Whoda Thunk?

So the first "referendum" on President Obama's administration has come and gone. Or, maybe not gone...

A mere 65 votes separated the two candidates late Tuesday in a Congressional contest in upstate New York that received national attention and was widely seen as a referendum on the Obama administration's economic recovery efforts.

With all precincts reporting, the Democrat, Scott Murphy, a 39-year-old venture capitalist, led 77,344 to 77,279 over his Republican rival, Assemblyman James N. Tedisco, 58, for the seat vacated by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, a Democrat. The turnout was surprisingly strong for a special election.

But 10,055 absentee ballots were issued — and 5,907 received so far, state election officials said — meaning the election cannot be decided until the paper ballots are counted. Moreover, it is likely that the count may not begin until at least April 6, said Bob Brehm, a spokesman for the State Board of Elections.

Republicans held out hope of recapturing the seat in the 20th Congressional District, which is heavily Republican and stretches from the Catskills through the Albany suburbs to the Adirondacks. Democrats, meanwhile, waited to see whether their standard-bearer, a first-time political candidate who campaigned on his support for the federal stimulus package, could pull off an upset.

In that last paragraph, you read the spin for both sides. Democrats recognizing that this is a heavily Republican district, despite the fact that the last incumbent was a Democrat (now-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand). Republicans trying to paint this as some sort of upset because Obama's party did not win a clear majority.

 

Either way this story ultimately breaks, we've not heard the end of it. Should Murphy lose, the seat will be recontested next year. Should Tedisco lose, he has his Assembly Minority Leader job to fall back on, and can spend the next year campaigning heavily.

 

Indeed, the district ought to be prepared for that in either case. The district has demonstrated that despite its heavily Republican roots, it can vote Democratic pretty easily. It went for Clinton, Spitzer and Gillibrand in 2006, Obama in 2008, and appears to have chosen Murphy in 2009.

 

It has been said that there are parts of upstate New York which are so red they make Alabama look liberal. This is not one of those, but it could give Kentucky a run for its red money. Conversely, this district has not shown fealty to the Democrats, either, voting in two rock stars (Clinton and Obama) and electing one Congresswoman by dint of the abject failure of the previous incumbent to comport himself and represent the district with any kind of dignity.

 

Indeed, the name that stands out in that list of Democrats who won recent votes in the 20th is Eliot Spitzer, but remember he was running after a hugely successful incumbency at Attorney General for the state (he was years ahead of the curve in exposing AIG's fraudulent behaviors) and the governor's seat was vacant.

 

Clearly, then, the spin for both sides is right and not mutually exclusive. This is a bellwhether election, but not to the degree the Republicans would want us to believe. And this district is heavily Republican, but clearly not married to the idea of voting back in a party that ruined the state and the nation after decades of rule.

 

At least not just yet.

 

The real story, in fact, is that Tedisco had a twelve point lead as late as January in this race, and lost it all back and then some to Murphy. This sums up the recent political history of this district in a nutshell.

Agree To Disagree

Say what you want about Obama's policies so far in his term, he's put European leaders in a quandry:

Washington - The new American president's debut on the world stage, beginning Tuesday in London in advance of the Group of 20 meeting, is sure to have its share of "Hello!" magazine moments and glamour. He will, after all, meet with Queen Elizabeth II, an established member of the thin upper crust of global personalities and an international rock star in her own right.

But President Obama may be speaking sotto voce and out of the spotlight while in the company of presidents and prime ministers. That's because he is expected to articulate positions and prescriptions that are out of step with leaders from Western Europe, China, Russia, India, and beyond – on issues ranging from the global economic crisis to the war in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Mr. Obama may well find himself in the inverse position from where George W. Bush stood by the end of his White House run. Whereas Mr. Bush enjoyed greater cooperation and like-mindedness with many key foreign leaders, though he remained unpopular with the international public, Obama is expected to encounter an adoring public but a deep skepticism – even resistance – among heads of state.

England has already made conciliatory and supportive comments for Obama ahead of the summit, but the current leader of the European Union, Czech Mirek Topolanek has all but said Obama will drag Europe to damnation.

 

Pretty strong words from a diplomat, to be sure.

 

The pressing issue for this summit is the economic crisis. Obama has made some curious statements with respect to "more stimulus" from the European Union. Here's why this sounds sort of flat.

 

The European Union as a whole has the largest economy in the world, on a par with the US (currency fluctuations can have one or the other as the larger, so it's just easier to call them the same size). The difference is, the European Union has already invested the spending in the areas that Obama wants to port to America: healthcare, infrastructure, advanced energy technologies, green technologies, and so on.

 

The trade-off Europe makes in its GDP and its economic growth is this: its labor force is about 50% bigger than the United States, yet generates "only" as much revenue as we do. This means that much of its growth potential is tied up in taking care of its citizenry.

 

This is a good thing, but the downside to this equation is that this hurts them in terms of having a cushion from which to increase spending. Europe has a group commitment to see that deficits for individual states do not exceed 3% of the individual GDP, so deficit spending is not an option. So what little surplus the states may have is going to have to involve cuts to either its population or to its business models (read that as higher taxes), neither of which is an attractive option in a faltering economy.

 

So you can understand why European leaders are hesitant to jump on the US bandwagon here.

 

On the other hand, the general populations of the European nations look to Obama in many of the same ways they looked to Bill Clinton. He is a rock star, accorded rock star status by some truly legitimate rock stars like Bono, and as such will have powerful sway over public opinion.

 

Worse than that for European leaders, lets assume the average European is about as informed as the average American, e.g. they watch the TV news and then extrapolate to their lives. They're going to see Obama browbeating the EU for more spending and they're going to look around and realize that their friends are out of work, their mortgage payments are harder and harder to make, and the roads need repair.

