Court upholds right to give police the finger

Court upholds right to give police the finger
A New York man can seek damages following a disorderly conduct arrest when he “flipped the bird” at police
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/04/court_upholds_right_to_give_polive_the_finger/

I couldn’t think of a better title, so stole the one from the article. I like this comment by FredRated:

WTF, common sense rears its ugly head? I thought it went extinct years ago.

And “believing his hand gesture to be some sort of distress signal” lol!

PoodlePlay, though, points out the obvious:

Swartz should be grateful that he didn’t get the shit kicked out of him.

This decision notwithstanding, it is important to remember that any cop can arrest you any time he damn well pleases, and if he happens to be an asshole, he can make life very unpleasant for you.
…
So at the end of the day, what did Swartz prove, other than the fact he is not only a colossal douche-bag, but a damned lucky one, too?

While I initially thought that this might be a tiny thawing in the police state, I pretty much agree with PoodlePlay and it is much ado about nothing. Just like Rodney King got his ass repetitively kicked even after winning a civil rights judgement against the cops. Dumbasses will always piss off the cops who will use their position of authority to retaliate. The problem I have is when the cops get a permanent get-out-of-jail-free card and no matter how outrageous their activities they suffer no consequences. Of course, just like the rest of our police state injustice system I don’t expect my complaining about it will do a damn bit of good, but I thought the article might be amusing to my reader(s).

I think these guys really are that vapid

I read this over the holiday and was tempted to comment then, but instead went off to stuff my face yet again (I have no doubt I put on at least 10 lbs in the last several weeks). I came across it again just now, so thought I would express myself…

Angelo Mozilo, Former Countrywide CEO, Claims He Doesn’t Know What ‘Verified Income’ Is
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/angelo-mozilo-former-countrywide-ceo-claims-he-doesnt-know-what-verified-income-is-20121228

I like Matt’s writing a lot. He is colorful, seems very well informed and, though clearly expressing bias, argues his point of view effectively. However, in this case (and a handful of others like it) I think he is off the mark. He seems to be assuming that these people got into their positions of power on some sort of merit system, thus implying that at one point or another they actually had to be responsible for understanding what they did. I think the opposite: that they got their lofty positions simply because they were born to the right parents, were sent to the right schools and hung out with the right crowd. That one winds up in charge of JP Morgan and another winds up in charge of Countrywide is just happenstance. Thus, according to my thesis, none of these guys actually have to have learned about anything related to the business they ‘manage’ and as such, it is totally plausible to me that they plead ignorance when questioned. No doubt, in my mind, they _are_ ignorant about the nuts and bolts of the companies they ‘manage’. There are, of course, exceptions to any rule, but I suspect that if you dig around you will find the majority of the Fortune 500 companies are managed by people who have never held more than a token ‘real’ job (Romney immediately comes to mind) their entire lives. When one is more successful than another it seems to boil down to who inherited the least dysfunctional company (or who made their inherited company less dysfunctional with their ‘management’) and rarely, if ever, has anything to do with their own intrinsic skill or knowledge (though, I suppose, superior contacts might tilt the playing field somewhat).

I have studied business rather intensively since I was around 13, so I have been following current business events for about 35 years now (of course, I have also studied business history as well). In the generation plus I have been actively watching the daily evolution of business I do think that there has been some noticeable dumbing down, though I want to be sure to point out that positions of power in business have historically _always_ gone to the most well connected (hence born to the right parents, went to the right schools, etc.) and this hasn’t appreciably changed. What I think has changed is that historically there was at least some effort made to educate the ‘up and comers’ in their ‘assigned’ profession such that they were positioned to actually make competent (or at least not incompetent) decisions. Today, given the short average life expectancy of a CEO (around 5 years) and the clear knowledge to anyone who cares to look that in a company of any significant size it takes at least 4 years before any decisions a senior executive makes to have an impact, it makes perfect sense that our current crop of ‘leaders’ wouldn’t bother to learn any details about what they are ‘managing’, it would be a total waste of their time and effort! Families used to be in charge of organizations (often with elements of vertical integration) and while there was a firm requirement that any senior executives be members of the family (sometimes marriage was allowed, but often not) there were generally several candidates and the one that showed the most intellect and interest was generally the one trained (and often trained for a decade or longer) and later put in charge. Today, families are rarely in charge of organizations any longer, so the money hungry thieves we call CEOs now can run rampant raping and pillaging for their 5 years, then off to the next host from which they can suck lifeblood, with no consequences what so ever.

