The Bain of Mitt's existence

The Mitt-wit's iPhone app

The Mitt-wit is jetting around the country telling Americans that his experience running Bain Capital makes him a perfect fit to run America.


Well, if it's like what Bain did to some American companies, he'll run this country into the ground, sell off the assets and pocket the profit.


Here's an excellent story on how Bain/Romney raided a company called Ampad and walked away with $100 million, much of which was then hidden in offshore accounts.


Yes, Bain was successful most of the time, but its success was measured by big returns to investors rather than jobs created. In fact, instead of adding value, like a legitimate product, to our world, Bain merely rewarded the 1 percent at the expense of the 99 percent. 


Bain/Romney accelerated the income gap over the last 30 years, which now hampers our economic recovery.


In Vanity Fair, economist Joseph Stiglitz brilliantly dissects "The 1 Percent's Problem."


In language devoid of wonkish econo-speak, Stiglitz nails what he calls "the price of inequality."


Here's a sample graph:


"When corporate C.E.O.’s argue that wages have to be reduced or that there must be layoffs in order for companies to compete—and simultaneously increase their own compensation—workers rightly consider what is happening to be unfair. This in turn affects their efforts on the job, their loyalty to the firm, and their willingness to invest in its future."


Stiglitz points out that the 1 percent would benefit even more in the long run if they would ensure that the base of the economy remained sound. But, in general, the 1 percent doesn't care about our economic foundation.  


One percenters, like Romney, are too busy stashing their cash around the world to care what is happening to the 99 percent.

No Big Gulp?! And other outrages

via The Onion

What's a nation to do when your basic 32-ounce cup of Mountain Dew gets banned in the Big Apple?

Well, we fight back by downing 64-ounces of Diet Coke in a single sitting, that's what.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed banning the sale of large sodas and sugary drinks at all venues in New York City.

Say what?

Yeah, Bloomberg is serious about the obesity problem in America and he wants New York to lead the way in fighting it.

Public Enemy No. 1: Big Gulp.

Well, this is America, Bloomberg. We have the freedom to be as obese as we want to be. So what if we're a nation of fat slobs. We're free fat slobs.

“New York City is not about wringing your hands; it’s about doing something,” he said in the New York Times. “I think that’s what the public wants the mayor to do.”


Say what?


Is Bloomberg a do-gooder Democrat? Or a pro-government Commie?


What in the world is going on?


Well, I like Bloomberg. He's pro gay marriage, pro gun control and sensible on immigration.


He's one of the few Republicans I could vote for. Of course, he couldn't win any Republican primary outside of New York. Actually, Bloomberg is now an independent after being a Republican and before that, a Democrat. Every lineup needs a switch-hitter.

It seems unlikely that Bloomberg will prevail on this issue. Since he hasn't been able to control guns in New York, it's likely that city will see a rise in armed robberies - all for a Big Gulp. 

Enough of obesity and Big Gulps, let's talk about the economy and the "job creators."

Check out this story on "How the 'job creators' really spend their money."

Okay, that's enough on the economy.

Let's get back to the birther movement. 

The Mitt-wit's new BFF, The Donald, went on an epic rant recently about Obama's birth certificate. Yes, he did this last year, too, but this is an election year.

Here's how "The Colbert Report" saw it.

Stay tuned, this birther story isn't going anywhere.

Don't fill 'er up

Getting a full tank of gas is a luxury these days.

My car only takes about 15 gallons, but, at $4.22 a gallon, it costs more than $63 dollars to fill up.

And, my 1995 Camry gets about 25 miles per gallon in the city. Imagine all those giant SUVs. It's more than $100 to fill them up.

I do what I see others doing these days: Ask for $30 worth of regular gas, whip out the charge card and shrug.

Also, I drive a lot less these days. Fewer trips, fewer miles.

For those who still believe that Oregon's gas prices are the highest in the nation, here's a link to AAA's website to get enlightened.

