"Once those intermodal trains can go through Stampede Pass, it will take some traffic off the main line and free up more room for additional passenger trains," said Uznanski.
By bringing the number of trains up to eight a day between Vancouver and Portland, ridership and ticket revenue will increase significantly. Currently ticket sales - what is known as farebox - cover 43% of the Amtrak Cascades' operating expenses; the state subsidizes the remainder. Run eight trains daily, however, the farebox recovery goes up to 70%.
It's all about frequency. When trains are frequency and convenient, ridership - particularly business travel - grows dramatically, said Uznanski.
It was a mantra I was to hear from experts all across the country - frequency builds ridership and only frequency significantly builds farebox recovery. Sure its great to have trains running more than 100mph in a corridor, but if there are only a couple of trains a day, they just aren't convenient enough to move people off the highway or away from the airport.
- John McCommons, Waiting on a Train, Chelsea Green Publishing: Vermont, p. 51
Want a flutter on Greece leaving the euro zone? It may already be too late. A surge in bets has forced Britain's biggest bookmakers William Hill Plc and Ladbrokes Plc to suspend betting on the odds of Greece dropping out.
...
"It is safer for us to suspend betting than to keep cutting the odds," a spokesman for Ladbrokes said. "We have been slashing the odds repeatedly over the last few days."
Ladbrokes is still taking bets on the Greek stock market losing more than 25 percent of its value in a single day's trading by the end of 2012.
And if you fear Greece is just the beginning of the end for the European single currency, Ladbrokes is offering odds on the euro ceasing to exist by the end of 2012, which would make punters 33 times their original stake.
Ladbrokes is offering odds of 5/6 that the euro will cease to exist by the end of 2015 and 4/1 on two or more states to leave the euro by the end of the year.
William Hill, however, has closed betting on the euro still being in existence by the end of 2015 - a possibility it sees as closely linked to what is happening in Greece - with the latest odds before suspension at 4/6 in favour and 11/10 against.
This incident is certain to reignite the debate about Dodd-Frank and may undermine the broad effort to roll back the bill, which we wrote about in the latest issue of the magazine. Staffers on the Hill started mobilizing the instant the Chase news hit the airwaves yesterday, and you can bet we'll hear more debate in the next few months about not only the Volcker Rule but the Lincoln Rule, which was designed to wall off risky swaps from the federally-insured side of these banks. I've heard from all sides today, with some thinking the Chase trade was Dodd-Frank compliant, and others saying it probably violated both the Volcker and the Lincoln rules.
Either way, the incident underscored the basic problem. If J.P. Morgan Chase wants to act like a crazed cowboy hedge fund and make wild exacta bets on the derivatives market, they should be welcome to do so. But they shouldn't get to do it with cheap cash from the Fed's discount window, and they shouldn't get to do it with money from the federally-insured bank accounts of teachers, firemen and other such real people. It's a simple concept: you either get to be a bank, or you get to be a casino. But you can't be both. If we don't have rules to enforce that concept, we ought to get some.
After spending time combing through the financial reports of China's biggest publicly traded, state- owned banks, I now understand what Jim Chanos, the famous short- seller, means when he keeps saying they are "built on quicksand." He's definitely on to something.
...
In a Bloomberg Television interview last week, Chanos said "the Chinese banks ought to be sending a thank-you note to Greece and Spain every month for keeping them out of the limelight." It's anyone's guess how long they will stay this way.
"Punting the Pundits" is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past "Punting the Pundits".
In an all-too-rare show of bipartisanship, 15 Senate Republicans joined with the Democratic majority last month to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, the landmark 1994 law that is key to efforts against domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Unfortunately, the lopsided 68-to-31 Senate vote halted G.O.P. opponents only temporarily. The House Judiciary Committee last week approved its version of the reauthorization bill, which not only omits improvements the Senate bill made to the law but also removes existing protections for immigrant women, putting them at greater risk of domestic and sexual abuse.
One of the characters in the classic 1939 film "Stagecoach" is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation - "As if we bankers don't know how to run our own banks!" he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash.
As far as we know, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, isn't planning anything similar. He has, however, been fond of giving Gatewood-like speeches about how he and his colleagues know what they're doing, and don't need the government looking over their shoulders. So there's a large heap of poetic justice - and a major policy lesson - in JPMorgan's shock announcement that it somehow managed to lose $2 billion in a failed bit of financial wheeling-dealing.
