Deported

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3098952/Raised-America-dumped-Mexico-Mexican-born-criminals-grow-deported-Mexican-border-release-jail-life-gangs-drugs-guns-poverty.html

Andres is one of 20,000 Mexican-criminals, who were taken across the border to America as babies where they grew up.

But despite speaking no Spanish and having never lived there, once they served time in jail, America washed its hands of them - and sent them back to Mexico. 

Most of the men like Andres end up on drugs living in the crime-ridden district of Zona Norte in Tijuana - directly beside the triple fence that separates their adopted home of the United States from Mexico.

Ninety percent of the Zona Norte deportees are drug addicts, and all are waiting for their opportunity to sneak back over the border and go 'home'.

Mega Developments in Albuquerque

For some reason, Albuquerque, New Mexico, attracts sprawling massive development projects that may never be finished.

First, there is Mesa del Sol, covering 12,900 acres, that will eventually house 100,000 people.  However, there are only about 200 occupied homes today.

Second, there is Rio Rancho, which today is a city of about 90,000 north of Albuquerque covering about 100 sq. miles, two-thirds of which are vacant..  A development was planned in the 70s for 55,000 acres of land, but only a small portion was built.  The streets were laid out and are visible from space. See also Rio Rancho's tangled legacy.

Third, there is Loma Colorado.  While this is a successful development by Pulte, it still has many vacant lots.

And now, there is Santolina, a 13,700 acre development that will have a population of 95,000 upon completion.  However, there are concerns about the need for it, and also where it will get water.  See the official website.

Humans Need Not Apply

The curse of the VA Hospital in Aurora

The Veterans Administration is building a new hospital in Aurora, CO that was originally supposed to open this month - May 2015. The original budget was for $328 million, then revised to $604 billion, but this quickly became $1 billion, and then $1.73 billion with an opening in 2017.  And this doesn't include $340 million of "activation costs", like beds and such, making the total cost $2.07 billion.

Congress is outraged, and there will likely be a shutdown this summer; however, that will add as much as $200 million to the cost for "demobilization and remobilization expenses" and push the opening to 2018.

But it is a huge hospital, right?  Wrong.  It only has 182 beds, putting the cost at $9,5 million per bed.  It has about 8 wings, each of which is about 5 stories tall.

So what went wrong?
===================

It wasn't just the unforeseen mineral spring that was flooding the land, or the buried relic of a swimming pool that exploded the budget of the new Veterans Affairs hospital under construction in Aurora. Nor was it only the ballooning price of structural steel, the years of wrangling with a key contractor or the pricey chunk of land next to two of Colorado's busiest roads.

The real story is largely one of good, old-fashioned constituent clout, bureaucratic infighting, leadership changes and never getting to "no," according to those familiar with the development. Along the way, a plan to build an affordable, innovative redesign of the region's veterans health center morphed into a massive, years-overdue extravagance.

--http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_23470410/auroras-new-va-hospital-has-long-costly-history
===================
It has a bad reputation among subcontractors:
The project's rotten reputation among subcontractors — the result of bad blood between the VA and K-T, almost from the start, that eventually spilled into court — was a major reason costs rose so dramatically. Small companies rely on prompt payments to meet payroll and expenses, often unable to cover those costs for very long. Many rely on bank loans and lines of credit to bridge the gap. But some banks balked at letting small business clients rely on its money to work on the VA project.

"The bad name of this project is on the street," warned James Chang, a VA resident engineer on the project in December 2012. "No one wants to bid on this project." Companies would happily work with Kiewit, and had done so previously, but would not work on this VA project.

--http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28125325/aurora-va-hospital-project-spooked-subcontractors-causing-cost

====================

See also: http://www.9news.com/story/news/investigations/casualties-of-care/2015/03/17/denver-va-hospital-1-billion-over-budget/24925269/
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2015/05/20/va-hospital-project-shutdown-likely/27668565/
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27103393/contractor-kiewit-walking-away-from-va-hospital-aurora

=================
Update:  See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3091430/VA-nearly-cash-half-budget-busting-hospital.html

Worse than Detroit

Apocalypse, New Jersey (Camden)

Unlucky July 17

On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, on board from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard.  It first flew on July 17, 1997, exactly 17 years before.

That's a lot of 17s.  But wait, there's more.