You'll notice that Oregon's average, as of May 29, 2012, is $4.25 for a gallon of regular gas.

In Washington, it's $4.27 a gallon.

In California, it's $4.28 a gallon.

If you can find a station that'll pump your gas in California or Washington, you're likely to pay about $1 more per gallon for a total of over $5 per gallon.

Clearly, if Oregon joined the other states in going all self-serve, gas prices would likely rise, not fall.

Now, look closer at the numbers where most of the drivers live in these three states.

In Eugene, it's $4.30 a gallon. Bend is about what Portland is at $4.23 a gallon.

Medford, near the border of California, has our highest price at $4.32 a gallon.

In Washington, Bellingham shocks drivers to the tune of $4.42. The Seattle area averages about $4.32.

Spokane, far removed from refineries, is sitting pretty at $3.96.

Now, in California, the L.A. area is only about $4.30 a gallon. Meanwhile in San Francisco, where there are refineries, drivers pay about $4.37 a gallon.

In general, rural areas are cheaper than urban areas.

Now, for all those who think that these "all-time" high gas prices are President's Obama's fault for rejecting the Keystone Pipeline, these prices are not the all-time high. No, those occurred in the summer of 2008 when Bush II was president. In fact, oil reached an all-time high of $145 per barrel then.

With crude oil going for $90 a barrel today and demand for gas declining, what gives?

Well, a brief, refinery fire in Washington, "routine maintenance" in California and switching over to summer grade of gas are the excuses exploited by the oil companies to drive up the price of gas.

Speculators can also claim victory in putting the pedal to the metal on oil prices.

Oil companies are gouging drivers because they can. Plus, we give them even more money in the form of enormous tax breaks. Talk about drilling their point home.

We're completely addicted to their product and there is no 12-step program to help us.

We all can't afford an electric vehicle or even a hybrid. But, it looks like we won't have much choice much longer.

It's either that, or ride a bike, work from home or walk.

No, that's progress.

Fish wrap getting scarce

Magnifying glass not included

Could The Oregonian, Oregon's largest daily newspaper, cut delivery of its newspaper to just three days a week?

It's possible considering that its parent company, Advance Publications Inc., did that very thing to the last daily newspaper in New Orleans, The Times-Picayune.

The change to three days a week probably won't happen overnight for The Oregonian, but, you can be sure, it's coming.

The physical newspaper will go the way of "The Godfather's" Luca Brasi, sleeping "with the fishes."

The Times-Picayune isn't the first to go semi-digital on its way to all-digital, but it is the biggest.

A few caveats, though. The Times-Picayune lost half its readership, when it lost half its citizens, after Hurricane Katrina. Also, New Orleans isn't that great of a reading town. It was known as the largest city without a book store, well before Katrina.

Still, in March 2005, The Times-Picayune had 260,000 subscribers. Today, it has just 133,557.

Smartphones and tablets are the new delivery vehicles for the daily newspaper. They're a far cry in size from those super-wide broadsheets of a few years ago. I've tried an iPad, but it's far slower and clunkier than this laptop.

Since I don't own a smartphone or tablet, I peruse news sites on my desktop or laptop. The screen size of 14 inches sure beats a 4-inch smartphone, but it's hard to fit into my coat pocket. Actually, it doesn't fit.

Eventually, I'll have to get a smartphone. When I do, I'm sure all the newspapers will charge a viewing fee for online access.

I signed up for the New York Times because they ran a special for $5 for three months. After that, it jumps to $8 bucks a week, I think. That's too steep for me. However, I would pay $1 a week for online access and I'm sure 50 million others would, too. In the future, the economy of scale will rise exponentially.

Unburdened by newsprint and distribution costs, online newspapers should flourish someday.

For now, though, almost all papers have scaled back their coverage because of layoffs. Reporters are now called "content providers."

The newspaper "boy," now often a man or woman, will no longer have a job. Pressmen/women will lose jobs, too. Newsprint and ink producers will have to shrink their workforces, as well.

