Bill O'Reilley's show is like that jug of milk in the fridge that you know has gone bad, but you still can't resist smelling it just to be sure.
A couple of classic BillO Moments:
1) "I don't care about the Constitution."
2) "If the Bush administration had declared war on al-Qaeda..."
Not even a semi pocket dog like Napolitano would sit still for crap like that.
But here's the kicker: BillO opposes trying KSM et al in NY because he thinks it'll be a circus - a show trial - that it'll be about everything except the acts of terrorism it's supposed to be about. Even if that's a fair point, I still have to ask; what is he afraid will be revealed? Will we be reminded of Bush's epic failures before during and after 9-11? And will it all play out to the disadvantage of the Repubs during the next 2 election cycles? Is that what we're really worried about here, Billy?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Security Theater
Along the lines of Political Theater - Bruce Schneier explains.
Terrorism is rare, far rarer than many people think. It's rare because very few people want to commit acts of terrorism, and executing a terrorist plot is much harder than television makes it appear. The best defenses against terrorism are largely invisible: investigation, intelligence, and emergency response. But even these are less effective at keeping us safe than our social and political policies, both at home and abroad. However, our elected leaders don't think this way: they are far more likely to implement security theater against movie-plot threats.
Terrorism is rare, far rarer than many people think. It's rare because very few people want to commit acts of terrorism, and executing a terrorist plot is much harder than television makes it appear. The best defenses against terrorism are largely invisible: investigation, intelligence, and emergency response. But even these are less effective at keeping us safe than our social and political policies, both at home and abroad. However, our elected leaders don't think this way: they are far more likely to implement security theater against movie-plot threats.
InfoMania
Current TV popped up on my Dish Network box a couple of years ago(?). They do some interesting stuff.
Monday, November 16, 2009
KSM Trial
Politicians can usually be counted on to run away from their own comments &/or positions when they think they need to - Rudy G is certainly no exception. And of course, since the Repub Handbook clearly prohibits changing your mind even in light of changed circumstances, he just spins like a top to make it seem like he was in perfect agreement with the decision to try the 1993 bombers in the NY courts because "there were no alternatives ... now we have the alternative of military tribunals". He said then that he tho't it was a good idea because it would show the bad guys that the US is in fact "what we say we are - a nation of law". Now that we do have the alternative in the form of military tribunals, does it mean that we're no longer the nation of law that he was so proud of back then?
But uh oh; another little problematic detail pops up - military tribunals WERE available for the Moussaoui trial - and Jack Reed sticks Rudy with it.
Put all this aside for just a moment, and look at the naked politics. It seems like the same game the Repubs have been playing for 20+ years.
1) Pick a bad guy - make sure he's easy to spot. Either he has a foreign-sounding name, or his skin is a couple of shades darker than yours, or he has some kind of well known label that we can tag him with when we run his picture on TV (Democrat, Liberal, Imam, etc).
2) Imply (or say it straight out) that he doesn't believe in the same things you believe in; or even better, that he actively seeks to destroy the things we all hold dear. Best case: when he hates us AND he gets tax dollars to do his dirty work.
3) Guide the narrative in a way that never makes a direct call for violence, but be sure to invite lots of inference that we are being victimized. Best case: he gets a chance "to use our freedoms against us."
So watch out for Cluster Fox's favorite; letting the bad guys put the American system on trial. For my own self, I think the American system is a pretty good one (even tho' it can be frustrating and annoying to those who seem unwilling to make any real effort to understand it), and after 220 years of hard evidence, it appears to me that when we allow it to work as intended, the system stands up quite well under any scrutiny brought to bear.
But uh oh; another little problematic detail pops up - military tribunals WERE available for the Moussaoui trial - and Jack Reed sticks Rudy with it.
Put all this aside for just a moment, and look at the naked politics. It seems like the same game the Repubs have been playing for 20+ years.
1) Pick a bad guy - make sure he's easy to spot. Either he has a foreign-sounding name, or his skin is a couple of shades darker than yours, or he has some kind of well known label that we can tag him with when we run his picture on TV (Democrat, Liberal, Imam, etc).
2) Imply (or say it straight out) that he doesn't believe in the same things you believe in; or even better, that he actively seeks to destroy the things we all hold dear. Best case: when he hates us AND he gets tax dollars to do his dirty work.
