Archive for May, 2008
Little Venice
Given that Athens and the surrounding Greek islands are to be my home this summer, I’ve been doing some research on Greek history. One name that keeps popping up is Eleftherios Venizelos, a prolific Greek statesman who was at the country’s helm as Crete revolted from Ottoman rule and became a part of Greece. Venizelos was the deciding factor in Greece’s decision to side with the allies (the Triple Entente) in World War I. The Greek King, Constantine, was related by blood to the German monarchy and hence supported the Central Powers. The fact that Venizelos was able to prevail over his own King speaks of his power and tact. Due to Mr. Venizelos’ alliance with the Entente, he was granted a seat at the Treaty of Paris, where the winners of the war divided up the spoils. Greece then received the Dodecanese Islands, some coastal areas in West Turkey (Smyrna/Izmir and Thrace), which brought the newly enlarged Greek empire to the Constantinople’s doorstep (the Greeks had long dreamed of owning an empire that included Constantinople and coastal Anatolia).
When I first came upon his surname, Venizelos, I thought it must’ve been an ancient progenitor of the name of modern Venezuela (many cities in South America are named after cities in Europe). I found the true story to be much more interesting: Amerigo Vespucci, upon seeing villages built atop stilts in South America, was reminded of Venice’s homes and decreed that the land was to be called Venezuola, meaning “little Venice” in Italian. It was later hispanicized using a Spanish diminutive form -zuela, and hasn’t changed since.
At What Cost
Politico just leaked deets on former Press Secretery Scott McClellan’s new tell-all book:
Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”
Mr. Lindsey was then fired because his estimate was double Bush’s estimate ($50 billion).
The cost of the Iraq war stands at $523 billion, and will reach $600 billion by the end of 2008, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has cost $1,738 per American. It’s 1200% over-budget using Bush’s initial war-cost estimate, or 261% over-budget when using Mr. Lindsey’s.
If Bush was angry at his economic adviser for projecting a $200 billion war, imagine how steamed he’d be if the true cost was known and reported back then.
Most economists and analysts estimate that the final cost of the Iraq war will exceed $1 trillion. When accounting for externalities like the increased price of oil and long-term care for war veterans, the cost rises to an incredible $4 trillion (~30% of U.S. GDP).
Idle Hands
Perhaps police officers will always be hated. They don’t do themselves any favors when they enforce laws in cases where no harm is being done.
A prime example: cops busted into a private art showing/gala in the Hamptons and asked the host to stop serving alcohol. She refused. Moments later, up to nine police cars and more than a dozen officers descended on the gallery and arrested [the host]. Then they carted out crates of fancy Champagne, wine and Grey Goose vodka.
Laws need to be removed and/or edited to ensure that they’re enforced only when someone is harmed. Also, police officers need to be non-confrontational and problem-solving, as opposed to their seemingly usual cavalier incitement of violence.
East End gallery owner carted off to jail for serving drinks without a license - NY Daily News
Shark Attacks
“Surfer Bruce Grimes from Texas was bitten on the arm on Saturday off nearby Playa Linda beach. Grimes, 49, said he paddled madly toward shore on his board after feeling the unmistakable sandy skin of a shark glide across the bottom of his feet as he straddled his surfboard.
“Then it bumped me really hard. I thought, ‘That’s definitely a big shark.’ I took about three more strokes and he grabbed my arm,” said Grimes, who pulled himself free and made it to the beach. He managed to drive himself to a hospital, where he received 100 stitches.”
Two attacks in April and May killed a Mexican and an American — the first shark deaths off Mexico’s Pacific coast in 30 years.
Realize How Good We’ve Got It
“Uribe, elected in 2002 on the promise to crush [rebel insurgent group FARC], has boosted troop strength by 44 percent and driven the group into a strategic retreat from Colombia’s highways and major cities. Thanks to the offensive, kidnappings fell by 83 percent to 486 last year and terrorist attacks by 76 percent to 387 in 2007, the Defense Ministry says.”
I’m glad we don’t have that kind of violence where I live.
Colombia Rebels Name New Leader to Succeed Marulanda - Bloomberg
Obama Deconstructed
Perusing candidates’ positions can be time consuming, but I strongly recommend you do it. Even to the candidate whose party you haven’t supported in the past.