On July 17, 1996, TWA 800 crashed into the ocean near New York City, shortly after takeoff, killing all 230 people aboard. There is speculation that it was shot down by a missile.  There are still major conspiracy theories about it.

But wait, there's more.

On July 17, 2007, TAM Airlines Flight 3054 crashed during landing, killing all 181 passengers aboard.  It was the deadliest air disaster in Brazilian history.

But wait, there's more.

On July 17, 2000, Alliance Air Flight 7412 crashed in Patna, India, killing 60 and leaving 3 survivors.

See also: Space Tragedies around the end of January

Update:
On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232 crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 111 and leaving 185 survivors. It suffered a catastrophic failure of its tail-mounted engine.

On July 16, 1999, John F Kennedy Jr died in a plane crash into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard.  Two other people also died.  On an unrelated note, there is a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton somehow caused this, because she was elected Senator from New York in November 2000 and JFK Jr was also running for the same seat.

On July 17, 2018, two small planes collided over the Everglades near Miami, killing 4 people.

More on the April Curse

These are just some notes for completion, largely taken from the comments from a post in April 2012.  I was sure I had posted about the Mutiny on the Bounty and a search didn't find it.  So here they are for the sake of completion. Add these to the prior list

• April 18, 1587 - John Foxe, who wrote Foxe's book of martyrs, dies
• April 23, 1616 - Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, dies on the same day as Shakespeare. (Another source says that he died on April 22).
• April 13 (April 2 o.s.), 1743 - Thomas Jefferson born
• April 28, 1758 - James Monroe born
• April 15, 1783 - Congress ratifies the peace treaty signed in November 1782
• April 19, 1783 - Gen. Washington informs his troops that hostilities have ended, exactly 8 years after they began
• April 28, 1789 - Mutiny on the HMS Bounty
• April 17, 1790 - Benjamin Franklin dies
• April 23, 1791 - James Buchanan born
• April 27, 1822 - Ulysses S Grant born
• April 4, 1841 - William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia only 1 month after inaguration, the first victim of Tecumseh's curse
• April 16, 1859 - Alexis de Tocqueville dies
• April 23, 1860 - William Wordsworth, American poet, dies
• April 9, 1865 - Gen. Robert E Lee surrenders at Appomattox Courthouse
• April 26, 1865 - John Wilkes Booth shot by a Union soldier.
• April 27, 1865 - In the greatest Maritime disaster in US history, the Sultana, a Mississippi River steamboat, exploded near Memphis Tennessee, killing an estimated 1800 of her 2427 passengers, when three of the boat's four boilers exploded and she burned to the waterline and sank.
• April 20, 1871 - "Third Force Act" passed. Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
• April 18, 1874 - David Livingstone, adventurer, dies and is buried in Westminster Abbey
• April 15, 1889 - Father Damien, who ministered to people with leprousy on the island of Molokai, dies
• April 15, 1912 - Kim Il-Sung, dictator of North Korea, born
• April 15, 1912 - John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man in the world at that time, dies when the Titanic sunk
• April 21, 1930 - A fire at Ohio State Penitentiary kills 320 inmates, and many burn to death when they are not unlocked from their cells
• April 4, 1933. USS Akron crashes in the ocean. This was the world's worst airship disaster, in which 73 of the 76 passenger and crew on board perished
• April 30, 1939 - The 1939 World's Fair opened in Queens, NY
• April 26, 1942 - Benxihu Colliery (China) mining disaster. 1,549 miners lost their lives in the worst mining disaster of all time.
• April 12, 1945 - Franklin Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage 
• April 28, 1945 - Benito Mussolini is executed
• April 21, 1946 - John Maynard Keynes dies
• April 13, 1953 - the Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles authorized the MK-ULTRA project
• April 28, 1953 - Hooker Chemical sells the Love Canal dump to the Niagara Falls City School District with a contract that mentioned toxic waste and disclaimed any liability
• April 18, 1955 - Albert Einstein dies
• April 10, 1963 - USS Thresher submarine disaster. This was the deadliest submarine disaster in US history, and 129 men died during deep-dive testing off of Cape Cod
• On April 20, 1964, Boulder District Court Judge William Buck declared that Colorado laws banning marijuana use were unconstitutional. The stunned Colorado Supreme Court overruled Buck and reinstated the law the following year
