Day: February 18, 2009

The good people at John Hopkins University Press were very kind to send us…

nwsa-journalAn evaluation copy of their Fall 2008 publication of the National Women’s Studies Association Journal which we will indeed read and evaluate. Here is a snippet from Emmanuel David’s essay which focuses on Women of the Storm:

According to cultural sociologist Jeffrey Alexander, a “cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways”……..

On January 10, 2006, an emergent group of women conversed at kitchen tables in Uptown New Orleans and began a grassroots effort to bring members of Congress to the city to witness the storm and flood damage firsthand……. Continue reading “The good people at John Hopkins University Press were very kind to send us…”

well, RE-butter my butt and call me a biscuit, Merna transfers $4billion cat risk from State Farm

No wonder State Farm is short on walkin’ around money.

Merna Reinsurance Ltd. transfers $4 billion of natural catastrophe risk from State Farm, the largest homeowners and auto insurer in the U.S., to investors, either as bonds or as loans.

The notes mature in three years and pay off for investors if State Farm’s aggregate catastrophe losses in the three-year period remain below a certain dollar amount.

This transaction effectively transfers a portion of State Farm’s risk of natural catastrophe losses in the U.S. and Canada including hurricane, earthquake, tornado, hail, winter storm and brush fire to the capital markets. Thus, the rated securities are indemnity-based catastrophe bonds that provide cumulative, three-year aggregate excess of loss protection.

Munich Re has $1.5billion in the wildest cat I saw –  the transfer of extreme mortality risk to the capital markets.

The rest of the litter appears to just be kittens, IMO, but you decide after checking the Deal Directory.

Judge Ginger Berrigan, Welcome to the infirmary of the SLABBED

Since I’m not a lawyer, I really just have one standard and that’s does an argument or decision make sense.  A lot of these decisions just don’t. Why?

Judge Helen “Ginger” Berrigan of Louisiana’s Eastern District Federal Court is one judge I had in mind when responding to Chip Merlin’s comment on the need to better educate judges trying Katrina insurance cases.

However, I don’t believe Judge Berrigan needs educating.  Instead, it appears she’s contracted the highly contagious strain of 5th Flu that causes Leonard hallucinations and delusions of coverage.

Now, I’m not a doctor either; but, I could tell Judge Berrigan was was coming down with something when I read the  Order and Reasons she issued in Adams v Lexington. So, I examined the docket and several of the documents; and, then, I read her history.

Based on what I learned, I suspect she had a natural immunity to the 5th flu as she showed no symptoms of Leonard hallucinations in her reasoning when she threw a wrench into FEMA’s effort at redemption with an order barring FEMA from trying to reclaim some of the money it had thrown at anyone claiming to be a Katrina victim.

In her ruling, Judge Helen Berrigan criticized FEMA for writing notification letters laced with “incomprehensible hieroglyphic abbreviations” and urged the government “to return to their original mandate of alleviating their suffering and focus its substantial powers on continuing to help those entitled to relief.” Continue reading “Judge Ginger Berrigan, Welcome to the infirmary of the SLABBED”