Student loan debt slavery is even worse than you probably thought. The Grey Lady tonight has a long, informative story, "A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College", that early on presents the stunning tidbit that 94% of the recipients of bachelor's degrees borrowed in order to pay for it. The Times doesn't report what average debt levels are in this cohort, but the average across all borrowers, per the New York Fed, is $23,000. Remember, this total includes graduates who have have been paying down debt, meaning they've amortized principal and almost certainly had borrowed less on average to complete school.
Contrast this "certain to be higher on average than $23,000″ for new graduates with their earning power, or more accurately, lack thereof. The Times article also mentions a Rutgers survey which seems to have some sample bias or underreporting of borrowing (of 2006-2011 graduates, only 55% of the respondents said they had borrowed to help fund college, and the median reported debt level was $20,000). The 2009-2011 graduates' income averaged $27,000. In addition, only half said that their job required a college degree.
On Wednesday, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation will hold its third annual fiscal summit. We need this event like we need a mass outbreak of sado-masochism. [..]
At Tuesday's summit, Bill Clinton will offer his version of a deficit reduction plan. Tim Geithner will offer his. Likewise Rep. Paul Ryan, and Democratic Congressmen Chris van Hollen and even Xavier Becerra of the House progressive caucus, and, inevitably, Alan Simpson of the late Bowles-Simpson Commission. Clinton, who will be interviewed by Tom Brokaw, has partnered with the Peterson Foundation on other initiatives. Another speaker is economist Carmen Reinhart, an expert on debt crises, who works at yet another institute named for Peterson. Also speaking will be Foundation's president and CEO, Michael Peterson, son of the benefactor. (The entire board of directors is Pete Peterson, his wife, and son.) [..]
Austerity is a false cure for a prolonged recession. The Peterson Foundation is peddling fiscal snake oil. It is using a genuine crisis as an excuse to bash social insurance, at a time when we should be expanding social insurance. It's appalling that so many people are gulled by this propaganda.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the nation's largest bank, whose chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has lead Wall Street's war against regulation, announced Thursday it had lost $2 billion in trades over the past six weeks and could face an additional $1 billion of losses, due to excessively risky bets.
The bets were "poorly executed" and "poorly monitored," said Dimon, a result of "many errors, "sloppiness," and "bad judgment." But not to worry. "We will admit it, we will fix it and move on."
Move on? Word on the Street is that J.P. Morgan's exposure is so large that it can't dump these bad bets without affecting the market and losing even more money. And given its mammoth size and interlinked connections with every other financial institution, anything that shakes J.P. Morgan is likely to rock the rest of the Street.
Two pieces of crucial evidence emerged in the tar sands fight yesterday. One, happily, got all kinds of notice -- Jim Hansen's op-ed in the New York Times was the "most emailed" item of the day, which is appropriate since he explained new calculations showing that those Canadian deposits contain "twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history." If we burn them on top of all the coal and oil and gas we're already using, "concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era," the government's leading climate scientist explained, which you think would be enough to end the debate -- even in our weird political culture, there aren't many leaders clamoring to return us to the Pliocene.
With the economy still struggling and the debates over how to fix the problem more intense than ever, one word still evokes bipartisan consensus: exports. "I want us to sell stuff," said President Obama, summing up the bipartisan sentiment.
That nebulous word "stuff" is significant. It asks us to see all exports as the same and to refrain from making nuanced value judgments about what exactly we're shipping overseas. In this cold-blooded view, a job-creating export is a job-creating export, and that's as far as any conversation should go.
At first glance, such reductionism seems logical, rational, even boringly uncontroversial. But two recent news items highlight how in a globalized economy, there are troubling consequences that come from the particular kind of export economy we're building.
The extreme right wing's attacks and deceptive campaigns over the course of decades are now close to fruition with the help of neoliberal Democrats.
President Obama has come very close to helping right-wingers realize their long-desired goal; only the incredible intransigence of congressional Republicans has saved the social safety net thus far.
May 14 is the 134th day of the year (135th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 231 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1796, Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, administers the world's first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that had killed millions of people over the centuries.
Edward Anthony Jenner (17 May 1749 - 26 January 1823) was an English scientist who studied his natural surroundings in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. Jenner is widely credited as the pioneer of smallpox vaccine, and is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Immunology"; his works have been said to have "saved more lives than the work of any other man".
