Spring Training For Bird Dogs

Scott and I took our English setters out today for a bit of spring training. Doggystyle, so to speak.

Dottie has been looking forward to it and the weather was nothing less than perfect today for a short romp in the big country.


Dottie has not been on a live game bird since early December. We could have gone out to local clubs to hunt post season but the ever present lake effect snow and frigid cold made that more of an adventure than these 57 year old bones are willing to endure.

Scott called out of the blue this morning and asked if we wanted to head out with him and Penny to Bob’s ranch and tune up our dogs on some quail. I rushed through some chores, loaded up the pup and a shotgun then pointed the Exploder south.

We grabbed a few quail out of Bob's pen, traveled to the rear of the secluded property and released the birds.

At first we took each dog out separately to kick up one bird and then swapped dogs, repeated and so on, that was the plan. No need to get all worked up as we would during a regular season hunt where we take both dogs out and work them together for two hour walks. Training like this is meant to be play time for a bird-hungry pup.

Dottie with Penny in the background


I had no idea how Dottie would do so I hooked her up to a thirty-foot check cord. It wasn’t necessary. She worked close and came when called. She found two birds but both flushed before she could stay on point. Not unusual for pen-raised quail.

One quail was in the bag, the other was worked again. We would not shoot to kill on each point. We just wanted to get the dogs all jacked up on game birds and for them to hear the shot. This is very important in training.

Quail do not fly far and do not fly high so it becomes a friendly game of tag for the pup if we do not knock one down. Eventually we drop one just so pup can get a snoot-full of feathers. It's a reward, another very important part of training

Dottie has come a long way. She worked relatively close and I only needed to use the remote control once, a very good sign. She obeyed my whistle commands very well and looked for me when called. We worked both dogs together on the last bird and I liked what I saw. Both dogs were oblivious to each other, another good sign.

We worked that last quail for three respectable points and flights making two false shots, knocking it down after the third. MMmmmm, feathers.

Patience is important when training a young bird dog pup. A handler knows within two years if the dog will work well and obey. Dottie will be two in June.

In my case I want to breed Dottie..IF. I will spay her at four years old IF she does not appear to have the chops. A lot depends on me because she has displayed a good natural ability for her age.


Dot’s right on schedule. The reason this pleases me most is because I have not trained her as hard as my last two setters.

Next Tuesday we are planning on another training session. Soon the weather will be too hot and the thickening vegetation will make field work hard on the dog and hard on me as well.

That's when we'll go fishing.

Some Idle Time On My Hands – With Observations

Since I have not had a big assignment or an on-site project in Chicago for the past week (Carl, please take note), it gets boring at times here at the old country bunker. So I’ve been performing routine maintenance on my internal combustion, carbon spewing engines and preparing the property for the change of seasons. Other than that there is not much going on due to this unusually long spell of frigid early spring weather.

When I really get bored I trip around on the internets to read some blogs and catch up on current events. From the looks of it there are many others like me who have a lot of time on their hands as well.

One rather famous female blogger has a newish live-in houseboy that manages to make better use of his idle time than I do. Then again, he seems to have waaay more idle time when he’s not busy servicing his meal ticket.

His sweetie has nicknamed him “New Media Meade” because he has been spending a lot of his free time strolling around Madison snapping images and recording video of those whackjob moonbat union protesters who never seem to go away. She proudly posts his photos and videos on her blog, which gains most of its attention by being sidebar linked at Instapundit, another law school professor. Who knew?

Here’s one of my favorites from New Media Meade and it’s..like...a totally awesome new media cutting-edge investigative journalistic video.



Confronting moonbats while armed with video seems to be his specialty. Well, bless his pea-pickin’ heart. What some folks won't do to earn their fifteen minutes of fame. When is enough enough? Apparently, not soon enough.

His sweetie must have taped that one. She always gives herself credit for editing his video as if he is not capable of doing so himself. Good boy, New Media Meade! Good boy! Now go fetch. Fetch some raw video for me to edit.

But what most of the many folks who visit his sweetie’s blog don’t know is that “New Media Meade” has expanded his role by collecting images at protests she just might not approve of. Undaunted, New Media Meade just cannot help himself, he is drawn to a protest just like the moth to a flame. Here’s one.



Yes, that New Media Meade sure goes to great lengths in order to find and digitally document those human oddities in the crowd and maybe that’s why I admire him so much.



He seems to have no limit in his relentless search to deliver images that the mainstream media refuses to publish. What a team!



And thanks to his benevolent sweetie these images are out there on the internets for you, me, and the rest of the world to take note.



No protest too big and no protest too small, New Media Meade risks his life and spares no expense to photograph them all.



It makes me wonder, what is his sweetie doing with her time? As a law professor at a Big 10 11 12 university I would think there are classes to prepare for, lectures to speak at and papers to grade. Faculty meetings, speaking engagements and all of the above would take an enormous amount of time. One would think. Wrong-o.

The professor finds time to publish up to 400 blog posts per month documenting her traveling around the country, skiing, biking, hanging out at cafes and sightseeing all while dragging New Media Meade around with her. What a gal. How does she ever find time to sleep? And how long can New Media Meade keep up?

I have enough trouble finding the time to post two blog entries per week so she is simply amazing to me. I would like to think she performs a service to readers everywhere by bringing us current events, opinions, distorted fisheye lens images, café table photos and all the wonderful image work that New Media Meade captures in his lust for outing those moonbat protesters as well.

And then there are those wonderful Bloggingheads videos. You know, the ones where she interviews notable personalities and discusses world conflicts?

