Big Pair of Brass Ones

It’s 7:20 on a weekend.

I’m coming home with the kids – about to reach the house door when I hear it:  
Bddddt! Bddddt! Bddddt! Bddddt!

I’m like WTF is that?

I’m standing in the garage, the kids are coming up behind me and the noise is pulsing, but constant. Sounds like a machine that’s straining to do something and failing.

Bddddt! Bddddt! Bddddt! Bddddt!

I open the door thinking something’s wrong with the dishwasher, ’s the beater arm stuck?

No. Dishwasher’s off. Sounds coming from the right and-

-there’s water on the hall floor, right in front of the bathroom. Water flowing out of the bathroom.

Damn.

I scramble into the bathroom door and see a geyser of water shooting out of where the faucet’s cold water shutoff used to be. It’s spraying easily 7 feet into the air and the walls have water stains on them. There’s standing water on the bathroom’s tile floor and on my hardwood floor in the hallway.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I fling open the vanity doors under the sink and go for the shutoff valves. I’m congratulating myself on having the valves installed a year ago (for reasons beyond my understanding all three bathrooms had no local shutoffs – I could not see that as a good thing long term, so we paid a plumber to put in shutoffs when he put in our new faucets).

Two cranks on the cold side’s valve and the water stops. We go from a thundering geyser to silence punctuated by steady dripping sounds.

Dripping down.

I go down the basement stairs and see water dripping through the ceiling tiles. The basement ceiling seems to be snakebit when it comes to water.  Remembering how I’d managed to spray water over them two years ago -  I’m like: here we go again.

I walk across the sponge-like carpeting and go into the finished half of the basement. Water is dripping through the light fixture nearest me and the floor is totally soaked.

I tell the kids to stay upstairs and I begin flinging the sodden mass of stuffed animals and pillows into the uncarpeted side of the basement.

Damn.

The downstairs ceiling is not merely wet, it’s soaked. The ceiling fixture is now an inverted fountain, and our laundry pile is now a sponge. I call E and ask her to come home with a shop vac (wondering for the thousandth time why I got rid of our shop vac when we moved), we’re going to have a long weekend cleaning this mess up.

As an afterthought, I call my insurance company. Their WATS line tells me they are closed, but I can report my claim online. I do. An hour later, they call me to tell me they are sending a water remediation expert to my house – that night.

I’m like Uh, okay. An hour later I have a guy in my house evaluating what I need to have done, and his team shows up with serious gear an go to town.  The remediation guy tells me they’re going to set up fans and dehumidifiers in my house. “It’s going to be loud. For days. It will also raise the temperature in your house by about 15 degrees. For days.”

Uh, okay.

The guy is right on both counts, we have big machines blaring in our house for four days. It's 80 degrees in the house and that's with windows wide open to pull in 60 degree air from the outside.

Bleah.

But enough of the what, let's cut to the why. The cold water shut off on my bathroom tap shot failed.

See it here in the picture?

Yeah, that handle is supposed to be attached. As in here:

Inside the cold water handle, still held in by its screw, are the valve and the valve nut. So the handle shot off because the valve somehow allowed water to get past it and propel it up and off the supply pipe.

I'm thinking I have two more faucets just like this. Was this just one bum faucet? or a failed design?

My faucet is the American Standard Cadet Centerset Faucet. 8125 Series or 8124 Series (no way to tell at this point and the documentation is identical for both). I bought three of these at Home Depot about a year ago.

I get my paperwork and head over to a local plumber. He's set up a storefront so you can walk in and get expert advice and good parts.

I plunk down my documentation and the part and ask him what the heck?

The plumber says "Well, if you buy a Ford anywhere - its a Ford. But if you buy American Standard, it matters where you get it from. These box stores lean on their suppliers to lower their prices - and the suppliers like American Standard are shipping a lower cost version that isn't as good as their regular stuff."

I checked the American Standard website, looks like my faucet (American Standard Cadet Centerset Faucet. 8125 Series or 8124 Series) is only available through Home Depot. According to the plumber, they are total garbage.

He's like, "I'm betting there are going to be an awful lot of lawsuits when these things start failing all over the place. You should save your parts and give them to your insurer. They might be able to get your money back through subrogation."

I'm half listening, half thinking about the two ticking time bombs I left sitting in my upstairs bathrooms.

The plumber digs into his parts cabinet and pulls out a valve with a brass valve nut. "That's the part you need. The valve is basic, but the valve nut is the key piece. Brass isn't always brass. You'll see this bright yellow stuff they call brass but it's just a piece of crap that's waiting to fail on you."

I blow $78 on four valves and four valve nuts, about what I paid for two of my three (useless) American Standard faucets from Home Depot. Swapping them out turns out to be easy enough, but (oh hilarity!) one of the old valve nuts cracks in half while I'm taking it out. Could have had a second flood in my house.

Nice.

So here's the offending object:

On the left is the valve and valve nut in the American Standard Cadet Centerset Faucet (available from Home Depot). As you can see, the valve nut it is coated with calcium carbonate, which means the nut's been getting wet a lot. When the water evaporates, the calcium carbonate remains and crusts things up.

More important than that is the large crack you see in the middle of the valve nut.

For comparison, here's the valve and valve nut I bought to replace it:

New valve nut = good. Old valve nut = total piece of crap.

I don't have a engineering degree or industrial forensic tools, but my kitchen scale gave me a big indicator of how useless the original valve nut was.

Here's the original nut American Standard / Home Depot supplied:

It weighs 1 eighth of an ounce.

The new one I got from the plumber?

It weighs three times as much.

I'm insured, and we'll be re-doing the bathroom, but I'm out my $500 deductible and the major hassle of losing a bathroom for a few weeks while this all gets sorted.

Now, I know I was buying a faucet based on price, but I went with a known brand at a big store.

Which just goes to show you how utterly meaningless those pieces of information are when it comes to quality. Consumer reports doesn't do faucets (there are just too many models) and even if they did, the model numbers would turn over and rapidly make them obsolete.

I have to say I look at Home Depot merchandise very differently now. All the other parts on those faucets were none too solid - and when I see a boxed up toilet that says "Contains everything you need, no tools needed!" right below a giant "Sale!" sign - I'm thinking and what did you turkeys cheap out on to make this price, eh?

