Last Call

I've seen the future...and it is a silly place.

A would-be saboteur arrested today at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland made the bizarre claim that he was from the future. Eloi Cole, a strangely dressed young man, said that he had travelled back in time to prevent the LHC from destroying the world.

The LHC successfully collided particles at record force earlier this week, a milestone Mr Cole was attempting to disrupt by stopping supplies of Mountain Dew to the experiment's vending machines. He also claimed responsibility for the infamous baguette sabotage in November last year.

Mr Cole was seized by Swiss police after CERN security guards spotted him rooting around in bins. He explained that he was looking for fuel for his 'time machine power unit', a device that resembled a kitchen blender.

Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin. "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening." 

Damn you Higgs boson and your army of time travel lunatics!  Will we ever be rid of you?

On the other hand, free chocolate!

Land Of The Rising Core Temperature, Part 43

Time for another update on Japan and the fallout from Fukushima Daiichi disaster, and the latest figures from Japan's science ministry are devastating: some 8% of Japan's total land mass has been irradiated, including basically all of Fukushima prefecture, as well as significant parts of neighboring Gunma and Tochigi prefectures.

Japan’s science ministry says 8 per cent of the country’s surface area has been contaminated by radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

It says more than 30,000 square kilometres of the country has been blanketed by radioactive cesium.

The science ministry defines places with a concentration of more than 10,000 becquerels per square meter as “areas affected by the nuclear accident”….  The science ministry fine-tuned its methods by subtracting levels of naturally existing background radiation.

This is pretty grim and devastating stuff.  Fukushima is going to be uninhabitable for generations and there's basically nothing anyone can do about it to fix it.  At some point Japan is going to have to bite the bullet and just write the prefecture off, and I don't think that will be long in the offing.

My heart goes out to Japan.  They're going to need a lot of help to get through this.

The Banana, Splits

Chiquita International is leaving Cincy for Charlotte, complaining it's just too far to fly to its Central and South American bases of operaations from Ohio.

Multiple media outlets in Charlotte are reporting that Chiquita Brands International is moving its corporate headquarters and more than 300 corporate jobs to that city.

Chiquita officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Meg Olberding, spokeswoman for City Manager Milton Dohoney, said she did not know if Chiquita had made a decision to leave.

"I don't have any information confirming that right now," she said.

The city had presented the company with its proposed incentives some time ago, she said, and has been waiting for a response.

P.G. Sittenfeld, who will be sworn in Thursday to Cincinnati City Council, said he got a text from a friend this morning saying it appeared his unusual effort to keep the company hadn't worked.

During his campaign, Sittenfeld passed out Chiquita bananas on Fountain Square. On the bananas were stickers that said, "Chiquita, don't give Cincinnati the slip!"

And that's exactly what Chiquita did.  The reason?

Charlotte has reportedly offered Chiquita a $4 million city, county and state incentive package to move. Miami was also trying to attract the company.

 $13,333 a job or so.  All's fair in love and war.  Considering the company's stock has lost nearly 45% this year, I'm not surprised they bolted.  It also means Chiquita's human rights issues are North Carolina's problem and not Ohio's now, so I'm not too terribly broken up to see them go.

Still, this kind of thing happen too often.  It's why red states like Florida are trying to eliminate corporate taxes to take as many jobs from other states as possible, rather than creating new ones.  We're cannibalizing ourselves in an interstate race to the bottom rather than working together to create jobs at a national level and the corporations are reaping the largesse.

You'd think somebody would notice.

Eschewing The Fat

CLEVELAND -- An Ohio third-grader who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.

The case is the first state officials can recall of a child being put in foster care strictly for a weight-related issue.

Lawyers for the mother say the county overreached when authorities took the boy last week. They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger.

There are a few things to consider here. First and foremost, the physical health of the child. 200 pounds at eight years old is dangerous. His body is developing, and his weight can negatively affect several things, from blood sugar to muscle development. There is also the emotional and mental health of the child to consider. If he is physically healthy, does he have an eating disorder or behavioral issue that can be treated? Something is amiss here, and this child deserves the best care to find it and help him live healthier. I disagree with the lawyers who say his weight doesn't post an immediate risk.

I also find the phrasing above curious. It says the mother didn't do enough to control his weight. What she has done would be important. Did she not do enough, did she refuse to do anything at all, or did she try everything and hit a wall? It's clear the boy needs a check-up at best, and a lot of help at worst, but without a description I don't know if taking him from the mother was for his benefit or to make a point.

