The snippet of Pelosi's speech that I saw—presumably the most
dramatic part of it—seemed ill-advised, but the utter failure of
the House Republicans to whip their side into delivering just a dozen
more votes seems more immediate a cause for the demise of today's bill
than anything the Democrats did.
At least with Pelosi, you know where you stand. John Boehner, now
there's a guy who will say one thing to your face while he's reaching
around to stab you in the back. Just my impression, but
John Shaw's first-person account of the non-effort on the part of
the Republicans to garner more than a third of their votes to support
their own President speaks volumes.
Lame duck and a House divided
Vincent Reinhart, quoted on the Nightly Business Report: "Last week, a
government official said we're one step away from the abyss if you don't
take these actions... the Congress just said 'take a step forward.'"
Could have something to do with the broad-based public outrage at the
size and idea of bailing out the miscreants who brought us to the abyss,
and Representatives' unwillingness to tie themselves to such a bill
right before an election. A few more days like today in the market, and
it might not be such a good November for incumbents. Hard to imagine
voters would send the usual percentage back to office after this sort of
debacle.
Oddly enough, the House was not divided along party lines as much as
usual: the "no" vote was
one of the most bipartisan of the session (decade?), with 40% (95)
of the Democrats and two-thirds (133) of the Republicans joining to kill
the plan, and then elbowing their way to the nearest microphones to tell
everyone who they thought was to blame.
Early voting
The first returns on the grand bailout consensus over the weekend are
in... and there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.
Dow Jones Industrials off 2½%,
S&P500 3½%, NASDAQ off
4%, a couple of my stocks off
10% and more.
Looks like the start of another ugly week.
Balancing the books over the weekend, I noticed a sizeable discrepancy,
and traced it down to some bonds in our portfolio. Nice, safe, secure,
Moody's AAA-rated, federal and state tax-free
Idaho Housing
Finance Association 5% coupon, 2026 maturity, backing single family
housing in our state. The trading history is sporadic, but almost all
close to par, including the last trades, in April. Now there's a "third
party price" quoted, at $.88 on the dollar. That's better than 60 (and
30, and 20!), but still. It's notice that we own some of the debacle,
directly.
Latest headlines include
Citigroup Buys Banking Operations of Wachovia. Apparently, those
financial institutions that do the most advertising are the first to go?
More importantly, as we hear about how we have to bail out one
institution after another because they're "too big to fail," we see the
remaining players getting bigger still. Perhaps we need to revisit the
antitrust laws, and re-establish that
too
big to fail means "too big to remain intact." It would be lovely if
we could legislate (or regulate) away failure, but the world doesn't
work that way.
28.Sept.2008
Obscenity on Wheels
Fast cuts, flashing lights, all the electronic candy, and... it's a
Cadillac! And a hybrid, woo. As always in a car commercial,
no other traffic on any of the roads, just one person in a gigantic
vehicle. But what's this? Even the ultimate American lead sled luxury
brand is selling fuel economy now. It's all relative, though: "50%
better fuel economy in the city," they tout. Better than what?
Better than the non-hybrid Escalade pig, getting 12 miles per
gallon. Out on the highway, you can look forward to the same
18 or 19 mpg with either the hybrid or "regular," tops.
When it comes to saying "I can pour my money down a sewer, why
should I care about wasting resources?" nothing says it quite like
a Cadillac SUV.
26.Sept.2008
Without preconditions!
What is this freaky obsession McCain has about "preconditions"?
I guess this kind of nonsense works fine when he's speechifying by
himself, but when it's dialogue, he's left with nothing but a bad
act.
"It's just [ tenses shoulders, shakes head in mock incredulity ]dangerous."
Maybe that's why he's afraid of engaging in dialogue.
It's well known
That John McCain is not Miss Congeniality. We'll stipulate that.
More importantly, if he gets upset, will he fly totally off the handle?
Watching him in a debate is like watching a guy on a tightwire who
isn't quite as steady as needs to be to stay up there.
You CANNOT be serious
I haven't seen the whole Katie & Sarah show and apparently
this part is not the worst of it, but from just that much, how could
the Republican Party or John McCain possibly stand this woman up
as candidate for Vice-President?!
"It was surreal, the kind of performance that would generate a hearty
laugh if it were part of a Monty Python sketch. But this is real life,
and the stakes couldn't be higher. As Ms. Palin was fumbling her way
through the Couric interview, the largest bank failure in the history of
the United States, the collapse of Washington Mutual, was occurring."
Overtime!
I missed the President's Wednesday night address to the nation; I guess
he was mostly pushing for how important it was for Congress to bailout
the moguls of financing, to keep the economy going. Ok,
that
didn't work, now what? After the supposed leap to leadership from
McCain, we find—quelle surprise!—that the Maverick is
not
able to lead his Party in a crisis.
There are plenty of liberals who join the conservative Republicans in
being "loath to spending so much taxpayer money on Wall Street," as
Nagourney and Bumiller put it; I'm guessing that's the majority view of
the electorate. But yet, "economic disaster" sounds bad, and the
Democrats are on the hook to lead us through this.
Today's
developments (reported today, for tomorrow's "paper") have John
Boehner continuing his power trip, telling reporters that
"We will not agree to a bill that sells taxpayers out to bail out Wall Street,"
which I like the sound of, but not so much his snark that
"last time I checked, you [reporters] didn't have a vote."
Dear Representative Boehner, you know that you're supposed to
represent the people you serve, right? And that those
people do elect you to your office? Yes, it's a representative
democracy, but rubbing our faces in how powerful you are is not a really
brilliant political move. Don't abuse the media, because they tell us
what you're doing, eh?
But I digress. What about the rest of us?
the NYT
editorial board asks. Shouldn't a financial crisis triggered by bad
mortgages be solved by doing something about the mortgages?
This time it's really over
Sami had been pretty sporty for a good while after the recent troubles
(and premature rumor of her demise back in
April), but about a week ago, she must've had another seizure, or
perhaps a stroke, and she didn't snap out of it this time. Her appetite
waned to nothing, she was still on her feet, but wobbly yesterday,
taking her last few sips of water.
She spent her last hours lying peacefully in the living room (!),
not in any apparent pain. Then she slipped away, that mysterious
spark stilled...
Each of our lives will come to an end some day, and there is something
strangely awesome about being in the presence of an animal you've come
to know as life runs out.
Farewell to our beloved cat, 17 years and 9 months from the day we found
her as a starving, freezing kitten at the Little Salmon River rest stop
on highway 95.
Little Salmon River on Boxing Day
Found 12/26/1990, Let go 9/26/2008
25.Sept.2008
Crisis roundup #2
Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) has a petition response: (1) let the rich
pay for this; (2) make sure we don't pay too much for all that worthless
paper; (3) make sure we get equity in the companies we're bailing out;
(4) include an economic recovery package; (5) repeal the de-regulatory
legislation that got this mess going; and (6) break up the companies
that are "too big to fail."
Sweden: Insist on getting equity in the deal. (They've been through
this. Successfully.)
Michael Hudson: Investors and their capital are fleeing... from the
very garbage that Paulson wants the authority (and bankroll) to buy up.
The folks left holding the bag want one more deal to go down, so that
it's not them.
"There is a long pedigree for this kind of behavior. And it always seems
to involve a partnership between kleptocratic insiders and the Treasury.
Today’s twist is that the banksters have lined up complicit accomplices
from the accounting industry and bond-rating companies as well. The
gang's all here."
Danny Schecter: "We need a 'jailout' more than a bailout: hold
these people accountable for what they did."
George Will: McCain loses his head, looking for a suitable
scapegoat.
Be a sheep for the GOP!
I haven't heard back from Senator Orrin Hatch for the email I sent him
about his last shilling for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
They seem to be getting increasingly desperate to find people who are
willing to contribute something, anything to their cause. The last
one had a pitch for sending $11, this one is to send just $7.
