[memo to self]

Here's a theory/hypothesis of sorts:  1) Progressive science has (long since) hijacked objectivity and 2) the Republican/Conservative/Right (RCR)  has been struggling if ineptly to take it back (or at least to save face).  I'm not slamming all RCR members, only pointing out an important if hypothetical subgroup.

Science is about facts, letting the facts speak for themselves without adding your own spin.  Good journalism is supposed to embody this, too.  Maybe the RCR represents a kind of antithesis to this in a deep way (as opposed to them being merely shallow thinkers or liars). 

The RCR is big on morality, at least as lip service if not deeply so.  That is, while they don't necessarily practice what they preach as individuals, the narrative is largely about morality.  So we can ask if morality and science have some necessary tension between them.  And I don't mean this in the sense of "Can scientists be moral?  Can you believe in God and be a good scientist? ..."  This is first a philosophical point not a practical point.

Morality is about conduct, and conduct is behavior which is itself based on acts.  So we can note that while Fact is the object of science, Act is the object of morality.  This brings the possible conflict into sharp focus:  Ordinary reality, or real existence, is a synthetic combo of fact and act - if something is not actual it's not real, and if it's not factual it's not real.  In this view, objective existence has two faces.  Acts are not facts, and facts are not acts, but the twain shall and do meet objectively [somehow/somewhat] in reality.

Science reflects this in the notion that the observer should as much as possible record the facts, not participate actually in the experiment.  Of course quantum thinking recognizes an uncertain limit to this, but that's another subject.  Morality recognizes this in that action changes the facts, it doesn't respect them as an observer would.  We might say:  Morality teaches right conduct, science teaches right knowledge.

The great material and intellectual successes of modern science have put scientific objectivity in the foreground for over 100 years, leaving poor old moral objectivity to linger in a wasteland of myths, fantasies, and delusions where it's been a bit tainted if not totally subverted (whether "literally" by Biblical Fundamentalism or "literally" by Randian Objectivism etc).  I suggest that progressives would do well to develop a greater appreciation for, and handiness with, morality, so as to powerfully reintegrate two-faced objectivity into their own singular narratives.  If progressives slack on this, the political pendulum will likely swing back towards those currently in the wasteland, those who however misguided have been long as practiced with morality as they are weak on science.  Science/fact won't necessarily rule the day indefinitely. Don't underestimate the power of will, delusional or not.  Chaos and tyranny are seldom happy states of existence in practice, but they are quite possible faces of moral objectivity in the wrong hands (as some have noted over the past 8 years, at least superficially).

We can try to apply this philosophical outline to practical issues such as Global Climate Change, Women's Rights, and others.  The RCR contingent expresses moral objectivity in different ways for these two issues.  For WR, the abortion issue take outrage as its tactic in service to a claim that abortion is immoral, it is the taking of a life.  This is usually considered to be a faith-based position.  GCC denialists have a different moral slant, they are happy to deny or ignore facts in favor of a belief that things will work out for the best.  And they also have a kind of faith to be imposed on the world, delusional or not.  GCC denialists act without regard to (or even counter to) apparent fact, perhaps in hope that the very long odds against them will prove false.  It's a kind of gambling; in poker it might be hoping to draw to an inside straight flush in the belief that "we will prevail".  Oddly enough, this mirrors a recent campaign slogan, "Yes we can."  For some, it's given as a matter of standing up for some principle, for others it's strength in political solidarity (House Republicans voting as a losing block perhaps hoping for the worst before the next elections).  In any event, this quick summary shows the idea can be readily applied to current events!


To sum up:  Progressives would do well to integrate both faces of objectivity - continue take back and rehabilitate morality.  Embrace the tension and use it well.

This is something Josh definitely should take a look into.This, is INCREDIBLY interesting and I suggest someone (with more investigative abilities) takes this one and runs with it. Now now, I know I don't want to touch "tinfoil" type accusations but when you read the cream of the entire article you really have to ask if some fishy business is involved in this matter. Hopefully the collective might of us bloggers can get some answers to this one, because this needs to be solved, or put to rest in the near future.

And now for your cream:

Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short's Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first "exposed" a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg's radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin's accusation that Obama was "palling around with terrorists." That Rosenberg's producer owns the "chicagoteaparty.com" site is already weird--but what's even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg's launch of the "Obama is a terrorist" campaign. It's as if they held this "Chicago tea party" campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was.

 

Definitely seems like more than a coincidence in my book. What do you think?

This will probably piss a few people off, but here goes.
Some comments on  this piece in the WAPO.

The country might be not be in a
depression, but many Americans feel that
they are. Local and national mental health
experts said that the loss of jobs, homes
and retirement savings has triggered an
increase in the number of people with
symptoms related to anxiety or depression,
such as changes in sleeping and eating
patterns, headaches, and nervousness. Some
psychologists and therapists said they are
getting calls from new clients seeking
their help in dealing with the financial
crisis. Others said current patients are
increasingly talking about how the
recession is causing them angst. Financial
advisers, meanwhile, said they are spending
more time, on the phone or in person,
reassuring their clients.

"People were riding a false wave," said
Nicholas Yrizarry, an adviser with Nicholas
Yrizarry & Associates in Reston. "Their
house values were going up. They were
spending money. They were buying brand-new
cars. This puts a tremendous strain on
people when not only are their portfolios
down, but they've lost their jobs."

First of all the old addage applies here. "Don't play the Market
unless you can afford to loose it all."  Secondly a new car every
year or even every other year is simply not necessary.

In the latest Washington Post-ABC News
poll, 57 percent of those surveyed said the
nation's economic condition is a cause of
stress in their lives. More than a quarter
said they had "serious" anxiety. The
percentage of stressed-out people was
higher among those who said their finances
had suffered "a great deal" from the
recession. Among this group, 83 percent
said they were stressed, with 55 percent
reporting serious anxiety.

If you think you cannot get through this on
your own, experts say, it's crucial to turn
to friends, family, clergy, financial
advisers or mental health professionals.
Maintaining your physical health by eating
well, exercising, sleeping enough, taking
walks when you need fresh air, and doing
fun things that don't cost much money are
also important.

"Some people are doing what we call
catastrophizing," said Mary Alvord, a
psychologist in practice in Rockville and
Silver Spring and also the American
Psychological Association's public
education coordinator for Maryland.
"They'll think this will go wrong and that
will go wrong."

Because ??

Mercedes Gutierrez, 40, has turned to her
financial adviser, Yrizarry.

She has found herself in the unfortunate
position of hunting for a job during a
recession.

A divorced mother of three, she has come to
realize that what she makes as a part-time
Pilates instructor is no longer enough to
sustain her family. On top of that, she is
trying to refinance the Loudoun County
house she bought with her then-husband in
order to gain sole ownership and is not
sure if she will qualify for the same low
interest rate on her own. As if she doesn't
have enough to worry about, she has seen
the value of her stock portfolio decline by
33 percent.

In over your head and living in a fantasy world. Stay out of
the Market unless you are George Sorros or Warren Buffet.
Ditch the second house some way. You don't need it and
it will just drag you down. What does a divorced mother of
three need with two houses ??

"I have to find a way to make up that lost
money," she said.

So far, she has cut costs. She and her
children don't eat out as often. She's more
careful about what she buys at the grocery
store. She has eliminated luxuries such as
pedicures and manicures. Vacations, for
now, are out.

Well bully for you. Pedicures and manicures ??
Do your own damn nails.

She gets a little more anxious each time
the market plunges significantly. "I call
Nicholas or we meet, and it gives me more
peace of mind," she said.

I'm sorry but I have little to no sympathy for the nouveau
riche who think they deserve to live like some Wall Street
high roller.

The irony, advisers and economists say, is
that an anxious investor, consumer or
worker actually compounds the economy's
distress. The fear is driving people to
make rash decisions with investments, thus
contributing to the volatility of the stock
markets. It is keeping consumers from
spending money, not a good thing
nationally, considering that consumer
spending makes up 70 percent of the
economy. And it is making many workers less
productive at work.

Good. Maybe we will get an economy that is actually
based on developing and making things. Oh God....
what a concept.

"It is a vicious cycle, and people are
under remarkable stress," said Charles
McMillion, chief economist at MBG
Information Services in the District.
"There are a lot of people that are
severely affected by this and have never
had to deal with it before and don't know
where to turn because the country hasn't
dealt with it."

And that last sentence nails it. They were born with
silver spoons in their mouths and dishwashers to keep
them clean and sanitary. Now the spoons have morphed
into plastic and they have to wash them by hand. Hey...
thats life. Deal with it. Oh and learn how to check the oil
in your car and get a good mechanic to keep it running for
a good long while.

C

Ok, everyone, the Republicans are following this guy, here is his educational background from Wikipedia:

 

Limbaugh graduated from Cape Central High School, in 1969. His father and mother wanted him to attend college, so he enrolled at Southeast Missouri State University. He dropped out after two semesters and one summer; according to his mother, "he flunked everything" even a modern ballroom dancing class. As she told a reporter in 1992, "He just didn't seem interested in anything except radio."

 

Posted on CNN's home page:

 

Rush Limbaugh brought a cheering crowd to its feet several times Saturday as he called on fellow conservatives to take back the country in the keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "He played to his crowd here," CNN Political Analyst Mark Preston said. "And this crowd is now energized."

 

Read more

 

UPDATE (2.2.09):

 

Interesting comments that i received. I wasn't critizing folks with out a college degree, just stating that Rush obvioulsy could have used some history and socio-economic lessons.  Not meant to offend, please don't overanalyze!

 

 

Is it just me or has the goverment went mad,  While I was growing up I was taught very early that if you wanted something you had to work to get it.Now days it seems that if you go into business and make bad decisions all you have to do is cry to the goverment and they will bail you out.If you take out a loan for a house you don't have to check your finances to see if you can afford it just ask the goverment for help when they try to take it back. Well I'm sorry there are a lot of good people out there that have problems becouse they took bad advice, When I bought my house 3yrs ago they kept trying to get me to go to a more expensive house but I didn't becouse I knew what I could afford it now I've had to take on another job and my wife went back to work but we don't want goverment help becouse then we would not have earned the house. People need to go back in time and relearn what values made america strong in the first place . Work hard and earn your rewards

At risk of being a "too frequent" poster, ran across this and couldn't help but bring it to your attention, just in case you've missed it.

Apparently there is some question about whether or not Rick Santelli's rant was as random as it seemed, or rather the carefully planned trigger for the "anti-Obama" campaign.

According to Playboy Magazine  (now don't have a heart attack! I ran across it through another channel and went back to the original source rather than send you on a circuitous route to get to it! - I can hear it now...What is Stilli doing reading Playboy???)  the website that  launched the "Chicago Tea Party" revolt (www.ChicagoTeaParty.com) within hours of the rant, got it's domain name back in August of last year, and has been associated with some interesting characters in the Republican Party.

What we discovered is that Santelli's "rant" was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a "Chicago Tea Party" was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society."

The article that sent me to this link has some other links you may find interesting.

Hmmmmm...it's just a lttle smelly.

Big news, guys. Get nervous. I have stood on the precipice and peered into the abyss, and I bring back some harsh realities that we're going to have to confront. You see, we may feel good right now, but it's only a matter of time for us liberal folks... Because Jonathan Krohn is coming for us.

The US economy? 'You're gonna need a bigger boat'!!

The most important battle being waged currently is the one being waged over history.

Mediocre professional athletes make 10 times as much as our political leaders.

Giving money to another person isn't speech...never has been and never will be.

A society in decline is one that not only allows greed but extols its virtues and measures freedom by what goods one possesses.

You just sang Happy Birthday? Make the check payable to 'Warner Music' or their lawyers will be contacting you...

The Hippocratic Oath has been depreciated and written off as a total loss.

Figures don't lie but liars do figure.

Insanity: Believing that it is actually in your best interests to be opposed to your best interests.

Conservatism is the mortal enemy of any and all progress.

Hubris: Thinking that humanity has the right to outlaw what nature provides.

Would you be able to accept the idea that everything you believe is all false?

Television is a vast wasteland

Love is God

Insanity (pt. 2): Believing that dinosaur fossils are actually a plot by Satan to trick humans.

The human body is not obscene.

Big man, pig man...ha haaaaa charade you are. Wooooooo...

The best proof that I have seen that there is a God, and she loves us, is found in the existence of cannabis...but it is still VERY iffy at best and also anecdotal.

Why? Because.

Understanding the universe and answering the question of 'why are we here?' can all be discerned by finding the exact value of one simple mathematical equation...that equation being 22/7.

A straight line isn't the shortest distance between 2 points, the path of least resistance is.

I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit.

February 27, 2009 (LPAC) -- Lyndon LaRouche today further elaborated on his call, earlier this week, for the establishment of a new Hamiltonian National Bank, as part of the implementation of his Homeowners and Banks Protection Act (HBPA).

My friends who vote Republican have largely ignored the radicals on the right such as Limbaugh, Hannity, Malkin & Coulter. But the reactions and results from CPAC this week just proves at least 1 undeniable fact: These people now run their party and Limbaugh is the indisputable leader of their party.

I feel very, very badly for my friends in that party. They are now no longer going to ferment any  new ideas or legislation that is sensible for America. Instead, there will just be a steady hardline beat of anti-Dem, anti-Pelosi, anti-Reid and anti-Obama messaging for 4 years.

Be prepapred for more & more GOP focus on petty grievences and issues that are either not really issues but instead are phony things drummed up by Limbaugh crackpot staff that do not do real research and do not interview the other side because no one will speak to them.

We all tried & tried to warn them about the vile nature of their AM radio & hate-mongers. And because they did not push back, their party is now run by lunatic fringe radicals that have NO CONCEPT of what is best for the country.

They are only interested in creating more ratings & wealth for themselves. Their interest is nihilistic, anti-govt and does not mesh with a political party platform. This is going to get ugly and I am very sorry for them.

There have been a few posts lately about the potential for some some huge changes in our country with the election of President Obama and the horrific downturn in the economy. Most people are scared, and I think there is much to be scared of. No one wants to contemplate what 10%, 20% unemployment is going to look like. A lot of people go to bed every night wondering if they will be included in the next round of lay-offs. Many people are beginning to wonder what a post-consumer driven economy is going to look like.

But, I'm wondering if, just possibly, that this downturn, this wake-up call, might just be a good thing, albeit a heavily disguised one at the moment.

I know that the poor and the lower middle class are going to feel the pain disproportionately during the process, and that thought deeply saddens me. But I'm beginning to think that in the long run, it may turn out to be a good thing.

What if we are able to come out the other side with some better values as a country? Like a greater respect for those who don't have a lot of money.  Like a realization that "stuff" doesn't bring happiness. Like doing the "right" thing is far better than doing the convenient thing.

What if housing prices go down enough, and everyone has health insurance, so that only one person in the family needs to work, and now one parent can stay home and raise the kids? Not only would kids be raised by people who love them instead of strangers, BUT, the need for so many jobs would go away.

What if families started living in these big ol' houses together...Mom, Dad, the kids, AND Grandma/Grandpa, instead of one family in a house they can barely afford and the other several states away?

What if we decided that one television per household was enough, that we don't need a land line and cells phones, that everyone in the family doesn't need their own computer, that we don't need to "own" every DVD or CD ever produced?  What if we went back to giving ourselves pedicures, mowing our own lawns, cooking our own dinners, cleaning our own houses? What if we lightened our loads a bit so that all our "extra" stuff didn't need to go into "storage" and we actually had enough room in the garage to park our cars? And that we could reduce our insurance premiums because we didn't have so much to insure? What if we started wearing our clothes until they wore out, instead of until the "fashion police" told us we were behind the times? Would life really suck that bad?

What if kids started playing outside again, reading books instead of playing meaningless and violent video games?  What if mom (or dad) taught them their ABCs and 123s and they started school in kindergarten instead of spending four years in preschool? What if libraries and city parks once again became places of wonder?

What if the reduced stress in our lives made it so we could better manage our marriages and divorce was the exception rather than the rule? What if we hiked and rode our bicycles instead of going to the gym? What if going out to dinner and movie was a real "treat" again?

Would the "less,"  the "lower" standard of living we are all so afraid of, be such a bad thing? I'm just wondering...

 

Here is his take on this. With mine as well.

Mr Frank's committee oversees the US
banking system. He said government
takeovers of banks should not wipe out
debt to bondholders. Defaulting on
banks' debt would hurt many innocent
investors and could deprive banks of
future capital.

Bonds issued by Citigroup and other
troubled entities showed recently a
rising default risk, reflecting fears of
bankruptcy or government ordered
writedown of debt, though that risk
diminished after Friday's Treasury
announcement. But Mr Frank said wiping
out the bondholders, including owners of
riskier subordinated debt, risked
damaging investors such as university
and hospital endowments and driving them
away from the banking sector for good:

And this is a problem ????

"These are not all bad people . . . a
lot of good entities, a lot of public
purpose charitable entities, got
hornswoggled into swaptions and other
things that they in no way understood .
. . do you want to tell some people
never to get back in the business of
investing in banks again?

Number one..anyone who is still investing in these banks is
a fool and deserves what they get...nothing. Number two, to
answer the question just above...yes.

"I hope five years from now there will
be a lot of people investing in banks .
. . I don't want people to learn the
lesson that this is a terribly risky
thing to do."

Can you say "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice
shame on me." ?

Mr Frank said he was "agnostic" on
whether the US should temporarily
nationalise troubled banks. He said the
mismanagement of the troubled asset
relief programme (Tarp), the $700bn
financial rescue launched by Hank
Paulson, former Treasury secretary, in
October, had made the task harder.
"Anything that would require a lot more
commitment of funds, like buying up much
more of the institutions, is on hold . .
. part of the problem is that Paulson's
administration of the funding so angered
people."

Try enraged, infuriated, livid.....

Mr Frank said that before asking for
fresh money, the administration needed
to do more to show the current money was
being spent well, that homeowners
threatened with foreclosure were being
rescued and that credit had begun
flowing again. "They wouldn't get it
today," he said. "If we have not made
more progress in alleviating public
anger, the votes won't be there."

Alleviate the public anger. The only way you could do that
is by lining the boozoes up in front of a firing squad.

Neither a need for fresh capital
revealed by the administration's
so-called "stress tests" of the largest
banks, nor renewed turmoil in the
markets would necessarily bounce
Congress into acting. "Market mayhem
could make it worse," he said. "The
public might say: these people are worse
than we thought. Give them nothing."

Hello Barney .... they are already saying that. Moot point.

Mr Frank's scepticism about Capitol Hill
enthusiasm for a fresh Wall Street
bail-out was echoed by Charles Grassley,
senior Republican on the Senate finance
committee. He said that even a repeat of
the market turmoil in the days before he
voted for the first Tarp plan last
October might not convince him again. "I
might come to the conclusion . . . that
better let the marketplace work," he
told the Financial Times. "I'd probably
say I made a mistake the first time."

You did make a mistake the first time.

Mr Grassley said he needed to see the
first Tarp getting credit to flow before
supporting more funding. "Does it show
confidence? Does it show results? I
might vote for it," he said. "If it were
right this minute, the answer would be
no."

Not this minute....not ten years from now.