Like dad always said: Sometimes the cheapest is the most expensive.

The Standard That Works Best For Us

(via illusory tenant)

In July of 2008, a convicted sex offender named Dinkins was due to be released from prison. State law required him to register his future address with the state's sex offender registry ten days before his release. He did not do this and was charged with a class H felony as a result.

His argument at trial was that he did not know where he would be living. No relative agreed to take him in and he had no solid prospects. He had no address to register.

Nonsense, cried the state:

...Dinkins, like everyone, knows that he must sleep somewhere, and Wis. Stat. § 301.45(2)(a)5. and (e)4. merely requires incarcerated sex offenders to identify and report the address or nearest address of the place where they plan to sleep at least ten days prior to their release—even if the place is a park bench or similar on-the-street location. The State asserts that such a location is an “address” within the meaning of § 301.45(2)(a)5., citing several dictionary definitions of “address.”

That's the WI Appeals Court summarizing the Wisconsin Dept. of Justice's position in their published opinion.

So, according to the Wisconsin DOJ, a convicted sex offender can fulfil their address registration requirement by stating they live under a park bench.

Understand they are saying this because they want Dinkins to go to jail - but consider:

Dinkins fulfills this requirement by scrawling "I think I'll sleep under a bench on the 100 block of East Main St. Not sure which one, but there are quite a few on that block" on his form and he's good to go.

Let's set aside the fact that makes the sex offender registry a whole lot less effective and zero in on the point illusory tenant makes so well.

According to the state of Wisconsin, registering as a sex offender requires filling out the address form as best you can. There is no requirement that you show a utility bill for that address, a rental agreement for that address. There isn't even a requirement that it actually BE an address. Quoting the WI Chief Justice, "...park bench okay?" State says, "You betcha!"

But if any Wisconsin resident tries to vote in an election, they will be asked for a photo ID with an address that will be checked against valid addresses for their polling place.

Priorities, people.

It's all about priorities.

Chill You To the Bone

Just spent some time listening and watching the NYT's amazing audio site dovetailing the 9/11 recordings with transcripts and the plotted positions of the hijacked planes.

Incredible.

Calling Gableman Out

illusory tenant makes a great call - Appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the alleged judge-on-judge action. Not that Gableman really wants that, based on how badly he's managed his accusation. Interesting to see if his actions are scrutinized as much as say, a women who accuses a man of assault?

And there's also this hugely awesome call out

Gableman also told the police:

Justice Gableman said he has not told anyone about that incident and has not talked about that incident with anyone, including Justice Bradley, after it happened.

Then Justice Ziegler tells the police (page 69 of 70):

She then said, recently Justice Gableman told her about Justice Bradley hitting him on the back of the head, but she said she did not have any details of that and did not know when it happened. Justice Ziegler said she could not be specific on when Justice Gableman told her that happened.

Gableman's interview was on July 5, and Ziegler's was on July 18, so presumably Gableman told her about the September 18, 2009 (née 2008) incident after July 5. But Ziegler hadn't known anything about it.

Even though Justice Zeigler would have been present.

Followed by the even more awesome comment by gnarlytrombone:

"Not only present, but a witness: 'Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time.' [page 64 of 70] i.e., they had to have seen it happen to choose not to laugh. Because it was serious. But not memorable."

Gableman's tying himself in a bit of a knot there, isn't he?

Bring on the investigation!

Two on Foreclosure

CJR's Ryan Chittum says about all that needs to be said about the current state of foreclosures in America, netting a fistfull of great articles- like this one from American Banker:

Several dozen documents reviewed by American Banker show that as recently as August some of the largest U.S. banks, including Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Ally Financial Inc., and OneWest Financial Inc., were essentially backdating paperwork necessary to support their right to foreclose.

Oooh! Tell us more, do!

And then there's Reuters, saying that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is suing the big banks.

The government will argue the banks, which pooled the mortgages and sold them as securities to investors, failed to perform due diligence required under securities law and missed evidence that borrowers' incomes were falsified or inflated...

Ya don't say...

Out of Control

While I’m hardly a Swiss-watch kind of person, I’d be hard pressed to come up with occasions where I was totally incapable of asserting myself. Oh, there are countless times when I ought to have done something, but genuinely being powerless to affect an ongoing situation is kind of an odd thing.

The easy example was the time I ski’ed backwards over a snow jump. Flung up into the air as I tried to wrench myself rightwise - I had the distinct, ice-blue memory of falling downward at the mountain slope that was – itself – falling away from me at an alarmingly similar rate. I knew there would be impact – that it would hurt a great deal – and that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

The mountainside cometh.

I’m told that the mind retains more input in times of stress – and this is one of the reasons time seems to slow down. You are processing everything – a continuous stream of data rather than the usual staccato of base-level-stimuli surrounding bits your mind already threw away. If your brain is thinking it might die, *anything*  could be important, so you drink it all in.

And you keep it.  I can picture this fall with total clarity, despite decades of inattention. What I wore. What the sky was like. The fact that my ski tips were going to hit first-

It’s funny. I remember trying to tip them away from the slope – to gain a few (micro) seconds more before impact. Think of that, perception of time so compressed that I’m planning my impact despite never being more than a few feet off the ground. The entire episode took probably less than two seconds from launch to bloody heap – and I vividly recall making the decision to bend my knee so my ski would be above me when I hit.

Not that this  made the slightest difference.

With equal clarity, I remember my other ski tip hitting the ground  and (to my mind) launching my leg into an arc that ended with the ski’s opposite end spearing into my lower back. I remember thinking how improbable that was –

-right before I went face first into the mountain slope.

I’ve since forgotten my injuries. They can’t have been terrible, I didn’t go to the hospital, but whatever part of the brain that manages crisis situations was clearly convinced. Cut. Print it. Possible near-death #4.

Funny thing. I don’t even remember where it happened. I broke my leg at Breckenridge and I could tell you the year and location - but I have no idea how I fell.

Odd.

What made me think of this was the feeling of inevitability. Airborne and hurling earthward. The certainty of impact – and the complete inability to do a thing about it.

The mountain cometh. All determining inputs are complete. No further inputs will be accepted. This will happen.
Brace for impact.

