2 + 8 = 5

Only in America is being a baby factory profitable:

Jon and Kate Gosselin's marital misery sent their TV show soaring off the charts Monday night.

But before they start enjoying themselves too much, they might also want to consider this: If their marriage slides under the bus, it will very likely take their TV show with it and they will have to find another job.

Besides raising eight kids.

Yea. The cynic in me says ol' John here (I have never watched the show, but I feel stupid calling him by his last name) banged his little hottie with dollar signs lighting up his eyes.

In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the Discovery networks actively sought out a woman who could, um, be a co-respondent in the divorce.

In the old days, this used to be called "procurement". Now it's called "marketing".

Ratings for this first episode were more than double the final episode of last season.

So the Gosselins took a page out of the Loud family scrapbook.

Undoubtedly, they bit off more than they could chew. I'm sure the novelty of raising sextuplets (are you listening, Octomom?) and two other children wore off quickly, but the bucks rolled in, even as the audience wore thinner.

But this entire episode speaks to American culture: how bland are our lives that we would rather spend an hour watching a young family changing diapers than deal with our spouses and children?

Changing. Diapers.

Or climbing a tree on some remote island just so you don't have to face the challenges of being "voted off"? Or racing through the streets of Rome looking for a clue to the next destination? Or...

It's amazingly sick and twisted, to my mind at any rate, that the best that TV networks across the spectrum can present to us is someone else's life.

They protest that it's compelling drama, that these are real people, and that they are cheap and easy shows to make.

Until you realize they are as scripted as soap operas or even bad talk shows like Jerry Springer. And then the illusion, the same illusion that drives pro wrestling and game shows, vaporizes. Reality sets in, and you realize that you've been hoodwinked into watching one long commercial.

There was one reality show that I not only liked, but watched obsessively: Mad Mad House. (episodes here)

Here was not only a parody of reality TV done right, it was an actual reality show. Yes, it was scripted, to be sure, but here's the thing: there were no heroics, no safety nets. Real people, a cross-section of "average Americans" were forced not to deal with their shortcomings in terms of being overweight or out of shape or less than perfect.

No, they were exposed to an entire new spectrum of lifestyles: naturism, voodoo, witchcraft, primitivism, and even vampirism.

It was "Fear Factor" but without the ick factor. And there was no audience selection, or "democratic" booting out. Your hosts were your prosecutors, judges, and jury, as well as often your defense attorneys.

None of this "AT&T helped select the winner." There were few if any product placements. It was about finding the person with the most open mind...who could also be tough enough to survive all the backstabbing antics behind them.

And frankly, it was compelling. I like watching uncomfortable people deal with a situation that, while not threatening or harmful, forces them out of their cozy little superiority complices and into dealing with other people as equals.

America needs to learn that lesson over and over again.

Troubling Blind Spot

The Bush administration's singleminded focus on Iraq blinded it to some pretty ugly things going on in other parts of the world.

North Korea has fired two more missiles, hours after the UN Security Council unanimously condemned its nuclear test, South Korean reports say.

The Communist state fired two short-range missiles off an east-coast base, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an official.

The move came as UN diplomats began work on a resolution to punish North Korea for its underground nuclear test.

Translation: When John Bolton warns George Bush you're doing it wrong, U R Doin It Rong!

In 2002, our intelligence community definitively judged that the regime was working on an industrial-scale enrichment program. Since then we have little new information, reducing the confidence level, but not changing the substantive conclusion, that the North Koreans "have and continue to operate a uranium enrichment program" – as Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified in February.

For the Bush administration, however, the lack of new data is an excuse to ignore the entire issue of uranium.

On plutonium, the administration seems content to seek vague statements from the North that "account" for the amount of this fissile material we think it has extracted from its Yongbyon reactor's spent fuel rods over the years. Administration briefings reveal little or no interest in how many plutonium weapons exist; whether there are other plutonium-related facilities hidden in North Korea's vast complex of underground facilities; and what the North's weapons-manufacturing capabilities are.

Proliferation? Perhaps the Bush administration's most wondrous act of magic is to make that problem disappear. The State Department argues that North Korea may have proliferated in the past, but that's all behind us. How do we know? The North Koreans have told us.

