'Desk Set' Open Thread

What did you think?

Obama Pulls Out A Mickey

The President's sincere concern is sincerely appreciated.

President Obama proposed freezing Federal worker's pay for the next two years, in a display of 'serious intent' to address the massive Federal debt that he has buried the nation in.

"Small businesses and families are tightening their belts," Obama said in brief remarks at the White House. "The government should, too."

You kinda wished he had thought of that two years ago before he started on these multiple TARPs and bailouts and billion dollar road projects, shovel ready or not.

John Gage, president of the 600,000-member American Federation of Government Employees, called the decision "a slap at working people. ... To symbolically hit at federal employees I think is just wrong."

Well, its a good start though.

"We're going to do everything we can to make this not happen and to explore all our options," said Colleen Kelley head of the 150,000-member National Treasury Employees Union.

And I am sure the President is counting on you, Colleen. Truth is, this comes out just before Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb announce their recommendations for deficit reductions, which are sure to have raising taxes on the beleaguered American economy as a central theme.

The president is counting on the fact in presenting himself as concerned about the deficit we will forget the billions upon billions of dollars that he has spent.

Don't count on it, Barry.  It's kind of hard to get excited about a guy talking about the importance of the Fire Department when he is standing there with a box of matches in his hand.

'Holiday Affair' Open Thread

What did you think?

Mohamed Mohamud Fails to get his Christmas Wish

"Ho, Ho, Ho, the bomb didn't blow!!!"

After two years of reaching out to the world, correcting the strong,  stern tone of George Bush and replacing that with the new smoothness of our current president, it appears the target audience has been unmoved.

An example of the impotence (or perhaps impudence) of Barrack Obama's outreach efforts popped up right here in the Rose City. One Mohamed Mohamud was taken into custody just minutes after pushing the electronic triggering device that he thought would ignite a van filled with explosives, intending to kill, maim and injure thousands of people he didn't even know. In fact, that was the beauty of it, or so Mohamud thought.

"I want whoever is attending that event to leave either dead or injured"

That's a nice sentiment. And he told this to an undercover FBI agent who had just warned him that his little bomb experiment would kill a great many children.

His goal:

A "huge mass ... attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays."

Yes, their families about them bringing in the Christmas season, while Mohamed hides, hoping to kill and maim as many kids as he could.

The FBI's arresting officers captured Mohamud at the Portland Train Station, which he had calculated would be a safe enough distance away to detonate the explosive charges while avoiding any risk to himself. Shouting, kicking and screaming at the FBI agents, a distraught and disheartened Mohamud had this one message for Mr. Obama:

"Allah Akbar!!"

Meanwhile, his former neighbors were in shock:

“I’m in shock,” said Stephanie Napier, who lived across the street from the family until they moved away about a year ago. “They are good, good people.”

Yes, well personally, I do not find myself to be in shock. I am not shocked in the least. What I find shocking is that anyone could be surprised.

"What's that you say, that Islamic neighbor of mine, the Somali, what's his name.  It kind of had a rhyme to it.  Oh yes, Mohamed Mohamud.  He tried to blow up a bomb at Pioneer Courthouse Square.  Unbelievable!"

It is a particularly stubborn form of stupidity we have cultivated here.

“He made a bad choice,” Napier said. “But don’t racially profile the family. Who would have thought that he would have done this?”

Is filling five 55 gallon drums with explosives, placing them in the back of a van and parking the van at a public park intending to blow it up at a Christmas Tree lighting what we call these days a bad choice?

Who indeed?

Obese Plaintiffs Disallowed From Class Action Suit

Ronny Mac reacts to ruling.

Ronald McDonald is sporting a big smile today following the decision handed down by US District Judge Donald C. Pogue, who ruled that plaintiffs who accused McDonalds of engaging in a marketing scheme designed to mislead consumers into believing that  their food would not result in obesity and other problems has denied the plaintiffs' class action certification, declaring that the plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient evidence to establish a class of plaintiffs with the same necessary dimwitted thinking that would result in such an outcome.

"The complaint was filed in 2002 by four children and their parents, who alleged that between 1985 and 2002, the minors became obese and suffered other adverse health effects, such as coronary heart disease, pediatric diabetes, and high blood pressure after consuming McDonald’s foods. The suit argued that McDonald’s engaged in a deceptive marketing scheme to mislead consumers into falsely believing that its food products – such as Filet-O-Fish, hamburgers and french fries, and Chicken McNuggets – were healthy."

Of course, from the perspective of you and I, it is a bit much to believe that the obese plaintiffs and their children had not the capacity to determine a better meal regimen for themselves than Chicken McNuggets and Happy Meals.  

