Sleepless in Midland

Head'n down the highway, look'n for adventure -- the Ride to Remember

Barump, barump, barump,  VAROOM!

One of those motorcycle caravans in another part of the country is called Rolling Thunder.  Little wonder.  "Thunder" is certainly an appropriate word to use as the ground shakes and the sound of hundreds of revving Harleys fills the air with a deafening roar.  Audiologists, get ready.

The ride in Midland today to help celebrate Memorial Day was called the Ride to Remember.  Fifteen minutes before the ride started the bike count was over 350, so it was quite a spectacle when they rode by on their annual trek from the Permian Basin Vietnam Memorial, through Midland, and on to Big Spring.

Today is Memorial Day, a day in which we all should remember those who died to help keep us free.  So many of us take for granted all of the freedoms we have in the U.S., so let's  remember that it wasn't cheap or easy.  And I, for one, am very grateful that there are people who cherish the same freedoms I do.  But the difference between them and me is that they are brave, and I am not.

So here's a huge THANK YOU from me to all of the people who ever served in the U.S. military and especially to those who made the greatest sacrifice of all.  We may not be here but for you, and remembering you is our way of making you immortal.

And thanks to the guys and gals of the Ride to Remember for helping us all remember.  Have a good ride.

Jimmy and Kinky

The other day great writer and celebrity Jimmy Patterson interviewed independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, and he expressed shock and surprise that fewer than 100% of the local bloggers wrote about it.  See not just here but especially here.

I suppose Kinky could get elected, but it seems like a long shot to me.  And if he did get elected, I really wonder how effective he could be.  If he had to choose between a proposal that would be hard but might work and one that would get laughs he would go for the laughs.  And the state reps and senators would probably refuse to go along with anything he proposes.

He's counting on the Jesse Ventura phenomenon, and if elected, he could face a recalcitrant house and senate just like Jesse did.  And when Jesse appealed to the people who voted for him they probably responded with "Dude, we voted for you, so our job is, like, done."

But we can count on one thing:  Kinky will make it an entertaining election.  The main stream media will relish his one liners, and why not?  They're funny.  I've got a bumper sticker pinned to my bulletin board that says "My Governor is a Jewish Carpenter."  Great stuff.

So about his visit.  I can only speak  for myself.  And to me it seemed that Kinky's visit was a main stream media kind of thing.  Each of us bloggers march to the beat of his/her own drummer and obey the voices in our own heads.  And if we all wrote about the same thing then it would bore everyone else.

Why didn't I write about the interview?  Two reasons:  I didn't get the memo.  And the dog ate my assignment.  Maybe next time.

Picking up the pace -- the new 80 mph speed limit

The state of Texas is kicking the speed limit up to 80 mph on portions of I-10 and I-20 in the flat lands of rural West Texas.

For anyone who hasn't been there, those are wide open stretches of straight highway with very light traffic.  The Interstate in West Texas is long, lonely and boring.  The most serious risk is falling asleep.

Yeah, maybe the risk of death in an accident at 80 mph might be statistically higher than at 75 mph.  But it's a risk that most of are willing to take.  And the statistic that we never see is the number of miles driven over a given period of time in which there was NOT a fatal accident.

So now we hear that Hillary Clinton wants to reinstate the 55 mph limit.  Maybe that works for Northern New York state, but it would be a terrible idea out here.

It was tried once, and it was awful.  The nearby town of Rankin is 55 miles away, and it would take a full long hour to get there from here -- a dreadfully long time when on the return trip you can see the city of Midland when you are still 20 miles away. You just creep at what seems like a snails pace to get there.

Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes from the era of the 55 mph limits:

An oil field worker was speeding along a West Texas highway to get to the drilling rig, and he got pulled over by a highway patrolman.  The worker is late, and he's ticked off in general because of the 55 mph limit, after all, he's working to alleviate the oil shortage (the previous one).  And now he's geting a ticket.

So he looks at the patrolman and says with a scowl, "What would you do if I called you a son of a b____?"

"Why, I'd arrest you," says the patrolman.

"What would you do if I just thought it?"

"Well, I can't arrest you for what you think."

"Okay, I THINK you're a son of a b____!"

