Month: January 2010

Keeping score

Five bank failures today. Two of the five had more than $1 billion in assets.

That’s 9 so far in 2010.

One of today’s banks was nearby.

Charter Bank, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was closed today by the Office of Thrift Supervision, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Charter Bank, Albuquerque, New Mexico, a newly-chartered federal savings bank and a subsidiary of Beal Financial Corporation, Plano, Texas, to assume all of the deposits of Charter Bank.

It has been nearly 11 years since a New Mexico bank failed.

Today’s Photos

The winter storm that passed through Albuquerque today had much more bark than bite — it did snow an inch to two twice today, but melted in-between and after.

Still, when the sun came out around 5, the Sandia Mountains had never been prettier. These two photos show the proximity of the mountains more than their beauty. They were taken at the nearby CVS, one from the parking lot and the other from inside while I waited for a cashier (it is CVS).

Click either photo for larger versions.


Idle thought

I’m missing something; perhaps someone can help me out.

In federal election campaigns individuals may only donate up to $2300 to a candidate. The Supreme Court says corporations are just like individuals. The analyses of the decision say corporations will be able to spend great amounts.

But if corporations are just like individuals, how come corporations aren’t also limited to $2300?

iPhone leather case with battery backup

$20.75

Read the review at TUAW.

Slide your iPhone onto the case’s 30 pin dock connector and the fit is nice and snug. Plug in a standard iPhone/iPod cable into the side and the light turns red until fully charged when the light turns green. The on and off switch activates or de-activates the battery backup. I can’t come up with a good reason to ever turn it off. The leather flip cover not only protects the screen, but also acts as a stand, when folded back a bit, holding the iPhone upright in either landscape or portrait mode. So much for those little flexible plastic holders. Another nice feature is that if you leave the switch set to on, you can charge both the battery backup and your iPhone at the same time using a standard 30 pin iPhone/iPod cable.

Bad Judgment

[I]t has long been a staple of conservative thought to criticize “judicial activism”—the practice of unelected judges imposing their own policy judgments to overrule the will of the people’s elected representatives. But it is hard to imagine a more activist decision than the Citizens Union case. Congress passed the McCain-Feingold law, and President George W. Bush signed it, in the knowledge that the Supreme Court had repeatedly blessed restrictions on corporate political activity. But Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion blithely overturned Court precedent, and rejected the work of the elected branches—all in service of the bizarre legal theories that (1) corporations have the same rights as human beings, and (2) spending money is the same thing as speaking. This was judicial activism of the most egregious kind. Indeed, it wasn’t as much a judicial opinion as it was Republican talking points.

Jeffrey Toobin : The New Yorker

Another good late night line

“During his acceptance speech Tuesday, newly elected Senator Scott Brown told the crowd that two of his older daughters are both available. Man, so many great American speeches, right? ‘Four score and seven years ago,’ ‘Ask not what your country can do for you,’ ‘I have a dream’, and now, ‘My daughters are both available.’

Jimmy Fallon

Faces of Haiti

Ten days after the massive earthquake in Haiti, some 80,000 of the estimated 200,000 dead have been buried, two million residents now find themselves homeless, and hundreds of thousands of them are now trying to flee the capital city. Rescue crews are beginning to abandon hope of finding any further survivors in the rubble – the last person to be pulled out alive was on was rescued on Wednesday, the 20th. Aid agencies are still ramping up their efforts – the Red Cross alone has deployed what it calls its greatest deployment of emergency responders in its 91-year history. Collected here are some closer looks into recent events in Haiti, seen through the faces of the survivors and the recently-arrived security, rescue and care workers. (46 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com

Don’t skip this one.

Best line last night

“It’s hard to believe President Obama has now been in office for a year. And you know, it’s incredible. He took something that was in terrible, terrible shape, and he brought it back from the brink of disaster. The Republican Party.”

Jay Leno

Runner-up best line:

“Erroll Southers, Obama’s pick to head the T.S.A., withdrew his name because he performed an illegal background check on his ex-wife’s boyfriend. Still, that’s an improvement from the T.S.A.’s normal procedure — not performing background checks.”

Jimmy Fallon

I would make a great criminal

Over at Dinner without Crayons, Erinn confesses to being a crime show junkie and lets us “in on a few things [she’s] learned about crime.” For example:

7. No matter how much you love scrapbooking (and Lord knows I do), do not scrapbook pictures of you with the people you kill. Especially if in the pictures they are wearing jewelry you stole from them and are currently wearing. And you’ve already told the police you’ve never seen those people in your life.

Hoops

Basketball was the brainchild of James Naismith, a Canadian who was teaching at a YMCA training school in Springfield [Massachusetts], which prepared young men to go out and be instructors in YMCAs. Naismith was teaching physical education, but the winters were cold in Massachusetts, and his students were frustrated that they couldn’t go outside. He wanted something physically challenging but that could be played indoors, in a relatively small space. He tried all kinds of new and old games, but nothing worked. Finally he remembered a game he had played as a kid in Canada, a game called Duck on a Rock. He took a few rules from that and adapted it into a game he called Basket Ball. He nailed peach baskets to the balcony on each side of the gym, but the baskets had solid bottoms, so if anyone managed to get the ball in the basket someone else had to climb up and get the ball down.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Idle thought

I realize I am just a cranky old guy fast approaching geezer-hood, but am I the only one who finds it odd (rude?) when I am conducting business with someone — like just now on the telephone — and they start addressing me by my first name?

Perhaps I just notice it because they call me Kenneth (the name on my credit cards, etc.) and not Ken (the name I use with people I am on a first name basis with).

Shuffleboard, anyone?

More Kate McGarrigle

From a tribute by Hendrik Hertzberg for The New Yorker:

The voices and songs of Kate and her older sister, Anna, have been a consistently gratifying part of my life for thirty-five years, beginning with the appearance of their first album. Every one of the dozen songs on that 1975 recording is a thing of beauty and intelligence, and several of them—“Kiss and Say Goodbye,” “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Go, Leave,” “My Town,” and (especially perhaps) “Talk to Me of Mendocino”—were as emotionally acute as anything I have ever heard. They still are, and since then hardly a week has gone by without my listening to their music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fcBEGjK3cM