Anagram: Ego Obscures Reality/ Secretly A Bourgeois

       

    Political election news leads off tonight.  A few surprises tonight, a big one was the loss by New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, who is at this point losing by over 100,000 votes with 99% of the precincts.  This man a few weeks ago had a fair lead, and as late as last week Jon Corzine had a 5% lead on Chris Christie.  Mister Christie however rode a wave of anti-Government sentiment to a win in the New Jersey race this evening.  I find it interesting that Independent Chris Daggett seems to have pulled enough votes from Corzine to make a real difference in this election.  Jon Corzine has lost by 106,000 votes, and Mister Daggett got a total of 132,000 votes.  Now there is no guarantee that ALL those votes would have gone to Jon Corzine, but most pollsters seem convinced that he would pull votes from The Democratic Governor of New Jersey.

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        Another surprise, to me at least, is the less than amazing poll numbers for conservative John Hoffman in NY23.  with 76% of precincts reporting, the man who has been talked up by the right as being their guy is losing to democrat Bill Owens.  I believe I need to remind everyone here that the last time a democrat won a congressional seat in this district, neither Oregon, Kansas nor Nebraska were yet states in the Union.  Now, there are still some 11,000 absentee ballots to be counted, so this race is far from over, but this race is much MUCH tighter than anyone, I think was ready for. The final Siena poll in NY23 had Hoffman winning this race by 5 points with a 41%-36% advantage.  There was a second poll out by PPP that saw a convincing win for the Hoffman camp on the Horizon.  Goes to show you that sometimes polling can be really off.

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     But the biggest surprise tonight may have been in a losing cause.  Bill Thompson ran a failed bid to unseat Mayor Mike Bloomberg, but was much closer than anyone had anticipated.  Most polls out had King Mike pulling this victory out in runaway fashion, generally winning by between 12 and 15 points.  Not exactly the way it happened.  The win for Bloomberg was in doubt for much of the night, and only at the end of the night did he manage to put any distance between himself and Bill Thompson.   Mike Bloomberg won by less than half the margin predicted in either of these contests, a 5.6% margin. 

    I guess $100,000,000 doesn’t go quite as far as it used to.  This is far from a mandate for mayor Bloomberg, it is, if anything, a wake up call for the man.  A lot of people were unhappy with the way he seemed to just take the system and change it to his advantage by overriding the will of the people, and he lost large swaths of votes as a result. 

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   News Flash!  Bill Owens, Democrat in New York’s 23rd district has just been declared the winner in that race!

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    There are a great many more stories from tonight, and a great many more sources to pull from than the few that I used here.  I want now to turn my attention to something that has been said, and that I have heard about the election results nationwide, that this is a referendum on The President, or this administrations policies, or that these results are a referendum on the economy, or jobs, or whatever.

     I am not certain that that is 100% true.  There is a kernel of truth in it, but I think the truth of what this night means is not something quite as simple as all that.  To try and place a larger nation context on smaller races is a bit of a joke, if anything the NY23 puts that lie to the run and shows that if anything, that particular vote was a referendum on not being pushed around by the media and big name politicians, trying to push their weight around.  That race was a direct slap at all the right wing wing nuts who tried to make it about who was far enough right to run in their district. 

   This election was very much about more local issues than about any national agenda, even if those local issues were driven by  larger concerns for the economy or political infighting.  This election was less a referendum on Obama, and more a referendum on a weak candidate in Virginia, a self righteous man who tried to buy an election in New York and a too self assured candidate who represented big money in New Jersey… in other words, and like I said, more local and less national, more a personal focus and less big picture.

     That’s my take anyway.  And I didn’t even mention the ballot measures, either the ones in New York that I mentioned yesterday, which passed, I believe, that’s what it looked like on the NY1 website, or the other big ones in Maine or Washington.  Go fig, prolly hit that tomorrow, if I’m not too busy.

   That’s it from here.  Later!

Today’s nuggets, via wikiquote:  In short, we must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy or quick or permanent solutions. And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only six percent of the world’s population, that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.  President John F. Kennedy

If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Anagram: Anything So Severe/ Nothings Ever Easy

       Couldn’t find any viddy’s on tonight’s Yankee game, so here’s some joy from the late great George Carlin, on the differences between Baseball and Football.  Classic stuff.