What do you think, guys?

Mad Cow Disease Affecting Classical Music

Regulations which tightly control the use of certain types of animal tissue are unwittingly threatening the centuries-old technique of making musical instrument strings out of beef gut.

The craft is covered by the same strict controls on raw materials from cows, even though campaigners say that to catch Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease, (CJD) – the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – from violin or cello strings from an infected animal you would need to eat several metres of them.

The musicians warn that regulations are threatening the industry and could force gut string manufacturers to close, with disastrous consequences for the 'period orchestra' movement, which aims to recreate every aspect of music as it was first performed in the years 1650-1750.
Without gut strings, they argue, it would be impossible to play the music of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach as the composers intended it to be heard.

This is the stuff I find fascinating. I never expected this to come in on my violin news alerts. It's interesting, but I wonder if it can be changed in a way that accomplishes the goal while protecting the production of strings. It's important to reproduce the strings exactly to get the intended sound.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Hey, they know who their base is.  That base needs motivation.  Best way to do that is the FOX way: a steady diet of red meat and Obama Derangement Syndrome.  That's how, as Dave Weigel points out, this NY Times article:

Obama’s alternative path to victory, according to Teixeira and Halpin, would be to keep his losses among all white voters at the same level John Kerry did in 2004, when he lost them by 17 points, 58-41. This would be a step backwards for Obama, who lost among all whites in 2008 by only 12 points (55-43). Obama can afford to drop to Kerry’s white margins because, between 2008 and 2012, the pro-Democratic minority share of the electorate is expected to grow by two percentage points and the white share to decline by the same amount, reflecting the changing composition of the national electorate.

..becomes this FOX Nation headline:



"Because Obama Hates White People" is the official campaign slogan of the GOP in 2012, folks. And this will go on for another year, minimum.

En-Tire-Ly Too Much Fail

Things that are difficult to hide from Google Earth #7461:  A quarter of a million discarded tires covering nearly 50 acres.  Treehugger:

Chances are that at some point, you've procrastinated by looking for your house on Google Earth. Now we can speculate if Michael Keitt, Jr. of New York ever zoomed in the lot he owns in Calhoun County in rural South Carolina and wondered about the clearly visible, giant pile of tires. Although the lot has no address, it couldn't have taken him too long: It measures 50 acres and is home to more than 250,000 discarded tires.

The tire pile was first brought to the county's attention about a year ago. Under normal circumstances, the maximum fine for littering would be $475, but fortunately the state Department of Health and Environmental Control has taken over the case and is pursuing a case against an Easley, SC man, George Fontella Brown, 39. The charges of violating the state's solid waste act carry four-digit fines and up to a year in prison.

Besides the obvious issue of an enormous pile of un-recycled (and thus wasted) rubber, the tires collect water and form a mosquito breeding ground. A Florida company has been contracted to collect and properly dispose of the tires (not that hard, it turns out).

Just...really?  You didn't think anyone would notice over 250,000 discarded tires, such a large amount that it was visible from satellite?



This guy should get prison time just on general principle.

EPIC FAIL.

StupidiNews!

• Federal law enforcement officials announced a Cyber Monday crackdown shutting down more than 150 web sites selling "tens of millions" in counterfeit goods.
• Oscar Ortega-Hernandez, the man charged with the attempted assassination of President Obama, has been declared fit enough to stand trial.
• Baghdad violence is on the rise as the drawdown of US forces concludes and security is fully handed over to the Iraqi people.
• Facebook may finally make its long-rumored stock IPO before the end of the year, with the company valued at $100 billion dollars.
• After Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York made some inquiries, malls are no longer using cell-phone triangulation to track shopper habits...for now.

Last Call

The One Percenters complain that we can't possibly spend any more money to help Americans in need right now, that we have to cut, cut, cut social programs and aid to the 99% as the Great Recession and the Housing Depression rolls on.

Turns out the banksters got more money than anyone possibly imagined, including me.  The Fed, over three years, made $7.7 trillion in emergency no-interest or low-interest loans to banks, including $1.2 trillion on one day, in order to save the financial system.

The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing.

The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008, their single neediest day. Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger. 

And the banks made $13 billion in profit off these loans.   Topping the list: Citigroup made $1.8 billion off those loans, Bank of America $1.5 billion, and Royal Bank of Scotland made $1.2 billion off of the America taxpayer.  But that's not socialism, or course.