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu witnessed the Ottoman Empire practice of variolation during her 1716-1718 sojourn in Istanbul, where her husband was the British ambassador. She brought the idea back to Britain. Voltaire, a few years later, recorded that 60% of people caught smallpox, with 20% of the population dying of it. In the years following 1770 there were at least six people in England and Germany (Sevel, Jensen, Jesty 1774, Rendell, Plett 1791) who had successfully tested the possibility of using the cowpox vaccine as an immunization for smallpox in humans. For example, Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty had successfully vaccinated and presumably induced immunity in his wife and two children with cowpox during a smallpox epidemic in 1774, but it was not until Jenner's work some twenty years later that the procedure became widely understood. Indeed, Jenner may have been aware of Jesty's procedures and success.
Jenner's Initial Theory:
The initial source of infection was a disease of horses, called "the grease", and that this was transferred to cows by farm workers, transformed, and then manifested as cowpox.
Noting the common observation that milkmaids did not generally get smallpox, Jenner theorized that the pus in the blisters which milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected the milkmaids from smallpox. He may have had the advantage of hearing stories of Benjamin Jesty and others who deliberately arranged cowpox infection of their families, and then noticed a reduced smallpox risk in those families.
On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, a young boy of 8 years (the son of Jenner's gardener), with material from the cowpox blisters of the hand of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide hangs on the wall of the library at St George's medical school (now in Tooting). Blossom's hide commemorates one of the school's most renowned alumni. Phipps was the 17th case described in Jenner's first paper on vaccination.
Jenner inoculated Phipps with cowpox pus in both arms on the same day. The inoculation was accomplished by scraping the pus from Nelmes' blisters onto a piece of wood then transferring this to Phipps' arms. This produced a fever and some uneasiness but no great illness. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, which would have been the routine attempt to produce immunity at that time. No disease had followed. Jenner reported that later the boy was again challenged with variolous material and again showed no sign of infection.
Known:
Smallpox is more dangerous than variolation and cowpox less dangerous than variolation.
Hypothesis:
Infection with cowpox gives immunity to smallpox.
Test:
If variolation after infection with cowpox fails to produce a smallpox infection, immunity to smallpox has been achieved.
Consequence:
Immunity to smallpox can be induced much more safely than by variolation.
Ronald Hopkins states: "Jenner's unique contribution was not that he inoculated a few persons with cowpox, but that he then proved they were immune to smallpox. Moreover, he demonstrated that the protective cowpox could be effectively inoculated from person to person, not just directly from cattle. In addition he tested his theory on a series of 23 subjects. This aspect of his research method increased the validity of his evidence.
He continued his research and reported it to the Royal Society, who did not publish the initial report. After improvement and further work, he published a report of twenty-three cases. Some of his conclusions were correct, and some erroneous - modern microbiological and microscopic methods would make this easier to repeat. The medical establishment, as cautious then as now, considered his findings for some time before accepting them. Eventually vaccination was accepted, and in 1840 the British government banned variolation - the use of smallpox itself - and provided vaccination - using cowpox - free of charge. (See Vaccination acts). The success of his discovery soon began to spread around Europe and as an example was used en masse in the Spanish Balmis Expedition a three year mission to the Americas led by Dr Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. The expedtition was successful and Jenner wrote, "I don't imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this."
Jenner's continuing work on vaccination prevented his continuing his ordinary medical practice. He was supported by his colleagues and the King in petitioning Parliament and was granted £10,000 for his work on vaccination. In 1806 he was granted another £20,000 for his continuing work.
In 1979, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eradicated disease. This was the result of coordinated public health efforts by many people, but vaccination was an essential component. And although it was declared eradicated, some samples still remain in laboratories in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, and State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia.
The importance of his work does not stop there. His vaccine also laid the groundwork for modern-day discoveries in immunology, and the field he began may someday lead to cures for arthritis, AIDS, and many other diseases of the time.
The entire London staff of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)'s chief investment office is at risk of dismissal as a $2 billion trading loss prompts the first executive departures as soon as this week, a person familiar with the situation said.
Before we get started, please allow me to wish all of the mums, grandmums, greatgrandmums, greatgreatgrandmums, and, often neglected, adoptive and foster mums out there a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! I just got off of the telephone with the former Mrs. Translator after wishing her the same. I would have wished my mum and grandmum that as well, but they are no longer in the temporal plane. I did give a card to my special friend since she has a little girl.
Like my current series about The Moody Blues on Popular Culture, this topic was suggested by my very dear high school buddy Steve Ahlert. (He approved of me using his name.) Steve and I sort of lost contact for a while, but now we speak almost every day. I LOVE my Straight Talk unlimited everything, $45 per month plan and my Samsung T528G!
