Anders Behring Breivik Was Insane

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Kevin S. Willis

Surprise! Anders Behring Breivik is not right in his head.

Much TV watching, playing of checkers in his future. Just punishment for the brutal murder of 77 innocent young people.

Too bad they couldn’t have moved the trial to Texas.

Prosecutors said Breivik, a self-declared anti-immigration militant, believed he had staged what he called “the executions” out of his love for his people. “The conclusion … is that he is insane,” prosecutor Svein Holden told a news conference on Breivik’s psychiatric evaluation. “He lives in his own delusional universe and his thoughts and acts are governed by this universe.”

If the court accepts the psychiatrists’ conclusions, Breivik would be held in a psychiatric institution rather than in a prison. Norwegian courts can challenge psychiatric evaluations or order new tests but rarely reject them. Breivik could be held as long as he poses a threat to society, but may be released if found to be healthy.

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CPA Sex – it’s not just for accountants!

Posted on November 29, 2011 by markinaustin

From Herman Cain’s attorney, describing the new allegation:

This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault – which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate,” said attorney Lin Wood, who Cain hired after several sexual harassment allegations surfaced against him earlier this month

Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults – a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life.

I wanted WJC to resign because he diddled a WH clerk.  It was their relative power positions in that workplace that  motivated my thinking, not the infidelity itself, about which I had no opinion for public consumption, nor was I impressed with his misdemeanor false swearing under oath in a deposition about an immaterial subject.

In theory I agree with Lin Wood, but the news loves S-E-X and I am sure there will not be a public outcry to protect the privacy of anyone in public life, ever.  Of course, one party here made her conduct quite public, for whatever reason, so the genie is out of that box, so to speak.

In theory, do you agree with Lin Wood?  I am curious how many  of us think consenting private adult [cpa] sex is not a legitimate ground for inquiry.

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Is it any wonder?

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Arcanaut

Good morning, everyone!  I apologize for being absent for solong.  Currently, am still job-hunting,and not focused much on politics at all. I miss it!  I miss y’all!  Even QB.

Kevin and Michi: Thank you for contacting me.  You have no idea how good it feels!  I am stuck here in Manassas, and don’t darego out anywhere to spend anything.  Won’teven go the pool hall, damnit!

All of which leads me to the following:

The job market has changed so much in justa few years, literally! It is drastically different from what it was just 10years ago, and at THAT time, it didn’t have much in common with the way that Iwas taught to job hunt waaaaay back in the 80’s. Now it feels like I am on aroller coaster ride taking the long way around to the Black Hole of Resumes.

It used to be that with some good oldpavement pounding, you could find a job. In the mid-90’s, I took the yellow pages, and just started cold-callingevery business that had an interesting name. I found a job in a week.  I usedthe Sunday newspaper (you know, actual PAPER?)

Today, I go to Careerbuilder andMonster.  I’m trying to figure out LinkedIn.  Gadblummit, I am NOT going to signup to Facebook!  Enough already!!  Besides, I have NO CLUE where any pictures ofme are.  I have nothing to post.  I’m looking for employment, ‘k? I don’t wanta date. Unless they’re paying for everything.

So where am I going with this?  Why does this rant belong here, on this blog?Well.

In job-hunting today, on one hand, you areexpected to hand out all kinds of information about yourself to the generalpublic, in sites such as LinkedIn and FB.

On the other hand, be very carefulregarding identity theft, and pick your friends carefully, as some employersnow routinely run searches on social networks and Google about you before theyhire, and they check your friends as well.

It is these searches that are the cause ofmy ire.  I am looking for a job, youknow, that stuff that you do all day in order to collect a paycheck?  I am not looking to date you.  It really isn’t your business that my brotherhas mental issues.  They don’t affect MYjob!  It isn’t your business that myex-fiancee is still my friend, and that his daughter had a baby out of wedlock(how quaint!) a month ago. It isn’t your business that my old friend fromcollege, that I haven’t seen for 10 years, may have a drinking problem.  He lives in Atlanta.  I am looking for a job in the DC area.  Yes, I play pool.  I love to play pool! What does that have todo with fixing workstations?  If you wantme to dedicate every waking hour to YOU, Pay me!