"In the latest ruling, the court refused to grant class certification or to certify an issue class to determine whether the defendant was liable. The plaintiffs’ claims would require “individualized inquiries…to determine whether each plaintiff suffered injury as a result of being deceived by [McDonald’s] allegedly misleading representations,” Judge Pogue wrote. “Because plaintiffs have failed to present specific evidence of a sufficiently numerous class of individuals who were both exposed to [McDonald’s] allegedly deceptive marketing scheme and have subsequently suffered from the same adverse medical conditions as those alleged by plaintiffs to have been the result of their exposure,” he ruled that class certification was inappropriate."

 In the words of McDonald's corporate office,  "I'm Lovin' It"

"The presence of medical conditions such as obesity or high cholesterol “depends heavily on a range of factors unique to each individual,” the court said.  The court said individualized inquiries were required to rule out various other factors, such as the level of regular physical activity in which each plaintiff engaged."

Individual responsibility is a major aspect of living in a free society.  The tendency for people to blame the results of their own choices to others has become an all too familiar occurrence.  Though not ruling on that basis, the court nevertheless has done well here.  Now each plaintiff will have to prove the causal relationship between their eating of Chicken McNuggets and his or her resulting health issue, excluding of course other possible factors that might reasonably contribute to their health problems.

If they took their kids to eat at McDonalds multiple times a week, how likely is it that discipline was exercised in any of their other lifestyle choices?    

Jimmy Carter Explains It All

Following their obvious violations of the treaties he engineered, treaties which gave the North Koreans much, and gave the US and her allies nothing but empty promises, one would think the author of such a treaty would feel a tad embarrassed. After all, under his reassurance the Western world did nothing while the North Koreans continued to pursue a nuclear weapons program and now are poised to destroy millions.  It is clear that the man's negotiations have placed the entire Asian theater under the pall of nuclear destruction.

Well, with Jimmy Carter we are dealing with a sort of Bizarro president, where everything is opposite of what one might expect from a sane, rational, thoughtful leader. Thus, following North Korea's unprovoked violently lethal shelling of a South Korean island, with the death of four and the threatened death of millions more, up pops the former president and peanut farmer to offer this:

"No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang's shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future."

No one can understand the North Koreans? I would suggest that many people understand the North Koreans, but that you would not be among their number. Perhaps your negotiations ended disastrously because they presented themselves as they knew you expected them to be? Perhaps you were made game of? Is it possible that you have yet to realize the obvious?

"Ultimately, the choice for the United States may be between diplomatic niceties and avoiding a catastrophic confrontation."

Diplomatic niceties have not proven helpful. Best scratch that one off your playlist. By appeasing the North Koreans, you have doomed us to the confrontation, the violence of which has escalated a thousand fold by the nuclear weapons whose existence is a direct result of your negotiations.

"The North's technological capabilities under conditions of severe sanctions and national poverty are surprising."

Jimmy, next time some fool president asks you to go abroad to fix an international crisis that he bungled himself into, please, tell him you are now retired and have no role in such things. Better still Jimmy, don't answer the phone at all.

Christmas Festival!

Tis the season to sit by the fire, get a warm blanket and watch our favorite Christmas shows!

See if you can identify where the following photos were taken from, and put in your pick for this season's Chrsitmas spectacular!

#2

#3

# 10

#4

#7

#6

Crazy Counting an Ongoing Theme

Alaska's Senate election went to state court Monday when Republican Joe Miller sued the state over the manner in which write-in ballots have been handled. The judge granted a temporary injunction halting certification of the Senate election.

The state suit contends voters who didn't provide proper identification or were not known to election officials cast regular ballots instead of questioned ballots, as they should under state law.

That seems important. It should not be that we are allowing people to vote who are not legally allowed to vote, whether they have forfeited their right because they are jailed felons or are not citizens, or allowing the dead to vote, or allowing people to vote multiple times, or using handlers to influence votes, or any of a number of what has become common practices.

There are two ways to disenfranchise people.  One is to not allow them to vote.  The other is to negate their vote with fraudulent ballots.

Secondly, it claims that in several precincts, the handwriting on "many or all" write-in ballots appears to be from the same person, or a small group of people. It claims this is a violation of state law, which says the voter must write the candidate's name. This, however, could be due to voters receiving requested, allowable aid in filling out ballots.

The lawsuit says the state has ignored state law requirements implemented to prevent voting fraud and uphold the integrity of the process, "thereby casting serious doubt on the returns from certain precincts."

The lawsuit also says that ballots rejected by the machines were handled differently if they contained write-in candidates. They would be reviewed to determine voter intent, while other rejected ballots aren't subject to any review or hand count, the court document says. 