Large journalism schools certainly won't be needed.

New skills, all digital-related, will have to be learned.

These employment shifts have been going on for years, particularly from the industrial to this digital age.

Traditionalists can moan all they like, but that's just the way it is.

News of note

Somebody That I Used to Know - Gotye featuring Kimbra

A few stories worth checking out:

NPR had story on the escalating costs of higher education.

It divides the costs into "sticker" price and "net" price for public and private institutions.

The upshot is that the "net" price for a private college education is now almost 6 times what a public education costs.

We're talking net price of $12,970 for private versus $2,490 for public.

Of course, living costs are nearly the same between private and public schools, or about $10,000 per year.

Cheery news for those who have yet to take the plunge.

In other news, there's a new biography out about Barack Obama. Here's a link to pictures of "Barry" in his early years.

Speaking of Barry, check out the electoral map from the Huffington Post, which has Obama up 284 to 181 for Mitt. Of course, you only need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

I agree with the Huffpo on this, but Real Clear Politics shows Obama up just 227 to 170 for Mitt.

The mainstream media will portray a tight race until the end so that they can maximize their advertising dollars.

Obama will carry Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia. With those states, he wins the presidency.

Meanwhile, Intrade shows a modest shift, with Obama at 57.5 to Mitt's 39.1. That's not a landslide in Mitt's favor no matter how his side wants to spin it.

Can't count on Obama's re-election just yet, but Mitt's post-GOP primary lockdown bump is not even the size of a speed bump.

To a Republican, though, a speed bump is just the free marketplace at work.

Speaking of a speed bump, I just paid $4.17 per gallon, with the Fred Meyer 3-cent discount, for a gallon of gas.

I'll close, though, with a link to the mp3 of "Somebody That I Used to Know," by Gotye featuring Kimbra.

Now, this is what I'm talking about.

And a capella.

Awesome instrumental.

And, the kid version.

Have a good Memorial Day weekend.

The old college try

OSU-Cascades on the COCC campus

It seems some in Bend are intoxicating themselves with the belief that a full-fledged, four-year university is just around the corner here in the middle of nowhere.

It's been widely reported that Bend is the largest city in the country without a four-year university within 100 miles. However, we do have OSU-Cascades, a one-building extension of Oregon State University, on the campus of Central Oregon Community College (COCC) on Bend's west side.

It's also widely known that Bend is represented by anti-government legislators who claim they favor government spending, only if it's spent in Bend.

There seems to be a recent push, by local officials and the president of Oregon State University, to expand OSU-Cascades at COCC.

In the last legislative session, OSU-Cascades got more than a million dollars to buy a building (which bailed out a struggling landowner) for graduate courses adjacent to Bend's Shevlin Center, about two miles from OSU-Cascades at COCC.

Then, the Bend park district bought some land, at presumably depressed prices from another struggling property owner in the Shevlin Center, with the hopes of either building another recreation facility there or partnering with OSU-Cascades for its expansion there.

Well, as is also well known, reality bites.

What is the vision for OSU-Cascades and COCC? Can Bend adequately support a community college and a separate four-year university so close by?

If so, Bend would go from one of the least-served by higher education to the most over-served by higher education.

Obviously, that is not going to happen.

There is no sense in creating a university at a "business park," which is Shevlin Center, while one of the most scenic areas in the state, the COCC campus, remains a community college.

If college educators truly believe in evolution, they would realize that COCC should evolve into OSU-Cascades.

They should also realize that Central Oregon would be best served if COCC moved to its Redmond satellite campus to better serve the region.

OSU-Cascades, then, on the campus of the current COCC would be a natural draw to students at the main, and over-subscribed, OSU campus in Corvallis.

This all assumes there is any money in state coffers for an expansion of OSU-Cascades.

Obviously, there is not.

Republican legislators, particularly those from Bend, make sure there is no state money for higher education. (Republicans believe that government can't do anything and get elected to prove it.)

