Standard And Poor's European Vacation

It's a European vacation alright, as in nine European countries had to vacate their credit ratings as S&P downgraded the lot of them.  The big loser:  France, losing its AAA rating by one notch to AA+, and Italy and Spain taking two steps down the road to austerity oblivion as the plan to save Greece is starting to fall apart.

"Today's rating actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policymakers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone," the U.S.-based ratings agency said in a statement.

In a potentially more ominous setback, negotiations on a debt swap by private creditors seen as crucial to avert a Greek default that would rock Europe and the world economy broke up without agreement in Athens, although officials said more talks are likely next week.

If Greece cannot persuade banks and insurers to accept voluntary losses on their bond holdings, a second international rescue package for the euro zone's most heavily indebted state will unravel, raising the prospect of bankruptcy in late March, when it has to redeem 14.4 billion euros in maturing debt.

S&P cut the ratings of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus by two notches and the standings of France, Austria, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia by one notch each.

The move puts highly indebted Italy on the same BBB+ level as Kazakhstan and pushes Portugal into junk status.

It put 14 euro zone states on negative outlook for a possible further downgrade, including France, Austria, and still triple-A rated Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Germany was the only country to emerge totally unscathed with its triple-A rating and a stable outlook.

A couple of observations:

1)  Forget France.  Germany is now basically solely in charge of the EU's financial picture, whereas the two countries were partners before.  No longer.  What Merkel says, goes.  It was unofficial before.  It's official now.

2)  Portugal's junk status is bad news for the entire eurozone, but that was coming anyway.  Steep austerity measures did not save Portugal's economy from the landfill.  In fact, it didn't save any of the EU countries from downgrade, even though they all instituted serious spending cuts.  We were told austerity was necessary to prevent further deterioration of these economies.  Guess what?  It made things worse. Italy and Spain are now hanging by a thread.  Not pretty.

3)  Greece?  Greece is now officially in the "Oh crap" stage.  If the talks between Greece and its creditors fail before the deadline of its next bailout payment, the game's over.  Greece is in serious trouble at this point, and the writing's on the wall.  It's going to have to take an ugly deal...and so will its creditors.  Soon.

4)  S&P goes on to say there's a 40% chance of a recession in Europe in 2012.  I put it higher than that, maybe 75%, personally.  The austerity is failing miserably.  Who will bail Europe out?

It's going to get a lot worse over there.

Cold Bitter Tea

Over at TPM, Evan McMorris-Santoro asks a valid question:  if Mitt Romney wins South Carolina and Florida and effectively wraps up the nomination before Groundhog Day, what does that mean for the Tea Party's power?

South Carolina’s primary isn’t just the presumed last stand for the candidates who hope to stop Mitt Romney. It could also be the last stand for the Tea Party movement that was created to stop a candidate like Mitt Romney from ever getting the nomination in the first place.


A week out from votes being cast, the Tea Party shows no signs of coming together to stop Romney, who after all is the very architect of the type of health care law that helped bring tens of thousands out in protest in 2009.

Like they were in Iowa, Tea Partiers here are split among the several candidates vying for the title of anti-Romney and that means Romney has a path to victory right around them. And if the Tea Party fails to stop Romney, it will prove that the movement has failed to convert its electoral power in any real way beyond electing the 112th Congress (aka, The 9%). 

The Tea Party's problem is they agree on two things:  President Obama must lose, and the man to beat him can't be Mitt Romney.  But that's all they agree on, and that's not enough to stop Mitt from winning primaries with 28-40% of the vote.   If they can't stop Mitt Romney, they're done.  And they know it.  GOP social conservative leaders are meeting in Texas this weekend to hash out who will be the Anti-Romney.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and chief spokesman for the gathering, said he is unsure if the meeting will produce "unanimous agreement" behind a single candidate. But he said it could foster a "growing consensus" as the leaders air out their differing views on Romney and opposing candidates.

Another participant, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality pledge, told McClatchy Newspapers that the conservatives are likely to hold additional meetings before trying to choose a consensus candidate in an attempt to block Romney from the nomination.