C

This is my first time doing this so I hope its good. Everybody is blaming either the republicans or the democrats for the mess we're in right now . Well the way I see it is this has been coming for a long time. For as long as I can remember we have had nobody to vote for that could rightfully represent me in congress or the white house. How long has it been since someone ran for office that wasn't very rich and has done no real job in their life . Their suppose to represent but have no clue what a real life is all about. Another thing is how can they represent anyone when they are so busy lining there pockets with lobbyist money to do what they want even if they know its wrong.Lobbying should be outlawed. it goes against what polititions are suppose to do . THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO REPRESENT and give me a voice in congress. That just don't happen anymore if you dont have money you are just not needed by them and they don't care. Now they've gotten most of the money and there mad becouse nobody else has any to spend and its hurting our economy. Well what did expect!!    I have a lot more to say but will quit here to see if anyone else is listening or cares

Today, Andrew Alexander, the WaPo's brand new ombudsman took on Will's instantly infamous global warming denial column.  Now Alexander is a big improvement over Deborah Howell.  (Despite his prior involvement in the story, somehow, I didn't really get that Howell had been replaced until today.)  In his column, Alexander distinguished between what he did before--pass on Fred Hiatt's horsedookie about the many layers of fact checking that WaPo editorials are subjected to--and what he was supposed to do as an ombudsman--check the facts and make a call.  At least he got that, which is more than Debbie ever would have done--and then he did the craziest thing.  He read Will's putative sources and, amazingly, came to the conclusion that George either misunderstood or willfully misrepresentated them and that there were any number of points at which it should have been obvious to Fred's "fact checkers" that they needed to call an expert.  (Although, evidently, the idea that an expert might be needed in all cases involving the interpretation of complex scientific studies was too big a leap for him.) 

Of course, we didn't get this without the obligatory MSM whine about how dirty fucking hippies were bombarding the WaPo in an "orchestrated" campaign or emails and letters, many (pass me my smelling salts) using the exact same words.

Still, he administered a mild, ineffectual, spanking to George, which was good. Was was bad, however, was his failure to identify the fundemental problem with both the column and the supposed fact-checking: both adhered to the the conservative theory of citation.  In Conservative Lorld, if you state a proposition and footnote it and the footnote identifies a publication, then the propostion is valid because you have a  source.  In Conservative Land, however, whether that publication actually supports the proposition for which it is cited is irrelevant.  The only relevant thing is that a source was cited: it is the citation that makes it true, not the content of the source.   

Ann Coulter's entire career is built on this little trick.  It is symptomatic of the post-modern intellectual nihilism that has pushed both conservatism and the United States to the brink of disaster.  And its exactly what both Will, Will's assistant and Fred Hiatt's purported fact checkers work was based upon.  It is a sad comment on the state of journalism that the ombudsman of the second most important paper in America failed to even notice it. 

Instead, he had to go and ruin whatever good he'd done by saying this in his penultimate graph:

There is a disturbing if-you-don't-agree-with-me-you're-an-idiot tone to much of the global warming debate. Thoughtful discourse is noticeably absent in the current dispute. But that's where The Post could have helped, and can in the future.

And that's the part where I grabbed a double handful of my own hair and went "gaaaahhhh!"  

I do not understand why this is so hard for people who call themselves journalists to understand.  I really don't.  I'd love for someone to explain it to me. 

The Earth is round and revolves around the sun along with the other planets,  There is no room for "debate" about that.  If you, instead, believe that the Earth is flat and heavenly bodies are attached to crystalline spheres, some revolving in little epicycles as they move with their spheres, then you are, in fact, an idiot.

Regardless of whether you acknowledge the Copernican and Newtonian theories or whether you still cling to the Ptolomaic order, If you believe that the future can be predicted by studying heavenly bodies, you are an idiot.  There is no room for debate about that. 

If you do not agree with me that combustion is the result of rapid oxidation and, instead, believe that burning is the result of the release of a mysterious "fifth element" called "phlogiston," you are an idiot.  No debate.  Ditto evolution. Ditto the theory that the speed of light is constant. 

All scientific truth is conditional and subject to change, but scientific truths are not subject to "debate" by laymen.  It's not about what you "believe."  The results of a dial-in instant poll on the germ theory of disease are quite irrelevant to the cause of illness.  That's not how it works.  If you think otherwise, well, you're an idiot.   The "beliefs" of some guy on a barstool or of an oil executive who's worried about carbon caps are, quite literally, utterly irrelevant. And, for that matter, so are the "beliefs" of a handful of more or less credentialed kooks and whores who are paid to have different opinions.  Even if I have a Ph.D in chemistry and a full professorship at Liberty University, there is no "debate" even though I insist that the phlogiston theory of burning has not been disproved. 

In lay terms, scientific truth is debatable if, and only if, there are significant observed data, or reproducible experimental results, that cannot possibly be explained by the prevailing theory.   However, only other experts get to have a piece of that debate.   Whether the Higgs bosun really exists is open to debate, but if you think George Will's opinion on this topic, or  "thoughtful discourse" by people with no training in quantum physics, is meaningful and needful, well, you are an idiot.   

The same principle applies to history and policy. 

 If you want to argue that we should let the economy collapse and recover on its own, rather than expand government spending and try to stop it, that's a legitimately debatable point.  It's an argument about competing norms rather than one about facts.  However, if you choose to bolster your argument by contending that the New Deal made the Depression worse, or, claiming that the fundementals of our economy are sound, then you are an either lying to yourself, and therefore an idiot, or lying to me and therefore unworthy of being heard. 

If you want to argue that the economic cost of doing anything about global warming is so high that we should just run the risk that the most dire outcomes within the range of outcomes predicted by our current models will occur, that's a legitimate debate.  I will question your common sense, and maybe your motives, but I will not say you' are not entitled to make the argument, if only because the argument will sharpen our understanding of our options.  However, if you want to say we shouldn't risk doing anything because you don't believe anything bad is going to happen, well, you're an idiot.  There is no debate, no reason to listen to you and, in particular, no reason to print your "side" in the paper so that the readers can make up their own minds.  None.  

I really don't get what's so hard about that for them.   

I'm slogging through this treatise on international tax (I can't believe I not only paid $3k for the class, but also $300 for the text) and I've got CNN on to distract the half of my brain that's generally rebelling whenever I do homework.  And Rush is delivering his "first international address" courtesy of CPAC.  'Course, they broadcast Rush in his entirety, as opposed to anything actually important.  blah blah bootstraps, blah blah success earns punishment, same old same old.  The usual exploitation of angst and anger of the working white who struggle every day, only to see the benes going to the strange black urban people all over their TV sets.

This guy's got it all figured out, from an historical perspective. The oligarchs are running the show, not the people. Obama, start listening! Get the money changers out of the government!

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/02/michael-hudson-six-minutes-with-the-renegade-economist/

a few simple thoughts on our new president...

we've become accustomed to watching political candidates make big promises during a campaign while at the same time thinking to ourselves "yeah, that'll never happen." there is an inherent filter, not so much of automatic distrust (many have that as well) but of hearing politi-speak and understanding, somewhere deep down, that "it just won't be that easy once you get there."

but this week, in his budget and in his video address to the nation, barack obama lays down the gauntlet. this is the sweeping change the country voted for, he says. c'mon! what did you think i was gonna do? i told you about all this stuff during the campaign...and now? what, you thought i wasn't gonna change the country?

remember when we thought this guy didn't have enough "fight" to him?

my favorite economist has some pretty nifty thingsto say about obama's budget proposal. in the clatter of all the cable and internet sniping, it's nice to find a clear, trustworthy voice.

it seems as though obama's been in office much longer than a month and a week. every other day there's some major piece of legislation being signed, or another important speech. this week alone, there wasthe non-state-of-the-union speech, the release of the budget, and the beginning of the end of the war in iraq. obama began the week with his approval numbers dipping, for the first time ever, below 60% (the sky is falling! the sky is falling!) he's ended the week at a comfortable 67%, two points off his high.

like andrew sullivan, i've learned to stop second guessing obama. because every time i do, he surprises me. i'm not always adept at it, but it's best, i think, to sit back and watch the action from a distance - with some perspective. today might be a little rough and tumble, but just wait until tomorrow.

While it is appreciated as a great gesture of transparency, the "New Era of Responsibility" budget overview is also wicked vague.  Having to toggle between it, the fact sheets and any appropriate addendum on the budget website for a semblance of detail is a little aggravating.  Does anyone know if there exists a more detailed breakdown by department outside of the OBM itself?

I love stories like this that get flogged by Drudge: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29434104

Apparently dropping W's tax gift to the weathly and going back to Clinton's tax rate is a "war on investors"! Yes, you know, those super-smart morally-based investors & hedge-fund traders, you know, regular Americans that helped lead us into this current economic mess we face!

I now do believe that there is now end in sight to the greed and scrupulous behavior of Wall Street professionals.

The media is reporting that Republicans are supporting President Obama's decisions on a Iraq withdraw date and time line.  They also report that Democrats are concerned about the amount of troops being left behind (35-50,000).

I think it's time to remind folks what Republicans were saying in the past two years about ANY time line or withdraw date:

Senator John McCain February 17, 2008:
"I still say setting a date for withdrawal is chaos, genocide, and we'll be back, because Al Qaeda will then succeed."

Senator John McCain March 28, 2007:
"This bill should be named the Date Certain for Surrender Act," said Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican. "A second-year cadet at West Point could tell you that if you announce when the end will be, it's a recipe for defeat."

Dana Perino March 28, 2007:
"The president was "disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law." She said Congress should allow General Petraeus's mission to succeed "by providing our troops the funding they need -- not by mandating failure."

Senator John Kyl March 27, 2007:
"I can't think of another conflict in which a deadline was set in the middle of the war that one side would withdraw from the conflict," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the chairman of the Republican Conference. "It's a heck of a way to fight a war."

Senator John Thune March 27, 2007:
"What are our commanders in the field supposed to think?" Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said in arguing that a withdrawal date would be self-destructive and urging passage of the Cochran measure."

Mitt Romney June 30, 2008:
"I do not propose nor have I ever proposed a public or secret date for withdrawal. It's just simply wrong."  No. 2, with regards to this idea that I favor a specific date for withdrawal -- I do not. We've had, I believe since that interview that the senator quotes, we've had 10 or 12 debates. He's never raised that issue with me. He's never said, "are you for a date specific?" had, I said I will not leave Iraq until we have secured Iraq, make sure it will never become a safe haven."

Mike Huckabee December 13, 2007:
"withdrawal from Iraq would have more "serious strategic consequences for us and horrific humanitarian consequences for the Iraqis"


Senator Mitch McConnell March 28, 2007:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said that effectively sets a "surrender date" in the war.

"Setting a date for withdrawal is like sending a memo to our enemies that tells them to rest, refit and re-plan until the day we leave," he said. "It's a memo to our friends, too, telling them we plan to walk away and leave them on their own, regardless of what we leave behind."

Senator Joe Lieberman May 1, 2007
'If the American forces leave right now, there will be civil war and the area will fall into total chaos.'

President George W Bush April 23, 2007:
"I believe artificial timetables of withdrawal would be a mistake. ... I will strongly reject an artificial timetable withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job."

Eric Edelman July 17, 2007:
"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq." 

Vice President Cheney April 13, 2007:
"The...attempt to micromanage our commanders is an unwise and perilous endeavor. It is impossible to argue that an unconditional timetable for retreat could serve the security interests of the United States or our friends in the region."

Now the Republican leadership is changing it's tune:

Obama's plan "is a testament to the success of our troops in stabilizing and significantly reducing violence in Iraq" thanks to the so-called "surge" strategy, said House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner.

"I believe he has outlined a responsible approach that retains maximum flexibility to reconsider troop levels and to respond to changes in the security environment should circumstances on the ground warrant,"

Representative Eric Cantor:

"Today?s announcement makes clear that the Iraqi people can take a huge step forward in assuming greater control of their nation and future," the number two House Republican, Representative Eric Cantor, said in a statement.

Obama "deserves credit for not listening to the chorus of voices calling for a rapid drawdown of forces regardless of the consequences for Iraq, our military and the American people," Cantor said in a statement.

*************************************************************************

To my recollection, Democrats on the other hand have been pushing for a withdraw date since 2005.  President Obama campaigned on a withdraw date of 16 months from the day he took office and he repeatedly said there would be troops left behind for support.  He was accused of surrendering to the enemy.  He's yet to lie about his views or reversed his position on them -- unlike the Republican Party.

Who should you trust more?  A party that continues saying the same things, or one that changes with the wind? 

The Republican Party stood side by side with President Bush through out his terms in office with respects toward the war in Iraq and our economy (his spending) -- now they are once again backing away (flip flopping) from their so-called CORE PRINCIPLES during those times.

They are even going so far as claiming that Obama is a  Bush clone.  Newt Gingrich: There is "a Bush-Obama continuity in economic policy, which is frankly a disaster for this country and cannot work,"

Sorry GOP, you aren't kidding anybody.

While missing the hell out of Jerry Garcia, many here among us are aware that the surviving core of the Good Old Grateful Dead has reassembled from time to time since Jerry left us.  Most recently last year, first for an Obama benefit on the eve of California's Super Tuesday primary and followed up by an autumn U Penn benefit show with the Allman Brothers Band heading into the home stretch.  For the sake of meaningless disclosure, I personally fall into the Phil camp, and the recent vintage Phil & Friends lineup including Dylan vet Larry Campbell on lead guitar was tremendous last summer.  Meanwhile, I have heard lots of good things about Bobby's Rat Dog from those whose opinions I greatly respect.

So, who's got some stories from the old days, and who's checking out The Dead on their Spring Tour?

My childhood friend Jerry used to say with much indignation, "You mad...then I'm mad too." My friend comes to mind because Republicans seen to be mimicking his philosophy.  They appear to be mad for no other reason except that other Republicans, especially Rush Limbaugh, seem to be mad, also.

The truth be told, Republicans are mad because they lost the presidency when the majority of Americans rejected their narrow-minded political agenda.  They are mad at each other because they can't decide on a new direction for the GOP and too many of them are pursuing selfish ambitions to be the 2012 presidential nominee.  The GOP is a political party in chaos.

Supposedly, they are mad at President Obama because of the make-up of the stimulus package.They are so mad in fact they a lot of their "silver spoon in mouth" governors playing politics, couldn't decide if they would accept stimulus money for their states. So while most of them don't feel the sting of a down-turned economy, they want to do the "noble" thing and reject funds that would help ease the burdens of people living in their states who are less fortunate.

The GOP are clueless right now and their "reject the stimulus money" gimmick was another ill fated strategy doomed to failure. They seem to think that being obstructionists is a good thing. But the message was clear with the election of President Obama that the American people want elected officials working together to find solutions for the good of the country. But the voice of the people is not penetrating the Republicans' deaf ears.

Someone "moved their cheese" and the GOP not being able to make the adjustment are standing pat and waiting for someone to bring it back.  I predict it's going to be a long wait.  Well, if it's any consolation for these obstructionists, after the mid-term elections, more of them will be waiting in the luxury of their homes away from Washington for the arrival of more cheese.

After Ron Paul's fiercely intelligent opening statement at the Bernanke hearing, the CNBC hosts seem to apologize for airing it live, and promise to go back to the hearing only if something really substantive happens. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/28nocera.html?_r=1&8dpc

As with most born in the decade after World War II to parents who understood what the New Deal and the GI Bill meant for their lives, the era of a forward thinking government started to end on that bleak day in November, 1963, but that is not true.

Our inspirational president was taken from us, but his successor was a true New Dealer with a mission. And after the Kennedy-inspired Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were signed into law, President Johnson moved on to a war on poverty and creating a Great Society.

Those dreams did not end because of superior advocacy against change from the Republican Party, but because of the tragic mistake in southeast Asia which tore the country in two, leaving what President Johnson wanted to accomplish in the dust and President Nixon in its wake.

Read more »

Or rather he wants a little love. From the left, to be precise. Today I came across this editorial over at TNR, where the nut of the rather nutty argument concerning left-wing criticism of the main stream media is this:

On The Huffington Post and its ilk, you would find rants about how "Beltway media really makes no effort to do anything other than parrot totally out-of-touch conventional wisdom--no matter how inane, stupid and ridiculous it is." This rhetoric creates a poisonous atmosphere. By assaulting the credibility of the press, it destroys its authority in the culture, giving cover to politicians who would rather avoid dealing with reporters in the first place.

Now maybe I shouldn't feel personally involved here, since I don't consider myself part of any 'left' wing. My politics certainly aren't. Or maybe they are if a concern for accuracy in the media is now to be considered left-wing. In any case, this is one of those arguments I don't know quite what to do with, much as I don't know what to do with the guy in my neighborhood who keeps trying to warn me in shushed tones that "THey are coming for us!".

Well, at least one thing this kind of thinking reminds me of is banking executives: Pandit, Lewis, and Dimon keep shouting at people, telling them to stop saying their banks are insolvent, because people might start believing it. Peretz, who I know only just well enough to realize I should stop reading him, seems to be doing the same thing here: 'stop criticizing us for bias and inaccuracy, because people may believe you'.

Now I can't really quibble with the probabilistic inference in these arguments - yes, people may believe the truth if it is repeated often enough - but the practical imperative rather begs the question.

In both of these cases - the banks and the media - what springs out at me when I hear such strange arguments is the utter lack of self-assessment, of engagement with critics, and of sense of social responsibility for their actions. So my personal diagnosis (though others around here are more expert than me) is that these poor gentlemen suffer from a form of psychopathy (see diagnostic check-list here). The good news is, reliable sources tell me they CAN be treated!


PS. a couple of caveats: yes, we can have a serious discussion about how to save/reform the media, but Marty Peretz is not the man to have it with. And, yes, TNR has many fine journalists, but they work for Marty Peretz.  

Our three dark age Musketeers (sans muskets) awoke and mustered their troops to attack a particular part of the Eastern Wall. The tattooed ones called the picts had breached the wall and were across it with some three thousand crazy men screaming and using poles, spikes, swords and arrows.  The generals took advantage of Gawain' magical powers and Gawain, leading five hundred of the best knights, attacked the bloody rioters head on at the earliest hour. The bloodshed was immense.

Gawain took care of fifty Picts all by himself and this was before ten.  And Gawain's power grew three fold after that until noon, doing away with a hundred more Picts.

At noon, and at the height of Gawain's strength, the Moor arrived with five hundred fresh troops from the east and Sir Moshe appeared from the west with five hundred more and before three in the afternoon (Greenwich time) the battle was over.  Sir Moshe distinguished himself above them all by driving three hundred picts back over the wall in fear. Sir Paladin was above and beyond the call of duty attacking from the east and saving Gawain' left flank. (I am not sure what that means but I heard it so many times in John Wayne movies I could not help myself)

At one point a Pict had jumped from the wall onto Gawain and his horse, Gawain fell to the ground.  Just then Sir Moshe came on his horse, quickly took care of the Pict and picked up Gawain and took him back to his steed.

At last the battle was over. Victory over the Picts. The tattooed ones went back north of the wall to their whiskey and golf.

Our triumvirate retired to their pavilions and skipped any refreshment although Moshe, of all people, made sure that Senor Eduardo received his bucket of ale.

The next day, none the worse for wear, the three knights proceeded south.  Everyone, including the horses seemed just fine and there was always that rush of adrenaline that comes with victory.

About one hundred sixty miles out, they saw a miracle.  A huge monster had arisen from a cart and destroyed the Dragon of York, right before their eyes. It truly was a wonder to behold.
The knights dismounted and prayed to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  And they then approached the cart and met Shiteface.  

Job well done, said Sir Palidan. Job well done.  They then finished introductions and talked the road contractor into following them to Camelot.

They finally arrived and came to the stables.  Sir Moshe's Arab had been limping the last mile home.  He of course dismounted and walk the last leg with his best friend in the world. Well, I hope this clears up.

Senor Eduardo spoke up.  We need the Belle of the Stables. She is the best tender for the horses in the realm. I have personally seen her at work and her patients are never put down, as it were.

Where is this magical Belle, Senor Eduardo, Moshe pined.  

Why there she is.  And the Belle magically appeared and immediately went to the wounded horse.

Another soldier down, eh? The Belle slowly approached the Arab, looking closely into his eyes. Shhhhhhhsssssshhhhhhh. Hi there buddy. You have a hard time in battle? Hey its ok. You want some help? Your master relies upon you. You and Moshe are a team huh?  Good. You mind if I take a look? Just a quick look see?  She got down on her knees and at first the Arab flinched.  Belle only had to look into his eyes and the horse was calmed. She stroked the leg, gently but with the firmness necessary to located the problem.