3) Guide the narrative in a way that never makes a direct call for violence, but be sure to invite lots of inference that we are being victimized. Best case: he gets a chance "to use our freedoms against us."
So watch out for Cluster Fox's favorite; letting the bad guys put the American system on trial. For my own self, I think the American system is a pretty good one (even tho' it can be frustrating and annoying to those who seem unwilling to make any real effort to understand it), and after 220 years of hard evidence, it appears to me that when we allow it to work as intended, the system stands up quite well under any scrutiny brought to bear.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Triangle
I'm thinking, somebody's gonna tell me this is why I shoulda paid more attention in Math Class.
Welcome Back, Mr Beckerman
Marty Beckerman explains his trek to, and then back from the dark side - which sounds a little like my own actually.
Just as morphing into an extremist took a couple years, un-becoming an extremist happened over time. One by one I saw the flaws in conservative orthodoxy: attempting to fight terrorism with torture, which only aided our enemies' propaganda efforts and thus created more terrorists; seeking to liberalize the Muslim world while curtailing rights for gay people at home; criticizing public schools for lackluster results and therefore cutting funds further; disdaining the weak while never analyzing why they are weak; always seeing the effect but never the cause, which on a mass scale perpetuates the effect.
Here it is.
Just as morphing into an extremist took a couple years, un-becoming an extremist happened over time. One by one I saw the flaws in conservative orthodoxy: attempting to fight terrorism with torture, which only aided our enemies' propaganda efforts and thus created more terrorists; seeking to liberalize the Muslim world while curtailing rights for gay people at home; criticizing public schools for lackluster results and therefore cutting funds further; disdaining the weak while never analyzing why they are weak; always seeing the effect but never the cause, which on a mass scale perpetuates the effect.
Here it is.
Wall Street Leeches
From The Agonist
There are dozens and dozens of companies like Dollar General that were taken private by leveraged buy-out firms during the market frenzy that peaked in 2007. They were all bought with little cash and enormous amounts of debts, and they are sitting like time bombs on the balance sheets of the leveraged buy-out firms that misjudged the market. As the months go by and the buy-out firms watch their fees from their investors get eaten up by high interest costs, they are getting more and more desperate to dump these companies back on to the public markets and naïve individual investors.
There are dozens and dozens of companies like Dollar General that were taken private by leveraged buy-out firms during the market frenzy that peaked in 2007. They were all bought with little cash and enormous amounts of debts, and they are sitting like time bombs on the balance sheets of the leveraged buy-out firms that misjudged the market. As the months go by and the buy-out firms watch their fees from their investors get eaten up by high interest costs, they are getting more and more desperate to dump these companies back on to the public markets and naïve individual investors.
Oops
The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”
Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.
But they're gonna fix it - now that it's been found out and brought to light. Mike Steele is all over it and has told the bennies admin to drop coverage for abortion services. Read all about it.
Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.
But they're gonna fix it - now that it's been found out and brought to light. Mike Steele is all over it and has told the bennies admin to drop coverage for abortion services. Read all about it.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Gotcha - Followup
From Media Matters, Hannity issued an "apology" for airing some bogus video - which is just the most recent in a long line of such things:
A more complete listing of examples.
A more complete listing of examples.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Gotcha
The brilliance of Jon Stewart is indispensable.
I couldn't get the embed language to copy correctly, so just follow this link.
I couldn't get the embed language to copy correctly, so just follow this link.
Cluster Fox
What's the message between the lines here? Why would Roger & Rupert single out this one small piece of BS for challenge?
The Costs Of War
Looking at War strictly as a business proposition is a little dicey because it reduces the thing to simplistic dimensions; but trying to look at War always and only as a totality, it gets way too complex and convoluted in a big hurry. You have to break it done into bite-sized chunks. So here's a slice fer ya. BTW: these numbers don't include things like Cost Of Opportunity, Cost Of Capital, Depreciation, etc.
These items are all relative to what we could provide for people here in Albemarle County if we had spent our share of the money on something other than wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
-- 41,496 Homes with Renewable Electricity per Year
-- 732 Elementary School Teachers per Year
-- 14,077 People with Health Care per Year
-- 1,042 Scholarships for University Students per Year
So let's see - with a population of about 116,000, we could have provided a nice green energy source for PRACTICALLY EVERY FUCKING BUILDING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING COUNTY.