Conservative heavyweights hosting or invited to the event include James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of the Liberty Institute; Don Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association; and Gary Bauer, president of American Values.

"This coming election could prove to be the most critical of our lifetime," reads the invitation. "Conservatives of faith need to attempt to reach a consensus on which Republican presidential candidate or candidates we can support, in order to be most effective."

David Barton, president and founder of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization based in Aledo, Texas, said the hunt for a consensus may be difficult since many of the participants are torn between candidates. "It's split all over," said Barton, who said he was invited but probably will be unable to attend.

And if the leaders of the far right can't even get their act together long enough to get on the same page, then Mitt Romney and his billions in Bain baggage are going to have a really, really hard time winning in November.

The funny part is anyone these Tea Party folks pick?  They'll fare even worse against the President.  Either way, the Tea Party is about to find out just how little power they have.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/12/2586817/social-conservative-leaders-to.html#storylink=cpy

A Case For Computer Literacy

(CNN) -- This week, New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg tweeted his intent to learn computer code by the end of the year. He joined about 300,000 other people who have signed up at CodeYear to receive free interactive programming lessons each week from the Codecademy, a web-based tutorial. I am greatly relieved.

It's time Americans begin treating computer code the way we do the alphabet or arithmetic. Code is the stuff that makes computer programs work -- the list of commands that tells a word processor, a website, a video game, or an airplane navigation system what to do. That's all software is: lines of code, written by people.

We are socializing, working, consuming, and living in a world increasingly defined by programs. Learning to code is the best way to understand what all those programs do, or even to recognize that they are there in the first place.

There is a perfectly logical argument for why we must start including computer literacy in programs targeting both young and old. This is not a phase, it is the new language that will govern our financial, personal and professional lives. My computer skills are self-taught, and thanks to some patient geeky friends I have grown into a geeky and talented woman. Yet I joined Codecademy so I can see how it works, and prepare my newbie friends for their introduction to computer programming. Much like reading, it will be required to function in everyday life. Embrace it or prepare for a lifetime of ignorance.

Entertainment Stupidity: The Sick, The Quick & The Dick

The Sick:
Heather Locklear was taken to the hospital after a 911 call.  Her sister reportedly called, and pills and alcohol have been mentioned as the cause.  At this time nothing is absolutely confirmed, but TMZ and People have been updating their sites regularly.  Locklear has had a shaky last several years, most recently having broken off her engagement to former co-star Jack Wagner.

The Quick:
Katy Perry's dad was quick to apologize for a comment he made about Jews, saying he didn't mean to offend anyone.  While preaching (for once not about his daughter) he made the comment that followers could enjoy so many blessings they could make Jews jealous.  "I apologize for for the hurt that I caused my Jewish friends," he said.  Except uh... I don't imagine that he has any.

The Dick:
A man in the front row interrupted the New York Philharmonic when his cell  phone rang.  For minutes.  It rang so long the conductor was concerned it was an alarm and stopped the music.  And the dick didn't even pull it from his pocket to silence it.  A few other people yelled at him, but his caller eventually gave up and the show went on, as it must.  The conductor asked if he was finished, but when the man gave no response whatsoever, he told him they would wait, and put down his baton.  Dick with a capital DICK.

Long Train Runnin' (Off The Tracks)

California's high-speed rail project is getting derailed by the abrupt resignation of the head of the state's agency in charge of the transportation upgrade.  The Sacramento Bee reports:

Roelof van Ark, chief executive officer of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, announced this afternoon that he is quitting, the latest setback for the state's beleaguered campaign to build a nearly $100 billion rail network in California.


His resignation, announced at a board meeting in Los Angeles and effective in two months, comes at a critical point for the project, with rail officials bidding for Legislative approval to start construction in the Central Valley this fall. Public opinion about the project has fallen sharply, according to a recent Field Poll, and the Legislature is highly skeptical.

Minutes after van Ark's announcement, Tom Umberg announced that he is stepping down as chairman of the rail board, though he will remain a member of the board. Umberg is to be replaced next month by Dan Richard, an adviser Gov. Jerry Brown appointed to the board last year.

