Tuesday Reads

Posted: May 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: child sexual abuse, children, morning reads, Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 34 Comments

Good Morning!! I know I shouldn’t keep complaining about my weather, with all the tornadoes and floods in other places, but I sure wish we’d get a little bit of spring here in Beantown. It has been raining almost every day for the past couple of weeks. We had 1-1/2 nice days on Friday and Saturday, and then went back to rainy and soggy. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 80 degrees, but still raining. And it’s rain, rain, and more rain for the foreseeable future. Ugh! This kind of weather tends to make the news seem even more depressing than usual.

A couple of days ago, Sima posted a wonderful story about a fawn that was rescued by firefighters. That really cheered me up, so I decided to offer you some heartwarming animal rescue stories this morning.

72-Year Old Florida Man Saves Pet Dog from Alligator Attack

Gary Murphy, 72, was at his home in Palm City, about 80 miles north of Miami, on Thursday evening when he heard his West Highland terrier named “Doogie” making noise in the backyard.

Murphy found his beloved pet in the mouth of an alligator that had entered the yard from marshland behind the property, and launched a rescue bid by jumping on the reptile’s backing and hitting it on the head.

“I had loafers on and I hit the back of that gator. It was like jumping on a pile of rocks,” Murphy told the newspaper.

The alligator let go of Doogie, who needed veterinary treatment for deep gouges, lung injuries and liver damage, but was expected to make a full recovery.

Nemo

Kitten Rescued From Island In Detroit Park

The Michigan Humane Society said animal rescuers used a canoe to reach a kitten that was stranded Monday on an island in Detroit’s Palmer Park.

The organization said it didn’t know how the three-month kitten got there, or how long it had been stuck.

The kitten’s rescuers have named him Nemo.

He was taken to the MHS Detroit Center for Animal Care and checked out by veterinarians, who said he’s in good health.

Animal rescue team dispatched to Joplin

The Humane Society of Missouri is deploying a 15-person disaster response team to Joplin, Missouri to rescue and shelter pets affected by Sunday’s devastating tornado.

The team is made up of trained professionals, as well as a veterinarian to help care for sick and injured animals.

The HSMO field assessment team will work in conjunction with Joplin Animal Control and the Jasper County Emergency Management Agency to operate an animal shelter on the campus of Missouri Southern State University and to set up a separate pet shelter to care for hundreds of animals who are unable to be sheltered at MSSU.

For more information on donations to help this and future needs, please visit the Humane Society of Missouri’s website.

In other news, the Obama administration is raising objections to the new Indiana law that bans all government assistance to Planned Parenthood.

The changes in Indiana are subject to federal review and approval, and administration officials have made it clear they will not approve the changes in the form adopted by the state.

Federal officials have 90 days to act but may feel pressure to act sooner because Indiana is already enforcing its law, which took effect on May 10, and because legislators in other states are working on similar measures.

If a state Medicaid program is not in compliance with federal law and regulations, federal officials can take corrective action, including “the total or partial withholding” of federal Medicaid money. The mere threat of such a penalty is often enough to get states to comply. Actually imposing the penalty would, in many cases, hurt the very people whom Medicaid is intended to help.

Hmmm… that doesn’t sound so good. Isn’t there a better way? Fortunately, Mitch Daniels isn’t going to run for President. Tim Pawlenty is running, however, and a Minnesota reporter, Nick Pinto, has published a couple of embarrassing stories in honor of Pawlenty’s throwing his hat in the presidential ring.

Jeremy Giefer, accused child molester, got Pawlenty pardon to open childcare center

Child molester Giefer and friend Tim Pawlenty

Jeremy Giefer served time in jail in 1994 for having sex with a 14-year-old girl. But you wouldn’t know it to look at the record of the man now charged with sexually molesting his daughter more than 250 times over the last eight years.

That’s because two years ago, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Attorney General Lori Swanson, and then-Chief Justice Eric Magnuson unanimously voted to wipe Giefer’s record clean, granting him a pardon extraordinary.

One reason Giefer wanted his record cleared? His wife wanted to open a childcare center in the house where they live–the same house where Giefer allegedly molested his young daughter throughout the six years prior.

Watch Nick Ayers, Tim Pawlenty’s presidential campaign manager, get arrested for DWI [VIDEO]

Back in the fall of 2006, Ayers, then only 24, was running the reelection campaign of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue.

On October 25, just days before the election, Trooper First Class J.W. Rickett of the Georgia State Patrol saw Ayers’ Chevy Tahoe weaving and doing 50 in a 35-mph zone. Rickett followed the truck, which turned into a parking lot, sped up, and nearly hit another vehicle in an apparent effort to hide.

