Just in case you wondered. Faced with an economic crises caused largely, IMHO, by the inability of the general populace to pay the debts they have now, the Fed's response has been: to make it even cheaper to borrow money! They've now dropped the fed funds rate by an entire percent, from 4% to 3%, in 2 weeks - four months ago it was 5.25%! That's almost a 50% drop!
As for the bipartisan stimulus package we heard so much about, that was before it got to the Senate. The senate thinks the elderly should get the rebate too - oh, and we can't leave out the rich people... We should leave out the rich people. Actually we shouldn't do this at all, it will have minimal effect and is an extended exercise in CYA. And if the Senate is allowed free rein by the party leaders, we won't do it, because the House won't sign off on the changes. So maybe the Senate's insistence on rewriting the package is a good thing.
The House's idea wasn't bad, actually - apart from the fact that the money won't get to people soon enough to make a difference, and that it won't go to new spending anyhow. I can't recall where I read this, but someone did a survey on the lines of "if you had $X hundred right now what would you do with it?" The general assumption is that poor people spend and rich people save - the response to this survey was that something over 40% of poor people said they would pay down debt with it, and another 20% said they would sock it away. None of which would do a thing for the economy.
But the Fed and its rate cuts - it's the old saying: to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Seven Billion Dollars
I read the Economist every week with pleasure for its interesting analyses, but it isn't often that I get breaking news from it. I did today, though, because the Economist web site was where I first saw the financial scandal that is today's big business headline: the rogue trader at Société Générale who managed to blow $7.2 billion dollars gambling in stock market futures. They didn't call it "gambling." (Since the Economist quoted it in euros, where it's €4.2 billion, I didn't realize the full size until I saw it on Yahoo News. The Yahoo article has more detail.)
This is a 31 year old stock market futures trader, working for Société Générale, who essentially built his own "play" firm, inside the larger bank, and set out to make a big hit trading stock futures on his own account. He made a big hit, all right. And until last Saturday, nobody at SocGen realized he was doing it. He built a whole structure of faked transactions to cover what he was really doing, using the experience he got a few years ago when he worked in the section of the bank that monitors the trading floors for rogue operations.
Don't they supervise these people?? Does nobody have to sign off on these trades??
It's not as if it weren't a known risk, either. There've been other rogue traders. These guys are total cowboys, and they're convinced that it can't happen to them, and the next thing you know, a bank has gone out of business (see the 1995 affair when a rogue trader in Singapore bankrupted Barings Bank, a 250 year old British firm).
I wonder how long Société Générale will be around... Second biggest bank in France. Quite a coup to bring it down - if that's the way you want to keep score.
This is a 31 year old stock market futures trader, working for Société Générale, who essentially built his own "play" firm, inside the larger bank, and set out to make a big hit trading stock futures on his own account. He made a big hit, all right. And until last Saturday, nobody at SocGen realized he was doing it. He built a whole structure of faked transactions to cover what he was really doing, using the experience he got a few years ago when he worked in the section of the bank that monitors the trading floors for rogue operations.
Don't they supervise these people?? Does nobody have to sign off on these trades??
It's not as if it weren't a known risk, either. There've been other rogue traders. These guys are total cowboys, and they're convinced that it can't happen to them, and the next thing you know, a bank has gone out of business (see the 1995 affair when a rogue trader in Singapore bankrupted Barings Bank, a 250 year old British firm).
I wonder how long Société Générale will be around... Second biggest bank in France. Quite a coup to bring it down - if that's the way you want to keep score.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
How Can We Miss You If You Won't Go Away?
Like many of my acquaintance, I'm counting the days until the end of the Bush presidency, although I haven't gone as far as to install the countdown widget on my blog or web site. But I will breathe a huge sigh of relief when the new president is sworn in in January 2009, almost no matter who it is. (Well, maybe not Huckabee. I'd prefer someone who believes that the earth is round.)
I was appalled, therefore, to read today an article in the Entertainment section of the S.F. Chronicle stating that Oliver Stone is trying to get backing for - wait for it - a movie on the Bush presidency!
What an awful idea. I can't stand to look at the man, or listen to him talk, for more than about 30 seconds now; and Stone wants to direct an entire movie about him??
In case you were wondering who he wants to portray Bush in the movie? Josh Brolin. (This means nothing to me, as Josh Brolin has never appeared in any movie I wanted to see; and it sounds as though his record will continue unbroken.)
My only hope is that, if the movie is made, it'll be a total flop. Certainly the presidency is.
I was appalled, therefore, to read today an article in the Entertainment section of the S.F. Chronicle stating that Oliver Stone is trying to get backing for - wait for it - a movie on the Bush presidency!
What an awful idea. I can't stand to look at the man, or listen to him talk, for more than about 30 seconds now; and Stone wants to direct an entire movie about him??
In case you were wondering who he wants to portray Bush in the movie? Josh Brolin. (This means nothing to me, as Josh Brolin has never appeared in any movie I wanted to see; and it sounds as though his record will continue unbroken.)
My only hope is that, if the movie is made, it'll be a total flop. Certainly the presidency is.
Hair Of The Dog That Bit Us
So - the economy is tanking because the American Consumer's debt burden has finally become overwhelming, and the Federal Reserve's solution to this problem? Make credit cheaper! The Federal government's solution to this problem? Give everybody a tax rebate (except for poor people who don't pay taxes; I'll get to that later), so they'll go out and buy more stuff and prop up the economy!
I guarantee, that if your house is in foreclosure because your $3500 mortgage payment is over 80% of your take-home pay, an $800 tax credit is not necessarily going to cause you to go out and buy something.