And now we move on to finances.  Don’t you think, that if I am job-hunting,that I then may have a cash-flow issue? Isn’t that part of the whole situation that I am job-hunting to get outof? Steady paychecks have a way of clearing those things up pretty quick.  So, why are you denying me a job because Ihave been slow paying a couple bills?  Doyou really think that I am going to pay them faster now?

All of the above though, is just theinsult to the injury.  The injury:

I found your job listing.  I went to your website, I spent an hourfilling out an application with all the same info as the resume that yourequested I upload/cut’n’paste, I spent another 30 minutes browsing your site,and running searches on you.  Theresponse from you? Nothing. Black Hole. Nothing.

Oh, I might get one that says, “We gotyour resume.” That’s it. No other follow up. (more on this in a bit).

What happened to etiquette and manners? Afterspending all of that time, I expect a response. Something that says “Thank you for applying, position is filled”, or theone that says “Thank you for applying, we are not accepting apps now”.  You can’t be bothered for a little courtesywhen your job description clearly stated that “Friendly and prompt customerservice is a must”?

Or, if you are going to send a cannedresponse like “We got your resume”, do you mind following up on that?  I have responded to a job ad where thedescription also stated “track issues and follow up on all tickets promptly”.  Obviously, you need to hire me, because I neverhear from you again.

Worse. You apply to a position, and amonth later, and two months later, the SAME JOB IS STILL BEING ADVERTISED. Youknow what? They were just fishing. Trying to compare salary requirements, is all. They have no job. Theynever did.  Arseholes.

So, we have rudeness inside the workplace,and outside the workplace, and in our politics, and in our blogs. Is it anywonder there is such random violence, or that there is protesting going on?Really?

Ok. My rant is done.

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Don’t mess with Joe

Posted on November 29, 2011 by ScottC

I don’t mean to step on the Bits and Pieces thread, but I saw this today and just had to put it up here. Any of you old timers remember Joe Kapp, the old quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings back in the late 60’s? Kapp is the only quarterback in history to appear in the Rose Bowl, the Super Bowl, and the CFL’s Grey Cup. Anyway, apparently the other day Kapp was being honored at a CFL alumni luncheon along with an old rival of his from the 1963 Grey Cup, Angelo Mosca. It seems that there was some kind of incident back in 1963 involving Mosca and a teammate of Kapp’s, which resulted in some hard feelings. Old grudges, it seems, die hard.

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Jots and Tiddles

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Kevin S. Willis

U.S. Lags Other Countries in Wellness and Medical Care. But, you know, it still looks to me like we’re pretty well off.

Americans smoke at a far lower rate than in other countries, but in addition to its level of obesity, the U.S. rate for diabetes is among the developed world’s highest. And though Americans are living an average nine years longer than 50 years ago, 26 other countries outpace the U.S. in life expectancy.

Why are US tax payers still handing out big money to already wealthy companies in the form of Ag subsidies?  This makes no sense to me. The government needs to get out of the business of handing out money to farmers. It’s a drop in the bucket, perhaps, but we still don’t need to be doing it.

Under America’s lavish subsidy system, farmers collected $260 billion in taxpayer money between 1995 and 2010. In theory, this money is supposed to help small farmers survive in a volatile and risky sector. In reality, most of this money goes to the biggest agrarian operations. Since 1995, the top 10 percent of farmers collected 75 percent of all farm-bill subsidies, according to analysis by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.

Employs of mortgage foreclosure firm that made fun of  people losing their houses are now losing their jobs. But is it fair?

