Woke up this morning to this story: ["U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan"].
So, I guess it wasn't about the pipeline but was about minerals? This reminds me of the story ages ago about miners finding gold or silver deposits in Bosnia. BTW, are we still in Bosnia too?
TIME Magazine has had some pretty good reporting from Afghanistan and the news is pretty bleak. Somehow, I think that trillions in minerals found in the ground is only going to make things worse ...
Monday, June 14, 2010
NH primary ballots shape up
A quick note here about the upcoming 2010 New Hampshire primary ballots:
First, incumbent Gov. John Lynch has two challengers in the Democratic primary: Timothy Robertson of Keene and Frank Sullivan of Manchester. On the GOP side, four candidates - Frank Robert Emiro, Sr., Jack Kimball, Jr., John Stephen, and Karen Testerman will face off.
In the U.S. Senate race, Rep. Paul Hodes has no opposition on the Democrat ballot. Republicans have Tom Alciere, Kelly Ayotte, Gerard Beloin, Jim Bender, Bill Binnie, Dennis Lamare, and Ovide Lamontagne. That's going to be a mess.
In NH CD 2, Ann McLane Kuster of Hopkinton and Katrina Swett of Bow face off. The Republicans have five candidates: Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, Robert J. Giuda, Jennifer Horn, Joseph G. Reilly, and Wesley M. Sonner, Jr.
Locally, Senate President, Democrat Syliva B. Larsen will face off against Republican Chris Wood.
In Concord's legislative races, it looks like Republicans could potentially pick up a seat.
In District 10, only three Democrats filed for four potential seats: Mary Stuart Gile, Fran Potter, and Steve Shurtleff, all incumbents. Myril E. Cox and Carrie McGee are running on the Republican side. Barring an aggressive write-in campaign by another Democrat or independent, it looks like Republicans could pick up a seat here.
In District 11, Michael Bartlett, Candace Bouchard, Jim MacKay, Dick Patten, and Bob Williams are all running for five seats. Three Republicans have also filed: Incumbent Lynne F. Blankenbeker, Jeff Newman, and Frank Rosano.
In District 12, there will be a Democrat primary, with five candidates - including three from Wilson Avenue - vying for four seats. Challengers Helen Deloge and Alex Lee face off against incumbents Chip Rice, Mary Jane Wallner, and Rick Watrous. Deloge, Rice, and Watrous all live in Wilson Avenue. On the Republican side, Pamela M. Ean and John A. Kalb are running again.
First, incumbent Gov. John Lynch has two challengers in the Democratic primary: Timothy Robertson of Keene and Frank Sullivan of Manchester. On the GOP side, four candidates - Frank Robert Emiro, Sr., Jack Kimball, Jr., John Stephen, and Karen Testerman will face off.
In the U.S. Senate race, Rep. Paul Hodes has no opposition on the Democrat ballot. Republicans have Tom Alciere, Kelly Ayotte, Gerard Beloin, Jim Bender, Bill Binnie, Dennis Lamare, and Ovide Lamontagne. That's going to be a mess.
In NH CD 2, Ann McLane Kuster of Hopkinton and Katrina Swett of Bow face off. The Republicans have five candidates: Former U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, Robert J. Giuda, Jennifer Horn, Joseph G. Reilly, and Wesley M. Sonner, Jr.
Locally, Senate President, Democrat Syliva B. Larsen will face off against Republican Chris Wood.
In Concord's legislative races, it looks like Republicans could potentially pick up a seat.
In District 10, only three Democrats filed for four potential seats: Mary Stuart Gile, Fran Potter, and Steve Shurtleff, all incumbents. Myril E. Cox and Carrie McGee are running on the Republican side. Barring an aggressive write-in campaign by another Democrat or independent, it looks like Republicans could pick up a seat here.
In District 11, Michael Bartlett, Candace Bouchard, Jim MacKay, Dick Patten, and Bob Williams are all running for five seats. Three Republicans have also filed: Incumbent Lynne F. Blankenbeker, Jeff Newman, and Frank Rosano.
In District 12, there will be a Democrat primary, with five candidates - including three from Wilson Avenue - vying for four seats. Challengers Helen Deloge and Alex Lee face off against incumbents Chip Rice, Mary Jane Wallner, and Rick Watrous. Deloge, Rice, and Watrous all live in Wilson Avenue. On the Republican side, Pamela M. Ean and John A. Kalb are running again.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Politizine reaches milestone: 2,000 posts
This is Politizine's 2,000 post. Wow. It's hard to believe that there have been so many posts here, spanning seven and a half years.
