News Cut: November 26, 2008 Archive

Hard times hit Cirrus

Posted at 7:21 AM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

The rough economy took a toll on Tuesday on one of Minnesota's biggest economic success stories -- Cirrus Design in Duluth, a maker of light aircraft.

The company is going to furlough about 500 production workers in staggered segments for 30 days, according to AvWeb, an aviation news publication. The company is taking the action with a heart, however. It's using furloughs instead of layoffs and will top the unemployment benefits pool and continue health insurance benefits while it tries to clear excess inventory of airplanes. Cirrus has facilities in Minnesota and North Dakota. About 300 of the furloughs will come in Duluth.

The move comes as one of Cirrus' competitors in the light-jet business, Eclipse Aviation, has filed for bankruptcy.

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Newscycle

Posted at 8:10 AM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Take six months of newspaper headlines, add some music. Voila!

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Obama's news conference

Posted at 9:46 AM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)
Filed under: Economy

Given a choice of who's words to hang on -- President-elect Obama or the State Canvassing Board -- I've chosen the president-elect.

He's underway with his third news conference and repeats -- for a third time -- that we face a historic economic challenge, something just about every working stiff in America knows. He's announcing the "President's Economic Recovery Board," which is a throwback to the Eisenhower administration.

9:47 - Mark. The Dow is down -62.85 at the start of the news conference.

9:40 a.m. - Obama says one of the reasons for the board is that in Washington, these sorts of things result in "group think" and there's little knowledge of whether policies are actually working on main street. He names Paul Volcker to head the board. The financial world seems to love this pick, but Volcker isn't exactly Mr. Main Street America. But Obama says he likes Volcker because he's not afraid to say what he thinks. Obama has clearly intended to surround himself with people who won't tell him simply what he wants to hear.

One interesting sidenote to how the economy ripples. Just a few days ago, Volcker gave Major League Baseball an update on the economy.

QUESTIONS

Does your saying you want a new way of thinking indicate a frustration with the way the crisis has been handled so far?

No. I think what it speaks to is a frustration to eight years in which middle-class income has gone down. And frustration of the incapacity of Washington to take bold steps to deal with our economic problems. (Isn't that actually a "yes" answer?)

We're two days away from the biggest shopping day of the year and retailers are worried it'll be a disaster. Any shopping advice and are you going to go shopping?

We're going to do some Christmas shopping and the daughters have put their list together. It's mostly for Santa but we may do some extra shopping. "I think families are understandably nervous about their economic situation. The economic statistics have been bad. There is no doubt that during tough economic times, family budgets are going to be pinched. It's important, though, for the American people to have confidence."

We have the best workers in the world, the most innovation in the world, we're in possession of extraordinary resources that if we harness properly, we'll get the economy moving over the next couple of years and decades. People should understand that help is on the way and as they think about this Thanksgiving shopping weekend and the Christmas season, I hope everyone understands we'll get through these difficult times but they're going to have to make good choices.

(Nice try, New York Daily News reporter, but he didn't take the obvious "just go shopping" bait. Things have changed in Washington.)

Are you worried about the latest Bush administration bailout and the continued printing of money. What federal programs would you cut to actually pay for your stimulus package. You talk about change but Paul Volcker has been around a long time. You talked about John McCain would come to Washington and put the same people in different chairs. You've got Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton....

Obama interrupts and says "you hear that. First of all that's not the topic. We're not talking about my cabinet because I haven't made those appointments yet..."

"Sir, we're talking about Paul Volcker...he's been around a long time. He knows the way of Washington, but what do you say to your supporters who are looking for change?"

Actually, Paul Volcker hasn't been in Washington for quite some time and that's a reason he can provide a fresh perspective. (University of Chicago economist) Austan Goolsbee (he'll be the economic board's director), this is about as fresh a face as you can get.