As the dash-cam video of the incident shows, Ayers’ first words to Rickett are: “We’re with Governor Perdue’s campaign headquarters.”

Ayers claims he’s only had one Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, but Rickett’s report states he smelled strongly of alcohol.

Ayers’ association with the governor apparently doesn’t impress the trooper, who puts him through a field sobriety test, which he fails.

Ayers then refuses to take a breath test, so he’s arrested and put in handcuffs.

You can watch the video at the link.

This is a strange one from Raw Story: Alan Greenspan had to be convinced that he existed before meeting Ayn Rand

A friend had to convince Greenspan that he actually existed prior to a meeting with Ayn Rand in the 1950s.

Nathaniel Branden told the story about Greenspan in the BBC 2 documentary “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace,” according to The Spectator. Part one of the three part series premiered Monday.

“You have to realize that Alan Greenspan was, and is, a brilliant mind doing brilliant things in the real world but in his 20s he is sitting with me in my apartment telling me that he cannot say with certainty that he exists, he cannot say for certain that I exist and he cannot say for certain that this conversation exists,” Branden recalled.

“That aside he’s got lots of opinions about everything… My challenge became to persuade him that he can be certain that he exists,” he explained.

Apparently, Ayn Rand didn’t like Greenspan much, but Brandon convinced her to allow him to join her group anyway. Greenspan went on to make major contributions to the destruction of the economy of the United States of America.

The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t help a poor young girl who was forced to cheer for her rapist, but today they ordered the state of California to release tens of thousands of convicts from state prisons because of overcrowding.

The court gave the state two years to shrink the number of prisoners by more than 33,000 and two weeks to submit a schedule for achieving that goal. The state now has 143,335 inmates, according to Cate.

Monday’s 5-4 ruling, upholding one of the largest such orders in the nation’s history, came with vivid descriptions of indecent care from the majority and outraged warnings of a “grim roster of victims” from some in the minority.

In presenting the decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a Sacramento native, spoke from the bench about suicidal prisoners being held in “telephone booth-sized cages without toilets” and others, sick with cancer or in severe pain, who died before being seen by a doctor. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, and as many as 54 may share a single toilet, he said.

Kennedy, whose opinion was joined by his four liberal colleagues, said the state’s prisons were built to hold 80,000 inmates, but were crowded with as many 156,000 a few years ago.

If they let small-time drug users go, that would be fine with me, but I hope they continue to keep Charlie Manson, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie van Houten behind bars, along with other vicious murders.

I’ll end with the latest rapture news: Radio host says Rapture actually coming in October

California preacher Harold Camping said Monday his prophecy that the world would end was off by five months because Judgment Day actually will come on October 21.

Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before the Earth was destroyed, said he felt so terrible when his doomsday prediction did not come true that he left home and took refuge in a motel with his wife. His independent ministry, Family Radio International, spent millions — some of it from donations made by followers — on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message.

But Camping said that he’s now realized the apocalypse will come five months after May 21, the original date he predicted. He had earlier said Oct. 21 was when the globe would be consumed by a fireball.

{Sigh…}

So what are you reading and blogging about today?

Late Night Schlock: Financial Meltodrama

Posted: May 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Bailout Blues, Economy, financial institutions, Global Financial Crisis | Tags: , , , | 20 Comments

HBO premiers its adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail” today  at 9 ET/PT.  I’ve got my bowl of popcorn all ready.   My Businessweek hit my mailbox today detailing the all-star line up of the still living cast of real life crisis players.  That’s Paul Giametti as Ben Bernanke over there on the left.  William Hurt plays Hank Paulson.  Ed Asner plays Warren Buffet. Oh, and Dan Hedaya plays Barney Frank.  Did you ever imagine Hollywood recreating Barney Frank? It’s sort’ve humorous to think of all these Hollywood types playing Wall Street and Washington insiders. Same big Egos.  Same program of you’re only as good as your last deal.

I’m still “reeling” from the idea of Business Week doing a Move Review.