Of course, I don't carry credit card debt myself, so my reaction to this may be unusual, but if I had a major debt burden, and I suddenly got $800, my impulse would be to pay something down. I don't think people are doing this yet; I'm reading that they're missing payments on their credit card debt as well as on their mortgages.
This whole economic problem has been caused, IMHO, by running the economy on credit for 40 years (which is about how long we've had credit cards). Everybody says, oh, the world economy is driven by the American Consumer. Guys, the American Consumer is broke. Stony. Maxed out. If you can't pay off the debt you have, making new debt cheaper Will Not Help You. I read one comment that the recent rate cut would make some mortgage resets smaller, so they might only go up $150 instead of $500 a month. Yeah, but if you're already behind on the payments, if you already can't afford the mortgage, making the reset smaller is not a significant improvement.
I remind myself again and again that 90% of the news is made by 10% of the people, but still. I read over and over again about people who've owned their houses for many years, and are now about to lose them because they've refinanced them to take out cash, over and over, and now they can't pay the mortgage, can't refinance because the house value is less than they owe, and can't sell because the market is in the tank. They're going to lose the houses they should have been able to die in, because they over-borrowed. In 1976, the supporters of California's Proposition 13 made a big deal that older people were going to lose their homes because of rising property taxes. Some of the people that are going to lose their homes to foreclosure now are those people; and no constitutional amendment will help them. They did this themselves. This is running the world on credit, and the bills have come due.
Are we having a recession?? Damn straight we are. Is the rate cut going to help? Not a chance. Frankly, I think the rate cut was a major mistake. Low interest rates are what got us into this mess. If we're not really careful, low interest rates will dump us back into the 70's, a decade I have no desire to rerun, especially as a retiree. Inflation is ticking up just as oil and food prices spike and job creation essentially vanishes; does all this sound familiar? I'm sorry, the European Central Bank is correct here: they just refused to cut rates on the grounds that their primary focus is to keep inflation under control. Ben Bernanke should try to remember that.
Oh, yes, and the tax rebate issue. It's amazing how consistent Dubya is. He wants to restrict tax rebates to people who actually paid taxes, which basically eliminates anybody with children making less than about $75K. (Don't hold me to these numbers. But it's a LOT of people.) In other words, as usual, Dubya wants to give tax help only to people who don't actually need it.
I guarantee, that if your house is in foreclosure because your $3500 mortgage payment is over 80% of your take-home pay, an $800 tax credit is not necessarily going to cause you to go out and buy something.
Of course, I don't carry credit card debt myself, so my reaction to this may be unusual, but if I had a major debt burden, and I suddenly got $800, my impulse would be to pay something down. I don't think people are doing this yet; I'm reading that they're missing payments on their credit card debt as well as on their mortgages.
This whole economic problem has been caused, IMHO, by running the economy on credit for 40 years (which is about how long we've had credit cards). Everybody says, oh, the world economy is driven by the American Consumer. Guys, the American Consumer is broke. Stony. Maxed out. If you can't pay off the debt you have, making new debt cheaper Will Not Help You. I read one comment that the recent rate cut would make some mortgage resets smaller, so they might only go up $150 instead of $500 a month. Yeah, but if you're already behind on the payments, if you already can't afford the mortgage, making the reset smaller is not a significant improvement.
I remind myself again and again that 90% of the news is made by 10% of the people, but still. I read over and over again about people who've owned their houses for many years, and are now about to lose them because they've refinanced them to take out cash, over and over, and now they can't pay the mortgage, can't refinance because the house value is less than they owe, and can't sell because the market is in the tank. They're going to lose the houses they should have been able to die in, because they over-borrowed. In 1976, the supporters of California's Proposition 13 made a big deal that older people were going to lose their homes because of rising property taxes. Some of the people that are going to lose their homes to foreclosure now are those people; and no constitutional amendment will help them. They did this themselves. This is running the world on credit, and the bills have come due.
Are we having a recession?? Damn straight we are. Is the rate cut going to help? Not a chance. Frankly, I think the rate cut was a major mistake. Low interest rates are what got us into this mess. If we're not really careful, low interest rates will dump us back into the 70's, a decade I have no desire to rerun, especially as a retiree. Inflation is ticking up just as oil and food prices spike and job creation essentially vanishes; does all this sound familiar? I'm sorry, the European Central Bank is correct here: they just refused to cut rates on the grounds that their primary focus is to keep inflation under control. Ben Bernanke should try to remember that.
Oh, yes, and the tax rebate issue. It's amazing how consistent Dubya is. He wants to restrict tax rebates to people who actually paid taxes, which basically eliminates anybody with children making less than about $75K. (Don't hold me to these numbers. But it's a LOT of people.) In other words, as usual, Dubya wants to give tax help only to people who don't actually need it.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Phone Bills
It's not polite to display schadenfreude publicly, but I can't resist this one. Remember all those wiretaps that the FBI insisted were so critical to national security and the GWOT that they couldn't even defend them in court, because the information was so sensitive?? The ones where Dubya wants Congress to give the phone companies immunity from any possible prosecution, in case the whole thing should someday be judged unconstitutional or even illegal?
Well, it turns out there is something that will cause the phone companies to refuse to support the government's wiretap program.
The FBI didn't pay the phone bill. So, the phone companies disconnected the wires, in some cases shutting down wiretaps on ongoing FISA investigations.
And we're not talking pocket change, either: A Justice Dept. audit found that the unpaid bills to one phone company, from one FBI office, ran to $66,000! The article didn't give any overall totals. The information is probably classified.
If I actually thought the FBI was doing something useful to defend us against terrorists, or anything else, I might worry about this.