Who can forget that Bloggingheads interview she had with Aunt Esther? Her philosophical insights to why Aunt Esther and Fred Sanford never got along were as enlightening as anything I have ever seen.



Esther got out of hand as usual but the calming, mature, matronly voice of Ann the law professor managed to bring Esther back down to earth for some serious discussion.

And then there was the famous Bloggingheads discussion with Pee Wee. She managed to draw information out of him that only a defense attorney could. Pee Wee eventually disclosed where he got that famous bike after several minutes of answering, “I know you are but what am I”.



When Ann casually mentioned to Pee Wee that she just loved the camera that her new houseboy uses, all Pee Wee could say was, ”If you love his camera so much then why don’t you marry it”.

Good question, Pee Wee.

Monday Morning Blues

New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Nuclear Generation

The United States today runs the world's largest fleet of nuclear reactors. However, we have not started construction on significant additions to our nuclear fleet since the 1970's.

I often get questions on why we are having such difficulty in executing on new nuclear facilities, especially when compared with China or even France. One important answer to that question, however, starts in an odd place - public power entities (by public I do not mean publicly traded, but owned by a governmental entity of some sort).

Many of the nuclear plants that exist today were started with the help of public entities. While many public entities have sold off their ownership to mainly shareholder-owned entities that run groups of utilities, if you go back to the 60's through the 80's when the financing was originally started for these units, you need to look to the public entities. Let's pick one to start with - NYPA.

New York Power Authority (NYPA):

NYPA today runs 1) hydro electric plants in upstate New York that provide some of the cheapest power in the USA, since hydro is run with an almost zero incremental cost 2) a huge transmission network, built decades ago but at least partially renovated, that brings down power from Canada and the hydro facilities into the densely populated NY metropolitan area 3) some gas fired plants near NYC.

Looking at their web site here, you see a "typical" web site of a utility or a public power entity; lots of talk of green power, sustainability, and pretty pictures with lots of green in them. From the web site:

We're the country's largest state public power organization, producing some of the cheapest electricity in North America. Our 17 generating facilities and over 1,400 circuit-miles of transmission lines produce the power to help sustain more than 380,000 jobs statewide. We are a national leader in promoting energy efficiency and the use of renewable-fuel and clean-energy technologies.

And everything said up above may be true. But that is NYPA today, as a neutered, green and publicity friendly entity.

Back in the day, however, NYPA had grand plans. Where did that "cheap" electricity come from? It came from hydro electric power, mainly 2 facilities - one near Niagara Falls and one up north on the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is simply unimaginable for an entity like NYPA to do anything like that today, actually damming up a river and impacting the scenery. These dams may well have been built by ancient Egyptians or Romans for all the chance that today's NYPA would ever attempt anything that impactful. And without these dams? NYPA doesn't have "cheap" power, and they mainly are just a transmission lane of power from Canada to the US (where the Canadians actually do "tap" their hydroelectric resources). Not to denigrate the effort to create a new large transmission line; this is also likely far beyond their grasp.

According to their capital plans, during the period 2010-14 NYPA plans to spend $1.6B on capital projects, but only about 1/4 of this is for "generation" activities, and it mostly is related to extending the life of existing generating facilities. For strategic initiatives not included in the capital plans, they mention the following on p15 of the NYPA 2011-2014 Four-Year Financial Plan:

The Authority is considering several projects... an offshore wind generating facility in the New York waters of the Great Lakes and a second off-shore wind generating facility in the Atlantic Ocean off of Long Island; and the potential development of 100 MW of solar photovoltaic systems throughout the state.

But what is mentioned nowhere in NYPA's documents, except through an oblique reference to decommissioning funds? Nuclear power!

NYPA was a leader once as far as nuclear power, owning the James FitzPatrick nuclear power plant and the Indian Point 3 Nuclear Power Plant. Over the years these plants have changed hands and now are operating by Entergy.

Entities like NYPA were crucial partners in providing low-cost funding (they could issue bonds cheaply and had implicit or explicit backing of governmental units) and support for disruptive and riskier enterprises like hydro and nuclear generation projects.

But now, as you can see, NYPA has sold off their nuclear units and now is content to run existing hydro assets and transmission lines and consider "trendy" investments like solar and offshore wind farms.

It is the absence of entities like this as far as financial and moral support for nuclear power that makes the challenge of the nuclear power "renaissance" even more difficult to pull off. In the current Texas project, the cities of Austin and San Antonio Texas, who provided crucial financial support for the original facilities built at South Texas Project, balked at support for new generation.

As I get time I will go through other public entities that have had a history of support for nuclear generation (decades ago) and helped build the units that make America the largest user of nuclear power but who now, today, shy away from these sorts of investments and instead make a trendy "sop" towards solar and wind power.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

A Heavy Metal Morning

Early this morning I traveled to Michigan City IN. My mission was to stock up on chicken wings, which were on sale for 88¢ per pound in bulk at one grocery. Just filling up the freezer for the much anticipated “official” grilling season.

I loves me wings.

Whenever I happen to be in Michigan City a side trip to Lange’s Meat Market is always in order. I wrote about them here.

Lange’s is an authentic throwback meat market located in an old building with sawdust on the wood floor and a heavenly smoky aroma inside and out.

After buying a fistful of hot spicy beef sticks I walked outside and eyeballed these two old Hudson’s parked across the street. Nice.



They are both 1948 Hudson Commodores in very good shape.

Neither autos were in the top dollar, showroom shape category and I found that appealing.

Baby blue is not my favorite car color and neither is burgundy but the burgundy one caught my eye for another reason. It was a two door sedan, and very rare.

The burgundy Hudson had swirl marks on the paint but the chrome was in fine shape. Sure wish it was parked into the sun to show off the chrome sparkles for a tight photo.