Remember this gem of a meme?

Under the final terms of the Agreed Framework approved in October of 1994, Clinton agreed to provide the "Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" (DPRK) with two light water nuclear reactors and a massive allotment of oil. The U.S. agreed to ship 500,000 metric tons of oil annually in response to the North's pretense that the energy-starved backwater had developed the nuclear facility to generate power. These shipments have cost taxpayers more than $800 million to date - a bargain compared with the $6 billion spent on constructing the nuclear reactors, which now empower North Korea to produce 100 nuclear bombs each year.

All these measures failed to quell the North's atom-lust.

Odds are you won't hear a peep from the right about Bush's complicity in the further development of nuclear arms by the North (absent Bolton's now-year-old OpEd), rather than correctly point out that, of the "Axis of Evil", only Korea had any hopes of developing a nuclear armament program AND legitimate targets to lob them at.

Means, motive, opportunity, the classic tripod on which to hang a conviction in a criminal case apparently holds no weight in the realm of the right wing. We striked out at the country with the least means, the lesser motive, and practically zero opportunity and rattled sabres at the country with slightly more means, slightly more motive, but even less opportunity.

And did nothing about the guy in the ski mask holding a gun at the bank teller window with an open sack.

Smart. Very smart.

What could have been handled six years ago is now looming as a pandemic of pandemonia. The same logic used to invade Iraq could just as easily have been applied to Korea, all the way to the feeble excuse of bringing an international criminal to justice and freeing his citizenry.

Indeed, that charge more applied to Kim Jong Il than to Saddam Hussein. Hussein, at least, never starved his own people, despite gassing large numbers of them.

But now we have what we have, as Strindberg so aptly put it.

Happy Memorial Day

botanicgardens052309 - 33.jpg
Originally uploaded by actor212

A lilly in remembrance of those who died for our freedom.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) I'm not sure if Californians realize this is the 21st century? On the other hand, it's fun watching the Armageddon of the conservative mantra of "tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts."

2) Once again, Americans prove they hate Teh Gay.

3) I don't follow Idol. I feel it is to the American psyche what McDonald's is to the American circulatory system: poison. However, every account I've read of this season's finale point out that Lambert was hands down the better performer, better singer, and bigger star. The second I heard that there were photos of Lambert kissing other men, I knew he was doomed, particularly against a married college student. Based on his reaction to the news, I suspect he knew it beforehand as well.

We Americans like our gays closeted, so we can refer to them as "flamboyant" (Lambert's nickname, indeed, was "Glambert"), like Liberace. Or we like them hidden behind an unquestionable veil of masculinity, like Rock Hudson. There are precious few gay men who don't fit either of these (Anderson Cooper comes to mind as the exception).

4) I don't often pray, but please, Lord, let Dick Cheney keep flapping his gums, reminding Americans that he was solely responsible for the quagmire we are in.

5) I don't know that this is such a good idea...

6) Bush's popularity was so bad that he dragged his entire party down with him.

7) Porn Day on YouTube?

8) Now this is Olympic training I can get behind. And in front of. And under. And sort of sideways lying across the bed.

9) Obstructive tactics be damned!

10) Have a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

WIN FOR OBAMA!!!!!

It feels good to write that after hearing about how for eight years, Bush kept us safe from terrorists, and then having it turn out that, welllllll....it was police work that saved the day, even if the threat was hardly credible to begin with:

Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.

The "informant" in question was a Sunni Muslim who was working with the FBI in exhcange.

I'm betting he was not tortured.

After the Sears Tower plot of 2006 was exposed, we were told time and time again about how effective the Bush administration had been in foiling terror attacks.

This time?

Around 9 p.m., a law enforcement official said an 18-wheel New York Police Department vehicle blocked the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle at 237th Street and Riverdale Avenue. Another armored vehicle arrived and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit took the men out of the truck and handcuffed them.

After the plot was broken up, the team of uniformed officers took the suspects away.

So it was good old fashioned police work...none of this military-industrial-covert espionage crap that Bush tried to ram down our throats. Identify a plot and work to uncover the breadth and depth of it, then shut it down and roll up the cells.

Reminds me of the good old safe days of the Clinton administration with Janet Reno!