On Oct. 28, published photos from the firm’s annual Halloween party showed employees wearing costumes mocking people who had lost their homes.Following the revelation of the crass photos, the national mortgage servicing giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae blacklisted the Baum firm and forbade servicers of their mortgages from using Baum and his colleagues, a move which essentially sounded the death knell for the firm.

Occupy Wallstreet, hell. Occupy Congress!

That’s because 250 members of Congress — or 47 percent — have a net worth of more than $1 million, according to a new study by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The study, which analyzed data from legislators’ financial disclosure forms, found the average senator had a net worth of about $2.63 million last year. That’s up 11 percent from $2.38 million in 2009 and 16 percent from $2.27 million in 2008.

One of the way congresscritters get rich is by being able to legally trade on inside information, something no one except elected congresspersons can legally do. However, the STOCK Act looks to put a stop to that.

Such trades have proven remarkably lucrative. A newly released study by the Center for Responsive Politics found that members of Congress saw their net worth rise by over 25 percent since the financial crisis of 2008, while average Americans have seen their net worth plummet.

“It should be illegal for them to trade off of this kind of information,” Alan Ziobrowski, an associate professor of business at Georgia State University, told The Daily. “There’s no reason that Congress should be able to do what corporate executives can’t.”

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Morning Report

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Brent Nyitray

Vital Statistics:

Last Change Percent
S&P Futures 1185.4 32 2.77%
Eurostoxx Index 2197 85.720 4.06%
Oil (WTI) 99.62 2.850 2.95%
US Dollar Index (DXY) 78.964 -0.646 -0.81%
10 Year Govt Bond Yield 2.07% 0.11%

Markets are rallying this morning without any major catalyst. Reporters are searching for reasons for the rally, and have offered a rumor of an 800 billion euro rescue package by the IMF (subsequently denied) and a better than expected Black Friday. If you got in your car this morning and wondered why the S&Ps are up 32 handles, well, there isn’t an earth shattering reason. Sometimes there just isn’t an obvious catalyst. Volatility begets volatility.

The National Retail Federation put out its report on Black Friday Weekend sales last night. The average consumer spent $398.62 over the weekend vs $365.34 last year, a 9.1% increase. Total spending was over $54 billion. Strong promotional activity brought out shoppers, so some caution is in order – we may have only been pulling December sales forward. That said, it is more evidence that consumers are spending, even if the sentiment indicators suggest they are not.

The WSJ has a piece on unemployment this morning that discusses how the US employment market is beginning to resemble Europe’s. While the US labor market doesn’t have nearly the amount of rigidity that characterizes Europe’s labor market, one of the big symptoms of sclerosis – a lack of mobility – has begun to flash warning signs here in the US. The US has always had a very flexible labor force, where the unemployed could easily move to areas of the country where employment was rising. We have seen the Rust Belt lose population to the Sun Belt for decades. However, Americans have been changing jobs and moving locations less frequently than in prior decades. The housing bust of the last 5 years explains some of this, but not all. Demographics and health care may explain some of it. But it doesn’t bode well for a rapid decrease in unemployment.

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Driving back from Santa Fe

Posted on November 28, 2011 by markinaustin

We drove through the world’s largest windfarm after we left Sweetwater.  The 2.833 year old twins were fascinated.

Austin’s two lowest cost sources of energy are natural gas and wind, followed by coal.  The City is trying to replace all its coal based use.  Wind produces about 17% of Austin’s energy, I think.  Austin also has built a large solar facility but it can supply only about 1% of capacity and costs four times as much as gas or wind.

The City’s insistence on solar projects is controversial because they will produce energy over a twenty year period projected to drop in cost comparison from four times wind to twice wind, but never be as cheap as wind.  The City justifies solar projects on a few grounds – diversity of clean sources, a boost to tech companies in and coming to Austin, and the fact that the sunniest days are the least windy.   Further, Austin does not have local wind generation capacity and buys from wind farms either in the west or on the Gulf.  Austin does have enough sunshine, and the local City owned sun powered 30MW generation plant opens in a few weeks.