    

     Yankees Lose.  ThEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Yankees Lose!  I said this World Series was going to go 6, but I never thought I’d be unhappy about it before now.  A.J. Burnett Sucked out loud today, and to be honest, I really couldn’t watch after those first two innings.  I say that to you, and you have to understand that I didn’t watch the first two innings because I was busy running around and missed it.  I think I actually watched about ten pitches the whole night.  Usually when I watched It was a mess.  Someone on Philly would get a hit, or if the Yankees were batting they f***** up.  The clearest example of this was in the 9th inning.  Jeter at the dish.  I turn around to see what’s happening, and lo! and behold!, he grounds into a double play. Turn it off for a minute, Damon singles, turn the game on with Teixeira up, he strikes out to end the game.

     At least the Yankees, who were out of this game early, came back and made a game of it.  The hitting picked up some in the eighth and ninth, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the horrendous start by Burnett, the Yankees only gave up 3 runs after he was pulled. 

     My wife wants him cut from the rosterbut i tell you I wouldn’t go that far.  The Yankees wouldn’t be in the world series without him, and he has pitched some good games for us including a gem in game two.  Yankees fans are going to have to wait and see what happens when Pedro goes up against Andy Pettitte on three days rest on Wednesday, though.  Should be an interesting matchup.

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     Election news you may not be up on.  There are two ballot initiatives here in New York. 

     B.I. 1 is an offer of a land trade between New York State and National Grid.  National grid will give up 10 acres of land in one portion of Saint Lawrence county for the use of 6 acres in another portion, so National Grid can build power lines to update the grid in that area.  The ten acres must be agreed upon by the state as being at least equal in value to the land being given up before N.G. gets the land.  If you are interested you can read about it in the actual Board of elections certification for both ballot initatives here.

   If we get more land then we give up, and the people of the state get a better grid, who am I to quarrel.  I will vote yes on New York Prop 1.

   B.I. 2 is an attempt by the state to give prisoners the capacity to voluntarily do work for non profit organizations.  Right now state and local inmates may not work for anyone but the state “and it’s political divisions and public institutions” as mandated by the state constitution , this B.I. would simply expand the work the inmates do to include non profit organizations. 

    There is no reason that I see at all to vote against this measure.  It is meant to expand the amount of work we get out of state and local prisoners.  Not a damn thing wrong with that.  I will also vote yes on New York Prop 2.

  To read about these ballot measures and others, go to ballotpedia.org. 

     

   As for the mayoral race, I will be voting for Bill Thompson.  Bloomberg isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but his term is up, his time is to have expired, and he is only here by virtue of him going out of his way to alter the city charter so he could grab a third term outside the consent of the voting public.   I was not, am not and will never be a fan of term limits, but these term limits were the law, until King Mike decided it was time to change that.  Yes the city council was also in on it, so they share a portion of the blame, but this election should not be about Mike Bloomberg, yet it is, because he decided the will of the people was wrong and got the city council to bend the rules especially for him.

     That is wrong, and on the strength of that, and that alone, do I say no to Mike Bloomberg.  I will be voting for Bill Thompson because the will of the people here has been subverted by the will of a multi-billionaire who wants to be King for a few more years.

    As for the other races, I will be voting for John Liu for comptroller and Bill DeBlasio for public advocate.   The little I know about these two men outweighs the nothing I know about their challengers, Joe Mendola(for comptroller) and Alex Zablocki(for public advocate). 

   The little I know about Liu and DeBlasio?  Liu is a multi term member of the city council from Queens, and the first asian to serve on said council and has been endorsed by, among others, the firefighters union, teamsters  and the UFT. Bill DeBlasio is a former regional director of HUD, but may be more well known, in political circles at least, as the former campaign manager for Hillary Clintons first senatorial campaign. 

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    That’s about it, folks.  Don’t forget to vote tomorrow, wherever you are.   Have a good night.

