic’s history, will be lucky to return to the Irish parliament with 30 seats, said a source in Fianna Fáil, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

History will also be made on the other side of the Republic’s political divide, with a potential Fine Gael/Labour party alternative government gaining a majority of at least 30 seats – the highest for any rival coalition since the state was founded in 1921.

The Irish voters are angry. The government leapt in and guaranteed the bad paper that Irish banks had sold, and are now cutting everything they can find to pay back a loan they took out to cover the banks’ debts.

It’s like being forced to pay someone else’s bar tab, and then told you have to have the miscreant’s hangover too – you had none of the fun but must be responsible for all of the pain.

If I were a Fianna Fáil strategist, I would be working like hell to make this election about the personality of Brian Cowen, rather than the policies of the party.

This ABC report gives you a better feel for the scope of the problem: Inland sea menaces Victorian towns

Victorians are being warned that a massive moving inland sea is expected to threaten towns in the state’s north and north-west for up to 10 more days.

Floodwaters are now heading for the Murray River town of Swan Hill, which is bracing to be hit sometime today.

The peak is expected to last through the weekend.

The state’s flood crisis is about to enter its third week and according to authorities it still has a long way to go.

It is estimated the moving inland sea is 90 kilometres long and 40 kilometres wide.

Try to imagine that much water moving inexorably through your area, and you will have a feeling for what the Australians are facing. Sump pumps and bailing aren’t going to get it.

This is how the Australian equivalent of governors deal with disasters: Bligh slings mud in flood clean-up

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has joined the thousands of volunteers out today cleaning up Brisbane and Ipswich.

The Premier donned a pair of gumboots and joined members of her running group in a working bee at an apartment complex in the inner-city suburb of West End.

Covered in muck, Ms Bligh wielded a shovel to help clean out one of the courtyards in the complex, and was too busy to talk to the media.

I don’t think taking a vacation to a theme park is going to be on her agenda for a while. This is what leaders do – they set an example by their personal conduct.

When State senator Durell Peaden, MD, Ob-Gyn, Esq., NRA, GOP of North Okaloosa County finally had to leave the legislature because of term limits, I had hopes that the frenzy of insane firearms laws in Florida was finally finished.

I thought that surely there would be a end after this tragedy:

Joshua Cartwright, 28, shot deputies Warren “Skip” York and Burt Lopez just before 1 p.m. at the Shoal River Gun Club, according to the Sheriff’s Office. The deputies were pronounced dead at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola a short time later.

But, no, the voters of North Okaloosa have elected another gun nut, Greg Evers, to the Florida Senate, and he wants guns on campuses.

Attaturk has the bad news on Evers and Rep. Jason Brodeur who wants to make it a felony for medical professionals to ask about guns.

I wonder if Mr. Brodeur has considered the implications of what he has proposed to the investigation of assaults and murders?

Just so you know, the fact that Comcast was just cleared to buy NBC Universal has nothing whatsoever to do with Keith Olbermann leaving MSNBC.

Oh, yes, the fact that MSNBC was still advertising Countdown with Keith Olbermann after he told his audience that he was out, should not be assumed to indicate that this was a sudden move on anyone’s part.

And, nothing should be assumed from the fact that MSNBC was moved over to the NBC News division’s control after Keith Olbermann was penalized for violating a rule of NBC News that didn’t exist at MSNBC.

This is a professional operation that just lost the individual with the highest rating in their prime time line-up, but they know what they are doing.

[If you believe any of that you work at the White House or are another form of Republican. If anyone missed the point, this is sarcasm.]

Keeping Up With The Times

Zzz…zzz…zzz…

[Editor: Molly approves of modern conveniences, like heat provided by an electric light. More reliable than the younger generation, and it keeps the concrete pad dry as well as warm.]

Friday Ark is still in Africa

Eastern Australia just can’t catch a break.

As the flood crest heads South in Victoria’s rivers, a king tide looms for flood-weary Brisbane. A king tide is the highest tide of the season, which will meet the flood waters trying to enter the sea, so coastal flooding is ensured.

It is still raining in the area, although not at the ferocious pace that cause the major flooding, just enough to make people miserable as they try to clean up and dry things out.

Now they read that Weather bureau monitoring potential cyclone

There is a chance a tropical cyclone will develop in the Coral Sea off north Queensland after Australia Day.

They just can’t catch a break.

CNN reports that Dem stands by Nazi comparison

Rep. Steve Cohen, the Tennessee Democrat who compared Republican efforts to criticize health care to the works of a famous Nazi propagandist, is standing by his heated rhetoric on the House Floor Tuesday night.