 

As we've seen in America, if a politician promises to put more money in your pocket, he stands a very good chance of persuading you to his side. Couple this with the general attitude in Europe that governments ought to fear the people, rather than the other way around (this holds truer in "Old Europe," like France), and you have pretty enormous pressure for EU leaders to capitulate and throw money at problems. 

 

I haven't looked at Obama's specific European recommendations but I suspect he'd call for more green technology spending, particularly in former Soviet republics like the Czech Republic...which is why Topolanek is crying "Uncle." After all, these are the economies with the most potential to grow quickly if cheap energy sources can be made available, manufacturing and industry were already solid performers there. 

 

I would imagine Obama has asked for a stronger commitment to fighting global warming, although his footing here is unsteady, given the recent American stance on this issue and the Kyoto protocols, as well as the upcoming Copenhagen summit on this very topic. 

 

Finally, the contention that NATO needs to strengthen its commitment to Afghanistan is tied into helping America out of it economic crisis. After all, every additional euro President Obama can wrest out of the EU is one and a half dollar less he has to spend there.  

15 Books That Will Always Stick With Me

As tagged by Lance Mannion:

1) The Bible - Various authors, even tho One Guy claims sole authorship. Sort of like Mark Rothko's body of work.

2) The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

3) Hamlet - William Shakespeare (I'm claiming book by dint of the edition I read, which was annotated)

4) A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

5) Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions - A. Square (Edwin Abbott)

6) An Actor Prepares - Constantin Stanislavski

7) Lateral Thinking - Edward de Bono

8) The Drama of the Gifted Child/Alice Miller; Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child/John Bradshaw I just felt these two needed to be together.

9) Moby Dick - Herman Melville

10) Death Be Not Proud - John Gunther

11) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

12) Bullfinch's Mythology - errrr....Bullfinch, I think. (Thomas. I knew that)

13) Le Morte d'Arthur - Sir Thomas Malory

14) Beowulf

15) The Foundation Trilogy - Isaac Asimov

Political Triage

By now, an awful lot of pundits and opinionistas have weighed in on this story:

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is sending a blunt message to Detroit automakers: To survive _ and win more government help _ they must remake themselves top to bottom. Driving home the point, the White House ousted the General Motors chairman as it rejected GM and Chrysler's restructuring plans.

Obama is set to elaborate on that message Monday when he announces what his White House told reporters over the weekend: Neither GM nor Chrysler submitted acceptable plans to receive additional federal bailout money.

GM chairman Rick Wagoner became the most conspicuous casualty of that decision, forced out Sunday as the White House indicated Detroit must make management and other changes if it hopes to survive _ and that the Obama administration will have a hands-on role in those changes.

Wow. The US government forcing a big company to change it's strategic planning, to the point of forcing the resignation of the COB? Whoda thunk?

 

GM has been conspicuous in its singular inability to change with the times. Not that any of the major three car companies has exactly been models of being ahead on the curve, for that matter. Car manufacturing requires enormous investments of time, money, energy and industrialization and to be flexible is nearly impossible for firms based on the old "time and motion" studies that created the Henry Ford assembly line in the first place.

 

The US auto industry IS a model of repetitive stress disorder, however. What the US auto industry needed to be was out front of demand, when in fact, it has always tried to browbeat people with their offerings.

 

Think about it: ahead of last year's major oil crunch, when oil was only just starting its five-year long upward climb (plenty of time to retool, mind you), what commercials did you see?

 

Did you see Chrysler/Dodge push compact cars, reminding people that oil prices are hopping and that global warming is coming? Did you see GM push their economy lines? Ford sell us hybrids?

 

Toyota did. Honda did. Hyundai did. Even Volkswagen did.

 

To make this mistake once in a lifetime is one thing, but it's not like Detroit hasn't had plenty of warning that oil prices were about to start an inexorable climb to the sky. Indeed, despite the terrible economic collapse, OPEC looks to be aiming for a $50 a barrell price in 2009. That would put us at about 2005 levels, and maybe have gasoline at $2.50 a gallon, maybe $3, by the summer.

 

In fact, more than thirty years ago, Detroit had the warning that oil was not going to remain the implacably cheap resource it always had been and for people who live and breathe on supply and demand, they somehow missed the fact that India and China would be driving more and using more oil, guaranteeing a permanent rise in prices.

 

Someone's head had to go if only for blatant incompetence, in other words, much like Jake DeSantis should have left AIG quietly last week.

 

Too, Obama's team probably senses that the American people, while still largely supportive of his attempts to revitalize the economy, are getting tired of "no-strings attached" reclamation projects. I can't blame Obama much for these. They really started with the Fed's bailouts last year under Bush, which sort of forced Obama to throw good money after bad this year, an allusion he made last Thursday.

 

So he's fired a warning shot after carefully choosing his target. He could have picked the Chrysler chairman and thrown the merger talks with Fiat out of whack. He could have chosen any banker in the mix, but that might have created massive turmoil in the credit and stock markets, and he really had no leverage at this point in that indstry anyway.

 

So he took the biggest, juiciest and easiest target: an incompetent boob running an incompetent company incompetently.

 

Good for him.

 

Can I Get An "Amen"?

PORT AUTHORITY DOING AWAY WITH FREEDOM TOWER NAME

It was a stupid idea in the first place, and now only serves to remind us of the jingoistic, ridiculous trope of "Freedom Fries" and "Freedom Toast," and would therefore only make people think it was the French Tower originally.

