There may be writing on the wall, but it will still be written one letter at a time. The letters being the individual moments which are burnished in people's memories. The long dull days are past, and letters are appearing on the wall almost every day. With only weeks to go before the primary, Lieberman is behind Ned Lamont in a major poll. Lamont is ahead 51-47, after being behind 55-40 a scant 6 weeks ago. That is, the primary electorate has swung 3 points per week against Lieberman.
Some had thought that Lamont had failed to win the debate, the numbers show otherwise. This is a referendum on party loyalty and political judgement.
Lind is a repsected, overly respected, commentator on war. Several people who ought to know better elevate his work, and as a result, come to confused understandings of the world, because he seems to know what he is talking about, even when he does not.
This post reveals the babbling incoherency to his historical analogies and is replete with obviously false assertions. The opening, that a non-state actor has for the first time waged a war across an international boundary simply does not hold water. One of the best counter examples, which I am shocked that Americans don't seem to remember, is the American invasion of Canada during the American Revolution. The Continental Congress was not a state actor, nor was it recognized as such, and even it did not claim that Canada was part of its natural boundaries. And yet the colonials did attempt an invasion, and were soundly beaten back.
Hezbollah is a state, an unrecognized one, but still a state. It's conflict with Israel is a typical proxy war, where a proto-nation state apparatus is funded as a means of attacking another state. We have seen similar situations, notable the MPLA operating out of an area of Angola which they controlled across an international boundary to attack South African occupation of Namibia - which at the time was internationally recognized. Other examples include the situation in Western Sahara, which is officially not self-governing according to the UN, and has seen warfare across the internationally recognized boundary between Morocco and the territory, an boundary that Morocco and other Arab states do not recognize. But then, Israel and Lebanon do not have a settled border either. Another obvious counter example is the Kurdish Turkish dispute. And since Lind fancies himself a devotee of early 20th century history, he must know of Pancho Villa's attacks against Americans during his time as provisional governor of Chihuahua, including a full scale raid into New Mexico. So much for Lind's portentious, and pompous, assertion of uniqueness, and hence for his position as any kind of expert. The word fraud is correct.
I've read oceans of virtual ink on the conflict in the Levant, as if analyzing it in detail were the means of correcting the situation. But the war there is not a mis-configured text file on a Unix server, which will stop causing problems whenever it is found and fixed, but the flowering of deeper forces. The most simplistic way of putting it is that at $55/barrel, the Arab world can afford to wage one guerilla war against the US, and at $75/barrel, they can afford to wage two. The ur-reality is not Hezbullah, nor even the dynamics of Israeli-Arab relations, but the rattling loose of a good old fashioned dollar glut. The road to any solution in the Levant runs directly through the US Federal Reserve.
Instead it is important to recognize this moment for what it is: the death of a decade. It is not the end, but it is the beginning of the end. It is the Tet moment where elites told Bush, to his face, that he cannot go on as he has. That the battle might be won, but the war is lost.
What is ripping apart the conservative movement is not the "economic/social" divide that liberal commentators saw, but the reactionary/conservative divide.
Inside the conservative movement there are those who desire theocracy combined with plutocracy - and for a very long time, these individuals were seen as the cutting edge of conservative values. More faithful, more devout, more law abidding, more willing to support the status quo. Now they are being seen as a threat to the values that conservatives hold.
"Let me make it clear. I would shed my last drop of blood to defend their right to hold that biblical worldview. They are absolutely entitled to believe that Anne Frank is burning in hell along with Dr. Seuss, Gandhi and Einstein," he says. "But I will not accept my government telling me who are the children of the greater God and who are the children of the lesser God. That's the difference. I will not defend -- I will fight them tooth and nail, and lay down a withering field of fire and leave sucking chest wounds -- if they engage the machinery of the state, which is what they're doing."
In the United Kingdom they remember how home grown terrorists, looking to models abroad, committed atrocities on their own soil, in their capital city. London is the center of Britain in a way that both New York and Washington DC combined are here in the United States, and it was a strike at the sense of an international, and cosmopolitan city.
Remembering when the wounds are so fresh is a difficult matter, it is difficult to remember a struggle which is still going on, and it is impossible to mark the meaning. The developed nations still have not decided whether the struggle against terrorism is a mere selfish one - to prevent those with less from attacking those who are fortunate enough to have more - or whether it is part of a comprehensive change in how the world is viewed. Those who recruit the enraged and the desperate, whether neo-Nazis or islamicsts, or any other variety of violent extremists willing to use pure murder as a political tool, feed up on the very problems which the developed world has not found ways to solve, and that it does not always have the will to attack.
One does not have sympathy for the devil, to have sympathy for those that he uses to his ends.
Tonight's debate between Senator Joe Lieberman and challenger Ned Lamont shows the older senator cool in the tactics of television debate. There are moments where Lamont clearly is, well, not a politician, in handing himself on the podium. There are wobbles, holds, and moments where he has to think, rather than simple regurgiate.
But that scraping noise you here in the background is the claws on power of Joe Lieberman scraping as he falls ever farther down the well. He insulted his opponent, and spilled out excuses for a record in power, and acted in that kind of arrogant and domineering way that someone too mixed up in power for too long does when forced to show itself.
Perhaps Lamont was not as polished as he could have been, but he has held up a mirror to the face of power.
Earlier I predicted a roughly 5% bounce in Bush's numbers - which is approximately what we've seen. However the same leading indicators which showed the bounce, are now turning against him. The people who are now "marginally attached" to Bush support are the disorganized white working class making predominantly in the lower middle class income. This is hard core Bush support, and these are the people whose loud and proud stance about Iraq, tax cutting and the created a cloud of cover from which intellectuals, media personalities and politicians either drew on for their own strident and extremist rhetoric, or ran from for cover.
However they are also very cash flow sensitive. It is why gas prices are a reasonably good proxy for their support, because what is really going on is they have very little free cash flow.
Remember the good old days of the late 19th century? When genocide against native Americans was policy, Jim Crow was law, and shooting miners who struck was done by federal troops? The good old days when you were free to exploit poor labor, buy votes and dump toxins into the food supply without let or hinderance from the Federal Government.
Well it's nice to know that the right wing is here to protect these precious freedoms from the 20th century.
To answer Mr. Russo's question, since he seems to be too dishonest to do it himself, the act which imposes the income tax itself is the Tariff Act of 1913.
Sorry he doesn't like the constitution, but then, he looks back fondly to an age where being black wasn't exactly legal. Perhaps he and the other clackers can burn a few crosses and exercise some of those other great American freedoms like beating share croppers of which they are obviously so fond.
It takes a bridge sometimes. A bridge along I-88. I know that country, I've driven the length of that road for many years. I hitch hiked it to get to a girl friend when young, I drove it to collect samples for agricultural studies. I flew into that country for consulting work. Yesterday a bridge that I have crossed many times washed out, and two truckers were killed when they plummetted into the gap created by a raging river. This is my country, my native earth to the extent that I have any in all my travels. It is the place where Democrats hope to make inroads, by showing people that the Republican Party has left them behind.
It is for this reason that I cannot support Senator Clinton in her ambition to be President. This bridge is in New York State, it has her name on it. Instead she has consistently, incessesantly and persistently chosen to support a dry hole in Iraq.
But opposition to one candidate is not the same thing as a positive direction. For this reason I decide that from here on, I will publicly support John Edwards should he choose to run for the nomination. It is John Edwards who will bring America home, and paradoxically, this is the step that we need to take to retake our position of leadership abroad.
There is much to be done, an new America needs to be built, not in the palace-embassy of Baghdad, but here in America.
Our society sits on top of a a mountain of corpses. Every day thousands of people die for the sin of poverty. Hundreds of millions of people live in destitution. And yet in our own country, the most important imperative for the vast majority of people is to avoid petty discomfort, including the petty discomfort caused by looking across the seas and counting the dead. Some of the people look out, and decide that if they personally feel they aren't participating that is enough.
I built a pillar over against his city-gate, and I flayed all the chief men who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skinds; some I walled up within the pillar and some upon the pillar on stakes I impaled, and others I fixed to stakes round about the pillar; many with the border of my own land I flayed, and I psread their skins upon the walls; and I cut off the limbs of the high officers, of the high rolay officers who had rebelled. Ahiababa I took to Ninuwa, I flayed him, I spread his skin upon the wall of Ninuwa.
Annals of Ashur-Nasir-Pal
The Neo-Assyrian Empire offers lessons for our own age, because, on the one hand, the empire had a cultural complex which included mastery of a variety of tools which made them one of the fastest rising empires in history, and the most potent military force that the world had seen to that time. At the same time, there were inherent contradictions in that cultural complex which brought about the downfall of their empire. America's experience in Iraq in the present duplicates many of these contradictions. The first is the need to have internal legitimacy rooted in a place cult, even as there is an economic and political necessity to have a concept civic religion which allows embracing a world trading empire.
If reporters covered rapes, every story would feature a detailed account of the sex history of the victim, and a explanation as to how she might well have led the man on.
Put another way, if net neutrality passes, the AT&Ts of the world will be forced to pay for all of their equipment upgrades themselves and could not subsidize that effort by imposing premium fees for premium services.
This is simply a lie, the backbone holders already do charge users of the internet for bandwidth. It isn't as if Google gets to hook things up for free. Which is what Birnham implies. It is that providers cannot discriminate between customers.
This rule is the cornerstone of all of our commercial rules - a provider cannot set prices differently for different retailers, for example - having one discount structure for one company and a different one for others.
Why is it so hard for the Post to print simple truth? Perhaps because the Post believes that Net Neutrality keeps small players in business, and wants the barrier to entry? No proof this is so, but they have smeared other people on less.
"Within the confines of the land of [Assyria], he imposed an ordinance, lest any secret go out."
Tukulti-Ninurta Epic
The narrative of Assyria is that it is the model for an evil empire, because it formed the matrix for such stories for the Judaic Kingdoms, and influenced the Greeks. In the present the Iraqi Christians use the reverse narrative – peddling apologia for the Assyrians as a way of asserting their foundational myth against Islamic culture.
These are important aspects to examine, because they fill in our present cultural imperatives. Those who see Israel as the fulcrum of US policy, or who are ideologically hard Zionist, used the narratives of the evil empire, rooted deeply in Neo-Assyria, to justify attacking Saddam. Those who adopted a stance rooted in the humanist traditions were far less strident. Saddam himself clearly modeled his reign on the imperial powers of the past, and his attempts to conquer both the river valley and project power outwards were part of imperatives for the river basin power from time immemorial.
However, it is also important to think about the lessons of Neo-Assyria from the context of their own time and place. Judah was a minor speed bump on their road to Egypt, Greek a distant trading hinterland of no consequence, and Christianity and Islam were in the unimaginable future a millennium and more away. In their own context they had their own problems. But these problems are generally misunderstood, because their moment in history is only recently emerging in outline for what it was: the end of a "Dark Age".
It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's
dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of
populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction.
I think they mean that they are working that our friends over at The Nasty Republicans, are working this side of the street. Rest assured you guys have the blogsphere beat cold in all of those departments.
In a world that has bequeathed him many names, Joe Lieberman's supporters today added another - Libelman. Libel is a fairly clear bright line, something must be willfully false, and with the intent to defame. After spinning conspiracy theories about Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitas-Zuniga, the Nasty Republicans step up to the plate and follow on with outright libel. There has been no "silence" about the attacks on Jerome and Markos. And as one of the people on the "townhouse" list, and one of its more active members, I can state for a fact that there has been no coordinated conspiracy to defend Markos. It is true that people who are Markos close supporters have, publicly, urged that the blogsphere strike back at what is clearly a smear. That's called loyalty and it is an important quantity in politics.
But there has been no agreement, nor any steps towards an agreement, to cloud or obscure anything that Markos or Jerome have done as individuals, or to prevent matters from playing out. Instead it is TNR and others who have slung a series of false charges, not just against Jerome and Markos, but against everyone who opposes them. These charges are maliciously false.
It is reasonable to conclude - for a reasonable man would do so - that this is related to Markos and Jerome successfully publishing a book documenting their ideas, and their reasons for holding them, about Democratic Party politics.
Earlier this year a well known blogger leakes material related to this list to a Republican blogger - that Republican blogger tried to pressure the list into the public eye, and failed to do so. He raised up a false flap, tried to insinuate the kinds of absurdity that TNR now publishes. That this was tided over because, in fact, there was "no there there".
This current tirade from the establishment wing of the Democratic Party is not coincidental - Jerome and Markos now have real power, and more over, there is a real schism within the establishment over Joe Lieberman. Well, the Liebermanites have sunk to the challenge. The schism is over whether to back Joe Lieberman should he decide to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent should he be defeated, or seem likely to be defeated, in the primary against Ned Lamont. This schism comes because while the hierarchy wants to insulate itself from the voters, doing so in such an obvious fasion would be fatal to their support. Already donors are starting to withhold their support for the DSCC over Schumer's interventions in primaries. In the case of Montana, it was for nothing - Schumer's preferred candidate lost. It worked in Pennsylvania, because no strong enough candidate could emerge, despite attempts by people such as long time Democratic activist Chuck Pennachio. In Virginia, ironically, the blogs and the establishment were on the same side - backing the Reagan Democrat Webb over more left leaning lobbyist Miller - and emerging triumphant.
What this is, is a blow against the forming social and political structures, one which is likely to work, simply because libel screamed from high places is still an effective tactic.
But it is libel, in the clearest and most legally exacting use of the word. Perhaps the Democratic rank and file will wake up, and realise that they have leaders who are unworthy of them.
Desire, that lithe prelate of our affections,
Has called me here, to the open plain
Of that fiction which is our history.
She is always Babylon, that weighted wash of time,
That hangs upon her shoulders as a cloak translucent
Which denies detail and yet accents the curves
That draw the eye ever onward.
Not long ago I delivered the unwelcome news that Bush was due for a 5% bounce. That bounce is now in effect.
The press is extoling this, and setting up the story line "can he make it?"
In one sense yes, as the pressure in the economy shifts from the bottom - where the people are - to the middle, where there is already a rejection of Bush. But we are talking about a bounce which is a dead cat bounce - now that inflation is built into expectations, people are simply adapting. It is propping up the economy shor term, as people spend now, in the expectation that prices will go up more later. The low savings rate (which has been Hale's beat) is a result of a high rate of real, as opposed to nominal, inflation. Real inflation is PPI and ECI - this is the net input cost, but not merely national ECI, but total ECI. Prices should drop, in otherwords, by productivity minus PPI per year. Anything over this represents real inflation.
This real inflation number, particularly if we include housing, shows the real erosion of buying power per hour of most Americans - it is on the order of 2% higher than CPI over the last 30 years, and right now is closer to 4% higher. While nominal real wages - that is wage growth adjusted for CPI - has been falling slightly, wages adjusted for this fuller measure of purchasing power are collapsing, hence the drop in savings. Americans aren't dissaving to live massively better, but just to stay even.
And this puts a sharp limit on Bush's upward move. When a scalp only gets him 3%, you know the game has changed.
Chicago Dyke at corrente joins the long list of people commenting on the question of "should blogs take ads from telecos on net neutrality". Bopnews.com has turned down these ads in the past, but there is no reason to believe that we will turn them down in the future.
Having used blogads at various times, generally with success, I think the paradigm that Skippy has gotten into - that ads are push that people are overly influenced by - simply isn't backed by my experience. Blog adds are essentially very gaudy links. Should we turn down Google ads because we can't control the content? Several sites - like Brad Delong's - have been very anti-Bush and his executive, and then had google ads that touted Bush gear.
Trying to draw lines that don't exist - we should not sequester the blogsphere - doesn't make any sense to me at all. "If you can't take their money, drink their liquor, smoke their cigars, fuck their women and still vote against them in the morning, you shouldn't be in this business." No one has been farther out front against the telecos in the blogspace than Matt Stoller. Prudery when it comes to money is not reasonable, and this is prudery. When there is evidence of corrupting influence of money, then it should be exposed and humiliated - but there is absolutely none with Matt, who is, both in public and in private, one of the leaders of the net neutrality coalition.
Desire, that lithe prelate of our affections,
Has called me here, to the open plain
Of that fiction which is our history.
She is always Babylon, that weighted wash of time,
That hangs upon her shoulders as a cloak transluscent
Which denies detail and yet accents the curves
That draw the eye ever onward.
She was here when brick gave way to stone,
When memory's fragile ex-stasis was first confirmed in cuniform,
So that scribes might spend their dreary days dreaming
Of the warm of hidden flesh.
Four great kings of Assyrian rose up.
The first built empire, and drew all to his command.
The second made war for trade, and scattered power to the corners of the realm.
It was the third who slaughtered and gave new meaning
To words which did not yet exist when he enacted them.
And then came the last, the fourth.
And fourth he went, the bearer of his sun God's name,
To encompass all the world that was, from the Nile to the Indus.
But first to rule and reign in Babylon.
The armies of this Assyrian king, meant for Egypt,
But destined to bleed upon this, the more ancient river,
Assaulted the walls three times. Each time to take her,
The history that she was, and was as living.
So he did strut before the walls, and claimed to encompass
The living city of eternity
As he claimed in broken syllables to have mastered the ancient tongue of Sumer.
But the wave that was his passion, though it washed aside that Babylon
Was in turn dashed in other lands, as repeated victories and defeats
Had dulled the lord of Nineveh to the realities of his realm.
And still, after, yet and so.
She remained, and remained Babylon.
Even as Ashur wept his golden sun god tears for his lost sons.
So am I standing before these, the opened gates
That both lead down into the distant revenants of our half forgiven past,
And upwards towards our unforgiven future.
Each stepped embossed with half-remembered names,
Of undead kings.
And in the echos that feint and faintly dwell in the shadows of my steps,
I know that as once the chariots of Assyria did turn and turn,
Never to find rest as they reached for control of this fertile cresent –
So too have we come to grief, striving to command
That black river upon which our history depends,
And which our future denies.
Today on the Financial Times, Daniel Gros argues that the US is in a deeper hole than reported:
The global financial system seems to have a black hole at its centre. Over the last two decades, US residents have sold a total of about $5,500bn worth of IOUs to foreigners, yet the officially recorded net investment position of the US has deteriorated only by a little more than half of this amount ($2,800bn). The US capital market seems to have acted like a black hole for investors from the rest of world in which $2,700bn vanished from sight – or at least from the official statistics.
The phrase to remember, come September, was coined, as far as I know, by Madeline Albright: "Osamatober". In 2004 she worried that George Bush, if in trouble, would pull out of the hat Osama bin Laden - who, as most should by now know is confined to a very small space with dwindling options - in order to push himself over the top to victory. Well, we've just had a bit of Osamatober.
Bush is in Iraq for an unannounced visit. Think on that for a moment, and then let us go over together the evidence from the Bush Presidency.
The only question is, "was there a deal?" That is, is Rove not being charged in return for something Fitzgerald needed to go farther up? Or is this merely the sign that the Plame prosecution has gone as far as it is going to go?
A great deal of speculation will attend Mark Warner's decision to throw a huge party in the Stratosphere, the pinnacle of Las Vegas. It certainly attests to his faith in Jerome Armstrong, and his roots in a high tech outlook on reaching out to people who are early adopters. Mark Warner wants to be the early adopters candidate. He is adamant that he is running for the top spot, will not take the Vice Presidential nomination if offered by Hillary Clinton, and that 2008 is the next stop on his train. We are officially in the cycle, before the mid terms have been completed. He is the new politician.
At the same convention, Howard Dean kicked off another campaign, that of attempting to assert that the Democratic party is the new governing majority party of the United States, and that the progressive movement will use, in language reminiscent of Wilson's first inaugural, that party as the instrument of creating a better America. Dean's delivery was blunt, often rising to a pitch of emotion which the press dislikes, perhaps because the press fears a nation with righteous indignation at the indignities heaped upon it.
Dean wants the New Politics. It is a phrase that I struck to describe the change in structure and power. This weekend it was on the lips of the mighty and visible.
That energy is on the agenda is an important moment for the the blog universe. It moves the line. The perception that has been purveyed that the blogsphere is far left, a kind of electronic granola fest. Reporters have been shocked at the mainstream aspect of the convention - and about how ordinary the attendees. And now they are shocked that the postive vision, this isn't about "not war", it is about pro-something else.
The images, from sites at Politics TV are being complimente
Here at the press room, Barbara Boxer underlines the democratic party is diverse, and independent - and her great respect for the netroots.
And then states that she is supporting Lieberman in Connecticut against Lamont - but says that the netroots should do what it needs to do. Her basic point is that she is very excited about how this new movement has the potential to offset media consolidation and grow the dialog.
The old adage is that Wall Street is driven by fear and greed. And we've seen both on display this year: in a stock market run up, and in the recent "summer slide", which is a well known annual effect that has been stronger in recent years than in the past. The Dow Jones Industrial index, that vernable measure of stock market performance, is off about 8% in recent weeks, having dipped below the 11,000 mark during the day. Foreign markets have also slid as well.
But the real story of this economy is told in two other sets of numbers: in the treasury yield curve and in the VIX. These powerful measures have been saying very clear things over the last year, and what they have been saying has been widely ignored.
The early returns are going against a Busby victory. However, they indicate that there is a 5 to 10 percent shift in this, a solid red district, of base voters. A shift of this size can only be described as "seismic". If the Democrats see a 7% shift in bases, then districts across the northeast and midwest fall like dominoes, and the party even becomes competitive in a host of districts in the South.
As a composer of string quartets, I have always had a weakness for them. Schoenberg's Second String Quartet contains a part for a soprano singer, one of the most haunting lines in this work, dating from before the first World War, in that last decade of the Victorian era, goes as follows, from Stefan George's peom "Entruckung":
Ich fuhle luft von anderem planeten.
("I feel the air of another planet.")
Of course the word were meant to take the listener into the etheral and attenuated and visionary state that floats above our mundane world. But one can, relatively easily, breath the air of other planets, simply by going inside the beltway and reading what people inside the beltway read. One example is how the "ponyhawk" is among the most sought after of species - the person who believed that the use of force in Iraq is justified because Saddam was such an evil leader, regardless of any other consideration or calculation. Inside the beltway air, that rarified and tenuous air within the 495 loop - the ponyhawks such as Thomas Friedman and Senator Joe Lieberman are the moral, right thinking, and important, constituency. However, examining the data we find out that they aren't rarified, merely rare.
My Friend Peter Dao, Kerry's blog guru and well known for Daou Report on Salon.com, has, as one of his major themes, the problem of "stories versus storylines in the media. What he means by this is that regardless of what the individual story is, the media uses adjectives, descriptions and explanations which amount to the constant accusation that Democrats are weak, corrupt, disorganized and incapable of governing, while Republicans are described as strong, decisive leaders who act like adults.
I feel that Jonathan Alter's book on FDR's "First Hundred Days" is a timely and useful addition to the discourse, well researched and filled with well taken points.
Which is why his Newsweek column is so disappointing. It is a poorly researched, poorly thought out, factually inaccurate. He gets basic terms wrong, such as what "Open Source" means. He didn't do his research, since he contacted no one who is an acknowledged creator of the term or the idea. He instead commits a series of intellectual dishonest catagorical blunders, in a dishonest attempt to push top down thinking. In every respect, this article is a disservice to his readers, in that it lies to them about the basic mean of terms.
In his New Yorker article in the present issue, Jonah Goldberg writes a love letter to the moderates. The root of his passion is a polling observation at the heart of his article – for every two people who identify as liberals in America, three identify as conservatives. To win the Presidency, the Democrats must win 60% of the moderate vote.
He features Warner's attack on "The 16 State Strategy" – a term that may well have come out of the keyboard of Jerome Armstrong, echoing the Deanism of "The 50 State strategy". He features the observation that the last two Democrats to enter the White House were perceived of as moderate Southern governors. One might add that the third to win an election was, at the time, seen as a moderate Southern former Senator.
And what does being moderate consist of? It seems to be "pro-gun, anti-abortion, pro-military, pro-Iraq War and anti-big ideas". Moderate, it seems, means "rural Republican who doesn't like how high gas prices are."
The announcement of Snow's resignation from the Treasury and his probable replacement rates, in reality, as non-news. Snow was never a core policy making member of the government. While rumored to be an advocate of a "strong dollar", the reality is that there is not a single policy originating from Treasury which can be called a "strong dollar policy" under his watch - the dollar appreciation of 2005 was entirely attributable to the improvement in the US profit picture and the Federal Reserve raising rates as other nations held them steady.
No one should really care. And yet the dollar has taken a sharp drop and the markets are engaged in another sell off.
Within the heart of the turblent and provisional world of discourse, decision and democracy, their lives a deep seated urge to certainty. A wish for the dust to settle. To come to have, among all of the possessions that a person is allowed to have, a sense of the rightness of heaven and earth, and achieve a moral certainty of action that is beyond the reach of decision.
While this urge is often acted upon by demogouges and politicians engorged by ego, it afflicts even the most dedicated. It is for this reason that we must remind ourselves of the evils, the moral evils, of closed societies. The danger of course, is to be hypnotized by its own rhetoric. Closed societies exist all over the world, but they can no more be made into open societies by fiant than paper can be made into money by fiat. It is the value and functioning of the whole society which makes an election, or a dollar, work.
Dew, that rain which condenses from the magic of the air has swathed the tall grass, its stalks topped with kernel seeds that remind the eye of from whence wheat comes. The orange bellied spiders have spun their webs across the gaps between the tallest stalks. It is 1974, in the last quarter century in America when anyone can truly be alone without intent. There skips through the dawn soaked fields a young boy, who has fled the still cool quiet of the house, built of brick in the waning days of the last century of absolute kings, and sought out the brushing breeze of early morning.
The First Tropical Depression of the season has formed in the pacific. It means that the season of storms is now visible in outline, though of course, this storm is not a threat to anyone but boats.
First, it wasn't inflation if it was the cost of your house. This was foolish, because forced savings is inflation - mesoinflation. This was 1983. Then, it wasn't inflation if you could put up with a lower standard of living. This was foolish, because disutility is inflation - mesoinflation. This was 1996. Then it wasn't inflation if you ate it or put it in your car. This was straight up corrupt - since that is macro-inflation. It was claimed that these sectors were "more volatile", despite evidence that this was a poor way of adjusting for volatility - there are better measures. Despite evidence that it wasn't beta, but alpha, that was being stripped out. Macroinflation was allowed to run, even as the fed "disappeared" the M-3 number which would have allowed a direct comparison. This was 2001.
The boom is over, the bubble is, officially, on - the point where the monetary authority bluntly admits that even it can ignore. Cousin Ben has said repeatedly he wanted inflation targetting and a monetary rule. Or is it that he wants to leave that behind for other people to follow?
Leading is difficult. The sign of a leader is, of course, first to be able to stand up to the other side, and fight the good fight. But more difficult is often standing up to ones own side, forcing your own to be their best. Without this aspect of leadership - a party isn't a party, it is an unarmed mob of millionaire office seekers. Reid is good at party pugilism, but not at leading the party in the senate in this way.
Several times Pelosi has shown that she has both the principles and the will to push her own party in the right direction. Today she did so again by asking for Rep. Jefferson to resign his Ways and Means seat - which would be a very powerful one in a Democratic Congress.
May 24, 2006
Congressman William J. Jefferson
2113 Rayburn House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Congressman Jefferson:
In the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus, I am writing to request your immediate resignation from the Ways and Means Committee.
Sincerely,
Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Leader
Corruption brought down the last Democratic House, and it is bringing down this Republican House. Pelosi is right, Jefferson should step aside.
In the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, Martin Feldstein, long time inflation hawk, summarizes his position on the US savings rate:
This sharp decline in savings has had important implications for United States and for the global economy. It has reduced productivity-enhancing net business investmnet in the United States to less than four percent of GDP and made the United States increasingly dependent on capital from the rest of the world to finance that investment. At the same time, the decreased national savings rate – and the increase in consumer spending that it implies - jas induced a rise in US imports. Those imports have contributed to the growth of output and employment in many countries around the world.
The downward trend in US household saving will likely soon be reversed. In the long term, a substantial rise in houshold saving will have a postive effect on the US eocnomy. But the initial effects will pose problems for the United States and its trading partners. If these efects are not managed well, the results could be delcines in output and employment and a corresponding rise in US protectionism.
Right, but backwards - it is increasing US protectionism that is behind the rise in consumption, and the shift from production to consumption as the mainstay of US employment. Protectionism breads more, not less, pressure to import other goods to offset the inflationary effects of protectionism.
Yesterday, the war died. Not because of the acceptance of an incomplete cabinet for a weak government in Iraq, even as the fatalities mount. But because two of its most arrogant and outspoken proponets suffered humiliations - and they bounced back by proving that the war was all about the people who ordered it, and not about the realities of the situation.
The fact is that Lieberman and McCain are both in a very select club - that of trillion dollar men. Men whose bad judgement has cost more than a trillion dollars each - and on more than one occasion. McCain was personally involved in the S&L meltdown - which, when one totals bailout, interest and lost productivity came to over a trillion dollars to clean up. Lieberman isn't just an Iraq booster, but the architect of the Department of Homeland Security - a bloated byzantine maze of incompetence which could not even protect New Orleans from the results of a clearly expected disaster.
This puts them in the range of blunderers of epic proportions, and yet each is so unshakeably convinced of his own infallibility, that a pontiff would blush at it.
Insult came first with McCain and Bob Kerrey heckled at the new school. McCain sniffed that people who didn't listen to others were "dull". Either he means that he is dull - because he has never shown any signs of listening to anyone, or he means that the facts are dull, because they won't listen to him.
But injury slammed in to Joe Lieberman much harder - as his attempt to quash the Lamont candidacy was hammered in the convention. Even after having the Mayor of Hartford strong arm through an all war delegation, even after trying to raise expectations and say that Lamont would get "30%" as a way of getting people to see anything less as a let down - Lamont came out with 33% of the delegates - right under the nose of the Lieberman machine - and a slot on the primary ballot.
Thus while Lieberman has the "nomination" Lamont has what he needed - a one on one showdown with Lieberman, over the issue that is most important: judgment.
This is how machines keep people out. Just ask anyone who remembers the Free Democratic Party of Mississippi. At the same time that people leave the party because they have no say, the party appartchnicks work hard to keep it that way.
Begala's quip on nose picking was met with a torrent of anger. In no small part because it was field organizers who fought the civil rights battles that are the mythic heart of present day social progressivism. It's like knocking minutemen in Massachusetts, Texas Rangers in Dallas, or taking a piss on a town's World War II memorial - it just ain't smart.
To his credit Begala apologizes. And in his answer are both the points that unite, and divide, Begala and his world from Exley and his.
In what has become a make or break moment for Truthout.org Marc Ash goes to the wall to defend the story and the reporter. While many people are questioning, and going beyond questioning to attacking, the publication, let us remember how Truthout came to be - at the very moment when almost everyone ran for the hills, Marc Ash founded Truthout, and recruited William Rivers Pitt. . Pitt became an internet writing star, and truthout a publication that almost everyone on the left reads, or cites.
This means that, of course, Marc is going to back his reporters to the hilt until the last possible minute. That's how Truthout attracted writers willing to say, for example, that Iraq was a blunder even before the US invaded, or that the chimperor's monetary policy had no cloths.
But this story? Is it correct? There has been at least one confirming report from Wayne Madsen, who speculates that some disinformation was put out to protect Rove, but that the Truthout story is, at least, partially correct in that there were meetings informing Rove that an indictment would be announced on Friday. This provides, in a manner of speaking, a clock.
First I would like to point out that to some extent it doesn't matter if Rove has been indicted, threatened with indictment or threatened with being a target. At this point, let's realize that he can indict a ham sandwich. Ham comes from pork - and Rove is at the center of the pork machine in Washington. He's certainly had his hands in enough cookie jars that Fitzgerald will be able to indict.
Gold is an industrial metal, a store of personal value in many countries, a decorative material - and a hedge against central bank incompetence. While yesterday's rapid melt of gold signals that we have entered into the volatile, choppy top of the commodities market - one reason that speculating in precious metals is best left to people who follow those markets carefully - it is far from over. In fact, with the ECB set to raise rates, gold had a wave of supportive buying.
Remember that in bull markets, there are often one day pull backs as people take profits, but then there is a wave of support as people who were short close some positions, and those who did not get involved in the last up leg "buy on the dips". Game theory teaches us that only once the last aggressively early short seller dies, is there an end to these upticks.
With the dollar set to deteriorate a further 10% this year towards a target bottom that will knock down US ability to import oil - Gold, oil and other commodities still have an upside. The paradox here is that the ability to limit inflation to commodities - which has been deemed harmless since it only removes net wealth from retiring workers in the developed world and gives it to oil rich countries - means that the pattern will continue until it is too late. Not content with the barrier between commodities inflation and general inflation - built up in response to the 1970's as companies and countries tried to limit their exposure to oil shocks - is going to be tested. In effect, the one great victory of neo-liberal economics, that is, the ability to manage supply shocks in commodities, is now being pillaged to generate more liquidity and temporary growth.
During 2004, the belief was prevelant in very high circles that if Bush needed a boost late, he would pull Osama bin Laden out of the hat. Reports of a reved up hunt for Osama in Pakistan from Asia Times should remind everyone that Bush has a strategy to limit damage in the fall, namely, grab Osama, fill the air with headlines about being a strong leader, and hope that that keeps enough seats to prevent a Democratic capture of one or both houses, and just as importantly, prevent more liberal Democrats from coming in with the tide - the kind most likely to vote for impeachment, censure or other measures to investigate the Executive.
Having military veterans running won't help - it didn't help Kerry, and all the tools for swiftboating are still out there.
Inflation has been redefined in the business press as "core inflation". That is, energy inflation doesn't count any more for public discussion. This is an interesting caveat. As anyone who follows bls statistics knows "core inflation" is an inflation number without energy, the argument being that this "strips out" the "volatile" food and energy sector. However, this is doubly dishonest. First, food and energy have been running ahead of the rest of inflation for some time now, second there are simple financial formulas to get rid of what is called "marginal behavior". If people want to know what the "non-volatile" number for inflation is, then the simplest tool is to take a moving average, not to remove particular components. If one wants a more sophisticated tool, one can take kendall's tau of the inflation series over time – which is a statistical tool to find the correlation between two data sets removing the differences in volatility from both. Finally one could apply GARCH – an algorithm for analyzing numbers that are not only volatile, but have changing rates of volatility.
Our endorsements go to the strongest feminist candidates. We listen to our membership and respond to their requests for action in races in their states. Therefore, pursuant to the request of Connecticut NOW, NOW PAC is endorsing Ned Lamont for the U.S. Senate.
There is a stealth realignment in this country, one whose implications for politics have not been spelt or spoken. We live in an age which assumes that there are three great blocks of voters: Democrats, Republicans and Independents
(Phants, Donks and Dips). Gone are the days when the Democrats simply had to mobilize their base and pick up a sliver of independents and cross over Republicans in order to get heft majorities in Congress and generally win the Presidency. This was the modern mass mobilization politics.
But gone too are the mass media politics of having a large swinging group of voters who could be won to on hot button, single issue or topical appeals. Instead, if Harris is to be believed, we have entered into, and should get used to, a spherical age of four party politics, where "Nopes" join Donks, Phants and Dips as a force to be reckoned with. As the chart shows Independent peaked at 30 over 15 years ago, and has been sliding down since. Democratic has slid down, but may be reviving. Republican has wobbled around 30 for a long time - as the Phants gained in the South, but lost elsewhere.
But there is a bull market for people who have their feet firmly planted in political air.
Can we please kill the Raptor now so that we can concentrate on getting one good fighter in quantities sufficient to go through an evolutionary cycle, rather than small numbers of planes that are too precious to use?
I know the rolling country of Columbia and Duchess county - I have biked through it, driven through it, worked there and played there. I have spent many hours in the dark of night walking its roads, or cresting hills to the greeting of glittering stars. It is a region much like my own native earth, and it deserves and demands better representation than it has had in the past. Fortunately, there is a chance for this to happen, with the candidacy of Brian Keeler for the New York State Senate. Brian Keeler is one of the most intelligent and dedicated people in internet politics, and his devotion to making people's lives better, every day and in every way, cannot be too highly praised. His campaign faces an uphill battle - as does the campaign to improve representation in New York, fix a broken budget process, and continue to invest in the education and infrastructure that makes New York "the empire state".
Give now like Eric Massa's run for Congress, this is the kind of district that the Republican Party has left behind and forgotten. An area that needs good schools, a good environment and good policy to thrive.
"Some further policy firming may yet be needed to address inflation risks,"
But they don't know how many, or if they will pause. Looks like Cousin Ben's openness campaign lasted - all of 3 months. This statement says "we will raise if we see inflation, stop if we see stagnation." Gee, any Macro text could have told you that, for any year out of the last 70. The question is where does the Fed see its monetary policy, and where does it see the balance of risks. For this, today's statement offered no help. Given that Ben was burned by suggesting inflation was on the table, it seems likely that inflation is on the table, but that he no longer wants to be seen in the public mind as the Mad Baggins central banker...
They call him helicopter ben, because he argued that the US could "drop money out of helicopters" to prevent deflation. The name isn't really fair, there isn't a helicopter in the world big enough to hold all the dollars that he's dropping on the dollar glutted world. Given that everyone wants dollar devaluation - that being the closest thing any one has come up with to tax holders of overseas dollars - it is very likely that Ben will give them the devaluation they want. However, he doesn't want to look too easy
In January 2009 the most dramatic and torrential use of Congressional Power seen in decades was seen. In what became known as the "100 hours", a newly empowered Democratic majority in the house drafted, debated and voted on 12 articles of impeachment. It was the act of a nation that had had one sandbag from Iraq too many dropped on its back. The senate, in the end voted to convict on only a single count – involving the admittedly illegal domestic spying program. It was more than the removal of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from their final two weeks in office. It was, instead a constitutional act, denying that the doctrine of "the unitary executive" was the law of the land in America.
By now we have all seen the submarining poll ratings for Bush, which are flirting with the 30% line that signifies a nation on the brink of political change. Truman, Carter and Nixon visited these subterranean realms of disapproval, and in each case some measure of realignment followed. With USA Today's 31% even the short breathing space that stabilizing the gas price wave is dying - Bush is now solidly below even the Katrina moment. Think on what it takes to be less popular than losing a city to storm. If Bush's first term was "the chopped down Christmas tree", the second term begins to look like its mirror, with disapproval mounting.
But Congress would love to see the north side of 30% on a consistent basis. Six of the eight polls taken since the beginning of April have been below 30, only 2 above it. Fifteen of the 30 major polls since the beginning of the year have been below 30.
America's generation are born again in their virginity. We have had a spate of films about the birth of pop culture as a force, how common people became celebrities, how niggers became people, and how monsters became larger than life. Capote documents the rise of celebrity and the fall of talent. Mona Lisa Smile tells us how modernism was liberation. Ray chronicles the change from analog to electrical. One day, they will make movies about this moment, in the change from that world to the next. We are, again, virginal and innocent, and yet waiting, wanting, slobbering with a urgency that comes from desire which is universal and universally hidden - for the change that is about to occur.
We are about come face to face, with the tyranny of minority.
Chevron says "Hydrogen is abundant!" but also admits it is almost always bound up with some other "substance" - the correct answer is "elements" - and that ti takes energy to make it.
OK if they are pushing this as a substitute for natural gas - why is it energy negative?
Because when petro-business says "hydrogen" they mean "separate the hydrogen from hydrocarbons, burn the hydrogen and bury the CO2 someplace - while you the consumer bend over and lube up for our outrageous profits."
Every generation has its challenge, a challenge that forces it to embrace whatever the solution is, and whatever ideology allows them to live with that solution. People older than I needed to dismantle the liberalism that was, and told themselves Darwin and Friedman fairy tales about how government is evil.
People a bit older than I were hit by backlash from mass mobilization and civil rights. They embraced social reactionaries as the only way to get ordinary people to embrace gutting their own economic interests.
Hence, they became conservatives, reactionaries, neo-conservatives and Reaganites. That was their era - the 1969-1982 era of challenges. That generation is a product of its challenges.
AIDs was my generation's challenge. It didn't teach that the free market was always right, that companies would always invest better than the public, or that social reactionaries are peculiarly exempt from the problems of this world. In fact, AIDS tore through socially reactionary societies harder and faster than the US - because homosexuality, prostitution and contraception formed a peculiar taboo.
It is odd that this is happening now in that many are watching as if this is new. In fact, it is not, the Anglican Church has been headed by a bisexual before, who was considered open in his relationships - James I of England, to whom we owe the King James translation of the bible.
Our conservatives are very particular about which openly homosexual or bisexual people they consider themselves in communion with. But if one, then why not all?
And if the purge would begin, it would have to include many of the most active leaders of the Episcopal Church in America, and would require that some of the most venerated of past leaders be expunged from memory.
The controversy is here. We are as god has made us, and it is hypocrisy to ask some to stand before God, in a house consecrated to his love, and not be able to bear witness to that love as He has given it to them.
When Chandra Levy disappeared, it was a media circus for months, and led to the end of the career of Gary Condit, conservative Democrat from California's central valley. When "the blue dress" entered American political lexicon for the "smoking gun" evidence that dooms a politicians attempts to spin, it was on the airwaves 7x24 for almost 365. So why is it that what TPM Muckracker calls "Hookergate" - ironically including the Watergate Hotel - is being buried.
Don't sub peonas mean anything? Where is the public's sense of purient outrage that defense contractors were alledgely bribing members of Congress with access to prostitutes? Why is it that a third rate fender bender is getting the headlines?
With gas prices stablizing, we should see the driving 5% of the country come back into the Bush fold. It won't last long, but I will be writing on the money issues tomorrow, because there is a great deal of noise and fuzz going on out there...
He digs a bit deep to find athletes. Yes, the Republicans have an easier time with recruiting people who make millions fast on a "no taxes for fast money" platform.
• 38% of total energy in buildings - 50% in UK
• 67% of electricity
• 31% lighting, HVAC 23%, Heating 22%
China 10M units per year.
Barriers:
Linear Design (Integrated to Virtual Building)
Demonstration
Poor Operations
[I've been evangelizing for integrated design concept for some time, and believe that the Virtual building route is becoming standard, because investors want it.]
Now for the fill in:
Let me fill out the notes from the slide.
Regardless of what new sources of energy supply there are, the energy problems will not come without demand side technology. One area that consumes a large amount of the input energy is buildings.
The major uses of energy in building are lighting, heating and air conditioning. The barriers to adoption of more efficient building according to prof Glickman (who I agree with in the main):
- Linear design, that is design in stages where archtect hands off to developer hands off to gc hands off to sub contractors etc. Changes are often more expensive that simply redesigning.
- Lack of demonstrative examples.
- Poor operation of buildings.
I can't say a great deal about what I am doing, but it involves taking these problems head on. At scale.
1. Ensembles say that there is a 25% of global warming reaches 3C and 6C for polar regions. (don't go there)
2. Any energy system needs to be able to operate at Terrawatt scale.
3. Coupling problems.
4. Doesn't mention economics.
Political science - demand side for energy. How deep is the commitment to clean power?
"Public has a high willingness to reduce global warming, has a low willingness to pay for a solution." Doesn't mention whether profits should be reduced.
Public is only willing to 5% on electrical bill.
Energy taxes in Europe. [Well duh, Europe is closer in, price regulated and can't print Euros].
His solution is "Americans, will they pay more?" His proposal is to put it in the frame around "which tax do you want". Advocates consumption taxes, consumption taxes, consumption taxes. Regressive consumption taxes.
1. Old way: vertically integrated monopoly. State owned, or regulated monopolies.
2. 1990's - deregulation no longer the world. Official jargon is "restructuring".
3. Free entry and unbundling.
4. Why are these changes? Regulated monopolies were thought to be inefficient. Hope was that more players made more openings for new ideas.
Research:
1. Electricity Market is harder than than thought. (Fusion anyone?)
2. Economists have to learn engineering terms.
3. Suppliers must learn to play, and regulated monopolies remain in for transmission.
4. Electricity markets - how do the work in practice? Do forward and futures reflect risks? Is volatility used correctly? Nuclear power being one key poster children - new metrics have improved performance.
5. Reliability - market must reflect physical reality.
6. Demand side conservation.
7. Investment incentives.
8. Markets for cap and trade emissions.
1. 50% increase in world demand by 2025.
2. 60% of energy brought into the system is wasted as heat and other forms of waste.
3. Modeling the future.
Is conventional oil sustainable? Can coal be used with sequestration? (We are going to get the carbon stuffers view of the world) Can we improve the efficiency enough to reduce the need for new energy sources?
Fission
The fission guy is telling us how much improvement there has been in the fission area. It feels like a talking points "admit we had problems..." Make plants idiot proof - sorry "more passive in operation". Fission advances keeping pace with fission other areas of energy technology. Higher temperature plants such as Germany and South Africa with helium, not water, have generated a great deal of interest.
Geosensing
Key to continued petro-economy. Important number - we are really able to extract about 40% of most oil. The target is 60%. [This doesn't change the Peak Oil Reality].
They call themselves "online integrity". Which isn't exactly honest. They plea for online anonymity and not exposing people's anonymity. They also demand that people's "professional" lives not be altered by their blogging. But for a writer - what is the difference? Leaving aside the questions one would resonably have about a project that calls itself integrity from a group that defends lying to go into Iraq...
The proposal doesn't hold together on its own (lack) of merits. While "no death threats or exposing people to personal harassment" is a laudable statement, it comes from people who have violated this statement, and who still link to Michelle Malkin, who has directly violated it. Saying that they won't delink until later is, well, disingenuous.
However, if people who are being disingenuous then attack others for not signing on - well that shows lack of integrity.
Naked Economist: Tax Cuts Don't Pay for themselves
by Stirling Newberry
Wheelan is a right winger and wants spending cuts. He likes "tax cuts". Even he is willing to admit that "tax cuts" don't, in the US, generate anywhere near the revenue that they cost.
What would be nice is if he would close the loop here, there is no such thing as a "tax cut" if one is running a budget deficit. Instead, it is a "tax shift". Borrowing money from non-voters, because they are too young to vote, or know they need to vote, and spending on the present wealthy.
Nice to see Mankiw's study on the relatively pay offs.
Again, not my favorite writer, but at least he scores some points to day on admitting that the laffer curve and tax cut effect aren't there on the revenue side.
Fusion is a form of a nuclear energy - by combining lighter elements into heavier elements that have a lower binding energy for their nucleus, which is released an enormous amount of energy, since mass is converted directly to energy.
For those that don't follow such things, fusion works by producing a super-hot plasma, fusing light nuclei together, and neutrons are ejected, and captured. Basically fusion is like generating electicity by catching bullets.
Interesting lithium chemistry - this time nuclear chemistry, is key for breeding tritium, one of the key fuels for fusion.
He immediately opens with converting waste stream biomass: Lignin, which can only be burned. But the 45% which is cellulose, and 30% which is hemicellulose is a different story. Unlike lignin which cannot be converted to more useful molecules - Cellulose to hexoses(6 Carbon sugars), and hemicellulose to Pentoses (5 Carbon Sugars). Cel-eth is the poster child, but also bio-diesel.
In 2004, the DoE reported that the 1.38B of sustainable biomass are generated - and if converted with current technology would produce as much 45 billion gallons of fuel. He argues that cel-eth is far superior to corn-eth. Corn-eth has an LCA of .8 to 1.75 depending on the study and conditions. Where as cel-eth has none of the growing inputs. He doesn't supply an exact number of the improvement as yet.
The first step of utilization improvement hydrolysis cost from 1 gallon to almost 10 cents. That is adding hydrogen to biomass molecules, which is where some of the energy will come when combusted.
The road forward on this is to use all sugars, minimize productivity of capital, and finding a way to increase ethanol tolerence in micro-organisms - since they don't thrive in the presence of it, and there is no single gene responsible for this problem.
Thus systematic genetic engineering has been in progress for 15-20 years, and continues to be essential both in the hydrolysis step, and in the tolerence step. The technology is used in bio-depolymerization, drug treatments for AIDs and malaria, propane-diol production and so on.
Professor Sachs of MIT is arguing that solar represents a possible industry base. He points out that solar has reached a theoretical point of feasibility - if we covered an area equal to the US roads, then solar could provide raw energy equal to our current use. This does not count transport of this energy.
He points out that solar has exploded in use in the last 10 years to reach a Gigawatt of capacity, and needs to reduce costs by a factor of four to continue this growth.
He begins digging into the manufacturing challenges...
One thing which I have noted before is that if one adjusts for CPI-W, and further adjusts for housing prices, inflation has been running higher than the official numbers. This means that gasoline, while it is getting more expensive, is no more expensive as a chunk of total consumer spending power than it was in the mid 1980's or mid 1970's. Not pleasant, but not enough to drive an economy into recession. Gas isn't cheap, but it isn't expensive yet.
While "worker protections" is often used an excuse for protectionism, stories like this show that there is a great deal which can be described as "basic human dignity".
I don't give money to Bush, I don't give money to Bush-lite. I don't give money to Republicans, I don't give money to Republican wannabes. It really is that simple.
Montenegro decided to exercise this option and the vote will be held on May 21. Our decision did not please the EU, which last month imposed yet another condition on us. Our independence would not be recognised – and so talks on joining the EU would be impossible – unless at least 55 per cent of those voting endorsed independence. As prime minister, I protested that this was undemocratic. But I decided that we had no option but to accept it, convinced that a majority of Montenegrins is determined to enter the EU.
It is time to lay to rest the last mistake of Versailles, after nearly a century, it is more than long enough.
"Intensity of Combat" is a term used to describe the rate at which individuals are killed or wounded in combat, and how many are exposed to the hazards of war. While focus has been on uniformed fatalities which icasualties places at 2400 US, 2614 allied - or casualties, which the deparment of defense places at 2401 fatalities plus 8137 NRD not returned to duty in 24 hours - these numbers don't take into account medical facilities. Many of the NRD and even WRD would be dead or casualties if it were not for medical evacuation. The Soviets suffered an official 50,000 casualties in Afghanistan during their 10 years invading and occupying - or an intensity of combat for casualties of around 13.5 per day. I have more exact figures, but these will do for the present purposes. The US has suffered 9.25 casualties/day by the same metric.
However, the differences in survival rates and return to duty rates is substantial, and we need to include British casualties as well. Unfortunately the UK government has made it impossible to report on British casualties accurately, have engaged in what can only becalled obfustication to avoid reporting on a number that they must, in fact, know - how many uniformed personnel were medically removed from combat duty. They report 4000 medivacs, and emphasize with great precision how few were hostile fire. However, the definition of casualty isn't "due to hostile fire", since the great majority of casualties, and even a substantial fraction of fatalities are not from hostile fire. A hostile fire fatalitie is refered to as a "KIA" or Killed in Action. Taking an estimate of 3000 military medivacs, that puts the intensity of combat for Iraq at 12 casualties a day, not accounting for the difference in medical technology. Accounting for the difference in survival outcomes, we find that Iraq's intensity of combat is still approximately on pace to equal the soviet intensity of combat during the course of their long war. That this is still the case a year on after first having done these calculations - again, I have more exact, though not necessarily more accurate numbers - indicates that the situation in Iraq has not materially improved over the course of the last year.
This does not include allied casualties systematically, except in so far as they are captured by the British medivac numbers. This also does not include anyone that the US government has seen fit not to tell us about - which is a small number of fatalities and some casualties, though the numbers are not large enough to change the basic figures. It does not include civilians in combat roles for fatalities, nor for casualties except in so far as they are rolled into the British "qualified civilians" number. In short there are substantial error bands on either side of these numbers, but the error bands go up more than they go down.
This would indicate that Iraq is on pace to pulverize the corps of active duty combat personnel in the US and UK, should they not change strategies.
I don't like people stealing intellectual capital, since this is what I sell. However, I am equally disgusted at the copyright industry's bit slavery. What, you ask is bit slavery? Bit slavery is all the work that you have to do so that copyright industry cmpanies can steal from the public domain.
Consider the insane process of buying an ebook from Amazon.com. You have to get a reader. To get the reader to work you have to get permission from Adobe. But wait! The website is down. So you can't read the material that youhave already purchased simply because Adobe does not want you to. That's theft, because it is preventing me from exercising the property rights I have paid for, and it is slavery, since I have to spend my time and my hard drive space to install things to access the material. This work is uncompensated, or if it is, at rates that only people in prison get - for a few dollars of savings on the hard copy, one must spend an hour fiddling with installation.
This is why people pirate, because we know that we are bit enslaved often enough, that getting back some of what has been stolen from us by people who trample on the constitution professionally.
Consider the economics of it - one can pirate about 120 dollars of DVDs in an hour of work. If it takes an hour to fight with eBook Digital Rent Management - then one is 120 dollars in the hole versus being a pirate. At 50 dollars an ebook - and a discount of $5 for doing the eBook route - this means that one must spend 1200 dollars on ebooks just to break even for the opportunity cost of piracy. That is, for the same capital (a computer and an internect connection) one must spend a great deal on books to make it worth it.
Consider the contrast with iTunes - you download it, it works. This is how Digital Rent Management should be, because DRM benefits the landlord, the landlord should bear the cost of creating the mechanism. My time is not the landlord's property to waste, otherwise, it is slavery.
Marc Ash of Truthout put up this blog post recently defending the reporting of Jason Leopold. Leopold has written two stories for Truthout recently, with the marquee assertion that Karl Rove has been the recipient of a "target letter". This would mean that Fitzgerald is considering indicting Rove, and that the investigation is moving into high gear.
The, not unusually, combative stance from Truthout comes on the heels of questions about Leopold's reporting, and the fear of a "bear trap" rumor being planted to "rat fuck" the liberal and internet press. The fear is that this is a rumor being put forward by those in the right wing, in order to discredit political enemies.
"If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error." John Kenneth Galbraith
I heard late last night that John Kenneth Galbraith had died. Count me among those who believe we lost an icon last night, someone who led the good fight for a very long time, and someone whose shoes, in more ways than one, we are going to have a hard time fitting into. It is more than just his politics, it is his insights. Often, long before we can find a mathematical formulation, we have to have a sense of the shape and structure - and Galbraith provided a series of ideas which are only now starting to find quantitative form.
In one sense it is hard to morn someone who lived well, was instrumental in changing the world, and died at 97. It is better to morn the passing of a world that could produce a Ken Galbraith, and to morn that there are, as yet, so few to take his place in the long struggle to bring dignity and prosperity to all people everywhere.
Though I have to chuckle that the familiarity that ends an obit with Peter and Jamie meaning diplomat Peter Galbraith and economist James K. Galbraith.
A great deal of research, some of it of very high quality, has been poured into dealing with so-called liberalized energy markets. I say so-called because they aren't really. Instead they are externalizing rent seeking markets - that is they profit by lowering the nominal cost of electricity during most times, at two costs -one is pollution and energy depletion, that's externalization - the other is much higher peak costs. The paradox here is while everyone wants cheaper energy, the reality is that if energy is too cheap, no one invests in capacity, because they can then charge much more during shortages. See "Deathstar" trading strategy for Enron.
I suppose I should be chanting about gasoline prices, but there is an interesting story here about the real rate of inflation and gasoline prices. You see, according to my numbers, CPI is really higher than the official figures. If this is the case - and I believe it is - then the current gasoline price, adjusted for consumer inflation, is not as close to the all time peak as you would get from a straight adjustment for inflation.
In short, if you believe that inflation is worse than we are being told, then you would expect that the current gas prices, while they will be causing disruption, will not be as disruptive as gas prices were at the peak of 1981, because those dollars were worth more than today's dollars. The more you think that inflation is understated, the farther from that peak you must think we are.
With recent polls showing Steve Westly on a roll and his schedule filled with such gravitas building exercises as an energy forum the the time has come to look at Westly seriously, not only as a potential Democratic challenger to Ahnold, but as a sign that the Democratic Party is finding some executive talent. The key gap in the Democratic party has been executive talent - people who look and act like they get things done.
Westly needs to be looked at, because he seems to be able to run political situations around very quickly, and present a fresh face to voters on the energy issue, which is going to be the next place where California is going to have to take the plunge first, and let the rest of the nation follow.
There are events that turn bad political weather into a hailstorm, and a run of the mill damage control moment into a meltdown. this is one of them:
The Cunningham investigation's latest twist came after Mitchell J. Wade, a defense contractor who has admitted bribing the former congressman, told prosecutors that Wilkes had an arrangement with Shirlington Limousine, which in turn had an arrangement with at least one escort service, one source said. Wade said limos would pick up Cunningham and a prostitute and bring them to suites Wilkes maintained at the Watergate Hotel and the Westin Grand in Washington, the source said.
The rumor mill has it that other congressmen could have been involved. The red lights are flashing that the GOP has been involved in activity that repels ordinary Americans, of the kind of obvious personal corruption that voters understand, and punish.
As predicted in this space a bit over a year ago - before a porn war drove me from editting wikipedia wikipedia is being capsized, in this case by Wal*Mart.
The problem with wikipedia as it exists is that its judicial system is breaking down, and the demands for mobocracy exist in a context where there are mobs for hire or rent. The abject failure of wikipedia's leadership to take effective measures has led to a string of embarassing exposures, including Congressional offices editing pages. It's only going to continue, because the demand to allow instamobs to do whatever they want means that rented mobs can too.
I've been very hard at times on Tavis Smiley in this space, particularly in the pre-Katrina incarnation of his show, when he toss cream puffs and stayed out of the way. The more "in your face" attitude of his recent shows - which paradoxically have been harder to find on the dial - was a precursor of his new book The Covenant which builds a powerful case for self-motivation and self-direction. It neither soft pedals the current circumstances, nor does it focus on correcting the actions of others. Salon has given the book positive reviews.
It deserves to be a number one best seller, and it makes good on Mr. Smiley's promise to "make a difference because it is different." Gathering together 10 chapters by different authors, it is linked in with a call to action. He's not the first to use the language of "covenant" in politics, our own Glenn Smith has done that in his 2004 "The Politics of Deceit" - but he has taken the rhetoric to a new level, and pushed a higher level of eloquence in doing so:
The storm came. The flood waters rose. Tragedies befell us--new tragedies and old tragedies. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced.
Now it’s time for a sea of change.
That’s why I’m excited to be here with you today.
The idea of change—this virtual sea of change—has us energized as we have never been energized before.
Our energy is fresh, inexhaustible.
The sea of change spreads out before us. These are our deep waters of hope, our reservoir of strength.
America, we been have told, is as good as its promise.
But the straight-up truth is that we are here today precisely because that promise has long been broken.
We are here because we want a sea of change.
It isn't just African Americans who should be reading this - the attitude and advice embodied in this book and its surrounding materials is good advice generally for any group that sees the system as against them, and desires a better America - a better world - in the future.
The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 2.7 percent in the first quarter
after increasing 3.7 percent in the fourth. Excluding food and energy prices, the price
index for gross domestic purchases increased 3.1 percent after increasing 3.2 percent.
About 0.1 percentage point of the first-quarter increase in the index was accounted for
by the pay raise for federal civilian and military personnel, which is treated as an
increase in the price of employee services purchased by the federal government.
What this says is that for the whole economy, "core" inflation is well above the 2% "comfort zone" that the Fed has said it feels is "price stability", and that .5% of GDP last quarter is purely from falling energy prices. Which means that this quarter might well be far less happy as a number.
Mickey Kaus over at slate is crowing about the latest robo poll from Rasmussen:
Things You Won't Read in The Note: A Rasmussen robo-poll reports that a third party candidate who
promised to build a barrier along the Mexican border and make enforcement of immigration law his top priority
beats the generic "Republican" nominee by 9 points-- 30 to 21--and runs practically even with the generic "Democratic" nominee (who gets 31%). The border-centric third-party candidacy actually takes more votes from the Democratic side than the Republican side!. But it draws heavily from both parties, and as heavily from "moderates" as from "conservatives."
Shuttle is a vehicle ahead of, and outside of, its time. We don't have the money for the future anymore, and haven't for a while. Having outlived its operational lifespan, we are now sinking more and more money into a part that can't really be fixed. Think the transmission on an old car.
What stands in sharp relief is that the core of the post-war trade order, from the perspective of those who run it, is not free trade in goods, nor free trade in labor – both of these have restrictions that remain in place, and agitation for even more restrictions. Instead, it is free capital movement. This, in turn, has driven an effect noted by Andrew Glyn, who teaches economics at Oxford University – the financialization of profit. Finance is now the area where people go if they want to be well compensated for the power of their ideas, much as computers drew a disproportionate share of talent in the 1990s.
The Republican Party makes as if it is the anti-inflation, and points to the CPI every day to prove it. In reality, they are the party of throwing money at problems, which means inflationism. Today we got a double dose of it - first with a proposal to send people a one hundred dollar check to eas the gas prices. Free fill up for your hummer - good plan to deal with demand problems.
This is about keeping an open internet. And it is only one battle of many. It is the open internet which has allowed tens of millions of people to find themselves in the online universe - it is the open internet that will lead us into the future.
It seems incredible to me that at the same time we are complaining about high fuel prices, that the US Congress is trying to put a private tax on the internet.
Bush Suspends Breathing for Duration of Energy Crisis
by Stirling Newberry
Nice to know that the newspaper of the largest city in the US believes that breathing is the problem too, they don't even bother to mention the rules change. They call this a step to "ease energy prices". No, it is a step to externalize energy prices.
French Youth Unemployment Problem No different than US
by Stirling Newberry
One basic point I need to argue with people is that the US and Europe more or less have the same economic problem, but have chosen to deal with it in different ways, that much of the higher level of GDP in the US does not measure higher well being, but a higher level of organization by money in the US. That is, Americans respond to money incentives more than their counterparts, and thus the national effort is larger.
Two new school economists debunk the media spin that France has a crisis that requires drastic changes. Instead, they show that the problem is roughly the same size in both countries, merely that the French don't have an army of low wage earning young people to flip burgers and sell things. Since France has national health care, and therefore is on the hook for the heart attacks that McDonald's sells, and doesn't have room to sprawl. In short, the French realize that this wasn't the "free market" however construed, at work, but an attempt to squeeze a subsidy out of externalizing costs.
I've been working on this piece for sometime, so here is a summary. There are two possible realignments in American politics. One is the creation of a "perot pole", which is would be rooted in a "close the doors consensus". It has a simple policy plan: tariffs, a wall, get out of Iraq, strip mine for coal and liquify it. This is between 18% to 25% of the population, and would be the dominant partner in any coalition that it joined, since its members are active and they know what they want. The policies of a perot pole fit on a bumper sticker: everyone out of America.
Of course it is an economic disaster, since a third of our living standard or more is based on American leadership in finance, design, export and security.
Last election the meme of those who wanted to go for broke on the Democratic side was "Speaker Pelosi". Now the meme that is floating out there on Republican and Democratic sides about the potential meltdown that that Fitzgerald and a Democratic House could lead to - President Lieberman.
Could it happen? Anything is possible, but more importantly, like "elections thrown to the house" scenarios, it represents a kind of political dirty joke - looking at the breaking point of the system as a way of talking about the forbidden - a national consensus that Bush has got to go.