The inspiring pitch is how much liberals were able to raise from Al Gore's
last appeal. MoveOn.org raised $200,000 in 90 minutes after an email went
out, Hatch tells us. Somehow, I'm guessing Orrin is not going to get the
same results today. His bullet list of "far-left agenda" points is feeling
very tired:
Liberal Supreme Court justices
Skyrocketing taxes
Higher gas prices
No new drilling
Giveaways to trial lawyers and Big Labor bosses
I mean, really. The SCOTUS has been absurdly stacked by the right already.
Taxes aren't skyrocketing. Gas prices are definitely higher than they were
when George W. Bush came to town, but how is that the Democrats
fault? Can you say "Iraq war"? Sure you can. The Dems rolled over on
drilling. Trial lawyers and big labor? OMG, that is so last election (and
last century).
"Political negativity" or "voter information"?
Well, it's not true that Bill Sali is actually black and white, but
according to
KTVB, the factual claims in Walt Minnick's latest ad (below)
are all correct.
Good teacher? Good President?
In last Sunday's "College Issue" of the New York Times Magazine,
Alexandra Starr makes a case study of Barack Obama, describing a
facet of his experience I knew nothing of. It's a fascinating read, and
adds to the list of presidential qualities he's demonstrated.
To me, anyway. The folks who are dead set against him for reasons real,
imagined, and deliberately made up by the rabid right are not going to
look at a NYT Magazine piece, much less read all the way to the
end of two jumps. Nor do I think they have the patience for someone who
actually values democratic process and the open-minded consideration of
views other than his own.
24.Sept.2008
One out of three ain't bad
A comment under
Donald Craig Mitchell's story, "How Alaska's AG defied the public’s
interest to cover for Palin in Troopergate" announces a rally this
coming Saturday to "Hold Palin Accountable."
It seems those crazy Alaskans are wanting to see their Governor
uphold her promise for an "open, honest & transparent"
government."
Since those our her cronies in the key positions, and since the McCain
campaign is orchestrating the obstruction of the Troopergate
investigation, Palin's government does qualify as "transparent," but not
so much open or honest.
THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE
As
seen
all
over the tubes today, Please Respond Immediately Forthwith In
Confidence.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the
funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in
the names of our close friends because we are constantly under
surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a
reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the
funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account
numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission
for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond
with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect
the funds.
Maureen Dowd is right, too
Commenting on "the picture of Gov. Sarah Palin with a perky smile
and shapely gams posing with a pleased Henry Kissinger":
"It's hard to imagine that John McCain and Sarah Palin still want advice
from the Unwise Man Kissinger. It's sort of like villagers in those old
movies who bring in the wizened witch doctor to shake a stick over
them."
Peggy Noonan was right
Here's a real poll result on that "qualified" question,
from the Wall Street Journal and NBC: 49% said "not qualified" vs.
40% qualified. (Republican Kool-aid drinkers profess a belief in her
being qualified by 75 to 15%.)
Joe Biden's numbers were 64/21 "qualified."
It's a little fluffy down there on the bottom of the GOP ticket.
Here's an idea if you want to duck out of the debate and pretend like
you're an elder statesman too busy to do the work of standing for
election: have Sarah Palin carry on as if she were at the top of the
ticket. Kind of a dry run in case of you-know-what. She's had time to
meet several heads of state (and Henry Kissinger!) and a refresher on
the Bush Doctrine, I'm sure she'll be unblinking and ready to steal the
show.
If you do want to help solve the crisis, why not take a page from the
book of J. Pierpont Morgan, and propose that we lock Ben Bernanke, Hank
Paulson, and a gaggle of C.E.O.s into the library and stop feeding them
until they come up with a fix?
Hold the innovation
One part of the pushback on the plan to make Hank Paulson CFO of USA,
Inc. is to put the brakes on executive pay. Of course,
Wall
Street mavens, lobbyists and trade groups are howling like stuck
pigs with lipstick over the very idea.
"Pay restrictions, they say, would sap incentives to hard work and
innovation, and hurt the financial sector and the American economy."
Hard work is a fine value, but we've had a bit of an overdose in
"innovation" lately, leading to, what is it that it's being called?
Oh yeah, the verge of "financial meltdown." Keep those $hundreds of
millions flowing to executives and we'll innovate our way out of this,
you say?
I'm guessing the folks paying the freight—that's you and me,
fellow taxpayer—will be much more enthusiastic about "claw-back"
provisions for some of these too-clever titans of the banking industry
than they will about the glories of unfettered capitalism. A ban on
severance payments for firms on their way to going belly up would be
sensible too, wouldn't it? How is walking away with $millions as the
house of cards collapses behind you different from theft?
Putting venality in perspective
That mere
$1B in Medicare fraud doesn't seem like such a big deal now, does
it? A $bil? Pocket change!
And how about McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis having
his
firm on the FreddieMac payroll, not just in the olden days, but
right up through last month.
Give the head of Freddie some credit, though: because nobody really had
any idea what Davis was actually doing on their behalf, they negotiated
a reduced rate of only $15,000 a month. $180,000 a year going into a
law firm, that can get lost in the rounding error.
Just trust us
Really, really serious emergency here, we need to have you give us
blanket authority with an unprecedented amount of money, and no review
whatsoever....
Who is this really?
The party of ever-diminishing regulation, free market über
alles, Big Daddy trickle-down economics and oh yes, the Baraccuda
and the Maverick now brings us... the Financial Bridge to Nowhere.
"We do not support government bailouts of private institutions.
Government interference in the markets exacerbates problems in the
marketplace and causes the free market to take longer to correct
itself." Republican National Platform, 2008
Now only $700 billion. (Hey, it's just spending "authority." We won't
use it right away, and maybe we'll even get some of it back after a
while.)
Cheney even popped out of his undisclosed location to visit Capitol Hill
yesterday. I think that means there's going to be 6 more weeks of
financial winter.
There are
other options, but I'm still waiting for anything that sounds like a
good one. Our story so far: housing bubble, mortgage brokers gone wild
passing bogus deals on up the food chain into a $60 trillion
toxic stew that makes the stuff they dumped in Love Canal look like
a breakfast drink, all the guys in the nice suits clean out the safes
and then want... the U.S. Taxpayers to buy up the crap? Or buy into an
equity stake in these companies?
Good lord, I don't want the bad loans, and I sure as hell don't want to
buy into the companies that created this debacle. Let's talk about
bankruptcy reorganization, prosecution for fraud and malfeasance, and
having some of these companies just go right out of business, shall we?
They've certainly demonstrated ample incompetence.
As has the Bush/Cheney administration, that now proposes to take care
of everything, with only two orders of magnitude more money than they
said the Iraq war would cost. (And no, it's not "good news" that
the war turned out to be this same order of magnitude.)
23.Sept.2008
It's a Bonanza
Sparkle Pony's been mostly focused on Condoleeza Rice these past years,
but OMG (as she might say),
there's a new gal in town! Take your pick up and down the blog, but
I liked the "The Palin Bunch" graphic.
I'm sure the campaign would tsk and cluck, "so disrespectful..."
The Grey Lady's take certainly meets the due deference test, but it
also has a curiously Sparkle Pony feel of its own. Henry K! Big teeth!
Nice gams! All that and the crash course in meeting titans of
international diplomacy. Next up, some sort of formal dinner thing,
once they figure out who to sit the First Dude next to.
Let's vote by intertubes
After a couple decades futzing with email, my radar for scams, spam and
other folderol is pretty well developed, but I confess, I fell for the
viral "Is Sarah Palin qualified to server as Vice President of the
United States?" poll that NOW put up.
Online polls are fairly ridiculous, you know, designed to pump up
readership, ad revenue, whatever. Anything depending on whoever shows up
and clicks a radio button provides a measure of just that: who shows up and
clicks radio buttons. In the case of
the NOW poll,
it was even sillier in that there were no means to prevent multiple
votes from one person.
