The Early Autumn of Honey BooBoo

September is a special month. It starts in summer, with the heat still mostly there but the lights lowered. I need to hang on to the heat, with old memories of cold, poor winters in the Connecticut Valley driving me to near panic. The lowering light gets more and more lovely and suddenly, it gets cool. There are smells, and flowers, and birds. For the last 10,000 years or so, there has been the harvest.

The harvest is mythically important. After the harvest comes death , which is also sort of a key fact. So we have a big honking connection to nature.

So. I'm getting all mythic about a really great time of year when I spend a dark evening in front of the retina of the mind's eye & notice that a typical Wednesday night of crappy TV has the show we've all heard about - Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  "Yeeeeearrrrrrrghhh!!!!" seems woefully insufficient. It's a window on the life of the 47%.

Please, please, please close it quickly. Although you have to admit that the picture of Bill Clinton looking down on them in horror & empathy is a nice touch, this show is a test that the rest of us will fail like a Wasserman on Jersey Shore.

What to do? Get out of the house, of course. Even in the heart of the Big City there's stuff growing and ripening everywhere. This year, particularly. Last year was horribly wet in the east, and even the apple crop, about the last thing still grown commerically around here, was soggy & awful. This year, in the record smashing heat*, rain came at oddly convenient intervals and things stayed nicely green. (Yes, I'm fully aware of the horror that burned down west of the Appalachians - more on that often here) 
From the relative comfort of the lesser depression we look at the higher dignity of the Great Depression and remember the main difference : yields.
Nowadays, farms yield about 160 bushels (9600 lbs) per acre in good years, 120 in years like this.  Given a few more years like 2012, the product of global warming & a jet stream keeping the cold there was off North America, there will be starvation. The lazy prediction today was pointless hunger deaths rising from 5 to 6 million a year, but what does that mean? Nothing.

The real question is: Have we put a serious hit on Mother Nature?

The real answer is : Hell, yes. These outsize yields won't last long. Long term carrying capacity of humans on this planet is almost surely under 2 billion souls. The other 5 billion of us are living on the heritage of fossil fuels & minerals deposited over hundreds of millions of years. Once it's gone, or even significantly harder to get at, we're all in deep pain. All I can say? Give thanks to Demeter & Persephone.

Soylent Green is People, My Friend

I'm sure you all remember the post of September 10, which pondered the possible sales tax and other options that might be hiding in Republican tax policy.

This is the gritty bit, based on the Romney website tax issues page.

It's got the Big Lie :

However, the reality is that before President Obama exploded the size of the federal government, our existing tax rates were more or less adequate to pay for the government we needed.

The deficit for FY 2009 was $1.3 trillion. There has been no explosion in the size of the federal government. This stuff is total bull, right there for everyone to see.

After, the Big Lie, not much.

Lets consider the entirety of the individual tax plan:

America’s individual tax code applies relatively high marginal tax rates on a narrow tax base. Those high rates discourage work and entrepreneurship, as well as savings and investment. With 54 percent of private sector workers employed outside of corporations, individual rates also define the incentives for job-creating businesses. Lower marginal tax rates secure for all Americans the economic gains from tax reform.

•Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
•Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains
•Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
•Eliminate the Death Tax
•Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)*

This is about a 25% tax cut. How is it paid for? Damnfino. The only thing in there even hinting at holding onto revenue is "narrow tax base". Sounds like a plan to get more people to pay income taxes. Maybe cut the standard deduction, make Social Security 100% taxable, even tax medical benefits? Probably wipe out the child & earned income credits - gotta hit the moochers. Your guess can't be too wild - because this plan is insane.

How will it be enacted? All revenue bills originate (except when they don't) in the House of Representives, currently run by poop flinging monkeys.

Later on the tax issues page, there's also a link to something by the unspeakably vile Scott McNealy. Scott has a unique place in industrial history. Around 2000, Sun Microsystems was reporting a billion dollars a year in net income, & paying no dividends. Every year, the balance sheet managed to get a bit worse, and Scott McNealy got a lot richer. Now he's at Oracle, as well as plugging for Romney. Anyone with the stomach to click through & read McNealy, you have been warned.