If you trust me you will follow me.  Sir Moshe never thought twice.

Sir Palidan caught her eyes and immediately was swept.  He stumbled trying to look cool even though he did not know what that meant.  Belle smiled coyly.

Belle took them to her stall and once the horse was safely inside, she began mixing a paste. She was using herbs and even spices and mixing them with words and care.  She went toward the Arab and whispered in his ear.  Slowly she knelt and applied the mixture to the leg. This one will not race or even ride for at least a fortnight. But he is a tough soldier and he shall survive this. Assuming you can kind knight.

Sir Moshe nodded and felt comforted that his steed would survive to fight again. The men left except for the Moor. Palidan kind of lollygagged around and came to 'discuss certain matters' with the Belle.

You seem to have a heart for wounded soldiers my Belle.  

You may call me by my Christian name, Michelle.

Michelle ma belle
These are words that go together well,
My Michelle,

Michelle ma belle,
Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble
Tres bien ensemble.
        
I found you I found you I found you
With the mighty steeds
And you fulfill all my needs
My Michelle, My Michelle

Michelle ma belle,
Sont les mots qui vont très bien ensemble
Tres bien ensemble.

   

Meanwhile back at Camelot...

Spring had arrived and Easter was upon the realm. It was the time of renewal, Our Lord & Savior has arisen once again and the sun began to shine to make for a longer day.  First there was Easter Bunny Hunt where the tots would seek out the rabbits who had burrowed their way into the ground during the late fall.  The stable men had taken tiny bunnies of course and put them in the 'burrowed hole that morning.  Then the children were sent out with wooden swords. 

It was so darling to see the little buggers come back to the stands with two or three little bunnies hanging on their swords.  All the tots came back with bunny blood all over their cute little faces laughing and jumping up and down.  Mamas were all so proud and soon there would be rabbit stew for dinner.

It was just about time for the great Nashorse Race. The finest steeds from all over Europe were in attendance. All different colors and sheens on these equines together with the most beautiful of garbs. The knights paraded their steeds carrying  great flags representing their clans. The great arena provided a make shift starting gate and the course would run

Prior to the race the King, on this great day of Our Lord, there was the knighting of new prospects. A great presentation that was made in front of the crowd prior to the race and reflecting the rebirth of the realm. There was a prescreening if you will, a type of rehearsal held in the King's special room just behind the stands.

This is the great Dragon Slayer, one of our best contractors, Sir Shiteface Sire. Said Sir Bedivere.

Oh, come here Bede. The King motioned to Bedivere.  We cannot have a Sir Shiteface Bede, How the hell did he come to that moniker? And besides, we need royal blood here do we not.
I think it is grand that he took on the Dragon of York, but, geez....

Well sire, ah...this is kind of a delicate matter. We kind of looked into this, me and Blaise, and it seems he has some royal blood. King Uther seemed to have save this man's mother in a battle at Hadrian's wall sometime ago. And he reported to Blaise that this beautiful red head had 'joined him' so to speak for a happy weekend, as it were in the north, following the battle and well one thing turned to another thing and evidently nine moons or so later, this gentleman appeared.

Oh Geez. are they sure about this?

Just then Uther appeared in a vision to King Arthur. Arthur, Arthur, my son and successor.

Arthur fell to his knees in awe of the specter (not the senator but a ghost, sometimes on CSPAN it is easy to confuse the two) and the entire group of knights in this pavilion fell to their knees in confusion because no one could see the specter but the King.

Uther, the lad's real name is McDougal, from his step father.  He has no knowledge of me and his mother Fanny, joining together Jason/Medea sacred ritual...er...so to speak. And whoooooaaaaa, (ghosts like to speak like that. I never really understood why but it appears it sells more popcorn and those chocolate raisin thingies) you must listen to your father Arthur. Christen him McDougal by the Archbishop here and then knight him McDougal. Also fire that immigration officer. Oh, and could you repaint my tombstone?  Over and out, great son of mine. Oh and blame his paternity of Ector. He is used to it.

With that the King rose as the specter dissolved into the shadows.  Let us pray....

After the prayer everyone arose.  Sir Ector come over here.

Yes son, er Sire.

Listen Dad, I got this delicate matter going on here. Shiteface over there seems to be born of a union between a fanny and my er...real Father and we need some royal blood here but we do notwish to er...speak of my father's relationship with this fanny so would you mind awfully not if we kind of had you take the blame here or the credit so to speak?

Sure son, that is what I am here for and you were so kind to Kay and everything. So go ahead.

All righty then. Shiteface come here.  The Archbishop will hereby rechristen you  McDougal and I will knight you with the others.

Fine with me Sire. I noticed a lot of snickering over my name in these parts anyway. And with that the Archbishop christened Shiteface McDougal and Shiteface was never heard from again.

The next candidate is Snerf the hunchback. Said Bedivere.

Come here Bede.

Just then the specter of Uther appeared again and it seems like there was another tryst just outside of Corwall, and well you can guess the rest.

But an Angel of the Lord appeared after the ghost dissolved and he went to Snerf:

Bow down oh Snerf. Snerf duly knelt. 

You are hereby cured of your affliction and from now on you shall be known as Sundance.

The Angel then disappeared.

An Angel's word is good enough for me, said the King, but he had the Archbishop rechristen Snerf anyway. Sundance arose, cured, no hunchback. He felt young again. No wart on his face. And he started thinking about the girl in the kitchen again. But what to do with Macaca?

They were led out from the pavilion and the King duly knighted Sir McDougal and Sir Sundance and the crowd was delighted.

Sir Tristan appeared and sang a song:

At last, my knighthood has arrived
My lowly days are over
And nothing can ever go wrong
Oh yea, at last
My blood is  really blue
My peasant days are over
And I am part of the royal crew
I found a home that I can come to
A name that I can call my own
A thrill that I have never known
Oh yeah I have gone so many miles
And I always felt the last
And now I am in heaven
For the world is mine
At last



Tristan bowed and proclaimed, THERE IS NOBODY LIKE ETTA JAMES.


Back at the stables, the night before the festivities, Sir Palidan came out of the back building with a smile on his face and a new love in his heart. Now he truly knew what bliss was and it was not that feeling you are supposed to have when you leave the communion rail.

Senor Eduardo caught his master sneaking out. Hmmmmmm. Master.

Oh uh howdy Senor Eduardo.  How are we tonight.

We are not quite as well off as thee, I should guess. Hheeeehaaaaww Heeeehaaaaaw

Sshhhhhhh. Someone might hear.  What do you want you old nag?

Look Palidan, for the race tomorrow I have an idea.

Ok, it is your show Senor. Your run. I told you after this hard battle and this long, long trek, if you wanted to sit it out it would be ok with me.

No, no, I am fine. I have an idea.  Sir Moshe is so much lighter than thee.

Tell me Eduardo, does my butt look big in these leggings?

Oh cut it out. Not to Belle I should think!!! No, I can run faster with our Hebrew friend astride me than thou.

I agree. If we win, you and I get two thirds and we give a third to Sir Moshe.  Good idea. I am a little sore anyway.

From the battle or the battle?

Sir Palidan left whistling Michelle.  Where on earth did I first hear that?




 

Don't feel to bad this morning, So... I realize the most of you don't keep up with keeping your screens cleaned, especially from the INSIDE so

click ======> HERE   and let me help you out.

 

ENJOY!

 

Yea, I know.....

I just noticed this week a magnet saying "AIG: We Know Money" has been stuck to my file drawer for...who knows how long.

I

For those of you who know me, I was without a PC for four long, torturous days.  I felt so alone, so out of touch....

Well, my PC is back and so am I. 

http://www.lingr.com/room/TPM-aholics

...he grants immunity to the criminals who tortured detainees during the Bush administration.

Some advocates of bank nationalization make it sound quick and easy -- get in, clean up, get out. As for wiped out shareholders and nearly wiped-out bondholders - tant pis, taxpayers come first.

FinanciaWeek's editor Ron Fink today offers a credible glimpse at one major complicating factor. Certain bondholders may command a strong measure of consideration:

Although it is impossible to prove their contention based on publicly available data, [some] analysts suspect that China's holdings of the debt of banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America are one reason the Obama Administration is hesitating to take over those banks and restructure them with taxpayer assistance.

Although an increasing number of experts contend temporary nationalization followed by a spin-off of the banks' good assets to private investors would be the most effective way to resolve their financial woes, that would wipe out the value of current shareholders' holdings. What's more, nationalization would force bondholders to take a substantial hit.

The U.S. government, these analysts say, is simply unwilling to subject Chinese financial institutions to such losses, particularly at a time when Uncle Sam needs these overseas lenders to finance America's growing deficits through Treasury bond purchases. While China needs these purchases to hedge its exposure to the dollar as a result of its reliance on exports, Beijing has been shifting its capital investment priorities from exports to domestic infrastructure--not surprising given U.S. imports have fallen during the recession.

The Chinese continue to buy U.S. debt, Fink notes, in large part because it's in their interest to support the dollar and so maintain the value of their export income. At the same time, Beijing is "shifting its capital investment priorities from exports to domestic infrastructure." A loss of what could be in excess of $150 billion on U.S. bank debt, triggered by nationalization, might prompt a more sudden Chinese turn away from Treasury bond purchases.

Nouriel Roubini, one advocate of nationalization who doesn't mince the difficulties, has suggested that the time won't be ripe for another six-odd months, when it's clear which banks are insolvent and nationalization of the largest insolvent banks can be done "at one fell swoop." The China hypothesis suggests another powerful motive to make haste slowly on this front:

...Mr. [Brad] Setser noted that.... he wouldn't be surprised if China were trying to reduce its exposure to the debt of Citi and B of A. "Post Lehman, post [Fannie and Freddie], it seems like China is shifting back into Treasuries quite quickly," he wrote.

So if the scenario that played out at Fannie and Freddie scenario is any indication, the Obama administration may be waiting for China to reduce its exposure to the debt of the latest U.S. financial institutions found lying near death's door before it nationalizes them.

Geithner may have got off on the wrong foot but he's no fool. It's neither ideology nor timidity that's holding back a bank cleanup. It's likely a matter of timing, damage control, first doing no harm, and minimizing unintended consequences. Drugs and exercise before radical surgery.

I almost missed this one:

February 25, 2009, 2:54 pm Boehner Says GOP Policies Are a Harder Sell

House Republican Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said today: "We have a tougher job than our friends across the aisle."

[snip]

Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. ... told the Washington Times that he doesn't take what [the Republican leadership] have to say all that seriously.

"I don't even know the congressional leadership," Huntsman told the paper, in reference to Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "I have not met them. I don't listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential-completely."

They don't even listen to each other; never mind anyone else. Is it no wonder they feel bad? We told them their policies and governance "theories" were wrong; bankrupt; and generally broke-ass. But they didn't listen. They are not listening now. With every passing day, it really looks like they never will listen.

And that is pitiable.

That's politics. You're welcome.

Many of those in the humanities are beginning to ring the alarm in distress--in fact many have started doing so many years ago, because many outside of the field are beginning to question the relevancy of the Humanistic disciplines such as Art History, Women's Studies, Literature, and a host of subjects that occupy the selves of your typical liberal arts college's academic advising office; especially now in the tough economic times that we are in.

As a college graduate in European History I am often confronted with the common criticism that says that my degree is worthless, or in a slightly nicer tone, that I have not acquired any of the skills necessary to make it out there in the real world. To the dismay of my parents, under immense pressure to change my major to something more "practical", I held my ground and continued with my major.

Even though graduation for me was just a couple of months ago, the economic realities have changed so drastically for many college students that holding their ground and sticking to their liberal arts' discipline today seem like a clear sign of insanity rather than resolve. Our initial reaction might be to shout, "Quick kid, switch to nursing while you still have a chance!"

The problem for the humanist educators and advocates has always been explaining how an investment (and that is after all what all degrees of Higher Education are: an investment) in the humanities translates to real world dollars in the end. Unlike other majors, like chemistry, accounting--though I am sure they too are suffering these days--and engineering, where the choices are more clear, and thus far more limiting, a degree in the humanities opens as many doors as it supposedly closes. Thus after the celebration of commencement a graduate in the Humanities might be left confused as to where they are supposed to go next.

Combined with our national disdain of intellectualism is of course the culture in which a young graduate in humanities finds him or herself. Our culture has become obsessed with bigger and better. Whatever your job is it is supposed to net you a certain income for it to be considered worthwhile. For graduates in the humanities those kind of occupations are few and scarce, and some would argue shrinking.

In a society focused on instant gratification, assembly-line efficiency, where the end result can be observed with the basic senses; sitting down starring at the Edward Hopper's Nighthawks seems like a waste time, especially when Cliff Notes are at your finger tips. The graduate in humanities seeks engagement, rather than results, because the graduate in humanities seeks a greater appreciation and acquisition of knowledge. As a result the graduate in humanities seems like a fish out of water, or appropriately a curious person starring at the sky in the middle of a busy street during Rush Hour: not so much concerned about where he or she is going but rather fully understanding what they are looking at and questioning why they are there.

Some have gone so far to call for the abolishment of the humanities, a purging of the educational system; only leaving behind the disciplines that can be cashed in at the end of the day. (Until recently this list included all fields related to business, but since the collapse they have been scrubbed off the list of worthy disciplines as well.) Because of this the stress test for the Humanities has gotten harder, as Higher Education has become less of a luxury for the wealthy and sustainable, and more of an economic necessity for everyone. The latest reaffirmation of this fact came Tuesday when the President spoke before both houses of Congress, and set the expectation that each American attain some kind of Higher Education.

The humanities have been having to justify their existence as part of the standard college curriculum for years now, but these days the opposition has upped the ante. Boards of Trustees have begun to cut back on funding for the Humanities, in exchange for a greater amount of resources devoted to the money-making disciplines. (Professors in the humanities can expect on average to get paid much less than professors in the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] disciplines than ever before.)  Professors of the Humanities, stewards of the human story, have found themselves having to teach a generation that seems less interested in Plato (whom I never really liked so I can understand their reservation), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and even the Mark Twain and more concerned with the printed form of Jackson, Benjamin, and in such times even Washington.

If you ever have trouble trying to figure out how to stretch a fifteen cents into a dollar, ask the chair of a Humanities department, who has come to expect an ever shrinking budget with higher expectations from the administration every year.

To a certain extent this is to be expected, Higher education has always been a business, and like all businesses the primary concern is making money; however, the balance of being in the business of making money and in the business of developing the human mind has been shifted too far to one end of the scale. Even though I am a strong supporter of the liberal arts a nation of poets, historians, and philosophers is not going to get us far; however, a democracy of drone like accountants will not function well either.

As a liberal arts college student I enjoyed thoroughly my stint with the sciences when they were required to graduate. My courses in the humanities augmented my appreciation of the sciences, the class long discussion of the philosophical argument about why zero is truly a number is one of my most memorable. And I have always felt that college students should take an Intro to Physics and Philosophy 101 together, as both in many ways challenges the mind in its understand and perception of the immediate and unimaginably large universe: for example pondering the purpose for life when by most indications life and every other molecules there ever was or will be will be ripped apart by Dark Energy as the Universe continues to expand, eventually reducing everything to mere protons.

So, no, I do not think the humanities should be scrapped, if anything I think faculty across the board must learn how to make their classes augment each other, so that both the Chemistry major and History major can find value in their respective opposites' discipline.

In the immediate however I think we might be rushing to conclusions. While certainly everyone has the economy on their mind, there is no reason to assume that this crisis will undoubtedly lead to the end of the humanities. Surely the same arguments against the humanities were made during early periods in our nation's history. Literacy for one was seen as trivial for most, because being able to read the newspaper would not translate to food on the table.

In a similar sense, today we all focus on making ends meet and not coming short. I find turning to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (see here) as a good juxtaposition for where we are currently as individuals and as a country. By most indications we are somewhere between Physiological and Safety layers. Thus our decisions and advice are driven by the desire to ensure safety and well-being: "bread and butter" over "food for the brain". Conversely when the economy rebounds and we find ourselves back in the upper most layer, Self-Acculationazation, we are likely to see people then choose to go back into Humanities in greater numbers. With safety and well-being secure, the typical human being, or in this case typical college student, can afford to be intellectually curious.

While one of the roles of a college is to prepare its students for the working world another of its equally important roles is to prepare those students to become engaged with the world intellectually; and that is at the core why a liberal arts education is so important.

This post first appeared at Clips 'N Chips

Last week I did a post entitled, "YOU MAY BE SURPRISED: A Marine Mom and Army Officer Discuss How War Can End."

You can find the post at Huffington Post, TPM Cafe, and my own Blue Inkblots.

This is the second post in a series, based on a conversation I had with Capt. Paul Chappell, whose groundbreaking book,  "WILL WAR EVER END? A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century," is just out.

Capt. Chappell, who is active-duty and soon to deploy back to the Middle East, is donating all royalties--and the publisher all its profits--to various veteran's groups.  The book is slim--less than 85 pages, fascinating and easy to read, and at the price of $9.99, affordable.  You can find it at the Amazon.com link above, or on Capt. Chappell's website

In our first segment, we discussed how to handle friends, relatives--or blog commenters, for that matter--who tend to glorify war, particularly if they, themselves have never, ahem, been shot at.

We also touched lightly on my second question to Capt. Chappell--What do we do about an enabling media that often acts, in effect, like a propaganda arm of the government? 

Not only do they encourage the glorification of war, through snazzy graphics, action-shot B-roll, war-hero narratives, and other patriotic images, but they also provide platforms to government spokespersons who may or may not be in the pay of defense contractors even as they present themselves as unbiased "experts."  (Network and cable news programming directors seem particularly enamored of retired generals.)

Add to this volitile mix the subtle and not-so-subtle implication of peace activists and skeptical war-doubters as being somehow unpatriotic, and the top-heavy loading of "expert" commentary of war proponents to war opponents (four to one in some networks' coverage in the lead-up to the war in Iraq)--and layer it all with a whipped-cream topping of loudmouth I-have-my-own-show-and-nobody-can-dispute-my-word media matinee stars, and that leaves precious little room for persuading the public NOT to go to war.

Depressing, to say the least.

In Capt. Chappell's response to me, he pointed out that war-news reporting has actually improved somewhat since the pre-Nixon days of pretty much giving the president a free pass when it came to "protecting" the country.

But he also pointed out that the nature of war itself has been--and is being--transformed by the presence of a 24-hour a day news cycle:


            Today, wars are waged on Al Jazeera, Fox News, and CNN as much as they are fought on the battlefield.  It is a war for hearts and minds, a war for popular support and public opinion, a war for the fuel that keeps the machine running.  We should not be surprised by this, because the nature of warfare always changes with new technology.  This is inevitable.  Machine guns fundamentally changed how warfare was waged.  So did airplanes and bombs.  And mass media is another form of technology that has drastically changed how wars are fought.
            This is potentially very dangerous, because most people don't know how the nature of warfare has changed.  They haven't realized that portions of our mass media have become an extension of war, a battle for popular support and public opinion that has no regard for asking tough questions, challenging authority, and relentlessly pursuing the truth.  So many people in our country turn on their television or radios expecting to hear the truth, but instead they hear deception, because as Sun Tzu said, all warfare is based on deception.  That is one thing about warfare that has not changed. 
             One of my training partners in Mixed Martial Arts once told me that boxing is similar to poker.  When you box someone, you are trying to bluff them.  You are trying to deceive them.  You want to make them think you will throw a right cross, when you intend to throw an uppercut.  You want to make them believe you will throw a left hook to their head, when you are really aiming for their body.
              In the Art of War, which Sun Tzu wrote during the 6th century B.C., he said, "All warfare is based on deception.  Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."[1]
              If Sun Tzu were alive today and able to witness the use of mass media as an extension of warfare, he would probably write a tenet saying, "When a foreign country is not an imminent threat, we must make people believe this country is an imminent threat.  When a war is not necessary for our survival, we must make people believe that it is more than necessary.  When people are not afraid, we must give them every reason to be afraid."
              In a true war of self-defense, the last thing we would need is reporters telling us why we must go to war.  Could you imagine how most Americans would react if a foreign army landed on our soil tomorrow, and enemy soldiers began killing American civilians and ransacking our homes in an attempt to occupy this country?  To quote the outspoken anti-war activist, author of War is a Racket, and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor, Major General Smedley Butler:
              "If, through some serried of unforeseen circumstances and disasters, an enemy army did succeed in landing on our shores - the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific - the entire man power of this nation would spring to arms.  Every American, every man and boy, would be ready, without conscription, without pleading - every American would be ready to grasp a rifle and rush forth to defend his home and his country...  History shows it.  I know it from the experience of my own forefathers, who were FRIENDS [Quakers]."[2]
               Smedley Butler is pointing out the obvious after all.  Therefore, when the mass media makes a strong argument that urges American citizens to choose war, the citizenry should become very skeptical, because a true war of self-defense would not require such an argument.  As Smedley Butler said, "Every man and boy, would be ready, without conscription, without pleading."
               When politicians say we must go to war in a foreign country, it is time for hard questions, and the press should be asking those hard questions.  For example, if Bill Clinton had wanted to intervene militarily in order to stop the Rwandan genocide, the press should make him prove his case to the American people, rather than beat the war drum.  A military intervention to stop the Rwandan genocide might have been absolutely necessary, but only hard questions aimed at finding the truth can help us make such an important decision.  