When I was a very young kid there was an old abandoned 1948 Hudson Commodore with flat tires stuck hubcap deep in a sand pit hidden way out in the woods on the family farm.

It was lime green with a dark green transparent visor.

I remember it well.

That old Hudson was perforated with bullet holes.

Other than that I ain’t sayin’ nuttin’.

Ride the Drive

I was going through some old photos and forgot all about this event. Ride the Drive is when they close some of the main streets in Madison and you can ride your bike all over the place on the streets. Many auto drivers hate this day for obvious reasons. One thing I like about Madison is that there is an extremely large, militant bike community that gets paths and other things done all around the city. I don't participate in any of the militancy, but at least get a benefit from it and all the tax dollars that I am paying.

I also like this post because it is from Summer, and we are oh so close to being done with Winter here. And it has been a long one.

Lance Armstrong made an appearance at this event, and I intentionally rode it after he showed up so I wouldn't be bothered by the crowds.

Here we have a shot of State Street.

All along the route they had different vendors set up. It was pretty cool, shop while you ride.

Madison and a shot of the John Nolen path that I use frequently in the Summer, from John Nolen Drive.

The John Nolen Drive causeway. One very cool thing was that we were also able to bike under the Monona Terrace convention center.

The Weinermobile even showed up!

Great stuff. I think they did this twice last year and it was pretty cool to tool around town on the closed streets. Like I said, I am sure anyone who wanted to get around by auto was pretty disappointed this day.

Texas Nuclear Plant In (High) Doubt

I always start these posts by saying that I am a big supporter of nuclear power and believe that it is good for America to have a solid foundation of base load nuclear plants. As a realist, however, I am bound to continually explain the frankly insurmountable obstacles that are in place to any sort of plan to build new nuclear units in the USA. As soon as any of the nuclear events in Japan started I put up this post saying "it's over".

While it isn't final, it looks like it is almost over with the two units that they are building in Texas. You can find this news everywhere but here is a small summary.

Utility company NRG has put the brakes on a plan to build two new nuclear reactors at its South Texas plant, CEO David Crane said Wednesday.

All along I have said that NRG was a lousy candidate to build a nuclear plant. Since they are more of an IPP (Independent Power Generator) than a baseload utility subject to traditional "rate of return" regulation (in a state that has that, like South Carolina or Georgia, where it is NO SURPRISE that the only plants are being built), they need to continually raise money and hit profit targets in the near term and they can't just pour billions into construction and endless delays.

One of their partners is the Tokyo utility struggling to contain the recent nuclear plant issues in the wake of the Japan earthquake - TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company).

Tepco holds a 10% stake in the NRG expansion project, with the option to purchase an additional 10% share. A spokesman for NRG confirmed the company has been in touch with Tepco following Japan's twin natural disasters -- but only to offer assistance.

On top of that, the US has announced a plan to review nuclear safety throughout the country. Given our relatively poor record of utility planning and regulation (see the Yucca Mountain Storage fiasco for a primer on how our government can't plan or execute and wastes billions while accomplishing nothing), there is little hope for a near term answer from our regulators.

"The timing of this from where our project stands could not be more unfortunate," Crane said. "And time can be the biggest enemy for a project like this." It's unclear how long the review will take. "We actually agree that we need the review," Crane said. "But the question is what are we looking at? A three month review or longer?" Crane said he hopes his plant will be among the first to be given the green light by regulators. He stressed that the proposed reactors will sit 10 miles from the Gulf Coast, in a non-seismic area.

It is unfortunate in its timing. This project was already seriously weakened by the pull out of municipalities that used to contribute to new baseload growth; these sorts of alliances were behind many of the nuclear plants that exist in the US right now. But even prior to this disaster in Japan the municipalities were "spooked" by the prospect of unlimited delays and cost over-runs and also under a financial gun more or less to start with.

We will see what happens in Georgia and South Carolina. I will bet that South Carolina is "all in" because they are in a small state and if they have to "eat" this massive hit by writing off their investment and passing it to taxpayers they will be embroiled in rage, so they have little choice. As for Georgia, Southern Company is much bigger and can absorb more pain, so they may be able to take an (unfortunately) more pragmatic approach.

Cross Posted at Chicago Boyz

Unlucky 13

For the past 37 years I have worked in many Chicago hi-rise office buildings. Most were modern and a few were landmarks.

All in all, while working I paid little attention to the floor I was working on unless it offered a splendid view.

When working full-time a few of my offices had very nice views. At 360 N. Michigan I had a corner office view looking west and north on the Chicago River. It wasn’t my biggest office but the view from the 20th floor windows were better than any framed image I could hang.

Today Yahoonews had a piece published about the 13th floor of Chicago hi-rise buildings.

Recently I have had on-site contract assignments at 35 S. Wacker. One space I shared with about six other contract workers was a very large corner office overlooking the Chicago River and Marina Towers on the north bank. It was what I would call a splendid view.

Someone had brought binoculars into the office because a woman living in the Marina Towers at our eye level would exercise in the nude at precisely 10:15 am each day. We figured she worked in a nightclub or as a waitress in an upscale establishment judging by her silicone implants and lower tonsorial grooming. A hooker? A call girl? Maybe. Our imagination ran wild as we fought over the binocs for a peek. This lady knew exactly what she was doing.

This took place on what was technically the 13th floor.

When entering an elevator at 35 W. Wacker an astute observer would notice there was not a 13th floor button, the buttons on the elevator panel allowed one to press the 12th floor and next was the 14th floor.