*Romney owed AMT of $232,989 in 2010 & $674,512 in 2011. AMT isn't common at his income level unless (1) almost all of the income is dividends and capital gains & (2) there are substantial miscellaneous itemized deductions, i.e - he's living off investments & paying management fees of a million bucks a year. Part of the reason 2011 was higher was state income taxes. Romney has not released his state returns. The PWC description of them is particularly weird:
""Effective state personal income tax rate" is computed as total state taxes reported as a deduction divided by adjusted gross income as shown on the federal income tax returns as prepared during the period"

I still haven't figured out the timing of this, but it does explain the 8.36% rate in a state (if he was a Massachusetts resident) where the rate has stayed below 6%.

In 2011 he paid $1,327,031 & had refunds of (352,905)
In 2010 he paid $672,444 & had refunds of (826,064)
Thus in PWCspeak he paid $1,999,475 over 2 years but the net was only $820,506.

And yes, the 2010 figures are weird. Something happened in 2008/2009, and it seems to have caught him by surprise.  Whatever it is, he doesn't want us to know. Does he just not want us to know that the crash hit him like everybody else? There are way too many possibilities, way too little time to guess.

Psst! You. Yes, you. They hate you.

Let's roll the tape from behind the curtain once again:

These are people who pay no income tax. 47% of Americans pay no income taxes. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. And he'll be out there talking about "tax cuts for the rich". That's what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people.
I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for for their lives.

That we've allowed a country where two people, working full time at the kind of jobs that you can get without a fancy degree, $10-15/hour, raising 2 kids will be barely getting by at about $50,000 year is bad enough. Now, it's time to hate on them because they don't happen to pay federal income tax. It's all about hate. Doesn't stop at half the country. You know if you're one of the obvious candidates : Black, Latino, Asian, Atheist, or (worst of all: Shudder) Female.

So, who else should they hate?

How about a guy from a family semi-rich on government contracts. He lazes through a second rate school, uses family connections to get a series of propaganda jobs as a hanger on in DC, marries a rich tax lawyer, then goes on the public payroll for the rest of his life lying all the way.

Sure, hate on Paul Ryan.
So, does this mean they hate themselves?

Religious hypocrites, closeted gays, fetishists? When you're running a conspiracy, it works better if everybody has a shame. Keeps them in line.


And what do you get when you work hard, follow the rules and polish up the handle so carefully?

This is not something that working people have forgotten, no matter how many times they've been told to. Time to change the rules. How do you fight hate?

If that doesn't work, knee to the nuts.

20,000 viejas espectacular

At 6:49 pm, EDT today, this blog had its 20,000th pageview. Of course, BigTime blogs get that before breakfast. Please don't chortle. I started small, and darn it, intend to stay there.
I'd  like to thank those who helped most - Susan of Texas, Crooks & Liars; and most of all, Kate Beckinsale's Butt Implants.

And, as always at a milestone meterstick, time to return to the core mission: Attempting to bring down the absurd cost of a University Education before I get stuck paying for one.

Which in this case, sadly means having to deal with Megan McArdle. Oddly enough she states a lot of obvious truths. College is wasteful, and getting more expensive. Credentials have no inherent value. We graduate way too many lawyers.

So, simply because it's McArdle, does that mean it's rubbish? Of course it does!

First, to state the bleeding obvious - is going to work in a coal mine at 18 how you want to spend your life? Isn't there value in taking a couple years to get perspective and have a little fun?

Second - Blaming the victim!

Eighteen-year-olds demand amenities—high-speed Internet, well-upholstered classrooms, world-class fitness facilities—and in order to stay competitive, college administrators happily provide them. Then they raise the tuition for which the 18-year-olds are obediently borrowing the money.


Yes! Administrators pay themselves 6 & 7 figure salaries because The Kids Demand It!

Third - Why do people without degrees do so poorly?

Because entitled bozos like McArdle make sure that the Lower Orders are prevented from banding together and claiming a decent wage commensurate with their contribution.
And the chance of really doing well without a degree remains near zilch:

Alas, this is more important than any of that:

China is running on coal. Either they hit the wall soon, or global warming gets Sofa King out of control we go into cannibal meltdown.

Living my life in a slow hell

Once upon a time country videos were watchable. Back in the day, singers could write their own songs, and sing in an accent that suggested an IQ over 70. That was stamped out, and now, well, damn you corporate dweebs, get offa my lawn!

A gimmick duet from about 11 years ago was Picture.

Obviously, KR is just bragging about a different girl every night. But it does raise the question : Who spends time at a motel?