But in an interview with CNN’s John King, Cohen said he was not directly comparing Republicans to Nazis, but rather merely suggesting they are employing the same techniques of that of infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Statements of fact are not “heated rhetoric”. Goebbels is a major figure in political propaganda, and his techniques are still in use because they work. Saying that people are using Goebbels techniques is not calling them Nazis, any more than doing something that Lincoln did make you a Republican.

The headline and phrasing by CNN shows that they just don’t want to report the news, they want to slant it. Even though the story explains that Cohen was not calling the Republicans Nazis, CNN wants people to think he did. Their bias is as obvious as the organization of Jewish Republicans claiming that Cohen was making a Holocaust reference.

The Republicans have been lying about the health insurance bill since the beginning, as every investigation of their claims has shown. Repeating the same lie even after it has been exposed is a standard Goebbels technique.

As they had the Constitution read to them, it is a bit odd that the Republicans in the House still don’t understand that promoting “the General Welfare” is not socialism, it is a Constitutional mandate.

The Pensacola News Journal has a local story about one of the “minor” problems with out-sourcing business functions: Sheriff, state investigate payroll company AES

The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and State Attorney’s Office have launched an investigation into a local payroll company and its owner.

The Pensacola News Journal reported on Jan. 13 that some payroll checks from AES, which provides payroll services for businesses, could not be cashed due to insufficient funds.

If you think these guys possibly absconding with the payroll is “the” problem, you haven’t been in business. “The” problem is that they probably haven’t been making your withholding payments to the Feds, or payments to the state or local governments. Believe me, angry employees is a minor problem to the hell your life becomes when the IRS takes “an interest” in your business for failure to pay withholding.

Payroll is a major PITA for a business, and I know it would be wonderful to just pay someone else to do it – write one check and forget about it – but if they mess up, you are still liable.

While the major flooding has passed and people are trying to clean up and restart their lives, the weather begins a fresh assault: Severe storms lash flood-weary Queensland.

A series of fronts with severe thunderstorms, heavy rains, hail, and damaging winds are passing over areas that have been covered in mud by the flooding rivers.

Meanwhile the Victorian flood threat shifts downstream.

The crest of the flood is like a wave in the river that is making its way downstream. When the levees and weirs hold the water bypasses and continues moving South to the next town on the river. Victoria had been experiencing a decade-long drought in some areas, but this is not the way to end it. Without the vegetation to hold the moisture, the water will erode the land and steal the topsoil.

Because of their levees, Towns isolated as floods swamp Victoria. The towns may have limited the water in their buildings, but they can’t protect the roads and rail lines, so they have to wait for supplies.

The floods have generated a lot of volunteerism in Australia, strangers showing up to help people shovel out and clean up, and projects like Baked Relief.

CNN has the report from the Congressional playground:

…
The bill, dubbed the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” passed 245-189. Three Democrats joined a unanimous Republican caucus on the vote.

… Reps. Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Mike Ross of Arkansas cast their lot with the Republicans.

A lot of name calling and hissy fits serving no purpose other than campaign literature for people who won’t read it, and no one will remember that this happened in a month.

If they don’t start working on doing something about the lack of jobs, many of these “children” will find themselves in the unemployment line in two years.

Local governments are constantly cutting deals with corporations because they are promising to create jobs in the area. They compete to offer the corporations the best package to attract them using money that has to be made up by existing businesses and tax payers. The corporations don’t stay, and the money is wasted. They just don’t learn.

Jim DeRosa has the story of Evergreen Solar, as reported by the local paper, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, while Oly Mike uses the New York Times version.

From the NYT: “Even though Evergreen opened its Devens plant, with all new equipment, only in 2008, it began talks with Chinese companies in early 2009. In September 2010, the company opened its factory in Wuhan, China, and will now rely on that operation.”

These are “the jobs of the future”, “the green jobs” that are going to solve all of our problems, and despite tens of millions of dollars in investment and tax breaks by local government, they didn’t even let their equipment get broken in before they started their planned move to China.

It is all about greed.

Governments need to stop offering these deals without iron-clad long-term contracts before any money changes hands. They would be better off helping local small businesses expand, than betting on the “big prizes” that they are never going to win.

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism looks at the market in an attempt to understand what is going in The Imagination Trade, or the Tinkerbell Market 2.0.

Based on the economic facts, the market is looking for the next fad or bubble hoping to rise to the top with latest version of the Pet Rock [there is actually a USB version currently available]. No attention is actually being paid to the fundamentals.

Why is anyone in politics doing anything “to restore confidence in the markets”? The markets aren’t acting rationally, they are gambling. Wall Street is the largest game of Liar’s Poker in the world, and trillions of dollars and millions of lives are being risked.

Yves is covering the same things that I covered in Investing In The Future And Jobs?, and Bruce Schneier covers in Attacking High-Frequency Trading Networks. This has nothing to do with investing, or funding the growth of the economy, it is raw gambling on the decisions made by other traders, not CEOs.