Fox is the home of the Vichycrat - still stuck in 2002 when blaring blast blue and shark skin was in - it is also the place that has to be won over to change politics in America. By presenting the most entertaining and visually slick - I can't say news, but whatever it is they sell, it is packaged well - let's call it talk radio with pictures, Fox has gained an audience of people who feel, I won't say think, that the solution to all problems is to kick butt and take names. Joe is like the rich owner who sits on the bench of the football team to get some contact testosterone.
If Ned Lamont wants to rip this race wide open, he should go in - why? Because on one side the Schmoementum types are going to paint him as Dean ready to scream, and on the other, as a wimpocrat with fuzzy notions. Fox is the place where he can get on message and stay there, pushing the idea that there's no reason for people fear being sick in America, no reason to fear losing their jobs in America, and there is no reason to for the Democrats to fear the fox.
Because let's face it, the only politicians that fear foxes are those that live in chicken coops.
Third Estate takes a thoughtful look at the redistricting problem and prompts back at this page:
Second, I think Newberry might be making a mistake in assuming that cleaner district lines would tend Republican. The current district lines advantage Republicans, and they are the ones that look all crazy. They are drawn that way to "pack" minorities into a few districts, thus creating a couple of 90% Democratic districts and a lot of 60% Republicans ones. If these districts were rationalized, minorities would be distributed across more district and a lot more competitive districts would be created.
Cetera Paribus "compact" districts, or districts which protect "historical" sub-divisions such as counties will favor the status quo. This is what prompted the series of cases in the 1960's which gave us the One Man One Vote principle: namely, that many of the historical lines had been drawn to disenfranchise in the first place, and the ability of political subdivisions to discriminate - by for, example zoning laws to keep property values high - was clear.
The reason the Republicans had to stretch for crazy districts in Texas was simple - they were going to come out flat to behind in the rest of the country in 2004, and Delay needed a few more votes for some of his midnight raids. Many in 2003 passed by only one or two votes when held in the middle of the night.
An Election About Nothing: Fraternal Association of Failed Republicans of America - or the Democratic Party Which do you think can win?
by Stirling Newberry
What the Democratic hiearchy wants is an election about nothing. A giant "You are about to give George Bush Absolute Power for Four More Years. Are you sure? (YES) (NO)" Believing, quite rightly that most people will click "No" at this point. But beyond that, the Democratic Party is primarily a mutual career protection institution, a kind of "Fraternal Association of Failed Republicans of America". This FAFRA version of the party wants the same things the Republicans want: lower taxes, regime change in Iraq, a drug company benefit funded through medicare, a bigger military, a more militarized nastier America, progressive reduction in access to abortion - just read Her Royal Clintoness' actual pronouncements and you have a pretty good idea of what FAFRA looks like: Bush lite. Tastes late, less shilling.
This isn't what the party base wants, but the party base is so abused that it is lining up behind it, willing to get screwed over by their leadership, because they are realizing that the alternative to Bush lite, is getting Bush whacked. Finally an election where the slogan of the Democratic hierarchy of the last 10 years: "Vote for us, serfs - or it's so much the worse for you" can actually work.
Right now McCain-Clinton is the race that wants to happen, however, it is also the race that a huge number of people don't want to happen. On the Republican side, those people are the Bush Leaguers, who are watching the fundraising apparatus slip over to McCain. They realize that only by appointing an heir apparent:
The best scenario, Barnes added, would be for Bush to announce that “Dick Cheney will be around as an outside adviser and I can call him on the phone, but I’d like to anoint somebody who I think will be the next leader of the United States”.
Of the Bush inner circle, only Rice is electable - Cheney, Rummy, Snow, Rove - all non-starters.
Pretty soon, we won't need to read the Washington Times, because it will be reprinted in its entirety in the Washington Post.
Craig Shirley writes an unbalanced and biased piece of analysis, blaming, as reactionaries are wont to do, the "evil soft Republicans of the Rockefeller stripe". Have news for you, other than a few odd exceptions, the Rockefeller Republicans are Democrats now.
The two camps are deeply divided. The business elites are interested in a large supply of cheap labor and support unfettered immigration and open borders. The populist base supports legal immigration but is concerned about lawlessness on our border, national sovereignty and the real security threat posed by porous borders.
Note how he damns one side with faint praise, and then delivers a ringing endorsement of his own views. The difference between this and blogging is... what, some dead trees?
victory of Ronald Reagan and the Republican Revolution of 1994 their point was made and the country-clubbers would know their place.
They ran the party under Reagan and they run the party today.
The fissure isn't between some country club Republicans, but between free marketeer libertarians - like say Arnold Kling, who is not a country club Republican. The people running the Bush White House are from Nixon and Reagan. There has been no casting out of Reagan people, they, and their proteges, are still there. If anything the group that suffered dimunition in the Bush White House, are the people associated with his father.
Conservatives see this kind of rhetoric as inflammatory, anti-intellectual and offensive.
This in attacking the very conservative Kristol. Again it is clear that the writer simply does not have a scrap of intellectual honesty, and is instead trying to carry water for the know-nothings themselves.
And you know what, this kind of reactionary civil war, over which side - cryptoracist protectionists, or wage meltdown inflationists - represents the real conservativism, warms my heart.
the publicly drunk yokels getting into their cars loudly bitch about "immigrants jumping the line and wanting the same rights as everyone else." Make you a deal, you speed, and we let you die on the pavement if you get into a car accident. Put your foot out in the street a moment before the stop light, and we let you bleed on the pavement if you get hit. Cheat on your income taxes, and we take away your social security, your right to sue, your right to vote.
If zero tolerence for law breaking is now the rule. Let's have at it.
By the way, public intoxication is illegal in Massachusetts, hope you don't trip and fall while drunk, because why should you have the same right to medical treatment as me who is obeying the law?
The Great Implosion: The Fake Up at the White House
by Stirling Newberry
The real importance of the "shake up" at the White House is that it signals the end of the active phase of the Bush executive. More or less, they have realized that permanent occupation of Iraq is their legacy, and that they are going to bind the future to their vision by a simple two step: an anti-tax legacy that will prevent any future administration for practicing fiscal sanity, and an 80 billion dollar a year committment to defending sandboxes in Iraq. Since this represents, more or less, the real discretionary budget of the US Government, that they have not gotten a chance to pillage Social Security this term is only a temporary set back. Contrary to what people believe, Bush's executive has been all about the long term, and managing enough of the short term to prevent anyone from stopping the long term from happening. Anyone who has been in business understands that, there are two time frames - now and forever.
The One Acre One Vote mania continues over at Slate, where their notoriously conservative base is willing to go much farther in pursuit of crypto-racism and republican gerrymandering. Simply because a principle is simply stated, does not make it fair. Let me take an example: let us partner to grow wheat, I will get everything above the ground at harvest, and you can ge everything below the ground.
Fair right? Simpler than some complicated agreement about costs and responsibilities and all that other contractual stuff that evil lawyers use to rip people off huh? That's "compact districts": One Acre, One Vote. And a complete non-starter for any system which is about democracy, rather than aristocracy.
Last year I was told by traders that the over/under number for oil was to close above 70. Even many energy bulls said they would take the "under" side of that number. At this point my same sources are saying that a good Katrina like disruption could bring us over the $80/bbl mark this year. As 70 was the new 60, 80 is the new 70. So what is going on?
Why inflation, just not the inflation of the late 1970's. Yet.
It will take an effort not just of imagination, but of will, for the two to work well together. Yet failure to do so could lead to another dismal epoch of disorder. The world must not let the opportunity for peaceful exchange and prosperity slip through its fingers, as it did so tragically in the first half of the twentieth century.
He is talking about the relationship between the US and China. It takes a good deal for someone as even keeled as Wolf to conjure up great and titanic moments in history. He does so a second time in his column:
"Compact Districts" is a way of saying "more votes for exurban Republicans" It is easier to draw squares around people who are joined by their occupation of empty land. In the real world, as opposed to the world where the stealth Republicans live, people often move up and down corridors of transportation. Districts that flow along these lines join voters with similar economic and social interests. "Compact districts" is code for racist packing and cracking.
It's time we start saying that more vocally. Particularly if we want a more progressive, rather than regressive, congress.
During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved. Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash."
The White House has snapped back at his critics. These critics include decorated soldiers who rose through the ranks, five of them retired generals, and one who was forced out for, in essence telling the truth about Iraq:
PGL goes after Snow on the Hamilton Project. Republicans at this point can't even keep their lies straight, prefering to forget that Hamilton created America's first central bank, expanded the power of government and wanted to have an active role for government in the economy, particularly by the standards of that age. Snow intones the hoary old lie that the present government believes that people are best able "to spend their own money". In fact, the government of Bush and the Treasury Secretaryship of Snow have seen the largest expansion of government in decades, and an increasing dependency on government stimulus. China isn't really a socialist nation any more, but the wealthy of the US are marching the US down the road to socialism fairly darn quickly.
But the funniest "brain frotz" moment comes with this statement from Secretary Snow Job:
Hamilton after all was foremost among the founding fathers in seeing that the new republic's future depended upon the vitality of commerce and the private sector while the authors of the Hamilton Project argue for a larger government role.
The reasoning here is circular, Hamilton liked commerce, therefore he must have hated government. But that statement is absolutely hillariously wrong. Consider that China, with a much faster growing economy than ours, has more, not less, government intervention in the economy.
The more one reads the garbage from the Bush adminstration, the more one realizes that there is a fundamental, almost stoner-like, incoherence to their statements and logic. Instead, it is simply an attempt to string together certain screaming points, which are bombasted by their black helicopter followers (I got an earful on the flight to Narita from someone telling me that John Kerry, Albert Gore and the UN want to use "Earth Charter" to replace Christianity. She was full bore nut job, and wouldn't shut up until I told her that she had been spewing bullshit. And yes, that's the word it took.)
Greenpeace founder: Nuclear power is part of the solution
by Stirling Newberry
One of the things that got me ex-communicated from the DailyKos was the hostility of Plutonium Page to nuclear power, and my own assertions that it was part of the solution to global warming. The bullying tone in her replies was evident to a number of people.
My own position is that before we engage in a nuclear build out - the results of which we will have to live with for a very long time - we need to have a different nuclear power industry, and new designs and process. We need to have safe, civilian and "cold" nuclear power - as opposed to "process heat" nuclear power plants - which are built with standardized designs and standardized means. We also need to realize that fission is only going to buy us time while we build better systems and reach the end stage of energy generation in fusion, sustainables and an electrical economy.
The Gold Bugs smell blood predicting that gold will top the 1980's nominal peak of $850 an ounce. I remember that time, I remember telling people to short gold with both hands. I recall being right about it.
There has been for months skepticism about the current commodities rally, with oil nearing post 1919 producer price highs. It's normal to think so, in that the peak of gold and oil back in the early 1980's led to "The Great Commodities Depression". The feeling is that the current peak, like the 1979-1982 peak, is the pride that cometh before the fall.
In the last few weeks we have seen an escalation of international tensions on Iran, even though they have been brewing for some time. The regime in Tehran is troublesome to the outside for a relatively simple reason: it does not accept the prevailing elite world view that international trade relations and the advances in communication technologies lead inevitably to a secularlized, corporatized and interdependent world order. Nor does it need to. Thus Tehran's actions flow from a very different paradigm of world events, a paradigm shared, to no small extent, by China - namely that the outside world needs what it supplies far more than it needs the outside world. Thus, it can act in what it sees as its own interests, and the rest of the world has to simply take their word for their peaceful intentions.
The Chinese, god help us, have discovered mayonnaise. That's an important moment. Back in the time when cheap grease was the filler of choice, there was no need for it. But now, with imported Australian beef and veggies everywhere, and high quality food in, there is a need for a fat filler that goes with the new quality. Hence, slathering things with mayo.
It's a new China, no more on display than in the new urban destination block in Xintiandi in Shanghai. I'm in the Coffee beanery, and four women just walked out - two with hands locked around each others hips. They had been chattering in Shanghaihua here, so it's a local thing, and not just tourists on a lark.
Bond curve fully normalizes: Hot and Cold Running Inflation!
by Stirling Newberry
The Bond market thinks that the production squeeze is over - just as in 1986, our "hard landing" is over and we are ready for... a fiscal crisis.
This is the yield curve based on constant maturity as opposed to the cash market price. As you can see the spread from top to bottom is at 40 basis points - a far cry from the 4 basis point scrapes. But looking back on 1996, 1986 and 1967 - the last three times we had such "hard landing" scrapes, the next step is - well, a fiscal crisis.
Wireless for customers, pretty good breakfast, and the owner has really good taste in music. The location is at 819 Nanjing Lu (Nanjing Road) West, a short walk from People's Square and right next to Shinmen No. 1. Right next to Starbucks - which has better coffee, but no wireless. As with many ex-pat run places, you can often meet the owner. Do the smoothies, pass on the coffee...
Ate yesterday at the GE hangout of Moon River, kind of a Johnny Rockets in Pudong at a food court area...
So far best meal here was the small Beijing style hotpot place in QingDao....
The taxi I was in was nearly rammed head on while on the way to QingDao's Liuting International Airport - Chinese driving is still terrible, though it is better. The amazing thing about the center of QingDao is that the city is so clean - it is almost like Taiwan in that people are orderly, there are few of the deep poor of China, and there is a casual acceptance of prosperity that shows in dozens of details - from not need to wear heavy make up and dress, to the quality of even the bad food in town.
I've started paying attention to US News again and ....
Right now projections are that Berlusconi has held on in the upper house - which means all the laws he has passed to keep himself out of jail will be kept in place, and may win the lower house by a narrow margin. Why the collapse for Prodi at the last moment?
It could be that old and ugly effect of people voting for a leader they hate, and lying about it to pollsters...
Why reelect a man who has presided over war and recession? Or rather, why allow a man who has presided over war and recession to retake power by questionable means - since Berlusconi changed the election rules in his favor....
Because, my dear friends on the left... You don't stand for anything yet. By anything I mean something very simple, a narrative of how you are going to do what you want to do. The narrative of prosperity is the hook on which all else hangs - just as courage, as Ian has just reminded all of us - is the virtue that drives that narrative.
But conventional notions of productivity are pretty hopeless when it comes to describing what doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers actually do. Consider a classroom with a sensible number of pupils. Want to boost that teacher’s productivity? Add 30 per cent more kids. What about those hospitals that take so long to get patients well and return them to the community? Speed it up, for goodness’ sake! Get them out of bed and back on the streets if you want to hit that productivity target – in the UK’s case, that of waiting times. And while you are at it, fix revolving doors to the front of the building so they can get back in quicker when they fall ill again.
Sir Tony Atkinson, former warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, recently reported back after lengthy research into the measurement of public sector productivity. Among his many recommendations this stood out: “The output of the government sector should in principle be measured in a way that is adjusted for quality, taking account of the attributable incremental contribution of the service to the outcome.” In other words, crude targets and “activity indicators” should be replaced with measures of output that reflect positive changes in the quality and value of public sector performance.
The more managers, economists and politicians bang on about productivity, the more I am reminded of an apocryphal tale of a Hollywood producer who loitered outside the writers’ room waiting for the noisy manual typewriters to fall silent. As soon as silence reigned, even for a moment, he would burst in and say to his team: “Why aren’t you writing?!”
specifically in QingDao, a coastal city between Beijing and China. The thing to realize about China is that there are three Chinas, often within a hour's drive of each other.
While American naval gazes about the Republican corruption machine replacing a spark plug, Paris is Burning. The theme of the last five years has been the death of neo-liberalism and globalization as a narrative of prosperity. It doesn't matter that the claims of jobs lost to globalization are outrageously inflated, what does matter is that without neo-liberalization, there is no narrative of prosperity. Since neo-liberalism isn't delivering enough prosperity - it is the target.
It really is this simple. [SPAM!] We can have an internet [NO REALLY, WE ARE VERIZON AND WE SAY THIS IS SPAM!!!!] that works the way the US and Interstate [IT'S OBSCENE SPAM!] system does - which is "net neutrality" - or it can work the way[HOW DARE ANYONE WHO DOESN'T OWN BACKBONE FIBRE TRY AND MAKE MONEY ON OUR INTERETS!!!!] the robber baron railroads did, with pipe monopolies charging unconscionable rates.[WE NOW BRING YOU THIS SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM MIRIAM ABACHA, WIDOW OF SONNIE ABACHA....]
How would you like to be legally spammed, [SPAM IS LIKE PIRACY - THE PIPE PEOPLE DEFINE IT, AND YOU POD PEOPLE PAY THE FREIGHT!] and in turn, have your mail get filed in your friend's "spam" box unless you paid for each and every.[SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM]
If he just withdraws, which he may do up to the 74th day before the election, then:
(b), if a candidate’s name is to be omitted
from the ballot under Section 145.035, the political party’s state,
district, county, or precinct executive committee, as appropriate
for the particular office, may nomifill the vacancy in the nomination.
Why the move to Virginia? Admittedly Roy Blunt has already done the same thing de facto.
In his evening address, Mark Warner riffed off of Michael Dukakis and Wesley Clark. He didn't have an answer to what were "Democratic Values", instead arguing that specifics were more important. He asserted that "moral leadership" in an interconnected world was important - that the US needs more than military and unilateralism.
He comes across as concerned, facile, talkative, persuasive - but without an intellectual coherency. He one minute says to say what we are for, and in another, he can't say he has said it, one moment he says that we should be more than against the Republicans, and the next he attacks Republican incompetence. He was agile enough to make this work, and to leave no impression of a gap or a seem in his thinking - but the gaps were there.
Kevin Phillips: The Future of Presidential Coalitions
by Stirling Newberry
One thing that can be said for Kevin Phillips, author of the recent American Theocracy is that he knows how to do a full court press when attacked. He followed up on An earlier boppost by writing on the question of what an new American electoral coalition will look like - and the answer can be called "explosive".
I would suggest that if DeLong actually thinks changes in these policies will dramatically improve the situation of low-income Americans, especially unskilled African American men--not to mention help reestablish the black family, which is the real goal--he is dreaming.
the idea that we should peacefully preëmptively invade other countries without need for pretext so we can call get rich supplying the free market demand for air craft carriers.
Professor Lilla thinks he is God, or at the very least, he thinks that God speaks through him. His favorite insult is that an idea is "a fantasy", he repeats it over and over again in this thoroughly stupid review of Michale Burleigh's "Earthly Powers". Proof seems to be a conept alien to "The Committee on Social Thought", which, like "The Committee on Public Safety" seems to be established to eradicate, and not enshrine, the quality in their title.
Let us take one random example of his pompous pontificating on what is real and what is not:
The Strip Mining Century: American Thermidor On Steroids
by Stirling Newberry
The essential thesis of American Thermidor is that America has become caught in an economic vicious circle - we import energy from places that do not import anything from us other military fiat and financial services - they, in turn, recycle the money we send them back here, corrupting our political system, but also distorting our economy. In response, we take steps which concentrate wealth. This creates a deficit of jobs, which gives people even more of an incentive to cut taxes and investment, and instead speculate on land. To do this requires burning more energy than we otherwise would, which, in turn makes our energy deficit worse, starting the cycle all over again.
People have asked me what we should do. Well, until someone raids the oil for land casino, there really isn't very much we can do. However, there are things we can do that will make it much worse. Yergin's very poorly thought out - or enormously self-serving, I am not sure which - article in today's Times of London reminds me of what "worse" looks like.
Correctly noting that "security of demand" is the OPEC need - in effect they are half the world's central bank - he also correctly notes the trap - opening the world means a limited pie of prosperity must be sliced more ways. The problem is that his solutions are inadequeate, his projections on oil rosy, and he does not recognize that sink is a problem as much as supply. He basically advises externalizing carbon costs in order to get around short term supply problems.
In short screw the poor, and screw your grandkids - the billionaires will go hungry otherwise.
My firm is bidding on a major China project, which, should we get it, has transformative potential. It could fizzle, or it could really sizzle - there is no way to tell at the moment, until I get on the ground there and see and hear first hand.
While largely a symbolic gesture, while it exposes deep divisions between the Democrats who see themselves as a right of center perotista party - this means you Chuck Schumer - and those who see it as a center-left progressive party - it reaches landmark status. Finally the 56% of us who don't approve of the job Bush is doing have had a headline moment in the Senate. The 38% who do seem to own the body the rest of the time.
I miss living in a government of majority rule, particularly since the minority in charge doesn't seem to be able to add, subtract, divide, multiply or read simple declarative sentences written in English.
Beijing claims the rules on local content are intended to prevent manufacturers from evading tariffs by importing cars in sections and reassembling them in China. However, the EU has presented China with a long list of complaints about poor access to the Chinese market, including rules that require foreign manufacturers to work in joint venture with Chinese partners.
Louis Uchitelle argues that layoffs are the wound that is hollowing out America, and that the dislocation is having economic and social effects that require a that Americans "speak up". Let's take a look at this, and why here is where it has come to pass.
It is a lie that Joe is Republican Lite - he's the real thing - a budget busting warhawk who voted to throw Roe from the train who has higher approvals from the Republicans of Connecticut than the Democrats.
It was left to Josef Stalin, that sage among slaughterers, to remark that "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." Meaning, of course, that mass horror is, in many respects, easier for people to accept. So it is with "no blood for oil." Slightly more than 2,500 coalition military dead is a tragedy, the millions of deaths that occur each year to keep the petro-economy in place are a statistic.
But the converse is also true, one letter is an anecdote a million are a movement. While working through the big picture is the criticial issue of our time, we must also do everything we can to ameliorate the outbreaks of acute genocide which the modern world is heir too. Darfur - along with the Congo and the lakes - is one of the worst examples in these years. We need to have, at least, a moment of wakefulness in a time of sleep.
Those arguing for a recession got a big boost today from the commerce department: GDP grew by a measly 1.7%.
However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good. The bulls are now arguing that between these two quarters we have gotten the, somewhat harder than people would like, landing that will lead to a real boom. This argument is not, however, matched by the inflation statistics. Instead what we are seeing is inflation and imports eating up the benefits of a growing economy.
Instead this does, in fact, seem indicative of a broad slowdown that has caught Cousin Ben in a bind. Commodities prices and inflation say that he has no room to losen, employment says he is on the edge of overheating. But the GDP is calling for an immediate easing of monetary policy.
When it comes to economics, Mr Phillips does not know what he is talking about. The tip-off comes in the section about oil, when he tries to explain that not all “proven” reserves are available. Drilling may become uneconomic, Mr Phillips notes, if more energy is required to find and extract a barrel of oil than the barrel contains – “at least until the price of oil rises”. One might note that if it costs more than a barrel of oil to make a barrel of oil, a higher price for oil will not help.
This is merely one foaming ranting objection to Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy.
There are numerous places where I disagree in one way or another with Mr. Phillips' economic analysis. But it seems not to have occured to Jacob Weisberg that this particular scenario has already happened once before. Once upon a time, we simply pumped oil out. It simply wasn't worth the cost to get more, and in many cases, pumping would have required more energy to draw the petroleum out. Then oil prices went up, and stayed up sustainably.
The result? It was profitable to invest enough money to lower the energy and money costs of extracting a great deal more petroleum from each field - this is reflected in proven reserves being changed from roughly 30% of a field's capacity to nearly 70%.
Yes Mr. Weisberg, a higher cost of oil can by used to improve the LCA of an energy source. This is because of one of the first facts they teach you about economics - incentives matter.
On one hand there is a rising wave of protectionism and unilateralism in the world: driven by the lack of progress for people who work for a living, as opposed to those people who hold meetings about those people who work for a living - and by a frustration with intractable problems, parties are pushing "we are just going to do this" solutions. In the Israeli elections, not only did unilateralism win in the center and the left, but the Likud was ripped from the right by a unilateralist part that wants to withdraw from even more land to push out Arabs that are currently US citizens. There simply wasn't a multi-lateralist option on the ballot - the question was who was going to do how much without asking anyone.
This morning Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham dropped their threat to impose punitive tariffs on China. Both represent states with manufacturers that feel they are losing out to China, and want a floating currency. In fact, a floating currency will do zero for the US, and a great deal for China. China's problem with a floating currency isn't that the price of its goods will go up, but that its woefully undercapitalized companies will be exposed to being bought up. Which is precisely what central government wants to avoid. Consider that the Carlyle Group is buying a construction machine business for about the price of a not really doing all that well American networking company.
However, there are less drastic bills before the Senate, and the one backed by Grassley and Baucus could easily be bulked up.
Yields, Oil and Reality weigh on Fed Loose Money policy
by Stirling Newberry
Through the current economic cycle, the fed has dragged its feet on raising interest rates. Whether politically motivated - which I believe to be the case - or not - which others believe - the result has been allowing systematic pressures to build in the US economy. Allowing nominal CPI to run ahead of core CPI for so long is a failure of policy, since the US makes things and busy energy. This has led to the ballooning US trade deficit - energy driven - and an oil boom in the middle east. This has had severe foreign policy considerations. If the US had accepted a slowing of growth there would be more pressure for Islamic powers to come to the table.
FT characterizes today's comments as hawkish in the fed's release. The additional raise to 5% is not news, but has been priced into the fed funds futures for some time. The constant maturity yield curve, while still inverted between the 6 month and the 10 year, is still 9 basis points from top to bottom, and still 14 basis points from 3month/10 year inversion.
People close to the situation said the Ministry of Commerce was refusing to approve the deal – the country’s largest private equity buy-out – unless Carlyle pledged not to sell its majority stake to a foreign construction equipment group in the future.
Given the problematic situtation with respect to Chinese construction equipment, this deal has more problems than merely new conditions. On one hand, the equipment maker desperately needs new capital to continue functioning. On the other hand, China needs the construction equipment it produces at very low prices to continue functioning. Look for some sort of price structure assurance as being the express or implied final condition.
The demands made by the Ministry of Commerce are part of a political backlash against foreign investors taking control of state companies that are domestic leaders in strategic sectors.
The rising tensions between the US and China are extending to private business, and are making it very difficult to complete transactions. The possibility of a trade war now hangs over what would, otherwise, be routine transactions.
In both cases, the Chinese companies and their state owners need outside investment to reduce debt and become more competitive in technology and marketing.
“There is a conscious slowing down of all deals,” said a China-based adviser to foreign companies.
In one of those turns of the wheel of chance, two former Reagan administration officials died today, Caspar Weinberger, who presided over the largest defense build up in US history not associated with an active war, and Lyn Nofzinger, who was assigned by a newsapaper chain to help Ronald Reagan rise (which only looks like the liberal media because of Bush being so far to the right of even Ronald Reagan).
Both were unabashedly combative, arrogant, who used the federal government as a partisan tool, engaging in political cleansing of the government to generate ideological conformity.
Weinberger was a key finger in the Iran-Contra scandal, and was charged with felonies in the matter before being pardoned. His public career was to slash money from the poor under Nixon, and then give it to the rich profligately under Bush.
Nofzinger was convicted, and then had the conviction overruled by a federal appeals court. Obviously technicalities are bad only for the little people.
There is a wave of apologia among reactionaries these days, saying that Bush is different from the 30 years of right wing executive government. Looking at the corruption and disinterest in the law that these two high Reagan administration officials displayed, it is difficult to call this anything other than hogwash out of the mouths of people desperate to distance themselves from failure.
It is defeat, not difference, that is driving the right wing defections. That an Bush's poll diving. Bush is right, he is the heir of Ronald Reagan: leader of a group of corrupt lobbyists seeking to loot the treasury and get away with it. Reagan just happened to be lucky enough to come at the moment when he could get away with it, and when the country needed a certain confidence that the Democrats could not muster - while Bush comes when the country is already broke, and already overconfident.
Card Resigns, someone with even less initiative replaces him
by Stirling Newberry
Say what you will about Andy Card, he kept more of his own initiative and sense of self than most people who can survive in the presence of George W. Bush - who is roughly like handling a psychotic homocidal maniac, in that the slightest peeve or tick is enough to get someone ruined - they call disagreeing with Bush "Walking into the propeller" in the White House.
However, when the going gets tough for Bush, the tough get going - out the door. Instead the tractable and obsequiously mendacious Boulten - architect of the series of monuments to innumeracy which are the Bush budgets - is replacing him. This should tell people what is obvious, Bush, in trouble, believes that the way out is to get more rigidly in control, and have even more dedicated Yes men and women in place.
I remember when Apple made computers and had an OS. It also had 2% market share. Pundits kicked the company around. Now they have the iPod and an 80% market share of legally downloaded music. It is de riguer to mention them as why American business is winning. In fact, it is the same treadmill of success stories: Dell, Apple, Starbucks and Cisco that are mentioned in almost every one of these articles.
Memo to the sitterati - four world beating brand doth not an economy make. Germany has that many world beating brands, it has three in the car industry,
According the the constant maturity yield curve, the 1 month note is now even with the 7 year, and only 4 basis points - that is hundredths of a percent - below the 30 year. More troubling, it is above the 3 month, the first time the "lip" has formed, where the 1 month stands above another short yield. This is not yet a dire situation, since inversions have to run their course over months. But the failure of the recent rally to break the curve out of inversion in the constant maturity measure means that the US economy is less healthy than the current numbers suggest. It is always best before the crash, it is always richest before the recession.
The options that are present aren't palatable, doing the "right" thing and cutting debt will, in fact, accelerate the recession. The treasury, if it wants to deinvert the yield curve, needs to spend like a drunken sailor, and sell lots of long bonds to increase supply. This will lower prices, increase the rate, and deinvert the curve. It will also saddle the government with long term debt at higher rates that will take a long time to retire.
Everyone has discovered "the millenials" once called the "echo boom" and expected to imitate them in being "thing" oriented. The defining ism of the baby boom has been consumerism. Where conservatives consume, the baby boom has been conservative, where liberalism allowed consumption, they were liberal.
That the baby boom was reliably consumerist was the single most important economic, and eventually most important political reality. Just as the depression generation set a baseline for community and social involvement, abhorence of excessive risk and other bedrock principles of liberalism, the defining characteristics of the baby boom were not clearly identified with either political party.
The entire language of politics became about consumption - Democratic hacks say that government is "a service industry" and we define everything by "values" - which is to say, that little check list that the consumer carries around with them, the collection of peeves and spleen that will make them set an idea or a product down. This is in contrast to ideals, which are aspirations, or virtues, which are habits of behavior.
A funny thing is happening - the millenials are changing the rules. And that is the great challenge - to make the millenial generation a reliably progressive generation, which feels in its bones that they were treated badly by a war without victory in a decade without a name... And left without jobs or positions, as the US jobs engine dries up, and the remander flow away.
I am not convinced, though it is a plausible number. Five is closer to accurate. They might be ready to test in three years. But that would push production back. They are also farther from having means of delivery. But in any event, the number is "soon".
Don't you feel safer having taken out the wrong WMD program?
For days the Washington Post has seen a fire storm of criticism in this shameless pandering to right wing racists - proving that being paid in this business is not about talent, ability, writing skill, contacts, or even basic journalistic ethics - but pure and simple spewing what right wingers want to here in unlimited quantities. After the arrogant sneers from slate.com's columnists about how Howell was treated when she lied about Abramoff, and the constant harping from establishment media about the vast difference between bloggers and "real" journalists, this episode shows that the entire struggle is really over the ability of the right wing to mainstream racism, smears, lies, plagarism and other forms of kneepadding a small segement of the population that believes Saddam caused 911, there really were WMD, that the budget deficit is Clinton's fault and other commandments of the Bush Öyster Cult.
Salon: Post denies right wing pressure. You don't need to pressure a whore, that's the point. Where is the integrity laden reaction from Slate.com? Where are our valiant defenders of the professional journalist, who only weeks ago, were disgusted at how the Howell was treated? Perhaps she was part of a pattern of behavior?
The only purpose for vouchers is so that theocons can pull their children out of real schools and send them to schools that teach right wing theocratic psuedo-science.
Does this look like a good investment vehicle to you? If so, then your in box is going to be filled with more chances to lose 80% of your capital in a year and a half. Or even more. You can achieve staggering rates of loss if you just employ leverage and hoc your house for this company. It's on the move - in one direction.
If you want to see what fraud looks like, let me tell you the sad, sad, sad story of CWTD - China World Trade Corporation. This is not to be confused with the China World Trade Center in Beijing.
CWTD.OB is a penny stock. Periodically, tout letters pour through the internet. Like say this one collected by the very valuable Robert J. O'Hara who is truly doing a service.
If an airline charges a fee for rescheduling later in the same day for passengers that miss their flight, they must refund the same amount should they be more than 30 minutes late.
Fair's fair - if you charge us for being late, then we should get a refund when you are late enough to make us have to pay someone else for being late.
Full disclosure: I do not have a fiduciary relationship with any of the companies involved in the projects I am about to mention, but that could change at anytime.
Many are celebrating the punting of the Dubai ports deal. They think that they have preserved America's status as a country in control of our own destiny.
Nothing could be farther from the truth, all one needs to do is look at the development of Dubai. This picture is the artist's rendering of what is scheduled to be the world's tallest tower. It would, literally, tower over either of the two new highest buildings in the US, the redesigned "Freedom Tower", and the "Fordham Spire" in Chicago. It is 805 meters to the spire, and 705 to the roof - almost 300 meters higher than the height to the roof of the proposed Freedom Tower.
Where is this new tower?
Shanghai? Taibei? Singapore? Hong Kong?
Try Dubai. It's not too far away from the world's tallest hotel. One that is built on its own artificial island. It runs a minimum of $2000 a night last I checked, though maybe there are better days to book.
Total cost of this rhapsody in glass? Eight billion. Yes eight.
The architects? The venerable Skidmore, Owings and Merrill also designers of the Freedom Tower and the Trump Tower in Chicago. Never let it be said that the Arabs don't know who to hire.
This is an example of the results of vast flows of money going into the Middle East - the status of financial capital is being stripped from New York, which is becoming the sales boiler room for money that is controlled from elsewhere. Americans, as Gordon Gecko might sneer, are like the guy who flies first class and thinks he is doing good - where as the rulers of Dubai - are li-quid. Players.
Who financed this? Is Dubai a hotbed of technology and manufacturing? Hardly - they have to import the labor for this structure from poor countries, and they couldn't design it themselves. The contractor is Samsung. Not exactly an Arab Firm. This is how the west is holding on by the skin of its teeth, by acting as highly paid employees of the people who are rapidly becoming financial masters of the globe. At 500 Billion a year of inflows - which given the "the economy will adapt" attitude towards energy, will continue at an ever accelerating place - the oil countries are only scheduled to get richer.
Your jobs may be headed to China, but that's not the problem. The money to replace them is already in Dubai and other cities of what is going to be the shining monument to this age.
And just think, with every credit card payment, you are helping to pay for history. Perhaps someday you will get to see glossy pictures of it on your High Definition Television. And maybe, like a Hong Kong resident in 1965 watching his new television, you will get a twinge of jealousy as you realize how much better the rich nations of the world live, and wonder what it is you have to do to catch up to the middle east. Perhaps, you will think, you need to adopt their system, which clearly works so much better than yours.
After all Dubai is buying an aerospace company that works on the the Joint Strike Fighter - realize we can't even afford our own arms industry any more.
Today Cousin Ben called the yield curve "very flat". It isn't it is inverted on the long end - the 6 month at 4.82 is higher than anything than the 20 - the bill without a buyer - and it is 7 basis points from being top to bottom inverted: the 1 month is at 4.67 and the 30 year is at 4.74.
Cousin Ben also said that this is not a sign of a coming economic slowdown. There's a problem with that. You see, if he says that, then people assume there is going to be more inflation. For the last month, Ben has been winning this game, because people have dumped long rather than short yields. He's not winning that game now - the spread from top to bottom has shrunk from 26 basis points - almost enough to squeeze in another rate increase without trouble.
Instead, Cousin Ben needs to learn to get obscurantist. Make it so that the financial markets don't know where he thinks the balance of risks are, so that they will focus their attention on the data, and not on what he is saying.
I am not the world's largest fan of Uncle Alan, but about one thing he was absolutely right - the Fed Chairman cannot be any easier to interpret than the data. Which meant that when things were no brainer, he was very, very, very clear. When things were murky, so was he.
He's not willing to say it yet, but here is what he is willing to say in American Theocracy:
No explanation of the theme of this book - US Oil Vulnerability, excessive indebtedness, and indulgence of radical religion - can ignore the encouragement of the Republican Party and its electoral coalition, especially since 2000...
The Republican electoral coalition, near and dear to me four decades ago, when I began writing The Emerging Republican Majority has become more adn more like the ehausted, erring majorities of earlier failures...
He declares that the "Republican Majority" is becoming the "Republican Theocracy". I'll have other things to say in my review, but I wanted to note certain aspects which are not, properly speaking the nature of a review, but more in the nature of a response.
Much of the book is familiar to readers of these pages: peak oil is coming, the US has capital sunk in the petro-economy, that this sunk capital is pressuring us to become a hegemonic power in decline, the Republican Party's theocratic base is also the gas guzzling base, and this leads to financialization of the economy, dependence on foreign money, an excess of consumption. He argues that these represent a declining state. He even correctly understands some of the importance of energy culture and engines. He uses a phrase near and dear to writers on this page - the rise of the rentier class - which we have used since before this page existed.
But KP is neither truly a historian, nor an economist. Where his book falls short in filling in these themes - he could have used Wallerstein, Fischer, Sen, Clark, Sachs, Stiglitz - and to be honest Newberry (kudos to Fredrick Clarkson, who did get a reference) - on his bookshelf next to Setser, Volcker, Roach and other worthies that he did consult - it is understandable, because what he speaks with authority on he has no peer - the nature of long term demographic pressures and their effect on politics.
His conclusions are sobering. This book isn't a must read, because most of you have read most of the points that he goes over. But it is a must buy and a must give. If you know a moderate Republican, this is the book that will get him to dealign. Politics is, in the end, a coalition of the sane against the insane. Phillips makes the case that the core of the current ruling party is not sane, not mainstream, and not looking out of the National Interest. Given his own admission that he followed the Republican Majority as a partisan and a supporter - this is as large as the Northern Whigs aligning with the new Republican Party in 1860.
Miller was considered ineffectual as Fed chairman, serving one of the shortest tenures in the board's history, and he received mixed reviews as Treasury secretary as inflation ran rampant in the late '70s.
Though a capable manager of the Treasury Department and the administration's point of view on economic matters, he was seen neither as a policy innovator nor as a potent force against double-digit inflation.
The joke used to run that if you wanted to find a small government libertarian, call up the McDowell-Douglas missile systems department, and ask to talk to one of the engineers. Republicans have made big hay over the years about the evils of "bureaucrats". Well the Cunningham Scandal has pointed the way to the villian of the future, that vampire of waste, fraud and abuse.
The military in Iraq overwhelmingly believes that Iraq is pay back for 911, and therefore must believe for their own sanity that Saddam planned or backed 911. There is a dangerous campaign to create a miltary-civilian rift over this, in order to harvest the resulting backlash from a military that will blame "liberal" civilians for not appropriately rewarding the defenders against Saddam bin Laden.
"And now civil discord broke out again worse than ever and increased enormously. Massacres, banishments, and proscriptions of both senators and knights took place straightway, including great numbers of both classes, the chiefs of factions surrendering their enemies to each other, and for this purpose not sparing even their friends and brothers; so much did animosity toward rivals overpower the love of kindred. So in the course of events the Roman empire was partitioned, as though it had been their private property, by these three men: Antony, Lepidus, and the one who was first called Octavius, but afterwards Caesar from his relationship to the other Caesar and adoption in his will."
Appian – The Civil Wars, Book I, Loeb translation 1914
As Appian notes, before the Civil War became geographic, it was embodied by faction, and resulted in a torrent of violence of all kinds. It is not what is often thought of as a "Civil War" where two geographic regions fight for control. In Rome, geography was subordinate to personality.
A Date that Will Live in Incompetency: A Carnival of Catastrophe, a Festival of Failure, a Tidal Wave of Waste and the front of a new kind of repressive state
by Stirling Newberry
Three years ago, today, the United States formally crossed the rubicon into the status of aggressor nation, launching a first strike war in violation of international law. A war which was rationalized by high crimes and misdemeanors on the part of the executive branch, and which required major organs of the press to be accessories before during and after the fact.
It is not even the largest failure of American political and civil society. That honour must belong to the Civil War. It is not even one which stands out as the only time the United States has unwisely used military force in pursuit of questionable geo-political objectives. However, it is the war which promised the most, and delivered the least. It is the war where the public could have been better informed, but was not.
It was also the most incompetently planned and executed invasion since the Argentine attempt to invade and occupy the Falklands Islands. Were it not for this, we would not being having this on what IID means. The public would have forgotten the war as thoroughly as it had forgotten the first Iraq war. Ironically, or not, the incompetence of the venture was essential. Only by dragging the war out could Bush hold power in 2004, and have a free hand to spend 100 Billion dollars a year on direct social engineering.
Why does anyone bother reading this guy? he gets the big picture wrong again by swallowing the "its the lack of moral hazard" lie that Republicans push around on health care. It isn't that people are insulated from the cost of health care that makes them over buy it. It's not like I just had my intestines ripped open for fun. It isn't that I woke up one morning and said "look my insurance covers hospital stays, so I should go in and have major surgery!"
In fact it is the reverse - when people are forced to pay with their own money, the cost of day to day expenses - it's called living pay check to pay check - has them under buy insurance and hope they don't get sick. Then they show up at the emergency room for health care, no one has any money, and the cost gets written off. Or they go to quacks for pseudo-care, and get worse.
And let me remind Mr. Kinsley that 16% of health care costs here are additional administrative costs over single payer. Combined with health pollution - that is externalization of costs - this covers more than the difference between what we pay and what, for example, the French and the Canadians pay as a proportion of GDP - let alone PPP equivalence.
SS Lietanic has struck an iceberg, going down fast
by Stirling Newberry
One would think with inflation relatively tame, hiring up, wages finally making a recovery and home values a record level that Bush's approval would, at least, like Clinton's be making a slow march upwards. Instead the SS Lietanic - the Bush Executive - is sinking fast. Since February 22nd there have been 15 major polls of approval. Only 2 have been 40% or above - and those were 40 and 41 respectively. Pollkatz gives us a Cameronesque cinemashot of what it looks looks like when a 6 trillion dollar ship goes ass up.
No wonder in Democratic internet activist circles, including a much referred to but never named organization that is growing out of young political operatives and a new money base that is being referred to as "the club for growth of the Democratic Party" - the race is on to tie Bush around the neck of the Republican Party. No wonder Mr. Republican Kevin Phillips' new book tries to distance himself from the Bush morass - no one wants to be attached to the reality of what the Republican Party has been since Nixon - the crypto-racist theocratic militarist plutocracy party.
It's just they finally got their culminating President - the next Democrat may be like Nixon - someone who talks future while governing past. But it doesn't matter the narrative has shifted. The intellectual classes are finally all over peak oil - I see half a dozen books on the shelf which reference or rely on it in a NH Barnes and Noble's - with two more I know are coming out soon.
Even the "beer bash bush" meme is dying: 39% in an NBC Wall Street Journal poll gave Bush Very or Somewhat positive, while 50% said negative. The cable conservatives like tweety Matthews and Shill O'Reilly are parts of a dying Bush Öyster Cult. Their praerie oysters belong to Bush.
Screen gets scratched to fast, and as of this morning mine refused to play anything. $400 dollar USB dongle after less than a week. Very bad sign.
I'm returning it tomorrow, I'm not taking a chance on anything that expensive that dies that fast.
Updated: Went to apple store, found out that at least one other person's iPod hangs. Solution is to resync it. Not returning, but noting the work around.
No war is as vicious as one which begins about the past, and becomes about the future. The most brutal example in recent history is the First World War, which began as a conflict for territorial concessions, particularly over agricultural and coal rich water connected areas. It became a global conflict over the future of industrialization and mechanization, with mechanization and the new kinds of electrical communication constantly thwarting the old systems of combat.
However, smaller wars also become wars about the future. Algeria, Vietnam, Malasyia all began as colonial conflicts to put down rebellion, and became post-colonial conflicts about the shape of the newly emerging world.
Iraq has turned vicious precisely because it began as the last war, and is continuing as the next war.
Fortune Favors the Sold: The Three Eras of Globalization, and why globalization is a symptom, not a cause, of dislocation
by Stirling Newberry
Lester Thurow is nothing if not lucid and readable. Since much of the economics I know came from reading his works and occasionally attending his lectures - filled with sharp sarcastic asides - it was not surprising that when I read his book Fortune Favors the Bold I had heard much of it before. His discussion of globalization merits particular attention, both because of what it gets right, and because of what it does not grasp.
One of my favorite writers is James Gleick, his Chaos (sic) and Newton are two of the best explanatory volumes written in an age that loves them. He is not smarmily inaccurate in the way that so many explainers are - yes Gladwell this means you - because Gleick really loves information, rather than confirmation. And the market for confirmation is much larger than the market for information. And confirmers are far more worshipped than informers.
Which is why looking back at his columns from the 1990's and the first year of the 00s (pronounced "ooze" - the decade that everyone is going to pretend to have forgotten) - is so interesting because his love of information made him miss, as many missed, the flip side of information - entropy. The illusion that human information generates the reverse of entropy. This is incorrect - instead we generate entropy, a pattern which is induplicable in an instant because it preserves the information.
He writes for example on how the flow of pure information was removing profit opportunties up and down the market chain. He specifically mentions in the mid 1990's car dealerships and realtors protecting their price lists as their profit means.
Umm. Does anyone realize yet how exactly wrong that was? Not to detract from the myriad of good observations about what being "connected" has meant, where Glieck was way in front of the curve of the social effects - but this particular observation was where he gave into conventional wisdom, and the ghost of modernism.
The cash market yield curve has de-inverted for the US Treasury bond market, and will possibly de-invert for constant maturities. Does this mean that we are out of the woods? Not according to past record - where there have been momentary deinversions before the full recessionary cycle in 1979, when a recession came.
However, the sign is that money flows into the US treasury curve have slowed, and this is shifting the balance of investment towards equities. According to this argument there is a slow down due as the housing market cools, but no actual recession.
When the history of the Iraq War is written, it will be littered with idiotic decisions like Franks' - where looking good for the cameras or shaving down the budget was considered more important than the mission or the safety of American troops. Instead of being worshipped, Franks should have been court martialed for gross failure of judgement, and sent to that place where commanders who think of themselves first go.
Wait, that's George Bush in the White House... never mind, carry on. It's only us little people that are dying.
Sectarian violence escalates. As was obvious this summer, the American consensus is "cut and run" from Iraq - with Rumsfeld intoning that the Iraqi military forces can handle the rebellion. That may be true, the Sunni forces may yet put down the Shi'ite rebellion backed by the United States. No, I'm not being funny.
However, there is an event horizon - the withdrawal of effective American forces - that warps all possible outcomes. It is not clear that there is any means to understand what Iraq will look like beyond that moment. It is not that the two sides will come to some modus vivendi - Iraq is now Lebanized, or Ulsterized - or pick your favorite entrenched ethno-economic conflict which plays out in atttempts to strike at the civilian populations through terror.
If the US is fighting a War over terrorism - it is not clear which side we are on. We seem to have created as much as we have prevented.
205K private positions - lead, of course, by construction with 41K - but most of these were in housing, indicating that is still residential construction leading the economy.
But what made this job number good was the service side - 160K positions, with a quarter of those in health care, and another quarter in support for construction. Even with this, gains were seen in retail trade, hospitality and leisure. The J-Number predicted that this year would not see a hiring slowdown, and indeed there is the best growth of this economic cycle. The bulls are going to argue that this is 1996, and that Bush's fortunes, while at a low ebb, are not going to translate to a rejection of Republicanism, because the "meat" of the economic cycle is in front of us, not behind us.
It also confirms what the bond market seems to be saying - there is only a slight slowdown due later, as the Fed is going to pursue an inflationary, not recessionary, monetary policy.
Don't listen to the whinging: the bond sell off is bullish
by Stirling Newberry
For the last several sessions, there has been whinging about "interest rate worries" and the bond sell off. Don't listen to them, the recent action on the bond market, when combined with other news, is bullish news for the economy, and indicates that while the coming slow down in the economy is going to clip profits and wages, and probably housing - the bond market does not believe that it is going to flower to a full blown recession.
The confirming news here is the build up in US us oil stocks. What this indicates is that the overheated housing market is cooling, and with it the excessive demand for imported oil. It is important to remember that the US economy, while it has seen a lousy growth cycle did not need to. Had the US simply cleaned up the balance sheet from the 2000-2002 crash, we could have been back on another tech boom cycle, driven by wireless internet access and the expansion of digital media into both portable and high definition forms.
The most sensible columnist writing in any financial publication in any language turns in top of his form column:
Japan is back. After almost one and a half decades of disappointment, growth is strong, deflation is vanishing and confidence is returning. Is this then the reward for Junichiro Koizumi's reforms? "Exactly the opposite" is the answer. If the prime minister had done what he initially proposed – pursue structural reform and cut fiscal deficits – the result would have been a catastrophe. Fortunately, wiser counsels prevailed.
In what way then is this an unreformed Japanese economy? It is still a Japan whose growth depends heavily on exports and investment, whose private sector saves far more than it can profitably invest at home and whose corporations waste capital. Japan is not recovering because it has a brand new economy: what has been achieved is a partial clean-up of the legacy of the bubble years.
He accurately lays out what is going on in Japan, and why it is working. And, in passing, makes a strong case that if other nations want to get back on the growth track, they need to do the same thing, namely clean up the results of the bubble years, and get back to doing what they do best.
It is time to write the obituary of one of the most profoundly shallow ideas in modern history – that of neo-liberalism. It's twilight was in the days of 2001 when a slowing global economy did not quite yet know that it was not merely an expansion, but an era, which had come to an end. There is a great deal of confusion about what neo-liberalism meant, and what it means. It is intertwined with concepts such as Free Trade, Globalization and Corporatization, it is associated with Thatcherism and with, at the same time, "The Third Wave" of politicians who represented a "New Left".
What was neo-liberalism? And why has it been replaced? And by what?
One of the few no brainers in the world of energy is that the world needs to undergo a large wind build out - concentrating a large percentage of the new capacity in wind power. Wind citing is a delicate matter - it needs to be on a stream of prevailing wind and near usage for best effect. When properly cited, wind is money in the bank - able to return better than historical returns on capital.
Want to know why Americans aren't ready to toss the GOP?
They think housing prices are going to continue rocketing up. Next time you read about the savings rate going negative and Americans borrowing to keep spending, realize that it is because Americans, as in 2000, don't recognize a bubble that has popped.
Note that the 3 yr has broken up out of inversion, while the top to bottom spread remains at 25 basis points. What this is saying is that there is a general expectation of a "spring slide" in equities, and money from the stock market is parking at the short end of the yield curve waiting to wade back in to equities when the slide happens and there are bargains to be found. However, the belief is that equities and not bonds, are the longer term attractive possibility, and that indicates that the bond market still believes that we are headed for an inflationary expansion period, after a short slowdown later in this year.
It should surprise no one that Paul Krugman is the co-author of a classic study on Foreign Direct Investment in the United States. The recent flap over the acquisition of US port operations by a Dubai company has brought a focus on this issue, and a great deal of that focus has been poorly written, poorly thought out, and in some cases deceptive as to what the overall picture is.
Blue State Digital Gets Thumbs Up from Fast Company
by Stirling Newberry
On the newstands now - Clay Johnnson, Joe Rospars, Ben Self and Jascha Franklin Hodges get a big shout out as one of the 50 who will change the way people live and work in the next decade for Blue State Digital.
It is important that we keep reaffirming our web hip credentials as one of the few areas where we can get positive media narrative on our side - the movement to digital media and communities being one of the forces that draws in reporters even more than average people.
Richard Sennett talks about how the middle has been seeing opportunity slip away. He argues that there is a growing realization that the "skills economy" is bankrupt, because the skills that are needed can now be produced in far larger quantity than is needed:
People in the middle, both young and old, grasp at the idea that “skills” will somehow defend them against the risks of the modern workplace. Yet, young people know that the education system turns out many more qualified graduates than there are jobs. And middle-aged people grasp at the idea of retraining themselves even though they know employers are likely to prefer freshly-trained workers at home or workers pre-trained abroad. Nothing was more grinding, to me, than listening to people my age talk of “re-inventing” themselves to be more competitive, mouthing clichés they barely believed.
He also correctly notes that the increasingly pyramidical structure is one that comes from the need to deliver juice to share price:
How did the middle slice of workers wind up in this fraught position? After the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreements in the early 1970s, a sea of capital flooded the world and it was “impatient capital”, in the words of Bennett Harrison, the economist, capital looking for short-term returns on share prices rather than longer-term dividends on profits. To benefit, companies had to change themselves by innovating in their products or in the way they organised themselves, in order to “send a signal” to their markets. Performing for these markets has increased the centralisation of power. To turn a business around quickly, the command centre must be able to act decisively without bureaucratic muffling. Modern technologies have helped companies strip out their middle layers of bureaucracy, and so shorten the chain of command.
Note the formulation - share price is an extraction, extraction leads to centralization. Centralization leads to power being concentrated at the top of the decision space.
It isn't skills that make upward mobility - it is enculturation with the cutting edge economy. As the existence of a cutting edge economy has ebbed, so has the wage advantage of people in developed countries.
Harper's leads with an article calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush. And on the second of March they held a forum with John Conyers, John Dean and others outlining the urgency of denying the imperial presidency and the continued erosion of the constitution. There was much discussion of whether a change in the party in power of Congress would create the conditions required for impeachment. There was also some discussion as to why the media has been deferential to Bush beyond almost any level known in modern history. Dean argued that it was both the lack of time among reporters - and the hard ball tactics of the executive in cutting people out. Sedar argued that the press had been endemically corrupt before Bush, and argued that the impeachment of Clinton showed a pervasive bias in the press against Democrats and liberals.
What was lacking through the entire forum was the kind of important connection between Bush's removal, and the other problems which face our Democracy and our nation. It is not enough to investigate a President on abstract grounds, there must be a sense in the country that the executive must be called to account, because he is a clear and present danger to the commonweal, and that we cannot abide another minute with his hands on the levers of power.
If there is to be a wider impeachment movement, it must make this case.
As I type this Joe "Dead Interns Don't Deserve Justice" Scarborough is busy spewing how Syriana only received an award because of politics. Nonsense - it's a great thriller with twists and turns. A similar film - Traffic - which went after drug dealing didn't elicity a peep from the right wing. Why is it that cable news feels that it is good business to put on the paranoid outbursts of the mentally ill?
There is a fundamental sickness in our society - where drug addicts, thieves, liars, murders and con men have been put in charge of our media and our government. As long as you, the ordinary citizen, is content to be screamed at by murderers, liars, thieves and assorted other corrupt criminals - then guess what - your economy is going to be pillaged and your future destroyed. Until this basic connection is made in people's minds - that having a society run by a criminal element means a society where ordinary people cannot get ahead, because every spare cent is going to be stolen and shipped to Dubai or some other haven from scrutiny - then there will be no improvement.
Looking at how few races are competitive at the Congressional level this year, it is a clear indication that the sheeple haven't wised up yet, and are willing to get screwed by the system a few more years. It's all fun and games until the paychecks start bouncing apperantly.
The short end droppped - 1 and 2 basis points on the 1 and 3 month, while the long end lept upwards - increasing the spread to 28 basis points - or enough room for another rate increase from the Fed, the long maturities are fighting their way to end the medium long inversion - with 4.77 being the "ceiling" for the medium yields. Instead the bond market is expecting a very mild slowdown later in the year, followed by roughly 4% CPI - with real yields settling at 2% over that - or 6%.
The Economist has joined the tirade of hysteria over the Dubai port deal – saying that this amounts to "protectionism", and that it reeks of the hand of "Karl Marx". Such obviously, event patently, immoderate language, such obvious dishonesty, betrays what is going on at a deeper level.
The key to the first wave of progressivism was the control of the railroads by a very small number of people. The railraod monopolies used their power to drive down the prices they paid to farmers - then the bulk of the entrepreneurial population - and eventually strangle the economy. It took almost 30 years, but progressivism was triumphant because it made a simple economic idea its centerpiece - put the ability to create value into the hands of the public.
Recently there has been a drive by the right wing to put a friendly face on Global Warming. They are hoping to tell those people in the present who are profiting enormously from internal combustion that someone else will pay the price happily.
There are many points that could be made about why this is ethically abominable. But the world is filled with profitable ethical abominations. Tell a man that others are dying while his bank account is increasing, and he will cry all the way to the bank. Tell a man that his behavior is endangering his own welfare, and he may just listen. Well think about the following.
Dr. Pollkatz' latest bush approval graf shows the obvious - Bush's approval numbers are now down where they were in the pit of November, when dark days saw gas prices tick up remorselessly to a near all time peak real peak. It looked then like the economy might come unravelled under the pressure, but it didn't.
For those looking to hammer Bush, it is important to remember that the public has rejected him but not yet what he stands for. The key then is to find an attack which links Bush to his ideology and binds the rejection of both together.
The ur-problem we face is that our elites - political, social and economic - have become unhinged from any moral or ethical basis. They are advancing overtly genocidal arguments in favor of "business as usual". The reason is fairly simple - the future isn't big enough for the endless expansion of the petroleum burning economy, and all the people on the planet. Something has got to go. Iraq was a small foretaste of what is going to become the dominant dynamic of the next generation - finding psuedo-moral and psuedo-legal rationalizations for exterminating rival stakeholders to the future. This process is going to continue internally and externally.
The Right Wing's Solution to Global Warming: Genocide
by Stirling Newberry
After spending over a decade in a vicious campaign to deny global warming - second only to Darwin denial in the pillars of right wing anti-science - the evidence has piled up to the point where it is impossible to deny that
1. The world is getting lots warmer.
2. People are responsible.
Having tried ignorance as a defense of their vested interests, the right wing has shifted to the next line of defense. They have proposed a new solution to global warming.
In the clarksphere days I did a profile on Frank Foer - I'll repost it here when I can dig it out of the archives - and listed him as one of the 10 who matter. For this reason I am very glad to hear that his sharp style and good eye has brought him to the editorship of the New Republic - a publication that desperately needs to get back to making sense.
There is a pervasive misunderstanding of what the period of Democratic Party dominance of the US government was about, and therefore a pervasive failure to understand what will drive a return to power, as opposed to temporary majority, for the Democratic Party.
The rise and fall of the Modern Democratic party is the rise and fall of the mechanized economy as a progressive force in economics.
Note how the 30 year has fought its way to even with the 3 month, and the 10 year is above the 3 month. The curve is still inverted, by 13 basis points between the 1 year and the 30 year, but it is no longer marching towards "top to bottom inversion"
When presented with proof that Saddam ordered a show trial of 148 people - including children - who were alledged to be involved with an assassination attempt, he said he was head of state, and had the power to refer them to a court, and that the court had the right to convict them under the law, and sentence them. When given proof that their land was razed, he said that the decree was legally passed for "national security reasons", and that compensation was paid. When given a list of the people trucked to a desert prison, he stated that they had been legally sentenced for their involvement.
the people who have sold us a generational "cultural conflict" against the towelheads start prattling about "racism"
The great Indian writer Khushwant Singh once penned a poignant story called Karma, about the plight of Indian elites under British colonialism. The protagonist, Sir Mohan Lal, wants only to be accepted as a gentleman. Impeccably dressed in his Savile Row suit and Balliol tie, brandishing a copy of The Times, he proudly takes his seat in the first-class compartment of a train – only to be accosted by a couple of drunken, loutish British soldiers who fling him out, seeing only a "wog:
Whether they realise it or not, most critics of the sale of P&O, the UK-based port operator that owns five terminals on the US east coast, to Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirates government, are just replaying the scene with different accents.
Oh such an ocean of tears we should all have for the poor maligned UAE prince who *sniff* *can't* *sniff* use *sniff* royal money to buy the west. Oh what a trial of indelible shame Democracies in the West should suffer for not wanting autocracies to use autocratically gained wealth to buy out our assets. Oh, the torment of the good, pure, noble, human rights loving government of Dubai, surrounded by all these "racists". It must be truly racist to declare that a nation has to play by the rules to have full privileges under them. Who would have thought that the war hawks were such gushy post-modern multi-culturalists. One notes that "Western values", such as, for example transperancy go out the window when cash transactions for shares are involved.
What we are seeing is another pinch point in the very foolish decision the west made in 1980 to sell its future to oilarchies, hoping it could engage in a red queens race of creating more paper wealth than the depletion wealth of oil. Right now, 500 billion dollars a year must flow from them to the west of investment. Here to fore they have been willing to have influence and indirect control. This has noting to do with racism, and everything to do with a conflict between rent and capital - with the holders of rent needing to cement a final alliance between western holders of rent, and oil rentiers, in order to buy out the rest of the capital system.
It is around now when all those Republican terrorist hating freedom loving gas guzzling gay haters start to realize exactly who they have been selling their daughters to all these years. And their crypto-racist leanings are perfectly acceptable to Gideon Rose when they can be aligned behind wars and tax cuts - two things he likes.
There has been a growing discussion of what the netroots is about and how to make this election about change. On the surface there is reason to hope - more retirements, more competive Senate seats, an electorate that has soured on Bush, and thinks the country is on the wrong track. It isn't going to work that way.
For the last 5 years the Republicans have had one slogan:
"You love George Bush, You Hate Saddam. Vote for War, Guns and Bombs". Then the work of message was simply associating Bush with positive images of shooting, gas guzzling and playing country music while waving the flag - and Saddamizing the Democrats. The Democratic leadership, following the rule that the free fornicate with sheep, bent over and said "Baaa!".
They kept trying to make the message that they had gotten to power with work for national power:
"Vote for us, serfs - or it is so much the worse for you." And sending out scare stories about how if Democrats didn't send the establishment money the economy would tank, we'd have war and deficits, and Roe v Wade would be overturned. Well, the Democratic establishment voted for all of that after taking the money.
There have been questions about how to make 2006 an election which shifts power. The answer is that 2006 has already been blundered as a realigning election, because the only change the Democratic Party establishment wants is where to direct the flow of savings coming in from China and Saudi Arabia. This is, as an economist will say, a choice with marginal implications, but without macro implications. Aggregate stupidity will stay the same in Washington DC, simply because this fight isn't over change, its a fight over who gets the procedes of robbing Paul.
Right now if progressives want to make a difference in Texas, Rodriguez in the congressional primary, and Gammage in the gubenatorial race are easily the best places to put your coin.
What this plan looks like is a pretty good plan - for France - where the government owns a larger share of GDP, where distance factors between generation of wind and usage are less of an issue, and where long distance personal transport is much less of an issue. It is a much better plan in a European context than the noises that Merkel has made - which amount to spitting into the wind - or that either the UK or Italy are pursuing. But it has certain glaring problems from an American perspective.
Jerome has been doing fantastic work in making energy a key issue for the progressive left - it is a key issue. And he has been good about not falling into either tight little doomsday scenarios, nor in, general, cheap pandering. However this economic plan's failure to deal with simultaneity problems in its actions hasn't change since its first iteration, and since he doesn't seem to listen to private criticisms, the only reasonable thing to do is to say publicly that it sucks and it sucks worse each time it is put forward. Every erg that Energize America saves will go to creating jobs in China - because demand reduction isn't, by itself, a viable road to energy sustainability.
