Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Actually, these daily newsbite posts should be subtitled "Bill's Diet Journal."
(*GRIN*)
Hey... like I said when I started the diet log, it's simply a willpower support device!
O.K., now where was I...???
Oh, yeah... today's newsbites.
Today's newsbites theme song is...
So... just for a moment think about the fact that if by some miracle another one of your fellow citizens isn't killed or grievously wounded in Afghanistan today, then surely by tomorrow, the next day, or next week our nation will suffer more casualties and squander more treasure we can ill afford to waste.
Anyway...
(*SIGH*)
First cup of coffee - 7:50 a.m.
8:30 a.m. - Nonfat lite yogurt with Special K mixed in.
12:00 p.m. - Chicken & cheese sandwich on whole grain bread with lettuce, tomato, and mayo; side of two pickles.
12:45 p.m. - Crystal Lite with mega-vitamins.
3:00 p.m. - Goat cheese on rye Tristcuits.
6:30 p.m. - Amy's mom's Indian food with sour cream and cheese - i.e. "Barkerized."
6:45 p.m. - Chocolate covered strawberry.
8:00 p.m. - Amy's mom's Indian rice pudding.
10:00 p.m. - Handful of cheddar goldfish crackers with some goat cheese; a glass of port.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/01/04/new.huck.finn.ew/index.html
According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books' upcoming edition of Mark Twain's seminal novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" will remove all instances of the "N-word"...present in the text and replace it with "slave."
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The new book will also remove usage of the word "Injun."
(*COVERING MY FACE WITH MY HANDS AS I CONTINUE TO SHAKE MY HEAD*)
[I]t's a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context.
* UM... YEAH!
On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge.
(*SMIRK*) WHAT WIMPY ENABLING BULLSHIT! (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
It's unfortunate, but is it really any more catastrophic than a TBS-friendly re-edit of "The Godfather," you down-and-dirty melon farmer?
* WHY, YES...! YES IT IS...!!! A BOOK IS A BOOK; THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES ARE THE PUBLIC AIRWAVES. (WHO IS THIS MORON WRITING THIS PIECE...???)
The original product is changed for the benefit of those who, for one reason or another, are not mature enough to handle it, but as long as it doesn't affect the original, is there a problem?
* YES...! YES THERE'S "A PROBLEM" YOU FRIGG'N IDIOT! (AND IF YOU CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT THE PROBLEM IS...) (*SIGH*)
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/01/05/pa-state-police-to-stop-citing-people-for-using-foul-language/
The ACLU of Pennsylvania says State Police have agreed to stop citing people for disorderly conduct when they use profanity.
Senior ACLU staff attorney Mary Catherine Roper says these citations are not unusual.
“And that’s why we started bringing these cases,” she said. “Because we are finding that police all over Pennsylvania have been issuing criminal citations because people use profanity.”
(*HEAD EXPLODING*)
* WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE THINKING...?!?! TELL THE ACLU TO SCREW OFF! EITHER A LAW IS ON THE BOOKS OR IT'S NOT. IF THE ACLU WANTS TO LOBBY THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE TO CHANGE THE LAW THAT'S THEIR PREROGATIVE, BUT THE POLICE HAVE NO INDEPENDENT AUTHORITY TO SIMPLY GIVE IN TO ACLU DEMANDS THAT THEY NOT ENFORCE THE LAW!
* FOLKS... SERIOUSLY... IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT OUR SOCIETY IS UNDER ASSAULT BY THE LEFT THEN... (*DEEP BREATH*) (*SIGH*)
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110105/D9KHTMR00.html
The Navy brusquely fired the captain of the USS Enterprise on Tuesday, more than three years after he made lewd videos to boost morale for his crew, timing that put the military under pressure to explain why it acted only after the videos became public.
* SIMPLE ANSWER: THE NAVY'S TOP BRASS ARE CAREERIST "POLITICIANS" FIRST AND PATRIOTS SECOND. (AT LEAST THAT'S MY BEST GUESS.)
