40 Years In The Desert

Light Posting for the Next Few Days

2012-05-26T20:44:00.000-04:00

It's the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

Deep Thought

2012-05-25T22:55:00.001-04:00

I looked for the image after seeing it on a T-Shirt.

Eschaton: An Enormous Mustache

2012-05-25T21:20:00.001-04:00

I really cannot add anything to it:

H/t Atrios.

So, How Was Your Date With Shrek?

2012-05-25T21:02:00.004-04:00

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS, both for the pic, and the basic joke.

This is the Best Take on the Cover Yet

2012-05-25T19:59:00.003-04:00

link

It's Jobless Thursday!

2012-05-24T22:02:00.001-04:00

And basically it's the same-old same-old with initial claims hanging around at the 370K doldrums.

Additionally, we have mixed news in other metrics, with capital equipment orders and the purchasing managers index falling, while consumer confidence and durable goods orders rose.

HP Lays Off 27,000

2012-05-24T20:02:00.001-04:00

They say that it will save $3½ billion annually, but less than a year ago, they dropped more than $10 billion on stock buybacks.

In America investing in your business is for punks. You buy back stock, and fire people, and use the stock bounce to justify your outsize year end bonus.

It's f%$#ing how quickly sales weasels and financial types can destroy a business previously run on technology and innovation.

H/t Atrios.

Pass the Popcorn…

2012-05-24T19:33:00.003-04:00

Pass the Popcorn

It looks like former TARP Inspector General Neil Barofsky is writing a tell-all memoir about his experiences with the Bush and Obama administration:

From December 2008 until March 2011, Barofsky was the Special Inspector General charged with oversight of TARP, working to ensure against fraud and abuse in the spending of the $700 billion allocated for the bailouts. From the start he was in constant conflict with the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts who were in thrall to the interests of the big banks and steadfastly failed to hold them accountable, even as they disregarded major job losses caused by the auto bailouts and failed to help struggling homeowners. Barofsky recounts how his reports of a wave of criminal mortgage fraud and other abuses being perpetrated against homeowners in connection with programs that the Treasury itself set up were ignored time and again.

Barofsky offers detailed accounts of the behind-the-scenes conflicts and his struggles with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the Bush appointed “TARP Czar” Neel Kashkari and his successor, the Obama appointed Herb Allison, and others. His revelations show in stark detail just how captured by Wall Street our political system is; why the banks have not been held accountable; and how the failure to enact effective regulation has put the country in danger of an even bigger crisis in the future.

I can't imagine that either Obama or Geithner are happy about this.

We is Doomed

2012-05-23T21:53:00.003-04:00

There used to be a saying about Henry Luce's publications, "Life is for people who can't read, and Time is for people who can't think."

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

DINOs, F%$# 'Em

2012-05-23T20:17:00.003-04:00

Gee, a bunch of the Democrats In Name Only are objecting to the Obama campaign's ads criticizing Romney's tenure as head of Bain Capital.

You know, if you took their dicks out of your mouth, and realized that campaign donations from rich looters are not the be all and end all, you would realize that this is a political winner:

Some influential Democrats on and off Capitol Hill are refusing to give President Obama political cover for his attacks on Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital.

Despite pushback from more than a half-dozen Democrats, the Obama campaign on Tuesday defended how it has scrutinized Romney’s business background.

The business model of private equity firms is to make money by either flipping, or leveraging firms, to extract value.

They are the financial equivalent of automotive chop shops.

Google Did Not Infringe Java Patents

2012-05-23T20:08:00.001-04:00

The jury has ruled that Oracle's patents were not infringed by Android:

Google on Wednesday was cleared of charges that it had infringed Oracle's Java patents, ending the second major phase of the trial.

"Today's jury verdict that Android does not infringe Oracle’s patents was a victory not just for Google but the entire Android ecosystem," a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Oracle, however, did not concede defeat. "Oracle presented overwhelming evidence at trial that Google knew it would fragment and damage Java," an Oracle spokesperson said via email. "We plan to continue to defend and uphold Java's core write once run anywhere principle and ensure it is protected for the nine million Java developers and the community that depend on Java compatibility."

Oracle filed its lawsuit against Google last August and the trial began in mid-April. Oracle initially talked about $6 billion in damages. At the moment, it appears Oracle is unlikely to win enough to cover its legal costs.

All that's left is the whether or not Java's API, basically the standards for interoperability, are copyrightable.

The jury didn't rule on this, they could not come to a conclusion on fair use, and they were instructed by the judge to assume that the API is copyrightable. The judge will decide these matters of law, the jury was to rule on matters of fact.)