Sorry. Kinda lost it there for a minute. I'd just really like to start doing some smart things with our money for a change.
Try it for yourself.
These items are all relative to what we could provide for people here in Albemarle County if we had spent our share of the money on something other than wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
-- 41,496 Homes with Renewable Electricity per Year
-- 732 Elementary School Teachers per Year
-- 14,077 People with Health Care per Year
-- 1,042 Scholarships for University Students per Year
So let's see - with a population of about 116,000, we could have provided a nice green energy source for PRACTICALLY EVERY FUCKING BUILDING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING COUNTY.
Sorry. Kinda lost it there for a minute. I'd just really like to start doing some smart things with our money for a change.
Try it for yourself.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Worth Remembering
...though (probably) soon to be forgotten. I can easily see Mr Cao being challenged in a primary early next year. But for now, he's a hero; a guy who votes for something he thinks will HELP THE PEOPLE in his district, in spite of what his party wants. Nice knowin' ya, Mr Cao.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
The Budget
For the self-described Deficit Hawks / Budget Nannies / Fiscal Conservatives, here's your chart:
It's hard to see clearly, but here's how it breaks down for the Top Seven:
1) Social Security
2) Medicare
3) Medicaid & SCHIP
4) Unemployment/Welfare & other mandated spending
5) Interest on National Debt
6) Defense Dept
7) Global War On Terror (does NOT include Iraq and Afghanistan)
These 7 items add up to 83.6% of the total budget.
So when you say you wanna cut federal spending, tell me where. And be specific. "Waste Fraud and Abuse" is not a qualifier unless you can point to real examples.
It's hard to see clearly, but here's how it breaks down for the Top Seven:
1) Social Security
2) Medicare
3) Medicaid & SCHIP
4) Unemployment/Welfare & other mandated spending
5) Interest on National Debt
6) Defense Dept
7) Global War On Terror (does NOT include Iraq and Afghanistan)
These 7 items add up to 83.6% of the total budget.
So when you say you wanna cut federal spending, tell me where. And be specific. "Waste Fraud and Abuse" is not a qualifier unless you can point to real examples.
How It Works
Everybody's favorite Congress managed to get Unemployment Bennies extended after only an extra month of doing whatever it is they do to make us think they aren't just jackin' each other off.
From John Cole at Balloon Juice:
You see- you aren’t allowed to just pass a bill extending unemployment benefits at the cost of $2.4 billion dollars, because that would be socialism. It takes another $21.6 billion to grease the palms of the people who own the “moderates” and the “fiscal conservatives,” and once you get the cost up to $24 billion, you have achieved “capitalism.”
From John Cole at Balloon Juice:
You see- you aren’t allowed to just pass a bill extending unemployment benefits at the cost of $2.4 billion dollars, because that would be socialism. It takes another $21.6 billion to grease the palms of the people who own the “moderates” and the “fiscal conservatives,” and once you get the cost up to $24 billion, you have achieved “capitalism.”
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Off-Year Elections
Looking at the election results from Tuesday, lots of people keep asking "what does it mean?"
Here's what it means: Republicans won a couple, Democrats won a couple, and you too can be Mayor of New York City for the low low price of just $100 Million.
People wanted change so they voted for Obama last year. Guess what - they still want change so they're voting against incumbency. But guess what else - sometimes change is a scary thing when you're in the middle of it, so there's a tendency to revert to the old familiar ways of doing things.
Having sobered up a little after the Bush Blowout, some of us are beginning to remember that actually you can't get something for nothing. If you want good schools and roads and safe food and secure borders and professional cops and clean water and healthcare and and and - then you have to figure out how to pay for it all. If you don't want to pay for anything, then you don't get anything. It's not a difficult concept, so it might just turn out that you have to spend some of your hard-earned money on something other than the shit you think you need in order to compensate for your latest feelings of inadequacy (courtesy of your favorite Giant Advertising Company).
It's been a nice party, but now it's time to clean up, and pay up.