Brown, a Democrat, became a vocal supporter of the project last year and appointed two advisers, Richard and Mike Rossi, to the rail board. This month, Brown proposed folding the authority into a new state agency, the Transportation Agency, a measure rail officials support.

Van Ark was hired in 2010 and oversaw the authority's creation of an updated business plan that raised the estimated cost of the project to almost $100 billion over 20 years. Lawmakers said the plan was more credible than before, but many lawmakers remain critical of the project's management and cost.

Things are looking increasingly unstable both politically and financially for the high-speed rail project, and nobody in Washington is going to come to the rescue anytime soon (and certainly not during an election year.)  Not sure how much help Gov. Jerry Brown is going to be either. We'll see if this slows things down to a crawl on this project, but eventually California Republicans are going to get to the point where they can pull the plug on the entire effort.

And it will be a crying shame when that happens.

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/01/roelof-van-ark-chief-executive.html#storylink=cpy

 

I

Like A Tornado In January

Despite the pithy saying indicating a nasty unexpected event, the thing is these days you actually get tornadoes in January, and this one touched down not too far from my hometown.

Dozens of western North Carolina homes were damaged, including 16 destroyed, in a tornado and storms that also injured 15 persons, authorities said Thursday.

In Rutherford County, a tornado Wednesday left 10 persons injured and a dozen homes damaged, officials said.

The extent of injuries were not immediately known, authorities said.

The National Weather Service on Thursday confirmed that Wednesday night's storm in Rutherford County was a tornado classified on the Enhanced Fujita scale as an EF-2, with estimated maximum wind speed of 115 mph.

Tornadoes are rare enough on the backside of the lower Appalachians like that, but we do get them out that way.  I've been through Rutherford County plenty of times, and it's just staggering to think about what it's like to get hit by a tornado in the middle of what passes for winter in western NC: drizzle, fog, and 45 degrees outside for basically the entirety of New Year's Day to Valentine's Day, with the occasional power line-eating ice storm the one week it decides to be 25 instead.

But tornadoes?  In January?  Doesn't happen.  Or used to not happen, anyway.  Parents are okay, but they know people who took damage from the storms.

It's getting weird out there.  And hey, you never know.

StupidiNews!

• Iran's top religious leader is publicly blaming the United States for the death of an Iranian nuclear scientist killed earlier this week.
• Nebraska becomes the latest state to take up the fight over voter ID laws, which state Democrats call an effort to suppress voting.
• The US is moving more naval forces into the Persian Gulf region as Pentagon chief Leon Panetta warns Iran against the "crossing the red line" of blocking the Straits of Hormuz.
• The latest in Medicare supplemental insurance plans come with gym memberships to keep seniors healthier and to help them save on premiums.
• Sen. Patrick Leahy is willing to strip the DNS blocking provisions from the Senate's PROTECT IP Act in order to have the effects studied further.

Last Call

As they say, the sharpest knife is wielded by your own friend, and thanks to Citizens United, the Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich has the cash to put together this little half-hour "documentary" on Mitt Romney's tenure at Bain Capital.



It's a glorious job of a hit piece showing the dark side of Romney's "executive experience" as his company made billions off liquidating companies and firing tens of thousands of American workers. And the worst part is Romney personally made tens of millions doing so.

No matter how much you spin it, there's a fundamental truth here: Mitt Romney made an ungodly amount of money by putting people out of a job. He's exactly the type of guy to have made out like a bandit destroying American jobs by the truckload.

And he's completely unapologetic for it.  Team Obama should be throwing a party for these PAC guys, because they just gave President Obama an unbeatable attack heading into November.

And hey, given how the South Carolina polls have tightened up this week as this ad runs in the Palmetto State and beyond, you have to wonder...maybe Mitt's not so inevitable after all.  That only has to make Team Obama grin all the more.

Buck And A Quarter Back

I suppose the confluence of sports hero worship and Village disappointment with the participants in the 2012 presidential race breeding Matthew Dowd's latest piece was inevitable.