And should serve as a reminder of the cynical gloating of the Bushies, who treated the most insignificant terror plot revelation as a two-year child who just took a dump would expose it to his mom.

"Lookit! Lookit what I did!"

Fuel Me Once, Shame On You

This was the best they could do?

The Obama administration's sweeping fuel-economy and emissions initiative announced Tuesday reopens a fierce debate over tradeoffs between fuel economy and auto safety.

[...]The plan requires automakers to sell cars that average 35.5 miles-per-gallon by 2016, a little more and a lot sooner than current law. It has been heralded as a brilliant solution to the nettlesome mix of problems related to fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Oh brother!

So many problems in this nation could be solved if we actually broke our addiction to oil (perhaps the one truth Bush spoke in eight years). Right now, we are spending more in military aid and supporting troops in the Middle East than the net value of all the crude we are getting from there.

And the best step we could take at this time is to, you know, tweak things a little?

Here's what should have been done:

1) Raise the CAFE standards to 40 mpg. The 2016 time table is fine, for what it is, but at 35.5 mpg Detroit can meet that with minimal disruption. Since Detroit has been relying on the US government for twenty years as a bailout plan, perhaps a little discomfort for them will go a long way.

2) Remove the exemption for light trucks and SUVs. Factor them in as a fleet on their own right. In fact, I'd go one step further and insist these be reclassified as trucks, subject to the rules of the road and insurance and licensing requirements that truckers have to meet (including bonding).

We can, of course, offer some form of assistance to people whom this might impact adversely, like small farmers or poor people with large families who absolutely must have an SUV, minivan, or pickup truck, but lets face facts: any asshole who drives a Hummer to Starbucks because of that three degree incline on the entrance ramp at the mall parking lot will likely grasp with both hands the right to be called a "trucker". We can even throw in a hat.

This is a legtimate beef, by the way. SUVs and pickups use more gas, cause more wear and tear on the nation's infrastructure and are responsible for more fatalities and injuries than cars.

Yes, I'm aware of the apparent rise in fatalities when automakers increase their car fleet, but look at those accidents more closely.

First, automakers in an attempt to cut corners make vital safety components out of cheaper material, rather than re-engineer a car for safety. Second, many of those fatalities occured in accidents with an SUV or pick up!

Substantially reduce the number of those on the road, and auto fatalities will decline permanently. It's a simple matter of physics. When two masses collide, the smaller mass usually bears the brunt of the damage.

Of course, looking at how people who use four wheel drive vehicles behave, apparently, they believe the laws of physics no longer apply to them.

This is much like the steroids argument: if you want to make it a fair game, then take the supercharged ubersized vehicles off the road.

On The Upswing

I feel pretty good today.

I look to the future, and while things could easily slip back into darkness, things are looking brighter.

The economy seems to have bottomed out, altho we'll still see disturbing numbers of lay-offs through the summer. Housing starts are trending down, but that's more because people are sitting tight and refinancing their existing homes. Remember, housing starts have been artificially inflated for almost a decade now. We're at levels we should have been historically.

Even the stock markets seem to have incorporated and digested the shitty news and are primed to tick upwards regularly.

On the political front, I see an evolution in America. Obama's election was supposed to herald change, and indeed, it will. Maybe not as fast as many of us would like, but here's the thing: we have to trust that he meant what he said when he said he would be an agent of change.

Sometimes, to make a change, you have to fix what's broken first, stabilize that, and then you can build.

But it's culturally I see the greatest and most positive changes to come. Incrementally, to be sure, but change has a funny way of evolving in fits and starts. If you plant a hundred seeds, maybe eighty of them germinate and maybe fifty of those outlast the birds and worms. You can't predict where you'll have flowers, only that they'll grow out of some of the dirt.

If a future me was to come back in time and report that we needed to endure the Bush administration in order to truly advance the cause of humanity, that the past eight years were the dying gasps of a failed philosophy and mind-set, it would hardly surprise me.

Life is like that: change happens over the entrenched ideologies and agendas of the powered few. They'll try to clamp it down, then when the top blows off the boiling pot, get more aggressive in effecting the status quo.