The Miller campaign has said he wants a hand count after a court rules on the standard by which ballots should be judged.

Seems reasonable. What does the Murkowski camp say?

"It doesn't make sense to me that Miller continues to delay the inevitable. He's going to court in order to hope to lose by less votes," Sweeney said. "We're going to court in hopes that he'll lose by more."

I gotta tell you, as messed up as our electoral process has become, there is something about the all-in, cut-throat aspect of a guy like Sweeney that gives me a chuckle.

'A Matter of Life and Death' Open Thread

What did you think?

Tribute to a Fine Boat and a Great Story

The story of Stars & Stripes 87 and the 1987 America's Cup is one of the great stories in sailing. The boat was built in 1986 as part of Dennis Connor's campaign to reclaim the America’s Cup from the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia. Built at the Derecktar Shipyards in Manaroneck, NY, she was the culmination of the team’s 12 Meter design advances, the fifth boat in the Sail America Foundation stable, and the third of the new boat designs by Britton Chance, Bruce Nelson and David Pedrick, with John Marshall, Conner's mainsheet trimmer on board Liberty in the '83 campaign, acting as the design team coordinator. The boat was created to excel in the heavy seas and strong winds expected in Gage Roads off Fremantle. The hull shape with its snub nose entry was not the most aesthetic of designs, but she sailed as though she was longer at the waterline, adding to her speed. Her keel had a bulbous entry and wings that extended off the aft-most third of her keel. The boat was competitive in 10 to 12 knots of wind, but was designed to excel in winds of 16 knots and more.

Dennis Conner crew trained and sea trialed the boats against each other for two years in the Pacific waters of Hawaii, taking advantage of the steady 18 to 25 knot trade winds off Waikiki. He declined to participate in the 12 Metre World Championships held in Perth in the winter of 1986, and in fact his was the last syndicate to arrive in Fremantle. The three newest hull designs made the trip down to Perth, where the in-house competition between boats continued, with Stars and Stripes 87 (US 55), receiving the nod over Stars & Stripes 86 (US 56) just a few days prior to the start of the challenger round robin series.

Stars and Stripes 87 was a clear contender from the start of the 1987 Louis Vuitton Cup regatta, winning 11 of 12 races in the first rounds robin, including the only rounds robin victory of any boat over Kiwi Magic (KZ 7). The second round was a period of concern. Conner's boat was optimized for heavy airs, and suffered from a shortage of sails for lighter breezes. When a spell of Easterlies settled over Western Australia she was caught out of her element and dropped a disappointing four races. She lost to Tom Blackaller and USA in 5 to 10 knot winds, and the following day to the Kiwis, even though the breeze had picked up to 22 knots. On the ninth day she lost again to the British team White Crusader in 4 to 6 knots breeze, and the following day to Canada II, whom she had led around the final mark but was caught out when the breeze died away. Aided by between rounds changes to her keel wing-lets and the more consistent presence of the "Fremantle Doctor" in late summer, the third round saw her come to form, with significant improvement in her upwind performance. The final rounds robin she lost only to the top boat, Kiwi Magic and the always competitive USA. Coming into the Louis Vuitton Cup finals she was the second highest point scorer, and was set on a collision with long time rival Tom Blackaller, and USA.

The shocking surprise of the Louis Vuitton Cup were the Kiwi's, who seemingly came from no-where to produce a very fast boat that was well crewed and well raced. Chris Dickson was a confident, cocky young man, and sailed to victory after victory in the regatta. The tremendous effort put in by all comers made the seemingly effortless success of the Kiwi's seem suspect, especially in light of the fact that they were the only competitor to build their boat from fiberglass. In the end the testing confirmed the hull thickness was consistent and met the 12 Metre regulations.

Dennis Conner believed Liberty reached her maximum speed potential too early in their efforts during the 1983 Cup defense. One of the goals of the Stars and Stripes camp was to increase boat speed throughout the campaign to peak going into the finals.

All boats competing underwent changes during the challenger and defender series, some successful, some not. Changes made on Stars & Stripes 87 consistently resulted in a step forward in boat speed. This was largely thanks to Marshall, whose technical, sailmaking and organizational skills allowed Stars and Stripes to coordinate an enormous amount of technical assistance, resulting in boat changes that were consistently successful. The greatest increase occurred with the re-working of the boat's keel between the second and third round robins. Close competitor Tom Blackaller felt the boat had found two tenths of a knot increase in Vmg (Velocity made good) when sailing to windward as she entered the third rounds robin. The final tweak before the finals was the application of a space age shark skin like riblet covering applied to the boat hull prior to the Challenger finals to reduce drag.

