I was too busy with gcls pics and watching top chef that I missed the fact that there was a hockey game. Then there were fireworks, and I only made the connection later.

video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghIAiHvyMVg

I was following the nyt liveblog of the US Senate hearing on Goldman Sachs during the day. The bank is clearly on the defensive, and the senate committee members’ questions were smart and to the point. I’m thinking the headlines around the world tomorrow will focus on how GS was unrepentant and their statement that they didn’t cause the financial crisis.

My view of this is different from that of most people and, in this climate, probably considered politically incorrect and arrogant. No, GS didn’t cause the financial crisis. Nor Lehman or Bear or Citi or ML or AIG. Nobody could have predicted how bad and how long this crisis has lasted. The media portrays i-bankers as unethical and greedy. I’m not necessarily defending them, but there are certain aspects of the financial services industry that are unique. The pace and complexities. The unpredictability of the market. Comp structures.

Some of the comments in today’s hearing focused on how the bank sold derivatives that they were themselves short on. Um, that’s hedging. That’s how it works. Should those products have even been created in the first place? That’s the real question.

The weather has gotten steadily worse since afternoon. Very windy. Heavy rain. Thunderstorm brewing. Gonna be cold too. Grrr, I’m hoping the rain and wind goes away overnight.

Race tomorrow at 8am. Any cancellation will be on the day, not in advance. Unless there’s a tornado, I’m determined to participate. Just a little planning with gear and i’ll should be okay. Feeling a little hardcore here, heehee.

This is the title of a thread on the runner’s world forum.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
The Associated Press

FREDERICK, Md. — A driver who fatally struck a jogger from Zelienople who was running in the road near Emmitsburg has been fined $500 under a plea agreement.

Twenty-nine-year-old Joshua Cool pleaded guilty Monday in Frederick to failing to exercise care to avoid a pedestrian. In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped charges of negligent driving and other offenses.

Mr. Cool was charged in the death last April of 22-year-old Elizabeth DiNunzio. She was a Spanish major at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg.

Defense attorney Kate English says her client was devastated by the accident.

Mr. Cool’s parents were fined $200 each earlier this month for letting their son drive the uninsured pickup truck that hit DiNunzio.

I don’t know the circumstances of this case. On the thread there are opposing thoughts — that the punishment was not severe enough vs it was an accident. There’s some information that suggest to me that the driver did indeed get away with it. Although he wasn’t drunk or anything like that, he was driving a truck that he wasn’t covered in the insurance. In fact, he was specifically excluded in the policy. It also matters to me whether he showed remorse, and what, if anything, he will do to show he has learned his lesson. From some of the comments, it seems that he hasn’t. So, yes, I’m going to condemn this person and wish that he suffers from the thought of having killed an innocent 22-year old all his life.

In memory of Ms DiNunzio, there’s going to be a 5k run /1 mile walk at Zelienople PA on 24 April. If it didn’t take 8 hours to drive there, I’d go there in a minute. I started my running career on the road. Now I run by the lake, but I have to run on the street and across a couple of main roads to get there. Traffic is thick. Cars come out of alleys and make turns with very little regard for pedestrians. I’m ramping up this year, this is important to me.

Yesterday I didn’t even need a coat, I was just in my sweatshirt. This morning, I woke up to…snow and wind. It snowed steadily all day, sometimes horizontally. There’s now about half an inch of accumulation on my balcony. Concrete surfaces like pavement and road are clear though.

It’s the shamrock shuffle tomorrow. It’s not gonna be pleasant.

Mixed in with the thousands of articles in my greader is news that google has bought picnik. Heh, this feels like writely 2.0, yet another hidden gem that’s been snapped up by the google monster. I hope they keep what’s good about picnik, how easy it is to use, how convenient. It’s no match for full blown photoshop (although it may be a photoshop.com competitor, I don’t know I don’t use ps.com), for quick edits I prefer it.

Parts of the East Coast got hammered with 2-3 feet of snow in what the President called snowmageddon. Airports are closed, state of emergencies declared and the brave citizens hunkered down.

Between that, and the record blizzards over in London, I think we’ve fared pretty well in Chicago this winter. If I wake up early enough tomorrow, I’ll probably go skiing.

It’s supposed to be groundhog day. Aside from the film of the same name, I have no clue what it means. Something about winter and predictions and shadow seeing? Googling hasn’t really helped. Apparently we may or may not be getting 6 more weeks of winter. What kind of prediction is that?

Today JD Salinger’s wikipedia entry was briefly changed. Fitting in its austerity. [via toc]

Lots of coverage in the UK about the Edlington brothers who were jailed for the torture of two young boys. The two were 10 and 12 when they committed the horrific, sadistic attacks on 2 boys, aged 9 and 11, who were just out riding their bikes on a saturday morning.

There has been a media blackout on the brothers’ names, Edlington is the town near Doncaster where it happened. Unlike Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, their names will not remain in the halls of infamy forever. Although their notoriety will. I couldn’t believe it when I read that they

beat, strangled and sexually degraded their victims, before putting a plastic sheet over them and setting it on fire. It was only tiredness that caused them to abandon their victims, they presumed, to die.

Fingers have been furiously pointing since the case came to light. Social Services admitted that the attacks could have been preventable and I’m sure there will be people fired for lack of action. The Times talked about the irresponsible society in Britain, I dread to read what the Mail or Mirror have to say about the issue — no doubt something indignant and sensational, I shan’t be tempted to go to their websites.

Rightly so IMO, is that the spotlight has been placed on the parents. “Toxic” family life has been used to the point of overuse. I believe the spotlight should remain on them. No matter how badly the government and local authorities failed, ultimately it’s the PARENTS who are responsible for the actions of children of that age. They did issue a statement saying how sorry and upset they were, but I just can’t help but feel they will try to shift the blame to someone, anyone, else. I’m glad to read that they may be prosecuted and hope that they too are punished. I find that my anger at the parents far, far exceed how I feel about the brothers. I’m sure, like everyone else in the UK, I want to just ask them, “How could you?”

