Ruble falls. About time too.

The Russian ruble is down to 80 rubles to the dollar today.  It was at 64 when the markets opened in the morning.  Lots of financial talk about why.
  I'll tell you why.  The Russians have nothing to sell to anyone except crude oil.  The only reason to have rubles is to buy stuff from the Russians.  Nobody else will accept rubles, 'cause there is nothing you can do with them.  I'm surprised it took the banks this long to wise up.  Now that the Americans have vastly increased their oil production, everyone would rather do business with the Americans, who are reasonable honest, and aren't threatening to invade their customers.
   For that matter, I don't understand why any bank would loan the Russians money.  They don't have the income to pay off a loan, they defaulted on their loans only  a few years ago, and Russian courts won't support foreigners who sue Russians to get  their money back.  Loaning to the Russians is worse than playing the derivative market.  At least US courts will enforce derivative contracts, which is more than Russian courts will do. 

130 Casualties in Pakistan

Al Quada attacked a school.  My sincerest sympathy for the Pakistani parents who lost children.  There is nothing worse than losing a child.  I hope the Paki's took the gun men alive.  Some rigorous interrogation is in order.   

Turkey Soup

Makes enough to last for weeks.  But heh, what else do you do with that leftover turkey carcass in the fridge?  You can just pitch it, but soup is so easy. 
   Put all the bones, and the rest of the turkey into a big pot filled with water.  Bring to a boil, and let it cook for four hours.  Put in a bit of onion and chopped celery for flavor.  Bell's Poultry seasoning, maybe a tad of pepper, couple of bay leaves.  No salt. 
   After four hours the meat is cooked off the bones.  Let things cool a bit.  Fish out the bones and pitch them.  Cooked bones like these are bad for pets, they splinter into jagged pieces and do bad things to pet's insides when swallowed. 
   Finish the soup off with some veggies, carrots are good for color, peas, celery, baby corn, or real kernel corn or mushrooms.  And some rice.  Let it cook at close to a boil until the veggies are tender and the rice is soft.  Taste.  Salt sparingly if needed.  Add salt last, in case it becomes saltier than expected from adding things like bouillon cubes.  Serve.   Or let it cool and you can reheat it the next day and it will be good.
   All the grownups liked it and even had seconds.  And I still have plenty left.

Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV)

They are just learning about this over in Europe.  The advertised European emissions and fuel economy numbers for automobiles are way way better than what the cars get on the road.  Economist article goes on and on about how the car makers cheat, including programming the automobile microprocessors to recognize the start of an emissions test and switch over to an ultra clean mode for the duration of the test.  The Economist writers seen surprised to find a gap between "objective" testing and real world driving. 
   Over here we figured this out years ago.  Your Mileage May Vary has been a cliche for a long long time.  It seems to take the Euros longer to catch on.

Cromnibus derivative give away.

The $1 trillion Cromnibus bill to fund the federal government for another year contains a juicy handout to banks.  Banks will be allowed to play the derivatives market using FDIC guaranteed money.  Taxpayer money. 
  Derivatives are an undesirable financial deal, basically gambling, and they take money that might be used to grow the economy and use it for pure gambling.  A derivative is not a stock or a bond.  It's bet between two parties on the price of something (commodities, stocks, foreign exchange, bonds, whatever) in the future.  "I bet the price of oil will go to $120 by March 2015".  " I bet it won't".  hands are shaken on the bet, and come March someone pays off.  The money does not go for starting up a company, building a factory, developing a new product, buying inventory, financing new aircraft, or anything that creates jobs and grows the economy.  As such, we ought to do everything we can to prevent gambling on derivatives. There are better things for banks to do with their money.
   Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) is a government guarantee of banks.  Roosevelt set it up in Great Depression 1.0 to convince depositors that they could leave their money in a bank and not worry about the bank failing and taking all their savings with it.  Prior to FDIC, anytime depositors got jittery, they ran to their bank and withdrew all their money.  When everyone did this, the bank withered and died, often within hours.  Now, 80 years later, FDIC is still with us.  FDIC means that no matter how dumbass the bank may be, Uncle will pay off the depositors.  Nobody has to worry about loosing money in a bank. 
   Which means the banks can take some unholy risks, figuring that Uncle will bail them out. 
   Part of Dodd-Frank required that banks no longer gamble in the derivative game using FDIC insured funds.  An excellent idea. 
   Apparently the banks threw bags of money at politicians and the politicians lifted the "no FDIC money for derivatives" ban.  They slipped it into the Cromnibus late at night. 
Money talks.  Politicians walk. 

I hear Sony got hacked...

Couldn't happen to a nicer victim.  Sony, as you might remember, is the company that tried copy protection for its music CDs by loading them with a root kit that infected customer's PC's.   A little shared pain is good for the company soul....

Cannon Mt Ski Weather

We got two, maybe three inches of new snow yesterday and last night.  It's below freezing (just barely) right now.  What with the seven inches we got on Wednesday, the mountain oughta be a great shape for tomorrow.