September 24, 2012

One of the many ways we're screwed.

This news is a little old, but this is the first I've heard about it. It's hard to believe that this could happen, but... then again, it's not so hard to believe.

Here's the story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7862246/How-a-broker-spent-520m-in-a-drunken-stupor-and-moved-the-global-oil-price.html

To paraphrase, a brokerage employee during a drunken blackout state traded so much money on oil futures that it changed the price of oil globally. One man, while incoherently drunk.

Some excerpts (emphasis mine):

It was 7.45am on June 30 last year when the senior, longstanding broker for PVM Oil Futures was contacted by an admin clerk querying why he'd bought 7m barrels of crude in the middle of the night.

By 10am it emerged that Mr Perkins had single-handedly moved the global price of oil to an eight-month high during a "drunken blackout". Prices leapt by more than $1.50 a barrel in under half an hour at around 2am – the kind of sharp swing caused by events of geo-political significance. Ten times the usual volume of futures contracts changed hands in just one hour.

By the time PVM realised the trades were not authorised and swiftly began to unwind the positions, losses of exactly $9,763,252 had stacked up.

Mr Perkins' trading stopped for a few hours, but in the early hours of the morning, he returned to the oil market via his laptop. He placed an incredible $520m in orders through ICE Futures Europe, where traders can buy or sell crude oil for future delivery and bet on whether prices will go up or down. The first trade was at 1.22am was at $71.40 per barrel and the last trade at 3.41am was at $73.05. During this period, Mr Perkins gradually edged up the price by bidding higher each time, until he was responsible for 69pc of the global market volume.

Mr Perkins told investigators that he has "limited recollection" of the entire episode, claiming he had placed the trades during a drink-induced stupor.

Having admitted to an alcohol problem and received treatment, Mr Perkins was banned from trading for five years and hit with a £72,000 fine, reduced from £150,000 because of potential financial hardship.

Let's put that into perspective. $1.50 increase on a barrel of oil means that some people had to decide between filling their car to go to work or eating that week. Did people their jobs because they couldn't afford the gas to get to them? Did people die because they couldn't afford oil to heat their homes. This one man pushed oil prices up -globally-.

I'd say he deserves a harsher punishment than what is indicated in the article, but the problem is systemic. Brokers and corporations all have their collective twitchy finger on the same button. But no, they want to be deregulated further. They want no oversight. They want the inmates to run the asylum.

September 24, 2012

A "die-hard conservative Republican" embraces Universal Health Care

Someone on my Twitter feed just linked me to this article. Really excellent read about someone who comes to the realization that they have been lied to for a long time about how Universal Health Care works. The author describes herself as a "die-hard conservative Republican" several times, who was disgusted by the idea of being under a gov't mandated health plan in Canada.

I'm Canadian, so I can't really speak to her experience in the US system, but having grown up in Canada, and having used the system all my life, her experience with the Canadian system rings true.

Some excerpts:

When I moved to Canada in 2008, I was a die-hard conservative Republican. So when I found out that we were going to be covered by Canada's Universal Health Care, I was somewhat disgusted. This meant we couldn't choose our own health coverage, or even opt out if we wanted too. It also meant that abortion was covered by our taxes, something I had always believed was horrible. I believed based on my politics that government mandated health care was a violation of my freedom.

Fast forward a little past the Canadian births of my third and fourth babies. I had better prenatal care than I had ever had in the States. I came in regularly for appointments to check on my health and my babies' health throughout my pregnancy, and I never had to worry about how much a test cost or how much the blood draw fee was. With my pregnancies in the States, I had limited my checkups to only a handful to keep costs down. When I went in to get the shot I needed because of my negative blood type, it was covered. In fact I got the recommended 2 doses instead of the more risky 1 dose because I didn't have to worry about the expense. I had a wide array of options and flexibility when it came to my birth, and care providers that were more concerned with my health and the health of my baby than how much money they might make based on my birth, or what might impact their reputation best. When health care is universal, Drs are free to recommend and provide the best care for every patient instead of basing their care on what each patient can afford.

The only concern I was left with was the fact that abortion was covered by the universal health care, and I still believed that was wrong. But as I lived there, I began to discover I had been misled in that understanding as well. Abortion wasn't pushed as the only option by virtue of it being covered. It was just one of the options, same as it was in the USA. In fact, the percentage rates of abortion are far lower in Canada than they are in the USA, where abortion is not covered by insurance and is often much harder to get. In 2008 Canada had an abortion rate of 15.2 per 1000 women (In other countries with government health care that number is even lower), and the USA had an abortion rate of 20.8 abortions per 1000 women. And suddenly I could see why that was the case. With Universal coverage, a mother pregnant unexpectedly would still have health care for her pregnancy and birth even if she was unemployed, had to quit her job, or lost her job.

