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No surprises here

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Every one of them is a grifter.

ABC News reports that Newt Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership organization, a non-profit dedicated to Christian faith issues, has provided contracts worth $220,000 to Gingrich Communications, a for-profit consulting firm owned by Gingrich. Another one of Gingrich’s non-profits, American Solutions for Winning the Future, which supports oil drilling, shares resources with the oil lobby, although it does not disclose in-kind payments from the industry. Moreover, Gingrich regularly meets with members of Congress under the auspices of his for-profit health care company, yet does not register as a lobbyist. “It is often difficult to tell where the work of one Gingrich entity ends and where the work of another begins,” notes the report, by Matthew Mosk, Brian Ross and Angela Hill.

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What’s good for banks isn’t always good for bankers

Monday, June 13, 2011

James Surowiecki, writing in the most recent New Yorker makes the case for approving Elizabeth Warren’s nomination (prediction: it isn’t going to happen, and the Obama administration will leave her to “twist slowly, slowly in the wind”) and argues that the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will actually be good for the banks:

The C.F.P.B. hopes to change this, largely by insuring that consumers will be told the true terms of a deal, in a simple and clear fashion. (As an example, it recently released two possible mortgage disclosure forms, and both were two pages long.) This would obviously be good for borrowers. But it would help most lenders, too. For all the talk of the financial industry’s power, its performance over the past decade has actually been dismal. Countless lenders have gone out of business, and many of those still standing saw their stock price decimated after they loaned immense amounts of money to people who couldn’t repay it. The banks thought they were taking advantage of uninformed consumers, but they ended up playing themselves. In a more transparent credit market, almost everyone would have been better off.

This makes perfect sense, except….it only really makes sense if one assumes that Warren’s opponents, if they do not care about consumers, at least care about the long term viability of the institutions for which they work or to which they are beholden for political contributions. It ain’t necessarily so.

The big banks are not worried about going bankrupt. They know that they can count on Uncle Sam to bail them out. But even those who work for institutions that are small enough to fail have reason to prefer the status quo. A lot of Pople have gotten very rich driving the corporations for which they work into the ground. So rich that they are utterly indifferent to whether that entity succeeds or fails in the long run. They know, as well, that they can always go elsewhere, regardless of the long term effects of their actions. If they make money in the short term, that’s all that matters. From their perspective, history has shown that they can make vast amounts of money in the short term by operating in an opaque environment where it is easier to hide their fraud. Would more regulation assure the survival of more of these institutions? Probably. Would the scam artists still be able to rake off outrageous amounts of money? They fear not, and that’s the reason for the opposition.

As for the politicians, the same principles apply. No matter what the Supreme Court may say, in the end, corporations don’t give money, the people who control them give money. So long as politicians please those people, it is immaterial to them whether the corporations for which their donors work continue to thrive.

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Sunday thought for the Day

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Via Pharyngula

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Friday Night Music

Friday, June 10, 2011

Some weeks it’s hard to find stuff for this feature. I try hard not to repeat myself, which is not easy because, along with the fact that I grow old and forgetful, I don’t keep track of what I’ve already put up. A simple database would have been useful, but it’s too late now. I considered Paul Revere and the Raiders, in honor of Sarah, but I did them already, and they really don’t rate an encore, and, thinking in the same vein, I find that there’s still a paucity of Sam Cooke on youtube so Wonderful World (“Don’t know much about history”) is out.

Anyway, I eventually found something I’d squirreled away in my youtube favorites for future use. I’ll let someone else introduce her:

Dionne Warwick, who learned her craft in my home town of Hartford, at the Hartt School of Music.


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Sarah and MIchelle ready to rumble

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

In these times of crumbling Empire, dysfunctional government and inept economic policy, we political junkies must take our pleasures where we find them. I wrote last week that if things turned out right we’d have a Michelle Bachmann-Sarah Palin fight to watch soon-the Iron Chef of crazy, if you will. Well, it’s already here. Ed Rollins, Michelle’s soon to be campaign manager (these people will do anything for money) has fired the opening shot, and the Sarah folks have fired back.

