News Cut: October 27, 2008 Archive

News Agenda - Monday October 27, 2008

Posted at 7:54 AM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

What's happening today:

The Department of Public Safety is taking a page out of the Defense Department's playbook and issuing playing cards highlighting unsolved cases. It holds an 11 a.m. news conference. The target audience? Inmates in jail. The Defense Department issued playing cards of the "most wanted" in Iraq a few years ago. The whole "collectors item" thing didn't work out, though. Amazon has them priced at about $3 today.

Speaking of Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus' former executive officer is Kerri Miller's guest in the 10 a.m. hour of Midmorning.

It's the beginning of the last full week of campaigning. In the 6th District race, Elwyn Tinklenberg has a news conference this afternoon about Social Security. Over the weekend, Al Franken's TV ads also focused on Social Security and privatization, which was an issue four years ago, but is it now?

The Times Leader in Pennsylvania has a story this morning on Social Security. A McCain supporter is quoted as saying privatization is still the answer. But when millions of people watched their IRAs wither in recent weeks, what's the question?

It looks like another down day on Wall St.

The 3rd District race was profiled on the Minnesota Public Radio home page this morning. At 11, the three hold a debate on MPR's Midday. And you can take the 3rd District Select A Candidate quiz here.

Political analysts tell you what you probably already know in the second hour.

Meanwhile, Kathleen Hall Jamieson at the U of Pennsylvania speaks tonight at Macalester on the political campaign messages of 2008. "Engaging and enraging citizens," is the title of the evening.

During the first hour of Midmorning today, Kerri Miller looks at health care. You remember health care, right? Up until recently it was listed as the top domestic issue among voters in America. It's the issue that questioners completely ignored in the first three debates in the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. If you care about it, however, here's where you can go to compare the plans of presidential candidates.

Once a year or so, some guest doesn't show up on one of our talk shows. So we put together a hasty "what would you like to hear on XYZ" show. Invariably, the rights of fathers becomes a huge topic. On All Things Considered this afternoon, MPR's Sasha Aslanian looks at whether joint custody of the kids should be a presumption in divorce cases. She goes back to the '70s to visit a family that helped pioneer joint custody.

Tangentially, the Sacramento Bee reports that a nationwide search is on for two brothers of a Sacramento County sheriff's deputy linked in court documents to last week's killing of a state correctional officer. Police, the newspaper says, have spoken with the FBI and authorities in Minnesota about finding Gary and Chong Vue, the younger brothers of Deputy Chu Vue. It may involve a divorce and custody battle.

Also on local All Things Considered segments today, MPR's Laura Yuen says some African American leaders are planning to make coveralls or jackets available to blacks who show up at the polls wearing Obama T-shirts. You can't wear political buttons or clothing advocating a particular candidate at the polls, according to state law. The temperature was in the 20s in Minnesota this morning. If that weather holds next Tuesday, exposed T-shirts won't be a problem.

From Washington, NPR's Pam Fessler reports on voting machine problems. It's a subject I tackled on Future Tense last week while I was filling in for John Gordon. ComputerWorld's online issue today looks at some of the woes, and readers wonder why we have to make voting such a complicated process in this country.

There'll also be a Tony Hillerman obit tonight. Alas, from what I can tell, Hillerman was never on MPR.

The NTSB is issue the final report on the collapse of the I35W bridge. Reports say -- hold your breath -- poorly designed gusset plates are to blame. Rep. Jim Oberstar has objected to the finding when it was floated earlier this year, and now his issue is that the final report was leaked to the Star Tribune.

Somewhat surprising in the finding is that more states aren't just closing the bridges designed the same way. If the problem is a design that was not detectable through inspection, that why are so many states opting merely for inspections on like-constructed bridges?

Somewhat unrelated: The NTSB will hold a session tomorrow to outline its "most wanted safety improvements." It's a list that usually goes right to someone's bottom desk drawer. In the past, one of the suggestions has been for states to adopt a seat belt primary offense bill, allowing police to stop you for not wearing a seat belt.

Tomorrow the U of M will try to set a Guinness record for most flu shots. But today all the glory goes to China, which has set a record for a 1.86 ton dried bean curd.

Viral video of the day:

Alas, News Cut did not win a regional Emmy award when they were handed out in Minneapolis on Saturday night. The overwhelming sadness, however, is eased somewhat (or is it made worse; I'll have to think about that) by the knowledge that this "journalist" has one.

The news director of the TV station in Florida defended his anchor, saying "we ask tough questions." Journalists should ask tough questions. But TV stations should embrace the concept of transparency. In this case the anchorwoman's husband is in the political consulting business and one of his clients is, well, you figure it out.

The conflict of interest rap is hitting in Washington, too, where MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell got some scrutiny because she's married to Alan Greenspan.

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CBS: The bet that blew up Wall Street

Posted at 11:13 AM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Politics

CBS' 60 Minutes did a pretty fine job explaining the underpinning of the financial crisis now hitting Wall Street. It explained the "side bets" that were allowed into law in 2000.

Think of it for a moment as a football game. Every week, the New York Giants take the field with hopes of getting back to the Super Bowl. If they do, they will get more money and glory for the team and its owners. They have a direct investment in the game. But the people in the stands may also have a financial stake in the ouctome, in the form of a bet with a friend or a bookie.