After the freepers and other motivated mouse clickers pumped up the
Yes results, the left side of the aisle fought back with their
own email chains, to say No, No, No. As a result,
according to Tynan on Tech, the director of new media for the
program said they've collected 43+ million "votes," as of yesterday.
As of today, the playing field has been nearly leveled, from 53-45-0 to
50-48-0. (Rounding errors total 2% for both those snapshots? Hmmm.)
Update, 9/24: The rounding error has tightened up to 50-49-0, and
voting now produces a yellow-letter notice:
"Your first vote for this poll has been registered. Any subsequent vote
will not be counted. This is not a scientific poll."
My first vote today? Or the first vote I made last week? The
last statement is certainly true, at least.
Equinox
Idaho CD-1 Tipping?
The Minnick campaign is coming out with
poll data from Harstad Strategic Research, from a phone survey done
after the Republican National Convention, when our red state was in
maximum gush over the "Idaho native" added to the McCain ticket. In a
relatively small poll (405 likely voters), Minnick has a 5% edge, 43% to
38%. That makes for a goodly margin of error, and 4 times as many people
telling the pollsters they haven't made up their minds as the space
between the candidates.
But, a Republican incumbent at the top of the ticket, behind
his challenger? The backstory is evenly split un/favorable ratings for
Sali, and half the respondents rating Sali's job performance as "poor,"
or only "fair." The plot thickens.
"And I think that it's likely to
fail, and it's likely to make the situation worse over time. And I think
that [U.S. Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson has shown almost no
understanding of how a democracy operates. His initial draft would have
given him $700 billion of your tax money with no oversight, no judicial
review, no accountability. I mean, we're not a dictatorship....
"I think it's fundamentally wrong, and I think that it is very likely to
create a bureaucratic control of our financial system in a way that will
cripple us for 20 years."
The Australian:
Not the death of capitalism. "The market has seen large pullbacks
before." The soothing, sky-not-falling, stay the course message as was
also delivered by the 2-page Wall Street Journal virus that
leaked into the Sunday Idaho Statesman. Nothing to see here. Move
along.
Foreign banks:
We
want to play too! "Foreign banks, which were initially excluded from
the plan, lobbied successfully over the weekend to be able to sell the
toxic American mortgage debt owned by their American units to the
Treasury, getting the same treatment as United States banks."
Timothy
Gatto: The Rich Screw Up, and the Taxpayer Loses. (He had an
exclamation point at the end of his title, but really, is that
necessary?)
Michelle Malkin: The Mother of All Bailouts = The Death of Fiscal
Conservatism. "I have had it with Pollyanna conservatives who continue
to parrot the 'fundamentals of the market are great!' line," Malkin
writes. Gee, where I have I heard that line lately? She says "crony
Democrats" are to blame for all our ills, right up until this
"Bush legacy" of "a ginormous bailout of every last, failing, panicked
financial institution's illiquid assets that may reach into the
TRILLIONS..."
"Mr. Paulson insists that he wants a 'clean' plan. 'Clean,' in this
context, means a taxpayer-financed bailout with no strings
attached—no quid pro quo on the part of those being bailed out.
Why is that a good thing? Add to this the fact that Mr. Paulson is also
demanding dictatorial authority, plus immunity from review 'by any court
of law or any administrative agency,' and this adds up to an
unacceptable proposal."
Wimpy:
"I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
Hushpuppies
I wasn't there, and I don't remember all the details, but the image of
pallets full of greenbacks being delivered to Iraq has stuck in my mind.
Let's see, searching on Iraq pallet cash... ah yes,
How the
US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish. That was back
when $12,000,000,000 was a lot of money, and the UK Guardian could gush
without exaggeration about "the staggering scale of the biggest transfer
of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve." Ok, so maybe the
delivery won't be in "tonnes" of shrink-wrapped wads of $100 bills this
time, but with the ante upped by more than a factor of 10, get ready for
something decidely more "staggering."
"I hate the fact that we have to do it, but it’s better than the
alternative," Hank Paulson sort of assures us, as his plan calls for
giving him, personally, "nearly unfettered powers" (as
reported in the NYT) to decide when to push the pallets out the back
door of the C-130s that will be flying over Manhattan to make the
special deliveries.
Now that some blood has come back to the heads of Congress who are being
browbeaten into saving us from "meltdown," some small resistance is
being voiced. "We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check
to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome," Speaker Nancy Pelosi
said, bringing her philosophically closer to Idaho's far-right
Congresscritter
than his colleague to the east. Strange days have found us.
21.Sept.2008
Spam-o-rama
Following in the track of the thunderstorms, a huge wave of email bounce
messages started pouring into my account yesterday, at 8:15pm. Most were
getting spam-filtered, since the payloads were the usual garbage, but
even the small percent of out-of-office and email confirmation request
autoreplies leaking through were coming in much faster than "real"
messages.
Looking at the bounces, I could see that my address had been spoofed
into the "From:" header by one of the many miscreants sending those
oh-so-tantalizing advertisements for pills, pumps and pr0n by the
millions.
The messages were coming pretty much as fast as I could delete them out
of the spam bucket. Hundreds in a few minutes, more than 1,000 an
hour—for just the ones that were getting bounced! A call or two
for help gave me a quick introduction to the
Sender
Policy Framework, "providing the world with a record of who is
allowed to send mail from my domain."
A phone call and several messages to the
WestHost support team later, they
said they'd take care of fortboise.org for me. I deleted another
several hundred bounce messages and went off to bed. Overnight, another
3,500 came in, with the couple percent that got by the filtering leaking
into my inbox enough to overwhelm the good stuff.
But the flood is down to a trickle, "only" half a dozen or so per hour
coming in, and getting filtered. I guess it's fixed. I can see how
someone who didn't happen to notice the start of this sort of thing, or
who didn't know who to call/what to do could end up just abandoning an
account. Check your email a couple days later, to find 20,000 bounce
messages? Or a sysadmin notice that you went over quota and your
account is locked?
There ought to be a law against this crap.
Soaker
After I'd drifted back to sleep on a gloomy Saturday morning, the snooze
alarm came back with a ka-BOOM. Cumulonimbus parked right over
the West Bench, for the start of the first wet day in 2 months. Folks in
the Gulf Coast would laugh to hear it, but the "huge" rain we got
yesterday, a bit more than half an inch, amounts to a month's worth
around here.
Our last day of summer has jumped the gun on the equinox, tomorrow at
09:44 MDT. Cool, cloudy, and wonderfully moist air for a (big)
change.
So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising
financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago — and promising that if we
marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial
industry!
"I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance
across state lines, when they can find more affordable and attractive
products elsewhere that they prefer. Opening up the health insurance
market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the
last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative
products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based
regulation."
But wait, there's more!
"Nationwide insurance markets that ensure broad and vigorous competition
will wring out excess costs, overhead, and bloated executive
compensation."
Wring out the old, and wring in the new, as if by magic.
Sorry, I'm above the law
What is up with these people? Training to follow in the footsteps of
Richard B. "Dick" Cheney in
inventing
new branches—and privileges—of government, Alaska's
First Dude tells his state's Senate Judiciary Committee to
stuff their subpoena.
Gosh, isn't it great to be a Republican celebrity? You don't have to do
anything you don't want to!
"[Former New York federal prosecutor Ed O'Callaghan] said that Todd Palin
submitted 'objections' to the subpoena that needed to be answered before
he would take the stand. Another lawyer for the Palins has said that
Todd was too busy with the campaign to testify, as if standing stage
left behind Sarah Palin, holding Trig and grinning during her speeches,
were a matter of national security."
Don't Text and Drive (a train)
NYT
Reporters quote Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley technology trend
forecaster, estimating that "The act of texting automatically removes 10
I.Q. points."
We're still waiting to hear whether accident investigators will put the
blame for the L.A. train wreck on texting, but further down the story is
this survey report:
"Americans 13 to 17 years of age sent or received an average of 1,742
text messages a month in the second quarter (of 2008)."