Steve uses melatonin to help him sleep, and it is very effective for him. Now, Steve is not some new age trend follower. Actually he is a professional pharmacist, and is the best pharmacist insofar as knowing his area of expertise that I have ever known. Equally important, the way that he deals with his patients is outstanding. He has a knack for translating highly technical information to whatever level is necessary for people to understand what they need to do.
Melatonin is interesting because what has turned out to be sort of an incidental effect gave it its name. It is also interesting from a molecular structure/activity standpoint because it is chemically related to a whole host of psychologically active agents. Let us examine this interesting substance.
Fiddleheads are a very ephemeral thing. For 2 or 3 weeks in the spring the emerging shoots of several types of ferns are available for eating.
Now to me they resemble nothing so much as Asparagus in taste, but perhaps that's because of my preferred method of preparation about which more shortly. Others notice a hint of Almond, but you couldn't prove it by me. They're extremely high in Vitamin A, less so in C, and otherwise have all the good nutritional characteristics you expect from a vegetable.
Personally I don't recommend picking them wild. I'm not Euell Gibbons and I stay away from toadstools and amateur fugu too. Fortunately they're available from some grocery stores in season (my local Stop & Shop carries them), you can get them over the internet (www.fiddle-heads.com), and also frozen and canned.
The earliest call for the establishment of Mother's Day in the US came in 1870 with the "The Mother's Day Proclamation" written by Julia Howe, a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet. It was a pacifist reaction to the US Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. It was Ms. Howe's belief that women had a responsibility to shape society at a political level.
Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:
"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.
"We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says, "Disarm, Disarm!"
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice!
Blood does not wipe out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have of ten forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war.
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace,
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions.
The great and general interests of peace.
The Mexican-American War (or Mexican War) was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.
The Mexican government had long warned the United States that annexation would mean war. Because the Mexican congress had refused to recognize Texan independence, Mexico saw Texas as a rebellious territory that would be retaken. Britain and France, which recognized the independence of Texas, repeatedly tried to dissuade Mexico from declaring war. When Texas joined the U.S. as a state in 1845, the Mexican government broke diplomatic relations with the U.S.
The Texan claim to the Rio Grande boundary had been omitted from the annexation resolution to help secure passage after the annexation treaty failed in the Senate. President Polk claimed the Rio Grande boundary, and this provoked a dispute with Mexico. In June 1845, Polk sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas, and by October 3,500 Americans were on the Nueces River, prepared to defend Texas from a Mexican invasion. Polk wanted to protect the border and also coveted the continent clear to the Pacific Ocean. Polk had instructed the Pacific naval squadron to seize the California ports if Mexico declared war while staying on good terms with the inhabitants. At the same time he wrote to Thomas Larkin, the American consul in Monterey, disclaiming American ambitions but offering to support independence from Mexico or voluntary accession to the U.S., and warning that a British or French takeover would be opposed.
To end another war-scare (Fifty-Four Forty or Fight) with Britain over Oregon Country, Polk signed the Oregon Treaty dividing the territory, angering northern Democrats who felt he was prioritizing Southern expansion over Northern expansion.
In the winter of 1845-46, the federally commissioned explorer John C. Fremont and a group of armed men appeared in California. After telling the Mexican governor and Larkin he was merely buying supplies on the way to Oregon, he instead entered the populated area of California and visited Santa Cruz and the Salinas Valley, explaining he had been looking for a seaside home for his mother. The Mexican authorities became alarmed and ordered him to leave. Fremont responded by building a fort on Gavilan Peak and raising the American flag. Larkin sent word that his actions were counterproductive. Fremont left California in March but returned to California and assisted the Bear Flag Revolt in Sonoma, where many American immigrants stated that they were playing "the Texas game" and declared California's independence from Mexico.
On November 10, 1845, Polk sent John Slidell, a secret representative, to Mexico City with an offer of $25 million ($632,500,000 today) for the Rio Grande border in Texas and Mexico's provinces of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico. U.S. expansionists wanted California to thwart British ambitions in the area and to gain a port on the Pacific Ocean. Polk authorized Slidell to forgive the $3 million ($76 million today) owed to U.S. citizens for damages caused by the Mexican War of Independence and pay another $25 to $30 million ($633 million to $759 million today) in exchange for the two territories.
