What We Can Gain (And Lose) By Facebook's IPO

According to some reports, there is a lot for us to lose and one nifty thing to gain by Facebook going public.  CNET's Molly Wood literally begs people not to buy stock.  She explains very carefully how it works, and how it isn't a bad thing but the common folks won't stand to make much.  The first investors will snap up the choice price, and we will be left generating profit for the beast.  The only thing that might change her predicted outcome is if Facebook explodes into a new level of service, for example if they grew a Google-like appendage and brought in millions of new users.  As she also points out, it will be a long time before stock can be purchased, so there is time to watch this develop.  Just don't let hype override common sense.

However, if they go public there is an outstanding chance they will have to disclose more information, including privacy investigations.  Because the interested parties have listed their facts, we know some of what has gone on behind closed doors.  While Wired reminds us there are no guarantees, there will likely be more for us to know about Facebook and its processes.

All About Email

I am shocked at the number of people who are going online for the first time, or setting up an email account with no idea how email works.  These waves of newcomers are the reason we have Internet growth.  They are also the reason we get "send this to everyone you know in ten seconds and your wish will come true!!!!!" messages.

With those folks in mind, here is a consolidated email handbook.  Feel free to send it to anyone you want, either because they annoy the crap out of you or because you are afraid someone is driving them insane (sure, we can pretend it's the latter).

1.  Think before you send.  I know this sounds too obvious, but it really is the root of most problems.  Do you really believe this angel email will cure cancer if you send it to everyone in your address book, or do you think that angel email will be more likely to accidentally offend or hurt someone who has fought or lost a loved one to cancer?  I don't care how great the charity, or how terrifying the story is, check snopes.com before you contribute to the stupid part of the Internet.

2.  Know the difference between "reply" and "reply all" and if you don't know the difference, promise me right now you will never use reply all.  That sends a message to every single person listed on the message, and is a sure way to bug your friends.  And if you do hit reply all just to send "okay" or something like that, I will hunt you down and shoot you myself.  You have been warned.

3.  Protect people's privacy.  Use BCC (blind carbon copy) to hide multiple email addresses.  If you send a message to ten people and BCC them, that means they will not be aware of other recipients.  Don't give out someone's email address without their permission.  And for the love of baby Facebook, do not sign them up for specials using their email address.

4.  Do not send jokes or political messages to a work email address.  I don't care how funny it is, or how strongly you feel that this should be shared.  Work email is monitored, and is often checked for phrases or content that could land your friend in hot water.
 
5.  People don't answer within seconds.  Accept the fact that every person checks their messages on their own schedule.  They also may prioritize when and how they answer.  Do not get bent out of shape if you feel your message has been neglected.

And here are a couple from my own personal set of standards:

1.  Use spell check.  Seriously.  Give a damn about your spelling and grammar if you are going to use written communication.  Don't use all capitals.  Don't use all lowercase.  If you do not know how to create a sentence or spell basic words, invest your time in learning that rather than taking on email.

2.  Your newbie status is no excuse for stupidity.  Just because you don't understand why the points above are important doesn't mean they aren't.  It means you don't understand.  Someday, you too will roll your eyes at an email telling you how friends are like roses, or opinions are like assholes.  You will read a poorly typed message that makes you work hard to comprehend, when the writer could have taken thirty seconds to clean it up a little.  And you will get mails from the Nigerian royal family because some idiot gave out your address to win a prize or be helpful.  If you're an overachiever, you may even embarrass yourself or someone you love by hitting reply all and sharing too much.  You will eventually learn the reasons behind the tips above, but until then... trust a geek.

Washington Leading The Way

Washington state, that is.  A measure allowing same-sex marriage in the state has easily passed the State Senate, is expected to pass the State House as early as next week, and could be on Democrat Gov. Chris Gregoire's desk before the end of the month.