Almost 60 per day. On average. That's a lot of IQ points
gone missing.
But the good news is that 40% of teenagers report they can run their
texting machines while blindfolded. Hopefully that's a guess, rather
than the result of walking around with blindfolds on.
Repealing the Law of Gravity
When Idaho's freshman cut-up Bill Sali proposed it, it was his little
joke, but the SEC isn't kidding. Financial stocks have been sufficiently
clobbered, they say,
no more short selling, at least for a while. How long? We'll have
to see.
One hedge fund manager, who declined to be named, likened the changes to
"turning a football game into badminton."
Badminton can be a pretty exciting game too, as you know if you
watched any during the Olympics. The "revised game" brought a nice pop
to the end of a wildly volatile week on the markets, but after another
weekend of rule-changes, what Monday will bring is anybody's guess.
It's a speculator's market, with the speculation being what will the
government do next? Whenever short-selling is allowed again,
there's going to be some pent up un-demand. Right up until then, do you
want to go for a ride in my shiny, black banker's limousine? On this
winding road with lots of blind corners? Right next to a cliff? Feelin'
lucky big fella?
19.Sept.2008
Color Commentary
Jack Lewis takes on
Sarah
Palance on NewWest, with a fascinating illustration that shows how
the right coordination of your outfit can really make you pop out of a
crowd.
"A slowly plumping middle-aged vet, I haven't hunted in years and never
once shot a moose. Gov. Palin shot one last week, just to provide more
red meat for convention attendees. She doesn’t wait for hunting season.
That's for socialist collaborators...."
"flounder" adds a postscript:
"Although I have never shot a moose, I've seen plenty of them. They tend
to stand around a lot. I imagine shooting a moose would be a lot like
shooting a cow—or a Stop Sign. Republicans are really good at
shooting signs, junked out old cars, prairie dogs... no wonder she
becomes Joan of Arc for shooting slow targets."
"Conservative" disses conservation
Bill Sali envisions a future for his children and grandchildren
where the more they burn, the more prosperous they'll be.
And when that bridge to nowhere takes us to the next crisis... well,
let's hope there are sharper pencils in the drawer than Idaho's junior
Congressman.
Stop the Bleeding
Now that it's full-on crisis, and you can't stumble through a newsroom
without hearing comparisons to the Great Depression, here comes George
W. Bush,
finally ready for government intervention.
"Our system of free enterprise rests on the conviction that the federal
government should interfere in the marketplace only when necessary,"
Bush said. "Given the precarious state of today's financial
markets—and their vital importance to the daily lives of the
American people—government intervention is not only warranted, it
is essential."
It's going to be another long weekend for Ben and Hank and Chris.
In firefighting mode, it's hard to imagine a measured, careful
response, especially given that we're romping off into virgin territory.
There may be some ways out, or we may be in a maze of twisty little
passages, all alike. If only we'd approached the economy with the wisdom
and consensus that some regulation is essential to keep the
"innovation" in gambling from multiplying out of control, instead of
falling for the ideological idiocy that "free" markets have an answer to
every possible problem.
(I think I missed it because I was distracted by the editor's note that
"dozens of letters about Sarah Palin" are to be "published in the order
received, space permitting." The order received? I'm paying the staff of
the Statesman to make selections based on quality and
newsworthiness. (I know, I know, quaint notion.) If I want to get
blather and spew in the order received, I can read the comments to any
old unmoderated weblog.)
But anyway, Mark Hill's letter.
"As a wounded and decorated officer of the Vietnam War, I do not have to
defer to McCain's service record any more than he has to defer to mine.
Unlike McCain, I have never used my military service for self-promotion,
nor do I think combat experience defines me, gives me special
credibility or automatically imparts honor. Honor is re-earned every
day; it is not conferred for life on anyone regardless of one's service
or sacrifice."
Well said.
Seen any good computer ads lately?
Of course you have; you've seen
PC Guy and Mac.
But how about Jerry and Bill? Whaaaa' ?
Yes,
that Jerry, and that Bill, in a sort of funny, but bizarre and
useless four-and-a-half minute "ad"?!
Save youself some time with all the campaign nonsense in the news, watch
just one ad—this one. If you need the details, you'll know
where to go for
them.
On the one hand, we don't have firm evidence that Carly knows how to run
a major corporation, but on the other, she may be qualified to say who
isn't qualified. Pretty much everyone she's hanging out with
these days, and the opposition as well. Running a big corporation is
really, really complicated, you see. Much more so than heading up the
Executive branch of the government of the United States of America.
The longer nights and crisp air of fall provide a fine opportunity to
spend more time with family.
15.Sept.2008
Ways and Means
Only what, two-and-a-half weeks of shopping days before Congress
focuses full time on getting itself re-elected? And oh-by-the-way, the
fiscal year ends Sept. 30, and is there anything at all like an FY2009
budget in place?
I didn't think so.
The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is a bit
distracted at the moment, and
needs a
substitute, among myriad problems we face as summer turns to
fall.
Go Big: Don't just risk your company, risk the entire world of
Finance. Modest incompetence is insufficient -- if you merely destroy
your own company, you won't get rescued. You have to threaten to bring
down the entire global financial system. The fear and disruption caused
by a Bear collapse is why it was saved. (AIG has the right idea on
this)
The "Dow Jones Financial Services Titans 30 Index" is dropping Lehman
Brothers Holdings Inc. and adding Mega Financial Holding Co. Ltd.
(Taiwan).
The dean of the Business School at the University of Virginia, Robert
Bruner, compares the Panic of 2008 to the Panic of 1907 and cheerfully
supposes that "the events of the past 10 days may mark the nadir,"
but is only offering "50-50 odds that this is the bottom.
"I am concerned about the spread of the crisis offshore, and to other
markets. If the crisis is contained, then I think the odds are
dramatically improved that this is the bottom. But if Russia fails to
refinance the debts coming due by the end of the year, if consumers
dramatically pull back on their spending, and if corporate investing
really pulls back, we’re in for more heavy weather."
14.Sept.2008
Outstanding work by Fey, Poehler and SNL writers
Palin's own performance with ABC's Charlie Gibson was not so amusing,
with too many
deer in the headlight moments for someone wanting to be taken
seriously as a candidate for national office. Plenty of Republicans
still seem over the moon about turning the race into a new twist on
American Idol as a sure-fire way to break free of the need to
endorse more of the same of what we've had for the last two terms.
Which is exactly what the McCain campaign came up with for their pick
for Veep: a person with plenty of "values" to feed the base, but no
relevant national experience or understanding of this country's place in
the world to qualify her for governing.
12.Sept.2008
Just to set the record straight
John McCain, answering Judy Woodruff's question on our one day of
comity, honoring the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attack of
September 11, 2001:
"Of course I respect community organizers, of course I
respect people who serve their communities, and Senator Obama's record
there is outstanding."
Natives are restless
In our nation of immigrants, where most of the real estate was stolen
fair and square from the first natives, some of us use this "native"
badge in a rather bizarre fashion. The Idaho GOP is frothing more than
usual about having an "Idaho native" on the Republican presidential
ticket.
Folks who were born in our state like to celebrate their special and
relatively rare status among the larger population. Like so many others
here, I'm a newcomer, having only been a resident for 30-some years.
(I'm a "Wisconsin native," thanks for asking.)
Certainly, Ms. Palin's first three months were formative, but I've yet
to hear her mention anything about the warm place in her heart for her
native land down here. Or for that matter, much of anything about her
time at the University of Idaho, where she seems to have stayed well
under the achievement radar.
Nevertheless, the reddest of the Idaho Right is over the moon about
rootin', tootin', shootin' Sarah Palin. She's their gal, and Party
Chair Norm Semanko is wild about the prospect of her skirttails carrying
his fellow travelers to victory in November. He's asking for your
patience in filling those bumper sticker orders...