The audit found that the FBI's controls over the cash used to fund undercover operations are so sloppy that one FBI employee was able to steal $25,000. (Piker. If they're so loose, he should have been able to nick much more than that.)
Who is running this country, anyhow? The Keystone Kops? The Three Stooges?
Well, it turns out there is something that will cause the phone companies to refuse to support the government's wiretap program.
The FBI didn't pay the phone bill. So, the phone companies disconnected the wires, in some cases shutting down wiretaps on ongoing FISA investigations.
And we're not talking pocket change, either: A Justice Dept. audit found that the unpaid bills to one phone company, from one FBI office, ran to $66,000! The article didn't give any overall totals. The information is probably classified.
If I actually thought the FBI was doing something useful to defend us against terrorists, or anything else, I might worry about this.
The audit found that the FBI's controls over the cash used to fund undercover operations are so sloppy that one FBI employee was able to steal $25,000. (Piker. If they're so loose, he should have been able to nick much more than that.)
Who is running this country, anyhow? The Keystone Kops? The Three Stooges?
The Legacy
Here we go again. Dubya is trying to "secure his legacy" again, this time by making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. By the end of his term. In one year. An article this morning from the Cox News Service quoted him as saying he will "be a pain if I need to be a pain." Believe me, Mr. President - you are a pain.
First his legacy was going to be Iraq: depose the dictator, create a free democracy in the Middle East. (All planned by a staff with no Arabic speakers and no Middle East experience.) Then, when Iraq turned into a swamp, his legacy was going to be privatizing Social Security. Well, that went over with the voters like a solid gold parachute, despite what I have to admit was real work on his part - he stumped for that disaster all over the country. Now he's tackling a festering feud that's been going on for either 40 or 60 years, depending on whether you count from the founding of Israel in '48 or the Six Days War in '67; and he thinks he can mop it up in just under 12 months.
Have we got a president with ADHD? Or is he merely delusional?
There's an old mis-quote of Rudyard Kipling that I think applies here: "If you can keep your head when those about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you - / You haven't really grasped the situation yet."
Hey, if he can pull this off, and produce an agreement between Israel and Palestine that actually works and stops the shooting, his legacy will be written in gold - and I won't even argue. I just don't think much of his chances.
First his legacy was going to be Iraq: depose the dictator, create a free democracy in the Middle East. (All planned by a staff with no Arabic speakers and no Middle East experience.) Then, when Iraq turned into a swamp, his legacy was going to be privatizing Social Security. Well, that went over with the voters like a solid gold parachute, despite what I have to admit was real work on his part - he stumped for that disaster all over the country. Now he's tackling a festering feud that's been going on for either 40 or 60 years, depending on whether you count from the founding of Israel in '48 or the Six Days War in '67; and he thinks he can mop it up in just under 12 months.
Have we got a president with ADHD? Or is he merely delusional?
There's an old mis-quote of Rudyard Kipling that I think applies here: "If you can keep your head when those about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you - / You haven't really grasped the situation yet."
Hey, if he can pull this off, and produce an agreement between Israel and Palestine that actually works and stops the shooting, his legacy will be written in gold - and I won't even argue. I just don't think much of his chances.
Friday, January 04, 2008
The Great Storm of '08
At least, I hope this is the biggest one; oops, the lights just flickered. Power's on now, but not for about 300,000 people elsewhere; and it was off when we got up. We're in the second of three storms, here, and the Bay Area is essentially closed due to weather. Some of it - the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, for instance - is actually closed. Also Golden Gate Transit bus and ferry service - you have to drive to get from Marin to S.F., and watch the roads for flooding. And don't even think of flying into or out of SFO today.
Winds over the bay are gusting to 70 MPH (80 MPH in Los Gatos); they closed the Richmond Bridge, if I heard the traffic report on KQED FM correctly, when a Safeway delivery truck blew over onto a fire truck. The SFGate.com article doesn't mention the fire truck. BART is mostly functional except in western S.F. where a tree blew down over the tracks and a train hit it. The National Weather Service has issued every weather advisory they have except tornado: small craft, high wind, high surf, flash flood watch, flood warning.
It isn't just the Bay Area either - the Sierras are expecting up to 10 feet of snow in one storm, and they've forecast 100 MPH winds. This would NOT be a good weekend to drive up to Tahoe for the skiing.
Honest, I've lived here all my life, and I've only seen maybe 5 storms of this magnitude; this is crazy stuff. I know we need the rain, but yikes!
Winds over the bay are gusting to 70 MPH (80 MPH in Los Gatos); they closed the Richmond Bridge, if I heard the traffic report on KQED FM correctly, when a Safeway delivery truck blew over onto a fire truck. The SFGate.com article doesn't mention the fire truck. BART is mostly functional except in western S.F. where a tree blew down over the tracks and a train hit it. The National Weather Service has issued every weather advisory they have except tornado: small craft, high wind, high surf, flash flood watch, flood warning.
It isn't just the Bay Area either - the Sierras are expecting up to 10 feet of snow in one storm, and they've forecast 100 MPH winds. This would NOT be a good weekend to drive up to Tahoe for the skiing.
Honest, I've lived here all my life, and I've only seen maybe 5 storms of this magnitude; this is crazy stuff. I know we need the rain, but yikes!
U.S. Dollars
Yahoo News has a small article today to the effect that the Taj Mahal, in India, no longer accepts entrance fees in U.S. dollars. You have to pay 290 rupees; you can't just give them a five dollar bill any more. This is presented as a "troubling sign for the U.S. dollar," although in fact the dollar has dropped so far against the rupee that it's cheaper to pay in rupees.