By the way, the 80 mph limit is a maximum, not a minimum.  Anyone can drive slower if they want to.   And Hillary continues to drive home the reason why a northern state senator who thinks locally would have a slim chance of getting elected to a national office.

The V.A.'s computer theft

It seems that hardly a month goes by in which we don't hear of some loss or theft of a large number of valid social security numbers or some other sensitive data.  Most recently it's the Veterans Affairs.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has recently learned that an employee, a data analyst, took home electronic data from the VA, which he was not authorized to do. This behavior was in violation of VA policies. This data contained identifying information including names, social security numbers, and dates of birth for up to 26.5 million veterans and some spouses, as well as some disability ratings. Importantly, the affected data did not include any of VA's electronic health records nor any financial information. The employee's home was burglarized and this data was stolen. The employee has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation.  [Source Firstgov.gov.]

It must be very frustrating for the veterans, especially those who so carefully guarded their personal information only to have it fall into the wrong hands through no fault of their own.

This must be comforting, however:

Authorities believe it is unlikely the perpetrators targeted the items because of any knowledge of the data contents. It is possible that they remain unaware of the information which they possess or of how to make use of it.

(The thieves may be unaware of the information.  Shhhhh.  Don't breath a word.)

A lot of people are probably wondering why that VA employee had the laptop with all of this stuff at home.  Well, here's a possible explanation.

I was once acquainted with an individual who was employed with the VA, and he always had some pretty good second generation computer hardware at home.  The VA is very well funded, and it seemed that the attitude was to spend all of the money budgeted for the VA or else they might not get as much in the next round.  So they were always buying new computer hardware.

All the old stuff had to be disposed of someway, and the alternatives seemed to be to either auction if off for pennies on the dollar or send it home with the employees.  Consequently the employees got the gear.

In that environment it's possible that an attitude develops among employees that the computers are simply in the temporary custody of the government since the employee will get it eventually anyway.  So the employee takes it home to try it out without thinking about the security, and there it went out the window.

At the very least this occurrence should cause anyone who has access to sensitive information to be a little more careful, at least for another month.

Compensation Committee gone wild at Exxon

I'm not a very good Corporate American --  the proxies cards usually go straight into the trash.

There are some exceptions, though, such as when the retiring CEO gets a going-away gift worth nearly $400 million, including use of a company jet for two years.  That recipient would be Lee R. Raymond, formerly of Exxon Mobil Corporation.  Was he worth it?

The reason Exxon has been so profitable lately is because the CEO did such an outstanding job, right?  Hardly.  It would seem that a CEO of a company like Exxon Mobil would have had to make some pretty boneheaded decisions to counteract the effect on profits that rising petroleum prices had.  A big corporation like that is like a huge ship in the ocean.  It would take some real negligence to run it aground.  (Okay, maybe that's a bad analogy, cough -- Valdez -- cough).

Let's see what others say about Mr. Raymond.  Forbes gave Mr. Raymond a grade of "D" for the year 2004.   And in April of 2005 Forbes published rankings of the highest paid CEOs by taking the average six years total compensation and comparing it to the long term stock performance of industry peers and the overall stock market.  They ranked 189 CEOs with a rank of 1 being the highest and 189 the lowest.  Mr. Raymond came in at number 180.  Not very impressive.

So why did the board give him such a gift?  They really don't have to explain.  The Wall Street Journal says that Exxon is sitting on a huge pile of cash of almost $32 Billion.  So they gave him the money because it was there.  And it wouldn't be missed by anyone except those bothersome shareholders.

So fellow shareholders, let's vote our proxies for the annual meeting Wednesday, May 31, 2006, and at the very least express some disapproval.

You can see the online Proxy here (large file).  There are 15 items up for vote, 13 of which are shareholder proposals which the board opposes.  With a large energy company like Exxon one could expect some political proposals.  And true to form, there are some about the environment, gay rights, discrimination against women at the Masters Golf Tournament, etc.  And several deal with corporate governance and director compensation.  But none of them appear to be a perfect solution to the problem.  It still takes a good board of directors to do the right thing.