 

It's the World Trade Center. There's no need to rename it, and if anything, that name serves as a bigger slap in the face to Al Qaeda and Osama.

 

But leave it to Rupert Murdoch's paper to go all "angry dwarf" with this:

Freedom is so passe at Ground Zero.

After passing the Patriot Act on the strong urging of the Murdoch corporatocracy, "freedom" in America is just passe, period. But hey! Don't let the Constitution stand in the way of a good lede, I guess.

 

Freedom will wax in this nation once again, when all men and women are free, and when all people can sleep secure in the knowledge that they'll wake up tomorrow as free as they went to bed the night before.

 

That hasn't happened since the 90s. The 1790s.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Tomorrow we celebrate Earth Hour. Light a candle, curse the glare.

 

2) Leave it to FOX News to make a scare headline out of a game scenario.

 

3) Remember how some governors swore they would forego, ohhhhhhhhhhh, about 2% of the Obama stimulus package? Looks like that ain't gonna fly...and it may even shoot down a potential candidate or two.

 

4) My prayers are with Fargoans this weekend. But of course, global warming doesn't exist, so this might be God's wrath...funny how he seems to hate red states more than blue.

 

5) Microsoft must be getting advice from the GOP, because this line of attack has never worked in the past. Apple just makes great products that people want. Maybe M$ is panicking over this. Or this.

 

6) I know the Three Stooges were rather, um, unorthodox, but either this is the crowning homage or will be an unmitigated disaster.

 

7) One of the most prestigious schools in the world has a vampire infestation. Or not. This sucks.

 

8) France to invade Canada. No! Seriously!

 

9) Apparently, Richard Gere has decided to escalate his war for Tibet independence.

 

10) Her fifteen minutes of fame are over, true, but remember, she's allowed to borrow off her fourteen children.

 

 Happy Earth Hour, All!

Special Delivery

Did you know that there is not one Republican in any House of Representatives seat east of western New York State?

 

This is a grand testament to the failures of Republican policies in our region, as well as the marvelous job the leadership of the Democratic party has performed. It's sad to think that such former Republican bastions like Connecticut and New Hampshire and Vermont could switch.

 

But that was a different Republican party, one that was willing to sit down and negotiate and compromise and listen to the people it represented. A Republican party that, frankly, I miss.

 

Right now, there is one seat vacant in the northeast: the one that Kirsten Gillibrand gave up in order to serve out Hillary Clinton's term.

 

Competing for this seat are Scott Murphy, the Democrat, and Jim Tedisco, the Republican and current minority leader of the NY State Assembly. Tedisco had been enjoying a twelve point lead a few weeks ago, but Murphy has closed that gap to dead-even.

 

Which has Tedisco running some pretty nasty ads, naturally, including phonying up charges that Murphy failed to pay income tax on money he never even received. He is a Republican, after all. And like all Republicans, he suffers the slings and arrows of those who think he wasn't "Republican enough".

 

Tedisco has the advantage of running in a Republican district, but one that is more narrowly Republican than ever before because of his antecedent legislator. Gillibrand won in 2006 largely because her opponent, long term incumbent John Sweeney (R-Wifebeater) had a series of scandals (attending a fraternity party where he was photographed encouraging underage drinking, being investigated for domestic violence, and so on) leading to Tedisco being named one of the 20 most corrupt Congresscritters.

 

That's quite the accomplishment!

 

Gillibrand won also by being fairly DINO, in that she opposes gun control and gay marriage (altho she's softened that stance in recent months).

 

Murphy, meanwhile, has actively worked in his career as a banker and venture capitalist to create good-paying jobs.

 

In case it wasn't clear where my sympathies lie, I tend to be amenable to having someone in Congress who has actually, you know, been a boss and given a guy a break, particulary at a time when jobs are scarcer than hen's teeth.

The election is on Tuesday. If you can, give. If you can, vote for Murphy.

The Teeth Of The Hydra

I've spent many an hour trying to wrap my planet-sized brain around the enormity of the cultural problems affecting this country.

 

To be sure, I don't have many answers. Hillary Clinton might have some insight, though:

MEXICO CITY - The United States is at least as responsible as Mexico for the violent drug wars that are roiling its southern neighbor because of an insatiable US market for narcotics, the failure to stop weapons smuggling southward and a three-decade "war" on drugs that "has not worked," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians," Mrs. Clinton said.

"How could anyone conclude any differently? . . . I feel very strongly we have co-responsibility," she said.

Amen.

 

The gun and drug culture, believe it or not, are very tightly tied together, and I don't just mean the dealers who carry Glocks.

 

I mean that there is a subculture in America that attempts to subvert the system and pervert our citizenry by promoting both guns and drugs in tandem.

 

No, not video game authors and publishers, although I have no doubt they are complicit.

 

I mean the people who buy and use both of these items.

 

Now, I've made no bones about where I stand on guns. I think there is a limited need for legal guns for protection and provisions in some sectors of the country, but that on the whole, we should do whatever we can to limit and/or ban them. Period.

 

On drugs, I have a slightly different outlook. There are some drugs that are inherently so destructive that access to them ought to be as difficult as humanly possible, and in point of fact, I'd include tobacco on that list along with crystal meth, heroin, and possibly cocaine.

 

And then there are some drugs that are dangerous, but when used in moderation or under supervision should be decriminalized. LSD, mescaline, and cocaine (if it's not outright outlawed). And I do mean "under supervision."

 

Finally there are, or rather is, the drug that should be legalized, full stop: pot. And you can keep alcohol legal, as well. And I suppose I'd be grossly outvoted on my call for the closely guarded regulation of tobacco, so it likely would remain here, even if suicide by smoking is a leading cause of death in this country.