Austin owns land in west TX that I thought was going to get dotted with wind generators.  I now read in this morning’s paper that the city utility wants to build 3 huge solar arrays that will potentially provide 10% of capacity.  I assume that would be instead of wind generators.

The city utility subsidizes rooftop solar panels but is leery of them in the long term.

I am not an opponent of experimenting with solar on a small scale, albeit large enough to sustain slow development, until it becomes cheap.  The local solar plant made sense to me in that regard.  But wind is so cheap that for coal replacement nothing else makes current $$$ and sense [except NG].  Like Boone Pickens, I think NG is the mobile fuel of choice in the near future, so I would go for more wind in the stationary source market.

What are the down sides of wind farms?  The prop blades are tough on birds that do not adapt by flying higher.  The ground vibrates.  The props make some noise.  The high plains from Sweetwater, TX to N.Dak. are wind central but the transmission lines are not in place and must generally be routed hundreds of miles to population centers.  Wind speeds are high enough over the Great Lakes and the coastal waters for generators, and can be placed close to coastal or lakeside population centers.

A political note:  our Land Commissioner is the daddy of windpower in America.  A staunch conservative R, I vote for him every time.  He saw that it would be cheap, a boon for underutilized mesas in TX, and that it could help sustain the economy many years ago, and subsidized its development until TX now has far and away the most wind generated power in America.  I think we will have enough to support one third of the homes in TX within two years.

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Assuming Economics

Posted on November 27, 2011 by msjs0315

This morning I’m avoiding mycarefully constructed to-do list by reading TheEconomist, or at least parts of it.
There’s a bad joke abouteconomists in which one of their lot is theorizing how to open a can of tunafish in the middle of nowhere that ends with the line, “Assume we have a canopener.”  And although the joke isdecades old, economists still fall into the trap of assuming stuff that’s nearimpossible to manifest as they attempt to share the ‘wisdom’ of theirprofession.
(Full confession: I was apsychology and economics major in college and worked in an economics think tankfor two years as I pondered whether my graduate degree would be in business oreconomics.  I went with the MBA, largelyon the basis of a larger expected income flow, but also because I found my workenvironment just too dizzyingly surreal.)
Anyway,back to The Economist.  Here’s Exhibit A, a piece about fracking.
“It doesappear that fracking can cause earthquakes. But so can geothermal energyproduction and other parts of the oil and gas production process. Whereverfluids are injected into deep wells, that is a risk. It warrants strict regulation and further study. It is not,however, a reason to shut down a promising industry.”
…
“[T]he industry’s promiseshould not obscure its dangers, especially when it comes to the fuel itprovides…The only way of ensuring thatdoes not happen is to price fossil fuels to cover the cost of the environmentaldamage they do.”  [emphasisadded]
Huh?
Strictregulation?  Environmental-damage basedenergy pricing? On what planet does TheEconomist assume these will occur? 
Exhibit B, in myview, is this article on the euro.
“If the ECB is tofulfil its mandate of price stability, it must prevent prices falling.” 
Except that sovereigndebt prices are already falling and there’s little the European Central Bankcan do about it.  And no amount of ECB actionis going to rid Europe of that load of debt. 
The articlesort of acknowledges this a bit later and then proposes:
“It also meanscreating a [euro] debt instrument that investors can believe in. And thatrequires a political bargain” that would essentially require stronger Eurozonecountries to support weaker ones for the next 20-30 years. 
And the strongerEurozone countries will sell this to their people how, exactly?  Despite the common currency, the Eurozone isstill a collection of sovereign nations, each with its unique internal makeupand external position in the ‘zone.  I’msure The Economist knows this, but itseems to have been forgotten here.
(As a final aside, Isee the world pointing fingers at the US in general and the supercommittee inparticular for failing to address the country’s debt problems.  But the ‘zone reportedly on the brink ofdisaster and it hasn’t figured a way out, either.)
And on that note, Imust leave the world of economics where anything can be assumed and get back tothe less nuanced reality of my to-do list.  