Today's Wall Street Journal (subscription) informs us that the proxy firm of Institutional Shareholder Services has taken issue with the pay given to Mr. Raymond.  Excerpt:

Ratcheting up the controversy over the amount of money Exxon Mobil Corp. paid its retired chairman, Lee Raymond, the company is dueling with an influential proxy-advisory firm that criticizes the oil giant's "eye-popping" pension payment and alleges Exxon's method of determining pension benefits constitutes "double dipping."

More about this can be found in the Star Telegram, to wit:

Exxon Mobil Corp. shareholders should withhold votes from four of the five members of the company's compensation committee after former Chairman Lee Raymond received a $98.4 million retirement payment, Institutional Shareholder Services said.

Holders should withhold votes from Directors James Houghton, William Howell, Reatha Clark King and Walter Shipley, ISS said Friday in an e-mailed statement.  The adviser recommended voting for the fifth member of the committee, IBM Chief Executive Samuel Palmisano, who joined the committee this year.  [emhasis added]

Raymond, who retired as chairman and chief executive of the Irving energy company in January, received a $357 million retirement package that included a lump-sum payment of $98.4 million and stock and stock options accumulated during his 43-year career.  ISS said it's concerned that the manner used to compute those amounts will inflate future payouts to Raymond's successor, Rex Tillerson.

"Years from now, shareholders can expect another eye-popping pension distribution for Mr. Tillerson," ISS said in the report. The adviser faulted Houghton, Howell, King and Shipley for "poor compensation practices."

But even this is merely symbolic.  There are no contested director positions, so if a director only gets one vote then he/she gets the job.  And that brings us to Item 4 on the proxy statement.  This shareholder proposal, if it passes, would require a majority vote for the election of a director.

Out of 6 Billion shares my paltry holding is not even a drop in the ocean.  But I'm voting, and here's how:

-- Withhold votes for directors James Houghton, William Howell, Reatha Clark King and Walter Shipley.

-- "For"  Item 4; majority voting;

-- "For"  Item 7; addresses director compensation;

-- "For"  Item 9; requires an executive compensation report;

--"Abstain"  on all the rest.

Fellow shareholders, exercise your proxies.  It's a free market, and we see what happens when shareholders get complacent.

Followup:  The results can be found in this PDF file, as follows:

SUMMARY OF 2006 PROXY PROPOSAL VOTES

ExxonMobil thanks the many shareholders who returned their proxies. Over 5 billion, or more than 83 percent, of the outstanding shares were represented at this year's meeting.

At least 79 percent of the votes were cast for the 12 persons nominated by the Board to serve as directors: Michael J. Boskin, William W. George, James R. Houghton, William R. Howell, Reatha Clark King, Philip E. Lippincott, Henry A. McKinnell, Jr., Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Samuel J. Palmisano, Walter V. Shipley, J. Stephen Simon, and Rex W. Tillerson.

The Ratification of Independent Auditors and the 13 shareholder proposals received votes as detailed in the table below. The Board's position on each shareholder proposal is contained in the proxy statement.

Proxy Item Votes For (%) Votes Against (%)
2. Ratification of Independent Auditors 97.9   2.1
3. Cumulative Voting 34.0    66.0
4. Majority Vote 52.2    47.8
5. Industry Experience 6.3    93.7
6. Director Qualifications 6.9   93.1
7. Director Compensation 7.6   92.4
8. Board Chairman and CEO 34.4   65.6
9. Executive Compensation Report 12.9   87.1
10. Executive Compensation Criteria 9.1   90.9
11. Political Contributions Report 11.5   88.5
12. Corporate Sponsorships Report 8.3   91.7
13. Amendment of EEO Policy 34.6   65.4
14. Biodiversity Impact Report 8.5   91.5
15. Community Environmental Impact 10.1   89.9

Shareholders proposed numbers 3 through 15, all of which were opposed by the board.  The only one of those proposals that received over half the votes was Proposal #4, concerning majority voting, reproduced below:

"Resolved: Directors to be Elected by Majority Vote. Shareholders request that our Board initiate an appropriate process to amend our Company's governance documents (charter or bylaws if practicable) to provide that director nominees must be elected or re-elected by the affirmative vote of the majority of votes cast at an annual shareholder meeting."

Wildcat blogging

Here's an intriguing headline from the San Angelo Standard Times:  Pumas Prowling City Limits.