Related to this news is a brilliant, in-depth article in the Independent about Britain’s child prisons, where the brothers will be detained (in separate facilities). A very lengthy article that I read with interest, about how life looks like for children who commit crimes but are too young to even be classified as ‘young offenders’. How because of their age, and over 90% have suffered some sort of abuse, it’s not a matter of all punishment all the time, but that they may be rehabilitated, educated, and given structure in their lives.

These children are taken away from disrupted backgrounds, with no boundaries, and dangerous adults, and are put somewhere where they are safe, fed and housed and told No by people who understand how to set limits. It’s tough love. It’s a great skill, creating an experience that approximates to a proper family life.

Sober reading, but there is some level of hope. Oh, and I can’t believe that an issue of this magnitude of importance has received zero coverage here. I know Haiti takes precedence, but I couldn’t even find the story when I navigate to the Europe section of the big broadsheets — NYT, LAT, Washington Post, Trib. Shame, shame.

So google is getting out of China, and most publications in the English speaking world are hailing GOOG’s ethical and principled stance against cyber attacks, censorship and even human rights.

While I think a certain amount of (admittedly western) moralistic approach was behind the decision, I do not for one moment believe it’s the main reason. If any, I’m willing to bet it ranks may be within the top 10 reasons, and that’s it. Who is google to think that they can influence an entire government? If they want to operate in a country, they need to obey the laws of that country.

The main reason has to be business driven. That google is losing market share to baidu is very significant. First, baidu is associated with the mainland government, so there is validation in the eyes of the population. Second, if I get blank screens or crap results every time I search, I’d eventually stop using that search engine — much like how microsoft and yahoo bled search market share to google.

Lots of commentators say that it’s China’s loss, that it’s the start of the road to oblivion. How wrong, arrogant, and presumptious they are. Sarah Lacy at techcrunch said it best:

We tend to have the view that China is some copycat Internet backwater, and that’s just not true. China has formidable engineering talent, plenty of venture capital, the world’s largest Internet audience, and in many cases better methods of monetization

There is perception that China is still some backwards third world country where people use ricksaws to move around and eat rice with their hands. I shake my head at that ignorance. Google (heh, ironic) any image of Shanghai, or Beijing, or any of the Pearl River delta cities and you’ll see luxury cars, brand name products and a general prosperity that surpasses any city in the world.

Compare China with America and what is the most striking commonality? Sheer size. In terms of geography and population. Dominated by large cities situated at coastal regions (something that Russia can’t compare). Which means…single market. Why is it that American products are so different from the rest of the world? It’s because it’s enough for them to develop in their home market and make good profits. This is why the American mobile and internet market lags behind, American cars are poorly designed and American domestic flights are no better than torture. American consumers don’t know better, and there are enough of them who utilise mobile and internet, drive cars and fly on planes to pad the bottom lines of American businesses.

I’m not trying to slag off American business. My point is that in a similar way, China’s single market is in the same position. There is such a vast pool of people wanting to move up to middle class through consumption that Chinese businesses don’t have to worry about the rest of the world if they don’t want to.

And that is one of the scary things keeping CEOs of non-Chinese companies up at night.

The New York Times had an interesting article today about, yet again, a Brit’s impression of Americans. Ultimately, I agree with the author, that Americans are polite though personally I find them overly friendly. And the reason for the loud American phenomenon:

Americans have no fear of being overheard. Civic life in Britain is predicated on the idea that everyone just about conceals his loathing of everyone else.

Ah, so true, so true! It’s a glass half full vs glass half empty scenario. In America, everyone is assumed to be nice; in Britain, other people’s presence are merely tolerated. So much irony.
Talking about irony, I totally laughed at this:

A couple of years ago a survey indicated that British Muslims were the most fed-up of any in Europe: a sign, paradoxically, of profound assimilation.

Around the office today were copies of a memory book produced in honour of the 69 staff who were lost. That was a significant % of total US staff at that time, when they were based at 92/F on Tower 1. It’s a beautiful book, with tributes from family and colleagues. It’s an event still remembered, and the financial services industry was hit hard.

Originally I’d wanted to go to the grant park music festival because a) I’ve never been; b) it’s free; c) it’s outdoors but mostly d) it’s Rach 3! But this morning there was a huge thunderstorm, I went out to the drugstore (1 block) and got completely soaked even with an umbrella. So no, I didn’t go to the concert.

I’m guilty too. Over the last 20 years I have forgotten, and become uncaring.

I was still young, but old enough to take to the streets when it happened. There was a big gathering on Gerrard Street, then a march up Regents Street. I was near the front, and when we reached Oxford Circus, the end was still filling up Piccadilly Circus, there were that many people.

I have pictures, they’re up at home. I can’t post them anyway cos I don’t have a scanner. But it’s all coming back to me now, and I have to remember.

The concept of extreme opinionated news reporting baffles me. News, by definition, should be neutral. Now of course people can’t help but to have views. But, shouting? We have people screaming on ads — I can’t put these on mute fast enough, otherwise my ears will burst — and i don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the shouting and dramatics on American news shows.

Anyway, this is the astute Charlie Brooker on the difference between US and UK news.

Sigh. Americans [/Giles]

The big news today was the resignation letter from an AIG senior executive. Why the letter was made public is another matter. I have my thoughts on the whole AIG bonus issue, which is probably different from the popular sentiment, but as I don’t know all the details, I’ll refrain from going into it now.

This is one of those moments in history where you have to remember where you were when it happened. I watched the Inauguration of President Obama at work. Corp Communications have a TV, usually it’s on mute but people started gathering around it around 10.30am (CET) and the numbers grew, watching the ceremony.

Tony Hart has died. It’s probably difficult for Americans and younger people to comprehend how utterly devastating this news is for me. I feel like Mr Hart watched me grow up, with programs like Vision On and Take Hart taking prime place in my childhood viewing schedule. I’ve never been able to draw, but watching him was inspiring enough. There’s a longer bbc tribute, but embedding has been disabled. Watch that video in addition to this ITN news item, if you have any love for children, art and fun.