 

Hillary Clinton's acknowledgement of the sales of assault weapons across the Mexican border as a result of spats amongst rival gangs for the right to smuggle illegal drugs back into the United States highlights a rather disturbing fact: it is in the (legal) gun sellers' best interests to see (illegal) drugs flourish.

 

They have a vested financial interest in it. And that stinks. Drugs create gun users, both criminals and legal (since the crime rate goes up as drugs become more and more pricey).

 

By creating a criminal subculture-- 700,000 Americans are arrested each year for pot possession and sales alone, and that represents slightly less than half of all drug arrests in this country-- you create a need to take justice into one's own hands, rather than look to the legal authorities.

 

Legalize pot, for example, and 700,000 more Americans are walking the streets without a criminal tarnish every year. That could mean a few thousand or tens of thousands of illegal guns off the street. And illegal guns start somewhere along the lines as legal gun sales.

 

Not only that, but as crime rates decrease because of legal or decriminalized substances, legal gun ownership would wane slightly, since people will feel safer on the streets and in their own homes.

 

If the NRA has a problem with stemming supply, then why not turn the tables and lower demand? After all, it's not like 700,000 pot-laced zombies are going to start breaking and entering homes in search of Cheetos. The NRA would be hard-pressed to take offense at that point, even if that would expose the underbelly of the truism I've laid out here.

Here's A Quarter...

....call someone who cares.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country's call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn't defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

[...] I'm not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I'll leave under my own power and will not need to be "shoved out the door."

Point one: Liddy has agreed to take one dollar as compensation, despite the fact that most of this happened off his watch. Thuis writer has, as well.

 

Point two: The writer, Jake DeSantis, is an executive vice president of the Financial Products division of AIG, as "head of business development for commodities", the division that has very nearly, and still may yet, sunk the entire global economy. So I think the question must be asked...

 

Um, dude? WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU????

 

OK, you had a different responsibility, I get that. But you know something?

 

I am an officer at a firm. My niche is very narrow, and I'm well paid for it. But as a point of order, we officers make it our business to understand what's going on in the rest of the company. Why?

 

You never know when you'll be put in charge of something else. That's the way American corporations work.

 

You ask why your CEO "betrayed" you. WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU???? when your co-workers were scamming money and making bets on bets on bets?

 

If you want to understand what happened at the Financial Products division of AIG, let me put forth this analogy. It's simplistic and flawed, but it's not completely wrong.

 

I sell you a homeowner's insurance policy. That's a bet that I make that your house won't burn down. If it does, I owe you the agreed amount. If it doesn't, well, I've scored pure profit from you (your premiums, which are pooled and invested in order to cover any losses suffered by policyholders) but you've had the peace of mind of knowing you won't take a loss.

 

The way I make money is not directly from your premiums, but by spreading my risk around by selling more and more policies and trying to diversify who buys them, so that if a big fire hits a neighborhood, it will only affect a percentage of the money I'm holding onto.

 

That's the traditional insurance business. A similar scenario works in the traditional mortgage market. 

 

Now let's move onto the Financial Products division.

 

I take that policy, and in order to score some quick cash, I let people bet that the policy will earn money. Then, in order to make even MORE money, I sell insurance to the gamblers that will cover their losses.

 

Oops. You'll notice what just happened: I've taken what risk I had spread out and consolidated it. Worse, I'm on the hook at both ends in the event the house burns down: I pay the policyholder and now have to pay all the gamblers who bet on the policy!

 

So, Jake, I ask the question again: WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU???

 

If a simpleton like me, who only has an accounting degree, can understand that you're betting against yourself, why couldn't a high-powered executive vice president figure out from washroom conversations that your entire division was one big-ass house of cards? You're the head of development of business commodities! How could you not be curious about the products your own people are developing????

 

And there, right there, that's the problem. These aren't commodities. We're not talking about pork bellies or corn or oil.

 

We're talking about people's homes. Their lives. Their jobs.

 

So shut up, walk away, and be glad you got out with your skin and dignity.

UPDATE FOR THE GALATICALLY STOOPID It seems there's some discussion that DeSantis was "one of the good guys", brought in to fix the problem.

That's simply not the case, by his own admission. DeSantis has been employed by AIG for eleven years and worked his way up to his current position as EVP in the Financial Products division. Furthermore, former AIG chairman and CEO Hank Greenberg, in 2005, warned on his way out the door (thanks to Eliot Spitzer, who really was ahead of the curve on this) with regards to the mortgage debacle and AIG's exposure issues.

At which point, Cassano, DeSantis' boss, DOUBLED THE EXPOSURE!

Furthermore, the truly quasarly idiotic have downplayed the losses at the FP, comparing them somehow favorably to the losses at the insurance unit.

Utter rubbish. Although the life insurance division earned $6.9 billion, the financial services division lost $40.4 billion, according to the annual report I have looked at.

The other two business units, asset management and general insurance COMBINED lost $1.1 billion dollars.

Under The Volcano

Think Bobby Jindal is hoping people forget this....

The governor, a rising Republican star, questioned why "something called 'volcano monitoring' " was included in the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill Obama signed earlier this month.

 

"Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington," Jindal said.

...in light of this?

Alaska's Mount Redoubt volcano has erupted six times since late Sunday, spewing ash 9 miles into the air. This photo, taken from a Webcam, shows the volcano on Monday. Based on Mount Redoubt's patterns, scientists said the eruptions could continue for weeks or months.

If this was a horse race, Jindal would have thrown a shoe out of the gate. The 2012 primaries will be all about him apologizing to Sarah Palin.