Mexico was not inclined nor able to negotiate. In 1846 alone, the presidency changed hands four times, the war ministry six times, and the finance ministry sixteen times. However, Mexican public opinion and all political factions agreed that selling the territories to the United States would tarnish the national honor. Mexicans who opposed direct conflict with the United States, including President José Joaquin de Herrera, were viewed as traitors. Military opponents of de Herrera, supported by populist newspapers, considered Slidell's presence in Mexico City an insult. When de Herrera considered receiving Slidell to settle the problem of Texas annexation peacefully, he was accused of treason and deposed. After a more nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga came to power, it publicly reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas; Slidell, convinced that Mexico should be "chastised", returned to the U.S.
I tease my mother by calling her Emily after Emily Gilmore both because overall my family reminds me very much of the Gilmores and because she's never met a brand name she didn't like whereas I'm perfectly content to buy generic.
I thank her among many things for a thorough grounding in the domestic and other arts.
Mom teaches first grade and is actually famous in a quiet sort of way. The kind parents brag about and angle their kids for though she's won national awards too. Of course I owe everything I know about educating to her and among my own peers I'm considered an asskicking trainer.
She also insisted we learn to perform routine self maintenance, little things like laundry and ironing, machine and hand mending. basic cooking. Of course she always indulged us with trips to museums and zoos, made sure we got library cards, did the usual bus driver thing to swim practice, had this huge second career as a Brownie/Girl Scout Leader for my sister.
At one point when I was old enough for it to make an impression she took her Masters of Fine Arts in Art of all things, so I know a little Art History with Far Eastern. I understand how to bang out a copper pot and make silver rings because she took me to class once or twice. She liked stained glass so much that she and dad made several pieces (you use a soldering iron and can cut yourself pretty bad so it's a macho thing too). They also did silk screening which taught me a lot about layout and graphic arts.
But she always liked fabric arts and in addition to a framed three dimensional piece in the living room, there are Afghans and rugs and scarves and pot holders and wash cloths and hats and quilts and dolls.
And the training kits and manuals for her mentorship programs, and the adaptations and costumes for the annual first and fifth grade play. Did I mention she plays 3 instruments, though mostly piano?
She touch types too.
So to Emily, a woman of accomplishment and refinement, Happy Mother's Day.
"Punting the Pundits" is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past "Punting the Pundits".
This Week with George Stephanopolis: This Week's guests Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), debate President Obama's historic shift in support of same-sex marriage; and the roundtable debates all the week's politics, with Republican strategist Mary Matalin, former New York governor and host of Current TV's "Viewpoint" Eliot Spitzer, Faith and Freedom Coalition founder and chairman Ralph Reed, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, and Politico senior political reporter Maggie Haberman.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer's guests are former Solicitor General and opponent of California's anti gay marriage Prop 8, Ted Olson; Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) will discuss same sex marriage and the President's announcement. A panel with Tony Perkins, the former head of the Christian Coalition; Clay Aiken, singer and winner of American Idol ; Evan Wolfson, the founder and president of Freedom to Marry; and Mark McKinnon, Newsweek Contributor will debate LGBT issues and marriage equality. Also, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on the latest alleged terrorist threat. In honor of mother's day, four moms talk about the women's vote and Campaign 2012: Former White House Communications Director for Pres. Obama Anita Dunn; Conservative strategist Bay Buchanan; the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger and CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Norah O'Donnell.
Bay Buchanan wrote a book, prepared for the hype.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week's guests are Gloria Borger, CNN
Senior Political Analyst; Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast Editor, The Dish; Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor; and Nia-Malika Henderson, The Washington Post National Political Reporter
Meet the Press with David Gregory: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon joins MTP for an exclusive interview after his company announced a market-shaking $2 billion trading loss; the head of the Republican party, Reince Priebus, joins us for an overview of the campaign and a preview of the battle ahead; Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) joins MTP exclusively to respond to Jamie Dimon and make his case for why more government oversight could have prevented JPMorgan Chase's loss; the co-anchor of CNBC's "Squawk Box," Andrew Ross Sorkin joins us to help to break it all down.
The roundtable weighs in: Lt. Governor of California Gavin Newsom; Chairman of the American Conservative Union Al Cardenas; Washington Post columnists Kathleen Parker and Jonathan Capehart; and MSNBC's Chris Matthews.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Sen. Dick Durban (D- IL) and Sen John Cornyn (R-TX) discuss the Senate elections; Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper weighs in with an up date on his push for Civil Unions in his state; Tony Perkins and Gary Bauer will judge Mitt Romney's evangelical tightrope; and more om fear and terror with Homeland Security Chairman Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Congressman Peter King (R-NY).
