The iPod...she is back

And all it cost me was slightly more than Apple would have charged me to swap its old guts for new ones.

To be fair to RapidRepair.com - the initial repair would have saved me money - but the cost of shipping something to them (insured) was substantial. $17 bucks - although I could have skimped on the insurance and payed just under 12. I didn't feel lucky - so I paid full fare.

Late Update: While cleaning up my desk, I recently ran across my receipt from the post office. It shows a charge of $17.35. I sat puzzling over why the bank transaction would show more than what the post office charged me until E walked by.


"Cash back." she explained.


So, I took out $20.00 cash and completely forgot about it. (It's so fun getting old). The amounts that follow have been adjusted.

Add to that the return postage, which RapidRepair bills about $12 for. It's overnight delivery, so that's solid - but that means you're adding $30.00 to whatever they end up charging you for actual repair. Even a modest repair plus shipping puts you in the range of $70.00.

That's the math I was counting on (actually, I was counting on better than that, since I apparently misheard the Post office worker quote me the price).

In any event - you have a small repair - you can save some bucks on fixing your iPod with Rapid Repair. You get above a minor repair and you're better off buying new guts from Apple for $120. My pod needed a new circuit board - which sells for $89.99 installed - so all told I ended up paying $118.00.

This was for a fifth generation 30G Video iPod.


This is not to say that RapidRepair is a bad deal - they weren't particularly rapid (17 days end to end - which included only 12 business days) and their pricing wasn't dreadful.

Three main issues:

1. Shipping bumps any repair into the marginal territory
2. My iPod's issue (which I considered minor) was actually serious enough to make a repair more expensive than replacement
   
3. You only find out if repair is cost effective after you have spent $60-$70 on shipping and diagnosis.

So - I've learned that lesson. As wasteful as it seems, next time I'll just save my shekels and buy a new iPod.

SO more organic than you

(Via GOOD blog)

Jerad is a food fundamentalist who has labored to create the purest BLT in the world.

(Also, it's arguably the most self-absorbed BLT as well. Even so - I'd totally eat it.)

Con Law fashion

I want one of these

(H/t CJR)

Not desired, just wanted

With all the insanity of French Ministers and Hollywood residents rising to defend Roman Polanski - it is refreshing to hear from people who remember what the Polanski did - as well as what the law says about that kind of thing.

Here's Bill Wyman beating the stuffing out of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Polanski has had a wrenching life, of course, but it is overplayed in "Wanted and Desired." I think it's true to say that there are many people who survived the Holocaust who don't drug and rape children, for example.

Wyman links to the Smoking Gun's transcripts of Polanski's victim - where she graphically describes what happened.

Even a PG version of her account is repellent. Polanski has clearly planned the entire encounter. He isolates the girl, gets her drunk and gives her drugs. Then he suggests photographs in the hot tub, so she will remove clothing without his having to ask. When she doesn't remove everything - he presses her to do so.

While he's forcing himself on her - he's asking questions to learn how likely it is that she will get pregnant. Based on the girl's answer, he switches to sodomy.

That's Polanski, right there. Violating a 13 old girl with practiced ease and taking steps to minimize the risk to him.

Wyman's question is especially apt:

Polanski was photographing the girl for a photo spread for a European edition of Vogue. Someone could have asked him, or his lawyer -- just for the record -- if he had drugged and raped any other of his photo subjects.

The documentary doesn't of course - but it's a damn good question.

Wyman's review also provides a ready rebuttal to all this crap about "Why now?" (as if that were even relevant).

Polanski has been fighting to overturn his conviction/guilty plea - and lost his case a few months ago. Perhaps the authorities were lax in pursuing up until now - but Polanski's recent legal manuvers may very well have reminded them that he was still out there.

It is not hard to picture the LA district attorneys standing over a dusty Polanski case file watching coverage of Polanski's appeal. One of them had to read Judge Espinoza's ruling telling Polanski he could have an appeal when he showed up to ask for one.

I figure one of them looked across the workroom and said "Hey. Do we have any recent information about Polanski?"

And suddenly, against the odds - here we are.

I look forward to the perp walk.

Late update: Kate Harmon does a far better job of pummeling the pro-Polanski movement.

Leadership PACs: like bribery, only it's legal

ProPublica has an article guaranteed to ramp up your cynicism about Congress (assuming you haven't topped out already).

The public might be forgiven for thinking the days are gone when lobbyists and special interests could pay for a lawmaker's cross-country golf outings. After all, both the House and Senate in 2007 responded to a spate of scandals by banning members of Congress from accepting gifts of any value from lobbyists or the companies that hire them.

But those reforms preserved a major loophole: leadership PACs like Chambliss' Republican Majority Fund [1], which have far looser rules and get far less scrutiny than campaign committees. At first, only a few rising stars in Congress had them. Now, 70 percent of the members do. So do a dozen former members.

In the past three election cycles, lobbyists and special interests poured $355 million into these funds, making them the second-largest source of political money for sitting members of Congress.

Legally, lawmakers are free to spend the leadership PAC money pretty much as they wish.

Lobbyists and lawmakers can -- and do -- use it to travel together to play golf at Pebble Beach, ride snowmobiles in Montana's Big Sky Country and go deep-sea fishing in the Florida Keys. The lobbyists don't pay the costs directly. They contribute to the leadership PAC, which then pays the lawmaker's resort and travel bills.

Counter-memes

The busy folks over at CJR have flagged another crop of counter-intuitive goodness:

The FDIC's Sheila Bair may not be all that, after all: so sayeth Bloomberg's Jon Weil (H/t CJR's Dean Starkman)

Ryan Chittum thinks Kansas is about to judo move the mortgage industry - and that there could be a national impact.

David Leonhardt says there are medical errors happen more frequently in the US than in other rich countries, and suggests "The goal, remember, isn’t just to reduce malpractice lawsuits. It’s also to reduce malpractice." (H/t CJR)

Get yer damn flu shot - if only because staying healthy is the best rebuttal

Awhile ago I got an email from a person higher up in the corporate food chain than I am.

It was advising me not to get my swine flu shot. It contained an alarmist video where serial alarmist Wayne Madsen advises us all to stay away from the vaccine.

I considered pointing out that as recently as April of this year Mr. Madsen was reporting that H1N1 could be a weaponized strain based on background discussions with two unnamed journalists (only one of which related the weaponized claim based on yet another unnamed source at the UN).

But I didn't. You see, I need my job.

I have therefore vowed to get my shot, ensure that my family gets their shot - and advocate that thinking people everywhere get the shot.

This way, I can visit their sickbed and gloat - with my healthy family in tow. "Good thing nobody listened to you, eh?"

....

(Too much? In my defense, I'm a fairly bitter person.)

Anyway - HuffPo is getting some deserved flack for posting anti-vaccine quackery from a Dr. Frank Lipman.
Phill goes all gonzo on this (with good reason) but

PalMD over at WhiteCoatUnderground has an informative beatdown of Lipman's main points.

Here's the intro:

Let's start with what swine flu is and is not. Every year, influenza sweeps across the world, affecting the US most strongly in the winter months. Influenza causes at least 35-40 thousand excess deaths every year, and even more hospitalizations and lost days of work and school---and all that is in a "typical" year. In typical years, flu is most brutal on the very old, very young, and chronically ill.

That's just the regualar, seasonal flu. What about swine flu?