Tebow is the kind of leader for his football team that our country needs at this crucial moment in history.  Yes, the Denver Broncos streak will probably end, and the odds are a team like the Green Bay Packers will win the Super Bowl.  But no matter the outcome, Tebow has shown what faith, and confidence and humility can do for a team of limited skills that was losing consistently before. This is exactly what President Franklin Roosevelt and President Reagan understood about leadership.

This economy, and our country, do not need more programs out of Washington, D.C., or legislation from Congress, or tax cuts for the wealthy, or more spending on government stimulus.  What citizens and businesses need is a leader who can raise us all up to a level we didn’t know we had in us, give us confidence in ourselves, give us a common goal to work toward, and make us believe in and have faith in ourselves again.

It seems this is a leadership lesson we keep having to learn over and over again through our country’s history.  It is so easy to forget how successes were achieved along the way by Kennedy-style exhortations such as “we are going to the moon.” It is so easy to default into failing Washington-style, us-against-them, to try and get short-term political success.

But maybe a quarterback who seems as much boy as man can show us all, including the candidates for president, how to win and how to get our country back on track.  And how to have a little fun along the way.  Now that is a leader I would enthusiastically go in the huddle with.

It's frightening to see that with all the actual problems facing the United States and the world right now, growing poverty and income inequality, the assault on civil liberties and civil rights, climate change threatening tens of millions as weather patterns become more unstable, limited resoiurces prompting growing military tension worldwide, and the specter of war looming over it all, it's nice to know that policy be damned, what the Village really wants is President Shiny Object who can score touchdowns in 11 seconds.

This may in fact be the most insipid and most saccharine dipstick of a "You know who oughtta run for President?" piece I've ever read.  It's actually kind of insulting thinking that a quarterback of an 8-8 team that stumbled into the playoffs just because everyone else in the division is horrific is what America needs right now at the helm.  A nice guy who means well and takes a knee to pray once in a while?  That's leadership?

Look, Tebow's a quarterback.  That's great for him.  I certainly can't play NFL ball.  But comparing the skillsets is just ludicrous.  Utterly.  I bet Dowd would love to cover a Tebow run for the Oval Office, rather than reporting on the people we actually do have trying for the position.  That's much more important.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Now, I'm no criminal defense lawyer, but if you're going to break federal election laws in your fever-bright zealotry efforts to try to justify voted ID laws, it's probably best to leave the part out where you actually break the law off the video evidence.

It was one of the few — if not the only — coordinated efforts to attempt in-person voter fraud, and it was pulled off by affiliates of conservative activist James O’Keefe at polling places in New Hampshire Tuesday night. All of it part of an attempt to prove the need for voter ID laws that voting rights experts say have a unfair impact on minority voters.

Now election law experts tell TPM that O’Keefe’s allies could face criminal charges on both the federal and state level for procuring ballots under false names, and that his undercover sting doesn’t demonstrate a need for voter ID laws at all.

Federal law bans not only the casting of, but the “procurement” of ballots “that are known by the person to be materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent under the laws of the State in which the election is held.”

Hamline University law professor David Schultz told TPM that there’s “no doubt” that O’Keefe’s accomplices violated the law.

“In either case, if they were intentionally going in and trying to fraudulently obtain a ballot, they violated the law,” Schultz said. “So right off the bat, what they did violated the law.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen, who writes the Election Law Blog, joked in an email to TPM that O’Keefe’s team should “next show how easy it is to rob a bank with a plastic gun.”

The best part is that O'Keefe failed to prove the need for additional voter ID laws...because his team got caught trying to vote fraudulently, which was the entire point.  And hey, it was really great of Jimbo here to meticulously document his team's own possibly criminal acts on video.  Which makes prosecution under the existing laws quite an interesting exercise.

Amazing.

Transparent Technology: The Future Is Clear

This has been possible for a while, but until recently it wasn't practical.  Samsung has now perfected the technology to use your window as a computer monitor.  You can check your Facebook or work while looking outside.  This has a lot of great applications, including changing how we are forced to stare at a screen all day.  Car windows would have a whole new scope.  Those impressive glass offices would be useful instead of creepy at night.

Check it out.