Senior military officials said they were trying to determine who among Navy leaders knew about the videos when they were shown repeatedly in 2006 and 2007 to thousands of crew members aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
* YES... (*SIGH*)... BY ALL MEANS LET'S DESTROY OUR OWN MILITARY FROM WITHIN!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-05/global-food-prices-climb-to-record-on-cereal-sugar-costs-un-agency-says.html
World food prices rose to a record in December on higher sugar, grain and oilseed costs, the United Nations said, exceeding levels reached in 2008 that sparked deadly riots from Haiti to Egypt.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... RECALL PAST NEWSBITES CONCERNING OUR OWN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TAKING FARM LANDS OUT OF PRODUCTION... REAPING HAVOC UPON CALIFORNIA... (*SIGH*)
* HEY... "GOOD THING" OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOESN'T ACKNOWLEDGE THAT PEOPLE NEED TO EAT (AND USE ENERGY!) WHEN THEY'RE FIXING... er... REPORTING OFFICIAL INFLATION FIGURES. (*SMIRK*)
* HOW MUCH ARE YOU GONNA TAKE, PEOPLE...? JUST CURIOUS...
An index of 55 food commodities tracked by the Food and Agriculture Organization gained for a sixth month to 214.7 points, above the previous all-time high of 213.5 in June 2008, the Rome-based UN agency said in a monthly report. The gauges for sugar and meat prices advanced to records. Sugar climbed for a third year in a row in 2010, and corn jumped the most in four years in Chicago. Food prices may rise more unless the world grain crop increases “significantly” in 2011, the FAO said Nov. 17.
* DON'T WORRY, FOLKS... (*SNORT*)... OBAMA HAS EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL!
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/friends-with-benefits/?ref=opinion
Can Goldman Sachs, the profit-seeking missile of high finance, really make money by investing $450 million in Facebook, at a vertigo-inducing price that values the social-networking company at $50 billion?
On first blush...
* AND IN A SANE WORLD...
...the answer would appear to be no.
After all...[Facebooks is] a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits.
* ALLOW ME TO REPEAT THAT BECAUSE IT BEARS REPEATING:
After all...[Facebooks is] a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits.
* ONE MORE TIME...
After all...[Facebooks is] a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits.
* NEVERTHELESS...
Last August, Facebook was valued at $27 billion... and now it’s [supposedly worth] $50 billion. To understand why, we have to go to the heart of the many problems in the way the Wall Street cartel does business...
(*SIGH*)
Despite the high price of its investment, Goldman sees in Facebook a business bonanza, a nearly perfect nugget of investment-banking opportunities. First, Goldman’s cost of capital is close to zero - as a bank holding company, it can borrow from the Federal Reserve at negligible interest rates - so any capital gain it makes on its venture in Facebook will be sheer profit.
Second, Goldman has almost certainly locked up the role of lead manager of the inevitable Facebook initial public offering. [With] fees for underwriting public offerings are generally about 7% of the value of the stock sold. Facebook could easily sell $2 billion of stock or more, generating fees to Goldman and the other underwriters of at least $140 million.
The other benefit for Goldman in leading the public offering - aside from major bragging rights - is that it can use its marketing, sales and distribution muscle to make sure the value of Facebook at the time of the offering exceeds the $50 billion valuation at which Goldman invested.
* FOLKS... DOES THIS SOUND LIKE FREE MARKET CAPITALISM TO YOU...???
Goldman has also won from Facebook the right to offer an additional $1.5 billion of the company’s stock to its private-wealth clients.
* ONE MORE TIME, FOLKS...
[Facebooks is] a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits.
According to The Times, Goldman will be creating a “special purpose vehicle” to sell the stock to its wealthy clients and then will charge them a 4% initial fee plus 5% of any profits. While on paper it seems that these high rollers would be foolish to invest in Facebook at such a lofty valuation, they will still most certainly feel increased loyalty to Goldman for making such an exclusive opportunity available to them.
On top of it all, there is the increased likelihood that Goldman will get to manage a good portion of the $12 billion fortune belonging to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, for yet more fees.
* YET AGAIN...
[Facebooks is] a company with a reported $2 billion in revenue and negligible profits.
(*SIGH*)
If Goldman does take all these roles at once - investor, salesman, money manager, I.P.O. underwriter - it would certainly raise the ugly specter of conflicts of interest...
* NOT IN THE AGE OF OBAMA IT WON'T! (AND TO BE FAIR, THE SAME APPLIED DURING THE AGE OF BUSH!)