Occasionally I would get into a crowded elevator and ask a person nearest the button panel (who usually was completely engrossed reading email, tweeting or facebooking on their personal “device”) to “please press 13” for me. 9 out of 10 times the time-poor young uber-connected digital geekazoid would hunt for the 13th floor button before realizing he/she had been punked.

I got quite a few laffs.

Distractions

I haven't been posting here at good 'ol LITGM too much lately. I have been doing a series of posts about the NFL lockout over at Fire Everybody, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Monday Morning Blues

Worst Intersection In Chicago Update - It's Mayhem

A few years ago I wrote about what I considered to be the worst and most dangerous intersection at the time - the "Six Corners" intersection at Damen, Elston and Fullerton. Here is the post (from back in 2005! Over five years ago!)

If you've seen the ubiquitous "mayhem" commercials from Allstate with the actor who usually plays villains (I thought it was Madsen from Reservoir Dogs but I was wrong) you'll like the message at six corners referencing it as pure "mayhem".

Crappy (Mostly) Beer Update

From my favorite get-a-laugh "Drinking Made Easy" TV show - a line up of Dan's nightmare bar choices.

Since I live very close to Binny's or "The Toy Store" I am able to select one-off beers from everywhere. This was an Italian pilsner (who new such a thing existed) and it was very good, called Re-Ale Extra. The beer came with an interesting bottle cap that I am attempting to close up on in the photo that provided a superior seal which is probably why it had a great head out of the bottle; not an expert but this wasn't something I had encountered previously.

Hey if you are laid up on St. Patrick's day - the green beer comes to you! Yum miller lite.

Finally - I love this marketing by Keystone Light which per my contacts at the near-21 set tells me that this is the go to beer at college on a price per buzz basis - they say that the case contains thirty "STONES". Ha ha ha love that.

Will Japan Survive?

They will find a way. They always have.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire Revisited

A while back Dan sent me a book by an Austrian author and intellectual Stefan Zweig titled "The World Of Yesterday". This book is the author's auto-biography that he wrote from Brazil in the early 1940's when Hitler was at the apex of his power and had overrun France and his beloved Paris and basically destroyed the Jewish intellectual culture in the region; after sending it to his biographer the author killed himself. You can see the post-it note that Dan put on the book - "one of the best books I have ever read".

Stefan describes Austria under the regime of the Austro-Hungarian empire, when Vienna was the cultural center. The portrait is of an intellectually enlightened culture where music and the arts are held in high esteem; part of this is due to the fact that the author's family owned a successful business and they also resided in what was presumably the wealthiest part of the empire.

It is my own ignorance but I generally lumped the Germans and the Austrians into one ethnicity in my mind and this book calls out the differences. The Germans are seen as the efficiency-expert types and the Austrians are by comparison tolerant and focused on the arts. As the climate against the Jews turns from bad to worse it is the Germans (whether in Germany or the ethic Germans in the borders of the empire) that lead this effort.

All in all a great book about an intellectual leader who was part of a proud and ambitious art culture but watched it all laid waste under the rise of the Nazis. In the end his entire world was effectively destroyed, as the Austro-Hungarian empire fell (replaced with deprivation for the surviving states) and then finally almost all of continental Europe fell under the boot of fascism.

In parallel I purchased an award-winning book about a WW1 front of which I knew very little, the war between Italy and Austro-Hungary on the Italian border called "The White War" by Thompson. This book describes the futile Italian offensives as the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian army attempts to hold them off against the provinces of its empire.

My knowledge of the Italian front was limited and incomplete; the combined offensive with the Germans at Caporetto in 1917 was well known not only because Rommel won his Pour Le Merit (highest military honor) at this engagement but that Hemmingway documented it in fiction through "A Farewell to Arms" as the Italians collapsed. The time of 1915-1917 and repeated battles in the mountainous region consumed armies on both sides in difficult mountainous conditions and in harsh winter weather. In fact Caporetto is also known as Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, to put the series of attrition-like engagements in context.

One item that stood out to me throughout the book was how they would identify the Austro-Hungarian troops based upon the regions from which their units were raised; whether they were Czech riflemen or Bosnian soldiers. And although the armies faced terrible hardships, in general these troops from differing nationalities fought for their empire right up to the end.

Despite blizzards of propaganda by Czech, Yugoslav, Polish and other separatist groups; half a million POW s returning from Russia, many of them newly politicized and loudly critical; extremely degrading conditions at the front, and the disappearance of any hope of victory - despite all this, the Hapsburg army remained loyal. There were no mutinies on the Italian front until late October, just before the last battle; even these were limited to a few units.

In today's world there is a view among intellectuals that differences among groups are receding and that entities like the European Union or the UN can bring them together for coherent and common purposes. On the other hand, there is the reality "on the ground", as nations split into smaller and smaller pieces, such as the Yugoslavian split, the Czech / Slovak split, and the likely impending Belgium split.

In the twenty first century the world is continuing a tradition of splintering nations into tinier entities, along ethnic lines, and with resources or major cities being the main prizes that are fought over. While this occurs there is a "gloss" of cooperation and collaboration that is more theater and for show.

It is interesting how this "false" world of collaboration (where it is in everyone's best interests) contrasts with the much more public and up-front efforts of running an empire like Austro-Hungary. In fact the monarchs were aware of public opinion and for its day attempted to preserve customs and religions of the areas under its control, and to leverage the resources and skills of its far-flung citizens. While the downsides of the empire are well known (lack of self determination for every nationality), the empire as a whole had rapid economic growth, a consolidated foreign policy, and investment in areas such as transportation (rail) and post systems that benefited everyone.