Mothers' Day breakfast order: French Toast, crisp bacon and Mimosas. Happy Mothers' Day
Ok, on the Irony Board (like that? I just made it up) this doesn't sir pass (look, another punny) Colin Powell, Village Liar defending his UN/WMD speech, but Schumacher didn't even bother to go out in Q3 so he could save tires.
Or you could call it the courage of his convictions.
Does it sound early to you? I actually kind of hate the European starts more because I have to get up instead of going to bed late and it interrupts my nightmares about people behaving in un-professional manners.
Like you've never had one.
Any who today's grid is full of surprises and it's likely to end the same way because Circuit de Catalunya is not renowned for passing opportunity which is good for Lewis except for Team McLaren's history of abject failure when in positions of advantage.
"A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount for sampling purposes," a statement said. "As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the competitor the stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure. "The stewards determined this is a breach of article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One technical regulations and the competitor is accordingly excluded from the results of the qualifying session," the FIA statement read. "The competitor is however allowed to start the race from the back of the grid." No driver has won in 21 years of the Spanish Grand Prix being held in Barcelona from lower than third place on the grid. A McLaren spokesman said the team accepted "the stewards did not agree with our interpretation of force majeure. Our aim is now to maximise the points we can score tomorrow."
U.S. May Scrap Costly Efforts to Train Iraqi Police
By TIM ARANGO
Published: May 13, 2012
BAGHDAD - In the face of spiraling costs and Iraqi officials who say they never wanted it in the first place, the State Department has slashed - and may jettison entirely by the end of the year - a multibillion-dollar police training program that was to have been the centerpiece of a hugely expanded civilian mission here.
What was originally envisioned as a training cadre of about 350 American law enforcement officers was quickly scaled back to 190 and then to 100. The latest restructuring calls for 50 advisers, but most experts and even some State Department officials say even they may be withdrawn by the end of this year.
The training effort, which began in October and has already cost $500 million, was conceived of as the largest component of a mission billed as the most ambitious American aid effort since the Marshall Plan.
Those of you that read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River. It was a rural sort of place that did not particularly appreciate education, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.
C. W., Mr. Clark to me, was a very nice man. He worked at a TeeVee repair shop in Fort Smith (yes, people actually had TeeVees fixed back then when they broke) and moonlighted some as well. At the time, a TeeVee was relatively much more expensive that they are now, so repairing them was the norm.
We had the same TeeVee from since I could remember until my father finally upgraded to a color unit around 1968 or so. Actually, that is not quite true. I remember a very old console unit with a round picture tube and watching it, but that must have been before I was three.
From the "Only in Japan" file: A column in The Japan Times mentioned that many pet groomers in this country now offer "claw decoration," i.e., having your dog's nails done. One "dog beauty artist" in Tokyo charges between ¥3,000 and ¥5,000 for all four paws. Apparently, a common request is for dog and owner to get matching nail art.
Good news for cat lovers. Cat cafés, where customers can "mingle freely with felines in a relaxed atmosphere," might not have to abide by new Ministry of Environment regulations that limit the hours pets can be displayed (8am-8pm). It's all part of a plan to reduce the stress level of animals at pet shops.
And a bit of good news for bald mice, as well. Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science have reportedly been successful in efforts to grow hair on hairless rodents. It's tough enough to find a mate when you're at the bottom of the vermin totem pole, but when you're bald, too...
Another group of some ten protesters went on a hunger strike in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to show their displeasure over the government's plan to restart nuclear reactors at the Oi power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
A Yokohama court gave a "spiritual salon" manager a suspended sentence after finding her guilty of fraud. The 48-year-old woman committed a "clever and malicious crime that took advantage of people's worries about health and work to scam them out of money."
Police were investigating the case of a severed wire in a wing of a Boeing 787 produced at a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plant in Nagoya. The cut appears to have been intentional and is similar to other cases in 2002 and 2009.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can't, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
I decided to devote most of the recipes this week to dishes that involve cooking lettuce. I couldn't resist one simple romaine and radish salad, but the rest of the dishes are cooked. I used the tough outer leaves of romaine or leaf lettuce in blended sauces and entire heads in soups. I tested several classic French braised lettuce recipes, but as promising as these looked on paper, they didn't appeal to me nearly as much as the more vibrant Chinese stir-fried lettuce dishes I tried, or the puréed soups. In the French braised dishes, the life seemed to be cooked out of the lettuces.