Here are some excerpts found at Barack Obama’s site:
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
No way! A Democrat whose top priority is to cut taxes!? Awesome.
Obama will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.
I really don’t support this; it’s just anti-business. If you’ve got employees and they don’t want to work for you anymore, let them leave. If they strike, find replacements who will work. This is an area that the government has no business regulating. Interventionist regulation is often heavy handed and over-reaching. Toss this one in the garbage bin, Barack.
Barack Obama will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation….
Indexing the minimum wage to inflation is genius — I don’t see why it hasn’t been instituted in the past.
However, it’s conceivable that there could be negative effects. For example, imagine a period of stagflation (recession and high inflation at the same time) like the one the U.S. experienced in the 1970’s: the recession would mean layoffs for workers as business slows down. When inflation picks up, businesses won’t be able to afford the higher labor costs (labor costs would track rising inflation) and you’ll see even more layoffs, all at the worst possible moment, creating a vicious cycle.
Support Job Creation: We need to double federal funding for basic research and make the research and development tax credit permanent to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama will also make long-term investments in education, training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths - our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism - to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a world economy.
Good call on the support for increased investment in education. Hopefully, the increased research budgets will pay dividends. My question: where is he going to get the money to do this? Hopefully it’s not a pipe dream.
Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Obama believes we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.
Thumbs up.
Golf Claps: The 21st Century G.I. Bill
The bi-partisan 21st Century G.I. Bill is one of the most progressive spending packages I’ve come across. It provides access to a college education for American armed forces veterans. Under the previous system, a veteran could receive up to $9,600/year for four years, which covered only 60-70% of the average cost of four years at a public college or university, or less than two years at a typical private college. The bill covers 100% of a public education, and matches dollar-for-dollar any scholarships given when attending a private institution. It also calls for a housing stipend, which varies by geographical area.
The new G.I. bill is projected to cost about $2.5 billion per year, roughly the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq for one week. Veterans organizations pointed out that a 1988 Congressional study showing that every dollar spent on educational benefits under the original GI Bill added seven dollars to the national economy in terms of productivity, consumer spending and tax revenue.
Seems like a good investment to me.
The bill passed the senate with a veto-proof 75-22 vote.
Kudos to both parties.
Foreclosures Really Getting Out Of Hand
To see how bad it’s gotten, you need only look to Facebook (I took this screenshot just now)
LG Decoy for Verizon
The LG Decoy has the honor of being the only phone with a built-in bluetooth headset, so you don’t lose it.
Thoughts?
Via Engadget Mobile
Hezbollah Goes High-Tech
A lot of people are unfamiliar with the impetus for the fighting between pro-government forces and Hezbollah last week: telecommunications equipment.
Excerpts from the WSJ:
“Hezbollah was secretly expanding a [fiber-optic] network that could provide secure communications in times of battle.
The drama began developing late last year when engineers working for Lebanon’s telecommunications minister got an odd tip: Someone was mysteriously burying spools of fiber-optic cable near a village in southern Lebanon. Then came a call from the mayor of Choueifat, a suburb of the capital. “There are strange works, unknown to the municipality…on public and private lands,” he said, according to Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh. He sent engineers to investigate, and soon determined that Hezbollah had a network stretching for more than 200 miles — in a nation only about 140 miles long. It had wireless transmitters, Mr. Hamadeh said, and redundancies so communications could continue even if part of it was damaged.
The government long knew Hezbollah had a network of some sort, but thought it was limited and of little threat to central authority. But after the 2006 war, the government told the U.N., Hezbollah secretly expanded it under the guise of postwar reconstruction, burying cables beneath newly paved roads. The work, the government added, was done with the “participation in the field” of the Iranian Headquarters for the Reconstruction of Lebanon, an Iranian agency that has claimed credit for hundreds of rebuilding projects since the 2006 war. It wasn’t reachable for comment.
For government officials critical of Hezbollah, the system was a clear sign of Hezbollah’s worrisome ambitions. “This,” declared Mr. Hamadeh, pointing to a hand-drawn map of the network, “is the takeover of Lebanon.”