 

The Cult Of Personality

Too often, we talk of the "cult of personality" in negative terms: the pampered athlete who has feet of clay, or the politician or cultural authority who manipluates his or her audience to become slavishly addicted to his or her tastes (usually promoting a particular brand or style).

 

Sometimes, tho, the cult works in positive ways:

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The University of Notre Dame is sticking with its invitation to President Obama to speak at its May 17 commencement despite criticism from some Roman Catholics that his views on abortion and stem cell research run counter to Catholic teachings.

"I don't foresee a circumstance in which we would rescind the invitation," Notre Dame spokesman Dennis Brown told The Associated Press in an e-mail message Monday.

The Cardinal Newman Society, an advocacy group for greater orthodoxy on Catholic college and university campuses, calls Obama's commencement appearance "an outrage and a scandal." It has set up a Web site seeking donations and signatures for a petition to protest the invitation to the Obama.

The Rev. John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, issued a statement Monday saying the invitation did not mean the university supports all of Obama's positions.

"The invitation to President Obama to be our Commencement speaker should not be taken as condoning or endorsing his positions on specific issues regarding the protection of human life, including abortion and embryonic stem cell research," Jenkins said.

American Catholics have a dilemma, to be sure. On the one hand, the basis for their entire church is a cult of personality based on the concept that the Pope, the church leader, is a descendant of Saint Peter, blessed by both Christ and his mother, the Virgin Mary. This trinity, encorpsed in the Pope, makes rules and issues edicts (they call them bulls) that the church membership is required to follow, or risk damnation.

 

On the other hand, there's Barack Obama, who offers his own vision of peace and spiritual renewal. The trouble is, these messages, even tho based on similar faiths and beliefs, conflict in the details.

 

And here is where Obama's personality and persuasion comes into play. His ability to understand and even give a nod to the opposing forces while laying out a persuasive argument for his point of view is at once disarming and plays the cards he has been dealt his way. Opponents like Rush Limbaugh have no choice but to play on his ballfield, with his bat and ball and even his gloves. He can reconcile abortion and pregnancy prevention and stem cell research with a belief in the tenets of Christ's teachings and that will attract Christians to his message. He doesn't have to get into a spitball war with Rome. Or anyone else, for that matter.

 

It's driving his opponents crazy. Obama has at once lifted himself above the fray while encouraging the fray using surrogates. The more conservatives focus on Obama's miscues and teleprompters, the more the American people will understand that the GOP offers no rational alternative at this time, that they are spinning their wheels waiting for an opportunity to seize the upper hand on an issue of substance.

 

For now, they will be forced to conjure substance out of issues that are mostly style, and it is a style that they neither comprehend nor can combat. Indeed, Obama has been cherry-picking where and what he pitches to the American people carefully, and has carefully managed to give the image of an indefatigable leader who can both multitask and focus down on issues and circumstances. He takes a very broad view of situations, rather than be reflexive and reactive.

 

Like a certain Texan ex-president I can mention.

 

Listen, when the only real miscue a man makes in a week of intense media scrutiny is an ill-conceived one-off about the Special Olympics and bowling and the victims of that joke can laugh along with him, you have the makings of an unbeatable administration.

 

(side note: Personally, I would have said "like a Girl Scout," which would have been funnier)

 

This won't last. Programs Obama has proposed will fail. Even he admits it. In an economy as disatrous as this one, one that affects not just America but the world as a whole, it would take a miracle for every program to fall into place perfectly.

 

Maybe the Pope can help here.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I didn't realize "dignity" was an issue for Barack Obama? Especially after a clowncar President like Bush?

 

2) Sometimes life imitates art. Godspeed, Natasha. Good luck, Liam and sons.

 

3) Personally, I can't wait for this to come out, so I can finally listen to music while walking down the street and not worry about missing a phone call.

 

4) Finally, some sensible use of the White House lawn! We need to encourage the "locally grown" movement as part of an energy strategy, and that Bush and his cronies didn't do even this simple gesture speaks volumes about their cynical attitude towards the nation's future.

 

5) By the way, I watched "W." last night. As to be expected from an Oliver Stone film, it was massively overhyped. It was also scarily watchable. I put it on the level of a first year drama production at the local community college. It doesn't tell you much you didn't already know, but Stone does give it all a context that he supposes was behind some of the more egregious decisions made. Rent it, or wait for it to come out on cable, but it's not a keeper.

 

6) Spring has sprung. Winter seems longer each year.

 

7) I dunno...I read this and immediately think of the movie "Americathon".

 

8) Title this one "Robbing Robbers And The Robbers Who Rob Them."

 

9) I think it's safe to say this spider lived up to its name.

10) I thought Bush was the Special Education President?

Too Juice Not To Take A Swipe At

Sometimes, I have to let my inner imp out:

Former President George W. Bush, who once famously called himself "The Decider," is writing a book about decisions.

 

"I want people to understand the environment in which I was making decisions. I want people to get a sense of how decisions were made and I want people to understand the options that were placed before me," Bush said in an interview Wednesday from his office in Dallas.

News of the book emerged Tuesday when Bush spoke in Canada. Tentatively called "Decision Points," the book is scheduled for a 2010 release by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, which in turn is a division of Random House Inc. Financial details were not disclosed. Instead of telling his life story, Bush will concentrate on about a dozen personal and presidential choices, including giving up drinking, picking Dick Cheney as his vice president and sending troops to Iraq.

Clearly, this is an important book, important enough that it will be released by Scholastic Books under the Cozy Corner brand.