And then they end up fighting a rear guard action, trying to maintain scraps and scrapes of what their power structure was. I don't expect conservativism to go away, not even quietly, but I do expect the noise level to decrease significantly as the changes we make turn up the signal, wipe out the noise.

We'll hear echoes of them down the corridors of time. Hell, one day a conservative will be elected President yet again, but like Reagan and Bush before him, he or she will have to deal with a changed world. Reagan had to unlearn to hate Social Security. Bush had to unlearn to hate equality.

The next conservative President will have to unlearn his(her) hatred of national healthcare and gay rights.

Time moves forward, not backward, and it is in this vein that we see the triumph of progress.

Hat In Hand

No, not for me. I'm fine and doing well, and have enough.

No, I'm asking for a friend. Free Speech TV.

I'm always going on and on about the mainstream media and how we have to live with their filters.

Well, here's a station that is NOT filtered, that carries Amy Goodman and Laura Flanders AND Greg Palast. Free Speech carries programming about the weaponization of the space over your head to the tragedy of mining accidents in Kentucky.

You say you want a revolution? How about putting down a few bucks, doesn't have to be much, on that very thing? How about turning your back on CNN and MSNBC and especially Fox News, and spending some time with Free Speech TV, and you'll see why it is vitally important to bring this programming to the people.

Please. Give now.

And if you don't get the channel, call your cable provider and ask for it.

Or switch to DISH Network, one of the last surviving independent television providers on the planet.

Syncopation

The Twitterpated rabble on the right wing of this nation have suddenly decided that liberals are falling out of love with Barack Obama:

Barely four months into his presidency, Obama is confronting growing dissatisfaction among members of his liberal base, who feel spurned by a series of his early decisions on issues ranging from guns to torture to immigration to gay rights.

The list got longer last week as Obama reversed his earlier decision to release photos of detainees abused in U.S. military custody and announced plans to try some terror suspects before military commissions – though on the campaign trail he railed against earlier versions of the tribunals.

A few, like MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, have even hurled the left’s ultimate epithet – suggesting that Obama’s turning into George W. Bush.

Unlike, of course, conservatives who marched lockstep with Bush like lemmings until suddenly last November 5, they uncovered evidence that Bush was not really conservative and was in fact the pre-Obama Barack Obama.

We on the left are a cantankerous bunch, to be sure, which means, to periphrase Barnum, you can't fool all of the peoples all of the time. For the right, apparently you can not only fool all the of the peoples all of the time, but you can make them smile and ask for more.

After making a case that liberals will demand a "liberal Scalia" as payback for his backpedalling on issues like torture and troop withdrawal, Politico goes on to dump this load of shit on the blogosphere:

Brittain said such a [centrist] nominee would be confirmed – but liberal groups would probably be slow to respond to future calls for help from Obama. “When he went to press the button next time to rally up people, I think there would still be a lingering issue,” Brittain said.

Right. Because as we all know, liberal groups will shoot themselves to spite themselves.

If the past eight years have taught liberals, at least thinking liberals anything, it's that lockstep ideologues are unlikely to be satisfied with very much for very long and the Bush administration policy of appeasement might have won him a second term, but it did not win him a successful administration.

Obama himself said it best at Notre Dame, albeit it on a different topic:

“Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction,” he said. “But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”

Politico, please...stop characterizing us on the left. You think you know us, but you know nothing.

Joke For Today

The IRS decides to audit Morris, and summons him to the IRS office, and he's not surprised when Morris shows up with his attorney.

The auditor says, 'Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable.'

'I'm a great gambler and I can prove it,' says Morris. 'How about a demonstration?'

The auditor thinks for a moment and says, 'Okay. Go ahead.' Morris says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.'

The auditor thinks a moment and says, 'It's a bet.'

Morris removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor's jaw drops. Morris says, 'Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.'

Now, the auditor can tell Morris isn't blind, so he takes the bet - but Morris removes his dentures and bites his good eye with them!

The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand with Morris's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.

'Want to go double or nothing?' Morris asks. 'I'll bet you six thousand!dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk and pee into that wastebasket on the other side and never get a drop anywhere in between.'

The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again.

Morris stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor's
desk.

The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just cancelled a major loss. But Morris's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands. 'Are you!okay?' the auditor asks.

