Monthly Archives: May 2010

The Watering Hole: May 13 – The Table Knife

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This date  in  1637 is the date of tradition for the invention of the table knife by Cardinal Richelieu; reputedly to cure dinner guests of the unsavoury habit of picking their teeth with their knife-points.

Americans invented Steak Knives to counter this imposition!

This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.

Beaver Shot from Space

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picture source:http://www.greenthinkers.org/blog/2008/04/big_beaver_dam_spotted_from_sp.html

Using Google Earth and NASA pictures, a Canadian based scientist  (ecologist) on the lookout for receding arctic permafrost, came across what’s possibly the largest beaver dam on earth.

“It might be hard to believe, but there are a few things that are visible from space, and beaver dams are among the few animal-made structures that are,” said Thie.(read story)

Discovered in 2007 using the online satellite imaging system, this beaver dam exists in a national park in nothern Alberta, Canada and measures almost 3,000 feet long. Apparently, it’s been showing up on NASA satellite images since 1990; and is estimated to have taken more than 20 years to build.

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The Watering Hole: May 12 – A Pirates Lament

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What were the Somali pirates singing after  having been released in their boat pierced with a 10 cm cannon round in its keel and returned in same with a sardine can for bailing it out? Here’s a suggestion:

800 Kilos across the sea
My Somalia is a-waitin’ for me
My Somalia, my land of violence, violence, violence

Rebels all around it everywhere
Tropical trees and the salty air
But for me the thing that’s a-waitin’ there-violence, violence, violence

It seems so distant, 800 Kilos from land
Restin’ in the water serene
I’d work for anyone, even Taliban
Who would float me to my homeland dream

800 Kilos, so near yet far
I’d swim with just some water-wings and my guitar
I could leave the wings but I’ll need the guitar for violence, violence,
violence

800 Kilos across the sea
My Somalia is a-waitin’ for me
My Somalia, my land of violence

A country like Hell in Arabic lands
Covered with scrub and sands
If I have to swim, I’ll do it forever
Till I’m gazin’ on my homeland bands

800 Klicks in a leaky old boat
Any old thing that’ll stay afloat
When we arrive we’ll all promote violence, violence, violence

800 Kilos across the sea
My Somalia is a-waitin’ for me
My Somalia, my land of violence, violence, violence

800 Kilos across the sea
My Somalia is a-waitin’ for me

Glub, glub, glub …

According to Russian accounts, they failed to make it to shore.

This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.

The Watering Hole: May 11, Europhoria is over

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picture source:http://info.kopp-verlag.de/fileadmin/user_upload/gerhard_wisnewski/2008-07/inflation.jpg

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The Europhoria in the markets on the 1 trillion safety net for the Euro is already over. Stock Markets from Japan to Europe close in the red and shed some of yesterday’s gains. I am only really surprised that they fell for it in the first place. As a real optimist, who thinks everything will work out just fine in the end, I panicked after the news of the Euro deal broke. WTF were they doing with our money? But, as always, there are people out there in the web, who are so much better, when it comes to putting what matters into words:

Eurointelligence:

The euphoria is evaporating. Market commentators have taken a closer second look at the package, and they start not to like it. In our view the sentiment was best expressed by  what Kevin Gaynor chief markets economist of RBS who called the EU’s strategy “Bailouts rather than integration”. They are not solving the problem, they are throwing money at it. Another appropriate comment came from Marek Belke, the EU head at the IMF, who compared the rescue package to a dose of morphine with the purpose to stabilise the patient.(read more)

And on the futility of it all:

Credit Writedowns says wait for May 19th!

Nouriel Roubini warns in an interview with Der Spiegel, that there is more to come:

Today the markets are very worried about Greece, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Increasingly, bond market vigilantes have woken up in places like the UK and Ireland. Even the US and Japan will have problems because of their huge budget deficits. Maybe not this year, but they will eventually. In the US, states like California, Nevada, Arizona, New York and Florida have immense fiscal problems. The growing budget deficits and the huge government debts are really what worry me most. (read whole interview)

And looking away from “irresponsible” spendthrift Europe into your own back yard:

American conservatives, particularly the fiscal variety, tend to hold up the European Union as a model of irresponsible, big-spending economic policy. But consider this: According to E.U. rules, member countries cannot maintain budget deficits above 3 percent of gross domestic product; nor can their total debt rise above 60 percent of GDP. As Veronique de Rugy points out in this issue, the U.S. budget deficit in 2009 was three times the E.U.’s limit, and total debt will zoom past the 60 percent threshold sometime this year. Washington makes Paris look frugal. (read more)

You can find more useful links on this and other subjects at nakedcapitalism, which has turned into one of my favourite sites. Outside TheZoo, that is.

Don’t judge this book by its cover, this is still our open thread. Don’t hold back!

Results and yet ..

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Last week I closely followed four stories. None of the results were in any way really pleasing. Except maybe for the drubbing Merkel and more important Westerwelle received, but that’s just me.

Gulf of Mexico Oil

The Oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico cannot be stopped.