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Leftovers

Posted on November 26, 2011 by Arcanaut

I missed my chance at the main thread and was too busy to comment, so am posting separately.
I remember my first Thanksgiving away from home. I was a student at a college in St. Paul, Minnesota and my family lived in Pocatello, Idaho. I was NOT going to be going home for Thanksgiving. The food service had a special Thanksgiving meal planned for students who weren’t going home. Unfortunately, I hadn’t paid attention and didn’t realize it was an early meal. So, when I showed up for my meal, the place was dark and closed. Sigh… I wandered northwards and eventually found a bowling alley that was open. My first Thanksgiving away from home consisted of a polish sausage.
The next memorable Thanksgiving for me was in 2005. Keen was pregnant with twins and I mean PREGNANT. They were at 38 weeks and we would be going to the hospital the following Monday for a scheduled Caesarian. They missed sharing their grandfather’s birthday by one day (which was a Sunday). Friends of ours were gathering at a place near Georgetown. As someone who was beginning to develop a reputation for cooking, I was tasked with roasting the turkey.
I’d never roasted a turkey before. I bought the bird the day before and consulted my trusty collection of Cooks Illustrated. I’m supposed to brine the bird? Holy shit, I didn’t know that! A few years later, I realize that most supermarket birds are prebrined and so it’s not a good idea. Good thing that I didn’t have enough time to do much brining. So, I cook the roast beast and make decent gravy. Then we head out into the night. It was a cold night with wind that was howling. Also, my wife has not one, but two butterballs in her belly. We manage to get up to our friends’ place (even finding parking within a block!) and have a grand time with friends. Keen even had a glass of wine (take that, pregnazis!)
After that experience, I decided that I enjoyed the experience, but was not traveling with the bird. We’ve hosted a Thanksgiving meal every year since but one. I’ve done a lot more cooking since then and am a much better cook. Much of it is scheduling. Sweet potatoes can be done in the slow cooker. Mashed potatoes can be finished early and tossed into our rice cooker that has a warming function.
So, what is Thanksgiving to me? It’s a meal to celebrate family and friendship. I spend the entire day cooking and love it. I also have noticed an interest in cooking of one of my sons and hope to do a Blade & Son affair in the future. Here’s our Thanksgiving menu:
Turkey
Lobster in Makhani Sauce (NB: leftover turkey in the sauce is amazing)
Stuffing I: Stuffing with caramelized onion and apples (vegetarian option)
Stuffing II: Made with turkey stock
Mashed potatoes
Sweet potatoes braised in coconut milk
Green beans with almonds (brought by a friend)
Gravy I: Traditional
Gravy II: Roasted garlic, coconut milk, and curry spices
Roasted beets
Sweet potato pie (made by Keen)
Apple pie (brought by a friend)
I’ll wish a retrospective Happy Thanksgiving to all ATiMmers!
BB

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Conservative vegetarian, a contradiction in terms?

Posted on November 25, 2011 by ScottC

Following our Giblets and Necks thread the other day, I got to thinking: Is there a more reliable non-political indicator of one’s politics than vegetarianism? I have never known a conservative vegetarian, and all of the vegetarians I have known are not just liberally inclined, but steadfast, politically active liberals. I’ve simply added to the list following our discussion. I would venture a guess that vegetarians vote Democrat in higher percentages than even African Americans.

ashot amusingly noted that he was easily convinced to drop his vegetarianism by his wife-to-be because he “wasn’t very committed to the cause.” And it is a “cause”, a politically liberal one at that, isn’t it? What is it about vegetarianism that attracts liberals?

And is there an equivalent, ostensibly non-political, lifestyle choice that is equally indicative of conservatism?

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