Since the government’s public challenge to the network, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has left little doubt of its importance: he’s defended it as a vital weapon against Israel, whose occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 helped give rise to Hezbollah. Calling the system Hezbollah’s “No. 1 weapon,” the black-turbaned leader declared that “it is forbidden to touch [anything] linked to the networks, whether an engineer, a company or a mayor. Touching them is like touching me.”
The more rudimentary system that existed at the time of the 2006 war was considered vital in Hezbollah’s military successes against Israel. Some independent analysts and diplomats worried that enhancement of the network meant Hezbollah is gearing up for another confrontation with Israel.
Mr. Hamadeh, the telecom minister, says his engineers had discovered a Hezbollah fiber-optic cable in the heart of Beirut last year, he said. Confronted about it, Hezbollah reluctantly agreed to remove it from that area, and “things went quiet for a while.” But then, when his engineers investigated the tips from Beirut suburbs and southern Lebanon, they found a greatly expanded Hezbollah system.
On a hand-drawn map, Mr. Hamadeh traced the network’s route: a line south from Beirut to the port of Tyre, then to myriad sites in the southern tip of Lebanon, then north through central Bekaa Valley. Off the main trunk, he sketched what he said were several new branches, reaching toward Christian areas in the north, pro-Syrian Palestinian bases in refugee camps and to areas east of Beirut controlled by the Druze, another sect. His final line reached to a tiny border own called Tufayel, where, he said, the secure network starts to connect with Syria.
Mr. Hamadeh said the government tried three weeks ago to negotiate secretly with Hezbollah about dismantling the network, working through the army intelligence chief and the head of internal security. He said Hezbollah confirmed the existence of the expanded system but “absolutely refused to dismantle it, directing threats against officials” involved.“
Monaco Ocean Colonies and Global Warming
Word has just come that Monaco is considering reclaiming some of the Mediterranean to add to its 1-square mile size, a la Dubai. This comes soon after PayPal co-founder and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel went ahead and funded The Seasteading Institute, which aims to build floating libertarian cities beginning soon with a pilot in San Francisco Bay. Their slogan: “Mark Twain, 1800’s: ‘Buy land. They’ve stopped making it.‘ Seasteading Institute, 2008: ‘Production resuming.‘”
Perhaps someday the UN will have to monitor and regulate these intrepid Seasteaders, especially if they start using up large swaths of sea.
Also, I came across an interesting article from the Hamilton Spectator:
Global warming hysteria challenged
An American TV reporter compared those who question the Kyoto Protocol to Holocaust deniers, which prompted a hippie into rethinking global warming. He wrote a book detailing those who stood up against climate pseudo-science called The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, And Fraud (And Those Who Are Too Fearful To Do So). The author, Lawrence Solomon, debunks the garbage science and hideous methods used by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, noting that the panel was banned from investigating the sun (the biggest determinant of our climate) as a culprit, and was therefore designed to produce a biased finding.
My question to you: do you believe that climate change is natural, and largely solar-driven, or do you find yourself in agreement with the IPCC and believe that greenhouse gas emissions are responsible for the global temperature rise from 1965-1998?
Reversal of Fortune
Huntington Hartford inherited The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, a 16,000 locations-strong national retailer akin to a modern-day Wal-Mart.
He’s more known, however, for squandering his fortune on a series of unfortunate investments. He bought what is now Paradise Island (that of Atlantis fame) and then sold it at a loss. He built the Gallery of Modern Art in New York City, and spent similarly large amounts trying to get his laggard magazine Show off the ground.
At one point, Hartford declared bankruptcy, but had a $500,000/year trust to keep him living the good life.
Yesterday, Mr. Hartford died at 97 years of age in the Bahamas.
Curiously, the man who successfully developed Paradise Island into what it is today, Sol Kerzner, has had just about the opposite life experience as the often failing Mr. Hartford.
Kerzner began life not as an heir but as the youngest of 4 children in a family of Jewish Russian immigrants. He put together a successful hotel chain, Sun International, and then got into development of gambling resorts. Since, he’s put together some of the most successful on earth, including Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun and Paradise Island’s Atlantis, in addition to building a luxury hotel portfolio with his One&Only hotels group (famous for their Cabo San Lucas resort of the same name).
