mostly palaver

Sigh

Buried at work, digging out after a little R&R in NY.  Posting soon, I promise. 

At least it should be easy to identify them

From Cyclingnews.com (scroll):

Natalino Moletta was stopped by the Italian Guardia Finanza as one of three passengers in a vehicle travelling from Padua to the Giro d'Italia which reportedly contained 82 packages of Viagra, along with a disposable syringe hidden in a tube of toothpaste and a refrigerator with other unidentified products. The search was reportedly part of a wider investigation into doping at gyms in Padua, but reports also indicated the car, and thus the products on board, were headed to the Giro d'Italia. However, there is no indication that the police action was aimed at the Gerolsteiner team.

...

WADA's spokesman Frédéric Donzé confirmed that Viagra is not banned in competition, but said that the agency is looking into the matter. "WADA is aware of the high altitude study presented in Science Daily. WADA monitors this substance, as it does with many other substances, and is currently funding a research project on the performance-enhancing potential of Sildenafil at various altitudes."

McCain and the Troops

He'd rather selfishly raise money for himself than vote on a bill to support the troops:

McCain, who has repeatedly said he opposes the measure, decided to raise money in California and skipped the vote. All 22 “nay” votes were conservative Republicans.

Not go on record against it, of course, merely speak out against it and not vote either way.  It's a disturbing trend for Captain Courageous.

When was the last time he actually placed a vote in the Senate, does anyone know?

The Transformation is Complete

There is nothing left to Clinton but will to power.  Maybe there never was anything else, but I must admit that for a while I did believe that Clinton was a person who believed in policy, in government's ability to favorably impact lives and had a genuine interest in the welfare of Americans.  I fear that's all gone now, consumed by a white-hot burning thirst for power. 

I started to notice a changeway back in February when she started talking about Michigan and Florida after having agreed in advance that they wouldn't count.  It seemed like she was trying to change the rules mid-course because she was in a tightening race with Obama. 

I continued to be disillusioned with her unbelievable gas tax holiday pander.  It was cynical, it was counterproductive, it was against everything Clinton was supposed to be.

But the latest - comparing Florida and Michigan to Zimbabwe, to the struggles that women and blacks endured to secure the vote... that rhetoric has no place here, there is simply no comparison:

"In Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner," she said. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren't count, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished."

Of course, Clinton is actually trailing in the popular vote too unless you use her math (include Florida and Michigan (where Obama wasn't even on the ballot) and exclude several caucus states won by Obama).  And it's not as if Florida is going to get a chance to re-vote anyway - they went to the polls KNOWING that their votes weren't going to count.

"This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party," she said. "From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak."

Of course, at the beginning of the process she agreed to the disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida.  John Chiatt expresses what I suspect many of us are feeling:

This gambit by Clinton is simply an attempt to steal the nomination. It's obviously not going to work, because Democratic superdelegates don't want to commit suicide. But this episode is very revealing about Clinton's character. I try not to make moralistic characterological judgments about politicians, because all politicians compromise their ideals in the pursuit of power. There are no angels in this business. Clinton's gambit, however, truly is breathtaking.

If she's consciously lying, it's a shockingly cynical move. I don't think she's lying. I think she's so convinced of her own morality and historical importance that she can whip herself into a moralistic fervor to support nearly any position that might benefit her, however crass and sleazy. It's not just that she's convinced herself it's okay to try to steal the nomination, she has also appropriated the most sacred legacies of liberalism for her effort to do so. She is proving herself temperamentally unfit for the presidency.

She is moving beyond contesting the primary and moving towards aggressively pulling the party apart.  By beginning to imply that the nomination has been somehow stolen from her, that Obama and the Democrats are conspiring to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan to keep her out of the White House, to elevate her importance while simultaneously lowering her tactics is unforgivable.  I used to believe that regardless of the outcome she'd rally to ensure a Democrat winds up in the White House in 2008.  I can't be sure of that anymore. 

Her fall is now almost complete. I fear it will continue.

Interesting fact for the day

or, "Fun with Statistics".  For April, the consumer price index rise was lower then expected.  One key component to the CPI is (of course) energy.  And in April, energy did this:

During the first four months of 2008, the CPI-U rose at a 3.0 percent  seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR).  This compares with an increase of 4.1 percent for all of 2007.  The deceleration thus far this year reflects smaller increases in the indexes for energy and for all items less food  and energy.  The index for energy advanced at a 6.3 percent SAAR in the first four months of 2008 compared with 17.4 percent in 2007.  Petroleum- based energy costs decreased at a 0.7 percent annual rate while charges  for energy services rose at a 17.7 percent annual rate. 

So, according to the CPI, energy actually FELL compared to last year.  "PAH!" you say, "I've been to a gas station and those prices keep going up and up."  And to a large extent you would be right.  The thing to keep in mind is that energy costs in the CPI are seasonalized, that is a weighting factor is applied to each month's expenses to offset observed, repeated swings in price from year to year.  Here's the thing though, at the end of the year, all of the seasonal factors have to net to zero - if you discount for seasonal prices rises today, you have to inflate for seasonal price decreases tomorrow. 

Here's the catch - the CPI energy seasonality is largely front-loaded, that is all the discounting happens at the beginning of the year and then the BLS assumes that fuel prices will actually fall during the remainder of the year.  What does that mean to you and me?  Well, it means that if fuel prices don't fall, then fuel prices will likely put upward pressure on the CPI.  And they have to fall a lot (one estimate I saw said that prices in December 2008 will have to 17% lower than today just to net to zero).  Think that's going to happen?  Me neither. 