Well, tadda-wadda. Tough bananas, guys. I'm not the world's great foreign traveler; but when I travel overseas, I carry and use the local currency. That, or credit cards. It is the height of arrogance for Americans to travel to another country and expect local merchants and tourist sites to accept American currency, in practice forcing the merchant to bear the expense of currency conversion. Grow up and learn to be world citizens, folks; it isn't that hard.
Well, tadda-wadda. Tough bananas, guys. I'm not the world's great foreign traveler; but when I travel overseas, I carry and use the local currency. That, or credit cards. It is the height of arrogance for Americans to travel to another country and expect local merchants and tourist sites to accept American currency, in practice forcing the merchant to bear the expense of currency conversion. Grow up and learn to be world citizens, folks; it isn't that hard.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Affordable Health Care
I've been going through the Divided We Fail site's list of candidate statements on where they stand on the various issues of affordable health care. This is an interesting site: nobody called the candidates and asked them questions. It's excerpts from their web site articles and speeches that relate to the Divided We Fail issues. You have to give AARP credit for a lot of research to dig all that out and post it, with links.
I notice a certain lack of detail on the "how" in all these fine statements. Everybody says that health care will be "affordable", and no one will be able to refuse you for a pre-existing condition. (They're not dumb, they know what the issues are.) What I don't see is how the candidates expect to compel the existing health insurance industry to sell health care insurance policies if they don't think they can make a profit on them. You can make laws and rules that say, if you're going to sell health insurance policies, they have to meet these criteria; but what happens when all the major vendors say, we can't make any money at that, we withdraw from that market. They've done it before: there are areas in the hurricane belt where certain insurance companies won't sell homeowners' insurance any more. They're not really interested in "insurance" as it was originally developed; they only want to play the game if the dice are loaded so they can always win. The only way to do this is to take profit out of the medical game altogether and run it as a subsidized public service.
The only one who comes right out and says, we're going to have universal publicly financed health care, is Dennis Kucinich; and he may be a fine man but he has about as much chance of winning this election as he has of being elected Pope. John Edwards at least admits that "the health system could evolve into a single-payer plan." Single-payer is ultimately the way we have to go; otherwise we can't get away from the insurance companies trying to squeeze out every last premium without ever paying out on a claim.
I notice a certain lack of detail on the "how" in all these fine statements. Everybody says that health care will be "affordable", and no one will be able to refuse you for a pre-existing condition. (They're not dumb, they know what the issues are.) What I don't see is how the candidates expect to compel the existing health insurance industry to sell health care insurance policies if they don't think they can make a profit on them. You can make laws and rules that say, if you're going to sell health insurance policies, they have to meet these criteria; but what happens when all the major vendors say, we can't make any money at that, we withdraw from that market. They've done it before: there are areas in the hurricane belt where certain insurance companies won't sell homeowners' insurance any more. They're not really interested in "insurance" as it was originally developed; they only want to play the game if the dice are loaded so they can always win. The only way to do this is to take profit out of the medical game altogether and run it as a subsidized public service.
The only one who comes right out and says, we're going to have universal publicly financed health care, is Dennis Kucinich; and he may be a fine man but he has about as much chance of winning this election as he has of being elected Pope. John Edwards at least admits that "the health system could evolve into a single-payer plan." Single-payer is ultimately the way we have to go; otherwise we can't get away from the insurance companies trying to squeeze out every last premium without ever paying out on a claim.
Divided We Fail
I've decided that I agree with the AARP - we have to do something about health care, long term care, and financial security. That's why I've added the "Divided We Fail" logo to the blog. If you agree, step up too. The link's right there - it's up to you. (By the way, their site sucks in FireFox - use IE7 to get it to load properly. Sigh.)
Hangovers
My husband just sent me a link to a NY Times op-ed piece that was making the rounds of his recovery group, and it's interesting enough that I want to share it here.
The Hangover That Lasts
Go read it - you have to have a login to NYTimes.com but they're free and they've never hassled me with spam. It isn't very long.
I'm fascinated by the conclusions (from studies on rats) about rats which engaged in the laboratory equivalent of binge drinking during adolescence, and then stopped drinking. They're capable of learning - but they're not capable of relearning. They can't admit they were wrong. They show "a tendency to stay the course, a diminished capacity for relearning and maladaptive decision-making." They "fail to recognize the ultimate consequences of [their] actions." And all this is present even after a long period of sobriety.
The one good thing the study mentions is that, in "former alcohol-drinking mice", exercise clearly stimulates "the regrowth and development of normal neural tissue". So - exercise is good for the formerly drunken brain.
And neither I nor the article's author have ever mentioned the name you're thinking!
Now how do we explain Dick Cheney?
The Hangover That Lasts
Go read it - you have to have a login to NYTimes.com but they're free and they've never hassled me with spam. It isn't very long.
I'm fascinated by the conclusions (from studies on rats) about rats which engaged in the laboratory equivalent of binge drinking during adolescence, and then stopped drinking. They're capable of learning - but they're not capable of relearning. They can't admit they were wrong. They show "a tendency to stay the course, a diminished capacity for relearning and maladaptive decision-making." They "fail to recognize the ultimate consequences of [their] actions." And all this is present even after a long period of sobriety.
The one good thing the study mentions is that, in "former alcohol-drinking mice", exercise clearly stimulates "the regrowth and development of normal neural tissue". So - exercise is good for the formerly drunken brain.
And neither I nor the article's author have ever mentioned the name you're thinking!
Now how do we explain Dick Cheney?
Health Insurance
I can't believe there hasn't been more publicity about this - I've seen one article, essentially a press release.