Of course there is the thought every time I get on a plane, that it could be my last. I can’t imagine how flight crews deal with this fear. I watch and read the news of the heroic landing of flight 1549 in New York, I can’t watch the eerily silentcoast guard footage of the landing and rescue more than once. The pov switching from the plane, where the passengers were out on the wings already, and the ferry rushing towards it, was more intense than any movie. It seemed to take forever.

The BBC’s report, together with a realistic flight simulation is just as moving.

I’m still obsessed with the cold weather. I want to go outside and throw a container of hot water into the cold and watch it freeze instantaneously.

So I look out this morning to this view. Nice, eh?

It’s been like this all day:

I’ve eaten snake, ostrich, crocodile, kangaroo and I’m not afraid of trying new food. i’d like to try south american guinea pig only if they would cut it up though. Lately, there seems to be a new meat, which surprises me a bit, because i’d never thought about eating squirrel. Yes, squirrel.

Thinking about it, it makes sense. It’s just another gamey meat isn’t it. I imagine it’s a little like rabbit, or probably a dark meat version of rabbit. Though it’s kinda small, and according to the NYT, quite fiddly.

One might think that because of easy availability, squirrel would be the perfect meal-stretcher for these economically challenged times, but it takes a lot of work to get the meat off even the plumpest squirrel

The latest squirrel-y craze? Walkers just brought out cajun squirrel crisps.

This was earlier this month, via sfgate. That’s Venus on the left, Jupiter on the right, and the crescent moon at the bottom making for a smiley face sky.

I stand here today and say shame to both the current as well as the former Directors who allowed this former CEO to wreak havoc on this great company. Shame on them for allowing this former CEO to consciously and openly disparage Mother Merrill, throw our founding principles down a flight of stairs and tear out the soul of the firm.

Shame on these Directors for allowing this former CEO to rid the firm of thousands of years of experience. Shame of them for allowing this former CEO to surround himself with many people who did not have the perspective of other market cycles and the experience of time. Shame for allowing this CEO to surround himself with many people who did not share the same values that made us great and appreciate our winning culture. Shame on them for allowing this CEO to cut costs and businesses so severely and bluntly for the sake of short term earnings that he cut out future growth. Shame on them for allowing him to over leverage the firm and fill the balance sheet with toxic waste to create short term earnings.

Win Smith’s speech at the shareholders’ meeting that gave the go ahead for MER to merge with BoA, via here is the city.

Ouch, ouch, ouch. And a side of bitter much. He doesn’t name names but it’s obvious enough. To give him credit, it’s not sentiment that is new…he’s just put in words what many feel. And to take it away from it being a total personal attack, substitute Merrill with any Wall Street firm and it’s still true.

And that is the real shame.

Every 1 December is World Aids Day and today it’s the more poignant because it’s the 20th anniversary of the campaign. The theme for 2008 is lead, empower, deliver and certainly there is still not enough awareness and education.

It’s sad, that even after so long that we still can’t be rid of the threat of AIDS. According to UNAIDS, an estimated 33million people were living with AIDS as of 2007 (the last full year of data available) although the rate of infection has decreased since 2001 from 3million to 2.7million. Still, unacceptably high numbers. Download the 2008 reports, they make grim reading.

…that’s between 7 to 10 times used in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, as The Atlantis, on the man-made Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, launched yesterday. More than 2000 guests attended the party, Kylie sang, lobsters were consumed, and the UAE showed that despite the global economic crisis, excesses still abound in certain echelons of society.

omg, i’m getting this giant totally inappropriate crush on Rachel Maddow. She’s so smart. She’s on twitter. She cares about technorati searches. Yet she claims to be just a normal person. Here she is interviewing John Hodgman, another crushworthy guy — he’s “PC” on the mac vs pc ads (I know, I know, Justin Long has the better hair but John is a cutie). Mr Hodgman has a new book out on fake trivia and he’s guest blogging on boing boing. All round coolness.

Back to Dr Maddow. She’s got huge attention as her new msnbc show is doing great in ratings. A whole slew of articles on her: new york times magazine AND arts section, washington post, la times and time magazine, too many to list.

Just as well that I’m in the US. Like millions of people I caught Sarah Palin on SNL. I thought it might be funnier, I guess the “Tina Fey does kickass Sarah Palin” is getting old. Amy Poehler was great though.

I learned that people are already able to do early voting. Hopefully most people have made up their minds on who they’d vote for. I’m not American, but if I could vote — yes, I know who I’d vote for. I’m finding that there is a lot of intense, powerful opinion for or against either Obama or McCain, much more emotional than I’d ever experienced with a general election. I was staying with my friend’s family over the weekend and they are extremely staunch supporter of one of the candidates. Everyone is entitled to their beliefs and feelings, and I respect it very much. Which is why I listened intently and with a lot of interest, it’s not my place to agree or disagree; and I’m not as well informed to be able to have a meaningful discussion.

The headlines: Lehman Files for Bankruptcy; Merrill Is Sold.

It wasn’t unexpected. After all, we’ve had Bear Stearns and a bunch of US financial institutions fail. We’ve seen share prices for banks plummet. We’ve seen CEOs ousted, massive write-downs by otherwise safe financial institutions (UBS, Citi) and a very jittery industry trying to just survive through 2008.

The consumerist quoted this from bloomberg:

“We are unwinding what has been years of silliness in the financial markets, and the silliness is being vaporized as we speak, unfortunately with the stock price of a number of companies involved in it.’”

Notice no one is laughing at the silliness of it all?

Still came as a shock, for news on both Lehman’s bankruptcy and Merrill’s sale to BoA to hit in the same day. It’s no secret that I work in a financial institution though I’d prefer not to say where. This hits home big time and yes, I am personally affected by this (though, fingers crossed, not my job).

The blame game has already started. But for me, hoping that those who created, sold and mismanaged these toxic instruments will get their comeuppance is simply not realistic. For every million-dollar producer there are 10, 20, 30 back office staff — the IT technician who set up his 15 bloomberg screens, the settlements officer who cleared his trades, the payroll administrator who processed his salary. It’s the same junior employees, back office staff, innocent customers and beleaguered homeowners who will end up paying with their jobs, their mortgages and their lives, all without a fat bank account to break their fall. What justice is that?