I love mid-range motels. Especially breakfast. People from all over the damn place, moving slowly & politely, figuring out how to make waffles,  which pastries are worth a shot, and whether to make a fruit bowl or just grab an orange. True, the cable TV on the side gets more relentlessly stupid & reactionary every year, but nobody is watching.

Motel locations are generally pretty easy to understand. Either they're on the highway or by the airport. The fancy hotels & flophouses in Teh Big City aren't really the same thing, no?

So, today I found a mystery. The Malden Econolodge is the Admiral Stockdale of motels. Why is it there, when there is no there there?

The picture suggests an empty field in Ohio, but really, it's tightly embedded in a dense, mixed race working class neighborhood. The nearest interstate is 15 minutes away in good traffic. Even Route 1 is over a mile, and 10 minutes with good luck. What justification is offered?

The Econo Lodge® hotel is conveniently located just seven miles from the Boston Logan International Airport. This Malden hotel is only minutes from the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston), Tufts University, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Northeastern University and Harvard University.

Additional nearby points of interest include:
•Boston University

•Boston College

•Boston Inner Harbor

•Nantasket Beach Reservation

•Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team

The John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center is just a quick trip away. A wide variety of restaurants and several shops are within two miles of the hotel.

Most of that stuff is30-60 minutes away, with plenty of closer options. The nearby stores are convenience stores and tiny neighborhood spots. There is no obvious reason anyone would stay at a motel in east Malden.

Yet, there it is. The picture doesn't lie. It's new looking, fresh and well maintained, at least on the outside. $100 a night for a queen bed room.

I have no idea who built this motel or why. Maybe for visiting relatives.

The reviews are pretty interesting:

.“Inexpensive...and you get what you pay for”

The non-smoking rooms reeked...to the point that we asked for different rooms. We had to ask for the manager as the desk clerk was unwilling to admit that there were other rooms available. The new rooms were satisfactory. The breakfast area was tiny. But they did have a simple breakfast available.

front desk check in was more concerned about watching the television then checking me in. It took her 3 tries to get me checked in. Lots of noise heard from other rooms.

Never been to a hotel where the front desk is behind bulletproof glass before - and don't plan to go again. Located far away from everything, the walls are paper thin, so you can be part of your neighbor's activities.

We had a late check-in 12pm and I had to wait several minutes before being checked-in. The room smelled of smoke and we requested a non smoking room,the air-conditioner was mounted on the wall near the ceiling and it dripped all night into plastic trash cans.It was noisy and the outside lighting lit-up the room.


OK, maybe they do need to hire a new staff.

They don't work cheap, but they damn well keep the joint clean.

1939,1954,1986,20??

There are 2 kinds of tax bill: Those that think there are 2 kinds...

Sorry, that joke doesn't work here. But there are major overhauls & tinkering with rates. The last overhaul, 1986, fondly remembered as the "Tax Accountants Full Employment Act", has reached a level of complexity that was unimaginable in the era where many returns were done with a pencil.

For the last 10 years or so it's been obvious that we need to clean things up. Even the basic outline has been pretty clear. Consolidate the retirement & education incentives. Simplify credits. Eliminate AMT, but cut out some of the stuff that makes it necessary. Reduce gaming by tying corporate tax to financial statement income. Give the IRS an easier way to handle transfer pricing.

It hasn't happened.  We've had tinker after tinker.

The reason is pretty fundamental : The Republican Party has officialy endorsed magical thinking with respect to taxes. No tax that calls for payment from the rich can ever be supported.
So, what happens when one party refuses to even consider responsible tax policy?

N O T H I N G PERMANENT.

Instead, we get an ever growing army of provisions renewed from year to year. Educational deductions & credits are probably the worst. Cleaning them up & making them permanent might not help our mission*, but it couldn't hurt.

How can you raise revenue when you rule out raising it where there's revenue to be raised?
You can fake it - which has been the official party policy for 32 years now. Pretend that cutting rates will raise revenues. The result has been deficits, every time, and 4 recessions.   Starting from a trillion dollar deficit, this might not be the greatest idea ever.

Door number 2 is to try a different kind of tax. Since wealth is even more unequally distributed than income, it has to be a transaction tax. Constitutionally, this is easy. Article 1, section 8 begins:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


This stuff used to fund the entire government. Now, about 4%. There's a lot of reasons for that. One is the encouragement of consumption in the 20th century. Encouraging consumption has become a core Conservative value. Along with crushing wages, this would appear to present a conflict.