The EEOC has just ruled that employers don't have to offer full retiree health benefits to retirees who have reached the age of 65 and qualify for Medicare. They claim this just "formally authorizes the long-standing practice of employers" of paying less for retiree health care after the retiree qualifies for Medicare; they made the decision because the U.S. Court of Appeals (3rd circuit) ruled in 2000 that employers who spend less for health coverage on retirees eligible for Medicare, than they do on retirees who don't yet qualify, are in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
EEOC claims this is "in the public interest", because without the ruling employers would quit offering retiree health coverage to all retirees because of the extra expense for retirees also covered by Medicare. I thought that's what they were doing anyhow. They claim this will preserve retiree health benefits for younger workers while not reducing benefits for older workers. They claim they have broad bipartisan support for this (although while they list the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers, I don't see the AARP listed).
Full disclosure here: I'm retired, and my health insurance comes from my husband's job; and when he retires, theoretically he will continue to get full, lifetime health insurance as a retiree. (Yeah, there are about 8 of those left.) I see this ruling affecting my ability to continue to have health coverage, and it scares the liver out of me. I'm about to turn into one of the "older workers" who will get reduced health benefits; and while I'm generally in good shape, I have a number of chronic conditions that require regular medications and checks with the doctor, and my health would deteriorate pretty fast if I couldn't get those.
Maybe I'm over-reacting. But let's get cracking on universal health care coverage, huh??
The EEOC has just ruled that employers don't have to offer full retiree health benefits to retirees who have reached the age of 65 and qualify for Medicare. They claim this just "formally authorizes the long-standing practice of employers" of paying less for retiree health care after the retiree qualifies for Medicare; they made the decision because the U.S. Court of Appeals (3rd circuit) ruled in 2000 that employers who spend less for health coverage on retirees eligible for Medicare, than they do on retirees who don't yet qualify, are in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
EEOC claims this is "in the public interest", because without the ruling employers would quit offering retiree health coverage to all retirees because of the extra expense for retirees also covered by Medicare. I thought that's what they were doing anyhow. They claim this will preserve retiree health benefits for younger workers while not reducing benefits for older workers. They claim they have broad bipartisan support for this (although while they list the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of Teachers, I don't see the AARP listed).
Full disclosure here: I'm retired, and my health insurance comes from my husband's job; and when he retires, theoretically he will continue to get full, lifetime health insurance as a retiree. (Yeah, there are about 8 of those left.) I see this ruling affecting my ability to continue to have health coverage, and it scares the liver out of me. I'm about to turn into one of the "older workers" who will get reduced health benefits; and while I'm generally in good shape, I have a number of chronic conditions that require regular medications and checks with the doctor, and my health would deteriorate pretty fast if I couldn't get those.
Maybe I'm over-reacting. But let's get cracking on universal health care coverage, huh??
Still No Turkeys
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I've never gotten a photo of the turkeys living up the canyon; and I have a feeling I never will. The problem is the schedule; according to the guy I spoke with (who works at the racquet club up the road), they're around all the time, "pretty early." Oof. This probably means (they being birds) that they get up with the sun, or maybe a little before.
I have to be honest here: I am not a "morning" person. One of the most delightful things about being retired is the ability to roll over and pull the covers up around my ears when my husband's alarm clock goes off. I've always felt that, if God intended us to see the sunrise, She would have scheduled it later in the day. I tried to get up early a couple of days but never made it early enough.
I could still potentially find them around sunset; but afternoon is when I'm working on my volunteer projects, and I tend to wake up from my web configuration screens and realize, wait - it's dark already. Too late to go look for turkeys now. I went a couple of times, but not at the right times. Oh, well. I enjoyed seeing them - and the photo I really wanted was the one of them ambling calmly down the middle of my street. That photo would require a time machine, I'm afraid. So - no turkey photos, but delightful memories of two accidental sightings. That'll have to be enough.
I have to be honest here: I am not a "morning" person. One of the most delightful things about being retired is the ability to roll over and pull the covers up around my ears when my husband's alarm clock goes off. I've always felt that, if God intended us to see the sunrise, She would have scheduled it later in the day. I tried to get up early a couple of days but never made it early enough.
I could still potentially find them around sunset; but afternoon is when I'm working on my volunteer projects, and I tend to wake up from my web configuration screens and realize, wait - it's dark already. Too late to go look for turkeys now. I went a couple of times, but not at the right times. Oh, well. I enjoyed seeing them - and the photo I really wanted was the one of them ambling calmly down the middle of my street. That photo would require a time machine, I'm afraid. So - no turkey photos, but delightful memories of two accidental sightings. That'll have to be enough.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Benazir Bhutto, 1953 - 2007
In pace requiescat, Benazir Bhutto. Whatever you were or weren't guilty of, you never deserved this. I suspect you were guilty of nothing more threatening than wishing and working for a fully democratic Pakistan.
Every so often I start to hope. I think, well, we've stopped doing this awful thing and we've pretty much eliminated that dreadful practice - then an incident like this one comes along and I realize, nope, the old demons are still strong. Will the human race ever reach a point where it can collectively agree to disagree?? Why is it always necessary to kill the people you disagree with? Why is it ever necessary to kill the people you disagree with? I know all the arguments; I just don't buy them.
Actually, 250-300 years ago, Christians were killing each other over what now look like minor theological points. After the Thirty Years' War devastated Europe, pretty much all the countries there decided simultaneously that they wouldn't go to war over that any more. There were still local spats over religion, but by the end of the 18th century, the various sects of Christianity had more or less agreed to disagree, and later wars were over "rational" things like land and politics. If you look at the history of Islam, it has never really had its equivalent of the Thirty Years' War; the trouble is, it may be having it now, between the Sunnis and the Shias. One of the leading suspects in the Bhutto assassination is the local Islamic fanatic movement, incorporating the Taliban and al Qaeda.