Rollins is positioning his candidate as the” just as hot but not as stupid” crazy lady. I’d like to think he’s right on the latter point, since I have a personal stake in believing that it takes a minimal amount of brains to get into law school. Then again, I’ve met some awful dumb lawyers.

This fight promises to be boffo box office and will take the air out of any number of candidacies. Mitt may be right that these two are good for him. He may be the only one positioned, by virtue of his money, to survive the benign neglect that the other candidates will endure. In an ordinary year I’d say this is horrible for the Republic, since the media will be concentrating on these crazy people and not cover the real issues. But there are no candidates for the Republican nomination who one can view as anything short of a national disaster, should Obama manage to succeed in throwing the election their way, so it is almost irrelevant which one gets the nomination eventually. The press is free to cover or ignore as it pleases, because every one of them is spouting inanities, often for the sole purpose of getting that press coverage. Perhaps Mitt, uber-hypocrite that he is, is the best choice, because if Obama does manage to give it away, Mitt would feel no compunction about breaking every promise he made in the campaign.


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Tim Pawlenty-down for the count

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A while back (I’m too lazy to link) I observed that no one presently running for, or considered as running for, the Republican nomination for President can possibly be nominated. This presents, of course, a paradox, because despite the fact that, when examined individually, each candidate comes up so woefully short that it is impossible to conceive of him/her winning, yet as the night follows day, one of them will somehow be inflicted upon an incredulous world.

I said then that I would have a series of posts explaining why none of these people can win. Recent events have put Tim Pawlenty in the spotlight (I know about Sarah, but she’s always in the spotlight) so lets talk about him.

Tim recently announced his economic plan, which includes such breakthrough ideas as de-funding any government service for which you can find a private alternative on Google. Crazy? Sure, but this is trying too hard crazy. Here’s the thing about Tim. He’s a not terribly smart, but basically sane guy, trying his best to be the craziest guy on the block, but really not capable of pulling it off. Not only that, the fringe people see through him. The Donald was more in sync with the nutcases than Pawlenty will ever be. Pawlenty is trying, but he really can’t resonate with the base; he’s singing off key, so to speak, which is really tough for him because he comes from the same state as Michelle Bachmann, who is certifiably crazy. She sings sweet notes that only the Republican base can hear.

So, Pawlenty’s plan, which is already being laughed to scorn by even Republican economists, is not going to achieve its real objective and, of course, its not going to play with anyone with half a mind, which would appear to be the demographic to which Pawlenty would have the greatest appeal. The Google thing will follow him until the day he drops out, yet it won’t gain him more than a handful of crazies.

He’s doomed folks, along with all the rest of them.

Addendum: One of Pawlenty’s more absurd statements parsed here.


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Rudy makes a strategic error

Monday, June 6, 2011

Rudy Giuliani is demanding that Mitt Romney apologize for the one halfway decent thing he did as governor of Massachusetts. I really think Rudy should think twice about this, especially if, as seems probable, he’s thinking about entering the race and repeating his 2008 flameout. Actually, he can’t do that, because this time there’ll be no flame, however brief, to put out. But Rudy thinks he can 9-11himself back into contention, so if he has any brains he’ll think twice about demanding apologies from his fellow candidates for past acts of sanity.

After all, very few of the announced, or even unannounced candidates have engaged in as many acts of sanity as Rudy. When Michelle, and if Sarah, gets in to the race, if they deign to notice Rudy at all it will be to demand that he recant some act of reason or another. And he has a stack of them, enough to make Mitt look batshit crazy by comparison. Abortion rights, gay rights, and if memory serves, even the ultimate sanity of gun control can be laid at his door.

No, Rudy doesn’t stand a chance to win the crazy contest, so if he’s serious about running he should consider letting the pros battle that one out.

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O frabjous day!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Is there a way to put myself in suspended animation?

Normally, I wouldn’t want to miss a summer but what with today’s developments, this world will seem to me “a sterile promontory”, the summer something merely to endure, for what is life when one must wait until September for real joy and happiness?

The long awaited 2011 Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference has come and gone, and, for those of us in the know, life will never be the same, what with Lion, IOS5, and iCloud awaiting us.

