Ground State

Christopher Wodenshek - Gone But Not Forgotten.

2009-09-10T15:15:00.001-07:00

On September 11, 2001, Christopher Wodenshek was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center. Chris led a group called TradeSpark, part of the Cantor Fitzgerald organization, and was working on the 105'th floor of the North Tower at the time of the attack. Chris was born September 22, 1965, and was killed at the age of 35, 11 days shy of his 36'th birthday.

Chris was an accomplished man, professionally, athletically, well-liked by all who met him, but most of all, Chris was a family man. Chris is survived by his wife Anne and five beautiful children: Sarah, Haley, Molly, Will, and Zach.

There are many notes from family, friends, and co-workers about Chris on the Cantor-Fitzgerald Families Memorial site. The Cantor tribute has these words from Chris's wife Anne,

Chris was so much more than just my husband. He was the father of my five beautiful children, my best friend, and truly my bettter half. He loved his family more than anything and he provided for us wonderfully. Chris took pride in his work and did an outstanding job! Everyone who ever worked with Chris only has nice things to say about him.

Chris was an avid runner, competing in the 1996 NYC Marathon. This is a picture of the starting line from the 1996 race - a day he undoubtedly remembered well.

Chris was universally regarded as an upbeat, considerate man in a business perhaps not known for emphasis on those qualities. His wit and good-nature were more than a match for the circumstances. There's not a word about what he demanded from others, only words about his being there to support others, co-workers and friends alike. He was not a self-centered man - his life was about others - his family - his friends - his co-workers.

Some small sense of the loss to his family is captured in an New York magazine article in which Anne was interviewed after the tragedy:

Christopher W. Wodenshek, the head of the electricity-brokerage department at Cantor Fitzgerald, had five children. His 37-year-old wife, Anne, now raises them alone. Zachary is 2. He tells people that his father has died, because that's what he's heard, but he keeps asking when his daddy is coming home. William, next in line, is 4. "He takes everything out on me," says Wodenshek. "He hits me, he punches me, he says, 'It's not fair, I don't have a daddy anymore.' "

Anne's 6-year-old, Mollie, grinds her teeth at night and begs her mother not to remarry. Sarah, her 9-year-old, says she's physically sick -- her arms hurt, her pulse races, her heart bumps and rattles in its cage. During the first week, one of her classmates told her she'd seen her father's car at the train station overnight. "I called the principal and told her to tell that kid to shut her fat mouth," says Wodenshek. "Kids say stupid things, you know?"

Wodenshek's 8-year-old daughter, Haley, is probably the most devastated. "She cries a lot," she says. "And she doesn't want to go to school. In fact, she doesn't want to believe it's true. She said, 'Well, Mommy, in Cast Away, the man came back after four years.' And I said, 'Honey, that was a movie.' She was really attached to my husband. Really attached."

It is to these children we must answer for our dedication, or lack thereof, in facing the evil that confronts us.

----------------------

This tribute is part of the 2996 project. The 5'th anniversary of the September 11 attack will see many blog tributes published. There is some anxiety in signing-up to write a tribute for a person one has never had the privilege to meet. The anxiety was unwarranted in this case - as so many people knew and cared about Chris that the Cantor Fitzgerald site has over 40 entries about him. I have rarely read of a man held in such singularly high regard by so many. I wish I had known him. His time here - while tragically short - was incredibly full. He's a hero to me - for the way he lived his life.

Never Forget.

A Shocker - French exclude military option..

2009-09-10T13:51:00.002-07:00

WASHINGTON — The head of the French military says military intervention is not a viable option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear capability.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff Jean-Louis Georgelin told a Washington-based foreign policy group that he believes a military approach would be too risky.

Too risky compared to what? Too risky in comparison to nuclear Imams? Perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say that the military option is not viable for France. The risk to the national policy of appeasement is too great.

Pittsburgh Opener Tonight

2009-09-10T10:53:00.002-07:00

FYI - the correct way to refer to the team is not "the Steelers", one should use "Six-Time World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers"

Kennedy - Jackson

2009-08-26T09:47:00.003-07:00

This fawning over the dead "liberal lion" Kennedy is grotesque and eerily similar to the fawning over the dead "king of pop" Michael Jackson. In both cases the individual is not blemished, not flawed, but so overwhelmingly twisted as to wipe from their own minds any personal responsibility for the carnage they've inflicted on others. Jackson wandering about preaching love the children. Kennedy stumbling about preaching of personal courage and ethics. They were both freaks.