What really fries my potatoes over this, though, is my deep suspicion that Benazir Bhutto was killed because she was a woman who wielded power. That her actual political positions, her actual intents, were of less important to her killers than the fact that she was a woman, wielding great political power, in a world where (they believe) women should stay home and keep their faces covered and their mouths shut. She had ruled the country before; she could have done so again; and for that alone, in the minds of these fanatics, she had to die. Of all the things I find intolerable about the Islamic extremists, their attitude toward women annoys me most - if only because it was not the Prophet's attitude! They are taking their patriarchal, tribal customs and pasting them on Mohammed and claiming he told them to do these things, and they lie. I'm not even an Islamic scholar and I know this, just from listening to real Islamic scholars discuss the issue.
Of course, she could also have been assassinated by one of Musharraf's boys, simply because she was probably going to win the election. You never know. But I hope we find out. She cared about her country and worked hard for it, and she ultimately died for it - she deserves to have the truth about her death known.
Last fall, among other U.C. scholarship candidates, I interviewed a charming young woman from Pakistan; I can't help but think of her, and grieve with her over the damage to her country from these squabbling ideologues. When will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?
Every so often I start to hope. I think, well, we've stopped doing this awful thing and we've pretty much eliminated that dreadful practice - then an incident like this one comes along and I realize, nope, the old demons are still strong. Will the human race ever reach a point where it can collectively agree to disagree?? Why is it always necessary to kill the people you disagree with? Why is it ever necessary to kill the people you disagree with? I know all the arguments; I just don't buy them.
Actually, 250-300 years ago, Christians were killing each other over what now look like minor theological points. After the Thirty Years' War devastated Europe, pretty much all the countries there decided simultaneously that they wouldn't go to war over that any more. There were still local spats over religion, but by the end of the 18th century, the various sects of Christianity had more or less agreed to disagree, and later wars were over "rational" things like land and politics. If you look at the history of Islam, it has never really had its equivalent of the Thirty Years' War; the trouble is, it may be having it now, between the Sunnis and the Shias. One of the leading suspects in the Bhutto assassination is the local Islamic fanatic movement, incorporating the Taliban and al Qaeda.
What really fries my potatoes over this, though, is my deep suspicion that Benazir Bhutto was killed because she was a woman who wielded power. That her actual political positions, her actual intents, were of less important to her killers than the fact that she was a woman, wielding great political power, in a world where (they believe) women should stay home and keep their faces covered and their mouths shut. She had ruled the country before; she could have done so again; and for that alone, in the minds of these fanatics, she had to die. Of all the things I find intolerable about the Islamic extremists, their attitude toward women annoys me most - if only because it was not the Prophet's attitude! They are taking their patriarchal, tribal customs and pasting them on Mohammed and claiming he told them to do these things, and they lie. I'm not even an Islamic scholar and I know this, just from listening to real Islamic scholars discuss the issue.
Of course, she could also have been assassinated by one of Musharraf's boys, simply because she was probably going to win the election. You never know. But I hope we find out. She cared about her country and worked hard for it, and she ultimately died for it - she deserves to have the truth about her death known.
Last fall, among other U.C. scholarship candidates, I interviewed a charming young woman from Pakistan; I can't help but think of her, and grieve with her over the damage to her country from these squabbling ideologues. When will they ever learn? Oh, when will they ever learn?
Monday, December 24, 2007
Christmas in California
Winter in the Bay Area: I walked down to the small commercial district near my house, about half a mile away; it's a beautiful sunny day, mid-50s, intermittent breeze. On my way back, I noticed a house belonging to some acquaintances, who have hung an evergreen wreath under the front picture window, decorated with a dark red bow and a couple of red ornaments. Next to the evergreen wreath, and matching the colors exactly, is their massive display of blooming bougainvillea - dark red with dark green leaves - all over the porch.
I love you, California. I guess the recent frost wasn't so bad after all.
I love you, California. I guess the recent frost wasn't so bad after all.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Merry Christmas To All
This is an unpopular thing to say these days; one should say, "Happy holidays," so as not to offend anyone. I certainly don't mean to offend anyone; and when talking to my Jewish friends I wish them happy Chanukah; my chorus sings Ma'oz T'zur along with In Dulci Jubilo when we go caroling. In the rush not to offend, though, I think we forget that the original purpose of this greeting was to wish people well. To hope that they enjoy the season, however they celebrate it, as best they can.
The common "we must not offend anyone" mode always makes me think back to Aesop's fable about the man, the boy, and the donkey; you can find one version here. The moral of this fable is: try to please all, and you please none. If I wish someone a Merry Christmas, and they say, "But I celebrate Kwanzaa, we don't do Christmas", the only thing I can do is wish them a Happy Kwanzaa; if they choose to be offended because I didn't do that first, I can't stop them. I can see how people who follow other traditions feel overwhelmed by the tsunami of "Christmasness" that rolls over us every winter; but it still bothers me that I'm not supposed to wish them well without knowing in advance which particular form of well-wishing they prefer.
I'm not especially religious; and I hate to shop (although I don't belong to the Church of Stop Shopping either!). My view of Christmas is more Dickensian than anything else: I've read A Christmas Carol so often I know it almost by heart. Dickens' view of Christmas was only marginally associated with the worship of Christ; what he really valued it for was to encourage charity among men, especially charity from the rich to the poor ("to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."), but also from the poor to the poor; and sometimes charity was nothing more than to wish someone well.