Swine flu follows a different pattern. It isn't any less virulent or deadly than seasonal flu, but attacks a much greater number of people, especially those who don't usually suffer much during a typical flu season. It also has refused to confine itself to the normal flu season, having simmered all through the summer. Vaccination helps prevent illness, hospitalization, and death due to influenza, so each year we formulate a vaccine based on the current circulating strains. To what extent vaccination is beneficial is an open area of investigation, but that it helps is clear.

Read the full post, it's great stuff.

Sauce for the goose

Glenn compiles another monster post about moral relativism, the right and how our press covers it.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Some headlines just make you smile.

Fugitive filmmaker Roman Polanski is seized in Switzerland

While I can understand Mr. Polanski's belief that he was free to travel (three decades of government inaction would understandably cause complacency), I just love to think of what went through his mind when the Swiss police told him he was under arrest.

"Under arrest? What for...?"

That would be drugging and forcibly raping a minor, Mr. Polanski. Perhaps you'd forgotten.

Lord knows lots of other people have. Pat Goldstein of the LA Times is practically falling all over himself explaining why now is not the right time. It might cost money, it was so long ago, his victim forgave him and besides:

I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn't enough

Got that? Oh, little man, how you have suffered. At liberty and physically intact but still: Snubbed! Infamous!

I'm one of those people who thinks Polanski should get the hard time he skipped out on three decades ago.

The appeals of sycophants like Goldstein and Polanski's lawyers are just pathetic.

It will be expensive - yes, but expensive, unprofitable tasks are one of the reasons citizens create goverments in the first place.  The free market sure isn't going to do it. What other linchpins of the social compact are we going to write off in the name of a balanced budget? Drag this man home in chains.

It's been so long - yes, but it's still against the law to rape children - and let's not forget the man pled guilty. Polanski owes society a debt - and society has generously agreed to accept a late payment. Roman? You're welcome.

His victim forgave him - it isn't about the victim. It's about the crime. If we allowed victims to immunize their assailants, we'd be greenlighting spousal and child abuse on a national level. Screw that.

I especially love Polanski's attorney, Chad Hummel suggesting that arresting his client after decades of disinterest is somehow unsporting.

Yeah, well - it's not like they drugged his champagne.

Whatever lies the LA DA had been telling themselves to justify doing nothing until now - they were free to pick the case up at any time. Props to whoever suddenly remembered they were in the business of law enforcement.

Don't let him get away.

Nate to Strategic Vision LLC: Bullsh!t

Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com has noticed something interesting over at Strategic Vision LLC.
Strategic Vision LLC is "an Atlanta-based PR firm which also occasionally releases political polls."

The interesting thing is: he thinks they're full of crap. Emphasis in original:

Certain statistical properties of the results reported by Strategic Vision, LLC suggest, perhaps strongly, the possibility of fraud, although they certainly do not prove it and further investigation will be required.

Hmmm....

The Spanish Prisoner, starring my iPod

I let the boy play parachutes on my iPod. Bit of a mistake there.

The boy mashes the touch pad like there was no tomorrow. Eventually the center button started to stick in the down position.

I went to the interweb to find out how I could fix what was ailing it.

Turns out the little wad of goo under the center pad had slid off center so much that the button wouldn't bounce back from being clicked. Fixing it looked to be as simple as open it up, shove the goo back to the center, and close it back up.

Needless to say, it was a little more complicated than that. Not a lot, though. And after some minor damage to plastic bits that couldn't be seen - I had my pod back.

Cost: $12.95 for a set of ultra small screwdrivers. (I needed a Phillips head and only had flat heads).

This worked for awhile, but whatever forces cause the iPod's button goo to migrate north were still in effect. A few weeks later, I'm opening up the iPod again and sliding the goo back to the center point.

Cost: Zero.

A few weeks later, the button is stuck again. I open it up, slide the goo - and.... the little square plastic envelope the goo lives in snaps off. It's attached at each corner by what looks like solder and the back of the envelope is metallic.

Now, I'm sunk. No way I'm doing micro-soldering to re-attach the goo envelope. Any miss will either ruin the circuit board or melt the envelope.

In desperation, I try to superglue the corners down. This lasts about a day before the glue breaks and the envelope is floating around my iPod's insides.

Gah.

I try the interweb - a host of mysterious repair shops that claim to repair things, but all of them look like they're run out of a garage. I don't feel like sending my iPod there in the hopes that I'll get it back. Not unless I had somebody to vouch for one of them.

I go to Apple's website. Apple gets a lot of good marks for UI and user experience - but (apologies to Mac-philes out there) but their support section is fairly lame. I waste a good half hour before getting the number of my local Apple Store and telling them my troubles.

Me: My iPod's central button isn't working. The contact pad underneath it has broken loose. Can you help me?

Apple Phone Rep: We can set you up with an appointment with our Genius Bar^TM.

Me: Great. How soon?

Apple Phone Rep: How's tomorrow night sound?

Me: Great!

I'm jazzed. I put all the iPod bits into a ziploc bag and put it in my car so I don't forget. Getting out on a weeknight is kind of a deal in our house, but E indulges me. After all, my cause is just. The kids want their music in the car.

The fateful day arrives. I go to the Apple Store and wander through the We're-so-NOT-like-the-other-stores layout. It's fun. I'm there early, but I check in at the Genius Bar^TM and they tell me they'll call my name where my time arrives.

I watch happy consumers happily consuming for about fifteen minutes, and then my name is up. At the bar, my designated genius looks like a cross between Shaun White and Jack White. He's nerdy, but with an edge.

S/J White asks me what seems to be the problem.

I pull out my ziploc bag: it visibly contains:

• an iPod - sans center button
• a center button for the aforementioned iPod
• a plastic envelope, containing the aforementioned goo ball

I spell it out for him. This part broke free, and I need you guys to either re-attach it, or replace the clickwheel with a new one.

I smile, pleased with myself that I've summarized my issue in what sounds like an intelligent manner.

S/J White thanks me and tells me he's going to take my iPod in the back. I resume watching consumers - happily imagining a crack squad of Geniuses attacking the problem posed by my iPod. First they whiteboard it, then they think outside of the box (while playing hacky-sack for inspiration) then they come up with a brilliant solution.

S/J White returns and I turn to him hopefully.

He says "We don't do component level repair."

[Sound of a Needle scratching off the record]

Okay- what the flying f---k, Apple? I scheduled a meeting with you idiots. Any part of my description to your phone guy would have convinced an illiterate 4th grader I was talking about a component level repair.

Mr. White? A guy brings you an iPod in a Ziploc bag with separate parts and describes replacing parts to you - you might be able to tell him right then and there that component level repair is off the table. Keeping him waiting for another ten minutes is not going to improve this situation. You've completely wasted my time.

[Placing the needle back on, now]

I ask him what my options are.

"Well, you could get 10% off a new one..." He reads my face and quickly jumps to plan B "...oooOor you could have us replace the entire insides."

"How much?"

"$120.00"

I tell him no. $120 is ridiculous. There's got to be a way to repair something so small.

S/J leans across the counter, "I know this guy. I mean, I'm not officially going to sanction this, but if you google this name, you'll get these guys. I hear they're pretty good."

You hear they're pretty good. I thank him and leave.

F-ing waste of an evening. I check out the guys he recommends. It looks like they operate out of a garage. Plus, their website suggests snail mail is the only way to contact them. Gah.

A month passes. I look here and there for a repair place but nothing really looks inviting.

A little over two weeks ago, thorn sends me an NYT article about repairing tech. It mentions RapidRepair.com who specialize in repairing MP3 players and game systems.

I'm in. If the NYT cites them, they're at least above the two-guys-and-a-garage level - and I'm sick of not doing anything.