Door #3 resolves all conflicts : You take it in trade. Debtors prisons are making a comeback. Forced labor, community service, welfare work requirements.

Yes, this is as ugly as it sounds, which is why it's still basically silent. Put your head down, and hear the train a coming. "46% pay no tax" "Skin in the game"

Lights out.
*This blog** is dedicated to ending tuition increases, chiefly by fighting administrative bloat at Universities.

**Charlie Pierce has abandoned the phrase "this blog", so it's mine now. Neener neener.

Kiss up, kick down. Jesus.

Today's sermon is Mark 12. It gets a bit long, so there's a page break after Kate Upton .

2 Testaments, 1 Meathead

With all the GOD bothering at the Conventions this year, there seems to be little attention paid to what GOD they're bothering.

The first thing you realize when you start to pay attention to the Bible (you remember, the week you accidentally stayed awake in Sunday School) is that it is 2 completely different books. Somewhere between the Old & New Testaments, GOD had a deepthink & rolled out a completely different program.

The Old, the version of Tampa, was an angry paternal GOD concerned with enforcing obedience from his people.  His people strove in extremely weird & violent ways. One of my favorite books is Jonah. Jonah was sent to preach in Ninev
ah. Oddly enough, he was a big hit, everyone repented, and GOD spared the place.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

From there it gets sillier. Jonah wanted people to suffer, Darn it to Heck!

This basic story, repeated many times, usually with GOD wreaking destruction, is the recurring theme.


Most of us are more familiar with GOD II : Queen of the Dance. She's the one the Nuns brought to Charlotte, with a simple message:

Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.

Which is pretty much how I see things now. Of course, there's a third player : Reality. Reality will sweep away whatever we do pretty quickly, but for now, consider the Book of Lear. When Archie Bunker explained that there was conspiracy among the women, Jews, Hippies, unions, atheists, blacks & Mexicans to take over the country, Mike got his only good line of the series : Arch, they ARE the country.

Transit Investing in the Era of Family Dollar & Nieman Marcus

So, many of you have asked : What's a good solid investment in an era when 98% of all publicly traded coroporations are devices to direct money into the manager's pockets and the other 2% are scams?

Glad you asked! Before the Soylent Corporation takes over the food supply, there are still lots of opportunities to be the next to last fool, and make out like a bandit during a hurricane.

According to the New York Times, airlines have decided that business/first class should be nicer, and cattle cars are too good for the rest of us. Of course, even low rent fliers need driver's licenses and credit cards these days. (Pretty soon you'll need that to vote, too, and less and less people will actually have 1st class ID. At least one part of their plan makes sense. Evil sense, but consistent) What about the unbanked masses?

Greyhound is too good for you! Coming soon, to a curb near you - unregulated exploding buses!

This is the kind of stuff that makes one wonder whether there's some truth hidden under the layers of lies and denial in US politics. Sure, the Republican platform is a recipe for eternal class war, oppression, dystopia, & violence leading inevitably to a fascist crackdown. Like, du-uh.

But how much longer will the easy motoring version last? Gas is hitting $4 with the US pumping like lunatics and both US & European consumption down 10%. Is there really an option to ongoing recession, short of social reorganization?

Of course not. So the outrageous lies and partially concealed savagery of the Republicans are backed by a sneaking fear : You're with them or against them. The absurd "Obama is plotting the death of Suburbia" has only one real piece of evidence behind it : The certain knowledge that Suburbia Must Die.

In any event, I intend to celebrate down to the last minute of the modern age. And really, how does that work with Liars for Christ turning the screws?

It doesn't, of course.

Oh, right. Investment advice. Tattoo parlors, breast implant manufacturers, and a root cellar full of potatoes & porn. Because, why not?

Conventional Blogging

Now that staying up to midnight to watch Bleach is too much, I have to salute Daily Bleach for a nice summary of what the delegates in Tampa are doing, between tossing out the duly elected Ron Paul delegates.

(The gay ones are funnier, but this is a T & A blog, not a sausagefest)

Back in the pocketbook, where the real action is, there's a nice summary of why Iceland saying "Get stuffed" to the bankers was the right thing to do. Yes, people who put bras on cattle know more than fancy bankers.

I went to Iceland at just the wrong time & have mixed feelings, but hard to argue.