So months ago, I’m in a hospital bed – waiting for impact. Three days prior  I’d called my kids and told them that I wasn’t coming home because I was going to have surgery. E’s overseas and my week of being Dad Solo is completely FUBAR. Friends and family have jumped on the logistics grenade and I’ve been left to lay in a room being useless for days.

Having never been operated on before, this was uncharted territory. I’d resolved to be the good patient. I smiled, I joked and generally tried to make the best of it. Whatever danger there was had passed, and now there was just the massive inconvenience of being hospitalized, hooked up to numerous machines and generally treated like a lab specimen.

Anybody enjoy being a lab specimen? Right.

Three days is enough  time to nail down exactly what is wrong with

• the interface of your hospital bed: the tilt controls change location as you tilt from barely visible but accessible while reclining, to invisible and nigh impossible to reach while inclined. This is an interface designed for people with impaired motor and cognitive function.
• the CPAP machine: it comes on automatically when you put it over your nose, but no one knows this except a specialist who no one thinks to ask for days.
• the TV remote / Summon assistance button: It’s on a cord and always manages to fall between the bed rail and lodge there. This is only a big deal for people who have no abdominal strength like anyone who’s recently had surgery.

The bonus round is the Summon assistance button: I hate being a burden, but when you’re alone and essentially helpless, you need help. You push the button and wait for someone to respond. First few days this response is pretty quick, but on day three hitting the button it might take several minutes just to get someone to ask what you need.

One time, it took 12 minutes. Again, nothing was urgent - but I’d filed that away.

I’d been told I could be released the following day, so I’m trying my best to do all the things they want me to do so there will be no last minute snags. You want me to walk? Fine, I’ll walk around the floor.

Ugh. Getting up out of anything without using your stomach muscles is not fun. Walking in a hunch is even less fun. But I’m going to do this thing. For the millionth time, I snag my jammed-into-the-front-of-my-knuckle IV on the bedrail – twisting the needle and generally causing pain to blossom in my left hand. Every nurse apparently has their own style of doing these things, but pretty much everyone who’s looked at mine has sort of rolled their eyes like “I wouldn’t have done it that way.” Whatever the right way is, I’m thoroughly sick of mine.

Once up, I can’t help but tense up – which makes everything worse. I remember spending about five minutes just getting myself to slowly unclench everything until I achieve a bearable baseline of discomfort. But – I’m mobile.

Into the hall. Oh wait. First call the nurse. The antibiotics IV bag is beeping at me. It needs a refill.

Right here, I ponder a career in revamping the user interface in hospital equipment. I’m post-operative and on drugs, yet here is the workflow that makes sense to the designers of this machine.

Bag Near Empty? > Yes: Begin beeping at patient.
This will provoke the patient into calling a nurse, who will ask what the patient wants.
The patient will say “something’s beeping,” which will cause the nurse to walk the length of the hall to find out what, in fact, is beeping.
Once the nurse arrives she will determine what the issue is, switch off the beeping, then walk back to the nurses’ station to get whatever materials are needed.

I ask you, in a world of telecommunications – why the hell doesn’t the device send a wireless message to my assigned nurses’ PDA?

Patient in 422 needs more antibiotics.

Why does the device need to beep at a patient at all? Like they have any idea what the hell needs to be done.
Hell, the system could have a queue. My nurse is busy, they can slap a snooze button and bounce it to the central desk who WILL find someone to do this. Coverage and redundancy, and patients can (y’know) not be bothered with this sh!t.

Speaking of bothered:

I, the provoked patient,  spring to action. There’s beeping. What do I do now? I need to call the nurse. Where the hell is the call button?

Naturally, the call button is on the end of a device the size and shape of a multi-plug power stick, and it is wedged between the handrail and the mattress. Again.

Having achieved a vertical posture without using my stomach, I lumber over to the bed and gingerly try to pry the call button wand out and fail. I don’t want to flex, I don’t want to bend, and I will have to do both to get this out.

Arrrgh.

I opt to twist it just enough to press the damn button.  Blip!  There. Now I wait… I guess.
Ten minutes go by. I think I know the button the nurse used to snooze this thing last time, but all the buttons are cryptically labeled and there are MANY buttons. I could guess, but guessing wrong could be (unlikely) hazardous or (more likely) something I’ll have to explain so the nurse can correct it.

I stand for awhile until I decide to sit. I was going to walk outside, but I don’t want to take a beeping machine into the hall. The nurse could arrive any minute, so taking direct action seems premature until I’m around minute twelve.

“What do you need?”

My machine is beeping

“We’ll be right there.”

Sigh. I wait.

Again. Not a huge deal, but I was all worked up to moving around, and now I sit. The nurse swings in, mutes the machine, and swaps out the antibiotics.

I’m off. By now I’m feeling a bit nauseous. Getting up, sitting down, getting up again. Bleah. I do a quick lap around the floor and flop back in bed.

Shift change and New Nurse takes over. She tells me my blood pressure is high. Like 140 over 90. Nothing bad, just something to keep an eye on. I tell her I was walking and she says I should keep that up.

Soon as she’s gone, I try to sleep. Sleep hadn’t generally been a problem – but since my schedule is shot to hell, I’m like a jet lagged traveler. Drowsy in mid-day, but unable to sleep.

Plus, I’m getting twinging pains that aren’t enough to really hurt, but annoying enough to keep me awake. Side, shoulder, arm, chest. Twang!

Bleah. Back to my iPhone. My lifeline and salvation. I’ve paid the phone bills, notified work and kept up with current events with this thing. Anytime I need to kill time – there’s RSS.

I’m eye deep in the Spanish financial crisis, when the twinging pain returns. Mostly across the chest, and not bad – but annoying.

My nurse pulled in to check a my vitals – No signs of infection, but my blood pressure is up 140/100 and she’s saying “that’s got to come down.”

Which is perhaps the least helpful thing you can tell a person with high blood pressure.

I consider asking her about the seemingly random pain – but that just feels wrong. It’s not a big deal. I don’t want to be the whining patient. “Uh, nurse? I have an owie.”

I’m not sure I could pick a precise event that got things rolling. But I started having this cold numbness in my upper arm – then it began hurting.

Now – I’m no hypochondriac, but I know almost nothing about medicine. What little I do know comes from TV, perhaps the worst source for solid information. Ha ha. My left arm hurts. I get it. Funny.

I try to go to sleep, and fail.