The Austro-Hungarian empire also provided the Jewish culture in Vienna and elsewhere with relative protection compared to what they faced elsewhere (Russia) and later (with the rise of Hitler and the ultimate annexation of Austria). It is this world that dissolved and was utterly destroyed in the Zweig book, leading to his eventual suicide at the time of Paris' occupation by the Germans in the early 1940's.

While you'd be seen as "insane" to advocate anything similar to the Austro-Hungarian empire in today's world of hyper-local countries with a pan-gloss of cooperation, it would be an interesting thought experiment to see if nationalities could work together for a common good, even including military efforts. Today's EU has a poor standing military; it is the member states that provide specific firepower. In 1914-8 the Austro-Hungarian empire brought soldiers together willing to die for their common goals, and in the context of that era (not by today's context) they were relatively successful, until toppled by the two "ism's" of nationalism and the incipient communism / fascism that was to plague the thirties and forties.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

More Disturbing And Annoying Signs

Warming up for the MLB season are the players, the coaches, the officials, the broadcasters down south and even fans like me up north.

Comcast Sports has been broadcasting spring training games since last week and I have already watched parts of two games and one whole White Sox game.

It was yesterday against San Diego when I noticed two men in the first row behind home plate holding signs. Nothing wrong with holding signs, fans do it all the time for whatever reason. Personally I find it hard to hold up a sign with a beer in one hand.

These two fans did not hold up signs in honor of their favorite player or team. They were not signs heckling the opposing players.

Each doosh was holding one sign. It was white with green hand lettering. When held together they read “Free Wisconsin”.

An inning or so later they turned the signs around and together they read “Teachers Rule”.

A few innings later they turned it back around. It could not be ignored while watching the game and it was a big distraction. It was obvious they were not watching the game since the signs covered their faces for long periods of time.

In all my years I have never seen any political messages held by fans in a ballpark or stadium, ever. That kind of crap just does not belong in a sporting venue.

This Wisco teacher union temper tantrum hissy-fit is like nothing I have ever witnessed. I may be wrong but what they are doing is not winning over many fans.

Is this something we may see more of this season? I have already written to the White Sox asking them to ban all signs behind the plate in view of the camera at home games.

Please do the same.

Monday Morning Blues

Around Key West

Upper left top - the inevitable "Eat it Raw" photo near the docks. In high school I wore a shirt with this image and they made me go home and change. Upper left middle - a view of Duval street from the 2nd level of the Hard Rock Cafe. Left bottom - they came to our hotel and cut all the coconuts off the palm tree and then cleaned everything up. We appreciated it the next day with high winds. Right top - a view on Duval street as the night heats up. Middle bottom - a large cruise ship along the docks. Lower right - the frozen drinks on tap on Duval street. Someone walked by and shouted "You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning!"

Don't know what it was about Key West but they had a lot of odd cars. I like Red Stripe because I always associate it with hanging out on the beach and relaxing so a truck full makes me very relaxed.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

The End of the Nuclear "Renaissance" is Now

I am a big supporter of nuclear power but have written numerous posts on the financial, regulatory and legal issues that make the "nuclear renaissance" in the United States an illusion that could be deflated by the simplest of journalistic research.

One issue that I have touched on is "contagion" which basically means that the entire nuclear industry can be sent into a deep freeze by a single event hitting any nuclear plant anywhere around the globe. Mention "Three Mile Island" (which effectively halted new reactor construction in the US) or "Chernobyl" (which put a bullet in most reactors in the Western world) and you can see how a single event can dramatically impact the entire industry.

With this single photo that I got from the BBC site here (I usually don't put up other people's photos but in this case the image will soon be so iconic I think it was appropriate) now you can see the end of the Nuclear Renaissance in the United States.

That photo or some variant will be everywhere... the risk of a catastrophic event at a nuclear plant (even though the Japanese seem to be handling it well so far, all things considered) will be played up continuously, which will be more fodder for protests and will make financial executives think that much harder before committing all their company's capital to such an uncertain venture as building a nuclear plant in the litigious USA.

The inflection point of a major event is rarely so obvious as this. I guess the real issue is whether this is even an inflection point anyways, since nuclear activity in terms of new construction in the US was confined to a couple of units in Georgia, a couple in Texas, and one in South Carolina anyways. We'd be lucky if out of these 5 units even 3 saw the light of day and were commissioned (remember that even if built protesters can shut it down - see what happened to Shoreham in Long Island). As for new ones beyond these, it goes from unlikely to remote.

All natural gas from here on out.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

Neighborly Revenge

The neighbors we have had for the past twenty years have been nice, friendly and helpful. Sure, there are a few I will not acknowledge or make time for but for the most part they’re swell.

One neighbor is a woman that lives three lots away and across the road who is a spinster. The word spinster is a term used in legal documents to describe a woman who has never been married. She’s also obese. And ugly. No surprise.

Her name is Jane and she lives in a very nice home. When we first moved here the area was not built up much. Most of us got together for a block party once a year and for a progressive dinner party near Christmas. A progressive party is when one neighbor hosts appetizers and cocktails, another serves up a dinner and a third offers desserts and after dinner cocktails allowing for travel and prep time in between. We hosted a few times and so did Jane.

I remember her home being well furnished, almost to a point of being over decorated. It’s a chick thing where every nook and cranny must be filled with obnoxious objects ‘d art and brick-a-brack, hundreds of pillow shams on seats and couches and oversize custom wood trim. All the walls had special treatments and built-in custom cabinetry was everywhere. She described her home to my wife as "English Cottagey”. It is much larger than a cottage, I can assure you.