I hit their website and look up what you do. They have a fairly straighforward mail in repair setup. You tell them what you need (diagnosis, specific part replacement, etc) enter the usual billing & shipping info and then they give you a printout.

You send them your iPod with the printout and they bill you once they do the work and ship it back to you (paid for by your fee).

I see a clickwheel as a purchasable part and figure this is a broader solution to my issue, but might as well solve the problem for real. A clickwheel + shipping comes out to $51.98

Certainly better than $120.00

I buy a padded envelope for $4.78 and I hit the post office, same day. Postal lady asks me what I want.

"I want this package to be trackable and insured for $300."

She presses some buttons.

"That'll be $37.35 $17.35"

Late Update: While cleaning up my desk, I recently ran across my receipt from the post office. It shows a charge of $17.35. I sat puzzling over why the bank transaction would show more than what the post office charged me until E walked by.

"Cash back." she explained.

So, I took out $20.00 cash and completely forgot about it. (It's so fun getting old). The amounts that follow have been corrected.

[Sound of a needle again]

(I should point out at this point that I do not recall her giving me this amount. I'm only putting this amount down because I've looked in my bank records and see a charge to the USPS on the correct day and time for this amount. If you have asked me what I paid without my checking - I'd have said $17.00.


Either I was in willful denial to what she was telling me, or I misheard her. Either way, I paid what she said.)

Let's resume.

I've now paid $74.11 to mail my iPod to RapidRepair and for them to replace the clickwheel. If all goes well, I will have my iPod back in about a week. With shipping included, that should be the end of the money drain.

I get a confirmation from RapidRepair via email the following Monday. Then...nothing.

At the end of the week, one hour before I leave work - I get an email from them asking me to call them about my repair. My problem has been diagnosed.

I get the email too late to call them, so the following Monday I call them as soon as they open. The rep tells me that they don't think I need a clickwheel repair. Nick, the tech guy, feels that a simple part replacement should do the trick. He thinks there's a chance that it won't work - at which point they'll need me to replace the circuit board.

"How much is that?"

"$89.99"

Gah. I don't want that. He tries to sell me a new battery, and an annual battery replacement plan.

Double Gah.

I tell him to go ahead with the repair Nick outlined and let me know how it goes.

Naturally, three days later I get an email from RapidRepair telling me to call them about my repair. When I do, the rep tells me that the repair has failed and that I will need a new circuit board.

No way I'm paying another $90 bucks. The rep tells me that the money I've paid can be credited to this new repair, so the difference ends up being about another thirty. And they'll throw in a free battery.

At this point, I'm sunk. They can either send me back a broken iPod and bill me for the diagnosis - which means I'm out about $50 with nothing to show for it. Or I can stump up another 30.

I tell them to do the repair.

As of this morning, I hadn't heard from them - so I called. This time the rep told me they'd meant to get a hold of me. They're out of circuit boards and wont' have more until Monday.

Come Monday, they should begin repairing my iPod and then they'll mail it back to me.

If all goes well (why should it start now?) I will have my iPod back two and a half weeks after I sent it to them.

For the low, low price of...?

$104.11

I should have frickin' paid Apple.

Pandemic in perspective

Information is Beautiful has a pair of graphics that put swine flu in its place:

 

Nice.

Smokejumping

6:40am, and I'm barely moving.

Waking up after 6:30am is generally a bad thing in our house. E's aiming to be out the door just past 7. I'm supposed to be in the car at half past with both kids fed, dressed, and ready for school.

In the past this has not gone so well. But we've gotten better - and had settled into a routine.

Then came kindergarten. Now the boy goes one place and the girl goes somewhere else. Dropping off the boy adds a good deal of time since there's the need to bring little e along as we: get out of the car, walk into school, sign him in, walk back to the car, and buckle back in.

Ten or fifteen minutes, usually. This can be accounted for. However, the X factors are legion - and it only takes one to screw you.

The first one is getting the kids awake. Yesterday the boy popped awake and was dressed in 5 minutes. I think he was keen on walking to school - I crushed his dream by telling him we'd drive anyway. This morning he's in no hurry to be moving.

My general tactic has been to play one kid off on the other. I ask one to help me wake up the other and let the sibling's instinct for cruelty kick in. Today I start with little e and take her to the boy.

No dice. He's not moving, she's not moving - so I aggrivate both of them until their eyes open. Ten minutes later, I have the boy half dressed and little e with her clothes picked out.

Shower for 8 minutes. It cost $300 - but we finally have hot water, so I'm tempted to linger. But no sense in running late.

I have a 9 o'clock meeting - easy to make - but no sense tempting fate. E takes off. I get dressed and start the breakfast thing. Rule one is to get the kids in their shoes and ready to go before we eat something. They get ready while I'm getting food. Otherwise - after breakfast, I just get to sit and wait for them.

English muffins all 'round with milk - I'll get coffee at day care. I'm looking at the clock, somehow it's managed to be 7:35. No biggie. Out the door.

Little e sounds off "My tummy hurts." This is her way of telling me she needs a bathroom break. Sigh. Okay, back in the house, settle down and wait.

And wait.

Urgency is not something you can force on little e. You're there for the duration. You can assist, you can suggest - but overstep and you'll just make things worse.

The boy's out wandering around in the yard - I notice that I've managed to leave the garage door open all night. Sigh. Turns out little e needs a new set of clothes, so upstairs search/sift/select - and we're back to getting dressed.

Once again, rushing + little e = not happening. The boy has managed to buckle himself in (by himself) but getting all the slack he needed has thrown the seatbelt into rachet mode. It's tight against his neck because (naturally) the shoulder ring has moved up. Rachet mode makes the belt impossible to adjust - so I need to unbuckle the boy and start over. This undoes his accomplishment and generally upsets him. I ignore it, he's got to deal.

Out the door and the dash clock prounounces sentence on us: 7:58.

Dammit. I'll still make the meeting - I just won't have much prep time

And we're off. To the boy's school. Before we leave the car, we're in trouble. The boy is cold and wants to put on his sweatshirt - while standing - in our car. This does not go well and there are many false starts.

And then we're out - the drop off is marginal. Sign in - the boy wants to scuzz my hair, he does and we go.

Little e is always trailing behind me on these things, but leaving her alone in the car is a non-starter. Mercifully, she asks to be carried to the car. I haul.

8:08

We're en route to daycare, and this means I am sure to be late for work. No sense freaking out about it. Late by 10 or late by twenty is not worth a traffic accident.

I'm pulling up to daycare and have the option of driveway or street.

Street: Pros - cannot be parked in
Cons - street traffic that could kill you while you are unloading your little girl.

Driveway: Pros - safety + proximity to front door
Cons - chance that you will get parked in by another parent.

I'm so late - I opt for safety. It's 8:30 and odds are all the kids are here already. Plus, there's two car widths of room and I'm the only one here. It'd take two cars to block me in - and all the parents know better than to do that.

Driveway, then. Park, out the door. Little e announces that she has taken off her shoes -and can I please help her put them on?

Sigh. Yes, of course.

I'm carrying her in, because now I need every minute. Little e announces she must walk.

As previously mentioned, speed is not her thing.

I open the door and am holding the glass door open for her. Little e has this thing where she stands in the doorway for an interminable amount of time. She's doing it today. I'm holding two doors open for her and she's not moving.

I urge her to speed up. Repeatedly. Finally, she takes two steps in. I let the glass door close and step in.

And the wailing starts.

Unbeknownst to me, little e was holding onto the doorframe with her left hand. Her little left hand just got wholloped by the closing glass door.