I’m fascinated by the current round of American presidential nomination drama. I didn’t see Senator Obama speech but I’m sure I can find it on youtube. And now Governor Palin’s nomination as VP candidate, and her announcement that her daughter is pregnant.

I’ve been reading the newspapers all day, and can’t get enough of readers comments. On the New York Times the consensus seems to take the form of a collective disbelief that the Republicans want to force people to behave in the judgmental, morally superior way they think of themselves, and then on the other hand have their poster child du jour behave in the complete opposite way.

I also like the LA Times’s columnist who said

The point is that the Palins were able to make all these decisions according to the dictates of their own consciences, formed by their own religious convictions, within the privacy of their own family and according to its values and traditions. What they decided is nobody’s business but theirs; the fact that they were free to arrive at their own decision is everybody’s business.

The particular brand of social conservatism in which Sarah Palin quite evidently believes deeply would deny other American families and other American women the freedom to make these same intimate decisions according to the dictates of their own consciences, religious convictions and traditions.

When will certain Americans learn that values, beliefs and behaviours are not black and white? And that there is nothing to gain by forcing one’s viewpoint on others. It was certainly naïve arrogance on Gov Palin’s part to subject her young children to the scrutiny of the world. By hijacking the word “choice” for their own purposes, the social conservatives are shooting themselves in the foot all by themselves. They really need to take a look at their own houses before deigning to butt into other people’s private homes.

Heh. I bet this becomes outdated news soon. That’s the beauty of news, right? That it holds our attention for its alloted 15 minutes of fame, then we move onto another subject with equal passion.

To be consistent I took the medal tables off local yahoo sites. Yahoo China took forever to load so I took yahoo HK. From top left: US, HK, Japan, UK.

 
 

The most widely used classification method is by number of gold medals, which places China absolutely at the top. It’s only the Americans who use total medals. It should be obvious why, and hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Guardian even calls them on it.

Thinking about it, ranking by the number of gold medals isn’t right either cos this belittles the achievements of the silver and bronze medalists. Applying a weighting of gold=3, silver=2 and bronze=1 doesn’t change the top 4.

The next country down apart from US that benefits from counting total regardless of colour of medals is Australia and look how they see themselves:

May be the Canadians have it right. Put the US at the top using total medal count, then add a column to show position. Smart and tactful.

We missed the closing ceremony — it had just begun when the plane landed and I was too intent on unpacking, showering and doing laundry to catch the end.

Although I missed the handball and water-polo, 2 sports I love watching but only get to see every 4 years; and I was on vacation, I thought I did well in terms of catching the important sports. Japanese tv repeated and repeated on their athletes’ wins, and why not? They showed a collage of their medal winners (and those who didn’t win), I couldn’t understand the commentary but I was still moved. It doesn’t matter which country, the joy when an athlete gets a medal has no boundaries.

There’s been so much said about China. The no-expenses-spared extravaganza. The haul of medals. The volunteers. The military precision organisation. The pride.

There is one group I was particularly interested in, the older-than-usual athletes. The New York Times summarised their amazing achievements. Notable:

• Constantina Tomescu-Dita, 38, Romania, women’s marathon gold medal
• Dara Torres, 41, US, oldest swimming medalist with 3 silvers
• Hiroshi Hoketsu, 67, Japan, dressage, the oldest competitor

And so to the final medal count. I must admit the immediate reaction the first time I saw the final table wasn’t at the 51 golds that China won, I’d expected to see them at the top and wasn’t surprised. It was the UK at #4. I mean, wow. Ahead of Germany and Australia? That’s an achievement. I saw a Rebecca Adlington interview video on the Guardian and if she’s a typical Team GB athlete, then the UK must be doing something right.

I don’t want to be harsh but of course it matters whether it’s a gold, silver or bronze. The Americans are deluding themselves by counting the total number of medals rather than what the rest of the world uses, # of gold medals. More analysis next post.

oh. my. lord. I’m watching the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

It’s spectacular.

(photo by law_keven)
It’s been raining since I got home. Mum told me that it’s been like this since I left, a whole month ago. Wow.

Mark Wilson wrote a surreal, horrifying personal account of an encounter with a tornado on giz.

Maybe this was just a bad rainstorm.

Then, almost on cue, three funnel clouds dropped from the dark mass, flittering in the sky. It was almost beautiful.

They didn’t reach the ground; the storm was almost toying with us. While my stomach dropped and my eyes began to well, the former hodgepodge of frightened travelers in the window became a paparazzi shooting gallery armed with digital cameras and cellphones, as if Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were slam dunking their baby in the parking lot. Naked.

In among the near death experience, people were gathered next to the glass windows shooting videos for youtube, or getting weather updates from their cellphone.

Yeah, surreal.

Congratulations to the couples getting married in California. It’s as simple as this — two people want to commit to a life together, so they should not be prohibited from doing so. I don’t get the arguments that it is an oppression of [someone’s] religious beliefs.

The New York Times asked for stories to same-sex marriage. If stories about two women in their eighties getting married are not touching enough, what is? One of the comments that caught my eye:

My partner, Doug, of 37 years and I were second to marry in Sonoma County, California at 5:15PM last night (Monday, 6-16)

—snip—

This morning, Doug and I are back home with our wonderful Golden Retreiver, Woody, living life as we have during the past 37 years. We will not be threatening the stabilities of heterosexual families, nor challenge the beliefs of religions. Our neighbors and friends–mainly straight–will embrace us with their love as they always have. The sky will not fall. Nothing will change, except no more sleepless nights wondering what would happen to the other when one of us dies. It’s just business as usual.

Come to think of it, we should stop using the term gay marriage. Marriage is marriage is marriage. I think it was Liz Friedman who said something along the lines that she has lunch every day, but she doesn’t have gay lunch.

via new york times, an absolutely amazing picture of a tornado, taken by Lori Mehmen in Iowa. Yep, it pays to always have a digital camera on you, this is a picture every photographer dreams of taking. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Something I expect to be posted on future perfect. I spotted this sign on an escalator in Tokyo airport, I guess they want to avoid $7million lawsuits. I mean, it’s easy for shoes, heads, arms and fingers to be caught in escalators — those are dangerous mechanics that we take far too for granted. I dunno, it seems to me that people need to be more responsible for their own safety and action.