So yeah.  When the one percent and the companies they work for and own need money, they get $7.7 trillion in loans to keep the status quo going.  Meanwhile, you as a peon?  You should be made to suffer.  It builds character.

Assholes.

What Does 45 Look Like?

When you're Cindy Crawford, the answer is pretty damn good.

Crawford, 45, was recently seen on a beach in the company of Molly Sims and Stacy Keibler and held her own.  That's some pretty fierce competition.  Sims is an all around knockout and Keibler has the most famous legs in Hollywood (I'm not talking about George Clooney's!).

I have always been a fan of Cindy Crawford's.  When empty stares and the heroin look was in, she was healthy and vibrant.  She gave solid interviews with a realistic outlook.  She was pursuing a degree in chemical engineering when she became a supermodel, so she's no dummy, either.

Her secret?  Common sense and moderation.  She doesn't avoid the sun but she limits it.  She eats healthy consistently, so a piece of cake won't derail her diet.  She says she never diets, she takes good care of herself and is conscious of her nutrition and the rest takes care of itself.  She never had a rep as a party gal, so she isn't fighting years of liver damage and drug abuse.

It's nice to see one of the elite living just like us, and enjoying it.

Greek Fire, Part 47

How bad are things in the Eurozone this week?  Horrendous.  Over Thanksgiving weekend I had a conversation with my econ buddy Asariel and his wonderful wife about where the euro is going, and it's mildly frightening how much their insights matched up on this piece from FT's Wolfgang Munchau.  His analysis: the Eurozone has maybe until the end of next week to find a real solution or the game is over.

Technically, one can solve the problem even now, but the options are becoming more limited. The eurozone needs to take three decisions very shortly, with very little potential for the usual fudges. First, the European Central Bank must agree a backstop of some kind…. The second measure is a firm timetable for a eurozone bond…. The third decision is a fiscal union. This would involve a partial loss of national sovereignty, and the creation of a credible institutional framework to deal with fiscal policy….

I am hearing that there are exploratory talks about a compromise package comprising those three elements. If the European summit could reach a deal on December 9, its next scheduled meeting, the eurozone will survive. If not, it risks a violent collapse. Even then, there is still a risk of a long recession, possibly a depression….

It's that third decision point that Munchau brings up that scares me.  That's exactly what Asariel's wife said (and she knows a few things about large budgets and macroeconomics), that a collective currency without a united fiscal policy was never going to work, and that the individual European countries would never agree to such loss of sovereignty.

Munchau is taking that a step further.  If they don't agree to that, the euro is going to implode.  Furthermore, that implosion could come in a matter of days now, not weeks or months.  It's some very sobering stuff, and Munchau doesn't believe that the Europeans and in particular Angel Merkel are going to be able to agree on doing it.

I cannot quite see how the German chancellor is going to extricate herself from these self-inflicted constraints….

I don't either.

I have yet to be convinced that the European Council is capable of reaching such a substantive agreement given its past record. Of course, it will agree on something and sell it as a comprehensive package. It always does. But the half-life of these fake packages has been getting shorter. After the last summit, the financial markets’ enthusiasm over the ludicrous idea of a leveraged EFSF evaporated after less than 48 hours. Italy’s disastrous bond auction on Friday tells us time is running out. The eurozone has 10 days at most.

Crash helmets, people.  It's going to be an ugly winter.

Michele Bachmann Cries Like A Little Girl

Grow up, lady.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) apparently isn't happy with the apology she received from NBC after a vulgar song was played during her recent appearance on "Late Night" with Jimmy Fallon.

As Bachmann walked onstage, the show's band, The Roots, played a 1985 Fishbone song titled "Lyin Ass B----."

Bachmann called the incident "inappropriate, outrageous and disrespectful," and accused NBC of liberal bias. "This wouldn't be tolerated if this was Michelle Obama. It shouldn't be tolerated if it's a conservative woman either," she said on Fox.

Of course she isn't happy with the apology. She hasn't milked it to death. NBC was gracious enough to issue an apology, but she can get more mileage if she keeps beating the dead horse.

"Of course I accept the apology but my guess is that it would have been the president of the NBC that would have been apologizing not a senior vice president," had the song been directed at a liberal woman like Michelle Obama, she said.