It appears from the Slashdot discussions that the judge actually made an effort to understand the technical issues, so his ruling should be interesting.

Leadership Matters

2012-05-23T19:58:00.001-04:00

Here's a shocker. Now that Barack Obama has endorsed same-sex marriage, the polls are moving abruptly in that direction:

Public opinion continues to shift in favor of same-sex marriage, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, which also finds initial signs that President Obama’s support for the idea may have changed a few minds.

Overall, 53 percent of Americans say gay marriage should be legal, hitting a high mark in support while showing a dramatic turnaround from just six years ago, when just 36 percent thought it should be legal. Thirty-nine percent, a new low, say gay marriage should be illegal.

The poll also finds that 59 percent of African Americans say they support same-sex marriage, up from an average of 41 percent in polls leading up to Obama’s announcement of his new position on the matter. Though statistically significant, it is a tentative result because of the relatively small sample of black voters in the poll.

Leadership generates its own support for policy.

Hopefully, this lesson will stick, but I doubt it.

Your Moment of Schadenfreude

2012-05-22T22:26:00.001-04:00

The Heartland Institute, the phony "think tank" bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, is imploding as a result of revelations proving this:

The first Heartland Institute conference on climate change in 2008 had all the trappings of a major scientific conclave – minus large numbers of real scientists. Hundreds of climate change contrarians, with a few academics among them, descended into the banquet rooms of a lavish Times Square hotel for what was purported to be a reasoned debate about climate change.

But as the latest Heartland climate conference opens in a Chicago hotel on Monday, the thinktank's claims to reasoned debate lie in shreds and its financial future remains uncertain.

Heartland's claims to "stay above the fray" of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.

Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland's financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.

In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation's president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland's defectors were "abandoning us in this moment of need".

They flipped out, and this was inevitable once they were outed as bought and paid for:

The pressure point occurred last February when the scientist on the conference mugs, Peter Gleick, used deception to obtain confidential documents from Heartland, including a donors list and plans to indoctrinate school children against belief in climate change.

Once the Charade was outed, they had no choice but to go full wingnut.

A Saint's Bones, Ronald Reagan's Blood, It's All the Same

2012-05-22T20:01:00.005-04:00

It appears that someone has found an old vial of Reagan's blood, and is selling it:

Ronald Reagan's foundation expressed outrage on Monday at a British company's auction of what it says is a vial of the late U.S. president's blood taken at the hospital where he was treated after a 1981 assassination attempt.

PFC Auctions, a company based in Guernsey in the United Kingdom, announced on Sunday that it would sell the vial of blood in an online auction set to end on Thursday.

The vial was taken at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, after Reagan was wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., PFC Auctions said on its website. It is said to have come from a person whose late mother had worked at a medical lab.

"If indeed this story is true, it's a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase," John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, said in a statement.

The website for PFC Auctions said the latest online bid for the vial stood at 6,270 British pounds ($9,910). A PFC Auctions representative could not be reached for comment.

I guess that this is the Republican equivalent of a piece of the true cross, or Jesus' foreskin. (Yes, Virginia, one of the medieval scams was his foreskin.)

BTW, here is the kicker:

The seller said he or she had contacted the California-based Ronald Reagan Library and Museum, which is run by the late president's foundation, months ago and had been told that Reagan's family would like to have the vial given to them.

"I told him that I didn't think that was something that I was going to consider ... and that I was a real fan of Reaganomics and felt that President Reagan himself would rather see me sell it rather than donating it," the statement said.

H/t Ed Kilgore. BTW, read the comments on the his post, they are hysterical.

Two …… Three … Seven Billion

2012-05-22T19:58:00.001-04:00

It looks like their losses for JP Morgan's bad day at the casino might increasing.

In any case, it's bad enough that they are dropping a stock buyback,:

The crisis at JP Morgan escalated yesterday as it emerged its trading losses in London could rise to as much as $7bn (£4.5bn) and the US bank cancelled a share buyback. Fears were growing that the losses could spiral from an initial $2bn, which was declared on 10 May, as JP Morgan struggles to unwind the massive bets made by the so-called "London Whale" trader Bruno Iksil.

In a further blow, chairman and chief executive Jamie Dimon has suspended plans to use the US bank's own funds to buy back $15bn worth of shares. Buybacks are a popular way for firms to use up cash sitting on the balance sheet and prop up the share price.

I'm inclined to believe that the losses are going to get a lot worse.

Stock buybacks are all about management making sure that shareholders won't feel inclined to try to fire them.

They are bailing out the boat, and they decided that they needed to toss out the life-jackets to lighten the load.

Not good.