Jane seemed nice enough at the time. She worked as a consultant for a major consultancy flim-flam firm in Chicago, so let’s say she was into a six figure salary. Jane appeared to be intelligent, witty and friendly. Then her true nature came through as it always does when you know someone for a long time. So much for brains.

Another nearby neighbor who was recently fully retired became bored decided to perform lawn services for supplemental income and to stay active. Jane hired him for $30 per session and Tony would not only clip her lawn but he trimmed, edged and even pulled weeds for the price. He did minor landscaping for no extra fee. He was a truly nice guy and a good friend of mine.

One day Jane called him and told him his price was too high. She was hiring a new lawn service where a truck and trailer with three professional mowing devices and a group of Mezcans could get the job done in 30 minutes. They were charging $25. Tony lost a client. When he told me the story he was quite disappointed. He thought they were not only neighbors but friends. She did not even ask him if he would match their price, which he would have done. She was that cold.

On another occasion I went out at 11:45pm on a New Year’s Eve to light off a bunch of fireworks leftover from the 4th. As I was firing rockets and other ‘splodey goodness I noticed her garage door open. It was a frigid night. She backed her Jaguar out of the garage, pulled down the road and began to lecture me. Seems she felt I was going to set fire to her home. I explained that even if I tried none of my stuff could reach her precious English cottage. We had some heated words and she then left to lecture another neighbor down the road who was doing the same thing. This is when I knew firsthand that this broad had serious personality issues and was not worth a second of my time.

My closest neighbor has a fishing boat. When he was cleaning out his garage one day he parked his boat across the road in front of vacant land next to Jane’s place. He left it there overnight. The next morning he was confronted by a very angry Jane, who demanded that he remove the "unsightly piece of junk" from the road immediately. The vacant land happens to be owned by Jane and the boat is anything but unsightly. When he relayed the encounter to me he was disappointed in a neighbor that he and his wife had invited over a few times for cocktails and dinner.

Poor Jane, she is wealthy yet unhappy and unfulfilled. I don’t know how else to explain her behavior.

Then came the final straw for me.

In October 2008 I noticed a letter taped to my front door. It was from Jane. The content was jaw-dropping to me. Here is the letter.

It should be legible if you click to enlarge.



You see, I had McCain-Palin and My Man Mitch for Governor lawn signs out front as did a few other neighbors. Jane was one of very few who adorned their dwellings with Obama signs.

Since Jane was ignorant enough to place a lawn sign for Senator Zero out here in hard red conservative country. She can do as she wishes, but because of it someone placed republican campaign literature in her mailbox. Jane assumed it came from a nearby neighbor as indicated in her letter.

I guess it never occurred to her that someone was driving all over the area dropping literature in the mailboxes of homes displaying Senator Zero signs. Nope, must have been me. In fact, Tony told me later that she told him directly that I was the most likely suspect.

The contents of her letter taped to my front door was right out of the Senator Zero campaign playbook, all talking points that were available to anyone who was getting Senator Zero DNC email blasts (as I sneakily opted into so I know).

As I encountered other neighbors while walking my dogs I would ask if they had a similar note taped to their door. Seems not all neighbors had gotten the Jane letter, only the ones who had displayed McCain-Palin signs. Those who did expressed the same feelings as I.

I saved the letter and pinned it to a bulletin board in my office for future reference. On a few occasions I felt a response letter was in order considering the failure that President Zero has become. But I never have and most likely never will. Common sense prevails. I do not want to get into a pissing match with a fat, ugly leftist slug.

But thoughts of revenge crossed my mind. No, I would not do any damage or anything that would get me in trouble with the law. It’s not worth it. Besides, that’s not in my nature to so such a thing.

Getting revenge to me would be refusing to piss on her if she were on fire. In other words, she will get no favor from me at any point in time ever. I simply choose to ignore the beast.

Now there are neighbors out there willing to get revenge on another such as enacting annoying but perfectly legal options. I thought of Jane today when I watched the following video.



If I held a pig race next to Jane’s place she just might try to mate with one of them. I would never let that happen to an innocent pig.

Congratulations to Governor Walker

Dan has been doing a great job of covering the claptrap as I like to call it outside the Madison capitol building with the union protesters going after Governor Walker. Dan will likely comment on this with a much deeper understanding but I wanted to say congratulations to Walker for just moving ahead without the Democratic lawmakers who fled the state rather than negotiate and passed the bill stripping collective bargaining unilaterally. It is sad that it had to come to this but after weeks on the run to avoid bargaining and negotiating it can't be a surprise for them that he played his own trump card and now they can just stay out of the state indefinitely. From this article:

“Taking on the status quo is no easy task,” he concludes. “Each day, there are protesters in and around our state Capitol. They have every right to be heard. But their voices cannot drown out the voices of the countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets and, more importantly, to make government work for each of them.”

The Grammys Get Something Right... and another Alice in Chains death

A while back I watched the Grammys. I really hadn't paid much attention to them since they picked Jethro Tull for best heavy metal album over what may have been the best metal album ever... "And Justice for All" by Metallica. Similar to what they do at the Oscars, every year the show lists the people that died and they had Ronnie James Dio along with that guy from the Knack who wrote one popular song (My Sharona) that was featured in Reality Bites. So what song do they play while Ronnie and that guy from the Knack are presented... of course it was "My Sharona". I may be odd but Dio-era Black Sabbath really grew on me; they aren't as good as the first few albums but were a lot better than most of the dreck out there.

But hey - the Grammys redeemed themselves - when Arcade Fire won for their album "The Suburbs". I like Arcade Fire a lot and this album (CD?) is great - I missed them at Lollapalooza last year but they played opposite the re-formed Soundgarden (photos here) and since Chris Cornell was in narcotic-free form, his voice was simply amazing, so I do not regret that choice one bit.