 

Now, former president Bush (Oh....thank GOD!) says he'll write about a dozen or so decisions he's made in his life. This means you can expect five serious topics, since that's how many fingers he'll have free once he puts crayon to coloring book. In this mathematical regard, Bush is like the idiot savant in RainMan, only not savant.

 

Once his editor...you know, Laura?...points out to him that a dozen is more than five, and even removes his shoe to help him count that high, Bush will suddenly realize he'll have to pad his book out in order to make it biggerer. My suspicion is, by the end of the book (you know, the pages you can't color in) he will be talking about his choice of breakfast cereals.

I, I could have gone with the tiger's flakes, y'know (they ain't payin' me for endorsements, so I ain't mentionin' names!), but Laura tells me those have ingredients, so she helped me pull the box of them "oatie O's" *winkwink* off the top shelf. It's good to be the Decider!

 

LOL!!!!!!!!11eleventyo!nemillion11onethousan!deleventyone!!!!

What's probably going to piss him off more than anything else is that this book will be marketed as remaindered fiction, alongside OJ's "If I Did It", thus becoming the second book in history to be binned during the first edition.

 

Now, I've received an advance galley of "Decision Points", and while I can't claim this is how the book will ultimately be released, I wanted to share with you some of the decisions Mr. Bush has made in his life:

 

1. Ginger v. Maryann - He comes firmly down on the side of Maryann, although he has some very nice things to say about Ginger's tits. This took 85 pages, if you count the obscene doodles with palm trees and Lovey Howell.
   
2. Boxers v. briefs - Ultimately, he decides he doesn't like lawyers very much, but that Rocky fella seems like a nice guy. He wonders why he only fought the six times, since he made a helluva champion.
   
3. Coke v. Pepsi - This one, he's very decisive about: Coke. As he puts it, "Pepsi tickles your nose when you snort it."

 

Much of the book seems to ramble in a fairly incoherent manner, but that might be due to the fact I was reading it watching Bill O'Reilly last night. Or perhaps he wrote it watching Bill O'Reilly last night. I'm not sure. It is short, coming in at a crackling 184 pages, which includes five pages copied directly from "The Pet Goat".

 

I expect any moment now to receive an email from HumanEvents.com offering me a free copy or twenty with any paid subscription, along with Ann Coulter's latest book, two books by Michelle Malkin, and a SlapChop.

The Hobgoblin Of Small Minds

Say what you will about Rush Limbaugh, but at least he's consistent:

During the March 17 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh -- "a great leader for conservatives" -- defended American International Group (AIG) from criticism of the company's controversial employee retention bonuses. Limbaugh declared, "A lynch mob is expanding: the peasants with their pitchforks surrounding the corporate headquarters of AIG, demanding heads. Death threats are pouring in. All of this being ginned up by the Obama administration." Limbaugh later claimed, "This $500,000 limit on executive pay -- let me tell you why it won't work. New York City will die. New York City needs a whole bunch of people being paid a whole lot of money, so they can tax their butts off, so that the city can maintain its stupid streets, potholes, and welfare state. Without the super wealthy in New York, it's over. ... This -- it's just a populist ruse. It's just designed to people go, 'Yeah, yeah!' "

Most people have focused on Limbaugh's "ginned up" comments. Some have focused on the fact that underlying what Limbaugh has said, there's a kernel of populist truth there: people are angry about the bonuses because they are rather hideous. 

 

And there's also something miniscule to be said in defense of the fact that New York City's economy is tied to the economic health of the brokerages and more, the brokers in them. As New York's economy goes, so goes the Northeast. As the Northeast goes, so goes much of the east coast. As the east coast goes...and so on.

 

It would take a better apologist than Rush Limbaugh to make that case, however.

 

I choose, however, to focus on the fact that this kind of statement is consistent with the kind of parody-conservatism that Limbaugh has preached for decades now.

 

I hope he lives a long life and continues to feed this malevolence into the mainstream media.

 

There is a saying that politics is the art of the possible. There is also a saying that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Let's take a closer look at those, shall we.

 

The art of the possible is attributed to Otto von Bismarck in 1867, although no one can cite the precise words he said. John Kenneth Galbraith had an interesting corrollary in which he said politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.

 

I tend to think that Bismarck was warning us (meaning people) that politics was an avenue by which that which can be done is done. He's also widely credited with the saying that the making of laws and sausages are two things which entail things you really don't want to know about, which dovetails nicely with this saying.

 

You see, politics is about compromise. Politics is about recognizing there are opposing factions who have a different agenda than yours, and trying to include those people in your political stances and actions.

 

It is, in short, about what degree of compromise you are willing, or more important, need, to go to get things done.

 

A foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds is pretty self-evident, and Ralph Waldo Emerson was spot on when he talked about this. The full quote is even more revealing:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Certainly describes the far right of this country to a tee. It also describes the far left in this country, but they don't have the megaphone that small minds like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham have. A foolish consistency bellowed at high decibels is to be admired for the breathtaking stupidity it entails. As Abe Lincoln used to say, better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.

 

By jumping through the hoops of fire that he has, Limbaugh has proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he is consistent.

 

And a fool.

Does It Matter?

One small step for men, one small step for mankind:

The United States and Britain have welcomed the Pakistani government's decision to peacefully resolve its political crisis by reinstating deposed Supreme Court justices.

 

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the resolution a first step towards reconciliation.

 

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband separately praised Pakistan's president and opposition leader for putting the country's interests first.

 

The diplomats had urged Pakistan's leaders to defuse the week-long crisis, expressing concern it would divert Islamabad's attention from the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban.

 Truly, this is good news and a positive step for the world.