I’m warm – and I want to get out of bed. I have this odd feeling that I’m going to throw up. Since I can’t move fast, I start to get up much sooner than I would have otherwise. Don’t want to be late.

I grunt my way up and disconnect the various cords and tubes. Mobile. I’m headed to the bathroom. Light headed.

And now – without any doubt – my left hand is numb. Like I’d slept on it, only I haven’t slept. There’s a tingling pain along the upper arm and I’m coming off my wave of nausea.

Now, I’m as skeptical as the next guy. But I’m a father of two, my wife is on the other side of the planet, and the last time I thought something was going to get better on its own – I ended up having unplanned surgery.

Blood pressure’s up. Left arm hurts. Twinging pain in the chest. This is complete horsesh!t. If I was at risk, they would have said something, put me in ICU-

-I’m remembering the story a coworker of mine told me. Of being at a dinner engagement where one of the guests had a coughing fit and excused themselves. They found her dead a half an hour later in the bathroom. She’d choked to death on a piece of food.

This is stupid.

I get back into bed and try to calm down. My heart’s going fast, I’m warm – my arm still hurts. Flexing my hand merely redistributes numbness with a splash of pain.

I ponder hitting the Call button – but what do you say? “Hey, I think I might be very ill, right now. Can you come see?”

And the last time it took them twelve minutes to even ask what I wanted.

I opt to compromise. I need to walk around, I’ll go walk around. If I’m fine, I’ll be fine. If not, I’ll at least be in the hallway where people can see.

Up again. Light headed again. Disconnected again. And out.

Trying to walk and relax at the same time isn’t doing much for me. My head’s pounding. I’m having that cold feeling. Heart’s hammering. And I’m about halfway to the nurse’s station.

This is stupid.

I can’t see my nurse anywhere, but there’s one nurse leaning on the counter – and I have this sudden feeling like I have to say something before-

“Uh-“ This was my opening bid.

“I… I don’t feel right.”

And like that - a line had been crossed.

I begin to babble. Counter nurse calls a colleague over and we’re headed back to my room.

I’m literally shaking. She’s asking me if I can walk, ripping through a series of questions.

My head’s spinning, I still can’t feel my hand.

And then I’m in the room with three nurses. Mine’s asking me to push on her hands, then pull. They’re checking my BP and staring into my eyes.

And I remember having this disembodied sense of

This is all so stupid, but I have kids. I can’t be found in a room.

My BP was at a level that I cannot remember precisely but when they read it out- I remember thinking This is Bad. Really Bad.  I knew throughout the process that my imagination was getting away with me, but my blood pressure was much higher than it had ever been.

And I’m sitting there watching it all play out – thinking It’s about to get worse, or I’m about to be proven a complete idiot.

All determining inputs are complete. No further inputs will be accepted. This will happen.
Brace for impact.

Nurses being nurses, they rapidly establish that I am not, in fact having some cardiac episode. I am having a panic attack.

My left hand is numb, because my IV keeps snagging on things and scraping around in my hand. My twinging pains are because the air they pumped me full of during surgery is bopping around my body and causing all manner of pain. Nausea, I would learn later, was due to the pain meds having less pain to fight. If they aren’t fighting pain, they screw with other neural inputs. Like balance, and your inner ear. Sometimes they make you feel warm.

All so stupid on so many levels. And the whole time I’m telling myself this is a load of crap – but unless you really understand what your likely trajectories are – you just can’t sit back and be stoic.

I remember telling one of my nurses afterwards. “You folks have a better picture of where I’m at, what paths I’m likely to move in to and how fast I’m likely to change course. Me? I have three frames of reference and they’re all on a line. First, there’s me in perfect health. Second, there’s me right now – high blood pressure, sweats, numbness, freaking out. And lastly, there’s the ending of an episode of ‘House.’  I have no idea how many other likely paths there are out there, all I see is I was good, now I’m feeling bad, and it seems like I’m moving towards a status I really don’t want to get to.”

The disparity of knowledge was how it was possible for my nursing staff to be totally comfortable with a paging system that alerted them in ten or more minutes. If I was likely to need immediate assistance, I wouldn’t have been in that room. But that’s an easy thing to rationalize when your BP is normal and you feel fine.

A saint of a nurse went out of her way to put me at ease after that. Got an ace colleague to swap my IV to a place where it wouldn’t grind against bone when I moved – and got me telemetry so that if anything bad did happen, they’d know immediately. I had the distinct impression that I was the laughingstock at the nurses station – but honestly, I could give a crap. It let me sleep. You get to a point where you’re afraid you won’t wake up – you are not going to be able to function.

Thinking back, it was an odd transformation. I was cutting up and goofing off only hours before, but the right buttons were pushed in the right sequence and I was completely off the deep end – and watching myself do it besides.

The night I lost my sh!t.

And, I’m betting – a similar set of circumstances presents itself. I could easily do that again.

Entire Eastern Seaboard Destroyed: NYC Now an Extinct Ruin

...At least that's what the media outlets have been leading me to believe.

In other news, Lower Manhattan got a lot of rain.

Now we begin the walkback.

Dodged a bullet.

Not as bad as we told you feared.

Oh fer crying out loud...

Late Edit:
CJR's The Observatory would like to take folks like me to the woodshed. Fair enough.

Later Edit:
And then there's this, which I believe encapsulates a good portion of the irritation that spawned this post. Complain like you invented the sh!t. Makes you all the more deserving in our eyes.

Double Taxation

(Via Felix Salmon)

I was enjoying the gnashing of teeth spawned by Warren Buffett's Op Ed/PR stunt about taxes for the wealthy - and I ran across Daniel J Mitchell whining about how Buffett has it all wrong. The highest tax bracket has it rough, you see. What with their tax rates plummeting to less then half of what they were only three decades ago.

The horror!

But he was useful in that he regurgitated one of the lamer talking points on raising the capital gains tax - It's Double Taxation!!

You see, investors bought stock and were taxed, then the investment barfed out more money and it was taxed again. That's not fair..!