"We could call that a derivative. It's a side bet. We don't own the teams. But we have a bet based on the outcome. And a lot of derivatives are bets based on the outcome of games of a sort. Not football games, but games in the markets," Partnoy explains.

Watch CBS Videos Online

The show focused on a vote in Congress in 2000 to remove credit derivatives -- credit default swaps -- from regulations. It's the The Commodity Futures Modernation Act of 2000. On the last vote, on the last day, of the 106th Congress in 2000, the Senate passed the bill -- unanimously -- removing the derivatives from a law regulating gambling.

Here's what 60 Minutes didn't say. The bill in the Senate (S.3283) and the companion bill in the House (H.R. 5660). The combined bill was put into an omnibus budget bill without ever being examined in committee.

Every Minnesota representative -- except Rep. Jim Oberstar, who didn't vote -- voted for the final bill. At the time, they were Gil Gutknecht (R), David Minge (D), Martin Sabo( D), Bill Luther (D) and Collin Peterson (D). Rep. Bruce Vento died several months before the vote. (See the full House vote)

But the Senate passed the bill on a voice vote, so no record was kept of the individual senators' positions. In an earlier vote on the bill, however, both Sen. Rod Grams and Sen. Paul Wellstone voted against it.

All in all, however, it was a bipartisan failure of good government.

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Free software

Posted at 11:55 AM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Tech

I'm not much of a software geek and I don't own a MAC, but I'll pass this along anyway. A press release in the inbox today from codeweavers.com says the St. Paul company is giving away online versions of its software tomorrow. The software allows Windows apps to run on MAC OS X machines.

The release is pegged to a promise to allow the free downloads if gas fell below $2.80 a gallon, which seemed like an impossibility a few months ago.

A few of my software-literate friends (via Twitter, the terrorist tool) says it's more publicity stunt than useful information.

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How much do you love your cellphone?

Posted at 12:41 PM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Surveys and trivia

The BBC carries a story this afternoon about a 26 year old passenger on a train in France, who dropped his cellphone into the toilet. He tried to fish it out, only to become trapped.

"He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off," said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man's plight.

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Puppies

Posted at 11:48 AM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

No matter what the question is in the news business, the answer "puppies" usually fits.

One wonders why political candidates don't make more use of dogs in their TV ads.

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The housing business

Posted at 1:43 PM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

What's this? Good news in the housing industry?

With home prices at their lowest in four years, the Commerce Department reported today that home sales rose 2.7 percent in September. That's compared to the August rate.

In the Midwest, however, the news isn't as cheery. Sales dropped 5.8% in September, compared to August, and are down nearly 38% from a year ago.

Local Realtor and blogger Teresa Boardman has a post up today, however, that suggests things may not be as grim as we've come to believe.

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Birth of a boondoggle

Posted at 1:59 PM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

On CNBC this morning, Mark Haines asked, "do any of you remember politicians saying they needed to pass the $700 billion bailout to give money to banks to buy other banks?"

Well, no, but we didn't hear that financial firms needed the money to increase year-end bonuses, either, but Time says that's happening too.

"It's not the government's money directly, but in the case of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, they were facing a severe crunch," says analyst Brad Hintz, who covers financial firms at Sanford Bernstein, and is a former chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers. "Had it not been for the government's help in refinancing their debt they may not have had the cash to pay bonuses." When asked, the U.S. Treasury would not comment directly on Wall Street's bonus plans, though spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin did reiterate the bailout's intent: "There is broad agreement that the Treasury's capital purchase program was intended to strengthen the financial system and increase lending," she said.

As for the taxpayer money being needed to unthaw the credit markets, various reports have made it clear that banks are sitting on the money instead.

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The unspoken fear

Posted at 3:50 PM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice, Politics

The ATF says it's disrupted a plot to assassinate Barack Obama and who among us is surprised?

For most of the the last two years, it's been the unspoken fear that , coincidentally, has been spoken in the last few weeks.

Just last week, for example, Saturday's Globe and Mail shocked its readers in an op-ed piece that started, "where were you when Barack Obama was shot?". The article takes the easy way out -- connecting a potential assassination with the McCain-Palin tone of the last few weeks. But there's plenty of demented skinheads in America that had people concerned long before now.

More shocking still isn't that people are so worried about an assassination, but that so many people actually expect it. Charles Onyango Obbo, writing in Kenya's Daily Nation last week said, "an Obama victory would leave many Third World intellectuals and nationalists either jobless, struggling for relevance, or scurrying back to the drawing boards to explain an America led by a black president. Of course, they will also wish that he met some misfortune at the hands of a red-neck."

Update: Here's a site in Wisconsin showing a flyer it says was distributed in Wausau. However, I see nothing there that connects it with the Republican Party.

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Northwest brand to disappear March 30

Posted at 6:11 PM on October 27, 2008 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)
Filed under: Northwest Airlines

We have a better idea when the "Northwest" brand on employee uniforms will disappear for good if -- as now seems likely -- the feds approve the merger of Northwest and Delta. March 30, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Delta and Northwest pilots will both get newly designed hat brass and wings for their uniforms with a two-tone red triangular Delta "widget" logo. The rest of the uniform will remain essentially the same. The company decided to stick with the Delta uniform instead of designing a new one to save time and money and to speed the transition.

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