He’s had 4 marriages, including former Miss World 1974 Anneline Kriel, and his current wife, the stunning Heather Murphy.
Great life for Mr. Kerzner, but quite the polar opposite of the first developer of Paradise Island, Mr. Hartford.
Just goes to show that it’s not about what straw you draw, it’s the fight inside you that determines your contribution in life.
A.& P. Heir Famous For Losing All His Money Dies At 97 - Luxist
Soviets Get Nostalgic
Russia is up to some of its old Soviet tricks: military grandstanding, corruption — even shooting down planes over foreign soil.
None of this prepared me for the sad state of South Ossetia. A breakaway republic formerly part of Georgia, it is not recognized by any foreign governments except for Russia and Abkhazia, its sister breakaway republic. Foreign journalists are harassed, arrested, and often told they need to return to Georgia. Russian troops walk the streets, and much of the population works for the security services or in law enforcement to squelch dissent and end demonstrations. The “security” is paid for by the Russian government. The rest of the population is forced into subsistence farming.
You ought to read the article. The word “former” in the title is, I believe, an attempt at humor:
NetFlix Comes Of Age
NetFlix allows members paying $8.95/month or higher to stream movies from its library to a computer of their choice. The natural next step is to stream that content to the TV.
Over the last year, intrepid hackers have pieced together one solution that allows NetFlix content to be streamed to the TV using the XBOX 360 Windows Media Center.
If you don’t have an XBOX 360, you’re out of luck.
Until now.
NetFlix’s plans of dominating the living room have begun, with the introduction of a $99 box by Roku that slices, dices, and streams video without a hitch. Wired Magazine calls it “just shy of totally amazing.”
The player has access to more than 10,000 movies and TV shows, and will expand to close in on the nearly 100,000 that NetFlix offers in traditional DVD format.
Its competition, the Apple iTV, costs $229, but sports a hard drive, which the Roku box is without. Another competitor, Vudu, costs $295.
Apple is going with the a la carte model for media, but perhaps in this race, $8.95/month will win out. We’ll have to wait and see.
Debtor Nation
The United States is a nation of a debtors, and a debtor nation, sporting large budget and trade deficits. We’ve yet to default on our debts.
Don’t ever lend money to Russia, though. Russia famously defaulted on their foreign debt obligations in 1998, sending the world economy into a tailspin.
They’ve avoided payment on other obligations as well.
During the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905, the French underwrote much of the Russian war effort with bonds. These bonds became worthless in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. French bondholders made noise about the issue for years, but to no avail. Finally, when a post-Communist Russia re-emerged in the 1990’s and wanted access to global debt markets, Russia needed to convince Europe (and the world) that they could be trusted to pay their debts. Russia paid off its debt to France with a one-time $400 million gift in 1996 — equal to roughly 1.5% of what the bonds would have been worth with 79 years of interest.
Don’t get caught in the same deal.
Syria is Stuck (In The Middle Ages)
I’m thinking of traveling through the Middle East this summer, and in the course of my research, I’ve read a ton about Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
The U.S. State Department gives an idea of what Syria’s economy is like:
“Syria is a middle-income, developing country with an economy based on agriculture, oil, industry, and tourism. However, Syria’s economy faces serious challenges and impediments to growth, including: a large and poorly performing public sector; declining rates of oil production; widening non-oil deficit; wide scale corruption; weak financial and capital markets; and high rates of unemployment tied to a high population growth rate. In addition, Syria currently is the subject of U.S. economic sanctions…”
Sounds like a basket case. It’s pretty sad when runaway population growth causes increasing unemployment.
“Agriculture [...] accounts for 25% of GDP and employs 42% of the total labor force.”
I’ve got to say, that’s really sad. It’s 2008 — wave of the future and all — and Syria has nearly half its workforce doing the menial labor of growing and gathering food. I’m pretty sure that the characters on the show Lost manage to employ less than 20% of their population gathering food.
In the United States, only 1.8% of of workers are employed in agriculture, which allows the other 98% to pursue whatever it is they choose.