The iterations haven't changed much, so I feel confident in looking at the manifest problems with this approach and why it isn't particularly good policy for the US.
1. Too many pieces.
The more pieces that a legislative structure has, the more individual pieces can be held hostage, watered down and generally made trouble for. If there is one simple thing that this proposal could do, it is reduce it from a series of acts, to a single law with multiple titles. Make it so that individual legislators have to join a single coherent plan, rather than picking al a carte.
The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.
The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
Recently the love hate relationship between reporters and bloggers has turned to hate - writers in main media outlets such as the Washington Post have gone to outright libel of bloggers and blogging, and even more moderate writers have launched attacks which are vicious and dishonest - Jack Schafer and James Brady of the Post, Brooks of the New York Times have all launched vile personal invective and broad brush ad hominems in response to the growing ability of bloggers on the left to hold them accountable in ways that previously were the purview of the right. It was fine when right wing bloggers could bring down a black writer for the New York Times and install a rightwing slantmeister, it is not fine when bloggers on the left could hammer Howells of the Post for lying about Abramoff in order to spin a Republican scandal as bipartisan.
The reality is that the blogging on the right is cryptoracist and the product of a Bush cult, a Bush cult that the old line media shares - it will go to any distance to protect him from the culpability from his criminal rise to power and criminal actions. It is heavily invested in his success, because if he is exposed as a fraud, so too are they.
But the real story is deeper and it is economic. Not merely ethically challenged writers in the old media protecting their paychecks, but in a fundamental collision in the American economy which determines the shape of our political conflicts. America is not bipolar - but tripolar, and depending on how the division into two sides is made, the country is either lopsidedly reactionary, or lopsidedly progressive. The press, obsessed with their Bush worship, slants the dialog by engaging in organized attempts to prevent progressive political moment from having effect, and magnifying reactionary political moment. In truth the country is not polarized into two camps, but three.
And that story is the root of the conflict which is playing out now between blogging on the left, the right and the punditocracy, because each represents one of the three poles. The alliance between conservative punditocracy and reactionary political forces is increasingly untenable, because it has lead to a disasterous series of policy choices, which are, in their cumulative effect, creating an increasingly bitter public mood.
The press has not exactly lied, but it has enabled the reactionaries to lie, and is now trying to protect itself, by engaging in a cover up of their political and economic alliance. There are three stable solution sets, and each one is determined by how the three poles are grouped.
Yes, this is a big complex post, but it is important, so bear with the whole story. Which links back to The Fourth Republic.
One of the most troubling aspects of our current war without end, is the vast powers that the executive branch has usurped to itself to fight it. However, equally troubling is how the pretend that Americans are all enlistees of the Republican National Committee and its various organs. Any story "skillfully handled" can be "as damaging to our side as a military attack." - so watch what you say, lest it weaken our resolve or call into question the mission.
And the ad they are running before the Munch slide show? Anti-Clinton jokes. I will be really glad when Clinton is no longer President... oh wait, he hasn't been President for over 5 years now. Clearly Bush or Cheney jokes are simply in bad taste over at the New York Times.
The action on the street was not bad for a breather day, only small losses on the major indexes, and the VIX shoots up, indicating that there is a growing tolerance for risk:
The yield curve is now inverted from the 3 month versus the 30 year, with the spike at the 6 month being almost the last bulwark against full inversion. The spread between the 1 month and the 30 year is 12 basis points. While full inversion generally brings with it a significant top to bottom spread, the curve is not sanguine about the year. The question is how much inflation pressures are falling. While oil has reached $59/bl and, absent a supply shock, looks likely to stay below the fall's dizzying heights, the evidence from PPI is that energy inflation is being passed on to the general economy.
In short, nothing to suggest that the current very tight squeeze came any closer to resolution today, and several things to indicate that the fed must keep the pressure on - as loose as it is being - before inflation is wrung out of the economy.
No Correlation Between Tax Cuts and Cyclical Federal Revenue
by Stirling Newberry
The right wing repeats, often, the assertion that tax cuts increase revenues. Leaving aside the question as meaningless - since what matters is revenues and outlays - there's no correlation. First the numbers:
60's
Early 70's
Late 70's
80's
90's
00's
5.65%
4.01%
10.29%
5.76%
3.18%
2.75%
2.58%
5.54%
5.37%
6.48%
6.81%
9.07%
4.26%
5.54%
6.99%
2.26%
4.91%
4.05%
2.32%
1.17%
8.10%
5.02%
8.93%
5.08%
3.16%
6.48%
9.80%
5.11%
7.66%
.71%
4.47%
8.03%
5.59%
5.03%
5.78%
4.51%
5.82%
5.29%
This table charts the sustained periods of Federal revenue growth since World War II, as measured in Constant 1996 dollars. That is real revenue growth. I have taken out two years of very small revenue growth as being part of recessionary cycles. The data is from OMB.
What's clear from the data is that recessions reduce revenue and recovery increases it. In each of the cycles todate, the average revenue growth during the expansionary part of the cycle has been between 4.5% and 6%. The present cycle is on the low end of the distrubution: the 1990's rank first, the late 1970's with bracket creep rank second, the 1960's rank third, the 00s 4th and the supply side 1980's rank dead last.
That is, even throwing considerations about deficits out the window, there is no evidence that early revenue reduction stimulus increases real revenues over the course of the cycle. Instead if there is any evidence, it is that it moves marginal revenue forward into the present year at the expense of future years. That is, it generates no incremental revenue.
And if we throw in the OMBs own revenue predictions for the next two years, it looks even worse for Bush's rendition of Ronald McReaganhood - the average would drop to 4.57%, and easily slide this cycle into 6th place. The only quibble is if one throws the statistically slight revenue increase into the 1990's - that is Bush Sr's tax increases, the 1990's expansion drops to 5.18% - still ahead of every primarily Republican expansion.
Once again - looking at real revenue increases, there is no indication that revenue reductions increase Federal receipts, even with deficit considerations thrown completely out the window. Instead the evidence indicates that if you want more revenue, you raise revenue by increasing taxes, or by trading off lower marginal rates for fewer deductions.
Let's see billions more people want internal combustion, already mechanized economy wants to play footsie with houses while driving inflation wagons, and any one is suprised that global warming is moving faster and faster.
It's going to until there is an unambiguous - New Orleans isn't unambiguous enough apperantly - catastrophe.
Builders won't stop until every last dime of money on the table from housing is taken out - that is, housing is back to rent equivalent. Why? Why not? Just because you, the home owner, would prefer to keep some of the equity in your home, doesn't mean it is going to happen unless you zone new houses out of existence.
Imagine you are a simple minded econopundit, talking about federal interest policy. You only look at a few things: CPI-U, UI, Federal Deficit %GDP, and what your pet number for full employment is. How would you advise? Well your advice would depend on your personality - how hawkish are you? how much of a bleeding heart? do you go with or against the fiscal stimulus from Congress and the President? What is NAIRU in your world?
In short, you'd be able to give advice off of your Volckergram - as defined by twiddling the parameters on your Central Banker Personality Test. The cells are on the second sheet - your hawkishness, your bleeding heart, your counter-cyclicality, NAIRU - and one more parameter, your flexibility - or sensitivity.
The model is moronically simple as you can tell by looking at the cells - take the last quarter's worth of unemployment and CPI annualized - multiply by the personality numbers, plug in NAIRU, and voila - instant interest rate policy. To read the chart - compare the redish brown line, which is the actual effective federal funds rate historically, with the dark blue line, which is our insta-econopundit's advice.
What's interesting is not how bad it is is - G-O-D-F-O-R-B-I-D anyone actually sets interest rate policy this way - but how by making some interesting personality adjustments, many of the inscrutable moments of Fed policy fall into place.
^GSPC S&P 500 INDEX 1,289.38 +0.73%
^DJI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 11,120.68 +0.56
^FCHI CAC 40 4,973.09 +0.79%
^SSMI SMI 7,906.58 +1.40%
^FTSE FTSE 100 5,828.90 +0.65%
^GDAXI DAX IND 5,789.25 +0.43%
^IXIC NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,294.63 +0.80%
This looks like the peak of this cycle is coming early, as traders price perfection into stocks, with the bet that 2006 is 1996 all over again - with a fed chairman who believes that he doesn't need to tighten quite as much as he might, and a four year long boom in front of us. This isn't what the cyclical indicators say - instead, with the yield curve slipping into inversion, very low unemployment rate and a bevy of inflation pressures - the indicators are for a weak final 24 month period in this economic recovery - which will, when the books close on it, look like something out of the 1970's, not 1990's.
However, short term if this is the push, then there is still head room to reach Dow 11,500 - if you are willing to stick your neck out on this rally. Small cap stocks are risk/performance doing better than large caps, but is this really enough to sustain the rally? The fed has not quite finished tightening yet according to the generally reliable indicator of having large, medium and small cap model portfolios fall to zero risk adjusted return. But what if Cousin Ben is talking hawkish on inflation, but betting dovish? He certainly seems to believe that the economy is robust, and certainly seems to believe that the best course of action is to get China to float its currency. While Chuck Schumer may be appreciative of this, finding the last bit of Mundell-Fleming stimulus on the planet and hoping that the central government of China will cooperate is a rather haphazard way of seeking Yuan exposure.
The yield curve action was no help as an indicator either way, neither loosening the long short spread, nor tightening it:
The only commentary one might find on it is that the 30 year is now 2 whole basis points above the 3 month note, and 19 basis points above the one month. Unless we see a truly earthshaking shift out of bonds and into stocks, the signs are that Cousin Ben is going to have to deal with full inversion of the yield curve if he wants another 25 basis point rise in March. Waiting might be more advisable - since oil is slowly coming down, and the yield curve could still be bailed out by continued aggressive rotation into stocks. Inflation won't mind an extra month between March and April, and if the time isn't right by then, it will be a good indicator that the only way to end inflation risks is to end the business cycle.
I will say this a million times: protectionism is the progressivism of fools. Protectionism rarely works to the advantage of workers, and often works to the advantage of holders of capital, who can liberalize where there is bottleneck labor demand.
Those who cheered the death of the EU Constitution have a slogging recovery in the Eurozone, less control over liberalization than they had before, and a series of political victories by the right wing in Europe. "Non!" has been great for the right, it has treated the left very badly. This should be a lesson: real free trade pushes in a progressive direction, protectionism puts all of the cards in the hands of the few.
Yeah, I know, being boring here, but let's take a look at the progress of hiring in the last 50 years of hiring recoveries - there have been five sustained periods of hiring growth during that time - one each in the 60s,80s,90s and 00s, and two in the 1970s. Leaving aside the 1980 abortive recovery, this provides a baseline to look at a hiring recovery. First a simple benchmark - for this purpose a hiring recovery is a period where there is no more than one month with job losses in any 3 month period. This weeds out recessions and troughs, and looks only at recovery and expansion periods.
Now one can quibble about hiring base - that is, earlier recoveries were growing in a smaller economy. However, the converse argument - which I will spin out later, is that there was a "big bang" after world war II that the US economy has been mining since then, and that big bang is fading out - that is, while earlier economies were smaller, they were also lower down on the curve of diminishing returns of growth.
Finally these curves are not adjusted for either inflation or deficits - which are the two other legs of the governance triangle.
Seems to me that our press is, in fact, nicer to a sitting constitutional official than a mere relative there - already there are official investigations in Korea.
It is strange when the US is losing transperancy contests to a country that indicted one of its former Presidents for embezzlment.
For those who can't see this coming, we've turned an important corner to the world war that we are working towards - once mass reaction and propaganda is sacrosanct, it is only a matter of time before a generation raised on it is thrown into the fire.
^VIX CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX 12.32 +0.57%
000001.SS SSE Composite Index 1,299.166 +1.00%
^N225 NIKKEI 225 15,932.83 -1.56%
^GSPC S&P 500 INDEX 1,280.00 +0.35%
^DJI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 11,058.97 +0.28%
^FCHI CAC 40 4,934.09 -0.55%
^SSMI SMI 7,797.20 -1.08%
^FTSE FTSE 100 5,791.50 -0.01%
^GDAXI DAX IND 5,764.37 +0.02%
^IXIC NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,276.43 +0.63%
Europe mixed - US muted confidence on Bernanke's upbeat comments on the economy. So much for openness - while it isn't greenspeak - which was, after you got used to it fairly clear, Bernspeak is filled with strange passive constructions which leave even less indication of what he is thinking.
The key to a central banker is to get to understand his models, what he follows and uses. Once this is understood, statements become exercises of looking at how those models are behaving and where the error bars are now. Greenspan's models relied heavily on controling wage push inflation - though he would not have preferred that term. What does Bernanke look at?
I have high hopes for Ben Bernanke as Fed Chief. For the very simple reason that I know he has spent his life in pursuit of a futile dream. It seems strange to me that people in the economics profession who ought to know better don't.
Let's cover this relatively simply and see where it goes.
Ben Bernanke has spent his academic career looking for the Holy Grail of conservative economics - how to avoid the Great Depression without FDR. If Hoover avoids the Great Depression, there is no FDR. No FDR means no New Deal, and all of what followed it.
Their story runs this way: the fed caused the Great Depression with bad policy decisions. Find the right policy decisions, and Hoover wins the elections of 1932, and we have a good Hayekian government again, devoted to "rugged individualism" that is not "on the road to serfdom". The Fed's "Great Contraction" is the root cause, so the question is how to, within the context of the Federal Reserve of 1929, create liquidity without breaking the gold standard, or by moving to a "fiat money" system which is, none the less, sufficiently restrained, to prevent the inflationary evils of Keynesianism and government regulation. We would still have all the things that the New Deal ended, like say, child labor.
Celebration on Wall Street at signs of inflation easing
by Stirling Newberry
Wall Street in the middle of an interest rate raising campaign from the Fed is like a child getting a whupping: with each blow comes the search for any sign that the flurry is going to end - a hesitation, a lightness of a particular stroke. Today the street saw Oil ease below 60 - indicating that this oil run up was not going to top the fall one, and that therefore there might be an end soon to interest rate hikes.
The hope is this - one more interest rate increase will weakly invert the supply curve, but not strongly enough, perhaps, to slow the economy into recession. This hope is based on the idea that consumers will spend to fill their new homes and that businesses are finally ready to step up and invest in new capital equipment, which, plus exports to Europe and the rest of the world, will be the basis for a second part of this economic cycle.
^VIX CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX 12.25 -8.24%
^GSPC S&P 500 INDEX 1,275.53 +1.00%
^DJI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 11,028.39 +1.25%
^FCHI CAC 40 4,961.34 +0.08%
^SSMI SMI 7,882.43 -0.09%
^FTSE FTSE 100 5,792.30 -0.02%
^GDAXI DAX IND 5,763.40 +0.12%
^IXIC NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,262.17 +1.00%
The VIX dropped sharply, but not yet to our local bottom, indicating that this rally could see 11,500 on the topside. Which might be enough for many traders to take their money and go home for the first half of the year, but which won't be sufficient to stem the problems with energy costs.
The yield curve action is keeping the medium term bills and notes as a pivot - it is now a race between the newly restored long bond (huzzah for the long bond) and the low end of the curve. This indicates that the bond and the VIX are in disagreement - the bond market sees an increase in systematic risk - that is the cost of the 1 month t-bill as the implicit return risk, while the vix sees the options risk as falling. Who is right? Remains to be seen.
Remember that the first half of a long economic cycle - and the entirety of a short one - comes from sloshing of "the carry trade" - borrow short, lend long. Since this is low risk, cyclically risk indicators such as the VIX drop down to lows. However, what comes next is one of two things: either investors start taking more risk, or there is a recession and gains erode. Either way, the VIX has to rise for their to be significant change in the market - the other option is "a snake" - which winds along "range bound" until something happens that makes money want to move.
Today's drop below $60 on the spot market convinced some money to move to a more aggressive stance, that perhaps the slowing campaign will shake enough money out of the inflation tree to get things going. What helps is that sick man Europe is still mired in a trough, having lost several opportunities for a rebound. England holds out well because of its oil reserves, and Norway thrives - but the rest of Europe is manufacturing and service based, not resource based.
613%. With unemployment at 70%, this has met the threshold of "a cycle of inflation without any tendency to equilibrium". The currency is in free fall - street rates are headed for twice the official rate - and the economy is closing down to the "kleptocracy" stage - where people sell what they have rather than try and make more.
Paul Hackett, who electrified the Democratic Party faithful by nearly staging a special election upset in the heart of corrupt Republican Ohio, has pulled out of the Senate race there. There is some murmuring among his supporters, who admire his fight. However, what this is really the result of is lack of communication within the Democratic Party, candidates need to be more forthright with each other about plans, so that the available targets of opportunity can be more easily divided up - because, after all, it is the ability to increase the number, and quality, of seats, that is important.
It's my earnest hope that Paul Hackett takes this in stride - the question is when, not if, he is going to be in higher elected office. As for Ohio - Brown is a solid progressive, who has a great team behind him. In fact, many of the people who were instrumental in helping bring Hackett close to victory are working for Brown in this election. This wasn't a case of machine Democrat - or worse Vichycrat - against an insurgent, but a swerve as two highly qualified people were driving for the same open lane.
No harm, no foul. Now let's get to work on putting Paul Hackett's talents to best use. And take the lesson - candidates who are seriously considering a run need to have better back channel negotiations.
Remember how Cheney mocked Kerry's hunting trip? Kerry has never dished out any friendly fire. Even the Swifties wouldn't claim that in their smear all fiboire.*
*Fiboire - story that purports to be an account of events, but which is actually a tissue of a million little pieces of the truth tied together with a few very large lies.
One of the important points that shows up from time to time is the equivalence of Rage in this, the end of the modern, and lust at the end of the 19th century romantic - using both periods in their "long" form. The reason is rather simple. The 19th century based its supremacy on nature - that it was more "natural" than other ideologies, and that the elevation of artifice within a more natural system was the sign of its superiority. It also argued, from Nature, that it's elevation of what we now call "romantic love" was the foundation of the family unit, and its social strength/ There is a problem with this - if one makes Nature and Love the basis of ones society - then Sex and Procreation come after it, particularly in a time with few effective forms of birth control.
This leads down another road - the 19th century also believed in using economic forces to restrain people. This can be seen from the later age of first marriage in England. This is an inherent tension - if economic success is the key to entry into Marriage, but the society is saturated with images of Nature and Love - that is to say Sexually Erotic imagery - then the sublimation of this drive becomes the hallmark of the society. That is, lust was the subterranean, and unspeakable, result of a society that at once elevated the erotic, and at the same time chained it with economics.
In the modern, sexual liberation is almost a given, even if there are rear guard actions against it. However, sexual liberation does not occupy the same place in our pantheon, instead the modern basis its superiority on Revolution. But the problem is the same. One can't in a system based on large capital complexes have lots of revolutions - it is too hard on the equipment. So revolution is something that one gets permission through economic success. The Rolling Stones can have a revolution, you can't.
Netflix throttles customers, gets agreement to rob them
by Stirling Newberry
Your tax cuts at work company shafts customers by mailing DVDs more slowly, then gets an agreement to automatically charge people more for DVDs later.
This is a settlement? Sounds more like reward. I know a couple of people who are thinking of cancelling, now I am going to tell the rest that unless they are junkies for films they can't get elsewhere - cancel cancel cancel.
$25M mandatory Restitution
IRS additional
Guilty plea with allocution
108-135 months, concurrent with other outstanding charges, not to be considered as part of any other sentencing.
Oh, yeah, and Court TV is all over - the Wisconsin tire slashing story, with a blonde presstitute throwing cream puffs to a right wing smirking head who is holding up Karl Rove as a model of campaign propriety.
That bump near the end is the 20 year, the bond without a market. Note that the yield curve is now inverted between the 3 month and the 30 year, and that there is less than one 25 basis point increase between the two. The Fed Funds spot market is predicting two 25 basis point increases before mid year.
The European markets were solid, following on yesterday, but, after being up by almost a percent, the New York market sold off, with only the Dow finishing green:
^GSPC S&P 500 INDEX 1,263.78 -0.15%
^DJI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 10,883.35 +0.23
^FCHI CAC 40 4,955.74 +1.24%
^SSMI SMI 7,873.61 +0.53%
^FTSE FTSE 100 5,808.70 +1.46%
^VIX CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX 13.12 +2.26%
^GDAXI DAX IND 5,743.68 +1.36%
^IXIC NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,255.87 -0.49%
We still need to get to around VIX 15 before this market is ready to rally, and we are running out of time for two sustained rallies in the good half of the year. One may be all we get.
One of the strange spectacles is media people being lied to directly and still taking it. It seems strange that anyone would want a reputation for being a moron and a buffoon, someone so credulous and stupid as to accept obvious falsehoods and smile.
Bremer is now shilling his book "my year in Iraq", his public statements contain a raft of outright falsehoods which are being uncritically accepted by the various media outlets he appears on. From unqualified buffoon who presided over Iraq spiralling out of control - what can you say about a man whose economic performance is worse that Saddam Hussien's? - to part of a coordinated attempt to deceive the American public.
Two statements came forward as being outright falsehoods. Bremer stated that in his time in Iraq oil was only mentioned twice. If this were true, he should have been fired. Anyone with half a brain who had an economic advisor with half a wit could understand that crucial to Iraq being normalized would be the re-establishment of oil exports, and the discipline that having to meet agreements would bring. But we know this wasn't true - there was the decision to protect the oil ministry early, there was the decision to deploy troops to the oil fields, there was the decision to hire the "Free Iraqi Forces" of Ahmed Chalabi to protect oil infrastructure. In short, a great deal of thinking about oil went on.
The second straight forward lie is about the number of UN resolutions that Saddam was inviolation of at the outbreak of the invasion - Bremer quotes 17. However, as facts indicate, this is contingent on his hidng WMD - there was no such hiding of WMD, and it is impossible to prove a negative.
The continued acceptance of outlets such as CNN of outright falsehoods brings to mind previous eras where news outlets shamefully kneeled to power and access and distorted or hid stories of importance. The continued descent of CNN into "Cartoon News Network" indicates that, clearly, news and reality, as CNN's executives see it, have nothing to do with each other.
Yahoo and AOL are going to start allowing Spam Whitelists at the cost of a quarter a cent per email - in an effort to shut down the internet. They have previously lied to the public about the program - calling it "a spammer's worst nightmare" - when in fact it is AOL and Yahoo making a profit by allowing spam.
Since Cheney has no statutory authority to do this, absent a transfer of power from the President, this means that either Cheney is now on the hook for whatever law breaking was done, or his constitutional superior is.
From now on, it is the "republican congress". The Republican Congress. Not Congress, the Republican Congress. If the Republicans want complete control over Congress, then we should remind people at every turn who the bums are when it comes time to cleaning up the Bowery on the Potomac.
In short, if anyone, anywhere in the west says anything at any time which can be used to inspire riots, the oilarchy will use it. This shows that the entire "self-restraint" mantra and "respect" mantra is, as it should be obvious, a lie. Instead it is grovelling before rulers who have the oil that we so desperately depend on. In short it is a craven capitulation to the power of energy inflation. The world should take note, the price of betting on Bush is your liberty. Fortunately Britains seem eager to pay.
It is also a converse lesson - if the West wants to remain free, it must pay the price of being free. Currently it is not willing to do this.
Thus while the right has prattles about freedom not being free - their budgets show that they are dependent on the river of money coming from abroad to finance their expensive defense addiction.
Let's be realistic, we could not even balance the budget without touching defense or entitlements, even if we shut down the rest of the government - all of it. And that is before taking into account the higher interest rate environment we are going to be living in. Bush's 2007 budget has spending increases - which is the last one he has to politically live with.
Seems like Bush is the only guy in America who wasn't locking in low 30 year rates when he had the chance. Guess that's what happens when playing with OPM.
One of the most shameful periods in the Western press, more shameful than now even, was when outlets such as the BBC and the New York Times decided to find accomodation with totalitarianism. Stalin's purges were whitewashed, Nazi atrocities and intents were downplayed, and their criticis silenced.
How should we live in this brave new world? How can we stay free in it? Like most of my friends, I have been agonising about this over the past week. We feel this is a defining moment, for all who live in Europe. And we know that there are no simple answers. The least bad outcome will be a painful compromise between the universal right to free speech - the oxygen of all other freedoms - and the need for voluntary self-restraint in such a mixed-up world."
Where does the development in development arbitrage come from?
by Stirling Newberry
When an economist can't explain the numbers he looks for "intangibles". Earlier today I posted on development arbitrage. The question is what the components of that development arbitrage represent. The pessimists, like myself, believe that a great deal of it rests on US fiat exercise, and the existence of the US economy as an engine of people who understand the modern economy well, and are thus better equipped to design products for it.
The technosloptimists simply extend lines further and say we have a bottomless well. This is junk economics, and is pumped out by the right wing Hudson Institute etc.
However, the optimists view, which is far more defensible rests on the value of US R&D. It is, in essence, the converse of the pessimistic viewpoint, in that it argues that the advantage in intellectual capital comes, not from rent, but from capital expenditures. That is, that R&D spending is a good correlative of future results. [He also has a blog entry. It is in response to Brian Setser's entry on the original story.]
One phrase people here have read over and over again is "development arbitrage" - where the United States borrows at a low rate of interest on treasuries and other bond instruments, and then lends to develop capital. The difference in interest rates is "development arbitrage" - people invest in the US for safe places to park money, and the US helps drive development of the rest of the world, taking the difference as profit.
If there is a single piece of economics that conservatives hate, it is the phillip's curve - the trade off between macro-inflation and macro-employment. First, because it is blamed for the hated results of LBJ - leaving aside that later Republicans would borrow and spend far more than LBJ ever dared to. The other part is that it is a dagger aimed straight at the heart of those who hold currency, and have no alternative store of wealth. No one fears a currency tax, more than those who would flee it if they could.
The problems with the Phillips Curve of the 1950's and 1960's are many. In the first case it assumed that there was no bottleneck commodity - that inflationary pressures could be managed by substitution. In the case of oil, this was not the case. The second problem is that it was looked at as a trade off between macro-inflation and macro-employment. This is not correct, and events have shown why: that is, economic actors, when faced with macro-inflation will engage in macro-behavior that thwarts the expansionary intentions of allowing macro-inflation. That is, those players that can will demand even more compensation for inflation risk.
I have bad news. They are wrong. In fact, they even know it if they look at it closely. Because after all what is "labor arbitrage" but a reverse Phillips curve - trading off lowered inflation for lowered employment. And if we look at China, we see a PhC on a vast scale - where the central bank there is accepting very high inflation in return for the macro-employment that it generates. China is helping export wage deflation, and commodity inflation, to the rest of the world. This means that macro-inflation remains tame, because the two meso-pressures offset: higher commodity prices are being paid for by lower wages.
Here was a man who believed with all of his might that the pursuit of violence at any time is ethically and morally wrong; that God and the moral weight of the universe are against it; that violence is self-defeating; and that only love and forgiveness can break the vicious circle of revenge. He believed that nonviolence would prove effective in the abolition of injustice in politics, in economics, in education, and in race relations. He was convinced, also, that people could not be moved to abolish voluntarily the inhumanity of man to man by mere persuasion and pleading, but that they could be moved to do so by dramatizing the evil through massive nonviolent resistance. He believed that nonviolent direct action was necessary to supplement the nonviolent victories won in federal courts. He believed that the nonviolent approach to solving social problems would ultimately prove to be redemptive.
How could he have failed to criticise the War in Iraq now, as he criticised Vietnam then? How could he have failed to criticise the packing of courts now, when he criticised their inaction then?
It is necessary to make peace. Sometimes that will involve war, but in the vast majority of cases, it will involve loosening one's hold on what one thought was easily taken, and broadening the future. It is appropriate that Martin Luther King, who fell out with LBJ over the Vietnam War, was remembered at this funeral with the reminder that the work of ending wars of aggression is still left uncompleted. That people have unequal chances, and unequal fates in this America, based on the color of their skin and the circumstances of their birth. It is appropriate that the right wing wants to attack King and his legacy, because they have built an entire political party based on fear of the swarthy menaces - black, arab, mexican.
There is a serious discussion about what "values" means, and where it fits into the political scene. One method of looking at this question is the use of a survey which asks about specific beliefs, and then attempts to correlate them into a series of categorizations of different world views. One such survey, conducted by Environics, and analyzed byNordhaus and Shellenberger was used to reach the conclusion that America is becoming more "authoritarian and more nihilistic".
Now leaving aside my own problems with "value" based analysis as essentially consumeristic, and therefore essentially a dead end - one can only appeal to consumers when one offers goods and services that consumers are willing to pay far more than they cost to produce, this survey in particular is, contentious.
Name Last Change
000001.SS SSE Composite Index 1,282.096 -0.43%
^N225 NIKKEI 225 16,720.99 0.0%
^GSPC S&P 500 INDEX 1,254.81 -0.81%
^DJI DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 10,750.08 -0.45%
^VIX CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX 13.58 +4.14%
^IXIC NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,244.96 -0.61%
Well the LA Times Brownstein admits: "while making permanent the sweeping tax cuts from his first term that are due to expire by 2011". Some discpline. Obviously, in wingnutese, "bold" means robbing from the poor to give to the rich. Which means that he should write that "Louis XVI had a bold economic agenda before he was beheaded in the French Revolution." Or perhaps "A Ponzi Scheme is a bold financial scheme involving having no product but using all procedes from current investors to pay off previous investors." Or how about "The British had a bold way of handling the Irish potatoe shortage which resulted in medicine for Ireland's overspending problem."
Or how about: "The president's $2.77-trillion budget for 2007 would eliminate or sharply curtail 141 programs. He proposed $65 billion in cuts in the rate of growth of federal benefit programs over the next five years — $36 billion of it from Medicare. Taxes would be reduced by $280 billion during the same period — and by $1.4 trillion over the subsequent five years."
In otherwords - he is proposing 215 billion dollars of net deficit spending. Yup, that sure is there fiscal conservative balanced budget type direction to take this here country in. Yep, yep. Believed by anyone who failed to get a third grade education.
Seems to me, that Brownstein should change his name to Brownose - and we all know where he has been putting it to get it that way.
Iran suspends trade with Denmark. There has been a great deal of Junk scholarship on the oil weapon, and it is worth reminding what the historical experience is - that as a means of compellence, it has very little use - even in circumstances where the target nations are vulnerable. Nations will fight rather than give in over the use of oil as a weapon, even if that dependency hobbles their ability to actually fight.
Instead, however, there is a long track record of the ability to use an oil weapon to gain strategic advantage, either by raising the price of oil, or by putting the enemy at a sufficient disadvantage to impair their war fighting ability.
The present Cartoon protests are not about the cartoons, but instead building popular support for using the oil weapon. The correct arrow of causality is not that there is a desire for compellence which finds expression in the use of the oil weapon, but that there is a desire for advantage which is then leveraged into popular support by claiming the use of the oil weapon. In short, leaders convince their publics that the oil weapon is being used for some just cause, when they want the higher prices that it brings.
Iran's sabre rattling - on Israel, atomic weapons and now protests, is really targetted at asserting its dominance in the oil pricing market. It could not convince OPEC to go along with a program of tightening, so, instead, it is generating geo-political uncertainty which raises oil prices without OPEC's approval. The key is that they know that OPEC is stretched, that there are not other sources to meet demand, and that Iraq is going to remain off line for years to come. Therefore they have every reason to take advantage now, before Iraq comes on line, and before the mechanized nations take steps to improve the energy density of their economies.
The inflationary point of "core" CPI should be killed dead by a simple graph, which we hereby reprint:
Note how sustained spikes of CPI over CPI core are signs of bad economic times. It isn't a perfect indicator, but do the Bayesians out, and it looks like a pretty good one.
This should make sense - we buy "stuff", particularly energy, and we sell "goods" if the price of goods is going down relative to "stuff" then our economy is in trouble - we work harder to buy less. With oil having bottomed at 11 and hovering around 66 - I would say this formula is in place now.
The other point, on yield spreads needs a new graph. The reality is that the fed got serious earlier - the yield spread on this economic cycle widened much faster. This is largely the difference in the state of the federal balance sheet. In the 1990's, there was heavy debt associated with the S&L bail out and hang over from Reagan deficits.
Yahoo finance reports on itself in an extremely dishonest way, to the point of conflict of interest. Recently it announced that companies that want to be white listed must pay $.0025 per message. Spammers are unaffected, they don't pay, but go through spam filters. This is really another shot in the "protection racket" internet charging that is growing in force - companies demanding that they have the power to charge other companies for equal access. Soon toll roads will be all over the internet as a way of crushing content generation - whether corporate or coöperative, in favor of pipe owners. Pipe owners want to charge twice - once for the user, and once for the content generator.
Yahoo calls this "a spammer's worst nightmare". when, in fact, white spam is a user's nightmare, since suddenly email from other addressed outside of the provider may, or may not, get to you. In short, this is a way of destroying smaller email/isp providers, who can't simply absorb the cost.
If we had a government, rather than a criminal conspiracy to spy on us, this sort of thing would be regulated out of existence in a heart beat.
Shows the yield curve nearly inverted from the 2 all the way out to the thirty Both Oldman and I predicted that taking the 30 year off the market would not change the yield curve problems, and that "if the economy is going to have a recession, not selling the 30 year will not change it". The bond market, fleeing for safety as geo-political uncertainty mounts, seems to be bearing this out.
The reason a recession occurs is when there is too much dead capital that is betting on growth, at the same time the federal reserve is squeezing growth. Essentially, dollar sit around, because the more they try to hide, the more they push rates down at the top end of the yield curve. The fiscal authority - that's K Street in our system now - can fend off recession by spending, which shows up as borrowing, which increases bond supply, which raises long rates, but the fed will just sanitize this by raising short term rates even more.
Merkel Compares Iran to Hilter, Oil Prices Rise again
by Stirling Newberry
Oil prices seemed destined for the mid 60's for the time being as Iran continues to rattle sabres, and novice Chancellors hyperventilate. Merkel is willing to go along with Bushism if she gets the chance. I hope the German public is willing to accept what comes along with joining a never ending war on everyone fought with nothing.
The Steelers won on big plays and stiffening near the goal lines. The team that won its name on paleofootball running instead looked like an underdog fighting to come from behind. One big pass from Big Ben, one perfect throw from fourth on the depth chart Randel El, and one huge run from Willie Parker constituted Pittsburgh's scoring. Big Ben looked like he did last year in the playoffs - unable to get passes completed, throwing a big pick near the end zone - but making key runs and keeping plays alive. And the Bus? He ate the fourth quarter as a pounder.
"No communications are intercepted unless first it is determined that one end of the call is outside of the country, and professional intelligence experts have probable cause [that is, 'reasonable grounds to believe'] that a part to the communication is a member or agent of al-Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organisation."
As determined by the people who told us that Saddam had 911 connections, bin Laden wasn't a problem until 911, who can't find the Anthrax attacker and who committed perjury and obstruction of justice to burn Plame. More over "probable cause" can only be decided by a judge.
This is warrantless spying on Americans with a usurpation of judicial authority by an out of control executive which is now lying to cover up lies about lies. Looks like Bush is going to have to hand out pardons like candy.
Polls show that spying on Americans is not supported, and the law shows that the executive does not have the legal authority to order spying unless both ends are enemies.
And Alito should be four firm votes to confirm that preëmptive pardons are constitutional.
Have a nice life in the Freeple's Republic. Even the FT is not impressed.
The three phases of this game have been Seattle moves but can't score, Pittsburgh dominates but can't put it away and Seattle comes back.
The Seahawks look like the Pats did for the last 4 years, defense keeps you in, and then the offense comes back late with an almost flawless execution.
Almost isn't good enough here - the momentum has shifted again. The Steelers need to capitalize, but haven't moved the ball well since the last pick.
The team the Steelers remind me of is the 1970's Cowboys - stymie them, and out comes a wide open gagdet play. El gets a better QB rating today than Big Ben. Think about it - one run, two big pass plays and a pick - that's what puts the Steelers up. That and keeping Seattle out of the house so far.
MVP so far? Hines Ward. Hines Ward. Hines Ward.
The ugly is happening, the right side of the line is collapsing as the Steeler's overload it. And there is Troy making the play... Seattle escapes a second time, this time on getting the turnover back.
Cower has won almost 150 games. In 100 of those wins, he has had a lead of 10 or more points. Basically, Cowher is a .500 coach in close games, but once he gets a lead, he almost never gives it up.
Boom - Parker put the game in the Cowher zone with his speed. Now they Steelers need to be able to generate time consuming drives down field, and contain Jackson and Alexander, who are the two weapons on Seattle's side who can come back - the way they brought Seattle back from a whole in Dallas earlier this year. Big mo started with the Seahawks, but they did not close the deal.
Now they have to show they can come back.
The Bus is running - dominance runs, trap blocking - overwhelming the light Seattle line. They are bending, and now are one bad play away from having the Steelers up 21 to 3 - or even 17-3 without a take away or big effort.
Gigantic interception for the Seahawks, now deep in Pitt territory. Cowher should have kept his arms folded, because now the Seahawks are back in the game.
Already established Jackson with five catches, and are knocking on the door. The Steelers have nearly picked off one pass, but have gotten nothing going on offense.
These games ebb and flow, but the flow is coming from the NFC champs who have been moving the ball with a short field.
Stop Jackson or lose the game Dick.
The game is more lopsided than 3-0 looks - the Seahawks have over 100 total yards of offense, the Steelers - barely over 10. If it weren't for key penalties, the Seahawks would be on the board with a TD.
Interception for the 'hawks - just as Pitt was putting together its first good drive. The defense has to step up, the 17 is the reverse red zone, and Pitt needs a short field to get some points.
Major stop for the Steeler's D. Their best chance of the half so far.
The Steeler's finding their range - two more respectable drives, and some ground game to go with it.
Now that was amazing - backed up to third and a mile, Big Ben makes the clocks chime. The Steelers were slow off the blocks, but are now starting to pull it out. This team has heart.
The Steelers need this one on the goal line. I would go for it all on fourth.
Call will probably be reviewed... let's see what the eyes say.
The half is winding down, and Seattle starts on the 27 for a two minute drill chance.
Hasselbeck has been as good as advertised all the way through - clean throws, precision work, but his team has not been able to contain the pressure without holding. On the other side, Hines Ward clearly does not want to let this thing get away.
Half ends with Seattle having the clear edge in the play of the skill positions, but clearly behind on both lines - hence the penalties. The steelers have had only 5 good plays on offense - enough for a touchdown and the lead. The next half is going to look very different, because I can't imagine either coach being happy. Before the game there were three games that could happen - the "one team gets inside the other's head" - which hasn't really happened - the "shoot out".
And this game, which is a slugfest. With Pittsburgh daring Hasselbeck to beat them with the pass, and Seattle trying to take it away on the down field throws.
Journalists for old media are defending their turf and their paychecks, even at the cost of basic ethics and professionalism. This has, over the course of the last year, come back to haunt the profession, as it has circled the wagons around people who want to turn the front page of the New York Times into an infomercial for the Republican Party.
Linked in with this is the major failure from the other direction - Dan Rather's memos. Where there was a story, there were people who were willing to state there was a story, but there was no proof - and so CBS accepted proof which slid below the standards that they would normally have set. The result was an uproar which, perhaps ironically, immunized George Bush from the results of having ridden the SS Swiftboat back into power.
Isikoff of MSNBC reports that the screaming point "she wasn't covert" is a fabrication. In fact, the papers are so specific it raises the possibility that those people purveying the point were engaged in an attempt to obstruct justice by tainting the jury pool.
The delay of the trial means that Bush will never face actual accountability for the merely "watergate" style indiscretion of the administration. It also means that future administrations are going to realize that after the reelection, and perhaps even before, they can "work the refs" to slow deny, delay and demoralize the judicial process. It is becoming clear that perhaps the most important victory of the Republican 1990's was abusing, and then killing, the independent prosecutor law.
And creating a new version of it should be on the top of any Democratic '06 agenda.
Wikipedia is like a body - constantly under attack from disease that would tear it to bits. The problem is that the amount of effort involved in keeping this happening - the control of the immune system, is eating up more and more time, and the threats are growing in strength.
Wait, there already is a committee meeting in secret that every few months votes to get rid of parts of the constitution, it's called Bush's cabinet...
While cost control is important, this is precisely the wrong way to do it, since it reduces the insurance to those who need it, and gives more incentive to cover people who don't need it. The supporter of HCA spells it out - insurance companies want to provide 1/10th the insurance at 1/2 the cost. Good deal if you can get it. And the other people? Well they are in God's hands.
Yes, it really is faith based economics. To bad most people live in the reality-based world.
Why is it that the multi-billion dollar top down media world screws things up, and we get blamed?
If there is anything truly sad about this moment, it is watching reactionaries who think they have culture because they consume it. Stephanie Zacharek has always been a shallow twit, and now she's crossed the line into unpleasant fuck. It isn't "bloggification" that afflicts movies or television, it is economics of mass produced anything, and the need to use rental and capital advantages to keep a high barrier to competition.
What we need a break from is not blogification, but from the greed and crass turf defending of the pipe people.
UK now the target of protests over the cartoon depicting Islam's prophet Mohammed with a bomb. Effigies burned in Pakistan and across the middle east. French and Danish flags burned at protests in Europe.
CNN pixelates the cartoon in its broadcasts - clearly the chilling effect is working. The counter response is interesting - it has even spawned A blog. Yes it has a picture of the cartoon that started all of this.
There are two connections - one is the furor over religious symbols here in the US at various times. The other is the reality of the deaths of hundreds in a ferry disaster. The danger to the people in the Islamic world isn't cartoon hatred, it is their own disregard for the lives of their fellow muslims.
The above chart shows the difference in hiring between the Bush and the 1990's recoveries. The right wing makes all kinds of excuses for Bush's poor record - hiding behind Clinton and Osama bin Laden's skirts. This chart shows why their explanations are pure nonsense. The chart dates the hiring recovery from the bottom of payroll positions. I've taken the most generous starting point for both Clinton and Bush. This takes out of the picture the long trough of 2002-2003 and sets both recoveries at an even point cyclically - where the "rebound" starts. These rebound dates are confirmed by bond yield curve steepness. It also gets rid of the problems of adjusting 2002 versus 2001. The numbers used are the seasonally adjusted payroll positions from the bls, in thousands - which obviates the problems of the household survey's volatility. 1990's numbers use the "bias plug" where as Bush numbers are using the "birth death" model.
As you can see - taking the most generous dates for Bush, leaving aside the long trough - that the hiring recovery was, at first, ahead of the 1990's hiring recovery - itself slow in starting, but leading to a long economic cycle.
The unders have it, with a C- expansion month. Construction is still the driver here: 46K direct jobs, plus many of the manufacturing and goods producing jobs, and many of the jobs in the financial sector. The housing boom echos are still here, even if the top has blown off of it.
On the A side of the report - the employment participation rate held steady at 66 percent, confirming what the J number tells us, that there is no hiring recession coming this year. The headline unemployment rate reached 4.7%, which says that there is no room for monetary policy easing, and that this economy is reaching "full employment" for it.
Average hourly earnings remain volatile, chalking up a 7 cents per hour gain, the first time there had been two consecutive good months since early 2003.
I sit here typing this on an EVDO cellular broadband card. On my mac 17". Sure, starbucks would charge me 6.95 for the privilege of slightly faster wireless. A hotel might charge 15.95 for bad 802.11b - read slow - wireless. However slate.com is befuddled. They needn't be - because there are two components to charging for wireless in the hotel. The first is how many guests will walk based on it, the second, is whether guests will pay someone else for less than 24 hour access. Would they walk down to the Krispy Kreme and get fast broadband for an hour for 8.95 with two lattes and two donuts thrown in for free?
Right now a reporter from a well known right wing outlet is looking around for evidence that the left wing blogsphere is marginalizable, and that the Alito hearings have produced a permanent rift.
Let's admit that the handling of the hearings were an MCF - it was not well organized, not well done, with bad message, no real support from the party and keystone cop handling of pelting and connection between leaders and party base. It isn't that many members weren't fired up - Sen. Kennedy hasn't been as on the mark and eloquent in ages on anything, because nothing so obviously touched the core of his family's legacy in American politics.
After every trip shopping to fcuk there is fallout - jostling, arguments, screams of pain. People get slagged for telling too much truth, and egos clash on how to avoid the problem. There are real problems with the Democratic Party apparatus.
Strangely, or not if you actually think about it, all of the above means that ideologically the left is getting less, not more, divided. Every year the distance between the activist base and the elected leadership is getting narrower - and in the favor of the views of the activist base. If the right wing wants to write a smear, they narrative they should go with is not the alienation of the internet, but the internetification of the party leadership.
Lowered productivity and higher labor costs combined to give us lack luster news for the day. The major indexes, which still have not set a local VIX peak, had a 1% down day, and began pushing the indicator back up. We really need to get to 15 to clean out the negativity and begin building a floor.
Europe joined in the sell off and closed down around 1%.
CAC 40 4,927.89 -1.43%
SMI OHNE DIV.-KORR. 7,785.94 -0.64%
FTSE 100 5,747.30 -0.94%
CBOE VOLATILITY INDEX 13.15 6.39%
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE IN 10,851.98 -0.93%
DAX IND 5,649.60 -1.34%
NASDAQ COMPOSITE 2,281.57 -1.25%
4.32 1 mo
4.48 3 mo
4.62 6 mo
4.61 1 yr
4.59 2 yr
4.54 3 yr
4.51 5 yr
4.53 7 yr
4.57 10 yr
4.76 20 yr
The above chart offers insight into why the American public barely accepted a second Bush term, and has rapidly soured on him since. While the NBER dates the end of the last recession from late 2001, the reality is that the trough of hiring - which is the real end of the recession for most people - was not until 2003. I would argue that the NBER dates the end of the 2001 recession to early, and thus gives us a view that the present recovery and expansion cycle is much worse than it is. It isn't F-, it is merely C- in the first semester, and headed for a D in the second.
This table is in months from the final bottom of hiring. With the Clinton expansion there are two plausible dates, an early and a late one. With the earlier date, of course, Bush comes off looking somewhat better. But in both he starts even, pulls ahead for a while, and then falls farther and farther behind.
Sure, I'm dead meat as a blogger now that I've, once again, gotten in bad with powers that be. But let's kick back and wonk harder now that we don't have to where as to whether corporate top down media types like what's on the station.
You know, economics may be a tale told to an idiot, and it may be full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing? Let's take a look at that. The above is a chart of the spread between the 1 month t-bill and the 10 year note during the past recession, trough, recovery and expansion.
Here I am again on the receiving end of ire of the powerful. This time Markos Moulitas-Zuniga - who has pulled bopnews.com from the dailykos blogroll, thus personalizing what was not a personal post. However, the rumbling signs have been there. But the original post that has gotten me in trouble, as with the open letter to the Clark movement, was not personally directed at the leader. There are plenty of anti-Markos quotes out there, but I'm not here to purvey them.
The action, however, demonstrates what I did say, and that is that the dailykos has jumped the shark, and converted from a mechanism that points force outward, to one which is entirely concerned with inward directed dialog. It is now the church of meta-jesus.
George Bush didn't believe in global warming before he did. George Bush didn't like alternative fuels before he did. The Scum of the Universe speech is Bush's Halloween - he gets to dress up as a Democrat. After 911, he was FDR at war. Last year, he was JFK going to Mars. This year he dressed up as John Kerry, promisng energy independence.
As always, the press lets him go through this charade, because they know that there isn't going to be so much as a budge in the budget - more revenue reductions that benefit the corporate chieftains that own the media, more consolidiation, more eyeball getting bombing and wars, less money for poor people. Bush's budgets have been remarkably consistent - borrow and squander. His SOTU speeches have been Georgette in drag.
On Charlie Rose two Republishills were talking about how Bush was already on third and ready to take home in the next election. Just like every major speech. The reality is that Bush's approval numbers are starting to see the south side of 40%, and if the economy does not rocket off into boom land, it will stay that way. Early in December Republican operatives were pushing a "whisper number" for Bush's post SOTU approval number of 60%, or at least the high 50s. This is probably going to be what his disapproval number is sometime in the next few months.
The great consumer illusion is that ordinary people are great at outsmarting the man. The economic data over the last generation suggests that this is urban legend: the richest 1% have seen their net wealth increase dramatically, while everyone else has seen small to non-existent games. Before, real wealth rose relatively evenly across the economic scale. Consumers believe they are so wily and smart that the internet, like the car before it, will allow them to find things "they" don't want us to have.
Instead, the reality is that every component of the internet is produced by corporations, not by grass roots anything - with the exception of some of the software. Thus, every component, including things like Google, is open to corporate interest.
One of Bush's biggest tricks is to occasionally talk like a moderate wonk. This makes all the muddle moderates believe they can "reason" with him, because he says the same dumn things they do, and therefore support him, and attack anyone who tries to push Bush out of the mainstream. Last night's Scum of the Universe speech was a classic example. After dedicating 5 years of his presidency to waste, fraud, borrow and squander - Bush suddenly talks about oil addiction. It is a crass admission that, in 2000, Gore was Right. We've wasted trillions on a gamble that didn't pay off, and now the insider elite is figuring out how to dump the cost on the rest of us.
It was also a speech that was delivered in his typical halting dry drunk manner. Bush can talk about addiction to oil with sincerity, because he is an addict. Whether it was flying, cocaine, drinking and driving, or war - Bush loves to throw caution to the wind, so long as there is someone else to throw under the bus. He's fortunate, the Democratic Party as abused wife/alcoholic enabler, has never been a better suposition party - after all, if those who oppose are the opposition, those who are supine are the suposition.
There has been in the last few weeks a changing of the guard at the Daily Kos, both on the front page, and on the recommended diary list. I am out of the b list of diarists that can make that list, and thus it is time for me to stop writing for the kos community. It has been a great run, and I have nothing but gratitude for the community and its support. However, the reality is that the moment of swarm collapse has happened, where the community is talking only to itself. Kos is now what DFA became in the late days of the Dean campaign - a bubble. It was waiting to be organized from the top, while it keeps itself in the dark and feeds on shit. A few people will have the ability to cut through the noise - I'n not going to be one of them.
Since the core is gone, we've reached a plateau of this wave of blogging - the point where screaming has drowned out everything else.
Preparation:
The reverse DNS entry for an IP is found by reversing the IP, adding it to "in-addr.arpa", and looking up the PTR record.
So, the reverse DNS entry for 138.180.194.2 is found by looking up the PTR record for
2.194.180.138.in-addr.arpa.
All DNS requests start by asking the root servers, and they let us know what to do next.
See How Reverse DNS Lookups Work for more information.
How I am searching:
Asking e.root-servers.net for 2.194.180.138.in-addr.arpa PTR record:
e.root-servers.net says to go to figwort.arin.net. (zone: 138.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking figwort.arin.net. for 2.194.180.138.in-addr.arpa PTR record:
figwort.arin.net [192.42.93.32] says to go to ext-dns2.naples.navy.mil. (zone: 180.138.in-addr.arpa.)
Asking ext-dns2.naples.navy.mil. for 2.194.180.138.in-addr.arpa PTR record: Timed out [at 138.180.190.121]. Trying again.
Asking ext-dns1.naples.navy.mil. for 2.194.180.138.in-addr.arpa PTR record: Reports eunafw01.eu.navy.mil. [from 138.180.190.120]
Answer:
138.180.194.2 PTR record: eunafw01.eu.navy.mil. [TTL 7200s] [A=None] *ERROR* A record does not point back to original IP. RFC1912 2.1 disallows CNAMEs.
This is likely "Ray Lopez" again, since it comes from the same geographic region as the Italian ISP he uses.
Nice to know my tax dollars are being used to pornographically spam my wiki user page.
While no action will be taken until March, referal by the "Big 5" has happened and Iran says that the referal would result in the "nuclear program related activity from the reach of airstrikes, even those on rumored "digger" trident missiles armed with conventional warheads.
The next wave of US expansion is to colonize our river systems. Three in particular need to be looked at. The first is the Colorado system, the second is the mid-Mississippi area centered around Memphis, and the third is Central Valley of california. While it is economically ugly, it is physically beautiful, rich in land, and eminently developable. It needs educational institutions, infrastructure, changes in land pattern use, loans, and people - but, like Portland Oregon, it has the basic material for very livable metropolitan growth.
This points to a larger pattern - the United States needs to relieve pressure on cities. I know that the Democratic Party isn't in a mood to do so, because of the housing inflation vote, and the Republicans are busy chasing anything resembling economic growth out of the hinterlands - but the reality is that America needs to engage in an implosive development of land, joined by high speed corridors, and based on knowledge economies.
Greenspan leaves where Volcker did in the middle of a rate raising campaign, hoping to land an economy rather than crash it. The odds against him are getting longer, according to the yield curve, this is the last rate increase before "inversion". What has lead to some increasingly audible jitters is the consensus that there is at least one more coming.
Skip bayless doesn't want to go to the Superbowl. Fine, send me. No stories? Hassel back from the career grave? Big Ben the second youngest QB to helm a Superbowl team? Any game with Shaun Alexander is worth watching. What's this nonsense about "no sure hall of famers". One gets to be a sure hall of famer by being old. Want to see a game with two sure hall of famers? Then Watch Green Bay versus New York with Favre and Martin.
This game is loaded with guys who could be going to the hall - Alexander, Big Ben, Troy, Farrior, Tatupu. Both of these teams look to be back in the big game with their personnel. And Bettis not a hall of famer? Maybe he just needs a ring.
So if this superbowl - with the most polished West Coast offense to reach the big dance since Favre, and a gunslinger Steelers team that has reinvented itself from "conservative paleo football" to cutting edge modern defense and open offense that sprays the ball - isn't what you like, then it is time to find something other than football to write about. Because this game is going to be about football - great offensive lines, great defensive lines, two hall of fame bound coaches, and a confirmation that the new era of football is upon us - a faster, looser, more intelligent game, with improvisation and on the field decisions the likes of which hasn't been seen since QBs called all the plays.
This is the way the game is played today. So send me your tickets, I will live blog it. Because what is happening out here on the blogs and in the internet is happening there on the field too - top down is giving way to a more fluid world. If you don't want to write about that, then trade in your calender for something with a couple of nines on it.
This indicates that the fall off from the current economic situation is going to be worse, not better, since there is no pent up demand to satisfy - and home builders are going to pillage the stored up equity in houses. Which is what you would expect them to do, cash out of other people's houses.
Having come of age in the 1968 revolution in France and then rejecting Marxism, BHL felt confident to lecture: "The neocons remain more involved in our old historical optimism and messianism that I thought had died with Marxism ... I thought we had got rid of historical optimism and the providential design of history. After my 'Marxist season', I got rid of the idea. History is a painstaking process."
He offered his opinion on why the Bush administration had failed to prepare for postwar Iraq. "You have all the components of a philosophical mistake, a democratic messianism."
Mr Kristol took the critique well, bar some defensive sips of water. And he scored a small revenge with one admission: "It is ... a typical American offence: I haven't read the book."
Project for a new American science how neo-conning the facts leads to imperialist junk scholarship Part II
by Stirling Newberry
In the first part I accuse one R. Stern of everything short of fraud in his paper on oil abundance. He gets his history wrong, he gets his description of competing hypotheses wrong, he gets his micro-, meso- and macro- economics wrong, he gets his oil geology wrong, he sock puppets a right wing scholar and crows over predictions that turned out to be wrong, he fails to account correctly for the effects of technology. He is incoherent, on one hand arguing that the "oil weapon" hasn't hurt the US, on the other hand arguing that it has been the basis for a massive "wealth transfer" because the Saudis aren't selling their oil at rock bottom prices.
And what is ironic about this incredible string of incorrect assertions is that they are based on a simplistic model which wouldn't pass muster under ordinary circumstances. If John J. Boland had applied the same level of scrutiny to his protege's paper that he did to the Army Corps of engineers ESSENCE model - he'd have trashed it as having no emprical basis for its micro-economic inputs, a crude modelling of elasticity, a failure to account for additional costs and a failure to correctly account for the costs of management. In short, if Boland had one ounce of intellectual honesty, he, not I, would be trashing this horrific shambling pile of right wing screaming points.
Project for a new american science how neo-conning the facts leads to imperialist junk scholarship Part I
by Stirling Newberry
One expects peer reviewed papers to meet a certain basic standard of logic and factuality. Roger Stern shows how far below that standard one can go, with a paper that is peppered with right wing talking points that engages in outright lies and circular reasoning. This paper is an abomination, a snow job whose clear purpose is to simonize the discussion and insert far right wing junk scholarship into the debate. We've seen it with attempts to prevent global warming from being accepted, and even more egregiously with Ignorant Denial. Now we are getting the "Evil OPEC is responsible for all the trouble". The paper has bad geology, bad economics, bad politics, bad use of facts and figures, deceptive interpretation, failure to consider alternate hypothesis suggested by the same data, and a systematic use of bald assertions based on the above errors that reaches to the level of bad faith, and therefore, suggests academic fraud and political deception lie at the heart of the paper, its editing, its acceptance and its editing.
So expect them to have awards heaped on him by right wing institutions and a place on the squawk show circuit next to the other conmen of the right wing - Judith Miller who discovered non-existent WMD, the Dow 36,000 authors, Art Laffer of the Laffer curve and so on.
The upcoming State of the Union address has revived interest in
examining how well the economy is doing, how people are faring and
whether the current policies of tax cuts have generated jobs and growth,
as promised.
A number of observers seem to suggest that the economy is doing very
well and that people mistakenly believe that the economy is on the wrong
track. The facts are that trends in almost every indicator of the
aggregate 'macro' economy -- GDP growth, investment, payroll employment,
personal income-- have been inferior in this business cycle and recovery
when measured against earlier comparable periods."
This analysis is confirmed from a variety of other measures, both standard and more exotic. Even if we give Bush a big break and date the recovery from 2003, when the old rules would have started it, this is the worst post-war recovery save the 1980 double dip precursor.
Hamas wins massive victory in Palestinian Elections
by Stirling Newberry
The harvest of likudnick policies is a radicalized palestinian population, just aching for the next dose of blood money. As soon as the US pulls out of Iraq, they will get it it. The reason Sharon was in a hurry, is that he realizes his window to create a bantustan palestinian state is ending.
The converse side is that there is no politically mature Palestinian polity with which to negotiate - which assures that there will likely be another round of low intensity conflict, with current arrangements unravelling. Perhaps Israel can survive that next round, but each one pushes it closer to demographic reality of being out numbered and surrounded by an increasingly radical islamic world.
Background on yearly Kos trade presentation. What we are seeing is the failure of our energy and budget policies kicking into high gear. The world cannot survive half free and half unfree, and we cannot reward unfree nations with better trade, while punishing those trying to be free.
There's something about Slate magazine that knocks 50 points off of its writers IQ. Jack Shafer wonders why he's never been the target of pelting - the organized sending of emails and phone calls. Perhaps because, while he's written bad columns, he's never done the trip up two step: first lie, and then get arrogant about it. Oh, and be a the front of the line.
Shafer, however, is playing with fire. The outrage at the pervasive right wing bias of the press is very real. The public is angry - the high wrong track numbers show there is a political explosion coming, and when it comes, stepping back and pretending to just be the press is not going to be any protection.
UPN and WB to close - new network to form out of the wreckage
by Stirling Newberry
The end of broadcast as the kingpin of media is a long term story, another page was written as it became clear that there just isn't enough space to fill two networks of programming, especially ones with no sports or other drawing properties.
If he came from a bigger state, he would be mentioned as presidential timber, with his sharp wit and clean speaking style. If he came from a state with a Democratic Governor, he'd be mentioned as a vp possibility. But as it is, he's the sharpest policy strategist in the Senate, able to win big in Red State North Dakota with a combination of populism and budget mastery. He's also been itching to open fire on the Republican flank - last year advancing the idea that the Democrats could force votes on popular policy positions.
Now he's dropping the cross hairs on the toothless watch dog which is the Republican Senate, and is about to launch a plan that will cut into the flanks of the wholly-headed mamoth that is the Republican caucus. Once upon a time early Americans hunted small brained pachyderms in North Dakota, and now Byron Dorgan is going to give us an updated version.
And he's going to do it alternating his "gee shucks" nerdy grin, and pounding out the very long list of "these are the facts" in a Sargent Friday demeanor that is going to make compelling television, no matter how hard cable tries to bury it.
It's that the pressure on this economic cycle is growing, and the evidence is that the Fed is going to accept inflation rather than slow the economy down in time for 2006. It's a partisan bet, outside of the legal mandate of the Federal Reserve, and a clear violation of the integrity and neutrality which the Federal Reserve is supposed to display. The indicators are clear - resource inflation has taken hold and that means that, like it or not, another round of tightening is in order. The "slow comfortable screw" tightening campaign has failed to produce the result of a soft landing.
The old warhawkolic is hitting the battle again. There he was, telling Face the Nation that he wanted the President to spy on Americans, just so long as he promised to stop flagrantly violating the law. But it got worse, Lieberman talked about how "the military option had to be on the table" on Iran. Lesson from someone who rarely walks away down from the table - never put chips down against someone who knows that you are drawing dead. You won't even get time to kiss them good bye before he cleans you out.
There's no nice way to say this: Schmoementum has settled on Connecticut's most famous Senator. He's an embarassment - with poor judgement, and an itching to become the next Zellout Miller of the Senate. It's time to ring down the curtain on this painful play at being a Democrat, and send someone to Washington that will represent the best interests of the American public, and not coincidentally, Connecticut's residents.
CNN local stations have begun running heavy adds for Christianist themed merchandise - including hymn collections, badly sung in that elevator music style. It corresponds with their war drum beating, after all "Crisis News Network" gets better than double the ratings of "Community News Network" - that is to say, when there is a story, people tune in. There is a commercial bias at CNN in favor of crisis - war, death. This "if it bleeds it leads" bias is combined with the heavily situational nature of conservative viewers - they only watch if they are getting fellatiated by the anchors.
The reality of this is that it comes at a very different political and economic moment for CNN.
The recent spate of smears from Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough aren't to protect the Republican Party. Certainly they are directed at Democrats, but the real threat to Bush doesn't come from the Democrats, but from John McCain, who is now on cruise control to be the next President of the United States. With Hillary having the nomination of the Democratic Party all but wrapped up - and with McCain towering over anyone who would be allowed near the Republican nomination, the Bushites have a big problem, or rather, several big problems.
This is why the top down media is eagerly doing bin Laden's work, and sowing acrimony within the American body politic - because they are almost out of time, and out of any other options. When the turbluent moment of the economy hits - and it is very soon that it will, either they hold all the power, or they will find themselves on the receiving end of a massive political shock.
I am going to put my cards on the table - challenging Lieberman is a brilliant idea whose time has come. He has been disloyal, and in politics, that is the ultimate stab. It is a stab that has been used against the progressive left, the blogosphere and many people in it. Joe is disloyal.
What has brought Connecticut? Bush, bombs and bureaucratic blunders. By capitulating early in 2000's election crisis, he helped accelerate the log roll. By voting for the war in Iraq, he has brought America an expensive quagmire. By being the architect of the Department of Homeland Security, he has shunted the "war on terror" into an expensive boondoggle. While the ethos of bipartisanship, moderation and unity is laudable and praiseworthy - competence matters. It isn't enough to split an imaginary difference between to academically defined poles of political discourse. Sometimes the moderate course is radically different from the options presented.