Stars & Stripes and Kiwi Magic race to the windward mark.

KZ 7 was the top qualifier of the round robins, followed in the points competition by Stars & Stripes 87, USA and French Kiss. In the Challenger semi-finals KZ 7 easily defeated French Kiss 4-0, with none of the races closely contested. A far more spirited competition occured between Stars and Stripes 87 and USA, with USA leading all of the first race till the final mark. In the end though Tom Blackaller couldn't quite find the speed he was looking for, and the result was Stars and Stripes 87 winning the semi 4-0. Tactitician Tom Whidden offered the following on the team's progress:

"The low point was when we lost those four races in November and we really didn't set our boat up very well for that. The high point was beating Blackaller, four-zip. That was quite an accomplishment because he was extremely fast."

Going into the Louis Vuitton Finals, Kiwi Magic was the favorite. She was clearly a fast boat in both light and heavy air, had beaten Stars and Stripes 87 twice, and had won an incredible thirty-seven of thirty-eight match races. But Stars and Stripes 87 was showing her best form of the regatta, particularly in heavy winds above 20 knots.

The first two races played out as Conner wished, with Stars & Stripes going out on a long beat to the lay line and taking an early lead to the first windward mark, then holding that lead throughout the rest of the race, holding ground on the downwind legs and extending it on the beats. The third race started out much as the previous two, with both boats taking a long tack out to the left hand side of the course in what Dennis Conner termed a "speed test". Stars & Stripes 87 rounded the first windward mark 26 seconds ahead when trouble started. A snap shackle failed, causing her spinnaker to drop into the sea. The Kiwis closed the gap, gibing back and forth across Conner's stern until they achieved what they were looking for, an inside overlap on the bottom mark. With right of way the Kiwis were able to slide ahead on the turn about the mark. Once there the Kiwis proved a very difficult boat to get past. On the second beat to windward they covered every move of the gunsmoke blue hulled boat, keeping Conner at bay with a tight cover. Next came the two reaching legs, which never allowed room to get around a competitor. Thus the boats reached the bottom of the third and final beat to windward in the same position. This was one for the record book. Conner threw 55 tacks along with two false tacks in an effort to break away. The New Zealanders covered each move in one of the most exhausting and tense beats to windward in America's Cup history. The result was a win for the Kiwis, and a match series now close, with Stars & Stripes up by a single race, 2-1.

The fourth race saw fortune make a complete turn. Now it was KZ 7 that experienced a number of uncommon structural failures, all of which snowballed by the actions of the skipper and crew, culminating in Kiwi Magic blowing her backstay in an abrupt gibe. The race was lost to Stars & Stripes by 3 minutes 38 seconds.

The fifth race was extremely competitive. Stars & Stripes 87 took the initial lead on the first windward leg as she had in the first four races, but on the second beat to windward her Number 6 genoa blew to pieces, giving the Kiwis a chance to close down the gap and overtake Stars and Stripes. All hands went forward to clear the wreckage, bringing to deck and hoisting the Number 7 genoa before Kiwi Magic could slip by. From there on Stars & Stripes held on to the slimest of leads throughout the next four legs. Rounding the final mark with a six second advantage, but here Dickson made one of the rare mistakes of his summer and struck the mark while rounding. The infraction required KZ 7 to come about and round again, the resulting time loss ending all hope the New Zealanders had of overtaking Stars & Stripes in the final beat. Stars & Stripes 87 took the series, four races to one.

Michael Fay summed up the New Zealander's effort:

"We did the best we could. We couldn't beat the other guy on the day, and we've got to shake his hand and say 'Well done' because that's what happened. They did a very good job and they beat us."

With the challenger selected, the America's Cup was entered into with much hope for the Kookaburra squad who had raced intensely for months, beating out Australia IV and the Alan Bond syndicate with the help of a late round keel modification that finally gave Kookaburra III a clear edge in speed. The first race was in light airs, thought to be the Kookaburra's best conditions. The defenders hopes were dashed, as Stars & Stripes led throughout and was never seriously threatened. After this first race it was well apparent that Stars and Stripes 87 had the edge in sailing to windward, and held her own on the downwind legs. The reminder of the Cup races saw the return of the Fremantle Doctor, and with it an ever greater difference in boat speed. The Aussies gave a great effort, but they simply lacked the boat speed to stay with Stars & Stripes, which showed a consistent twenty second advantage on each beat to windward. She won the series four races to nil.