Which brings us back to Linda Katehi & PSA. She has 4 days left on her own deadline to eat crow about the med school coming down on a prof who threatened the smooth running of the gravy train over all those interested in sensible health care.

I've never had a good word to say about UC Davis. The University of California system has managed to waste so much money that their out of state tuition is higher than Harvard's, and who the heck would pay that to endure the kind of abuse they deal out along with a rapidly declining reputation? Still, there was a time....



That time was 1976.

Late to the party

Everything I've tried to do on this blog, somebody else has done better.

breaking: i can report wind in miami. definitely some wind. #isaactracker
— Kathryn Jean Lopez (@kathrynlopez) August 26, 2012

  Maybe fart jokes are the next wave...         I'll try to stay on top of it.

Michael Mann goes on Offense

One of the features of the attempt to obscure the rather clear findings that Arrhenius was right 120 years ago has been that the paid liars feel free to say or do whatever the fuck they want, while the scientists maintain strict compliance with decency, rigor & truth.

The result of this for Michael Mann is that he's been cleared in multiple investigations. Nice to be cleared, but no fun at all to be persecuted.

He's taken the first little step towards making the bozos stand behind their lies. Mark Steyn called him a fraud & child molester in NRO, and well, given that Mann works at Penn State, them's fighting words. Also too, defamatory.

NRO, of course, did not see reason. Their response is kind of weak. It says that the stuff they wrote is not actionable, but later brags about some of the crap that Dr. Mann has been put through. It rattles on about active scientific controversy - which does not really exist. Outside the moronosphere, there is absolutely nothing controversial about the fact that the planet, particularly the top half where most of us live, is getting rapidly warmer as a result of stuff we do to it. We've already broken most of the records for lowest sea ice area, extent & volume with weeks left in melt season. Greenland has had record melt, there have been thousands of high temperature records, and drought has started to raise grain prices. And Santa has put in pools:

So, as unlikely as it may be to actually get into a courtroom, I'd love to see it. To find that the whole Denialist charade is as lame as the Intelligent Design fools could not be but a good thing. Having these clowns & poo flingers testify under oath is, I suspect, something they are not actually ready for. Ya think?

Free advice (& worth it) : Find a way to sue in Britain. Much better laws for plaintiffs.

Update: Everything I've ever said about Michael Mann, Teresa Sullivan & George Mason U, done much better by Maureen Tkacick at FDL. Also, Wegman, Tozzi & even Ed Meese are involved. DONT MISS IT.

All Media Criticism is Now Superfluous

Newsweek's response to dozens of people pointing out that their cover story is utter crap:

"We, like other news organisations today, rely on our writers to submit factually accurate material. "

This is not a suicide note. It's a neighbor saying "Newsweek? Oh, they died years ago. Be nice if somebody went in and cleaned the place out. Smell's not as bad as it used to be."

Kind of makes my whole media criticism project a bit rough, doesn't it? Rather than shaming their employers into enforcing standards, they'll just cut loose anybody that gets too hot to handle & ignore the rest.

Twain wept. Mencken drank.

The Rolled Up Newspaper wishes Megan McArdle a happy few months, fun & pratfalls, before the joint closes.

Update: Newsweek has collected the responses. They only found 2 supporters, and they're pretty lame. No hint yet that they're going to do the right thing - have every copy mulched. 

2087 is not right around the corner

Stephen Ohlemacher's AP Goosebumps series on Social Security hit part 3 today.

Part 1 was where he turned a 5/1 payback into less than 1/1 by hiding the adjustments.

Part 2 was mostly a snooze.

This weeks installment is all about WE MUST ACT NOW.

Each year lawmakers wait, Social Security's financial problems loom larger and the need for bigger changes becomes greater, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.


Or, to select the simplest, (which I support, FWIW):

—Apply the Social Security tax to all wages, including those above $110,100. Workers making $200,000 in wages would get a tax increase of $5,574, an amount their employers would have to match. Their future benefits would increase, too. This option would eliminate 72 percent of the shortfall. Two years ago, it would have wiped out 99 percent.


He hides what's really going on. I'm sure you're shocked.  But let's take it slow and careful, so even an AP reporter can sort of understand.

What else has changed in 2 years?

-The 75 year projection has lost 2 surplus years and added 2 deficit years

-The economy has stunk for 2 years. Before the crash, contributions were supposed to exceed payouts to 2019.

-Interest rates dropped to basically nothing, hurting the income on the trust fund.