“Regardless of how you vote on this bill, an invitation will be in the mail,” Senator Ed Murray of Seattle, the prime sponsor in the Senate, said in his final remarks before the vote. Mr. Murray, who is gay, has noted many times publicly that he and his longtime partner hope to marry in their home state. 

The measure, echoing one passed in New York last June, includes language assuring religious groups that they would not be required to marry same-sex couples or allow them to marry in their facilities. 

Washington would join New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Iowa as states where same-sex couples can marry. Washington, D.C., also allows same-sex marriage.

Washington has steadily expanded rights for gay and lesbian couples since 2006, when it approved domestic partnerships. In 2009, it passed a so-called everything-but-marriage bill, which was challenged in a public referendum and upheld by voters, 53 to 47. Opponents of the marriage bill say they will challenge it in a referendum this fall. The Roman Catholic Church is among the opponents. 

The floor debate late Wednesday was civil and relatively succinct. 

Before the final vote, senators rejected an amendment to put the matter before voters in a referendum. Some people who later supported the bill also supported putting it up for a referendum. One of the leading opponents, Senator Dan Swecker, a Republican, said he worried that approving same-sex marriage would “create a hostile environment for those of us who believe in traditional marriage.” 

As opposed to the absolutely hostile environment that banning same-sex marriage creates for the LGBT community?  I don't buy it.  Neither do Washington state lawmakers, and the slow journey towards equality continues across the country, despite states using the tyranny of the majority whenever possible.

It took the courts to get rid of segregation and anti-miscegenation laws.  It'll take the courts to get rid of marriage inequality too.  The speed of that happening depends entirely on the person in the Oval Office who gets to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, and that alone should be guiding people's votes in November.

Something Special In The Error

American Airlines is solving its bankruptcy problem by pulling the eject lever on 13,000 current employees and cutting health and retirement benefits for tens of thousands more.

The parent of American Airlines wants to eliminate about 13,000 jobs — 15 percent of its workforce — as the nation's third-biggest airline remakes itself under bankruptcy protection.

The company proposes to end its traditional pension plans, a move strongly opposed by the airline's unions and the U.S. pension-insurance agency, and to stop paying for retiree health benefits.

AMR Corp. said Wednesday that it must cut labor costs by 20 percent. It will soon begin negotiations with its three major unions, but the president of the flight attendants' union quickly rejected the company's ideas as unacceptably harsh.

CEO Thomas W. Horton said Wednesday that the company hopes to return to profitability by cutting spending by more than $2 billion per year and raising revenue by $1 billion per year.

AMR lost $884 million in the first nine months of 2011, and $904 million for December alone. It has lost more than $11 billion since 2001.

"We are going to use the restructuring process to make the necessary changes to meet our challenges head-on and capitalize fully on the solid foundation we've put in place," Horton said in a letter to employees.

AMR's 88,000 employees have braced for bad news for weeks. 

And boy, did they get it.  American is vowing if the unions don't eat these massive job cuts, the company will have all union contracts tossed in bankruptcy court and cut the jobs anyway.  They also want unions to drop pensions and go to 401(k) plans and want further health benefit cost-cutting for retirees...and all indications are they'll get every single one of those "requests" from labor because American at this point has no real reason not to go to a bankruptcy judge and demand the abrogation of all union contracts.  Laws passed by Congress and President Bush have seen to that.

The assault on workers in the US continues, and the country is being told that getting rid of these awful, evil, despicable unions is the first step towards job creation.  That's true.  It just means those jobs won't be created in the US.

StupidiNews!

• More than 70 are dead and hundreds injured in a soccer riot in Cairo, Egypt yesterday that erupted after two Cairo teams squared off.
• The ACLU has sued the Obama administration over information related to the use of drones strikes overseas targeting US citizens.
• As 2014 approaches, several states have yet to take any action related to compliance with the health care reform law changes.
• Facebook has filed for a $5 billion stock IPO, the largest in internet company history.
• The RIAA wants to scrap the Senate's OPEN anti-piracy act, saying the legislation isn't close to being tough enough on pirates and "may make the problem worse".