Too Big to Fail, which premieres on May 23, follows the same trajectory as Sorkin’s book, from the collapse of Bear Stearns that spring to the rise of TARP in the fall. To the film’s credit, it attempts to make many of these still-horrifying moments pretty funny—and squeezes them all into 98 minutes. While the movie doesn’t shed much new light on the period, it offers one of the few pleasures left unfulfilled by the gusher of nonfiction thrillers, roman à clefs, wrist-slapping documentaries, and Oliver Stone. The bankers and government officials who rose to prominence in those months are depicted in all their glory and disgrace by real Hollywood actors—most of whom are far better-looking versions of the people they’re portraying. (Tim Geithner is pretty handsome, but Billy Crudup? Really?) TARP groupies will delight in the film’s attention to detail. Leon, the coffee cart guy parked outside Lehman’s office building, gets a chance to extend his five minutes of fame. The hideous toupee worn by Matthew Modine—playing Merrill Lynch Chief Executive Officer John Thain—might be the worst fake movie hair since Burt Reynolds’s heyday.

For the uninitiated, director Curtis Hanson—who won an Oscar for writing L.A. Confidential—drops some not-so-subtle hints. A voice-over in an opening scene refers to JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) Jamie Dimon (Bill Pullman) as the “smart” banker; Lloyd Blankfein (Evan Handler) is called the “superstar”; and Citigroup’s (C) Vikram Pandit (Ajay Mehta) is called neither. As Hank Paulson (William Hurt) declares, “No one is sure if he’s running Citi or Citi is running him.” Fuld, played in all his vein-popping glory by James Woods, needs no description at all. Viewers are shown, in no uncertain terms, his ginormous hubris as he screws up a potential deal with Korea Development Bank. After being told by Lehman Chief Operating Officer Bart McDade to stay out of the negotiations, Fuld barges in, scares off the bidders, and blows what could have been a precious lifeline.

Here’s the review from LA Times TV critic Robert Lloyd.

The film’s main argument, really, is that we should look kindly upon Paulson and the best he tried to do; the other characters we rate by whether they help or hinder him. What moral voice there is here mostly comes out of his mouth. “We’ve been late on everything,” he admits, and admits also that no one in power wanted to regulate the financial industry because “We were making too much money.” (That’s about as pointed as the film gets on the subject of corporate greed.) Hurt, who (like his costars) seems to be playing the script rather than imitating the person whose name he bears, is a tall tower of movie-star appeal, and it does not hurt our opinion of Paulson that Kathy Baker plays his wife, although she has not much to do but sympathize.

So, if you’re up for an evening about the masters of the universe played by Hollywood’s elite character actors, you know where to go tonight.  Here’s the trailer with its theme song   Fortunate Song by Credence Clearwater Revival which is a damned good choice and a brief interview with Giametti.  I also put him the HBO back story that’s part of the Opening the Vault series.

This has some of the back story on TARP and the meltdown including interviews with journalists that covered the event and the aftermath.

You can consider this an open thread.  I’m at home still trying to kick my fever with a larger dose of antibiotics.  No beer with the popcorn tonight.  (sigh)  I’m okay but this stuff is just friggin’ persistent.

Open Thread: Biden Hints He May Run in 2016

Posted: May 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Democratic Politics, Surreality, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Just when you think things can’t get any worse for Democrats … it gets even worse

Vice President Joe Biden surprised a gathering of donors in Cincinnati last week when he floated the prospect of his succeeding President Barack Obama in the White House.

Biden, who started in the Senate young and would be just 70 in 2012, raised the possibility unprompted during a wide-ranging conversation at the May 19 dinner with major Democratic Party donors, a source in the room said.

The Vice President, who has never ruled in or out running in six years, told the group he hadn’t made up his mind, and cited both political conditions and his own health as relevant factors.

But the spontaneous suggestion caught the attention of at least some in the audience, said the guest, “given he volunteered that without prompting…and given the audience.”

To remind you of what we could be in for, here’s Biden on the campaign trail in 2008:

Here is on a day off (I guess….)


What will he be like after eight more years of alcoholic drinking?

Monday Reads

Posted: May 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Economy, Foreign Affairs, morning reads | Tags: , , , , | 35 Comments

Good Morning!

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll be off to my doctor’s office as the damned MRSA thing on my lip showed back up this weekend.  I look like some one botoxed me on one side.  This stuff is no fun.  I think it has something to do with this endless runny nose and weepy eyes I appear to have with this year’s horrible allergies.

New York Magazine‘s Gabriel Sherman has a potboiler article up called The Elephant in the Green Room: The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election.  There’s some really, really juicy bits.  Here’s just one example.

All the 2012 candidates know that Ailes is a crucial constituency. “You can’t run for the Republican nomination without talking to Roger,” one GOPer told me. “Every single candidate has consulted with Roger.” But he hasn’t found any of them, including the adults in the room—Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney—compelling. “He finds flaws in every one,” says a person familiar with his thinking.

“He thinks things are going in a bad direction,” another Republican close to Ailes told me. “Roger is worried about the future of the country. He thinks the election of Obama is a disaster. He thinks Palin is an idiot. He thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.”