She's inconsolable - and I take her downstairs. It's not a bad hit, a scrape - but certainly more than she should be expected to suck up. I do my best to cheer her up and get her to focus on putting on her slippers.

It doesn't work for about 5 minutes. I get her into her classroom and chat up her teacher. Little e's teacher is an ace when it comes to cheering up small kids - and kids always react better to people other than their parents anyway. Little e's teacher takes lead and I back her up for awhile. We make small talk about some visitor who's supposed to be arriving today. Somebody who was supposed to show up earlier in the week and hadn't. They were late today, so little e's teacher is unsure if they'll show up at all.

I chat until I can see little's e's doing better - and bolt for the door. It's almost 8:40. It'll take me seventeen minutes to get to my desk. I will have no prep - and I don't even know what building my meeting is in.

On the way out - I run into a confused-looking stranger: the student teacher. I direct her down the proper stairs and step out the front door.

Naturally, there are two new cars behind mine in the driveway. The one directly behind mine is unfamiliar. It's right behind mine - because the student teacher doesn't know better than to do that.

The other car is a parent - they're on a cell call so it takes awhile to get their attention - but they move as soon as they see what's up. I gyrate my car back and forth to get around Student Teacher-mobile.

It's 8:44.

At this point, I am screwed. I call a co-worker and ask them to check my calendar in Outlook. Parking at the wrong end of Corpworld could cost me another ten minutes. My meeting's on the floor above my desk - solid.

I start thinking of the gate - the turnstile - and then I suddenly remember I don't have my badge.

Son. Of. A. -

I'm jolted out of that thought when the car in front of me suddenly stops dead. They're turning left without a signal. Nice.

I weave around them and almost plow into another car - also at a dead stop, but inexplicably in the middle of open road.

What the...?

Ducks. They've stopped for a column of ducks crossing the road. The ducks are in no hurry.

I am. I literally scream into my windshield "What the F--??!!"

Either as a result of this, or by pure coincidence, the ducks immediately take flight and we're moving again. I hit my parking ramp at 8:57. I have two security doors to clear and no badge.

The great thing is - you can only request badgeless access at the security desk - which is behind the first security door.
I need to draft someone - and this late, the parking lot is a ghost town. I'm on level two and there's nobody, so I go down hoping I can draft someone on the ground level.

Score. Some clueless corp type is approaching the outer door. They're 20 yards ahead of me, so I bolt. Screw decorum. I could spend ten minutes out here wating for another person or more just walking to the public entrance.

I draft - and I'm in. The turnstile is door number two and is, predictably, still not working. Instead of the cheerful guard of the past few days - I get Dour Belligerent Guy.

I walk right up to him. "I forgot my badge. What do I do?"

Now, I know what to do - but I have to wait until DBG does his part. I have my ID and credentials out and ready.

This man - whose job it is to grant access to the building, who surely has to expect a certain number of people will arrive sans badge, who indeed is at the only work station where they perform this service - has not bothered to fire up the program on his laptop that will authenticate me.

So he boots it up.
And I wait
And he enters his log in criteria
And I wait
And he navigates through a maze of menu options
And I wait

And then he looks at my ID and verifies that I work there.

Then he tells me to go and get a visitor pass from the desk.

I glance to my right at the unstaffed desk that is fully eight feet from where I am standing.

"Over there?"

"Yes."

It suddenly occurs to DBG that he's asking me to speak to people who are not there. Rather than take on added responsibility and get the pass for me - he opts to phone it in.

Literally. He calls in on his radio and asks persons unknown if they can "come down to the desk" and process a visitor badge for me.

Mercifully, the persons unknown appear to have neither the knowledge how nor the inclanation to do any such thing.

DBG is irritated - surely somebody can take care of this for him. Persons unknown tell him to just let me in. DBG makes me swear an oath that I will seek out my supervisor and get my spare badge before walking around the complex.

I swear, knowing full well my supervisor is not in today and that I have no idea if anyone else would even be able to open whatever (presumably locked) container that holds my spare.

I leg it straight to my meeting, sans prep, sans laptop and sans even paper or pen because (of course) the nearest workroom has been de-stocked due to the recent budget cuts.

With almost no understanding of the meetings purpose, a smile and a cup of coffee - I walk into my meeting.

It's 9:07

Geronimo!

"As God is my witness...I thought turkeys could fly"

Glenn Beck has either equaled Mr. Carlson's stupidity - or he wants us to think he did.



Ye gods.

Resorting to Hitler

Watching the increasingly shrill opposition to the President, it can be tempting to think that this behavior is somehow without parallel or precedent.

It is oddly comforting to know that this is not so.

The voice over is from the Rachel Maddow Show's interview
with the always-strident Frank Schaeffer.

Now, I am sure that we find those we disagree with inherently more threatening than those who share our likes (or dislikes) - but seeing the depth of the political bile flowing in one direction does not allow us to ignore bile headed the other way.

It may be a question of perception - but I am struck by the equivalence of the rhetoric on the signs in the video above - and those I am seeing in popular media these days.

I do not, however see an equivalence in the amount of attention these groups receive on network television.

I'd be very interested to see impartial analysis of equivalent events and the attention they received (taking into account the context of the protest, where it took place, who was there, etc).

The left and the right are always complaining about how this coverage or that coverage totally misrepresented or ignored their viewpoint. I aways get a kick out of comments on NPR that accuse a story of being biased - in both directions.

The equivalence of the threat these groups pose is also something I've wondered about. I certainly don't recall any left wing protestors stalking President Bush with loaded firearms - but I'd be interested to see if this was so.

Much is made of the recent killing of a pro-life protestor, but even if that was a political killing - it would be the first instance of a pro-life protestor being slain.

I'm certainly not looking for false equivalencies. I've been in conversations with right-leaning friends where they gravely wondered if someone was going to "take out" the president or (if I recall right) Barney Frank. It was if they expected it to happen. That it would make them happy if it did.

I somehow doubt they were truly advocating for political violence - but their comment seemed wistful, like "wouldn't it be great if..."

I can recall left leaning friends making similar comments about Pres. Bush as well. I'd always say "Imagine the catastrophe that would follow such a thing. You think things are going in a direction you don't like now?. What do you suppose this administration would do if the nation thought their political opponents were responsible for the president's assassination?"

I truly believe Glenn Greenwald was right:

Far more interesting than [Glenn] Beck himself is the increasingly futile effort to classify the protest movement to which he has connected himself. Here, too, confusion reigns. In part, this is due to the fact that these "tea party" and "9/12" protests are composed of factions with wildly divergent views about most everything. From paleoconservatives to Ron-Paul-libertarians to LaRouchians to Confederacy-loving, race-driven Southerners to Christianist social conservatives to single-issue fanatics (abortion, guns, gays) to standard Limbaugh-following, Bush-loving Republicans, these protests are an incoherent mishmash without any cohesive view other than: "Barack Obama is bad." There are unquestionably some highly noxious elements in these groups, but they are far from homogeneous.

I believe both ends of the political spectrum have their crazies and provocatuers. And I'm not convinced this latest crop is in any way abnormal - but it only takes one crazy person to change everything.

(H/t to Pundette and Newsbusters)

Eat what you kill

The NYT's Economix blog has a nice piece on What's Really Wrong With Wall Street Pay.

Item 1:

The “I.B.G. – Y.B.G.” problem. A major cause of the current crisis will most likely prove to be a mismatch of incentives for Wall Street traders. If a mortgage trader made a big bet, he had the chance to land a big bonus if it paid off (and his boss did, too). If, however, that bet didn’t pan out — and the trader lost a lot of money for the firm — he might receive no bonus at all. On the contrary, he might get a princely severance package.

