Not A Mystery

So here, free of charge, is my suggestion to lower the temperature of our political debates.

Replace the metaphor for our clash of ideas, which is currently WAR, with something else.

And since the Democrats and Republicans can’t yet agree on anything, I will offer up a custom metaphor for each side.

The Repubs will henceforth think of, and refer to the Dems as their Red-Headed Stepchild. And the Dems will begin to picture their Crazy Uncles when they think of the Repubs.

I think you’ll agree that these images surely elevate our current political debate.

Lowering The Political Temperature One Metaphor At A Time

The Republicans already think the Democrats are Socialists/Communists, so the Red color fits. And there is even an (admittedly remote) link to the Democratic’s Iconic Donkey if we replace it with a Rented Mule. Even better, the Repubs will love the image …

“Beating you like a red-headed stepchild” refers to a terrible beating. It is a variation of “beating you like a rented mule.”

Source

On the flip (sic) side, President Obama has already used the Crazy Uncle metaphor during the Presidential Campaign. Although he was referring to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, we know he was really thinking about the Republicans.

And when Mitch McConnell smiles, there is an uncanny resemblance to Steve Balmer.

Although Uncle Mitch hasn’t been smiling much these days.

The usual suspects are shocked, shocked they say, over last week’s annoncement by ATT and several other large corporations that they would have to take (non-cash) write-offs because of new rules in ‘ObamaCare’ taking effect immediately.

In ATT’s case the number was $1 billion.

The charges relate to prescription-drug benefits for retirees. Companies that provide this benefit, as AT&T does, receive a federal subsidy, plus they can deduct the value of this subsidy from their taxes. The health overhaul cancels the deductibility of the subsidy.

Source

Omigod. We all knew this was going to cost us, but we never imagined it would happen within days! The destruction of capitalism is even closer than we thought.

A little digging however, turns up the fact that the current health care bill just reverses a payoff to those same companies made 7 years ago.

The charges are related to a 2003 law providing a prescription-drug benefit under Medicare. At the time it was adopted, some companies were threatening to drop drug coverage for their retirees, since this would now be available through Medicare. Congress voted them a 28% tax-free subsidy for continuing to provide coverage to retirees eligible for Medicare.

The subsidies caused the cost of companies’ obligations for retiree benefits to decline. AT&T, for example, saw its obligation drop by $1.6 billion at the time.

Source

A back-of-the-envelope calculation says that the $1.6 billion gift to ATT compounded over the past 7 years is worth something like $2.65 billion today if we grant the financial wizards at ATT the ability to get 7.5% return on their capital. Not so bad. That’s still $1.65 billion of extra profit to keep compounding into the future.

What’s really going on here, is that the corporations taking these write-offs are signaling that they may use this ‘increase in costs’ as an excuse to cut back on their retirees’ health benefits. To be generous we’ll call their statements a case of mis-direction.

Which brings to mind the classic game of mis-direction:

The three-card Monte game itself is very simple. To play, a dealer places three cards face down on a table [and] … shows that one of the cards is the target card, e.g., the Queen of Spades, and then rearranges the cards quickly to confuse the player [who] … is then given an opportunity to select one of the three cards. If the player correctly identifies the Queen of Spades, the player wins an amount equal to the amount bet; otherwise, he loses his stake.

Source

Mis-Direction Is The Name Of This Game

It would be nice if corporations would call a spade a spade, but that’s not in the cards.

[Tip: If you clicked the WSJ link and want to get past Rupert's pay-wall, here's your key.]

The world needs a new Country and Western song updated for today’s investor, along the lines of Mickey Gilley’s “Don’t The Girls All Get Prettier At Closing Time“

Prettier As We Approach Closing Time

Our song might go platinum, all because there’s a new wrinkle (sic) on the menu of get-rich quick schemes.

Billions of dollars in corporate bonds sold to retail investors come with an unusual provision that could be used to generate a fast profit. There’s just one catch: Investors must team up to buy the bonds with someone who is about to die … major U.S. companies often issue bonds with what is known as a survivor’s option … investors can recruit a terminally ill person and together they can scoop up these bonds on the open market at a discount. When the ailing bondholder dies, the surviving co-owner can then redeem them at face value and potentially turn a quick profit.

Source

So bottom-line-wise, if our intrepid investors aspire to the big bucks, they need to partner up with a suitable co-owner just before closing time.

There’s only one snag for us as aspiring songwriters.

We can’t think of anything that rhymes with “co-owner”.

[Tip: In case you missed it, click the link to Gilley's video.]

