Put Pirates And Kidnappers Out Of Business
November 30, 2009Pirates used to hunt ships for the treasure they carried. These days, the crew usually is the most valuable cargo. A gang of Somali pirates recently received a reported $3.3 million ransom in exchange for the 36-member crew of a Spanish trawler they had captured. The International Maritime Bureau reports that more incidents of piracy occurred in the first nine months of 2009 than in all of 2008. A total …
Saving Appalachian Mountains
November 27, 2009Where common sense and environmental ethics have failed to protect Appalachian mountains from destruction, the humble mayfly may succeed. For decades, coal companies have been allowed to blast the tops off mountains, extract the coal that lies beneath, and dump the rubble into the river valleys below. Unlike strip mines on the Great Plains, where miners are required to restore the land’s original contours after they take the coal, and …
Nanook Of The North
November 25, 2009The Inuit may not have celebrated Thanksgiving a century or so ago, but they were thankful for the blessings that came their way. Nothing beats a big, fat seal when you and your huskies face starvation in the dead of winter. In 1920, Canadian explorer Robert Flaherty hauled two cameras and nearly 15 miles of raw film to the shore of Hudson Bay to make what became the world’s first …
Nevada’s Nuclear Poker
November 24, 2009Nevada, home of hundreds of casinos, is pretty good at playing its cards. The game is nuclear poker. Fighting global warming is a top priority for the environmental movement. Next month, leaders from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagen to discuss new targets on carbon emissions. Cutting emissions will require turning more to sources of energy other than fossil fuels. That will mean more reliance on clean, renewable energy sources …
Showing China Some Love
November 23, 2009I get misty-eyed when I witness true love, whether it is between a grandparent and a new grandchild, a boy and his dog, or a banker and his biggest borrower. So I was touched by the warm greeting China’s leaders extended to President Obama last week, and by the almost Confucian respect that our young commander-in-chief showed his elders on the world stage. China’s rise is an achievement “unparalleled in …
Controlling The Weather — Or Not
November 20, 2009In China, the government controls just about everything, possibly including the weather. After Beijing was hit with a record snowfall last week, an unidentified official from the Beijing Weather Modification Office said the government was responsible. The Office also took credit for an earlier snowfall this autumn. Zhang Qiang, director of the Weather Modification Office, said that the 16 million tons of snow that fell on the city Oct. 31 …
A Built-In Bailout For FHA
November 19, 2009One troubled underwriter hit hard by the subprime mortgage crisis won’t be asking for a government bailout, because it is part of the government. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), created in 1934, insures mortgages, protecting lenders from defaults. Homeowners who receive FHA-backed mortgages pay insurance premiums in addition to their monthly mortgage payments, allowing the FHA to cover the cost to lenders when homeowners are unable to meet their obligations. …
Caught On Tape
November 18, 2009California Attorney General Jerry Brown, the state’s once and, he hopes, future governor, concluded an investigation of his own office last week. He discovered something rather unusual. His then communications director (i.e., press spokesman) Scott Gerber had secretly recorded conversations that Brown and staff members held with reporters. The tapes came to light when Gerber emailed a transcript of an interview to the San Francisco Gate in order to substantiate …
Cameras At The Supreme Court
November 17, 2009And now for a hilarious scene straight from the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court: MR. BARNHOUSE: The lawsuit would be — the lawsuit itself would be property, but the — but any recovery would not be property until it became choate, until there was an amount of money assigned to it. JUSTICE SCALIA: There is no such adjective — I know we have used it, but there is …
Bear Stearns Prosecutors Deserve A ‘D-’
November 16, 2009Bulletin: A federal court jury in Brooklyn has concluded that two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers did not cause, or have advance knowledge of, the global credit crisis. But to aggressive federal prosecutors, they looked like promising scapegoats. Ralph Cioffi, the founder and senior portfolio manager of the two funds, and Matthew Tannin, a portfolio manager, were charged in 2008 with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud in connection …
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