The latest visitor to our tiny slice of unpaved suburbia is this bird, which hung out with us for a couple of hours before flying off. The bird and I watched one another for quite a while.
Who was this bird? Why did this bird choose this place? How come it was alone - don’t birds hang out in flocks? Was this an outcast bird? A jilted bird? A rebellious lone-wolf bird? Where did it fly off to, another itty-bitty green belt? I guess there’s no accounting for taste. Maybe this bird just wanted to get out of the bird race for a while.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
This is my pencil. It is the legendary Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602. All discriminating writers recognize that this is the finest pencil ever produced. It is the Stradivarius of pencils. One of the reasons my ideas are so clever is that I’m using a better writing implement than most people.
Of course, not one of the thousands of words I’ve written on-line has been written with this pencil, or any other analog word-inscriber. Too bad Eberhard Faber never went into the keyboard business.
Auction Rate Bonds have been marketed by Wall Street as a safe and liquid alternative to cash. They were not. Last February these auctions started to fail. Investors couldn’t get their money when they needed it.
In the last few days, UBS Citigroup and Merrill Lynch agreed to buy back about thirty seven billion dollars. The trouble is that the amount of shares outstanding in the market as a whole is about 330 billion.
The Auction Rate Bond Industry is further proof that financial deregulation leads to corruption. For a free market system to function, the market has to be regulated. Read about the situation here , here , here here and here.
Labor won a victory in the California case of Edwards v. Arthur Anderson.
Edwards was an accountant for Arthur Anderson. The company folded its US operations due to the disgrace of Enron. Edwards wanted a job. The company wanted him to sign away any claims he might have with the company in return for being released from the non-compete clause. The CA Supreme Court agreed with the employee, and got rid of the offending clause.
Most states interpret non-compete clauses narrowly, given the immense bargaining power of corporations and the importance of a worker’s freedom to ply his or her trade. Read the Edwards v. Anderson opinion for yourself. While you’re at it, read DCS v. Castillo , a 2006 case from the 8th Circuit. That case interprets Nebraska law. The employee won this case, too.
Our elections have been corrupted by the fact that the computers we use are proprietary. Both the hardware and the software are secret. That’s bad news for democracy.
The good news is that Open Source Voting Software was a success at the Linux-World Conference and Expo.
Ocean Beach is one of the saner places in San Diego County. You’ll notice that the alcohol ban is a new sticker attached to the sign. That’s because San Diego has prohibited alcohol at the beach. You see, the local cops have a tradition of rioting when too many people gather in one place to have fun. Because the police can’t control themselves, the local authorities have chosen to control the public instead.
This is one more sign of a society that has lost confidence in itself. Day by day, we become less free and more reliant on silly rules and brute force. Strike a blow for freedom! Smuggle beer and cigarettes to the beach! Take your dog for a walk after 9:00 in the morning! Don’t be afraid to live a little.
Modern America defines liberty as the freedom to do exactly as we are told. Too bad.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A military commission has convicted Salim Hamdan of giving Material Support for Terrorism. It acquitted him of the primary charge he faced: Conspiracy to Commit Terrorist Acts. Looking at these proceedings is like reading the autopsy report on the American Legal System.
Even if this defendant had been acquitted of all the charges, he still wouldn’t have been released. Why bother with a trial if the suspect is going to remain behind bars no matter what? Read more about it here and here.
This rather nervous-looking cat was named Dracula because of his fondness of going for the neck of anybody wearing perfume. They all had it coming. Already I have featured one of the other weird cats from the spring of 1974. Don’t worry, there’s more where this came from! We had 12 cats in the house back in the 1970’s. This fact may help explain why, for many years, I’ve been content to hang out with dogs, such as this one:
House Resolution 5843 would end the federal prohibition of possession of up to 100 grams of marijuana. and for the non-profit sale of up to an ounce. HR 5843 would provide a $100 fine for public use of marijuana. Sadly, HR 5843 would not take marijuana off of Schedule One List of drugs under the Federal Controlled Substances Act.
Barney Frank and Ron Paul are working together to bring a little sanity into federal drug policy. Here is a summary of HR 5843 from Barney Frank’s office.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that it has the right to take away a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device, keep it indefinitely, and share the data with anybody they want, without any suspicion of wrongdoing.
House Resolution 6702, by Ron Paul and Eliot Engel, would require the Department to show reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before it could search and seize electronic gadgets from travelers.
Read about the DHS and HR 6702 here, here here and here.
Glass-Steagall is a banking law that was passed as part of the New Deal 75 years ago. This law required banks to choose between being commercial or investment banks. It was repealed in 1999 at the end of the Clinton era.
Why should we think about old banking regulations? Because the financial system is in serious trouble. To me it seems obvious that financial deregulation has contributed to many of our current troubles.
Here’s a recent article about Glass-Steagall. If you’re interested in getting a bit deeper into the technical aspects of banking policy, this 1976 speech by one of the SEC leaders is well worth your review. The speaker is discussing the issues surrounding possible changes to Glass-Steagall which would allow banks to have a bit more latitude to offer more services.
Here’s a picture of Kay Ross that I took at the 1978 Hollywood High School graduation. Mrs. Ross was the debte coach for many years. She worked with me and with many of my friends. It’s interesting to note that she looks far younger in this picture than she does in my memories.
The US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary went to court to compel Harriet Miers to comply with their subpoena. Harriett Miers claimed that she’s totally immune from Congressional Process, because she was working for President Bush.
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia just sided with the Judiciary Committee and struck down the Absolute Privilege defense to the Committee’s subpoena.
The District Court’s Memorandum Opinion is well worth your reading. While you’re at it, read the cases cited in the opinion: Marbury vs Madison, from 1803, US vs Nixon, from 1974, and Boumediene vs Bush, from 2008.
Labor law is one domain in which there are significant differences between the two ‘major’ candidates for President and their political parties. The Democrats are far more supportive of working Americans than are the Republicans.
The Employee Free Choice Act passed the House last year, but the Republicans were successful in blocking it in the Senate. This bill would make it easier for unions to organize. It would make it more likely that employers would have to face binding arbitration in the event that no collective bargaining agreement was reached in 90 days.
Barak Obama supports the EFCA. John McCain opposes it.
Here’s a shot from the summer of 1973. One good way to keep a Hollywood Teenager off the street is to keep him wet and busy.