So they made it. It’s a great moment.

The New York Times featured an excerpt from “The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker,” by Steven Greenhouse, a Times reporter. The book, published by Knopf last week, examines difficulties faced by workers at companies like Fed Ex and Wal-Mart, and points to Patagonia and Costco as models for corporate America.

In his job at a Wal-Mart in Texas, Mike Michell was responsible for catching shoplifters, and he was good at it, too, catching 180 in one two-year period. But one afternoon things went wildly awry when he chased a thief — a woman using stolen checks — into the parking lot. She jumped into her car, and her accomplice gunned the accelerator, slamming the car into Michell and sending him to the hospital with a broken kneecap, a badly torn shoulder, and two herniated disks. Michell was so devoted to Wal-Mart that he somehow returned to work the next day, but a few weeks later he told his boss that he needed surgery on his knee. He was fired soon afterward, apparently as part of a strategy to dismiss workers whose injuries run up Wal-Mart’s workers’ comp bills.

Immediately after serving in the army, Dawn Eubanks took a seven-dollar-an-hour job at a call center in Florida. Some days she was told to clock in just two or three hours, and some days she was not allowed to clock in during her whole eight-hour shift. The call center’s managers warned the workers that if they went home, even though they weren’t allowed to clock in, they would be viewed as having quit.

The book opens with damning examples of unfair worker treatment, painting a bleak picture of how actual earning power for lower skilled workers in American has decreased as the economy boomed, and corporations raked in the profits.

Corporate profits have climbed to their highest share of national income in sixty-four years, while the share going to wages has sunk to its lowest level since 1929. “This is the most pronounced several years of labor’s share declining,” said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard. “For as long as we’ve had a modern economy, this is the worst we’ve seen it.” Very simply, corporations, along with their CEOs, are seizing a bigger piece of the nation’s economic pie for themselves, leaving the nation’s workers and their families diminished.

America has never had the concept of lifetime employment like Japan. However it seems that if someone were to work for an employer, they should expect at least a basic level of reward for their time and effort. Is it 8 years of a business-friendly government? Or simply corporations becoming more greedy? The bottom line, shareholder value and P/E ratios have completely taken over any humanity in corporations, and there seems to be no sign of this stopping.

I found the excerpt of chapter 1 interesting. I’m not sure it’s a book I’d buy, but I could think about getting it from the library.

I posted this on the kb recently, and vacillated at posting it here. Why? Not because I want to distance myself from issues, but because I’ve always felt uneasy about being too controversial or too political here on the website. I’ve had a couple of days to think about this, and I haven’t been able to cast it from my mind. Which is a sign, I think.

I read this Advocate article (full page version) by Thomas Beatie, who is carrying the child he is expecting with his wife. Scientifically it is possible because Thomas is transgender, but in his own words, had

decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights

when he transitioned FTM. His wife, a natural female, is unable to carry children due to a prior illness.

What I felt touched was the mature, quiet tone of the article, as well as the couple’s commitment. Their rejection by the medical establishment and their own family must have been heartbreaking. Facing a life-threatening situation after a failed first pregnancy, and then to try a second time, is an act of true courage.

What I also realised, is a confirmation that gender is fluid. Even myself, I have to purposefully stop making any judgmental reaction to the article until I’ve finished and absorbed it. It took a few rounds of churning in my head before I got it, and where I got to the point where I was thinking, “this is a good thing.”

Too often, we confuse gender with sexuality. And too often, we want to categorise and label people. It’s understandable, because there is so much going on in the world, so much information to absorb, so many changes in society’s views and culture and we have to sort things out somehow. It can’t be helped. But when someone wants to push out of those confines and be their own, there is no reason why they should suffer other people’s prejudices. It’s a co-incidence perhaps that the New York Times had an article last week on

gender nonconforming

college students. May be it wasn’t a co-incidence. May be it’s time to bring these issues out to the open.

I found the Advocate article through metafilter and I was so blown away by the tide of support offered by the mefi community. Whether or not this will make a difference to the Beaties’ life, and that of their child, will remain to be seen. Oddly enough, once the pregnancy is over and the controversy has died down, they will revert to a “conformist” image of dad, mom and kid. I challenge anyone to say this is wrong…because for sure, it is 100% not.

I woke up this morning and it was dark outside. Not cos it was early but because of the brown smog. Yuck.

Can anyone tell me why in the middle of frigging January I went out tonight in short sleeves and had to have the dehumidifier on all evening?

Come back, winter! All is forgiven.

While I have almost zero understanding of how an American voter would view the current elections, I must admit, perhaps controversially, that I was glad that Mrs Clinton won the New Hampshire primary. It is shaping up to be an extremely interesting election, with both sides not having a clear favourite. I haven’t been impressed by the Republicans; perhaps they privately feel that the current administration has tarnished the name of their party beyond repair … at least for the foreseeable future.

I’m hesitant to get caught up in the Obama juggernaut. Yes, Mr Obama is charismatic, idealistic and so very appealing. It’s easy to get riveted at one of his speeches. But he doesn’t scream leader, not yet. Mrs Clinton may not be perfect, but now I think her experience will count.

Keeping my mind open though.

There’s a lot of [insert topic] of the year all over the place right now. One of the most popular being pictures of the year. Many very impressive pictures. These are reuters pictures of 2007. Who would have thought news pictures can be so impactful.

I don’t need an excuse to visit Chicago, it’s rather well known. And now that NewJob headquarters is there, I’m likely to get on a plane at the drop of a hat.

Problem is, I’m not sure if I’m welcome anymore. As the Chicago metblog reports, via bb, the city of Chicago just issued a public awareness bulletin [pdf] that asks Windy City residents to be on the watch out for terrorists. All good and well, and definitely in the public interest.