The result is that removing the cap in 2010 would not have solved 99% of the 2012-2087 issue. I suspect that the reduction in shortfall would be a lot closer to 72% than 99%. How much closer? If the AP knows, they aren't telling. In fact, by not mentioning any of the other factors, they're implying it would still have been a 99% solution. And who knows what the 75 year shortfall would be looking from 2014?What they are doing is deception & fearmongering.

So things happening right now can affect the 75 year projection? Of Course. What are the chances that the 75 year projection will be real? A few years back, the projection was that the fund would be good well into the 2040s. Since 2010, the tapout date has gone from 2037 to 2033, so we've gone from 27 years to 21 before the need to cut or subsidize in just 2 years.

Yes, we're supposed to be concerned with a 75 year projection. What could go wrong?

Lessee. We're in a depression, climate change seems to be pushing us into famine, oil production growth stalled in 2005 & will start to decline soon, our government seems to be falling into an increasingly repressive plutocracy...

No, adjusting Social Security now instead of in 2023 or 2033 is not a big deal. Trying to scare us into thinking it is a big deal - well, Mr. Stephen Ohlemacher, you really need to look harder at what agenda you are serving.

Squeal, AssDeans, Squeal!

Nice post yesterday at Balloon Juice. Freddie slightly mixed up a non-profit board and the University of Georgia, but quite a linkfest.

The secondary story : In 1980, the student newspaper at the University of Georgia split from the University.  They formed a non-profit. Board of the non-profit hired some full-timers. Full timers & 1 board member decided to take charge. Students took a hike. Board member Ed Stamper fell on the sword.  Nice story about the importance of solidarity, but not exactly administrative bloat.

More central to the tale, there's a link to the Washington Monthly Ginsberg story. (Beware: EVIL Scott Brown ad embedded! Or Romney "You didn't build that" BS. Sad, Charles Peters). Lots of comments at Balloon Juice, which are worth reading. Although they may obscure the lesson : In union, there is strength. Faculty & students together ARE the University, and will always be able to slough off the Administration.

50 Shades of Bad

While the theme of August remains Bad Journalists, I do have to salute Paul Campos' absolutely definitive work on out of control Law School excessess. With careful detail, he lays out the excesses in capacity, cost & cons, and the massive deficit in honesty that should (but haven't we heard that before?) crater the entire overpriced scam forthwith.

Be that as it may, my problem with a series on bad reporting is that there are so many bad reporters and so little time! Do I go for the obvious fakes (Sippy Cupp), the idiots, the nuts, or the Ohlemachers, who think they are doing fine work even as they are spun mercilessly?

Give me some names. Please!

I'm begging here.

The sinkhole, the pipeline & the Beaufort Gyre

There's been a lot of Earth Shaking news the last week.

Down in Louisiana, the earth has been caving in. A giant sinkhole in Assumption Parish seems to be a result of drilling all over a salt dome. There's a bunch of other stuff stored in the dome, including 1.5 million barrels of butane. The gang at TheOilDrum is keeping calm:

AlanfromBigEasy on August 10, 2012 - 11:17am

I would NOT want to be 6 miles (10 km) from 1.5 million barrels of butane when pressure is reduced.

I am trying to think through the physics of a phase change if, say, a 2 or 3 meter hole developed with 1 bar (atmosphere) pressure. Ground temperatures are higher than needed to transform butane to gas at 1 bar. That delta in temperature could provide the energy for phase change (I would have to look up tables, and not enough time ATM)
My first guess is an "explosive" expansion that would rapidly enlarge the hole. If no immediate spark, a rapidly enlarging ball of butane would develop with the surface of the ball (and some distance in) would be between the upper and lower explosive limits. (Distant memory - butane has a wide band between LEL & UEL).
Something close to a fuel-air bomb could develop in XX seconds if there is no immediate spark. The results could rival Texas City and Halifax for the largest non-nuclear explosion.

Best Hopes for delaying the well,
Alan

Of course, the volume of NGL's in a fuel-air bomb is tiny compared to the potential volumes they are talking about.

Comments top Even visiting the Parish, I would recommend staying at least 15 to 18 miles from the sinkhole.
That is far enough away to very likely survive a, say 100 kt explosion with no more than minor injuries.

Best Hopes for All of Assumption Parish

Alan

PS: Start pumping that butane out *NOW*

In Mississippi, the good old boys have been running a railroad - kids to prison. I'm not entirely sure how the money works on this one, but the DOJ has had enough.