Salmon beats all over that, then pulls in some backup to wail on it more. By far the best 'graph I've read on this yet was from the Citizens for Tax Justice, who point out the very selective nature of objections to multiple taxation:

It’s striking that hardly anyone in Washington talks about how the wage income of middle-class Americans is subject to “multiple taxes.” For the typical American, all income consists of wages and all of it is subject to the Social Security tax, and much or most of it to the income tax. Then when people spend their income, a great deal of the purchases are subject to sales taxes. Apparently, taxing income multiple times is something that concerns economists and politicians only when it affects the wealthy investor class.

As in - hello... whiny little investor b!tches? You think double taxation is a bad thing- I don't hear you crying over how everyone else's paycheck money gets wrung out twice to pay the feds, then stretched again for virtually every transaction its used for.

But taxing capital gains is a shameful double taxation? Oh shut the hell up, already.

Make the Hydrant

I blame the guy with the parrot.

Months ago, he somehow got me to go along with his particular brand of crazy. “I’m starting a running club!” he'd said - with that altered mannerism common to all running enthusiasts. 

I’m gonna run in a circle so I can live longer!

Being me – I’d cut him off pretty abruptly.

“No. I don’t run. Don’t plan on starting."

Parrot guy was not one to be put off. He kept showing up with his bag of running stuff. Every time he’d set off to go he’d ask, “ya gonna bring y’stuff tamarrah?” (Parrot guy was Boston-born)

And then he’d set off and go running in the depths of winter weather. Four or five times a week. For weeks.

“Ya gonna bring y’stuff tamarrah?”

Yes. Alright goddammit, I’ll bring my stuff. Seriously, how much of that can you take?

As if that would satisfy Parrot guy. No, he wants me to run intervals, do serious distance. I am none of those people. Nor will I ever become those people. This was just to shake off the cobwebs - stave off total disaster.

And the routine falls into Parrot guy barking at me to pick up the pace until we get to a fixed marker and then he takes off for a real run while I keep plugging along. Deal is, once I see him coming back towards me – I can turn to go back to the office.

The first time we do this, I’m lumbering along with my glasses fogged over and I can barely make out Parrot guy on his way back. He’s actually waiting for me on the sidewalk, so I wave like “Hey, can we go back now?” Parrot guy doesn’t wave- so I yell at him.

No response. As I get closer, I realize why. Parrot guy’s nowhere in sight. Tired & fogged up as I was, I’d been trying to communicate with a fire hydrant.

- But that was months ago. Parrot guy’s been reassigned, so now it’s just me and the occasional co-worker plugging away out there when time permits.

I’ve discovered that landmarks are my thing. If I can run to a given spot once, I know I can do it again.

The last time Parrot guy and I went out running, he yelled at me to make it to the damn hydrant without stopping. I didn’t make it – but the time after he left, I found myself grooving along to the Beta Band realizing that I could actually make it there in one shot.

I met Parrot guy for a charity run a month after that and managed more distance that I’d ever done – nothing heroic, but enough to convince myself that my earlier limitations were all in my head.  I could write reams about my inner narrative of defeatism – but suffice it to say the first realization you have that you can tell your brain to STFU - it is a good moment.

So a few months later – I’m in surgery for an appendicitis, and then I’m off the wagon for weeks.

My first outing after I’m back on the trail was a total disappointment. I’m back to old habits – and I can barely make it to the signpost, which is about halfway to Parrot guy’s hydrant.

And my knees are killing me – and my side. And I succumb and turn around and walk.

But the landmarks are still out there, and my memory knows I can do it. So I get my gear and save up for another go round.

And then I just don’t go out. The weather’s too hot, or “I don’t run in the rain” or I’m just too busy over lunch…

Weeks of this.

Thankfully, I’d left my bag of gear at the office. A little reminder that I can go any day I choose.

I got my stuff today.

So I’m churning though a year’s worth of bad-news RSS – and I discover that the client has (again) changed the specification in a cosmetic way – so I will (again) have to update the prototype with pointless changes that will take longer to document than they will to actually code.

This will be my main accomplishment that I will report out to my team tomorrow. Thankfully nobody listens to anyone - otherwise it would be utterly humiliating. Today, I removed an asterisk from a prototype. Then I documented the fact that I'd done it for three hours.

It’s 11am.


F*%# it. 

I get the bag. I walk past the row of H1B developers, and they cheerfully wave as I go by. I wave back, knowing that the client is about to change the UI technology and that – very shortly – most of these wonderful folks will be looking for work.

One chats me up about where I’m going. He’s a great guy, and I’m not allowed to breathe a word about the impending change. All smiles, we finish some banter about the weather and I head for the stairs. I need to get out of here. 

I’ve gotten the gear down to the essentials. I blow too much money on hobbies as it is, so my running kit consists of a re-purposed Eddie Bauer diaper bag, New Balance shoes, a towel, and a change of clothes.

The locker room in CorpWorld is miniscule, but never crowded. The usual crowd is mercifully absent today. Which is good. I hate locker rooms.

Getting changed at work is odd enough, but the truly loathsome bit is the laddish locker room crowd who cope with stripping down in front of co-workers by loudly proclaiming their heterosexuality to all within earshot. Announcing every sexual conquest, speculating about the physical qualities of any mutually known prospect, and generally making it known to the world at large that the person speaking is among the manliest of manly men.

Dude, we get it. You’re a raving queen. Now STFU already. 

Gear on, and out.

Starting up is a bit like getting into a pool, the danger of the initial plunge vanishes as soon as you take it. The real battle is for the mind. My salvation has been earbuds and loud music, but today my brain is going 100 miles an hour – a sure sign I haven’t slept enough.

I fire up Florence + the Machine and try to ride the harp intro.

A slideshow of current events keeps drowning it out – a sure sign I haven’t had enough sleep. Fukushima-Daiichi - Once again, the official story of how bad it was has to be revised – because new and incontrovertible evidence has surfaced that proves the previous versionwas utter crap.

Happiness…hit her…like a train on a traaaaaack…

Oh. You know who’s corrupt and a total asshat to boot? FIFA’s Sepp Blatter. I mean the South Africans were reprehensible for bulldozing schools to build stadiums – but FIFA and co were only so happy to encourage this sort of thing. And if you think the IOC is a bunch of votes for sale, savor the description of the South American FIFA rep flat out asking England to give him a knighthood for his vote. Lovely.

Coming towards her, stock still, no turning baaaaaack..