Lamont's campaign is worthy of consideration - and it becomes one of the key progressive targets. People have talked about winning downhill races - the problem is that downhill races will become bejewelled with people who know they can win, the races that we need to back are the winnable but unthinkable races - because these can probe the power of the internet to tip the political balance.
This may be the race to do it - as the near upset of Specter has put him in line for the Republicans.
Because that is what attacks that don't threaten human lives are, mere vandalism.
Your tax cuts at work - a day after we are reminded that the world's number one terrorist is at large and at work - the justice department shows us why they are too busy protecting the resource rapist lobby to protect America.
On the heals of the reverberations from Al Gore's indictment of Bush, and more poll data supporting impeachment in just such a circumstance - this means that there is now, if not a smoking gun, then GSR spattered all over Spygate.
An elasticity of 0.08 has important consequences, because profitability is one of the most volatile series studied by economists. Consider the primary metals sector, which has the data set's minimum single value of p/n, of -1.39 in 1983 (thousands of 1972 dollars). Profit-per-employee in that sector was 11.06 in 1980; it fell to 5.21 in 1982; and it rose from a negative 1983 value to reach
3.5 by 1985. The data thus show that large movements, such as a quadrupling of profitability, are not uncommon in this sector. Some industries, of course, are more stable. The food sector, for example, sees p/n vary over the years of the data set from 11.04 to 19.76. Nevertheless, an examination of the 22-by-16 matrix of data points on industries' profits suggests, consistent with anecdotal observation, that major fluctuations in profitability are commonplace.
If the width of a distribution can be thought of as four standard deviations, the estimates make possible a calculation of the spread of pay caused by the dispersion of profits across sectors. Using Richard Lester's (1952) early terminology, the "range" of wages due to rent-sharing in U.S.
manufacturing is then approximately 24 per cent of the mean wage (this number emerges from multiplying 0.08 times 4 times 7.43/9.73). It seems that a quarter of the inequality in American pay packets may be the result of rents.
Although this estimate of the size of rent-sharing is a substantial one, some
This is in good agreement with mesoeconomic theory which states that inequalties in profits are correlated to rents.
Today's presentation on ethics with its mantra of "Open government" and "honest leadership", hit all of the right notes, with Harry looking like the old school teacher who hasn't uttered a lie in his life, and Democrats sounding active, aggressive and accurate.
What this chart says is that the current meme of "core inflation is low" is complete bullshit. Core inflation below CPI-U is a trailing, not leading, indicator of the economic cycle.
One reason Stalinism collapsed is that in the end for everyone working, there was one person domestically spying on him. As NSAgate shows, the government is now spying on Americans. Which means that the right wing's ideology demands that "the private sector do it at half the cost."
Progressive, targetted and achievable. Good strategy as well, as progressive ideas in America often start in the states, and when the states realize the problem is too big for any one of them, there is a mandate to change things from Washington.
In a long article loaded with unsupported and nakedly political attacks it culminates with "Gore, who lost the 2000 electtion to Bush."
No, he lost Bush v. Gore to Bush. He won the election.
In recent weeks the press has gone from Orwellian to Goeringeque - feeling the walls close in around their borrow and squander, bomb and squeal reactionary order - they've gone back to the kind of hysterical outright smears that worked in the days after 911 - but are now viewed by the public as crass pandering the corrupt powers that be.
For years the Liberals benefitted from strategic voting - people who were farther to the left than they were abandoning the NDP to keep the Conservatives out of power. The Conservatives have come off their peak, but the Liberals have continued to fall - because the NDP party has continued to gain. The Canadian electorate has resigned itself to a Conservative government - and that means that the Liberals, since they are no longer the bulwark against it, are on the verge of imploding.
The undecideds have broken towards Harper hard, and Martin continues a polling free fall.
Basically the NSA sent the FBI the equivalent of the Drudge Report, right wing hysteria, rumor and outright lie, and the result was that you had everything to fear, even if you had nothing to hide. This bolsters Albert Gore's call for an investigation of the man who was the beneficiary of the election theft of 2000 - George W. Bush.
In 2001, the idea that we were in the midst of a Constitutional Crisis was too hot to handle, even on the left, it was simply not acceptable to utter the obvious truth that people do not steal elections unless they are expecting to use them for something. Instead George Bush was supposed to "govern from the center". If one means the center of the storm, yes, otherwise, the farthest thing from it. It's the NFL theory of law: don't fix screw ups.
This is why there is growing evidence that Americans are considering impeachment, that it is not a taboo subject - if specific and credible information can be shown that the current executive violated the law.
An American helicopter crashed north of Baghdad this morning, apparently after being shot down by insurgents.
It was the third crash of an American helicopter this month. In a statement, the American military said that it had no information about the fate of the two crew members aboard, and that the cause of the crash was being investigated.
But officials at the Iraqi Interior Ministry said that witnesses reported seeing the helicopter being fired on before the crash.
George Bush is the most Nixonian of the Nixonian Presidents - in an era where the imperial presidency became the chimperial residency, a place where the caged primate threw shit at the rest of the world for eight years while investors just threw money at him - Medicare D is the final, absolute proof positive that Republicans have no principles other than loving money and hating the Summer of Love. Bush slaps price controls on drug makers. These will run out, and drug makers will get back their money - but Rove and Bush both know that this cannot be allowed to happen before the midterms.
If ever there was a game that was about "that's why they play these things" the wild finish to the Steelers-Colts game was among them. It joins another storied Steelers-Colts game played on December 27th, 1975. In that game too, the Steelers opened the door to a hungry Colts team, but the Colts refused to follow the script and win. But what sets this game apart - other than the huge upset that it represents - is that it has a play that is destined to be referred to by reference - Big Ben now owns "The Tackle".
conducted by Zogby and paid for by Democrats.com - coming on the same day as Specter's strong statement that impeachment should be on the table if Bush broke the law, it shows that the movement to impeach George Bush continues to break out of hard core anti-Bush demographics and into the population asa whole.
Alito is good news for progressives. He is nearly the end of the ability of the old conservative Democratic Party to command a river of funding "protecting" an every shrinking list of programs and rights. When, under Reagan, the Republicans realized that they could borrow and squander, and thus keep the ocean of pork fat flowing, rather than tax and spend - which requires discipline - the old Democratic Party was doomed, since that river of pork fat was the form that liberal government arrived at people's door steps. They put up with social liberalism, because they were told, and believed, that it was some how tied up with the economic liberalism that they liked. As soon as the Republicans could spend like liberals, and engage in social thuggery like reactionaries, the core of the Democratic rank and file headed to the Republicans. The process became self-reinforcing - more jobs in less unionized industries, meant less labor power, more money in the hands of the privileged meant a media that marched, and finally charged, to the right.
Saudi Arabia to open to investment This is going to be done so that the investors don't control anything, but the process of opening China and Saudi Arabia to investment will drain money away from US exchanges - because US companies aren't really doing anything with the money - and into places where there is real development to do.
What this means is that Bush has broken a key prop of American financial dominance - our role as development arbitrager - we invest in other countries - with the military and financial power to enforce the results, others invest in us at a lower rate for the lower risk, and we collect the difference for managing the risk. This is one of the key reasons to invest in the US, and why we are soaking up all the world's free savings. It is what anchor economies do, until they can't.
This is not going to cause any kind of instant crash, it is going to create a mounting headwind to the US economy, and a slow downward pressure on the US dollar - or an upward pressure on US interest rates as we are forced to pay more for the money we rent.
NE at Denver - I've been a believer in Denver all season, because they have a running attack and a defense that keeps Plummer doing what he should - manage the clock, manage the offense and pick his spots with an accurate arm. No team beats itself less than Denver, but no division winner this year underperformed as often. The hip upset pick of the week for good reason.
Patriots 21 Denver 17 Completely wrong on this one
Carolina at Chicago - The Bears came up small against smashmouth football this year. The defenses could score more points than the offenses. It comes down to turnovers, opportunism and health. Carolina's Fox may come out gunning early, hoping to get the Bears to have to play fast and make exploitable mistakes.
Carolina 14 Chicago 9
Pittsburgh at Indianapolis - The way to beat manning is to rattle his cage. LeBeau is a great DC, but hasn't managed to get inside Peyton's head yet. Unless the Steelers lay a monster hit on Peyton early, this is going to be a long day for the Steeler's defense.
Indianapolis 35 Pittsburgh 17
Washington at Washington - Sorry, could not resist that one. Redskins are tired, old, slow, beaten and playing with a big chip on their shoulder. It will carry them through 30 minutes. Unfortunately for them, when the Seahawks wake up, you can bet that the "get back in the game" touchdown won't be dropped, bumbled or bounced.
Seattle 21 Washington 10. Final Seattle 20, Washington 10 So it was a gimme, I admit it.
Note how people running the top of the pyramid pay themselves first, while creative people are on spec. Pyramid power: socialism for the privileged, cut throat capitalism for everyone else. Throw it against the wall on someone elses risk, while collecting heavy coin in return.
Can you say exploitation boys and girls? The reality is that in the pop era, creativity is crap, people just produce it, and the game is finding a way to spread it so that flowers grow. There is then an obsession with figuring out why a few people made it and many others didn't - but the reality is that it was all statistical - some stuff, like "A million little pieces" just packaged well. Truth, quality? No, eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs.
Jack the Ripper Claims another Victim: Bob Ney Out
by Stirling Newberry
The Republicans begin cleaning the spattered shit about the stables before the election - they know that two things can bring their power down - a bad economy combined with scandal. Jack the Ripper leaves behind his political corpse.
AmericaBlog's John Aravosis bought Wesley Clark's phone records. Today General Clark, playing the straight man, said that he was concerned, along with millions of other Americans, about invasions of privacy.
Nice to see a couple of good sports at political play, in this era of crocodile tears.
The press, as usual, is getting it wrong. But it is an important discovery anyway - that normal oxygen rich interactions have plants producing methane, rather than just as a bi-product of anoxic bacteria - shows that we have a great deal to learn about carbon's rich cycle, and cannot rely on hacks to simply sink the carbon. We have to face the fact that reducing carbon means reducing carbon input, not merely hoping to mop up.
So what does this study mean? Bottom line: we are going to have to remeasure how much carbon sinking trees do versus their methane output. We can't cut down tropical rain forests - they supply oxygen - but we can't simply believe that we can turn ashes back into wood to solve the Global Warming Problem.
Russell Sherman brings a jazz man's ear to Mozart, and a classicists ear to jazz. He's doing the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas in concert, and took the time to chat with Chris Lydon about the depths of the music. People who know my sharp sense of humor have probably read my WAM piece - you may not have read, the full version. It is about depth, and missing depth - something that all too often happens with Mozart, who one friend of mine called "the creator of high quality, cheap Italian music." He had 4000 classical albums and was a collector.
I've always lived with a different Mozart than many others surrounded themselves with. The modern era needed Mozart as the great templ of beauty, the garden of naive refuge, the pure, placid place from which we retreated from the light and heat and noise. But that wasn't Mozart, mostly. Particularly, that wasn't the Mozart that I was interested in out of all the Mozarts that there are.
I concluded that "if the netroots alone can’t change the political landscape without the participation of the media and Democratic establishment, then there’s no point wasting precious online space blasting away at Republicans while the other sides of the triangle stand idly by."
The NSA scandal and the Alito confirmation hearings are just two more examples of the left’s broken triangle and of the isolation of the progressive netroots. A flurry of activity among bloggers, online activists, and advocacy groups is met with ponderously inept strategizing by the Democratic leadership and relentless - and insidious - repetition by the media of pro-GOP narratives and soundbites. It's slow-motion-car-wreck painful, and most certainly NOT where the left's triangle should be a half decade into the new millennium, as the Bush-propping machine hums and whirrs, poll numbers rise and fall, Iraq bleeds, scandal dissolves into scandal, terror speech blends into terror speech. The landscape is there for everyone to see, to analyze. Enough time has elapsed to make the system transparent. It is dismaying for netroots activists to see the same mistakes repeated despite the benefit of hindsight.
In the world of computers, you are only as good as your last decision. IBM's wrong track with the G5 doomed its role as a consumer chip - the G5 was everything wrong - a giant space heater chip. In one cycle, the PowerPC platform went from credible, to incredibly stupid.
Intel has its own problems - losing the "hip 64 bit" edge, with many observers saying that AMD is obliterating Intel in the server market. Intel needed a new market, and fast. With benchmarks showing that its dual core chips were being beaten by AMD - it needed something else, a captive market that would allow it to begin getting out from underneath Microsoft.
Silicon insider gushes and says that it is really Samsung that has driven the two together. I think instead it is something simpler - Apple wants to be the digital hub, and the PowerPC wasn't going there.
Liberal Democratic Leadership Fight Becomes Free For All
by Stirling Newberry
Many LibDems had thought that this leadership fight would be simple: elect a care taker leader, respected by all wings of the party, and hope to dig out from the current pit of their fortunes. However, the sole qualification for being a care taker is the ability to deal witht he outside world in a way which projects respectability and competence.
The deeper rift is between the leadership of a group of "young modernisers" - meaning the Tory-light "Orange Book" leadership around Charles Kennedy, and the base of the party which is out of the tradition of 20th century liberalism. This conflict - is liberalism a 19th century ideology of laissez-fairism? Or is it an ideology rooted in individual dignity? - is crucial.
Right wing nuts hate facts, when someone points out facts, they call it gloating. Whinge, whinge, whinge, whinge.
Let's get this straight - the right wing was wrong about whether global warming existed. They were wrong about whether human beings were the root cause of the CO2 increase. They were wrong about whether the effects were distant or close. They were wrong because they don't want to give up the profits of the petro-economy, that is, they have a vested interest in being wrong.
So why listen to right wingers who are paid to be wrong? Unless you are getting a check to compensate you for your risk, you shouldn't.
Almost a year ago I stated that we had reached the "boom phase" of the current economic expansion - that point where growth is inflationary. Booms run until the pain from inflation gets to be more than the gain from go go expansion. Pain as measured by those actors who can do something about it. When central banks, where they have autonomy, feel pain, they make the economy take the medicine.
Right now the Federal Reserve is feeling some discomfort, but they aren't in pain yet. But the yield curve continues to march towards inversion, and we look back at something I've been writing about for some time: Greenspan's bet, what it is, and whether he has enough chips left as he hands over his seat to Cousin Ben - Ben Bernanke.
MS nearly killed the mac some years ago by not producing Office for the Macintosh - and for tens of thousands of companies, no Office, no computer. Given that many consumers bought the computers they had at work - to some extent to pirate software, no Office meant no computer at home. This is why the committment to shipping Office for the Mactell version of MacOS is significant, it means that MS is keeping its options open, including the "big fish" option of buying MacOS entirely from Apple, or licensing the core and providing the MS layer of API and interapplication connectivity.
The move to Intel signals that Apple is either going to go out of the hardware business or out of the OS business - because the MacOS is now going to be runnable on non mac hardware.
The first systems are going to be compelling for some users - dual core is, in effect, a multi-processor chip, replacing the aging G4 architecture. For other, they are simply not of interest, because of the need to port to the new architecture. However, Moore's Law, while dented, is still in effect, in 2 years, any differences will be long gone.
Economist Martin Feldstein thinks so. He's a capital flows and savings guru - having worked the field for decades, going back to important papers that were an essential part of the "disinflation" strategy. A well known inflation hawk who argued - wrongly I believe - in this book for "price stability" or inflation between 1%-2%. Europe has now done the price stability experiment and found it lacking.
Can survive even content free farting like this garbage by George Rafael, who should be restrained from coming near a keyboard of any kind for the rest of his natural, and unnatural, existence. While always going after other writers for their biases, this writer has nothing but bias - decreeing the best of this or that without talking much about why. Judgemental without being informative. Why is it that so much classical writing is handed over to pseudo-snobs, who treat classical music like wine tasting, or visits to four star hotels? Is that the only audience for classical music - people who need snob heros in order to render their snob existence more palatable?
Malcolm Forbes used to run a great column "fact and comment" in his magazine. It was blogging before their was blogging. Unfortunately the "fact" part is no longer part of Forbes' arsenal with this monumentally dishonest column from Rich Karlgaard. Leading with talking points, including the standard misuse of the unemployment rate, and then saying "it's the evil peons, they don't understand how health inflation benefits them."
Let's address this latest campaign of outright mendacity from the right wing - counting inflation in health care as "wages" is absurd.
I'm listening now to the third, and final, candidate master to the new CD - "Xaos". This includes a host of revisions to the two quartets - the 9th in Bb and the 10th in G. The first is Oldman's quartet, the second is a quartet about a film about the neo-classical movement in the arts. If that sounds strange, I'll explain it all later. For now suffice it to say that it should be available by the 20th of January, perhaps earlier.
Claremont Trio - Beethoven Op. 1 No. 1, Op 121a w/Wendy Putnam and Karen Dreyfus Brahms F minor Op 34 Piano Quintet
There has been a boom recently in piano trios composed of women - the Eroica plays on musical heft, and the Ahn trio on hipness. The Claremont Trio is not a copy, or even an attempt to imitate the success of either of these two previous groups, but is, instead an artistic entity with an integrity and cohesion that is immediately distinct: they serve not mixed drinks, but cold, pure spring water.
The members - twin sisters Emily Bruskin and Julia Bruskin take the strings, while Donna Kwong is the pianist. In person they are lively, humorous and vivid - but close your eyes and their music seems to call across a farther division, it is music making in black and white - without tricks, excess or games of any kind. One can hear the influence of both the Historically Informed Performance movement of recent years, but also the classic early 20th century technical tradition that, as Juilliard trained players, they are heir too. The performance placed everything before the listener all the time. There was simply no room for failure of intonation, nerve or ensemble. And through the entire concert - there wasn't one. This was playing from a generation that grew up drawing comparisons to recordings.
The Claremonts meet the challenge head on in a manner as directly as possible - with almost unbelievable precision and the chops to eat through almost anything that Beethoven could throw at the score.
Reactionaries Now Use The "Hussien Defense" for Bush
by Stirling Newberry
Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald who rightfully points out that the article in question is almost self-debunking.
Saddam Hussein's defense against his indictment by an ad hoc Iraqi tribunal is simply that has the head of the state he had unlimited power to defend the state. That enemies of the state did not have legal protection, and therefore he cannot be charged for what he did during that time.
Enemies, however, not merely violate but oppose the law. They oppose our law and want to replace it with theirs. To counter enemies, a republic must have and use force adequate to a greater threat than comes from criminals, who may be quite patriotic if not public-spirited, and have nothing against the law when applied to others besides themselves. But enemies, being extra-legal, need to be faced with extra-legal force...
et the rule of law is not enough to run a government. Any set of standing rules is liable to encounter an emergency requiring an exception from the rule or an improvised response when no rule exists. In Machiavelli's terms, ordinary power needs to be supplemented or corrected by the extraordinary power of a prince, using wise discretion.
With one person in charge we can have both secrecy and responsibility. Here we have the reason that American society, in imitation of American government, makes so much use of one-man rule.
In short, according to the right wing, we don't have a republic, we have a monarchy with plebecites.
In the last 48 hours, three leaders have fallen from their perches - Sharon of Israel from a stroke, Tom DeLay, from corruption charges and now Charles Kennedy of the LibDems from allegations of alcoholism.
Charles Kennedy, squeezed between a revivified Tory leadership, and his own drinking problems - and bolstered by the dramatic performance in the recent general election - is deeply endangered. The conservative Times of London reports that two high ranking party members have said they will resign if he stays as leader. The handwriting is now on the wall: Kennedy does not have the control over his party that he needs, and the "decapitation strategy" has failed to produce enough success to make him the undisputed leader.
Bush is right now kicking off the mid term election campaign. He says that critics of revenue reductions are "just plain wrong" and that the economy is strong. It is fairly clear that Bush wants to put 2005 behind him, and fight this campaign over whether he is the legitimate successor to Ronald Reagan. He is back to claiming that revenue reductions pay for themselves, and making an extremely selective case for Americans doing well.
Don't believe it. It isn't that we aren't in the boom phase of the economic cycle - we are, this is as good as it is going to get - net job creation below the rate of population growth, people leaving the work force, and a "low unemployment rate" which will mean that interest rates will have to continue to march upwards. The Fed has two quarter point hikes before the yield curve fully inverts - which means that that the prosperity, such as it is, could go away very quickly.
Only 94K private payroll positions were created in December - continuing the proof that the are which is broken in this economy is job creation. More over, the crumbling of construction employment indicates that one area which has been a pillar of strength - housing - is no longer reliable. Production workers saw choppy gains, with aircraft offsetting automotive loses, but no general upward rebound in manufacturing employment can be discerned.
Instead it was the service sector that created all the private payroll positions on net, and this despite a heavy slow down at department stores - whose disappointing seasonal sales are reflected in their not creating as many jobs as they would have otherwise.
In short, a picture of an economy that, while it is producing a great deal of financial churn, cannot generate employment to go with it. There isn't anything new in this data, but it will confirm whatever ideas you already have about this economy.
Yesterday stocks took off with a bang, the Dow got back to 10,800, and the NASDAQ saw healthy gains. On the other side of the Atlantic, Germany's DAX is, at this moment crossing 5,500, and the other three important indexes - the FTSE for London, the CAC40 for Paris, and the SSMI for Switzerland - are making solid gains. The Nikei is climbing out of a 12 year long bear market. While it partially inverted, the treasury yield curve hasn't gotten to that dread fully inverted status. Greenspan's Fed says that rates aren't going to rise much more, with perhaps as few as 2 .25 point basis hikes - to 4.75% - in the works. One of these is priced in for January.
It seems like all over the world it is time for prosperity, prosperity, prosperity.
Oh yeah, gold's up a bit, by why worry? Well economists are professional worriers. But the good ones know what to worry about, and what to take advantage of.
While the poster has correctly understood that the Iraq war hits at the heart of an economic and political security problem, the number of unjustified assumptions, ill considered leaps of logic and factual errors make the conclusion drawn untenable. More over, his unwarranted attribution of his own errors to others goes below the level of honest mistake, and into the realm of outright dishonesty.
Let's take this again, slowly enough that even people with no intellectual honesty, reading comprehension or grasp of basic facts will be able to understand.
1. The word impeachment is going to get louder with every passing month. By year end there will be a rally or demonstration with at least 100K people calling for impeachment of George Bush. Cheney will receive a target letter in at least one investigation, and there will by year end be open calls for his resignation before the new congress meets in January so that a farther right replacement can be named.
2. The economy is going to grow the three quarters at 3.1% and then slow sharply. Job creation will average 175K seasonally adjusted private payroll positions in the first half of the year, and 125K seasonally adjusted private payroll positions for the second half of the year. An uptick in business spending will mean that many more of these jobs will be higher paying white collar jobs, while housing contractors and related positions are going to see a downward trend become a major slide. The LSI will be at or near 6.5% at the end of the year.
3. The major US indices will make gains of 2% above CPI-U. Emerging markets will be hot, preparing the way for the first major global financial crisis of the new century in '07. Real inflation, including housing, will run at 3% this year compared with 5% last year. The FTSE will continue to out perform despite the coming UK down turn because of energy stocks. China will revalue the Yuan upwards by at least 5%.
4. The dollar will begin to slide early in the year, energy will push upwards, forcing the Fed to begin another round of tightening late in the year. Oil will touch $75/barrel intraday. Gas prices will resume their upward march, and will jitter through a relatively active down year 2006 storm season. Energy will continue to be the no brainer bet, with personal soundtrack and theatre at home being the big stories of content production in '06.
5. Iraq will continue to slither its way to failed state status, and Iranian influence will grow. Another 750 coalition military personnel will die because of injuries sustained in Iraq, another 5000 casualties will be sustained. Plans for full pull out will be anounced in summer, buried beneath sabre rattling on Iran. There will be no air strikes before 1 July in Iran however.
6. The Democrats will retake the house and narrow the Republican majority in the Senate by 4. Bush popularity will not crest a mean 60 of major polls during the course of the year, and will, in fact peak early in the year.
Goto meeting is an indespensible tool for the new political sphere - it does conference calling, and it works. Once upon a time this was a privilege of the big boys - but now with unlimited minutes plans like vonage and after hours cell phones - any group with an idea and the energy can make things happen. Yeah, they advertise on the site, but if they weren't any good, this would be a post trashing them, not praising them.
The revolution may not be televised, but it is going to be on web conference calls.
The Champagne was cold and expensive. The room was crowded and hot. And you couldn't swing a Democratic Convention credential without braining a network reporter, a campaign staffer, or a hit-or-miss celebrity who had come to Boston to lend his support to the cause. If someone had set off a bomb in the bar of the Four Seasons, political chat shows would only be able to book Republicans and the conventional wisdom packagers from USA Today. Not that anyone would even joke about setting off a bomb. Democrats were now tough on terrorism. They wouldn't joke about that kind of stuff; it was in the memo.
So opens Ana Marie Cox' novel on being on the inside of political hackdom. I'm probably not alone in thinking that if you were to cast the show "Twins" with political writers that Cox and the American Prospect's Garance Franke Ruta as the blond and the brunette. Only in this show, it wouldn't be dum blond jokes that would rule the roast, but a basic conflict in style between Cox' Spice and snark, and Garance's no nonsense tough cookie personna.
Anyone who doubts Cox as a individual with substance and something to say needs to read this book, the writing is as sharp as Soderbergh's K Street and the deft mastery of all of the details of modern life separates this novel from a host of wannabe up to the minute fictions that some how feel like they were written in 1895 with some 1995 tacked on. Instead this novel is the Primary Colors of 2004 - the novel that hits the zeitgeist of the Democratic Party's political class squarely between the eyes. If you want to know what's wrong with Democratic Party politics, you can read this book.
And you will snortle all the way through it.
[Word is she is leaving Wonkette. No! Really! Someone with a good book to push and wants her own identity leaving a media property where she is buried underneath someone else is leaving. Wow. Next you will tell me that Red Sox sign with the Yankees to make a lot of money.]
"In this new world, the audience and sources are publishers," Mr. Rosen said. "They are now saying to journalists, 'We are producers, too. So the interview lies midpoint between us. You produce things from it, and we do, too.' From now on, in a potentially hostile interview situation, this will be the norm."
The blurring of producers, material and consumers is indeed one of the key points of the internet.
George Bush has begun sabre rattling towards Iran. Sy Hersh has reported that the planning and logistics for an attack on Iran are advanced enough to occur at any time. There is also the question of where Iran is at producing a deterant. These, plus the same macro-economic problems which made an attack on Iraq necessary in 2003, are pushing America towards a confrontation with Iran over its atomic program. It is not, yet, at the irrevocable point. Part of what is going on is precisely what was mentioned before - sabre rattling to get pundit attention off of spygate, rising gas prices and other bleeding ulcers in the belly of Bush.
However, the point of no return is out there in the next six month, and it will be crossed, not with great fanfare, but, like the equator on a sailing ship, with a quiet notation in a log book.
It's official, the Lunatics are running the asylum
by Stirling Newberry
The New York Times notes that the laffer curve has been resurrected at the Federal level. The basic strategy of the present regime is simple:
1. Generate inflation with revenue reductions, borrowing and accomodative interest rates.
2. Call it growth.
3. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The reason this is not working is because when one crocks the market from clearing, it shows up. Liberal and socialist governments have come to grief over a simple reality - screw incentives, and people stop producing. In our case, we aren't producing jobs at the rate that GDP growth would indicate, simply because there is a lack of investment supply. Why bother to hire people to do things when all of the money to be made is carry trade, investing in commodity inflation, and taking fees from money sloshing around?
The Democratic Party doesn't need a complicated frame, in fact, we are better off without it. We also don't need to be the "mommy" party of government services, because people may live with mommy, but daddy brings home the presents and the punishments.
Instead the Democratic Party has to get three simple things right: it has to be populist in the belly, progressive in its heart, and liberal in its head. Various wings of the Democratic party will focus on one of these three things, but without all three, in balance, there isn't going to be victory. We must also rip these three parts away from the Republicans. What I mean and how to do it below the fold.
You will know that the Demcoratic Party is ready to win when Simon Rosenberg and David Sirota are working together like two linemen on a football team. They aren't yet. I'm picking on them personally because they both know I have enormous respect for the work that both of them are doing. I could easily see Simon as a White House Chief of Staff, or the President of a major University. David Sirota has staked out a territory as the conscience of the Democratic Party, reminding us that what it is about is the guy who collects the trash in the snow, the gal who gets up at 4am to take a bus to get to her receptionist job by 6 am. I pick them because they are both working on the same problem: the Democratic Party has got to be free, the progressive movement has got to be answerable, not to big donors, but to the people who need a just and fair society to get ahead.
The end of the broadcast era is coming in economics. The pressure driving it is this - the consumer surplus above the marginal price. Here's how this works - imagine you have a product that you have to charge the same amount to everyone for, some people would be willing to pay a great deal more than this base price. Many of the funny things that go on in marketting in a mass production society are about trying to capture that consumer surplus - for example, the different prices that someone is willing to pay for a seat on an airplane.
The question with broadcase is how many more eyeballs do you pick up to sell to advertisers by making the broadcast free. When this number of people doesn't bring in as much revenue and other benefits, as the money that the people who really want the content are willing to pay for it - then broadcast economics no longer make sense. This had long since hit many kinds of content, and the MNF move to cable, like the move of the Sunday night games to cable, draws the line for us. Basically the people who aren't willing to pay for it aren't economically worth having.
Recently I have pulled back on writing in order to complete a composing plan for 2005 - namely 6 string quartets. Two have already been released on CD and are selling reasonably well. The next step is, of course, to get reviews and airplay, and get people talking about these two works. Meanwhile I've been working on completing two new quartets, #9, in Bb and #10, in G.
This has all become much more relevant with the explosion in our midst of blogging, and also the increasing profile of Wikipedia. We no longer have to know how to set up a website to get our opinions out there – blogs are easy to set up on a standard template, while Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) lets us contribute to or edit any encyclopedia entry we want – there are 850,000 so far, and the only editing we might get comes from other users. Is this freedom, or madness?
With blogs and Wikipedia, there is no editing or fact-checking in the traditional sense. When I was a journalist, an editor would read my piece, ask me to change or check things, then pass it to a sub-editor, who would carry out a double-check and query anything he or she was unhappy with. It wasn’t perfect, but it made it hard for me to write complete rubbish (usually). Bloggers and Wiki contributors can write nonsense – the good news is that their peers can come and point that out, but what if the first guy was right all along? And how are we, the outsiders to know? Recently, someone adjusted the biography of a journalist in Wikipedia to suggest he was linked to the Kennedy assassination. He did it as a joke, but how were we to know that?
The removal of normal filters can have a huge effect on business. There are of course some business people who have joined in the fun – the PR guru Richard Edelman has an excellent blog (www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog). But in most cases business will be on the defensive: anyone can change the article about you on Wikipedia (though a ‘fixed’ version is now planned), and they can say what they like on their blogs. You can try suing – but more intelligent, surely, to join in the fun. Reply on your attacker’s blog, or set up your own and set links to it.
Democrats like to wonk. It's in the legacy of a party that came in with the New Deal, and bet the farm on being able to use government, its information gathering capacities and its fiat to create optimal situations where previously there had been pessimalization. Thus if Democrats are going to go up so must the wonkavator.
However, it is important to see wonking in context. All too often, Democrats wonk first, arguing over niggling problems, rather than getting the context right first. Wonking is only important if it is in service of a vision, or an identified problem. At the same time, the ability to deliver policy, both in outline and in detail, is often what turns the tide of a political fight. Bad wonking as much as bad politics lead to the defeat of Hillarycare - bad wonking is leading to the collapse of political support for George W. Bush. Policy, analysis and presentation are the gun powder of politics - while individual news stories may be the spark, it is the basic reality of the country that provides the raw energy. And it is good analysis and policy which turn the components of that energy into political firepower.
Combining policy making with the rest of the political operation, and having a better flow between rhetoric, politicking and policy is, however, essential. It isn't that the Democratic side of the ledger has fewer ideas - it is that all too often they are sealed off in little sections. As a result candidates fall back on nonsolutions, simply because they can explain them more easily. As a result policy people often put forward plans based on counter factuals. This is one of the reasons why The New Politics Institute and other growing communications think tanks are an essential counterpart to policy centers.
Because how you assemble, synthesize, present and package ideas has to be as smart as the ideas themselves.
Sun Tzu liked deception, in fact, he was more fond of deception than he was of warfare. Thus if the sage were alive today, he would not criticize Bush for lying. However, he would see that George Bush is without the moral law and the terrain, point out that one should deceive the enemy in order to avoid having to destroy a city in order to take it. He would point out the enormous cost of having Iraq's resources off line, the failure to overwhelm the previous order and his warning that wars are won in the temples before they are won on the ground.
It is in this context that Tom Dachle's article should be read: he didn't believe Congress was granting the internal war powers mentioned in the now widely discussed FISA. The Post has it's commentary, here's mine.
The 50th of Lolita has occasioned numerous articles on the very personal relationship that many writers have with this book - how it was Nabokov that guided them into the realm of being readers at a higher level. Their "hidden world". It was the author's intent to create this other world, a world where the aesthetic, and not the utilitarian, was the basis for each gesture. I am not a member of the cult of Nabokov, though I do read his novels, and often with great interest. His mind works in a way that is appealling to me, in that he spins out pure texture, he is like Ravel - a pure technician in his technique, but what he produces is not technicalities.
Allan Barra recalls that in his age, Rand and Nabokov were the great cults of readers. They are, as he points out, on opposite sides. Nabokov was an artist with a philosophy, a man of ideas, even as he denied it. Rand was a hack with snake oil, an individual without ideas, even though she screamed them all the time. Nabokov original - Rand merely warmed over 19th century literature with a pastiche of Nietzsche.
1. When was the first time you realized you were reading/experiencing art/a creative act, that is what opened your eyes to the creative world?
2. What was the first time you were aware of structuring your creativity?
3. What made you decide to be creative on a regular basis? Why?
4. When did you become you, that is when did you develop the set of personal traits and working methods that identify your work?
5. What work of yours
a. Is your best?
b. Your favorite?
c. Your most popular/best known?
d. Are proudest of?
6. If you were cast up on a desert isle, with only the tools too create with, and a limited, but capacious supply of food - what 10 works would you try to complete, knowing that they might not be discovered for a century or more? 5That is, what would you say, if you were speaking only to the distant future, and not the present or near future?
If you are creative in multiple fields, do each one separately.
Nearly three years after it was created in the largest government reorganization since the Department of Defense, DHS does have a story, but so far it is one of haphazard design, bureaucratic warfare and unfulfilled promises. The department's first significant test -- its response to Hurricane Katrina in August -- exposed a troubled organization where preparedness was more slogan than mission.
Simply put the DHS is a giant pork factory, and is a fraud. It is that it is not potentially a good idea, and we are stuck with it for the time being since rearranging more deck chairs won''t help. But it is a visible monument to the corrupt and unaccountable Republican Congress and Executive, and a symbol of a government that is "vast, loose and out of control". More...
Stirling Newberry -
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Harold Meyerson gets it exactly right when he tells about Irving Berlin's religious song White Christmas:
"It is, for all that, a religious song. It's just that Berlin's religion was America."
The conflict over new and old in music is pervasive, it is not only in popular music, but classical music as well. Music has its own way of being remembered - quite literally, our memory for melodies is different from our memory for words. Thus it touches our sense of self and identity in directions that words do not. The union of the two creates a sense of time and place.
I'm a methodical composer, and recently I decided it was time to bite off more than I could chew.
Composing Plans
(1994-1995) Das Alte Werke
(2002) The Symphony Year
(2005) The Quartet Year
2006 The Chamber Year
2007 The Short Sonata Year
2008 The Concerto Year
2009 The Second Chamber Year
2010 The Warhorse Year
2011 The Third Chamber Year
2012 The Long Sonata Year
There isn't much in this world that hatred and tribalism can't spoil. Religion in particular is often the root of this evil. The contests in the Bible over favor for the love of God almost always end badly for all concerned. And yet it continues. Even the gesture "Merry Christmas" has now become the "Support Our Troops" of the next year. Seems as good an indication as any that we are getting out of Iraq, since the right wing hoardes are already being told to extend their middle finger in a different code word.
I have two simple suggestions. One is this, I was never part of the happy holidays crowd, it seemed like "have a nice day", something begging to be used sarcastically. "Season's Greetings" is better, but says nothing. Thus I am simply saying "Peace be with/upon you". It is a sentiment shared by all, even those who have no particular stake in solstice holidays - which is a temperate/sub-temperate climate thing, the tropics are much more into the coming of the rainy season for obvious agricultural reasons. It also will be taken as a gesture of good faith that say Merry Christmas in good faith. The second is that if you do not subscribe to Christmas for whatever reason, reply with the greeting of your own faith. Take it that the other person is wishing you his or her henotheistic greeting of good will, just as "Good-bye" no longer implies an enforced belief in some particular form of monothesitic state religion.
In short, wish good will to others, and let them show that bad faith was intended beneath the expression of faith. Do not make another's sin (or bad karma) your own.
William Saletan asks can we open up a conversation with Ignorant Denial? The answer is no by definition. To have a conversation there must be the possibility of conversion. Since Ignorant Denial supporters did not make up their minds about science by rational, or even reasonable, means - they are not subject to art, science, rhetoric, literature, religion or even collegiality - there is no basis for a conversation. It is like trying to have a conversation with a boiler room pyramid scheme pusher - he's going to do one thing: push his talking points. When he sees he can't do this, he will stop. But you have no ability to convince him to quit his job, he'll be convinced when he can't make the bills. Just as Ignorant Denial will go away when it can't make payroll. What we are left with is social pollution of another failed right wing scheme to rob the public.
There is no conversation possible for another reason - the people pushing this movement are pathalogical liars. They claim to be biblically based, but it is child's play to show how their legal system is very different from the one in the Bible. If we had a biblically based bankruptcy bill, it would forgive all debts every seven years:
Four jobs you've had: Consultant, Economist, Writer, Gardener
Four Movies: Les Enfants du Paradis, The Last Samurai, 1776, Immortal Beloved
Four Places You've Lived: Beacon Hill, Boston Ma Sante Fe NM, Schenectady New York, Lowell MA
Four TV Shows you love to watch: Star Trek TOS, M*A*S*H, MNF, Soap
Four Places You've been on vacation: Vacation? Four favorite places in the world are Beijing, Paris, Berlin, London
Four Websites: Daily Kos, FT, Le Figaro, Washington Post
Favorite Foods: Chocolate, aged beef, steam lobster with orange extract, baguette sandwiches with brie, tomatoes, dill, onions and thinly sliced lamb.
Four places you would rather be: Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, Berlin
Beyond the analysis of where the long running conflict in Iraq stands, beyond the questions about the stability of the hodge podge constitutional order being set up there, beyond the cold equations that determine how much military capital has been spent in pursuit of war aims in Iraq, beyond the constitutional questions being raised here about the limits of Presidential authority, there is one story which faces us, in more haunting and personal terms.
I'm going to connect some dots for people, because it seems like the executive and its craven apologists are not doing so for the American public. The executive is going to argue that it had warrantless search powers because of:
Jay Rockefeller: No Congressional Oversight Possible in Spygate
by Stirling Newberry
VICE CHAIRMAN ROCKEFELLER REACTS TO REPORTS OF NSA INTERCEPT
PROGRAM IN UNITED STATES
--Senator Releases His '03 Letter to White House Raising Questions About White House Actions and Need for Congressional Oversight--
Washington, DC -- Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, today released the following statement regarding the President's decision to publicly confirm the existence of a highly-sensitive National Security Agency (NSA) program for intercepting communications within the United States. Additionally, Senator Rockefeller released his correspondence to the White House on July 17, 2003 – the day he first learned of the program -- expressing serious concerns about the nature of the program as well as Congress' inability to provide oversight given the limited nature of the briefings.
"For the last few days, I have witnessed the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General repeatedly misrepresent the facts.
"The record needs to be set clear that the Administration never afforded members briefed on the program an opportunity to either approve or disapprove the NSA program. The limited members who were told of the program were prohibited by the Administration from sharing any information about it with our colleagues, including other members of the Intelligence Committees.
"At the time, I expressed my concerns to Vice President Cheney that the limited information provided to Congress was so overly restricted that it prevented members of Congress from conducting meaningful oversight of the legal and operational aspects of the program.
"These concerns were never addressed, and I was prohibited from sharing my views with my colleagues.
"Now that this issue has been brought out into the open, I strongly urge the Senate Intelligence Committee to immediately undertake a full investigation into the legal and operational aspects of the program, including the lack of sufficient congressional oversight."
With its upcoming Revolution console, Nintendo is trying something different. Instead of leaving the oddball peripherals to the game makers, Nintendo will ship its next-generation box with a remote-control-shaped wand that tracks motion on three axes. (To watch a teaser video that shows the controller in action, click here.)
A work in progress can be an unstable thing, in the case of this work the long Allegro movement created problems as the first movement, both in terms of the large scale harmonic structure and in terms of balance. There was no logical way to follow it excep with the already written third movement, and that flowed logically into the fourth. This would have required an absolutely massive fourth and final movement which would have weighted the whol work down.
The solution is to have a slow first movement - Romance - that solves a series of harmonic and structural problems - which need not be gone into since they are problems of my own creation, and not of the slightest interest to the outside world. It also creates the right presence for a quartet that needs the atmosphere of another, distant, age of gothic spires and pointed windows.
Oldman, I hope where every you are you are listening.
Many people have openly worried about the possibility of a US fiscal or moenatary crisis because of our continued debt and deficits - eergy deficit, trade deficit and budget deficit. Each one leads to the next. However, many people looking for the signals of this crumbling have looked at the relationship of the major lenders to the Unitned States. It seems difficult to see how Europe, the OPEC nations or China will halt this process, since their own assets are stored in the US. It may be dysfunctional for them, but it is better than a world with no safe haven for assets. Particularly for the very privileged elites. Most of the world subscribes to the theory that the rich create all the jobs and we just rent our air from them.
The reality of the last few weeks - in the collapse of the ambitious parts of the Doha Trade round and a landslide in Boliva is that the reverse is going to happen. The cracks are from below, because there is a vavst mass of poverty, the people from whom profits are extracted in the current trade order, who gain little. With the return of high rreource prices and a weak dollar, as I predicted because it was predictable - there is the return of leftism and instability in Latin America.
[Two other diaries which touch on Bolivia in greater depth from Chris and Soj]
There have been dark warnings for some since a stolen election, a Reichstag Fire and an enabling act, the very same authorization for use of military force that Bush stood upon has he once again waved the bloody shirt of 9/11. Now, however, they are about to become the subtext for a long drama, one that, for the first time, places George W. Bush in the crosshairs of legal jeopardy.
1. Ads. This one was a big one for me. I resent being advertised to as captive audience having paid ofr a license to be in the theatre.
2. Quality of films. The best films ot see in the theatre are the big budget films. These are precisely the ones that have gone down in quality. Many "small" films work on home viewing set ups well now.
3. Variety. Finding a thoughtful film in the summer is just about impossible. Because the quality of blockbusters is now low - the Star Wars films featured awful writing and stories, as have numerous comic book based offerings, and don't getme started on The Day After Tomrrow - not having a choice of soemthing else means that I more and more often stay home.
I used to be a once a week movie person.
The larger industry is caught in a bind - the younger set doesn't go to movies, and the older set has children and doesn't want to pay $60 - that's basically a week's disposable income - on a single night of entertainment.
Suggestion, give out "family admissions" to the same theatre for only slightly more than the price of an adult pair of tickets.
In his last email dispatch, Senator Edwards dropped hints that he is closer to running. He also outlined a moral and intellectual outline of what he would do: he believes that poverty is the struggle of the next generation. It is one way to look at things.
Harold Bloom's angry meditation on the state of American intellect is worth every word. The realization that ignorance, swaddled in success, is everywhere in America - is nothing new. It seem strange that the very people who have benefited the most from America's rise to power hate what brought them there. It is not genesis that finds the oil, exodus that designs the M-1A1 tanks, leviticus that builds the jets, deuteronomy that runs the federal reserve. It is the modern and post-modern worlds - which they rant against with a lunatic ferocity, even as they go to McDonalds and eat a BigMac.
I do not believe there is an American decline that is inevitable. I believe that catastrophe is inevitable, that is we will not change direction until checks bounce and people can't get gasoline. But we are nearer to that than people know. I saw my first gas lines in America in 30 years recently, the shadow of shortage is held at bay by European recession and the strategic reserve. The rich and powerful are pumping oil as fast as they can, because they feel the noose tightening around them. They can feel that if there is an economic tumble now, then who knows where the rebellions will lead.
There are a series of polls out, and they point in different directions. Fox has Hillary plummeting among Democrats, down from a lofty 40 to a very beatable 26. However, another poll has her down to only 36. Which means that with a 10 point wide error band the probability is that she is down, but not down as precipitously as Fox has her. The indicator that makes these polls seem reasonable is that John Kerry is way up. Since Kerry is the second choice of Hillary voters, this means that the poll is picking up a real trend the "vote the establishment" Democrats are looking for someone other than Hillary, who seems to be out of touch with the party.
On the Republican side the lack of Rice in recent polls means these polls are of questionable value.
The bond market believes that the next 12 months are ones of lower uncertainty than the last 12 months. That is, that recovery in Europe and increasing manufacturing recovery here in the US will lead to growth without inflation. The short end of the yield curve, after developinga "lip" that is associated with an inverted yield curve has normalized out. The indication here is that the next year will continue to show robust GDP growth, with falling real wages, and lowered inflation prospects. Or so the bond boys currently believe.
In this scenario Greenspan has engineered a soft landing for the economy, and will stop the tightening cycle, with perhaps a few increases held in reserve.
We have reached about the peak of the Dow on the current up leg, that does not mean that the Dow will not break 11K, nor that it will not make new all time highs within the next 18 months, however, we've set a VIX bottom. This is part of a long term pattern of a cyclical vix bottom. Either in the next 12 months there will be a new area of investment which will be worht accepting higher risk, with its attendent higher volatility, or there will be a consequent fall in the Dow and S&P as money moves elsewhere seeking higher returns.
So far policy in the US seems weighted towards the latter, rather than the former. But don't count the ability of cheaper chips and cheaper manufacturing to produce a "lower cost" replacement cycle boom, as people get rid of CRT square aspect and go to widescreen.
String Quartet #9 in Bb First movement, a fourteen minute conclusion to a thirteen year quest
by Stirling Newberry
Earlier this year long time bop contributor, Oldman died after a short illness. I had been working on a ninth string quartet, and, as often happens, events focused my labors. In 1992 I sketched a three movement quartet entitled "The Plague", in the key of Bb. It was to be filled with the air of romantic medivalism. A ruin facing backwards. Over the years I began targetting it to be my 9th quartet, and added ideas to it steadily. With the completion of String Quartets #7 and #8, the moment arrived.
However, the material thrashed about - there were too many competing demands, too many competing presences for the music. Finally I decided to focus on the story that I wanted to tell. This changed the title of the quartet, and moved the overt depictive elements of overgrown castles and cities suffused with suffocating air - to the story of a quest for knowledge, because that is what Oldman was about as a person. He was also self-consciously Byronic, in that he was filled with a reverence for a more honourable and rigorous past, and brooding on his own relationship to a debased present.
Long time friend Steve Hicken takes a moment to write on his impressions of the two recent string quartets - he nails down the surface of the works well. Sometimes it is enlightening to have a reviewer hold up a mirror, since a composer is often trundling about with his own - and Steve is exactly right, obessions - to realize it is what is made, and not how it is made, that is important. If a work falls short of the ambitions the creator has for it, sometimes the reasons are staring back from the work, unblinking and yet unrecognized. Artistic success is often more elusive, it takes a very long time to tell why one work rises like a mountain above the others, even others from the same hand or in the same range.
Definitely the right thing to do. Byron Dorgan is one of the brightest elected Democrats, and if he came from a larger, easier to hold state, would be mentioned as presidential or vice presidential material.
Internet mail trees are crackling with rumors that Fitzgerald is ready to indict Rove on at lest one count of making false statements, and is wrapping up presentation to the grand jury with the testimony of Luskin and Viveca Novak. The rumors also state that Fitzgerald wants to wrap up the Rove sector of the investigation quickly, as soon as the end of this week.
That Rove was going to be indicted was a virtual certainty after Scooter Libby was indicted. However, what is interesting is how long it has taken to establish the obvious - both Rove and Libby denied being involved for two long years, and yet, here we are. If one needs a culture of corruption example, this has to be on the top of the list - not just for Republicans, but for the media as well.
BREAKING: Spinning the Dial To the Right: Leading Liberal Host being hounded off the airwaves
by Stirling Newberry
Arnie Arnesen is the real deal. She's the best Air America host who isn't on Air America - smart, sharp, experienced in the real world of politics, two years in a row the "New Hampshire Media Personality of the Year". New Hampshire is leaving redness behind, and to no small extent, it is because Arnie is there, pushing it every day. It's hard pushing a granite boulder uphill, but she's been doing it.
And she's being driven off her show - for $300 dollars a week. That's right, $300 dollars a week.
America woke up to the post-constitutional reality of Bush v Gore. Albert Gore conceded the election, and the world, caught like a deer in the headlights, looked on at the oncoming noise show, filled with lights, marching bands and loud crashes.
It is a day that people will not celeberate, the real control over America did not begin until much later, with the transformation of the 9/11 attacks into our Reichstag fire - I called it that on the 12th of September 2001, I don't know how many other people did, or have since then.
There are some statements or words which cause the spleens of small minded people to rise up in unison. It is an aggressive territorial instinct, the way dogs find fire hydrants. Often it is when a part of cultural identity is attacked. It is this impulse that makes anti-equal marriage amendments ballot bait for the right wing. Theatre, in particularly, has a millenia old tradition of being the target of riots masquerading as piety. The very response is the reason for theatre which offends the sensibilities of the senseless. When something is offensive, it causes us to look at our reactions, and, if we have a scrap of enlightenment, divide what is necessary from what is unnecessary in our biases.
Let us take a simple game, the investment game. There are two players, the rent player, and the capital player. The rent player gets an income of 10 every time, he may give some or all of it to the other player. The other player gets three times the amount given, and may give back some or all to the rent player.
There are very few things in this world that cannot be abused, free trade is not one of them. Because it deals with the welfare of billions of people, getting free trade right is of the utmost importance. We haven't been.
Instead America is pursuing a neo-mercantilist strategy, which is designed, as British trade in the 18th and early 19th century was designed, to force trade through the US. We benefit from the accumulation of assets, as England benefited from the accumulation of silver in the hands of the crown. But the real standards of living of the affected - and often afflicted - countries and regions do not. Triangular trade forces the center countries to find goods or services that are so compelling that they can cut a deal with elites to provide them in return for deconstructing the power structure of the target economy. Slavery and opium were two such commodities in the first era of mercantilism.
An institution that can pass a law without wider discussion, and then arrest you for it? No? Then why do you trust wikipedia? This is how things work there:
I propose that we add this to the WhatToAvoid section. Zocky 19:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
External links
Mass posting of links to a particular website is strongly discouraged on Wikipedia. Posting a link to an external website with each comment you make on a talk page is likely to be viewed as spamming or an attempt to improve your website's ranking on search engines. If you have to tell other Wikipedians about a good website that you are associated with, please do so on your user page.
comments
Agreed. It seems necessary. For example, User:Stirling Newberry has essentially said on User talk:Zocky that he will not stop until policy comes about against him. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 19:44
Agreed. —Matthew Brown (T:C) 21:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
agreed most strongly -- sannse (talk) 21:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Speedy agree, with a comment that they may/will be removed on sight. -- Netoholic @ 21:53, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I've already done so for all of his signatures. I don't consider it any different from link spam in article external links. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 22:03
I concur, it sets a precedent that can far too easily be abused. DS 22:02, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. bogdan 22:03, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:29, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree that external links should be discouraged in sigs. Rhobite 04:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. -- DS1953 04:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Done and blocked by a group of editors who were involved in an edit war. Discussion? Checks and balances? No, threats, policy institued and blocked in 24 hours - indefinitely with no effective appeal. Why, because once blocked you can't even dispute the, no it isn't even policy it is supposed to be a guideline. Dispite all the arcane rules on wikipedia to prevent abuse, abuse is exactly how things works there.
Now, next time you say "well wikipedia says..." realize that you are saying "some random anonymous group of people with the ability to make up the rules to suit themselves says..."
The Tokyo Stock Exchange on Sunday admitted that trouble with its own system had contributed to a botched trade that could cost Mizuho Securities Y27bn ($224m) to settle.
The admission from Takuo Tsurushima, TSE president, that a systemic error was partly to blame will deepen concern about operations on the world’s second-biggest bourse.
Last month, the TSE suffered the first total shutdown in its 56-year history after poor communication between different parts of the exchange’s IT operations.
The shutdown raised questions about the exchange’s provision of a back-up system and its ability to handle the much higher trading volumes that have accompanied the Tokyo market's recent strong performance.
I don't usually link to Atrios, not because he doesn't most worthwhile observations, but because I usually assume that everyone has read or heard what he has to say. But the Joe Lieberman flap seems to require some thought. I am not now, nor am I likely to be a fan of, Joe Lieberman. His remarks recently are interesting, simply because they are archetypical of the problem with Connecticut's most visible politician.
The problem is that the time for a "government of national unity" was in 2001, after the September 11th attacks, when it became clear that Bush as a 48% President was not capable of, alone, responding to the problems we faced. There was a need to hand a great deal more power to the Federal Government, and thus for unity. Instead of demanding a unity government at that moment, Democrats, as a party, chose to continue a policy of capitulationism, which haunts them still. Had Joe Lieberman been demanding this kind of "war cabinet" at that moment, it would have found me supportive of it. Now, however, it speaks to a capitulationism in the present. At the very moment where it is clear that Bush's control of the federal levers of power is destructive - even to those who do not want to believe it - Lieberman is calling for propping him up.
Thus, on one hand, the attacks on Joe Lieberman gloss over the reality that his proposal is not, in itself, wrongheaded, but at the same time, the attacks are deserved, the call for a war cabinet now is wrongheaded. Lieberman is constantly calling for cooperation, while doing so in a way that invites betrayl.
The correct term for what is happening is another example of the theocratic movement in America. The Washington Post continues to lie to its readers in the quest in capitulating to right wing zealotry.
A statement as viciously dishonest as you will find, it would be like saying "in 1933, almost everyone across the political spectrum - from Stalin to Hitler - believed that a modern economy and democracy were inherently incompatible." Instead, what is the case is that a particular idea is not held as part of membership in the spectrum, but, instead appears distributed across the political spectrum. Almost everyone? Perhaps everyone that Feldman listens to, but then, if he's just going to issue blanket dishonesties like the one above, I can see why sensible people wouldn't want to be around him.
Jon Bonifaz, Jarret Barrios were here - two committed progressives. Tim Murray, the hard working mayor of Worcester gave a solid opening speech. Fred Clarkson is delivering a very laid back presentation about how politics needs to be more than people powered, but people centered. He's taking apart "horse race" political coverage, and how message isn't a substitute for politics. If you don't know his work on talk to action you should.
His focus is on how to make this force viable and win elections and make a difference - and that this is something people can learn, it isn't beyond the reach of ordinary people. But there is no substitute to participate in electoral politics.
The response to Hurricane Katrina, in terms of handling the people hit by it was woefully inadequeate. The response to keep the Bush Boom going was pretty good - tap the strategic reserves of oil, remind European elites that if we go under so does their asset base, and pour money into pouring concrete. That and some carefully cooking of the employment books to keep things looking rosy, was enough to produce a brief breather in the economy. However, that breather is just about over, and even though consumer and business confidence spiked up after the worst didn't happen from the year of storms, this is a temporary effect.
In otherwords, politically, it is almost time to short George Bush again, as soon as the holiday euphoria passes.
Having castigated wikipedia's leadership for not taking seriously enough problems in the organization, I will say that there is another responsibility that has been samefully neglected: paying for it. It is time that the European Union, the United States and Japan - three areas which benefit tremendously from wikipedia - to being making grants to wikipedia the foundation for projects, including paying for infrastructure, and for advancing the status of the project in general. These grants would amount to about a penny for every referencing of wikipedia. These grants would dramatically improve the quality of wikipedia, because they could be used to pay for both development and fact checking on wikipedia. The organization has proven that it can work, but that it is now time for the society as a whole to start giving back to an institution which is already making contributions to the public good. I haven't been asked to say this, and I don't know what the response would be - but it is a clear and obvious need. For the price of a few hours of corruption in the developed governments, a project which is, right now, making progress on the fronts of education and information could be dramatically improved.
It's time for a series of substantial NEH grants. Private foundations should step up. This institution is doing more for less than just about any other in the realm of public education. Think about it - isn't making information free to the public a core mission of both public education and private foundation? There is no better place to spend grant money for this area, because any other form of public education will be leveraged by this project.
One of the great fantasies of the Iraq war was that it was the beginning of Americanization of the Middle East. This is a fantasy that has power because everyone who thinks about it knows that a middle east with a large body of citizen stake holders will have to shift from piling up assets to building societies - which means buying capital, consumer goods and intellectual products. It is precisely what the neo-mercantilist order we live on cannot bear to have happen.
Right now the world is half free and half slave - there is a nominal "free trade order" among the developed nations, and there is a neo-mercantilist order with the US-Saudi Arabia and China as its core.
Peter Daou debunks the notion of Americanization - instead, given a choice, the people of the middle east will pick religious mercantilism - that is, restricting imports of Western goods by restricting them socially. Either the world has to decide that it is for free trade, or decide that it really wants a half century of resource wars over protection. There is no third way here.
Wikipedia is a noble and important experiment, it also has to decide "whether it is an encyclopedia by wiki" or "a wiki pretending to be an encyclopedia". The answer varies depending on where on wikipedia you look. For small articles that few people get ideologically concerned about - it is basically an encyclopedia - after povandals get frustrated, they tend to go. But where there is a capsize point - wikpedia is the best encyclopedia that a group of nasty dishonest teenagers can create. Good editors are driven out by bad editors, slander, libel and speculation become the order of the day.
The problem is that wikipedia can't remain both. The vast bulk of wikipedia is the first - an open source encyclopedia that is chugging along, creating hundreds of articles and is easily the best documentation of the pop world that can be found anywhere. While certain specific sits have more raw facts, such as IMDB, or allmusic, no other source comes even remotely close for context. One can find tens of thousands of great articles all over this part of wikipedia. However, what the leadership of wikipedia is just now realizing is that if people question your credibility, you don't have any. If someone uses a wiki article as a cite in a paper, the professor isn't going to check to see if the version cited - perhaps buried several dozen edits deep, was reliable, or not.
The Republican Party is the party of retirement cuts, because that is where their favoring of the wealthy is coming from. At this point, with a massive budget deficit, and the Decenial Conference on Aging pointing out that boomers are about to start retiring - a reduction in Federal Revenues is a cut in future retirement. We have to ask America "Why are you letting the rich loan your money to themselves?" There is no such thing as a tax cut in these conditions - there are only loans against the Baby Boom - their 401k plans, Social Security, Pensions, medical benefits and assets are being pillaged for the short term.
So America, who knows how to spend your money better - you, or Carl Icahn?
A remidner to those people who think we can just lock the door on the outside world and indulge in Smootish fantasies about the wonders of protectionism.
Tulane, struck hard by Katrina is downsizing heavily. Programs to be cut, enrollment is expected to fall by a third. The costs of incompetence, corruption and short sighted penny pinching land on every aspect of a community and region. This is merely one more stage of that process.
Even as right wing nobel memorialettes are proclaiming the victory of rational expectations, there is a growing movement within economics which disputes that aggregate measures are always correct. Our own Hale Stewart, and former Bopster Barry Ritholtz have done it, so has energy economist Jerome Guillet.
Oldman and I have argued that there is such a thing as "mesoeconomics" and that it is a consistent paradigm with a developing formalism. So who are the mesoeconomists? And what is mesoeconomics.
The answer to the first question is you are one of them, and the answer to the second question is that mesoeconomics is the study of non-linear strategy in economics.
Software program's "anti-piracy" code deltes user preferences. So just remember boys and girls, if you think someone brushes against your wallet in a tightly enclosed and crowded mall, just take out your mac-10 and open fire. You were just protecting your property.
Once again we see how the craving for taking it up the ass by the gray lady has gone on unabated. The whore of Madisan Avenue says:
"President Bush's approval rating improved markedly, but concerns remain about his handling of the war in Iraq."
The poll says:
"But his presidency is still plagued by widespread doubts about his handling of the war in Iraq, with 52 percent of poll respondents saying the Bush administration intentionally misled the public when its officials made the case for war. A majority of Americans want the United States to set some timetable for troop withdrawal; 32 percent want the number of American troops reduced, and 28 percent want a total pullout."
"The survey, conducted Dec. 2-6, showed Mr. Bush's approval rating at 40 percent, up from 35 percent a month ago, which was the low point of his presidency. His gains primarily came among men, independents, 18-to-29-year-olds and conservatives. He remains a fiercely polarizing figure, with an approval rating of 79 percent among Republicans, 12 percent among Democrats and 34 percent among independents."
In short the survey says that Bush is off his lows but still very unpopular for a second term president, has a majority of the country that believes he committed an impeachable offense, and is just barely above a third support among independents. Now I predicted a Bush bounce from the end of the Katrina inflation crisis - but guess what, with the end of the strategic petroleum tap, there is a very limited top side to this surge. Americans are about to experience boom year without much job growth for a boom, and with continued deterioration in real wages. It means that Bush is going to have to slog to get back to 50% - if he ever gets there.
There are inevitable quandries about Narnia's Christian basis in an age when Christianists are once again troubling the sleep of intellectuals and the polity. Lewis' work is part of the imaginative up bringing of so many reading children - who are disproportionately where the technocratic classes come from, the "Children who read" and have a "reading life" as much as any other kind of life - and the Christianists are so violently against having a reading life, except in so far as it is fodder for religious life. The conflict is sharp, because Lewis himself was both a humanist and a religious apologist. He likely would have argued for Ignorant Denial were he alive, because he argued for miracles while he was alive.
But the Seven Chronicles of Narnia belong as much to Lewis the humanist Christian - there is no contradiction there - as much as Lewis the theology. They are not heresey as some narrow minded sorts suggest, but the are post-modern in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is fundamentally modern.
The publication of Crashing the Gates and the discussion on who should be the next wave of front page diarists seems as good a time as any to outline what we should all understand at a deep level: right now the progressive left is developing an ideology, that ideology is both a response to the failures of the present governing reactionary ideology, and a vision for a better world that comes afterward.
This is why I think that Hale Stewart and Jerome Guillet would both be excellent front pagers - they have devoted themselves to explaining immediate facts and long term issues to people so that people can understand that there is a massive failure in the system coming, and that people need to be able to understand, in their gut, how to respond. Hale is a front pager on bopnews precisely because of his smash mouth writing on economic events, and the ability both to see how the macro-numbers are good, while the fundamentals are bad. I endorse either or both for the front page.