Furthermore, children on probation are routinely arrested and incarcerated for allegedly violating their probation by committing minor school infractions, such as dress code violations, which result in suspensions

Anyhow, the full letter is at http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/2642012810121733674791.pdf
Unfortunately, the DOJ posted a crappy pdf of an image & didn't even bother to OCR it. Still, at least they're pretending to care about (black) kids getting rolled by the (white) machine.

And on top of the world, there was the Storm of The Century, so far. It blew for most of the week, and decimated the last sea ice below 80 degrees north.

The result is, 2007's record low ice extent  - and 2011s volume & area records - are dead meat.

Anyhow, just to remind you, that once we're rid of ZombieEyedGrannyStarvers, the real problems they exist to ignore will still be with us.

AssPress Hack vs Social Security : Part 598,000

In June, 2011, the Urban Institute did a study on Social Security contributions vs payout. It had some pretty weird assumptions. Contributions were adjusted annualy by (inflation + 2%). They use "Average Wage" without specifying median or mean. (It appears to be mean, which is higher.) Even given these odd assumptions. Social Security is a pretty good deal for most people. Especially one-earner couples, poor people, and those who live a long time or had a short working life. So, this thing sat, justly ignored for a year or so. Then today, AP Uberhack Stephen Ohlemacher unearthed it.

Social Security not deal it once was for workers

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press – 14 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) — People retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It's a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Wooo! Scary!

A married couple retiring last year after both spouses earned average lifetime wages paid about $598,000 in Social Security taxes during their careers. They can expect to collect about $556,000 in benefits, if the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85, according to a 2011 study by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

OK - stop right there. How much in lifetime wages do you have to have earned to pay $299,000 in Social security taxes from 1966-2010? Trick question - with the low caps on wages subject to the tax in the past, it's utterly impossible. So how does STEPHEN OHLEMACHER explain this? He doesn't. He never mentions any of the assumptions. Just throws the numbers out there like they're real. The mystery is left. Why did he pick up a year old study? Why did he hide the assumptions? Who put him up to this. STEPHEN OHLEMACHER - Useful idiot, or corrupt hack? I have no idea. What I do know - the AP needs to just FOAD. (And you would hope that some of the 700 newspapers that ran this tripe would have noticed. Hoped in vain, from what I've seen so far.) In the meantime, Stephen Ohlemacher needs to improve his skills.

Miscreants 2: Jonah Goldberg

What could I add to the legend of the Doughy Pantload?

Maybe a little yeast. Let him speak his idiocy untrammeled.

What grabs my attention today is the stuff around the edges. Conservatism is about money. How do they make it?

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O. K.  What's up on cruise ships these days?

A giant liner has been sinking off the coast of Italy for 2 hours* & nobody has noticed! No wonder they can't give away tickets. At least this is more realistic than Jonah's call to stupidity & ignoring your professors.

Of course, Jonah just went into the family business.
Whether he believes any of the crap he lazily peddles is entirely beside the point.

I do like to think of him as being rejected repeatedly by all normal women, who took on this image in his rearview (doublewide) mirror:

Leaving you with Jimmy Webb:

*Over a week in our time. 2 hours is an estimate of Comic Page Relativity. There is a serious issue of Space Compression in Mary Worth, & I can't exactly translate it into a Lorentz Contraction.

You can't go below Neil Munro

By odd chance, today for the first time I twice became aware of a loathsome boil in the depths of the Daily Caller called Neil Munro.

His specialty is promoting bogus tripe written by other hacks.

In April, he did the absolute worst job of collecting survey results I've ever seen. Apparently, it's still floating around in wingnut email land. Read the whole thing, if you must, and tell me what the 13 questions were, who was asked, or even if the "Correct" answers were correct. I couldn't. And, at least in the first 100 comments, his followers didn't even ask.

One passage provides a few chuckles:

A March 12 Pew study showed that Democrats are far more likely that conservatives to disconnect from people who disagree with them.

“In all, 28% of liberals have blocked, unfriended, or hidden someone on SNS [social networking sites] because of one of these reasons, compared with 16% of conservatives and 14% of moderates,” said the report, tiled “Social networking sites and politics.”

The report also noted that 11 percent of liberals, but only 4 percent of conservatives, deleted friends from their social networks after disagreeing with their politics.