The Chicago police gives a list of potentially suspicious activities, including attempts to improperly acquire explosives, weapons, ammonition, dangerous chemicals etc; and presence of individuals who do not appear to belong to workplaces, business establishments or near key facilities. That’s fine. Some of the other suspicious activities seem to smack of paranoia and overkill. For instance, any of the following is considered suspicious and must be reported immediately:

• note taking
• binocular use
• camera, video
• mapping out routes
• timing traffic lights

Damn. And I was planning to take my stopwatch and time traffic lights all day. I have to be careful of taking pictures and going on treasure hunts too.

Scotland Yard has also issued a similar warning. At least the poster is much better designed. Click on images for full size.

 

I was reading the Style section of the New York Times. More specifically an article about the American tea revolution — how tea sales has grown 4 times over the last 10 years, how Lipton (eww) will soon sell a range of long-leaf teas in pyramid-shaped nylon bags; and how US tea drinkers are becoming more discerning.

Newsflash. Whittard’s has been selling large-leaf teabags for years and they have all sorts of different varieties — Earl Grey, darjeeling herbal, even ginger & peach flavoured green tea. And we’ve had Pyramid tea bags since 1996. So what has the NYT all excited is old news, stale tea dregs if you may.

And this palaver about premium brands? Marketing, so people pay more for their teas. Apparently, the “English often drink tea with milk and sugar, so they like it dark and strong, just the way cheap tea bags make it.” OH MAN! Is that why I can’t get any decent tea in the US? Because they associate dark and strong with cheap, so they make their tea light and tasteless instead? I thought it was the water, now I know it’s not so simple.

Anyway, this post isn’t about tea. It’s about my eye being caught by the large photo at the bottom of the style section, where it gives me a snippet of what is in other sections. Clicking on the Weddings & Celebrations section brought a pleasant, though slightly uneasy, surprise.

There, the top wedding & celebration of this weekend is the commitment ceremony at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the restaurant in Pocantico Hills NY where Mr Adam Berger and Mr Stephen Frank played hosts to 120 guests. A nice pic of the groom and groom and a clichéd “we were so clueless, to not see it immediately cos we were both dating women” story.

I’m supposed to be happy, that this is reported in the NYT in such a matter-of-fact way. But somehow the article reads very contrived and too “fairy-tale” like. May be it’s the fact I’ve never found the NYT writing style to be smooth, I think they like mashing up their words into a hard to digest ball of pretentiousness. I don’t know how the NYT determines which couple makes the top story, I sincerely hope it’s not the fact that one is a VP at GS and the other an associate at a law firm. No I don’t think so, they are common fodder in the NYT society section.

The political argument against gay marriages doesn’t make sense. Why does it matter to me who someone marries? As long as they don’t affect me, doesn’t cause any harm to the planet, and is not taking anything away from someone else, I have absolutely no grounds to object. This is so stupid.

In time, the decision to close Heathrow and Gatwick to short-haul flights and to implement such drastic measures for air travellers will prove to be a correct one.

Despite the severity of the situation, I feel a sense of resigned calm. It is the right thing to do, to be cautious, even though it’s so inconvenient. And think about all the summer holidays ruined. I’m glad I don’t have a trip coming up in the next week or so, airports will be crazy.

I can’t help but be proud at how the British public and police have handled this though. There is a sense of “get on with it, what else can we do” that permeates. On the other hand, reading CNN and other US news sites gave me the feeling that the Americans are tottering on the edge of a freak out. Again. Sigh.

Thing is, the panic and the airport closures and the general disruption to air traffic is already a “victory” for the terrorists. Murray Walker, who is stuck at Aberdeen trying to get to Silverstone, said, “It’s better safe than sorry, but I have a problem with those who are making this happen.” Hear hear, Murray.

heh, the world didn’t end.

How disappointing.

The Airbus A380 lands at Heathrow, after a fly-pass over sites at Filton and Broughton, where its wings were made.

BBC pictures.

I guess it’s mm’s influence, but articles about religion catch my eye more nowadays. Or perhaps not, because I would have zoomed in on any article that tells us about monks in Wisconsin with a laser cartridge filling business.

Really.

I mean, think about how monasteries, any religion, and how they cover their expenses. Most do not receive any financial help from the government or the church. Donations, fund-raising events, tourism (selling souvenirs), farming, wine- and cheese-making are the activities that come to mind.

Looks like the monks have finally entered the 21st century and the wonders of e-commerce. Behold Laser Monks of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank in Wisconsin. Founded in the late 1920s, their fund-raising efforts have included selling cheese gift boxes, farming, real estate development, they had even considered building a four star golf course.

That was, until Fr. Bernard McCoy, O. Cist., Steward of Temporal Affairs at the abbey, also CEO of Laser Monks, decided to look for print cartridges for their laser printers.

In my search for a toner cartridge, I was suddenly struck with how incredibly expensive this black dust and a few squirts of ink were. “There must be a better way,” I said to myself.

What started as a small business grossing $2000 in 2002 has grown into sales of $2.5 million in 2005, with expected sales to exceed $5 million in 2006. That’s phenomenal in any accountant’s books. They do very little advertising, but they don’t seem to need it, with international coverage in the likes of cnn money.

After expenses are deducted, the rest of the profits go toward charity and various programs.

The retail and services industry is so cut-throat that consumers will latch onto any gimmick or novelty that catch their fancy. A Catholic abbey selling cheap print cartridges (they recently expanded to office supplies) where profits go to charity? It appeals to anyone looking for a bargain and to get a sense that they’re “doing good.”

A little research, for a HP Q7560A (HP 3000 series), Laser Monks sell for $128.95 while both staples and HP sell for $134.99. The cheapest at pricescan.com is thenerds.net at $115.30 but for some reason I’m hesitant to buy automatically from the cheapest place.

If I had a printer, I’d buy from the monks too.

From Comcast news.

Man Hits His Own Car Then Sues Himself
by Associated Press

LODI, Calif. - When a dump truck backed into Curtis Gokey’s car, he decided to sue the city for damages. Only thing is, he was the one driving the dump truck. But that minor detail didn’t stop Gokey, a Lodi city employee, from filing a $3,600 claim for the December accident, even after admitting the crash was his fault.

After the city denied that claim because Gokey was, in essence, suing himself, he and his wife, Rhonda, decided to file a new claim under her name.