Survivor

Saw this on Neatorama

In a word: Damn.

Cynthia Blair-Hoover of Granby, Colorado crashed on the way to Denver when her car went off a cliff near Central City. Although the fall left the 52-year-old woman with eleven broken ribs, broken vertebrae, and a punctured lung, she began inching her way towards an old mine by sliding on her back.

For five and a half days and nights, Hoover sucked moisture off her hair and did her best to stay warm through rain, hail and even snow at the 8,000 foot mark in the mountains. By the following Tuesday, she was able to hear voices coming from the mine, where they were conducting tours. When the voices stopped, she would yell for help and after several minutes, one of the men heard her cries for help.

Making sense of the right's nonsense

Glenn hits one out of the park with his observations on Glenn Beck and the fury of the inchoate right:

...crucially, it is the Republican Party and its various appendages -- the same people who presided over massive expansions of debt and federal government power -- that are exploiting this citizen activism, and they're harnessing it for their own petty, partisan ends.  There's a reason why Glenn Beck is on Fox News, which is nothing more than a media outlet for the Republican Party, Wall Street and neoconservatism, yet which is also the driving media force behind these protests:  it's because, with Democrats in power, the same Republicans who wildly expanded government power when they controlled it now, out of power, suddenly love anti-government sentiment. Currently, opposition to "the government" is easily translated into "opposition to Democrats," and these protests are thus exploited and distorted as partisan Republican tools even though many of the individual protesters are as anti-GOP as they are anti-Democrat.

Sears, you suck

(H/t E)

Policy Beta details an appalling act of deception by Sears Holding Corporation (which also owns Kmart). According to the FTC settlement:

...the company failed to “adequately disclose” that it was collecting personal information using a spyware program secretly installed on consumers’ computers.

Between 2007 and 2008, 15 of every 100 visitors to sears.com or kmart.com were presented with a pop-up window that offered the opportunity to “talk directly to a retailer” and become part of “a place where your voice is heard and your opinion matters, and what you want and need counts!” No mention was made that this “opportunity” also installed detailed tracking software on the user’s computer.

Customers who asked for more information were offered a $10 coupon in exchange for downloading – and keeping on their computer for at least one month – software from Sears or K-mart that would allow them to become “part of something new, something different[.]” Consumers probably didn’t realize that by “new” and “different,” the advertisement meant “all-seeing” and “invasive.” Indeed, this software monitored both online and offline behavior, peering into online secure sessions and culling information from consumers’ email subject and recipients, online bank statements, drug prescription records, video rental records, and similar histories and accounts.

Now, somewhere in the bowels of Sears Holding Corporation, there are corporate loyalists gnashing their teeth about how unfair this is.

After all, they'd say - "we disclosed everything in our privacy statement!"

It clearly says (emphasis added):

Once you install our application, it monitors all of the Internet behavior that occurs on the computer on which you install the application, including both your normal web browsing and the activity that you undertake during secure sessions such as filling a shopping basket, completing an application form or checking your online accounts, which may include personal financial or health information.

We may use the information that we monitor, such as name and address, for the purpose of better understanding your household demographics; however we make commercially viable efforts to automatically filter confidential personally identifiable information such as UserID, password, credit card numbers, and account numbers.

Inadvertently, we may collect such information about our panelists [people who have downloaded the software]; and when this happens, we make commercially viable efforts to purge our database of such information.

Think about what they've just written there for a second.  

We're going to monitor ALL your household internet use - including secure transactions. It MAY include your personal financial or health information. We may collect your UserIDs and passwords - but don't worry - we'll purge our database in a commercially viable way.

That's just breathtaking. Not only for the scope of how invasive it is, but that somebody was brazen enough to put that down in print.

Why did they do that? Because of this other little section of the document:

What are the other legal terms and conditions of participating in this program?

Governing Law: You agree that any dispute or claim arising out of this program or agreement shall be settled by binding arbitration in Cook County, Illinois under the American Arbitration Association Rules.

Yes, binding arbitration... corporate America's current attempt at de facto civil immunity.

The FTC was not impressed - partly because no one reads these privacy agreements, but largely because of the way in which the privacy text was displayed to users.

Wanna guess how they expected you to read their "disclosure" that agreement meant installing spyware and waiving your right to sue?

Yeah. That'd be the typical scrollable text box. Complete with boring intro text so nobody wants to read it.

Oh, there's a printable version link - but a link that starts with "print..." is going to get less traffic than one that says "View.." and they know that nobody has the staying power to read 11 pages of legalese.

And they offered people $10 to participate.

Ten bucks in exchange for people's private data and their right to sue.

The FTC has ordered the deletion of all the collected data - but I'm not seeing mention of a massive fine. There's also the typical "no admission of wrongdoing" langauge which is about as wimpy as it gets. What isn't wrong about what they did?

I know it's a question of emphasis and actual criminal intent was probably lacking. Odds are they were just arrogant enough to believe what they were doing was legal because of their "disclosure." But again, there was a clear expectation that people would not read/understand/consent to what was going to happen.

You pull crap like this on your customers - you should be paying a fine and wearing the corporate equivalent of a scarlet letter.

Green Dog Democrat

ProPublica's got a nice bit about Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross.

[Rep. Ross,] a Blue Dog Democrat playing a key role in the health care debate -- sold a piece of commercial property in 2007 for substantially more than a county assessment (PDF) and an independent appraisal (PDF) say it was worth.

I'll save you the clicking.

• The county said the property was worth a total of $263,700.
• The independent appraisal said it was worth  $198,500
  
• Rep. Ross sold it to USA Drug ("an Arkansas-based pharmacy chain with a keen interest in how the debate plays out.") for $420,000.

I'd be interested in hearing this dog yelp a bit.

Cometh the turnstile

The much heralded arrival of single access entry to CorpWorld has been a bit of an anticlimax. Serious looking men with tools had been seen working in the wings for weeks. Then half of the old doors were suddenly replaced by a footpad large enough to contain a revolving door.

The serious people had clipboards and were jabbering on excitedly about what piece of the apparatus went where.

Ooooh... anticip-












-pation!

Days of serious people doing serious things. Black wires protruding from the ceiling overhead.

Then- a revolving door! The dreaded turnstile - here!

Ooooh! Cutting edge, site security tec!. Very now. Nearly Gattaca.

But it wasn't working yet. So we still used the same door as always.

Then... more men with tools.

Then the rest of the old doors went away. Replaced with.... other doors. Two opposed doors in an abbreviated hallway. A secure airlock.

Which also didn't work.

So, the airlock doors were left wide open and a guard was stationed next to them. The guard asked everyone for their badge. If you had one, you got in.

They were very nice about it, too.

There were days of this. Walking past the mysterious non-rotating doors (roped off and surrounded by traffic cones) you'd show your badge to a guard, and walk through the secure airlock (now shimmed open with a decidedly low-tech piece of wood).

Each day, I was paranoid about my badge - Cometh the turnstile, there will be no more drafting.

Weeks of this.

Then one fateful day, I arrive to see: no cones, no shims - just a rotating door and a secure airlock.

To one side was the guard - on the other were two clipboard people.

Here we go....

There are two men well in front of me, and I hear the guard assisting the first man:

"No - you... you just scan it and push." He smiles. "No. Just-"

More smiling. The revolving door won't budge.

The first man looks confused. The guard is now being helped by the clipboard people.