Read the whole story here:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/07/12/how-i-lost-my-fear-universal-health-care

September 14, 2012

Halifax man pepper-sprays teen over gay slurs

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2012/09/11/ns-pepper-spray-attack.html

A 39-year-old Halifax man says he used pepper spray on a teenager after she harassed his partner for six weeks.

"I actually pepper-sprayed her," said Christopher Whittle. Whittle spoke with the CBC's Elizabeth Chiu because he wants people to know this was not a random act.

The incident happened last Friday, when Halifax Regional Police said a 14-year-old girl was sprayed with an irritant near the parking lot of the Halifax Shopping Centre.

"This was happening every few days. She was coming and making comments about him being gay, and basically just taunting him for who he was, calling him a faggot, fruit whatever," Whittle said.

Friday, Whittle said he witnessed an incident between the girl and his partner. He said he snapped.


Whittle said he was shocked to find out the person he sprayed was a 14-year-old girl. He said she looks older, and assumed she was a woman.

"I do regret how I handled it. I could have handled it differently. But at the time I guess I was just so upset with everything that had gone on, that's how I reacted."

Police say whatever the reason, there's no excuse to pepper spray anyone.

"They should take other means such as calling police, and allow us to deal with it so they don't find themselves in a position of being charged criminally," said Halifax Const. Brian Palmeter.

September 1, 2012

The American Dream by the Provocateur Network

Interesting little video I was directed to yesterday. It's definitely worth the 30 minute run time to get through it (though the ending is perhaps a bit needlessly jingoistic).

&feature=plcp

From the information box on YouTube:

The AMERICAN DREAM is a 30 minute animated film that shows you how you've been scammed by the most basic elements of our government system. All of us Americans strive for the American Dream, and this film shows you why your dream is getting farther and farther away. Do you know how your money is created? Or how banking works? Why did housing prices skyrocket and then plunge? Do you really know what the Federal Reserve System is and how it affects you every single day? THE AMERICAN DREAM takes an entertaining but hard hitting look at how the problems we have today are nothing new, and why leaders throughout our history have warned us and fought against the current type of financial system we have in America today. You will be challenged to investigate some very entrenched and powerful institutions in this nation, and hopefully encouraged to help get our nation back on track.

I was going to put it into the Video & Multimedia section, but it seems a little... conspiracy-theory-ish for that department, at times.

Update: Here's a good review of the video, indicating some of its shortfalls. I did notice the absence of Glass-Steagall in the video, etc...
http://undersoutherneyes.edpinsent.com/the-american-dream-by-the-provocateur-network-informative-if-biased-documentary-on-money-and-american-banking/

August 16, 2012

(Canada) Enbridge deletes islands to push pipeline

Canadian energy giant Enbridge wants to put an oil pipeline/tanker route from the already dubious tar sands through waterways and rainforest to move oil. Seem dangerous? Well, in order to make it seem -less- dangerous, Enbridge had 1000 square kilometers of islands deleted from a map in both images and a video showing the project, in order to make it look more appealing.

Enbridge has been in the news a lot lately due to terrible pipeline oil spills like this:
http://bc.ctvnews.ca/experts-fear-long-term-health-impact-of-michigan-spill-1.915380

but this latest move just seems that much more offensive, because it assumes that all the people involved are stupid. From the article in the Vancouver Sun:

About 1,000 square kilometres of islands have disappeared from Douglas Channel in an animated depiction of Enbridge Inc.'s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker route.

The project would send bitumen by pipeline from Alberta's oilsands to Kitimat, where it would be loaded onto tankers for export to Asia.

A video on the Enbridge website shows Douglas Channel as a wide open funnel leading from Kitimat to the Pacific, omitting the narrow channels, islands and rocky outcrops that make up the potential tanker access route.

The view of Douglas Channel sprang to public attention after Lori Waters, a Vancouver Island researcher and owner of a biomedical communications company, created overlays and maps showing the real Douglas Channel and posted the images on Facebook.