Even though Facebook is reported to have little need for Goldman’s money, having Goldman validate Facebook’s exponential increase in value gives Mr. Zuckerberg the ultimate Silicon Valley street cred, far more than he got from having Hollywood make a movie about him or from becoming the youngest billionaire on the planet.
With all these winners, who will the losers be?
The average investor, of course, who will get left holding the bag when, someday, Wall Street realizes the firm’s financial performance doesn’t live up to its hyped valuation.
* AH... BUT THIS ASSUMES NO TAXPAYER BAILOUT! (DON'T GET ME STARTED...)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704405704576063582539558582.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection
BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. will close five underperforming stores and cut jobs at the corporate level, under pressure from shareholders to improve operations.
Three stores in the Atlanta area will be shuttered, along with one in Sunrise, Fla., and one in Charlotte, N.C., resulting in 380 job cuts. The company also says it's cutting 114 corporate-level jobs, 61 of them at the company's Natick, Mass., headquarters and 53 field positions.
* SO, FOLKS... HOW'S THE "CONSUMER ECONOMY" WORKING OUT FOR YA?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703808704576061674166905408.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
The first clear pictures of what appears to be a Chinese stealth fighter prototype have been published online...published on several unofficial Chinese and foreign defense-related websites...
[Most] experts say they believe the pictures and the aircraft are authentic, giving the strongest indication yet that Beijing is making faster-than-expected progress in developing a rival to the U.S. F-22 - the world's only fully operational stealth fighter. (The U.S. cut funding for the F-22 in 2009 in favor of the F-35, a smaller, cheaper stealth fighter that made its first test flight in 2006 and is expected to be fully deployed by around 2014. The F-22 has mainly been used for exercises and operations around U.S. airspace, but some have been deployed to Guam and Okinawa to help maintain the U.S. security umbrella in the Asia-Pacific region.)
U.S. officials believe China's development of the fifth-generation fighter has accelerated. [Yet] U.S. officials said the latest disclosures wouldn't affect any U.S. aircraft-development programs.
(*SHRUG*)
China has made rapid progress in developing a capability to produce advanced weapons, also including unmanned aerial vehicles, after decades of importing and reverse engineering Russian arms. ... [T]he photographs are likely to bolster concerns among U.S. officials and politicians about China's military modernization, which also includes the imminent deployment of its first aircraft carrier and "carrier-killer" antiship ballistic missiles. Such weapons systems would significantly enhance China's ability to hinder U.S. intervention in a conflict over Taiwan, and challenge U.S. naval supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Chinese prototype looks like it has "the potential to be a competitor with the F-22 and to be decisively superior to the F-35," said Mr. [Richard] Fisher [,an expert on the Chinese military at the International Strategy and Assessment Center in Washington].
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576060122363793128.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Law Prof. Randy Barnett writing Monday in the Washington Examiner:
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has introduced into Congress a very simple and clear amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Called the Repeal Amendment, it reads:
"Any provision of law or regulation of the United States may be repealed by the several states, and such repeal shall be effective when the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states approve resolutions for this purpose that particularly describe the same provision or provisions of law or regulation to be repealed."
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*) SOUNDS GODDAMNED GOOD TO ME...!!!
In short, the legislatures of two-thirds of the states can repeal any federal law or regulation.
(*STANDING UP TO APPLAUD*)
The only objection of substance concerns the theoretical possibility that two-thirds of the least populous states, representing less than half of the nation's population, could stymie legislation backed by a majority.
* FAIR ENOUGH. HERE'S HOW TO COUNTER THAT OBJECTION: INCLUDE A PROVISION WHEREBY MAJORITIES OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE ALONG WITH CONCURRENCE OF THE SITTING PRESIDENT (OR TWO-THIRDS MAJORITIES OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE WITH OR WITHOUT THE SITTING PRESIDENT'S CONCURRENCE) COULD BRING THE MATTER BEFORE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VIA NATIONAL INITIATIVE VOTE.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704723104576062083357423022.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
The recently released list of businesses bailed out by the Federal Reserve was not as surprising to me as it was to many members of the general public.
* THE "ME" IN QUESTION IS THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE, HANK GREENBERG, FORMER CEO OF AIG.