I used sturdy lettuces like romaine and leaf lettuce for the cooked dishes, not tender spring mixes, which really should be dedicated to salads. Bitter lettuces with tough outer leaves, like curly endive (a k a escarole or chicory) and Batavia, stand up to cooking the same way greens like kale do. Use the recipes not only when you have a surfeit of lettuce in your C.S.A. basket, but also for the tough outer leaves of the one head of romaine in your fridge that you don't want to include in your salads.
"Punting the Pundits" is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past "Punting the Pundits".
Edward Luce says what many of us have been thinking: there's a dangerous lack of focus in the Obama campaign, all too reminiscent of previous episodes.
Mr. Luce, a columnist at the Financial Times, wrote on April 22: "In the absence of a lift-off, Mr. Obama will be vulnerable to the question Reagan posed to voters in 1980 when he turned Jimmy Carter into a one-term president: 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' Mr. Carter had no real comeback. Mr. Obama is still struggling to find his."
Above all, President Obama isn't telling a clear story about the economy.
The 2012 election should be about what's going on in America's boardrooms, but Republicans would rather it be about America's bedrooms.
Mitt Romney says he's against same-sex marriage; President Obama just announced his support. North Carolina voters have approved a Republican-proposed amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Minnesota voters will be considering a similar amendment in November. Republicans in Maryland and Washington State are seeking to overturn legislative approval of same-sex marriage there.
Meanwhile, Republicans have introduced over four hundred bills in state legislatures aimed at limiting womens' reproductive rights - banning abortions, requiring women seeking abortions to have invasive ultra-sound tests beforehand, and limiting the use of contraceptives.
The Republican bedroom crowd doesn't want to talk about the nation's boardrooms because that's where most of their campaign money comes from. And their candidate for president has made a fortune playing board rooms like checkers.
"It plays right into the hands of a bunch of pundits out there," sighed Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, on Thursday. [..]
In his conference call, Dimon claimed that the disastrous hedging strategy had not violated the Volcker Rule. Rather, he said, it violated the "Dimon principle." By which he meant, I think, that it was an example of the kind of dumb risk-taking that JPMorgan usually avoids.
But that's just the point, isn't it? Even at a bank as ostensibly well-run as JPMorgan, the incentives still exist for giant, risky bets to be made that can go very wrong. JPMorgan can withstand a $2 billion hit, but not every bank can - and who's to say that the next derivatives debacle won't be $5 billion or $10 billion? Jamie Dimon is undoubtedly a very good bank chieftain, but he's only one man in a large institution; he can't oversee every trade. The only way to change incentives industrywide - and get bank risk-taking under better control - is through a combination of tougher rules and more transparency. Which is precisely what Dodd-Frank aims to do.
The truth is that the real world has paid the high priests of austerity an unwelcome visit
When I first read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine a few years ago, I had no idea how prescient the book was. It was a polemic about "disaster capitalism", arguing that sudden crises are intentionally manipulated to push through extreme free market policies that were otherwise not politically possible. But early 2008 was a completely different era: although Northern Rock had just suffered the first bank run for 150 years, it seemed like a bizarre blip. The US sub-prime crisis was rumbling away, but it was like sheet lightning from a distant storm. "The deficit" was not an everyday term of political debate. It was not at all clear that the world was about to be utterly transformed.
And yet the past four years have proved a total vindication of Klein's argument. A crisis of the market was cleverly transformed by free market ideologues into a crisis of public spending. Across Europe, the biggest slump since the 1930s has been used to push through policies straight out of some right-wing wet dream: the slashing of taxes on the rich and major corporations; the selling off of public services; and a bonfire of workers' rights. It is disaster capitalism on speed.
But, this week, the great revolt against the Shock Doctrine began. That is exactly how we must understand the sudden sea change in European politics: not least, the election of Socialist François Hollande in France, and the stunning breakthrough of anti-austerity leftists in the Greek elections.
'Lower-Priority Spending' takes on new meaning as Paul Ryan and John Boehner dominate budget debate
When Republican Congressman Paul Ryan released his budget, he charged six House committees with finding $309 billion in spending cuts over ten years in order to avert $55 billion in military cuts scheduled for January 2013 under a bipartisan agreement. He wrote that these cuts would be found in "lower-priority spending." (pdf)
On Thursday, House Republicans approved the cuts along a party-line vote, revealing exactly what they consider to be "lower-priority spending." [..]