In the aftermath of the Tucson rampage, the national mood seemed to pivot. Ailes recognized that a Fox brand defined by Palin could be politically vulnerable. Two days after the shooting, he gave an interview to Russell Simmons and told him both sides needed to lower the temperature. “I told all of our guys, ‘Shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually.’ ”

It’ll take time to wade through it and you’ll learn more about Beck’s departure even if you just don’t want to, but it’s worth it.  It’s sort’ve one of those karmic car wreck articles.

Economist and blogger Brad Delong delivered the harsh news with nifty graphs in Phoenix, Arizona.  He calls his speech:  The Economic Outlook as of May 2011: Yes, This Is Called the Dismal Science. Why Do You Ask?

But now we have a stubbornly persistent slump in the economy. Now we have economic growth at about our normal long-run pace, with very little signs of closing the gap between the productive capacity of the American economy and its current level of production. We have a Washington DC that is dysfunctional–out of ammunition to take any effective additional steps to boost the economy. There is now substantial fear of inflation–even though there are no signs of inflation gathering anywhere rather than energy and food prices, and we understand that those reflect China’s growing demand and not any domestic price spiral. There is now substantial fear of crowding out–that boosting US government spending or cutting taxes to get more money into the hands of the consumers would discourage private investment even though there are no signs of crowding out even at our rapidly-growing level of the national debt. It is a fact that a bunch of us–including me–think that there really should be signs of crowding out right now–that financial markets should be scared of the fiscal future of America–but they are not. And there is the problem that Washington DC has degenerated into pure Dingbat Kabuki theater on lots of levels.

It is a fact that if congress simply goes home–doesn’t do anything for the next 10 years except keep the federal government on autopilot, or if it does do things if it pays for whatever increases in spending it enacts by raising taxes and pays for whatever tax cuts it enacts by cutting spending–that we do not have a long run deficit problem. If congress goes home for ten years our program spending is matched to our tax revenues, which means a declining debt burden because the growth rate of the economy is larger than the interest rate on our debt.

Our belief that we have a long-run deficit problem is based upon the belief that congress will pass laws that increase spending and that cut taxes–that it will repeal the Independent Payment Authorization Board’s authority to try to make Medicare more efficient, that it will repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on high-cost health plans. Given that the fear is based on a belief that some future congress will bust the budget, it is hard to see how we can address this fear through any possible piece of legislation today–for no congress can bind its successors.

This is a problem.

Wow.  What a downer.  I bet he doesn’t get invited to any of the kewl kids’ cocktail parties there!

Spain continues to experience political unrest. Spanish Youth are demanding “real democracy now”.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain protesting a round of austerity measures and calling for a boycott of major political parties in Sunday’s regional elections. The protests began last week with a march denouncing high levels of youth unemployment. A large crowd established a tent camp in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol Square, defying an ordinance barring protests.

Protester: “I’ll attempt to stay here tonight, because I think it is very important to retake the streets that politicians have taken away from us to do their campaigning, preventing us from protesting. That is what we feel every day with lack of resources and a huge limitation of democracy. We cannot continue to tolerate this situation.”

The NYT has an interesting bible quiz up on sex and religion.  A lot of it on the so-called social issues that cause all those right wing screeds.  I found this question and answer particularly interesting.

The people of Sodom were condemned principally for [what]

“Sodomy” as a term for gay male sex began to be commonly used only in the 11th century and would have surprised early religious commentators. They attributed Sodom’s problems with God to many different causes, including idolatry, threats toward strangers and general lack of compassion for the downtrodden. Ezekiel 16:49 suggests that Sodomites “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.”

So, it wasn’t for being a haven for sex practices that offended puritans, it was for lack of compassion and generosity towards the poor.  Some one should phone Pat Robertson STAT!

There was a horrible tornado in Joplin Missouri last night.  It took out a hospital as well as many, many homes.  Here’s some footage of the aftermath.

A tornado also hit Minneapolis. Both tornadoes have caused fatalities. As always, the Red Cross and other responders are in need of more funds and you can give easily via your cellphone these days.  They are also responding to flood victims up and down the Mississippi.  I wonder what Pat Robertson will say since all of this appears to be hitting the bible belt?  Well, anyway, here’s a list of places accepting cash donations if you feel like taking up a collection.  We’re supposed to get our share of the weather by Thursday.  Hopefully it won’t add flash floods to the rising rivers and spillways.

Okay, well I have to go see a lady about some good drugs!  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

How Badly Does the World Need iPads?