 

I'm just not sure what it's going to mean in the grand scheme of things. I did some thinking over the weekend, the kind of thinking that back in 2006 made me realize that the country was going to hell in a handbasket very quickly. Some of my more economically savvy friends laughed at me back then but they ain't laughing now.

 

Even I had my doubts that I might be overstating the case for a long-overdue collapse.

 

I think things have hit bottom, now. I don't have any evidence of this beyond some broad sense of things. I called the bottom of the market at around 7,000, and I seem to have been pretty accurate, based on a similar seat-of-the-pants call.

 

That's not to say the way ahead will be easy. It won't. We won't magically zoom back up to the middling levels of 2005, nevermind the levels of 1999. It will be a slog and many people will be hurting, but we'll make it back. 2011, I think, will show some clear and positive signs for this nation. 2010 will show some stirrings. Even Christmas this year will have some reasons to celebrate.

 

I think.

 

But...

 

The longer the US economy is weighted down the way it is, the more dangerous the world will become. Poverty has a way of bringing out the worst in people and if you need any evidence, you need look no further than Al Qaeda's support structure. The way they recruit new terrorist foot soldiers is to go to the poorest sections of Muslim populations and talk up life everafter and the promise of jihad.

 

Sounds like Christian missionaries, when you come right down to it.

 

The longer this downturn lasts, the more poverty there will be, and the more fertile ground for recruitment. That Pakistan has chosen to make this largely symbolic gesture towards freedom is nice and all that, but the bottom line is, they can't hold back the tide of fundamentalism without a thriving economy and I just don't see that happening anytime soon over there.

 

Indeed, if we are lucky, and cooler heads prevail over the next decade, it's possible we might avoid another widespread, global conflict that marries itself to our economic recovery. It will require luck. Too many things can go wrong between now and prosperity for us to rely solely on the goodwill and small gestures of men and women in power.

 

Link: http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-17-voa10.cfm

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) Riffing off what Katrina posted yesterday, here is the full episode of the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart turkey shoot. As a bonus, here are some outtakes, which are even more brutal than what was aired.

 

2) It took two and a half games to figure out who won this one game.

 

3) Rumblings from the East are foreboding.

 

4) Now, this stimulus bill...no Republicans actually voted for it, except the three Senators, right? Liberals save the day. Once again!

 

5) Poor Michael Steele. Looks like he'll have to apologize to Rush once again. Even his clarification calls into question the Republican party platform, since he has officially acknowledged that states have rights over the body of a woman.

 

6) He probably peed his diaper, as well.

 

7) The more I read of Michael Phelps, the more I like. Today, he's admitting that letting himself be photographed openly was a mistake in judgement. It's a step up from saying that marijuana is bad and that he's ashamed he's using it. Step by step, pot is making it to the legal list. But as Lewis Black notes, this could be a bad thing.

 

8) There will be much more spitting going on in New Jersey. Reminds me of the old Rodney Dangerfield joke: "She told me to kiss her where it smells, so I drove her to New Jersey!"

 

9) Let's see....sex all over the world, man in diapers running through airport security door, Michael Steele gaffes on abortion....now, who could be causing all this?....Oh, I don't know....could it be SATANNNNNNNNNNNNNNN?

 

10) Watch this become the GOP's latest talking point.

I Love Jon Stewart

Even more than I loved Stephen Colbert when he did the 2006 White House Correspondent's Dinner.
Which I didn't think was possible.
That is all.

God And Guns

I've always thought it ironic that the people who most demand guns as protection are the ones who claim to be good Christians.

 

We're taught in Sunday School that vengeance is God's, that God will provide and God will protect us.

 

And yet....

He spared no one, not his mother, not his grandparents, not the children, not even the family dogs.

Investigators following the 24-mile trail of death through southern Alabama are still trying to determine what set Michael McLendon on a murderous shooting rampage that led to the deaths of 11 people, including himself.

"He cleaned his family out," Coffee County coroner Robert Preachers said. "We don't know what triggered it."

Savage attack, to be sure, and likely we'll never fully understand what drove him to madness. But there's a clue in the fact that this happened in the Deep South, where people are, how to put this?, a little less flexible in their tolerance of unconformity, of difference.

 

I chalk it up to God. Not my God, my Jesus, who preaches tolerance and love, but the God of "great vengeance and furious anger" and who commands fear, not respect, abasement, not humility.

 

The God of the South, altho in truth, He can be found anywhere Christians gather.

 

You know, it's funny, but the right wing warns all the time about the murderous Muslims and the Koranic calls to wipe out the infidels, conveniently forgetting that the God they worship actually did that once. You might recall the story of Noah. And while He left his covenant never to do that again, the rainbow, that's no guarantee that he won't do everything short of wiping life off the face of the earth.

 

I wonder why conservative Christians forget that little bit when raging about Muslim jihads?

 

It is an angry God, this God of the South. I wonder why? After all, if there was to be anyplace that would be considered "godly" in this country, it would be down there, if you believe the God of the South is the one true god.

 

Which of course, he clearly isnt, else why is such iniquity and pain dealt with such fierce regularity upon the people of the South?

 

Obviously, I write all this tongue in cheek. God has nothing to do with the deranged mind of a serial killer who has released his own furious anger upon what he perceived as iniquities. Indeed, I suspect before the day is out, a significant number of right wingers will be painting this madman as a liberal.

 

Which of course, he wasn't. Probably. I don't know, but I think I'm on pretty firm ground here.

 

What is it, tho, about the right wing, particularly the extreme right wing, that leads them so easily to violence? After all, with the exception of perhaps the Basque Separatists and maybe the extreme "Real IRA", no one from the left ever feels compelled to go on mass murder rampages.