But for House Republicans, their preferred alternative of cutting lower-priority spending means... a $36 billion cut in food stamps (SNAP), which largely helps the elderly, disabled people, children and the working poor. Two million people would lose their benefits entirely and 44 million would have their benefits reduced-the current average benefit is $4 per person per day. Two hundred and eighty thousand low-income children would also lose automatic access to free school breakfast and lunch. The bill also cuts the SNAP employment and training program by 72 percent, making it more difficult for jobless recipients to find work. It's important to note that SNAP kept 5 million people from poverty in 2010 and reduced poverty rates by 8 percent in 2009.
The science of the situation is clear - it's time for the politics to follow
Global warming isn't a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves "regardless of what we do."
If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.
Canada's tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet's species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.
New poll shows support for Afghanistan war lower than ever, and for good reason.
It shouldn't surprise anyone, but support for the longest U.S. war is dropping further and faster than ever. The latest national U.S. poll, released on May 9, shows 66 percent of Americans are against the war in Afghanistan - with 40 percent "strongly opposed."
We can expect to hear the usual spin, claims that it's a hard slog but Afghans are still better off and we have to finish what we started. That only the presence of our brave troops is giving the Afghan government and military the chance to consolidate their rule. That only our troops provide the possibility for stability and security in Afghanistan. That we have to stay to protect Afghan women.
But the reality is people have watched - and paid for - this war for more than eleven years now, and some facts just can't be spun anymore. Half of the 66 percent who oppose the war say that the presence of U.S. troops is actually hurting the people of Afghanistan more than they are helping. They're the ones who got it right.
Thank you, Mr. Matthews, for showing the rest of the media how a bigot should be treated. This is how a responsible journalist responds to hate speech.
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past "On This Day in History"here.
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May 12 is the 132nd day of the year (133rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 233 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1937, George Denis Patrick Carlin was born in the Bronx. He was raised by his mother in Morningside Heights which he and his friends called "White Harlem" because it sounded tougher. He was raised Irish Catholic and educated in Catholic schools. He often ran away from home. After joining the Air Force while stationed in Louisiana, Carlin became a DJ in Shreveport starting on his long career in entertainment. Carlin rose to fame during the 60's and 70's, generating the most controversy with his famous "Seven Dirty Words":
Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, and Tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul, curve your spine and keep the country from winning the war.
His arrest and the subsequent FCC rulings ended up in the Supreme Court which upheld the right of the FCC to regulate the public airways. In the ruling it called the routine "indecent but not obscene".
In 1961, Carlin was also present in the audience the night that Lenny Bruce was arrested in San Fransisco for obscenity. He was arrested, as well, after the police, who were questioning the audience, asked Carlin for ID. He said he didn't have any because he didn't believe in government-issued ID's.
We all know the rest. His popularity as a comic and "commentarian" on politics, religion and social issues made him a popular guest on late night talk shows. His death in June 22, 2008 saddened many. He left behind his second wife, Sally Wade, whom he married after his first wife Brenda died of liver cancer in 1997. He left a daughter by his first marriage, Kelly.
Richard (my Dad) tells me that McLaren sending out their test drivers instead of their race drivers means big changes, not mere tweeking and I suppose we shall see. They come to Barcelona with a new nose and most teams have made at least some changes though many are complaining that in-season testing is a huge waste of time.
Personally I think that attitude means your team is under-organized or capitalized or both. If you don't have the chance to react to innovation you might as well write off your season and if you choose not to...
Teams and drivers are closely matched after 20% of the season with the biggest 'surprises' being Scuderia Marlboro (they suck and have a slow car too, the surprise is that they are doing as well as they are) and Lotus (which shouldn't really surprise anyone since they're the Renault team renamed). Mercedes (Brawn) is incredibly unhappy with the new Concorde which leaves them out of the $50 Million bribe club (Red Bull, McLaren, Marlboro) and has scheduled a vote on their participation next year even though they're showing improvement.
Schumacher is also upset with Pirelli, complaining that so much attention is going into tire wear that that it's like "driving on raw eggs" and there's no opportunity to test the other aspects of the cars or the aggressiveness of the drivers. This week we are using Hards and Softs with a 1.3 second per lap differential between them and no indication yet how long they will last on track.
After the Bahrain avalanche I suppose any amount of news would seem slight and I'll try to delve a little deeper for the race tomorrow, but they're still fussing with setups in Practice and we won't actually know anything until after Qualifying.
Repeat tonight at 1 am. The actual race is a 7:30 am start tomorrow on Speed with a repeat at noon Monday. GP2 starts at 6 am.
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Back in the 29 Nov 2009 Sunday Train, 
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
On this day in 1937, 
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