Here we are with country off on the wrong track, into and through the
ditch and teetering on falling off a cliff, and we're all excited about
slapping a bumper sticker on the rear end. Hard to imagine a more apt
metaphor for the strategy of winning elections at the expense of the
country than that.
11.Sept.2008
Less is More
Seems like this would be a really good time to have a functional
Security Exchange Commission, with an expanded enforcement staff.
And chairman Christopher Cox is prepared to provide lip service to
this fine idea. His press release department tells us that "S.E.C.
enforcement staff (under) Chairman Cox has increased to 34 percent
of the S.E.C. work force from 32 percent in 2005..."
Which would be really great if the S.E.C. work force hadn't been reduced
by enough to result in fewer people on the payroll. Yes, there were
fewer people working in enforcement at the S.E.C., but they touted
the relatively smaller reduction in that branch as an "increase."
He was entitled
"The backbone of our judicial system is that a person should not be
entitled,"
Billy Martin told the court, "to go into a courtroom and plead
guilty if there are not sufficient facts to support that plea of
guilty."
"Entitled" to plead guilty. Now there's an interesting legal
theory. We'll find out if the Minnesota Court of Appeals is persuaded
by Mr. Martin within 90 days, and whether they'll give a Senator Larry
Craig a do-over. In the meantime, something good has come out of this
case:
"Over the course of the last year, there's been a great reduction in
complaints regarding behaviors in the restrooms," said airport spokesman
Patrick Hogan. "If there's anything good that came out of the Craig
case, it's that people know now that we are policing the restrooms just
as we do other parts of the airport, and that this is not a good place
to engage in activity that's inappropriate for a public restroom."
Bringing home the bacon
FiveThirtyEight illustrates the old adage that a picture is worth a
thousand words. I spent some words a week ago to
describe how much value Sarah Palin had returned to her small town, and
the larger context of the money flowing from red states to blue, but
this illustration says it better than I did:
The original graph contrasted the awesome pile of pork that
Wasilla was slurping up, but didn't show the context of just how
small Palin's home town is. This one contrasts Boise, a city of 200,000
or so (in a metro area barking past half a million) with Wasilla's
small town population of 7,000-ish, barely enough to peek out from
behind that porcine pile.
(Wasilla is part of Anchorage's so-called
Metropolitan Statistical Area by the way, comparable in size to
Boise and the Treasure Valley. Did little Wasilla share its spoils
with the metropolis it lives in? Or is this their pork alone?)
Election? What election?
The Boise School District had an election a week ago Tuesday, with three
people running for two seats. Two were incumbents, one new guy. The day
after Labor Day is not a great day to have an election, and neither does
it seem smart or cost effective to have a "standalone" election, but
still, when I get a chance to vote, you pretty much can't stop me.
The
incumbents won, ho-hum. 44 and 40% of the vote, with only 1 in 6
dropping an X for challenger Jeff Almeida.
And how many people turned out to vote? 1,174, out of 98,517 registered
voters in the District. 1.2%.
Update, 12.Sept.: Jeff was kind enough to point out an error in
my shorthand summary: "While I got roughly 17% of the vote, each person
[had] (up to, there were about 10% undervotes) two votes; 362 of the
1174, or 30.8% of the people who marked a ballot (since they couldn't
vote for the same person twice), actually marked a ballot with my name
on it! :)"
In bed with big oil
We thought that was "just an expression," like "you can put lipstick on
a pig..." or something. Turns out that the Minerals Management Service
of the Interior Department really was in bed with big oil. Some
people probably want to know what one commenter asked after
Mary Ann Akers' column:
HOW CAN I GET THIS JOB?
It's like mascara on a moose
I've seen a moose or two or maybe three out in the wild. The one I
remember was a day in late summer at Rock Lake in the Selway Bitterroot
Wilderness, on the last morning of a two-week stay. I was making one
last circumnavigation of the lake, an undertaking that required a
certain amount of scrambling and bushwhacking, and coming out into a
clearing, I saw it standing in shallow, marshy water, dipping its head
in and filtering out the tasty aquatic plants.
It was an awesome moment in the stillness of early morning, and a
thrilling keepsake of a wonderful experience in Idaho's wilderness.
I had no urge to shoot the animal, by the way.
I've got moose—and
pigs, and lipstick—on my mind today, thanks to
the
Comedy Central-quality faux outrage
the McCain campaign came up with after Obama used a cliche that
supposedly connected to Sarah Palin's big speech in a way that... sorry,
no way around this, even on a generally family-friendly blog, called
her a pig. Political correctness, meet the new math:
Hockey mom = pit bull + lipstick
Lipstick + pig = pig
Sarah Palin is a pig?!
I didn't say that, but the Republicans did. Yes, that's right, they said
he said she's a pig. (Or at least they implied that he implied she's a
pig.) And I bet your momma wears Army boots! I know you are, but what am
I?
That settles that. Can we get on with talking about issues now?
Like... the economy? The banking and mortgage industry that Phil Gramm
helped deregulate, and that now needs to be bailed out while its CEOs
ride into the sunset with multimillion dollar bonuses?
So far, the Republican strategy of "let's make this about personality
and insults" instead of the actual issues is about as helpful as a
screen door in a submarine.
8.9.10
Tempest in a Turbine
The Statesman ran a Reader's View column today from Ben Collins
of Buhl, defending the Idaho Department of Fish and Game supervisor who
sent
a letter to the Twin Falls Times-News back in July,
responding to their editorial supporting the China Mountain wind farm
proposal. What Collins quoted from David Parrish's letter sounded
like statements of fact, rather than opinion, so I looked up the
original, for which the Times-News identified Parrish as a
regional supervisor of the Department.
If you're a booster for the wind farm, you might not like the way
Parrish expressed himself ("It's a no-brainer" that the wind farm will
have "negative repercussions on Idaho's wildlife"), and it's reasonable
to infer that someone who works at F&G would have a bias in favor of
wildlife (wouldn't you hope so?), but his letter is pretty much straight
up facts. He concludes with the suggestion to "let the bureaucratic
process work before passing judgment."
The way that process worked was to first have the director of
the Department write
his own letter to the editor, saying that Parrish's "comments were
his own and do not reflect Fish and Game's policy position." The
headline said the previous letter "was personal opinion."
(Which is damned interesting, since the only thing that was "opinion" in
Parrish's letter was that we ought to let the bureaucratic process work.
The fact that a big windfarm's construction and operation would
have a significant effect on wildlife is neither Parrish's, the
Department's, or anyone else's opinion. There is no "policy
position" involved in enumerating the costs and impacts for a proposed
development.)
Then Parrish was demoted, for breaking with the Governor's
"speak-no-evil media policy for state employees,"
as the Times-News editorial board put it. The "bureaucratic process"
of course coughed up other reasons, it went "back months."
9.9.8
Bridges for sale
Wow, Sarah Palin is still hawking her "rejection" of the Bridge to
Nowhere on the stump? Granted, some of
the
rumor and innuendo about her isn't true, but this question cuts to
the core of the "reformer" persona she's trying to convince us qualifies
her for serving as Vice-President.
"We championed in Alaska reform of the old earmark process," she said
today. [At least
she does have experience with earmarks.] "I told Congress
'thanks, but no thanks' for that 'Bridge to Nowhere' up in Alaska. If
our state wanted a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves."
Never mind that every state depends on federal highway money for the
huge expense of building and maintaining major highways. And never mind
that
she supported the bridge before she opposed it.
Alaska kept the blasted money! Is she just reading these lies
off the script, or is she repeating them on her own volition?
Family values
Consider the spectrum of human existence, from self, to family,
neighborhood, community, cities, counties, states, nations, the species
as a whole on our planet. People organizing themselves into political
parties have different things to say about these aggregations, the
rights and responsibilities, and the proper (and improper) roles
at each level of organization.
The strongest systems are built from the strongest components, generally
speaking. Self-reliant, capable individuals make for stronger families,
neighborhoods, communities, and so on. The most efficient
interpersonal problem-solving happens in the smallest possible group.
