January 12, 2014

Looking for Lessons in Iceland's Recovery

from Der Spiegel:

In 2008, Iceland experienced one of the most dramatic crashes any country had ever seen. Since then, its recovery has been just as impressive. Are there lessons to be learned? SPIEGEL went to the island nation to find out.

What should one expect from a country in which the sentence, "What an asshole!" is a compliment? Icelanders say "asshole," or "rassgat," when they tousle a child's hair or greet friends, and they mean it to be friendly.

.....(snip).....

What happened in Iceland from 2008 to 2011 is regarded as one of the worst financial crises in history. It seems likely that never before had a country managed to amass such great sums of money per capita, only to lose it again in a short period of time. But Iceland, with a population of just 320,000, has also staged what appears to be the fastest recovery on record. Since 2011, the gross domestic product has been on the rise once again, most recently at 2 percent. What's more, salaries are rising, the national debt is sinking and the government has paid off part of the billions in loans it received in 2008 from the International Monetary Fund ahead of schedule. It's a sign of confidence.

.....(snip).....

It was German money, Jónsson says, that flowed the most freely following the liberalization of Icelandic banks in the 1990s. Still today, Germany is the country's largest creditor, he says. In 2010, German banks had over €20 billion in open claims in Iceland. "Germany has a weakness for Iceland," says Jónsson, who now works as an economics professor in Reykjavik. "Even Wagner borrowed from our legends for his operas," he says. In 2012, the number of German tourists to Iceland, with 65,000 visitors, was in third place behind the US and Great Britain.

Iceland's rapid return to health hinged on a series of measures that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman later referred to as "doing an Iceland." Krugman, an admirer of Iceland's dramatic comeback, has recommended a similar policy cocktail for other nations in crisis. The rules are as follows: Allow your ailing banks to collapse; devalue your currency if you have one of your own; introduce capital controls; and try to avoid paying back foreign debts. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/financial-recovery-of-iceland-a-case-worth-studying-a-942387.html

January 12, 2014

The events in WV take me back to Chris Hedges' "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" .......

....... and the chapter on West Virginia and what mining hath wrought. It really is a must read if you haven't. ..... An excerpt, via the Daily Beast.


Joe and I are walking along the ridge of Kayford Mountain in southern West Virginia with Larry Gibson. Small wooden shacks and campers, including Gibson’s simple wood cabin, dot the line of ridge where he and his extended family have lived for more than 230 years. Coal companies are blasting hundreds of thousands of acres of the Appalachians into mounds of debris and rubble to unearth seams of coal. Gibson has preserved 50 acres from the destruction. His forested ribbon of land is surrounded by a sea of gray rock, pale patches of thin grass, and barren plateaus where mountain peaks and towering pines once stood. Valleys and creeks, including the old swimming hole Gibson used as a boy, are buried under mining waste. The wells, including his own, are dry and the aquifers below the mountain poisoned. The fine grit of coal dust in the air settles on our lips and leaves a metallic taste in our mouths. Gibson’s thin strip of trees and undergrowth is a reminder of what has been destroyed and will never be reclaimed.

......(snip).......

His defiance has come with a cost. Coal companies are the only employers left in southern West Virginia, one of the worst pockets of poverty in the nation, and the desperate scramble for the few remaining jobs has allowed the companies to portray rebels such as Gibson as enemies of not only Big Coal but also the jobs it provides. Gibson’s cabin has been burned down. Two of his dogs have been shot and Dog was hung, although he was saved before he choked to death. Trucks have tried to run him off the road. He has endured drive-by shootings, and a couple of weeks before we visited, his Porta-Johns were overturned. A camper he once lived in was shot up. He lost his water in 2001 when the blasting dropped the water table. He has reinforced his cabin door with six inches of wood to keep it from being kicked in by intruders. The door weighs 500 pounds and has wheels at the base to open and close it. A black bullet-proof vest hangs near the entrance on the wall, although he admits he has never put it on. He keeps stacks of dead birds in his freezer that choked to death on the foul air, hoping that someday someone might investigate why birds in this part of the state routinely fall out of the sky. Roughly 100 bird species have disappeared.