What is clear from the list is that the notion of equal protection ensconced in the Constitution was missing in September 2008.
* YEP. THE OLIGARCHS AND THEIR ALLIES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE POLITICAL ISLE TRASHED THE CONSTITUTION.
Rather than trying to spread both the burden and benefit of the bailout evenly among members of the U.S. financial services industry, key decision makers at the Fed and Treasury arbitrarily determined which companies should become wards of the federal government (AIG) and which should be permitted to live on (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley).
Goldman Sachs was permitted to live by enjoying markedly lower interest rates and access to credit facilities amounting over time to approximately $600 billion.
* GOOGLE "GOLDMAN SACHS + OBAMA". GOOGLE "GOLDMAN SACHS + REPUBLICANS". FOLKS... WE WERE SCREWED. IT WAS A SCAM. THE SCAM IS STILL GOING ON. (GOOGLE "GOLDMAN SACHS + CLINTON".)
Federal decision makers had six months following the Bear Stearns collapse in early 2008 to formulate an effective response to foreseeable liquidity difficulties in the U.S. financial-services industry. Instead, the bailout turned out to be a rush for funds that benefited some and punished others.
(*NOD*)
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others were permitted to become bank holding companies and have access to cheap federal funds, while AIG was denied this opportunity for reasons never fully explained.
* THE POINT ISN'T TO SAY THAT THE BAILOUTS WOULD HAVE SOMEHOW BEEN MORE ACCEPTABLE HAD AIG BEEN BAILED OUT; NO, THE POINT IS THAT THE INSIDERS PICKED WINNERS AND LOSERS USING OUR MONEY AT OUR RISK TO ENSURE THAT THEIR FAVORITES WERE ENRICHED AT OUR EXPENSE.
The $85 billion loan extended to AIG carried an enormously high interest rate of 14.5%. I believed all along that the government severely overstepped its role by taking preferred stock with an option to convert into AIG common stock as additional consideration for the loan it gave to AIG. All of these transactions and the stock issuance were done without shareholder approval, a clear violation of Delaware law, the state in which AIG was incorporated.
* THE LAW MEANT NOTHING TO EITHER BUSH NOR PELOSI/REID/OBAMA.
The government's action was arbitrary...
* WHICH IS THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF THE RULE OF LAW...
The plan now is to convert the preferred stock into common shares, which will give the U.S. government approximately 92% ownership.
* YES, VIRGINIA... IF OBAMA BELIEVES IN SOCIALISM, BUSH BELIEVED IN SOCIALISM LITE. (*SMIRK*)
It is time for an appropriate committee of Congress to investigate the actions and decisions by the Federal Reserve and Treasury that made AIG a ward of the state.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/05list.html?ref=us
The Department of Defense has identified 1,433 American service members who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the death of the following American on Tuesday:
Tate, Jacob A., age 21; Cpl., Marines; Columbus, Ohio; Second Marine Division.
* REAL PEOPLE; REAL DEAD.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05christie.html?hpw
Gov. Chris Christie is pressing for regulations that would allow some New Jersey school districts to hire superintendents without traditional academic backgrounds or experience, in an effort to change confining state rules like those that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had to surmount to win approval for Cathleen P. Black, his choice for New York City schools chancellor.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
“It’s important that New Jersey public schools recruit and hire the most experienced, talented managers possible,” Mr. Christie, a Republican, said in a statement. “In large, state-run districts, or in schools that have failed our children for generations, we especially need leaders who know how to manage thousands of employees in districts that spend hundreds of millions in tax dollars.”
His proposals would lower the minimum academic standard for a superintendent from a master’s to a bachelor’s degree, and waive additional requirements, including a 150-hour graduate internship in educational leadership and passing a superintendent’s assessment. Instead, the state education commissioner would be charged with determining whether a candidate had sufficient work experience to lead a district.
* SOUNDS REASONABLE TO ME!
Richard G. Bozza, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Administrators, said changes in the rules could lead to the hiring of unprepared administrators...
* YADDA, YADDA, YADDA... (*ROLLING MY EYES*)
* FOLKS... THERE YOU HAVE IT; CHRISTIE GOOD, TEACHERS UNION BAD. (*SMILE*)
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