The Face of Tragedy
If this doesn’t put a face to the tragic Sichuan 7.9 earthquake, I don’t know what does.
“A mother collapses after identifying the body of her child discovered from the debris of a primary school in Hongbai town in Shifang in southwest China’s Sichuan province Thursday May 15, 2008. Official media estimates the death toll would reach 50,000 in the earthquake.” (AP Photo)
Give to the rescue effort:
The Day There Was No News
Stumbled upon this at Microsiervos:
Rice Crisis Shows Cracks In Distribution
The worldwide increase in prices for food is a true catastrophe, especially considering its effect upon those in the third world, whose food budgets may not be resilient enough to stomach the rise is prices, and will undoubtedly go hungry.
Confounding the problem is that the world doesn’t have a truly free market for the commodity. Portfolio kindly pointed out the following limitation mandated during WTO negotiations:
“Because of its WTO commitments under the Uruguay Round Agreement, Japan imports a substantial amount of medium-grain rice from the U.S. and long-grain rice from Thailand and Vietnam…But under WTO rules, the government cannot re-export the rice, except in relatively limited quantities as grant aid. So the Japanese government simply stores its imported rice until the quality deteriorates to the point that it is suitable only as livestock feed and sells it to domestic livestock operators…Japan currently has over 1.5 million tons of this rice in storage… Most of this rice is in good condition, and is incurring large storage charges. Japan would be very happy to dispose of this rice to the world market, but it cannot do so without U.S. acquiescence.”
Though 1.5 million tons of rice seems huge, my 10 seconds of Google research indicates it would only provide one day’s worth of global supply to the rice market.
No matter how small the benefit, governments of the world need to work together to alleviate this crisis. Allowing this rice (and all rice) immediately onto the global market should be common sense, and stagnating on this issue could cost lives. One day’s supply might be all that separates a starved village from a living one.
McCain Still A Hero
I wrote last week about John McCain’s heroic stand against crop subsidies (such subsidies hinder agricultural development in poor countries.)
Today, I come to you with a story of his heroics in a different light, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal and, oddly enough, Karl Rove (who, it should be noted, I’ve often compared to Joseph Goebbels and the devil).
“Col. Bud Day (Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, fighter pilot, Vietnam POW and roommate of John McCain at the Hanoi Hilton) relayed to me one of the stories Americans should hear. It involves what happened to him after escaping from a North Vietnamese prison during the war. When he was recaptured, a Vietnamese captor broke his arm and said, “I told you I would make you a cripple.”
The break was designed to shatter Mr. Day’s will. He had survived in prison on the hope that one day he would return to the United States and be able to fly again. To kill that hope, the Vietnamese left part of a bone sticking out of his arm, and put him in a misshapen cast. This was done so that the arm would heal at “a goofy angle,” as Mr. Day explained. Had it done so, he never would have flown again.
But it didn’t heal that way because of John McCain. Risking severe punishment, Messrs. McCain and Day collected pieces of bamboo in the prison courtyard to use as a splint. Mr. McCain put Mr. Day on the floor of their cell and, using his foot, jerked the broken bone into place. Then, using strips from the bandage on his own wounded leg and the bamboo, he put Mr. Day’s splint in place.
Years later, Air Force surgeons examined Mr. Day and complimented the treatment he’d gotten from his captors. Mr. Day corrected them. It was Dr. McCain who deserved the credit. Mr. Day went on to fly again.
Another McCain story, somewhat better known, is about the Vietnamese practice of torturing him by tying his head between his ankles with his arms behind him, and then leaving him for hours. The torture so badly busted up his shoulders that to this day Mr. McCain can’t raise his arms over his head.
The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.
For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa’s orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.
Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. “I hope she can stay with us,” she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.
I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.
“We were called at midnight by Cindy,” Wes Gullett remembers, and “five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport.” Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, “I never saw a hospital bill” for her care.
Private people like Mr. McCain are rare in politics for a reason. Candidates who are uncomfortable sharing their interior lives limit their appeal. But if Mr. McCain is to win the election this fall, he has to open up. Americans need to know about his vision for the nation’s future, especially his policy positions and domestic reforms. They also need to learn about the moments in his life that shaped him. These qualities mattered in America’s first president and will matter as Americans decide on their 44th president.”