State support for higher education has plummeted during these austerity times, which, for Oregon, has been ongoing for more than three decades.

Consequently, college costs for students have escalated to the point that a college education in Oregon is becoming accessible only to the financial elites or suckers from California.

Republicans have never grasped the notion that government spending includes spending for higher education.

So, as Republicans have starved government of revenue (can't raise the beer tax or any other tax), they have also starved education, particularly higher education, of the necessary funds to be competitive with other states or countries.

Republicans operate under the principle that you can have whatever you want, and not have to pay for it.

This is America, dammit. We don't need no stinkin' taxes.

Of course, with thinking like that, we will never have a four-year university in Bend.

Photo, story of the day

In the photo that has hung in the West Wing for three years, President Obama looks to be bowing to 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his.

The New York Times had a gem of photo by Pete Souza and story by Jackie Calmes published yesterday.

Here's the link: "When a Boy Found a Familiar Feel in a Pat of the Head of State"

In case the link doesn't work for you, below is a cut-and-paste version of the story.

Also, for more White House photos click on this Flickr link.

By JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — For decades at the White House, photographs of the president at work and at play have hung throughout the West Wing, and each print soon gives way to a more recent shot. But one picture of President Obama remains after three years.

In the photo, Mr. Obama looks to be bowing to a sharply dressed 5-year-old black boy, who stands erect beside the Oval Office desk, his arm raised to touch the president’s hair — to see if it feels like his. The image has struck so many White House aides and visitors that by popular demand it stays put while others come and go.

As a candidate and as president, Mr. Obama has avoided discussing race except in rare instances when he seemed to have little choice — responding to the racially incendiary words of his former pastor, for example, or to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Florida. Some black leaders criticize Mr. Obama for not directly addressing young blacks or proposing policies specifically for them.

Yet the photo is tangible evidence of what polls also show: Mr. Obama remains a potent symbol for blacks, with a deep reservoir of support. As skittish as White House aides often are in discussing race, they also clearly revel in the power of their boss’s example.

The boy in the picture is Jacob Philadelphia of Columbia, Md. Three years ago this month, his father, Carlton, a former Marine, was leaving the White House staff after a two-year stint on the National Security Council that began in the Bush administration. As departing staff members often do, Mr. Philadelphia asked for a family photograph with Mr. Obama.

When the pictures were taken and the family was about to leave, Mr. Philadelphia told Mr. Obama that his sons each had a question. In interviews, he and his wife, Roseane, said they did not know what the boys would ask. The White House photographer, Pete Souza, was surprised, too, as the photo’s awkward composition attests: The parents’ heads are cut off; Jacob’s arm obscures his face; and his older brother, Isaac, is blurry.

Jacob spoke first.

“I want to know if my hair is just like yours,” he told Mr. Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Mr. Obama replied, “Why don’t you touch it and see for yourself?” He lowered his head, level with Jacob, who hesitated.

“Touch it, dude!” Mr. Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Mr. Souza snapped.

“So, what do you think?” Mr. Obama asked.

“Yes, it does feel the same,” Jacob said.

(Isaac, now 11, asked Mr. Obama why he had eliminated the F-22 fighter jet. Mr. Obama said it cost too much, Isaac and his parents recounted.)

In keeping with a practice of White House photographers back to Gerald R. Ford’s presidency, each week Mr. Souza picks new photos for display. That week, Jacob’s easily made the cut.

“As a photographer, you know when you have a unique moment. But I didn’t realize the extent to which this one would take on a life of its own,” Mr. Souza said. “That one became an instant favorite of the staff. I think people are struck by the fact that the president of the United States was willing to bend down and let a little boy feel his head.”

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”

A copy of the photo hangs in the Philadelphia family’s living room with several others taken that day. Mr. Philadelphia, now in Afghanistan for the State Department, said: “It’s important for black children to see a black man as president. You can believe that any position is possible to achieve if you see a black person in it.”

Jacob, now 8, said he indeed does want to be president. “Or a test pilot.”