'Not really,' says the attorney. 'This morning, when Morris told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and piss all over your desk and not only that but you'd be happy about it!'

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) The rain in Spain falls mainly on cocaine.

2) Apparently, Bob Graham has Nancy Pelosi's back, while her minion, Steny Hoyer, has his knife out.

3) No wonder the GOP opposes the stimulus package: it provides Americans with low-wage underpaying jobs without benefits.

4) Hey, Conservatives! Going Galt? Need a place to go on vacation free from US Government regulation? I have just the place:

Somalia!

5) Good thing they're not having more sex or the conservatives might be upset!

6) It's not often you'll see this as a headline: "468 Year Old Man Arrested"

7) If capitalism were truly free market, this would happen a LOT more frequently.

8) On the one hand, this story is fascinating. On the other, it sounds like a Roger Corman movie.

9) The Governator is auctioning off parts of his state. I'd say "Film at 11," but I suspect he's already moved to copyright that.

10) I wonder if old white men in the White House catch some sort of dementia?

NEWS ALERT: Politician Tells The Truth

Oh President Obama...:

President Barack Obama on Wednesday told graduates at Arizona State University that he had not done enough in his life to automatically receive an honorary degree.

Here's how to fix that, sir.

Release the torture photos.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Wednesday that he would fight to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, reversing his position on the issue after commanders warned that the images could set off a deadly backlash against American troops.

The administration said last month that it would not oppose the release of the pictures, but Mr. Obama changed his mind after seeing the photographs and getting warnings from top Pentagon officials that the images, taken from the early years of the wars, would “further inflame anti-American opinion” and endanger troops in two war zones.

As if.

Look, Mr President, by diddling with this decision, you're allowing an opportunity for Al Qaaeda and other religious extremists (including the right-wing nutjobs in this country) to awfulize the photos, to give them mythic status and to talk to the un- and underinformed based solely on rumour and innuendo.

As for our troops in harm's way, well, most of them shouldn't even have been there in the first place, and I think it's incumbent on the people whose boots are on the ground to make amends. My understanding is, ever since the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, that's precisely what some troops have done. Those troops will not be in harm's way.

Neither will troops who have legitimate cause to be in country, such as the ones in Afghanistan who are actively hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda forces who would re-enslave the people of that nation. Those folks will be grateful, and my suspicion is they'll have a more flexible empathy for the position American troops have been put in by your predecessor.

Yes, some troops WILL face more violence, of that you can be sure, but likely those inflamed tensions would have used any spark to light.

Meanwhile, our history shows that the American public is least served by the administration that hides and cowers behind the skirts of public opinion.

Courageous behavior, sir, is lacking in your administration. It's time you man up (maybe put Hillary in charge of this, if you don't have the stones) and take responsibility for what this nation has done to innocent civilians from other countries.

That's the American way.

Note To Dead Old White Guy

You had your chance, you killed 3,000 Americans on American soil and another 5,000 in unnecessary wars. Please go away:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney may have largely stayed under the radar during his time in the Bush administration, but he is not going softly into that good night, seemingly launching a one-man campaign to fight for his legacy and -- in his view -- the safety of the nation.

"Legacy"...funny word that. No doubt you were privvy to the contents of the August 6, 2001 PDB. Maybe you recall the bloody title?

Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.

Nothing says "safe" like ignoring a warning!

Did anyone else die in terror attacks on American soil since September 11? Frankly no. But no one can know if that's due to your *koffkoff* tireless efforts, or merely because Al Qaeda et al shot their wad on 9/11 and it took them years to arm up again.

Indeed, I'd absolutely lay money on the latter because of the posturing you guys did. Keeping in touch with your inner adolescence, you and your Bush administration cronies acted like a bunch of pre-teen hoodlums outside the polar bear enclave at the zoo, teasing and harassing the animals, knowing full well that the next person in the cage...you know, the adults?...would have to deal with an angry bear.

Yea. Brave. That pretty much sums up the level of courage you and Bush the Immature showed in the past eight years.

Dick, and I call you that because it's your name and not necessarily because I think it describes you to a T, your heart stopped decades ago. Follow suit, mmmmmmmmmmmmmK?

