I doubt that flying with 550 to 900 people packed into a large plane will be all that enjoyable. The plane, is nevertheless, being built and will fly late this year or early next. The brief assembly video clip is rather interesting.
Flying Without an ID
According to the TSA, in the 9th Circuit Case of John Gilmore, you are allowed to fly without showing ID — you’ll just have to submit yourself to secondary screening.
The Identity Project wants you to try it out. If you have time, try to fly without showing ID.
Lawmaker’s Use of Corporate Jets
Senator Barack Obama flew at least nine times on corporate jets last year, traveling to fund-raisers in New York and San Francisco, home to Chicago and to Rosa Parks’s funeral in Detroit. Each time, he reimbursed the plane’s owners at first-class rates, as Senate rules require.
But Mr. Obama, freshman Democrat from Illinois, felt queasy about this perk of Senate life, so he said he gave it up.
“It’s not only a perk,” Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, said, “but a serious abuse that should be stopped.”
Mr. Feingold said he always flew on commercial planes.
Details on Wisconsin’s corporate travel list is Wisconsin’s own Jim Sensenbrenner. Others flying via corporate jet include:
- David Obey #73: $73,299
- Paul Ryan: #136 $48,295
- Tammy Baldwin #137 $48,173
- Ron Kind: #249 $27,906
GM’s Slide: Bosses Misjudged New Urban Tastes
Lee Hawkins, Jr (a writer who used to work in Madison and Milwaukee):
In December, General Motors Corp. ran a series of ads across the U.S. showing Cadillacs being driven in snow. The decision to do so was made by the giant car maker’s executives in Detroit, where on Christmas Day, temperatures hovered just above freezing.
The ads also ran in Miami, a vibrant car market where GM has bombed for the past 15 years. As Christmas dawned, temperatures there started climbing into the high 70s.
GM is struggling under a financial burden created by monumental pension and health-care obligations. But it’s also having a hard time persuading Americans to buy its cars. One reason: GM’s cumbersome and unresponsive bureaucracy, the one that ran the snow ads in Miami, has for years failed to connect with the tastes and expectations of consumers outside the company’s Midwestern base.
Hawkins does a nice job digging into this issue with examples from mid level GM employees. GM has a large assembly facility in nearby Janesville.
Investigated By Homeland Security for Paying Down a Credit Card
Retired Texas schoolteacher is “madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail” because the Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation on him. The reason? He had the gall to pay down his credit card, which apparently marks you as a potential terrorist in Bushworld.
How Wisconsin Lost Its Big Advantage in the Ginseng Game
In a cramped shop filled with stale aromas of Chinese herbs, Keary Drath, a stout Wisconsin farmer and self-appointed ginseng sleuth, picked up a dry, wrinkly ginseng root, broke it in half and chewed it.
Clerks and customers of Ginseng City Trading Inc., stopped haggling in their rapid-fire Mandarin and stared. “From China,” he declared. “Not Wisconsin.”
“What’s the difference?” asked a shocked customer, Max Chen, who has used ginseng for 20 years. “They all say it is Wisconsin ginseng. I know Wisconsin’s is superior.”
Mr. Drath, 42 years old, wishes he had an easy way for Mr. Chen and millions of other ginseng buyers in Asia and in Chinatowns all over the world to make the distinction. The future of Wisconsin’s century-old ginseng farming business, now under attack by global rivals, depends on it.
The root has been worshiped as an energy-balancing folk medicine for 5,000 years. Ginseng — or Ren Shen, meaning “Man Root,” in Chinese — has two types. American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) has a cooling effect. Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng) provides a hot rush of energy.
With its rich loam, sunlight and cool summers, Wisconsin — especially Marathon County in the central part of the state — produces premium American ginseng. It is more potent and more bitter than American ginseng grown elsewhere.
To an untrained eye, dried Wisconsin roots look the same as those produced in great quantity in Canada and China. Mislabeling and product mixing abound.
And that is threatening the livelihood of Wisconsin’s ginseng farmers, whose roots trace back to the early 1900s when the four Fromm brothers began cultivating ginseng in Marathon County. Ginseng isn’t easy to cultivate: It takes four to five years to grow ginseng under wood or fabric canopies.
“Kids are easier to raise than ginseng,” says Stephen Kaiser, 59, of Rozellville, Wis., who has been grown ginseng since 1977. “Kids only get colds, flu or pneumonia, but ginseng, it tends to die very easily.”
