Month: June 2010

Towering Inferno

Deepwater Horizon officially an Irwin Allen film, at least according to these excerpts from Mother Jones; all they need is a bit of stage direction:

FADE IN: INT CONTROL ROOM

on the morning of the day that the rig exploded [Installation manager Jimmy] Harrell had a “skirmish” over drilling procedures during a meeting with BP’s “company man,” well site leader Robert Kaluza. “I remember the company man saying this is how it’s going to be,” [Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon] told the panel. As Harrell was leaving the meeting, according to Brown, “He pretty much grumbled, ‘I guess that’s what we have those pincers for,’” referring to the blowout preventer on the sea floor that is supposed to be the last resort to prevent a leak in the event of an emergency. The blowout preventer failed following the explosion on the rig, causing the massive spill.

INT: CONTROL ROOM; fire is plainly visible outside the windows. EXT. commotion is heard throughout. Jimmy Harrell, a top employee of rig owner Transocean, speaks to HOUSTON via SATELLITE PHONE

HARRELL: Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.

The New Word

Theodidiocy: [noun ( pl. -cies)]

1) The vindication of the utter foolhardiness of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil by way of exquisitely weak, poorly argued, or flatly lunatic logic.

2) Poorly written theodicies, often excreted in the guise of rank popular “fiction.”

I’ve given up explaining who the Fonz is and just accepted this new reality.

noonespecial on Hacker News makes an important point about what used to be regarded as the inviolable nature of our collective timeline.
My money is now officially on the Silurians.

“I just cost that kid a perfect game,” Joyce said. “I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay.”

Worth thinking about in the inexplicable hysteria over this tragedy: what would the reaction have been if this admittedly blown call occurred vs. the first batsman as opposed to the theoretical last? Please freak out accordingly. As in: not at all. Perfect games are extremely rare. Too bad that it played out in this way, but operator error is, was, and always will be a significant part of that rarity. Three in a month’s time is plainly a move against nature.

This is also why God caused the oil spill, by the way.

…belief that government has little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges. It’s an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations.

The last administration called this recycled idea “the Ownership Society.” But what it essentially means is that everyone is on their own. No matter how hard you work, if your paycheck isn’t enough to pay for college or health care or childcare, well, [go die in the streets]. If misfortune causes you to lose your job or your home, [go die in the streets]. And if you’re a Wall Street bank or an insurance company or an oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences for everybody else [; anyone that gets in their way can kindly go die in the streets].

Barack Obama as heard by Lemkin.

Shock the Monkey Electric Boogaloo

unsolicitedanalysis:

Excluding bear markets: the rite of the thought criminal. Nice year splits!

Asked and Answered department. From the same document:

The belief that bear markets favor active management is a myth. A majority of active funds in eight of the nine domestic equity style boxes were outperformed by indices in the negative markets of 2008. The bear market of 2000 to 2002 showed similar outcomes.

Reading: it’s fundamental.

Shock the Monkey Electric Boogaloo

Shock the Monkey

unsolicitedanalysis:

As for index funds, your trained monkey hasn’t eaten in 10 years of net negative S&P 500-indexed returns.  The monkey is dead.  Just because we enjoyed 30 years of average 8-12% returns doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed by god or country.  Active management of capital drives a capitalist society forward – index funds are merely dumb piles of loot for the theoretical man in the business suit to the far right to squeeze when necessary.

(via tart-tart)

Do you mean these ten years?

I’m sure the monkey actually gave his life trying to protect the bonuses. At all costs and whatever the outcome.

unsolicitedanalysis:

The key, of course, is “as low as.”

Claiming that capital gains are the same thing as income is, well, no.  The cop’s salary is not at risk, and predicated on the performance of very specific sub-groups of investments.  But the person who put this graphic together knew that and is a thought criminal, so…

If recent events have taught us anything, it’s that fund managers’ incomes are not at risk, no matter what the performance outcomes may be. The bonuses are sacrosanct! To suggest otherwise, or tie said bonuses to some arbitrary measure of performance would be un-American.

Source: s3.moveon.org