Today’s Nuggets, by Alexis De Tocqueville, via wikiquote:  The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

Anagram: Midget Vampires/ Gimp Met Adviser

       Happy Halloween one and all!  An afternoon edition of the daily rhino this day, and it finds me reporting some news from upstate New York.  Dede Scozzafava, the Republican running in the hotly contested race in N.Y. 23rd district suddenly decided to drop out of the race, opening the race up for conservative front runner Douglas Hoffman. 

     A video from last week, where she calls out Mr. Hoffman and the lack of debates.

  

     This situation is both good and bad for the Republicans.  On the positive side, if Mrs. Scozzafava had decided to stay in the race, it could well have split the republican/conservative vote in a district that has voted republican since before the civil war, and given the race to Democrat Bill Owens.  This move fairly well cements the race for the conservative candidate. Only by splitting the race between Scozzafava and Hoffman did the Democrat, Mr. Owens stand a chance. 

     On the negative side for the republicans, this looks for all the world like she felt the need to back out of the race due to the external influence exerted by members of the far right fringe, most notably Sarah Palin and a man who only recently joined the fringe, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty.  Does it mean that every race where the local candidate does not meet the far rights criterion will be pounded into submission, subverting the will of the local members of the party? 

     This very much does look like a shot across the bow for every moderate Republican in America, telling them that regardless of the will of the local party, they will make you follow their will.   They may well believe in small government, and hate the heavy, oppressive hand of Government, but they work with a very heavy hand themselves.

    The word hypocrisy comes to mind.

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    BTW, i went with the anagram midget Vampires here instead of Dede Scozzafava because that name doesn’t have much in the way of anagrams that make much sense.  I like my anagrams to make at least a LITTLE sense. 

   How much sense “Gimp met adviser” makes I leave to you. 

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      In more New York news, Dominic Carter, the #1 anchor at NY1 news has lost that #1 position because he “name dropped” at a hearing, hoping to have charges dropped against him in a case where he allegedly beat his wife, an allegation that he and his wife both now.  His bosses found out about his name dropping  the same way the rest of us did, by reading the newspaper.  They were not amused, seeing how it violates journalistic principles, and summarily dropped him.

     For his part, Mr. Carter’s wife says she lied when se said it was he who beat her, and now blames a day laborer whose name she doesn’t remember.  But that doesn’t make it right for him to drop names in court to pull his ass out of the fire.  And the best part is that he claims he wasn’t name dropping, he was trying to explain to the judge the sensitivity of the situation.

     Ya, sensitive as far as keeping him employed and out of jail. There is NO reason to tell a judge you are friends with the D.A. in my eyes that doesn’t involve trying to save yer bacon.

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   That’s about it from here, except to toss out a quick “LET’S GO YANKEES” out here.  Later!

Today’s Nuggets, Via wikiquote:  Hypocrisy in anything whatever may deceive the cleverest and most penetrating man, but the least wide-awake of children recognizes it, and is revolted by it, however ingeniously it may be disguised.   Leo Tolstoy

I am sure that in estimating every man’s value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.  Thomas Jefferson

Anagram: I’d Much Rather/ Humid Charter

      I’d Much Rather be wrong while guided by my principles than right using someone else’s. 

       I have thought this particular thought a thousand times while conversing with a variety of people over the years for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes because I was struck with how wrong they were, how blind to what others have seen and gone through, sometimes because I’ve gotten the feeling that the person I was speaking to just seemed out of touch, or just plain stupid.  There is a reason I put this in here. Let’s watch together and listen to Tom DeLay, being…well…Tom DeLay.

   

     Tom is silly.  He seems to think that the Government doing it’s job is taking responsibility for your actions. Maybe it’s me, but it sounds to me like Tom really meant “Government wants to make my billionaire banker buddies more responsible for their actions and I don’t like that”.  He called the president a hypocrite for finding  two trillion dollars to cut out of the budget, when he signed a bill that spends 787 billion dollars.  Yeah, because jump starting the economy when the entire crux of the move is to JUMP START THE ECONOMY is somehow hypocritical.  Yes i know he was going in a different direction then that, but It does not matter, The move was designed to help the economy, not Tom DeLay and his texas billionaire buddies.  He still seems to think that cutting taxes to the point of starving the government so his friends can make money by the shovel full regardless of the effect on the economy is a good thing. 