Which begs the question:

How do we do that?  Because most of us who opposed the Iraq war WERE speaking out. 

It's just that nobody was listening.

In fact, congresspeople who WERE opposing the war were viciously attacked in their home districts with distorting ads aimed to paint them not only as unpatriotic, but as damn near evil.  Many of them were defeated at the polls.  Small wonder, then, that so many "liberal" politicians voted for the war.

Capt. Chappell offers four steps to help with that.


Step 1 - Never mistake an entertainer or propagandist for a real reporter.
 
            Our country has many excellent reporters who do a fantastic job, but how can we tell the difference between an entertainer, propagandist, and a real reporter?  At first this can seem tricky, because a person's political views can influence who they perceive as an entertainer, propagandist, and a real reporter.  For example, someone might think Rush Limbaugh is a member of the press who asks hard questions, challenges authority, and gives Americans the truth, while another person might think he is a propagandist.  But who is correct?
            We can begin by quoting Rush Limbaugh, who said in a 2003 interview with Mediaweek Magazine, "This has led to critics saying I am just an entertainer. I'm proud to be an entertainer. This is showbiz."
            [...]
            One way to distinguish real reporters from propagandists and entertainers is to ask the following question.  Does this person rely on investigative journalism for their information?  Investigative journalism is challenging work, and its purpose is to uncover facts.  Since propagandists do not rely on facts, they have little need for investigative journalism.  60 Minutes and many other news programs offer examples of useful investigative journalism, and for a good example of how investigate journalism can serve America and make our country a better place to live, I suggest you watch an episode from Frontline called "The War Briefing"?  Here is a link to this documentary that you can watch online...

On one side sits the "reformers."  Upon hearing their self-proclaimed name, it sounds pretty good.  But its ranks include Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Democrats for Education Reform, and yes, Arne Duncan.  They support more standardized testing, "top-down curriculum standards and teaching mandates", rote learning, TFA, behaviorism (i.e. Arne wants to pay kids for good grades.), corporate schooling and charter schools.

Quick biography on the major players here: Joel Klein graduated from NYC's public schools in 1963, graduated from Harvard Law in 1971, worked in the White House Counsel's office and as Assistant AG in the antitrust division, in private practice and as a clerk to Justice Powell.  Michelle Rhee went to private school, graduated from Cornell with a B.A. in government, and from Harvard with a Masters in Public Policy.  Then she taught in Baltimore, MD with Teach for America (TFA) for three years.  97, she founded the New Teacher Project and then ten years later was appointed as Chancellor of the D.C. schools. 

Arne Duncan graduated from Harvard in '87, after attending private schools as a child, with a degree in sociology, played basketball for 4 years, and then went on to direct the Ariel Education Initiative, beginning in '92.  9 years later, he was appointed CEO of Chicago's public schools. 

Before Duncan, we had Spellings, who has never taught nor studied education.  (Who by the way, loves Duncan.)  Before that, we had Rod Paige, coach-turned-Dean-turned-Secretary of Education.  His dissertation was about the reaction times of football players. (Also loves Duncan.) Before that, we had Richard Riley, politician-turned Secretary of Education.  We haven't had a Secretary of Education who has worked as a teacher since the early 80s.  That's insanity. 

It's baffling and utterly frustrating.  We continue to debate over policies and practices that research has long dismissed.  We allow educational policy to be set by people who have never worked at the job they seek to control.  Instead, we've had, for 20 years, an education system run and ruled by corporate CEOs and governors.  All of this, the corporate schooling, the "reformers", seek to change schools from a top-down method. 

I thought, of all people, that Obama would understand that this, of all things, can't be generated from the top down.  How many times did we hear, "from the bottom, from the grassroots, from the people on the fronts," during the election?  It's all bullshit anyway.  Part of me knew, even then.  Anyone who speaks of education merely as a way to stay competitive in a global market doesn't hold the same views of education as I do.  But I thought....I don't know.  I thought I saw a glimmer of hope when Linda Darling-Hammond was heading the transition.  

What a monumental disappointment.  And this isn't even the half of it.  There so much more that sucks about Arne Duncan and Obama's education plan.

To be overly simplistic and overtly biased, it is a battle with people who want kids to learn on one side, and people who want kids to pass tests on the other side.  

The mayor of Los Alamitos, Ca, Dean Grose, decided to send the following email to friends living in his town. The email was sent from his personal account.

One of the recipients, local businesswoman and city volunteer Keyanus Price, a black women, got the email and wanted a public apology from the mayor.

Price said, "I honestly don't even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city-freakin'-mayor - come on ..." Grose confirmed to the AP that he sent the e-mail to Price and said he didn't mean to offend her. He said he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons. He said he and Price are friends and serve together on a community youth board.

Unaware? Then what was the point of the email? Obviously he thought something was funny.

"Bottom line is, we laugh at things and I didn't see this in the same light that she did," Grose told the AP. "I'm sorry. It wasn't sent to offend her personally - or anyone - from the standpoint of the African-American race." ... Los Alamitos is a 2¼-square-mile Orange County city of around 12,000 people. The mayor who took the mayoral position in December is elected by fellow members of the five-seat City Council.

Calls for his resignation came after the email was distributed. Grose admits the email was in poor taste and has effected his ability to lead the city. He will be resigning at the city council meeting this Monday.

 

Boom chit ... Boom boom boom chit
My name Michael Steele, how do you be?
I'm the HNIC of the GOP.
(Head Negro, he be, yo)
So all you peoples gather 'round cuz I'm gonna lay it down,
gonna tells it as I sees it
and you better all believes it
this is my act,
pretend the GOP is back,
bay-beee!

(We be back, we be chillin'
stop the Democrats from illin'
Tellin' lies about our brotha, sista and yo motha
We be back, we be chillin'
stop the Democrats from illin')

Yo yo yo... here we go, here we go, here we go...

Wooooooo-ooooo

With my pants around my ankles
you can't see my cankles,
yeah men git 'em too,
but what can you do?
(Try takin' a wide stance)
Fling on
some bling on
some rings and some chains.

 

Polish my bald pate

while the obvious I state

Jindal's speech sucked
Republicans are f*cked
(what chu say? Sucked?)
That's what I said motherf*ck*r
What, don't u know how to listen?
U 2 busy greasin' back
on cornbread and chicken?
(Take a Bounty or Brawny, wipe that chin) 

 

I'm the HNIC of GOP
(Head Negro
where he go,
we go)

 

Last summer you were ailin'
ordered up some Sarah Palin
thought she was gonna be
America's first hot chick VP
(Drink your MILF, Johnny!)
but it takes more than ovaries
to bring the Dee's to their knees.
(You gotta know about the fundamentals of the economy.
Not sound when market comes crashin' to the ground.)

Then you tried some Jindal
Should have gone for right-wing Denzel.

That's why you called on me...
Chocolate Ice

C to the H to the O-C-O
(move yo flabby a$$, you Alaska)
Ho-Ho-Ho Santa Claus!! Santa Claus!!!
(what you doin' here?)
L to the A-T-E
(yo yo yo this time of year?)

Lemme borrow your fly ride, you see
I'm down with O-P-P
cuz credit's overrated in a neighborhood not gated.
Time to busta move, time to shake this groove thang.
Everybody sang
Where all da people at, where all my peeps?
(Head Negro In Charge at the GOP)
Chocolate Ice in da House
Chozizzle My Nizzle at the G to the O to the Pizzle
Fo' Shizzle.

And now Mornin' Joke with Jughead and Mika and Pat Buchanan and the gay guy who brings you the news that does not really matter in a courteous and conservative way and always agrees with Pat and Jughead even though his boyfriend does not like that...but that is another story.

Hello America, Jughead here and right after Mika reads the teleprompter telling you about all the socialistic legislation coming from the White House to the both Houses of Congress and then, I assume back again; well have we got a show for you.

Senator Imhofe from that great state of Oklahoma is going to be here and tell us how this global warming crap is just a bunch of , well ,crap.  Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. The group likes to laugh and giggle together.

Now you know there might be two sides to this issue Jug (Mika always gives him the sobriquet of Jug) and we must....

Oh, ha ha ha, Mika, there you go with that liberal stuff again.. Hahahhaa, Pat what are we going to do with her.

Andyway, we are also going to talk to Senator Imhofe about how best to secede from the Union. And he is going to elucidate why even legal Mexican immigrants will work for less than the socialist minimum wage.

Later we will hear from George Bush the twenty fifth about his plans to throw watermelons on the White House lawn.

Mika

I thought for a mimute you wasn't wantin the news this mornin; hahahhaha

Oh Mika, hahahahhahahah

The White House just announced another four trillion dollar budget that will primarily be used to hand out money to banks and other lending institutions and pay for all the mortgage foreclosures.

Boy you got that right. It costs a lot of money to kick those people out of their homes. And you know Pat, it is all their fault.

And who is that Jug, I did not quite hear that.

Pat have you got that hearing aid on. Here let me see. You put the damn bottle cap in your ear again.  Here I got it.  No stay there.  Puts hearing aid back in Pat's ear.

Go ahead Mika.

Mika squishes her face again and tilts her head. Did you ever notice that one dimple is bigger than the other and that they do not quite jibe?

Well I just thought you two BOYS were trying once again to prevent me from doing my job here.

Yesterday the mayor of Dumsville had sent out an email with the picture of the White House Law covered in watermelons with an caption saying that the annual Easter Egg Hunt has been cancelled. When the mayor was confronted with the prank he denied that there was any racial intent, I mean what is racist about watermelons?  Mika squishes her face and tilts it again while viewers all over the country spit out their coffee

Hey Pat what do you think about watermelons on the White House Lawn? Do you think that picture is racist?

Well Jug, comparing a little fun Easter card with what Reverend Wright said about the GD America, I would say that this misstep is well down the rung of abuses against this nation. A little fun and oh we have all the Black preachers out there calling for the lynching of mayors tryin to have a little fun.

Yeah Pat. I just do not get it at all. Don't get me wrong. Slavery was a terrible thing, but I went to school after the desegregation cases and I can tell you that I never saw any racism in my schools in South Carolina. And I want to tell you that by the time Newt and I got the majority in Congress by telling the American People the truth, the racist issue had totally switched to the point where a black man could get a job anywhere he wished and some white people, white people Pat started wearing black face just to get jobs and then we went ahead and got rid of those cadillacs being driven by Welfare Queens, and I am not talking about gay prostitution here Pat, and then Newt and I saved America.

That was quite a story there Jug and I remember it well because we had to do the same thing during the Reagan Administration when our great leader talked about those welfare Queens driving their cadillacs while we subsidized them with taxpayer's money and while working men in this country were hitchhiking, hitchhiking Jug trying to get a ride to work and those Welfare Queens would not even pick them up so they could go to work.  We changed all that Jug.

Well boys, can I finish the news now? Squishing her face and tilting it showing her dimples andsighing for three straight minutes while the scroll at the bottom of the screen was showing that North Korea had just dropped the big one on Seoul.

Oh sorry Mika, hahahaha, we want to get our news, we are waiting to get our news, we are wishing to get our news.

All right Boys.  Today Representative John Boner...

Now Mika, I told you that it is spelt Boner but pronounced throat warbler manglode...

Well , anyway the Minority Leader...

See how things have changed Jug, I mean Minority Leader used to mean Reverend Jackson sniveling about disparity in the greatest country in the world...

Let me try it this way, last night the republican leader in the House of Representatives stated that soon there will be no money in the country at all and that people will be stuck trading goods like it was during the Revolutionary War. People are going to have to grow tomatoes on their driveways and you know how touch that can be Pat...wait a minute. Now you have me doing it...........

And now its time for a commercial break.

America, we had Viagra introduced to you by presidential candidates, well now we have Viagra Extends. Your soft place, and most people watching this show at this time of the morning have soft places, becomes so big and so powerful that you will not be able to go to airports within a week of taking a dose of this brand new medical miracle....

Now we are back with Senator Imhofe from that great state of Oklahoma.  Tell me Senator, did you like the musical?  Mika was smiling and so proud that she could ask this powerful man a question without interruption because Pat was still in the bathroom fixing his depends and Joe was across the street purchasing a quart of Starbucks coffee with whipping cream and chocolate chips, his favorite.

Uh no, I have never seen that musical.  Said Imhofe dourly, although he always says things dourly.

Hmmmmm, responded Mika who loves to say hmmmmmmmm just before taking some more medication. Tell us Senator, what about global warming.

Global warming is the single biggest fraud being perpetrated on the American people since the Civil War which should not have been fought in the first place.  Smog, we do not have smog in Oklahoma because of all that wind being generated in Warshington, DC....hahahahahahahahaha

Pat comes back to sit down after his adjustments.  Hello Senator.

Why hello Pat. Responded the Senator. We were just talking about the fraud being perpetrated on the American People by those prophets of doom claiming that we are all going to be toast in ten years and all the Polar Bears will have to rent refrigeration sections at your local 7-11.

Hahahahahaha. You know who is making all these fraudulent claims?  Rich elite Democrats who go to ivy league schools and attempt to purchase green businesses.....

Jughead returns.  Good morning Senator. Tell me what do you think about this new 4 trillion dollar package and what do those good people in Oklahoma think?

Well Jughead, it is socialism plain and simple and now we have a communist president who was not even born here and I...

Well, to be fair Senator, and we are always fair here, I was really taken by President Obama and that tremendous speech he gave in Illinois and I thought, here is a man who can encapsulate what America is all about.  But he promised all this time that he was going to extend his hand across the aisle so that republicans would have a say as to what this legislation was going to say. And this is a right of center country, and I should know because I played right tackle on the high school football team so I know what right of center means....hahahahahahahaha

hahahahahahahah said everybody.

But then in 1994 Newt and I were elected as a new team, with a new idea, to save America.......

This is a special announcement from our programming supervisor.  I am so sick to my stomach that we are going to cut to I Love Lucy, in progress when Lucy and Ethel are squishing grapes with their feet.....

As often as people don't appreciate their teachers while they're in school, leadership fails to appreciate academia as much as it should.

Reality Based Community's Jonathan Zasloff reports hearing Palestinian scholar and Peoples' Voice Accord co-author Sari Nusseibeh speak last Monday night,

George Mitchell, Nusseibeh suggested, should take an American peace plan (and he made it clear that it should be the People's Voice framework) to both Netanyahu and Abbas.

He should then publicly challenge Netanyahu to place this plan on the Israeli ballot as a referendum. Netanyahu would not have to endorse the plan, but rather allow the voters to decide whether they would accept it as long as the other side does.

On the Palestinian side, he should publicly challenge Abbas to call for new elections (due in the PA thus year in any event) and run on that platform for his presidential campaign -- accepting the plan as long as the Israeli electorate does.

Nusseibeh believes -- and I agree with him -- that such a public offer would be difficult for either side to refuse. It would not require Netanyahu to endorse the plan, but would undermine him politically if he refuses to allow the voters to decide. It would give Abbas a concrete platform and plan to rid the Palestinians of the occupation.

...

This is worth a try. It is better than anything else yet proposed. Is anyone listening?

Ryanair could make passengers pay for toilets

 

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK - 3 hours ago

DUBLIN (AP) -- Is a bathroom an optional extra when you're at 30,000 feet? Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary seems to think so -- and says his no-frills airline might charge customers to use its aircrafts' toilets.

O'Leary whipped up a frenzy of indignation and potty humor Friday as he suggested that future Ryanair passengers might be obliged to insert a British pound coin before they gain access to in-flight relief.

As always when introducing new charges, O'Leary suggested a separate toilet fee would lower ticket costs and make flying, somehow, easier for all. Nobody, even his own aides, seemed to be sure if he was serious or pursuing his well-documented penchant for making brazen declarations to win free advertising.

"One thing we have looked at in the past, and are looking at again, is the possibility of maybe putting a coin slot on the toilet door, so that people might have to actually spend a pound to `spend a penny' in future," O'Leary said, using a local euphemism for relieving one's self.

When asked, during an interview on BBC Television, what would happen if a customer really had to go, but didn't have the correct change, O'Leary dismissed the scenario as implausible. This even though Ireland and most of Europe uses euros, not the British currency, and even on-board attendants often find themselves without the correct change.

"I don't think there's anybody in history (who has) gone on board a Ryanair aircraft with less than a pound," he said.

Politicians and analysts agreed that the man who pioneered charging airline customers to check bags, to use a check-in desk, and even to use a credit or debit card to make an on-line booking just might be serious about mile-high toilet extortion, too.

Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGC Partners in London, cautioned consumers that O'Leary might be attempting two for the price of one: Free publicity backed by cut-throat reality.

"This begs a simple question retort of: Is there absolutely nothing that this airline won't do? Not really, so if you are thinking about flying cattle-class Ryanair in future, beware," he said.

O'Leary's own chief spokesman, Stephen McNamara, said his boss often spoke tongue in cheek -- but then defended the idea of charging for a toilet as part of a logical trend.

"Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and, while this has been discussed internally, there are no immediate plans to introduce it," McNamara said, adding, "Passengers using train and bus stations are already accustomed to paying to use the toilet, so why not on airplanes? Not everyone uses the toilet on board one of our flights, but those that do could help to reduce airfares for all passengers."

Rochelle Turner, head of research at British consumer rights magazine Which? Holiday, said Ryanair had a well-documented practice of "putting profit before the comfort of its customers" -- but this one could backfire.

"Charging people to go to the toilet might result in fewer people buying overpriced drinks on board. That would serve Ryanair right," she said.

Tommy Broughan, transport spokesman for Ireland's Labour Party, said the toilet-charge idea had to be taken seriously.

He noted that Ryanair last month began threatening customers with euro30 fines if they tried to carry on board a second bag regardless of size -- even one filled with a just-purchased item from the airport's duty-free shops.

"When Ryanair introduced this euro30 extra duty-free charge, many passengers joked that next they would be charged for using the toilet -- not realizing that this indeed seems to be the newest extra charge on Ryanair's agenda," Broughan said.

On the recession-hit streets of Dublin, Ryanair-bound people waiting for the airport shuttle bus seemed resigned to the idea of paying for an O'Leary-provided potty.

"Your only choice with Ryanair, really, is not to fly Ryanair. Your dignity goes out the window. If you have a complaint, they're not programmed to care," said Samantha Jones, a 30-year-old Welsh woman who has been using the airline to commute between her weekday Irish job and weekend boyfriend back home near Liverpool.

Jones discounted the practicality of a restroom rebellion. "If you are given a choice between wetting your knickers or not wetting your knickers, you will pay whatever fee they make you pay, and Mr. O'Leary knows this well," she said. "Frankly, I'm surprised he's talking about letting us have a wee for a pound, not more!"