Me? I have a different project - which is why I write the way I do.
2006 is the last legs of the Bush Boom. It is possible that a major hit of stimulus could sustain us into 2007, and it is possible that conditions will deteriorate for an early recession. However, for the moment, an interesting feature has started to reappear in the job market: Corporate Capital Expenditure. The reality is that the Bush policy of massive tax cuts for the privileged allowed two things to happen: one is a bail out of bad investments, and the other is an extraction of money from the system into other hands. This is the source of the shortage of investment supply - people who should have lost their money to creative destruction convinced the American people to bail them out and borrow the money. Since these very same people want to bankrupt the government, for them it was win/win, and for the American public it was lose/lose.
However now that the balance sheets are cleaned up - the profits we have been seeing were largely fictional, as they went to unwinding bad positions - there is actual money to be spent on expansion.
Korea was a victory, in that the original goal - preventing the take over of the peninsula by a government backed by the USSR and the PRC was accomplished. What failed was the goal of taking back North Korea from the communist government there. But that was an over-reach to begin with. But she is right - many wars aren't "won" they simply "end".
Slate has some great writers. They also hire some buffon.
Now the complete morons get their turn. This is exactly wrong, because spot demand is exactly what can be manipulated by the majors. Where as working artists cannot manipulate spot demand as easily. This would be a massive pyramidization of music. This isn't "maket" demand, because there is a complete assymetry of information, and an easy market to rig. Since the overhead cot for "pimping a download" is 4 cents - that is what Apple gets, one could easily set up machines and push the price up - if one has say $250,000 to do so (that's a million pimped hits).
Lord god, no wonder people think most economists are idiots, they are idiots.
I'm not familiar with the Higdon piece though I think it says something about a composer I never hear on the radio being the "second most performed living compsoer" - so this is not directed at her work in particular. But composers should start avoiding the one movement form, it is not well suited to either our interests or our moment. This is an era where the word "song" has replaced "movement" or "piece" or even "track" for a unit of music. Turn on the radio and you will hear a welter of froms, rhythms, structures and dances. This is an era that should be looking to create articulated movements, and away from the all encompassing proceduralism of the past. If you don't have one unifying set or progression, it is better to break it up into movements - with cyclical references - rather than over elaborate into one single arc. Many movements as one - wonderful - but don't over stress structure with length.
One of the reactionary memes which is very effective is to create this vast "them" which is a combination of the metropolitan economy, the academic environment, popular culture as counter culture and liberal-technocratic government. Against this they array "traditional" art, government, morality and a populist entrepreneurialism that hero worships the decisive manager. Many of the roots of this agon are crypto-racist, their attacks on modern music and popular music are lifted directly from the "Degenerate Art" campaign of the Nazis - and here I am willing to hold the comparison up to very close scrutiny. A frankenstein of intellectualism, associated with Jews, and sexual licentiousness and free love, associated with "Negro Jazz" became the object of scorn and derision.
One of the social adjustments that societies have to make is to deal with increased mobility. Breeding habits that work in tightly closed environments, where diseases almost never enter from the outside, do not work when there is a broad movement of people and goods. This is particularly acute with sexually transmitted diseases - because small communities are remarkably promiscuous, even as they keep tight control on the information of who is doing what with whom. This adaptation helps keep the social fabric together - infidelity is kept quiet to prevent rifts in marriages, while the value of pair bonding keeps social tensions down.
But in an environment where there is contact with the outside, the results can be brutal - STDs rip through populations, infecting wives, and afflicting whole communities. More over, because the contact web of the community is small compared to the speed of roads, before people in remote places even hear of a problem, it has swept over them...
X-rays are peculiar things, unlike light, which comes from relatively normal and staid interactios, X-Rays are the result of violence, a flood of high powered electrons ripping at each other. The x-ray then is the most appropriate tool for seeing what is small - because its wavelength is small, it can resolve smaller objects - or for studying traces of the past which are locked deep within an object. In this case what was important is that it allowed a sample to be looked at nondestructively. There is an irony here, because the energy of the x-ray is so focused, it can leave the larger object unharmed...
Whitewashington at its finest. A panel gets together and white washes Bush's manifest incompetence and depraved indifference to American security, and crassly political use of 9/11 to back us into an illegal war, and then they are "disappointed" with the response. What they fuck did they think was going to happen? George Bush isn't some college student getting a warning for being a hair over the legal limit for DUI, he's the executive of the United States of America. They issue a get out of jail free card, and then are surprised when he shrugs like the narrator of Bohemian Rhapsody singing "nothing really matters to me."
The failure of the institutions of Washington to enforce the law upon power holders as it is enforced on us peons is the root cause of our political crisis. There are two sets of rules - one for us peons, which involves having a ton of bricks land on you for any misstep, and the other for the powerful, which involves being let off for decades of criminal activity, and causing hundreds of deaths. Until the law means one and the same for all, we will slam from disaster to disaster, because people like Bush will exploit the hypocrisy of a system that fries people for robbing a cigarette store, and let's Bush and Cheney off with a golden parachute retirement and place on our postage.
In a bizarre decision that the Texas Legislature is also a judicial body, a conservative Texas judge accepts the argument that because the legislature expressly included campaign law in 2003 - after they already knew that DeLay was guilty - that it was legal before. Texas corruption and flagrant contempt for the law avoided complete absurdity by having the judge admit that using a check wasn't a defense against money laundering.
Which is how corruption does finally end, when people who are willing to rewrite the constitution of the state of Texas for Tom DeLay - who said the legislature has the power to retroactively change the law? I can't find the clause that says the legislature is a judicial body that gets to decide what the law meant only what new law means - aren't willing to go the extra mile and rewrite the English Language for him.
I love Scott's art style - it is fresh, original, unique, expressive, right here right now without having a gimmicky "this is going to look dated" feel to it.
Michael Kinsley kicked it off - linked earlier, only one to a customer - and Ruth Marcus piles on. The party that said that they wanted to get "government off the people's backs" seems to have meant "we will bury you".
The complaints about corruption and war profiteering are getting louder. Has the press started to go all muck racking and egalitarian? Or have they realized just what a blunder throwing their lot in with the Republicans was some 20 years ago.
We've got another Boomtown fan. The evolution of television has been interesting, at the same time its unifying force has eroded in the cultural world, the creative ability of shows to explore areas in depth has increased. The very fracturing however, means that more and more people take their swill straight up.
The economic pressures in China are growing stiffer. Contrary to popular right wing propaganda, it is not prosperity, but adversity, that makes Democracy seem important. When there is pain to be spread, everyone wants to make sure that it is spread evenly as possible, rather than lumped on top of them. In closed societies, run by oligarchies of those with wealth and privilege - the top buys its way out of trouble. That's when some other market than the monetary kind is important. The pressures on the ordinary chinese individual are becoming enormous - which is why there are job riots - and a growing democracy movement in Hong Kong.
Not surprisingly Taiwan's conservative Nationalist Party wants unification, in order to get access to oodles of cheap labor on the mainland, which independence, or even noises in that direction, are cutting off. The taiwanese public is hoping that Taiwan would become a corporate center controlling that labor, and thus not as cramped economically. It is an interesting bet, one that I think will not pan out for them.
I don't subscribe to rigid ideologies about how composers compose. Saying that it should all just spill out is as bad as saying it should all be rigorous. Composing is a creative activity, and as such it is for whatever purpose the individual has for it, even if that is "what else would I do?" It is like playing a game, or working a job. Saying that it should happen unintentionally denigrates intention, and that intuitive sense that something is worth saying in musical terms. It's liek saying that sex should just happen, it reeks of a desire to avoid something, though it varies what that something is. The idea that ientent is "dirty" is a very peonistic thing to say. Intention is what the evil producers and elites have, the notion that avoiding it is therefore good peon morality is deeply ingrained in the culture. Partially because it is to the tremendous advantage of elits for peons to act completely individually and without meso-econmic expectation. All y'all are easier to model that way.
2005 has had more than its share of storms, and thus more than its share of strange storms. The three Cat 5 monsters - Katrina, Rita and Wilma - are joined by large eyed Ophelia, Spain striking Vince, and now Epsilon, which has been predicted to weaken and turn extra tropical over and over again, but...
AFTER A SLIGHT WEAKENING OVERNIGHT...MORNING SATELLITE IMAGES
INDICATE THAT EPSILON HAS RESTRENGTHENED. THE EYE HAS BECOME MORE
SYMMETRIC AND THE RING OF CONVECTION IS STRONGER THAN YESTERDAY.
T-NUMBERS FROM TAFB AND SAB ARE 4.5 ON THE DVORAK SCALE AND ON THIS
BASIS...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS INCREASED TO 75 KNOTS. THERE ARE
NO CLEAR REASONS...AND I AM NOT GOING TO MAKE ONE UP...TO EXPLAIN
THE RECENT STRENGTHENING OF EPSILON AND I AM JUST DESCRIBING THE
FACTS. HOWEVER...I STILL HAVE TO MAKE AN INTENSITY FORECAST AND THE
BEST BET AT THIS TIME IS TO PREDICT WEAKENING DUE TO COLD WATER
...HIGH SHEAR AND DRY AIR.
...
THE UPPER LEVEL WINDS ARE EXPECTED TO BE
HIGHLY UNFAVORABLE AND EPSILON WILL LIKELY BECOME A REMNANT LOW. I
HEARD THAT BEFORE ABOUT EPSILON...HAVEN'T YOU?
If it befuddles Avila - one of the top tropical cyclone forecasters in the world - it has got to be strange.
Let me offer a different one - the closing of other roads, and the "don't give me any trouble" mentality. Once upon a time there were many roads for people to reach success - college was one, but it was not the overwhelmingly prepondrant one. Now the other roads are closing, other than the US military or salesmanship, college is a virtual entrance requirement for any road that leads directly to the upper echelons of society.
Thus what you are seeing is not that the sytem has always bene bad for a certian percentge - it is that we now must stare at those people in the face. Once upon a time there were indians to kill, and myriad openings in an industrializing economy for someone with a gift for gears and an idea.
That's the underlying problem with Ignorant Denial as a basis for a movement. Right wing nuts are happy to put mushy syllables in their muths to make room for another right wing billionaire backed fog machine - but actual practicing theologians recognize that they do not want the study of God to be associated with hypocrisy. It's pison and they can sense it, even if they aren't willing to come out and tell the truth:
"These people are worshippers of the World, and have traded their souls for worldy fame and material comfort."
That is Ignorant Denial is another manifestation of thse people who love Jesus, but hate the Christ.
In the days during the run up to Iraq I made three predictions:
1. The invasion would be a success. Getting into trouble never is that hard.
2. The US would declare defeat and go home - that is, we would leave short of leaving behind a stable government.
3. That this would be a reboot of the dictator software.
1 was a gimme short par 4. 2 is now happening: the US is going to leave Iraq without leaving behind a stable government.
The Washington Post reports on the Baghdadification of New Orleans. Bush is the master of disaster - a Democratic city that put Louisiana in play is wiped out, and Bush yawns, realizing that a dollop of disorganized democrats in Houston won't put Texas in play. 9/11 of course is the pinnacle - how to parlay a massive security failure into the highest approvals on record. Iraq? Billions in corruption for his contributors. Deficits? Who cares, it will only be New Deal programs to be cut, while sacred pork goes untouched.
Simon outlines what is clearly an attempt by the executive to hit the come back trail. Now that tapping the strategic reserves has pushed down energy inflation for the time being, and a huge wave of money has bouyed the economy - we can see both the Republicans and Bush coming back in the polls, from trawling along the depths up to merely wildly unpopular. This new smarm offensive clearly rests on an attempt to package Vietnamization as the solution to Iraq.
But it rests on what he calls the "deeper story", the pervasive corruption in the present ruling party that rests on an "unrestrained lust for power".
I've basically ignored MoDo's book, because I think it a gigantic waste of time. Screeds about the problems of the other gender are stacked high in history, with "misogyny" being so old it has a greek name. It is no surprise that the fairer sex can give as good as it doesn't get at times. The book targets the non-root cause of the issue. The issue isn't "men are pigs" - the issue in the present is that we have not organized our society to make matchmaking among intelligent people a priority. Since everyone is an independent contractor these days, it is no surprise that, as with pensions, many people are finding that retirement is a lot colder than it is cracked up to be. If MoDo wants to take her poison pen out on the elite males of her age bracket - fine with me, they aren't doing a particularly good job of running the country either.
What is a great deal more interesting is the eruptive misogyny from the right wing with the phrase "Women have an expiration date, men don't" being thrown around - and the opinion expressed that nubile teenage girls are the only attractive ones, because they are at the prime level of breeding. Garrance shows how "eww" worthy some of this is.
John Bonifaz is running for Secretary of State in Massachusetts. The primary job of this office is to register corporations and to run elections. For those that believe that election reform is the only issue, this is the most important race for electing someone who has been on the front lines of it, and has been among the most forthright critics of Bush's legitimacy.
Chris Floyd argues that Iraq is being deliberately turned into a failed state. I think this is a bit behind the curve, Iraq has been allowed to sink into long term conflict status for a very long time. The reality is that simply not making extreme effort to stabilize it is enough to turn it into a failed state. But he is right that there was a depraved indifference in our policy to the results of our actions.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis - the statistical arm of the department of Commerce - issued its GDP report yesterday. The result was a cheery 4.3%.
How to understand this? It is simple, as with the early 1970's expansion and the expansion during the Korean conflict - this is a war time boom. War booms don't always spread the prosperity. In fact, quite the reverse, war booms often have something which is a relative of inflation, what David Hackett Fischer calls "a money drought". More...
Stirling Newberry -
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This is a time of transition for Apple, and while it causes some personal problems for me and others who are using the platform, it is clear that Jobs has a vision to move Apple into the "computer for the rest of us" niche that has been his dream for some time - the computer as appliance, connected to other appliances. The iPod and iTunes store are both key to this strategy, as are a series of other products that are in the pipeline. The shift to Intel is part of this, because it is the last hurdle for many people who stare out through the barred Windows of Microsoft to switch. It is my belief that eventually Apple will license the MacOS to Microsoft, and move away from being a computer company - that isn't where the profits are - and towards being a digital life style company that works on the high level of opperating and interface design.
The Mac base is larger than the sales base - macs stay in commission longer. For example, checking a large number of blogs that have the sitemeter tracker for OS shows that about 10% of blog readers are on macs - far above the market share of boxes sold. This reality - that the apple installed base is larger than the sales base - has meant that many in business, who equate the two, have failed to realize that Apple is a high end company that, like Toyota, sells computers that stay on the road.
While I don't subscribe to the hysteria over voting - it has spawned a micro-issue constituency that seems to believe that this is the only issue that matters - voting is still the fundamental right in a Democracy, and the standard of "legitimacy beyond a resonable doubt" demands that we both know, and can verify, that elections reflect the will of the people. One part of this is knowing that the count of the votes on the ballots is, in fact, correct.
Rush Holt has a petition to pass HR 550 as written. It is a good bill and an essential step, it deserves swift, bi-partisan, approval, because only those with something to hide should fear a clear paper trail for elections.
It often takes a shock to the system to get me working again effectively. For some years I have sketched a quartet that I knew would be my 9th quartet - entitled "The Plague" it was born as an idea at a time when the plague in question was AIDS. With the worries about pandemics, it seemed even more appropriate. However, it is with Oldman's death from the flu that the conception as been focused - the quartet will be dedicated to him. Last night and this morning I composed the "fantasia" movement.
You would think that the paper of broken record would learn to hire someone other than raving lunatics to fill column inches. I suppose that will happen when we stop putting raving lunatics in the White House, and have their criminal friends in the media cover for them.
Never write a blog off for dead. Just as I was promising not to crawl Obsidian Wings again, Hilzoy rounds up the startling shift in right wing thinking and shows the essential emptiness of the right wing blogging community. The topic is how the Republicans are now coopting "withdraw" by adopting what is, effectively, Biden's position.
Better known to his readers as "oldman", from a family nickname, Loan Nguyen was a TA at Iowa State University, having earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. However, it is in the area of applied non-linear dynamics, particularly to the social sciences, which his writing in the electronic world centered upon.
[Earlier a short announcement brought a wide range of appreciation from other members of the bop community. you can read them here.]
Striking while the iron is hot the three opposition parties joined to topple Martin from his short term as PM. This election will be watched closely - the neo-liberal order of the 1990s - Thatcherism with a friendly face - is getting a heavy test to its left and its right. While the Liberals have delivered for Canada, the entire structure rested on a constant conning of the public, a sales job to get by the temporary problems.
This era, because it did not create a connection between policy and people's sense of the polity, is crumbling. Martin will have to use every lever of power to stay in office, perhaps facing a bastard coalition government that will decentralize and then collapse.
The key problem in the financial world is simple: extraction of oil is so profitable that it warps the rest of the economies around it. Everything has to throw off as much cash as oil in Saudi Arabia. Suddenly even the slatoids get it - and are going gaagaa over a paper that is years behind the curve. What is the proposal? a buyer's cartel.
Let's see, that means that the powers that be in the academy are, oh, about 10 years behind the curve. A buyer's cartel will break down for the same reason that oil for food broke down - the temptation of buyers to cheat, use the extra growth to get short term gains. Then other buyer's cheat, demand goes back up, and things are back to where they are now. The Saudis could reward cheaters by shovelling money at them, and they have a great deal of liquid cash.
Let's look at the meso-economics of what needs to happen.
I am the bearer of bad news - long time Bop contributor Oldman died after a short illness over the holidays. While a longer post will come later, it seemed appropriate to note his passing, and regret that the world has lost a brilliant and original thinker who had great promise in his work.
Two appreciations: here and here] And thanks to the Daou Report for linking to this post. A reminder that oldman's Author archive can be used to read all of his posts.
The Football Gods Eat Turkey and Watch The Seahawks-Giants
by Stirling Newberry
The Seahawks are a good football team with a questionable defense, the Giants are a bad dangerous football team. Good teams can often be rolled by dangerous teams - and dangerous bad teams often let wins slip through their fingers. 11 false start penalties that helped make it so that the high powered running of Tikie Barber and the coolness underfire passing of Eli Manning had to go up hill. Missing three game winning field goals, floating obvious interception balls.
For those who look at McCain and think he would be a change of direction:
During an appearance last weekend at the University of Mississippi, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, predicted that Mr. Lott would become Republican leader again, adding, "I will tell anyone that of all the majority leaders we've had in the United States Senate, I believe that Trent Lott was the finest leader we've had."
The direction is in reverse. To quote Byron Dorgan from later in the article - "We ought to have to pay admission to watch this."
Admittedly Capricorn One was a terrible film, but it expressed the paranoia that people feel about the government lying and covering up. There have been a host of government cover ups and blunders, including such things as telling people that overground nuclear tests were safe within sight of Las Vegas. The assortment of hidden government projects gone wrong gets to be a relatively long list. We forget that many government projects held secret that went right are forgotten about.
A Capricorn Event is one that lends credibility to the absurd. An event which cannot be accepted in public, and whose obviousness creates an underground counter-response. One is the Warren Commission's Report on the JFK assassination was one such, Lee Harvy Oswald may have acted alone, but the report had enough holes that it still creates an after resonance of suspicion.
The important Capricorn Event of the last 10 years is the theft of the 2000 election.
I like it when I can be a bear. I am a bear on US manufacturing, and have been for sometime. I am a bear on housing at this point, though that is recent. The thing to remember about being a bear is that it is always brightest before the dark, the economy always looks the most robust before the bust, and record plunges always come from record highs.
In short before the economy can roll off a cliff, it has to climb that cliff first. The signs are that the Bush boom has about a year to run. This still might be like 1995, when there was a cyclical bottom in volatility, and investors were willing to take sequentially greater risks, show by higher and higher tolerance for volatility, in more and more advanced and speculative forays into the "new economy". That new economy exists and is humming along - people buy computers, travel and other goods online, as was predicted. On line ventures have lowered the barrier to entry - for example my CD becomes available soon for a price that is less than many people spend in Las Vegas - and have created a welter of new businesses as well as phased out old ones.
One of TR's best observations is that every reforming movement has a lunatic fringe, in our own time the end of the Nixonian state and the disconnect of public will from the results of elections are two essential targets of reform. However, both have created lunatic fringes. One believes that 911 was planned by Bush, and seeks to prove that the World Trade Center had to be brought down by explosives. The other believes that the election system is rigged and in the hands of evil forces.
These are only small steps from the reality: namely that the Bush Executive was criminally neglegent in warnings about 9/11, and the other that the election system no longer reflects the reality of our own lives. They "lunatic fringe" versions are not supported by the facts as we have them, but the are theories which have a great deal of cachet because they clearly place the blame on "them". What is more frightening is that the lunatic fringe theories of the right, of a perpetual war against evil terrorists who are all in league with each other, and of a left wing conspiracy to have politically correct gay black stormtroopers impose an Orwellian social order, are the operative theories of our current government. That is, if you think Bush planned 911 is crazy, realize that we went to war on the operative theory that Saddam planned 911, which is even more crazy, because at least Bush had something to gain from 911's occurance.
But looking leftward for a moment - the insanity of the right being a continual topic from my keyboard - why is it that "election reform" has made so little traction, when the insanities of the right wing have netted trillions - with a trill - of dollars for their purveyors?
Dave Jensen, 54, a former Marine and a protester who witnessed the arrests, said the crowd cheered as Ellsberg was taken away.
"The ordinance was very plainly meant to prevent people from protesting in front of Bush's ranch," he said. "We feel that's a First Amendment issue. It's intentionally designed to curtail freedom of speech and freedom of assembly."
The best way to celebrate thanksgiving is by realizing that the freedoms we are thankful for may not be on the table next year.
For those who are afraid of China, realize that they are moderns - they have job riots, thousands of deaths from industrial accidents like mine collapses, and toxic rivers. We've exported the nastiest part of industrialism to them, which leaves our air and water cleaner. The Chinese period of almost unlimited growth is going to slow, because they will have to spend more money preventing incidents like this.
It has been a year since the nation gathered with family to be thankful for its blessings, for we truly are blessed.
We pray that our bretheren, here and around the world, will awaken to how truly fortunate we are, and to stop wasting those blessings on the hurly burly pursuit of mere power, and idle and empty luxury. We pray that we will learn to heal the anger and rage that infects us as we live within our gilded cages. We pray that we will remember the courage to end this terrible war, which is not merely a war between peoples, but a war against truth.
We pray for all those who do not share in these blessings fully. For the family that waits for a loved one to come home - from war, or work, or wanderings of the spirit, and we are with them, as they steal glances to an empty chair, which they fear may remain empty yet longer. We pray for the families who have lost their homes, loved ones and livelihoods in disaster, whether great and visible, or unknown and unheralded.
I tend not to write on Israel. There is almost no topic that it is so unproductive to be sensible about, because it is dominated by "sides" that want to be right. For the right wing, Israel is a proxy for "those fucking towelheads deserve what they get". For many others the Palestinians are proxies for "the evil corporate capitalists destroying the world". Neither position wants sense, but instead chumming their own internal spleens. The reality of the situation does not conform to the often racist and hateful desire to enshrine might makes rightism, and therefore there is little point in writing for an audience that almost does not exist.
When the move of classical music to digital from analog worlds is written, there will be a chapter on Jeff Harrington, he is one of the most singularly important people in this transition, even if his music is not remembered. We label "the Mannhiem School" even if its members are not always named, we forget who, exactly, founded conservatories and other institutions, we gloss over figures such as Habeneck who helped create the modern orchestra. Without these individuals there would be no music of those eras, and the ripples are felt forward.
Jeff Harrington has been called an ugly personna seeking beauty, though I prefer to think of it as being someone who, like Liszt, adopts an almost demonic facade to indicate that he is reaching for the dark underside of an age, and presenting it in the form which is shocking on its surface. He is a refugee from the modern age, and one who has gone to the hills to fight a guerilla war against it, only to find that the hills are populated, and that there is a community to be created, one which he has been instrumental in creating.
having (almost) gotten one CD out the natural question is what the second one should be. However, it is also clear that there are thousands of composers out there who should have a chance at exposure, and the need to publish.
1. I am looking for score that can be electronically rendered in a saleable form.
2. I am working on using iUniverse to publish scores. The cost for a chamber work, including parts, will be approximately $30 dollars in soft cover.
Composers interested in the first should send queries to this address. Not all good works render well, but everything will be looked at closely.
Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick: Sharon knows that the time in Iraq is ending
by Stirling Newberry
Sharon, whatever one may thing of his ideology, is an excellent strategist and tactician. He never lets anything get in the way of geographic, or chronological, realities. His breaking off to form the "Responsibility" Party is an attempt to destroy the socialist Labor, but also because he understands that America's time in Iraq is running out.
You may have heard of the Denver Three and the ACLU lawsuit. What you may not have heard is that the ACLU believes that exclusion is a policy, and their intent in the law suit is to use discovery to find out who and when this policy was ordered. The ACLU believes it has evidence to allege that removal of individuals from Bush apperances is systematic and wide spread.
The reality of our situation is this: these last years of easy oil are being spent building factories in China and McMansions here in the United States, and soon economic factors are going to make life much more difficult. It is a passing injustice that will be rectified, simply because it will leave behind contradictory claims on future effort.
In the mean time, it does seem to be good for comic relief. Bush pretends to talk, and the Chinese pretend to listen, even as they continue to float his government and our borrowing habits.
Patricia Dalton whinges about young women's clothes. While there has been a general pornification of America, the current wave isn't more than previous ones, I remember my younger days, and there was certainly a great deal of lift and scoop going on. Men and women both want attention from the others, and presenting ones sexuality is one of the ways to do it, especially when you are young. Youth and health signify fertility, and display at least acknowledges availability.
The article is a relatively poorly written vent of an older person shocked and scandalized about sex. She talks about a t-shirt that read "strippers do it with poles" - when I was 17 one girl game to school wearing a key attached to her belt that dangled in front of a strategic area, she was wearing jeans so tight you could see the outlines of her vulva, and she publicly handed the key to the boy she was desperate for. In French class the girl who sat next to me was busy writing sex notes in French for the exchange student she was hot for. I went to two top academic high schools, and hung out in the honours courses - this was the behavior of intelligent, college track girls.
I don't know where Dr. Dalton was a the time. Perhaps the reason she is so clearly sexually anxious is that she wasn't doing well at the time, or perhaps she was doing all too well and is of the "not as I did" persuasion. I would guess the latter actually.
More over, Rumsfeld is the person who created the light invasion strategy, which is a large part of the screw up. A heavy invasion might well have gone better.
This article has some bad numbers because it does not calculate the employer's contribution to health care, and it incorrectly adds "high speed internet connection" as "entertainment" as well as "magazines". This incorrect merging of information and entertainment makes Damon Darlin's conclusions worthless, but taken as a whole the amount spent on communication for those at the top of society is high.
Looked at this way, there is another slice of the budget he doesn't calculate, and that is location, location, location - of one's home. Afterall, one pays to be near not only ones work, but ones recreation and entertainment.
I am not going to criticise a caucus for doing the brave thing, and finally coming out on the offensive. But tactics people - the Democrats should have abstained.
The other realization should be dawning on the Democrats: they keep losing elections, because they keep voting for republipork - the subsidies that keep the Republican masses happy. The war is one, the transporation bill another.
One of the major problems with old media is credulability. Colin Powell got up, lied directly to Charlie Rose, and received a fawning stage to do so. Over and over again Powell made assertions that were only credible in the shadow of the falling twin towers, and received soft velvety cream puff follow ups. I've seen tougher lines of questioning at a meat market bar Saturday night in the Castro.
But this isn't altering the political course - while the media has made things worse, the reality that is driving the country is in the cost of heating homes, in food prices still high because of a spike in plastics and resins - disproportionately made in the Gulf Coast. In fact, oil companies are engaged in reverse gouging, keeping the cost of gasoline low, because it has been realized that 2.50 is the pain threshold that prevents people from buying big gas guzzlers.
So while the media may be a deck full of jokers, they aren't as wild as people think. Here are a few facts that are going to keep pushing matters against the Republicans, even if the Democrats don't capitalize on them.
This plan fails the basic test of a blueprint to engineer a change of power. Now the country is angry enough that it might hand the Democratic Party one or even both houses of Congress - but this plan bodes ill for them holding it, and instead getting swept away by McCainites in 2008.
Why Isn't Bill O'Rielly being arrested for terrorism?
by Stirling Newberry
Think Progress calls it McCarthyism. Let's call it what it is, Bill O'Reilly is siding with the terrorists in an internal political dispute. That's treason, because the United States is, declared by Congress, still at war with terrorism globally.
Why isn't the executive making sure that the laws are faithfully executed and arresting him for giving aid and comfort to America's enemies?
Often I complain about my favorite people. I don't spend time reading non-sources like Powerline etc. because I know that they purvey disinformation. Often, when I complain about someone, it is because I read everything, or nearly everything, they publish, and trip over a stray bad incident. Today's target is the indespensible Daniel Gross, who gets burned by one of his sources:
Target: Religious Bigotry isn't Company Policy but we will look the other way.
by Stirling Newberry
Dear Target Guest
In our ongoing effort to provide great service to our guests, Target consistently ensures that prescriptions for the emergency contraceptive Plan B are filled. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also requires us to accommodate our team members’ sincerely held religious beliefs.
Blasted by Milbank and Pincus the White House argues that congress had all the intelligence and that the cover up report, written at a time when war hysteria made telling the truth to the public impossible, proves that the cover up should continue:
· The Robb-Silberman Commission Finds "No Evidence Of Political Pressure."
"These are errors * serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments." (Charles S. Robb And Laurence H. Silberman, The Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 3/31/05, Pg. 50-51)
There is a simple reality here: the executive and the Republican party will not stop lying, and the press will continue to act as stenographers for those lies until there is a political counterforce. Under our constitution there is one, and only one, political counterforce to an executive abusing power and disseminating false statements to the public - impeachment.
After a stinging defeat trying to be a pseudo-reform conservative, Schwarzenhagger is now appealling to the real Republican base: the construction lobby.
While infrastructure is one of the great liberal mantras - one can't run a modern economy on dirt roads - the profligate pouring of concrete is a peculiarly Republican obsession. A general looseness and lack of planning with the publics money is coupled without outright colluision and corruption to produce mamoth waste. The Republicans say government doesn't work, because they know how it works when they run the government.
Faced with destabilizing pressures, and both sides realizing that another election would not materially change matters, Germany agreed to a make time deal. That deal? More unemployment, higher taxes, lower standard of living, austerity and kicking the can down the road.
Wapo reports but does not draw the obvious line: there is no major reform here, and instead, the government is looking out after itself. The laws against firing workers aren't going to increase hiring, instead, people are going to be fired, and jobs shifted someplace else.
Germany has two choices at this point: one is to allow wages to drop dramatically, and generate hiring. The other is to allow inflation, and allow living standards to drop dramatically and chase greater exports. Both of these choices are unpalatable, and lead to further crisis. The other option - dramatic restructuring, is impossible in the current climate. This government seems short lived, and who ever gets blamed more for what happens next loses the next election.
One reason I am going to upgrade to the last generation G hardware is that the signs are that Apple is trying to get out of the computer business. I don't blame them, it isn't as if the PC business is where the action is currently, it is in digital media. Jobs is going from making machines for producers of content to consumers of content, because that is where the money and action is right now.
However, it means that the MacTels are likely to be problem plagued as they have resources taken from them and thrown at the next hand held. On the other side of this we will probably have iPod size devices that do what laptops now do, only better - but it will be a long transition. The problems with the recent 10.4.3 are a case in point - devices not being recognized, strange work arounds.
Sigh, same tired lie. They've been saying it for years now, and they still haven't arrested anyone for treason - which is what they are accusing people of.
This executive talks a good game about being a militarist right wing dictatorship, and it certainly has the legal powers to be one, but they don't have the balls to actually do it.
The reality that the right wing is facing is that it is stuck with Bush, and the only pressure he responds to is pressure to move farther to the right, not towards a more "moderate" stance. Hence Miers went down, not because sensible people told Bush that he could not nominate a crony, but because not very sensible people demanded a hard core reactionary to move the court to the right. Bush will only be pressured into doing what he wants to do.
Fox News/Opinion Dynamics confirms it - Bush is below 40% approval, solidly so. The generally favorable poll has Bush at 36%.
Why this is so can be told from the tea leaves, Bush was supported to keep cheap gas, cheap government and cheap money. What is happening now is that we find instead that life - our lives - are cheap.
Today George Bush celebrated Veteran's day by making truth a casualty. The executive branch's claim is that the Senate Democrats had the same intelligence available to them as the White House. As Jay Rockefeller may clear, this wasn't the case, and, in fact Senator Roberts has been stonewalling the investigation of whether there had been misuse of the intelligence presented to the Senate.
We are going to continue in the stupid years. Our cars should tell us that much - big chrome grills, gas guzzlers, massive hulks of metal. And that's the cars, let alone the SUVs. When times get bad, the stupid get protectionist. It isn't the reactionaries that turn disaster into catstrophe, it is the "sensible people". The sensible people right now are pushing "energy independence" and "workers rights for trade". The sensible Republicans can't stomache another round of borrow and squander, so they are trying to slow it down. The country has lost faith in the George Bush Platinum credit card.
This means that there is a growing bipartisan consensus for doing the sensible thing and retrenching. Sensible people like Her Royal Clintonness, and John McCain. American will sensibly choose, given two Republicans, to vote for the one that is more Republican. It might not be John McCain.
I don't blame Priya Jain for having a bad attitude about Running with Scissors. The book is badly written pornography, allowing people to think about what they don't want to think about.
Race is a fast identifier for which genetic population a person belongs to, it is not a particularly good one. Instead of saying "this drug should be marketted to race X." One should say "this drug should be targetted at population X", and a test devised for which population the individual belongs to. Otherwise, you are going to miss people who need it, and include people who don't.
The press might back the next Bushfensive for popularity, but it might not. The reality is that inflation has taken hold in the country, despite the failure of official statistics to report it, and the high labor slack. The macro-economic policy numbers, Unemployment and CPI, while sufficient for setting monetary policy are increasingly irrelevant, and monetary policy is increasingly hobbled by the growth of a neo-fixed currency regime and continued capital movement. In short, CPI and UI are becoming meaningless as monetary policy itself is gradually becoming meaningless. It is fiscal policy that is keeping all of this afloat, and with the planned austerity budget for next year, not for long.
A book worth rereading, or even dipping into, is Galbraith's A Journey Through Economic Time, which recounts his personal view of the development of the liberal system. He tidies up a few things, but it is still a good reminder that people often stumble through the dark, and systems are emergent - when a feedback loop is created, it produces a spark of activity, and people follow that. Ordinary individuals often drive policy, and government is often like the cosmic ray that sets off a lightning bolt - the potential energy had to be there.
The Keynesian Economy has long since fallen, but left behind a large circulatory system which was picked up by the Friedman-Mundell economy. The difference is the the Keynesian economy was largely a closed circulation, and generated net savings, while the Friedman-Mundell economy responded to the challenge of energy inflation by creating a mefo-financed asset bubble.
The reality of Nixon's phase of the Southeast Asian conflict is that it made a bad thing worse. By expanding the war, he managed to not only lose, but destabilise the entire region. Those who put the blame on "politicians" not letting the military fight the war conveniently forget that half of the intense involvement in South East Asia was under Nixon, who gave the military a freer hand.
Bush has managed to do the same to the Middle East - by engaging in a far reaching intervention, he has managed to destabilise the region farther and more soundly than previously possible. Widening intervention without a tenable political end point produces "Conflict Creep". The enemies are always pouring in from the edges of the map, the whole world threatening to crush the forces engaged like a can.
[Original Article on the triangle here from almost exactly a year ago.]
Pumped! Democrats holding open seats. Dumped! Bush - St. Paul mayor who endorsed him loses, Kilgore slides after Bush appearance. Pumped! Democratic GOTV. Dumped! Initiatives - everything lost in Ohio and California. Pumped! Incumbent Mayors in big cities. Dumped! Last minute smear campaigns - Forrester and Kilgore went from in the race to out with the same last minute attempts at media bombs. Pumped! Democrats make more in roads into the suburbs where property taxes are the issue. Dumped! Beltway Republican machine. Pumped! Democratic hopes for 2006. Dumped! Bush hopes of getting back on trap with a PR offensive. Pumped! Warner Wave starts in earnest. Dumped! Schwarzenhagger's teflon. Pumped! Union votes critical to wins in NJ and CA. Dumped! Special interest politics which were virtually invisible. Pumped! The worried electorate. Dumped! The angry electorate. Pumped! Comparisons to 1993, when there were warning signs to a Democratic Congress that were ignored. Dumped! "It was local."
Curator Brooke Davis Anderson deserves high praise for the Obsessive Drawing show at the American Folk Art Museum. While the term "outsider art" is patently offensive, it is also a sign of how totalitarian in mind set the art world in America is. "There are humans, and sub-humans, and look, the sub humans can do interesting things, let's look at the drawings by gorillas next."
Which is why this show is important. These are simply artists, they have their own internal working methods and responses. Psycho-analysis, beyond what we would do for other artists, is inappropriate. It is also part of a growing understanding that the "art world" is less about art, than it is about credentials, money, self-promotion and careerism. These, the infecting realities of our age, are what is absent from a wide swath of artists - some inside, some outside, some not even aware of the difference.
Senator Pat Roberts of the Flatearthers is a piece of work. Really.
First off he aruges that America should support the appearance of torture:
Emerging from lunch in the Capitol, Roberts, quickly surrounded by reporters asking similar questions, explained that although the United States shouldn't torture, prisoners should think otherwise. "It's the fear of the unknown that really allows us to get the answers that we need," he said.
Defending the military's treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, he added: "There are more senators and congressmen with ethics cases pending than there are problems with interrogation right now in Gitmo."
A twofer on chutzpah as well: praising Gitmo by pointing out how well Roberts has stonewalled investigations and how corrupt the Republican Congress is as well. "It can't be bad, we don't have a group of indicted criminals running things down there"
The election yesterday tells us less about next year than it does about the next decade. Remember when New Jersey was a swing state? Home of close battles betweeen Republican moderates and Democratic moderates? It just elected a liberal Senator as its new governor by double digits in a contest that saw Doug Forrester implode.
It also shows how the Democrats can start making in roads into the South. Stop thinking of it as "The South".
Message from the core of the electorate: "Get to Work, Damn it"
by Stirling Newberry
Voters soundly rejected almost every ballot initiative in front of them yesterday. If Californians aren't willing to referendum energy regulation, and Ohioans aren't willing to Reform Ohio Now! then it is a clear signal that politicians have to roll up their sleeves and do things. The public doesn't think things are all that broken - that we can just turn around and make that left turn back at 2000, and be back on track shortly. That's why the Democratic rank and file is lining up behind Her Royal Clintonness - because they think that a Clinton in the White House is enough. Candidates of ideas are not being considered, and not generating excitement. Americans feel that since they are doing their jobs, everything else will work out just fine.
This may not be reality, but it is their perception of reality, which is what counts. The reality from the inside is that things are broken because what is broken is the system by which the inside makes decisions. Before it was "cut deals until no more deals can be cut, float proposals, have an election to decide which way the next round of deals go".
Gov to Kaine and the Democrats, Lt. Gov to Republicans.
AG still too close to call.
Update 21:57 - AG race is still very close, but the Republican lead looks like it will be enough. A very close race, but it looks like Virginia Republicans will have to be content with taking 2 of 3. This is a better sign for them than one would think, since it means that the problems with Beltway Republicans aren't yet problems with Republicans in general.
I voted in local elections here in Lowell. I met Darius Mitchell in 2003, and found him to be forward thinking, I voted for Mendonca as well, because he's been solid on the School Board, and for Richard Douglas specifically because of his answers on the left in lowell candidates questions and Sabath Chey Fennell because of his views on zoning and business development.
On the school committee - Jackie Doherty. Timothy Lavoie and Cecilia Okafor got my votes.
The dominant reality of the Modern/Post-Modern periods, considered as one large modern period, is first the expansion of the technology of mechanization - that is, the technology of a new kind of extraction and its implementation - and then the control of that system by broadcast and top down structures. In many respects our technology has not advanced far beyond 1950 in a physical sense. Our cars are still made of the same materials, run by the same chemical reactions and built by the same means. The difference is that we have better control over, dissemination of, and utilization of information. This is directly against the vision of science fiction in the early part of the century, which saw us going from chemical to atomic basis for our society. However, there are obstacles to this that were larger than people realized. Not the least of which is that human beings are chemical, and not really designed to live that close to nuclear reactions.
It should seem obvious that the past points the way to the future. We in the United States have a president who was AWOL and engaged in insider trading - and that behavior has been continued while he is in office. Ahmed Chalabi was an embezzler. Finally someone is demanding he be called to account.
Side note, they should rename it the "American Empire Institute" Has a nice ring don't you think?
"Writes persuasively that the welfare state is to blame."
Why, oh great mavens of kitty litter, are there more job riots in China, which has a worse social safety net? Why aren't there more in Sweden, which has a better one? Why has their been labor unrest in Korea, which has a corporatist structure rather than a strong welfare state? Obviously there was a bigger welfare state in the US in 1932 - because we had more job riots then. Obviously Watts had a vast social safety net when riots were happening there.
I was right, the gang over there has gone right wing whack job. Sad, really sad. Also stupid, because events are moving in the other direction. Say hello to Little Green Footballs for me.
"On Iraq in particular, the party can neither paint a united face on the most divisive issue of the day, nor can its leaders explain clearly, succinctly and without parsing why they voted the way they did or where they stand now. The net result is a party full of leaders that look either craven (i.e. criticizing the president while refusing to renounce their votes for war authorization) or opportunistic (renouncing their votes only now that a majority of the public opposes the war."
It is as concise a summary as one could wish to find. Now, exactly what is the treatment for a patient with "bonehead"?
Ballot propositions need reform. On one hand, it is a useful corrective to have te public able to give binding instructions to their legislators. On the other hand, ballot propositions often have poisonous twists and turns, meant to connect a public demand, with a "the devil is in the details" proposition that wrenches what would seem to be a non-partisan govern form the center ballot initiative into one that has an axe to grind. Anything that gave California Prop 13 has got to be bad news. And yet it goes marching on - giving Claifornia Term limits and a messed up budget system. Brad Delong notes that the propsition has three unrelated ideas. More to the point, it is unrelated to the nominal problem that it purports to solve. As with the redistricting amendment, it is something that is not problematic in principle, but is problematic in the form it is offered.
To some extent media politics rests on a simple reality, to get people who are not normally active in politics to be active, you have to get them angry. To get people to abandon their default opinions and stances, you have to rub their noses in something so unpalatable, that they are embarassed to defend their usual positions. This is why the Republicans attacked Clinton on sex - Americans aren't comfortable enough to defendd what happened, and are purient enough to keep wanting to talk about it.
This is why focusing on lying to the public is going to be the winning political strategy, because it will rub the noses of reflexive reeactionary leaning bucket mouths that inhabit talk radio stations and water collers around the country, and make them lose their voices.
They have created an entire series of rationalizations for making a lie, any lie, the basis for impeachement. Since Americans have been foolish enough to accept the reactionary constitutional order, it is high time we started using it.
The reality is that we have imported brains from around the world. This is not going to continue much longer, as we make it harder and harder for people to come here, we put more and more hurdles in the way, and the homelands that we have pulled people from are now economically rising, and thus there is less incentive to leave. America's ability to starve human infraastrucutre, as with its ability to sstarve other kinds, is coming to an end.
Part of this starvation is the starvation of arts education. Art is one of the lenses through which human beings view the world, and one of the ways that we adapt it to us, and ourselves to it. To be unable to think artistically, in a world increasingly driven by design, is to lack fundamental skills in the world.
The riots spreading in Europe are, of course, fodder for the right wing's most important idea: crypto-racism. The Nazis and the Segregationists made overt racism unfashionable, though it took the fall of Aparthied in South Africa to finally push the last bitter enders into the camp of being quiet about what they can't control. But Crypto-Racism springs eternal. Don't say that you are a xenophobic monster, imply that there is something virtuous about having a gut reaction to poor dark people that is somewhere between incarcerate them forever and exile them to permanent poverty. All the while feeling superior because you were fortunate enough to be born to a rich country.
The riots in France are not a mystery - the most recent immigrants, targets of bigotry, hobbled by their own cultural backage, and out of pl
Both Virginia and NJ governor's races are breaking hard against the Republicans - in both cases because a last minute smear backfired. In the present political environment, the cost of a smear is paid up front - the time to go negative is far enough in advance that one can take the hit for being negative, and then let time erode the opposition. Which is why better still is to allow proxies to go negative - because then there is less cost, and the same gain.
Forrester has done more than lose, he's blown up his long term credibility - he's now lost twice in the Garden State, which likely means that the Republicans may take back to the right, on the belief that running more moderate candidates can't get the job done.
Southwest airlines has been a great performing stock over the years. I wouldn't fly them, they are Wal*mart with wings, terrible service, terrible routes and no international reach - but they have one thing the majors do not. Namely the cash to hedge on the long term fuel market.
The US government is about to become a significant minority stake holder in the airline industry as bankruptcies blossom. The government also regularly massages the industry in order to keep access to far flung districts of the country - particularly those that congress critters fly to.
If the US were serious about the industry, it would reregulate it, but it would also set up a giant fuel hedging system. The trade off would be much lower fuel prices for carriers, in return for a tremendous reduction in the amount of waste in the current system where carriers carve out mini-monopolies, and fly half full planes against each other. While unionized carriers would still have to take a hit in wages and benefits, the converse could also be required - allowing effective unionization of the new carriers, which basically have the advantage of not having been in business long, and being able to hedge on fuel costs what the majors pay for pensions and benefits.
The fuel hedging pool would buy fuel at long term rates, and then sell it to carriers in the regulatory system - allowing the US to also seek new sources of jet fuel. One such road is using synfuels, and the buying poll could be used to fund the gradual introduction of synfuels into the airline fuel stream. The military has done surveys on its needs, and could be a participant in the fuel fund. This fuel fund would also help readiness, because it would provide a large stream of fuel in the event the Saudis decide they aren't going to sell us fuel at cut rates for our next military venture.
There is some poetic arc in finding Copernicus' grave, in that we would not have known until recently if it had been found. The discovery, you see, has to be tested with DNA techniques - something that, until a few years ago, would not have been able to sort out the likelihood that this skull was related to others.
Copernicus is, rightfully, credited with being a crucial figure in the history of western science, and its long crawl out of the dark ages. He was also a hero to those who would come after him - sticking to his models, speculating with his imagination - and using the power of the printed word to press for a better world view. Reading his work now, we realize how far he had to go, but that is the reality of pioneers.
Basic reality of history - the usual split between the age of sexual maturity and age of marriage is only a few years in most cultures. Because of the high fat American diet, we reach puberty earlier and become sexually mature earlier. Economically we delay marriage - in fact, we are doing so longer and longer. this rising gap is at unstable levels similar to what was seen among British upper classes in the late 19th century.
Just as adult Americans are having their lives consumed by work, and therefore meeting romantic partners at work, and having sex at work, soo too are young adults haing their lives consumed by school. What's shocking here is that anyone is shocked.
If I had to vote for the blog that has made the fastest fall in quality, it would have to be Obtuseness Wins. From sharp, to sharp as a marble - they simply have no sense of ethics over there. They whine and bitch and moan about how, gasp, after years of "Culture War", "Baby Killers" and outright war crimes, the left has finally realized that being polite is a big fat lose. Why? Because people like the kitty litter crowd have a pathalogical need to bash both sides.
No matter how big the Republican atrocity is, they will have to find something on the left to get equally outraged about. Since, say, photoshopping a Republican candidate is morally equivalent to wasting 35 Billion dollars in the minds of the kitty litter crowd - why shouldn't we on the left get more mileage for the smears of the pathologically dishonest moderates who pretend they have principles, but really have only a need to bash everyone/
A new and bloody offensive has been running in the desert for the last week - America marked the 2000 American military fatality by adding 46 more. Failure is piled on top of failure, with another "chomp and stomp" operation meant to temporarily stem cross border smuggling and movement of troops. People who can say "Mekong" get extra points. Vietnam comparisons, once to be handled with consideration or consideration are now unavoidable. The United States has allowed a long term conflict area to boil over into civil war augmented by involvement by outside forces that have an interest in the on going instability of Iraq.
What is apalling is that the front runners for both major party nominations are outspoken supporters of Iraq. The public has learned nothing, imagining that since they are now against the war, anyone they support must be too. Would that it were that simple. Instead the response to failure is to give even more power to the screw ups.
What is with these people? First they issue a pro-perjury award, and now they are standing up for stonewalling. And in both cases protecting the right of the corrupt party in power to block the public's access to critical information.
Supporting Hillary Clinton is the smart thing to do, she has the fundraising apparatus locked up - and is, in fact, already cutting off people she doesn't like from getting any money. Which is one of the reasons that I oppose Hillary Clinton as a disaster for progressives and ultimately for the Democratic Party.
You want hard reasons? Let me list why I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever support Hillary Clinton, because she cannot ever, ever, ever, ever be trusted not to stab progressives in the back on key issues. She isn't with us, except long enough to get the checks.
This I suppose points out the obvious, new communications media have been pushed first by access topornography, since it is an area of deamnd which is underserved by - finally getting to use the term correctly - mainstream media.
In the last week the nation has turned the corner on impeaching George W Bush. It has gone from a cry of protest and anger, to being the subtext of what is said and done at the highest levels of government. The tumblers are whirring, and one by one falling into place. The force of gravity is now on the side of it occurring, rather than it not occurring. Impeachment is a Trial by Constitution, and the search for probable cause has begun.
The reason for this is that scandals do not happen, they are allowed to happen. Either they are the product of desperation, as a side that is defeated in a political bout grabs for any weapon to use in a last ditch attempt, or they are the product of a general disgust and desire to force out a government that has lost all connection with those it governs.
Once the star of impeachment was only only glimpsed in the distance., now the planets are aligning. Inching closer with each new confirmation that the case for going to war in Iraq was a crude forgery - the "Italian Job"'s source is now established fact, not speculation.
Oliver Willis doesn't like how Steele is running his campaign. He also doesn't like how Steve Gilliard chose to attack Steele by creating a photoshop image of Steele in black face. The resulting controversy has been good for attention and traffic numbers, but it doesn't seem to have shed much light on race in America.
Slavery is fundamentally anti-property rights, because in the end slavery requires that the property rights of most people be violated to enforce the property rights of the slavers.
For the last 30 years, Americans have elected Repbulicans to give way goodies, and then, when the cupboard is bare, elected Democrats temporarily to clean up the nation's credit card enough to go on the next shopping spree. This is why Republicans are optimists: they get to squander where ever they wander. Democrats, on the otherhand, have to make the hard choices. Why does the military hate the Democratic Party? Because it blames Democrats for downsizing the military in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Never mind that the bloat had come from Republicans and the failure to raise taxes to pay for expenditures came from Republicans.
The time for an outbreak of responsibility is soon at hand. The national debt is exploding, now at over 25,000 per US citizen. The trade deficit increasing as well.
This means there is an attack of fiscal responsiblity coming. The next election, 2006, is about who pays for this mess. The Republican answer is Democratic bicoastal voters. Anyone who lives within 100 miles of a major body of water voting for a Republican is "a chicken voting for Col. Sanders."
Chirac's government at a loss in responding to this erruption of desperation. The problems in Europe are growing acute as they slog through the bottom of their economic cycle. It will be at least a year before improving economic circumstances can help, and France is maxed out against Maastricht.
Bush's would be comeback has been halted in its tracks by Harry Reid. Reid isn't all that many on the left had hoped for, but he has shown an instinct for pugnacity that is essential. In the wake of indictments, and facing a President who has still not climbed out of his hole Ried used Rule 21 to push the Senate into closed session, virtually halting Senate business.
The topic? Intelligence failures that led to Iraq, and why the Republicans are stonewalling on investigatins. The Democrats have chosen this moment to fight, realizing, correctly, that Bush is finally vulnerable on the economy, and does not have any money left to spend. On the contrary, to day we were treated to old bald guys trying to shave the public.
The football gods are Teamwork, Talent, Planning, Preparation, Execution, Aggression and Opportunism. All too often consumers of football mistake the ordinary swirling winds of play for the work of the football gods. The football gods do not punish running up the score as such, but they do punish not giving back-ups enough playing time, and taking unnecessary chances with injuries, both of which happen when a team keeps its first string in unnecessarily. But this is often balanced by the football law of hitting: it is better to give than receive. The football gods also only read greek three letters at a time, even if they like what words such as Menin mean.
They are at it again. You know who I mean, the people who thought that 2000 was a "tie election" and that now that Bush is in trouble he needs to be nice to them, the moderates and sensible people. This isn't going to happen. Instead what is going to happen is more inflationary pressure and Bush is going to go back to his base, betting that the Democratic Party will round heel once more. More...
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Oct 30 , 11:33 AM
The Unwritten Constitution
by Stirling Newberry
Legal theory is gradually embracing the notion of an unwritten constitution, that some decisions are "super-precedents". This has been true in practice for two centuries, where key Marshall decisions were treated as super-precedents, including Marbury v Madison, McCullough v Maryland and Barron v Baltimore.
This idea is central to the 2001 essay The Fourth Republic, namely that the existence of a written document obscures the reality that America has a constitution which is a mixture of written and unwritten elements, with the written text's centrality but malleability one of the key points.
Builds its legendary past, the place where it became what it is and who it is. That legendary past is filled with larger than life figures who set the tone and made the world different. This film is about one of our legendary past moments. The story is another heart warming sports story which imparts the never quit message.
This executive branch is based on lies. It is time the Democrats cast themselves as the party of principle and hammered home the level of lying which has sustained the current regime in power. They will need to do so anyway, because on taking power, they are going to need to "restate earnings" for the entire Bush era anyway. No time to establish the run like the opening quarter.
The indictment provides a series of motivations for Libby lying, and this forms a key part of the perjury charges. Libby didn't lie because of forgetfulness, pressure or to protect sources, he lied because it was in his interest to lie.
Let me introduce you to the football gods: they are teamwork, talent, planning, preparation, execution, aggression and opportunism. The football gods reward with greatness the teams that worship all of these equally, and they allow those with an excessive worship of talent to rise and fall. Because gods require epics, epics are tragedies - and tragedies end in sacrifice.
There are sacrements to the football gods, among these are the sack, the stuff, the safety, the bonecrushing hit, converting third and short, and pooching a punt that pins the receiving team inside their own 1. Those who observe the sacrements will achieve that higher state of being: domination.
The football gods are not happy with the teams this year, which is why old teams are falling on hard times, and the teams with winning records sit precariously on their perches.
Rosa Parks died on Monday night, and the Bus was taken aback. Watching SportsCenter at his home north of Pittsburgh, Jerome Bettis got the news from the dreaded scrawl at the bottom of the screen and felt his heart sink.
"She was a matriarch of the civil rights movement," Bettis said of the 92-year-old Parks, whose refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus five decades ago made her a national icon. "If it hadn't been for her stubbornness, her devotion to causing change, our nation wouldn't be where it is today."
We saw trial balloons of it last week, but it is now flowering quickly - comparing Libby's obstruction of justice to Berger's document grab. The problem with this notion is that Berger grabbed one set of documents, owned up to it, and paid the price. Libby lied, publicly and privately, for two years. He tried to put others in legal jeopardy by telling the FBi that someone else had leaked Plames name. He lied continously to the press and about the press.
And we still haven't even gotten to the bottom of why. Berger's was an individually stupid act - for which he has been exiled from being a trustworthy expert and paid the legal consequences. Libby's was part of a agreement to act by high administration officials, and involved making public national security information for political gain. There simply is no comparison.
Obstruction of Justice. Perjury. False Statements.
In short, the cover up of the cover up. We still have at least two layers of onion to peel back.
What is clear is that Fitzgerald has decided to train all of his guns on Libby, in order to crack the question of how the case for war was built, and not merely to track down the leaks of Plame's name. There is a press conference at 2PM.
In the indictment Fitzgerald makes the root of the criminal activity the cover up of the false nature of "the 16 words". Which means he wants to turn the corner into pre-war intelligence. Libby is a snack.
Rumors abound that Rove rolled, but there is no indication of that. If Fitzie wanted his cooperation, he would have sealed indictments and told Rover to roll over and beg. This means that he still feels that Rover has more to say, and will get him the next link on the chain. Rover works for Georgie.
In its early phases, inflation looks great. First there is booming economic activity, second those whose earnings are indexed to inflation, such as social security, go up. And since old poeple aren't generally buying houses after they retire, housing inflation is invisible to them. Money looks cheap. Consider that CPI-W is running at 5% over the last 12 months, while the fed funds rate is well below that. Uncle Alan is still handing out free money, you could short T-Notes, buy inflation, say energy inflation particulary, and make an arbitrage profits.
The carry trade has been good for banks, good for oil companies, good or short term growth, and great as an incentive to spend now - because there is an increasing incentive to spend now while interest rates low and before prices start risign generally.
So ignore the people who are spreading happy, happy joy, joy messages about how great the economy is - but also ignore the people who believe that doom is here now. As long as the people getting taxed by inflation are willing to put up with it, this continues. The problem is, that inflation, as a huge savings tax - that's the converse side of it being a consumption incentive - erodes at everyone's long term interest. This is why Central Bankers are told to keep inflation on life support, because after every inflationary frenzy people forget the sunny inflation boom, and remember only what comes afterward - spiralling prices, falling real output, and pensioners up in arms against the government, any government, that is in power.
1. A secondary list be developed rather than greek letters. Alpha killed 26 in Hispaniola, and Beta may well be a devastating hurricane in Nicaragua. Both names would be candidates for retirement. The use of a secondary list has precedent for other areas of responsibility.
2. The southern basin be tracked as a separate Hurricane season, there has been a hurricane and a tropical storm there recently, and the same conditions that are creating a very active Northern Atlantic basin may well create a more active southern Atlantic.
3. There should be monitoring for an extended hurricane season.
4. An alternative to ACE be considered, since it does not accurately reflect the size of hurricanes. Small storms are overstated, large ones understated.
You want to know why people from the bicoastal world make fun of people from the sticks. I mean, aside from the fact that you wake up from your Sunday nap in Church with crank?
The Oil for Food program run in the late 1990's has been roundly criticized, and now the investigation has come to a head. The reality is that while some companies and individuals violated the rules, the net effect was to dramatically reduce Saddam's access to capital. According to the Volcker report, Sadddam pocketted 1.8 billion dollars. This sounds like a great deal, until you realize that he had to pay for virtually his entire security apparatus out of it. In effect, he had just enough money to cling to power, but not enough to pay for, let alone upgrade, his military apparatus.
The shear scope of payments shows that contrary to right wing assertions, this scandal was not about liberal institutions being filled with weak and corrupt people - but of mainline, conservative - in some cases very conservative - corporations paying bribes and kickbacks as a standard part of doing business. Hundreds of companies, many of them in the US, Germany and France are implicated.
The problem with the last 25 years of politics is that the Republicans have become the daddy party, while the Democrats have adopted a menshevik mentality and gone with "the mommy meme". Recent actions by the Democratic establishment indicates that they still have not gotten out of the trap of presenting themselves as the worrying, nagging party. The Republicans know how to beat this. First they hit "the nanny state" and appeal to the deep counter cultural and male rebellion. Then they hit the "husband and good provider" meme. This counters their actual lack of responsibility, by taking an responsible-esque pose. Married women are pulled over to voting for their husband's preferred party, deferring on national and big picture matters.
If I were a state attorney general, I would immediately warn Target of the severe reprocussions of not filling legal perscriptions without a medical reason for refusal. I would warn that it would lead to an immediate suspension of the pharmacists license, and if backed by the corporation, of the license to run pharmacies in the state.
A company that can't obey the law shouldn't be dispensing drugs.
I'm going to come out and say publicly what has been said by dozens of people, and many others privately: "America can do better" is a terrible slogan for this campaign, and it is the wrong slogan for this point in the campaign.
What should the Democrats be doing? The anwers stares back at us in the polls: Democratic Party identification is down 7% since 1980, and Americans do not trust the Democratic Party any more than the trust the Republicans. The first thing the Democrats need to do is launch a campaign to rebuild trust and identification in the Democratic Party. Details? Nope, that's for material being passed to other sources. But the idea should be obvious to anyone: an analog to the famous Apple "Think Different" campaign.
Speculation runs rampant with only days left to go on this grand jury "at least one" indictment is expected. The odds favor Libby - long fingered as the most likely leaker - being the first to face a bill of indictment, with Rove being the second name. There were also last minute maneuvers which are being interpretted as Fitzgerald buttressing his case on charging on revealing Plame's identity.
But more interesting than the non news - afterall, we will know what we know when we know it - is the reaction to it in the country side. This is a case which people outside the political arena are beginning to follow - it is starting to take on that shape as a "celebrity trial". The Republicans should fear this, even as they used it against Clinton - because such trials take on a life of their own. The public wants to see them all the way through, even if the verdict isn't in doubt.
It ends with a whimper and not a bang. There are few indictments pending, and while it seems likely that Libby and Rove are the targets, this investigation will not be enough to turn the corner into more Justice Department inquiries into the Plame affair. The Democratic party faithful are going to have to realize that being good little church mice and staying quiet while the important fair people do their work is a kindergarden behavior learned when the teacher would punish those who campaigned to hard for their point of view. Instead, this is sports - you must always work the refs.
The months of August, September and October marked a low point for Bush's political standing. Hurricanes revealed the fundamental incompetence of his executive branch, investigations closed in on the core of his political operation, and double digit inflation was seen for the first time since 1990. But as the oil infrastructure gets on line, and the driving season fades, as well as the employment picture improves as the economy heads into the Christmas season, this crisis is fading. His polls are climbing out of the 30's and into the mid 40's. His personal favorability is improving - over 50 in some polls.
Damage control is already the name of the game. And the coming months should provide Bush with an economic buffer. The next economic dry patch is when the January hiring down turn takes hold.
Picture your self by a window sill,
Instead of looking outward looking in.
Caught between fast motion and standing still
Taut tension of angelic impulse and mortal sin
Under the smile, under the veil
Reeks contemplation of this travail.
Each moment calling to turn a glance
Saw II is a terrible movie, but the tag line may well make it into the general public, because that is what the next two years have in store. The question is who is at the table, and who is on it.
While may are dancing with joy over "Fitzmas" - an event that would not have been possible without constant pressure on the media and the government from non-traditional sources - the larger blood letting is going to go on in the waves of layoffs and downsizing moves that the automotive and airline industry are due for.
Free capital movement has its problems, but it, over the long term, pushes towards transperancy - otherwise investors vote with their feet. It seems almost assured that capital controls are coming, as countries adjust to a more protectionist environment, and increasing pressure on the currency-energy peg. This means that transperancy is going to be harder to maintain, since the information that mobility puts in the markets will be lost.
Edmund Morris is not one of my favorite writers, his faerie tale of Reagan, requiring a fictional person, was not biography, but the spattered stains of nocturnal emissions that come from the hagiocracy - people who rule the world by pretense of an excessive worship of genius, but in fact, are talking about themselves. Thus, I approached with some apprehension his article on the recently discovered Grosse Fugue.