Up ahead, about 10 to 15 feet away, a mountain lion crosses the road in front of you.

What do you do?

''He froze, then I froze,'' recalled Gini Christian. ''Then the lessons I learned from years of hiking in Colorado came back to me.''

Gini began waving her arms and making noise.

''I started singing and doing a little dance,'' Gini said, laughing. ''I don't know if it was my dancing or singing, but something scared him.''

The mountain lion ran into the brush alongside the road.

Gini ''walked backwards for about a mile,'' unwilling to turn her back on the departing cat.

/snip/

Most of us wouldn't choose to have a close encounter with a wild cat that can weigh up to 170 pounds, but there's another side to the story. Gina said her experience left her ''in awe of this animal. I have housecats, and I can imagine them saying, 'This is what I want to be when I grow up.' ''

Stick to the main streets and bark like a dog.

Politically incorrect ringtones

Caution, the following may be offensive to some.

Browsing online newspapers yields this from the Brownsville Herald.

The ringer paints this scene: Anytown, USA.  An undocumented Hispanic immigrant selling oranges on the street. Then, sirens wail and a man with a mild Southern accent begins to speak.

"Calmate, calmate, this is la migra. Por favor, put the oranges down and step away from the cell phone. I repeat-o, put the oranges down and step away from the telephone-o. I'm deporting you back home-o."

The ringer that reads like a page from an off-color comedy script had been for sale on cingular.com for about two months at $2.49.

It was one of thousands available for download from the company's Web site but the only one pulled from the site at about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Activists from Brownsville to Washington, D.C., were outraged to learn that Cingular was selling what they considered a racist product.

/snip/

The "La Migra" item had been downloaded eight times from the Cingular Web site, the spokesman said.

First the bad news:  Jokes about illegal immigrants are racist.  The good news:  There are only eight racists in the U.S.

Goodbye Lou

News reports say that Louis Rukeyser, star of Wall $treet Week died at the age of 73.

I started watching his tv show back when the stock market boom of the early '80s began, and it was a tremendous educational experience because I knew nothing about the stock market.  I would make audio tape recordings of the show and listen to them until I understood what they were saying.  He was particularly good at keeping it simple for simpletons like me.

But there was one tape that I listened to over and over to try to figure out what some expert was saying.  That particular guest invested in growth stocks, and he said his plan was to look for stocks with a P/E equal to the growth rate.  Sounds simple enough now, but to me back then it was baffling.  How could a price/earnings ratio, which would be a whole number, be equal to a growth rate, which would be expressed in a percentage?  What was left unsaid was that the growth rate percentage should have been multiplied by 100 to get a whole number.  THEN look for a match up, e.g., a P/E of 20 and a growth rate of 20%.  Duh.

Anyway, knowing the vernacular helps but doesn't guarantee success.  And Mr. Rukeyser dropped the ball and hung onto a belief in tech stocks too long into the tech stock bubble.  PBS canned him, but he got a contract for a show on CNBC.  It didn't last long, though.  He got sick and left the show which was canceled soon after.

But in his heyday Wall Street Week was a great show, and for years a Friday night viewing of his show was a weekend ritual for me.  Goodbye Lou, where ever you are.  And remember to buy low and sell high.

Shooting the moon (with a new camera)

Last night the moon was in a slightly less than 1/4 phase, and it served as a useful target for my new camera.

It's a Canon Digital Rebel XT, and it has a lot of neat features.  Too many, really.  The first SLR camera I owned was a fully manual Canon TLb.  It's a relic from a much simpler time when you decided the film speed at the store, and all there was to worry about was the shutter speed and an aperture setting made easy by the built in light meter.  But it's a Model "T" by today's standards.

Here are a couple of shots of last night's moon with the new camera.  I like the one in the twilight setting because you can see the whole moon.  There's that pesky reflection hanging off the left hand side, however.  After dark it begins to look like a real moon, with craters and everything.

The camera is a lot smarter than I am.  I'm still very much an amateur, and that status isn't likely to change soon, but it's fun experimenting with some of the settings.  With a lot of practice and a whole lot of luck, then maybe some day, not tomorrow, not the next day, but someday, I might be able to take a decent photograph.