Here's what it means: Republicans won a couple, Democrats won a couple, and you too can be Mayor of New York City for the low low price of just $100 Million.
People wanted change so they voted for Obama last year. Guess what - they still want change so they're voting against incumbency. But guess what else - sometimes change is a scary thing when you're in the middle of it, so there's a tendency to revert to the old familiar ways of doing things.
Having sobered up a little after the Bush Blowout, some of us are beginning to remember that actually you can't get something for nothing. If you want good schools and roads and safe food and secure borders and professional cops and clean water and healthcare and and and - then you have to figure out how to pay for it all. If you don't want to pay for anything, then you don't get anything. It's not a difficult concept, so it might just turn out that you have to spend some of your hard-earned money on something other than the shit you think you need in order to compensate for your latest feelings of inadequacy (courtesy of your favorite Giant Advertising Company).
It's been a nice party, but now it's time to clean up, and pay up.
Monday, November 02, 2009
War Dead
Another month goes by and we're still spending lives and big piles of money in places where nobody wants us to be, for reasons nobody believes in.
US Dead in Iraq = 4355
US Dead in Afghanistan = 909
Dollars spent for 2 wars since 2001: $928,000,000,000.00 (increases by approx $318 Million per day)
US Dead in Iraq = 4355
US Dead in Afghanistan = 909
Dollars spent for 2 wars since 2001: $928,000,000,000.00 (increases by approx $318 Million per day)
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Carbon
Proposals for Cap & Trade to reduce Carbon Emmissions get a lot of ink; and of course, they attract a lot of crap from "both sides" - tho' I can't quite firgure out what there is to be choosing sides about. Traditionally, the thing is set up as Jobs vs Scenery - which is stupid. Even if it's possible to separate the Economy from the Environment, it's really not a good idea to try. The whole thing just doesn't work as a zero-sum game. We have to have both in balance. So we need to stop pretending we're smart enough to beat the system.
Cap and trade on SO2 emmissions here from EDF.
The projected cost of cap and trade on CO2 emmissions here from Stanford Univ.
Cap and trade on SO2 emmissions here from EDF.
The projected cost of cap and trade on CO2 emmissions here from Stanford Univ.
When The Wall Came Down
WaPo ran a cool little recap today in the Outlook Section.
"But the real story of the wall coming down is a lot less tidy than it may appear in the rear-view mirror. The "decision" to open the border was not a conscious choice at all. Instead of a reassuring victory for the forces of freedom, it was a chaotic and potentially violent mess. One of the most momentous events of the past century was, in fact, an accident, a semicomical and bureaucratic mistake that owes as much to the Western media as to the tides of history."
Always good to take another look at memorable events.
"But the real story of the wall coming down is a lot less tidy than it may appear in the rear-view mirror. The "decision" to open the border was not a conscious choice at all. Instead of a reassuring victory for the forces of freedom, it was a chaotic and potentially violent mess. One of the most momentous events of the past century was, in fact, an accident, a semicomical and bureaucratic mistake that owes as much to the Western media as to the tides of history."
Always good to take another look at memorable events.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sticking Point(s)
This is one of the things I've been worrying about. Dumping Will Kill Us
If we aren't careful, we're gonna get a reform law that simply sets us up to fail. Either the public option leads to a system that transfers enormous amounts of money from taxpayers to insurance companies; or it strips out the quaality of care from private plans because it applies so much pricing pressure; or it kills the insurance industry outright; or, or, or, etc.
I think the one thing that's obvious is that this is gonna get painful.
If we aren't careful, we're gonna get a reform law that simply sets us up to fail. Either the public option leads to a system that transfers enormous amounts of money from taxpayers to insurance companies; or it strips out the quaality of care from private plans because it applies so much pricing pressure; or it kills the insurance industry outright; or, or, or, etc.
I think the one thing that's obvious is that this is gonna get painful.
Just The Way You Are
Dove started this a few years ago, and it seemed like a great idea. Real women depicted in a real way. Haven't heard much about it lately; I'm hoping they stick with it.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Cluster Fox
The Rupert Street Journal may have let one slip by.
The token librul, Thomas Franks somehow got this past 'em.