Just When You Thought that Grover Norquist Could Not Get Any More Absurd

2012-05-22T19:26:00.003-04:00

He is now comparing the Shumer-Casey bill to penalize people like Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin for renouncing US citizenship is like Nazi Germany:

The anti-tax activist Grover Norquist on Friday compared a new Democratic proposal to penalize Americans who renounce their citizenship to evade taxes to policies employed by the Nazis and communists.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced legislation this week — in response to a Facebook co-founder ditching his citizenship — that would force wealthy people who give up their U.S. citizenship to prove that they did not do so for tax reasons.

Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, said the targeting people that turn in their passports reminded him of regimes that had driven people out of the country, only to confiscate their wealth at the door.

“I think Schumer can probably find the legislation to do this. It existed in Germany in the 1930s and Rhodesia in the ’70s and in South Africa as well,” said Norquist. “He probably just plagiarized it and translated it from the original German.”

This guy has as his goal for the federal government is that he wants to, "shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."

And people think he's a "very serious person" in DC. He isn't.

He's a radical whose ultimate goals are closer to that of Timothy McVey than they are to David Brooks.

Yes, We Are at War With Pakistan

2012-05-21T20:12:00.000-04:00

At the NATO summit in Chicago, Obama refused to talk with Pakistani President Zardary:

The rift between the US and Pakistan deepened on Monday as the Nato summit in Chicago broke up without a deal on Afghanistan supply routes.

Barack Obama, at a press conference to wind up the summit, made no attempt to conceal his exasperation, issuing a pointed warning to Pakistan it was in its wider interest to work with the US to avoid being "consumed" by extremists.

Seldom in recent years have the tensions between Washington and Islamabad been on public show to the extent as at the Chicago, overshadowing the two-day Nato summit.

The main point of friction is Pakistan's closure of Nato supply routes to Afghanistan in protest over drone attacks and a US air strike in November that killed two dozen Pakistani troops.

Obama refused to make time during the two-day summit to see the Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari for a face-to-face bilateral meeting. In a press conference, Obama made a point of stressing that the only exchange he had with his Pakistani counterpart was short. "Very brief, as we were walking into the summit," Obama said.

The US president said he "did not want to paper over the cracks" and that there has been tension between the US-led international force in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the last few months.

I'm not sure if this is a ramping up of tension, or a recognition by Obama that the military is running the show.

But the fact is that we are effectively at war with a significant portion of the Pakistani state security apparatus, which is actively destabilizing Afghanistan because they see Karzai as being to favorably disposed toward India.

Good.

2012-05-20T22:55:00.002-04:00

About a week and a half ago, I blogged about how the black hat orthodox community in Brooklyn has been engaging in a systematic program of intimidation and harassment against people who report allegations of the child abuse to the police.

I called them despicable and evil, and I said that I hoped that the Brooklyn DA would go after these instances of intimidation.

Well, my wish has been granted, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes is opening up a criminal investigation into these allegations:

The Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, is setting up a panel of prosecutors and investigators to crack down on witness intimidation in child sexual abuse cases in the borough’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Speaking on NY1 on Thursday night, Mr. Hynes said he was asking the panel to “come up with some alternatives to break down this wall of intimidation.”

He criticized elements in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community over their treatment of sexual abuse victims.

“The level of intimidation is not found nearly as much in organized crime,” he said. “It’s extraordinary just how relentless these people can be.”

“There is no concern for the victim in parts of these communities,” he added. “Everything is for the abuser, and that’s the horrible thing that we have to deal with.”

It was a shift in tone for Mr. Hynes, who in the past has praised ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders for helping to fight crime in their neighborhoods.

Hopefully, this is real, and not a task force for appearances sake only.

Nothing will change though, until we start seeing the senior rabbis behind this behavior, those with big names and many disciples, are brought up on formal charges.

Trust Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner to Do the Right Think…

2012-05-20T21:46:00.001-04:00

When there is absolutely no alternative to doing the right thing.

It looks like little Timmy is Treasury Secretary speak to tell Jamie Dimon to get the f%$# off the board of the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve following his little $2 billion (actually $3 billion) screw-up at JP Morgan Chase:

In an interview Thursday on PBS NewsHour, Jeffrey Brown and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had the following exchange:

“JEFFREY BROWN: Do you think Jamie Dimon should be off the board [of the New York Federal Reserve Board]?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Well, that’s a question he’ll have to make and the Fed will have to make. But again, on the basic point, which is it is very important, particularly given the damage caused by the crisis, that our system of oversight and safeguards and the enforcement authorities have not just the resources they need, but they are perceived to be above any political influence and have the independence and the ability to make sure these reforms are tough and effective so we protect the American people, again, from a crisis like this. And we’re going to, we’re going to do that.”
In the diplomatic language of Treasury communications, Mr. Geithner just told Jamie Dimon to resign from the New York Fed board (here is the current board composition). It looks bad – and it is bad – to have him on the board of this key part of the Federal Reserve System at a time when his bank is under investigation with regard to its large trading losses and the apparent failure of its risk management system. (Update: Mr. Dimon is on the Management and Budget Committee of the NY Fed board; here is the committee’s charter, which includes reviewing and endorsing “the framework for compensation of the Bank’s senior executives (Senior Vice President and above)”.)