I’m on the uptick towards the halfway post, feeling good, but I need a fresh distraction. Here’s one: The big banks – having brushed aside underwriting standards, good business sense, and oh-by-the-way THE LAW - now find themselves unable to document that they – in fact – own the loans they are attempting to foreclose on. “No one moved the paper”

This is a state law matter, so Congress can’t write them a sweetheart deal (and you know if they could the Washington lapdog crew would have already done so). No, what the banks are trying now is to get all 50 state attorneys general to agree to a settlement that would broadly protect the banks from liability and criminal consequences by paying between 8 or 20 billion to wash their hands of the problem.

Except they’ve caused a problem easily worth hundreds of billions of dollars and the banks think that $20 billion is far, far, too much to pay. They think perhaps $8 billion would work for them. Provided they are immunized from prosecution and liability - Oh, and they still want to take people’s houses without good documentation – because, y’know - they want that.

She hid around corners and she hid under beds She killed it with kisses and from it she fled...

The real winner, though? The 50 AG deal is on the rocks because some attorneys general are balking at it – y’know, because it sucks for everyone who doesn’t work at a bank. NY’s AG is actually suing to block the deal - and the NY Fed is leaning on him to get on board. Oh, and the Federal Department of Justice would like him to fall in line as well. Thanks for nothing, Obama administration. Way to be a complete tool.

With every bubble she sank with a drink And washed it away down the kitchen sink...

I hit the signpost, and it’s obvious that I’m going to do better than last time. The post is at an elevated fork where I can see the full length of the route. I get a good downhill spell across the road and then it’s a modest hill to the hydrant. So far, so good. I check my motivation:

 Banks? Suck

Run you bastard.  

Which brings me to perhaps the most disappointing bit of current events. A stray post on TPM references the fact that Jamie Leigh Jones is being counter-sued by her former employer, KBR. This would be the woman who claimed to be gang-raped by KBR firefighters, then confined by KBR, then prevented from suing due to the contract she’d signed saying all disputes would be handled by binding arbitration.

That woman.

I have to say “claimed to be gang-raped” because accordingto Mother Jones (about as left leaning a rag as you are likely to find) the media accounts and the trial evidence are very different things. So different, in fact, that Ms. Jones lost her civil case against KBR.

The dog days are over
The dog days are done

It’s difficult to describe how utterly demoralizing this is. First off, the indisputable fact is that KBR is an employer who wants its employees to sign away their legal rights even in cases of physical violence between its employees. That’s just sick. But there’s so much in the MJ account that makes you want to scream at someone.

As the Strauss-Kahn case has amply demonstrated, if you are victimized by a wealthy or well-connected person, you can expect your conduct to endure far more scrutiny than that of the accused. KBR’s pushback on Ms. Jones involved them somehow obtaining medical records of her as a minor. It’s difficult to know if this is just another well-financed demolition of a rape victim – or a failed attempt by a huckster seeking attention and personal enrichment. But either way, any future legitimate claim for a rape victim will be that much more difficult. A total, epic fail all around. 

The horses are coming
So you better run

Damn right. I’m past the downhill stretch, tooling uphill toward the Parrot guy’s hydrant – and this is typically the worst bit mentally. Because your brain keeps thinking “I’m pretty close – I can stop here.” The thought of stopping becomes a fixation, and pretty soon body and mind are working in tandem to lobby for a complete shutdown.


Don’t want to strain anything... what if you hurt yourself and had to hobble back? Or worse?

Looking back at anything I’ve wanted to do that I actually did is about as satisfying a feeling as I get these days. The patio actually got done. Little E’s room actually got done. I actually did run in a charity race – and I used to make it to the hydrant-

-that was before surgery.

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Yes, dammit, that was before surgery, but surgery’s done now and you can take your raggity-@ss-wich self up the hill and do this for right goddamn now. Because last time was over a month ago and it flat out won’t matter unless you make it this time. What do you say, Florence?

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

Hell yeah. Melodrama? I’m good at that sh!t.

Move your damn feet so your kids don’t grow up with a tired old man. Or have to feel ashamed because dad just can’t keep up. Or can’t be bothered to. Would dad punk out on this? Hell, he’d be running back by now. He’d have never atrophied down to this potato-like existence you’ve managed. You gonna fail everyone? Walk your @ss back with a big “L” on your forehead for the rest of your life?

F*%# that.

Knees popping, red-faced and pathetic, you’re making this damn hydrant.

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Because here they come

FU GSE

(Via CJR)

Remember Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? They'd be the Government Sponsored Entities who pretty much owned the secondary mortgage market until Wall Street went all Subprime.

It depends on what the definition of "lose" is...

You probably remember that these two companies were bailed out by the government to the tune of billions.
They almost went under because they were criminally under capitalized and couldn't absorb the cost of failing loans.

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Freddie and Fannie are pressing foreclosures on these bad loans at a startlingly aggressive pace.

Foreclosure is generally agreed on as the worst case for all involved. The homeowner loses their home, the bank takes a home that is worth less than the loan it secured, and the house is unlikely to sell in a depressed and glutted market.

So why do it? Moreover, why fall all over yourself in a rush to do it?

This is why:

For example...if a home with a $200,000 mortgage is foreclosed and Fannie nets $80,000 from its sale, Fannie loses $120,000. But because Congress authorized the Treasury Department to reimburse Fannie as part of the government's takeover, taxpayers eat the losses.

The complete and utter scumbags who run the GSE, aided by those who would have the power to stop them, are hoping to bury the losses with federal funds and then return to their former glory days as a semi-private firm. A firm that presumably would resume paying them handsome salaries once all is forgotten by the public.

Man on the (Burning) Street Interview

(Via The Big Picture)

Oh my. A BBC interviewer speaks with Darcus Howe, a West Indian writer and broadcaster, about the London riots.

If there's a better illustration of a biased news reader trying (and failing) to stick to the script, I've yet to see it.


Here are her questions

BBC News Reader Fiona Armstrong Q1: Marcus Dowe [sic] are you shocked by what you've seen there [in south London] last night?

Mr. Howe (thank you very much) replies that he was not shocked that it happened. His general point is that there were signs that keen observers could have picked up on for a long time.

Naturally, this point is utterly lost on the news reader.

Armstrong Q2: Mr. Howe - If I could just stope you for a moment. You say you are not shocked. Does this mean you condone what happend in your community last night?

