I see today that gas prices are going up again. It happens every year at this time. It must be that the viscosity of oil under the earth gets thicker around now causing higher pumping prices. Otherwise you might think there is price-setting and collusion. markets regulate themselves so that couldn't be.

rojo

I was saddened today when I read the paper and saw that Carrol Shelby had passed on. He may be best known for his Mustang variants or for his Mopar variants such as the Omni GLH or GLHS (goes like holy shit).

He should be best known for his Cobras and perhaps the Cobra Daytona. It was American hot-rodding meets endurance sports coupe racing and his group of American hot rodders beat the snot out of Scuderia Ferrari before Ford had him move to the Ford GT-40.

His passing marks the end of an era in American motor sports history populated by Briggs Cunningham and Jim Hall and the Chapparals, beating the best from Europe, including Ferrari and Jaguar.

rojo

Yes, it is time for my normal morning cheeriness. okay, it is Friday and I enjoy sarcasm. The attached article is a longer read, but outlines the attempt by conservative think tanks to smear wind energy as dirty energy. Certainly not as effective as petrochemicals. Oh yes, this program is being paid for by oil companies (imagine that) and includes the normal suspects (ALEC, to change zoning and clean energy bills). and then you have the head of NASA stating if the tar sands project gets off the ground in full (remember that pipeline to Houston over the Ogalala aquifer) it is end game for climate change. Hmmm, science sez one thing, the oil industry another. Who to believe? Kind of reminds me of the tobacco industry stating that cigarettes weren't harmful.

rojo

Just a quick one as I on my way to work. Saw in the paper yesterday that someone had the audacity to think of raising the State minimum wage wage from $8.00 per hour to $8.14 and make it rise with inflation. Of course, the response to this was JOB KILLER!!!!!!! My gosh, if a lower paid worker gets $0.14/hour, then those higher up will demand it too. Huh? The example given was wait staff and cooks. Why, according to the critic, with minimum wage and tips, waiter staff make over $30/hour. That extra $300 annually (2080 work hours annually times $0.14/hour), will break every struggling small business. What a crock of crap!!! No benefits, no sick days and no vacations for service industry as a general rule (I am sure wait staff are all in hedge funds). And if paying your employees the extra $300 annually kills your business, your business plan sucks. Its okay for gas to go from $2.50/gallon to over $4.00/gallon and not raise employee wages.

The argument really needs to be a LIVING WAGE, not what is a minimum wage. A living wage with benefits. Have people forgotten what it is like to work for less than $10/hour and try to hold your life and soul together. In the book "Nickel and Dimed", the author could not even complete that task. What ever happened to compassion in this country? Sorry to break this to you Randians, greed is not good. and profits are necessary, we know that. But how often does business school ask how much needs to be made and how much goes to the common good?

rojo

I saw yesterday Apple made $11.6B in profits from $35.2B in revenue. That is roughly about a 33% profit margin. Not bad if you can get it. A good profit for a water utility is around 12%. They sold around 30,000,000 iPhones last quarter for 1/2 of their profit. Just last year it was revealed that moving their iPhone manufacturing to China made them an extra $0.06 per phone or something like that. I can't find the number now. Let's use 0.50 per iPhone for discussion's sake. Let's see subtract $15,000,000 from $11,600,000 and you still make a boatload of money. If you round to three significant figures, the profit does not even change!!!!!! and how many American jobs has that lost? and in China the workers have to work 12-16 hour days and there have been deaths on the assembly line. For shame, Apple.

All numbers used in the were found in the newspaper or by use of the Google. What is the list price of an iPhone anyway when the margin is $167 per phone? Is list around $400 or so? and the free one you get you pay for in monthly service fees over the life of the contract.

rojo

What century, yes, you read that right, what century does this dude live in?

Vaklav Havel would be proud. snicker, snicker.

rojo

Oh, shock and horror. The Secret Service, Green Berets, etc. saw hookers while in Cartajena. The horror of amoral behavior. Yeah, sure. Do you think we are saps? These guys are the toughest, the brightest, the most macho and are adrenaline junkies. Do you think they just drink muscle milk and go to the gym in their off hours? C'mon. They couldn't even keep male prostitutes out of the White House during the Christian Bush administration. I am sure he was not just visiting Karl Melman the whole time. It couldn't have been that the Bush administration was closeted sado-masochists who like, oh never mind.

The point is these guys drink and carouse on their time off. Prostitution is legal there. Do you think these guys were causing grievous security harm by seeing hookers? Like the Russian, the cartel (pick the enemy) had actually infiltrated every brothel with plants so when the Security detail came to town, they had agents everywhere. Just to entice secret service into serious mistakes.

No, the real issue is not the immorality of visiting prostitutes, or the bogus security issues. It is the culture that approves of this behavior by covertly allowing this to be expensed. Do you think your tax dollars didn't buy many prostitutes along the way. Are you naive? While you can barely make your bills, guys are getting their rocks off on your dollar. Do you think hammers really cost $50, or toilet seats cost $250. No, the fees for EXPENSES (prostitutes dinners and drinks, maybe some cars, Snap On Tool Kits, etc.) run those costs for basic services up.

rojo

think they ever listened to james brown?

rojo

One of my favorite and amusing things is that when a judge rules in favor of the right wing, they are Constitutionalists. When a judge rules in favor of a progressive cause, they are activists. Heads were erupting when Obama talked about activist right wing judges doing social engineering.

rojo

Very sad that a vibrant river delta has run dry because all the water is used up before it gets there. When making water rights, politicians forgot that the water may have had a life cycle of its own.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-postel-colorado-river-delta-20120325,0,3585928.story

rojo