As any regular readers know, some years have been more fruitful than others. Work and family are taking a lot of my time these days. And, like a lot of folks, I'm goofing around more on other sites like facebook than I would like to admit (at 300-plus friends, many who I haven't talked to in years). And who really cares what I think anyway, right?
Earlier this morning when I posted the radio note, I noticed that Blogger was offering new templates. About 20 minutes later, and some new code for a couple of the rail features, and ta-dah, Politizine has been redesigned.
Here's to another 2,000 posts and many more years. Thanks for reading.
As any regular readers know, some years have been more fruitful than others. Work and family are taking a lot of my time these days. And, like a lot of folks, I'm goofing around more on other sites like facebook than I would like to admit (at 300-plus friends, many who I haven't talked to in years). And who really cares what I think anyway, right?
Earlier this morning when I posted the radio note, I noticed that Blogger was offering new templates. About 20 minutes later, and some new code for a couple of the rail features, and ta-dah, Politizine has been redesigned.
Here's to another 2,000 posts and many more years. Thanks for reading.
On the radio this morning ...
Short notice again but I'll be on Samantha Clemens radio program later today talking politics around 10:25 a.m. ... I think we'll be talking about the primaries that happened last week and the state of the 2010 mid-term elections. Who knows what else.
The Samantha Clemens can be heard every Saturday morning from 10 to 11 a.m. EDT on WWZN AM 1510 in Boston or streaming online at www.samanthaclemens.com.
The Samantha Clemens can be heard every Saturday morning from 10 to 11 a.m. EDT on WWZN AM 1510 in Boston or streaming online at www.samanthaclemens.com.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
There is hope for us all ...
From Political Wire:
Unknown Candidate Wins Senate Nomination
Alvin Greene (D), a 32 year old unemployed military veteran, has stunned South Carolina insiders by winning the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) this fall, the AP reports. Greene raised no money in the contest, had no signs and no website.
All I can say is, Wow!
Unknown Candidate Wins Senate Nomination
Alvin Greene (D), a 32 year old unemployed military veteran, has stunned South Carolina insiders by winning the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) this fall, the AP reports. Greene raised no money in the contest, had no signs and no website.
All I can say is, Wow!
Friday, June 4, 2010
Nader: The people are not protected
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
When the Executive Branch does not have worst case scenario planning for each kind of energy source—oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar and efficiency—the people are not protected.
Enter the 24/7 oil gusher-leak by BP and Transocean – the rig operator – and the impotence of the federal government to do anything but wait and see if BP can find ways to close off the biggest and growing oil leak in American history. Where is the emergency planning or industry knowhow?
Of course, we all saw Barack Obama’s first full press conference in ten months where he said, “In case you were wondering who’s responsible? I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure everything is done to shut this down…The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged. Personally, I’m briefed every day. And I probably had more meetings on this issue than just about any issue since we did our Afghan review.”
Sure, so he’s being kept informed. Those are not the words of leadership five weeks after the preventable blowout on the Deepwater Horizon 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. His problem is how long it took for the White House to see this as a national disaster not just a corporate disaster for BP to contain.
That default was not just failing to determine the size of the spill (over ten times greater than BP originally estimated) or the farcical non-regulation, under Republicans and Democrats, by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department. It was a failure to realize that our government has no capability, no technology to take control of such disasters or even to find out whether solutions exist elsewhere in the oil and geologic industries. It’s like a spreading fire where the perpetrator of the fire has the primary responsibility to put the fire out because there Is no properly equipped public fire department.
James Carville, an Obama loyalist and defender, called out his champion from new Orleans, where he now lives, and told him: “Man, you got to get down here and take control of this!” With what? Obama has a 16 month long record of turning his back on advice from the Cajuns of Louisiana to environmental groups in Washington, DC. He shook off warnings about the pathetic federal regulators, so called, cushy with the oil industry. During his campaigns, he allowed McCain’s “drill, baby, drill” to turn him more overtly toward favoring offshore drilling, instead of turning onto offshore windpower.
As the multi-directional and multi-depth oil swarm keeps encircling the Gulf of Mexico, strangling the livelihood of its people, the life of its flora and fauna, with its implacably deadly effect, Obama and his supposedly street smart advisors, led by Rahm Emanuel, started out with a political blunder. Presidential specialist, Professor Paul Light at New York University put his finger on it when he said: “The White House made a deliberate political calculation to stand off…to sort of distance themselves from BP, and they’ve been hammered on that.”