Republicans might want to start thinking about who leads their parade.

Our enemy is now clearly defined. We know who they are: Anybody with a D beside their name. There’s no moderate Democrat or pro-life Democrat. There’s no Blue Dog, lap dog, hot dog, back dog Democrat. If it’s a D, they are the enemy, and they need to be reacted to as such.” -Rush Lambaugh

Turns Out That Politics And Entertainment Don't Always Mix

F2U Rio Linda, the good news is that Act II promises even more entertainment.

I’m really not a cranky old man, but sometimes I stray close to the line.

It’s not my fault. The world, and Republicans, make me do it.

So today a happy post.

Spring is coming, birds are nesting and it’s time for renewal.

We live in a community with lots of open space, which requires a certain amount of maintenance. But not by me, that’s why we moved here.

In any case the homeowner’s association has contracted with a local Sheppard to graze his sheep and goats on the open space. This keeps the grass down, saves money, promotes native species and is generally a great idea.

So the other day when we walked out in our back yard and looked out into the adjoining field, here is what greeted us. These lambs are just a few hours old.

These Lambs Have No Pre-Existing Anything

Don’t worry, be happy.

You probably thought this was going to be a post about our dysfunctional political system.

You can relax, it’s not.

Voltaire He's Not

Voltaire’s quote has got a lot of mileage lately, mostly by proponents of Health Care Reform.

The original quote in French is “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.”, from Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764) Literally translated as “The best is the enemy of good.”, but is more commonly cited as “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

In other words, pursuing the “best” solution may end up doing less actual good than accepting a solution that, while not perfect, is effective. One could also infer that the best makes that which is good seem to be worth less than it is.

So it’s always inspiring to find a nice, simple, example of real people not letting perfection get in the way of their actions.

Case in point, we have a report in the Wall Street Journal that Bernie Madoff was “physically assaulted by another inmate in December, according to three people familiar with the matter”. Being a reputable news outlet the WSJ article takes pains to gather multiple sources and attempts to disect the reasons behind the beating. [I prefer to think of the incident as a beating as opposed to a physical assault.]

Mr. Madoff was treated for a broken nose, fractured ribs and cuts to his head and face, according to a felon currently at Butner serving time on drug charges who was familiar with his condition at the time.

In any case it never becomes quite clear why the assailant attacked Mr. Madoff, although several theories are offered.

My own theory is that the assailant was familiar with Voltaire, and decided to beat the s–t out of Bernie not because of a perfect reason, but just because he felt like it.

Bravo.

On the other hand, all is not lost for Bernie while he is behind bars. It turns out that in some cases life allows you a form of redemtion,

Fellow prisoners say Mr. Madoff, who is Inmate No. 61727-054 at Butner, has garnered some respect from inmates because of the breadth of his Ponzi scheme. The fraud caused about $20 billion in net losses by thousands of investors.

Hey, nothing is perfect.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I’ll share my Irish drinking (what else) story.

A few years ago Leslie and I spent a month driving around Ireland. We had a fine time. Beautiful place, wonderful people.

Having spent more than a considerable amount of time in English pubs over the years I felt I should even things up in Ireland. Especially as I enjoy a pint of Guinness just as much as a pint of English Bitter.

Three Great Irish Beers ... Kidding, Only Two

And no matter how old you are there are still things to learn, as I did when ordering my first pint of Guinness that first night in Ireland. Turns out they don’t just ‘pull’ the pint, because you need to let the beer and foam settle. So proper form is to pull about 3/4′s of the glass, let it settle for 3 to 4 minutes, and then top it up.

So far so good. But now comes the etiquette.

What do you do with yourself while the publican is preparing your pint? And keep in mind that in a normal pub there is more than one Guinness that’s being prepared at any one time, so there are a number of pints lined up in various stages of preparedness and customers in various stages of inebriation.

You can just stand there like a moron and wait. You can step back a few paces and let someone else get up to the bar. You can go sit down and wait for the bartender to yell at you or even bring the pint over to you.

So many choices, so little time.

Well as you can probably guess, what you do depends mostly on the local pub and their customs. It will also depend on how crowded the pub is and how many pints are up and coming. The list goes on, but hey, this really isn’t rocket science.

And it always has a happy ending.

Anyway, after a few weeks spent in towns large and small, and pubs large and small I got to where I could enter a new pub and look around and pretty much figure out if they were serving fast (stay very near the bar) or slow (go sit down and don’t be pushy).