• Samsung Transparent LCD Smart Window hands-on
• |
• CNET UK

Follow Up: 85 Witnesses Can't Be Wrong

Back in September, we covered a story about a father who was drinking and arguing with his girlfriend.  In front of 85 witnesses, he smacked his son around multiple times and when the boy didn't stop crying (imagine that!) he threw him overboard into a busy harbor.  The boy was rescued by a boat, and the people on the Queen were so angry the dad allegedly jumped into the water to get away from them.

At the time he denied doing anything wrong.

It was just announced that he was convicted on charges child endangerment, but will not do jail time.  He has pleaded guilty to felony child abuse, and will have to complete a child abuse program and six months of residential treatment program.  Several people are angry, insisting he should do some time for this event. I am appalled that this is how we show we value children.  A seven-year-old boy was thrown off a boat into dangerous waters, and Dad gets a slap on the wrist.

Oh BS, I just added you to my fave five so I don't have to pay to call you anymore.

Iran, So Far Away, Part 5

My first thought upon hearing this story was that someone in the Mossad really likes Jason Bourne.

An Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up in his car by a motorbike hitman on Wednesday, prompting Tehran to blame Israeli and U.S. agents but insist the killing would not derail a nuclear program that has raised fears of war and threatened world oil supplies.

The fifth daylight attack on technical experts in two years, the magnetic bomb delivered a targeted blast to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan's silver sedan as he was driven down a busy street near a Tehran university during the morning rush hour. The chemical engineer's driver also died, Iranian media said, and a passer-by was slightly hurt.

Israel, whose military chief said on Tuesday that Iran could expect to suffer more mysterious mishaps, declined comment. The White House, struggling for Chinese and Russian help on economic sanctions, denied any U.S. role and condemned the attack.

While Israeli or Western involvement seemed eminently plausible to independent analysts, a role for local Iranian factions or other regional interests engaged in a deadly shadow war of bluff and sabotage could not be ruled out.

Oil's above $100 a barrel, and gas prices here in Cincy have now jumped 60 cents in three weeks, saw $3.59 a gallon on the way home today.  Kind of odd how that works.

Orange You Glad Someone's Protecting You

Republicans are sure to be furious over the FDA temporarily halting shipments and checking all orange juice imports while they are checked for a harmful fungicide banned in the US.  The big culprit:  Brazil.

Brazilian growers expressed frustration with the testing.

“Our main concern is how this move will affect consumption and image of our product,” said Flavio Viegas, head of Brazil’s citrus growers association, known as Associtrus, which represents about 1,300 orange growers.

“Carbendazim is widely accepted for other crops, including apples, which are consumed fresh,” he said by phone from Bebedouro, Brazil. “I don’t understand what’s the deal with frozen concentrated orange juice.”

Carbendazim is used to combat black spot, a fungus that doesn’t affect taste or crop yields, but makes fruits less appealing to consumers, Brazil’s grower-run Fund for Citrus Plant Protection, known as Fundecitrus, said today in an e-mail to Bloomberg News.

The FDA is also screening juice that’s already for sale in the U.S. market, said Siobhan DeLancey, an agency spokeswoman. That’s because products often contain a mixture of imported and domestic juice. Preliminary tests on three Canadian samples were negative, she said. 

But the tests, which turned up positive results on Tuesday, are already causing concern among consumers...and of course jacking up prices, up a whopping 25% since January 1.  Of course, I'm waiting for the GOP to tell us how we should be happy having a big glass of fungicide with our breakfast in the morning.  Should play well in Florida, right?

StupidiNews!

• Outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's controversial string of pardons made before he left office have been halted as they may have violated the state's constitution.
• New studies find that the ranks of the impoverished have grown in the US in 2011 and may keep rising until 2017 due to the slow pace of economic recovery.
• US intelligence officials say the Afghan Taliban still wants to rule the country, making finding a peace deal difficult.
• China has rejected the notion of limiting oil imports from Iran and joining the US and EU, but Japan is willing to consider the move.
• UK company Raspberry Pi is introducing an open board Linux based PC for $35 in order to get low cost computers to third world countries.