It's better to work out a family or neighborhood dispute one-on-one than
to call the police, for example, even though broken relationships can
and do require forceful intervention on occasion.
Campaigning for "leader of the free world" requires some big-picture
thinking, but you hope it's supported by strength of character and the
strength that comes from within, and from family, and so on. It was a
"Party" idea to sneer at Barack Obama's experience as a community
organizer, but to have it delivered by someone simultaneously
propounding "small town values" and "executive" leadership experience
makes me a little cross-eyed, which I suppose was the intent.
If you're OK with the inherent contradiction, it's a sign that the
strategy of cognitive dissonance is working. Ideas that can't make sense
simultaneously disengage the mind's assessment function, and clear the
playing field for all sorts of mischief.
Politics is all too often a mob function, and it's never more apparent
than at a national convention. A large crowd gathers together because
they do—they want to—all think alike, feel alike,
cheer alike. United we stand and all that, but in groupthink we fall,
or at least fail to achieve what we might.
I like
Jim Hansens's response to the attempted criticism of community
organizers in the speech Sarah Palin delivered last Wednesday:
ALL of America’s great movements—our country’s struggle for
independence, to abolish slavery, to give women the right to vote, to
end child labor, to provide for the 40-hour work week—happened
because ordinary people organized in their communities and demanded
change from their government.
8.Sept.2008
Sarah Palin, under the radar
I don't think I had a word to say about "Alaska media" before
today, but I'm happy to broaden my horizons, and congratulate
those folks up there who are enjoy some fame on their
Governor's coattails.
Since the McCain campaign is keeping their little lady under
wraps (at least
until the media show her "some respect and deference"...
maybe just straight to Dick Cheney's secret bunker after the
election?), we'll have to rely on what sources we can, and
here's one: the
Mudflats blog, with a nice article and video suggesting
that Palin's "just visiting" connection to the Alaskan
Independence Party was maybe stronger than her connection to
the Republican Party. "They walk among us..."
"(T)he Palin nomination is not basically about external realities and what
Democrats call 'issues,' but about the symbolic mechanisms of the
political mind—the worldviews, frames, metaphors, cultural
narratives, and stereotypes. The Republicans can't win on realities. Her
job is to speak the language of conservatism, activate the conservative
view of the world, and use the advantages that conservatives have in
dominating political discourse."
Another side of one Palin story
Alaska State Tropper Mike
Wooten gets to tell his side of the ex-family affair. Death threat
and beer cans disputed, Taser incident a minor issue of "using state
equipment for personal use," not child abuse, "made some bad choices,
made some mistakes and paid (his) penance."
"I would like to put this behind me and move on with my life. I don't
wish ill will on anyone. I think that the nomination that Sarah got is
great for the state of Alaska. I wish her good luck and the family good
luck. I honestly think that everyone involved in this wanted to put this
beyond us."
Frontier mentality
Rick Steiner, on the running mate chosen by McCain's "spectacular,
even dangerous lack of judgment":
"A particularly worrisome aspect of the Palin candidacy is her abysmal
record on the environment during her two years as Alaska governor, and
how that would translate into national environmental policy if she
became vice president. Her environmental record as governor of the
nation's 'last frontier' deserves close examination."
Do you think the changes underway in the global climate might have an
affect on Alaska, up there by (and beyond) the Arctic Circle? Palin's
full-on resource extraction approach to the environment was a perfect
match for the "drill baby drill" mentality that the Right is stoking to
counter the idea that caution might be in order at the epochal juncture
of Peak Oil and Global Climactic Disruption. Apparently, if everything
is part of God's Plan, all we have to worry about is where to drill
next, and how hard to pray for a pipeline.
Coming from a state
that pays its
people "taxes" instead of the other way around, you might expect a
certain golden-egg laying goose mentality. It's a huge state, with fewer
people than you can find in one of those east-coast cities where all the
elites live, and the more they rip and tear, the better off they are.
5.Sept.2008
Interview with Amy Goodman
Also on
this week's
NOW, Brancaccio talks with Amy Goodman of
Democracy Now! about
her arrest and abuse by the police in St. Paul. Did police target
press on the street to make sure the media stayed inside the convention
hall where the message was under control?
Speaking of Governor Whitman
She was David Brancaccio's guest on
NOW this week,
and among other interesting points she made was this:
CTW: "...We've started to see this shift where every issue is made into a
moral issue—it's morally correct to hold this position or
that position."
DB: "And you can't argue against a moral position."
CTW: "No, and... you can't compromise on a moral postion. If I think
I'm morally right, and I take this position, and you take the opposite
position, then you're morally wrong, and you don't compromise with
someone you think is morally wrong."
GOP soundtrack
If John and Sarah want a job upholding the Constitution, maybe they
could start practicing by having their campaign re-read
Article I,
Section 8. And
the
Eight Commandment.
Wait, we've heard this before
Get ready for a little Groundhog Day for the next couple months.
The purpose of the stump speech is to make sure the candidates stay "on
message," and don't go nuts and try to improvise. That derision of
"community organizers" was not just the Wednesday night pit bull theme,
Sarah Palin is carrying it on out to small town America, starting with
something close to my hometown, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. (It's being styled
as a "suburb of Milwaukee," the city I was born in, but this will come
as unwelcome news to the exurbians who purposely relocated to a model
"small town" from the middle of the 20th century.)
Red State Rebels has a fine response to that cheap shot from
hip-hop artist Jay Smooth, along with plenty of other hard-working
people who resent being turned into a punch line.
"The difference between a 'community organizer' and a 'politician' is
that community organizers are the ones who take the responsibility upon
themselves to help their fellow citizens without the benefit of a
government budget behind them...."
"Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America's women?
"You are not, I think, supposed now to say this. Just as, I am sure, you
are certainly not supposed to feel that having Sarah Palin put forth as
the Republicans' first female vice presidential candidate is just about
as respectful a gesture toward women as was John McCain's suggestion,
last month, that his wife participate in a topless beauty contest."
Exploiting the memory of the dead
I haven't caught up with last night's RNC gala, beyond seeing the very
end of McCain's acceptance speech. (He sure had 'em going for that; I
thought the way he kept pumping those last few lines into the cheers and
applause was ably done; waiting for it to die down and firing it back up
would've been far less exuberant.)
I understand that part of the evening was a "9-11 Tribute" video,
upon which Keith
Olberman commented succinctly. Watching the 3 minute video by
myself, with a little browser porthole wasn't anything nearly as
dramatic as being in a darkened convention hall with a few thousands of
fellow travelers watching a big screen, but I certainly got the
point.
Be fearful of Evil, and those who hate us. We are righteous, blameless,
and We Will Never Let it Happen Again.
"It is a war we never chose to fight," the narrator intones. Except for
Iraq, that is. We did choose to fight that war, for
reasons that were questionable, at best. And in Iraq, the dead, wounded,
and displaced outnumber American dead, wounded, and displaced a hundred
to one.
This is all about being Christian Soliders, not Christians. It is
remarkable that the supposed Party of Values and Narrative can generate
such fervor over the idea of life, right down to the cellular
mechanics of reproduction, and yet be so willing to make callous
life-and-death decisions for the rest of the world.
And then exploit the memory of "our" dead to further their own
cause.
4.Sept.2008
The Culture War Option
Jay Rosen tries his hand at predicting how Sarah Palin's big night
at the convention would go... and looks to have nailed the "shock and
awe" of the next greatest battle in a reignited war between
Fundamentalism and Pluralism, Faith and Reality, America as God's gift
to the world vs. America as a member of a community of nations.
We'll see whether his strategy prediction after the "big break" at the
convention is what plays out in the next couple months:
Strategy: double down on defiance by never letting her answer questions,
except from friendly media figures who have joined your narrative; like
Cheney with Fox. No
meet the press at all. No interviews of Palin with the
DC media elite—at all. De-legitimate the ask.