Early on, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told him that the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP. And BP CEO Tony Hayward admitted that BP was not prepared for such a blowout. He said “What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit.” Gates really meant that Uncle Sam had nothing superior to nothing or, in less charitable words, was completely out to lunch with the chronic deregulators who still infect our national government.
Obama’s cool is turning cold. He is not reacting fast enough to the public rage that is building up and over-riding his vacuous statements about taking responsibility and being briefed daily. Much of this public rage, incidentally, is coming from the southern Gulf rim, whose elected politicians consistently opposed any regulation of their campaign contributing oil companies in order to avert just these kinds of disasters. Only Florida’s Congressional delegation said—stay out of Florida’s waters.
Politico reported that “Obama skipped the memorial service for the 11 workers killed on the rig earlier this week, instead flying to California, where he collected $1.7 million for Democrats and toured a solar panel plant. On the day that the significant clots of oil started appearing on the Louisiana coast, Obama was sitting down for an interview to talk hoops with TNT’s Marv Albert.”
He must move to properly sequester all the assets of BP and Transocean to fully pay for their damage, thus assuring Americans that BP will not be able to concoct another Exxon/Valdez escape strategy. He must scour the world of knowledge and experience regarding capping underseas oil blowouts, and not just wait week after week for BP to come up with something.
Nobody says that being president is an easy job, even in the best of times. But a President, who can go all out spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in ways that bleed the taxpayers and breed more anti-American fighters, in part to protect Big Oil in the Middle East, better come back home and stop Big Oil’s war here in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s how he’d better start defining “homeland security.” (See Citizen.org for more on BP.)
When the Executive Branch does not have worst case scenario planning for each kind of energy source—oil, gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar and efficiency—the people are not protected.
Enter the 24/7 oil gusher-leak by BP and Transocean – the rig operator – and the impotence of the federal government to do anything but wait and see if BP can find ways to close off the biggest and growing oil leak in American history. Where is the emergency planning or industry knowhow?
Of course, we all saw Barack Obama’s first full press conference in ten months where he said, “In case you were wondering who’s responsible? I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure everything is done to shut this down…The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged. Personally, I’m briefed every day. And I probably had more meetings on this issue than just about any issue since we did our Afghan review.”
Sure, so he’s being kept informed. Those are not the words of leadership five weeks after the preventable blowout on the Deepwater Horizon 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. His problem is how long it took for the White House to see this as a national disaster not just a corporate disaster for BP to contain.
That default was not just failing to determine the size of the spill (over ten times greater than BP originally estimated) or the farcical non-regulation, under Republicans and Democrats, by the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department. It was a failure to realize that our government has no capability, no technology to take control of such disasters or even to find out whether solutions exist elsewhere in the oil and geologic industries. It’s like a spreading fire where the perpetrator of the fire has the primary responsibility to put the fire out because there Is no properly equipped public fire department.
James Carville, an Obama loyalist and defender, called out his champion from new Orleans, where he now lives, and told him: “Man, you got to get down here and take control of this!” With what? Obama has a 16 month long record of turning his back on advice from the Cajuns of Louisiana to environmental groups in Washington, DC. He shook off warnings about the pathetic federal regulators, so called, cushy with the oil industry. During his campaigns, he allowed McCain’s “drill, baby, drill” to turn him more overtly toward favoring offshore drilling, instead of turning onto offshore windpower.
As the multi-directional and multi-depth oil swarm keeps encircling the Gulf of Mexico, strangling the livelihood of its people, the life of its flora and fauna, with its implacably deadly effect, Obama and his supposedly street smart advisors, led by Rahm Emanuel, started out with a political blunder. Presidential specialist, Professor Paul Light at New York University put his finger on it when he said: “The White House made a deliberate political calculation to stand off…to sort of distance themselves from BP, and they’ve been hammered on that.”
Early on, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told him that the federal government does not possess superior technology to BP. And BP CEO Tony Hayward admitted that BP was not prepared for such a blowout. He said “What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit.” Gates really meant that Uncle Sam had nothing superior to nothing or, in less charitable words, was completely out to lunch with the chronic deregulators who still infect our national government.