Last Call

Mitt Romney is just really, really awful at being a politician.  Every time he opens his mouth, that silver foot keeps getting inserted sideways. Greg Sargent tags this Romney comment from this morning:

“I’m not concerned with the very poor. We have a safety net there,” Romney told CNN. “If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”

“The challenge right now — we will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor,” Romney responded, after repeating that he would fix any holes in the safety net. “It’s not good being poor and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor . . . My focus is on middle income Americans...

In any political campaign, he said, “you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich — that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor — that’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.”

Pretty much everything I said yesterday about David Brooks being out of touch with Americans goes for Mitt Romney, and by a couple orders of magnitude to boot. Mitt Romney has the all the empathy of a hamster's water bottle.  The fundamental trick to being a politician is being a convincing liar at least a fraction of the time, and Romney has the distinct ability to speak about the 99% in terms of being unruly verge that needs to be trimmed.  In other words, he lacks the skill to get large number of people to vote against their own-self interest because his programming keeps defaulting back to Thurston Howell III mode.  Other Republicans have this ability, but the Marquis de Mittens just can't bring himself to utter such banal chicanery (which his odd because everything else about his campaign is in fact banal chicanery, especially anything involving President Obama).

All this of course comes back to the issue that Mitt Romney's about as approachable as a hedgehog with a migraine, and he can't override his own instincts when it comes to dealing with "the people".  He's never dealt with them outside of spreadsheets and statistics and it shows.  It's all numbers to the guy.  And nobody, nobody believes him when he says he rich aren't his focus.

That's all he cares about.  Everyone knows it.  And yeah, we keep bringing up Mitt's positronic brain and all, but that's who he is, and that's why he's destined to lose.

[UPDATE] What Steve M. said.

See? He keeps repeating it. It's a rehearsed line. It's a talking point he wants to take into the campaign. He wants to divide and conquer; he wants middle-class people who've had the rug pulled out from under them in this recession to feel that their interests are in opposition to the interests of "the very poor." He wants them to think that President Obama is excessively concerned with "the very poor" at their expense.
Will this work? I don't know. But it's no slip-up. It's no gaffe.

Every Republican has been pushing this point.  The difference is Mitt is really, really bad at it.

Home, Home I'm Deranged, Part 29

As expected, President Obama's new plan to allow Americans to refinance their homes will require some Congressional finesse, and I'm wondering what conditions the GOP will attach to it.

The Obama administration on Wednesday detailed its latest plan to help millions of homeowners refinance their mortgages to today's historically-low rates.

The plan, which requires approval by Congress, would allow borrowers who are current on their mortgage to save an average of $3,000 a year by refinancing into loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The plan is estimated to cost between $5 billion and $10 billion. To pay for it, President Obama said he does not plan to add to the deficit. Instead, he wants to impose a fee on large banks -- a move that may have a hard time making it past members of Congress, who have rejected the notion of taxing the banks in the past.

"May" have a hard time?  I foresee the plan being blocked in the Senate, and then Republicans turning around and presenting a program in the House about 1% as effective at the cost of, say, all Planned Parenthood funding, giving 99% of the program's money to the banks and including a rider that overturns all passed legislation from 2009-2011 plus another clause that gives the GOP complete control of all humanity in perpetuity, and then they'll proceed in calling President Obama an America-hating extremist for not giving them everything they want.

That's how this game works, and it goes triple for an election year.  Meanwhile, homeowners will continue to suffer, and both the rabid left and the rabid right will proclaim that President Obama hasn't put forward any effort to help underwater mortgage owners whatsoever.

Sad, but true.

Florida, Freshly Squeezed

Mitt Romney is winning the battle, but Republicans are losing the war if the turnout numbers in Florida are any indication.

Underneath tonight’s big win for Mitt Romney in the Florida Republican primary, is a statistic that might suggest enthusiasm is flagging among GOP voters in this large and crucial swing state: turnout was actually down significantly from 2008.