The full article is here:
Vatican: Aliens Are A-Ok
The Vatican’s chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.
This meshes well with their followers, who institutionalize “childish superstition” and use a book of “primitive legends” as a guide to their way of life rather than resorting to modern reason. (Quotes from the previous statement are attributed to Albert Einstein.)
Aliens? Really? Catholicism will soon make Scientology look downright rational in comparison.
Vatican: It’s OK to believe in aliens
Belief in God ‘childish,’ Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter
Fuel Economy: Boeing vs. Airbus
The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner uses carbon fiber and more fuel-efficient engines to bring down its fuel consumption. Airbus isn’t using the same innovative materials, but has improved aerodynamics in a bid to reduce its fuel consumption.
The Airbus A380, a superjumbo if there ever was one, can seat 853 people in a 100% economy-class configuration, which would seemingly make it more fuel-efficient per passenger (the only metric that matters). However, it’s extremely unlikely that any airline would order a plane configured in this way, so, for purposes of comparison, a 525 or 555 seat configuration is closer to what we’ll see in the real world.
The following table and graph tell the story of Boeing versus Airbus, as measured by range, fuel capacity, passenger capacity, and the statistics generated thereof:
| A350-900 | 787 | 777-300ER | A380 | 747-400 | |
| 15,000 | 14,800 | 14,685 | 14,800 | 13,450 | Range |
| 150,000 | 138,000 | 181,300 | 310,000 | 217,000 | Fuel Capacity (L) |
| 330 | 290 | 365 | 555 | 416 | Passengers |
| 10 | 9.32 | 12.34 | 20.94 | 16.13 | Fuel Consumption (L/km) |
| 0.0303 | 0.0321 | 0.0338 | 0.0377 | 0.0387 | L/km/Passenger |
A lot of this information is pretty variable, due to lack of sufficient data (fuel consumption is crudely derived by dividing maximum range by fuel capacity, for instance) and the fact that seating variations can drastically alter statistics like Liters per Kilometer per Passenger. I’ve used normal seating configurations when possible, so as to simulate reality as close as possible.
The data shows that the A380 is not so revolutionary, and is in fact quite comparable to the 747-400 when it comes to fuel consumption per passenger. Also, we see that the 787 is only marginally more fuel-efficient than the upcoming A350, and that, due to the A350’s extra passenger capacity, the 787 comes in second place in fuel consumption per passenger. Boeing promises that the 787 will have lower maintenance and operating costs than its predecessors; hopefully, this savings will make the Dreamliner a more competitive aircraft overall.
This data just goes to show that the new-new things (A380, Dreamliner) are not definitive champions, even right as they’re introduced.
The New Ferrari GT California
It’s not often that Maranello brings us a new galloping horse.
Here are the first photos of the new GT California:
(click to enlarge)
Specs:
Convertible with automatic folding hard-top
4.3L V8 generating 460hp at 7,500rpm
0 to 100 km/h in less than 4.0 seconds
7-speed dual clutch gearbox
Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes are standard
Putin Is Portuguese
“…they want the sometimes prickly Putin sidelined, and can’t grasp why he was such a popular president. That’s a question requiring no kremlinology whatsoever. Putin scored stellar domestic ratings because, over the last decade when he was in office, Russia has risen from nowhere to become the world’s ninth largest economy. Income per head has grown ten-fold in dollar terms - with your average Russian now worth $12,012. In 1999, Putin boasted that by 2015, Russians would be as rich as the Portuguese - Western Europe’s poorest economy. Seeing as the average Russian income was then only 9 per cent of the average in Portugal, his claim was widely dismissed. But Russia has since grown so fast that average incomes are now 60 per cent of those in Portugal, and gaining fast. And if the two economies keep growing at the pace they have over the last decade, Russia’s income per head will overtake Portugal’s in 2014 - a year earlier than Putin’s estimate.”
Beijing and Riyadh will call the shots on ailing dollar’s future
6,666,666,666 Humans
The 6,666,666,666th person alive on earth was born today. If four horseman have just ridden past, don’t panic. Oh, and happy Mother’s Day.
