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Miscellaneous Good News, September 2003
[Commentary] ©2003 Phil Hyde, The Timesizing Wire, Box 622, Cambridge MA 02140 USA (617) 623-8080

9/30/2003   headlines from heaven - alias glimmers of random intelligence -

• Iraq, and lessons still not learned, ...letter to editor by Beth Goldberg of Oakland CA, NYT, A28.
  Thomas Friedman (column, Sept. 28) has accused United Nations members of being free riders.
  But if anyone is looking for a free ride, it's the United States, which wants to be bailed out of its mess and refuses to give up any power or control in exchange....

1. DaimlerChrysler AG - Mercedes to double capacity at SUV plant in Alabama, WSJ, B5.
   ...Tuscaloosa, Ala., [which] will employ 4,000 people...once the expansion is completed.
   [So simple-mindedly assuming half that number are employed there now, we estimate 2,000 new jobs.]

2. Russia: Avon to build plant, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
   ...near Moscow...in Narofominsk, [which] will employ more than 800 people....

3. Starbucks Corp., WSJ, B5.
   ...plans to open its first retail location in France early next year....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. Bush's approval rating is at the lowest point of his pResidency, news summary, WSJ, front page.
   A Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll said 49% approve of his overall performance, but the figure dropped to 43% on his handling of the economy....
   [Ahhhh, right on schedule, just like with Bush Sr. The Dems can run Alfred E. Newman in '04 and he'll win, just to get rid of these neo-con artists. Dubya makes Clinton look like Lincoln.]

2. Israeli pilots balk at attacks, pointer summary (to A12), NYT, front page.
   27 reservists said they would not fly in "illegal and immoral" airstrikes aimed at Palestinian terror suspects [but with 'collateral damage.' Main story -]
   27 Israeli reserve pilots say they refuse to bomb civilians, by Greg Myre, NYT, A12.
   ...in the West Bank and the Gaza strip.... "We refuse to participate in airforce attacks on civilian populations," said the letter, which was sent to the head of the airforce, Maj. Dan Halutz. "We refuse to continue harming innocent civilians."...
   [Switching to the Boston Globe's (BG's) version by Dan Ephron, A8 (flagged by Jewish colleague Kate), which has a little more chutzpa -]
   ...Israel has assassinated scores of militants in missile strikes and bombing missions in crowded areas of the West Bank and Gaza, but scores of innocent civilians have also been killed and wounded in the raids. In one particularly devastating attack in July 2002, Israel dropped a 1-ton bomb on a building in Gaza where Salah Shehadeh, a top member of the Islamic militant group Hamas, was hiding. He was thought to have orchestrated attacks that killed dozens of Israelis. The bomb killed Shehadeh, his wife and daughters, and 12 other civilians..\..
   [Israel will be slow to punish these heroic protesters because the airforce is an elite key to Israeli military morale and some of these 27 guys ain't just Joe Flyboy -]
   [NYT] The Israeli news media said one of the petition's signers was Yiftach Spector, a brigadier general in the reserves, who took part in the bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981....
   [BG] ...Among those who signed were [also] two colonels, and four lieutenant colonels. About half of them fly warplanes and attack helicopters in reserve duty, while the rest are inactive, according to a senior airforce officer..\..
   The letter, published on the websites of several Israeli newspapers, appeared to give new impetus to the movement of several hundred soldiers who refuse to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on moral grounds....
   [Way ta go, guys. If enough Israelis refuse to keep following Sharon's bloody path to more blood, this whole dragged-on&on&on problem will subside. American taxpayers get $3,500,000,000 extorted from them in regular years to prop Sharon's violence. These last few years Sharon's been getting 2-3 times that out of us. You can't tell us that Israel isn't in such a powerful position that it can't afford to give the Palestinians EVERYTHING THEY WANT, and end this crap. The Palestinians are the ones with relative nothing, not Israelis. And save the list of bad things Palestinians have done. If they had options, they'd use them. If they had a clear example of non-violence from Israel, they'd either follow it or lose world sympathy. Hey Sharon, can you spell G-a-n-d-h-i?]

