Telling time on the road...

Did you know there must be about 823,479 makes of alarm clock in the world? I think there must be because as I've traveled around the world from hotel to hotel I think I've been a victim of all of 'em.

Take the place I'm in now. It has a clock radio that has about a dozen buttons on the face of it, none of which seem to control the clock in any way. Featuring two alarms, I somehow was able to set both of them to go off repeatedly throughout the night with no clear way to either stop them or turn them off, the first night scaring me so badly I nearly bolted from the room.

Doing an online search on how to manage this thing I discovered something chilling: this clock radio has a support page. Yes, a support page. Lemme just make a common sense observation and say that any clock radio that has that much online angst has to be a bad choice for a home let alone a hotel.

My vote for best clock radio had to be the one I had at a Hyatt earlier this year. Not only did it have an iPod dock but the controls were actually easy to use. I wanted to take the durn thing with me, I was so impressed with it (don't worry, I left it there).

Sure, I can hear some of you wondering why I don't just use a wake-up call from the hotel.

And to you I say, "Wimps!"

- Farmer Ted

Cooper Enquirer...

So what's happened to Anderson Cooper now that he's gone mainstream on CNN? While the fledgling Anderson Cooper 360 was quick-witted, almost irreverent in lampooning headlines of the day, it seems as though as his show was recognized and moved to a prime spot (the show now bearing the moniker AC360) he lost that objectivity, his pithiness turned bitter and then downright, well, crazy.

Take his reporting on the recent Senator John Edwards scandal, something I really don't care about since Mr Edwards has been politically off-center for months and doesn't effect my life in the slightest. While AC360 on-line coverage is quite circumspect, Cooper's on-air discussions about the affair on Saturday as the story broke was worthy of an article in National Enquirer magazine:

"They expect us to believe that he hired this woman for a $144,000 a year job after just meeting her in a bar? Does this pass the smell test?" he hammered unmercifully at his on-air guest, who in this case WAS ANOTHER AC360 STAFFER.

*tap*tap*

Uh, hello? What's wrong with this scenario? Let's think. Maybe it lacks all sense of credibility and relevance? The old Anderson would have struggled to get a party official or someone close to the issue to give a perspective, rather than having reporters interviewing each other; winding each other up like neighbors gossiping about an errant husband over a back fence. Yellow journalism at it's very best.

"That a good point there, Anderson!" his staffer expectantly gushed to the observation.

As Senator Edwards said during his ABC News interview regarding his state of mind during the affair:

"...it's the same old thing again. Adulation, respect, admiration. [...] All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences. And nothing, nothing could be further from the truth."

Are you paying attention, Mr Cooper?

- Farmer Ted

PS. Andy? It was me that submitted the "multi-colored hydra" comment to your production team about the old set.

Observing the Aussies: Banks as robbers...

As an American I just don't get it.

I'm talking about the way Australia banks, arguably one of the most protected sectors in Australia, are allowed to make money off its citizens. No, "make money" is too kind a word: "pillage" is more like it.

For my non-Aussie readers, mortgage interest rates here aren't like in the US where the vast majority of such are fixed rate over the life of the loan. Meaning you can get a 30-year mortgage locked in at the rate the bank initially lend it to you so your monthly payment will never change. Here in Australia, generally the loan interest rate is not fixed and can change at any time over the loan period - even monthly. So if the banks decide to raise rates, then your loan rate goes up as well and so does your monthly payment. Once this rate was loosely tied to the prime rate set by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), but that has gone out the window in the face of the current global credit crisis, as rather than take any loss of profits Australian banks have shown their true colors and unabashedly decoupled mortgage rates from the RBA rate, charging any rate they choose.

So what does that mean? Rather than take any loss in profits due to their misguided quick-money schemes and financial mismanagement, the Australian borrowing public is treated as a huge piggy bank where by raising interest rates the banks bring in more money to cover any shortfalls. How egregious is this robbery? National Australia Bank just announced they would have to take a $1.2Bn write down to cover bad loans and so would raise mortgage rates to cover it. But that's not the whole story: even WITHOUT the rate rise they would be making $3Bn in profit, the rise is just being used to make their projected profit of $4Bn.

Interest rates are now hovering just under 10%.

What's most pitiable is the RBA thinks they actually control the money policy in Australia and the Government thinks they control the economy, keeping it from spiraling dangerously close to what some are calling a recession; completely ignoring that the banks are the ones controlling the money supply and are in truth killing the economy by sucking away its buying power.

Maybe it's because at one time banks were government-owned entities charged with protecting consumers there has been no outcry yet; just the citizenry obediently turning out their pockets to the banks all the while whinging to the Government about how everything is getting so bad.

What's that smell in the air? It's coffee. Time to wake-up Australia.

- Farmer Ted