Headlines That Make You Do A Double-Take

Every once in a while, a string of headlines pops up on the radar that make it impossible to blog properly.

Conservatives may buck Charlie Crist
Moderate right-wing Republican Charlie Crist, often rumoured to be, well, not strictly heterosexual, has announced for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez of Florida.

One wonders if the editor at Politco was being coy.

Actor Gary Sinise floated as possible GOP savior
Well, hiring a washed up actor worked once before, and since the GOP seems determined to trot out every single dusty old meme in opposition to the Democrats...

Lieberman breaks with Cheney: ‘We’re not less safe’ under Obama.
Truly, a "man bites dog" moment in recent politics.

Jon Stewart to Make History Special
The man who raised faux news to an art form has set his sights on completing what he started with his book: a faux history.

It's going to be hard to top Mel Brooks, Jon.

California shortfall $21.3 billion if measures fail
People who were surprised by the defeat of Proposition 8 allowing for same-sex marriages have not been paying attention the California electorate, I'm sad to say. However, the conservative streak that runs strongly away from the coastline is about to come home to roost, as this budget shortfall almost surely means the repeal that most noxious of "tax cutting" propositions, 13.

Police arrest NJ man in college popcorn prank in Connecticut
You'd better go read this one.

Another One Bites The Dust

Yet another regulatory shortfall of the Bush era is going bye-bye:

The Obama administration is seeking to undo yet another leftover from the Bush years by strengthening antitrust laws, the New York Times reports in leading off its business coverage.

In a speech later today, the Justice Department antitrust chief, Christine A. Varney, will lay out new "plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share."

During the Bush years, the newspaper points out, the cards were stacked in favor of the corporate defendants facing antitrust claims. The White House is looking to level the playing field, restoring a policy "that led to the landmark antitrust lawsuits against Microsoft and Intel in the 1990s," the newspaper writes.

Intel, it should be pointed out, is about to hear the EU decision on its monopolistic tendencies.

Why is this important now?

In the midst of an economic recession or depression, there is a strong urge, indeed a strong rationalization, that stronger players in iffy markets buy up the players who are on the ropes, essentially creating at the very least an oligopoly, if not an outright monopoly.

Indeed, one might make the case that Herbert Hoover's relaxation of oversight on business combinations paved the way for the Great Depression by allowing banks to create credit consortiums that effectively froze out smaller banks from access to money to lend to their customers.

And certainly, the case against Standard Oil was based squarely on its actions in the period running up to and including the recession of 1907.

The trick this time around is to increase the economic productive of weak sectors like banking and housing while avoiding the temptation to use public funds to create megalodons of the market.

The structure of this recession/depression is such that more monopolies are likely to form as credit lines remain dried up, meaning that only companies who can finance internally (through their own cash reserves or by issuing private debt) will be able to survive in style.

And naturally, that will imply size as a factor in survival. The American capitalist system has tended towards "bigger is better" for decades now, when in point of fact, classic capitalism requires quite the opposite: smaller players competing for expanding markets.

Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) California is on fire again. I offer my prayers to fellow Finn and fellow blogger Cookie Jill of Skippy's place and her own Cookies In Heaven.

2) Totally Expected Item #1: Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Doddgers baseball team tests positive for steroids use.

3) Totally Expected Item #2: Scumbag cop Drew Peterson arrested for murder. Unexpected twist: it wasn't for Lacey's murder.

4) Not Wholly Expected, But Welcome Nonetheless News: The crown of the Statue of Liberty is to reopen to the public on a limited access basis. I climbed this as a kid. It's long, the stairs are narrow and steep, so much so that there are built in benches for people to sit on. When access was freely available, the lines could stretch all the way down the pedestal, so seats were quite welcome. The plan now is to allow 30 people an hour to climb.

5) I think the Pakistani government is starting to get it.

6) OK, I admit it. As a lifelong Trekker, I was dreading the release of this movie. But I'll probably skip Mom's Day and go see it.

7) This is a curious development for an Obama administration that worked so hard to convince us of its religious cred.

8) This is a critical element of climate assistance. Pass it now.

9) I had bet on a 10% unemployment rate by year's end. I suspect I may have framed a too-long view.