Stars and Stripes 87 was not a light weather boat, nor was she as quick in stays as either Kiwi Magic or Kookaburra III, but in the heavier winds off Fremantle she could outpace any challenger in straight-line sailing to windward. She was equally able to foot for pace to escape a windward cover, or point higher to power away from an opponent on her windward quarter. Though both Kiwi Magic in the Challenger Finals and Kookaburra III in the America’s Cup Finals were sailed aggressively, the edge in boat speed held by Conner allowed him to overpower his competitors in a series of long drag races to the first windward mark. The challenger finalists and cup defenders were unable to engage him in a tactical race, where the slightly quicker Kiwis and Kookaburras held the advantage. Said Conner:

"It's a difficult problem when you have a boat like Stars and Stripes that won't play the match racing game. When we don't tack and we don't cover, it's pretty hard for them to be aggressive and exploit the fact that they do tack better and maneuver better."

Stars & Stripes 87 in Seattle on her return trip from Australia.

Conner believed his Stars and Stripes 87 held a 0.3 knot increase in up-wind speed over Liberty, the 12 Meter he had sailed in defense of the cup in 1983. This represented a remarkable increase in boat speed, and enabled Conner and his team aboard Stars and Stripes 87 to re-capture the America’s Cup Trophy.

Stars and Stripes 87 was the final 12 Meter to win the America's Cup, and as such she represents the zenith in 12 Meter design.  She is currently berthed on St Maarten in the Caribbean, where she can be sailed by the public as a 12 Meter match race boat.

This boat and the story of her skipper's determination to overcome adversity was a great tale. Her races at the 1987 America's Cup have been submitted onto Wikipedia, and can now be found here.

'Cold Comfort Farm' Open Thread

What did you think?

With a major hat tip to Darrell for the photos!!

Blast From From The Past

Who dat?!

With the media weighing in on the elections and with the senate leadership crying that the Tea Party movement has... just made their life really, really hard, I couldn't help but laugh at this bonehead posting by our betters at the Washington Post.

The Washington Post, the DC liberal flagship, home to such investigative journalistic greats from the past as Woodward and Bernstein, made a gaff of epic proportions. What was better still was when conservative brother Bob Parks called them on it. I just had to laugh, and you know what, laughing is good medicine.

My...oh my... what a doosey!


Hat tip to Bob Parks at Black and Right.


(Originally posted May 3rd, 2010).

George Jonas Optomistic Over Mixed Results

Ruling Class note a curious fin following their leisurely paddle into history.

Canadian author and seer George Jonas made a few predictions just before our mid-term election, landing pretty much spot on. But it's the tenor of his words that are so encouraging:

From the day he ascended the bridge, he kept steaming on a collision course with the iceberg of economic reality, surrounded by monstrous chunks of baby bergs floating in the frigid waters of foreign policy, utterly unperturbed.

Is Obama mistaking a luxury liner for an icebreaker? Let's not go there. I can't hope to analyze in a few hundred words a complex emotional and intellectual phenomenon of a type that recurs in history, once summarized by George Canning, Britain's prime minister for a brief period in 1827, at a time when politicians still wrote verse, as

"A steady patriot of the world alone
The friend of every nation but his own."

He's got him exactly. And who else but Jonas would be quoting a little known British Prime Minister from 1827? Read the rest here.

President Takes Responsibility For Party Shellacking

This guy? Give me a break.

But we can read his comments from his exclusive CBS interview:

After suffering a “shellacking” in the midterm elections, President Obama acknowledges what many have seen as his chief weakness – failing to sell the importance of several legislative milestones to the American people.

"I think that, over the course of two years we were so busy and so focused on getting a bunch of stuff done that, we stopped paying attention to the fact that leadership isn’t just legislation. That it’s a matter of persuading people. And giving them confidence and bringing them together. And setting a tone,” Mr. Obama told 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft in an exclusive interview set to air Sunday.

Yeah? Barry, you jammed that stuff down everybody's throats, knowing that the people did not want it. Knowing that your party was going to get killed at the mid-terms, and you didn't seem to care. In fact, some would say since you were not on the ballet in 2010, the problem of the public's rejection of your policies did not rise to the level of presidential concern.

“Making an argument that people can understand,” Mr. Obama continued, “I think that we haven’t always been successful at that. And I take personal responsibility for that. And it’s something that I’ve got to examine carefully … as I go forward.”

Barry, you were talking and talking and talking. Everyone knew what your arguments were, and it was well understood. What was lacking was an interest on your part of doing the nation's bidding, and your party got killed for it. Sixty-three seat gain in the House, thanks to your policies and wooden ear. Ruling the people is not the job description.

Go on, get out of the country. A trip at 200 million a day? The money spent further underscores your reckless disregard for the people you lead.