Reports From My Nanocosm

Palin pre-empts state report, clears self in probe – Yahoo News.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska â?? Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Sen. John McCain’s running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother-in-law.

“Nobody is above the law” is a basic precept in American law. This “report” defines conflict-of-interest and should be taken for what it is – a sham. It would be similar to the Nixon administration issuing a report finding Nixon had done nothing wrong in the Watergate scandal while Congress was agitating for his cooperation.

Tags: politics

Tags: Casimir, family, sprout

Apparently, a Mountain Lion was spotted in Sunnyvale, along the San Francisco Bay shoreline. This is the last place I’d expect to see a cougar roaming about. Yikes. I wonder if Mountain View posted warnings at Shoreline Park or Sunnyvale at Baylands Park.

This email was sent by my company this week.

Subject: Mountain Lion Sighting: Be Cautious on Trails Surrounding the Sunnyvale Campus

Yahoos,

Please use caution when using the trails surrounding the Sunnyvale campus. This past Saturday, several trail users reported seeing a mountain lion within 100 yards of our campus, just north of Twin Creeks Field #4 near the trail of Baylands Park.

If you plan to use the trails

Mountain lions are quiet, solitary and elusive, and typically avoid people — attacks on humans are extremely rare.  However, conflicts are increasing as California â??s human population expands into mountain lion habitat.

Here are a few tips to follow:

• Do not hike, bike or jog alone.
• Avoid hiking or jogging when mountain lions are most activeâ??dawn, dusk, and at night.
• Keep a close watch on small children.
• Do not approach a mountain lion.
• If you encounter a mountain lion, do not run; instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms; throw rocks or other objects.  Pick up small children.
• If attacked, fight back.
• If a mountain lion attacks a person, immediately call 911.

For more information about mountain lions, visit the California Department of Fish and Game:  http://www.dfg.ca.gov.

Tags: bay area, california

10 Trillion Reasons, originally uploaded by dfb.

In all this talk about bailing out Wall Street (let’s all call a pig a pig; this is a bailout) nobody is really talking about how we will pay for it. Are those assets really worth $700 billion dollars? I don’t think that anyone can say they certainly are worth that, let alone half that much.

The value of those assets is at the heart of the credit crisis. Banks and other financial firms world-wide do not trust lending to each other because nobody knows how much they really are worth. And because nobody knows what they are worth, they are no longer acceptable collateral to use in securing additional debt obligations, even if for the short term. Which brings me back to my initial point. Nobody is really talking about how we will ultimately pay for this bail out. Who, really, will pay? That’s right, regular tax payers.

Fiscal responsibility seems to escape politicians and Wall Street alike.

I do not understand why the Federal Government needs to pay
for toxic securities, or at least pay up front for them. Why can’t the program accept full portfolios of these fancy securities with no known value, and take on all the risk. If that wipes out the capital of an institution, so be it. The Feds will sort everything out, unbundling the securities and re-packaging them into fully transparent securities that can be adequately valued. Those transparent securities will be sold off. Fifty percent (50%) of the value, after factoring in cost of the program, will go to the Federal Government for taking on the risk. The other 50% to the previous holder of the securities or their creditors.

Every bailout must come with some serious revenge, otherwise what is to stop this same issue from happening again. CEO pay caps and small equity stakes in the firms are a good start. But if we really want them to pay for this and to give strong incentive against future, similar behavior, we need to make them pay more. And in the meantime, maybe, just maybe we can pay down the debt a little and not leave it to our children and grandchildren. Oh, that’s right, wishful thinking. The big spenders in both major parties are more interested in waging war, porking it up, and spreading the wealth around, than in responsibly running our government.

Tags: economics, policy, politics