Obama’s cool is turning cold. He is not reacting fast enough to the public rage that is building up and over-riding his vacuous statements about taking responsibility and being briefed daily. Much of this public rage, incidentally, is coming from the southern Gulf rim, whose elected politicians consistently opposed any regulation of their campaign contributing oil companies in order to avert just these kinds of disasters. Only Florida’s Congressional delegation said—stay out of Florida’s waters.
Politico reported that “Obama skipped the memorial service for the 11 workers killed on the rig earlier this week, instead flying to California, where he collected $1.7 million for Democrats and toured a solar panel plant. On the day that the significant clots of oil started appearing on the Louisiana coast, Obama was sitting down for an interview to talk hoops with TNT’s Marv Albert.”
He must move to properly sequester all the assets of BP and Transocean to fully pay for their damage, thus assuring Americans that BP will not be able to concoct another Exxon/Valdez escape strategy. He must scour the world of knowledge and experience regarding capping underseas oil blowouts, and not just wait week after week for BP to come up with something.
Nobody says that being president is an easy job, even in the best of times. But a President, who can go all out spending hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in ways that bleed the taxpayers and breed more anti-American fighters, in part to protect Big Oil in the Middle East, better come back home and stop Big Oil’s war here in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s how he’d better start defining “homeland security.” (See Citizen.org for more on BP.)
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Re-open the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
When the Republican Gingrich devolution took over Congress in 1995, it stripped the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of all its funding and left it a shell with no experts to advise committees and members of Congress.
Whereupon Congress was plunged into a dark age regarding decisions about trillions of national security, offshore oil drilling, transportation, energy, health, computer, biotech, nanotechnology and many other executive branch programs in science and technology.
Confronted with partisan vested interests by federal departments and their corporate lobbies, Congress could not get objective, unbiased reports and testimony from the OTA. For a budget of $20 million a year, OTA ground out over 700 peer reviewed sound reports and many more Congressional testimonies by its staff between 1972 and 1995. Last year Congress had an overall budget for itself of $3.2 billion.
Representative Amo Houghton (R-NY) commented at the time of OTA’s demise that “we are cutting off one of the most important arms of Congress when we cut off unbiased knowledge about science and technology.”
Now, Rush Holt (D-NJ) backed by leading scientists and about 100 citizen, technical and academic groups, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), is urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi to permit a modest restart of the OTA. As noted above, OTA was never abolished, just defunded.
Speaker Pelosi has been resisting, even though this tiny office can provide members of Congress with the technical assessments that could easily save billions of dollars a year. Apparently, she believes that the Republicans will accuse her of empire building, though the OTA is run by an evenly appointed Democratic-Republican Board of Congressional Overseers.
Without the OTA, commercially driven or otherwise wild claims are made for and against Congressionally funded programs.
The UCS (http://www.ucsusa.org) gives many examples of where OTA saved huge amounts of taxpayer money and improved the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people as well. OTA reports, by responding to requests by members of Congress, analyzed what technologies worked or did not work.
After OTA was defunded, the UCS asserts, “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spent three years pushing for a costly radiation detection system for smuggled nuclear material that did not work as promised, while neglecting to upgrade existing equipment that could have improved security.” Billions of dollars were wasted.
Were it operating today, OTA reports and testimony might question DHS’s installation of whole body back scatter x-ray airport security scanners. Scientific experts are urging independent testing for effectiveness and safety for exposed passengers (see CSRL.org).
On other fronts, Congress is buckling to corporate lobbies and requiring taxpayer guarantees for nuclear power plants that are not nearly as cost effective as energy efficiency and renewables without the perils of atomic power and its unstored radioactive wastes.
The $9 billion a year missile defense project has been condemned as unworkable by the mainstream American Physical Society but the military corporations that receive these boondoggle contracts get it funded year after year.
The risks of nanotechnology, biotechnology and numerous medical devices continue to be unassessed, thereby allowing Congressional advocates to tout benefits and ignore costs.
Congress spends billions of dollars a year on technologies driven by commercial partisan interests, whether from government departments, corporate interests or campaign cash. Congress also ignores promising technologies. Decades of little or no solar energy research and development funding, and billions of dollars into atomic, coal and other fossil fuels, directly or indirectly through tax breaks, have cost Americans in their pocketbooks and in the air and water they breath and drink.
In 1985, OTA issued a report cautioning about the lack of preparedness and knowledge regarding potentially “catastrophic oil spills from offshore operations.” OTA could not follow up on this report, as the oil companies went into deeper seas, because it was silenced in 1995. Clearly, the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department—a sleazy, wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Oil—was not going to advise Congress truthfully.