Taos Ski Valley
I’m here for the famous Taos ridge, which offers some of the most difficult, unspoiled terrain in any ski area in the country. The ridge is double-black-diamond terrain accessible only by foot; to get there, skiers must take lift No. 2 to its highest point, take off their skis and hike up a steep trail to the top. Because of the hiking and the double black diamonds, skiing the ridge has a hard-core cachet.
Not that I’m all that great a skier. But Taos’s “learn to ski better week” is about to change that, with a immersion program at its much-praised ski school. When you sign up for the “learn to ski better” program, you are assigned to a group at your level (there are many levels; “expert” alone has 10 different gradations, with the highest one being professional, and then ski every morning, Sunday to Friday. You’re on your own in the afternoon to practice what you’ve learned.
I came here last January to learn to ski better, and to ski terrain that was fun and challenging for me. Here is what I was not here to do: ski tedious blue runs just to keep a friend company; squabble about whether to stop for lunch; spend two hours looking for my missing nephew. These things tend to happen when you ski with friends and family. Inevitably, people have different skill levels. Last time I was at Taos, I went with five friends and family members. We skied together the first hour of the first day and then broke apart. No two of us were at the same level.
Warren Buffett’s Annual Shareholder Letter
Is now online – pdf.
Charlie and I are extraordinarily lucky. We were born in America; had terrific parents who saw that we got good educations; have enjoyed wonderful families and great health; and came equipped with a “business” gene that allows us to prosper in a manner hugely disproportionate to other people who contribute as much or more to our society’s well-being. Moreover, we have long had jobs that we love, in which we are helped every day in countless ways by talented and cheerful associates. No wonder we tap dance to work. But nothing is more fun for us than getting together with our shareholder-partners at Berkshire’s annual meeting. So join us on May 6th at the Qwest for our annual Woodstock for Capitalists. We’ll see you there.
A Pleasant Saturday Morning at Tyrol Basin
I’ve been avoiding trips to local ski areas from many years. The AA tag on my ski bag tells the story. The last time the bag was used was a flight from Albuquerque to Dallas – our last pre-children ski trip. The ski bag, along with my boot bag made the journey from Dallas to Madison in 1993.
Living in a four season climate, my recreation thoughts have generally drifted toward warm weather vacations. However, and perhaps giving in to the inevitable, I put my fun but evidently outmoded skis (purchased at Denver’s Gart Brothers during my days there) in the car and made the short drive to Tyrol Basin early Saturday morning.
A glorious, sunny day, there were perhaps 15 cars in the lot as we walked toward the ticket office. The temperature and conditions were quite good, with only a bit of ice detected here and there.
Moments later, standing on top of the basin, I enjoyed the view and thought that it was quite pleasant to be within an hour’s drive of this place.
While checking out the basin’s runs – all except the moguls, my thoughts turned to:
- Training:
I saw two (surprising) examples of skiers evidently losing control and requiring ski patrol assistance. Years ago, when I learned to ski in a more serious way (via a Swiss instructor at Loveland), he advised that I take a lesson at the beginning of each ski season. I think this is correct – and I spent a bit of time on Tyrol’s bunny hill last weekend, regaining my alpine perspective. - The Road Not Taken:
Like Frost, I prefer the less travelled and popular routes. Tyrol makes it easy to turn right off the main lift and ski down toward another lift, where very few people where skiing (moguls – not for me, but the black and blue runs were enjoyable). I chose this route quite a few times and very much enjoyed the views, serenity and a rather quiet late morning outing. - Safety:
There’s quite a bit more safety enhancements than I recall. A large, orange plastic fence now greets the skier as she turns off the triple chair. An out of control skier will be caught in this, rather than careening down the hill. - The rise of snowboarding:
Just starting to take off when I last skied, snowboarding is big time, today. I can see the friction between traditional alpine downhillers and snowboarders. - Variety:
Snowboarders, downhillers and telemark skiers mingled reasonably well at Tyrol. It’s great to see a few telemark folks sliding downhill.
Finally, my eldest added these notes:
You are weird skiing is odd and my lower back is sore!!!!! Overall it was a fun experience, and I would love to go more often next year!!! Thank you Nora for teaching me!!
Pricing Politicians
Prosecutors call it a corruption case with no parallel in the long history of the U.S. Congress. And it keeps getting worse. Convicted Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham actually priced the illegal services he provided.
Prices came in the form of a “bribe menu” that detailed how much it would cost contractors to essentially order multimillion-dollar government contracts…the California Republican’s “bribery menu”… shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required a $50,000 bribe.
The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went above $20 million.