Perhaps the Duggar family is responsible for humanity’s reprehensible overpopulation?
Just putting it out there.
Give War A Chance
This was too good not to post:
Is It Time To Invade Burma? - TIME
Would it be worth it, as measured in net lives saved, to invade Myanmar so that the unnecessary “murder” of civilians without adequate international aid is avoided?
Hezbollah Debt Upgraded by Moody’s, S&P
NEW YORK, May 9 (Reuters) - The takeover of the Muslim half of Beirut by the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah on Friday reflects increased Hezbollah dominance in the country and has resulted in Hezbollah’s long term debt being upgraded, Moody’s Investors Service said.
The credit ratings agency said on Friday that Hezbollahs “Baa1″ rating, an upgrade from “Ba2″ (speculative, non-investment grade) was due to a an increased tax base in West Beirut and a stable outlook.
“Given that the hostile neighborhood takeover has added roughly 200,000 to the number of people under Hezbollah control, Moody’s believes that the increased tax receipts combined with reluctance on the part of Lebanese Government fighters to put up a real fight encapsulate the risk of continuing severe political turmoil,” Tristan Cooper, sovereign ratings analyst at Moody’s said in a statement.
Hezbollah has never defaulted on its debt, despite experiencing many destabilizing political shocks, including a 15-year civil war between 1975 and 1990 and a devastating month-long war with Israel in 2006, the statement said.
The agency said it recognizes Lebanon’s poor state of public finances, however the central bank still has a large stock of foreign currency reserves, $10.8 billion in February, or about 45 percent of gross domestic product, which could legitimately be seized by Hezbollah and used to bolster security and buy more advanced weaponry from Iran. While legally constrained from being sold, central bank gold reserves worth $8.9 billion in February also acts as a source of wealth that Hezbollah could tap in case of turmoil.
In addition, the world’s penchant for forceful intervention has over the years become increasingly weak, as incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned into overly long ordeals requiring increasing amounts of resources coupled with strong insurgencies. “Lebanon just doesn’t have enough natural resources, like oil — they don’t even have the geography for a potential pipeline that we usually like to see before we liberate a country,” said former UN ambassador John Bolton.
Moody’s said that while these factors have made the international community resistant to physical intervention, it remains concerned about current developments and is monitoring the situation.
Zimbabwe Issues $250 MM Bill
In April, Zimbabwe launched the $50 million bill, as inflation levels there push 165,000% per year and quickly make last week’s paycheck worthless.
A loaf of bread now costs around $80 million; a bunch of five bananas costs close to $100 million.
Now, they’ve gone ahead and launched the $100 million an $250 million bills.
Imagine living in a country where cash has an expiration date! Zimbabwean bills are all “bearer’s cheques”, which have expiration dates — some as little as one or two months from their printing.
Zimbabwe issues 250 mn dollar banknote to tackle price spiral
HOT Lanes: An Economist’s Dream
If economists ruled the world, all decisions would be made rationally, incentives would be used to encourage positive behavior, and variable fees would be imposed on consumers to ensure scarce resources aren’t over-utilized.
South of Seattle, an economist’s dream has just been put in motion: solo drivers can now skip the traffic by paying a variable toll to drive in the carpool lane.
Traffic moved smoothly this morning in the car-pool lane of Highway 167 between Auburn and Renton, where solo drivers can buy their way in by paying a variable toll.
Between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., 339 drivers paid to enter the lane, in fairly light traffic, said Craig Stone, urban corridors administrator for the state Department of Transportation. The tolls, which increase as traffic worsens, reached $2.25, northbound at 277th Street at 7:15 a.m., but Stone said no one used it when it got to that rate. The most anyone paid, he said, was $2. The least anyone paid this morning was 50 cents, while the average paid was $1.04.
Tolls are expected to hit $5 at busy times, and can climb as high as $9.
If the four-year test is successful, the state will likely use congestion pricing on other highways.
This system is flawless. It solves the problem of under-utilization of the carpool lane, rations available capacity by price, and ensures that anybody who needs to get through fast is able to, while lower-priority traffic remain in the general lanes.
I think I’m in love.
HOT lane traffic moving smoothly between Auburn and Renton this morning
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