Through its impartial assessment capability, OTA could have alerted Congress to defective body armor that unscrupulous companies sold to the Army.
Congress needs an independent, impartial, no-axe-to-grind technical adviser under its own roof and responsive to the unique and timely needs of members of Congress and Congressional committees. Imagine, for example, the computer procurement waste that could have been prevented.
When the Republican Gingrich devolution took over Congress in 1995, it stripped the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of all its funding and left it a shell with no experts to advise committees and members of Congress.
Whereupon Congress was plunged into a dark age regarding decisions about trillions of national security, offshore oil drilling, transportation, energy, health, computer, biotech, nanotechnology and many other executive branch programs in science and technology.
Confronted with partisan vested interests by federal departments and their corporate lobbies, Congress could not get objective, unbiased reports and testimony from the OTA. For a budget of $20 million a year, OTA ground out over 700 peer reviewed sound reports and many more Congressional testimonies by its staff between 1972 and 1995. Last year Congress had an overall budget for itself of $3.2 billion.
Representative Amo Houghton (R-NY) commented at the time of OTA’s demise that “we are cutting off one of the most important arms of Congress when we cut off unbiased knowledge about science and technology.”
Now, Rush Holt (D-NJ) backed by leading scientists and about 100 citizen, technical and academic groups, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), is urging Speaker Nancy Pelosi to permit a modest restart of the OTA. As noted above, OTA was never abolished, just defunded.
Speaker Pelosi has been resisting, even though this tiny office can provide members of Congress with the technical assessments that could easily save billions of dollars a year. Apparently, she believes that the Republicans will accuse her of empire building, though the OTA is run by an evenly appointed Democratic-Republican Board of Congressional Overseers.
Without the OTA, commercially driven or otherwise wild claims are made for and against Congressionally funded programs.
The UCS (http://www.ucsusa.org) gives many examples of where OTA saved huge amounts of taxpayer money and improved the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people as well. OTA reports, by responding to requests by members of Congress, analyzed what technologies worked or did not work.
After OTA was defunded, the UCS asserts, “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spent three years pushing for a costly radiation detection system for smuggled nuclear material that did not work as promised, while neglecting to upgrade existing equipment that could have improved security.” Billions of dollars were wasted.
Were it operating today, OTA reports and testimony might question DHS’s installation of whole body back scatter x-ray airport security scanners. Scientific experts are urging independent testing for effectiveness and safety for exposed passengers (see CSRL.org).
On other fronts, Congress is buckling to corporate lobbies and requiring taxpayer guarantees for nuclear power plants that are not nearly as cost effective as energy efficiency and renewables without the perils of atomic power and its unstored radioactive wastes.
The $9 billion a year missile defense project has been condemned as unworkable by the mainstream American Physical Society but the military corporations that receive these boondoggle contracts get it funded year after year.
The risks of nanotechnology, biotechnology and numerous medical devices continue to be unassessed, thereby allowing Congressional advocates to tout benefits and ignore costs.
Congress spends billions of dollars a year on technologies driven by commercial partisan interests, whether from government departments, corporate interests or campaign cash. Congress also ignores promising technologies. Decades of little or no solar energy research and development funding, and billions of dollars into atomic, coal and other fossil fuels, directly or indirectly through tax breaks, have cost Americans in their pocketbooks and in the air and water they breath and drink.
In 1985, OTA issued a report cautioning about the lack of preparedness and knowledge regarding potentially “catastrophic oil spills from offshore operations.” OTA could not follow up on this report, as the oil companies went into deeper seas, because it was silenced in 1995. Clearly, the Minerals Management Service of the Interior Department—a sleazy, wholly-owned subsidiary of Big Oil—was not going to advise Congress truthfully.
Through its impartial assessment capability, OTA could have alerted Congress to defective body armor that unscrupulous companies sold to the Army.
Congress needs an independent, impartial, no-axe-to-grind technical adviser under its own roof and responsive to the unique and timely needs of members of Congress and Congressional committees. Imagine, for example, the computer procurement waste that could have been prevented.
Ayotte has 9% lead in GOP primary
And Romney has a solid lead for 2012: ["Ayotte Has Single Digit Lead for GOP Nomination"].