Their delusional self-image is only bettered by the media's even greater ability to overlook any heinous act for someone that gives them what that want.

Bing

2009-08-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Give the devil his due - that's a good search engine.

Twisted

2009-08-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

The Vicar booking into a hotel asks the receptionist "Is the Porn channel in my room disabled"? "No" she replies "its just regular porn, you sick bastard"

The Big Lie - You can keep your current health plan

2009-07-30T09:41:00.003-07:00

I have, like every American I know, considerable sympathy for anyone who's uninsured. My sympathy however is shaded by my experience.

My son, head bleeding, had to wait in an ER for the doctor to complete treating a woman in the ER as a follow-up visit. After she left the doctor explained she had no insurance, and that he had no option but to treat her when she walked in the door. She showed up at the ER at her convenience and asked for him by name. It makes me wonder about the "50 million uninsured". What does that mean? How many people are going without critical care?

My neighbor's housekeeper was stricken with cancer - a tragedy. The housekeeper's family had no health insurance, but they did have a big SUV, newer and more expensive than mine. So they made some decisions. In a free country - do we allow people to decide how to spend their money and what risks to take? If not, is it really a free country?

The big lie coming from President Obama every time he sees a camera is that if you like your present plan you can keep it. That's BS for most Americans, because as soon as a public option becomes available, "their present plan" will either 1) go away, or 2) transmute into some kind of filler plan working around the public option. A company that spends it's shareholder's wealth on health plans that do not use the public options will be sued by shareholders for squandering their owner's money.

PC Fun

2009-07-22T09:26:00.002-07:00

I called my bank about an exorbitant fee for a routine transaction. In the middle of my whining, I was struck with inspiration. I asked the rep "if this was about my race?"

Now as it happens I'm white, heterosexual, male, and that's my original gender. None of that mattered. The charge was reversed. A white man can play the race card! I call it a reverse Sotomayor.

Use it! Enjoy it!

Papal Tours

2009-07-21T10:03:00.004-07:00

Les Combes, Italy, Jul 21, 2009 / 10:09 am (CNA).- Tour de France competitors entered the 16th stage today, winding through the Italian and Swiss Alps and bringing cyclists near the village where Pope Benedict is vacationing. Aware of the athletes’ presence, he sent them a message challenging them to let sports form their character, especially in the realm of “moral and educational values.”

Really? Perhaps these insights on the development of moral character might be better applied in his own organization. I will keep my eye out for priests on bicycles.

How can I help?

2009-07-07T15:03:00.002-07:00

Where can I send my money to help the bankrupt city of L.A. pay for the uber-important Michael Jackson memorial? I am so tired of focusing on the soldiers we have fighting and dying in two countries. Who among them could moonwalk? Thank Goddess we are finally focusing on someone who brought safety and security to innocent children.

Goodbye California

2009-06-30T15:41:00.003-07:00

I liked the original better.

Sith Lord Unmasked

2009-06-26T10:20:00.003-07:00

Washington Times:

Even more troubling for the senator is that the proportion of Keystone State residents who say he deserves re-election has declined to 28 percent in June from 40 percent in March.

Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge

2009-06-18T09:37:00.003-07:00

by William Pesek at Bloomberg.com via Drudge Report:

Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia. Yes, they could have built vacation homes amidst Genghis Khan’s Gobi Desert or the famed Temples of Angkor. Bernard Madoff who?

We messing about at the edge of a cliff. That cliff is the end of fiat currency.

Show me the money

2009-06-14T20:42:00.005-07:00

The money supply has been sharply increased in response to the recession, as shown in this chart from the St. Louis Fed.

This chart shows the 20% step-change upward in the money supply, and it is an underestimate of the "new money" available in the economy as we have massive increases in deficit spending and federal assumption of private debt releasing more money not measured in M1.

Since the economic output is flat or shrinking and the amount of currency around to purchase this output has been sharply increased, one would expect prices to rise, but they have not.

What's happening is this, the money the fed has created is not being spent. The so-called "velocity of money" has collapsed. Fear rules, people save, so the increased amount of money has not resulted in increased spending. Prices are falling because no one is buying. This is happening with houses, cars, and until the last few weeks oil.

So does deflation continue, or does the massive money-supply increase result in inflation? There are lot's of economists with predictions running both ways, but we can reach a sound conclusion without a PhD in economics.