"Try to scan it again."

"No. Not there, but-"

"Okay, now. Go ahead"

"Wait-"

First Man goes in - and the door stops with him inside. Loud beeping. The clipboard people jabber among themselves. The guard motions the first man to sop and then scans their own badge. The beeping stops.

Second Man is backing up. The revolving door starts moving and the First Man is through.

Clipboard woman invites Second Man over with a gesture that attempts to say It's okay. If it stops I'll get you out.

Second man is not impressed. He scans his badge in a hurry and tries to rush through.

The door locks up. More beeping.

"Try to scan it again....slowly."

Second man complies. The door does, too.

Then it's me. I hold my badge for a long time in front of the scanner until I see the light. Until I'm sure Second guy is through. I push on the door.

-and it works as advertised.

Clipboard woman makes a mark on her sheet.

Behind me are a number of people who are looking at each other with expressions of nervous amusement.

No. You go first.

Me? I'm gone. Late for work anyway.

At lunch I watch a man on a motorized chair try to navigate the airlock. It goes badly enough that the serious people have to intervene.

Next day - the cones are back. The airlock is shimmed open - and I'm greeted by a smiling guard.

That was a week ago. Serious looking people have been crawling all over the doors for days.

And every day - I show my badge to a nice guard who lets me go through the shimmed airlock.

It's actually easier with the guard.

Hmmm..

And I can't tailgate.

And no one ever gets trapped in an open hallway.

Double hmmm..

Despite this, the clipboard people persist.

And surely someday - someday soon... the turnstile cometh.

Subprime lenders: Got some 'splaining to do

(Via CJR)

The Center for American Progress looked at the lending practices of 14 lenders who collectively were responsible for a third of the high priced mortgages written in 2006.

Here's their lead:

These banks and current subsidiaries together originated more than 876,000 higher-priced first mortgages—defined by the Federal Reserve as having an annual percentage rate at least three percentage points higher than a Treasury security of the same length—in 2006 alone.

Overall, 17.8 percent of white borrowers were given higher-priced mortgages when borrowing from large banks in 2006, yet 30.9 percent of Hispanics and a staggering 41.5 percent of African Americans got higher-priced mortgages. Only 11.5 percent of Asians got higher-priced mortgages.

...

Were there in fact legitimate underwriting reasons that would lead these banks to issue higher-priced loans to nearly one in seven high-income applicants?

This question is sharpened when asked in the context of disparate mortgage pricing across racial and ethnic lines. Among high-income borrowers in 2006, African Americans were three times as likely as whites to pay higher prices for mortgages—32.1 percent compared to 10.5 percent. Hispanics were nearly as likely as African Americans to pay higher prices for their mortgages at 29.1 percent.

They follow this with the deliberately understated throwdown.

We would welcome explanations based solely on legitimate underwriting criteria to clarify why the incidence of higher-priced mortgages among high-income minority borrowers was three times that for white borrowers with similar incomes.

As would we all.

Share of mortgages lent in 2006 by 14 major banks and
current subsidiaries that were higher-priced, by race/ethnicity
(click to enlarge)

The smackdown of Connie Rhodes

It's been awhile since I've added to the collection of judicial snark. Thankfully, Rhodes v MacDonald has arrived to fill the void.

This case owes its fifteen minutes to being connected to the insanity that is the birther movement (the bwanky of choice among nostalgic southern conservatives).

The plaintiff is a commissioned officer in the US Army - a Captain for God's sake - who is suing to prevent her deployment to Iraq on the grounds that:

...her deployment orders are unconstitutional and unenforceable because President Barack Obama is not constitutionally eligible to act as Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces.

I want to believe that Cpt. Rhodes is merely in the thrall of her counsel - the incomparably insane Orly Taitz (poster child for both the birther movement and humanity's need for critical thinking skills). Because if Cpt. Rhodes actually believes what she is shoveling and managed to rise to the rank of Captain...

Well... heaven help the military is all I can say.

Anyways, the court takes full opportunity to pulverize the plaintiff's case - singling out Taitz's extravagant use of the legal system to sell her brand of crazy.

The quotes that are making the rounds in all the usual places focus on Ms. Taitz, so I won't bother with them. Besides, picking on her is like kicking a deranged panhandler.

No, the snark I'm currently savoring was aimed at Cpt. Rhodes - who really ought to have known better. Here's US District Judge Land's dénouement (emphasis mine):

Any interference with a deployment order injects the Court directly into the internal affairs of the military. This type of interference has serious implications.

For example, it would encourage other soldiers who are not satisfied with their deployment destination to seek review in the courts. It also will have an adverse effect on other soldiers who honorably perform their duties. Presumably, some other military doctor, who does not resort to frivolous litigation to question the President’s legitimacy as Commander in Chief, would be required to go to Iraq in Plaintiff’s place.

Similarly, the doctor who Plaintiff is being sent to relieve and who has likely been there for months would be delayed in receiving his well deserved leave because his replacement seeks special treatment due to her political views or reservations about being placed in harm’s way.

Yes, captain. The court is suggesting you are dishonorable, a coward, and a waste of their time.

That's gotta sting.

Not to mention she still has to go to Iraq as a known weasle/dispsh!t. You know that's going to impress her new CO.

I'm thinking whoever currently holds the army's crappiest job in Iraq is about to get a reliever.

Late edit: Cpt. Rhodes has utterly renounced her case and her attorney.
Odder still, her statement contains this odd line "I simply wanted to verify the lawfulness of my orders."

Makes you wonder what chain of events led to this case going forward in the first place.

Real reasons to question the Obama plan

Okay, we've seen the crazies talk about health care.

But what about people who have read the bills and actually know something about health care?

Here's Marcy Wheeler questioning what kind of health insurance will get sold to the uninsured:

How would you feel about this insurance plan: a $500 deductible; a 50% co-pay, and a maximum of $4,200 out-of-pocket cost. Using a highly simplified model from the CBO, this plan has an actuarial value of about 66%. The premium for an individual would be $3,290 plus the administrative costs, which range from 7% to 30%. The high end is for individual and small firm policies, so let’s say 25%, for total premiums of at least $4,112.50.

Under this plan, if you had medical costs of $8,725, or more, you would get back more than you paid in, that is, your premiums plus your co-pay plus your deductible would equal your costs. If you had $5,000 in expenses, maybe the cost of falling and breaking an arm (you'd be amazed how hard it is to find the cost for a medical procedure), you’d be out your premium and $2,750, a total of $6,862.50 that year. That is going to be a real problem for someone making $35,000 per year.

I’d call that a pretty good definition of junk insurance. 

And here's Trudy Lieberman:

By now, it should be obvious to everyone that the Massachusetts model was the president’s health reform endgame all along...

...recent Census Bureau statistics show that, in 2008, some 352,000 Massachusetts residents did not have coverage, even though the law requires that they do. That’s about 5.5 percent of the state’s population; up from the 2.6 percent who were uninsured in the years after reform took effect....

...It’s no secret that Massachusetts’ lack of cost controls, deliberately avoided when reform passed, threatens to undo the law. Ultimately, if the state has no way of paying for subsidies to cover insurance premiums, the law is doomed. Same goes for national reform. Most cost control measures under consideration by Congress and the president are weak or predicated on squeezing savings out of the existing health care order—savings that may or may not materialize.

Massachusetts has now crafted a plan to reduce medical spending by at least $50 billion over the next decade, mostly by scrapping fee-for-service payments to providers in favor of global payments that provide a set amount to cover the cost of care for patients. Aside from sounding like the HMO’s capitation payments of old, draft proposals would give providers five whole years to shift to the new payment methods. What happens in the meantime? The state is looking at interim options, like a set fee for certain procedures.