Howe:I condone – if I – Of Course Not! What am I going to condone it for? What I am not – what I’m concerned about more than anything else, there’s a young man called Mark Duggan. He has parents, he has brothers, he has sisters, and two yards away from where he lives, a police officer blew his head off.

Armstrong: Well, Mr. Howe we have to wait-

Howe: Let me finish-

The volume on Howe's mic is lowered.

Armstrong: Well, Mr. Howe we have to wait for the official inquiry before we can say things like that. We don't know what happened to Mr. Duggan. We are going to wait for the police report on it.

Armstrong: If I can take you on a bit, you were talking about your grandson, you were talking about young people...

Howe: They have been stopping and searching young blacks for no reason at all. I have a grandson - he's an angel. And he began to think he was coming of age when a policeman slapped him up against a wall and searched him...I asked him the other day, A propo of a sense that something was going seriously wrong in this country. I asked him how many times have the police searched you. He said: “Papa, I can’t count there’s so many times.”

Armstrong: Mr Howe, that may well have happened and if you say it did – I – I am not to gainsay you. But that is not an excuse to go out rioting and cause the sort of damage that we’ve been seeing over the past few days.

Howe: Where were you in 1981 in Brixton?

Armstrong: ..............Mr. Howe.

Howe: I don’t call it rioting, I call it an insurrection of the masses of the people. It is happening in Syria, it is happening in Clapton, it’s happening in Liverpool. It’s happening in Port of Spain, Trinidad. And that is the nature of the historical moment. There is a, it takes -

Armstrong: Mr. Howe. If I can just ask you, you are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you? You have taken part in them yourself?

Howe: I’m not a – I have never taken part in a single riot. I have been on demonstrations that ended up in a conflict. And have some respect for an old West Indian negro, instead of accusing me of being a rioter. Because I – you don’t want me to get abusive – you just sound idiotic. Have some respect! Have – have grandchildren-

Armstrong: Darcus Howe, thank you very much for joining us from Croydon, Darcus Howe, the writer and broadcaster.

The BBC has since apologized for suggesting the Mr. Howe was a rioter, but reviewing their list of questions, it's clear they have a lot more to apologize for:

Question 1: "Are you shocked?"
Question 2: "You're not shocked, so you condone it, then?!"
Judgment: "Well, your grandson could have been mistreated by police, but that's no excuse for rioting."
Question 3: (personal attack) "You've rioted, haven't you?"

Ye gods.

"If the World Knew What I Was Doing, They Would Hang Me From the Highest Tree"

Well, Mr. Jeffs - the world will take what it can get:

(Via the AP and NPR)

The head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stood quietly as the decision of the Texas jury was read Tuesday. He received the maximum sentence on both counts.

The jury deliberated less than half an hour. The 55-year-old Jeffs was convicted Thursday. During the trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with a 15-year-old and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old.

 (Via the CSM)

Jeffs was sentenced to life in prison for his assault on the 12-year-old. He received a 20-year sentence for the assault on the 15-year-old. The two sentences are to be served consecutively.

Um...Yes?

I would like this.

(Via re-nest) and avail via ThinkGeek, go figure.

Danziger Bridge Cops Found Guilty

...unfortunately none of them were for murder.

8 Innocents. 6 were shot, 2 were killed, 1 lost a limb, 0 were armed.


Every time I read about this event I'm infuriated. Let's recap:

The Danziger shootings were originally portrayed as a home run for the [New Orleans Police] department, a victory in restoring order to a city that had begun to come apart after [hurricane Katrina]. But a state grand jury that investigated the shootings didn't buy the testimony of the involved officers, seven of whom were charged with murder or attempted murder.

When the "Danziger Seven" turned themselves in at Central Lockup in December 2006, fellow officers joined them in a show of solidarity, clapping them on the back and calling them heroes. The state case fell apart for procedural reasons in 2008, when the charges were dismissed by a judge.

At that point, federal authorities, who had been monitoring the case, took over, and the pressure intensified. Last year, five officers wound up taking plea deals, agreeing to testify at trial in hopes of receiving leniency when their own prison sentences are handed down.

Their pleas contained shocking details of a seemingly coordinated cover-up: a planted gun retrieved by Kaufman from his garage; officers successively revising their accounts of the shooting; phony witnesses; a secret meeting to coordinate stories.

Three of the cooperating officers were involved in the shooting, including two men who admitted they themselves fired at civilians.

At trial, the three officers told jurors that after the shooting ended, they saw no evidence that the civilians, many of them grievously wounded, had been armed.

Brissette was shot numerous times, from the heel of his foot to his head. He was killed by shotgun pellets that struck the back of his head, experts testified. Susan Bartholomew's arm was nearly blown off by a large-caliber round, and it was later amputated. Her daughter's legs were torn apart by bullets. Holmes was struck multiple times, from his face to his abdomen, and had to wear a colostomy bag for years after the incident.

Oh, and after they riddled an unarmed family with bullets, they chased a man and his mentally handicapped brother down and shot them as they fled - killing the handicapped man.

Then they stomped on his body. Then they dragged it to a nearby car. Then they set it on fire.Then they all agreed to cover it up.

Then their department whitewashed the investigation into the shootings.

And on and on.

Life without parole would be too good for these people - so being cleared of murder, their sentence can only be inadequate.

Ye gods.

Would you Give This Man 100,000 Quid?

Mulcair: No hush money = no hush.

Cos, y'know, the News of the World did. But now they don't.

Gosh, whatever did they pay this man for? I mean, I know he's gone to prison for his role in hacking into personal voicemail, but now that he's out - what's he up to?

Answer: He is deeply mired in legal troubles.The kind that cost lots and lots of money. Until recently Mr. Mulcair has been silent and apparently able to pay his attorney. Wonder if those two facts have a common cause?

Ryan Chittum has one theory.

July 20, 2011 - News International lets it be known that it will no longer pay for Mulcair's attorney.  As in "Oh, you know about us paying his legal bills? Well... we just stopped doing that. So there."

July 29, 2011 - Mulcair makes a public statement:

Glenn Mulcaire has already expressed his sincere regret to those who have been hurt and affected by his activities and he repeats that apology most sincerely.


He was effectively employed by News of the World from 2002 to carry out his role as a private investigator.
As he accepted when he pleaded guilty in 2007 to charges of phone interception he admits that his role did include phone hacking. As an employee he acted on the instructions of others.