I get it.  A lot of people are uncomfortable with guns.  A lot of people think the world would be better off without guns.  Lots of folks aren't familiar with guns and wouldn't know a "machine gun" from a "semiautomatic."   And finally, lots of folks don't care to find out -- they think guns are scary and that they hurt people (and maybe they have a loved one was injured or killed by a gun).

Despite my gun collection, I agree that it would be a nicer world if nobody had guns.  Unfortunately, that's simply not the reality we live in.  The genie's left the bottle: the horse has long since left the barn.  Guns are prolific in our society and no amount of law will reverse that.

Given the reality we live in, I've chosen to get training and to keep a number of firearms in my home.  In the very unlikely event that some terrible day comes, I will be prepared to defend my family (or hunt to eat).  I respect the views of others who choose another path...but I cannot accept those who, out of their own fears and/or ignorance, would disarm me or my family.

I was disappointed to read of President Obama's push to reintroduce the 1994 'assault weapon' ban.  It was a really bad idea in 1994, and it's a really bad idea today.  Those who support the idea: do you realize that you're criminalizing rifes which are fundamentally IDENTICAL to other, perfectly legal rifles?  Do you realize that "machine guns" are already illegal (and have been since the 40's)?  Do you realize that so-called "assault rifles" are in no way more powerful nor mor dangerous than any other rifles...and despite Hollywood's depictions, assault rifles are only ever used in a vanishingly small % of crimes?  What's really your motivation here, beyond the usual BS 'saving the children' argument-which-we-use-for-everything?

I wonder how many TPM readers support this latest round of disarming-the-populace (and what their reasons are)?

Some bloggers are complaining that President Obama made the claim that the combat mission in Iraq would end on August 31, 2010.  They worry that he's put himself in the same position that Bush did with his Mission Accomplished sign.

I'd like to remind folks of the other part of Obama's speech today.  The victory part.

He told the soldiers they had done their jobs by removing Saddam Hussein, putting in place a government and you gave them a relatively safe nation for the Iraqi people to work with.

As a nation, we have had our share of debates about the war in Iraq. It has, at times, divided us as a people. To this very day, there are some Americans who want to stay in Iraq longer, and some who want to leave faster. But there should be no disagreement on what the men and women of our military have achieved.

And so I want to be very clear: We sent our troops to Iraq to do away with Saddam Hussein's regime - and you got the job done. We kept our troops in Iraq to help establish a sovereign government - and you got the job done. And we will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life - that is your achievement; that is the prospect that you have made possible.

THAT'S a VICTORY speech --  We accomplished what we set out to do!  That is why he announced the withdrawing of our troops.  If you've WON, you leave.  Just as we left after the Gulf War ended (mission accomplished) -- we should plan to leave Iraq again.

Even if Iraq starts getting violent again -- he can claim that at the time of his speech our troops were successful in doing what the mission called for.   This involvement would require a NEW mission.

He can also remind folks that 'he' warned against going into Iraq in the first place because he knew it could be a never ending war for America.

Well, they just keep coming. Obama has now decided that in the middle of the biggest financial crisis in history, with the economy on the brink of collapse, that this would be a good time to put a huge new tax on all Americans. Yes, to stop the phantom menace global warming, Obama wants to put in place a cap and trade system, and to sell pollution 'credits' to CO2 'polluting' industries (like your local power company). Now, the power companies won't eat this huge new tax, so guess what? Your electric bills are going to skyrocket. Just what the economy needs right now! Having trouble paying the bills? Wait until Obama jacks up your utilities cost. Oh, and gasoline will be going up also. And that means all the goods transported by truck. Or rail. Or by air. All more expensive thanks to this genius. And the best part? It won't reduce CO2 emissions at all, it's just a new tax. Of course, since global warming is not real to start with, he can claim 100% success in eliminating it. Which will be a big comfort to the rest of us, sitting in our cold dark homes, hoping a stray cat comes by so we can get a nice meal for a change. Guess that's what he meant by hope and change.

Economics is not my strong suit, but it is my husband's, and some of his knowledge has rubbed off on me. So during this financial crisis I have understood enough of what was going on to have a semi intelligent conversation on the subject, but not well enough to explain it to anyone else. Much of the language is enough to make your eyes glaze over, like listening to a foreign film, where you don't have the benefit of the visual to help you figure out what is going on.

Since I have read many comments indicating a lack of understanding of the basic problem, and not understanding it well enough to shed light on it myself, I have been keeping my eye out for a simple tutorial on the problem, and have finally found one. It breaks the credit crisis down into its simplest components and explains it in terms that anyone can understand. It is a two-part video. 

 

 

Additionally there was a good special on CNBC which originally aired on February 7th that put some faces on the problem.  Interestingly enough good old Greenspan's fingerprints are all over this. That special will be replayed on March 1st. It is scheduled for 7pm here, but if you are interested in seeing it, you'll want to check your local listings...It is a 2 hour show, but well worth the time if you want to understand what happened.

***Major goof-up...The name of the special is House of Cards!!! Highly recommended...

The Republican party right now looks more like a mob then a well oiled political machine but the real problem isn't that they lack a message, it's that they have too many voices saying too many things. 

Certain people, like the ones with 3 hour talk shows, have always represented the more radical wing of the Republican party, those who have about as much of a connection to average Republicans as Air America does to average Democrats.  But now, these people have somehow become main stream.

Both parties, Republican and Democrats, have people who will fit under their parties tent that really don't represent that actual party: abortion clinic bombers, revolutionary communists, or racists.

Right now, the Republican party is so far right that they no longer resonate with the people that they need for the 2010 elections.  So how do you succeed?  How do you rescue the Republican party? 

You wait.  You start to invest in bipartisanship.  The Democrats just did did this during the crazier (2002 and 2004,) years of the Bush administration.  It had progressives furious, but they survived.  I'm sure, unfortunately, that there will be another greed is good revolution in this country but until then, Republicans are going to have to change their message to avoid remaining a regional power.

The party was in trouble.  They couldn't understand it.  Hadn't they, in their beginnings, held the country together and unified it?  Wasn't their first President destined to go down in history as one of the greatest in American history?  How soon the voters forget.

They'd elected the President four years earlier, a member of a prominent American political family that included two Presidents, a Vice-President - who later went on to be President - members of Congress, Cabinet Members, and holders of other official positions. 

But he'd been a disaster.  He'd been rightfully attacked for trying to subvert fundamental liberties guaranteed in the Constitution, he'd been criticized for his absurd over-inflation of the ceremonial aspects of the Presidency.  And his party had bled votes profusely in the cities because of their anti-immigrant stand and for its support of policies aimed at benefitting the rich.

      The mid-term elections had showed the country turning to the Democrats, and now one of them was President, and he'd brought with him a large majority in Congress.  He'd won, despite the Party's attacks on his 'attachment to America,' his religious beliefs, his patriotism.  He'd even been known to hang around with people who'd been revolutionaries in the near past.

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Wonder if the guys who started this fact finding excercise over at DailyKos could find out if Jindal has used any of this type of folklore in his stumping for the Governorship? It would be interesting to find out if he knows Paul Bunyon and John Henry as well:-)

It borders on the physically ill for me to consider the demise of yet another journalistic source. The Rocky Mountain News will die today. And it makes me sad, indeed, to say the very least.

I was the editor of my college newspaper. I was lucky. Nobody else wanted the job...so now I have that one on my resume. I learned a lot about not just publishing, writing stories, assignments, etc, but also about the inevitable office politics of journalism. Most of all, after my stint as editor, I confirmed to myself what I already knew about the modern state of journalism: It's vital. It's of paramount importance to our society. And: Putting out information that can be trusted is not just a sacred duty on the part of the publisher, but the part of the reader as well.

I still remember when my town had three newspapers: The still-kicking Post-Dispatch, the short-lived and shocking-for-my-conservative-little-town (because of its tabloid template and style) St. Louis Sun, and the ironically-named Globe-Democrat, the local champion of all issues Republican.

Hard times for publishing struck St. Louis long before the Rocky Mountain News called it quits. Even the Pulitzer family is now out of the newspaper business, having sold the Post a few short years back. And the story of St. Louis publishing would be bereft without the mention of our alt-weekly The Riverfront Times, which 1) reports the trash, important and otherwise, that the Post can't because of sacred cows being gored and 2) has also been sold by its original owner, the most famous liberal in town, Ray Hartmann.

Both the Pulitzers and Ray must have seen this coming. They're no dummies. These folks have covered their asses and their fortunes. But that doesn't help that feeling of despair when I think of the present-day condition of print publications.

In Switzerland, tax evasion is not a crime, but it is a crime to break tax secrecy. In fact, one Swiss bank employee who discovered that his employer was burning the records of Jewish clients who were Holocaust victims had to seek political asylum in the U.S.

The bank: UBS.

Just one tidbit from a comprehensive Guardian article on why Switzerland is public enemy #1 in the tax haven world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/05/tax-gap-avoidance-switzerland

During a recent trip to the powder room here at the house, I found an empty roll of toilet paper on the holder. A few flecks of white tissue clung to the brown cardboard. This is a sight that every human can probably relate to, or at least those who have no live-in maids.

The chore was before me. I opened the cabinet door beneath the sink and pulled out a fresh roll of paper and took the plastic holder off and placed the roll on it, and fixed it back on to the fastener beside the toilet.

The strangest things come to your mind at the strangest times.

It occurred to me that the chief reason my wife and I married, and still are, comes down to this: We agreed long ago as to which side the toilet paper would face--inside or out. Forget politics; forget who makes how much money; forget the various and myriad choices in the upbringing and discipline of children.

Since we discovered these small facts long before we made the decision to live together or get married or have children, it seems to me that it's a good thing it was decided on, and that we could move on to other more important matters at that time.

It sure didn't take long for the Obama Administration to jump into this geopolitical gamesmanship thingy: We're signaling Russia that we'll junk those plans to lace its backyard with "defensive" missiles if they'll help tamp Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Tit, meet tat.

This must be that diplomatic "carrot and stick" we're always hearing about - the gambit played for eight years by the Bush Administration with all the finesse of Bigfoot cutting a six-carat estate diamond on the hood of a chugging Bulldozer.

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The Cactus Cuties performed this at a Texas Tech basketball game. I've always thought that "America the Beautiful" was the better choice for the National Anthem, as the "Star Spangled Banner" is such a difficult song to sing for most people, and has been so poorly performed so many times at major sporting events and the like. That said, Jennifer Hudson did do a pretty amazing job at this year's Super Bowl. This clip blows me away, though. Amazing job.

Props to david78209 at Daily Kos for posting this there:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/2/27/103337/651/180/702569 

I only listen to NPR morning news while I make coffee and am away from my Sirius Left radio.  It inevitably makes me angry.  This morning they had on a "cute" story from two guys from "This American Life" who reported on the bank bailout followed by an interview with one of those ubiquitous "business professors" they get on.  And this guy was actually a banker turned teacher.  Teacher of what?  How to sell bullsh*t?  The guy blames us for all this mess. And he had a graph to prove it.  That ended the story with no one even vaguely commenting on the reams of wrong in that story.  National Pablum Radio is worse than right wing radio.  It makes just enough sense to get into the public mind set.  It sets the conventional wisdom.  This is what the corporatocracy wants.  It's all our fault.  That way when we have all the safety nets yanked from us, we will all look at each other and say,  "We had it coming, Chester.  We shouldn't a oughta have bought that consarned TV set".  Here's the story.   Taxpayers are on the Hook cuz it's Their Fault

This is yet another example of the business bias of NPR. Having a banker on to tell us that it's our fault is manipulative.  No, Mr. Beim, It's stagnant wages made possible by the attack on unions that shoved people into the open arms of the credit card companies aka banks that's a big part of the problem. Neither did regular working taxpayers borrow money from China and Japan to give the upper one-tenth of one percent tons of America's wealth that never trickled down. Our coporatocracy did that.

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Notice the headlines in recent weeks from our friends @ FoxNews & Drudge: "Obama speaks, stock market tanks" or "Clinton tells Obama to be more optimistic"?

Well, look at those sites today: "Citi in the Sewer", "Economy Worse Than Expected".

Looks like just another case of the right-wing nuts not practicing what they preach.

Also, once again, more proof positive in these headlines today by these jokers, that they are followers of the church of Limbaugh: They all hope Obama fails no matter what it means to our country and its people.

<a href="http://www.pnhp.org/blog/2009/02/26/nobel-laureate-joseph-stiglitz-on-single-payer/">Reluctantly</a>.  And it's not his specialty.  But still.  Go Joe!

The despair seems to be permeating through the opinion-makers, leaders and commentators from the Right. I mean this goes far deeper than the urban slang offered by RNC Chairman Michael Steele when he gave the mia culpa;

"[W]e know the past, we know we did wrong. 'My Bad'".

I mean come on, your BAD? That is not going to cut it Mr. Michael "card-carrying President of the 'Stockholm Syndrome' Club of America" Steele, taking over for the absolutely looney tunes charactor Alan Keyes. By the way what do they put in the water in Maryland to produce caricatures like this but....

Back to Brooks who is a bona fide intellectual who can self examine with some objectivity, which has always made him dangerous. When Brooks reacted to Governor Jindal's "Official GOP Response", he said it was a:
 

"to come up in this moment in history with 'the stale government is the problem, we can't trust the Federal Government', is just a disaster for the Republican Party....but the idea that the government is going to have no role in this when in a moment only the Federal Government is big enough to do stuff, just to ignore all that, government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending is just a form of nihilism, It just is not where the country is...".

Now when you start to really think what Brooks is trying to say he offers a genuine  'self-realization' a look in the mirror so to speak, that his Republican Party of the last 30 years, has evolved to this point, where its core values and beliefs are in reality---unfounded. That the existence of the Republican Party, as it stands right now, being senseless and useless. If you extract the penetrating and revealing irony from the definition of, nihilism you have to ask yourself the question; Is Brooks beginning the discussion for the call of the destruction of the post-war conservative movement and the Republican Party that it has consumed, as the only desirable path for America's sake?

If you really look what Brooks said Tuesday off the cuff: The Republican Party at this critical time in our nation's history, lacks the ability to look at the world in any rational manner, as demonstrated in Jindal's speech, denying any objectivity as understanding basic self-evident political truths, that right now only the Federal Government can do " stuff"  

To me, it was a strange, even premeditated use of an unusual term on national TV.  Taken in that context, coupled with the comments from Olympia Snowe along with the apparent reactionary primary challenge to Arlen Specter in PA, Snowe simply stated to RNC Chair Steele when he proposed systematic primary challenges to those who broke with the the Republican Party to pass the Stimulus Bill, "that the GOP was in the majority when they had moderate members and is not in the majority now when it has but a few.

Are we seeing the collapse of the Republican Party? I will say this, some 20 months out from the 2010 mid-terms, if the Democratic Party majority expands in the Congress and correspondingly, in the state legislatures, the GOP will probably start to break up. It has happened before in our history.

I am working on a book about the Colorado and Colorado Springs and the story behind the story of the 2008 election. What has jumped out is that outside of two counties, the 2nd and 8th largest in Colorado, Barack Obama and Mark Udall carried 57% of the 2008's popular vote. This is a state where only voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate in only 5 presidential elections since 1920; (FDR in '32 &'36, Truman '48, LBJ '64, & Clinton '92) 5 out of 22 elections, and yet outside of those two hardened Republican base counties which comprises about 17% of CO's population, the Democrats have grown to polling 57% for Obama and Udall. No wonder 5 of 7 Congressional Representatives are Democats, CO has both Senators from the Democratic Party as well.

Why?  How did this come about? Well in short, it is the full outcome from the Republican Agenda that was completely played out in Colorado in the 1980's and 1990's. It has a hardened state and local government budget process than cannot respond to the Depression Era Economics and must cut government services by a constitutional statute. It has blithering idiots like State Senator Schulheis who makes statements about AIDS that are revengful and absolutely ignorant, even yesterday! And still the GOP simply offers up the same belief and values that Jindal promoted in his response speech----adjunct nihilism.

Fascinating David, fascinating self awareness of the movement you fostered and promoted.  

As long as you're talking to people and getting them on video, ask the attendees two things:

1.  Do you want Joe the Plumber to run for Congress?

2.  What are the five most important moments in American history?

As for the first, I overheard some hill staffers talking about Mr. the Plumber and saying that he could be making a run at the House.  Personally, I would love to see that since it would conclusively demonstrate their desire to lose all power.

And the second, I just want to know what they would say.  For me the five most important moments are the writing of the Constitution, Lincoln restoring the Union, the Reconstruction Amendments ending slavery et al, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights Movement.  What's striking about these are that none of them are conservative moments or can be counted as such. But we all share the same history, I just wonder what they think is most important.

Please do this!

The Obama administration is setting a very rapid pace of governance. At times it is almost too big and too fast to take it all in or to oversee, though a highly regarded Inspector General will give it a good try. Some of the stimulus money is aready going to work as states get in line for project money.

In the President's address to Congress this week was a "big wish list" of promises to expand government. And, given the seriousness of the world's financial crisis, the size and terms of the new bank (bailout) stabilization program is breathtaking. Regulatory reform is already in the works, also. ProPublica estimates it could be $750 billion.

Health Care and the Federal Budget -- The idea is to expand health care coverage. President Obama will lay out 8 keys to the plan, according to Politico. To quote:

Ahead of the release of his budget Thursday, Obama has endorsed eight guiding principles for health reform, the White House officials said on the conference call. They stressed that they intend to work with lawmakers and other stakeholders on how to accomplish the goals, but the principles will lay down a marker for any congressional plan.

Other goals include maintaining choice of insurance and doctors, ensuring affordable coverage, protecting Americans financial health, investing in prevention and wellness, improving patient safety and quality of care and is fiscally responsible, sustainable and portable.

A tax hike on wealthy Americans will fund half of the cost of the health care plan. Surprisingly some consensus seems to be emerging as the opposite sides find common ground, CQ Politics reports.

In conclusion, we could have a worse set of problems. Few of us want to go back to the lethargic and ineffectual governance that characterized the previous administration. All we can do is get on board this new train and enjoy the ride.

References:

1. Obama address to Congress
   
2. What he really meant, a translation by Politico.
   
3. Budget analysis from Congressional Quarterly Politics.
4. International Herald Tribune discussion of budget's transparency.

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Carol Gee - Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics economic crisis obama administration leadership

Delaware's court of chancery had a chance to sock-it-to Citi's board for failing to avoid the stampede into the mortgage-backed securities market (and derivatives thereof).  At least, to allow aggrieved shareholders to continue their lawsuit against them.  Not to be.

The other day, the Court decided that the shareholders failed to meet the "demand requirement" of pleading--a rule saying that they've got to allege specific facts in their complaint showing that the board maliciously (wrongfully and with bad faith) failed to take action to stop such investments.  They needed to plead more than mere negligence -- the failure to stop their employees from investing in such securities had to be what amounts to criminal recklessness.  This, the shareholder plaintiffs could not do.

Well, at least the Court is allowing the shareholders go forward on the corporate waste (executive pay) argument.

Oh well.  Better luck next time.  but this does not bode well for exacting the public vengeance so many desire.  Or filling the banks' coffers with directors' savings accounts.  Remember, we the taxpayers are now citi's largest shareholders.  And you just lost your lawsuit.

You can read the opinion here:  http://www.delawarelitigation.com/2009/02/articles/chancery-court-updates/
chancery-court-dismisses-shareholder-claims-against-citigroup-for-failure-to-monitor-subprime-
risks-but-allows-waste-claim-for-ceo-pay/

And it's the first good news in a while. Obama of course signed those pretty decisive and heartening executive orders his first day in office - ordering the closure of Guantanamo, the suspension of kangaroo trials there, and the shutting down of CIA black sites around the world. But since then his Justice Department has taken some shockingly Cheney-ite positions on terror, detention and civil liberties issues: invoking the state secrets privilege, as the previous administration did, to try to shut down a lawsuit from former detainees; upholding the Bush position that detainees at Bagram in Afghanistan have no right to challenge their detentions; and working to shield Bush's NSA warrantless wiretapping program from judicial review.