The decision to have a inflation or not is a policy decision. Whatever the terminal velocity of money turns out to be, the fed can decide to supply more or less money than is necessary to buy the economic output of the country. So the question is what policy will we pursue? This is not hard to analyze. We have incurred and are incurring massive debt. There are two ways to deal with our years of recklessness, first is to cut government spending, increase taxes, and work our way out. That's not going to happen because we lack the national will for such sacrifice. There's only one alternative. We must have inflation to avoid default on the American debt. The fed cannot allow default. Congress cannot tame spending. We will get inflation, massive inflation, because we must have it to manage our debt.

North Korea provokes with impunity

2009-06-02T09:43:00.001-07:00

from Mark Steyn:

We are building a world in which the wealthiest nations on the planet, from Norway to New Zealand, are all but defenseless, while bankrupt dysfunctional squats go nuclear. Even with inevitable and generous submissions to nuclear blackmail, how long do you think that arrangement will last?

Kennedy's cancer in remission

2009-05-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Mary Jo Kopechne still dead.

Pelosi vs CIA

2009-05-14T10:36:00.002-07:00

Let's end this silliness and get the truth out of the Speaker. Waterboard her.

BREAKING: DHS Swine Flu Containment Plan

2009-04-29T12:31:00.003-07:00

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano rejected calls to close the US-Mexico border in response to the swine flu outbreak. According to the Secretary, the new DHS program to track US military veterans will provide the necessary safeguard against an outbreak of the pandemic in the US.

"The problem does not come from Mexico", claims the secretary. She identified "disaffected veterans" who have been "eating too much bacon after their long stays in Islamic countries" as the source vector.

Yet again, the secretary noted, the men and women serving the country in uniform have proven to be the greatest danger to homeland security. "DHS under the Obama administration will track every returning veteran and test them for viruses and thoughtcrimes. This proactive approach will ensure that the American public is not exposted to either"

The Change

2009-02-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

FX Follies

2008-12-28T23:11:00.004-08:00

Few of my life experiments have proven my foolishness as thoroughly as my attempts to trade in the foreign exchange market. While I am reasonably adept at picking companies that will do well, I have proven over a period of many years that my perception of obvious imbalances that must result in currency rate changes are completely wrong.

But I'm a slow-learner. I kept my dormant account open for years without activity. Now, suddenly, I can trade FX. I make money every day. My wife assures me I have not gotten suddenly wise. So what's happening? It's easy now. Currencies are not trading - they're buckling. I'm making money in FX and that is not a good sign. I'm the shoeshine boy giving tips to the currency trader.

I don't think of my recent FX profits as a win, more as a limitation on the loss that's being inflicted on my dollar-denominated assets. That's all well and good, but I am worried. I wonder if we are pushing around the edges of the limits to fiat currency.

The Hidden Hand

2008-12-12T18:31:00.002-08:00

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly
is to fill the world with fools.

-Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

Election Depression

2008-10-22T13:38:00.005-07:00

I've been depressed by the election for some weeks now. As I watch the wild poll gyrations - I realize it is not the prospect of McCain losing that's depressing me. It's the realization that half the country, more or less, is equally at home with a candidate who despises America as one who has served it, however imperfectly, in unimaginably horrible circumstances.

If half the country believes the US is not special, that we should become just like the Europeans as quickly as possible, then I'm not sure it matters who wins the election. That's what depresses me. American is an idea. If that idea is not held by 50% of the population - what of the greatest nation on Earth?

We need more LEGAL immigration. We need the self-selected Americans.

I have no words

2008-10-17T10:34:00.001-07:00

Your Country is being Stolen from You

2008-10-14T10:42:00.003-07:00

From the St. Petersburg Times via Drudge Report.

U.S. removes North Korea from terrorism blacklist

2008-10-11T10:51:00.002-07:00

From Reuters:

"The Secretary of Sate has rescinded the designation of the DPRK as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, effective immediately" McCormack told a news conference.

North Korea would also resume disablement of its nuclear facilities as part of the deal, he said.

President Bush assured us there would not be a nuclear North Korea on his watch. On his watch, the North Koreans have:

1) launched a 3-stage ballistic missile, which, with a working guidance system, could reach any point on the globe

2) tested a low-yield nuclear device which did detonate and generate fission products. It's clearly not a missile payload today - we can call it the 'cargo container' warhead - that's the most likely method for a North Korean customer to deliver it.

3) helped the Syrians build a nuclear facility in a remote region - which the Israeli's took out with nary a dissenting cry of Zionist war crimes.

4) likely delivered weapons-grade enriched uranium to Iran, see this report.

Now they're off the terrorism watch list. What good is the watch list? We're negotiating better now?