What I should be doing here is fawning all over him. After all, that's what one wants, to fawn all over others, and get them to feel obligated to at least pretend to fawn all over you at some later point in time. Say, when a CD of string quartets comes out.
However, there is something dear to my heart being attacked in this article, namely, digitality, and the importance of the corporeal. And thus, long term ideology wins out over, probably illusory, short term self-interest.
There has been intense flooding in New England, a s tropical moisture has met with waves of cold wet air from the west. In MA Tauton MA has had to evacuate because the wooden dam may break.
Deval Patrick has moved out of the "whodat?" niche and into the range of potential upset challengers for the Democratic nomination for governor. Clarkson has more.
I have been working on recording the two string quartets for release, a great deal of time has been wasted by the complex and useless Cubase program. I urge all musicians who want to get anything done avoid this program, which is cumbersome to set up, does not work well with hardware, has an unwieldy array of settings that default to "I won't do jack shit", bad user interface, random changing of user input values, and a poor documentation.
California Prop 77: Racism and Executive Fiat Rolled into one
by Stirling Newberry
The easiest way to sabotage reform is to create a panel that will reform, and then appoint the panel. It's the same theory as having 5 Republican justices decide to throw the 2000 election to Bush. Prop 77 has two provisions which make it both racist, and subject to a single point of failure. Since ballot propositions are all or nothing - any defect in a proposition should be enough for people to vote against it.
Recently Walter Cronkite, that distinguished figure from another, more glamorous age of news and politics, suggested that the Democratic Party create its mid term platform by a mid term convention. The idea of an open politics openly arrived at is a sound one - however, the form is out of that other time, when the Democratic Party was a host of smaller parties, and it needed to gather in an ad hoc legislature to set a consensus of direction.
The modern reality is that the public does not see a convention as a body of representative agents, empowered to act on their behalf, but representative consumers. They want to see rubber stamp unity, because that implies a party that is ready to provide government - the consumerate wants to see both producers of politics, and an affirmation that what is presented is acceptable to the people. The they see a convention as a tribunate - ready to listen at the keyhole and jump into shout "I forbid" at the sign of what is not to the public's liking.
Hence conventions must be scripted - and therefore not useful to the function of writing an agenda, but as the culmination of a process that I call "The Open Convention."
There are three key problems to surmount in the energy sytem, they require that we change, not only how we get and package energy, but how we think about the society we live in, and how we organize it.
Society of Professional Criminals Honors Judith Miller
by Stirling Newberry
The top down media has sunk from criminally negligent homocide in the case of Iraq to accessory after the fact. That's right Judith Miller's criminal complicity in a White House run conspiracy to cover up high crimes and misdemeanors is now the highest act of constitutional liberty. You know you are at the end of the constitutional order, when liberty means criminals at liberty, and nothing else.
The CPI report has come in, and the headline number is 1.2% When the government housing index comes out for the month, it will be likely that the real consumer inflation rate will be much higher. At the same time, "core" inflation has been relatively tame. The month was an extreme form of what we have been seeing as the result of Bushanomics - deflation for what we sell, inflation for what we buy. This is not sustainable, and leads to a sustained economic down turn with a slow recovery. The NBER changed the recession rules to end the last recession early, under the rules in place before, we would not have left recession until 2003. The Bush expansion, apples to apples will have lasted only three years, and even with the 2003 starting date, would be the most meager in post-war history.
If you want to know why his popularity, as well as his approval, numbers are dropping and why scandals are coming out, it is that Bush is Nixon without going to China and without the few lurches to liberalism that Nixon undertook.
A crucial step - since the system has been used as a hidden tax to fund large public works projects that have not delivered economic benefits. There are large downsides - Japan's unemployment is about to go up, it's level of security is going to go down, it will be, over time less "polished" in many of the public projects that it pursues. However, these problems will be more than compensated for by an increase in money in private hands. Japan's problem has been that the living space and living conditions of many people are so cramped that it is putting a high damper on fertility and on private life - if moving from a public infrastructuring building mode to a private one, Japan will export less, but have a more robust internal economy. Japan has realized that it will not be able to export its way out of economic difficulties, unless that export produces internal activity.
While many people are kneejerk on this kind of action - being either always for it, or always against it, the reality is that state holding of assets should be based on whether the government's advantages of risk pooling and time arbitrage are greater than the market's advantages of flexibility and decentralization. In the case of Japan, these advantages have long since swung away from government holding. Japan does not have a far flung physical foot print, postal delivery does not need to be universalized - except for peripheral areas. Japan has a robust financial system - reform of which is on the menu for Koizumi. This provideds an injection of deposits to make that possible.
It's a good day today, I've been called more names this morning than I usually get in a week. I must be doing something right, the slobbering freeploading classes are definitely upset with me. One of the attacked me for calling the liberty dollar a scam - that's a company that will sell you 7 dollars of silver for 10 dollars and hope you can break even. Another one called me an idiot for taking Schelling's presentation at CATO to task.
The reality is that some statements are so stupid as to not require dedicated debunking. In fact, intellectual trolls try and get people to waste cycles debunking obvious fraud - the entire Republican Party's political dominance is based on this - one must disprove ad seriatum a stream of obviously incoherent gibberish. This tactic is one used by those who own the microphone, it is an attempt to turn rent into advantage. There is a reason why people throw rotten tomatoes - because that is the correct response to misuse of intellectual rent.
Some bottom lines: people who try and sell you dollars for $1.35 are engaged in fraud. People who don't get basic equations about global warming right aren't to be taken seriously, regardless of how filled their plates are. Random trolls get thrown in the spam file.
I don't know his nemisis, but I am inclined to agree - Steve Almond is a pitiful hanger on the edge of the publishing world, attacking other writers while demanding good treatment for himself, because he is manifestly insecure about making a living.
This seems to be the day for the word "Sad". Only this isn't even the very sad spectacle of an enormously gifted intellectual making an ass out of himself, it is the common sad spectacle of an undertalented ass making an ass out of himself. We all have our electronic stalkers - be grateful you've only got one. I get called "pompous asshole", "ignorant fuck" and "faggot" on a daily basis by different people.
Savras isn't in love with Almond, they are professional rivals - people at the edge of the system trying to fight out who gets the 64th invitation to the NCAA, because even getting crushed by Duke is more fame than most of us will get.
The assessment is correct - the entire piece was a gob of self-promotion, and the differences between it and a blog entry are simple: it was a long diatribe rather than a short one, and he got paid for it.
The Republicans in Virginia are getting desperate, and this is a small preview of what Democrats can expect in 2006, because it will be the only tactic remaining in the Republican arsenal.
Schelling peddles non-sequiturs and pushes "may become serious in the second half of the century". No Nobel Memorial Prize Winning Pseudo-Scientist it already is an effect. He completely ignores what is now obvious in the wake of Katrina - that industrialized societies have fragile infrastructure which is vulnerable to more dramatic change. He also gets the economics of growth and carbon wrong - because there is a linkage between growth and carbon emissions. He also conveniently ignores the "low probability high consequence" problem. But then, he's not likely to see it, so of course he doesn't think about it.
His answer "let the future handle it." He's a brilliant formal thinker, he deserves the prize. He's also a freeloading wingnut.
The entire conference was a vast disinformation gathering, hoping to lie to the public in order to keep their own death bet alive. Truly sad.
Side note: his own work predicts his behavior - there is a basic free rider situation - and the free riders are, of course, demanding that the free rider strategy remain dominant. The key here, however, is that if we had an informed market place, when those suffering risk out weigh in political power those benefiting as free riders, there will be a change in the political market. That's why the conference rests on repeated assertions of counter-factuality. Think of it as the market for lemon dioxide.
The problem with economics is not that it thinks of itself as the physics of social sciences, it is that it thinks of itself as the physics of physics, capable of ignoring reality in favor of nostrums about how the future must look like the past. It also ignores its own work when it is convenient to do so. This is reasonable - after all, it is people with money who pay people to think about money, and therefore the conclusions are going to be warped by the consumers of the results.
When I started blogging, the Daily Howler was a daily read. The problems with the press covering the both sides of a Republican frame were obvious, and that site was one that was on the bleeding edge of striking back.
Recently, however, I have been getting more and more negative comments about the site from others - because of his attacks on Digby and Garrance Franke-Ruta. I know both of these writers, and while I don't think Garance likes me very much, I think highly of the work that both of them do. There's no reason for Somerby to be spraying attacks in their direction.
Well, in a manner of speaking. Earlier this year the right wing shot down Rep. Dreier from being temporary majority leader, and now writer John Cloud, despite peddling pseudo-science and slurs against the Democratic Party, is finding out just how ugly his own right wing soul mates are. He wrote a biased article on "The battle over gay teens" - and now finds that even that wasn't enough.
The situation in America is that the right wing is the faction of crankheads, crackpots and cronies - people who demand their own set of facts, and they aren't about to let a little thing like reality get in their way. Conservatives like Cloud engage in the sad spectacle of bending over forwards in order to plead for a place at the reactionary right wing table, and find, instead, that only complete submission is acceptable.
My question is - why don't they learn? The right wing will not be happy until they are crammed in the closet next to all the other closetted members of the right wing. Is being comfortable with who you are so difficult?
The key tactic of the reactionary revolution was to grab its chunk of the pie in the form of revenue reductions and corruption, and then let everyone else fight it out over the scraps. Having already busted the US budget with a massive borrow and squander binge to pay for a corrupt war and massive revenue reductions, the goal is to get working people to fight with retirees over what is left.
Bulldog manifesto took a crap on the facts. Why is the Kos community so supportive of conspiracy theory bullshit? This list of gross errors in the post is so long, that it is going to take an entire blog entry just to list them all.
War Room gets it right - the Times is stonewalling on Miller. Compare this with the Times burying stories during the 1930's of Stalin's atrocities - the paper will survive, but it will come at a cost.
Merkel out negotiated a weary SDU, getting the important portfolios she needs to push them against the wall, and drag out the changes she wants to make with them signing on.
Both Schelling and Aumann are seminal formalists in the field, finding ways of taking notions which had been intutively described, but not explained in a mathematical way.
Is this so hard? The New York Times wants to increase its readership with freep. One of the defining characteristics of the freep is racism and basic bigotry - the two are not the same thing. Jayson Blair, by being a not white guy doing wrong was taking away a slot from a deserving white guy doing wrong. And that is intolerable to them. Hence the public editor was created as an interface between the freeptarded and the paper, which still likes to think that it isn't a reactionary warmongering bush loving rag, simply because it, like an abused wife in a car, quietly asks to stop for directions now and again.
This is why the public editor has no credibility - he's not there to fact check for the readers, but to fart check for the screeders, to make sure that they keep reading "the liberal New York Times" and cheer on the signs that they are "winning" the cultural and political wars. It isn't any more complex than that. Anyone who can't see the difference between what Miller did - in essence, act as a co-conspirator to a convicted felon in pursuit if an illegal war, compounded by a bungled occupation that he and his clan stood to profit from, and then to act as a co-conspirator to the Bush Executive in the cover up of crimes leading us into Iraq - and Jayson Blair, who is a vanilla flavored firing - should be getting fitted for a white hood.
What is painful about all of this is how far over people are willing to bend, forward, to avoid acknowledging the fact that the Times has a designated position to engage in political slanting of the news for a constituency that not only has its own opinions, but its own facts as well. That the New York Times wants to sell more papers to the party of cranksheads, crackpots and cronies isn't unusual - Dial wants to sell them soap I imagine for the same reason that they so clearly need the product - and like many consumer goods, there is attendent pollution that goes with it.
Which is why, when this is all over, the powers that be should seriously consider following the Miller treason trail as far and as high as it goes, in or out of government, and prove that no one is above the law.
Why America Will Lurch to the Right before it moves to the left
by Stirling Newberry
Yesterday the AP released a poll which showed that only 28% of Americans approve of the direction of the country. The signs that Americans are feeling pressed have gone beyond the subtle to the substantial: SUV sales are plunging, consumer confidence is eroding. One can see it in our clothes: jeans are back, in a big way. Americans wear blue jeans when they feel pressed and that the only way to fix things is with brute endurance. The ass is back, after almost two decades of pop culture focusing on the bust line, this is significant.
And the signs are that Americans are going to take one last lurch to the right before heading back to the left. Why do I say this?
Because Americans, like most people, think of things in a closed way, and in, for example, a family budget, the solution to most problems is "spend less". The basic problem of micro-economics is scarcity.
1. DeLay asked for the money.
2. DeLay took the money.
3. DeLay coordinated the money.
A DeLay triple play:
Congresman DeLay will join us for a brief conference call to update everyone on TRMPAC's efforts to date...
Congressman DeLay will be on the line for 15 minutes. We will continue after Congressman DeLay concludes his remarks to the board.
That's the finance committee of Texans For a Republican Majority. Where there are termites, there are armadillos, therefore, where there is TRMPAC there is ARMPAC.
Would be worse if it were not for some 110K positions associated with housing construction. It's an inflationary environment - cheap money is driving home building, which is driving gasoline prices.
Packer begins by exploring what he calls the "war of ideas" that was waged between the end of the first Gulf War in 1991 and the attacks of Sept. 11. He describes the growing schism between the old-guard "realism" of Bush the Elder's administration, which wanted to preserve the balance of power and was suspicious of any American intervention that did not involve "vital national interests," with the far more aggressive neoconservatives, the group of ideologues that were ultimately responsible for the Iraq war. The neocons' muscular, nationalistic vision of foreign policy, rooted in a Manichaean, Cold War anti-communism combined with a kind of chauvinist idealism, had found a home in Reagan's administration. The neocons then migrated into the first Bush administration and various think tanks and pressure groups, including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), where they kept the bombs fused and ready to go. Sept. 11 provided the opportunity to drop them.
TRMPAC had DeLay involved in day to day decisions:
"DeLay will want to see a list of attendees for this event. After today I will be unavailable to pick up lists from my email, so if you don't have a finalized list by today, have that on the ground in Austin for TD upn his arrival."
The font looks good too.
There is an excellent archive on the growing mass of documentary evidence against DeLay here.
Katrina removed a great deal, peeling back the skin of America. In its wake, brute racism has shown forth from the right. It has also cleansed, and one beneficiary of that is television talk show host Tavis Smiley. Gone is the LA patina, and gone is the pretense of being in some vague middle. His accent now bears marks of southern heritage crossed with flat mid-western tones, and something even stranger has happened.
He speaks of the Republicans as "they" and "them". His interview tonight with Joe Conason was a case in point. Tavis Smiley has always said that his show would make a difference because it is different. And in the days since the storms, it has become different, in no small part, because he is no longer a faceless and voiceless media product, but a man from his time and his place, who looks out and sees a world which is not what he would have it to be.
The scandals are mounting because there is a growing consensus to hobble Bush and his executive. This is part of a lurch by America to the right in these last days of Pompeii.
Rumors of as many as 24 indictments have circulated the internet, and the names list has varied. It is clear that the source of the rumor is Luskin - that is Libby's lawyer - changing his stance to one of declining to state whether his client has become a target. Rove's invisibility has stoked speculation on his being a target. Finally there are names mentioned that are potentially there because it is felt that they will plead and roll. However, none seems to source from anyone connected with the investigation.
Comparing this with Ken Starr's hole in a bucket investigation is interesting, it being very clear that the leaks had to be approved from the man who ran the most corrupt investigation in modern times.
Is to assume that because she is unqualified, she will be some sort of mediocrity. While she is completely unqualified - a Marbury if ever there was one - her track record is one of having climbed the ladder in the Texas legal world. Her profession is stroking large male egos. Like say, the Senate judiciary committee. The Texas Lottery Commission is a case in point. She has ridden herd over bagmen. She is one of Bush's kind of people - someone who turned to Jesus as her own person Tom Robbins, giving her permission to listen very nicely and then go out and do precisely what she wants.
This means that she is very likely going to be charming to Roberts' taciturn, smooth as silk and quite capable of making the pitch on television. Bush, you will note, almost incoherent when talking about Katrina and Rita - and almost invisible - jumped all over this at the first sign of trouble, held his first official press conference since he had a used war to sell - and was ebullent, smiling, smooth talking and sweet. It seems official Washington still consists of a minority side full of Democrats who can't resist ooze - I won't say charm - when it is sold in the giant economy size.
This system is close to being a new tropical depression, one hopes that it will form far enough north not to take the straight between Florida and Cuba into the Gulf, should it form.
In the old Stuart government - my cousins making mischief - there was a court known as "The Star Chamber", which operated beyond common law, and could administer the dread "oath ex-officio", which removed the immunity to testify against oneself. It was a secret court, and even today, for those who know the history, it rattles the bones of people who believe in the rule of law.
With Miers the Chimperial Presidency has given us the Star Chamber nominee - a product of secret decisions, whose paper trail will not be turned over to a Senate composed of the King's men. The objective, as many have noted, is to put on the court a nominee who will, in defiance of law and tradition, rule on decisions that she was a part of, and grant a blanket protection to the high crimes and misdemeanors of the executive branch that she has served in.
Since 1952, when the primary era began in all seriousness, 3 sitting Democratic Presidents have had their road to the political graveyard go through the gate of New Hampshire: Truman, LBJ and Carter all faced upset challenges in the granite state. Truman lost outright, and withdrew from the race days later.
[I'll be on My TV Prime Time to talk about the primary calendar later today. It is at 9pm on Channel 50 in the Southern New Hampshire/Boston Metro area.]
[Also on Open Source Radio - link to the right - sometime between 7pm and 8pm]
There is a statement floating around about Levitt's original paper on abortion and crime rates. In that paper, Levitt talked about a "mechanical" extrapolation of crime based on race. This is econogeek for "we can't trust this because we don't know cause and effect, so we will just extend the trend line for the time being." Since that paper Levitt has done the digging and this is what he says:
2) Race is not an important part of the abortion-crime argument that John Donohue and I have made in academic papers and that Dubner and I discuss in Freakonomics. It is true that, on average, crime involvement in the U.S. is higher among blacks than whites. Importantly, however, once you control for income, the likelihood of growing up in a female-headed household, having a teenage mother, and how urban the environment is, the importance of race disappears for all crimes except homicide. (The homicide gap is partly explained by crack markets). In other words, for most crimes a white person and a black person who grow up next door to each other with similar incomes and the same family structure would be predicted to have the same crime involvement. Empirically, what matters is the fact that abortions are disproportionately used on unwanted pregnancies, and disproportionately by teenage women and single women.
In short, he argues that abortion is used for control over timing - shifting a baby that would be born today, to one that would be born later, because the mother hopes that conditions will be better.
It may be possible to convince the right wing that Miers is one of them now, though it will be difficult. However, there is one group that can't be persuaded, and that is the latino vote. Given two shots at the court, Bush fired blanks on both. Telemundo's nightly news report expressly mentioned that latino leaders had been critical of the failure to nominate one of their own.
But this is what happens when one nominates a completely unqualified professional sycophant to the court - everyone knows that this was a political plum, and they want to known why it was their thumb that didn't go in the pie.
For those hoping that things will get better in the US after 2006, I have a simple message.
Wake up.
[I'll be on My TV Prime Time to talk about Miers later today. It is at 9pm on Channel 50 in the Southern New Hampshire/Boston Metro area, as well as Open Source Radio sometime between 7pm and 8pm.]
All it takes to get the left to roll over is a well coordinated right wing campaign that Mier is unacceptable to the right. The right did the same thing with Roberts - screamed that he wasn't acceptable. This is part of the strategy people - have the right scream so that the muddled middle has to think that she is one of them.
When "US v Rove" comes before the court, you'll see what this really means - Bush is lawyering up the court, appointing two long time conservative hacks to the bench to block anything that might lead back to him.
Miers is completely unqualified, having neither judicial experience nor judicial temprament. She has not held outstanding office of any kind. It would have been like Nixon appointing Dean. She is a sycophant.
It is clear that, once again, Senate Democrats have allowed themselves to be played - O'Connor preemptively announced her resignation to cover a dying chief, Roberts would have been rotated to chief on his death, and Miers appointed to fill the open seat. The extraction of the "extreme case" promise means that Bush will have not gotten only a couple of extreme appointments to circuit courts.
I welcome this, for 20 years the Democratic Party has been a conservative party that progressives voted for because it promised to stand in the way of a few key programs of the old liberal order, and a few key rights expansions. It will be clear in a few years that a conservative party is happy to sell this out for pork in transportation and agriculture bills. This means that soon enough the political explosion will come.
Very soon, an economy in ruins, a nation with its credit ripped to pieces, and its liberties curtailed.
Composer-Critic Steve Hicken, whose blog just celebrated its first birthday, and who is celebrated his own birthday on October 2nd - composed What Stays With Me on the death of one his teachers, a mentor who had, one thinks, must have sternly disapproved of his direction while encouraging his industry. While Mr. Hicken espouses being devoted to the music of late moderns such as Carter and Feldman, someone listening to this work, and some others from his oeuvre will hear something else much farther forward - a compositional spirit similar to the spare world of Jean Sibelius.
"It's certainly much ado... But I think it is much ado about not very much. It would help if someone could tell me what he said that was false."
Brit Hume Fox News.
Looks the Bennett the Bigot has company with Brit the Bigot. The idea that "aborting all black babies" would lower the crime rate is, quite simply laughable. Instead, what would happen is that another wave of people would fill the lowest slot of society, and they would be the source of the crime rate. Blacks don't drive the crime rate in Europe - instead, it is the bottom of the economic heap whites and imigrant arabs. One of the reasons that Europe has less trouble being generous, is because the faces of the rowdies and lotto louts aren't different from the others in the countryside.
It seems that Katrina was a wind the ripped the top off the Republican Party, exposing the real nature of its leadership - out of touch, bumbling and nasty.
Fortunately they have a telephone number: 1-888-369-4762, and an email address Viewerservices@foxnews.com, for you to tell them what you think.
Uptown, Downtown and Backaround Hollywood - Part I
by Stirling Newberry
Composer-Critic Kyle Gann divides music in the present into "uptown" and "downtown". Ten years ago that might have applied just to the world of New York City. He doesn't think of them that way, and he is right - there are uptown and downtown scenes to new classical music all over the country. But these two projects are not a complete picture, there need to be two more: namely Hollywood and the Netropolis.
I'm going to believe that Jon Corzine will win the governor's race in New Jersey. But who should be the Senator? There is one outstanding resident of New Jersey who has both demonstrated intellectual saavy, and now partisan political chops in getting the word out to the public: Paul Krugman.
If progressives want to take the mantle of "the party of ideas." This would be a sure fire way to do it: appoint Krugman to the seat that Corzine, knock on wood, will be vacating when he becomes governor.
Katrina related spending will probably prevent the US from going into a slump short term, instead pushing the US into recession. The like pattern is a growing 2006, with inflation, and then the Fed slamming on the breaks after the election - remember it should be called the Republican Reserve Bank at this point - hoping to get the recession out of the way in 2007 and have growth in 2008 to run on.
It's delicate timing, weaving downturns in the dead spots in the American electoral cycle, and it looks like this time it is going to swerve off the road.
and that we should all back the party man rather than have a contest, consider the following. In Pennsylvania, Casey, the machine candidate, has said that he would vote to confirm Roberts, where as Pennachio, the insurgent, has said that he would not.
In the coming years, ask yourself how many progressive judgets Casey will kill, and how many reactionary judges he will vote to confirm. Over the course of 24 years in the senate, the some of these reactionary judges may well be on the bench in 2060. Every election matters, because your great grand children will be living with the results of them.
The Fourteenth Amendment is not a minor issue, over half a million Americans died to bring about a nation which assured citizenship to all, and it took another century to actually give that promise teeth. Voting for Casey is to toss away the lives of those who perished at Gettysburg. Think about what that blood cost, and what the freedoms it bought are worth.
There are two kinds of men that Southwest Missouri is notable for: some are real visionaries, people who can find a way to make the seemingly incomprehensible mess of the world make sense.
However, it also produces another kind of man in quantity, the hill-billy huckster. The man who, while pretending to be an ordinary sort of man from the hills, is something else again. Missouri produces alot of those, men who could sell scales to a snake. In many ways its the converse of the first type: instead of imaging great stories, they make up terrible ones.
DeLay's resignation is only temporary, they can't even dump the trash any more. There is going to be a price to play for Drier's OUTing as Majority Leader, because OUT there in the countryside, there are certain things that are OUT of bounds for political leaders. The OUTrage from the base is not to be taken lightly. It is something that they will be chattering abOUT for some time.
One of the major differences between the progressive and reactionary world view is this. Progressives believe that if everyone knew the same things they did, and sufficient education and enough time, progressivism would be a clear majority position. Reactionaries believe that even if they control all of the major organs of government, that the majority will still be lazy, sullen, sinful and needing to be held under the threat of force to do anything right.
I don't link to Slate because of the excerable right wing bias of many of their blogging bleaters, and more importantly their willingness to carry unrefuted right wing bombast and propoganda on Iraq, but this piece where David Greenberg meditates on the trap of the 1960's, is simply to important to ignore.
The realities of pop culture is that it's center of gravity moves to the moments of synchronization of great waves. This is why there are really only two Presidential models of the last 45 years, JFK and Reagan, because trauma synchronized. This is why the 1960's and the 1980's contend in places in our consciousness. The 1960's is when the popular culture flooded over the banks intended for it and became "the culture". The 1980's is not a converse, but a sibling. It is the moment where popular culture overwhelmed policies - the line between slogans and policy principles vanished. Even economists are arguing over the slogans, rather than the reality of that time.
But the reality of culture is that it is getting out from the rock of the 1960's as is much else. This is because never is an era more romanticized than just before it is about to pass off the stage. Never do people grip so tightly to their youth, than when they are about to enter old age. While we are going to see 1960's nostalgia, like true World War II nostalgia, which we forget swamped the culture in waves from the 1950's to the 1980's - only to fade with the last President of that generation.
The present Congress has already shown that it is the most corrupt since the 1880's - the era of Boss Tweed and the Railroads. It now has an hstoric opportunity to catapault itself to being among the worst legislative bodies, ever, anywhere. Up there with the pre-Revolution and Pre-World War II Houses of Commons, the Pre-Civil War American Congress, and the Senate under the early days of the empire. Just a few more base and cowardly retreats from the basic principles of the Republic is all it takes. I am sure that at least a dozen Democratic Senators will be eager to make sure they are part of history as well.
It is also clear that the American Red Cross is so thoroughly corrupt that only a complete obliteration of its current executive structure will restore it to being capable of its historic mission to help those in need, rather than to assist those in greed:
"I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it's lasting," said Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response with the Red Cross
After the train of foul ups, outright lies and failures of the upper managment of the Red Cross in the wake of Katrina, it is entirely clear that they have neither the moral standing, nor the ethical integrity required of the positions they hold and the trust they were given.
"With All Due Respect Senator You Are Out of Your Mind"
by Stirling Newberry
Long time liberal radio host Arnie Arnesen goes television live tonight on WMYZ channel 50's prime time talk show. Starting at 9PM New Hampshire television is about to get a great deal more interesting.
The last few months has underlined the basic reality of Iraq:
1. George Bush is in charge of any solution until 2009.
2. George Bush isn't capable of being dog catcher.
3. Therefore, the only stance to take is to remove as much authority from George Bush as is humanly possible until someone capable of walking upright is in office.
Why such traffic snarls? Well duh, we let traffic snarl on normal days. Why so? Because designing and running a transportation system is to expensive, people want low gas prices, and it is gas taxes that pay for the transportation grid.
We've voted for these problems, year by year, month by month.
I'm not crying. Freepdom needs to be in a museum, not to have one. This project was Orwellian from the start, as people around the US were running around talking about 9/11 as if "freedom" had anything to do with what happened. Freedom had nothing to do with what happened, except perhaps that terrorists that the Bush executive knew about were allowed to run around free.
It had to do with America's position as a global power, and the fact that Al-Qaeda wants a different, nastier, world order in place. Unfortunately America is more like the demon that they concocted for themselves than it was on September 10th 2001, and much more than it was before the Five gave the Chimperial Presidency.
The anti-war moment has arrived. Faced with twin disasters in Rita and Katrina, and a government that cannot find a way to pay for what clearly needs doing, Americans have decided that too much is enough. The reports I am hearing from first hand witnesses say that the demonstratin is huge - perhaps certianly more than quarter of a million people, and as large as a half a million. And that it is still growing.
The demand is simple: "Out. Now." The lesson of American politics since Korea has been "win or go home." Truman and Eisenhower knew that they couldn't win, so they went home. LBJ tried to win, Nixon realized he had to go home. Reagan, Bush and Clinton fought very short wars, where they either won, or went home quickly.
While I respect the viewpoint of people such as Professor Juan Cole and General Wesley Clark that going home from Iraq is going to precipitate a decline in the economy and a long dead period in the economy, it is precisely this which America is almost eager to embrace. Having sinned, there is almost a lust for punishment at the gas pump, with people having a perverse cheer at high gas prices. Finally, mother has come home and seen the mess.
AT 7 PM CDT...0000Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 28.6 NORTH...LONGITUDE 92.9 WEST...OR ABOUT 95 MILES SOUTHEAST OF SABINE PASS ALONG THE COAST AT THE BORDER BETWEEN TEXAS AND LOUISIANA.
From the NHC on this Dangerous Category Three storm:
Yes, there will be a CD next month of both both this quartet and the quartet in B, with my share of the procedes going to charity for Katrina and Rita.
This morning gasoline prices jumped in my neighborhood, and are likely to do so in many more. Rita is more intense, with a lower central pressure than Katrina, and is heading for a swath of oil production untouched by Katrina. Texas is not as vulnerable as Southern Louisiana, and Katrina was a wake up call. Death tolls will not be allowed to climb above 1,000 - Katrina's official count stood at 1036 last night.
He's asking tough questions about an appearant web of connections between Islamicists in the US, and the Republican hackeratchnicks like Grover Norquist and possible illegal back channels.
In the present, one of the broad musical projects is the creation of a new klassik - a structured use of gestures from pop, jazz, minimalism and other forms of music which create a tableux before the ears. This "painterly" form of music is, at once, easier to present to listeners, and more difficult to shape and mold to individual expression.
The style relies on creating effects, which like the best of Baroque fugues, wink in and out, creating a glimpse out of the corner of the mind's eye, before rushing head long forward. It is a music where the emotion of loss is ever present, as the welling up of sentimentality at what has just been missed and is now gone hovers around the heart of the atuned listener.
To catch everyone up. I am working on two string quartets - #7 and #8. After a good deal of deliberation, the decision is to put out a CD to go towards Oxfam America's Katrina relief drive.
The Quartet in B also has a new order of movements. The most recent movement is Cinema and is the second movement. These files are analog dumps, and they have errors and crackles in them, think of it as "FM" quality.
Q: Would you not have been as successful had you been Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish or atheist?
A: There's no question in my mind it would have turned out differently. I would not have been nearly as successful. I don't believe that in 38 years that I treated anyone unfairly. That may not be true, but as far as I know it is. I treat suppliers fairly, I teach the golden rule to our people.
I was hopelessly insolvent and I paid every dollar. Bankruptcy would have been easier. It wasn't in my vocabulary. It worked out because people trusted me and I could deal with a handshake.
Implying first, that other religions don't treat the golden rule seriously. Second, imply that Christ and not declaring bankruptcy are related. This directly contradicts mosaic law. It's usury, not bankruptcy, that Christ attacked. Finally, anyone who thinks that the golden rule applies to Dominoes hasn't figured out how their employees make minumum wage, and were pressured to drive unsafely while their CEO became a billionaire. Let alone ate one of their pizzas from his era in charge.
This is what slashing revenues does: gives moneys to crazies for them to spread vicious bigotry in the business press. If you aren't a religious crazy, you are paying two ways for this. First in the form of the national debt, second, in the form of having a society which is pressured by fruit loops who read invisible verses in the bible.
But there's more. He claims business executives are more moral because they are more religious. He claims that because he's simplified his life he's virtuous. He claims ... well you get the point, and that point is the sin of spiritual pride. Thomas Monaghan is a pharisee, and is going to spend his money doing the devil's work.
The entry below described what looked like a hack or exploit in wikipedia - and in fact it was, but it was exploiting the browser and page layout - as well as syncing issues - rather than the central wikipedia databased.
What happened was this, one of the various trolls harrassing me for my politics - with the backing of a large number of like minded wiki editors - created a spoof user name, altered my user page to include a pornographic image. The wikipedia edit history when one clicked on the image was for the image description and not for the image. I'm a fairly experienced user, if I can't see what's going on clearly, then other users are going to have problems as well. And this isn't something without reprocussions.
The technical question was lept upon - various people looked at it, found the spoof user name, and pointed out where the real image history was. The social problem has been buried - and in fact exagerated. Nothing has been done about the trolls themselves, who will continue to troll by simply creating the next spoof account and using the next hack.
The accusations by the apologists, that I am simply "wrong" are, however false. The exploit used rested on three pieces:
1. The use of a spoof name.
2. The reliance on the time it takes to sync databases.
3. The placement of image histories.
The social problem remains unaddressed - wikipedia has troll problems, and nothing has been said about how to deal with that. Except to yell at editors that the trolls attack.
People may have noticed a troll by the name of "Ray Lopez". Many have written about the offensiveness of his comments. The reason they were being allowed to accumulate is because "Ray Lopez" is part of an organized group of hard right wingers on wikipedia. However, these individuals are not merely organized editors, but have backing from people with trusted status on Wikipedia.
Now, I have proof of it. [Well I don't. explanation and also in the comments - a user interface problem is responsible. That and the trolling problem which is still unaddressed.] [Yes this post has serious changes since first put in place, read comments.]
[Update: geek explanation of a security hole in Wikipedia to follow. The clicking on an image gets its description, not a history of the image. Hence someone maliciously uploading to already existing images is invisible to someone looking at the history. This makes it look as if the original uploader of the image is responsible for the current content. See below.]
Our third commitment is this: When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well. And that poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.
Sure people are shafting it in the polls, and rightly so, it is hypocritical to call for action on poverty after slashing anti-poverty programs. It is dishonest to do so after generating a huge national debt in tax breaks for the privileged. And it is down right mendacious after the brownfields legislation that left toxic chemicals in the ground to seep out during the flood from levees whose budgets had been cut.
In short, this has nothing to do with Bush governing, and everything to do with Bush trying to pretend he is president.
People want liberal government now. Even George Walker Bush wants liberal goverment now. So let's give Bush what he wants, and elect a liberal congress to vote for all this liberal government and careful oversight and racial equality he says he wants.
Long discussion here on liberals in art. I've said it before: the most political thing about art is making it. To have "art" one must have a society that values such a thing as "art", and produces performers, audience members, and the halo around art. That means politics, because it means making choices about who you are and who you want to be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how can you miss me if I won't go away. Well Jerome Guillet challenged us on energy. I'm going to assert that we don't have so much an energy problem as a society problem. We have a society geared up to reward people for finding things to extract, and then for passing information around to distribute that extraction. No matter what technology you come up with, it will simply be pointed back at extractive pyramds, and accelerate the current cycle.
Here is an answer, along with some links to how to attack the problem.
The Mac Mini I justed opened picked the wrong video mode, huge waves of distortion. When going to displays, and picking a new mode, the monitor went to "input not supported". No big deal, just wait for the mini to snap back.
Didn't happen. Tried unplugging everything. Reset PRAM. Reset PMU. Now spending two hours reinstalling. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Awful. Terrible. Horrible interface design. NEVER force a user to spend two hours cleaning up from mistakes that your software made, compounded by choosing an option you gave him. There should never be a button which is "slag operating system and force complete reinstall from ground up".
Ever. Trust me, only Windows users need this button on a regular basis.
I'm taking a blogging break, this is the gist of a truthout article I am working on:
Article 1
It shall require a three fifths vote of the whole of both houses to declare war, or authorize the use of war powers. Congress may revoke a declaration of war, or of any specific war power, by three fifths vote of the whole of both houses, to take effect not less than 30 days from the date of the vote.
Article 2
The authorization for the use of war powers shall expire thirty days from the beginning of a new Congress, unless reauthorized by a majority of the whole of both houses.
Article 3
Should the President use force or fraud directed at the Congress for the purpose of attaining a declaration of war or war powers, he shall be removed following a vote of a three fifths of the Senate, if impeached by the House. The President may appeal this removal to the Supreme Court.
An an explanation on the CD - it will take roughly $500 of set up costs, and another $500 in other expenses to push out a CD. This is cheap, but at the rate of about $3/CD to charity, I would have to sell 350 before the pure monetary break even point is reached, and realistically, the opportunity cost of the time means closer to 1000. Presently I can't see more than 100 being sold, or an order of magnitude too few to be a worthwhile exercise. This could change if interest develops, but since I am not going to push it, it is up to other people at this point.
Everyone needs a break from time to time, and right now it is time for me to take one. Writing here is a chore, and that has meant my quality hasn't been there. Following Katrina and the aftermath was important, but now that people are going back to sleep until the next Bushsaster hits, I should too. Time to get back to basic economic life.
[To those that asked about an Eb quartet CD to be donated to charity - there just isn't enough interest in it, sorry.]
The days of death have arrived, like a black tide, they sweep and cover all that is in their path. Let us realize the truth, the task of this age is to bury the last. They are upon us in New Orleans, where it is already clear that its poor survivors are to be scattered to the winds - "Internally Displaced Persons" the UN would call them anywhere else but America. They are upon us in Iraq, where the rebels have put a price on the head of the Prime Minister.
Michael Brown was made the Director of FEMA after brief confirmation hearings, after which he got glowing praise from Joe Lieberman who waved him through. As recent stories prove, there were unanswered questions in his background, and those unanswered questions would have show that he was probably not suited for the job. I am not someone who believes that only people who are walking stacks of paper should be in government. The ticket punching classes are not the only competent people. However there is nothing in Brown's background to suggest that he is qualified for the work.
That is the cost of stealth cabinet level appointments, ones which report to the President and over which Congress has oversight.
1. FEMA has been hackpacked and there has been a brain drain. Add Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler to the list of names from nowhere.
2. Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency on the 26th.
3. Louisiana didn't have the money because the Feds took it all. Namely the 5 Billion in royalties from offshore drilling.
4. FEMA even held exercises to simulate what would happen if New Orleans took a direct hit. Last year. Speaking of Attention Deficit Disorder.
Never did We destroy
A population that had not
A term decreed and assigned
In writing known.
As translated from the Qu'ranSura XV 4
In Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, an angel tropicalizes London. His character looks down on the city:
"He was hovering high over London! – Hahha, they couldn't touch him now, the devils rushing upon him in that Pandemonium! – He looked down upon the city and saw the English. The rouble with the English was that they were English: damn cold fish! – Living underwater most of the year, in days of the colour of night! – Well: he was here now, the great Transformer, and this time there'd be some changes made – the laws of nature are the laws of its transformation, and he was the very person to utilize the same! – Yes, indeed: this time, clarity."
The reality is that we are already in the outer stages of stagflation, merely that the CPI and GDP deflator exclude housing inflation from calculations. The former makes the headline inflation number seem lower than it is, and the latter inflates GDP. The effect is signficant, CPI is probably understated by 2 points, and GDP price index for the economy is probably understated by 1 point. The paradox of "high inflation and low employment growth" is underlined even more, if one looks at percentage increase in payrolls, rather than in the headline unemployment number. This is based on the "B" tables at BLS, and shows that hiring is still anemic.
We have a situation where consumer deflation in consumables and goods is making it so that people, rather than looking for work, are leaving the above ground economy.
It was the Romantic era that elevated revolt for it own sake, to overturn and overthrow the established order. It began, perhaps, with Locke who made legalistic appeals to a hidden natural law to which men could appeal. But it became an art with Rousseau, who wrote "Men are born free, but are everywhere in chains."
The chains of the body are more spectacular and gruesome - concentration camps, slavery, children who toil in dark factories - all evoke and immediate and powerful response. The chains of the mind are much more pernicous, for there is nothing made that was not first born in thought. However, Americans did not feel the chains of the mind, and even forged them, link by link, day by day.
Revolt has come to America with Katrina. But it is not merely a revolt against the Republican leadership, nor even against the reactionary form of government. It is not merely political revolt, but social and ideological as well.
For those following this, send a word of thanks to a government agency that has been on the job, around the clock, and produced stellar results, and a consistent stream of high quality information and analysis - the National Hurricane Center.
We had best hope that hurricane watchers not learn Greek. According to the National Hurricane Center, if this list of names for 2005 is exhausted, then the operational plan calls for using Greek letters. With Ophelia already here, and with a potential bouncing baby Phillipe potentially forming in the Gulf of Mexico it is a distinc possibility to see at least a Tropical Storm Alpha before the atlantic tropical cyclone season closes.
However, in a stroke, this decade has joined a select company: the decades of disaster of high rates of fatalities from Atlantic tropical cyclones. Hurricane Katrina will probably be behind only the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 in total deaths in the continental US.
The enormity of what has happened in New Orleans has only just begun to sink into people. And even as it is, there is a concerted attempt to bury the truth. The reality is that thousands of people have died. Not hundreds, not "over a thousand". Thousands. The likelihood is that more people have died in this disaster than in 9/11. There is a strong possibility that more people have died in this disaster than in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
In a democracy, we must see the results of our actions. We must be able to stare, unflinichingly, and look. We must know where we stand, so that we may decide what to do. While the right wing goes on about "liberal elites", the fact is that they are subjecting us to a paternalistic elitism which decides what we can and cannot see. This is not a blame game, it is more simply, a search for the facts.
That is what we need right now. Just the facts. And we need them with vivid images so that the emotional impact is not lost.
We must open New Orleans to the press, or it will haunt us as stories of what happened there become exagerated with the telling. While, in the short term, this will magnify the size of what has happened, in the long term it is necessary for the health of the country to trust what is and is not done.
We must have open government that works in the light of day.
All governmental entities have low approval in handling this. But Bush's has plummeted - from 56% the day of the landing to 35% today. What this has done has prevented Bush from getting a bounce in the polls after being, again, the master of disaster.
"George W. Bush"
9/5-6/05 10 25 21 18 24
"Federal government agencies responsible for handling emergencies"
9/5-6/05 8 27 20 20 22
"State and local officials in Louisiana"
9/5-6/05 7 30 23 20 15
The reality is that this disaster is a blow to conservatism of both Democratic and Repbulican varieties. Both have wanted to obliterate the federal government and move matters to the states. Well, as FDR found in 1933, the states often become havens of corruption, and only the Federal Government has the power and resources to handle the great emergencies and balance the great currents of state.
For the last 25 years, an alliance of dixiecrats and plutocrats has convinced everyone that everyone is better off with an anemic, incompetent reactive federal government. They got their wish. Unfortunately, it isn't they who paid the death tax on the costs.
New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Gordon Russell witnessed gunfire between police and civilians that he says "left one man dead in a pool of blood." Afterwards police slammed Russell and the photojournalist against a wall and threw their equipment to the ground when the duo got out of their SUV to cover the scene.
The essential point is this: Reaganomics didn't lead to a massive disaster because it addressed a basic problem of political economy which had plagued the 1970's. It was not, however, a departure from Keynesian demand side policies, in that it relied on stimulating demand for investment, and it did so by a very big government liberal mechanism: it created a new government entitlement, namely a debt without end. This third entitlement was paid for, as all inflationry entitlements are paid for under Keynesianism, with a regressive payroll tax.
Bush by breaking one half of this equation - namely keeping a lid on demand created by the entitlement program - has broken Reaganomics. In essence, Bush and his followers have massively expanded the entitlement program they like, without finding a way to manage the demand that creates.
The result is being trapped, ironically, on the triangle promulgated by the god father of Supply Side Economics - Robert Mundell.
I am highly critical of Tavis Smiley's show, it is one of the most vapid exercises in stenography known to man, which soft pedals right wing drivel with a fawning that even Larry King cannot match. Which giving credit where credit is due is important:
On the day after 9/11, I was in Jerusalem and was interviewed by Israeli TV. The reporter asked me, "Do you think the Bush administration is up to responding to this attack?" As best I can recall, I answered: "Absolutely. One thing I can assure you about these guys is that they know how to pull the trigger."
It was just a gut reaction that George Bush and Dick Cheney were the right guys to deal with Osama. I was not alone in that feeling, and as a result, Mr. Bush got a mandate, almost a blank check, to rule from 9/11 that he never really earned at the polls. Unfortunately, he used that mandate not simply to confront the terrorists but to take a radically uncompassionate conservative agenda - on taxes, stem cells, the environment and foreign treaties - that was going nowhere before 9/11, and drive it into a post-9/11 world. In that sense, 9/11 distorted our politics and society.
Friedman should be grateful we handsomely reward screw ups in this country. After all, that is why he is handsomely rewarded. He's a screw up who tells other screw ups not to worry about the big screw ups that are going on, that it will all work out.
The reason to give someone a column is so that he can tell you what is going to happen, not to write meditations on why he was a blithering idiot who was fooled by the most crass con perpetrated on the American people since Warren G Harding and Calvin Coolidge.
The day we stop rewarding pundits who are failures, is the day we will drastically reduce the chance of having Presidents who are failures.
America Gets Hit With A Clue By Four. Bush, Wall Street and Washington don't notice
by Stirling Newberry
The effects from Katrina are going to be spread over many months. The devastation in the areas hit by the storm directly will take years to repair. New Orleans has question marks over its future, and much of the gulf coast in Mississippi has been hammered hard.
The response to the disaster was pathetic. All of Whitewashington is gearing up to hide the simple naked fact that America was, for the second time in the Bush tenure, caught unprepared. We are unprepared politically, economically and socially. The lesson is this, if leadership is not accoutable after disaster, the next stop is catastrophe.
Maria is swirling out across the northern atlantic and is becoming an extra-tropical storm, though still a hazard to shipping. Nate is expected to make a turn east, caught in the same upper level weather pattern.
And people hope the same thing happens ATD16-N, because otherwise there is moisture in the gulf enough to create a strong hurricane. No, not a Katrina size perfect storm, but that wouldn't be necessary given current conditions. Currently north and east and away from the gulf is where the models point, but it is too early to tell.
I've got to say, that is "good sattelite presentation" for a tropical depression, and there is a solid band of moisture to grab in the Gulf. Forecaster Avila - one of the best in the business - has this to say:
THE DEPRESSION IS IN FORMATIVE STAGE AND THE INITIAL MOTION IS
UNCERTAIN BUT...IT APPEARS THAT THE MAIN CENTER OF CIRCULATION IS
NEARLY STATIONARY. STEERING CURRENTS ARE VERY WEAK SO LITTLE MOTION
IS ANTICIPATED BUT THE CYCLONE SHOULD BEGIN TO MOVE SLOWLY TOWARD
THE NORTH-NORTHWEST VERY CLOSE TO THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA.
BECAUSE THE DEPRESSION IS EXPECTED TO BECOME A TROPICAL STORM AND
BE NEAR THE EAST COST OF CENTRAL FLORIDA...A TROPICAL STORM WARNING
HAS BEEN ISSUED ACCORDINGLY. THE TROPICAL STORM WARNING MAY BE
EXTENDED NORTHWARD ALONG THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA AS THE CYCLONE
MOVES NORTH-NORTHWESTWARD.
You read that right, tropical storm warnings up for Florida.
Movements I,III,IV. Still the fifth and final movement left to complete. Remember you can subscribe in iTunes to our feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bopnews
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice Doggie" until you can find a rock. Senator Edward Kennedy, mindful that the middle of the country has not yet seen through Roberts, because of his family drama looks and lack of track record, is looking for a rock:
Our review of even the limited available parts of his record has raised serious concerns about his role in the early 1980's in seeking to weaken voting rights, roll back women's rights, and impede our progress toward a more equal nation. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which were due to begin this week, were the opportunity for the Senate and the American people to hear from John Roberts about those extreme views and explain his position on these and many other vital issues facing the country.
Before the Senate acts on John Roberts' new nomination, we should know even more about his record, and we should know whom the President intends to propose to nominate as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor. The American people care deeply about the overall balance of their highest court, and its dedication as an institution to the protection of their rights.
We let parts of America stay in the late 19th century, it is, sadly, no surprise when the effects of a storm resemble those from out of that era, rather than the modern one.
GULFPORT, Miss. - For some soldiers back from Iraq and now helping the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort, serving in the Middle East doesn't seem so bad after all.
"We had it made in Iraq, absolutely had it made," said Col. Brad MacNealy of the Mississippi National Guard, who spent a year commanding the 185th Aviation Brigade's 134 helicopters there.
"In Iraq, we had TV, communication, sleeping quarters, showers," MacNealy said Sunday. "Here, these people haven't had a shower. They're using baby wipes. They can't use cell phones... The year we spent in Iraq, the creature comforts were fantastic. I mean, people were complaining there because they didn't have exercise equipment.
The above graph is the producer price index for domestic oil production - basically the nominal cost of crude oil produced in the United States. As can be seen, this is not a temporary spike, but the day of reckoning when a collision course between right wing economics - which encouraged a high tech economy - and right wing social theory - which wants to drive along singing "Darwin is the Devil" at full blast from their Hummer stereo - collide.
The right wing voter hates the economy that was keeping him afloat. He voted in 2000, 2002, 2004 to kill it. It's dead.
A black hole is a gravitational field that pulls in everything, because the escape velocity at its rim is the speed of light, this is "the event horizon". Iraq is a moral black hole, it is not the worst war America has ever fought - many of the Indian Wars were worse. Nor is it by any means the bloodiest. More military personnel died in single battles during the Civil War than have died total in Iraq, even including contractors in military roles. It is not the biggest war, nor the most foolishly entered into.
But what it is is the most contradictory war that we have fought since the Phillipine's insurrection in the beginning of the 20th century. It is a war that is being justified as for international law and democracy - and in fact requires subverting both. It is a war which was based on disinformation, and a press which refused to do its duty. It is producing a stream of Kremlinesque propaganda, and made it so that Americans must scrutinize the White House in the same way that Soviet citizens once looked at their seat of government.
I'm going to reverse Peter Daou's formulation and argue that the failure of the Iraq War is that it is breaking the fundamental moral principle that the Republican Party has promoted:
That is the current price at the Mobil station at Drum Hill Rotary in Chelmsford MA. It is above the $3.24 lowest price reported by the gas widget which is now the number one apple download. While Katrina has, indeed, caused a squeeze, let's not kid ourselves, all she has done is accelerate by one or two years what was coming. The market will adjust means "you'll just pay more, sucker." The median price from this list is $3.33 as I write.
Realize that every time you fill up you are paying a gas tax for the tax cuts others have gotten. The money that the rich got back from the government, they have used to push the price of gasoline up. Economies always adjust. For example, when rebels blow up an oil pipeline and halt northern oil exports. (Note that ultra-right wing Forbes now admits they are "rebels", 6 months ago they weren't even "insurgents").
We in this nation, whether born here, brought here by our parents, or drawn here as adults, soon realize the uniqueness of this place in the world. Sheltered from ancient wars, distant from the quarrels that created them, a climate as close to a garden of eden as any you will find, rich in natural treasures for the spirit and the body. Even those who have been locked out of sharing in this richness have seen it - it is why America has spawned so many successful rebellions against tyranny and injustice: because almost nowhere else does a full and equal share of society mean so much.
Katrina has shaken that faith, it has done so first in its scale, but also in its aftermath in our response. It has been a century since an American city died.
We now have two vacancies to fill, and it is very clear that Roberts is a man who lacks both intellectual honesty and judicial temper - his memos read like Little Green Footballs comments.
According to one guy who is out on a boat right now working the environmental side of things, there are going to be long term effects from the release of hazardous chemicals, oil spills and seepage. He estimates that it will be 2 years before all of the patching to the network of pipelines is done, though much of the worst will be completed "within three months". According to one of his sources - so this is hearsay - "two billion dollars in immediate repairs to platforms is a good guestimate."
I haven't got a fix on the land situation yet, but it will probably be on the ugly side. there has been a raft of "don't ask/don't tell" brownfield legislation. The theory has been to let sleeping poisons lie, so that redevelopment will occur. The superfund us chronically underfunded - quipped on environmental engineer, "It's super alright, like the super on Becker."
Pretty good, a professor of pediatrics shilling for creationism, crank head porn monkeys and an administration that can't manage a public health disaster. She ought to be ashamed of her self. Maybe she is blushing all the way to the bank.
Tavis Smiley continues to work hard to win the Clarence Thomas Award for token right wing african american of the year. In a recent show he gushed all over an already debunked plan to replace income and corporate taxes with a sales tax. Already debunked because it set the percentage at 23%, when the minimum would be closer to 35% in order to have consumer spending produce a revenue neutral stream of income. And that would mean slapping a 35% tax on home sales, which is not going to happen in this century, or the next two or three.
And yet there was Mr. Smiley, woefully under prepared tossing cream puffs.
The northern city of Afar, which had fallen under insurgent control, was the target of a major attack starting this morning. For those who wonder where the President's attention was, it is simple, where it has always been: on his oil fields in Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Iraq.
"I call upon our elected leaders to immediately suspend the implementation of the recently passed Bankruptcy Bill. We have hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now in dire financial distress who will all suffer under the provisions of this bill through no fault of their own. Fellow Americans need and deserve our support. I ask the leaders of both parties to rescind this legislation as an order of priority - now."
A great deal of uncertainty about this storm, the models diverge - one dissipates it, another takes it to hurricane status easily. It depends on the interaction with a large troughing pattern over the Western Atlantic.
Now every single resident of New Orleans, regardless of their wealth or status, will have terrible losses and life-altering experiences. Every single resident will know and care about someone who was lost to this hurricane. But some, ranging from the very poorest to the working class unable to accumulate a cushion of assets to rely upon on a very, very rainy day, will suffer the most because they simply didn't have the means to evacuate. They suffered the most from Katrina because they always suffer the most.
While supporters of the administration will crow about how the headline unemployment number dropped to 4.9%, this really is not good news. What it says is that inflationary pressures continue to build, and that we have almost reached the full employment level for this economy. What happened was that the seasonally adjusted labor force participation rate crawled up by .1%, and the household survey's eratic employed number saw a jump of 373K more people as being employed. The labor slack indicator is now at 7%, marginally off its highs of 7.4%. At this rate, after 2 more years we will be back to where we were in 1999.
The other indicators are bad, weekly wages dropped after inflation, with only construction and mining managing to both add jobs and increase wages. Manufacturing saw substantial increases in wages, but shed positions. The length of unemployment was up to 18.9 weeks, with an increase of those unemployed more than 27 weeks.
Jeannine Aversa is an incompetent and should be fired. Her report states:
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's unemployment rate dipped to a four-year low of 4.9 percent in August as companies added 169,000 jobs, a sign that (AP) -- the labor market continued to gain traction before Hurricane Katrina struck."
This is flattly incorrect. The first error is confusing non-farm payrolls with private payrolls. The non-farm number was 154K seasonally adjusted. In fact, it is bad journalism to quote the seasonally adjusted number as if it were the raw number. Better would be to be accurate and say "the economy grew by X jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis."
As you would expect from someone who can't read a simple line on a table, she then procedes to make a gross error of interpretation of data. Namely that 169K non-farm payroll positions represents "traction" for the labor market. Looking at the hourly and weekly numbers we see a very different story. Almost all of the gain came from large gains in average weekly wages from goods producing - manufacturing, construction and mining - all of which saw weekly rises of between 10 and 20 dollars. Manufacturing however lost 14K seasonally adjusted positions - which means that much of the increase there was simply the same work over fewer heads. Construction, which added 25K jobs and saw wage increases has had "traction". Traction means going forward.
However, almost every other sector saw drops, and the remaining ones saw only small increases. That is not traction.
In short, one reason Americans are ill-informed is that innumerate, illiterate people are sent to write about economics, and, strangely enough, all of their errors make the current administration look better.
AP should fire this ideological hack who could not pass the 6th grade, and hire someone who can
1. Read a table.
2. Add, subtract, divide and multiply.
3. Use a dictionary.
First as to the 9/11 smear, while one Red Cross administrator considered using funds for other purposes, she was forced to resign, and by November of 2001, the Red Cross pledged to use all funds for 9/11. While vigilance is warranted, lying is not.
But even as to the state on the ground this report is not credible. The Red Cross has 200 shelters being set up, and is currently helping 40,000 people in the state. They currently are housing more than 50,000 total The Red Cross has already sent down 250 people from the Northeast sector alone. They have 200 ERVs already in the disaster region, more than FEMA was able to mount as of this morning.
I know people who are in the thick of things, I am still trying to get through to my brother who was assigned down there at the time. However, another contact passes the following along: it is better and worse than you imagine. Worse in that people are simply not processing the fact that New Orleans is dead, dead in a way that an American city has not been except for blackouts. It is better in that the chaos is concentrated in small areas and is being perpetrated by small organized groups. There is no attempt to take over New Orleans, merely that rescue personnel didn't expect to be going into a combat zone, and were completely unprepared for what they found.
He also notes "Flood the city with 50,000 police officers, reservists, national guardsman and everything that wears tin, and there will not be a law and order problem."
I am reminded, again, of the long standing lack of peacekeeping equipment in the US arsenal. How many times do we have to face a peace keeping situation without the appropriate equipment, training and personnel before some bright boy in the Pentagon gets it to happen. Oh right, there was such a bright boy. He was fired.
Bankruptcy problems coming. Two notes, in the President's Speech post, I noted both the need for temporary courts - the article notes there has been a request for them, and Conyers, Nadler and others are backing a bankruptcy law that would protect disaster victims.
Why is it that right wing pundits are decrying the politicization of this event, when the Republican Party is about to launch a smear campaign against Lousiana's governor?
It is often ones opponents who are the greatest spur to ones thinking. Shortly before he died, Jude Wanniski sent me a short email challenging me to outline my economic views, he said he did not have time to wait for my book.
Fellow Bopster Hale Stewart has rightly taken what we call Supply-Side economics to task for its obsession with tax cuts improving the economy. And former Bopster Barry Ritholtz has looked into the roots of Reaganomics. It is no small irony that Prof. Paul Krugman is the single most important specialist in international currency after Robert Mundell, the economist whose work inspired Mr. Wanniski.
There are times when it is important to nail one's colours to the mast - I am a liberal. I was a liberal as a supporter of Republican Senator Edward Brooke, and Republican candidate for Governor Hatch. I am a liberal now as a partisan of the Democratic Party. However, I also prefer to recognize what good people have done, and there are two important aspects of Mr. Wanniski's work that my fellow liberals should embrace.
This is at the limits of my particular set up, and there are numerous places where the sound could be improved dramatically.
The entire quartet is inspired by Dashiel Hammett's "Red Harvest", a novel about a gang war in a mining town. The first movement represents a the violence itself, where as this movement is a paean to nature, the beauty of the mountains. I will need to do something to bring out more of the sub-melodies and counter-harmonies that this recording does not bring out.
For over two years this blog has talked about energy and the problems of energy in relation to political economy. Part of the problem is that there has been a failure to comprehensively understand that there are a series of interlocking components. One part is the physical limits of the petroleum economy, another part is the expansion of the demand for an affluent society, a third part is the problem of the monetary basis of the United States. Often the short term fix for one breaks the others. For example, right now a gasoline supply shock is about to ripple through the US economy. The short solution is more refineries. However, that will mean, long term, lower gas prices, and therefore more oil imports, and therefore more trade deficits.
In short the only way to deal with this problem is comprehensively. However that will not happen, because, until just now, there were lots of people who hoped to cash out on the low cost of fuel relative to the monetary base - that is, land.
That's going to come to an end soon, because inflation is about to equalize land prices. Land prices always do equalize in the end, the question is whether land prices fall - a recession - or whether other prices rise - inflation, often followed by a recession.
The political lesson of 911, Katrina and Iraq is to govern recklessly. Take big chances, if they work out, you are a genius, if not, well then bribe the media with huge tax cuts and sweetheart regulations, and they won't hold you accountable for the consequences. Bush literally looked down and pitied the fly overs.
The trend lines on Iraq and the other misadventures of this Presidency have, in fact, bottomed. More and more people are saying the war is worth it, and that we should stay. It's a tiny change, but it ends the long erosion.
The reality has been the same since day one: Bush is going to borrow and squander, as long as the rest of the world will lend to us at concessionary rates, he will look good. Until he runs out of money to borrow, he will look good. Disasters are an excuse to borrow money.
America is now going to be like a disaster prone dysfunctional family, stumbling from disaster to disaster. Since disaster has, demonstrably, not been enough to change behavior, then catastrophe is what will be required. No, Katrina's not a catastrophe, just a disaster.
As per the usual Bush pattern of "close enough for government work", we are finally seeing serious mobilization of the full rescue capabilities of the US government, and the full logistical capabilities. New Orleans has been declared off limits, and military rescue teams are being flown in from as far away as California. The Coast Guard was already involved, but now the Navy is as well. Federal workers are arriving en masse.
The relief effort is finally going, and while lives and time have been lost the range of private and public efforts is growing rapidly.
I can feel fall - existential meditations are now thick to the ground. Mr. O'Hehir's piece is enlightening in that it reminds us that heterodoxy and exo-heretics form a spectrum with endo-heretics, and there is no easy dividing line.
This is the fourth movement of my Quartet in Ab it dates from 1995. All I can say now on listening to it - it was not possible to render on my old hardware - is that it's influences are fairly clear, and it is what it is. Old work inspires a list of what would be done differently now.
Some Stravinski, some Prokofiev, some obvious toying with the "sonata antique" idea - and of course behind it the theme of Goethe's Roman Elegies.
but after the quick fall of the Taliban it rolled the dice in a big way by moving to solve a longstanding problem only tangentially related to the threat from Al Qaeda - Iraq. In the process, it squandered the overwhelming public mandate it had received after Sept. 11. At the same time, it alienated most of its close allies, many of whom have since engaged in "soft balancing" against American influence, and stirred up anti-Americanism in the Middle East.
and
The president's Jacksonian base, which provides the bulk of the troops serving and dying in Iraq, has no natural affinity for such a policy but would not abandon the commander in chief in the middle of a war, particularly if there is clear hope of success.
Are both clear eyed and entirely rational appraisals of the situation. Now realize the identification of him as a neo-conservative idealist is almost a macro on the keyboard of people who cover foreign policy intellectualizing. Afterall, earlier than most Francis called for military action against Iraq and was a slobbering user of propaganda phrases like "Islamo-fascist". That he is now trying to disavow what he agitatged for is the father abandoning the child.
My name is Stirling Newberry, you may not know me, but thousands of daily readers on truthout.org and the Blogging of the President do.
I am sorry for taking so much time to state facts which I am sure that you and your hard working staff are already aware of. However, I am sure you are hearing from those who adhere to the idea that their church should be able to tell mine who we can and cannot marry, which is an intolerable infringement on the rights of conscience and the separation of Church and State. The Commonwealth, since the American Revolution, has been the nursery of freedom, and the school for patriots: John Adams, John Hancock and Benjamin Franklin came from here. In this issue too we must take the lead, and speak first for freedom.