Even in the case where the CEO actually gives a damn about the company it doesn’t mean that she will be good for the company. While this is not an ideal, take Enron as an example. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling probably thought that their pal Andy Fastow was just the guy to sort out all that complicated accounting crap and therefore they wouldn’t have to bother with it. When you hire an expert and trust that expert isn’t it rational to assume that the expert is going to tell you to do things that you don’t necessarily understand? If you wanted to take the time to become that expert you probably wouldn’t have had the time to become the CEO in the first place, right? Thus, I find Lay and Skilling’s protestations of ignorance even more plausible than that from Matt’s posts, these guys were relying on an expert specifically brought on because of his expertise. That he turned out to be a lying sack of shit intent on self enrichment, damn the torpedoes, is the real source of the problem. Of course, in my mind, when you hire someone who deviates substantially from the norm (GAAP, in this case) you should be willing to step up and accept responsibility, but ‘responsibility’ is a foreign word to the vast majority of the oligarchy. However, they trusted Fastow (likely because they went to the same schools and no doubt hung out with the same people) and after all, Fastow was making them lots of money, what is not to love?

Of course were the Enron scandal to happen today the world would collectively yawn; there would be no charges, no trials, no convictions. Heck, we are only talking about 10’s of billions of dollars, why did everyone get so upset back then? Today, even trillions is hardly enough to get people to look up from their Rice Krispies.

Anyway, my point is that it isn’t necessary to posit some sort of vast conspiracy or bald-faced lying on the part of these CEOs, they probably never did know what they were doing. Of course, in my mind, that is even greater grounds for being drawn and quartered, but sadly I don’t have much influence around here.

OK, maybe I was wrong…

Why ‘gerrymandering’ doesn’t polarise Congress the way we’re told
Biased redistricting is commonly held up as the culprit for America’s increasingly partisan politics. If only it were that simple
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/03/gerrymandering-polarise-congress

I don’t particularly like being wrong (does anyone?), but since I tend to defend my opinions quite firmly (being generous here), when I figure I am wrong I have tried to own up to it. In the past I have come down pretty hard on Gerrymandering (for instance here and here) and as a consequence was _very_ skeptical when I read the title to the article. However, as I have mentioned a time or twain here before, I am happy to be exposed to opposing arguments as long as I feel they are made rationally and based on supportable information rather than just bloviating so I took a look. Nate Silver has shown that he is focused on supportable numbers and lets his algorithms decided (not that that is impossible to manipulate, but he at least shows the potential that he isn’t engaging in that activity), so when he says that Gerrymandering isn’t an issue I tend to respect that. In particular this comment:

Meanwhile, the differences between the parties have become so strong, and so sharply split across geographic lines, that voters may see their choice of where to live as partly reflecting a political decision. This type of voter self-sorting may contribute more to the increased polarization of Congressional districts than redistricting itself. Liberal voters may be attracted to major urban centers because of their liberal politics (more than because of the economic opportunities that they offer), while conservative ones may be repelled from them for the same reasons.

Unfortunately it seems that this polarization of the electorate looks like it is self-reinforcing, meaning that there is little to change the individual decision calculus of each Representative (Senators, since they represent half the state, by their nature tend to be more moderate) and since there appears to be little in the way of demographic shifts that can change the current polarization (i.e., Democrats in the city, Republicans in the hinterlands), we can look forward to the House being mostly to exclusively controlled by the GOP and the Senate staying very close to balance (meaning the idiotic use of the filibuster to force a 60 vote majority to do anything) our Congress is likely to remain highly dysfunctional for the foreseeable future.

Ironically, based on my analysis, Democrats are much more likely to remain in control of the White House than the GOP simply because the primary process for the GOP is so entirely focused on the wing-nut fringe, thus trapping the candidate (as it did for Romney) in positions that alienate the nation’s center. The Tea Party should be ecstatic, though; they have dragged the nation so far to the right now that people call Obama a socialist with a straight face. When a Democratic President figures it is OK to negotiate away Social Security to put even more old people into poverty you can be sure that progressives have had their teeth completely pulled. Not to mention the total shredding of our Constitution (by a supposed Constitutional lawyer, no less).

Man I wish I could get my wife to consider emigration! Land in Canada is quite inexpensive (I found 300 acres for less than $100K (US) off a paved and maintained road (and ‘only’ a half hour from civilization!)).

Shoulda known better

Software maker faces jail because his product was illegally used
Robert Stuart legally sold gambling software to overseas online casinos but the program was used by others in N.Y.
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/03/software_maker_faces_jail_because_his_product_was_illegally_used/

This is one of the ‘lesser’ impacts of our police state. People get charged with ‘crimes’ because our government wants to use them and they refuse. Of course there is the tiny chance that the courts will throw this out, but more likely it will go to some moronic jury somewhere and even if overturned on appeal the state will have achieved its ends because anyone else observing the fracas will be vastly less likely to stand up for their rights (well, the rights they used to have) in the future because they will want to avoid the cost of the litigation, not to mention the risk of jail time.