With respect to the details of the economic plan, we'll work over the next few weeks to put the framework together. We'll have a strong stimulus/economic recovery plan to put people back to work. It'll be large enough to jump-start the economy. On Tuesday I talkd we'll have to pare back on programs that do not work. We can hardly be expected to provide you a detailed list right now. We'll identify programs that don't work and make sure they are eliminated and put the money into programs that do work, like health care modernization.

When it comes to the people we've pulled together -- I know there's been a conventional wisdom floating around Washington that there's been a recycling of people who were in the Clinton administration, the last Democratic administration that we had was the Clinton administration, so it would be surprising if I selected a treasury secretary who had no connection to the last Democratic administration because that would mean the person had no experience in Washington whatsoever. And I suspect you would be troubled -- and the American people would be troubled -- if I selected a treasury secretary... at one of the most critical economic times of our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.

We're going to combine experience and fresh thinking. Understand where the vision of change comes from. It comes from me.

Do you support the latest bailout?

What I've said is we have to do whatever is required to be sure our economic system can give credit to the markets. It's important for the federal government use the authority in a forceful fashion. The latest attempts by the Treasury to make sure we have a housing market in which credit is falling, that is a positive sign.

(That's all the questions he took, but he did a good job defining what "change" is. It's not different faces, it's efforts that work.)

10:02 a.m. - Mark. The Dow is down 12 points at the end of the news conference -- and falling -- after briefly going positive during Mr. Obama's news conference.

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Farewell, Woolworth's

Posted at 1:46 PM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Icons

No matter where they live in the country, anyone over the age of 50 can tell you what used to be in this building. It was an F.W. Woolworth five and dime. All the stores used the same weird brick color, few windows, except on the first floor, that housed a spectacle of consumer wants in its day. In my town, I grew up with a five-and-dime tri-fecta -- a Woolworth's, next to a W.T. Grant's, across the street from an S.S. Kresge (the forerunner of KMart). Of course, they're all gone now, along with the 10-cent hot dog and the fish department.

Why is this in the news? Woolworth's in downtown St. Paul closed in 1993. Because the big story in the UK today is Woolworth's is going under, and the big story on this side of the Atlantic is that people are finding out there still is a Woolworth's.

The British government today refused to intervene to prop up the retailer, which is a descendant of the F.W. Woolworth chain, but has been separate since 1982.

Still, the news brings back memories and prompted a stop at the Seventh Place location in St. Paul where I found the last remnants of the "get lost" spirit that the doomed retailer possessed in its latter days.

.

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The laser threat

Posted at 2:46 PM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

If you're under a certain age in Minnesota, you can't buy a can of spraypaint because you might paint a bridge or railroad car with it. You can't buy an American flag that's not made in America because it might.... well, I haven't quite figured out why yet. But if you want to buy a laser pointer, you can walk right in to the laser-pointer store, pay your money, and walk out with a weapon that could bring down a plane load of people, apparently.

Officials in the Twin Cities reportedly are investigating nine cases of someone with laser pointers shining them at jets, potentially blinding the pilot.

It's happening around the country and, according to some news reports, with increasing frequency:

On Monday, police in California arrested a 50-year-old man and charged him with shining a laser pointer on a traffic helicopter. The man is a laser pointer salesman and may have been upset about the helicopter hovering around his home.

There have been six cases reported around Montreal this month. An Ontario newspaper this week called for tougher penalties.

In the UK last month, a teenager got a suspended 20-week jail term for pointing one at a police helicopter.

In Scotland recently, the pilots of a 747 had to cover their eyes in the last seconds of their flight, a newspaper reported. That's not a good thing.

Back in the '90s, someone in Woodbury shined a laser pointer into the eyes of opposing quarterbacks for North St. Paul. That community's then-state-rep, Betty McCollum, filed a bill to make it a crime. It passed the Senate 6-0, but died in the House in 1999, and nobody's taken up the cause since as near as I can tell.

And that's an odd thing, perhaps, in a country that raced to ban mouthwash, toothpaste, and bottles of water from carry-on after someone figured out that somehow they could be used as weapons against airplanes.