• April 21, 1967 - A series of 17 tornadoes strike Illinois, including several in Chicago, killing more than 50 
• April 24, 1967 - Soyuz 1 crashes, killing Cosmonaut Vladimir Komorov, the first fatility in space 
• April 19, 1969 - Militant black students at Cornell Univ. use force to take over Willard Straight Hall demanding a black studies program
• April 20, 1971 - Supreme Court issues Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholding the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
• April 20, 1975 - President Thieu of Vietnam resigns in protest over lack of US support
• April 27, 1978 - Willow Island disaster. A cooling tower for a power plant under construction in Willow Island, West Virginia collapsed, killing 51 construction workers.
• April 15, 1980 - Jean-Paul Sarte, existentialist, dies
• April 22, 1980 - Military coup in Liberia. A number of former officials are publicly executed
• April 15, 1983 - Corrie ten Boom, Dutch author and holocaust survivor, dies 
• April 15, 1984 - Christopher Thomas shot 10 people (8 children and 2 women) execution style on Palm Sunday in Brooklyn
• April 19, 1987 - First episode of The Simpson's airs
• April 1989 - Jeff Rhodes - He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump. (This was on the list of people on the Clinton Body Count and I haven't been able to independently verify it).
• April 15, 1990 - Greta Garbo, American Actress, dies at the age of 84
• April 4, 1991 - Sen. John Heinz dies when his plane collided with a helicopter over Merion, PA. His widow, Teresa Heinz, later marries John Kerry, 2004 presidential candidate.
• April 21, 1992 - California resumes executions after a 25 year hiatus, gassing Robert Alton Harris
• April 22, 1993 - Holocaust Museum opens in Washington DC
• April 28, 1996 - The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded, mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia. Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old from New Town, a suburb of Hobart, eventually pleaded guilty to the crimes and was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole.
• April 15, 1998 - Pol Pot, Cambodian dictator, dies
• April 11, 2001. The Ellis Park Stadium disaster was the worst sporting accident in South African history. 43 people were crushed to death
• April 20, 2005 - New Bankruptcy Law in US passes, making it more difficult to declare bankruptcy.
• April 22, 2005 - Zacarias Moussaoui ( a French citizen of Moroccan descent ) pleads guilty to conspiring with other al-Qaeda members as part of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
• April 18, 2007 - Qinghe Special Steel Corporation (China) disaster. A ladle holding molten steel separated from the overhead iron rail, fell, tipped, and killed 32 workers, injuring another 6.
• April 20, 2008 - Pope Benedict visits Ground Zero
• April 3, 2009 Binghampton, NY. Shooter kills 14 (including himself) at immigration center
• April 7, 2009 - Gunman opens fire at Korean Christian retreat center in Temecula, CA, killing 1, injuring 4
• April 5, 2010 - Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one miners at the site were killed.
• April 19, 2011 - Seventeen people died as the result of a helicopter crash in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh
• April 21, 2011 - Japan declares it illegal to enter evacuation zone around Fukushima
• April 20, 2012 - Mt. Popocatépetl erupts in Mexico
• April 20, 2012 - Michael Cormier, a respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner, who likely worked on the autopsy of Andrew Breitbart, died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public.
• April 20, 2012 - Pakistani jet flying near the Islamabad airport carrying 127 people, crashes with no survivors
• April 21, 2012 - Train crash in the Netherlands injures 117
• April 21, 2012 - Charles Colson, Nixon adviser, dies
• April 17, 2013 - A massive explosion and fire rocks the town of West, Texas (near Waco, Texas), almost exactly 20 years after the massacre of the Branch Davidians.  70 people may be dead.
• April 24, 2013 - Dhaka, Bangladesh. An 8-story building containing a garment factory collapsed, killing 1,129, in the worst industrial accident ever to occur in Bangladesh

Initial Jobless Claims

Source: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ICSA

Initial Jobless Claims came in at 264,000 on 5/9/2015. They were at 262,000 on 4/25/2015.  These were the lowest numbers since 4/15/2000, when they were 259,000.  To get lower than that, you have to go all the way back to 1973 to get lower numbers.

This number will keep going done forever! Or not.

