The cookie crumbles

Well Old Dog brings up international banking mumbo jumbo.  That is sort of like dividing by zero.

Not really.  In this case, I used "mumbo jumbo" in the sense that it is confusing (to me) and that's one of the accepted definitions.  International shipping isn't simply reserving a spot on the boat; brokers are involved, and I think they reserve space for a specified (and limited) period of time.  There are also letters of credit, but I don't know what purpose they play.

Near as I can tell, shipping rates are determined by the Baltic Dry Index (bulk carriers) and HARPEX (usually manufactured goods and products), where the shipper has to gaze into his crystal ball and determine his needs for the next week, month, or even year.  The law of supply and demand can throw his plans out the window; shipping isn't very profitable when you have less than a full load.

An ideal situation is when a ship arrives with a full load of cargo, gets unloaded, and then acquires a full load of a different cargo for a return trip or a voyage to a different destination.  Oil tankers have a big problem in that they're empty for their return trips.  The new super-cargo ships have a different problem in that not all ports can handle them, so their routes are limited.  The Panama Canal was recently renovated for those ships and it's still a tight squeeze; the new locks are a little too short for optimal handling by their tugboat tenders, but that's a different story.  Just what I needed, another rabbit hole.

-----

Read a recent article from The Daily Beast, "The Liar-In-Chief & The Dangers of Post-Truth Politics," which should be right up Uncle Ken's alley.  Here;s a snippet of the article:

But Trumpworld ultimately craves something much bigger from all this. They want the power that comes from destroying the media’s place in society.

Make no mistake: Their goal is to delegitimize media. If there’s no trust in media then there’s no objective broker of facts and then you’ve successfully destabilized the truth. You’ve created a climate where there are no agreed upon facts and no objective truth.

-----

Looks like someone skipped Sunday School when the story of Cain and Abel was being taught.  Abel was the shepherd and Cain was the "tiller of the soil."  God is no dummy; he was more pleased with Abel's sacrificial offering, and who wouldn't prefer a nice BBQ over a salad?  I don't know if Cain was a strict vegetarian but for sure he was the first murderer.  I wonder if the Bible-thumping proponents of capital punishment ever considered that God himself didn't support it;  He just put a mark on Cain so he wouldn't be killed after he was sent out to wander as his punishment.  The Bible never mentions where his potential assailants came from, though.  The Lord truly works in mysterious ways.

-----

As well as complaining about oval Ritz's at the last seminar Old Dog was complaining about  the lack of big topics lately so i am submitting this one?

Tut, tut, my good man.  You should know by now that I never complain, but simply make critical observations.  Oh, I bought a bag of Oreo Mini cookies today, and they, too, were made in Mexico.  Scandalous!

-----

Anyone catch any of the Comey/Rogers hearing?  I was expecting a lot of tap dancing and not the prolonged ballet I beheld.  Such gentility, although a couple of the reps started to get a little worked up and their inner ham broke through.  I thought they were all surprisingly goodnatured, considering the number of times "I'm not going to answer" was stated.

Although nothing new was revealed, I was amused at how some of  the reps managed to paint the Trump regime with the big Russian brush, all on the record.  Reps Heck and Swalwell did an especially fine job.  The hearings must be an ongoing process, as next week former intel bigwig Clapper is due to show up.  The show is just getting started, folks, and I can't wait to see the yammering in the Twitterverse.

-----

My antennae must be particularly well tuned these days.  At the last seminar I think I mentioned to Uncle Ken that it would be cool if Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe got together and compared notes about #45, and this past weekend they did, sort of.  I was running some German language articles from Der Spiegel through Google Translate, and I found this:

Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japan's Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, pleaded for an unrestricted international trade at the Cebit exhibition in Hanover. Both spoke on Sunday evening for a swift conclusion of the EU-Japan free trade agreement.

Without mentioning the new US government of Donald Trump, the heads of government resigned themselves from protectionist tendencies. "In times when we have to argue with many people about free trade, open borders, democratic values, it is a good sign that Japan and Germany do not argue about it, but rather shape the future for the benefit of the people," stressed Merkel.

The Moron of Mar-A-Lago should take note; this is what competent leaders act like, and I bet their approval ratings are higher than the 37% he now has.  Maybe he'll tweet about it.