10) So young and still so beautiful. I know she's not Marilyn, but imagine if Marilyn had lived to be 60. I'm pulling for you, Farrah.

Wait. That didn't come out quite right...

The New Justice...

...is going to be Michelle Obama.

Kidding! Although that would serve the dual purposes of putting a minority woman on the bench while torquing conservatives. To boot, how many Senators would want to question in depth and with hostility the wife of the man who sits in the White House?

Another idea that is sublimely ridiculous would be to nominate Ronald Reagan Jr. You don't have to be a lawyer to be a Justice, and think about the image of The Gipper's gay liberal son sitting in front of the Judiciary Committee, while Republican Senator after Republican Senator genuflect, unable to tear down the legacy of their great icon.

But I digress:

At this moment all bets seem to be in favor of New York appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor. She's an experienced jurist, a well regarded judge graduated from Princeton and Yale, a 54-year-old Latina, daughter of Puerto Rican parents, who rose from a life in public housing to be considered for the highest court in the nation.

The conservative fringe have already begun tagging her as a radical liberal, but that is also to be expected.

Indeed, it will be hard to tag a former prosecutor in one of the highest crime areas in the nation as "soft".

Too, her experience in private practice exploring the nuances of intellectual property will put her in good stead as this issue grows in magnitude under Web 2.0 protocols.

Further, tagging her as a liberal will be made much harder by the fact that she was named to the Federal Bench by George Bush 41. Smear her, and you smear your own party's former leader.

Too, when her "promotion" to the Court of Appeals came up, despite an anonymous hold on her nomination (almost killing it ahead of a public outcry from the Hispanic community, when the GOP was still trying to court them), six Republicans voted for her advancement who are still in the Senate today.

So the confirmation process should go smoothly. And it will be fun to see a local girl from the NYC public school system make it big.

Cut The Losses

This headline is perhaps the scariest business headline of the past six months:

May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Regulators have determined that Bank of America Corp. requires about $34 billion in new capital, the largest need among the 19 biggest U.S. banks subjected to stress tests, said a person with knowledge of the matter. Bank of America fell 9 percent in trading before U.S. exchanges opened.

Citigroup Inc.’s shortfall is more limited because the company already plans to convert government preferred shares to common stock, people familiar with the results said. JPMorgan Chase & Co. doesn’t need a deeper reserve against losses, according to people familiar with that company’s result.

The banks may outline their strategies to add capital, or in other cases buy out government stakes, after the Federal Reserve publishes the stress tests results tomorrow. Companies requiring more capital could raise all the funds through conversions of preferred shares if they choose, the people said.

Sources I've spoken to who have some limited knowledge of the results of the stress tests tell me that roughly half the banks tested will need further bailouts, but BofA is the largest eyesore on the horizon.

Mr. President, Chairman Bernanke, Secretary Geithner, the time has come for triage. Bank of America, for example, has already benefitted from bailouts to the tune of $45 billion dollars. It's clear that it cannot possibly raise another $35 billion on its own, it will rely heavily on government help.

And other banks similarly positioned will be chomping at the bit for a handout. It is time to look at a guided bankruptcy, similar to the one Chrysler filed last week and GM will likely file before long.

This will mean, in the case of BofA, writing off the $45 billion dollars. Better to take the hit now, and work out an arrangement with the new owner of Bank of America for an equity stake over a longer term than anticipated.

Bank of America is a singular case in this instance. Had it not been greedy and purchased Merrill Lynch (at the complicit urging of the Bush administration, we should point out), it likely would have survived its earlier greedy decisions to consolidate the purchases of MBNA, Fleet Bank, US Trust, and its most questionable purchase, Countrywide Financial, just ahead of the sub-prime mortgage crisis of which Countrywide was a, if not the, main player.

It's one thing when a bank gets its clothes dirty playing in the mud of securitized debt obligations and unhedged risk plays. It's another when a bank goes out of its way to collide with the earth.

Or to put it in a clearer idiom, it's one thing to get behind the wheel when you've had a beer, quite another to get behind the wheel drunk and carrying a six pack to consume on the way.