So, with that in mind, I wish all of you well in the way that is most natural to me: that is, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you prefer to translate that into some other form, feel free; as long as you remember the well-wishing.
The common "we must not offend anyone" mode always makes me think back to Aesop's fable about the man, the boy, and the donkey; you can find one version here. The moral of this fable is: try to please all, and you please none. If I wish someone a Merry Christmas, and they say, "But I celebrate Kwanzaa, we don't do Christmas", the only thing I can do is wish them a Happy Kwanzaa; if they choose to be offended because I didn't do that first, I can't stop them. I can see how people who follow other traditions feel overwhelmed by the tsunami of "Christmasness" that rolls over us every winter; but it still bothers me that I'm not supposed to wish them well without knowing in advance which particular form of well-wishing they prefer.
I'm not especially religious; and I hate to shop (although I don't belong to the Church of Stop Shopping either!). My view of Christmas is more Dickensian than anything else: I've read A Christmas Carol so often I know it almost by heart. Dickens' view of Christmas was only marginally associated with the worship of Christ; what he really valued it for was to encourage charity among men, especially charity from the rich to the poor ("to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."), but also from the poor to the poor; and sometimes charity was nothing more than to wish someone well.
So, with that in mind, I wish all of you well in the way that is most natural to me: that is, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you prefer to translate that into some other form, feel free; as long as you remember the well-wishing.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
The Noodly Universe
I was reading Scientific American tonight (November '07 issue) and they had an article on multiple universes, string theory, and "branes" ("The Great Cosmic Roller-Coaster Ride"). The article is available online, but it unfortunately lacks the illustrations that inspired me; you'll have to go to the library and look at the paper copy to see the artist's rendition of a "Calabi-Yau space." There's a picture of one here, and also in Wikipedia, along with many mathematical formulae; but the picture in SciAm had long stringy appendages sticking out of the central mass. It looked familiar; it looked strangely familiar, and then I realized:
It's the Flying Spaghetti Monster in disguise! These scientists are covert Pastafarians! "String theory" indeed - what better to make strings than spaghetti? The Universe is a physical manifestation of the FSM and the cosmic strings are His Noodly Appendages. All is now clear.
Actually, I've been reading the cosmology articles in SciAm for 30-odd years now, and as time has gone on they've gotten farther and farther out, to the point that I ask myself: do these people have any work to do?? I realize this is a serious branch of science, but the basis of science is that you establish a theory, and then you make a prediction, and then you create an experiment to test the prediction, after which you either declare victory and start writing up the article for Science, or you go back and tinker with the theory some more. (The scientific method in a nutshell.)
The trouble with cosmologists, and especially string theorists, is that they've been trying for 20 years to devise experiments that would validate their theories, and they can't do it. They'd have to create the conditions that existed within nanoseconds after the Big Bang, and then be able to stand back outside the inferno and analyze the process. I don't know why they think the experiment wouldn't incinerate the experimenter. They plan to work on very small scales, of course: just a minuscule inferno.
As I read about strings, and branes, and scalar fields, and dark matter, I get a whiff - just a whiff - of the "ether" which filled interplanetary space only about 125 years ago. The scientists of that day could no more sample the atmosphere (or lack of it) in interplanetary space, than today's cosmologists can collect a piece of dark matter in a test tube and weigh it. But they were just as convinced that it was there. Today's scientists have much better equipment and much better experimental data. But until they can verify a prediction, they're no better off than the people who believed in ether. They'll tell you the mathematics makes it work; maybe it does. Mathematics is a language I never mastered, and this is a pretty esoteric dialect. I'd still like to see a verified prediction.
It's the Flying Spaghetti Monster in disguise! These scientists are covert Pastafarians! "String theory" indeed - what better to make strings than spaghetti? The Universe is a physical manifestation of the FSM and the cosmic strings are His Noodly Appendages. All is now clear.
Actually, I've been reading the cosmology articles in SciAm for 30-odd years now, and as time has gone on they've gotten farther and farther out, to the point that I ask myself: do these people have any work to do?? I realize this is a serious branch of science, but the basis of science is that you establish a theory, and then you make a prediction, and then you create an experiment to test the prediction, after which you either declare victory and start writing up the article for Science, or you go back and tinker with the theory some more. (The scientific method in a nutshell.)
The trouble with cosmologists, and especially string theorists, is that they've been trying for 20 years to devise experiments that would validate their theories, and they can't do it. They'd have to create the conditions that existed within nanoseconds after the Big Bang, and then be able to stand back outside the inferno and analyze the process. I don't know why they think the experiment wouldn't incinerate the experimenter. They plan to work on very small scales, of course: just a minuscule inferno.
As I read about strings, and branes, and scalar fields, and dark matter, I get a whiff - just a whiff - of the "ether" which filled interplanetary space only about 125 years ago. The scientists of that day could no more sample the atmosphere (or lack of it) in interplanetary space, than today's cosmologists can collect a piece of dark matter in a test tube and weigh it. But they were just as convinced that it was there. Today's scientists have much better equipment and much better experimental data. But until they can verify a prediction, they're no better off than the people who believed in ether. They'll tell you the mathematics makes it work; maybe it does. Mathematics is a language I never mastered, and this is a pretty esoteric dialect. I'd still like to see a verified prediction.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Steam Trek, the Silent Movie
To quote the friend who sent me this YouTube link:
"This is what Star Trek would have looked if it had been shot back in 1899 by Georges Méliès. Worth watching just for the Star Trek theme, rendered on a piano. Stunning."