Sunday, May 23, 2010
June 2010 Top 30 Noise Chart
Reporting: 13 different radio stations and Internet programs around New England:
1. John Shade – All You Love is Need
2. Magic Magic – Magic Magic
3. Hooray for Earth – Momo EP
4. Deer Tick – The Black Dirt Sessions
5. Ketman – Ketman A Go-Go
6. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
7. Forest Fires – Hark! ~ and other lost transmissions,
8. Happy Birthday – Happy Birthday
9. The Motion Sick – “Doomsday Devices”
10. Cotton Candy – Top Notch & First Rate
11. Hallelujah the Hills – Colonial Drones
12. Spirit Kid – Spirit Kid
13. Corin Ashley & The Chocolate Olivers – The Abbey Road Session
14. Whistle Jacket – Compliment
15. Jenny Dee and the Deelinquents – Keeping Time
16. Monique Oritz – When The Pigeon Flies
17. Guillermo Sexo – Vivid Nights
18. Gene Dante & The Future Starlets – “The Love Letter Is Dead”
19. Pants Yell! – Received Pronunciation
20. Sodafrog – Hang the Moon
21. Dear Leader – Stay Epic
22. Symbion Project – Misery In Soliloquy
23. The Everyday Visuals – The Everyday Visuals
24. Tony the Bookie – Tony the Bookie Orchestra
25. Yes Giantess – Yes Giantess
26. Mean Creek – “Liar Thief”
27. The Appreciation Post – Work/Sleep EP
28. Mascara – Fountain of Tears
29. Three Day Threshold – Straight Out of the Barrel
30. You, Lion – End It on the Bridge EP
1. John Shade – All You Love is Need
2. Magic Magic – Magic Magic
3. Hooray for Earth – Momo EP
4. Deer Tick – The Black Dirt Sessions
5. Ketman – Ketman A Go-Go
6. Ad Frank & the Fast Easy Women – Your Secrets Are Mine Now
7. Forest Fires – Hark! ~ and other lost transmissions,
8. Happy Birthday – Happy Birthday
9. The Motion Sick – “Doomsday Devices”
10. Cotton Candy – Top Notch & First Rate
11. Hallelujah the Hills – Colonial Drones
12. Spirit Kid – Spirit Kid
13. Corin Ashley & The Chocolate Olivers – The Abbey Road Session
14. Whistle Jacket – Compliment
15. Jenny Dee and the Deelinquents – Keeping Time
16. Monique Oritz – When The Pigeon Flies
17. Guillermo Sexo – Vivid Nights
18. Gene Dante & The Future Starlets – “The Love Letter Is Dead”
19. Pants Yell! – Received Pronunciation
20. Sodafrog – Hang the Moon
21. Dear Leader – Stay Epic
22. Symbion Project – Misery In Soliloquy
23. The Everyday Visuals – The Everyday Visuals
24. Tony the Bookie – Tony the Bookie Orchestra
25. Yes Giantess – Yes Giantess
26. Mean Creek – “Liar Thief”
27. The Appreciation Post – Work/Sleep EP
28. Mascara – Fountain of Tears
29. Three Day Threshold – Straight Out of the Barrel
30. You, Lion – End It on the Bridge EP
To-do lists don't get done ...
Another interesting press release I got at work ... This one is no surprise at all:
To-Do Lists Don’t Get Done
Portsmouth, NH (May 17, 2010)-While most senior executives and managers keep a list of things to do every day, none of them complete everything on the list by the end of the work day.
Ninety-three percent of business leaders keep a list of things to do each day and 50 percent say they have between 1-10 items on that list. None of them complete the whole list by day’s end.
The majority (51%) finish 50 percent or less of their list each day, according to a recent survey by NFI Research.
“It shows that in today’s business environment, executives and managers have such busy schedules,” says Chuck Martin, CEO of NFI Research and author of Work Your Strengths. “It’s hard for them to complete all that they set out to do.”
Those in small companies (500 or fewer employees) and large companies (10,000 or more employees) have a similar number of tasks on their daily lists. However, eight percent of those in small companies do not create a list while everyone in large companies makes one.
“Interruptions, which are of course a part of my position, are the major challenge to my daily productivity,” says one of the 148 business leader respondents.
NFI Research surveys senior executives and managers globally every two weeks. It has chronicled the transformation of business and countless workplace issues for more than nine years. NFI's Chairman and CEO Chuck Martin is a best-selling author of eight business books and frequently presents NFI's findings to businesses. Martin also teaches at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches Marketing Research and Social Media in Marketing.
Chuck Martin’s latest book, "Work Your Strengths," is being published by AMACOM/American Management Association.