Break with all "access" expectations. Use surrogates and spokesmen,
let them get mauled, then whip up
resentment at their mistreatment. Answer questions at town halls
and call that
adequate enough.
Dr. Laura (Dr. Laura?! Yup,
Dr. Laura) is "stunned" and wants to know
"(C)ouldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult
children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors
probably didn’t want a 'mature' woman, as the Democrats keep harping on
his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth
child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then
goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?"
Whose Big Brother?
We fast-forwarded over the part where Willard "Mitt" Romney blurted out
that "It’s time for the party of big ideas, not the party of Big
Brother!"
The NYT
editorial board "couldn't imagine what he was thinking" with that,
but Jeanette suggested he might have skipped over one of the seminal
works of modern English literature on his way to being a Captain of
Industry.
Perhaps he's projecting an unhappy memory about
his big
brother, or thinking about the welfare state bogeyman, rather than
George Orwell's prescient description of the Bush / Cheney
administration.
Coming after his own diatribe against
the quaint Constitutional notions of equal protection of the law and
presumption of innocence, the only question I have is how much was
outright chutzpah, and how much was flat-out ignorance.
Fact Check!
In her defense, there were a lot of people wanting to put words in her
mouth, but let's get a few things squared away, shall we?
The reality-based community collects the facts, ma'am.
If you don't like that site, you can get it
off the AP wire as well. (Be advised though: the Fairbanks Daily
News-Miner site is working a bit harder than usual.)
H/t to the
Unequivocal Notion, just replete with good stuff today, including
Jon Stewart checking in with the changes of heart pouring into the
Right-sized bloviation pool.
3.Sept.2008
Finally, heeeeeeeeere's SARAH!
She passes her first test with flying colors: reading the campaign's
pitch as if she believes it with all her heart. (Granted, it was nicely
customized for their last-minute pick.)
Anything about banning books in the local library? The change of heart
in supporting Ted Stevens? Or his bridge? Not quite.
"We have a surplus," built on transfer payments from the Federal
government, and resource extraction. If the state's going to build a
bridge, they'll do it themselves? The Department of Transportation
will be pleased to hear you're sending that money back.
Wha' what's that you say, you're not sending the money back?
And that liberal former mayor of New York
Ridiculing the idea of working as a community organizer.
And so on. Remember people, this election is not going to be about
"issues," it's supposed to be about personality. (That would
explain why Rudy Guiliani is speaking on Wednesday rather than Thursday
night.)
Let's do be sure to keep this video in the archive and replay it during
Obama's second term.
But first, the nice loser
I like Huck! As do a fair number of the Republicans in the house.
And hey, after Mitt Romney, even Carly Fiorina would've looked
avuncular.
Speaking out against racism here, in this mostly white crowd,
more evidence of meaningful progress. And a decent statement about the
opposition. "We celebrate this milestone" of Obama's nomination.
Here he is selling "change" in the house of the Party that's been in
power for eight years. Huh. We're all firmly agreed we need change in
the White House, OK. Huckabee's not above ignorant, cheap shots though.
Attacking Obama for bringing back "European ideas" from travelling
overseas?
Everybody's waiting for Sarah Palin
We've heard she was a beauty queen! And she's going to read a speech
somebody in the Party wrote for her!
Now, for the bigger losers
Mitt Romney, who lost the run to nomination, fair and square.
"Thank you very much. Ann and I love you all."
Coming out hard against the "eastern elites"... like, um, the
last two Republican Presidents?! Jolly good fun, until he got to "Let
me ask you some questions."
"Is a Supreme Court decision liberal or conservative that
awards Guantánamo terrorists with Constitutional rights? It's
liberal!"
Now, by "Guantánamo terrorists," you mean everyone that's been
rounded up, acused of terrorism and locked up in our supposedly
"offshore" prison in Guantánamo Bay? And by "Constitutional
Rights," you're referring to Habeus corpus, a legal principle
established most of a millennium ago?
All I can say is thank GOD that Mitt Romney is an also-ran, warm-up
bloviator on Wednesday night instead of anywhere on the Republican
ticket. He is a classic example of someone born to wealth and privilege
who thinks he deserves everything he's been given.
He makes me sick. And I've got a fair resistance to that sort of
response. Revulsion comes easy, outright nausea is harder.
"...and to stand up to the Tyrannosaurus appetite of government
unions."
What the hell? (Teacher's unions, Jeanette explains.) I'm thinking
Romney got to write his own speech.
The crowd was chanting that for a while, fired up by the GOPAC chairman.
Couple of loser delegates
They love Mike and Mitt, but they're backing the ticket, taking one for
the team. It's all good.
These two want to play up the "Clinton split," as if last week
never happened. Weren't really paying attention, were you boys?
Next up, the bad lady CEO
But hey, with a $20-some million golden parachute, she landed on her
feet. As Jim Lehrer put the question, "Then she had some problems with
her own company, Hewlett-Packard, but she's still very highly regarded
in the economic area, is she not?" Maybe in the Pig's Eye (see
item #6) her
self-promoting marketing will still fly, but that could be more
"political bullshit" on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.
Thank goodness they've got a fixed microphone and she can't do that
stage-pacing thing she loves to do. She's having a hard time getting the
attention of the floor. She's trying to work through some sort of
rational argument, without enough dog whistling. Singing John McCain's
praises? That should liven them up, shouldn't it?
Behind her, on the big screen, it's sunset in America. Fits the rust
colored background, and that rusty silk suit she's wearing.
Hand-painted signs being organized... FENCE THE... Border, I suppose,
but they switched back to the podium camera.
It must be galling to her to go back to being a tout for someone else in
charge. She used to be in charge, the person everybody had to
listen to and jump when she said "jump." Now, they're not jumping,
they're carrying on a thousand conversations while she's pouring her
heart into this speech someone wrote for her.
The camera keeps switching to Frank Fiorina (I'm pretty sure that is),
but no one knows who he is, at least not whoever's on the character
generator tonight.
What's with this "I know John McCain" theme? It seems creepy. "He will
never shrink from calling evil and aggression by their names." Which is
why George W. Bush wasn't given a pass to the Excel Center?
And how do you feel about that queue-jumping Sarah Palin, Carly?
When she got to the end of the script, there was perfunctory applause,
which she might have milked if only she'd known she was at the
end. Oh. "Thank you very much." Ouch.
Once more into the breach
The head of the Texas Railroad Commission, whaddaya know. Did he say
that the change that McCain will provide is more change in your pocket
when you go to fill up your gas tank?
Following along on PBS, they've got Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Az) admitting
Republicans share the blame for Congress' failings, and former House
Majority Leader, Republican Dick Armey, sounding a little slurred in
retirement, has he had a stroke? Or a few drinks?
Ah, one of the lady CEOs, the good one, Meg Whitman. We are making
progress, people. The Republicans are touting their progress in
achievements for women. "I can say with certainty," she says,
predicting a man's behavior far into the future, as so many of these
political speakers like to do. It's about constructing a myth,
convincing ourselves that we have a Hero in our midst.
She's talking about "our generation's moonshot" of energy independence
(wasn't that Al Gore's idea?), and the importance of dealing with global
warming. And of course, lowering your taxes. While government doesn't
spend more than it takes in. As happened ever so briefly during the
Clinton administration.
Is this thing on?
There are some outrageous works of satire being produced in response to
the latest Republican strategic moves; suffice it to say that Comedy
Central's got nothing on the blogosphere these days. But
Republican campaign strategists Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan, talking with
Chuck Todd of NBC News, did the satirists one better when they
kept talking after they thought they were off the air. Is it a
send-up? Could be, but I'm guessing if it were, it would be funnier.
Peggy Noonan: "The most qualified? No! I think they went for
this—excuse me—political bullshit about narratives..."
Chuck Todd: "Yeah they went to a narrative."
Mike Murphy: "I totally agree."