Posted: May 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: China, Corporate Crime, Foreign Affairs, health hazard, Human Rights, Psychopaths in charge, worker rights | Tags: , , , , , | 21 Comments

Man poses as Apple's Steve Jobs at protest in Hong Kong

Are these gadgets really worth the sacrifice of workers’ lives? I admit I’m not an Apple enthusiast, but I don’t think so. Last year there was a series of suicides at Foxconn plants and on Friday, there was a fatal explosion at a Foxcomm iPad factory in Chengdu, China, that killed two workers and injured 15 others. Today a third employee died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Company officials said the explosion occurred on Friday May 20 in one of the polishing workshops at the factory, and that the initial finding of a joint investigation task force led by government officials and law enforcement authorities was that combustible dust exploded in a duct.

A little more detail from Mashable.com:

…the Chinese government in Chengdu has taken over the plant, censoring the information flow to the extent that local newspapers aren’t reporting about it.

With numerous workers committing suicide at the company’s Shenzhen-based iPad plant last year, Foxconn attempted to remedy the situation by giving them raises, but still needed to increase the production capacity to meet increasing demand. As a result, the new factory was built, an enormous eight-building complex hastily constructed in a record-breaking 70 days to accommodate the voracious demand for the iPad 2.

Soon after the factory was built…Apple’s inspection team visited the facility, taking two days to inspect the buildings, production lines and “especially the workers’ dormitories.” After its inspection, Apple approved the plant for manufacturing iPads.

After the suicides in 2010, the group Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) investigated the factories and produced a report (pdf) that documents the horrors of the working conditions in Foxconn’s factories.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the study found that slave labor-type conditions are still in effect at the factories. Workers are now forced to sign “no-suicide pacts,” and they are routinely humiliated by “military-style managers.” They may have to work as much as 100 hours of overtime per month, and are still not paid a living wage–they earn only about $186 per month. And Foxconn “routinely” fails to pay workers the correct amounts they have earned. This is after Apple visited the factories and approved the wages and working conditions!

Conditions at Foxconn’s two Chengdu factories, which exclusively produce Apple iPads, were among the worst reported. While nets have been installed to catch suicidal workers, factory staff are reportedly required to sign “no-suicide” pacts which also give licence to Foxconn to institutionalise them if it sees fit.

Workers at Chengdu say they are routinely humiliated and scolded by management. One was forced to stand in a corner with his hands behind his back because he giggled with a colleague. Others have been required to write confession letters to their supervisors after making mistakes and in some cases read the letters out in front of colleagues.

“Some of my roommates weep in the dormitory. I want to cry as well but my tears have not come out,” said 19-year-old Chengdu worker Chen Liming.

Ah Ming, 19, who produces cases for the iPad, said he stands for at least 14 hours a day. He wakes up at 7am to queue for the bus to the factory and it is 9pm by the time he returns home every evening.

The report also found that workers don’t

have adequate protections to safeguard against occupational health and safety issues such as aluminium dust and harsh reactions from chemicals used in the production process.

“I’m breathing in dust at Foxconn just like a vacuum cleaner. My nostrils are totally black every day,” one male worker said.

From the aptly named “Crave” blog at Cnet.com:

SACOM researchers visited Foxconn plants in Chengdu, where iPads are produced; in Chongqing, a smaller facility making mostly HP products; and Foxconn’s huge campus in Shenzhen, where half a million workers assemble a variety of computers, mobile phones, and additional products for Apple, HP, Nokia, Dell, and others. The researchers claim to have observed a number of problems at the Chengdu facilities in particular:

Workers do not have adequate training on usage of chemicals and do not have regular on-post health examinations. A number of interviewees even complain they suffer from allergy, but the management does not probe into the adverse health impacts of workers. Workers also highlight the problem of poor ventilation and inadequate personal protective equipment.

While SACOM notes the lack of ventilation as a possible threat to workers’ respiratory health, it appears that it may also have been a contributing factor to Friday’s explosion, which reportedly was centered in the “polishing” section of Foxconn’s facilities.

According to the report, the polishing department is filled with aluminum dust and there is inadequate ventilation.

Both aluminum and magnesium are commonly used ingredients in industrial polish–magnesium is a highly flammable metal used in fireworks, flares, and flash powder. A buildup of such dust due to improper ventilation could have created dangerous conditions.

I don’t know about you, but I’m very glad I don’t have an iPad, because if I did I’d be tempted to trash it right about now. If this is what it takes to produce a gadget that appears to be little more than a glorified cell phone that doesn’t do much other than provide entertainment and status to its users, I say it’s not worth it.

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