The good news is, for those of you on fixed incomes tied to inflation, I'd be willing to be that you are going to get a pretty good increase in the size of your checks next year.  The bad news?  Inflation is going to rise considerably in the 2nd half of this year, and with the state of the economy the Fed can't do much about it.

Who you gonna believe?

You or my stupid models? 

Saw this on a quick scan of the papers this morning and laughed:

GM spokesman Tony Cervone said the company didn't overestimate demand and blamed the current sales slump on the U.S. economy's slowdown. Earlier in the decade, he said, trends in household income and spending power all pointed toward steady growth. A Chrysler spokesman says the company sees long-term growth in the U.S., driven by its growing population and income levels.

Because, you know, when you estimate demand for motor vehicles in the US the state of the economy is external to the model. 

No wonder they're in trouble.

The Giro

The Tour of Italy (Giro) is underway and Astana is riding after all.  Today was the first day of some climbing and the boys in blue looked pretty good with Contador, Kloden and Levi all finishing strong.  The big Giro news initially was Slipstream-Chipotle winning the team time trial on Stage 1 (followed by the unfortunate Stage 2 crashing out of Dave Zabriske with a broken L5 vertebrae incurred during a poorly executed RR crossing).  Slipstream had a good first week, but has been plagued by equipment trouble.  First, it was Dave Millar breaking a chain at a key point on stage 5 - with 1K to go in a stage that he had a great chance of winning, then it was big Magnus breaking a seatpost on stage 6 which led him to expend a ton of energy to regain the breakaway he was in and impaired his ability to win the stage. 

Remember that Magnus also saw his chances in Paris-Roubaix destroyed along with his carbon fiber rear wheel, as I mentioned here. 

I love bike racing and in particular love the technology that goes into bike racing.  It's very much why I am such a big F1 fan as well. I'm starting to wonder though if they are finally pushing too hard on material development.  Bikes now are down to the UCI-mandated 6.8 kg (about 15 lbs. and the mandate is another post altogether), but that overstates their weight a bit because the frames and components (wheels, seatposts, etc.) are so light that teams are putting on extra components (SRAM power meters, etc.) to bring the weight UP to 6.8 kg. (Cannondale had a fantastic stunt in the Giro two years ago where they produced bikes for their riders that were below the 6.8 kg limit, then glued weights to the top tubes of the bikes to bring the bikes up to 6.8 kg.) What good is a bike that light if you can't ride it to the finish?  I know that pro riders want the latest "gee whiz" stuff and are looking for every possible advantage (see: Doping).  That said, I wonder how many of them would feel more confident on a 7 kg bike that is bombproof over a lighter bike that could break. We'll find out I guess. 

Microsoft and Yahoo!

I was as surprised as anyone when MSFT pulled the bid for Yahoo!. I didn't think that Yahoo! could walk away (and still don't). But the bid from MSFT never really made much sense to me, I never really understood what MSFT got from the deal (and I still don't). Sure they improve their search rankings and gain some content. They get access to the excellent and well-received Yahoo! Finance. But then? It could be a lack of imagination on my part, but I don't see this making MSFT any stronger.

For the longest time I didn't even think that MSFT really had to do anything at all in a timely manner, it is a very entrenched entity with a huge market share in the desktop OS. Sure, things are starting to move off the desktop, but people are creatures of habit and moves off the desktop are going to be a while. And who wants to surf the web on a Motorola Razr anyway?

I was reminded of a case study I studied in grad school that discussed how IBM was able to monitor new entrants to the hard disk drive market and watch to see if new standards took off. IBM started with something like 14" drives, moving to 8" once those took off (and putting the companies who introduced 8" drives into the market out of business in the process) and repeated the process with 5.25" drives and eventually 3.5" drives. I thought MSFT was essentially in the same place, able to monitor developments and adjust accordingly.

Then, something happened that changed my thinking completely. I got an iMac. No, this isn't a Mac-love post (although I do), it's a bye-bye MSFT post. Once I got my Mac, I was off Windows. For browsers I use Safari and Firefox (and had been using Firefox for a while anyway). All of my personal MS Office files? They went either to Open Office or up to Google Docs. Poof! In a day, literally, I was off MSFT products. And there is no reason to go back.

If anything, the Mac is going to be more central to my life than our old PC ever was - it's got a big screen (bigger than our TV) and a remote for watching DVD's, wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard and mouse for improved range, applications galore. This will be the hub that MSFT wishes it was.

So I get it now. MSFT is sitting on a mountain of cash but they are toast, if not now, soon. If not Apple, then Google or some other company we've not heard of yet. The infamous lock-in of the OS and Office are gone. I LIKE being able to access my spreadsheets from anywhere I can get a net connection. I like hardware (and software) that just works. I like, no, I love Gmail. And that's got them panicked. And panicked people make bad decisions - like bidding for Yahoo!

Thoughts?

The Race

Why is she still in? This is a serious question - she's all but mathematically eliminated, broke and about to be embarrassed as more and more super delegates break for Obama. So why is she still in the race? And why is she asking poor white folk (her core constituency) for money? I don't understand.

Oh, and imagine if the situation was reversed. The cacophony of calls for Obama's withdrawal would be deafening.

I don't really have much more to add here other than to log my confusion.

Was that so hard?

Matthews acting like a journalist. I still can't stand him, but if more of this happens the world will be a better place.