Civil liberties advocates, many of whom expected that Obama would not fulfill their every wish, have sounded nonetheless genuinely taken aback by the whole-hog adoption of Bush legal positions - especially because, in both the state secrets and the Bagram cases, the government's position was nothing more than a couple of sentences submitted to a court affirming support for the previous administration's position. The administration has not offered any deeper explanations for its stances.

But there's good news today. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the last "enemy combatant" detained without charges within the United States - and the subject of a great Jane Mayer piece in this week's New Yorker - will face terrorism charges in a civilian court:

...the decision is a demonstration that Obama administration officials believe the nation's civilian courts are capable of handling some terrorism cases.

Such a belief ought to elicit a collective "Duh!" from everyone - as civilian courts have always handled terrorism cases. But note the word "some." In what we're now coming to recognize is a classic Obama move, the decision leaves the door open on the thorniest question:

The decision also would allow the Obama administration to avoid taking a position for the time being on whether a president may detain legal residents indefinitely without trial.

Still, this is really great news. The Obama administration may not be saying that legal residents can't be detained indefinitely without trial...but at least it's saying this detainee won't be. One hopes the latter is a step toward the former.

Now, there's no question this case is a tough one, but it bears emphasizing that the problems the government may face in prosecuting Marri do not demonstrate the inherent problems of prosecuting suspected terrorists in civilian courts, but rather the obstacles to such prosecution introduced into the equation by the Bush administration. According to Mayer, government lawyers who were preparing to prosecute al-Marri felt they had a pretty "solid" case...but then the Bush administration stepped in days before arguments were to begin in June 2003 and transferred Marri to the Navy brig in South Carolina.

Before agreeing to transfer Marri to the brig, however, the presiding judge in the case ruled that the White House would be barred from charging Marri again with the same crimes. In legal jargon, the original charges were "dismissed with prejudice," to protect Marri's right not to be placed in "double jeopardy." As a result, if the Obama Administration decides to charge him in the criminal system now, it has to bring a different set of charges, unless Marri's lawyers offer a deal. [James] Benjamin, the former [federal] prosecutor, insists that "there is a whole bag of tools for dealing with truly bad guys--there are many other statutes that the government could explore, including material support of terrorism, conspiracy charges, and mail- and wire-fraud charges." But, he suggests, by taking Marri outside the regular criminal system "there's no doubt they made all kinds of problems for themselves."

This is a point that's usually lost in debates over Bush terror policies. The argument against indefinite detentions and torture isn't that they degrade our moral standing and poison our national principles even if they keep us safer. It's that they degrade our moral standing and poison our national principles AND they make us LESS safe. But it's clear that part of the Bush administration's rationale for breaking free of the criminal justice system was precisely to insure that the possibility of a traditional trial would never be an option. Writes Mayer,

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal terrorism prosecutor who writes for National Review, defends Marri's transfer to the brig. "Sure, the criminal-justice system, by permitting Marri's pretrial detention, neutralized him, at least for a time," he says. "But there's always the chance the court will release a defendant on bail." Moreover, he argues that open criminal trials run many risks, including the accidental, or oblique, disclosure of classified information. It's also unclear how to handle witnesses who may themselves be terrorists: they may demand immunity before they will talk. Or it may be that their testimony was obtained by unsavory means, which could scuttle a conviction.

Certainly it's no surprise that there are many prosecutors who feel that defendants' rights ought to be curtailed. But logic like McCarthy's is cruelly twisted: evidence obtained by torture is inadmissable, but rather than not torture people, we'd better just forgo trials altogether and lock up all the suspects forever.

More broadly, the argument from McCarthy and all those who insist civilian courts can't handle terrorism suspects is, at its root: We can't try them because there's a chance we'll lose. But this is an argument that can be made about any trial. It's a short hop skip and a jump from making this argument about terrorism prosecutions to making it about all cases involving crimes we find particularly reprehensible. After all, we could try a case against a suspected child molester, but wouldn't our children be safer if we just locked the suspect up - you know, just to be safe?

If the lawyers and politicians and pundits and former Bush officials want to make the argument to the American people that the criminal justice system needs to be modified so that in some cases, the government can substitute its own judgment for a fair trial, they should make that argument. How anyone can possibly have faith that the government "knows" that some of its detainees are "bad guys" - given how much else the government has "known" over the last eight years - is beyond me. But hey, let's have the debate.

But let's not pretend that terrorism cases are inherently harder to prosecute in civilian courts than other cases. I don't like the idea of trying and releasing someone who may be guilty or dangerous any more than the next guy. But if that happens, let's not make the mistake of blaming Obama for giving them trials. If police misconduct in a murder case taints the evidence, prosecutors don't get just to keep the suspect locked up for fear of losing their case. If we have to let dangerous men go free, it will be because of the poor judgment, bad decisions, and extralegal shenanigans of the Bush administration.

 I had a call with our financial planner yesterday to talk about the carnage in what we have saved for retirement, such as it was.  We floated the idea of moving all or substantial portions of our funds to two new positions (cash and fetal).  I asked them, pointedly, what they believed the core problem that needed to be solved was before the economy turned around. (We would have been better off with a mattress).  

If you read through hundreds and hundreds of complaints on the web about the economic crisis, you will realize at some point that there is a common denominator between most of the complaints.  Most of the people who are angry about this debacle are as confused as they are angry because they are not sure exactly who did this, or how it happened.

I told my buddy yesterday, "the most striking thing about this financial catastrophe is, there is no way to blame a 'rogue' trader or a 'rogue' bank for all of this.  You know, the way we usually do when we want to suspend logic and common sense in order to get a neat, gift wrapped answer to the problem that the guy on the six o'clock news can sum up before they read the winning lottery numbers of the day.  There will be no Nick Leesom, no John Jett, no Lee Harvey Oswald, 'magic bullet' type of cockamamie theory that will be advanced to neatly explain all of this."

To me, this will be one of the enduring frustrations of the financial crisis - that if you are going to blame anyone, you will have to include almost everyone in the financial food chain.  In modern America, that is unheard of.  In modern America, even the highly educated have tended to like our national storylines rendered in a beginning - middle - end fashion, with easily recognizable good guys and bad guys, and one crazed, lunatic psycho personification of evil to point at.

"Toxic assets" and "toxic loans" are catchphrases that every over-caffeinated TV and radio producer in the country relies on to paint a picture for their audiences; "community reinvestment act" is one of the hottest buzzwords on talk radio, that opens the door to the age old "the shiftless, lazy, good for nothing Negroes did this to us" - but these days the catchphrases and buzzwords seem impotent in the face of such a huge national calamity, as if the people mouthing the words have no conviction in their voices.

We don't want phrases right now - we want the enemy, the people who have reduced our 401(k) statements to meaningless abstractions, the people who have taken all of our jobs and still want to lay more of us off every week, the people who told us last week that our homes are worth less than we paid for them five and ten years ago.

Its pretty obvious President Obama didn't do this, but President Bush didn't have the power to do it either.  If you take a look at a hundred year chart of the stock market, you won't see who did this, but you will see when it started - when the regular, gradual trajectory of growth started taking steroids, like the baseball players did, to keep up our string of economic homerun investment returns.       

What do you do when the enemy you want to root out is woven into the fabric of your daily life?  Even if you are the most parsimonious, credit stingy, life beneath your means person you know, is it in your power to convince all your neighbors that they don't have to drink premium coffee?  Is there any way to persuade them that the car they buy doesn't have to have the capability of competing in the Indy 500 to haul them back and forth to work?  Is there anyway to remind them that designer clothing, which seems ubiquitous now, was practically unheard of as daily wear for the masses of us forty years ago?  

We have gone from a nation that used to have one phone number per household to one that has phone number, and one corresponding phone bill, per person.  We pay monthly fees to watch the same TV stations we used to get through our antennas for free.  Our expectation that we deserve the highest level of service and convenience is similar, in many ways, to the modern CEO's expectation that he deserves the highest level of compensation and bonus.  

You cannot sell derivatives to people who will not buy them.  You cannot approve mortgages for people who do not apply for them.  You cannot create off the books trading entities if the regulations do not allow them.  You cannot convince people to pay high interest rates for things they don't really really want.

Finding the enemy is not hard.  For most of us, he is a lot closer than we want to admit.  

Dealing with him, though, will prove to be one of the greatest challenges of modern times, akin to putting toothpaste back into the tube.  Contrary to popular belief, it can be done, but it is a slow, tedious, and very messy operation.

"No civilization would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other."

-- Hannah Arendt

 

"We had orders to obey the head of state.  We weren't a band of criminals meeting in the woods in the dead of night to plan mass murders."

--Hermann Goering
"Nuremburg Transcripts 5 Jan 46"

 

"I was given this assignment which I could not refuse--and besides, I did everything possible to treat the transferee's well."

--Fritz Sauckel
"Nuremburg Transcripsts 23 Feb 46"

 

 

 

I was speculating how it was that we could do what we have done in the name of the "War on Terror." I thought of John Yoo and The Bybee Memo and how "legal justifications" were utilized to fight that "war." I then thought of the Germans of WWII. I thought how similiar the use of law was used by the Nazis to promulgate their power. 

 

What happens if we become the evil incarnate we have always said we have always fought against? What happens if, just as in Nazi Germany, that in the simple duty or the banality of just doing our jobs, we perpetuate that evil? When laws have been made and followed to incarcerate indefnitely without charge and to torture; and the philosophical morality that put substance to those laws is the lay of the land; it is then but a few short steps to when a mandate will be codified...

 

 

To Give a Little Humanity

by

Justice Putnam

 

Yes, yes your Honors. I remember the boy, he was the most reticent I'd seen pass through the transfer camp. Yes, yes, quite unlike all the other children. He was most difficult. You see we were mandated by the High Command to put these children at ease before they were transferred. So we used many means to elicit some kind of benign emotion. To see a young one cry or to laugh meant we were successful. It would not do for them to be transferred as mere zombies. We are not cruel nor are we uncivilized. We never tried to make those children unconscious about their lives; we wanted them to be awake and aware, as all children must be taught.

All the others had no success with him. He neither cried nor smiled; he didn't play with the other children. He was mostly by himself but always, always, awake or asleep, he kept his right fist tight and clenched.

I was called in after a few days. The next transfer scheduled was only two days after that. I offered him candies and he refused any; unlike any of the other children that have passed through the camp the last year. My! He was the talk of Camp! I asked him to relax, I said that he would be taken care of and had nothing to worry about. I assured him that he would be with his parents soon and if he could just unclench his fist, we'd shake on it.

That reticent little boy ran away! No, normally, normally that would not do. Any other child would have been punished, severely. It will not do for other children to observe such a lack of authority in those circumstances. But this boy was my project and I wanted his laughs or his cries to come without force. I am after all, as I've stated before, neither cruel nor uncivilized.

I would sit with him and show photographs of great works of Art the High Command confiscated for protection. I read passages of literary giants from the last few books not burned. Simply being there and feeding him, so to speak, with a firm but learned affection did indeed, yes indeed, calm him.

So like a frightened puppy, that reticent little boy finally began to befriend me. He finally began to speak, to only me mind you, but his little whispers gained some trust in a very short time.

And not a minute too soon. The transfer was only minutes away.

He told me how the authorities apprehended his father one morning a year before. The little one cast his eyes down to the ground as he told me his story; his right fist tight and clenched. He told me of how hungry and sick his mother was; how he would scavenge for some kind of food and bring her some little thing he found.

All the while that reticent little boy told me his story, but his fist remained tight and clenched. I could hear the fires being stoked. The drums of sarin were put in place. The children were being lined up for the transfer and I am sure the little boy had an epiphany.

Because he gazed up at me finally and held his right hand out for me to look. Some sad crumbs of an old muffin were moldy on his palm. He had been saving them for his mother, for when he would see her again. He told me she was so hungry and sick.

Then, with tears welling up in his eyes, he said he didn't think he needed those crumbs anymore. He cried as he was transferred.

You cannot know the sense of accomplishment I had! That little boy faced his transfer with the right amount of humanity mandated by the High Command.

As I've said, we are neither cruel nor uncivilized.

 

© 2006 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen

Yes, I'm kinda pissed off at Holder, and it gets worse the more I think about it. Aside from tons of long-neglected enforcement of laws in government (how many years will the William Jefferson process take? What's up with the Stephens trial? Blago's indictment? Gitmo?), corporate violations, tax regulations and evasion, there's also our issues of domestic abuse/violence against women (vis-a-vis Rihanna) and the new fad sweeping our (and others') nation: tasering.

Lessee, the San Jose police force just had its 6th case of death by tasering. One of those had been beaten by assailants, then beaten by police, pepper-sprayed and tasered. All good fun. Just one police jurisdiction. Another guy was shot in the BART by a cop who thought he was pulling out a taser. Mistakes will be made. Lots of them, like multiple cops tasering at the same time, and one holding the charge button for 39 seconds. A naked man died after being tasered 4 times. 400 people have been killed from tasering in Canada and the US since 2001 and I'm sure it will get worse.  Not quite up there with American deaths in the Iraq War yet, but its new technology, they're breaking into it slowly.

Of course tasers are a vital part of modern policing and used to control the dangerous segment of society, such as 54-year-old women in the wrong seat at a stadium, 14-year-old kids who won't leave the mall, a person restrained in a stretcher, even occasionally someone who's unconscious and won't seem to get up when told, a student talking out of turn at a Kerry rally - just google Digby and Tasers, she's been covering the phenom pretty hard for a while. [AFAIK, hasn't been used yet on bank execs who overspend their bailout money and go on lavish junkets, but I'm sure that day will come.]

Is it necessary? I once was sitting in a Vegas casino late one night (minding my own business, of course) when I heard some angry drunk yelling. The bouncers confronted him, but from a distance. From what I remember, there were only 2 or 3 of them, but they slowly and carefully made a wall and just walked/walled him out of the casino, no attempts to grab him, push him, restrain him, drop him to the ground. It was over in seconds. Very professional Kinda like that plane in the Hudson, just a beautiful, perfectly executed maneuver by well-trained personnel. Sure, not every police encounter is as non-threatening, but when the manual says, "tase first, ask questions later" and the manual assures us a little bit of electro-shock is harmless and even good for you ("lit me up like a lightbulb, Nurse Ratched, just the re-charge I needed"), well, we're not going to see better for a while. So hey, Eric, how about some new guidelines. Think first, taser later (or  seldom).

Oh great, the New Orleans police department, poster children for restraint and devotion to duty, just got outfitted with tasers.  Well, the good part I guess is that many of the blacks didn't return, so they'll have to make do with tasering white people for fun. [Kind of segues into the Rihanna/rape post, 12-year-old black girl in her front yard gets nabbed by undercover cops because they thought she was a prostitute from a call a few blocks away, and beat her up because she "resisted arrest". Imagine if we were a cruel nation how bad it could get. We should thank our lucky stars.]

Slightly off-topic (is anything slightly off-topic in this whacky bloggy world?), wondering when self-trepanation will merge with self-tasering as the cerebral sport of the thinking class? More on self-trepanation here (really like the kid's game, and hadn't known the Lennon stuff before - "Fixing a Hole" takes on a whole new meaning). Since Quinn already has opened nasal passages, I imagine he can make first foray into this daring new venue, letting us know if it provides the immediate relief and just-fer-fun jerks and squirts as cranial drilling would.

The president of the United States is in the market for a "First Dog" for his daughters to play with. Apparently the Obamas have settled on a Portuguese Water Dog (see photo above).

It came to me that the TPM Café folk would love to participate in a presidential dog naming contest, which I hereby propose.

Here is my entry, but first a little background on the breed:

In Portugal, the breed is called Cão d'Água; literally "water dog" Wikipedia 

In Portuguese  the word for "dog" is "cão", but there is a trick here. The "ão" in Portuguese is pronounced "an", so that that the word for  "German" in Portuguese, which in Spanish would be "aleman" and in French "allemande", in Portuguese is written "alemão", but pronounced the same: "an".

This means that the word for dog in Portuguese, "cão" is in fact pronounced "can" as in.... You guessed it....

There is a common joke that is tossed around political circles which attempts to describe what the real differences are between Democrats and Republicans. It goes, "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line." While probably not as funny as a fifteen minute conservation with former President Bush on the responsible role of government there is a lot of truth in those few words.

While it is slowly changing, thanks to the work of the House Speaker, the Democratic Party has been described in the past as a political party without a clear message or general consensus. With more liberal Democrats representing the coastal and more liberal states, and more conservative Democrats representing the Southern and Mid-Western states. Political infighting was common, and many believe it is what led to the Democratic Exile of the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Republican Party could not have been much more different. Ever since the Republican Revolution in the mid 90s, the Republican party has run like a colony of ants, with a strict hierarchy and a no nonsense-no dissent policy. The Republicans came into power with a clear message and they stuck to it. When President Bush won, or more appropriately "was given", the presidency in 2000 the Republicans in Congress quickly assumed their new role as the President's Yes Men without question or hesitation.

Fortunately nothing lasts forever, and that includes the Republican Majority. In the months since the general election much of the political chatter has been about where the Republican Party should go from where, who the actual leader is of the Republican Party, what are the Party's principles, and, apparently, how to give the Party an urban beat.

We are beginning to get some of the answers. The party has seemingly unanimously chosen to put all of their remaining political capital on a bet, which rests on the President and Democrats in Congress spending bills not working. The Party's Sheppard, Rep. Eric Cantor, has done an excellent job of controlling his fellow Congressmen. The Congressman has sent out memos to his colleagues instructing them not to vote for the bill out of ideologue and Party loyalty, regardless of whatever the facts may be for each individual Congressmen's district. The message to the American people is clear: in the wake of going astray during the Bush years, the 'new' GOP is a party that sticks to principle no matter what.

Senate-side however cracks have begun to appear, and the Party is quick to fix them, or at least prevent anymore from popping up. The Republican strong-hold broke when three Republicans put their own interest, and that of their country, before the Party and voted for the President's stimulus bill--with making excessive modifications and trimming the supposed fat from the bill. In true Republican fashion these Senators: Sen. Arlen Specter (Penn.), Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME), and Sen. Susan Collins (ME); have been labeled as Persona Non Grata by their cohorts. Dissent is clearly not acceptable in the Republican Caucus.

Of course these Senators knew what they were getting into when they hinted that they might support the President. The Republican Figurehead, Michael Steele, has reportedly stated that he is open to helping other Republicans, ones who would fall in line with the Party's decision, who might be interested in contesting the seats of those three Senator when each of them come up for re-election. While this obviously means that those three Senators might face an uphill battle during the next election cycle, this move of Steele's was a clear sign to all Republican members of Congress that the Party will not tolerate ideas or opinions that stand at odds with that of the Party leaders.

Which is understandable, after all who do we think they are? Democrats?

And to be fair, everyone knows Speaker Pelosi has reined in her Democrats as well; and that those Democrats that voted against the bill will have to pay for it in some fashion. However, Party isolation and public threats does not seem to be the Speaker's style, whereas Steele and other Republicans have no shame in showing the public exactly how partisan the Republican Party really is.

Capital One got $3.55 billion in TARP funds. Now they are taking their customers to the cleaners - including me.

Like many Capital One customers, I recently received a rather dramatic "change of terms" notice. I actually called Capital One to 1) translate it for me, and 2) loudly complain.

Read more »

I believe that it is our duty as Americans but more importantly human beings to start really creating a lot of clammer to president to Obama to start investigating the wrong doings in the Bush years. I saw the news today but it was also said that they weren't planning on handing out jail time just looking over it. That is ridiculous no man is above the law and a criminal of that magnitude needs to be severely punished. If we do not act I guarantee we will see future presidents break the law in such a way, and this is unacceptable. Also we should really pressure sites such as moveon.org to get a petition going to really go after Bush and have them do radio ads to spread the message. Obama has said he needs his base to push him on important issues and this is definitely one of those extremely important issues. So lets act on it asap.