In the 2008 Republican primary in Florida, in which John McCain beat Romney by a margin of 36%-31%, a total of nearly 1.95 million votes were cast.

But in tonight’s primary, turnout was actually much lower. At time of writing, with 98% of precincts reporting, the total turnout is only about 1.65 million — a drop-off of 15% in terms of the raw number of voters.

And remember, Florida's primaries are closed.  Only Republicans can vote in the GOP primary, and a 15% drop from 2008 should be setting off serious alarm bells for the GOP. 

Take that as you will.  Charles Pierce sums it up:

Romney won because he had the most money. And because he had the most money, enough of the Tea Party "base," which was supposed to hate him like gum disease, decided thusly: What the hell? The important thing is to get the Muslim Kenyan Usurper Negro out of the White House, so this is the horse we have to ride. There were something like 13,000 commercials aired in Florida over the past couple of weeks. Ninety-two percent of them were negative, the overwhelming number of which said negative things about N. Leroy Gingrich, Definer of Civilization's Rules and Leader (Perhaps) of the Civilizing Forces, on behalf of the man who told us on Tuesday night that we should follow him into the old America of hope and joy and not bumper stickers. That is how you win the Inevitability Primary. You buy Inevitability. It doesn't come cheaply.

And despite all that money, despite Florida's massive growth, turnout was not just less, but significantly less.  More than half the FOX exit poll respondents cared about one thing: voting for someone who could defeat Barack Obama.  45% of them said that was their top priority.  Of the people who voted for Mittens yesterday, 58% said that was their top priority.  The entire GOP campaign is built on the premise of "beat the darkie."  And Mitt, they figure, has the money to do it.

Only In Riverdale

I love Archie comics.  My mother was a literary snob (sorry, Mom) and she hated the idea of comics.  They were not allowed in the house, and were frowned upon as a lower form of entertainment.  My best friend at the time had Archie comic books by the hundreds, and a childhood rebellion was born.  Her mother bought them everywhere, and we'd hit garage sale buyouts that filled grocery bags.  I know the gang, and I know them pretty well.

As an adult, I look back and realize they made some pretty strong statements, over decades.  The main female characters were both talented and strong, and held their own.  Nobody was perfect, everyone made mistakes.  Drugs, alcohol, driving while intoxicated, dropping out of school, weight problems and body issues have all been topics at one point or another.  There was an effort in the 80s to be more gender and racially sensitive, and their stories demonstrated some good values.  But always fun, at least for me.  Just the other day, my husband couldn't describe a guy and used the name Moose Mason to paint the picture.  I got it immediately.

It really is in line with Archie to have a gay character.  I may or may not still read the occasional Archie, but if I did I would say he wasn't a safe stereotype.  He had his own look, actions, humor and talents.  In other words, he just was.  Like any other character, he was just a person, any old guy.  In doing that, they did kids a favor.  They gave them someone that was a fully developed person who happened to be gay.  After a brief buzz, Kevin was just one of the crowd, not defined by his sexuality but by other things as well.  That he was gay was given perspective, and was not the most important or interesting thing about him.

Although the January issue depicts Kevin Keller -- Riverdale's first openly gay character who is also an active U.S. military officer -- tying the knot with his African-American partner Clay Walker, Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater insisted that creators weren't interested in making a statement about marriage equality or the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" so much as simply being current.

"Kevin and Clay getting married really is just a reflection of what's going on in the world today," Goldwater said. "If you get married in Riverdale, Riverdale accepts everybody, so this was more of an acceptance."

I'm out of touch enough that I had no idea a wedding was coming, but spiffy.  I'll end up buying that one for sure.  I mean, if I still did something as silly as read an Archie comic book.

The Exception To The Rule...

Sort of.