Simon Johnson thinks that Dimon will ignore him, and I agree.

Geithner is the banksters bitch, and is not sincere in his request. He just wants the appearance of getting tough on malfeasance in the financial sector, not the reality.

Deep Thought

2012-05-20T21:25:00.004-04:00

Whoever came up with the idea of graduation ceremonies for anything below high school should be drawn, quartered, and burnt.

Whether it's elementary school, middle school, or (in today's case) Hebrew school, it really needs to stop.

I Have a New Definition of Wicked Stupid

2012-05-20T20:13:00.002-04:00

I was at a bar and bat mitzvah yesterday, and there was a girl (about 13) wearing high spiked heels.

On one shoe, the straps were undone.

Why were they undone?

In order to accommodate the ankle brace she was wearing.

Hopefully, she will grow out of the stupid.

The National Review: America's Source for Crappy Journalism

2012-05-19T21:26:00.002-04:00

They had a scoop that Elizabeth Warren, founder of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Senate Candidate had plagiarized another book.

The problem was that they missed the fact that Warren's book was published first:

The National Review says Elizabeth Warren is guilty of the gravest crime a writer can commit: Plagiarism. Katrina Trinko compares passages from “All Your Worth: The Ultimate Money Lifetime Plan,” Warren’s book with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, with passages from “Getting on the Money Track,” a book by Rob Black. The passages line up perfectly. The wording and even the punctuation are identical. It’s plagiarism all right. Except it looks very much like Warren is actually the victim.

The National Review headline says “Plagiarism in Elizabeth Warren’s 2006 book.” The body refers to Warren publishing the book “in 2006″ and Black’s book coming out in 2005. That’s true! Except that in 2006 the paperback of Warren’s book was published. The hardcover came out in March of 2005. Black’s book seems to have come out, if Amazon is correct, October 14 2005. (Or, according to Barnes and Noble, July 2005?) Months after Warren’s book. Unless there was an earlier published hardcover version that I can’t find on Amazon, it seems like Black most likely plagiarized Warren.

The National review has since retracted the story.

Another Shoe Drops for JP Morgan

2012-05-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

That $2 billion that they lost in obscure casino games? Well now it's at least 3 billion:

The trading losses suffered by JPMorgan Chase have surged in recent days, surpassing the bank’s initial $2 billion estimate by at least $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the losses.

When Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, announced the losses last Thursday, he indicated they could double within the next few quarters. But that process has been compressed into four trading days as hedge funds and other investors take advantage of JPMorgan’s distress, fueling faster deterioration in the underlying credit market positions held by the bank.

A spokeswoman for the bank declined to comment, although Mr. Dimon has said the total paper trading losses will be volatile depending on day-to-day market fluctuations.

We're going to end up bailing out these ratf%$#s in the next few years, mark my words.

It will either be directly, or indirectly through their counter-parties.

Deep Thought

2012-05-18T23:09:00.002-04:00

Well, What Do You Know, The DoJ Gets One Right

2012-05-18T19:39:00.002-04:00

The Justice Department has vigorously defending the right of the general public to videotape police officers on duty:

As police departments around the country are increasingly caught up in tussles with members of the public who record their activities, the U.S. Justice Department has come out with a strong statement supporting the First Amendment right of individuals to record police officers in the public discharge of their duties.

In a surprising letter (.pdf) sent on Monday to attorneys for the Baltimore Police Department, the Justice Department also strongly asserted that officers who seize and destroy such recordings without a warrant or without due process are in strict violation of the individual’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

The letter was sent to the police department as it prepares for meetings to discuss a settlement over a civil lawsuit brought by a citizen who sued the department after his camera was seized by police.

In the lawsuit, Christopher Sharp alleged that in May 2010, Baltimore City police officers seized, searched and deleted the contents of his mobile phone after he used it to record them as they were arresting a friend of his.

I am very surprised.

Pleased, but surprised.

I'd like to see some prosecutions of overzealous cops, but I would consider this highly unlikely.