I have been a quiet, but generous (for my means) supporter of Mr. Obama during his campaign. I really don't do the whole "social networking" thing. I have never agreed with with all of his positions, but even when I disagreed, they seemed to be based more on evidence, and less on emotion; more on facts than popular opinion (gas tax repeal anyone?). Today Mr. Holder made comments in public that violated this tradition of fact based policy. A departure that has finally motivated me to break my silence.

Despite treating most of the constitution as nothing more than annoyance, the one amendment the Bush administration did manage to respect was the second. Allowing the "Assault Weapons" ban to expire was one of the few cracks of light in eight years of gloom.

Now we hear Mr. Holder speaking (presumably for the administration) about reinstating this stinker of a law.

Read more »

It looks like the corporate whore Blue Dog and New Democrat caucuses are doing their level best to kill the ability of bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgages on primary residences. (Cram-downs)

Chairman of the New Democrat Caucus, Ellen Tauscher, that it's not fair to people not in bankruptcy who are being screwed by their banks, which is complete bullsh$#.

If people have the stick of cram-downs to wave at the banks, it makes those banks much more likely to renegotiate loans.

What's more, it only applies to loans already made, not those going forward, and, depending on draft, may only be limited to sub-prime mortgages.....It is very weak tea to begin with.

This is "I want donations from the banks" crap, and Ellen Tauscher is in a very safe Dem district, having won each election with more than 65% of the vote since redistricting.

She needs to be primaried, but according to Act Blue, she does not have a primary opponent right now.....Damn.

Cross posted from 40 Years in the Desert.

Shorter Politico: class warfare is when you point out that the rich and powerful are indeed rich and powerful.

This post first appeared at jesselava.com.

In JPMorgan Chase's "Investor Day" presentations, the card services presentation contained some year-over-year numbers for sales volumes (which I think includes both credit and debit card puchases - see page 44).

Travel is being cut back with airlines down 6.7%, hotels/motels down 9.2% and travel agencies down 17.3%. Since travel consumes a lot of energy, this should also be helpful to the environment.

Shopping in expensive stores is declining, with department stores down 12.0% and jewelry/watch/clock stores down 22.0%. I've never understood why people buy expensive watches in jewelry stores, since the cheap ones keep excellent time. And diamonds are notoriously associated with exploitation of miners and cutters/polishers, besides being used to fund warlords.

On the other hand, discount stores are down only 3.8%, which indicates that necessities are still being purchased.

On another slide, they showed that their "mass affluent" and "affluent/high net worth" customers are also using their cards a lot less.

So much for the argument that tax cuts for the rich will stimulate the economy.

Cross-posted from The End of the American Century

David Leonhardt, the prescient and hard-headed New York Times economics columnist, states flatly that "your taxes are going up" in his column of Feb. 25. Leonhardt's data and arguments reinforce those I have made in The End of the American Century and in my Op-Ed for the Christian Science Monitor ("This is not the time to cut taxes").

Leonhardt argues that if we want the government services that we have come to expect and rely on (like national security, infrastructure, Medicare, education), we need more federal revenues, because at the moment "we are not paying nearly enough taxes to maintain those programs." He sees taxes going up soon, "and the increase will be permanent."



On the upside, Leonhardt argues, there is room for such an increase, and it will probably not hurt economic growth. As he points out, for a half century federal taxes have remained fairly constant relative to the size of the economy--at about 18% of GDP. "But the 18 percent era has to end soon."

In The End of the American Century, I show that US tax rates are low in global comparisons.

"Compared to other wealthy countries, the United States has among the lowest rates of both individual and corporate income taxes, and total tax revenues in the U.S. (as a percentage of GDP) are lower than those in most of the affluent democracies that are members of the OECD [see OECD data here]. Thus, not only is the U.S. spending and consuming more than most countries, but it is not paying for the relatively few benefits that the government provides. This is the crux of the problem of the deficit and the debt."

Leonhardt argues that "despite all the scary stories you've heard, the evidence that higher taxes necessarily cripple an economy is somewhere between thin and nonexistent." He points out that the fastest postwar economic growth occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, "when the top marginal tax rate was a now-unthinkable 90 percent."

He also points out that it will not be sufficient to simply raise taxes on the very wealthy, as President Obama has proposed. The incomes and wealth of that group have soared in the last decade, as their federal tax rates have declined. So their higher tax rates should be restored.

But, as Leonhardt says, "the problem can't be solved just by taxing the rich." That top 1% pays only about one quarter of federal taxes. So the tax increases will have to spread more widely.

This will be a very difficult task politically. No politician wants to raise taxes. But not to do so will simply pass the problem onto our children, and burden them with an even bigger mountain of debt. We need to start paying for what we get. And especially now, as we launch huge new spending programs for health care, education, infrastructure and banks, we need to shell out for what we are getting.

And so does William K. Black He definitely gets it.

    * the FBI accurately described mortgage
      fraud as "epidemic"

    * nonprime lenders are overwhelmingly
      responsible for the epidemic

    * the fraud was so endemic that it would
      have been easy to spot if anyone looked

    * the lenders, the banks that created
      nonprime derivatives, the rating
      agencies, and the buyers all operated
      on a "don't ask; don't tell" policy

    * willful blindness was essential to
      originate, sell, pool and resell the
      loans

    * willful blindness was the pretext for
      not posting loss reserves

    * both forms of blindness made high
      (fictional) profits certain when the
      bubble was expanding rapidly and
      massive (real) losses certain when it
      collapsed

    * the worse the nonprime loan quality the
      higher the fees and interest rates, and
      the faster the growth in nonprime
      lending and pooling the greater the
      immediate fictional profits and
      (eventual) real losses

    * the greater the destruction of wealth,
      the greater the (fictional) profits,
      bonuses, and stock appreciation

    * many of the big banks are deeply
      insolvent due to severe credit losses

    * those big banks and Treasury don't know
      how insolvent they are because they
      didn't even have the loan files

    * a "stress test" can't remedy the banks'
      problem -- they do not have the loan
      files.

But apparently neither Geithner nor Bernanke do.

C

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) complained to a friendly crowd at CNBC this morning that Obama's tax increases would harm the economy, and insisted the best way to raise revenue is to cut taxes:

HUTCHISON: I think we get revenue the way we've done it in the past that has been so successful in the past and that is tax cuts...Every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9BzbB3nCLU

You heard it here Americans -- Major Tax Cuts Create Revenue

President Barack Obama along with the Democratic Party and 3 Republican senators just passed a Recovery and Reinvestment bill giving away the LARGEST TAX CUT IN HISTORY to 95% of Americans.

Well, to watch the financial shows today, you'd think that president Obama had just declared war on the upper class, by suggesting that the wealthiest 2% of Americans were going to be asked to pay a little more in taxes! It's like poking a stick in an anthill and watching the ants scurrying around in an uproar!

On CNBC the commentators were beside themselves decrying the class warfare and how awful it was going to be that the wealthiest among us were going to be asked to pony up a little more to get us through this mess (never mind that a bunch of them are the ones who got us here to begin with!)

Donny Deutsch (a guest on the panel) and self-professed wealthiest person in the building was the ONLY one to speak up and say this was a wise proposal. That he didn't mind one little bit being asked to pay more. I was embarrassed for all the others on the panel.

I would LOVE to see a report on exactly how much money they would actually have to pay, and exactly what they might have to cut out of their budgets to pay it.

I would venture to guess they will be able to pay their heating oil bills, and keep the Mercedes (even both of them!) and still go to the gym, and get the mani/pedi once a week. I doubt they will have to fire the gardener or the housekeeper (okay, maybe the live-in might have to go...) Vacations might have to be scaled back a bit...perhaps only 3 weeks in the south of France. A few might have to give up the 2nd (make that the 3rd) home. In rare cases they may have to fly coach instead of 1st class. The new matching Rolex's may have a wait. They may have to do without the $200.00 a bottle of wine and learn to love the $50.00 swill. That designer coat might have to last 2 years instead of just one season...You can see how traumatic it will be.

Now contrast that with those who have to decide whether to pay the heating oil bill or buy their kids medication. Those who are underwater with their mortgages and have to decide whether to struggle to keep paying it even though the house is not worth as much as they owe (even though they put 20% down on it!) or to walk away from it with the inevitable damage that will be done to their credit rating. Those who have played by the rules their whole lives, and now, through no fault of their own, find themselves with no health insurance and are being forced to declare bankruptcy because they can't pay their medical bills. Those who have to feed their children from the dollar menu at McDonald's because it is cheaper than buying real food at the grocery store.

Think about those who are one paycheck away from losing their jobs and can't sleep at night worrying about how they are going to keep their family from living in their car, if they still have one.
Imagine the children going to sleep hungry, day after day after day, and the pain of parents who have to watch it.

We have never in our lives made even close to the kind of money that will be the starting point for the higher taxes, not even when we were both working. Yet we've managed to send 3 kids to college, own two homes, and spend seven weeks in Maui this year. We have a comfortable life. It makes me physically sick to my stomach to watch them cry over the tiny little blip this will be in their lives, compared to the REAL hardship so many Americans face.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

And you know what? Just like I got a perverse enjoyment over watching the ants scurry out of the anthill when I was a child, I have to confess to getting that same feeling watching them running around this morning crying poor pitiful me...

Cross-Posted at Project Vote's Voting Matter's Blog

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

by Erin Ferns

Nationwide, budget concerns seem to be rendering most of this year's threatening election reform proposals impassable. However, that does not prevent these measures from perpetuating the irrational distrust in elections (and voters) that come with restrictive voter ID and voter registration proposals. Instead of focusing on resolutions that would create more transparency in election administration without disenfranchising voters, lawmakers in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas made headlines for their battles to move voter ID laws last week, while two more states are discussing bills that would negatively impact young voters.

Read more »

February 26, 2009 (LPAC)-- It is reported that corporations are pulling money out of Citigroup, and perhaps some other banks, in the light of worries about those banks' survival and the fact that the FDIC generally only guarantees deposits up to a $250,000 limit. But, the report went on, Geither is formulating his shifting bail-out schemes with no regard to this reality.

A new PAC launched today to challenge corporate, anti-progressive Democrats in party primaries. The group, called Accountability Now, has the support of a variety of big progressive players like MoveOn, SEIU, and Democracy for America. Bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher are co-founders and are playing visible advisory roles. From the press release:

Accountability Now PAC announced its plans today to use primaries to hold incumbents to account for voting with corporate interests instead of their constituents. The new PAC is a grassroots effort devoted to compelling real accountability in Washington by closing the gap between citizens and their elected representatives in Washington, DC.

"We need members of Congress to leave the bubble of Washington, D.C. and stand with their constituents," said Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake.com and co-founder of Accountability Now. "We need members of Congress to ask the tough questions about continued Wall Street bailouts that reward the donor class, two wars without seeming end, the ceaseless assault on our civil liberties, and other issues that separate the citizenry from the DC cocoon."

"Accountability Now is an organization built around a single guiding principle: challenging the institutional power structures that make it so easy, so consequence-free for Congress to open up the government coffers for looting by corporate America while people across the country are losing their jobs and their basic constitutional rights while unable to afford basic health care," said Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com and co-founder of Accountability Now.

If I'm reading this Huffington Post piece correctly, the PAC will run opinion polls in congressional districts across the country and then target the Democrats that are most out of step with their own constituents. (Of course, I assume that's restricted to Democrats that are to the right of their constituents; if any progressives have managed to gain power in conservative areas, I have a feeling this organization won't be gunning for them.)

Accountability Now's line of attack is exactly the right thing for the progressive movement -- for two reasons.

The first is moral and philosophical. By definition, a political movement should be about supporting principles rather than politicians. We shouldn't be asking how to ensure that Barack Obama succeeds as president; we should be asking how best to enact a policy agenda that improves people's lives and promotes the common good. A movement that becomes wedded to the individuals leading it is no movement at all, in the literal sense of the word: a movement should be pushing society in a certain direction rather than waiting for cues from the powerful.

The second reason is strategic. As I and many others have argued, there's no set political center in American politics. The apparent center is determined by the two poles that occupy the general limits of a political debate. If progressives argue A and conservatives argue C, the center is B. If progressives argue B and the conservatives argue D, the center is C. So when politicians feel compelled to "move to the center" as part of an effort to get stuff done and avoid seeming extreme, they are responding to such realities.

The factors that determine that center and act as pressure points on our political class are myriad: campaign contributions, media opinion, elite norms, lobbyist influence, social activism, constituent letters and meetings, public opinion polls, politicians' own moral compass, and ultimately elections. If Democratic politicians feel most of those pressures coming from the right and barely any coming from the left, the result will be predictable: conservative governance. The pols move to a more conservative place not because they want to, but because they have to given the political realities they face.

But if the political realities are changed -- if pressure starts coming from the left as well as from the right -- politicians will adjust. That's what they're good at, after all: reading politicial tea leaves and responding to the pressures of power. That's what got these guys into office and what keeps them there.

What Accountability Now is doing is changing the political reality for Democrats in Congress. They're giving Democrats a political, strategic reason to act like progressives. A lot of electeds would like to do that anyway, but until groups like this come along, most of the pressures come from the right. Changing that dynamic is a good thing, and indeed, it actually does these Democrats a favor -- though it's a favor I suspect most of them would happily decline.

There's a story about FDR that has been much-adduced in progressive circles since Obama's election. When a group of FDR's allies once came to him with a policy request, he is alleged to have replied: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." What FDR understood is that the notion of politicians as moral agents who act solely according to the dictates of their own conscience is a child's fantasy. In a democracy, you can't just convince a politician that a particular policy is the right thing to do. You have to show how it's the right thing for him or her. Just like in natural selection, politicians who are attuned to such realities will survive, and those who aren't will go the way of the dodo.

Accountability Now is doing exactly what organizations in a democracy are supposed to be doing: moving the center.

This post first appeared at jesselava.com.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton simply replied, "Because that's where the money is."  Same reason when it comes to taxing the top 2%.  Not only is that where the money is, it's the only place left where the money is.

I would love to see an aggressive carbon tax plus a 49% marginal tax on the the top 1% of earners until the budget has been out of deficit and into surplus for at least 5 straight years and had paid down 90% of the then existing national debt.  If that takes 20 years, so be it.

Take that all you "small business owners" like Paris Hilton and Rush Limbaugh.

TPMGary had a post earlier that reassured me a bit about the budget for next year and the massive deficits we'll soon have, but I gotta say that I'm still worried.  A lot.  I still feel a bit hypocritical for complaining about Bush's deficits, even though we are at least spending somewhat more wisely.

But seriously, 1.75 TRILLION dollars?  How can Obama be so sure that he can cut this deficit in half without raising taxes on the middle class?  How much can he save in cutting unnecessary programs/defense spending?  And how much of this debt am I going to have to pay back in the future?  I understand that this is something that we inherited, but I feel like the scale could easily tip for the worse.  And inflation could go up if the Fed winds up printing too much money.

Don't get me wrong though--I'm still supporting Obama all the way with this.  It's been awhile since we've had a president this ambitious.  For the first time in decades, we're going to tackle all of our problems at once, from healthcare to education to our relationships with other nations. 

I think I'm just scared, that's all.  And the Republican Party is scared because they know that they are done for at least the next ten years if Obama's plan works, so they go all around on the media spreading this fear (which some like me are probably buying).  And the magnitude of our problems is probably scaring us too--causing us to not want to solve them and stick to that old "tax cuts stimulate the economy" idea.

What our country is doing now is sorta like what everyone goes through in life--you have to work hard to reap the rewards.  A couple of years ago, I was really struggling in college.  I thought about changing my major, but I realized that I just didn't want to challenge myself.  I became happy with just being average.  I, like Wall Street, went out on weekends and got drunk only to deal with a hangover (usually in the form of a test the next week that I probably didn't study for).  After retaking some classes to boost my GPA and deciding to stick it out with my major, I'm graduating in 3 months and I have a job lined up despite the current economic turmoil.  Had I continued my old habits, things wouldn't be so peachy now. 

What we're doing seems quite scary--but no matter which way I look at the issue and no matter how apprehensive I am about what could happen--I feel like this is the right thing to do.

I really don't know what the point of this post is.  But even though I just came up with an analogy for what our nation must do, I guess you can still give me an e-hug and tell me everything's gonna work out.

Back in November, I posted a 3 part interview with a European health expert who discussed with me some of the reasons why American healthcare is crippled. Our last interview focused on why market regulation of healthcare doesn't work. My blog had a remarkably short life on the TPM site because I posted on the day of the election (November 4). Suffice it to say, we had other things on our mind that day!

The subject is receiving new attention now and I'd like to  re-post parts of the intervew here. My health expert and I have modified and essentially updated the information so as to make it a nearly brand new interview. It's an incisive look at American healthcare from a reasonably objective outside expert.

Blevins: Why hasn't market regulated private healthcare worked in the US?

François: The big problem with private healthcare is that it not comprehensive enough, so it is ineffective.

Take the pharmaceutical industry for instance, its money is just like Wall Street's money, and just like what happened to Wall Street, speculation has driven prices up to artificially high levels. By this I mean the price that consumers pay is absolutely not justified by the cost of drug production, or by the return investment shareholders can reasonably expect, not even by the risks tied to production (i.e. for every drug you produce you have others that fail so you have to include this in the price of the successful drugs). 

These factors do not really determine current prices at all. Rather, they are fixed by the demands of stockholders who, driven by a desire for profit, push the company to determine its prices based solely upon the material desires of the shareholders and the company's stock market value.  So prices skyrocket because the real factors that should determine their value are discarded for the volatile and fabricated values of stock market demand.

Blevins: Some would argue that the market hasn't done so well lately but that it still has the capacity to regulate the price of medecine properly, if the market itself is regulated properly.

François: In the healthiest market in the world, with all the right regulations in place, this is still impossible. Let me explain. In order to do it, I must go back to something that happened during the campaign.  McCain wrote in a medical journal that healthcare should be deregulated (like the markets). He got a lot of flak for that but if I understood him correctly, what he meant was that he wants healthcare policies to compete across state lines.

On the surface, this isn't a bad idea.  Private healthcare does have a real benefit and McCain knows this very well. When you have identified a risk for the individual, say smoking for instance, only private insurance has the flexibility to force its policy holders to improve their health habits (i.e. if the individual continues to smoke the insurance company has the right to raise his or her premiums). McCain's desire to let insurance companies compete would seem to provide the necessary market competition (thereby reducing premiums) while allowing insurance companies to more or less motivate healthy behavior. So McCain (and other politicians like him) are making a point that seems valid, but upon inspection it doesn't hold up or even make sense in this industry for one very big reason: these cases of identifiable medical illnesses with 100 percent prediction of risk (the only ones that can be effectively controlled by market regulation of healthcare) are statistically insignificant.

The vast majority of health problems result from causes that are not known and thus not measurable by any objective criteria (accidents, genetic problems that are currently undetectable before adulthood, most cancers) all these health risks are not measurable like you can measure the risks of smoking.  So it makes absolutely no sense to promote a healthcare plan based upon criteria that apply to less than 10 percent of your country's medical problems. You have to provide some kind of minimal coverage that does not depend upon individual behavior if you want to avoid a massive breakdown in healthcare. This is precisely what the US is now experiencing.  So even though you make great technological advances in medecine, your actual performance has been effectively blocked by market considerations, causing you to invest large amounts of money, even while your avoidable death rate rises at an alarming rate. It's very simple. Most health risks are not measurable and any market regulation will assume that they are measurable and thus controllable.

Let's hope your faith in the free market, which isn't entirely missplaced, can be tempered enough to allow you to implement an effective healthcare system.