I mean, it's only outrageous when you play a song, but not when you're telling outright lies about other candidates.  It's not disrespectful when you disparage the working class voter and tell them they don't deserve a solid education.   It's not inappropriate to tell millions of women what their health care options should be so that other people can be comfortable with their medical decisions.

Nice of her to know what would be tolerated if it was Michelle Obama.  I think it's great how Bachmann knows what might have been.  Because NASCAR fell all over itself apologizing for their rudeness recently, right?  But did the president of NASCAR apologize?  I'm sorry, I have to stop.  Just saying president of NASCAR is making me giggle.

That's it.  I'm writing a song called Stupid Assed Bitch and emailing it to Fallon.  Then they can get it dead right.

Breaking: Barney, Frankly He's Out

With the Thanksgiving holiday over, House retirement season kicks off in politics in earnest, and the first name on the list is a huge one:  Rep. Barney Frank.

Rep. Barney Frank announced on Monday he will not seek re-election in 2012.


The democratic representative for Massachusetts’ fourth congressional district was expected to hold a press conference Monday to discuss the announcement.

Frank has been in office since 1981.

No more, it seems. After 32 years, Frank will call it quits.   That's a pretty big loss for the Dems and an opportunity during a census realignment year for the Republicans to actually gain a seat in blue Mass.  Right now all ten belong to the Dems, they'll lose one due to the census.  It's entirely possible now that the Republicans could pick up a seat here.

The larger news is if Barney Frank is leaving, the fear is more Dems are going to follow.  We'll see who else hangs it up this year.

That New Mars Rover, He's A Curious Cat

After Saturday's launch, the NASA Curiosity Mars rover is on its way to the red planet to do some exploring.

"I think this mission is an important next step in NASA's overall goal to address the issue of life in the universe," lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology, told reporters shortly after the launch.

The car-sized rover, nicknamed Curiosity, is expected to touch down on August 6, 2012, to begin two years of detailed analysis of a 96-mile (154-km) wide impact basin near the Martian equator called Gale Crater.

The goal is to determine if Mars has or ever had environments to support life. It is the first astrobiology mission to Mars since the 1970s-era Viking probes.

Scientists chose the landing site because it has a three-mile-high (4.8-km high) mountain of what appears from orbital imagery and mineral analysis to be layers of rock piled up like the Grand Canyon, each layer testifying to a different period in Mars' history.

The rover has 17 cameras and 10 science instruments, including chemistry labs, to identify elements in soil and rock samples to be dug up by the probe's drill-tipped robotic arm.

I'm hoping that NASA's willing to share some feed from the Curiosity lab when August rolls around.  I'm not sure if we'll get a manned mission to Mars in my lifetime, but this is certainly going to be a vital step in that eventual process.  Imagine what different events in 2000 could have led to in our efforts to explore our solar system instead of two wars and a financial crisis.

Godspeed, my mechanical friend.  New tag: I'm The Best At Space!

Stacking The Deck In The Queen City

It's not just at the federal level where tax shifting games and loophole nonsense are played and the wealthy benefit, it happens at the local and county level, too.  Take Cincy's sales tax increase for the stadiums, for example.

Owners of Hamilton County's high-end homes get more back in a property tax rebate than they pay in the half-cent sales tax that funded the construction of the county's two professional sports stadiums.

That means the "average" county homeowners are footing the bill for the stadiums.

As Hamilton County commissioners work to cover a $14.2 million deficit in the stadium fund, some are questioning whether that's fair.

The Enquirer analyzed last year's $17.4 million property tax payout, the most recent data available, ahead of a commissioner decision this week about what the rebate should be in 2012.

The half-cent stadium sales tax paid by homeowners is estimated by the county to be a maximum $192 annually, while owners of the county's highest-value homes get rollback rebates of $1,175 or more - netting them nearly $1,000 apiece under the current structure.

Yeah, that's right, a net county tax rebate for the wealthy while the stadium fund remains millions in the red. Nice work if you can get it, and that's because sales taxes (and other consumption based taxes) hit poorer Americans harder.  By definition they are regressive.  Meanwhile, the property tax rollback means those who have significant wealthy in real estate are taking money from the county on a net taxation basis.

The real problem is that the property tax rebates if eliminated, would get rid of the county's stadium fund shortfall...and still leave money for some rebates.

It seems like there should be an obvious solution here.  We'll see if county commissioners are willing to remedy this problem.