My sense is that Bank of America needs to be reorganized and then recapitalized with a different charter. Indeed, perhaps we ought to rethink the entire banking industry so that there is some safe place for the average American to put his money.

Economic Dodgeball

This is long overdue:

President Obama yesterday announced a major offensive against businesses and wealthy individuals who avoid U.S. taxes by parking cash overseas, a battle he said would be fought with new tax laws, new reporting requirements and an army of 800 new IRS agents.

During an event at the White House, Obama said his proposal would raise $210 billion over the next decade and make good on his campaign pledge to eliminate tax advantages for companies that ship jobs abroad.

"I want to see our companies remain the most competitive in the world. But the way to make sure that happens is not to reward our companies for moving jobs off our shores or transferring profits to overseas tax havens," Obama said, flanked by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman.

The nation's largest business groups immediately assailed the proposal, arguing that it would subject them to far higher taxes than their foreign competitors must pay and ultimately endanger U.S. jobs. Key Democrats were cool to the plan, and said Obama's ideas should be considered as part of a broader effort to streamline the nation's complex corporate tax code.

It's about time, says me.

The logic is very simple: if you incorporate in the largest economy on the planet and do not move your entire operation overseas (including the executive suites), then you should be subject to US tax on your income.

If you live in the United States and are a United States citizen, then you should be subject to United States tax on your income.

Period. End of discussion.

For far too long it's been way too easy for corporations and people to shelter income by offshoring it. That is, set up a foreign subsidiary (or bank account) and conduct business under that guise. You were exempt from paying tax on any of that income until you repatriated it.

Bollocks. There's a clear economic benefit from that income, even if it remains overseas, in terms of stock price and annual results. So either one of two things must happen: either that income doesn't count towards your annual results, or you owe taxes on it.

For you lay folks out there, please understand that there is little connection between a company's annual income as reported to shareholders and what it claims on taxes. This move is a major step towards what should be the ultimate goal: if you claim earnings to the public, then you owe taxes on those earnings and you should not be able to manipulate your taxable income so easily.

After all, if I tried to shelter American income offshore, I'd be hauled before a Tax Court in no time. But MicroSoft or ExxonMobil or Halliburton can pretty much with a straight face claim American income for the benefit of their shareholders and stock price, but suddenly hold out empty pockets for the tax man.

That's not right and it's not fair and must change. So kudos to President Obama for doing the right thing.

Ninety And Still Relevant

I remember the first time I heard Pete Seeger. I was a young child, and he appeared on the TeeVee. Maybe it was Ed Sullivan. Maybe it was Hullabaloo. Knowing Pete Seeger, it was likely on the news at a protest.

He turned ninety this weekend.

Pete Seeger was one of the pioneers of the protest-folk music movement. Raised by a father who was a music professor at UC Berkeley, Seeger counted among his influences Lincoln Steffens, a muckraking journalist who worked tirelessly to cover corruptions of power in America, and also was one of the first ardent American socialists.

You've heard Seeger's music all your life: "If I Had A Hammer," "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" (still the only song ever lifted whole from the Bible).

Seeger sees injustice, and speaks out. He sees the tragedy of environmental degradation, and speaks out. He sees criminality from those in power, and speaks out.

And he sees dischord and strives for unity. His concerts have always featured bounties of sing-alongs, creating one voice out of many.

The list of people he has influenced is immeasurable, spanning American music from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to Bruce Springsteen, Rage Against The Machine and Ani DeFranco.

I learned guitar playing his songs. I think I can still, 35 years after setting mine down, play "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" from memory.

I say all this, because I think it's important to note a shift in American culture. With the occasional exception (Springsteen, for one), no artist today has the power that a simple man with a banjo had to shape public opinion.

Sure, you had Bob Geldof and Band-Aid. That was a one-off, tho, a moment in time when the stars aligned and the world came together to unite against a famine in a terrible cauldron of pain and suffering.

And other artists have come together regularly to promote and publicize causes, like Neil Young, John Mellencamp, and the rest for Farm Aid.

Seeger, as well as Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and that whole gang or even John Lennon later in life, these folks could get up nightly and raise the banners of activism, and people were persuaded and went out and worked for a cause.

We don't have that attention span any longer, and I mourn a little the loss of that.