Frist, of course, for the lack of editing. Second, because it ignores the obvious : Wingnuts are really annoying. The US is not divided into Right & Left Wing. It's divided into Insane Wingnuts & Everybody Else.

Now he's pimping some junk supporting voter fraud from Horace Cooper, whose expertise in fraud consists of being on parole after serving time for it (Abramoff style, not voter fraud). Munro's work has his signature techniques. He barely identifies Cooper (not that any of the Caller readers would bother to look him up), does not link the "study", and throws in a quite from "former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis", a lower life form currently moving to his wingnut welfare phase. 

I know exactly where we can get a better press corps. She does sports, too!

The Fifth Days of the Fourth Estate

A couple days ago, Bill Keller flew the Clueless flag in the New York Times. That someone does not understand anything at all about income stratification, class or basically how the United States works is no barrier at all to their being in charge of the New York Times. In fact, it's a requirement!

Given that Keller's column has been nothing but a rage magnet since the day it was launched, that's quite enough of that. Time to revisit an old rash, currently in remission, but due to erupt in oozing pustules far too soon. Megan McArdle!

It seems that, in the gap between being booted from The Atlantic & falling into a sinecure at the Daily Beast, Ms. M has taken her Permission to Suck to Italy.

Alas, she has not been with Dawn & Wilbur Weston on the reenactment of the Costa Concordia disaster. Worse: she's been sharing.

Fantastic oxtail at Checchino dal 1887, even though I was told it was "showing its age". I shall be completely spherical ere I leave Rome.


Saturday, July 28th


Favorite Stupid Italian satellite channel keeps interrupting Olympics coverage to talk about some dumb financial problem they're having.

Friday, July 27th

Favorite Most interesting conversation in Rome so far: Italian waiter who is mystified by American wine markups. I can't exactly explain it either.

Friday, July 27th

Favorite So apparently, if you leave Rome without gaining 10 pounds, you're doing it wrong.

& tons more utter crap. How can we be sure it's really Megan?
 
RT @attackerman: Terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics 30 years ago. The IOC won't have a moment of commemorati ...


Yep, she took her calculator.

Stupidy, apathy & corruption - which is most prevalent amongst our Elites?

That's a real question. I have no clear favorite.

Miss Kate is in the Details

In celebration of decisions made, an Oxford lass 20 years ago decided to give movies a try.

Minor stardom, major plastic surgery - you know the tale. As always, time for a sharp turn.

There has been a lot published in the last few years that makes it clear that short term, the stock markets of the world are thoroughly corrupted and exist to benefit the biggest, fastest and most ruthless insiders. Still, what other place is there to park the bits and pieces we manage to save? If you can find a solid company and share in their prosperity, that's what the whole joint stock concept was invented for all those years ago.

It's gotten a lot touger than the days when Uncle Billie was an outlier.

It is often said, and more often forgotten, that the most important part of financial statements is the footnotes. An ongoing blazingly blatant case is a royalty trust that trades under the symbol WHX. This thing was set up with rights to a well defined amount of oil. The remaining oil to be sold has been hedged. It is nearly certain that the trust will terminate in 2015, and completely certain that the total remaining payout is at most, $10.

Last week it was trading at $18. People saw the $2.86/ year payout, and valued it as though it would run forever. Many of these people ere qite upset when someone wrote up the obvious last week, and the price was halved. It rallied to $11.50 and has now fallen back to a reasonable $9.20. If you want to bet on stupidity, buy some, and be ready to bail on the next rally.

The footnotes I always found most useful are the ones on stock option compensation. Prior to SFAS 123, it was quite easy for management to award themselves options worth more than the companies annual profit. The challenge is a little steeper now, but it's still a good first place to look. If management is running the company for their entire personal benefit, buying stock is just paying tribute.

Anther thing to look for is exposure. On the up side this happens more often on little ones that aren't widely traded : There's a buyout offer. It's right there in the financials. The usual pattern is that holders who've loyally held on for years of low returns start getting offers. "Oh, we think it has some potential, and would like to hold some."

On the down side? The list of pending litigation can be longer than the rest of the financials put together. Don't worry too much, though. In American Jurisprudence, the only thing that can beat a corporation is a busload of nuns.

Nanny McPhee is not walking through that door. And if she did, she'd be old, gray & unable to dunk. Lettuce celebrate the harvest, as the drought spreads north.