     Ya Know, looking back at that first sentence, it looks like Tom thinks the same thing.  The only issue is the man doesn’t actually have principles, he has partisan wants that he thinks are American, when they in actuality are the personification of greed, both on a personal and political level.

       I’d much rather vote while guided by my principles that pick a winner just because he looks like one. 

    Ken Mitchell looked for all the world like the person who would win the City Council seat here on Staten Island’s north shore.  But i decided to read what each of the candidates had in mind.  After reading the thoughts and ideas of several people running in a special election yesterday, I picked the apparently almost entirely unheard of Donald Pagano.  Of the slightly more than 10,000 people who voted yesterday, I was one of 383 people who voted for this man.  3% of the people voted for him.  Ken Mitchell, who garnered 40% of the vote, looks to have won the race by 241 votes, but the second place finisher Debi Rose who got 38%, (whom i almost voted for) refuses to concede.

    Most everyone in this race talked of transportation, health care, and education. The thing that pushed me to vote for Mister Pagano is that he is the only one who spoke of getting a state funded hospital for Staten Island, the only borough in the city of New York without one.  The other major candidates did not speak to this issue. As a matter of fact, it was Debi Rose’s lack of any coherent plan on this front that pushed me away from voting for her. 

    I could have voted for either of these two, but went with who I thought was the best candidate.  He lsot and that sucks, but I’m glad i gave him my vote.  I’d frankly like to see whoever is declared the winner take up the fight for a state funded hospital here on Staten Island.

    I’d much rather not watch the Financial markets fall apart. I don’t think I’m alone here. 

     I was looking at the plan for the stress tests for the Banks today.  For those who don’t know, part of the test is as follows.  Put the banks books through the following test.  The test will see how the banks will respond if the Nation’s GDP losses 2% this year and recovers that 2% next year.  

     Wow.  That seems very optimistic. If this is the stress test, it would, to my mind be a mess to use this, due to extreme and undue optimism of viewpoint not borne out by current trends.  Most people’s projections up to this point have been badly off.  No one, at the beginning of last year, thought we would be where we are now.   No one thought the market would be near 7,000.  Most projections I saw from that point saw a  DJIA nearer to 11 or 12 thousand for end of 2008.  No one thought unemployment would be over 7%.  No one thought we would see a run on money market accounts to the tune of ½ trillion dollars in one day last September. 

      Now, to be truthful, I simply do not have enough information to know whether the banks stress test numbers are realistic projections, or if it is hopelessly optimistic, or what.  Luckily, there is a second test which takes a more negative tack, with a loss of 3.3% of GDP this year and little to no recovery of that next year.   The tests should be as negative as possible, to make sure we aren’t setting them up for failure due to an unrealistic optimism for our future.  Negative viewpoints here can help to point out who is weaker than they think.  If you asked each of these banks, they would tell you they are fine….right until they implode.  Why do you think so many banks have had to be taken over this year, because they are doing well?  They were weaker than they let on, and we the people, through the auspices of the Treasury department, need to make sure that the Bigger banks won’t do the same. 

     OK. Id’ much rather go hang out with my wife.  Just a quick Viddy a few quotes and I’m done, and I can go hang. 

     Bill Isaac, President of the Financial consulting company Secura Group and former FDIC Chairman, talking about Stress Tests on Bloomberg tv this morning.

    

     That’s it for me. Later!

Today’s Nuggets, by Robert A. Heinlein, Via Wikiquote:   Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. 

Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed.

Anagram: Addicted To Pain…/…And Diet Taco Dip

     That is a great anagram, dammit.    Election news first.

    Congratulations go out to Saxby Chambliss who has won the Georgia senate seat he was in a fight for with Democratic challenger Jim Martin. With 70% of precincts reporting, Chambliss is leading Mr. Martin by an impressive 227,477 votes out of just short of 1.5 million votes cast as of 9:40pm, for a rather surprisingly large 20 percent lead in this race.  Surprising because Jim Martin had kept it tight in the race with Sen. Chambliss, and was rarely, at least in the polls, out of the margin of error.  CNN had Chambliss with a 9 point lead with a week to go in the race, but that was about the only poll in the last 2 months of the race that had Sen. Chambliss that far ahead.  Even in polling from the last few weeks, Martin was never more than 7 points behind. 

