Planet Yelnick

Transiting Through Narita

I just posted on Narita, the Nukes and United over in my travel blog. Take a look. If typepad asks for a sign-in, cancel and you will be in. It is a glitch on their site. Feel free to continue the discussion in this post.

You Can Skip the Game and Still See the Commercials

Ah, SuperBowl Sunday! And a really promising game to boot! But for those of you who watch the game just to see the commercials, now you don't have to! Mashable has pulled together all the commercials that have already leaked into YouTube.  Isn't the Internet cool?

Some are just teasers, like this Motorola "1984" ad which is trying to one-up the classic Apple 1984 ad. Sadly, it reminds me more of the awful Apple "Lemmings" ad that showed at the 1985 SuperBowl and ended Apple's career of SuperBowl ads.

I think Doritos will win this year. Check this out. Predictable, yes, but funny.

Most shocking, no cats. The Internet loves cats. TV is a dog medium I guess. 

You Know Global Warming is Over When ...

MSNBC (not Fox!) blames the food riots in Egypt on "speculation" not Global Warming (ie. food shortages due to unusual weather such as the Russian summer heat wave):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

One of my predictions for this year is that blaming every funky weather event on global warming will now get a mocking roll of the eyes not a knowing nod of the head. Happening faster than I thought it would.

Coincidently, I am in a heated debate with a reader over this issue. He blames the food inflation on a series of unusual circumstances that are causing shortages, whereas I ask him why almost all commodities took off in a parabolic surge (a signature of a speculative bubble) just after The Ben Bernank announced QE2 in August. Hard to argue that recent floods in Queensland (coal) or last summer's heat wave in Russia (wheat) or whatever all caused a spike in commodities of all sorts at the same time.  Sure, these events contribute to spikes in particular commodity prices as they occur, and corn jumped a bit after the Russian heat wave, but the parabolic run-up began after the QE2 announcement:

A Thanksgiving Moment for the World

Street music made into a marvelous video that captures the modern Thanksgiving spirit of standing by the ones you love in troubled times (hat tip to Barry Ritzholz):

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Stocks in a Coiled Spring, Fundamentalists in a Fetal Position

Scott Adams (Dilbert) had a priceless column in the WSJ on why it is smart to put your money on companies you hate. He of course picked BP (which he argued is at a bottom) and Apple, which he says he has hated for five years and should have gone in then. In the course of it he trashes most investment approaches, including Technical Analysis:

Technical analysis involves studying graphs of stock movement over time as a way to predict future moves. It's a widely used method on Wall Street, and it has exactly the same scientific validity as pretending you are a witch and forecasting market moves from chicken droppings.

Wonderful satire, but sometimes the real world is dumb and dumberer - such as today, where the pundits asserted one cause of the market's rise and the same cause for its later fall:

• the market went up on the Fed's remarks that the recovery was still on but the improvements in employment were only "modest"
• the market fell on the Fed's Beige Book which showed that the recovery is still on but in some areas growth is "modest"

This reminds of a recent day when in the morning the fundamentalists stated that the market went up due to higher oil prices, which pointed to improving demand; then later in the day when the market fell back said that the market fell due to higher oil prices. which pointed to a future slowdown. 

The fact is these sorts of justifications du jour are simply nonsense delivered in ponderous tones of authority and have no better weight than astrology. Scott Adams take note!

To push this point home, simply note that the fundamentalists are all over the map on what happens in the next few days, and if anything are a bit bullish since we have tested the Dow9835/Sp1045 (the Feb low) now four times and not sustained a break below. 

The STU notes we are now in a coiled spring of a triple nested 1-2 which typically precedes a major move, in this case hard down. Whereas during the run up the right move was to buy dips, this time it is to sell blips, as the market is unable to sustain a rally: "Each near-term rise is swatted back." While investors are watching the Feb5 intraday low, we have now had two days closing below the close that day, and the two lowest closes since seven months ago, last November 4 at 9802. 

We could fall off the cliff tomorrow, or fall after a little more sideways action to swat back another bullish attempt and wear out the bullish interest with a fifth probe of the 9800 level. In either case the chicken droppings and all that are forecasting a coming fall. Let's see what contradictory and hopelessly shallow pontification the fundamentalists concoct when that happens. 

Gulf Explosion's "Fire-Boom-Gate"

You would think that after Katrina the Feds would be at least as prepared as Boy Scouts. Since 1994 they have had a plan to contain spills in the Gulf using fire-booms, and the former coordinator of Gulf response was scathing in his criticism of the response as not executing on that. It turns out they didn't have any fire-booms in stock, and the fastest they have gotten one in is eight days late. This might come back to bite the Obama Administration:

Representatives from the Obama administration emphatically maintain that from "day one" preparations were in place to handle accidental oil spills. Maybe the administration can explain to the residents of Louisiana why not one fire boom was available when an actual crisis took place?