Several of the comments were quite amusing, JT had this to add:

So if a kidnapper writes up a ransom note with Microsoft Word, will Microsoft face criminal charges? Maybe Bill Gates resigned just in time. If a drug dealer does his fianances in Quicken, will someone from Intuit have to go to jail? Heck, I just read a story about child pornographers being arrested, why haven’t we gone after the camera makers who’s hardware and software made it possible?

In a rational legal system judges would throw this sort of crap right out the door, but rationality left our legal system 20-30 years ago (and our government 30-40 years ago).

The ‘fun’ is only beginning!

Being fat is where its at!

Being overweight linked to lower risk of mortality
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/health/overweight-mortality/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

I thought I had talked about the relationship between being, shall we say, ‘Rubenesque‘, before, but I am not finding such a post. This is not the first time I have found reports where being ‘well padded’ had longer lifetimes, but this one seems to put the clinch on the idea. Note, though, that what is considered ‘overweight’ in the rest of the world is likely considered ‘normal weight’ here in the blubber utopia of the world: the good old USofA. I consider the likely benefit comes into play when you are old(er) and suffer a serious health complication (bad flu, pneumonia, bad fall, etc.) and are unable to eat well (or at all) yet your body has serious requirements for energy for repair. ‘Skinny’ people lack the several pounds of blubber needed to accommodate that energy requirement and as a consequence take longer to heal (or simply die outright) making them more frail and thus more subject to injury/illness in the future. I am entirely unimpressed with the study author’s idea that these ‘full bodied’ people get better health care, I think it is simply due to having more resources on hand (or rather on butt or belly) when knocked up for a week or longer. The average person burns around 2,000 calories a day just staying alive. If you are seriously sick or injured, that calorie requirement might double or more! With 3,500 calories per pound of blubber you can see that going a week without eating can result in some serious slimming. Already slim? Then your hopes of a robust recovery can be equally slim.

All hail blubber butts!

So naive

Is your hospital hurting you?
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/opinion/makary-hospital-doctors/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

The author is quite amusing to me. He somehow thinks that the massive consolidation of hospitals has anything but financial gain for the already wealthy behind it. Oh, I am sure that there are a handful of cases where a local group of hospitals got together administratively in order to provide better service, but I am also quite sure that that case (maybe there are more? I doubt it) is the exception held up by the corporations doing consolidation as justification for their money grab. Yes, in principle, it is possible to get economies of scale and wind up with better medicine at a lower cost, yet that never seems to happen. However, if it was just plain old incompetence that lead to some hospitals being run less efficiently combined then separate, by plain old statistics/happenstance/randomness you would expect there to be about half the hospitals to be better off after merging.

I have no doubt that Dr. Makary is a smart guy (few dummies become surgeons anywhere, let alone Johns Hopkins), but he is looking at the world through rose colored glasses and will never have any measurable impact as long as he wears them. Hospitals clearly should not be operating at a deficit, but by the same token, they should not be operated to produce million dollar salaries for executives (or doctors!). As long as the profit-at-all-costs mentality is the driving force behind medicine (and with the plethora of billion dollar pharmaceutical companies we have, that is no doubt the case today) we will never reverse our increasing health care costs until we all go bankrupt. Then, like in all other cases, the oligarchy that got further bloated by feeding on our corpses will just shift off to some other part of the world to continue feeding.

Evils of sugar

Is sugar the next tobacco?
It will be if author Robert Lustig, the man behind the YouTube sensation “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” has his way
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/01/is_sugar_the_next_tobacco/

I talk a time or twain about how the evidence is building up that processed food (particularly sugar) is very unhealthy for you except in small amounts. Much as I harp on exercise as critical to health, I feel obligated to pound a bit on the idea of cutting back on processed food. Sugar, flour, etc. have been carefully refined to remove any trace of non-metabolizable material from it (flour is nothing more than chemically linked sugar; the poor old potato is nothing more than a lump of sugar to your body) meaning that 100% of the intake will be used by the body. Back when food was scarce and we all engaged in back breaking labor 18 hours a day, that sort of refinement meant we could eat less food (physical bulk) but be able to metabolize more calories. What was once a survival issue has now become a detriment. Processed food, in our current society, is really nothing more than slow poison for the majority of our population. Of course, there are powerful interest groups that make huge buckets of money from that poison, so, exactly like the tobacco industry, don’t expect any swift action on the part of our government! As mentioned in the article, it is likely to be a long slow slog before the public health consequences are fully realized and something is actually done about it.

Borrow now, pay never…

I was reading this post by Jared Bernstein:

A Few Fiscal Points re this AMs WaPo
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/a-few-fiscal-points-re-this-ams-wapo/

and then read this comment:

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/a-few-fiscal-points-re-this-ams-wapo/#comment-412115 (reproduced below)

The “intra-governmental” debt is maybe even more problematic. What it really represents is money that the Nation decided not to pay in taxes when the baby boomers were at the their highest earning period but rather shifted “retirement” funds to cover operating costs.

