Head Count

Saudi Arabia started off the year by beheading 9 murderers.

I see today on Drudge that a Saudi lesbian couple could face death for declaring their love for each other on TV. They are safe and living in London but they have effectively burned their bridge back to the Kingdom, or any other Sharia Law country.

Corona Virus Trickle Down

Economists have been predicting how the corona virus will eventually affect global manufacturing and I got the first indication of that this morning.

A friend who is the offshore support engineer for a major oil company has been involved in planning a turn around for months. A turn around is a period of major maintenance when the unit is shut down and work goes on 24/7 until complete. They are planned out in detail and almost never postponed. However, today he heard that the turn around currently being planned was being pushed back.

It seems that some valve body forgings that were being made in China will not be available because manufacturing was shut down because of the corona virus. This is the first of what will be a chain of trickle down events for the oil industry. He thinks it will next affect the drilling program which will result in a decrease of production over this year. Lower production will mean an increase in oil prices.

On the positive side, Cameron Valve is running 24 hours a day to meet demand and there is a surge of new pickup trucks in town.

The Broken Window Theory - New Orleans Style

There has been a rash of car break ins in New Orleans in the past few weeks. The thieves are quite blatant breaking car windows while people are in church on Sunday. They have targeted certain areas of the city including students at UNO. So far, there has been little police or government response except for one councilcritter who called the crimes a "nuisance".

In other news, the city owes about $25 million to drivers who were ticketed by speed control cameras. Some cameras were ticketing drivers when schools were not in session and even in school zones where the school had been abandoned. This was exacerbated by the actions of Ray Nagin from 2 administrations ago. He turned over the collection of fines to a city department instead of the police. The court ruled against this and ordered all the fines repaid. Obviously, the city can't afford to pay them.

Finally, the current mayor has been found to owe about $95,000 to the IRS. Well, she's a democrat so why not?

Corona Virus Fears

There seems to be a lot of concern about the corona virus. I remember SARS as I was travelling to Asia during that period. We had our temperatures checked on boarding but there was no where near the hype about it. Knowledge is needed.

I found a chart on a French site that graphed the mortality and the ease of transmission of several diseases including viruses, bacteria and parasites. It's in French but I bet you guys can figure it out.

The Link is here.

All of the international hype about this virus makes me wonder if there is something they are not telling us.