To-Do Lists Don’t Get Done
Portsmouth, NH (May 17, 2010)-While most senior executives and managers keep a list of things to do every day, none of them complete everything on the list by the end of the work day.
Ninety-three percent of business leaders keep a list of things to do each day and 50 percent say they have between 1-10 items on that list. None of them complete the whole list by day’s end.
The majority (51%) finish 50 percent or less of their list each day, according to a recent survey by NFI Research.
“It shows that in today’s business environment, executives and managers have such busy schedules,” says Chuck Martin, CEO of NFI Research and author of Work Your Strengths. “It’s hard for them to complete all that they set out to do.”
Those in small companies (500 or fewer employees) and large companies (10,000 or more employees) have a similar number of tasks on their daily lists. However, eight percent of those in small companies do not create a list while everyone in large companies makes one.
“Interruptions, which are of course a part of my position, are the major challenge to my daily productivity,” says one of the 148 business leader respondents.
NFI Research surveys senior executives and managers globally every two weeks. It has chronicled the transformation of business and countless workplace issues for more than nine years. NFI's Chairman and CEO Chuck Martin is a best-selling author of eight business books and frequently presents NFI's findings to businesses. Martin also teaches at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, where he teaches Marketing Research and Social Media in Marketing.
Chuck Martin’s latest book, "Work Your Strengths," is being published by AMACOM/American Management Association.
No Time for Consumer Power
Guest perspective by Ralph Nader
In the end, late on Thursday’s Senate passage of the financial regulation bill, the Senate had no time for independent, non-government consumer power. In the end, after listening to swarms of corporate bank, brokerage, hedge fund, private equity, and insurance lobbyists, the Senate had no time for Senator Chuck Schumer’s amendment to create a non-profit Financial Consumers Association (FCA, SA 3772).
In the end, this massive 1500 page bill shifted very little power directly to shareholders and consumers of financial services (meaning just about everyone) either to better use the courts and to organize nationwide to counteract the lobbying muscle of the financial goliaths ready to turn the new regulators into procrastinatory putty.
The FCA proposal (see csrl.org), which Senator Schumer had backed in 1985 when he was dealing with the savings and loan scandal, did not receive the time of day. It would have required the companies to place an invitation to their customers in their mailing and electronic communications (bank statements, bills etc.) inviting consumers to voluntarily join and pay dues to build a powerful consumer lobby to countervail what Thomas Jefferson once called the “monied interests.”
After all, the criminal, reckless, self-enriching collapse of the economy by the Wall Streeters—the millions of lost jobs, the trillions of dollars in lost pensions and savings—Main Streeters deserved some reciprocal gesture for all the Americans who were forced, as taxpayers, savers and workers to bailout the crooks and ultimately pay the costs of this financial disaster.
In the end, the Senate, like the House of Representatives, told their consumers—their voters—to get lost. There was no room for a Financial Consumers Association in the 1500 pages.
The FCA is crucial to assure that many of the other parts of this bill are enforced. For very little in this legislation includes outright prohibitions. Rather the Senate, like the House, delegates the authority, within a broad range of discretion, to a variety of existing agencies, and a new consumer financial protection agency nesting allegedly independently inside the big bankers’ Federal Reserve.
There are so many complex reviews and procedural obstacles for these agencies that the corporate lawyers will collect enough fees to spoil their great-grandchildren. “Paralysis by analysis” is what consumer groups call such legislation. I call them no-law laws—mired in pits of quicksand that mock everything but eternity.
Without an FCA, with millions of members, and hundreds of investigators, organizers, lawyers, economists, accountants and publicists, the good people inside government will lack powerful, knowledgeable public champions to counter industry abuses.
The bill that passed both Houses does not explicitly ban totally speculative derivatives, does not ban banks and other firms above a certain size (where they again become too big to fail), does not declare that the shareholder-owners must have the authority to control their own companies, does not ban companies that mix trading for their own account with other people’s money backed by federal insurance. It does not circumscribe the enormous power of the Federal Reserve, short of a one-time Congressional audit, even after all the Congressional bellowing about the Fed’s derelictions and looking the other way while Wall Street robbed the American people.
Many of the major consumer groups supported the creation of a Financial Consumer Association. Their guarded support of the Senate-passed S.3217 came with the caution that this is an important first step and one that at least recognizes many frauds and rip-offs that still must be curbed.