Gulf Oil Rig Explosion LInks

One of the Yelnick readers, nspolar, comes from the oil patch and shared some of the sources he is following on the disaster in the Gulf. I added to his, and note that the points of criticism are emerging even before we know what happened:

• A detail timeline comes from a social network for oil & gas professionals
• An oil pro who was on the rig tells of his experience and speculations
• A scathing criticism from the former NOAA head of Gulf response that the Feds failed to execute the pre-approved plan & made things worse
• Another scathing criticism over why shut down all the other rigs? 
• A milder criticism from the NYT of the slow response
• The WSJ focuses on the rig owner cutting corners, and shows the "fix" graphic below
• Most inexplicable is why send in the lawyers? To "keep the boot on their throat" as White House spokesman Gibbs oily spilled about BP? 
• Already a hoax has emerged of sabotage by a Cuban-launched North Korean mini-sub
• An Oil Slickonomics summary, with the bad, the worst and the ugly scenarios
• BP announced they have significantly cut the flow through the pipe
• Follow-up on the failure to pursue the pre-approved plan shows they failed to stock fire-booms

 

First we need to understand what happened and how to improve future drilling, then we can assess blame and politicize. Nspolar adds a number of insights below the fold, and this important cautionary note: 

In the end we do not know all the facts and at this point it is possible for events to have been misreported. The investigation as to determining the chain of events that led to the explosion and blow out will likely take weeks, before concluding.

Volcano Plume Turning Towards Canada UPDATED AGAIN

NEW UPDATE: When this first posted, I used a graphic from Information is Beautiful which compared Co2 emitted by the unpronounceable volcano to the Co2 not being emitted by grounded airplanes. My first update corrected their info, and this update corrects their graphic. Also, the NYT has tried to let us know how to pronounce "Eyjafjallajokull" using this guide: 

• “Eyja” is the Icelandic word for island
• “Fjalla” means mountain
• “Jokull” is glacier

Icelandic sticks a few t and g sounds in there, so just say: Hey-ya, fergot ya, Yokel!

Amazing animation from ZH shows the swirling volcano plume covering Northern Europe, spreading to Russia, and spiraling backwards towards Newfoundland. We probably all know people stranded in Europe, waiting to get out - or trying to return. A friend looking for opportunities in Sierre Leone just got back to London before flights shut down. Another friend was flying back from a vacation in Ireland as the volcano erupted, and could see it from the left side of the airplane. Lucky timing. Eurocontrol has updates. Apparently if you can make it to Rome or other Club Med cities, you have a chance of flying home. 

  

Troubling implications from this. Everyone thinks this blows over quickly. What happens if this eruption continues for 13 months, as the last eruption (in 1822) did? Lufthansa sent 10 jumbo jets up to see what the effects would be, and found no harm. KLM is also reported to be testing flights near the ash layer, to see if it is thin enough to allow flights to recommence. If not, routes have to be reconfigured and the economic dislocation will mount. 

Curiously, while this should cool the planet if it continues due to putting aerosols in the upper atmosphere, it is also reducing Co2 emissions!  Volcanoes do put out a lot of Co2, but planes over Europe put out more. Original chart from Information is Beautiful, updated chart here:

 

 
UPDATE 4/20: The original chart above turns out to be misleading. The small pyramid above should be increased to be about the size of the inverted pyramid of saved emissions. It is still less than total Euro airplane emissions, although note that that many planes around the Club Med part of Europe are still flying. 

The estimate of Co2 is too low by an order of magnitude: estimates from the UK place it at between 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes/day, not the original chart's 15,000, based on a prior eruption in Iceland. (A metric tonne is very close to the same as a British ton and slightly larger than a US ton.)

To put these Co2 amount in perspective, the Herald Sun in Australia commented it is more than the Rudd government is trying to save in carbon limits. Australia emits around 400M tonnes a year, or a little over 1M tonnes/day, meaning the volcano is spewing about 1/4 of Australian emissions a day.

This Too Shall Pass - Healthcare Bill Edition

The ultimate Rube Goldberg legislation meets the ultimate Domino video:

Face The Music Videos

From the last Great Depression, we bring you an updated Pennies From Heaven (courtesy SlopeofHope). To top it off, from the last Great Recession (the '70s) here is Bohemian Bankruptcy.  Enjoy.

 

The Economy Is So Bad That ...

The economy is so bad, the mafia is laying off judges .. and more one-liners below. The economy is so bad, time to enjoy it!