3. [and how we doin' on the clap-o-meter?]
   Media see win over US in Chirac's UN speech, by Mark John, Boston Globe, A15.
   [A glimmer of intelligence made it through -]
   ...President Jacques Chirac used the General Assembly to give pResident Bush a dressing down over Iraq. "On the clap-o-meter, it was Jacques Chirac who won," concluded the newspaper Liberation, contrasting the sustained applause for Chirac Tuesday [9/23] with the polite clapping that followed Bush's speech. Chirac denounced the US decision to wage war against Iraq without UN backing....
   [In British history, Bush is like James II and his 'bloody assizes' or Bloody Mary and her spate of burnings@thestake, both of whom tried to ram the country back into Roman Catholicism regardless of the will of the people. The Bushies accuse dissenters of isolationism, but unilateralism is the worst kind of isolationism.]

4. Congress - Democrats step up attacks on Iraq war, by Carl Hulse, NYT, A10.
   [At la-a-ast! Better late than never.]
   ...The increasingly tough tone was first struck by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and a consistent opponent of the war, who charged the administration with perpetrating a "fraud" with its justification for the war on Iraq....
   [Bush called him "uncivil" - apparently expecting everyone to withhold all criticism cuz it wouldn't be civil, and go along with his juggernaut to hell.]

5. [Speaking of juggernauts to hell -]
   Microsoft's software dominance, pointer summary (to B13), WSJ, front page.
   ...threatens national security, seven experts alleged....
   [Gee, what a coincidence Gates left all those chinks in Windows, especially that one a couple of years ago labelled "CIA" something-or-other. Then there was the security hole in several revs of Windows that the Blaster virus snuk through and zapped 100,000s of computers worldwide. Windows is a piece of crap. If we had the scratch, we'd switch to Apple or Linux. The main article doesn't name the seven experts but says they -]
   ...released the report at a meeting in DC of the Computer and Communications Industry Assoc., which is backed by MS rivals Sun and Oracle....
   [At least Oracle's Ellison is doing something useful instead of just hassling PeopleSoft.]

6. [And the wheels of Bush justice grind extra slowly, but -]
   Finally, a CEO faces a jury: Kozlowski, by Mark Maremont, WSJ, C1.
   [...of voracious taker-overer, Tyco.]

7. [dawn of democracy in corporations?]
   In the wake of scandals like Enron and WorldCom, [long-term] investors deserve a true voice in director elections, full-page ad by CalPERS et al., WSJ, C8A.

8. [wouldn't want Bezos to patent breathing -]
   European Parliament votes to limit software patents, by Paul Meller, NYT, W1.
   ...The amendments tightened up the wording of the bill to make it explicit that no patent, like the one Amazon.com registered for its one-click online shopping method [CEO Bezos' temporary insanity], can be registered in the Union. Such patents are known in the industry as business-method patents.

9. Currency controls backed, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
   The govts of the US and other countries should stop seeking changes to foreign currency controls to win votes at home, the managing director of the IMF, Horst Kuehler said yesterday.... Countries must "stop their short-term games for domestic political reasons," Mr. Koehler said....
   [At last some sense out of the IMF.]

1. [UPsizing #1, with 300 new jobs]
   Plots & ploys...- New Jobs, by Sheila Muto, WSJ, B8.
   ...Gojo Industries Inc., based in Akron OH, has reached a preliminary agreement to take..\..the free 300,000-sq-ft mfg and warehouse facility left behind by Abbott Labs more than a year ago \in\ the Laurinburg/Scotland area [of] North Carolina...to expand production of its Purell had sanitizer, currently made at the closely held company's Cuyahoga Falls OH plant.... Gojo...agreed to invest a minimum in capital improvements and create at least 300 jobs to help ease the area's unemployment, which hit nearly 14% in July.

2. [UPsizing #2, with 20 new jobs + unspecified]
   Harvard adds a new biology department, NYT, A19.
   Harvard Medical School [is] setting up a new department, the school's first in two decades, devoted to the emerging field of systems biology [which is about using] computers to understand the complexity of cellular processes...by studying whole networks of genes or proteins. \The\ department, with 20 new faculty members, would [offer] one of the first department-level systems biology programs in the country....
   [So, 20 new faculty plus unspecified new staff.   But in the age of robotics, we can't really count the following story, as written, as an UPsizing -]
   China: Ford expanding, Bloomberg via NYT, W1.
   Ford Motor said yesterday that it would expand its factory...in Chongqing in S/W China..\..to triple production to 150,000 vehicles a year....
   [Compare our "not quite a downsizing" today, and the following UN-upsizing -]
   DaimlerChrysler drops plans for van plant, Reuters via NYT, C16 (//WSJ, A11).
   ...near Savannah GA....