Here's to Barry

Barry Ritholz spends some time riffing with US News & World Reports about the bailouts and there are some choice details in there worth reading.

Like this bit:

[Q:] It‘s conventional wisdom on Wall Street that the government made a mistake in letting Lehman Brothers collapse last September. But some people think the real mistake was rescuing Bear Stearns a few months earlier, since that led Lehman to expect a rescue.

[A:] Bear Stearns was an organized collapse. They could have just let Bear Stearns go down. JPMorgan supposedly had 40 percent of the $9 trillion in Bear’s derivatives exposure, so why not let JPMorgan deal with it? After the Fed saved Bear, Dick Fuld [CEO of Lehman Brothers] sees Warren Buffett come in with a bunch of billions. That’s supposedly how much he offered: “A bunch of billions.” At a pretty good rate. And Fuld turns him down! He must have been thinking he’d get a better deal from the government. Classic moral hazard! So now it’s September, the night before bankruptcy, and Fuld is meeting with the Fed and the Treasury. Boy, would I have liked to be a fly on the wall. You can just imagine Paulson and Bernanke saying, “You turned Buffett down? You made the mistake of turning Warren Buffett down? And now you want money from us?” No wonder they didn’t want to bail out Lehman—even if they could have.

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True story...

A lovely fall day...

 

Blue sky, green fields... 

 

  

Wait, what's that in the grass?  

  

A sign..? What the *#((@! is a sign doing
in the middle of a-

 

Oh fer cryin' out loud...

Living the (hacker) dream

There's an awful lot of ink about rings of hackers stealing customer data - presumably so they can commit massive fraud. There's a lot of hype.

Well, it ain't all hype:

Albert Gonzalez, a former federal government informant and the alleged ringleader of one of the largest known identity theft cases in U.S. history, pleaded guilty (as expected) to 19 counts of conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud, and aggravated identity theft related to theft of credit and debit card data from TJX Companies (owner of T.J. Maxx), BJ's Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, among other retailers.

Gonzalez, along with 10 others from the U.S., Eastern Europe, and China, were accused in August 2008 of breaking into retail credit card payment systems using wardriving (searching for unsecured wireless networks while driving by with a laptop), and installing sniffer programs to capture data.

...

As for restitution, Gonzalez has agreed to forfeit his Miami condo, a 2006 BMW 330i, a Tiffany diamond ring, Rolex watches, and more than $1 million in cash that was buried in his back yard.

I have a copy of Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent and it was easy to wonder why (if all these tactics were possible) why no one did it.

Well, someone did.

Jumpers

That this should happen at all is unacceptable.

That among its victims were those who sought only to help others makes it even worse.

All our endeavor is based on our belief that even in the depths of barbarism, mankind retains a fundamental minimum of humanity. Events such as this can make it very hard to maintain that belief.

But if abandon it, we must admit there is no difference between man and beast.

And this we will not admit.

We will build and we will rebuild - if only to prove to ourselves and our posterity that the common causes of progress and simple human charity do not end here.

CA Rep. Michael Duvall sets a new standard in political self destruction

(Via TPM)

A married state rep is caught in an affair.

Seen it before.

But wait - he's a "family values" Republican

*yawn*

-and he was caught because he bragged about the affair to a colleage

So?

-in open session

So?

-into a hot mic

Uh...

-and there's video

Bww...wha...

-where he graphicly describes his adultery

aaah....

-and that he engaged in two affairs at the same time

but....

-with women who were also married

a....

-and both of the women are lobbyists

wha..?

-for the industry that is regulated by the state rep's committee.

Okay, I give...

Yes... I think we have a new record holder.

Congratulations to (former) State Rep. Duvall. You've set an awfully high bar.

Collateralized Death Obligations

(H/t to trainreq, Felix Salmon - and to Blossom for the CDO label)

Ah, the innovation of Wall Street: they've found a way to buy and sell your own grandma.

You've heard of lump sum payments? That's where a person is due a series of payments and a vendor offers to buy all their future payments for a fraction of their total value. Person is going to get 100,000 over ten years, but would be willing to take 50,000 right now.

Turns out you can do this with life insurance. A person entitled to a 200,000 payout on their life policy might be willing to take 75,000 right now. Especially since the normal order of things has them dying before they get paid.

This isn't new - wasn't so long ago aids victims were cashing in their life policies to pay for treatment. In some of those cases, this turned out to be win-win.

The new wrinkle is securitization. The NYT points out that now these life polices can be bought up and turned into securities by "packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. [Banks] will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die."

The idea is still in the planning stages. But already “our phones have been ringing off the hook with inquiries,” says Kathleen Tillwitz, a senior vice president at DBRS, which gives risk ratings to investments and is reviewing nine proposals for life-insurance securitizations from private investors and financial firms, including Credit Suisse.

...

what is good for Wall Street could be bad for the insurance industry, and perhaps for customers, too. That is because policyholders often let their life insurance lapse before they die, for a variety of reasons — their children grow up and no longer need the financial protection, or the premiums become too expensive. When that happens, the insurer does not have to make a payout.

But if a policy is purchased and packaged into a security, investors will keep paying the premiums that might have been abandoned; as a result, more policies will stay in force, ensuring more payouts over time and less money for the insurance companies.

...

Undeterred, Wall Street is racing ahead for a simple reason: With $26 trillion of life insurance policies in force in the United States, the market could be huge.

Naturally, Goldmann Sachs is involved (because $26 trillion smells like money) - and the credit rating agencies are making noises like this time they will be careful. Last year's $8.3 trillion dollar adjustment has inspired them.

The next time an investment bank comes to them with an investment product (and its corresponding fee), they will think long and hard before they reflexively cash the check and deliver a AAA rating.

So now we know - the next bubble will be old people.

Get yours while prices are low.

Baltic Pirates = Mossad operation?

Okay - there's not a lot of hard facts in this but remember that whole Russian mystery ship hijack?

Here's one version:

The Arctic Sea, carrying 15 Russian crew, left Finland on 23 July bound for the Algerian port of Bejaia.

A day later, in the Baltic Sea, the ship was reportedly boarded by masked men who claimed to be Swedish anti-drugs police. They tied up the crew and searched the vessel, apparently leaving about 12 hours later.

Then there was the arrest of Estonian hijackers - and the internment of the ship's crew.

Now you have a Russian journalist claiming that the ship's cargo was illicit weapons - and subsequently fleeing the country.

And the Sunday Times is quoting sources that say the cargo was S-300 anti-air weapons bound for the middle east. The BBC is speculating that the initial hijacking may have been a Mossad operation.

You wonder if the press will keep digging - if only to prove that there really are no pirates in the Baltic.

Too weird.

Public option - illustrated

Great video arguing in favor of a public option - A few points illustrated in ways I simply hadn't though of before:


(H/t to Planet Money)

Proof that opera is universal

...is the flawless operatic skewering of Alberto Gonzales in The Gonzales Cantata.



The words are directly from the hearing transcripts - and the music is just marvelous.

Proof positive that the highest form of cruelty is to expose people to their own actions.

Hell, skip the satire and just spool it up for background sound. It's plenty good just as musical entertainment.

(H/t to Ms. Maddow)

Employees are good at…

…the things the boss checks on.