On the minor occasion that I got the etiquette wrong someone who had heard my accent would assume the reason I committed the faux pas was because I’m from America and don’t know any better. (No, the reason that I got it wrong is that every pub has a different system!)

Trying to be helpful they would take pains to explain how things worked. But it was frustrating being talked to like I was a dummy.

More to the point, they already were drinking their Guinness, while I was still waiting for mine.

And now back to the picture of those three beers up at the top of this post. As you can see they are all Irish brews … kidding!

In point of fact, and full disclosure, I have to admit that I came to enjoy Murphy’s even more than Guinness. It looks the same, but to my taste it’s a little better.

Just between us.

Rome has seven famous hills, and an eighth that should be equally famous as a monument to product packaging, Mt. Testaccio. I learned about this when reading Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. I also learned to be grateful that I never had to raise twins, but that’s another story.

Mt. Testaccio is composed almost entirely of  broken amphorae dating from the time of the Roman Empire. Amphorae are containers with thin necks, pointed bottoms, two handles and weigh in at about 66 pounds.

Amphorae first appeared on the Syrian coast around the 15th century BC and spread around the ancient world, being used by the ancient Greeks and Romans as the principal means for transporting and storing grapes, olive oil, wine, oil, olives, grain, fish, and other commodities. They were produced on an industrial scale from Greek times and used around the Mediterranean until about the 7th century … Amphorae were too cheap and plentiful to return to their origin-point and so, when empty, they were broken up at their destination. The vast majority of those vessels had a capacity of some 70 litres (15 imp gal; 18 U.S. gal) …

All this history reminded me of a modern equivalent.

Ancient Romans may have been the first, but they were not the last to Supersize Product delivery. We’ve taken a good idea and run with it; brighter colors and pour spouts.

The Amphorae Would Be The Ones On The Right

On the other hand, we have to give the Romans credit.

They had a lot more class.

Here’s a provocative thought, and certainly one that hadn’t occurred to me,

So if your children are supposedly vegetating in front of the television when they watch it for hours, what happens when you show television to vegetables?

Jon Keats, a self-described experimental philosopher, has set up an exhibition in NYC purporting to explore just that question.

Man Down

He’s filmed a travelogue for plants consisting of the Italian sky, complete with jet contrails, and planted (so to speak) a bunch of houseplants in front of a TV running the clip in a loop.

Presumably he picked houseplants because normally they don’t get to travel, and he thought they would be most appreciative of his efforts.

He’s quite straightforward in describing this whole gig as a thought experiment.

What I’m always doing is trying to pose thought experiments in the old-fashioned philosophical way,” he said, “imagining from a radically different perspective circumstances that are very familiar to us, in order to make them unfamiliar and force us to start to pull them apart.

Jon is right when he says old-fashioned, because let’s face it, TV is so last century. We need to get these plants hooked up with on-line shopping and dating, email, and financial planning.

The good news is that if they have pre-existing medical conditions we won’t know what they are, so we can provide health insurance.

I’m assuming they will register to vote … you can probably guess with which party.

Enough said.

Many of us are not quite right in the morning until we get our caffeine buzz going.

But until recently we weren’t packing guns. That’s all changed now.

From the Wall Street Journal we learn that “Starbucks Corp. and some other chain stores in the U.S. are finding themselves caught in the middle of a firearms debate, as gun-control advocates go up against a burgeoning campaign by gun owners to carry holstered pistols in public places.”

Even under normal circumstances your local Starbucks barista has to tread carefully with their strung-out customers first thing in the morning. But now that has been taken to a new level.

The only thing worse than a yuppie upset with how their frappuccino turned out is a yuppie with a gun who’s unhappy with how their frappuccino turned out, says Erik Forman, a Starbucks barista and union member in Minneapolis.

Believe Me, I REQUESTED My Frappuccino With Soy, Not Whole Milk!

Do you feel Chai?

Well … do you punk?

In a week when natural disasters have taken over the headlines you’d think we could contain the man-made ones, at least temporarily.

But no, that’s not happening.

In a staggering display of dysfunction the Senate allowed a single (Republican) lawmaker to

… block[ed] a $10 billion bill that would have extended unemployment benefits and other programs after halting its progress last week. And on Monday, the impact of his blockade started biting, with the expiration of benefits to 100,000 people and the suspension of 41 transportation projects across the country.

So what to make of this?

Republicans Boarded The Train Without Checking It's Destination

It used to be said you could get away with almost anything if you made the trains run on time, but first the Senate needs to figure out how to keep them on the tracks.

Even worse, Senator Bunning didn’t get to see his basketball game.

Pity, that.