3. [UPsizing #3, with unspecified new McJobs]
   McDonald's plans 25 more restaurants in Russia [next year], Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...McDonald's opened its first Russian restaurant on Pushkin Sq in Moscow in Jan/1990, months before the Soviet Union collapsed. That outlet is now the company's busiest in the world. McDonald's...based in Oak Brook IL, has...employs about 15,000 people in 104 restaurants in the country.

4. [UPsizing #4, with unspecified more new 'McJobs']
   Home Depot is planning second store in Manhattan, Bloomberg via NYT, C4.
   ...Upper East Side...Third Avenue between 58th and 59th Streets, in mid-2004. At 83,000 sq ft, it will be about a third of the size of a typical Home Depot...based in Atlanta.... [first, in Manhattan to] open in the Chelsea neighborhood next year.
   [For their first store in Manhattan, see 9/05/2003 below.]

1. 9/20 Separating Iraq from Sept. 11, letter to editor by...Michael Curry, NYT, A26.
   ...The sad irony is that when you add up
   • the American deaths and injuries in Iraq,
   • the effect on the military families
   • and the cost of billions of dollars,
   you have the effect on Americans equivalent to a terrorist attack.

2. 9/20 Microsoft complains about complacency, but who is at fault?, by Lee Gomes, WSJ, B1.
   ...Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer [in] a speech last week in Silicon Valley, said..., "I believe that there's almost a dangerous complacency about innovation amongst people in the world these days....
   [That's true, at least about the employment-shrinking impact of innovation and the resulting imperative to share the vanishing market-demanded human working hours.]
   ...Microsoft (and nearly every other technology company) likes nothing better than to wrap itself in the flag of "innovation." It's what these companies talk about when they can't come up with a good example of how a customer will use, enjoy or otherwise profit from what they're currently selling. Reject our product? Why, sir, you are rejecting progress itself!...
   ["In fact, sir, you are a Luddite!" = the ultimate insult. Never mind the passive luddism of frustrating, with downsizing instead of timesizing, the whole purpose of innovation = to make life easier for everyone, not just unspendably money-drenched for the topmost income brackets. And if Ballmer's - and his fellow CEOs' - job is getting harder, it's because they've failed to adopt the one strategy that would deliver on the promise of technology, trimming working hours for all, and have instead substituted the strategy that merely trims their own markets, namely chopping their own workforces.]

3. 9/20 More firms go private - Did anyone notice?, by Karen Talley, Dow Jones via WSJ, C8.
   [Just you, Karen. Could they be fed up with stock exchange executives like Grasso charging them fees and then pocketing them all? Or with stock analysts constantly pressuring them to make stupid short-sighted moves like takeovers and downsizings for short-term reasons (like the analysts' own portfolio)?]
   An increasing number of small-caps are stepping out of the public spotlight and returning to private status....

4. 9/22 Denmark's windmills flourish as Cape Cod power project stalls, by Charles Sennott, Boston Globe, front page & A9.
   ...According to Jens Larsen, a civil engineer and the developer of Middelgrunden, the key to the early successes in Denmark came in making the first wind farms collectively owned enterprises. As a result, Middelgrunden is controlled by 8,500 individual investors, who own half the project, and the municipal utility provider, which owns the other half.... Larsen proudly pointed to the harmonious arc of the 20 wind turbines that stand at approximately one-third-mile intervals and hug the historic harbor.... "Aren't they beautiful in a way?" he asked....