City Attorney Steve Schwabauer said this one also lacks merit because Rhonda Gokey can’t sue her own husband.

“You can sue your spouse for divorce, but you can’t sue your spouse for negligence,” Schwabauer said. “They’re a married couple under California law. They’re one entity. It’s damage to community property.”

But Rhonda Gokey insisted she has “the right to sue the city because a city’s vehicle damaged my private vehicle.”

In fact, her claim, currently pending at Lodi City Hall, is for an even larger amount — $4,800.

“I’m not as nice as my husband is,” she said.

This is funny and stupid. Wonder if anyone outside the US legal system would even remotely think about this?

I’m going to Mumbai on Sunday for business, coming back on Friday. Seems like everyone and their second cousin thrice removed are flying there, it was hell to get a business class ticket.

There was a travel advisory because Dubya is visiting India, but I didn’t think the protests would be so widespread until I checked out the mumbai metblog. More about anti-Bush protests organised by the Committee Against Bush Visit.

I think he leaves before I get there. He’d better.

From the Guardian.

College security ban on hijabs and hoodies
Polly Curtis, education correspondent
Thursday November 24, 2005

Imperial College London has banned staff and students from wearing hijabs or hoodies on its campuses as part of an effort to improve security.

The college’s management board approved the new dress code at the beginning of the month. “Clothing that obscures an individual’s face is not allowed on any of the college’s campuses,” it reads. “Employees and students should refrain from wearing clothing which obscures the face, such as a full or half veil, or hooded tops or scarves worn across the face.” College officials said the move was part of renewed efforts to improve security after the summer bombings in London. It was also an attempt to combat theft and deter animal rights activists.
— snip —

Understandably the students are planning to seek to amend the code to to allow the hoodies and religious dress. They believe that “students should not to have to seek permission to wear any religious item.”

The folks at the Register thinks that it’s “more likely that the college authorities, fully cognisant of the naturally rebellious tendencies of the average 19 year-old, has introduced the ban as a cunning marketing ploy to drive sales of” the sweatshirt, with the IC logo.

Riiiight. And I went there once upon a time?

Clocks in many countries change today. In the Northern Hemisphere the clocks turn back an hour — it’s 02.59.59 then it becomes 02.00.00. In the Southern Hemisphere the clocks advance an hour.

No change here. But it means I’m even further away from people at the other side of the world, makes me feel even more isolated.

From the guardian.

For an organisation that didn’t officially exist until 1994, it has come a long way. Last week, MI6 launched its own website. It even has a Careers section and says it’s looking to recruit staff at all grades. In today’s international arena, the website is also available in French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese.

MI6, or the Secret Intelligent Service (SIS) as they prefer to be known, is the counterpart of MI5 (domestic security) and GCHQ (communications). It has been in existence since 1909 and its main tasks is to gather intelligence abroad to protect British interest. In other words, spying.

Glamorised by books and films (James Bond, anyone?), recruitment into MI6 has always been thought of as very cloak and dagger affairs, involving secret winks and taps on shoulders for the “right” recruit while up at Oxbridge. Now they’re telling wannabe spies “if you think you have the qualities described on the Web site please apply, don’t wait for us to get in touch.”

The application procedure itself is simple, just send in your CV. But there are nationality rules and candidates go through extensive security clearance during the interview stage. They’re also told that they can’t tell anyone other than a spouse or partner that they’re applying. They emphasize the family atmosphere at their HQ and the sense of adventure of working there.

Seems fun and worthwhile, and why not?

From booman tribune and progressive independent via boing boing

Boy am I glad I don’t live in Indiana. If this is real it’s a joke. The “lawmakers” there are drafting legislation that requires potential parents who want to become pregnant via assisted means such as IVF and sperm / egg donation to be married. Performing an unlawful artificial reproduction procedure is a criminal offense.

okay, that means unmarried people who conceive by means other than regular sex are criminals?

One of the readers commenting asks the interesting question: does that mean that the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit will be hauled up before the courts, cos the conception of Jesus was definitely “assisted” and definitely “by means other than sexual intercourse.” Mary may not have been given a choice in the matter, which bodes even worse for the

Imagine being handcuffed while still holding your turkey baster. LOL.

Here’s the original article

The Crime of “Unauthorized Reproduction
by Laura McPhee

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.”

According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a “petition for parentage” in their local county probate court.

Only women who are married will be considered for the “gestational certificate” that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the “gestational certificate” will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

As it the draft of the new law reads now, an intended parent “who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure” without court approval, “commits unauthorized reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor.” The criminal charges will be the same for physicians who commit “unauthorized practice of artificial reproduction.”

The change in Indiana law to require marriage as a condition for motherhood and criminalizing “unauthorized reproduction” was introduced at a summer meeting of the Indiana General Assembly’s Health Finance Commission on September 29 and a final version of the bill will come up for a vote at the next meeting at the end of this month.

Republican Senator Patricia Miller is both the Health Finance Commission Chair and the sponsor of the bill. She believes the new law will protect children in the state of Indiana and make parenting laws more explicit.

According to Sen. Miller, the laws prohibiting surrogacy in the state of Indiana are currently too vague and unenforceable, and that is the purpose of the new legislation.

“But it’s not just surrogacy,” Miller told NUVO. ” The law is vague on all types of extraordinary types of infertility treatment, and we wanted to address that as well.”

“Ordinary treatment would be the mother’s egg and the father’s sperm. But now there are a lot of extraordinary thing s that raise issues of who has legal rights as parents,” she explained when asked what she considers “extraordinary” infertility treatment.

Sen. Miller believes the requirement of marriage for parenting is for the benefit of the children that result from infertility treatments.

“We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents - a mother and a father - do better. So, we do want to have laws that protect the children,” she explained.

When asked specifically if she believes marriage should be a requirement for motherhood, and if that is part of the bill’s intention, Sen. Miller responded, “Yes. Yes, I do.”

ETA: Looks like the proposal was dropped. Still, it’s scary that it was out there at all.