"But no journalistic operation is better prepared to sing the tragedy of its own martyrdom than Fox News. To all the usual journalistic instincts it adds its grand narrative of Middle America's disrespectful treatment by the liberal elite. Persecution fantasy is Fox News's lifeblood; give it the faintest whiff of the real thing and look out for a gale-force hissy fit."
Live To Work vs Work To Live
By way of The Agonist, here's a post from a guy named Joe Bageant.
"America looks like one big workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled by commodities and kept in motion by the edict, "produce or die." Where employment and a job dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of which spells the loss of everything."
"But you won't hear anyone complaining. America doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat American personality. I assure them that our American corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or sedating its human assets into the appropriate level of cheeriness."
"America looks like one big workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled by commodities and kept in motion by the edict, "produce or die." Where employment and a job dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of which spells the loss of everything."
"But you won't hear anyone complaining. America doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat American personality. I assure them that our American corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or sedating its human assets into the appropriate level of cheeriness."
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Afghanistan
From an Op-Ed piece by Scott Corey as posted on Juan Cole's Informed Comment.
"Today, power is so diffuse that empire and isolation are equally dead. Control of information, money, natural resources, and ideological persuasiveness all move parts of the political world. Still, all of it hangs on a framework of formal authority residing in a collection of states that wield force, legitimacy, representation, and diplomacy.
Terrorism prospers in the complexity of this political world. Political identity is no longer simple and fixed, so friend and enemy are hard to know. If I hit you, we fight, because the enmity is clear. If I coerce you with weapons, you might be intimidated or you might defy me, but the choice is clear. However, if I kill someone else in a spectacular manner, you need to know why before you can react. My cause might be just. My enemy might be your enemy. Or I might be coming for you and yours if you take the wrong path."
"Today, power is so diffuse that empire and isolation are equally dead. Control of information, money, natural resources, and ideological persuasiveness all move parts of the political world. Still, all of it hangs on a framework of formal authority residing in a collection of states that wield force, legitimacy, representation, and diplomacy.
Terrorism prospers in the complexity of this political world. Political identity is no longer simple and fixed, so friend and enemy are hard to know. If I hit you, we fight, because the enmity is clear. If I coerce you with weapons, you might be intimidated or you might defy me, but the choice is clear. However, if I kill someone else in a spectacular manner, you need to know why before you can react. My cause might be just. My enemy might be your enemy. Or I might be coming for you and yours if you take the wrong path."
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Beck's Projections
Listen closely, and you can make out the subliminal message: Teach your kids to expect less. There are winners and losers in life; the people you see on TV and the people you read about in the papers are the winners, and all of you are losers. Get used to it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Virginia Gubernatorial Race
Nick's project for his Government Class is this campaign spot - with my own humble self doing a guest shot as narrator.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Evidence-Based Reality
And the debate rages on. From an article in Wired, Amy Wallace takes a look at what's beginning to happen as a result of the "Anti-Vaccination Movement".
In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.
“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”
In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.
“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
For The Record
I caught a short glimpse of Frank Gaffney on Hardball trying to argue that a real insurgency caused problems in Germany after WWII - which somehow is supposed to mean we should stay in Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of the locals' deep desire to get us outa there.
The 'Werewolf' in Germany was mostly fiction - made up of frightened hungry teenagers and some number of die-hard Nazi buttheads. A Pentagon report listed 42 American soldiers "killed as a result of enemy action" between June and December 1945. In 1946, there were three.
Get. Out. Now.
The 'Werewolf' in Germany was mostly fiction - made up of frightened hungry teenagers and some number of die-hard Nazi buttheads. A Pentagon report listed 42 American soldiers "killed as a result of enemy action" between June and December 1945. In 1946, there were three.
Get. Out. Now.
Once An Asshole, Always An Asshole
“They’re opening them [oil fields] up to other companies all over the world … We’re entitled to it. Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars," -T. Boone Pickens, speaking to Congress about Iraq.
I have to admit, when Pickens was doing his commercials for wind energy, I tho't maybe we were seeing the beginnings of real change in how we'd go about feeding the beast - which (I'd hoped) would change the beast. Now I see it was just standard bullshit - he saw an opportunity and tried to capitalize on it. Nothin' wrong with that in itself, but pricks like T Boone Pickens feel entitled to the resources that somebody else paid for. They actually believe that my kids should fight and bleed and die in some desert shithole to make sure they have access to the enormous profits they can make by selling the oil back to the machinery being used to go to places like Iraq to secure their access to the oil supplies.