1. Blix gives his own spin, Reuters via NYT, A11.
   The former senior weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, said yesterday that "spin and hype" lay behind American and British allegations that Baghdad had unconventional weapons.... Mr. Blix, who said in Australia earlier this week that he believed Iraq had destroyed its unconventional weapons 10 years ago, said yesterday on BBC radio that Britain and the US had "overinterpreted" the intelligence.
   Comparing them to medieval witch hunters, he said the two countries [or rather, governments] convinced themselves on the basis of evidence that was later discredited. "In the Middle Ages, when people were convinced there were witches, they certainly found them," Mr. Blix said....
   [And they just repealed the laws against white witches in Britain in 1951! ('White witches' were the well-intentioned ones who were sooo good at accusing people of being black witches. See Eric Maple's Dark World of Witches, p. 144.]

2. ...As neo-cons take heat, pointer blurb (to A4), WSJ, front page.
   The "conservative" thinkers [our quotes - you gotta really twist the English language to view these triggerfish as conservatives] who provided much of the justification for the Iraq war are taking much of the blame for the problems there.
   [And rightly so. They ought all to be arraigned as war criminals.]

• [1 UPsizing]
  Saks Inc., Dow Jones via WSJ, A12.
  ...based in Birmingham, Ala...will open stores in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain beginning in 2004 and plans 5-10 Saks stores in various cities in Japan, beginning in Tokyo in 2005....
  [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. Chip maker creates fuel cell for mobile phones, Reuters via NYT, C4.
   STMicroelectronics said yesterday that it had created technology for a tiny fuel cell to power mobile phones and increase the time between battery charges to 20 days. The fuel cell could be commercial in a few years' time, depending on demand from cellphone manufacturers, the company said.
   Fuel cells, which generate energy through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, could replace [present-day] batteries, which are heavier and not as efficient....
   [And fuel cells are one of Buckminster Fuller's big hobby horses. We're finally just starting to catch up with him on this.]

2. [And our unions are finally starting to catch up with German, and European unions in general -]
   Big 3 and union said to be near one deal for all, by Danny Hakim, NYT, C1.
   DETROIT...- The Big Three [which should by sales have substituted Toyota for Chrysler by now but hasn't] and the UAW are on the brink of an unprecedented early and simultaneous resolution to their contract talks, people close to the negotiations said. "...Both sides are dealing with each other from great weakness," said Gerald Meyers, a prof at UMich and the former chairman of American Motors, now a part of DaimlerChrysler. \In\ August sales results...the combined market share of GM, Ford and Chrysler reached a record low. In August, Toyota also surpassed Chrysler in sales for the first time [but] Toyota, which includes Lexus, still trailed DaimlerChrysler, which includes Mercedes....

3. U.S. backs tax on insurance plans, pointer digest (to C5), NYT, C1.
   The Treasury Dept. issued new tax rules that sharply reduce the appeal of a life insurance benefit that corporations have provided for decades to top executives. Executives will have to pay more taxes.

• [1 UPsizing]
  KeyCorp warns of lower profit for the year, Bloomberg via NYT, C3.
  ...The CEO, Henry Meyer...also said that the bank planned to open 35 consumer branches in the next two years..\..
  [Unspecified new jobs. However, this good news is alloyed by his saying also that -]
  The bank had cut some jobs and had closed brokerage offices to offset the [profit] decline....

• Cinergy pledged, pointer blurb (to A19), WSJ, front page.
  ...to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 5%, making it the first utility to announce specific voluntary reductions.
  [Main story -]
  Cinergy pledges 5% emissions cut, by John Fialka, WSJ, A19.
  One of the nation's largest coal-fired electric utilities [is] the first of four power companies...to announce specific voluntary reductions to help combat global warming.... Cinergy Corp...will spend about $21m to find ways to reach its reduction target in the years 2010 to 2012....
  [Why the delay?]
  Two-thirds of the money will be directed [toward] upgrading the efficiency of the Cincinnati-based company's current plants, or incentive programs that reduce consumer demands during hot summer days. ...Cinergy Chairman and CEO James E. Rogers...noted that the company may also invest in "offsets," including agriculture and forestry projects that tend to reduce atmospheric levels of CO and other gases.
  Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental group in New York, will serve as an adviser to the company....

1. [1 UPsizing]
   UAL to start low-cost airline early next year, NYT, C4.
   [Still unnamed. Unspecified new jobs.]

2. Investigation of Enron ex-officers intensifies - Prosecutors aim to decide soon whether Lay, Skilling will face criminal charges, WSJ, A3.
   [At last!]