I was sort of blowing past the recent Kabul guard scandal (where tax-funded security personnel engaged in deviant behavior, rather than doing their jobs) because it wasn't like they massacred civilians, or gang raped a coworker. The bar has been set pretty high, after all.

But I was struck by the part where reports of this behavior had been filtering in for years and still, STILL these companies get their contracts renewed.

There’s a certain insanity to taking the lowest bidder for site security contracts and not enforcing basic performance criteria.

I’d been reading back through some of the Free Range International posts and noticed he’s talking about the same issue – back in May.

[The officers who hire contractors]… have a very hard job. They can earn no glory, they do not receive praise, the best thing that can happen to them on a tour in Afghanistan is to return home with their rank and reputation. To avoid the temptation or appearance of fraud or favoritism they write requests for proposals which make little to no sense and award contracts based exclusively on the lowest bid submitted. What is the price for disconnecting contracting from performance? You get security guards hired to protect bases who actually murder American soldiers. I know of three such incidents and there are more. I had a friend show up at the Taj who was asked to stand up a guard force as soon as he could to replace an outfit named “Golden State.” There is no company by that name on the Afghan list of 37 authorized security companies. It was a rogue outfit run by some Afghans who spent time in America and their bid for these guard jobs was less than half what the reputable firms bid. They won, they sucked, they were fired and shot at their Army employers on the way out the door but, being typical Afghans, they did not hit anyone. I asked my buddy if the Army had finally figured out their guard forces needed international supervision and of course the answer was no. Too expensive don’t you see. Our Army will spend 2 million dollars each on ground penetrating radars to mount on the front of the hundreds of multimillion dollar MRAPs despite the fact that they HAVE NEVER DETECTED A MINE IN AFGHANISTAN. But spending money on proper guard forces to watch over our troops on a base – oh no, that is just too expensive.

His whole post The Dutch Boy Dilemma is worth reading, sort of a rant against risk-averse deployment of the military in general. But it points at a trend we've seen in other US deployments.

What is our mission in Afghanistan? I have been here four years and I don’t have a clue. If it is to prevent the return of the Taliban and al Qaeda, that mission was accomplished years ago. They will never be back in any kind of force regardless of when and how we leave. Is it to stand up a central government to allow the people of Afghanistan to join the rest of the functioning core of nation states? That is a noble mission and one I often used to explain why we are here years ago when I first started talking to local leaders in Shrua’s. But our actions on the ground do not remotely correspond to that mission (if that is why we are here.) How can you mentor Afghans if all your diplomats stay completely isolated from them inside a posh embassy throwing endless rounds of parties for each other? Look at the Afghan government. It is judged by all international observers to be in the top three nation sates for official corruption and you can see where all the billions we have spent has gone.

This guy and Rachel Maddow are on opposite poles of the political world - yet they have the same view of our involvement in Afghanistan.

It's clear that Afghanistan was the necessary war. We know why we went. But it's been over seven years now. It is unclear what we plan to do as we stay.

Makes you wonder.

Freedom of information, provided you can pay for it

Balkinization has a great post about the ACLU's role in prying documents out of the government.

The torture story is one of the most important examples of American journalism in the last decade. But it was not revealed through traditional investigative reporting alone. Instead, a non-profit organization-- the ACLU--worked in coordination with journalistic efforts to mount a long-term litigation campaign to gain access to important government information. The ACLU then provided the information to the general public on the Internet, and journalists wrote stories based on the revelations, which led to further ACLU requests and more litigation, producing further revelations, and so on.

It is unlikely that many newspapers today--strapped as they are for cash--would have been able to mount a litigation campaign of many years as expensive or as effective as the ACLU did in order to obtain information for a story.

Four years gone

Where does this mean world cast it's cold eye?
Who's left to suffer long about you?
Is your soul cast about like an old paper bag
past empty lots and early graves
of those like you who lost their way
murdered by the hand of fate
while the red bells rang like thunder?

I'd said before I'd get used to things being like they are.

Wrong again.

Word from the front

One of the nice side effects of the internet is rapid access to the commentary of troops in the field. The military is grappling with issues of operational security - but there are plenty of contractors and hangers on who are free to blog.

I've been following Free Range International for awhile now, and it's a trip. You learn things.

Like - how not to meet with Afghan leaders and deliver food and medicine:

The [US] force rolls into the town on MRAP’s with full battle kit, a bunch of “H[umanitarian] A[id]” aid bags full of tea packets, soccer balls and school supplies, two terps [interpreters], some medical staff, and no plan.  For those of you who have never been to Afghanistan let me clue you into a fact – the last thing in the world these people need is tea.  They have plenty and they hate Lipton tea bags because they suck – that is like rolling into a Mexican border town and giving the locals packets of cocaine and boxes of 5.56 ammo – they have enough of that shit … although the thought counts for something I guess.

The [meeting with the town leader] doesn’t go well.  The locals bum rush the supplies, the medics have no female terp and are also getting overwhelmed to the point of panic by people who no doubt have a ton of problems such as infected sores, intestinal parasites, malaria etc.. which the Americans could easily treat if they had the time, patience and a clue.  They see a young man snapping pictures with a cell phone – something Afghans do all the time – and interpret this as possibly hostile activity so they scan him with the BATS (Biometric Automated Tool Set)  and erase his cell phone.  Of what possible relevance these cell phone pics could be remains a mystery to me.    Young Afghans taking cell phone pictures is what one expects to see and is therefore not a “rule of opposites” scenario.

...

Let me provide the yellow.  In order to do [Key Leader Engagements] you need to engage the “key leaders” in a manner consistent with your objectives.  If your objective is to provide aid and make new friends how should the company commander present himself?  I vote for he drives in with his terp in an unarmored SUV; sits down with the local elders and asks permission to come in with his company and also for their help distributing some supplies. You ask him to provide male and female interpreters as well as supervisors to assist with the distribution of aid and you agree to the rate for these folks.  You both agree exactly how the MEDCAP will go and pay for supervisors – both male and female to do that too.  Leave the security outside the village and walk in without all the body armor – side arms or slung rifles are  no big deal they are a fact of life in this country.  The visit is supposed to be about trust and you can only show trust with actions …. not words.  If the elders do not hold up their end of the bargain you leave.  It is that simple – Pashtunwali cuts both ways and if they won’t play ball they should get the stick … or just be ignored.

You also learn about defending fixed locations:

[We] are looking at a ridge line some 600 meters away which is the attack point for...gunmen who fire on this post regularly.  There are four [Afghan National Army] soldiers and four [Afghan National Police] policemen manning this position and they have a Hummer mounted M60 machinegun, and RPK machinegun and their rifles for defense.  Apparently the bad guys tend to attack  in the evening when the ANP re-supply truck arrives with chow and they have wounded at least two ANP policemen this month.

What is frustrating to guys like [us] is the fact that we could easily sort out this threat with a good machinegun squad and a mortar – manned by proper infantry.  An American squad with a sharp squad leader would be perfect for a job like this.  The reason why American infantry is so effective is that their machineguns come with tripods and T&E’s which are traversing and elevation mechanisms.  Machineguns are deadly in the defense because you can dial them in using a map, range finders, a little math and test firing.  There are five different firing spots on the ridge across from this position and each of them should be dialed in on range cards so that the leader calls out a target designator when he wants to shift fire.  The machinegunner than dials that target in on his T&E and he can rock and roll.  A mortar which has been placed in properly can do exactly the same thing – register the targets allowing for first round hits which saves ammo and pumps up the troops.

You also get cross links to blogs like Afghan Quest - which write about how the army hasn't changed much. The guys that do stuff get hassled by the guys who don't.