2.Sept.2008
Fred Thompson
Wow, how'd he get so full of life tonight? Where was that energy when he
was on the campaign trail trying to get the nomination? He does have a
fire in his belly, coming after the "Beltway business as usual
crowd."
But mostly, Fred was there to tell the John McCain's compelling story of
wartime heroism, a story which the campaign wants everyone to think
about as much as possible, even though last time around, they were happy
to deride and belittle a war hero, in favor of their own non-hero.
Presumably the Republican Party would prefer that we do not
think about the Bush / Cheney record on associating our country
with torture, or John McCain's capitulation to that record.
Ah, the secret, dog whistle message out there in the open: We won't have
to ask "who is this man, and can we trust him with the Presidency?"
Don't need to be too subtle with this crowd.
Christine Todd Whitman
Now this woman would have made a hell of a running mate for John
McCain, if you ask me. Instead, she's sitting in a pundit chair,
chatting with Gwen Ifill. Former Governor of a populated state,
experienced as head of the E.P.A., different enough from the failed Bush
/ Cheney administration that she left during its first term. Granted
her
record isn't perfect, but whose is? At least there's some
gravitas.
Not that any Republicans give a flying whoop about what the
New York Times editorial board thinks, but you know, the Board
has a good point about McCain's
"first
executive decision," choosing his running mate.
Some fraction of the conservative base is mightily fired up about Sarah
Palin, but the list of questionable items in her C.V. (reiterated by the
NYT board), the timing, and the family values circus (which the campaign
either (a) knew was inevitable, or (b) failed to discover in their
absolutely, positively, completely thorough vetting process) may have
changed the subject from the successful Democratic National Convention,
but not necessarily in a good way.
"Minnesota Nice"
It comes in a sleeveless yellow dress with a fake belt and buckle over
the heart, a hundred watt smile and a voice that slice sharp enough to
slice through granite.
"Government is not a philanthropic organization. Government is not
the family. And government certainly is not the church! As Republicans,
we recognize that when you keep more of your hard-earned money
then you're free to spend it as you want to on the charities that
touch your heart and make a difference in your communities."
Or not!
Pawlenty of fun!
Couldn't help myself from checking out some of the RNC. Public speaking
is not easy, and getting the right energy for both a voluminous hall,
and the cameras, and getting all your lines right is not
easy. So forgive what's her name for giving a big shout out for the
soon-to-be-nominated Vice-Presidential candidate "Sarah Pawlenty."
Goin' to the Vet
Nobody's perfect, so if a few more things come out
about McCain's choice of Veep, let's just keep in mind it could be
worse. Dick Cheney was put in charge of George W. Bush's
Vice-Presidential pick, and look who he came up with.
All about the Constitution
Free press? We don't need no stinkin' free press. We've got
black-suited, baton-wielding riot police to keep
unwanted journalists away from our nice Republican Party.
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!
charged with "obstruction of legal process and interference with a quote
peace officer."
All about the framing
Who's this Rick Davis guy, supposedly running John McCain's campaign?
He's saying
"this election is not about issues." And
praising Sarah Palin because if she were Commander-in-Chief, she
would have done what General Petraeus recommended. (And Barack Obama
wouldn't, and if we hadn't, "we'd have Armageddon in the Middle East
today.")
So, in other words, let's make the election about celebrity and
personality? Never mind the economy, health care, foreign policy, global
warming and all that stuff? Presumably Davis is telling us what he
wants the election to be about, so he must see McCain/Palin as
holding a losing hand if it does turn out to tip on the issues of the
day.
All about the money
For state and local government, "fighting wasteful government spending"
does not typically extend to reducing the trickle down effect from the
Federal government, so it's not a big surprise that
Sarah Palin was for earmarks before she was against them. The scale
is interesting: $27 million for a town of less than 7,000 is round about
$4,000 per capita. Nice pork if you can get it.
She was likewise for the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" before she was
against it, and even she's no longer a Bridge fan, she's not about to
give up on the hundreds of $millions that won't be spent on it. (Oh,
and she was for
Ted Stevens before she was against him too, running a 527 group for
him to raise money from corporate donors.)
It's an all-too-familiar pattern in the intermountain West, where we're
all rootin' tootin' red-state cowboys until its time to collect
ourtransfer
payments. (2005 Federal spending per dollar of tax paid:
Alaska, $1.84; Arizona, $1.19; California, $0.78;
Delaware, $0.77; Idaho, $1.21; Illinois, $0.75; New York,
$0.79)
1.Sept.2008
Bush / Cheney Cancelled
It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
To make an appearance?!
It's good to learn from our mistakes, and so far, 3 years after the
disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, signs are positive. I suppose
we could take it as icing on the cake that the Republicans have finally
found their "American hats" and are willing to help out a needy Gulf
Coast. But how does it help to have a presidential candidate
"make an appearance," no matter how "semi-presidential" his
bearing?
Leadership does not consist of "showing up," especially not with an
entourage and press gaggle that are of no help whatsoever for people
trying to evacuate and/or batten the hatches against a hurricane.
The good news for everyone on the mainland that Gustav didn't grow
into a more serious storm. ("Only" about a hundred people killed and a
thousand times that many homes destroyed as the storm smashed up Cuba,
Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.) Once we see how things hold
up after a foot or two of rain and the waning winds, we can get back to
the discussion about rebuilding the
essential wetlands on the Gulf Coast.
Some meaningful action toward that end over the past three years would
have provided a more dramatic show of support than a photo-op and
passing the collection basket.
RNC Op-Art
Will Christopher Buckley have to revise
his schedule for the RNC too? We'll be watching for that
Wednesday afternoon talk by Carly Fiorina, "How to Halve Your Company's
Market Cap and Walk Away with a $21 Million Severance
Package."
Brace yourselves
As southern Idaho chills out with a mild cold front to put a stake
in the end of summer, the news is
focused on
the Gulf of Mexico, and the mouth of the Mississippi once again, as
Gustav makes landfall just west of New Orleans with triple-digit winds.
I was on the road yesterday when one news item floated by: the
possibility of a 14 foot storm surge (down from estimates as high
as 25 feet). I don't know about you, but that's over my head.
It's over my head standing on top of my car.
"Where you going to hide from God? How you going to hide from him?
There is a time to be born and a time to die. If he calls your name, you
got to answer." –Roosevelt Scott, 73
The sidebar in the NYT story linked above has a graphic headed "Many
Levees Still Not Ready," and illustrates "100-year criteria" and
"100-year protection" (which "few of New Orleans' levees" provide)
but the caption notes that "Hurricane Katrina was a 397-year storm."
It comes down to a gamble against warm water, Coriolis forces, butterfly
wings flapping in Brazil and a planet warmer than we've ever known.
On the one hand, all bets are off; on the other, decisions have to be
made. So, time to
get the hell
out of Dodge for a couple millions of people, even though Gustav
looks to have been helpfully discombobulated rather than strengthened by
this summer's Gulf wind and water
temperature pattern.
Sami had been pretty sporty for a good while after the recent troubles
(and 
After a couple decades futzing with email, my radar for scams, spam and
other folderol is pretty well developed, but I confess, I fell for the
viral "Is Sarah Palin qualified to server as Vice President of the
United States?" poll that NOW put up.
Consider the spectrum of human existence, from self, to family,
neighborhood, community, cities, counties, states, nations, the species
as a whole on our planet. People organizing themselves into political
parties have different things to say about these aggregations, the
rights and responsibilities, and the proper (and improper) roles
at each level of organization.
Do you think the changes underway in the global climate might have an
affect on Alaska, up there by (and beyond) the Arctic Circle? Palin's
full-on resource extraction approach to the environment was a perfect
match for the "drill baby drill" mentality that the Right is stoking to
counter the idea that caution might be in order at the epochal juncture
of Peak Oil and Global Climactic Disruption. Apparently, if everything
is part of God's Plan, all we have to worry about is where to drill
next, and how hard to pray for a pipeline.