So in ten years, when the bulk of the baby boomers are in the process of retiring, we have to pay for the upsized budgets they voted for (but chose not to fund) plus their retirement through retiring the debt owned by the Social Security trust fund.

If nothing else– if NOTHING ELSE AT ALL– it makes a strong case for jacking up the estate tax. Money that should have gone to taxes in the 80s and 90s but instead were kept in private coffers can finally be taxed appropriately.

That’s not an argument against short-term Keynesian stimulus. Just a realization that our long-term debt issue is not really about government spending but rather a refusal to pay for that spending.

…

and it made me think about a discussion (argument?) I had with a brother-in-law (once removed? the husband of my sister-in-law) over the weekend. Our disagreement seemed to boil down to his conviction that interest/dividends/capital gains should not be taxed because they had already been taxed at some point in the past when the dollars were once labor income. My disagreement basically boils down to ‘income is income’ and it is extremely unfair in my world view that people who have to work for a living (me!) pay higher taxes on less income than people who don’t have to do a damn thing (get money from their money) to get their income. We didn’t really resolve anything (there might not be any resolution), but the comment above is something that really seemed to speak to that discussion (in particular his acute objection to any sort of inheritance tax). Much like our two unfunded wars (remember Iraq and Afghanistan? Both wars were (and continue to be) funded by borrowed dollars), our government has committed to spending certain dollars in the past, but then failed to generate the revenue to pay for those commitments. To say that you didn’t agree to this or that expenditure is disingenuous at best, you can’t pick and choose what parts of your government you want to pay for. We (collectively) elected these idiots to represent us (never let anyone tell you we lack a representative government!); not voting or voting for the loser doesn’t absolve you of the collective responsibility for our government. If you don’t want to be part of the society that results from our government, emigrate!

Anyway, as that comment so eloquently puts it, collectively we have decided to borrow funds from the future and are now balking at paying the price. I particularly like the bit about the high estate tax as compensation! People can’t pick and choose which bits of society they want to use and only pay for those bits, it is an all or nothing proposition. That our society chooses not to pay for what it wants (and has already used!) shows that we are collectively a dysfunctional one. Of course, the vast (and increasing!) asymmetry between the haves and the have nots (or, as rather amusingly stated on a show on BBC I watched yesterday (Russia Today, I think), the “have nots” and the “have yachts”) exacerbates the problem as our oligarchy wants to have expensive wars for ‘free’, not to mention use highways, airports, police, etc. for ‘free’ (meaning borrow for these facilities and let the middle class pay for it).

Even though not exactly apropos to this post, I also really like the comment’s bit about immigration (my brother-in-law and I also discussed this idea, though we were a lot less far apart):

The real path forward– that we’ve been doing, quietly, for three decades but refuse to acknowledge– is to immigrate our way out of slow growth and lopsided demographics.

That’s why the refusal to do anything to normalize the “illegal immigrants” who are here is disingenuous. The reality is that we’ve made it as welcoming for them to come as we can because they’ve been economically beneficial to us. To then turn around, insult them, deport them, and criminalize them is hypocritical.

What is buried in the last-second agreement?

House staves off fiscal cliff, but more money squabbles lie ahead
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html

I was actually hoping we would ‘go over the cliff’ and get all that extra revenue even though it was likely to result in a bit of a stall to our economy. Since that is what I was hoping for, naturally, that isn’t what happened (I bet someone could make a lot of money betting _against_ me at every opportunity); instead we had a last second agreement made and ramrodded through without anyone having any opportunity to review the legislation. I am convinced that there are all sorts of giveaways in there (I am too lazy to actually read that stuff, besides, I am sure I don’t need the aneurism that will no doubt result).

Of course, we immediately get to start this circus all over again since we are now at the debt ceiling. Personally, I hope that Obama simply ignores this issue and continues to operate the government like nothing has happened (while tenuous, there is some precedent in the Constitution (not that he really has any problem with stomping on that document!)).

Since this was a stop-gap measure anyway, most of this crap will all be revisited in two months except now we will have all our new legislators in place all wanting to make a name for themselves.

I predict lots of continued frustration for those of us who actually expect our government to govern…

An actual vacation!

Our intent over the holidays was to work on the greenhouse/pool project, but we got off to an inauspicious start when the first Saturday had winds a howlin. Then the snow set in (we got probably a total of 5 inches over the holidays) and we just never really got any traction. My only regret is that I didn’t take a couple of books I wanted to read with me because I didn’t expect to have time. It was nice to get that time off, though I feel really fat(er) because of all the gullet stuffing I did. It sure went down well, though!

Hopefully my reader(s) had a great holiday as well!

Happy New Year!