Finally it is too bad but the original bass player for Alice In Chains died. He played on their first two big albums (Facelift and Dirt, with Dirt being perhaps my favorite album of all time) along with the SAP EP but was kicked out before the third album (the one with the 3 legged dog on the cover). He is the 2nd member of Alice in Chains to die, since the singer Layne Staley died too (long after he fell into obscurity as a heroin addict).

Ordinance Inducing

Recently I was out in the Western suburbs of Chicago visiting family when I saw this house. Apparently it was an addition added atop a garage that was once part of a larger house; they tore down the larger house as part of a renovation plan which apparently was abandoned in light of the current economic downturn.

Now what you have left is this mind-numbingly ugly thing that I guess you'd call a house. I call it ordinance inducing, meaning so bad that someone has got to be looking at this at city hall and trying to figure out how to stop something like this getting built next time. That is a high hurdle of ugliness to climb.

Reviewing a Book on the Collapse of Lehman Brothers

Recently Dan and I both started trying to read less military history because the books tend to be depressing. Knowing that I was going to be stuck on an airplane for a few hours and needing some light "by the poolside" reading I picked up "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense - The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers" by McDonald (yes I do realize that this sounds strange to most folks).

A bit of background; Lehman Brothers is a famous financial firm that failed during the 2008 crisis and became the biggest bankruptcy case in US history, since it had a balance sheet of over $600 Billion in listed assets at the time of its collapse. Here is a wikipedia summary of the bankruptcy proceedings. Note that at the time of its bankruptcy Lehman had a 33-1 asset leverage ratio, meaning that only a small decline in asset values wiped out the equity and made the firm insolvent. The US Government declined to rescue Lehman Brothers, which remains controversial to this day, and the fall of Lehman also caused an immediate crisis at AIG which led to a huge US government backstop of $85B to halt further failures of other investment institutions.

While the book is interesting, the author, who is a trader, misses most of the essential elements of WHY Lehman was doomed to collapse, focusing on the remoteness of the CEO Fuld, the exposure to toxic real estate mortgages that couldn't be "packaged" into assets and sold (because the securitization market had collapsed), and Lehman's purchase of real estate at the "high water" time of 2007 (virtually everything bought in 2007 turned out to be a bad idea, look at your portfolio at the time).

Note that I think that the book is very interesting and entertaining and recommend that readers buy it. These are more "conceptual" than "literary" or typical journalism reviewer type concerns.

PUBLIC COMPANY CEO CAPTURE

However, these items are merely symptoms of the root cause. The author inadvertently stumbled upon the root cause while discussing the history of Lehman and Fuld's rise to power, when disputes among the partners led to partners leaving the firm, taking significant amounts of their capital with them (the firm had to utilize their cash to buy back their stock).

When Lehman was spun back out as a public entity, in 1994, essentially the partners no longer mattered, regardless of their title, because Lehman was a public company and the board was "captured" by Dick Fuld. The board was admirably satirized in the book:

Nine members of the ten-person board were retired. Four of them were 75 years of age or older... only two of them had direct experience in the financial services industry - and they were all from a different era.

From this disparate group of old stagers, Lehman created a risk committee, chosen and controlled by Fuld himself. It met only a couple of times a year, which is an unusual way to monitor the company's ongoing risk.

In addition to "capturing" the board and stuffing it with out-of-touch retirees, and nullifying its risk management capabilities, Fuld did what many CEO's do, installed a #2 who was in no position to challenge him to ever run the company.

A key factor in the appointment was that his ambitions did not apparently include becoming CEO. His great concern was with what he called the "culture" of Lehman Brothers.

Packing the board with retired and out of touch geezers, ensuring that no one competent is in place to succeed you, and limiting opportunities for your already-supine board to govern your actions are often immediate actions of CEO's that want to ensure their reign will be long and profitable (for themselves).

PUBLIC COMPANY "RACE TO THE BOTTOM"

The other myth in the book is that Lehman took extra-ordinary risks that wouldn't have been made if someone else (other than Fuld) would have been at the helm, or if Fuld would have listened to any of the competent staff at Lehman (of which there were many, according to the author).

But in reality Fuld was just doing what all his competitors were doing:

- gorging on asset backed securities and earning easy profits (as long as the carousel kept moving)
- investing in hedge funds which were the latest craze
- directly purchasing real estate which only seemed to go up higher and higher
- leveraging up to insane proportions (at 33-1, they were typical)
- earning money from derivatives with counter party risks (with counter parties such as AIG, Bear Stearns, etc...)

These same tactics (or close variants) were done by Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, and others. Goldman Sachs tried to get out a bit early but were singed and JP Morgan Chase under Jamie Dimon also were (relatively) well run ships by comparison.

If Fuld wouldn't have done these things his stock would have been hammered and likely the board would have been forced to intervene and replace him with someone who WOULD move along with the herd. Thus Fuld really only could try to ride the tiger or get off and let someone else ride the tiger. From his perspective, and given that there seemed to be limited risk on the downside (unless the firm failed catastrophically, in which case he as CEO plus the CFO could be on the hook under Sarbanes for jail time if fraud was proven), he obviously chose to ride the tiger.

THE "SHERRON WATKINS" MYTH

Another type of "myth" is that if someone had explained the risk involved with the real estate asset backed securities to Fuld, then he would have pulled back the risk and saved the firm. This is analogous to the role of Sherron Watkins at Enron who told Lay about their accounting.