......(snip).......

The spine of the Appalachian Mountains, a range older than the Himalayas, winds its way through Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia. Isolated, lonely patches of verdant hills and forests now lie in the midst of huge gray plateaus, massive, dark-eyed craters, and sprawling, earthen-banked dams filled with billions of gallons of coal slurry. Gigantic slag heaps, the residue of decades of mining operations, lie idle, periodically catching fire and belching oily plumes of smoke and an acrid stench. The coal companies have turned perhaps half a million acres in West Virginia and another half million in Kentucky, once some of the most beautiful land in the country, along with hundreds of towering peaks, into stunted mounds of rubble. It was impossible to grasp the level of destruction in the war in Bosnia until you got in a helicopter and flew over the landscape, seeing village after village dynamited by advancing Serb forces into rubble. The same scale of destruction, and the same problem in picturing its true extent, holds true for West Virginia and Kentucky.

That destruction, like the pillaging of natural resources in the ancient Mesopotamian, Roman, and Mayan empires, is one of willful if not always conscious self-annihilation. The dependence on coal, which supplies the energy for half of the nation’s electricity, means that its extraction, as supplies diminish, becomes ever more ruthless. The Appalachian region provides most of the country’s coal, its production dwarfed only by that of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.5 We extract 100 tons of coal from the earth every two seconds in the United States, and about seventy percent of that coal comes from strip mines and mountaintop removal, which began in 1970. ...................................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/14/chris-hedges-and-joe-sacco-chronicle-mining-catastrophes-in-west-virginia.html

January 12, 2014

Will Serena Williams' reign end?

Will Serena Williams' reign end?
American hasn't shown any sign she is going to decline any time soon

Updated: January 10, 2014, 4:14 PM ET
By Greg Garber | ESPN.com


In several, very fundamental ways, they are the same extraordinary person.

Thirty-two years ago, Serena Williams and Roger Federer were born within seven weeks of each other. They are, at the very least, the tennis players of their generation, ruthless competitors when matches mean the most. Appropriately, they both own 17 Grand Slam singles titles.

"It's an honor to be even with Roger," Williams said after winning last year's US Open. "It feels really good to be in the same league as him. He's just been so incredibly consistent, so we have had really different careers."

Indeed, their journeys to the summit couldn't be more different. Williams learned to play on the public courts of Compton, Calif., while Federer, who was born in Basel, Switzerland, followed the more conventional path of an elite junior. Williams' slashing style is predicated on unprecedented power. Federer's game is an astonishing combination of variety and finesse. ........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://espn.go.com/tennis/aus14/story/_/id/10258460/australian-open-serena-williams-reign-end

January 11, 2014

On the eve of the Australian Open, can Roger Federer remember how to be great?

The Trouble With Rog
On the eve of the Australian Open, can Roger Federer remember how to be great?

By Louisa Thomas on January 10, 2014




There was a time when watching Roger Federer shank the ball gave me a little thrill of pleasure. Not jealousy's pleasure in pain — just the opposite. When Federer framed the ball, it seemed like an interesting quirk, the kind of mistake that affirmed just how gobsmackingly great he was. His swing produced so much speed, his racket had such a small sweet spot, his targets were so precise, and the array of angles he exploited was so vast that the tiniest mistiming could produce catastrophic results. You take something for granted until you're reminded just how fragile it is, how rare it should be. It was basically impossible, what Federer did almost all the time: making perfectly clean contact with a spinning ball approaching at different trajectories and at crazy speeds, and then sending his shot — chosen from the biggest range of options the sport had ever known — to a deliberate spot, a target maybe a few square inches, and hitting that mark more often than not. So when he mishit the ball, he sometimes missed big. He'd elevate in his split step a nanosecond too long, or his footwork would float him just a few millimeters too close to the ball, or a lump of clay would imperceptibly skew the angle of the ball's bounce, or a butterfly in Tokyo flapped its wings and produced a slight atmospheric disturbance in Queens, and the ball would thwack off his frame and sail out. It was delightful. That's how hard it is to do what normally looks so easy, I'd think. That's how great he is.