Yet whether their hopes are even modestly realized will be determined more by how the corporate lawyers wired the bill with many ways to tie up the regulatory processes ad infinitum than anything an unorganized public can demand.
In one major respect, the big bank lobby lost one. They could not stop the creation of a consumer financial protection bureau. But without an FCA, the Bureau will too often find itself with one hand clapping.
However, if that one hand is that of Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the odds on favorite to run the Bureau, there will be instances when the big boys on Wall Street will have to face the music.
In the end, late on Thursday’s Senate passage of the financial regulation bill, the Senate had no time for independent, non-government consumer power. In the end, after listening to swarms of corporate bank, brokerage, hedge fund, private equity, and insurance lobbyists, the Senate had no time for Senator Chuck Schumer’s amendment to create a non-profit Financial Consumers Association (FCA, SA 3772).
In the end, this massive 1500 page bill shifted very little power directly to shareholders and consumers of financial services (meaning just about everyone) either to better use the courts and to organize nationwide to counteract the lobbying muscle of the financial goliaths ready to turn the new regulators into procrastinatory putty.
The FCA proposal (see csrl.org), which Senator Schumer had backed in 1985 when he was dealing with the savings and loan scandal, did not receive the time of day. It would have required the companies to place an invitation to their customers in their mailing and electronic communications (bank statements, bills etc.) inviting consumers to voluntarily join and pay dues to build a powerful consumer lobby to countervail what Thomas Jefferson once called the “monied interests.”
After all, the criminal, reckless, self-enriching collapse of the economy by the Wall Streeters—the millions of lost jobs, the trillions of dollars in lost pensions and savings—Main Streeters deserved some reciprocal gesture for all the Americans who were forced, as taxpayers, savers and workers to bailout the crooks and ultimately pay the costs of this financial disaster.
In the end, the Senate, like the House of Representatives, told their consumers—their voters—to get lost. There was no room for a Financial Consumers Association in the 1500 pages.
The FCA is crucial to assure that many of the other parts of this bill are enforced. For very little in this legislation includes outright prohibitions. Rather the Senate, like the House, delegates the authority, within a broad range of discretion, to a variety of existing agencies, and a new consumer financial protection agency nesting allegedly independently inside the big bankers’ Federal Reserve.
There are so many complex reviews and procedural obstacles for these agencies that the corporate lawyers will collect enough fees to spoil their great-grandchildren. “Paralysis by analysis” is what consumer groups call such legislation. I call them no-law laws—mired in pits of quicksand that mock everything but eternity.
Without an FCA, with millions of members, and hundreds of investigators, organizers, lawyers, economists, accountants and publicists, the good people inside government will lack powerful, knowledgeable public champions to counter industry abuses.
The bill that passed both Houses does not explicitly ban totally speculative derivatives, does not ban banks and other firms above a certain size (where they again become too big to fail), does not declare that the shareholder-owners must have the authority to control their own companies, does not ban companies that mix trading for their own account with other people’s money backed by federal insurance. It does not circumscribe the enormous power of the Federal Reserve, short of a one-time Congressional audit, even after all the Congressional bellowing about the Fed’s derelictions and looking the other way while Wall Street robbed the American people.
Many of the major consumer groups supported the creation of a Financial Consumer Association. Their guarded support of the Senate-passed S.3217 came with the caution that this is an important first step and one that at least recognizes many frauds and rip-offs that still must be curbed.
Yet whether their hopes are even modestly realized will be determined more by how the corporate lawyers wired the bill with many ways to tie up the regulatory processes ad infinitum than anything an unorganized public can demand.
In one major respect, the big bank lobby lost one. They could not stop the creation of a consumer financial protection bureau. But without an FCA, the Bureau will too often find itself with one hand clapping.
However, if that one hand is that of Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, the odds on favorite to run the Bureau, there will be instances when the big boys on Wall Street will have to face the music.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
"Run it's Godzilla!"
Tuned into the Sox at Phillies game. Daisuke is pitching and when he came up to bat, my wife said she saw a sign saying "Run it's Godzilla!" Hilarious.
This is the car ...
I meant to write about this last year, when I saw the picture. But it's been sitting on my desktop now for months and ... well ...
It's the VW L1 concept car. It's a two-seater, built kinda like a airplane cockpit. It will have a top speed of around 75 mph and supposedly get 200 mpg! Bring it on already.
It's the VW L1 concept car. It's a two-seater, built kinda like a airplane cockpit. It will have a top speed of around 75 mph and supposedly get 200 mpg! Bring it on already.
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