    Martin cannot win, not with that kind of distance to cover and that few precincts to get those votes in.  Voter turnout was low by all accounts, and that, no doubt had a hand in Mr. Martin’s defeat, but he was never ahead at any point, so his defeat here is not really surprising.

      So much for the “Filibuster proof” democratic senate.  That was a pipe dream to begin with.  I am a Dem myself, and I don’t go in for pipe dreams, especially not ones that never had a chance in hell of becoming reality.  Now we can all get back to reality. 

      That’s it for The Georgia Run-off.  Time for Bailou….rescue news.

      That $25,000,000,000 bailou…rescue that was going to save the Auto industry has grown.  It’s now somewhere between 34 billion and 38 billion dollars, depending on what news source you look at.  Both Bloomberg and CNN Money said 34 Bill, while Forbes says 38 Bill.  Here’s the Forbes breakdown.  GM needs $18,000,000,000, Chrysler hasn’t changed it’s tune, it only needs $7,000,000,000, while Ford says they don’t need cash right now, is asking for a JIC (just in case) line of credit of up to $13,000,000,000. 

      Good news from GM, in so far as they are planning a massive scaleback. Here’s the plan from them.  The dumping of several major brands, Saturn, Saab, and Hummer, and a scale back of Pontiac to just a few models.  A reduction of dealers from 6,450 to 4,700, a total drop of 1,750 dealerships nationwide in the next 4 years.  Closing down 9 plants. These are power-train, stamping and assembly plants. The total number of Jobs cut will be somewhere between 22 and 32 thousand total, to somewhere between 65,000 and 75,000 total employees by 2012.  GM is also selling it’s corporate jets.  All of them.  And it’s CEO, Rich Wagoner, said he will cut pay to one dollar a year and forgo bonuses in 2008 and 2009 with other executives taking significant pay cuts.

    All that and they Still need eighteen Bill.  Jeez. 

    Robert Nardelli, Chrysler’s CEO says they need money and they need it now! The company says it only has about 2 and a ½ billion dollars in cash, while it expects to have to pay eleven billion six hundred million dollars in payments during the first ¼ of 2009. 

    What, these guys never heard of structured payment schedules?  Like we normal people use when we pay credit cards?  The Parts guy work for the mob or something, and maybe he’s gonna break nardelli’s legs if they don’t pay?

   Or will the parts companies simply go belly up? Read the Forbes story here.

    Today’s good news.  The DJIA went up 270 points. 

The Bad news.  Futures are down 70 points at the moment.  Just about the same place they were about 4 hours before Monday’s open.  Productivity and costs reports come out tomorrow, revising last months third quarter numbers.  Jobs numbers come out tomorrow as well, both from ADP and the challenger job cut report, which gives monthly corporate layoff numbers.

     That last one should give the market a shudder.  I am also curious to see what the beige book will say. I’ll read as much of it as i can and drop a few words from it on you tomorrow, unless I suddenly become sane or something completely uncalled for like that. 

   That’s it for the news. A short personal aside, then a Viddy and quotes.

if you had to run for your life youd be fast too

     I ran today. 2.84 miles in 23:56.34.   Might not be big news to you, but it sure as hell is to me. I haven’t run in two months.  That’s no good.  When I was running and working out everyday I weighed around 170 pounds, I had energy to spare, and a resting heart rate of around 50 beats per minute.  Before I started working out, basically just getting my body ready for the beginning of the new running regimen that began today, the weight was around 190, I had much less energy than I did, and the heart rate was significantly higher than the usual 50BPM, sometimes over 80 bpm resting.  But I ran today. A New Beginning, painful as that is. I am going to get that energy back.  I am going to get that lower resting BPM back.  Those 20 pounds, or a large portion of them, will disappear in a few weeks. 

    It feels good to be back, even with all the pain involved. 

     Today’s Viddy:  The Four Horsemen, Metallica:

   

    That’s it for me.  Later.

Today’s Nugget, from UV: 

The Farmer and the Snake

    ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him a mortal wound. “Oh,” cried the Farmer with his last breath, “I am rightly served for pitying a scoundrel.”

The greatest kindness will not bind the ungrateful.