Tavis Smiley and Clarence Thomas, separated at birth
by Stirling Newberry
When I first heard about the Tavis Smiley Show, and its mantra that "this show will make a difference, because it is different", it seemed possibly interesting. However, it is fairly clear - after the long parade of right wing guests that have tramped across his stage, that Tavis Smiley is Clarence Thomas of the talk show set, there to give a sympathetic chair to any reactionary who fits in a suit.
The crying example recently is his giving out an informercial interview to the "Institute for Science and Culture" - which is another IDiot mouth piece, designed to promote the idea that there is "a controversy" that people need to look at. Tavis Smiley eagerly played straight man to the IDiot.
As Bush makes a big noise about leaving palm trees and lots of sun. going back to "monitor" events in the White House - why wasn't he back there two days ago when it became clear that this was going to be a monster storm? Was he hoping it would just go away? - the Federal Disaster system is, well, a disaster. This strikes at the heart of Bush the image versus Bush the reality. Bush scrambled to the top of a heap of dead bodies in the days after 911, saying that he was the guy to make America prepared again. It was the illusion that he was a go getter President that sustained him through the long months of failed economic programs, disasterous foreign policy choices, and direct lies to Congress and the American Public.
FEMA's press release sounds OK, until you look at it more closely.
Santorum and Burns give you more reasons to cus at the weather.
by Stirling Newberry
[Originally ran on 23 August, kicked back to the top because Capitol Buzz has also picked up the story, and Katrina has put the focus back on the Federal role in weather and disaster recovery.]
I should expect Rick Santorum to do this, he looks like he would get lost following a creek. But it shocked me that Senator Conrad Burns hates people who love the wilderness.
Why do I say that, well, Burns is Senator from Montana, and I would expect that it would be hard to get re-elected big sky country hating people who want to be out of doors. So what has he done?
He doesn't want you to know what the weather is. Even though you've already paid for it.
A couple of years ago Matthew Thomas argued that there should be an end to the "os/app" paradigm. I lived in such a world - the world of the Unix line printer and C, and before that, BASIC. There was no app/os distinction, there was the command line, and there were programs launched from it, but all files were files, and everything could be output everywhere.
It also was a very limited universe, and many simple tasks, like killing the orc that had the key that opened the box that got the gem to give to the dragon to get the potion that would turn you invisible to sneak by the... oh never mind - let's just say that useful things took about as long as solving a text adventure game.
However, there is a point here - that point is that there are paradigms that are created by producers because it makes their lives easier. The way we consume entertainment is filled with implicit paradigms designed for the convenience of those selling. "Product registration" is another - I go through hoops so that some computer company can blow my preferences file away for their risk aversion to piracy. (Finale 2005).
I'm going to suggest that one of the things that is coming is a death to the idea of a paradigm itself.
No President has had a higher approval rating that Bush on the days after September 11th. This was while he was still in hiding and had not even gotten to New York City. Since then, as everyone with a political pulse knows, he has blamed September 11th for every economic, political and social ill that is laid at his doorstep, and blamed Clinton for it. Deceptive speeches, reports and bias have been used to accomplish this.
It is a life long pattern of George Bush: to burn the last straw for having broken the camel's back. And whether the public buys it is a key test of where the public mood is. If Bush spikes up, then it means Americans want one last lurch to the right. If not, it is the end of the road for the Age of Nixon.
Oil traders have become weather junkies - because so much of America's oil infrastructure - both for importing and refining - lies along the Gulf of Mexico - as does Mexico's oil drilling. 2005, unfortunately for their sleep cycles has been the year of storms. They've been hoping for a supply disruption, and one thing that can cause that is a tropical storm.
Slavery is an institution where people own other people. Bit slavery is an institution where corporations own parts of your head. Just as, in the run up to the civil war, slave owners refused to compromise, but instead demanded more and more capacious protections of their "peculiar institution", so to do the bit slavers of the present demand more and more power to exploit our "peculiar institution". The sign of slavery is that the actual labor value breaks even, that it is only by creating artificial scarcity, or waiting for population growth, do slavers make money.
If the long end of the yield curve goes up, then his strategy of having raised interest rates slowly will have worked. But the oil traders, bond traders and stock market traders are not in unison on this. In fact, the bond futures indicate that traders feel that the yield curve will continue to flatten. The inflationary wedge that is developing on the bond curve is the sign of concern, as are overpriced assets relative to forward earnings.
Massachussetts sets September 14th as State Constitutional Convention Date
by Stirling Newberry
This is where any anti-equality legislation would be put before the Commonwealth for inclusion on the ballot. Both sides have started lobbying efforts, with the anti-equality forces hoping that a snap convention will leave equal marriage forces without the ability to bring pressure to bear.
Bush was not an idealist, he isn't an idealist. Iraq was a pragmatically conceived idea not to promote "needed change" in the Middle East, but to nail a stake through the foot of the government so that it could never be liberal again, and to create the conditions for a vast river of pork to flow to constituencies that would create a permanent Republican control of the government.
As long as would be idealists continue to engage in self-deception, they are going to continue to be deceived. You can't cheat an honest man, and Sebastian isn't being honest with himself, or with his readers.
I love - L O V E - bateman's art style. It's distinctive and creates with it the very powerful sense of a world of the great cartoonists. The problem is that he lacked characters. Everyone was either the dimwitted target, or, well, Scott Bateman. The animations drill it - the art is there, the bloggers snark sensibility is there, and the clutter is gone. It's just Bush locked up in a frame with Scott Bateman's pen.
The LA Times delivers the doorstop article A CIA Cover Blown, written by Tom Hamburger and Sooni Efron, it lays out the time line for the top down media reader, and pulls in details that give a glimpse as to how the Bush executive operates - going from smug assuredness to panicked cover up in a matter of days.
Their timeline looks like this, my additions in []
He was released in 1997, eight years after the war's end. The Badr militiamen, he says, tortured him harshly - a common charge heard from former POWs. In Colonel Jassam's case, the militia forced him to eat 2kg of salt a day, leaving him with kidney problems that persist.
... In Ramadi, the insurgents are setting up a nascent mini-civil administration in its outskirts, distributing petrol and water to civilians. They finance themselves through the Transport Ministry's local office in charge of vehicle registration, which they essentially control by threats against its administrators.
If you are wondering why the sense of desperation out of Crawford reeks of fear - now you know. While American Research Group has often been a low outlier, as Gallup has often been a high outlier - the Harris poll is from a group that has been a good lower bound for the pack. It stands at 40%. This means that Bush is one more upward bounce of gas prices from being in the depths of his Presidency. This is where most Presidents are in the second year of their first term: they've put an economic plan in place, they don't have much more wiggle room, and it is just going to take time to work.
However, Bush isn't near the beginning of his economic cycle - he's near the peak of it. If people aren't happy now, they aren't going to be getting any happier any time soon. But while Bush is burning, the Democrats are fiddling.
I will say what he will not, that his interlocutor, Jeff Weintraub, is engaged in extremely ornate attempts to rationalize what is, in essence, totalitarian thinking: namely the attempt to identify political opponents of the regime with terrorist enemies of the people as a whole. The only difference between professor Weintraub and Cadmus of the American Legion, or Tom DeLay, or Pat Robertson is the audience which he tries to make these fundamentally unjustifiable sentiments palatable to.
The entire exchange is like watching someone go down a refuted chess line, it may take a while, but the position collapses. Weintraub hems and haws endlessly, because he can't come out and snatch the pawn. However, I think Professor Delong's attack, while it ultimately grinds out to a won position, is far too ornate as well - his reference to Machiavelli is interesting, but not the best attack on Weintraub's rather cramped position.
The delegates vowed to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."
If anyone has any doubt that events are spiralling out of control, this should squash them. The American Legion has declared war on American Freedoms, it is shameful, dangerous and hateful. Deciding policy is the right and duty of all Americans, and they will take it away from me when the pry it from my cold dead fingers. This is militarism - the danger that flows from standing armies, oft warned by the founders against them, we have seen necessity force on upon us. But it can never be allowed to threat violence against civilians, nor can it be allowed to become a political faction.
In the United States, the military exists to serve the public, and not the other way around. If members of the military cannot uphold their oath to protect and defend the constitution, then they should resign immediately. If the troops can't fight knowing the truth about an illegal war, then we should withdraw them.
That's what's necessary. Let's see if they have the balls to do it.
Personally I doubt it, I also doubt that any official has the courage to do what is right, and arrest Cadmus for agitating for violent suppression of others civil rights. We are coming dangerously close to civil violence, simply because no one has the courage to stop the far right purveyors of it.
The American Legion members now have the ball in their court, if the can't repudiate the extremist and unAmerican statements of Cadmus, they will have dishonoured a proud organization, and they will have show that they have forgotten what it is they fought for.
An American always has the right to dissent. If we cease to have that right, we cease to be Americans.
The demographic reality is that the baby boom was also the source of the great Crime wave. As young men enter their crime prone years, they committ more crimes. America was willing to spend heavily to keep lots of people locked up, but as important - more in fact - is that the crime prone population is dropping tremendously. The "baby bust" is right now at the meat of the crime prone years, and the echo boom is just getting started with them. Since the echo boom is nowhere near as large, it is unlikely to have the same effect.
In 1994 Americans were told by Newt Gingrich that if they were in pain, Congress would be in pain, and that would solve the problem. Gingrich promised to clean up scandals and run a better house. He fell in a scandal a few years later. But the machine he built survived. Instead of growing more powerful nationally, it continued to work on its base - turning out conservative southern Democrats, to be replaced by reactionary carpet bagging Republicans.
But the image of "Republican Reform" clung to them, partially because corruption didn't have a name. But last year the cracks really began to show. The most important crack was coingate - a scandal pushed by local sources and the internet, even as it was dismissed as a few loose coins in the top down media. The scandal has lead to the conviction of Bob Taft - the Republican governor, and a growing political earthquake.
Evolution is a robust theory, in the scientific sense, that has been tested and confirmed again and again. Intelligent design is not a theory at all, as scientists understand the word, but a well-financed political and religious campaign to muddy science. Its basic proposition - the intervention of a designer, a k a God - cannot be tested. It has no evidence to offer, and its assumptions that humans were divinely created are the same as its conclusions. Its objections to evolution are based on syllogistic reasoning and a highly selective treatment of the physical evidence.
Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth - and humans with it - was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn't a triumph of faith. It's a failure of education.
The purpose of the campaign for intelligent design is to deepen that failure. To present the arguments of intelligent design as part of a debate over evolution is nonsense. From the scientific perspective, there is no debate. But even the illusion of a debate is a sorry victory for antievolutionists, a public relations victory based, as so many have been in recent years, on ignorance and obfuscation.
The reason "intelligent design" is a failure is that it could not recognize artificial selection in the present, but claims to recognize God at the range of 2 billion years unerringly.
It's important to note that while Mr. Klinkenborg works for the times, he was born in Colorado, raised in Iowa, writes about rural issues, and lives in Austerlitz New York, a rural town on the border of Massachussetts. I used to bike through there on my way to see my girlfriend in Great Barrington, I live in Rotterdam at the time, it was 63 miles each way. Trust me, the last skyscraper was in Albany. That's not far from Norman Rockwell country - who was a liberal New Yorker, not a Conservative Texan, in case anyone is keeping score.
First strike: She likes Lunar Park. Second strike, she doesn't know who HP Lovecraft was:
"Unlike Europe (particularly France), America has never had a sustained literature of the grotesque; even Poe makes us think of the decadent alleyways of Europe, not of New England."
America has not only literature of the grotesque, but a cinema of it as well. In the present King and Rice have contributed volumes to it.
Third strike, she's part of the tired over determined post-modern world:
"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." Pat Robertson
Pat Robertson is not a nobody, in 1988 he placed second in the Iowa Republican caucuses and first in the Washington state caucuses. Sam Brownback, Senator from Kansas says that Pat Robertson got him elected. Roberston has raised millions for the Republican Party, and hosts the widely broadcast 700 Club. Thus when Robertson calls for assassination of the elected leader of another nation - President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela - it is the leadership of the Republican Party speaking. The core of the organization, and a large fraction of its base.
Americans do not yet understand that the religious right does not represent their values, but instead, represents a violent extremist viewpoint, which is at odds with America's enlightenment history of tolerence, and its spiritual history of personal conscience. If there is any single contribution to religious thought in America, it is the focus on personal interpretation of religious signs based on a personal relationship with God. While the religious right claims this, in fact, it is both dogmatic and hierarchical.
The tango is one of the folk forms which has reached up and into the realm of the exquisite, both as a dance, and as a musical idea. Astor Piazolla's neo-classical tangos create a rich sound world, one which is beyond dancing. This movement takes that sound world and brings it to a different lyrical realm of development, but it is still, at heart, a creature of the sweaty dark night world from which the rhythms come.
Suburban Guerilla spoke for many when she said she believed that new lows for Bush in the polls meant terror alerts. It's official, local news stations are running stories to "look out for homeless terrorists" based on a leaked Homeland Security Memo that has no substantiation. In the Boston area the arrest of a homeless man with "an expired middle east passport" is being used to prop it up.
Sunday on Truthout I wrote about how there is a dollar glut And the American consumer is the one footing the bill. It's entirely reasonable, after all, the reason people want dollars is because American consumers buy things with dollars, and produce a revenue stream. That revenue stream has been packaged as stocks and other instruments and sold. We've been selling our children to buy oil, because they are the source of the future value that is being sold.
I got a wave of questions, the most common one can be summarized as "what can I do?" That's the beauty of it, there really isn't very much you can do. You can't take advantage of this, because you are being taken advantage of. The turkey gets invited for dinner.
One of the most enduring pictures in art is the malaise of the material. One of the first characters in Western literature is given a choice, between a long life of luxury, or a short life and undying glory. He chooses glory, and thus we have Axilleus and the story of his wrath in the Iliad. The force of corrupting luxury is a theme in ancient works, including that of Solomon in the bible.
The modern creation of a comfortable class, a class that makes decisions based on the belief in business as usual has been a new fissure in this volcano: where as previously only the privileged few could be credibly portrayed as debased and corroded, suddenly there was an entirely new archetype. The downfall of the few brought with them the downfall of the nation, but the death of one of the middle class, was merely a statistic.
In the present, one aspect of the is malaise of the material is the revolt against commercial culture - often called "popular culture".
A galliard was a dance from the renaissance which was in 6/4 time - but with a syncopation on which there was no step, so played in 6, but danced in five. This movement depicts the chirping of the crickets and the emergence of the stars, as well as the last cries of the birds as they go home to roost. It will take several times through to hear the melodies and overlaying ideas, but it rewards the carefully listener.
The coming century is going to be devoted to one important concept – understanding the collision between the small, reductionist and systematizable micro world, and the large, statistical macro world. That collision produces non-linear results, and forces us to ask and answer questions for which we did not even have the means of solution. Many, many, many people have talked about non-linearity and other abstract concepts, but the reality is, that until recently, very few people lived on the boundary between the top and bottom of society, between the large forces and the individual connections.
To take every bit of abstract out of it, if you want to know what the non-linear future looks like, you are connected to a piece of it. The audience for this site isn't composed of homogenous people all receiving the same information – but people of different kinds, different levels of activity, and different purposes. People are not reduced to an "audience", but remain individuals. Those connections on any given day can have the future skittering in any different direction, even though the whole shape is recognizable.
In the previous posts, on the Challenges and Realizations I presented a simple theme: the end of extraction, and with it the death of "information" as being the sure road to wealth. Information is going to be transmitted, not just by governments, the market and the press, but by everyone, all the time. Much of it transmitted because that information helps individuals live in the world they wan to live in.
The liberals who supported Iraq because they thought it was possible to have a fuzzy democracy in Baghdad weren't hawks. They were pony hawks - as in the famous cry of five year old girls "I want a pony!" The reality is that Bush can't do anything except lose money and dump the husk on friendly investors.
A real Hawk, say Kenan, would have looked at Iraq, and in magisterial tones advised either overthrowing the government with a coup, or letting Saddam implode. He would also note sadly that the time to replace Saddam, after the first war, was missed because of poor US fiscal policy causing a loss of autonomy in decisions about war aims.
It's a trend Two articles in one day about how the rich Democratic donors are tired of losing. They are not yet tired of hiring the same people who lose over and over again. Which means that while they may be sick and tired of losing, they aren't sick and tired of being sick and tired.
When I look out there and see the best 200 (75K all in cost = 15 million per year) liberal bloggers getting paid a living wage, I will believe that the well heeled Democrats are serious about shaking things up. Until then, it's putting more brass on the deck chairs on the Titanic. By my count about the top 20 liberal bloggers are paid a living wage, which means that we are 10% of the way there to being at the starting line.
If you needed any more proof that Democratic politics were in a profound state of upheaval, consider this: on the eve of the 2004 election, there were three especially powerful groups, aside from the Kerry campaign itself, working to turn out votes for the party in critical states, and those were the Democratic National Committee, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and a lavishly endowed start-up known as America Coming Together. Nine months later, not one of these institutions has emerged entirely intact. First, Howard Dean staged a hostile takeover of the D.N.C. Then big labor unraveled on its 50th birthday. And finally, earlier this month, ACT announced that it was suspending most of its operations and closing down its state offices, effectively shuttering the largest independently financed turnout drive in history after a single outing.
Pyramid politics does not deliver for progressives.
But as usuall Matt Bai sees the 1960's - his mantra is "decentralized". Hello Matt, "decentralization" has been what has been "in" since the Class of 1974 passed campaign finance reform and decentralized power in much of Congress - it would take the Republican Revolution to gradually put power back in the hands of the parties.
If you want to see capitalism in action, look at a television. Or any form of electronics, the classic cycle of capital is being enacted. Innovation is followed by imitation, imitation by proliferation, and at the end of that - massively falling prices as something which was a luxury becomes a necessity. A 20,000 digital television in 2000, is a 4000 dollar one today, and it will be at 3000 soon.
At some point a minimum is reached. That minimum is when the fixed costs of the system are in play, and when the "most-most" point is reached: the most that most people are willing to pay for something. Cars have not dropped in inflation adjusted terms in decades. There will come a point where the barrier to entry isn't factories - which can be built - but fixed costs. The wave of consolidation occurs: 10 manufacturers become 3 or even 1.
Then of course there is the other side of the equation: who pays for this. In the case of the widescreen digital television, it is the movie industry.
A bit over a month ago the worm turned against George Bush. People had held on, waiting for things to get better. Better came, and it looked like, 1995. Americans held on for a boom, what they are getting doesn't even go off like a cap gun.
While the left right now is busy in a frenzy of the cult of Saint Cindy - I've heard people foolishly acting like this is the beginning of another civil rights movement, because that is there script "recreate the 1960's" - the right is mired in an even worse place. The right can't even get arrested to get the word out. The word they want out is "everything is on track in Iraq". This was supposed to be the month where the Iraqi constitution was completed and the investors assured that the hostile take over of Iraq was going according to plan.
Into this moment Russ Feingold decided to help make sure that Hillary Clinton won the nomination.
Two For The Money Sports betting thriller. Mamet meets Wall Street. Pacino loves these rolls, let's see if the kid can keep up with him.
The Fog The northwest is becoming America's official ghost town. YAWIDOHF - Yet Another Woman in Danger Occult Horror Film.
Doom Hardware science fiction ala Aliens. After Iraq, this seems, well behind the curve.
Proof Culture industry film - right actress, right source, right supporting cast. Yet, the emotion is carried by screaming. Not a good sign people.
Oliver Twist This film looks slick, and feels well paced. And it will remind the stellar cast why "Someone who hates kids and animals can't be all bad." They will steal whole scenes from you...
Prime Girl dates shrinks' son. Light, well timed, and with a killer pair of leading ladies.
"Recent evidence points to a much higher level of intergenerational transmission of economic position than was previously thought to be the case. America may still
be the land of opportunity by some measures, but parental income and wealth are
strong predictors of the likely economic status of the next generation. "
As potential challengers to Hillary, these are the two people I take the most seriously. For the moment I'm going to set aside the horse race thinking - and focus on the personal qualities of these two men.
The reason Wes Clark creates such excitement is that he has the quality of incandesence which JFK had, the belief that he represents a bright light which is dawning over America. Edwards, by contrast, while he looks more the part, is far more like Franklin Delano Roosevelt - a man with an affable surface, but a deliberative core who offers himself as being the tide of an awakened America.
This article is a textbook of how not to write about finance. It starts with the theoretical returns from stocks, not counting transaction costs, taxes and so on, and compares it to the actual return on houses. It procedes to make more mistakes.
WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday — and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."
The next world of political organizing is in the person to person space - whether a replacement for meetup, or in the more creative use of sites like friendster - this allows organizations to reach out to real people who have expressed real interests and can build real bonds. In the flesh world someone like Debbie would be a ward captain, or an organizer for a city chapter. It's just that her precincts are in the netropolis.
Oil prices rises have, as most speculative moves are, been a series of sharp spikes upward. What is important is that nothing has changed that will prevent the next spike from going higher still. This is because the speculators, most of them, are making very solid profits each time through selling to those in a supply pinch. There will be another one, and another one after that.
On September 21st, 2005 the Gotham Center for New York City History is having a book signing with Jonatah Mahler, whose book on New York in 1977 is one of the most packed narratives you will ever read, filled with the kind of characters that you just won't find today. registration is here.
What's my addiction? Terry Neal's short video interviews with players. You would expect Nina Totenberg to be on such a list, she is an institution of journalism the way her father is an institution of the violin. However, Mr. Neal gets some interesting people who we don't as often see. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute, CQ's Craig Crawford - the pairing of Bolger and Garin as pollsters from the two sides of the political divides makes a worthwhile point of comparison as to the different attitudes of the two parties political operative class.
Right now the Democrats are trying to line up support for a run by Claire McCaskill for the senate seat held by Talent. Talent is the Republican who defeated Carnahan when she ran for a full term. The odds are good that Claire will run, as it is a plum position. The Democrats in MO should find something for Nancy Farmer to be doing - that kind of ability shouldn't be on the sidelines. No word on whether Bob Holden would want to come back for a grudge match in the Senate primary against the woman who knocked him out of the primary last year.
The wave behind a Hackett run for Senate in Ohio is growing in momentum now that Sherwood Brown has bowed out of contention. There has been chatter about it virtually since the results in Ohio-2 started coming in. Some high powered Ohio Democratic donors have indicated their anxiousness to strike while the iron is hot in the scandal ridden Republican Party in Ohio - with the governor facing ethics charges and virtually every official connected with coingate.
Kevin Berger turns in a fine piece on the year Mahler went to face his demons. It needs a companion on the unfinished 10th symphony, which is the story of how those demons consumed him, and set off on a journey that touches, in a very personal way, the conflict between Modernism and Post-Romanticism in 20th century music.
Eric Massa served this country for over two decades in the Navy, and has experience in combat and command. Now, he is running for one of the most important congressional districts in the country. He's not a politician - he's a citizen-participant, who wants Americans to be represented by real people who don't have to "prostitute themselves to corporations".
It is an important match up - because Randy Kuhl is an unpopular first term congressman, who has broken his campaign promises, voted against his district to keep Tom Delay happy, and presided over a slump in jobs in this upstate district that has not only agriculture, but also 21st century industry and information technology. It is the kind of economic area which America has to make work, because it is the kind of place that only America really has: a place where individual initiative and Jeffersonian democracy can combine to create new opportunity.
Inside edition ran with a segment on Cindy Sheehan's pending divorce, and the turmoil it is causing her family - which is begging her back home. Ms. Sheehan has become symbolic, in that she is Dorothy trying to see the Wizard of Oz, and finding he is a humbug. Her story is metastizing into the way that Americans are facing a war without a king - no President at war in American history has taken less note of the war, except in so far as he awards himself medals for being a war President. He is not the leader of the faith of the nation, he does not allow the coffins to be show, nor does he show himself at the funerals of the fallen.
The two strands of Bushism - economic and social - are crumbling. America put up with terrible economic policies, because we got tax breaks, cheap gas and rising home values - we put up with terrible foreign policy, because too many of us were afraid. And upon these temporary trends, Bush funnelled massive corruption to the Republican Party.
America must come to terms with this, and to do that it must first go into denial - it must first pretend that someone else is responsible, not us.
The same is true of politics - more people learn about politics over bbqs and socials - about the importance of widening a road, saving a hospital or opening a school - than learn from the large organizations at the center.
This month's inflation report confirms that we are bubbling on the edge of inflation. We don't have a savings glut, we have a good old fashioned dollar glut. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury have printed more dollars than the future stream of revenues, and while various governments and private individuals have been willing to park dollars, that time is going to come to an end.
Aiding and abetting this is that vast parking lot for Dollars - the unfree economies of Saudi Arabia, China and other nations not in the democratic core. They can decide for their populations to save and invest rather than consume. If there were a "savings glut" we would see demand falling, as people put money aside. We should also see significant over capacity, as companies take investment and build capital equipment with it. In short what we saw at the end of the late 1990's. A saving's glut implies over investment.
We don't see any of that. Instead industrial capacity is moving upwards, demand is strong, wages are stagnant.
So what is really going on. Well duh, a war time economy with a spending binge - oh, and one other thing, a massive policy decision to count consumption and expected future forced savings as savings and wealth.
Shrill is back. But isn't everyone shrill now? Afterall the Boston Fed has admited that the Unemployment Rate doesn't measure Labor Slack. Something many of us have been talking about for about three years now.
I offer a thesis: that we should look to classical mythology and classical antiquity to understand many of the processes that are at work in the present with respect to popular culture. In essence pop culture narratives - such as the Star Trek and Star Wars universes in science fiction, as well as comic books, television shows that develop "cult followings" and so on, are example of a "mythos", a combination of setting, character, tropes and topoi within which communities of people attempt to create narratives and scenes with which to engage in the community process of bounding and coping, as well as in the literary process of production of works for reflection.
I'd like to refer people back to Chris Lydon's show on Fan fic as a point of departure here.
My two favorite watch blogs are the now on hiatus Shrill blog, partially because its time is past - and Malkin Watch, who just linked to us.
Malkin's game here is of course "demonization". Since every party gets its money from its cranks, there is a constant struggle to paint the other side as being beholden to them. The Republicans have been better at this two ways. One, they've successfully stalinized the Democratic Party over and over again - as if Democrats were a collection of mohawk wearing man hating lesbians who needed abortions on their way to blowing up the world trade center - which, if it sounds incoherent, it is - while making it so that their own base of 20th century hating meth smoking dead end darwin deniers - that is, a base of people who are actually crazy and do actually form the base of their party - seem like the cutting edge of suburban values, guardians at the walls of the subdevelopment.
My two favorite watch blogs are the now on hiatus Shrill blog, partially because its time is past - and Malkin Watch, who just linked to us.
Malkin's game here is of course "demonization". Since every party gets its money from its cranks, there is a constant struggle to paint the other side as being beholden to them. The Republicans have been better at this two ways. One, they've successfully stalinized the Democratic Party over and over again - as if Democrats were a collection of mohawk wearing man hating lesbians who needed abortions on their way to blowing up the world trade center - which, if it sounds incoherent, it is - while making it so that their own base of 20th century hating meth smoking dead end darwin deniers - that is, a base of people who are actually crazy and do actually form the base of their party - seem like the cutting edge of suburban values, guardians at the walls of the subdevelopment.
Media girl admits that political ads are terrible. But what is missing in the discussion is what was wrong with the ad, it wasn't the accusation, it was the targetting. You see, NARAL is trying to strip mine support for abortion rights to get money. That's what microissue groups do - wave a bloody shirt and pass the hat. It doesn't matter if they win, in fact, losing can be better than winning, in a "Springtime for Hitler" sense, because it will increase the sense of need for the group. NARAL, by endorsing Chaffee, and not putting up money to fight Casey has shown they aren't ideologs, just careerists who have a good racket.
Which brings us to the difference between the Swifties and the Roberts is a Terrorist ad. It isn't truthfulness, it is targetting.
If it continues to win, then eventually the value of rent will be reduced to zero, at which point Americans will get really into dramas set in Britain in the late 1950's and 1950's, so we can learn to adapt to being a has been nation.
For example Pat Schroeder gives us this Orwellian moment:
"Google's announcement does nothing to relieve the publishing industry's concerns," Patricia Schroeder, the trade group's president, said in a statement Friday. "Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear."
Um, actually, no, the burden is on the owner to prove damages, just like the rest of property law.
Overwhelming Response to the Bowers-Stoller Report
by Stirling Newberry
The NPI backed a study by Chris Bowers and our own Matt Stoller. It's clearly touched a nerve, as traffic flows in from the NPI link and we get emails. Matt's idea of "treat the internet like a state" is finally getting mindshare. Perhaps because blogging has delivered a lot for some candidates, and very little for others. Clearly it isn't something you can just throw an intern at and get results.
Left in Lowell has a good summary of the bullet points of the report.
A few weeks ago an oil trader friend of mine said "70 is the new 60". He didn't mean that he was driving his hummer at 70. Instead, he meant that 60 had been the break point that speculators had been betting on with a 50/50 chance to go over or under it. Now, 70 was the target. Oil stood on that day at 59.
Some very smart people didn't believe it, but I did. You see, uncle Alan has been raising interest rates way too slowly to stop it. Demand is still robust, even as large chunks of the country are wavering on the edge of a downturn - the housing market isn't feeling so good here in the Northeast, and the West should soon follow.
Oil slammed into 66 today, on the back of a strong run. Oil at 70 in the next year? It's beginning to look conservative.
Jack Abramoff the Tom Noe of the national Republican Party, has been indicted on fraud charges. Tom Delay's political arm plans to plead that he was just another victim.
Iraq in the present reminds me of how Yugoslavia was talked about in the 1980's. At that time it was considered unthinkable to allow Yugoslavia to break up. One might think that the people speaking this way were head in sand types that could not see the ethnic tensions in the region. But, in fact, the reverse is the case: many of them understood that a break up of Yugoslavia, unlike say, a break up of Czechoslovakia, would lead to war, what we would now call ethnic cleansing, and chaos. They were right, three wars were fought in the wake of Yugoslavia's fall: the Serb Croatian war over the Kriajina, The Bosnian Civil War, and the Kosovo Conflict, there was ethnic cleansing. The economic consequences were every bit as bad as could be expected: Bosnia has managed to crawl back from the stone age to the early 19th century, but no farther.
What does this have to do with the present? Let me start with this entry from Juan Cole:
I know several people that are going down to see the latest saint of the anti-Iraq War movement. There have been posts all over the blogsphere about Cindy, conference calls and articles. Editorialists, politicians and political operatives have gone to be close to her or called to support her.
It's the beginning of a lame duck term, and that means that both major parties are engaged in a quiet, if bitter, struggle to control the direction. The in party does not have an heir apperant to the President, and it might not be a good idea anyway for electability. The out party has an heir appearant, but no direction. Within both there is a struggle to control the resources which will be the basis of a future Presidential campaign.
Drew McManus thinks about cultural entrepreneurialism. The cultural dimension of the political conflict between the left and right is endlessly fretted over, but without really facing the issue. That issue is that making art is an inherently political act, but it is also inherently a very poor partisan act. The process of composing and producing that music for a wider public involves convincing people that the music is worth playing - and that's politics. The process of communalizing music, experiencing it and reflecting on it - are all political acts. One's music isn't what one listens to alone, it is how one asserts ones boundaries outward.
These are all political acts. A society that wants to have culture whose basis is its durability rather than its usability, has made certain political choices.
Pollkatz chart tells the tail - look how normally strong polls for Bush have bounced down, and the weak polls are from last week during a short bounce.
Now tell me why Congress should be in a mood to give this guy anything other than his walking papers.
LA Times Reports. De Soto has often pointed out that giving people access to the mechanisms of the law is an essential part of developing small nations - here is an example in our own back yard.
DFA-Link: DFA is finally moving away from using Meetup.com and has
created DFA-Link, its own online organizing tools for local meetings,
etc. Please sign up at DFA Link. After August 31, DFA will no longer be using Meetup.com for events or communicating with members. The DFA-Link pages are at: the tools page
Corruption Report Implicates Diplomat in Oil-Food Scandal
by Stirling Newberry
Oil is ridiculously profitable because a just barely Victorian economy can extract it, and a just barely modern economy can refine it. One can keep most of a country in misery and ignorance and still turn a huge profit. When the Western strategy was to topple Saddam by proxy, the oil for food deal was meant to salve the consciences of the West. As was sadly predictable - attempts to do inhumane things in a way that seems humane result in blunders. The reality is that the US in 1991 could not overthrow Saddam because the Saudis would not hear of it - so we were stuck with him.
The oil for food program's scandal has tarnished the UN, many of its senior members - as well as the US companies that also had a hand in the till. Mr. Sevan used the spread between the oil for food price and the market price to put allocation into a small oil company with good connections. It's a deal not unlike the kind of deals that Harken Energy hoped for - or Bayoil for that matter.
Paul Volcker's investigation has been thorough and unflinching, and promises another installment in a definitive report. If the UN believes in its mission then it should take the opportunity to clean house. There isn't room for corruption in the 21st century.
The problem with "Silence of the Lambs" is that it depicts a pathalogical serial killer as a great artist. The problem is that being a bad artist is a pathology. Bad artists inflict themselves on others, and do so with an arrogant bombast that makes them difficult to ignore.
Classical music, in particular, attracts a disproportionate share of sociopaths whose weapon is the staff page.
Object lesson, for those that need it, below the fold.
Yes people, the Bush bubble is here, where loose money is now flushing into the rest of the economy. Which means that Greenspan's slow slog upwards of interest rates is failing. There's a bit of a rocky road ahead, but bear with me.
What? You've been hearing how great the economy is? That's because the official measures are telling you how well the Friedman-Mundell economy is doing - the one that tries to sell paper for oil and make the rich stratospherically rich. The economy that most of us live in isn't being measured. So what would the numbers look like if we did?
See below.
[Oh yeah, the musically inclined may want to check the pod cast for the latest music files: a scherzo and an allegretto both for string quartet.]
Dance of the Moderates Hint, the signature move is bending over
by Stirling Newberry
Once again the moderates are trying to convince themselves that a reactionary isn't. We got this before Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict. We got this with Bush himself. The dance of the moderates somewhat resembles hippopotomi trying to do Chopin's Minute Waltz to choreography by Martha Graham - it's something that one really doesn't want to think about it.
One main pattern involves moderates believing that administrations lie to their partisan bases, but tell the truth in winks and nudges to the sensible people in the middle. Thus Bush was just lying to his partisan base before about all of the radical things he wanted to do.
The reason the moderates are dancing however, is because Roberts' family sitcom looks are going to keep him steady in the polls unless he bites off the head of a bat during hearings. Ried isn't worked up about him.
In short, get ready for the Scalia-Roberts-Thomas being a chant out of Nina Totenberg's reports.
There is an underground community that believes, in essence, that the entire country is held hostage to a conspiracy to steal elections for Republicans. In their world "Diebold" is the only word that matters, and if we simply fixed ballot counting - or unfixed it - then America would be Democratic again. It isn't just Florida 2000 that the fraudster community believes was stolen by machines, it is dozens of other races as well.
The heart of their case begins in Florida in 2000, elephant in the room of Democracy, which everyone has more or less agreed to pretend didn't happen. It then builds on several surprising wins by Republicans, and caps with the supposed discrepancies between exit polls and results. When looked at the case isn't the "absolutely certain slam dunk" that many of them believe.
The converse however, is also true: while the exit polls don't show a clear case for "someone is guilty" they do show a clear case for an election system which does not accurately reflect the will of the people, and, as importantly, one that does not deliver "legitimacy beyond a reasonable doubt". While the top down media argues "the fraudsters believe in a conspiracy theory, therefore the burden of proof is for them to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt", the reverse is actually true: the burden is on the government to prove that elections are free and fair, in the same way it is the burden of the state to prove its case in a criminal court.
One thing that confuses me about ideologs of the right is that while they keep screaming about free markets, they have lead America into an economic situation where we are depenendent on two unfree societes for our economy. As even the New York Times can figure out Saudi Arabia is more powerful than ever. The global security community understands that the US and China are on a collision course over oil. While China did not, this time, manage to buy a large oil company - that is in no small part because they blundered the tactics, not because they did not have the money.
So while the flag decal crowd is trying to get into heavan, and be free - I think of their wives more than anything else - the reality is that they are selling our children and grand children into slavery.
I should be writing a post to attract attention and drive traffic. However, having gotten Finale 2006 working, I took a movement from my String Quartet in Ab, and moved it over to Finale. This is for no other reason than it moved more easily than anything else I had ready to work with the new "Native Instruments" plug in using Garritan personal orchestra.
For those not up on these things, samplers have dramatically improved over the past few years, and integration with notation programs is now quite good. We are only a few years away from my dream of having a batton as a bluetooth instrument, and being able to "conduct" relatively good sounding performances of works. It will open new vistas in music.
But first one has to have music, and MakeMusic is good enough to give a place for people to dump their compositions. Looking through the contemporary classical compositions list, which ran to thousands, I noticed Norman del Joio's name - and the piece, while not his best was at least like his other work. However, most of the pieces are student pieces.
So I decided to limit myself to string quartets. And rather than merely picking a few, I decided to download everything, and look at it. Yes, this is an excercise in masochism. The original files are accessible by searching for "String Quartet" here. There is a free program that allows you to read the scores available for Mac and Windows. Each movement will be reviewed as I get to it, regardless of quality or lack there of.
Some notes for Make Music - the showcase does not have Finale 2006 in the options list, and there very much needs to be a patch manager that can auto convert to Garritan. Import also needs to save file info such as composer. Web page needs an auto link to account.
2006 is indeed a must upgrade for Finale users, as it is the first version of Finale that can be used like a word processor for music, rather than a page layout program for already completed music.
Look people, with a budget that is a monument to innumeracy and a President preaching Intelligent Design, you'd be better off getting more science and mathematics into the White Houses Speech writers than into Hollywood Screen plays. Is there anyone else who is amused at the irony of trying to convince liberal hollywood to educate people to run the conservative military apparatus so that reactionary hicks can spit on science?
There used to be a country called America. It was a place which thought of itself as the inheritor of the logic of Rome and the inquiry of Athens. But now, it is a land known as IDiotia - a place where ghosts, ghouls and goblins are officially the curiculum of the land. It used to have a President, but now it has a Pope, who lives in the same house the President used to live in.
What is absurd about "intelligent design" is that it would not know intelligent design if it tripped over it. Seriously.
Confirmed: 14 Marines, 1 Interpreter killed by bomb in Iraq.
by Stirling Newberry
14 Marines killed near Haditha bringing the official military fatality count in Iraq to 2015. A civilian interpretter was also killed. This follows on a day after a journalist was found dead after being kidnapped.
Columbia means peaceful. But Columbianization does not.
The problem in the US is that we are strip mining the present for dubious profits. Yes, profits are in abundance, but, as with the last time around, the rich got to book real profits, while middle America got paper profits that went up in smoke.
Breaking: Air France Flight 358 on fire in Toronto
by Stirling Newberry
Probably an accident, plane is on the ground. No word on casualties yet.
The airbus broke up on a landing attempt, reports that passengers were attempting to jump from the plane as it crash landed. 200 passengers were reported on board.
Speculation is that breaking on the wet runway was hindered and the craft skidded.
Updated: Jet carried 309, but all are accounted for. Hats off to the crew and to the passengers for not panicking.
Right now the cut and run consensus is building. The war is too costly, too long, too bloody. There is a growing feeling among Republicans that Iraq is a giant dry hole. The problem is that ending the war, or even reducing its size significantly leads to a recession. Bush wants to delay this long enough to get to the next election. That way the Republicans can blame the Democrats - who will be seen as the peace party - for losing the war and for the recession. If the Republicans win, they will ride it out as "a small post war down turn".
See how easy politics is if you don't have to play defense?
In the previous article, I outlined the four great challenges of the 21st century: the end of extraction, the death of information, the collapse of corporate-capitalist socialism and the ocean of labor arbitrage.
What follows are the four great realizations that will allow us to cope with these changes.
In 1995 King Fahd of Saudi Arabia suffered a debiltating stroke, his brother assumed power, and for the last decade, the figure head king has reigned, but not ruled. It has had consequences, in that the central strength of a king - that is, to use his position and gravitas as a lever for unity - was lacking. Abdullah has run Saudi policy. He is a craftier man than his brother, less prone to grand visions and long term thinking, and more prone to dealing with today's crisis today. He sheherded the kingdom through the pit of the oil market, and has used his financial levers of power ablely.
It has caused what will be a temprorary jolt in the markets, but this is merely speculation. The upward pressure on oil has abated with China's slowdown, but, not by much, as Americans continue to burn oil with abandon. The transition will, ultimately, mean little.
Frank believes that the coalition for withdrawl from Iraq is growing, and that many Republicans will vote for withdrawl as soon as there is political cover to do so.
While he believes that calls for impeachment of George Bush are premature, because they would interfere with the goal of withdrawl, he strongly supports continued investigation.
The Swing State Project lowers the boom on Jean Schmidt and Tom Noe of Ohio Coingate fame. Here is what I dug up in the wee hours of Saturday night:
Hackett has made "The Culture of Corruption" the big issue, and this morning Jean Schmidt walked into it. She claimed not to know Tom Noe. However, as the minutes approved on March 21st, 2002 show that Noe was on the Ohio Regents when Jean Schmidt testified before the Regents on the morning of 21st March, and was on a retreat with "the Ohio Regents" the day before.
According to this document, either Noe wasn't doing his job as Regent, or Schmidt is lying about not having met Noe.
Let's see from a non-paper citing non-sources, to a far right wing blog run by a far right wing blogger, to Michelle Malalatete and from there into the Washinton Times.
On Saturday, July 30, Congressman Xavier Becerra will hold a town hall forum on the Downing Street Minutes at Lincoln Heights Center in Los Angeles, California.
Local Start Time: 11:00 a.m. PT
Address: 2323 Workman Street
Los Angeles, California
REP. FRANK TO HOLD TOWN HALL MEETING JULY 31
On Sunday, July 31, Congressman Barney Frank will hold a town hall forum on the Downing Street Minutes at Arlington Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
Special Guests Include constitutional law expert and co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org John Bonifaz.
Local Start Time: 6:30 p.m. ET
Address: Arlington & Boylston Streets (just West of Boston Commons)
Boston, Massachusetts
This trio is inspired by a series of early 20th century prints then on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The other movements are "MEZ", "Nachtsgestalten" and "Vienna".
"Culture of Corruption" is a phrase that is going to resonate - one which gets to the heart of America's dissatisfaction with Bush. When people see that the economy is good, and yet they aren't doing well - they blame collusiveness and corruption for it. Sometimes they are wrong, but often they are right. And never have they been more right than right now.
Hackett's personal record shows that he is a "balls to the wall" type who goes all out all the time, and without excuses. This is the kind of candidate the Democrats should be recruiting, nominating and backing with every dime. That is, if they want to get back into the majority.
But the real test of a political movement is the willingness to push. Right now DCCC calls the current scandals "Worse than Watergate" and has launched a "Victory Partner" pledge drive. If there are MIPs out there, then this is what they should be doing, because any impeachment must first be investigated by the House, then submitted to the House Judiciary committee, and then voted on by the full house.
The D Triple C as it is called, is camped out just one the other side of the river from calling for impeachment, but "Watergate" is code, and not particularly hard to crack. As with all things in politics, people get the government that they support.
I've been thinking a great deal about the 22nd Century, for the simple reason that we are now at the end of the age of petroleum, and over the course of the next generation, we will be experiencing a change in our political economy as important as the change from coal to oil was.
There are going to be four great challenges that dominate this century, which must be met and managed, or the result will spiral into war, depression and disaster. We have not been facing these challenges, simply because there has been a pervasive belief that if we just engaged in "business as usual", everything could be fixed.
It won't. It can't and we shouldn't morn the death of the era of big heavy pyramid organizations anyway.
The Radical Middle wants liberal government run by conservative Repbulicans.
The Radical Middle wants liberal government run by conservative Republicans, so long as someone else pays for it.
The Radical Middle wants liberal government run by conservative Republicans, so long as someone else pays for it - except not their children.
The Radical Middle wants liberal government run by conservative Republicans, so long as someone else pays for it - except not their children. They plan to do this by running a balanced budget.
The Radical Middle wants liberal government run by conservative Republicans, so long as someone else pays for it - except not their children. They plan to do this by running a balanced budget - and borrowing about 5% of GDP.
An ugly race in 2004 looks like it is yielding one of the most interesting races of 2006. Eric Massa challenging first term Kuhl. Massa is counting on his fast paced articulate style and red white and blue bio, as well as help from internet campaigning.
The public has begun to think about impeachment. In fact, it is thinking about it more than polticians are, because politicians are like horny teenagers, they aren't interested unless climax looks like a sure thing. The public, on the otherhand, has had the possiblity of a political drama dangled in front of them, a celebrity trial to end all celebrity trials - and they haven't recoiled. Think on how far we have come from late 2001, when Bush's policy of allowing Arabs to fly planes into buildings while he plotted to invade Iraq had a 90% approval rating.
Remember the cycle of defense: Deny, Discount, Destroy. First deny that there is a problem, then discount that it is much of a problem, and if all else fails, destroy the leaders of the movement to do something about the problem. Until recently, on the impeachment front, there was nothing to even deny: the only people visibly saying "Impeach Bush" were the analogs on the left of people who said "Impeach Warren". They might have had a point, but they didn't have a prayer.
That's all changed now, as we are about in mid-deny and into the beginnings of Discount. Want to see the edge of what the public is starting to talk about? Start here.
An honest man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy
boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him.
He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he
could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.
Get used to hearing "Scalia, Roberts and Thomas". It will be the reactionary law firm that will on the court for a while, churning out attacks on the evils of the New Deal for years to come. Roberts himself is likely to be confirmed simply because he looks like the father figure in a sit com that features two five year old twin moppets spouting trenchantly precocious observations on adult mating rituals. Good hair means smooth sailing: all hail Justice Vidal Sassoon. (As an aside, the reason reactionary social structures are doomed is because even their politicians are metrosexuals who have been queered up.)
However, his nomination speaks to something far more interesting - the end of the academic Supreme Court. The era of deferential restricted judicialism is coming to an end. There is a thirst for a new kind of court, one that can do what the old "Capitol Hill Institute for the Study of Advanced Constitutional Minutae" cannot do: provide meaning.
Stop calling it Free Trade. Unless you mean it like "The True Law of Free Monarchy". The decision for China to decide that it is going to set its currency by fiat. And everyone else swallowing it means that the only thing thats "liberal" about the current world trade order is the big profits it pours into the hands of the few.
Any free trade order, of the real kind, indeed liberalization - of any kind - rests on transperancy. If any other nation were to do what China just did, it would be out of the WTO. Which gets us back to what we have now - call it Greed Trade or Grief Trade - but let's stop kidding ourselves. The US is a junky that is sponging off its friends and treating them badly, while we are oh so nice to our pushers and pimps.
July 7th Memo marked "Secret". This blows away the last defense of Rovians - the memo from which he leaked key details was secret. So either the person who leaked it to Rove violated NDA, or Rove did. If the former, Rove violated by not inquiring the source.
The talking point is now very simple: Rove talked.
The unpegging of the Yuan from the US dollar is much ado about nothing. Or rather, the action is part of a much larger trend which indicates that there is a loss of confidence in both US fiscal and monetary policy. Other players are not going to dump all at once - this would incur tremendous losses, but are, instead, taking advantage of the dollar rally to shift their holdings.
In short, the action itself is merely confirmation of what China has been doing for some time - diversifying away from the dollar, in response to poor policy from Washington, and a clear indication that that poor policy will continue for the forseeable future. Various observers - from theoretical economists such as Paul Krugman, to hard head currency speculators such as George Soros - have been warning that the US dollar is being weakened as an anchor currency.
Given the result of "consultations" in this round of the Supreme Court, it is time to revisit my proposal for an advise and consent law with teeth. In this case Bush simply listened very nicely and then went out and did precisely what he wanted.
The old era of personal deals is over, because there is no longer the overwhelming threat of catastrophe to back them. Without depression, totalitarianism and the bear as the over hanging doom that kept people's mind on the people's, rather than the partisan, business.
Thus it is imperative to have an advise and consent law, one that gives the process teeth.
Second term presidents have a job, that is protect what they did in the first term. By looking at Bush's actions over the summer we see that he has three parts to his legacy as he views it:
1. Torture.
2. Treason.
3. Bankruptcy.
Everything else is subsidiary to this three phase program of committing the United States to being a out of control nation, with an out of control government, and an out of control budget process.
Some in the Senate call what the Republicans are doing "abuse of power". I'm going to respectfully disagree. This isn't merely an abuse of power, the Patriot Act, left long over the horizon, was an abuse of power. The nomination of Roberts and the obstruction of justice in Rovegate show that the Republican Party leadership has long sense stopped pushin the boundaries of acceptablitity, and has started to ignore their existence entirely.
47% of the public, according to an ABC poll, think the White House is Stonewalling, and a mere 25% believe the White House is coöperating fully. That means that only about two thirds of the people who would vote for Bush if he ran for Pope believe that everything is on the up and up.
In the dog days of summer, when everyone, is dogging Rove and Scooter, the two yapping attack dogs of the White House and Naval Observatory respectively - it's useful to remember that there is a point to all of this. Besides of course, being fun.
While much of the focus has been on the Supreme Court, something else has been making the rounds in Congress, and on both sides of the aisle.
It is the worst kept secret in Washington DC that a name is expected by the end of this week for the Supreme Court. However, Democratic staffers have been more tight lipped than usual, simply because there seems to be a feeling that leaks from their side of the aisle would endanger the process of consultations. Conversely, the Republican side has been a bit leakier.
It's no secret that Bush wishes this had happened at another time: the Rove scandal is eating into his political capital at precisely the moment where he wants to box the Democrats into obstructing and be able to putch through a hard right nominee. To look reasonable, he needs someone reasonable. The Rove scandal cost Gonzales his shot at the court: nominating a creature of the Oval Office at a time when there are questions over the Oval Office coöperating - and 75% of the country thinks the answer is "No!" - just wouldn't fly.
What's driving this train, more than Bush, is Spectre - whose rapidly deteriorating health is a bone of contention.
Since the Republican talking point was "Rove didn't do anything, and if he did it was legal." their whole line of defense is shot. But rest assured, they will have new message shortly, and they will all stick to it. The side on defense in a scandal has a big advantage: they have a simple task: discount, deny and discredit. "Rove was exonerated" is trumped by "Rove outed Plame". 4 syllables beats 7. Particularly when the 4 are true and the 7 are not.
The Democratic Party has a more diverse body of messages. First because the Democratic Party has different desired outcomes, and second because the side on offense has to send prongs into the defense from a variety of angles. This helps the scandal, because it means that when one prong gets bogged down, another front moves forward. The Democratic beltway message is "abuse of power" - since this is their 2006 campaign theme. The Democratic outside the beltway crowd wants this focused with laser like precision on Rove, since that is the one thing they think everyone can agree on: Rove broke the law. The Democratic Party base wants to connect this with the big picture - the scandal of Iraq itself. Each line has its merits and problems.
"calling for President Bush to follow through on his promise to fire any White House employee who may have been responsible for the Valerie Plame leak."
Two years ago, in seven days in July, the polished Bush executive machine - which could tilt elections, and send America to an illegal war, unravelled. These seven days in July do not constitute the worst acts of the Bush executive - whose damage bill will run to trillions of dollars. But they do represent the actions which produced an investigation on whose shoals the entire slip of state is foundering on.
What happened in the seven days in July - between 8 July 2003 and 14 July 2003 - which caused them to so fatally miscalculate the boundaries?
After slogging through the most recent Harry Potter, I am reminded of another monument to syncretic literature: Orlando Furioso. The latest Harry Potter outing is a monument to the post-modern, and reads like someone's Dungeons and Dragons campaign - where consistent parody is the replacement for originality and invention. This, in itself, isn't bad. Harry Potter is the best of an activity that millions of people engage in - creating their own private world and assembling the bits and pieces into a coherent pseudo-whole. Rowling is a genius because she can keep it up at length, where as most people are barely capable of keeping it up for a few hours on end. Like "The Simpsons", it goes on and on about going on and on, and hits the accumulated zeitgeist repeatedly in the shins.
This being said, the edges on the story are fraying. In no small part because the chaste romances fall rather flat, and Rowling has made a rather bad miscalculation on a key character: Snape.
That's 1299 Dead - civilian and military - for perspective only, that is compared with 1765 US servicemen during the same time period. The insurgency in Iraq is not "more desperate", nor "in its last throes". Nor, however, do they have much chance of winning. This is a game where everyone loses.
Rudy Giuliani 3/1
John McCain 7/2
Tom Ridge 7/1
Condoleezza Rice 7/1
Bill Frist 8/1
George Pataki 9/1
Arnold Schwarzenegger 10/1
Mitt Romney 12/1
Jeb Bush 12/1
George Allen 12/1
Norm Coleman 16/1
Chuck Hagel 16/1
Bill Owens 16/1
Rick Santorum 16/1
Tim Pawlenty 20/1
Sam Brownback 33/1
Wikipedia is an attempt at emergent knowledge. What this means is that many of the kinds of fights that used to go on inside of academia now go on in public. People who don't want to know where their sausage - or their oil - comes from, are going to have an increasingly hard time living in the 21st century. This is because we are no longer going to be able to hide from these facts. Thus the fight over whether "race and intelligence" should be a featured article represents the kind of conflict that must be navigated.
Unfortunately they still feature the grossly biased and unbalanced writing of David Wallace-Wells, who features an endless treadmill of his favorite frothing out the mouth rabid reactionaries. Please, send him back to the Free Republic or the LGF comment cloud where he belongs.
Numbers don't lie. They however, can be arranged to fib. Statistical illusions, like the optical kind, depend on placing certain things in certain contexts.
June's CPI number - 0 - that's zero, combined with a headline 5% unemployment rate, should have people cheering in the streets. Howwever, the 7/7 Bush bounce is fading - Gallup came in below expectations given the Pew number, and NBC/WSJ did not crack 50.
Why is this? To think as an economist is to think in terms of trade offs. The trade offs being made here are for payroll positions and debt. Debt is being used to import, and importing is keeping a lid on inflation and improving "productivity" because it props up prices. From the data, the US should, in fact, be experiencing deflation. It isn't, as debt allows us both to import cheaper products - such as apparel - and the oil that makes it all go. An economy that can only produce 250K payroll positions in two months with 3.8% GDP growth is one which is living on borrowed time.
The reality is that capital and labor are not increasing - but that rent is. Instead of an economy which is quietly improving, we have an economy which is building up a speculative frenzy in real estate, and is looking more and more like the late 1980's.
Bush invaded Iraq because he had to, and journalists, editorial cartoonists and assorted other members of the press are defending Judity Miller - because they have to. It is one of the sorriest spectacles in any profession, when its members try and defend their privileges as rights. It reeks - it reeks of an immoral condition where some people - the elite - have full rights, and everyone else does not. Reporters don't have to do what even Presidents have to do - produce. What even lawyers have to do - produce.
When there was a conference call with Senator Kennedy, Talkleft's Jeralyn Merritt pushed Prado. Now rumors are that in the weekend conference between Democrats and Republicans had Prado's name prominently mentioned. Already the source of an internet site - Prado might well be the best deal the Democrats could get for the seat.
Just popped. I'm going to listen to it today while travelling.
Juan Cole emphasizes a point which is often overlooked in Iraq, namely that the previous regime, while it had a political ideology, was as much a racially based government, as it was anything else. He compares it to, in a limited sense, the situation in South Africa, where a racial minority took control of the majority of the wealth.
His analysis on the electoral process is also spot on. My own view is that Bush tried to do in Iraq politically what he did here: date rape bi-partisanship. Get the train moving, and tell people to get on the train or be left out of the gravy. The problem in Iraq is that, as Prof Cole points out, there were a hardened body of people who were not willing to accept the small amounts that they were destined to get for joining the consensus.
However, just as American military force cannot impose the kind of day to day compliance with the law that is required for Iraq to be developed – very little of old Iraq is worth very much at this point.
Democratic Men Are About to Find Out Who Wears The Pants in this Party, And it is not them.
by Stirling Newberry
The New York Times has noticed. HRC is democratic Presidential candidate running hard to the right, and is banking on something even more important. The most powerful force in politics.
The most powerful force in politics is when a large number of people decide "that's the way it's got to be". In the case of HRC, insiders aren't the important part. It is the Democratic women.
If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof, or to induce by like means any officer of the United States to leave the place, where his duties as an officer are required to be performed, or to injure him in his person or property on account of his lawful discharge of the duties of his office, or while engaged in the lawful discharge thereof, or to injure his property so as to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.
In short, if Rove or anyone else conspired to leak Valerie Wilson's name, or any aspect of her involvement in CIA, either to intimidate her or her husband - or to discharge the lawful duties of their office or to impede him in the discharge of duties. In the Novak's statements on Plame, it was admitted that there would be problems if Plame were to be stationed abroad. This constitutes impeding of duties, and is, therefore, a crime under 18 USC 19 372.
Given the broad nature of this particular law - basically, if leaking Plame's name hindered Plame or Wilson from doing their duties in any way - it is very likely that there is a conspiracy charge, at least. Six years - and its a felony.
With the Rove Revalation of the weekend, it has happened. Bush is a lame duck President. There will be good days, and even some legislative victories, but from now on the trend is ever further downward in power and influence, even if his poll numbers bounce up. People have an affection for ducks that know they are lame.
Fitzgerald wants to know the contents of that conversation. While Rove is denying that he leaked the name, that isn't important. If Rove was involved in a conspiracy, talking to Cooper is an overt act. All that is required is an agreement to reach an illegal end. The email from Cooper to his publishers says to go to "a CIA source". Did Rove give Cooper that source? If so, then Rove could well be on the hook if he knew what that source was going to say. According to Newsweek though, Rove burned Plame - and it is all over the broadcast news.
It is my belief that Plame was first made as "chickenfeed" - trading of off the record information between reporters and sources - and not for the purpose of vengence, but before, when the White House was trying to establish a "Niger connection" for the "yellowcake" story. It is likely that the WH planned a sting operation - Niger offers Saddam some illegal Uranium, and that would be used to prove that Saddam had nuclear weapons ambitions. In this line of reasoning, the scam would need a credible channel - the front company which Plame worked for would be that credible channel. When the scam fell through, Plame's name was floating around, and there was a story for the first person who was willing to go public with it.
The reason for all of the complexity then is that it is not clear when Plame's name first surfaced, and when a decision was made to burn Plame for reasons other than the original idea of lending credibility to another story.
CNN Gallup which has been the sunny side of the street for Bush, shows some very interesting things. Almost all of them bad for Bush.
First the good news for Bush, namely, that most Americans believe that the attacks don't really change the situation in the GWOT. However, this is a mixed blessing. Bush's mandate is, after all, "get the towel heads that did this to us." The attempts to wave the bloody shirt only work if people respond. This and the question about whether Americans feel a terror campaign is coming are good for Bush, he can probably go to the American public and ask for money and power in the next few weaks to "combat the terrorists".
The rest of the poll is uniformly negative for Bush.
Micheal Kinsley has done enough great work in journalism, and spun off enough good writers and good writing that it is hard to criticise him. Well, was.
This is just a cesspool of angry stupidity and group think. It's pretty clear that Kinsley has joined the big media group think that "the next big thing" is pandering to NASCAR dad rage. It's truly juvenile, filled with all of the tropes of insecure male posturing. Really people, this "if Ibn al Fuqwad fucks with me..." kind of thing is passe.
The box office article was probably the most stupid. The reason box office is down is economic - real disposable income is down, and the DVD on demand/home theatre combination is sufficiently good to make the level of choice it offers and ability to be a cinomame again worth it. Other speculations are tired drivel written by people who are desperate to kneepad for what they think are hot groins with fat wallets.
Once upon a time he was the smart guy tearing up pieties in the press. Now, he seems to be intent on reinforcing them.
The dream of the rich since 1929 is how they could live much better than the plebs, control society, and still not have the plebs get ticked off enough to throw them out of power, or the economy meltdown when the plebs could no longer carry all the fat cats. It never works - demand expands to fill available supply. This little project is another example of how the obsession of the rich, and the people that write for them, is how to get out of having the same destiny as the rest of us.
Rebels respond to the most recent drive by US Marines and Iraqi forces - using suicide bombs to hit police and recruiting stations. On April the 28th, the transitional government of Iraq declared that it was "under attack", and began a campaign of repression. The new Defense Minister, a security general under Saddam, put the screws in with round ups and use of torture.
Police describe bombers as mercenaries. The approved word is now "civial contractors".
The 7/7 attacks are dangerous because they were clockwork. One can build the bombs, hand them to anyone, particuarly people otherwise not attached to your organization, whose job it is to find a way to leave them on trains without getting caught on camer. One bombing of the M11/77 type a year is bearable, but one a month - which is what it could reach - would not be.
The only one I even faintly agree with is the press shield editorial, and even that one lacks nuance. Where's the smart guy who used to be tearing up pieties in politics? He isn't in evidence here.
The press may not always have honour, but it always has its vanity. The affair de la Miller gives the press a chance for vanity on display. Normally I like Frank Rich's columns, but he too has been swallowed up by the press' wallowing in vain. Members of the press clearly feel that they protect us little people from evil. From bloggers for example - they are really itching to protect the world from bloggers. But also from all other manner of ills. Like having a President from the Democratic Party. From having a balanced budget. And woe betide the country at peace. The press has busily protected us from all of these things.
"Power is were power goes." quoth LBJ - but protection goes where there is outrage and ambition in the right proportions.
Billmon burns the Aspen Institute. I'm a long time non-fan of the Aspen institute, which often seems to be about wrapping the brown stuff the Republicans sell in green paper. The energy policy coming from there is so bad, that I think I could make a case that one would do better just converting the bullshit that comes out of the Institute into biodiesel.
The reality is that these conferences aren't about ideas. Ideas often are developed in intense isolation, they are about teaching powerful people to manage change, which often means coöpt or kill it. They are, in effect, giant Groupthink Gropes about what the next stampede of ordinary people is going to be about. What the next panic button issue or story is going to be, and how to calm the heard and sell praerie patties to buffalo.
London recovers from a nasty knock, but no more than a nasty knock. One of the bombers died on the bus, probably because he did not reach his target in time. This is a major break in the case, it means there is a name, and the investigation will spread out from that name. If his friends have not fled Europe by now, they will very likely be caught. While borderless Europe is easy to sneak around in, it is very hard to remain at large in.
London does more than soldier on. While relatives hunt for missing loved ones - many of whome will find that their search ends with a message of grief - the front line of the battle has shifted to hospital, where 20 people still are in intensive care - and to the recovery and investigation. London's leading tabaloid, the Sun celebrates the heroes and posts pictures of the missing and ask for help to hunt the bombers. For those who have lost faith in the basic reserve of human strength, 7/7 is the opening of a rebuttal.
In Minnesota the house and the governor are both controlled by the Republicans, and the Senate is controlled by the Democratic Farm-Labor Party. It is one of very few states not to have a law that extends spending, and thus, when the three could not agree on a budget, spending authorization stopped. A deal has been reached as promised earlier in the week.
There is widespread anger, just as there was in 2002, when Tennessee reached a budget impasse.