The book describes how Michael Gelband, who was the head of fixed income and by all accounts a seasoned veteran of Wall Street, trying to make the board and Fuld understand the risks that they were facing. Per the book:

The trouble was, Dick Fuld could not understand the technicalities of market finance at the highest level... the Chairman didn't get it. But he realized he needed clarification. In front of Mike, he called Henry Paulson, the secretary of the United States Treasury and a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Dick did not even try to get into the details of the problem, and handed the phone to Mike, who pointed out with immense clarity the serious problems recently developing in the asset-backed commercial paper market and its deadly potential impact on the giant leveraged SIV's, to which Wall Street and the largest commercial banks were exposed.... to this day, Henry Paulson, with a supreme grasp of the subject, insists that the first person ever to warn him of the coming catastrophe was Mike Gelband, of Lehman Brothers, in that phone call from Dick's office.

And what was the response? Fuld basically told him to get with the program of higher leverage and bigger deals and ignore the risk so Gelband quit the firm.

While I do not want to compare Watkins, who was a relatively minor official to Gelband, who is a big hitter on Wall Street and has gone on to other large roles, conceptually the hole in the logic is that even if Fuld (and Lay) understood the risks, they had no choice but to keep "riding the tiger" because that was how they made their money.

The book cited all the money that Lehman was making on CDO's - and as those traders earned more money they became even more important to Lehman. In real life they chose to resolve the conflict by "shooting the messenger" even if the messenger had been able to convince Paulson.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

Monday Morning Blues

Madison Protests 3-5-11 - Photos

Photos from todays protests, click any for larger.

Scott Walker's flaming bag of shit. See the flame on top?

The Teamsters have had two semis parked at the protests for a while now.

I went around to the back and the semi was empty, save for a few teamsters getting out of the wind and a small pile of t-shirts.

Walker's yellow brick road leads to the wicked rich. Stupid concept, but graphically a nice sign to my untrained eye - at least it stuck out from the majority of the magic marker and posterboard signs.

Johnny Cash is giving YOU the finger.

A table of socialist/communist literature.

My heart really sank when I saw this scene develop. This mom is making her kid shuffle around the square, and I could tell from the little girls face that she wanted to be anywhere but here. Maybe building a snow fort, or coloring, anything. She looked so completely sad that it affected me for a few minutes.

Scotty tired of doing your wife so now your (sic) gonna screw us.

Best. Sign. Ever.

This dog was NOT having a good time and REALLY wanted to be elsewhere.

This guy was dragging that cross all around the square and handing out literature to passers by.

Fox News makes you stupid!

There were a LOT of fist posters in different forms. More than last week by a mile.

Walkers Murdering Democracy

Chicago's Finest in the house, or at least a dude who owned a CPD jacket.

Madison Protests 3-5-11 - Video

Video of todays protests.

I think I have pretty much described the scene down there in pretty good detail, and it is just more of the same so I will just put up the videos. I should add that it had a little more of a party feel. Michael Moore was scheduled to be there later but it was too cold and windy for me to stay for that blowhard. There are more and more people showing up that have nothing to do with the protests such as Bible thumpers, street entertainers, and plain 'ol hippies reliving the sixties.

Bizarro World Marketing Decision

Earlier this week I did a post about the signs I saw at the capitol. I wanted to embed the video of Tesla doing "Signs" and made a joke about how they are the official band of this blog. I embedded the video into the post but it wasn't working. Instead I provided a link. Here is the embed just so you can see it:

When I made the original post you would see that the video could not be played, and a message stated that the video contains content from "x" entertainment and to watch it on YouTube.

I had to laugh.

*As of this writing the embed above seems to be working but we will see on that.*

Now I get the point where you may (may) want to drive traffic to a certain video that might be new or faddish to get advertising revenue from YouTube/Google. But a twenty one year old Tesla song? Really?

I would think that you would want to make stale/old/crappy material as available as possible in the slight chance that someone would see it and perhaps buy the single on iTunes or some other service. In the music bizarro world, is Tesla really worth restricting? I mean we aren't talking about the Stones here, this is TESLA.

Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Scott Walker Has Got To...

From last Saturday. No more sleepovers in the capitol though. I plan on heading down there today once again to see what is what. The protests this week have been pretty much dead, but I assume there will be more activity down there on the weekend. I demand a giant papier mache head!

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz.

Dangerous Icons At The Madison Spectacle

Some time ago Dan and I wrote on the blog about the significance of icons, logos if you will.

Dan (who has done an outstanding job recently covering the Madison spectacle) had put up his opinion about the new logo for the Big Ten conference. I followed up with my speculation on how they arrived at said turd.

Back to the Madison Spectacle. What disturbed me more than the professional protesters who were shipped in to create visual havoc, more than teachers who walked off their jobs to ‘fight for the children’ and even more than the cowardly senators who ran away from their responsibilities and went on a cheap motel hot tub vacation in Illinois were the icons and logos associated with organized labor held by protesters.



Not long ago icons such as these were as dreaded as swastikas. These are socialist / communist icons being held and displayed proudly by Madison protesters. There is pure evil hiding behind that icon.

Please understand who we are dealing with here. On the left is the icon for the AFL-CIO Wisconsin chapter and on the right is the icon for International Socialism. Note the similarities.

I believe most dues paying union members have no clue who is running their union and in most cases, probably do not care. The inherent greed in union workers blinds them to what their leadership is doing with their money. Union dues are supporting far left causes and politicians and the members either don’t know or don’t care. How sad is that?

It would be safe to say these icons are anti-American symbols and the people who display them are enemies of America and the American way of life.

If the public union workers are looking for sympathy they won’t find it here. They can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.

Know your enemies, they walk amongst us and teach your children.