The animation is hilarious. You'll see a link, "Steam Trek, the blog" if you're interested in how they did it...
"This is what Star Trek would have looked if it had been shot back in 1899 by Georges Méliès. Worth watching just for the Star Trek theme, rendered on a piano. Stunning."
The animation is hilarious. You'll see a link, "Steam Trek, the blog" if you're interested in how they did it...
You Have To Watch This
Boggart sent this to me a couple of weeks ago, and the stupid thing has been running through my head ever since. So, out of the kindness of my heart, I will share this short animation with you, my loyal readers - it's hilarious. All of you over the age of 50 will grok it instantly. Any younger readers - well, it'll make sense to you eventually...
The Baby Boomers
The Baby Boomers
Saturday, December 08, 2007
Evil Genius or Compliant Front Man?
I have a disagreement going with one of my commenters, Curtis Faville, on the nature and involvement of Pres. Bush in the doings of his administration, and after our last exchange (in the comments under Don't Relax Yet) I think I'll pull the issue out of the comments and start a discussion on it.
My position has always been that Dubya is a front man, happy to have a position of apparent power ("I'm the decider") while not actually driving the major decisions, like the invasion of Iraq or the privatization of Social Security. His position in his administration is a rough parallel to the role Leland Stanford Sr. played in California's "Big Four" - he was the affable public spokesman, while Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins actually ran the Central Pacific Railroad combine. Stanford wasn't even always aware of all the details of the inner workings.
Curtis' position is that Dubya is an intelligent, evil man who is fully engaged in what his administration has done.
It's certainly true that Dubya's business career, fully documented at
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm
has been a success only in the sense that he personally profited immensely from every phase of it; any business enterprise he ever participated in was a disaster for the other shareholders. So this argument cuts in Curtis' direction.
I'll confess I've also read commentary that indicates that when Dubya has something he really wants, he can and does push back, even against Cheney (whom I personally regard as this administration's éminance grise). Another point for Curtis.
Here's the reason why I don't think he has been a central player, and wasn't originally intended to be a player at all. Look at the web site of the Project for the New American Century, especially at the Statement of Principles. Look at the list of people who signed that statement - in 1997, I might add, 3 years before the 2000 election. It was signed by every significant member of the first Bush administration, plus a number of the major neoconservative intelligentsia, except for - Dubya himself. It was, however, signed by Jeb Bush. I believe the PNAC planners originally intended to run Jeb for president, but switched to George when the skeletons in Jeb's closet became too obvious to survive the blinding light of a presidential campaign. Dubya's major personal skeleton was his former lifestyle, and since he had reformed that, it could be - and was - turned into a selling point.
I believe the neoconservative team that designed and built the 2000 election campaign, headed by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, chose Dubya as an electable figurehead who would go along with their major policy objectives as long as they allowed him to appear to be in charge. Remember that Dick Cheney was the man in charge of the team who decided on the vice presidential candidate, and came up with - himself. I believe the administration's continued insistence on executive privilege and secrecy is a deliberate attempt to conceal who actually is in charge - if possible, permanently. And I believe Dubya went along with this plan, first because he does enjoy power (even if not absolute), and second because he saw the possibility of making a lot of money out of it.
And to quote a T-shirt I saw advertised on the Internet a couple of years ago, the thing I hate most about this administration is the way it makes me sound like a nutcase conspiracy theorist!
My position has always been that Dubya is a front man, happy to have a position of apparent power ("I'm the decider") while not actually driving the major decisions, like the invasion of Iraq or the privatization of Social Security. His position in his administration is a rough parallel to the role Leland Stanford Sr. played in California's "Big Four" - he was the affable public spokesman, while Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins actually ran the Central Pacific Railroad combine. Stanford wasn't even always aware of all the details of the inner workings.
Curtis' position is that Dubya is an intelligent, evil man who is fully engaged in what his administration has done.
It's certainly true that Dubya's business career, fully documented at
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm
has been a success only in the sense that he personally profited immensely from every phase of it; any business enterprise he ever participated in was a disaster for the other shareholders. So this argument cuts in Curtis' direction.
I'll confess I've also read commentary that indicates that when Dubya has something he really wants, he can and does push back, even against Cheney (whom I personally regard as this administration's éminance grise). Another point for Curtis.
Here's the reason why I don't think he has been a central player, and wasn't originally intended to be a player at all. Look at the web site of the Project for the New American Century, especially at the Statement of Principles. Look at the list of people who signed that statement - in 1997, I might add, 3 years before the 2000 election. It was signed by every significant member of the first Bush administration, plus a number of the major neoconservative intelligentsia, except for - Dubya himself. It was, however, signed by Jeb Bush. I believe the PNAC planners originally intended to run Jeb for president, but switched to George when the skeletons in Jeb's closet became too obvious to survive the blinding light of a presidential campaign. Dubya's major personal skeleton was his former lifestyle, and since he had reformed that, it could be - and was - turned into a selling point.
I believe the neoconservative team that designed and built the 2000 election campaign, headed by Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, chose Dubya as an electable figurehead who would go along with their major policy objectives as long as they allowed him to appear to be in charge. Remember that Dick Cheney was the man in charge of the team who decided on the vice presidential candidate, and came up with - himself. I believe the administration's continued insistence on executive privilege and secrecy is a deliberate attempt to conceal who actually is in charge - if possible, permanently. And I believe Dubya went along with this plan, first because he does enjoy power (even if not absolute), and second because he saw the possibility of making a lot of money out of it.
And to quote a T-shirt I saw advertised on the Internet a couple of years ago, the thing I hate most about this administration is the way it makes me sound like a nutcase conspiracy theorist!
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