There were also occasions when he understood his instructions were from those who genuinely wished to assist in solving crimes. Any suggestion that he acted in such matters unilaterally is untrue. In the light of the ongoing police investigation, he cannot say any more.

Oh, but he will. He'll say a lot more, now that the News International money fairy has gone away. Most likely under oath.
Best prepare yourself for a smear-a-thon, Mr. Mulcair - NI is not going to be happy with you.

Expect every bad thing you've ever done to start appearing on the front page.

They Call This a Paperwork Problem

(Via ProPublica)

While it may be true that (as the NPR news helpfully informed me the other day) Courts are holding up the foreclosure process - they're only holding it up because they're encountering this kind of crap:

GMAC, one of the nation's largest mortgage servicers, faced a quandary last summer. It wanted to foreclose on a New York City homeowner but lacked the crucial paperwork needed to seize the property.

GMAC has a standard solution to such problems, which arise frequently in the post-bubble economy. Its employees secure permission to create and sign documents in the name of companies that made the original loans. But this case was trickier because the lender, a notorious subprime company named Ameriquest, had gone out of business in 2007.

And so GMAC, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, began looking for a way to craft a document that would pass legal muster, internal records obtained by ProPublica show.

"The problem is we do not have signing authority—are there any other options?" Jeffrey Stephan, the head of GMAC's "Document Execution" team, wrote to another employee and the law firm pursuing the foreclosure action. No solutions were offered.

Three months later, GMAC had an answer. It filed a document with New York City authorities that said the delinquent Ameriquest loan had been assigned to it "effective of" August 2005. The document was dated July 7, 2010, three years after Ameriquest had ceased to exist and was signed by Stephan, who was identified as a "Limited Signing Officer" for Ameriquest Mortgage Company. Soon after, GMAC filed for foreclosure.

An examination by ProPublica suggests this transaction was not unique. A review of court records in New York identified hundreds of similar assignment documents filed in the name of Ameriquest after 2008 by GMAC and other mortgage servicers.

In other words years after Ameriquest died a spectacularly public death - banks would like us to believe they are signing over loans to banks who just happen to need those very documents in ongoing foreclosure cases.

Also:If the banks cannot locate the proper documents - or convince the court to accept a "recreated" one - they'll just swear it was lost and try to foreclose anyway.

Because, really would a bank lie about something so serious?

Can we please get some coverage that calls the foreclosure mess what it truly is?

My Very Good and Trusted Friends

(Via CJR)

Imagine a parent losing a child to violent crime. Then imagine that crime becomes a national cause thanks to a team of newspaper reporters who refuse to let the story fade away. Laws are changed as a result of the coverage.

It would be easy to understand that the parent would have some affection for the newspaper that championed their lost child's cause.

Even if the paper was the now infamous News of the World.

Were it me, I could see myself writing a supportive column very similar to the one Sara Payne wrote in the NotW's final edition.

It is easy to forget in these dark times that the News of the World has often been a force for good and that has more than anything to do with the people that work on it  And its these people I have come to respect and it is for these people write this piece I do  not pretend that they are perfect or always got it right but I can tell you on a personal level there have been many times when they have stayed close and stood beside me not for the headline or public credit but just because it was the right thing to do.

 And were it me- I could hardly imagine what I would be thinking after reading this:

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World's investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who specialised in hacking voicemail.

Police had earlier told her correctly that her name was not among those recorded in Mulcaire's notes, but on Tuesday officers from Operation Weeting told her they had found her personal details among the investigator's notes. These had previously been thought to refer to a different target.

Here's the thing: NotW was attempting to hack into a cell phone that - of all people - Rebekah Brooks gave to her.

Her friends at NotW give her a phone to help her keep in contact with her many supporters - and since the phone's details are known to the paper, their hacking wing swings into action to try and get personal information illegally.


Un. Be. Lievable.

Naomi Campbell, Ahead of the Curve

(Via CJR)

Funny how things are in plain sight as "no big deal" until those things turn out to be hacking into a dead girl's cell phone.

Here's Naomi Campbell going after now CNN anchor Piers Morgan back in 2007:

CAMPBELL: What do you think of the News Of The World reporter who was recently found guilty of tapping the Royals’ phones? Did you ever allow that when you were there?

MORGAN: Well, I was there in 1994-5, before mobiles were used very much, and that particular trick wasn’t known about. I can’t get too excited about it, I must say. It was pretty well-known that if you didn’t change your pin code when you were a celebrity who bought a new phone, then reporters could ring your mobile, tap in a standard factory setting number and hear your messages. That is not, to me, as serious as planting a bug in someone’s house, which is what some people seem to think was going on.

CAMPBELL: It’s an invasion of privacy, though.

MORGAN: It is, yes. But loads of newspaper journalists were doing it. Clive Goodman, the NOTW reporter, has been made the scapegoat for a very widespread practice.

So that's CNN's current anchor saying "loads of newspaper journalists were doing it" back in 2007. Wonder if anybody's going to ask him about that?

And you have to wonder who else is going to get caught up in this chain reaction of crazy.

I mean Hugh Grant and Naomi Campbell?

Who writes this crap?

Phone Hacking Scandal - Has There Ever Been a Less Adequate Title?

Not that I think any title could keep up with the crazy now unfolding over the pond.

But consider:

• Corrupt Cops
• The Royal Family
• Actors wearing hidden microphones
• Murder victims
• Victims of Terrorism
• Political resignations
• Police resignations
• 168 year old newspapers vanishing in a puff of smoke
• Multiple arrests of corporate minions of one of the world's most influential billionaires
• Said billionaire being hauled into public hearings
• Said billionaire being attacked with a pie

Seriously, there's video and everything.

(Admit it, you thought I made that bit up... but no!)

Now the hackers are getting involved.
LulzSec claims they've obtained a host of News International emails - making you wonder what other insanity will come to light.

I mean, there isn't enough popcorn in the world for this kind of thing. And we're barely into the first reel.

What. The. Hell?

Also, just an aside, but it occurs to me that a (dubious) but immensely satisfying tactic of a hacking/leak organization would be to announce that they will release a major trove of compromised corporate emails the day after the company's CEO testifies under oath.