There's no soul in any of this. We've allowed Purpose and Self-Determintation to be stripped out of everything we do.
I have to admit, when Pickens was doing his commercials for wind energy, I tho't maybe we were seeing the beginnings of real change in how we'd go about feeding the beast - which (I'd hoped) would change the beast. Now I see it was just standard bullshit - he saw an opportunity and tried to capitalize on it. Nothin' wrong with that in itself, but pricks like T Boone Pickens feel entitled to the resources that somebody else paid for. They actually believe that my kids should fight and bleed and die in some desert shithole to make sure they have access to the enormous profits they can make by selling the oil back to the machinery being used to go to places like Iraq to secure their access to the oil supplies.
There's no soul in any of this. We've allowed Purpose and Self-Determintation to be stripped out of everything we do.
Return To Glass-Steagall
"By not making another financial crisis impossible, they are making another financial crisis inevitable, and next time it will be even worse."
cupidty –noun; eager or excessive desire, esp. to possess something; greed; avarice.
Read this from Ian Welsh.
cupidty –noun; eager or excessive desire, esp. to possess something; greed; avarice.
Read this from Ian Welsh.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Warning
We're gettin' fucked with our pants on, guys. And it doesn't stop until we all stand up and make it stop. So here's your homework assignment for tonight.
Front Line - The Warning
Be aware of the problem, and at least be supportive of people who try to do something about it.
Front Line - The Warning
Be aware of the problem, and at least be supportive of people who try to do something about it.
Mr Grayson Rocks The House
Pointing out the stupid shit that sometimes passes for "The People's Business" is an important function. Let's hope he has the integrity to do the same with the Dems from time to time as well.
Money In Your Pocket
When the cost of healthcare coverage (as a percentage of compensation) goes down, wages go up.
Ezra Klein posted a good look at the concept.
Ezra Klein posted a good look at the concept.
Mind Your Mother
"The problem with modern contrarianism is that it's lazy. Too often, it's the sole focus of a piece, and it's the focus for reasons purely of entertainment or ideology. Which is too bad, because the kind of journalism that's most useful is the kind that explains both first order things and counterreactions and doesn't pander to readers' desires to pretend that the world is simpler than it really is. After all, counterreactions may usually be less important than first-order effects, but they're still worth investigating. Some tax cuts really don't raise as much revenue as you'd think. Raising the minimum wage really can have perverse effects in specific slices of the economy. If you're genuinely interested in knowing how the world works, you want to know this."
Kevin Drum explains at Mother Jones.
Kevin Drum explains at Mother Jones.
Give 'Em Hell, Harry
From a speech Harry Truman gave at a convention of The AHA in 1952.
At about 11:40, he makes the point that healthcare is vital to national security. "only the strong survive, and only the healthy can be strong."
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
At about 11:40, he makes the point that healthcare is vital to national security. "only the strong survive, and only the healthy can be strong."
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Wow
I got my first ever comment. It's from somebody signing as "Snowball", posted yesterday, and I just noticed it this evening. Yay. Thanks, Snowball.
Ten Years Of Hell
Matt Taibbi does some great reporting. It's a long piece, and I had to circle back to read some of it more than twice, but the perspective is important.
"By the middle of the Bush years, the great investment banks like Bear and Lehman no longer made their money financing real businesses and creating jobs. Instead, Wall Street now serves, in the words of one former investment executive, as "Lucy to America's Charlie Brown," endlessly creating new products to lure the great herd of unwitting investors into whatever tawdry greed-bubble is being spun at the moment: Come kick the football again, only this time we'll call it the Internet, real estate, oil futures. Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class."
"By the middle of the Bush years, the great investment banks like Bear and Lehman no longer made their money financing real businesses and creating jobs. Instead, Wall Street now serves, in the words of one former investment executive, as "Lucy to America's Charlie Brown," endlessly creating new products to lure the great herd of unwitting investors into whatever tawdry greed-bubble is being spun at the moment: Come kick the football again, only this time we'll call it the Internet, real estate, oil futures. Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class."
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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