King v Burwell

Nancy Pelosi says the Affordable Care Act is "ironclad constitutionally".  I'm not arguing about the policy impact (oh no 8 billion people are going to lose coverage), or about whether the judicial activists on the Supreme Court who embody the "living constitution" will find a 5th vote to uphold it.  Or whether the IRS has the authority under the Chevron doctrine to interpret it. What I want to know is what would a literal reading of the statute reveal.

The statute is at https://democrats.senate.gov/pdfs/reform/patient-protection-affordable-care-act-as-passed.pdf.

It's 906 pages long and I haven't read it.  I'm just going to quote a few key sections.

Section 1311(a) reads :"ASSISTANCE TO STATES TO ESTABLISH AMERICAN HEALTH
BENEFIT EXCHANGES".
Section 1321(c) reads: "FAILURE TO ESTABLISH EXCHANGE OR IMPLEMENT REQUIREMENTS.— (1) IN GENERAL.—If— (A) a State is not an electing State under subsection (b); or (B) the Secretary determines, on or before January 1, 2013, that an electing State— (i) will not have any required Exchange operational by January 1, 2014; or (ii) has not taken the actions the Secretary determines necessary to implement— (I) the other requirements set forth in the standards under subsection (a); or (II) the requirements set forth in subtitles A and C and the amendments made by such subtitles; the Secretary shall (directly or through agreement with a not for- profit entity) establish and operate such Exchange within the State and the Secretary shall take such actions as are necessary to implement such other requirements."

Section 1401 revises the Internal Code in Section 36B to allow for subsidies for premiums paid which cover "the taxpayer, the taxpayer’s spouse, or any dependent (as defined in section 152) of
the taxpayer and which were enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,"

The magic phrase: "an Exchange established by the State under 1311" occurs only once in the document (in the section just quoted).
Other similar phrases:
"an Exchange established by the State under section 1311" (8 times)
"an Exchange established by the State under this section"
"an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)"
"an Exchange established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"
"an Exchange established under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"
"an Exchange established under section 1311 of such Act"
"an Exchange established under section 1311."
"an Exchange established under this subtitle"
"an exchange established by a State under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"
"In establishing an Exchange under this section"
"An Exchange shall establish a program"
"An Exchange may not establish rules"
"operate an Exchange under this section"
"through the Exchanges established under this title (other than Exchanges in States that elect to opt out".
"the Exchanges established under this title"
"the Exchanges established under section 1311 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"

In my brief reading of the act, there is only one type of Exchange referred to.  An exchange is distinguished from insurance purchased elsewhere ("health insurance coverage offered through an Exchange and outside of an Exchange"), and from other government programs ("streamlined procedures for enrollment through an Exchange, Medicaid, and CHIP").  I think it is very poorly worded.  There should be the definition of an Exchange given one place in the act. A poorly drafted document should be construed against the drafter.

I reluctantly come to the conclusion that there is only one type of Exchange mentioned, which is one established by the State, or an alternative one established by the Secretary.  My conclusion is not based on bias, policy, or a prediction of what the Supreme Court will do. I certainly don't think it is ironclad.  And this has nothing to do with constitutionality, which is based on a very strained interpretation by Justice Roberts of the taxing powers of Congress.

San Francisco House Prices

Source: http://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

They will keep going up forever - $2 million, $3 million.  Or maybe the market will freeze up at some point and the prices will start to decline.  What do you think?

See also http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-13/mark-hanson-full-blown-black-swan-lookout-mode-housing-bubble-20

The man who plans the future

Marc Andreessen  Read it.

Unemployment is down to 5.4%

Source: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATE

Just don't think about Labor Force Participation.

Seller's Market in Denver

The National Association of Realtors considers a six-month supply of homes available for sale a "balanced" market and the national average is at about 4.6 months. Metro Denver's supply, by contrast, is now under a month. And for homes under $400,000, it can be measured in days.  About half of homes getting listed sell within seven days.  "If a property is on a market for three weekends in this market at any price point under $400,000, then it is overpriced," she said. A balanced market would call for 7,332 detached homes available for sale in the $200,000-$399,000 price range in the metro Denver area, PorchLight estimates. But at the end of February, there were only 723 available in a seven-county area that includes Elbert County but excludes Boulder County.  In the under-$199,000 market for attached homes, primarily condos and townhomes, metro Denver had 181 listings for sale in February versus the 2,652 that a "balanced" market would dictate.

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_27780191/denver-buyers-up-their-game-be-last-bidder-standing-real-estate-deals