Okay, we all know that for every jackass like this there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of teachers who take their job and duties seriously.  But how did this man get away with this?  And how does headline after headline reveal teachers being inappropriate with kids and yet they get through whatever safeguards exist?  These aren't rhetorical questions.  If I had a kid in public school I'd want a damned answer, and I'd want it now.  I want to know how.  I want to know how it happens, and what is being done to prevent it.  Child predators work in the fields that expose them to children.  What is being done to protect them from something as awful as this?

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Authorities say the elementary school teacher told the children that it was a game. Once inside his third-grade classroom, they say, he blindfolded them, gagged them and set cockroaches crawling on their faces.

And then, Mark Berndt photographed them, creating hundreds of images that would eventually lead to his arrest, police say.

On Tuesday, Berndt, 61, was sitting in jail on charges that he committed lewd acts on 23 boys and girls, ages 6 to 10, between 2008 and 2010. None of them complained about Berndt's behavior, authorities said.

None of them complained.  I find that hard to believe, unless they were threatened or intimidated.  But if so, how in the hell did this go on for two years without a whisper of prevention?

Brewer: I Spit On Your Union Grave

If GOP Gov. John Kasich got an ugly bloody nose from public unions last year and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and his GOP pals wanted to leave public unions bleeding in the street (only to now face the wrath of the state's voters), Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is by comparison sending wreaths and dry cleaning her little black dress for the occasion.

With a sweeping series of bills introduced Monday night in the state Senate, Republicans in Arizona hoped to make Wisconsin’s battle against public unions last year look like a lightweight sparring match.

The bills include a total ban on collective bargaining for Arizona’s public employees, including at the city and county levels. The move would outpace even the tough bargaining restrictions enacted in Wisconsin in 2011 that led to massive union protests and a Democratic effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

“At first glance, it looks like an all out assault on the right of workers to organize,” Senate Minority Leader David Schapira (D) told TPM on Tuesday. “And to me, that’s a serious problem.”

Not in Arizona it's not.  Not yet, anyway.  It gets worse.

Beyond a ban on collective bargaining, the bills would also prohibit state and local government workers from deducting money from their paychecks to pay union dues.

They would ban state and local governments from paying anyone to spend time doing union work, a practice known as “release time.”

And in another break from the Wisconsin model, the restrictions would affect every type of public union, including police and firefighters.

Arizona is a right-to-work state, which gives unions a much smaller role there than in states like Wisconsin. But laws still currently give labor groups a place at the bargaining table to negotiate pay and other benefits for their members. All of that would change under the proposed rules.

Schapira, who is also running for Congress this year, said he expects the laws to easily pass unless something major happens. Democrats in the Senate are outnumbered 21-9, so he said there isn’t much they can do to stop the bills on their own.

Right about now I'm thinking Arizona's various police and firefighter unions are going to have something to say about this.  As are Arizona's voters.

And I don't think Gov. Brewer and the GOP are going to like it.

Divorced From Reality

It's finally happened:  somebody's managed to penetrate David Brooks's neutronium denial shield and impress upon him that the American economy isn't so hot for the proles at the Applebee's salad bar, and all that manages to come tumbling out is that Both Sides Do It.

Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness.

It’s wrong to describe an America in which the salt of the earth common people are preyed upon by this or that nefarious elite. It’s wrong to tell the familiar underdog morality tale in which the problems of the masses are caused by the elites.

The truth is, members of the upper tribe have made themselves phenomenally productive. They may mimic bohemian manners, but they have returned to 1950s traditionalist values and practices. They have low divorce rates, arduous work ethics and strict codes to regulate their kids.

Members of the lower tribe work hard and dream big, but are more removed from traditional bourgeois norms. They live in disorganized, postmodern neighborhoods in which it is much harder to be self-disciplined and productive.

I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.

If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.