IOS5 alone promises 200 new features, almost 20 of which were actually divulged. But if those 20 are any indication, we all have so many exciting features we will never use to anticipate. But can mere humans be expected to endure such a wait? I cannot but regard myself with scorn when I think that mere weeks ago I thought my new IPad 2 would assure eternal happiness.

To think that I have lived this long without the sheer joy and happiness that one gets from improved notifications. Now that I know they await me, how am I supposed to put one foot in front of another for the long period between now and when I can finally get notified? My Iphone and IPad experiences will be hollow without Twitter integration, for even though I have only committed one tweet this year, it will be agony knowing that to tweet again I may need to enter my username and password more than once. And though I already have several to-do programs, the deep satisfaction I get from using them will be gone knowing that Apple will have its own app in September, thereby destroying the companies that authored the apps I now have. The list of life altering improvements goes on and on.

This is almost as great as when life as we know it changed when I could buy the Beatles on ITunes, just like Apple said it would. Not, by the way, that I have ever bought a Beatles song on ITunes, for what self respecting child of the 60s did not already have all their CDs. But I sleep better, and my dreams are untroubled and sweet, just knowing that I can buy the Beatles digitally if I should ever get the urge. Many people have forgotten that life altering day when The Fab Four were no longer imprisoned in a jewel case. I have not. And I know that I will never forget where I was when I found out about the hundreds of improvements waiting for me in IOS 5, et. al. (In my office, clicking the refresh button every 15 minutes or so, if you must know)

I only hope I can make it until September. The excitement may prove my undoing.

Filed in Computer Stuff | | Comments (1)

Calling George Orwell

Sunday, June 5, 2011

You may recall that Winston Smith, the protagonist in George Orwell’s 1984 worked at the Ministry of Truth. His job was to revise past history by changing the text in various sources and throwing the originals (or past alterations) down the memory hole. Needless to say it was tedious work, and who could be sure that every scrap of actual or previously altered history had been located and expunged or corrected.

Wouldn’t Winston be happy to know that his job would be so much easier if he just hung on until 2011 or so, when all he need do to correct history is alter the entries on Wikipedia. At least that’s the way Sarah Palin’s fans see it, as they are attempting to alter the entry on Paul Revere to comport with Sarah Palin’s fictionalized account of his actions on that long ago nineteenth of April. Unfortunately for Sarah, Orwell’s vision has not yet been fully realized, as the folks at Wikipedia are pushing back, but Sarah’s folks are not going down without fighting. Her minions point out that there is now an open question about precisely what Paul was doing that night because well respected newspapers have reported what Sarah said, and since they are reliable sources, there is now a legitimate dispute about what Paul actually did.

If I follow that logic correctly, if I can get a legitimate newspaper to report that I said I am Napoleon, there is now an open question of whether I am, in fact, Napoleon. (Let me hasten to add that I am not now, nor ever have been Napoleon, and, more to the point, never thought I was Napoleon)

Perhaps my reaction to this just shows that I’m a bit old fashioned. Maybe Sarah’s fans are post modernists, who see no reason why any particular fact should be privileged over any other. After all, the fact free approach to
politics has been working pretty well for them lately, not to mention the fact free approach to science, so why not extend it to history?

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Wildlife in Noank

Sunday, June 5, 2011

This seems to be our year for spotting relatively unusual wildlife. This comes, no doubt, from butting up against about 600 undeveloped acres, most of which is a state park. Deer are a commonplace, and not worth remarking upon.

Last week a coyote walked through our yard in broad daylight. Unfortunately he or she did not hang around long enough to allow me to take pictures, but yesterday a Mama turkey and her chicks came through the yard, the chicks doing their best to stay camouflaged. I got my camera and a few decent seconds of video as they scurried to get out of an open area.

Excuse the camera shake. I was using a telephoto lens without a tripod. I love my Olympus EP-1, but cameras without a viewfinder are particularly hard to hold steady.

Mama and the chicks were back today, but we only got a glimpse. I only saw one chick, but the others may have made it into the high grass before I saw them. Needless to say, the presence of the coyote may render their existence nasty, brutish and short.

As to the coyote, no more sightings, but I heard one howling last night.

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