Enbridge is a dirty, polluting, unsafe company, and is lying through their teeth to get us to just buck up and let them do what they want, and damn the torpedoes. Here are links to some of the relevant sources and resources:

Vancouver Sun article:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Enbridge+sinks+islands+angers+critics/7099740/story.html
Sum Of Us blog post with the images:
http://sumofus.org/campaigns/enbridge/?sub=tw
The website of Enbridge itself:
http://www.enbridge.com/

August 2, 2012

Fantastic short essay about Chick-fil-a

From the Owldolatrous Productions blog:

http://www.owldolatrous.com/?p=288

A sample:

Now, let’s get to the nitty-gritty of things. Please read carefully. These things have been said before, but not by me, and not all in one place. Please read with an open mind. If you can’t read with an open mind, please leave, take a minute, come back, and try again. If you can’t do that, then please don’t bother. Please read all of the words here, rather than just reading half of the argument and assuming you know what I’m saying. Read these words as they are written. Again, if you don’t want to read my words, then don’t continue.

So here goes:

1. This isn’t simply about marriage. Shocker, right? It’s extremely frustrating that same-sex marriage is the great continental divide. People are judged according to how they stand on this issue, as if no other issue matters. Did you know that a person can be for same-sex marriage and still be homophobic? Did you know that a person can be against same-sex marriage and be gay? We all get categorized very quickly based on the marriage issue and maybe that’s not fair. But here’s what you should know:

- In 29 states in America today, my partner of 18 years, Cody, or I could be fired for being gay. Period. No questions asked. One of those states is Louisiana, our home state. We live in self-imposed exile from beloved homeland, family, and friends, in part, because of this legal restriction on our ability to live our lives together.

- In 75 countries in the world, being gay is illegal. In many, the penalty is life in prison. These are countries we can’t openly visit. In 9 countries, being gay is punishable by death. In many others, violence against gays is tacitly accepted by the authorities. These are countries where we would be killed. Killed.

- Two organizations that work very hard to maintain this status quo and roll back any protections that we may have are the Family Research Council and the Marriage & Family Foundation. For example, the Family Research council leadership has officially stated that same-gender-loving behavior should be criminalized in this country. They draw their pay, in part, from the donations of companies like Chick-Fil-A. Both groups have also done “missionary” work abroad that served to strengthen and promote criminalization of same-sex relations.

- Chick-Fil-A has given roughly $5M to these organizations to support their work.

- Chick-Fil-A’s money comes from the profits they make when you purchase their products.

He goes on for a few more excellent points. By and large the comments are very supportive, but even as clearly as he's put it, there are still some who -just don't get it!!-

This is also making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter.

June 19, 2012

Can we please stop calling it bullying?

And call it what it really is? Assault and violence.

As WillParkinson posted a little earlier, a 14 year old child was blinded in one eye when students from the grade below held him down and beat him around the head and face until his glasses broke and damaged his cornea. He now needs a transplant. The family is now suing the school:

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/brooklyn-family-sue-city-son-blinded-bullies-brutal-assault-roy-h-mann-junior-high-school-article-1.1098129

But they bandy the word "bullying" around again and again. Listen, I was bullied in high school. Kids can be cruel and mean little shits, but this is not bullying. We keep hearing that kids will be kids and that children need to stand up to bullies... I agree. But these kids that beat this 14 year old up are not bullies. They are dangerous, violent people. This is a separate problem from bullying, this is children that have gone completely wild, and are out of control.

How bad have things gotten when we can see something like this and call it bullying? Or shake our heads and say that kids will be kids? Kids are -dying- out there. Kids are being maimed, injured, blinded. Bullying is losing your lunch money, not your eye.

May 28, 2012

Why Lady Gaga's Cancellation in Indonesia is bad

From Alan Cross, a Canadian "professional music geek," longtime radio broadcaster, and blogger.

He was just in Singapore for the Music Matters conference there, and the cancellation was big news there!

From his article:

The status of her Jakarta show was big news in Singapore--and not merely celebrity news, either. It was a hearts and minds issue and one with serious political and social overtones. (Rather than rehash everything here, please go back and read the original post.)

In the end, though the hardline Islamic groups have won the day in Indonesia, a country of 240 million that's officially a secular state. By cancelling the concert--to which 52,000 people bought tickets--authorities have caved to the demands of a religious minority.

Here are the two relevant posts:

http://alancross.squarespace.com/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/5/22/brace-yourself-im-on-lady-gagas-side-for-this-one.html

http://www.alancross.ca/a-journal-of-musical-things/2012/5/28/why-the-cancellation-of-lady-gagas-indonesian-concert-should.html

I think the big take-away from this one is "Authorities have caved to the demands of a religious minority."