 

We understand that society has rules and regulations and try to abide by them, even if the short term price is to watch our country be dismantled by thieves and robber barons. Believe me, if ANYTHING could have provoked me to violence, it was watching 8 years of a bush presidency.

 

So folks, discuss: what makes the right wing go ballistic? Literally?

Just A Coincidence, I'm Sure

This eye-popping story began last week and has now taken an intriguing turn:

Mr Mugabe made his first public comments on last week's fatal crash, reportedly telling mourners at Tuesday's church service: "I plead with you to accept it, it's the hand of God."

Suspicions have swirled over Mrs Tsvangirai's death given past acrimony between the prime minister and president.

But Mr Tsvangirai said on Monday it was unlikely foul play took a part in the collision, which involved an aid lorry.

You have to know, tho, that Tsvangirai is playing his cards close to his chest. That it took Mugabe nearly a week to come out and say anything publicly about the death of the wife of his alleged "partner" in governance...well, imagine if Jill Biden died in a car crash in which Joe Biden was also injured. How quickly would Barack Obama offer his condolences and sympathy?

 

And too, it's a curious comment to make at a memorial, the "hand of God" bit. Almost sounds as if the reporter is signalling to the world that Mugabe, who is not exactly known for his subtleties, had a hand in this.

 

We're all familiar with the classic line from The Godfather: "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." Is there anyplace closer as president than to have your sworn enemy and rival as Prime Minister, where you can keep a eye on him?

 

It seems pretty clear what Mugabe's intent is here, if you follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion and take the background of the election at its face: Mugabe, having lost the popular vote to Tsvangirai, rammed through a Bush SCOTUS-like overturn of the election results.

 

And now that he has what he wants, he intends to kill Tsvangirai. Indeed, it is something of a miracle that he survived the crash.

How a convoy of three vehicles, with one in the middle carrying the second most important person in the land, got involved in a car crash, is what has perplexed many people.

The oncoming lorry, which apparently belonged to a partner of the US government aid agency USAID, is thought to have crossed into the prime minister's path, sideswiping the right bumper of Mr Tsvangirai's Land Cruiser, which then rolled off the highway.

You read that correctly. This magic truck managed to pick off the middle vehicle of a heavily armed convoy. What makes this story troubling to us here in the States is the apparent if probably unintentional involvement of a truck with ties to the United States. 

 

What to make of this, assuming that indeed it was an assassination attempt? Was it an attempt to draw the US into the African conflagration? Was it a clumsy and ham-handed assassination plot? Or was it just a fortuitous happenstance? Who the intended audience for that message is will be the factor that decides what the motivation for using that truck is.  

 

Sadly, it will not surprise me if, when the uproar over the USAid truck gathers momentum, the right wing in this country starts using this incident to prove Obama's Muslim ties run deeper than a dalliance in a school in Indonesia.

 

Nevermind that millions if not billions of lives hang in the balance in this part of Africa and the effect this assassination would have beyond Zimbabwe's borders (to North Africa, China, and the Middle East). These numbnuts will focus on a truck that was probably planted.

 

Just a coincidence. I'm sure.

And So It Begins

Nevermind the markets. Nevermind the jobs reports. If you want to understand how deep this country is mired in Depression, take a look at this:

March 9 (Bloomberg) -- McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant company, said global sales rose 1.4 percent in February as diners sought cheaper food.

Sales at U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months climbed 2.8 percent, while European orders fell 0.2 percent, Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s said today in a statement. Sales in Asia, the Middle East and Africa gained 0.7 percent.

Value meals, chicken sandwiches and Egg McMuffins are lifting McDonald’s sales in the U.S., where unemployment reached 8.1 percent in February, the highest in more than 25 years. Slowing economies in the U.K., Russia, Australia and Japan are also spurring sales of snack-sized sandwiches and chicken wraps.

People are eating crappier food more often. That right there, in a nutshell, is all you really need to hear to understand how badly the economy has collapsed in the wake of horrendous Republican oversight.

While this has not always been the case, people tend to turn to McDonald's and other fast food restaurants when money gets tight. This is also why you see so many of these kinds of establishments in neighborhoods that have significant numbers of poor and lower-middle class families.

It's not that fast food is cheaper. It's not, at least no cheaper than buying the raw ingredients and cooking it up yourself.

It is, however, easier. Quicker. More convenient. And there's the rub. For any variety of reasons that have little to do with taste or cost, people are eating Mickey D's: because they can pick it up on the way home, they can munch a quick burger in between job interviews, they won't spend an hour in a sit-down restaurant while prices there still hover in the unreasonable range.

Call it the new comfort food for cash-strapped consumers.

"It's cheap and full of calories, and you know what you are getting," said Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and chair of New York University's nutrition and food studies department.

And of course, this raises a host of other issues that will impact Americans for a long time to come, and put that much more pressure on the Obama administration.

I speak, of course, about the health issues. Things like obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes, which tend to run parallel to communities where fast food consumption is its highest.

I'm not suggesting a causality, others have already done that, and McDonald's has done yeoman work to silence those critics.

But more than a coincidence, I think it's safe to say. And as more and more Americans slip deeper and deeper into poverty, we're looking at a potential epidemic.

As part of Obama's energy policy, I would really like to see a stress on local production of food, and the use of local vegetables and meat sources in restaurants and supermarkets.

For one thing, it would diversify our diets, for another, it would mark an end to the homogenization of eating that sees Americans in China stop in the McDonald's near Tiananmen Square, as opposed to grabbing an authentic Chinese meal in any of a number of restaurants right there on the block, nevermind Chicagoans eating at McDonald's in Times Square.

This would, as Martha Stewart might say, be a good thing.