1. [1 UPsizing]
   9/08 Trailing KFC, McDonald's plans to accelerate expansion in China, by Ben Dolven, Dow Jones via WSJ, A13A.
   ...The world's largest restaurant chain plans to open about 100 stores next year in China, and a similar number in each of the next several years...evenly divided between established markets along that country's affluent coast and new inland markets. McDonald's [already] has 566 outlets in 94 cities across the nation....
   [Spreading like kudzu. Unspecified new McJobs. Note also industrywide -]
   Airlines begin to add planes - Carriers outside U.S. respond as travelers' fears abate, WSJ, B4.

2. 9/08 Payroll slump has economists rethinking ideas on job creation, by Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ, A2.
   [Don't tell us they're finally getting a 'blinding glimpse of the obvious'?!]
   ...A variety of factors are forcing economists to rethink their models for the way the job market is likely to behave in the months ahead.
   • One factor is the ability of businesses to squeeze more output from existing workers.
     [And it isn't all squeeze because there's a lot of worksaving technology out there.]
   • An unexpected burst of productivity appears to be helping businesses to bolster profits;
     ["Unexpected"? - what the heck to they think worksaving technology is for?]
     but it is also helping them to avoid adding new workers, at least for now.
     [UNLESS we resume the century&ahalf of workweek reduction that we discontinued in 1941 at the start of World War II.]

3. [at last the NY Times supports Phil Hyde's bid for the Presidency! -]
   9/06 A constitutional anachronism, editorial, NYT, A22.
   ...No matter how great their contributions or sacrifices, immigrants remain ineligible for the nation's highest office because of a provision in the Constitution that bars naturalized American citizens from becoming president. The provision has long since outlived its usefulness, if it had any in the first place.
   Orrin Hatch, a Senate Republican, and Vic Snyder, a House Democrat, are pushing amendments to rid the Constitution of the requirement that "No Person except a natural born Citizen...shall be eligible to the Office of President."...
   [Great! Soon Phil Hyde, having run for U.S. House and Senate in 96, 98 and 2000, can join the other thousands of impecunious idealists in running for what has become the most cynically plutocratic job in the world. Shivers of warmth and fuzziness. At least this vestige of racism (originally anti-Brit) in the U.S. Constitution is now being targeted.]
   This encompasses an ever-expanding universe of more than 12m Americans and includes 2 former secretaries of state, Henry Kissinger [he's an argument for keeping the restriction!] and Madeleine Albright; 2 cabinet members, Elaine Chao and Mel Martinez; and Michigan's governor, Jennifer Granholm.
   Mr. Hatch's amendment would made anyone who has been a citizen for 20 years, and a resident for 14 [hasn't he got that backwards?], eligible for the presidency,
   [so Phil could run in 2004!]
   while Mr. Snyder's would require a 35-year waiting period.
   [Phil'd have to wait till 1982+35= 2017. The world would be 'safe' for another 14 years, during which, the already ancient Phil would probably have expired.]

4. [Bucky Fuller's long-ago call for development of fuel cells is finally bearing fruit -]
   9/08 New fuel cell uses germs to generate electricity, by Gareth Cook, Boston Globe, front page.
   [The "microbial fuel cell" actually uses bacteria, Rhodoferax ferrireducens, that completely break down sugars without using oxygen, and deposit electrons on iron as a byproduct - bacteria that were discovered during research drilling in Oyster Bay VA.]
   ...The test battery generates just enough energy to power a calculator or a single Christmas tree light....

1. [1 UPsizing]
   Home Depot to open its first store in Manhattan, Reuters via NYT, C3.
   ...scouting additional Manhattan locations....
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

1. [UPsizing #1]
   Miscellany, NYT, C4.
   Gerbig, Snell/Weisheimer, Columbus OH, part of InChord Communications, opened an office in New York, to be headed by Vince Parry, who continues as president at the InChord NY office.
   [Unspecified new jobs.]

2. [UPsizing #2]
   BEA executive to start company, Reuters, NYT, C5.
   William Coleman III, a founder of BEA Systems 8 years ago, is leaving day-to-day involvement in the company for a startup venture.... [Unspecified new jobs.]