A few years ago, when people started to talk about Federer in funereal terms, they usually talked about how often he shanked the ball. There wasn't much else to talk about at that point, of course, besides the plain fact of his age; he was still at least the third-best player in the world, and in some conditions and on some days the very best, and he still moved around the court with that easy grace and awesome command, the kind of preternatural authority that makes me half-believe in the divine right of kings. But it was true, Federer was shanking the ball more often, on the forehand as well as the backhand. The mishits started to seem more worrisome than charming. Then they became downright embarrassing. Last year, when he really did begin to struggle, and not only by Federerian standards, the framed balls were what I'd remember when he lost a match, and what I'd try to forget.

When his losses and near-losses were raked over, the mishits were obsessed over. There had to be an explanation. Federer was having trouble reading shots coming off his opponent's rackets, you would hear. Or his famously fluid footwork had become less efficient and quick. Or a back injury was affecting the rotation of his torso. Or he was standing up on his shots. Or he'd lost his confidence and his cool, and so his consistency. Or his racket was too small. He used a 90-square-inch frame with a tiny, punishing sweet spot, while everyone else had a more merciful and powerful oversize frame. It was like taking a flintlock pistol to a duel against a guy with an assault rifle! It was like using a fax machine to send an email! Or something. Last summer, Federer did switch to a 98-square-inch model, a prototype from Wilson. The shanks — and the losses to obscure players — didn't stop, and the racket was shelved for the rest of the year, until he could work with it in the offseason. ..............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10273456/roger-federer-prepares-australian-open-end-career

January 11, 2014

Majority of Republicans admit that their antediluvian ideology is very unpopular

Americans of all stripes predict more states will allow same-sex marriage and recreational marijuana by the end of 2014, a HuffPost/YouGov poll finds, even though other surveys have shown Republicans still oppose permitting either.

According to the new poll, 64 percent of Americans expect more states to legalize marijuana by the end of the year, while 62 percent expect more states to recognize the marriage of gay and lesbian couples.

In both cases, those expectations cross party lines.

Seventy-one percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of independents said they think more states will have legalized adult use of recreational marijuana by the end of the year. That's true even though a recent CNN poll found that 62 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents, but only 36 percent of Republicans, think that weed should be legalized.

Similarly, 75 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of independents in the new HuffPost/YouGov poll said they think gay and lesbian couples will be allowed to wed in more states by the end of the year. In another HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted in October, 65 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of independents, but only 24 percent of Republicans, said they actually want marriage equality. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/11/gay-marriage-marijuana-2014_n_4577791.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037

January 11, 2014

Twin Cities: Southwest light-rail gripe session stirs some anger

(Star-Tribune) Stalled and stung by critics, planners of the most expensive light-rail line in the Twin Cities area resumed efforts Tuesday night to sell the project to a skeptical public.

They got help from a consultant who organized a gripe session for 200 people in the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis, where some residents oppose running the Southwest light rail through a recreational corridor near their homes.

“There is a lot of anger, a lot of mistrust,” said consultant Dan Cramer, whose firm is being paid $22,000 by a public agency to help calm critics.

He has a ways to go.

The session began with a dozen group meetings around tables in the Kenwood Community Center gym, where participants were encouraged to talk about specific elements of the light-rail project that irked them. But people at some tables focused their ire instead on the Metropolitan Council, the agency running the project and studying its impact on nearby lakes. .......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.startribune.com/local/239188231.html

January 11, 2014

After four decades, Delta's DC-9 jets make final landing

Delta Air Lines is the last domestic carrier to fly the DC-9, and one final Delta flight this Monday afternoon will mark the close of the plane’s nearly half-century run.