There's natural increasing blogging interest here in health care policy as the administration prepares to push for it. I recalled all of Maggie Mahar's excellent posts on the issue in  here on TPMCafe circa 2007, where she spent a lot of time interacting with commenters, answering their questions, and informing them further with detailed knowledge about realities.

I went to find those posts, and it's highly unfortunate: you don't even have them unloaded into your database available here! Her archive is empty, she has not been re-registered. I found by google search that they are only available individually and only if you know what to search for, and are still not in the new format so the comments are out of order. They are in some kind of strange database created by Apperceptive, here's an example.

Whether or not you can retrieve her past postings here, I think your audience would very much benefit from new postings from her here as the health care reform debate ramps up.  Instead of bloggers just repeating the same basic arguments over and over that will go nowhere, they might learn from her more of the actual realities going on that would enable them to be more effective in their arguments and any activism they might be interested in pursuing.

For those interested in the meantime, she has her own blog:  http://www.healthbeatblog.org/

It seems that one of the flaws in this week's discussion of constitutionalism is the idea, introduced by author Michael Signer, that present day America is an example of constitutionalism at its practical best.   Signer argues that our devotion to the principles of the constitution has left us with a stable political system and an imperfect but nonetheless effective restraint on any charismatic demagogue who might seek to gain power and influence.

Rachel Kleinfeld joined the discussion and made two points that interested me: first that the disputed election of 2000 went smoothly because of constitutionalism in our culture and second that the American people need to be more involved and to take a greater interest in politics in order to keep the government from committing acts of torture, domestic spying or anything else we might not like.  Both of these points seem obvious but are problematic for reasons I'll get into in a sec.

Some of us engaged Signer on his characterization of Hugo Chavez as a demagogue.  Signer defended his characterization and Michael Lind offered some very nuanced (and much appreciated by me) support.  Indeed, I'm convinced.  Chavez is a demagogue.  I just don't think he's a bad one.

Because if constitutionalism functions the way Signer and the other commentators on his book say it does, I'm not sure that's such a good thing.  Let's take Kleinfeld's example of the 2000 election.  Is it really a good thing that we got a president who lost the popular vote, lost the electoral college because of a dodgy recount run by his brother's political cronies, and then was installed in the White House by a Supreme Court largely appointed by his father, and there weren't riots in the streets?  That, my friends, is a proper cause to riot. An abiding respect for the constitution shouldn't inspire people to stand idly by while the highest office in the land is stolen.

I suspect, though, that two things other than constitutions kept people from rioting in 2000: apathy (most people didn't even vote, so they're not going to get worked up over the results) and fear of the police who have a history of taking extreme action against protesters.

I agree with Kleinfeld's second point that we need a more interested and informed citizenry as a check on government power.  But how can citizens stop the government from acting in secret, especially when the government appeals to the constitution and laws deemed constitutional in support of its secret actions?  You can't stop the torture you don't know about.  You can't stop domestic wiretapping unless the New York Times exposes it.  And in that case, even when the government extra-constitutional actions were exposed, what did the people's representatives do?  They changed the laws so as to codify the government's behavior!

It's hard to separate Signer's constitutionalism for the simple :"rule of law."  And yes, having a society where the rule of law means something is important but we have to ask who our laws are serving -- should we really respect laws that favor the rich over the rest of us?  Because that's what we have now.

When Michael Signer gives his closing statement tomorrow or over the weekend, I'd like him to answer a simply worded but complicated question: "Whose constitutionalism?" 

I'm not convinced that what he's talking about is serving the American people well at all, so I'm light years away from believing that we should even be talking about trying to export it.

Obama's budget has 750 billion more money for banks. That's just unacceptable. These guys have been given enough, and then they keep using extortion to get what they want. ENOUGH!

                                              A BOOK REPORT

Book reports are done by amateurs. Book reviews are done by people who wish to sell books. Or unsell them as the case may be. This is a book report. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the  Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes*

I have to give you some background or you will have no idea in what context I am reading this book. I believe that almost two million years ago a hominid walked the earth as Homo Erectus. This was not the title of a gay porno movie.  This animal walked on two feet. The feet were not like a chimp. A chimp's foot can grasp.  Homo Erectus did not grasp things with his feet.

He started out with a minimal brain capacity of 500-600 ccs. His brain and his body developed over a period of a million years. By 800,000 years ago, this hominid had a brain capacity of over 800 ccs. He could dig a hole in the earth, put some stones in it and start a fire.  Home and hearth.
800,000 years ago.  And immediately he moved out of Africa into the Middle East, proceeded north to the Ukraine and Georgia. Part of his tribe moved east into Russia and China and part moved to the southeast into Indonesia. Another part went west into western Europe.

Half a million years later Homo Erectus morphed into Neanderthal.

But 800,000 years ago, not only did he have fire, he most probably had boats. Because we find him in Java and surrounding islands.

Western Anthropologists maintain that 100,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens, somewhat less evolved than us, did the same thing Homo Erectus did. He, all of a sudden, moved out of Africa into the ME up through the Ukraine and Georgia. A part of him moved east into Russia and China. A part of him moved southeast into Indonesia and another part went west into western Europe.

Eastern Anthropologists do not agree. Homo Erectus they say already demonstrates Asian Features half a million years ago. They posit that Eastern Homo Erectus morphed into Asian Homo Sapiens. Western Homo Erectus morphed into Homo Sapiens.

There were some changes 100,000-200,000 years ago.  Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal began burying their dead. I saw a documentary on the History Channel showing a complete skeleton of a male Homo Sapiens found in Africa in a kind of fetal position with his arms outstretched and between his hands was a complete skeleton of a dog. This guy was buried with his dog seventy thousand years ago.. So the next time someone tells you that we did not 'domesticate' animals until ten to twelve thousand years ago, think about that.

30,000-100,000 years ago, evidence appears of flowers being buried with the corpse. And necklaces usually made from shells. Holes had been drilled into the shells and some sort of string linked them together.  Neanderthal could not figure out the drilling part. They would wrap the string around the ends of the shells after making modifications  and link them in that manner.

15,000-35,000 years ago, some of the greatest paintings I have ever seen, appeared on the insides of caves. Bison, stags, mammoths, fish, all sorts of fauna. And stick men besides the outlines of hands.  The first 'signatures' if you will. Kilroy was here. In color, originally. Scientists can tell this from the ocher used with the charcoal.

These paintings were usually found in special secluded areas of the caves.  Churches if you will. And one must imagine what it was like to be in these special caves with a fire flickering. These figures would dance. The first moving pictures. There is motion in these paintings. Just google cave paintings. If you follow it up I do not expect to hear from you for days.

      
In the Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes posits that early man-however you define that phrase-had a different perspective on things than modern man.    He theorizes that our left brain was more separated from our right brain and that at one point, the gods actually spoke to us.  Athene actually speaks to Odysseus and he sees and hears her. Agamemnon feels the presence of Zeus. This is not speaking in a metaphorical sense. In the Iliad, these gods are real.  In the Odyssey the gods fade away. In Kirk Douglas' portrayal of Ulysses in his movie, that is the main theme. We do not need these gods anymore. We are free agents. As I will demonstrate, Jaynes' argument is more complicated than this. But he sees a difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey in terms of the consciousness of man.

Now more context. It is GENERALLY agreed that a man in the eighth century first wrote down the words to the Iliad and the Odyssey. He is personified as a blind Greek by the name of Homer.

He did not 'make up' these great pieces of literature. They were songs sung for hundreds of years before he ever came to them. And Homer was probably one of the singers of these songs.  And experts will also opine that the Iliad is older than the Odyssey. That they came from different oral traditions.  They will also say that the Iliad is a compendium of several songs from different oral traditions as was the Odyssey. That the genius of Homer was to pull different oral traditions together.

To further complicate this scenario, the Iliad as Homer wrote it has been redacted further. Things were added to it and no doubt, things were taken out of his original script.  The Iliad you read today is not the script written by Homer. It is close, but no cigar.

To illustrate my point, there was a fine documentary on the Bible on the History Channel.  In the end, I was shocked to find that the earliest full Bibles in existence are dated between 390 and 410 AD.  And they contain both testaments.  And they have different books. That is three or four books are missing in one of them and vice versa.

Also, if you read my Roman Catholic Bishops version, the Old Testament is described as originating in different oral traditions that were finally written down and redacted over many centuries.  Take a look at the two Genesis versions for the creation of the earth which are not anything but contradictory. The Bishops even narrow the traditions to Yawey and El and a few others. These first two actually dealing with different gods. Or Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. They are sometimes contradictory.  Hell, in Genesis in the same story, Noah's ark is presented with different dimensions.  I am sticking my neck out here a little because there are many biblical scholars that disagree with me. Good. Argue with the Catholic Bishops and leave me alone!!!

These Bishops will also tell you that the Old Testament was SUNG.

Homer writes in the Iliad that it is a song

Which is why Virgil begins his Aeneid with: I sing of arms and the man.

THE BOOK


This song, this nature of the song is one of the most important elements of cognitive development to Julian Jaynes.

The difference between song and speech is a matter of discontinuities of pitch....
Modern poetry is a hybrid (of song and speech). It haws the metrical feet of song with the pitch glissandos of speech. But ancient poetry is much closer to song.....Speech as has long been known, is a function primarily of the left cerebral hemisphere. But song, as we are presently discovering, is primarily a function of the right cerebral hemisphere. (364-365)

Jaynes is saying that here were (at least?) four general phases in the development of man's cognitive development.

Phase I:   Objective Occurred in bicameral age when these terms referred to simple external observations

Phase II:  Internal Occurred when these terms have come to mean things inside the body, particularly certain internal sensations

Phase III: Subjective When these terms refer to processes that we would call mental; they have move from internal stimuli supposedly causing actions to internal spaces where metaphored actions may occur.

Phase IV:  Synthetic When the various hypostasis unite int one conscious self capable of introspection (260)

THE ILIAD (261) Jaynes discusses seven words that occur in both of Homer's epics but underlines their importance in the Iliad.

Thumos: The urge. Point here is that in the Iliad this is the most common and important hypostatic word in the whole poem. (261)...refers to a mass of internal sensations in response to environmental crises...This includes the dilation of the blood vessels in striate muscles and in the heart, on increase in tremor of striate muscles, a burst of blood pressure, the constriction of blood vessels in the abdominal viscera and in the skin, the relaxing of smooth muscles, and the sudden increased energy from the sugar released into the blood from the liver, and possible perceptual changes with the dilation of the pupil in the eye. (262)

Now he centers on the morph from Phase II to the subjective Phase III.  Ajax is not zealous to fight but his thumos is. Aeneas does not rejoice, but his thumos does. The gods do not urge in this new phase, the thumos does.  And as if it were another person, a man may speak to his thumos and may hear from it what he is to say or have it to reply to him as a god.

Phrenes: Lungs. ...the Phrenes objectively referred to the lungs and perhaps were associated with phrasis or speech. We should remember here how extremely responsive our breathing is to various types of environmental stimulation. A sudden stimulus and we catch our breath.  Sobbing and laughing have obvious distinct internal stimulation from the diaphragm and intercostals.  In great activity or excitement there is an increase  in both the rate and depth of breathing with the resulting internal stimulation. (263) Agamemnon's black phrenes fill with anger and we can visualize the king's deep breathing as his fury mounts.   Scared deer lose strength after running.
...weeping, grief 'comes to' the phrenes.  Phrenes can 'hold' fear or joy.

Kradie.  The heart.  Claims it is not as mysterious. You know, you gotta have heart. Without Ethel Merman what would we have done?  Sincerity is when you speak from the heart....I t may mean quivering, coming from the verb koteo to beat. Then in the internalization of Phase II that went on during the Dorian invasions, the quivering that was seen with the eye and felt with the hand externally becomes the name of the internal sensation of the heartbeat in response to external situations. (266) A coward in the Iliad is not someone who is afraid but someone whose kradie beats loudly.  The only remedy is for Athene to put strength in the kradie or for Apollo to put boldness in it.

Etor.  The Belly.  Philologists usually translate both kradie and etor as heart. (266) Jaynes claims that this is wrong because these terms represent different locations and sensations .Indeed, there is evidence for this in the Iliad, where it is precisely stated that food and drink are taken to satisfy the etor. (Etron meant belly) The stomach is indeed one of the most responsive organs in the body reacting in its spasms and emptying and contractions and secretory activity to almost every emotion and sensation.  THAT MAKES ME SICK TO MY STOMACH. (267)

Noos. The eyes. This is perception, itself. We see with the mind's eye which may be brilliant or obscure. Even today we do not hear with the mind's ear...(269) The coming of consciousness can in a certain vague sense be construed as a shift from an auditory mind to a visual mind.Zeus keeps Hector in his noos.But the second phase of internalization of noos is also evident in the Iliad.  It is located in the chest.  Indeed, noos takes on adjectives more suitable to the thumos......Thinking does not go on in the noos, or even memory.  These are still in the voices of those organizations of the right temporal lobe that are called gods.

Psyche. The breath.  Probably coming from the term psychein, to breath. It is not life. For life to us means something about a period of time, a span between birth and death, full of events and developments of a certain character. (271) There is nothing of this sort in the Iliad. When a spear strikes the heart of a warrior and his psyche dissolves or is destroyed or simply leaves him or is coughed out through the mouth or bled out of a wound there is nothing whatever about time or about the end of anything...No one in any way ever sees, decides, thinks, knows, fears or remembers anything in his psyche.

Ker. Same as Krades, but philologists spend so much time on it he includes it as the seventh.

So there are four phases to this theoretical development. Not two. And in reading the Iliad and the Odyssey, there are marked differences in vocabulary and plot. And in the development of the characters. But the differences show mostly a move from say Phase II to Phase III.

But that is enough for today. I decided that I would publish this in segments.

*Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1976 c


 

We could be doomed, folks!  Already you can see the future.  And bleak, bleak, bleak does it appear!  We must do something to avert the bleakness.  Because if the whigs go down and the trolls keep declining in abilities and getting laid off and generally losing the ability to keep comments from being deleted, then where will TPM be?  If the Dems keep standing up and doing the right thing and people like them - and we finally get all the muck cleared and the criminals punished.... TPM will be doomed!  The need for TPM will disappear.  And with it - us!

What to do?  Well, some brave folks may need to start another party.  Even a Party party.  Where the purpose is to party.  They will have to do something to help TPM staff find things to write about.  Otherwise it will just be one big love-fest here!  And who wants a lovefest?  Who will come and read us?  Will even we cease to read us if we just like each other and help each other and have fun with each other?

No.... we must not let TPM down.  How, oh how, can we change with the times?  When the country is back on track and the good times roll.  When people reduce carbon and plant gardens and can food and shun sweets.  When people volunteer and get health care and even preventive care.  And teachers love to teach and kids feel proud to serve their country by finishing school.  And services get better and better and people line up for the privilege of paying taxes.  And everyone votes.  And people stop stealing and shooting each other and prisons empty.  When wars stop and and peace breaks out and weapons are no longer needed. 

Ok, suddenly, due to that link just above, I'm feeling a bit of relief here.  A little glimmer of hope, kind of like a bluebird in springtime.  And that sigh that says things could still come out ok.  For dd seems to have a limitless imagination - and stories, new and creative ones, will do their part.  Then we have the poets among us.  We have humor.  Surely humor can find topics, even if politics becomes one big lovefest.  But we must be prepared.  We must look down the road and consider how TPM can survive under conditions of hardship, of less muck, of people doing good deeds and random acts of kindness.  Neighbor helping neighbor.  Neighbor helping stranger!

Perhaps we should slack off on the Jindal posts.  Leave the guy alone.  To lick his wounds and practice doing speeches or something.  Give him some time... so repubs can have hope in someone.  If not him, someone else, like sarah palin or one of her kids.   Oh, those poor, poor folks in Lousiana and Alaska!  Maybe we can encourage a few trolls to run for office - but not in those states that are already suffering so much from these two presidential-seeking governors.  Or the trolls could at the very least polish up their acts for late night comedy shows.  That's it - they could pretend to run for office.  And do comedy routines to rival .... well, uh, some of those people we're gonna lay off - once they're defeated and their states are saved.

But I digress, for the real issue is TPM and our survival!  (once everything is peachy in America)   So I'm calling all loyal TPMers here.  Those who have strayed and those who have stayed.  I'm sure you will all do your part.  For I can see it:  Everything will get better.  Except for our addiction.  Stillidealistic put her finger on it:   Addicted to TPM.   And this place must not fold!  No matter how good things get!
 

Bank 'Stress-Tests' Could Discourage Many to Lend  Ya think ???
Kind of like the kid who shoves all his toys and stuff in the closet
so his room looks cleaner than it actually is when his mother
comes in.

Call the waahmbulance.  (The comments are as good as the story).  My personal favorite part:

 They want to start a right-of-center journalism site, something that features deeply reported stories and relies on the investigative skills of their readers to "crow d-source" articles. So, they start tapping away on their computers, slowly elbowing their subculture's way back into the fray, to the sounds of Gmail's IM alerts ringing back and forth.

Finishing up Krugman's book The Conscience of a Liberal I was again disappointed by his superficial and haphazard treatment of a number of topics.  In particular, he has a chapter on The Health Care Imperative in which he discusses health care reform for the USA.  But this isn't a book report, it is an attempt to wrap my mind around health care reform as a proximal political activity.  Harry Reid says a bill will occur this summer.  There doesn't seem to be a consensus about health care reform, so a good debate would be healthy politics.  However, I get the impression that there won't be important debate.  Sure there will be Congressional quibbling and grandstanding, but I suspect the momentum for Obama-like reform is too great.  It's a cake accompli except for the icing.  So I'm a pessimist in my initial answer to the title question, "Is it too late to reform health care reform?"  But that doesn't mean I despair of any participation beyond critique of the "icing" or posting whiny blogs.  Being pessimistic doesn't make me anti-progressive.  It means it might not be easy.
 
Some general thoughts on reform:   Reform is a kind of transformation.  Rational*  transformation starts with understanding both the status quo and the desired result or end.  In addition, rational transformation considers the means and the costs, not just the benefits. And it's not just about final costs but about transition costs. Finally, pragmatic rational transformation isn't merely idealistic, it also considers extant political factors such as pre-existing reform ideas and movements.
 

* There are also a- and irr-rational considerations. Arational transformation occurs more or less as pointed to by the quip "Shit happens."  It's hard if not impossible to debate that however one values shit.  I consider the irrational as merely perverse, but if anyone can show how perversion or shooting in the dark would net out as a good here, I'm open to discussion.

The main roadblock I have in dealing rationally with health care reform is my ignorance.  Krugman left major gaps in his "health" coverage.  For instance his table shows annual per capita costs (2004) in the US at $6K with other countries at $2.5K (fully socialized Britain) to $3.1K (other major countries).  He explains less than half of the difference.  He doesn't discuss hidden costs such as subsidies.  He alludes to transition costs but doesn't get into them.  He does say that 1% of recipients cost over $150K/yr (when sick), and that most people need barely any medical care year after year.  That struck me as similar to the income inequality which drives much of the debate on taxes.  He says over 16% of GDP went to health care in 2005.

So if anyone has an excellent and accessible guide to health care economics, that would be great.  'Excellent' means largely non-partisan objectivity covering all the bases. 

I can suppose a sort of spectrum of options for reform outlined by:

laissez-faire
Obama-like reform
Single payer

Others?

One conundrum, or perhaps paradox, to consider:  Health care spending is a big part of the economy.  If we were to convert from $6K to $3K annual per capita spending, would that knock roughly 8% out of the economy in a time where government is actively calling for economic stimulus?

[24hrs later]  Since nobody has taken this on, let me try:  Likely cost cuts aren't going to be that great, and they likely won't hit us for a year or two, or longer.  The economy could be stronger then, not needing stimulus.  Also it now seems to me that the 6 to 3 is rather overoptimistic, that is, even a single payer system would not reduce spending nearly that much.  But this then reduces one impetus to make a change, leaving me to look at other rationales.