I read this on bbc news, but it’s all over the net now. There’s an initiative to add an entry “ICE” on people’s mobile phones. ICE stands for In case of emergency, and it’s so that emergency workers / police / hospitals etc can find out the emergency contact in case something happens. It’s not being morose, just a simple idea that can work, if enough people do it. It will save time, precious time, cos the emergency workers don’t need to look through people’s phone contacts to find the right person to call.

I added 2 entries, cos you can have more than one.

I was gonna report on how my day was — normal, went to dinner with SC colleagues and tried out a combination hotplate, steamboat and … iced hotplate to make your own ice cream on, very cool.

But what of my life. How can it be compared against the horrible bombings. It brings it home to me, that they were at Edgware Road, Moorgate, Aldgate and Russell Square — these are places I know so well, so close to home, school, college, work — I have no words. All I want to do is cry.

I was there, watching it on TV. I hadn’t been following it, but with so much hype, and it taking place in Singapore, I can’t help but notice it.

I was so happy when London won, and yes, I did jump up and down when it was announced.

I've kept bank accounts and credit cards in all the countries I've lived in, the reason I give myself is so that I can have access to cash through ATMs should I visit. Now, I'm doubly glad, reading about the idiocy of british airways is. They won't sell you a ticket over the web if you don't have a credit card billed to the country you are flying from.

You can buy over the phone (4x the price) or via an agent (2x the price) but you get ripped off.

It's not the first time, friend of mine tried to order something through the Disney catalog in the US only to run into a similar problem cos her credit card billing address is in a different country as where she wants the stuff to be delivered to.

It's a well known fact, a roundtrip ticket on BA from London is cheaper than the one way. So, London to Zurich for a week can be as cheap as £92 return, yet one way it's £386. I mean, what? How idiotic.

I have total trust booking my flights through swiss or cx websites, but that's about it. Don't trust ba.com at all.

From Associated Press.

Spoons are so old school. And so slow.

In the age of TV dinners and fast food comes prepacked food that don't even need utensils. Heat-and-sip cups of soups, spray-on butter, cookies in cans that fit car cup holders, even frozen PBJ sandwiches.

Next, yogurt in squeezable toothpaste-like tubes. Stonyfield Farm, the makers of the ubiquitious Squeezers, has positioned the line to be appealing to children (the fun factor) as well as for adults, who want more "natural" convenience foods.

What next?

Orange, the mobile phone services provider, is at odds with the easyGroup, of easyJet fame, over the use of the colour orange. This from bbc news.

Does a company “own” a colour? The issue of names, logos and images is very contentious in the global marketplace. Trademarks mean firms have a right to protect “shapes, sounds or colours if it's distinctive as part of their business”, according to an IP lawyer interviewed.

This usually means as long as Joe Public can distinguish between the different branding it's companies are protected. Example is Cadbury's distinctive purple can't be used by other chocolate makers, or Heinz with its turquoise colour, Toblerone and triangular chocolate boxes. But it can't stop, say hat makers from making hats in Cadbury purple.

The issue came about because easyGroup is expanding onto Orange's turf, with its new easyMobile service. Orange is claiming that if easyMobile uses orange in their branding it will cause confusion among customers and damage its business. Orange has the trademark on the colour registered as Pantone #151.

Hmmm. Can I claim ownership to the colour white please.

Yes I'm obsessive about protecting my privacy. I can be fairly anal about it. But I feel a little vindicated, to see an extreme (but scarily realistic) example of what the government and corporations may be doing with our personal data. Who would have thought ordering pizza can lead to so much infringement?

The Guardian has a weblog, of posts by their journalists I guess, short "interesting" pieces of news. Much like the weblog of a real life blogger. Except it only has a date and name of poster, no comments, no trackback, quite static in feel.

Getting on the bandwagon much? All the politicians, pundits and celebrities are doing it. Soon it'll be like the iPod, the novelty factor, the sense of uniqueness, ok the superiority complex, of being an iPod owner, quickly disappears as it's invaded by the masses. Every day hundreds, thousands of new weblogs are created and millions are updated.

I'm certainly one of those masses, joining the party late. I'm still amazed that no one I know seems to be aware of this global phenomenon.

Back to the Guardian weblog. What caught my eye was a week-old post, that Countdown has been renewed by Channel 4 for another 5 years. Truly, it's a wonderous program, the first to be shown on Channel 4, and continues to be as fantastic as ever. Even now that the presenters have become celebrities, they continue with the tradition. I remember watching the first Countdown and whenever I'm back in the UK I try to watch it. I don't think I'll ever tire of it, it's so simple yet intelligent, that's a sure sign of good programming.

The second funny tidbit about this particular post is that the Guardian links to the story on the Independent. Perhaps because the Guardian missed on the story? Or trying (too hard?) to look and feel like any old weblog.

I like the Guardian's weblog, they've been at it for 3 years, so they must be doing something right. I just wished the Independent had one too, sigh. I've been disappointed with the Indy recently, with the change to tabloid format and a boring website — you have to type in the www, just typing http://independent.co.uk doesn't work, in this day and age it's not acceptable — it's not the Indy I used to be fanatically loyal to.

I read about a newest sensation gripping the media world - Pope Deathwatch. Sigh. People are so cruel. Just when the world should be celebrating 25 years of the papacy, attention is diverted to how frail he is and when is he going to die and politics surrounding who will succeed him. All valid questions and succession should be worked out to avoid being caught unprepared. But do they have to be so blatant and go about it with so little dignity?

As a Catholic we are brought up to revere the church and obey the Pope. Even though personally there are major areas of disparity, like I totally disagree with the church's stance on contraception, abortion and homosexuality, I still look to the Pope as someone to respect. Much more so than say the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Dalai Lama. Because the Pope is my leader.

Am I a bad Catholic because I think modern society needs contraception and abortion and because I don't think being gay is a sin? Or because I hardly ever go to mass? Probably.

But my belief is on such a personal level I don't think it's possible for me to articulate, much less share with others. I do like going to mass but I don't believe God is keeping tabs, like He doesn't look at someone who goes once a week and gives them one gold star and someone who goes everyday gets 3 gold stars and someone who goes once a year gets negative stars. There shouldn't be a quota for being "good", should there?