It's like Brooks is some sort of Sisyphean device that has one purpose:  to take any possible social paradigm observation, smash it with a sledgehammer, and reconstruct the bits in order to fit his god-awful worldview of bipartisanship, even if the pieces don't fit and had nothing to do with the original observation in the first place, and he has to repeat that until the end of time.  There are people that just don't get it, people that don't get it on purpose as satire, and then there's David Brooks (who should be regularly harvested for the rich oil of contempt for anyone who makes less than six figures that he drips with) who somehow manages to make "not getting it" into an exciting new field of scientific endeavor.  I've got a fiver that says if Brooks was jammed together with any actual American middle-class salt-of-the-earth family for more than 3 hours, there would be blood all over the carport and a Garden Weasel shoved in a very uncomfortable place upon his person.

And he would not get invited to Applebee's.  No sir.  No riblets for him.

[UPDATE]  Seriously, is this blame the victims week at the Village or what?

[UPDATE THE SECOND]  Charles Pierce in the center square for the win.

StupidiNews!

• Mitt Romney got roughly 46% of the GOP primary vote to win over Newt Gingrich's 32% in Florida last night.
• Canada has expelled two more Russian diplomats as relations between the two countries sour over a Canadian soldier arrested for leaking intel to a foreign entity.
• President Obama's re-election campaign picked up $40 million in the 4th quarter of 2011, and has $82 million on hand, according to campaign filings.
• Hong Kong's housing market is falling apart as analysts expect a 25% drop in real estate prices this year for the world's most expensive market.
• Microsoft and Barnes & Noble are fighting it out over patent violations and antitrust complaints in the bookstore chain's NOOK e-book reader.

Last Call

So Mittens had the Florida primary sewn up by 8 PM apparently, and now we have a month with no debates and several smaller caucuses up until Arizona and Michigan at the end of the month, and Super Tuesday on March 6th.

I don't see the Non-Romneys going too much further past Super Tuesday, frankly.  Shame too.  I was really hoping for an ugly primary season.

Now it's still possible that it could go on.  Newt especially has a lot of ego and could get the fundraising once Santorum leaves...but I doubt it.  Mitt just has too much money and he sent a clear message that he has the juice to swamp anyone who goes up against him in the primary.

On the other hand, it's looking like Romney can't top 50% even when he's basically running unopposed.  Santorum and Paul left the state days ago, and Mitt outspent Newt by more than 6 to 1.  Mitt still couldn't crack 50%.

He should get used to that 47% number in Florida, I think.

Mitch Turtles Up, Part 2

My own Senator, Mitch The Turtle McConnell apparently has some sort of mild dementia or something, because he just can't remember his own massive obstruction of any of President Obama's agenda over the last three years.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has embraced the argument that President Obama was able to pass every bit of his legislative agenda in his first two years thanks to large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. It’s intended as a counterpoint to the President’s re-election strategy of attacking the congressional GOP as do-nothing obstructionists. But it’s also a revisionist history of the 111th Congress, during which McConnell more than any other Republican in Washington stood athwart Obama’s agenda to great effect.

The White House has “been trying to pretend like the President just showed up yesterday, just got sworn in and started fresh,” McConnell declared Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “In fact, he’s been in office for three years. He got everything he wanted from a completely compliant Congress for two of those three years… We are living in the Obama economy.”

This isn’t a new claim for McConnell, but it’s audacious even by Washington’s lax standards. It was McConnell, after all, who led Senate Republicans in serial filibusters — a record-setting number — successfully thwarting large chunks of Obama’s agenda.

Mitch pretending like Republicans had nothing to do with Congress for the last three years is insulting and stupid.  Senate Republicans filibustered the DREAM Act, the American Jobs Act, The Paycheck Fairness Act, climate change legislation, immigration reform legislation, they blocked the President's appointments to the bench and to cabinet positions, and they stripped provisions from the stimulus, the budget appropriation bills, held the country hostage over payroll taxes, unemployment benefit extensions and the debt ceiling.  Multiple times.

But President Obama "got everything he wanted"?  Really?  That's ridiculous on a number of levels...just like McConnell is.  McConnell owns a big chunk of Congress's 9% approval rating, and he knows it.