The dome that was supposed to funnel the oil from the well into ships on the surface has failed. BP and everybody else are at a loss with what can be done about it.  I submitted the above link to reddit and the discussion there starts with a toungue in cheek remark to “nuke it” and results in some serious discussion of whether this was possible. Yes folks, the situation is that desperate.

UK elections gave us a result, but no government.

Forget about the dire warnings of “senior bankers” that a government pact rather be quick, but from what I see there is no real compatibility amongst the prospective partners of a coalition to lead to a lasting government. Electoral reform is necessary, but how much will come out of it, if the parties you can choose out of still suck?

The elections in Germany’s biggest Bundesland (state) ends in  a tie and gets the German government in a fix.

That’s wat Angela Merkel needed most. Instead of wiping the sweat of  a heroic rescue mission from her brow (see below) she returns to Berlin as a sad loser. By her own making. Or rather, by her own government, cause her junior partner helped this defeat along a goodish bit. Germany being the biggest still functional economy in Europe, this will have an impact.

The EU agreed on an financial umbrella for debt stricken members, which amounts to € 750 bn (almost $ 1 trillion) .

Markets are upbeat about that. Up somewhere between 4% and almost 7%  today. Now what is it really? The secure feeling that the Euro and with it European economies are really more stable now, or the prospect of another trillion dollars in liquidity on their way right from European taxpayers pockets  into the assets lists of international banks?

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The Watering Hole: May 10 – Stonewall Jackson

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On this day in 1863, General Stonewall Jackson died of complications of pneumonia 8 days after having an arm amputated after Confederate pickets accidentally shot him during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

While most historians have focused on Jackson’s military career, few focus on his support for the education of blacks in his time, see this and this for examples.

Across The Pond: Elections, Euros, Emotions

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source: http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/eu/EUROPE_9.JPG

This is going to be a long weekend for Angela Merkel. First of all she and her fellow European leaders had to get the Eurozone under some kind of control until Asian stock markets open late tonight, our time.Their solution: Add another € 70 bn to defend the Euro, and the Germans are already supposed to sign the fattest check in history:

EU leaders have agreed a financial defence plan in an attempt to protect the eurozone countries from speculative attacks in the wake of the Greek debt crisis.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said today that an “intervention unit” designed to preserve financial stability in the 16 eurozone countries would be in place by Monday when the markets reopen. (read more)

The Euro-Crisis can be followed at nakedcapitalism, they have a couple of interesting posts on that.

Secondly, she is facing the voters’ wrath in North Rine Westphalia the biggest of Germany’s states, where state elections will not be going good for her, that much is certain.

The UK has been so immersed in political fever that another highly significant election has gone almost unnoticed. When Germans go to the polls in state elections today, at stake will be not only the future of Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition in Berlin, but also the direction of Europe’s biggest economy. (read more)

THE voters in Düsseldorf’s central square were waiting patiently in the rain for Angela Merkel to appear last Friday when the loudspeakers suddenly announced that she was too busy dealing with Greece’s financial crisis to join them.

Their spirits already dampened, many were clearly in a mood to punish the chancellor for her contribution of more than £19 billion to the Greek bailout. They had gathered to hear Merkel make her pitch for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in today’s state election in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s industrial powerhouse with a population of 18m. (read more)

A detailed article on the state election can be found at the International section of Der Spiegel.

But it’s not a good day for Gordon Brown either, he has lost his elections already and will lose his post, because even if the Liberal democrats should opt for supporting Labour, I very much doubt they will do it if  Brown’s at the helm.

And opt for Labour they still could, because the Tories are adamant when it comes to electoral reform. Big NO.

Nick Clegg was urged by senior figures in his party last night to back a “traffic light coalition” with Labour, Green and smaller parties amid signs that David Cameron’s proposed deal to the Liberal Democrats has triggered an angry backlash among Tory and Lib Dem MPs.

The Lib Dem and Conservative leaders met last night for “constructive” face-to-face talks to try to reach a deal before markets open tomorrow morning. Earier, after a crucial meeting with his party in Westminster to gauge reaction to a Lib-Con coalition, Mr Clegg addressed a 1,000-strong crowd protesting in favour of electoral reform to insist that proportional representation was still key to the talks. (read more)

I am not really surprised that the “senior bankers” are already putting pressure on the parties:

FEARS of a market slump mounted this weekend after British politicians failed to form a government and senior bankers warned that the eurozone crisis might cause bank lending to seize up. (read more)

This is blatant blackmail. The banks don’t want electoral reform, they like the status quo just fine. Electoral reform would only serve to give the great unwashed more say, and we can’t have that, can we?

And finally, here’s the New Mr Switzerland, what an emotional moment, which I didn’t watch and will never regret not having watched.

Have a good Sunday and especially a Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. I’ll head back now to my boys and spend a little quality time with my family.

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The Watering Hole: May 8

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Oregon Coast

Photo by Zooey

I’m studying hard today, so won’t be around much (except for breaks).

The picture is of the Oregon Coast around the Newport area — no oil wells.  I’m already looking forward to my Thanksgiving week trip — which is SO far off right now.

This is your daily open thread, so have at it!