Australia has banned them. New Zealand may.

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Mumbai attacks

Posted at 3:05 PM on November 26, 2008 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Crime and Justice

if you are in Minnesota and have any contacts, family or friends in Mumbai or insights you'd like to share about Mumbai, please contact me.

Gunmen today have been carrying out a series of attacks in Mumbai, India, targeting British and U.S. nationals and they may be holding hostages. The motive for the attacks was not immediately clear, but the city has frequently been targeted in terror attacks blamed on Muslim militants, the Associated Press reports. The Times of India says an unknown group -- Deccan Mujahideen -- is responsible.

Teams of gunmen stormed two of the city's best known luxury hotels and a landmark restaurant. A British restaurant-goer at one of the hotels told Sky News television that the attackers were singling out Britons and Americans.

Here is a Flickr feed of images from there. (link updated)

NDTV.com is providing excellent coverage (the image above is of one gunman, as grabbed off a video feed by NDTV) and reports at least 90 are dead. You can watch live coverage here although it takes forever for the player to load.

A blog has been set up to help victims and is also providing updates, although it also is loading very slowly.

IBN live is providing a live stream, but disappointingly, it's "citizen journalist" section has absolutely nothing. I also recommend this Twitter stream.

Britain's Sky News also has some streaming video.

update 3:29 - IBN is streaming live via CNN.com

3:34 p.m. - Here's a Google map showing the attacks

3:35 p.m. -- Again, Twitter has some of the best coverage with people in Mumbai relaying information.

3:38 p.m. Mumbai Metblogs has additional coverage. Not great. But it's something. (h/t: Steve Mullis)

3:41 p.m. - CTV in Canada is also now simulcasting the IBN feed online. 78 now said to be dead.

4:07 p.m. - This is one of the more compelling images from the Vina photostream on Flickr (linked earlier)

Keep in mind it's early in the morning in India, and dozens of people are forming barricades.

4:12 p.m. - From the archives: A Christian Science Monitor account of bombings in Mumbai in 1993, outside the Taj hotel, which is now on fire.

4:32 p.m. - State Department number for Americans wanting to check on status of other Americans in Mumbai: 1-888-407-4747

4:38 p.m. - I'm checking on the status of Northwest Airlines crews in Mumbai. A News Cutter tells me they stay at the Trident Hotel, which reportedly was one of the hotels where hostages were taken. A Northwest spokesperson says they're "working on a statement." But there is no indication that any Northwest employees are affected.

4:47 p.m. - According to Northwest Delta spokeswoman Kristi Baur, "Thank you for your email. We have been in contact with our crew members and we are working to get them home safely.

Here is our statement regarding Mumbai. "Our Safety and Security departments worked quickly and all Delta and Northwest crews have been contacted, and we're trying to get them home safely. Customers traveling to Mumbai may rebook or cancel their flights without incurring fees. Delta considers the safety and security of its passengers and crew its number one priority."

4:50 p.m. - The number for Canadians to check on Canadians. Department of Foreign Affairs at 1-613-996-8885 from inside Canada or 1-800-387-3124 outside.

4:53 p.m. - The South Asia Journalists Association is hosting a Webcast on today's events from 9-10:30 CT this evening. Guests include Benjamin Piven, former Fulbright Scholar in Mumbai; Suketu Mehta, author, "Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found" and others. To listen in, go here.

5:09 p.m. - A blogger's first-person account of going out to a friend's gallery opening in Mumbai around the time of the attacks. She wasn't involved.

A petrol pump was blown up in Colaba, a couple of minutes walk from where we are. And, just a minor statistic, no doubt, amid the horror of today: a diner was shot while coming out of Indigo Deli, where we were standing minutes earlier.

5:13 p.m. - From the BBC, some images from Mumbai. Strong image warning.

5:37 p.m. - Posted today on YouTube, a tourist's video of the Taj in better times.

5:40 p.m. - Signing off

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