Most passengers about to board Delta flight 2494 from Atlanta to Akron a few days ago had no idea their jet was built during the Carter administration.

When 44-year-old Scott Smith learns of the plane’s age, his face lights up.

.....(snip).....

The DC-9 was designed for short, frequent routes. It brought jet service to most U.S. cities for the first time. Delta launched the airplane 1965, but sold the fleet in the early 90s to smaller carriers. When Delta merged with Northwest Airlines in 2008, Delta got some of the DC-9s back. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/after-four-decades-deltas-dc-9-jets-make-final-landing

January 11, 2014

D.C. Metro Unveils New Rail Cars

D.C. Metro Unveils New Rail Cars
The new 7000-series is designed to minimize the potential danger of crashes

Tuesday, January 07, 2014 - 11:37 AM
By Martin DiCaro : WAMU




Its 1970s-era rail cars creaking with age, Metro finally stepped into the 21st century on Monday, as the transit authority unveiled the first four in its fleet of modern trains scheduled to begin carrying passengers by the end of the year.

At a news conference on the frigid Greenbelt station platform, flanked by mostly Democratic elected officials and political appointees from Maryland and D.C., Metro general manager Richard Sarles heralded the arrival of the 7000-series rail cars, built in Kawasaki’s plant in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The stainless steel cars with non-slip flooring (no carpets!), digital signage and public address systems will be tested for several months, and the rest of the new fleet is expected to begin rolling off Kawasaki’s assembly line in the fall. The 528 7000-series cars on order will cost $1 billion. Combined with an additional 220 cars Metro hopes to order in 2015, pending the availability of funding, more than half of Metro’s fleet would be comprised of 7000-series trains in five years.



“These cars are replacing 40-year-old rail cars that are unreliable and cause delays today. So instead of matching the old design, we decided to make a clean break and create a car with the future of Metro in mind,” Sarles said. “The new cars are safer and more customer-friendly than the cars in service today, providing a new level of technology and on-board amenities for riders.” ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.wnyc.org/story/dc-metro-upgrade-rail-cars/

January 11, 2014

Thousands of Bridgegate Documents Released — Vulgarities Included

Audio at: http://www.wnyc.org/story/thousands-bridgegate-documents-vulgarities-included-released/


Thousands of pages of documents released Friday afternoon by New Jersey Democrats investigating Governor Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal reveal new details about how the scandal unfolded.

Christie's spokesman, Michael Drewniak, dismissed with vulgarity a reporter seeking information about the lane closures. Christie's top appointee at the Port Authority, David Samson, said that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's appointees were "stirring up trouble" for talking about the ensuing traffic jam.

And, the documents reveal, Christie and Samson met a week before the traffic-causing lane closures. Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski says this indicates they may have discussed the scheme beforehand.

Christie has said neither he, nor Samson, knew anything about it.

January 11, 2014

Another study is about to begin on the feasibility of putting a high-speed rail line between Houston

Another study is about to begin on the feasibility of putting a high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas.




Three different entities are coming together for an environmental study: the Federal Railroad Administration, TxDOT, and a private company, Texas Central Railway.

A study last year by the University of Texas concluded that rail lines could be built along existing rights-of-way, either in medians or alongside highways.

Maureen Crocker with the Gulf Coast Rail District says as the state's population grows, airports will get more congested, and that could lead airlines to cut some of their shorter and less profitable routes.

"Which means there's really going to be a need for an alternative way to get to Houston and Dallas, rather than getting on I-45 which is already congested certainly in the urban areas."

But when it comes down to actually building a high-speed rail system, the big issue is funding. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/1386612519-High-Speed-Rail-Between-Houston-And-Dallas-Is-Getting-Another-Look.html