It is a sign of why Progressives need to look to the states, and not the Federal Government, as the most important ground for activity. In order to win back power nationally, first we have to be governing states, and proving to people that Democrats are simply better at running government than Republicans are. More...
Stirling Newberry -
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The hearings will be the first in the Internet era, and the first to be subjected to the relentless pressures of what Eric Ueland, chief of staff for the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, calls "the 24/7/365 blogging environment."
When history sets final form to this age it will have a name, and it may well be "the Cold Peace", where peace, and trade, and all of the other accoutrements of statecraft became, war, by other means. Ordinary places - subways, buses and planes, became instruments of war, and battlefields. Battlefields on which civilians screamed and died.
While Iraq may be the obsession of opinion makers - ours and the enemies - the reality of J7 is in another direction and Intel Dump nails it. This was an intelligence and security failure, preventing such operations is an intelligence and security problem, and it is more akin to the problems of preventing infiltration.
There may be a few people inclined to make a link between the deaths in London and the intervention in Iraq. This is utterly flawed thinking. Al-Qaeda and its subsidiary branches began their sadistic campaign more than a decade ago and they did not require the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad as an extra incentive. London was not targeted because British troops are in Iraq or because of Tony Blair’s alliance with the Bush White House. Rather, London was attacked because these extremists want to ignite a “holy war” between themselves and democratic societies.
The editorialist has allowed the carbonation in his blood to get to his brain.
1. The London emergency services performed suburbly - while hundreds were injured, almost everyone who was killed was killed quickly. If someone survived the blast, they probably survived.
2. Al-Qaeda is showing that it is going to remain a deadly nuissance. This kind of attack is not sufficient to do more than disrupt the life of a metropolis for a day. By the close of business, the financial markets had stabilized, the public was braced.
Several observers have stated that this was clearly modelled on the M11 attacks, which implies that it may well have been coordinated by individuals familiar with the Morrocco wing of Al-Qaeda.
On this date that has become a number, with J7 joining M11 and 911 as a short hand for atrocitiy, we must first and foremost, bury the dead, and save the living. We must wait by the phone to leave resources open for emergencies, and we must offer aid and comfort through international organizations, or local ones for those in the United Kingdom itself.
Bombs, when they explode release the veneer of normalcy. Like alcohol, crisis makes people more of whatever they already were. From the far right even more militant calls for doing battle in Iraq, and accusations against liberals for allowing this attack to occur are already pouring like raw sewage into the body politic.
July 7th is a date that has become a number. the J7 attacks in London join the WTC attacks on 911 and the Madrid attacks on M11 that will be remembered as a list of the dead and wounded. It is clear that Bush and Blair are not committed to the goal of removing Al-Qaeda, and fulfilling their mandates to wage war on terrorism. It is clear that Bush and Blair do not take seriously the mandate of the NATO treaty that "an attack against one, is an attack against all".
As you may have heard, Wesley Clark recently gave a speech in Los Angeles which all but announced his intention of running for President in 2008. All of his efforts now are toward positioning himself for a run in '08, and he will need our help. Grassrooters, it's all systems go !! Please check in at the new Clark Volunteers center as we put this train on the tracks..
http://www.clarkvolunteers.com/index.php
There is also a new Yahoo discussion board being organized by the original Clark drafters from 2004. This will be the main epicenter of all discussion regarding 2008.. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/clark08
Don't forget that Wes Clark has started his own PAC. http://securingamerica.com Please consider giving a contribution https://secure.ga3.org/01/wespac as we need to help Wes fund his efforts until an official Presidential Exploratory Committee is formed.
Also, please participate in Wes' blog http://www.forclark.com We need your ideas and input, this is a great place to share. Also, Democratic Underground has a Clark blog which you may want to participate in..
Completed in 1987 at a cost of $15 million, the Alexandria Detention Center houses all individuals committed by the courts to the Sheriff's custody. The facility houses local, state and federal prisoners. The Alexandria Detention Center management is based upon "New Generation" jail philosophy, a more modern and humane approach over traditional linear-style institution. New Generation philosophy is a combination of management style and architectural design which facilitates increased staff and inmates contact and works to reduce tension and improve security within the correctional setting.
The scene resembles a dormitory with a lounge attached. At one end of a large room. a handful of young men are watching television; in another area, a second group watches a different set. Several inmates are playing cards. The area is bright, sunny, and clean. The furniture-sofa and chairs-is comfortable and clean. The carpet on the floor is unstained. No one has scratched his or her initials in the paints or on the wood tables. Windows allow a view of the outside. Despite all the activity, the room is relatively quiet. The television volume is low, and no one is shouting.
Article II.2.2 Of the United States Constitution States;
Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
I.8.18 states that the congress has the power:
Clause 18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Thus the terms on which appointments to the courts or other offices shall be made - by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, are within the legislative branch's purview to set. The process is not dicated by the executive, but by the Congress.
Our current process is broken, here is how to fix it.
The Republicans are trying to play that game again, create the false impression of Democrats as extremists who won't compromise.
First they want to put up Gonzo for the court, hoping that members of the left will shoot him down because of his torture memos. To this end they are telling their base to cool it.
But there is another prong - namely to make Gonzo a stealth nominee. saying there is no litmus test but also an "up or down" vote.
Simply put, they are hoping in the other prong that Gonzo, if confirmed with be Clarence Thomas Jr. - willing to vote to overturn criminal justice rights and anything else within reach. Since they know him from the inside, it is a good bet they know how he will vote.
I December I warned Europe that it had to alter its monetary policy on the belief that American policy would be self-centered. In February I made a bearish call on the Euro, and in March I stated that American and European monetary policies were on a collision course, and that either the US or Europe would have to back down.
At the G-8 summit one brick was put in that wall when Bush declared he was not going to do anything about global warming. Since Bush represents coal burning interests, it is not surprising that he aligns with China in the view that global warming is something that other people get to pay for. Namely unborn people.
the First Amendment is not designed to protect the government from accountability. For those who think that journalists not revealing their sources to grand juries is meritorious, let me remind you that US v Nixon rested on a similarly broad assertion of privilege. If a government has decided to invoke the law to harrass a journalist, then the jailing of the journalist will do more to reveal the arbitrary and capricious nature of that government to the governed.
Liberalism embraces political conflict and civil disobedience as part of the democratic process. But Judith Miller and Matt Cooper are not deserving of praise because they are willing to fall on their swords for Bush. Let the investigation go where it may - it is inside the Oval Office now.
Subversive humor is to Liberals what country music is for people whose jobs take them on the road alot: it is a way of dealing with what we live with. The liberal universe is
1. Figure out what people do.
2. Make it so that what people do more or less works in practice, even if it doesn't work in theory.
3. Deal with the messes.
Hence the absolute need to let other people's pants down, the need to explode and have a jaundiced eye about both the system and people's behavior. This joke is, in fact, the liberal subversion of the old order, arguing that the symbolic elite - "the Aristocrats" - are more perverse than anyone, even as they sell an image of being wholesome.
Carter has been arguing for some time that US forces in Iraq are headed for a "meltdown" where we aer no longer able to meet the manpower requirements of staying. His outlook is that the Iraqi government will probably ask Americans to leave at some point before this happens as a way of supplying a fig leaf. His exact term is "engineered by the US."
This has been my view since the outbreak of hostilities: that there were two end states, not mutually incompatible. First that the US would "Declare defeat and go home", namely withdrawal before stabilizing the situation, and second that the invasion represented a "reboot of the dictator software", namely that a some point a strong man would arise who would promise to pump oil as long as no one asked too many questions how much blood was mixed in.
Democrats should focus on a simple plan: target the way the House of Representatives is run. The Senate is out of reach, and the marginal value of two more Senators is almost zero to the Democratic rank and file. While Senators may feel that defending institutional turf is the most important thing for the party to do, from the pragmatic view of having some influence over government, getting a majority in the House is the most vital project for the Democratic Party.
al-Dulaimi a prominent tribe in Iraq, whose roots are in the Al-Anbar province, where Fallujah is located. Many members of this tribe have reached prominent positions, and have been on the other side of the political divide from Baathism
Naziha al-Dulaimi - Member of Iraqi Communist Party, minister of Municipalities 1959-1960, Minister without portfolio 1960. First female minister in Iraqi government (Qasim government of 1958-1963)
Saadoun (Sa'dun) al-Dulaimi Defense Minster of Current Government of Iraq, former member of Saddam's security forces, defected in 1991. Predicted insurgency in the event of invasion. Doctorates in Psychology and Statistics.
Talib al-Dulaimi - Member of the resistence, captured February 20th.
Khalil al-Dulaimi - Saddam's defense lawyer.
Adnan al-Dulaimi - Sunni Religious leader, head of the Waqf, which is government sponsored. Has negotitated to join the government and constitution drafting process. Came to prominence in 2003 when he called for a ceasefire, and in earlier this year for criticizing US military targetting of Sunnis.
Mahdi al-Dulaimi, Former General - Commanded Basra Third Army during the Iran-Iraq War, later exiled, and claimed to be a US Asset in attempting to over throw government.
In short major members of this tribe left Saddam's employ in the early 1990's and were exiled. They have since attempted to bring the Sunnis into the political process. Other members of the tribe have sided with the resistence.
1636 Providence Rhode Island founded.
1776 Declaration of Independence Approved
1802 West Point Opens
1817 Erie Canal Begun
1826 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both die.
1827 Slavery abolished in New York
1838 Iowa Territory organized
1855 Leaves of Grass
1863 Vicksburg Falls to Grant while in the East burnside pursues a defeated Lee.
1894 The republic of Hawaii declared.
1946 Phillipines granted independence
1997 Pathfinder lands on Mars.
2005 Deep Impact encounter with Comet Tempel Wiki page here
- Servers were down for a while.
- Perfect hit.
- Mission impactor totally vaporized, flybly space craft nominal: "Completely in tact."
- Impact within 50m of target
- Closeup images show shallow craters on Tempel.
- Have not seen resulting crater.
- Flash from impact obscures it.
- Spectra have not been fully studied yet.
- Ground based observations showed Tempel increased by a factor of 6, and increases in emission lines.
- Rules out very porous comet.
Rhythm Track entries will now show up as part of the RSS Feed. A bug in the feed which was preventing the author from displaying on many feeds has been addressed.
Gonzo should take a good long look at how he has helped restore chaos to Iraq. But, being the kind of blind courtier he is, it won't penetrate through the thick bullet proof glass. But here in the US people are demandinganswers, and not more excuses, deceptions and lies.
With the speculation over who Cooper's Plame source was in high gear. There is a good deal to chew on. Here is what has happened: Time Inc's Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstein chose to turn over Matt Cooper's notes rather than face fines or charges. Lawrence O'Donnell claims that Rove was the source - however, Rove's lawyer's deny that he ever leaked Plame's identity. Newsweek has said only that Rove was "a source" for Matt Cooper, which could mean absolutely nothing.
Agrarian cultures follow the stars, herding ones read entrails. Craftsmanship brings dice, while printing brings cards. In our own age, reading the media entrails is the new astrology - searching for glimpses of reason amidst the kalaedascopic paterns. In the end, the wisdom comes less from the rules, than from staring at the patterns long enough, and reaching behind them. Kepler was an astrologer as well as an astronomer, Newton an alchemist as well as a physicist.
The impeachment star is rising, and this week another muddied sign of the internal contradictions in the current reactionary regime are becoming appearant. The story hinges on Norman Pearlstein's decision to have Time Magazine turn over Matt Cooper's notes to a grand jury investigation.
It is widely believed on the internet that Saddam was a US puppet from 1959 onward, and that everything he did was at the behest of the US.
The story is much more complex than this. I realize the statement that the CIA backed the coups is everywhere on web sites, the reality is different. The mental model should not be of a illuminati like hive of power in Langley, which moves the world with its covert flow of arms, but of an arm of the state department, which courts, often desparately, access and power. And, like most simpering court functionaries, it often scrapes the bottom of the barrel for friends because no one else will side with them.
The US helped the 1958 revolution in Iraq, but it wasn't a "CIA backed" revolution in the sense of one that would not have prevailed without US aid. The US was not entirely happy about the situation, and probably did not, in fact, get on board until relatively late stages.
The People v Supreme Court of the United States - Part I
by Stirling Newberry
[At 1400 EDT I was on the Kennedy Conference Call, the Senator was gracious enough to spend time explaining that his sense of the Senate was that consultation was essential, that the Senate hoped for a consensus candidate - some one in O'Connor's mold - which it could approve unanimously, and that, and this is particularly praiseworthy, acting to puncture the constitutional understanding would result in a fight. Talk Left covers the call better than I could.]
The retirement of O'Connor has set off a cascade of commentary, in no small part because it is a mirror for a host of issues far beyond the present time. Every social question is, for a moment, wanting an airing, even if it isn't actually, in play. It is true as Billmon says that there are basic divides in our countr, and it is true as many have observed that O'Connor can shift the court.
The United States is now headed for a sharp contraction of its standard of living, simply because it is no longer willing to pay the price of remaining the world's anchor currency. Paul Krugman joins the list of those calling for a time table.. What is needed in Iraq isn't a time table, it is a reimagining of what is to be accomplished there. The lesson of the Korean conflict is essential.
Since fiction is not ruled by the same standards as history, Mr Bush was under no obligation to refer to his own earlier certitude about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” (or, rather, to their embarrassing absence), or to the inept sequel of the initially successful US military campaign; or to the fact that the occupation of Iraq is turning it into a huge recruitment centre for terrorists. Similarly, there was no need to deal with the perplexing fact that the Iraqi insurgency does not appear to be in “its last throes”, or with the complex choices that the US now confronts.
The difference between fiction and history, is that fiction should make sense.
An ancestor of mine was, apparently, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, Scientist - or as it is often called a "Christian Scientist". Thus when, years ago, I talked with someone I knew who was a member, the parallels between Scientology and Christian Science seemed rather strong. Both had a holistic view of the human body and spirituality, a suspicion, for some bordering on paranoia, about medications of certain kinds. And as importantly an all enshrouding faith that the phenomenological was the spiritual and the physical would follow this. In short, belief, in a pure form, shaped the material universe.
Another friend of mine shared a story of AE vanVogt - a science fiction writer - being aggressively approached by some Scientologist recruiters - this was in the early 1970's. As my friend described it "he looked down three feet of nose at them, and said 'I remember L. Ron Hubbard when he was a small time crook.' and breezed past them."
In short it seemed that this was a religion that was both filled with the usual assortment of desperation and greed - and tapping into a much older vein of a desire for religious focus to alter the material world. It is interesting because Scientology is going mainstream. Even as its members mount public flame wars.
Podcast: We Are Not Winning this War, Because We Cannot Win It
by Stirling Newberry
When the United States was preparing to invade Afgahnistan, reports were compiled based on previous involvements in that region. Of course, it had been the site of numerous brush wars between the British and the Russians - or their proxies - during what was called "The Great Game". Of course the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was looked at.
Chris Bowers building on the work of Robert David Sullivan breaks down recent Bush poll numbers. His conclusion? Bush is strengthening where he is strong, and weakening where he was already weak.
If you need a perfect symbol for George Bush's America, take a look at the new Freepdom Fries Tower Design. While it reaches a symbolic height of 1776 feet, and has a pinstripe exterior - the reality is quite different.
For example - the concrete bunker - what we to expect, that the next terrorists will do a power dive into the bottom of the building?
I had to time shift the Bush speech - there was real work to be done. Having just finished watching it, certain facts leap to attention. The speech wasn't any of them. Instead, this speech recalled all of the "Bush Speech at Big Moment" moments. This speech was neither better, nor worse, than the one that followed 911, neither better nor worse than the impeachable state of the Union address.
What was different is the country that heard this address. What is not different is the meaning of this address: it is the visible part of a very large attempt to sell the American people on shoveling another 100 billion dollars down the rathole of Republipork. It wasn't about Iraq; it was about what every Bush speech has been about "Give me the money." Like a group of caught investors who hired the wrong CEO - think Hewlett-Packard - the American people keep showing up at share holder meetings to be told that all the current management team needs is another infusion of cash, so would they please vote to dilute their shares some more.
Daniel Gross had it right: Bush is President Cram Down.
iTunes latest update allows direct subscription to podcast, just click on Podcasts and in the "Advanced" menu, click on "Subscribe to Podcast". Our Podcast URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Bopnews - just paste it in.
It was 14 years ago when Apple came out with the first "Publish and Subscribe" API, it is finally happening.
99 I Believe that Jacques Chirac will go down as the worst President of any French Republic not to have a Roman Numeral after his name.
98 I Believe that Garrance Franke-Rute, Franklin Foer and Terry Neal are better columnists than half of the people on the New York Times Op-Ed Page.
97 I Believe that Oliver Willis is the PJ O'Rourke of the progressive movement, Christopher Lydon its Walter Winchell, and that Andrew Northrup is the Diogenes.
96 I Believe that Kurt Cobain was the greatest song writer of my generation.
95 I Believe that Pink Floyd's "The Wall" is the greatest album ever.
94 I Believe that Justice William Rhenquist will be remembered as the worst Chief ever, and that Tony "The Thumb" Scalia is a fat screaming slob separated from Rush Limbaugh at Birth.
93 I Believe that John McCain is a Herbert Hoover looking for a term of office to occur in.
92 I Believe that Edmund Burke will be understood to be a liberal thinker.
91 I Believe in the wisdom of tradition, as interpreted through the necessity of progress.
90 I Believe that the difference between God and Donald Rumsfeld is that God doesn't think he is Donald Rumsfeld.
America's consumption is overweight says Nicholas Kristof. He's far from the first to sound the alarm. Republicans have found a way to say "the economy isn't overweight, it is undertall."
The code word for this silliness is "the global savings glut". This is as incorrect as saying that there was a savings glut leading to the Great Depression. This theory led to our recent round of revenue reductions as people like Bernanke and Greenspan fretted about the effects of a budget surplus.
There is no "savings glut", there is, instead, a shortage of investment supply.
Nathan Newman takes on the real death tax. Namely the cost of dying - the medical bills mount up, and either eat your savings, or force you to transfer assets while alive. The very wealthy can pay for the ride to the grave, but if the government forces you to give up all you've saved - that's a tax.
This is a drum beat that is going to have to go on until people understand it - national health care in a global age is a necessity.
This is the world as Bush has made it, the natural and inevitable result of the United States falling under the control of a large, somewhat bipartisan, coalition that wants to use American power for American interests only. As a result, there is a distinct trend among major nations - China and Iran being two examples - to become more nationalist. But the trend began before Bush, and will continue after Bush is ousted. And if it continues for any length of time, it will mean that we live in a pre-war, not post-war, era.
It's that time again, people are looking at the headline Consumer Price Index for Urban Consumers, and scratching their heads. It doesn't feel right. Let's talk about this. This is in response to this left coaster post.
While it is by no means a substitute for the incomparable work done on it before by Jay McCarthy of Makeoutcity, there is now a ""rhythm track" of quick links, so that longer articles can stay here on the main page.
The yellophant is a creature which, once upon a time, did not exist. In the days of Lincoln, the Republican Party was proud of going to fight the war. But with the Spanish American war, we began to have the "Yellow press", and there has been a gradual rise of the yellophant - the conservative who is not willing to fight in wars that he voted for.
The largest and most majestic of the species of yellophant, with a large concentration in the Potomac river basin, is the Great Corporate Yellophant, with sizeable herds herds found on K Street and on Capitol Hill. The most famous of these' Cheney's Yellophant, is taller when lying down than when standing up, and is known by its loud snarling call, and its trumpetting "Tax Cuts! Tax Cuts! Tax Cuts!"
The Great Corporate Yellophant feeds on defense contracts, often being able to eat its weight in hundred dollar bills in a single sitting.
Far be it from me to argue that there shouldn't be cafes where people can smoke pot - but it does seem to me that Cafe Hayek is making a very good argument that they shouldn't be on-line cafes. For one thing people get stupid on pot, and for two, whatever they are smoking over at Cafe Hayek impairs reading comprehension. and economic reasoning skills.
I don't "disagree with the argument", I am saying that no argument has been made that has any meaning what so ever.
The time has arrived for cancelling the debts of the Cold War, and realize that whatever benefits are to be made from belong to everyoen who is here, rather than people who happen to be connected by some artificial legal chain to people who happened to have what was called money when it was being fought. Part of this is the need to reduce nuclear weapons to the minimums required for security, which is lower than the levels we have now, and part of this is cancelling the debt incurred by developing nations.
Much of this debt was incurred by undemocratic regimes propped up by loans for projects that were more useful to the West than the developing nation. The scale of the corruption in Nigeria alone is staggering - according to the Daily Telegraph, over 220 billion pounds. Much more of it was well-meaning, but ultimately ineffective "roads and bridges liberalism" which presumed a level of internal activity that politics and infrastructure would unleash, not understanding that there were fundamental differences between a technological agrarian short of acccess, and a subsistence agrarian. The Romantic process having not occured, the "folk" cultures of developing nations were in for the same shocks to the system that the peasant cultures of the 18th century were in for when Europe began connecting itself in a more thorough fashion.
One of the more ridiculous claims of the anti-reason crowd is that without a big ugly deity doing nasty things to us, there would be no morality. This sort of thinking is prevelant among the fanatic and religiously bigotted crowd, and an important part of the smarm power that drives their sneers at others.
It's also wrong on rather simple empirical grounds, and grounds found in the gospels.
While it is true that aristocratic societies were polite, and heavily armed, the armed part came first, and the protocol was imposed by royal - often queenly - fiat as part of assembling feudal warlords where the monarch could keep an eye on them. In point of fact, the very polite Tokagowa Shogunate was less armed than the civil war period, because commoners had had their right to carry weapons removed as part of the laws keeping the social order in place.
The time for an honest discussion of Iraq was in 2002 before the war vote. What is needed now, as the editorial does not quite have the courage to admit, is an honest discussion of Bushism. The country is rejecting a cornerstone of American economic policy, it will not be possible simply to lop Iraq off and go on as if it were unconnected to the rest of policy.
This is the most stupid econopost I've seen all week. First, it doesn't define a bubble mathematically, second, it contains several implicit assumptions about bubbles, none of which are clearly derrived from the equations he presents, and all of them are debatable. What he really does at the end is pull out market fundamentalism: "The market can't be stupid." Actually the market can be stupid, and frequently is. The market isn't assured of being right, merely assured of being staked to enough chips to bluff out anyone else. Or "The Market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent."
The correct mathematical definition of a bubble is when an increase price leads to a fall in supply relative to demand, rather than an increase in supply relative to demand. That is, when price goes up and either increases demand as people feel that something is about to become much more scarce than it was before, or supply falls as people who would otherwise sell adjust their price targets upward. Bubbles are usually driven by the ability to borrow against an assets increase in market value - which is part of what drives the decrease in supply relative to demand, normally people cannot cash out without increasing supply - by selling.
This is the long term reason why we are going to have national health care. For a long time we had a system, similar to Japan, of "corporate socialism". Corporations, owned by national elites, handed out benefits to keep labor peace and because of a connection with the populace. Companies owned by foreign elites don't have this incentive. They are simply going to slash benefits. For a long time we have been locked in a pattern where those who had corporate socialism fought nationalization, because they did lots better in the corporate socialist system. In the next decade corporations are going to unload their pensions and their health systems, and create an overwhelming consensus to provide national benefits.
Jerome heralds what we've been seeing for a while, namely the dealigning of the Independents from Bush. It comes to late to change the election, and it has some important lessons for the Democrats. The first, as many, including Billmon and Duckman have pointed out is that there is a pander to the base, bunker mentality from the Republicans.
The polling data however, says something else, namely that the public wants Ronald Reagan again, and that independents are likely to break for a Republican who exemplifies their desire for "liberalism without the bills", because they have realized that they don't really want "liberalism without the brains".
It's a good idea. I bet the Republicans will screw with it to hurt Democrats, but it will, fairly quickly, change the face of both parties by creating more seats away from their respective bases. The rhetoric being used to push this is troubling. I am not a subscriber to the "persecuted centrists" meme - it's dishonest. There are few partisan extremist Democrats, and they certainly haven't been causing anyone to lose any sleep. Independent prosecutors? Investigations into blue dresses? I'll stop using the phrase "Vichycrat" when the conservative Democrats stop uttering complete lies about where the left of the party is right now.
Senator Durbin's remarks, distorted, taken out of context and lied about, were the subject for recent attacks by the right wing. However, the mistake wasn't the remarks themselves - though they were out of a different age of discourse, one where people actually remembered World War II and the images from it - but the apology that followed them. Apologies are admissions of guilt, and as soon as you say "I'm sorry", well you are.
Note how the right wing has circled the wagons around Rove. It's much easier for the public to believe that there is one bad apple, than a bad side in the discourse. It would be like telling people that Pepsi or Coke used untreated sewage water. Consumers refuse to believe they don't have a choice. Hence, when someone slips up, if the entire party rallies, people will say "well, the whole party can't be bad." Which is why Durbin's measured historical reference was slashed at by ABC Nightly News - in a craven and dishonest hit piece - and Rove. Well Rove is going to be forgiven.
Sharp Sell Off on Wall Street Indicates deeper problems with economy
by Stirling Newberry
The US economy is gearing up - with durable goods orders up, and other signs of economic activity showing a rebound from the March-April slowdown. The reason is simple - fiscal stimulus is hitting the economy, and producing its usual signs - orders, inflation in commodities, uptick in manufacturing activity for defense goods and for goods related to defense demand - it should produce, in its turn, a burst of hiring.
So why the sell off on Wall Street? Because it is clear that an uptick in business activity is not being accompanied by increasing profits, and increasing inflation means either continued profit erosion, or it means that the fed will have to tighten more that expected. For a variety of reasons - all of them political - inflation is the more likely outcome.
"There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away." Winston Spencer Churchill
Reality rains down on the Republicans.
Others are reciting the poll numbers, and economists can argue over the state of the economy. But poll numbers are trailing, not leading, indicators. Many Presidents have bounced back from periods of unpopularity, and many have squandered approval by trying to force feed the American public policies that were neither palatable, nor necessary.
Karl Rove and Bobo this morning start the counter attack to reclaim the one issue were Bush has a majority of support - they don't want Arabs flying planes into buildings. Bobo's New York Times Op-Ed could have been shat out from a fax machine from the RNC - the New York Times continues to progress towards being an annex of the Moon owned Washington Times, while Rover's verbal screed proves that the Republicans call anyone a terrorist who stands in their way. Atrios finds an easy way of showing the hypocrisy of the press on these matters - because the right wing uses "gulag" language all the time. And Daily Howler is all over it.
But the reason for this new found aggressiveness isn't that the Republicans or Bush are doing well, on the contrary, the problem is, as EDM outlines Bush has never been more unpopular. Next Hurrah's Dem from CT makes more sense than Bobo in saying that Bush's stubbornness is costing him.
In the run up to the war many pony hawks – liberal and conservative – convinced themselves that the option of forcing inspectors back into Iraq with the threat of invasion was on the table. Since they thought that a war powers resolution was on the road to what they wanted, they supported it. But it wasn’t on the table, the options on the table were to oppose any change in the overt status quo –which would have forced escalation of containment and low intensity conflict a la Desert Fox – or to support Unconditional Invasion. The position of the supposed centrists was based on bad intelligence, both bad intelligence about the state of Iraq, and bad intelligence about the state of America.
Realism is selecting from what is on the table, not what one would like to be on the table. In the current debate over what to do on Iraq, there are many people who are looking at options which aren’t reasonably, on the table.
Specifically those agitating for immediate withdrawl and those seeking some form of continued presence. This is a delicate subject, what I am about to write is 100% contrarian to the two forming poles of opinion on Iraq. One is the “immediate withdrawl” crowd, the other is the “continued foreign presence” option. Neither are on the table, neither are going to work.
In December of last year I urged Europeans to take dramatic action to deal with the current currency misalignment. In March, I warned that a failure to pass the European constitution would lead to a cracking of monetary discipline. I argued that it would only be through the European Union that fiscal stimulus to hold the line would be possible.
With the failure of the European constitution, the sad, but predictable, result is occurring: every man for himself policies. Chirac of France - perhaps the worst major world leader not named "George" - tried to nakedly manipulate the budget to save his own political coalition - it was a savage low point. Also as expected the "liberalising" forces are now pressing for a thorough budget revision and for the dumping of the social system. The harvest of non is a Europe that can't say no anymore to the Dark pole of inflationary policy from the US.
This plan is so stupid as to be beyond ridiculous, effectively it is the same plan launched before, only borrowing half as much money to do it with. Note how the money is to be put in small accounts, that can not topple management or in any way protect their interests.
This is, effectively, an attempt to sell the public junk bonds in drag, only with low rates of interest, with the spread going to the very rich.
Anyone who isn't screaming at their member of Congress to stop this is either very rich or very stupid.
Democrats.com calls for action on Big Tobacco give away
by Stirling Newberry
Sometimes there isn't enough outrage to go around - while ABC news was lying about what Senator Durbin said - and using his apology as proof that he was wrong - this is going on under the radar.
It is not yet clear whether the Fed and the economy are going to get together on a way through the current monetary tunnel without generating either inflation or a full blown recession.
Edward Klein has a new book on - I won't say Hillary Clinton, because it isn't - the New Racism. It is slobbering from one side to the other with a single meme, namely "the lying lesbians are out to take over the country". There are two important points that this raises.
First, there is in this country a supplanting of anti-black racism with anti-gay racism.
Second, there is a pervasive fear of Hillary as President, not because she wouldn't be like Bush, Reagan or Nixon - but because there is a fear that she would be. Klien's book points to the fear that the right has of Hillary, which is can be phrased as "Richard Milhouse Clinton". Payback's a bitch, especially when she is President.
Roubini goes after bowrrow and squander economics. He, rightfully, debunks the idea that Reagan's "Supply Side" tax cuts financed themselves, and, rightfully, calls Art Laffer a practitioner of "Voodoo Economics".
However, Roubini misses what is, I think, an essential point. The phrase "supply side" has meaning separate from the totemic significance placed on it by Laffer. That is, the word "supply" isn't equivalent to "tax cut". This point is worth some attention.
There are two problems in place. The first is that organizations with low tolerence for vandalism must put controls in place. The second is that organizations that have much more channel equity than user buy in to that channel equity, have the problem that they will attract a disproportionate number of vandals.
A recent email from One America committee indicates that Elizabeth's treatment has completed and the prognosis is excellent. I am sure all wish her a speedy recovery.
Why is this resurfacing now? Perhaps because it is fairly clear that the budget numbers aren't going to add up again. Which I wish I could say isn't like an LA weather report - it isn't news it's a description of the climate.
Why the housing bubble? People wanted to put money in what they could control. The house and the community were controllable. This created a perverse incentive to lower educational standards - since educational systems were a large part of housing value. Beggar thy neighboring town's children, and prosper. This creates a long term imbalance, with nations like China able to catch up because of the under investment in education in the US.
Whether wikipedia, the institution, will survive and flourish is an open question - but wikipedia, the idea, is the future. The difference between those inside and those outside the knowledge bubble is much smaller than it was in say 1911, in terms of literacy and access to information. We can't keep producing encyclopedias as if nothing has changed in the last century.
Why The Beltway Doesn't Take Wes Clark Seriously And that is a big mistake
by Stirling Newberry
Let's take a look at the first Dkos straw poll - with 4000 votes already, it is a good barometer of what online influentials are thinking right now:
Wesley Clark
28%
No Frickin' Clue
15%
Russ Feingold
11%
Hillary Clinton
9%
Other
7%
John Edwards
7%
Mark Warner
5%
Bill Richardson
4%
Joe Biden
3%
John Kerry
2%
Evan Bayh
2%
Tom Vilsack
0%
This doesn'tlook anything like a poll of the country at large, and it doesn't look like a poll of insiders, where Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite in both.
But note what isn't there: there is no moonbeam candidate. This isn't a poll of left outs and left behinds, but a poll of people with a very different view of what the Democratic Party needs. Other represents, primarily, supporters of people like Albert Gore - who is the unseen wild card in the 2008 race.
The larger question is torture and human rights abuses at Gitmo. At this point we know that the US ships people out to be tortured in other countries - called "rendition". We know that techniques used at Gitmo violate standards of common decency, if not the letter of international law. It is What we are fighting against remember?
Now why are we even discussing this? Isn't "torture bad" something that all Americans can agree on? If not, then why not? Because of the bad bad terrorists? Doesn't seem to have helped capture Osama. Didn't stop M11 from following on 911. Doesn't seem to be slowing down the rebellion in Iraq. If this is the war effort that torture gets us, then the case is pretty clear that it isn't good for the war effort. Particularly when our allies are doing it.
The Real Job of the Public Editor at the New York Times.
by Stirling Newberry
I have tremendous sympathy with the New York Times public editor. In this recent piece it's really clear what his job is. Namely to pet the freep. Note his last paragraph which about says it all:
For those of us who knew that the filibuster deal was stupid, this comes as no surprise. The Republicans are going to pack the courts with hard right wingers, and every means of slowing exeuctive abuse of power - holds, blueslips and filibusters - are now gone.
A campaign of racism, bigotry and fear passed the "Non!" votes in France and the Netherlands. The only thing more stupid than a "Non" vote, was the "Oui" campaign, which seeemed to rest on apathy, arrogance and elitism. The reality is that Europe was facing a collision course with the US over interest rates and the inflationary environment that the Federal Reserve has been promoting.
If these steps are not taken shortly, then there will be a large correction which will be highly unfavorable to Europe. It must be recognized that not only are we in a post-Keynesian order, but a post-Friedman/Mundell order as well. In the first demand push was used to grow the economy, in the second resource deflation was. In the future it must be the expansion of liberalization, and the balancing of growth through a neoliberal monetary system which enforces discipline on its parties. this will require painful changes in social programs and their implementation in Europe, it will require painful relocations of labor, and it will require the realization that the United States is not, and will not become, politically reliable.
That correction is almost upon Europe. Let's look at what all of this means going forward.
One sign that the Democrats, and the country, have had enough of right wing slant and spin to news is the wave of hearings that the Democrats in Congress have been opening - Nadler and Durbin taking on torture at Gitmo, Conyers on the Downing Street memos - and how they are firing back when the tired tricks of the top down media are played. Conyers, on his Kos diary takes on the Washington Post for its distortions of his hearings, and Arianna Huffington takes on the New York Times headline writers.
These, like l'affair de Durbin is another incident of the center-left finally rebelling against how this Executive conducts its business. It is of a kind with the dust up over Dean's remarks - that there simply is no language which is strong enough to register the moral outrage that the Downing Street Memos, the Schaivo Case, Gitmogate, the nuclear option and Bush using the government to spread anti-Social Security propaganda inspire - and that is just this year.
I am an advocate of Free Trade, though a critic of how we currently run the international trading system and its institutions. This shouldn't be incongruent, afterall, one can be a strong advocate of Free Elections, and yet harshly critical of how a particular country runs its elections. One can be an advocate of Free Speech, and yet harshly critical of the press. One can like the idea of Free Beer, and still not like the swill they are handing out. That there is a disconnect on the trade issue, seeing it as somehow different from other kinds of "Free" is in itself interesting.
Now here is how Free Trade hurts civil rights in America. It is a case of strange political bed fellows.
Simon Jeffery says that Iraq is the "War we cannot win."
It reminds me of another war without a winner, namely Vietnam.
You see, the reason generals are always fighting the last war, is because there is a good chance the political leadership is going to order them to do it. Vietnam was Korea all over again. It was fundamentally unwinnable, not because the civilian leadership didn't back the war - on the contrary, it did. It wasn't unwinnable because of restrictions on how it was fought. More bombs would not have won Vietnam. Nor would more boys in body bags, which is what bigger offensives would have meant.
They would not have won Vietnam, because it was the wrong war, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The truth is that we lost Vietnam as soon as Johnson took his eye off the ball. The same way we are destined to loose Iraq, not because military victory is impossible, but because the cost of that victory is now going to assure that we will loose the important war.
Hypocracy is rule by the worst, and we are certainly getting that. A corrupt Republican House, whose majority leader is slated for indictment has the termitity to complain about how the UN runs its business. I believe in UN reform, but the Republicans have tried bashing the UN for over a decade, with less than impressive results. A House that can't run its own ethics commission is hardly in a place to talk. The road to a reformed UN isn't slashing the budget. If anything years of Republican budget gamesmanship shows that the nastier the budgets are, the worse the corruption gets.
And the "frustration" with the UN is even funnier, given how attitude displayed towards the UN in the Downing Street Memos - as a rubber stamp for whatever damn fool notion came into the heads of Bush and Blair. Seems to me that before the House of Representatives complains about the UN's problems, they should do something about their own.
So in summary: a Republican congress that can't balance a budget, runs a corrupt incumbent protection racket through the majority leader's office and has a complete inability to investigate its own is telling the rest of the world what a model of probity they are.
The Road to Wellsville: Clark Aid Running for Congress
by Stirling Newberry
Dems' candidate for Congress visits Elks Club
By MELANIE STREETER
Daily Reporter
WELLSVILLE (NY) Allegany County Democrats gathered at the Wellsville Elks greet the man they intend to run against Rep. Randy Kuhl, R-29th.
Eric Massa, an international business consultant from Corning and 24-year veteran of the Navy, said Kuhl’s representation of the people in the district has been less than stellar.
I take great personal offense that Mr. Kuhl would rather ride in Air Force One than create jobs in Allegany County,? said the former military aide to Gen. Wesley Clark.
“When he says meeting the president was the greatest thrill of his life, his priorities are upside down?
Massa said a congressman's job is to help better the quality of life for the people he represents, not to ride in the presidential limo.
My personal impression of Eric Massa is that he is a loquacious talker, a fast thinker and a dedicated campaigner. He may be new to elective politics, but you can be sure that if he gets to Congress he will have a guns blazing style pointed straight at the Republicans and that he will be a tireless advocate for everyone that the reactionary machine has left behind.
But it is the kind of district that the Democrats are going to have to flip to see the majority again: the heartland of America that has seen dreams die and hopes squashed by the contraction of opportunity that is the hall mark of the present.
Mark you calendar and remember the details. As of this week, America is now headed to a brush with regime change. It may yet decide to keep Republicanism in power, but it has lost patience with Bushism.
Why this week? Was it any single event? No, because as Isaac Asimov pointed out, an institution falls three times. The first time is the crack, the second the sign post, and the third a large wall with "The End" scrawled on it. We have not yet reached the large wall, where all that is necessary is to turn on the television set. But instead, this week errects a large clear sign post that shows that the current ruling government in America is walking down a road from which there is no return.
It is not a single thing on that sign, but instead, a series of indications that the public has lost patience with current policies and the people who are executing them.
Jackasterix wondered why the memos matter. He shrugged, like a lot of people paying attention. Most of what was in the memos was already fairly obvious - namely that at the same time that Bush was saying that war was a last resort, Blair and Bush had already decided that it was policy.
But what is important is the "busted!" quality of them. Like a wife in denial catching out a husband cheating - it is the lipstick stain on the underwear. The thing from which people can't avert their gaze.
One way to know twits, is to watch them twitter. It is amazing how the turgid writers Roger Simon and Eugene Volokh have such tremendous respect for each other that it makes them break out into song. Both of them don't read very much I suppose. Or perhaps they are praising the right wing's favorite way of lying, namely to deny an excruciatingly specific charge in a way that seems to deny the general catagorey. For example a huge explosion over a copy of the Koran being "flushed down the toilet", in such a way that is used to cover abuse of the Koran as an interogation tactic.
In this case the 30watt nitwitery that is going on is an accusation over Rice ever said "Israel-centric foreign policy." When she did say in an AS Lewin interview "security of Israel is the key to security of the world". It is Wolfowitz who was described specifically as "Israel-centric", and Novak who charged that American policy was "Israel-centric". This means it is entirely possible that Rice said the word, just not in front of a microphone. Simon's screaming is dishonest, in that he is trying to create the pretense that Rice never said any such thing, when the case is she never said that particular word.
The documents keep coming from Downing Street. While those of us who knew the Iraq War was a blunder on its merits will take some grim satisfaction in knowing that our suspicion that the Iraq was decided upon and then a campaign of disinformation was manufactured to promote it, the memos paint a grim picture for people who supported the invasion on the belief that removing Saddam was the “right” thing to do. Taken together the documents released show that both Bush and Blair, and their respective governments, were out of touch, out of control, and out of their depth.
Earlier I looked at the Options Memo, which showed that Bush felt he had all he needed to invade except a PR campaign, and the British would lay out criteria for an invasion - everyone of which they would abandon to get on board with Bush.
This morning it is time to take a look at other Spring 2002 memos to see how well they answer the simple question: "What did the President decide and when did he decide it?"
Iraq Options Memo Shows Bush Was going to War in March of 2002
by Stirling Newberry
The Iraq Options Memo from 8 March of 2002. Fact and Comment.
SECRET UK EYES ONLY
IRAQ: OPTIONS PAPER
SUMMARY
Since 1991, our objective has been to reintegrate a Law-abiding Iraq which does not possess WMD or threaten its neighbours, into the international community. Implicitly, this cannot occur with Sddam Hussein in power. As at least worst option, we have supproted a policy of contaiment which has been partially successful. However:
1. High Crimes and Misdemeanors has a specific meaning, namely of gross abuse of office, but not necessarily requiring criminal actions. Higher than mere "maladministration".
2. That the the founders intended this meaning.
3. That the history of impeachment is consistent with this meaning.
Breaking: GOP to halt Conyer's investigation into Downing Street Memos.
The May PPI report was in line with expectations. Energy prices dropped from their April peaks, and the core rate - ex-energy and food - was a tiny .1%
What this tells us is what it has been telling us for sometime. American industry has no pricing power where there is global competition. The only pricing power is in the protected economy and in energy to run around that protected economy. In fact there were sharp falls in producer prices. This isn't getting passed on to the consumer because of what the "Employment Cost Index" shows - namely that every cent of saving on manufacturing is being shovelled into health insurance costs.
Health insurance is eating the economy from one side, while energy costs and housing costs are eating it from the other. People don't invest in activities where there is no profit to be made, and hence will shift to lower costs. Namely, by moving the aforementioned manufacturing overseas.
As I have argued with impeachment, periodically, the legislative and executive branches are given conflicting mandates. These conflicting mandates prevent ordinary business from occuring. When this happens, there are an escalating series of conflicts. California is now on a collision course for such a conflict.
Nominally at issue are the drawing of districts and an budget recision proposal which would impose draconian cuts whenever the legislature and governor fail to agree. It is, in effect, a way to biäs the system in favor of budget cutting, since increasing revenues already requires a supermajority.
A spin off from former Republican New Hampshire Governor Craig Bensen is laying off 300 people, including R&D, in Rochester NH.
Run government like a business. Into the ground.
By the way, the next gag in the Republican budget gimmick parade will be to "reform taxation" to a "broad based" consumption tax that "only taxes income once". Exactly what does that mean? If you move money from your corporation to yourself - shouldn't that be taxed, since the corporation is, in theory, a person? Either get rid of corporate immunity, or quit with the double taxation routine.
The bounce off of low yields of 10 and 30 year treasuries in the last week may well be the signal that the narrow corridor is over, and that we are not going to get more than a slow down next year from present rates of growth.
It could, however, be temporary based on the move away from the Euro.
This week, the newspaper, will introduce an online feature called "wikitorials," as a way for readers to engage in an online dialogue with the paper. The model is based on "Wikipedia," the Web's free-content encyclopedia that is edited by online contributors.
The problem with Free Trade is that it isn't Free. The United States has a Free Trade clause - the Interstate Commerce Clause. One that specifically forbade a laundry list of acts that Britain had used to create mercantilism. The problem in the present is that institutions which are called "free trade" are not. What they are is "unrestricted commerce". This isn't free trade, any more than "free banking" works as banking.
What are the problems with the current version of neo-liberalism? And why does it exist anyway?
The demise of unionized meatpacking and the decline in mining and smelting have largely wiped out unions in the Plains and Mountain states. Younger voters, especially those with college educations, are clustering in urban areas, leaving the countryside and small towns to older, less educated people who feel alienated from American culture.
Corruption and cronyism are the modus operandi of the Bush Executive. Space, however, is the ultimate reality based activity. The reality here is that this has nothing to do with Mars, but the promotion of the militarization of space and SDI as porkstreams for Bush pioneers. After all, if you are going to Mars, you don't fire the people who got us to the Moon.
“Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”
The Book of Revelations 1:3
In a parliamentary system, it is given to the executive, or the head of state to dissolve the legislature and call new elections. The American system, suspicious of an imperial Presidency, gave the power to dissolve the executive to the legislature. The Congress may remove a President, but a President may not dissolve either House of Congress, or even force them out of session. The name of the tool of ultimate accountability is impeachment. Elections are seldom about accountability, people look forward, not backward, in the voting booth - but impeachment resolutions have often been the means by which a laser like focus on the key issue of contention is created, and a moment of judgement is then at hand.
The bad economy is grinding on Bush, one reason why the Fed and the Executive have let loose a "Guns and Butter" inflationary cycle - as indicated by the debt report that Hale wrote about, and the trade figures which show that US demand continues to spiral upwards. This attempt to load private citizens with the debt for Keynesian stimulus failed in Korea, it is failing in Britain, and it will fail here as well.
Headline number - his personal favorability is below 50% for the first time. "Steadfast war President" is becoming "Stupid ass bore pustulence". This is not necessarily going to clear up - good job creation and bad inflation numbers can sink a President - ask Carter, Reagan, Hoover and Johnson who all tried to primp up the economy at the cost of letting real wages fall.
A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant.
Slavery is a stain on America, if never again means anything...
We are currently working on a system that would send archived copies of an author's files to them on a weekly/monthly basis. In the recent database problems we lost some 3000 comments - that is real ones - and lost access temporarily to about 10% of the article base. The articles were restored.
Authors who want to participate this should email me.
Are we creating the elements of a "Tet Moment" in Iraq? In 1968, North Vietnam, coordinating with the revolutionary elements in South Vietnam launched an "all in" gamble on the lunar New Year now known as "The Tet Offensive".
A second look at the Tet offensive is in order, as Iraq continues to slide down the scale of order into chaos, or, as David Neiwert remarked "a vast apocalyptic playground".
While much of the liberal blogsphere was wrapped up in Deanflap, the reality is that this was an important week. It signaled important changes, and signs of how important decisions have been taken.
It may not look like it, but this is really a Dean flap post. Or rather, it examines some of the underside of the issues of xenophobia in America. It involves a noted Brookings Institute scholar, Professor William H. Frey, taking blood money and pandering to racism. And some of the hard questions we have to face.
To insert something into a media stream is to put it in a form that that medium likes - a hot trial on television, a great blog rant, a "the consumer's getting shafted" email, a great track for radio with a great opening hook, a book that lays out the case that many people want to be true with enough coverage to make it hard to ignore. These all "insert" ideas. Insertability is then a quality which makes it possible to insert. This has two parts: the meme is in the right form, and the moment is ripe for it to spread.
After the filibuster fight, there was a lull. Lulls create moments of insertability. I know I've linked to the Salon piece before. But that was in the dog fight thread.
Now let's get serious.
[I'm also going to plug this well written piece by xpatriated texan.]
It is clear that impeachment as a full process is, at the moment, deadletter in the house of representatives. 9 Presidents have had impeachment charges filed. In addition to Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and William Jefferson Clinton, the other six are John Tyler, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, George Herbert Walker Bush and Ronald W. Reagan.
I'd like to, again, thank Jesse Burkhardt and the skybuilders team for their support and help. We will be periodically closing down comments on older threads, generally more than 30 days old.
Trackbacks are for the moment disabled while we deal with trackback spam. People's patience is appreciated while we work this out.
Usually it is a bad idea to tell a big blogger that they've fucked up big time.
Well Duncan has this time. By all means give to the DNC. But he, and the other Dean kneepaders are the ones who are being cry babies. Dean, as we all know, has a way of saying the right thing the wrong way. He wanted to get at the complete disregard for work that this current administration and Republican Congressional leadership have. But he went broad brush. Sure that plays well with a narrow slice of the party base. But it isn't standing up for Democrats.
Dean's shoot from the lip style often creates trouble. His Republican quote was one of those instances. Check the numbers people, you aren't going to win without convincing Republicans that it is safe to vote for Democrats.
Attack the Republican leadership: Delay, First, Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Brown, Condie and the rest will be doing stupid things enough to keep us all busy. But attacking "Republicans" in general helps the Lieberman types of this world claim they are "moderate" and protecting everyone.
Sorry Duncan, but you are just plain wrong on this one - because it is you and the Deaniacs that are turning this into a party war.
[Salon has its take: here. It's generally balanced, but it misses the basic point, it isn't that Dean is divisive, it is that he is speaking to a deeply divided America, and a deeply divided Democratic Party.]
The five phases of the industrial revolution, a still on going wave in human history are:
Mechanical Age - Introduction of clocks, better sails, gear based systems, physics, fluid dynamics to production.
Industrialization - Introduction of heat driven work to production, chemistry and large scale transportation and information networks: rail and telegraph.
Mechanization - the application of small motors to production: telephone, electrical motors, combustion.
Electrification - the integration of small motors into domestic life, the electrification of communication - radio, television.
Digitization - the conversion of analog to digital means of information manipulation, transmission and connection.
Digitization is the cresting wave, it is doing now what electrification did in the 1950-1970 period, namely integrating with every facet of life, private and public. And the effects are just beginning to ripple through society. It is also going to produce a new kind of alienation.
Slate's Blog Beat continues its flagrant right wing bias
by Stirling Newberry
The absolutely dishonesty and bias of the page is evident with every passing issuance. From now I am simply going to boycott linking positively to slate. Despite my admiration for writers such as Daniel Gross, I can no longer abide by the slanted coverage of blogs and blogging by Slate magazine.
It clearly has a policy of putting right wing coverage first, and not labelling extreme right wing bloggers, and yet labelling left bloggers as partisan. This kind of mendacity is unprofessional in the extreme, and calls into question the basic level of editorial integrity at slate magazine.
We've had technical difficulties since last night, we are working on getting them fixed. But unfortunately comments will be off until we have worked through the current problems.
When people ask me what my blog crawl is, I reply that I tend to go out and find 20 new blogs to read, rather than reading the known blogs. First, I'll often find out what is on the big blogs, particularly if it is important, and second - I get to find great blogs like feministing.
The map above is the archipeligo of counties that voted for Kerry in the last election, they are remarkably similar to Gore's counties, only Kerry did less well in the southern Mississippi and better in the northern frontier than Gore did.
The word around the world is that Apple is shifting from PowerPC chips to Intel hardware. I'm sure it is a business decision that makes sense for them. But as a decision for me, it does not make sense to follow. Too much of the software that I use to get work done is not going to be ported for years to the new hardware, or will be in emmulation. Meaning that I will not see the speed increases for some time to come. This means that I will continue to make my machines work, and will transfer to some form of open source operating system when the time comes.
The Left Coaster has his take and other people have theirs. Let me give you FDRs take. Don't criticize the Republican Party, or Republicans. Criticize the "Republican Leadership".
It isn't hard, it is an old rule, and it worked for FDR.
The map above allows us to take a solid look at Bushistan - the areas that are part of the Republican Presidential coalition. As can be seen, there are a few key clusters of hard Republican support, they are the frontier plaines, the mid-Rockies, the deep inland south, the inner Ohio river, and the Appalachian filament.
There are some important conclusions to be drawn from this.
About a year ago I believed that a US recession was likely. What was I following? The probability of the yield curve inverting. That worry has hit Daniel Gross of Slate.
The calculation on the likelihood of inversion was based on capital flow models, which have been the bread and butter of the work I do. They show that there is a very narrow door for Greenspan to fit through, and with the collapse of Europe as a monetary pole, it has gotten slightly wider. He can reach neutrality at 4.00% and that might, might, be enough to hold off inflation and allow the US to reach a full boom phase to this economic recovery. However, there isn't much ammunition left. At 4% fed fund rates, the long bond will be around 4.25%, leaving only one bullet in the gun.
The reports are spreading fast, it seems that in fruit flies, a single gene determines sexual orientation. This does not mean that this is so in humans, but it is a strong indication that the genetic component of sexual orientation is much larger than the "choice" component. It's the beginning of the end for gay bashing.
To drive a machine requires energy, the economic history of the West has seen three major shifts in the energy basis over the last five centuries. The first was the wind and water revolution, where technological improvements allowed the increasingly efficient harnessing of waterwheels and sails. The great leaps forward began with the creation of the mathematical physics of Newton, and the fluid mechanics of Borda, which made it possible to design improved hulls and water wheels. This would drive connecting more complex machines to water power, and open greater trade through faster ships. The force of fluid, not steam, drove early textile mills in England and America. It was the clipper ship and not the steam engine that crossed the Pacific in the early "China Trade".
Hillary Clinton is the clear and obvious front runner for the Democratic nomination. Supporting Hillary is the smart thing to do. Just like supporting Kerry in 2004 was the smart thing to do, and supporting Gore in 2000 was the smart thing to do.
That is to say, it isn't necessarily the smart thing to do.
Branded Anarchy is a condition where people, by identifiably joining a network, and carrying on the activities they want to carry on, increase the size and utility of that network.
2. What is the point of Branded Anarchy?
Branded Anarchy is designed to create a win/win scenario for users and those offering the network. The users get to meet other people that value what they value and leverage their efforts. Those offering the network get a huge amount of free labor and energy, as well as the credibility of having a surge of people.
The strange thing, in their ranting about socialism and tether and all that, is tha the one conclusion one can draw from the vote is that the French are fed up with Liberalisme, and the massive unemployment they are suffering. Reform doesn't necessarily mean Thatcherization, and Thatcherization has a justifiably bad reputation.
Memo to Sunday Herald don't publish pieces on blogging, have a blog in your top menu And then don't update it.
The Buzz about Christopher Lydon's Open Source is growing here, here, here, here and here. The last link is to Rebecca MacKinnon's web site - who is a fresh voice that is as sharp as they come.
One of the most disturbing trends in European politics is the return of racism and apologia for racism. Every day I get pelted with German right wing spam about Dresden, from a far right party that engages in apologia for the Nazis. The "non" vote was also predicated on racism in its rhetoric. La Pen's Turkish and Muslim bashing needs no introduction, but consider the "anglo-saxon" model rhetoric that the "non" forces adopted. It should be a red flag: identifying an idea with genetic origins.
We laughed when Bush said "The French have no word for entrepreneur". But now the "non a guache" has said the same thing.
Sending shockwaves through the European political system, and bolstering the centrifugal forces in Europe, France has rejected the European Constitution by a sweeping majority - currently 57% Non with 83% of the ballots counted.
Note how Slate's blog beat guy shows of how slanted he is. Right wing ideolog Daniel Drezner is quoted as a neutral expert, while Decembrist is an "outlier". Given that Drezner's blog is very heavy on the drool fuel, this is a clear case of slanting sources. No link, trash doesn't deserve a link, and this is not the first time that Slate's David Wallace-Wells has shown himself to be an untrustworthy source of information.
The French vote for "Non" is a vote for the rising tide of economic nationalism over liberalization and globalization as we have known it. It is also a major victory for Bush, in that the disintegeration of Europe as a political and economic counterweight to the United States will give him a great deal more leeway in borrowing money to prop up an otherwise failed economic policy. The Guardian has a long article on British fall out while the Finanacial times covers frantic attempts to get Europe together. On Daily Kos, diarist Jerome a Paris was front paged for his coverage of the internal conflict in France.
Making it hard for people to do what they want to do is bad. Charging people for what they want for free is foolish after you just made it hard for them.
GB Trudeau became an institution at some point, and to some extent the tragedy is that he is institutionalized. He's been so good for so long that people stop noticing.
The LA Times warns Afghanistan treads towards becoming a nacro-state. I think this is misstated: Afghanistan is a failed state under de facto partition, where people are scrambling to bring in what money they can. It is also a warning on Iraq, the end point of our policy of imposing a structure without having built the basis for that structure
A Financial Crisis is always Paid for by the Public
by Stirling Newberry
The US backs pensions, and last year, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation showed 14 Billion in losses. This is how the crash of 2000-2002 will be paid for: on the backs of the public. First by what Daniel Gross calls the "cramming down" of benefit holders, and second, by taxes to bail out what is left. This is why Progressive public revenue is a moral and ethical imperative - it isn't taxation, it is financial crisis insurance. Something the rich benefit from more than everyone else by a wide margin.
Corporate balance sheets have been bailed out with massive public debt - something that Americans don't notice, because the credit card bill hasn't come due yet. The illusion was that this was enough. It isn't. In fact, it isn't even close to enough. There were 6 trillion in losses. While devaluation and deficit have paid off some of these losses, there are still trillions that need to be paid. And the people who are going to pay for them are middle class Americans.
For $16,000 dollars the Smithsonian has sold out science. What's next? Films on why Negros are inferior? Films on why flouridated water is robbing our precious bodily fluids? Films on how we really found WMD in Iraq? I'm sure that Mr. Randall Kremer will be happy to rent out the auditorium for those who want a solution to the "Jewish Question" at some point.
It is a very sad day when public servants are now shilling for an extremist anti-science and anti-human agenda backed by religious extremists. Perhaps Mr. Kremer would be happier working for the Iranian government, where they simply take secular parties off of the ballot.
People have burned at the stake for the liberty which the Smithsonian now sells out: the right to be free of an established religion which supports one party in power.
Once there was a bumpersticker from Texas that said "please God, just one more oil boom, we promise not to screw it up next time."
And that is the faith that is sweeping the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, and a good section of the Democratic electorate: please god, just give us a chance to start from 1992 again, we promise not to screw it up this time.
The reality is that with the current inflationary environment for commodities, commodity supplioers are going to have more power to demand more equal trade relationships. The pressure on regimes in Latin America will be to take advantage of this shift to produce more internal growth. The movement towards economic nationalism will continue.
Simpler explanation: the dollar is doing well because the fed is raising interest rates, and many other nations are in slow downs. Their interest rates are moving below the US. As US short term rates move up, money comes here.
This is the human face of war, a war being fought by not being fought. Since the policy in Iraq grows more unpopular, the US is having to increasingly rely on punitive air strikes and helicopters to spray fire into areas that are not under Coalition control.
BREAKING: Rumor that CBS is going to run with another recruiting scandal
by Stirling Newberry
Rumor is spreading that the CBS is going to run a story that the Department of the Navy has been using monster.com and usajobs.com to recruit without saying up front that the job is for the US military. Information is gathered from jobs seekers before they know the position is a military one. More details as we get them.
Again, this is not confirmed, nor do we know what the quality of the allegations are.
In 2001 I drafted, The Fourth Republic. In it I predicted that we had entered into a period of constitutional crisis, which would come to a head with a crisis of the monetary system. That until that monetary crisis occured, we would have an escalating series of reactionary erosions of the compromises on which the Liberal Democracy (1933- ) was based upon. That just as with previous moments of constitutional crisis, the Reactionary side would be the first to act, since reactionaries are the beneficiaries of the corrupt bargains of the old order, and they, consequently know who they are.
In 2001, this was unpublishable, the world was not ready to hear it. The filibuster deal must be seen in the context of an escalating series of capitulations by the "whig" faction, intended to preserve the old order at whatever cost since, and I quote them all "the alternative is so much worse".
Rather than repeat the obvious, that the filideal was "preneged" on, that is, the Republicans have enaged in date rape bipartisanship, which, like nuclear option is their own term - I'd like to talk about the progress that has been made.
In 2001, not one Senator had the backbone to vote for the Constitution and investigate Florida. Not one could even be found to give it the courtesy of open debate. Not one.
Another Nail in the Coffin: Get used to saying "Chief Justice Scalia"
by Stirling Newberry
Yesterday's "deal" on the filibuster, if a giving one's wallet to a mugger can be called a deal, is another nail in the coffin of the old liberal order. Or rather, in the effort of a conservative party, the Democrats, to preserve the remnants of that liberal order which have come down to us.
Right now both left and right are yelling about the deal. This will mean the middle will judge it fair, since the "extremists" are unhappy. Since the right is screaming more, they might even decide that it "leans left". But the reality is that this was an almost total victory for the right. They get their judges, they get the chance to use the nuclear option later - nothing on paper forestalls it - they get the filibuster for when they are in the opposition, they get Chief Justice Antonin Scalia.
By now you will have heard about the deal over the "nuclear option". I heard about it this morning from a contact on the other side: namely Frist didn't have the votes, and so had turned his moderates loose to get a deal.
It was a bad deal, in fact, better than no deal at all.
On tap today are two articles by major writers on the Raw Deal, namely the ending of the 20th century style safety net. The compromise come to in America and Japan was, to avoid having government provide certain kinds of national benefits, corporations would instead. This "corporate socialism" was considered acceptable to both nations, in part because there was, and is a political aversion to anything seen as socialism.
With Tony Blair having his majority shaved in Britain, Clinton's legacy buried by revenue reductions in the US, and the Liberal Party of Canada holding on to power by a tie vote - Schröder of Germany's electoral drubbing comes as confirmation that "third way" leftism is on its last legs electorally. This is for two simple reasons: the right is not mollified, but has, instead, become increasingly more radical. And the left has seen that giving into corporate demands for lower labor costs and taxes leads to - more demands for lower labor costs and lower taxes. But not to increases in productivity.
The "win win" of the third way left has not materialized.
Simple truth: corporate America sees the crank head porn monekeys of the radical right as their base, and therefore, what the right wing blogsphere says is far more important to them than what the left wing blogsphere says. Note how the reporter concludes that companies should capitulate to right wing smears.
References to fascism and naziism are common in overheated rhetoric. There is also the more delicate matter of real comparisons. The Nazi state pioneered so many things, technical and political, and then proceded to unleash them as horror, that every modern nation, if it looks over its shoulder, finds a leering SS officer in the distance as a warning. A warning as to what unrestrained powers of surveillance and the party state can do if left without check or ethical boundary.
Which is why the Santorum remarks comparing stopping the filibuster to Hitler's occupation of Paris in 1942 are, simply put, an offense which the Senate should censure.
For the last year the economy has been trying to take off into a "boom" phase to the current business cycle. Each time it has generated inflationary pressures that have choked off that take off, either by direct energy inflation and falling real wages, or producing a reponse in the Fed to tighten. Earlier Oldman predicted an inflationary expansion, and the signs from the fiscal authority are that he is correct.
So what is the shape of the Bush boom? If the Greenspan's fretting about Freddie and Fannie and recent drops in crude oil spot prices are read carefully, there are clear indications that it will be a "crud boom", based on trying to fuel the protected economy, push energy prices down enough to allow protectionism to give a boost to inefficient manufacturing here in the US.
[Stirling Newberry is chief economist for Langner and Company the opinions expressed here are his own.]
There is a major misunderstanding when talking about energy, and it is about the need for a systematic change in our energy system. Right now our energy system relies on four steps: extract energy, package energy, transport energy, apply energy. We extract high energy density materials, such as coal, oil and uranium, primarily by mining. We then package them as either electricity, using a generator, or as combustibles using a refinery. They are then transported to consumers and used by running electrical motors, transforming back to heat, or use in a combustion engine.
Doesn't anyone here want to make some money? Let's be franc. This graph shows the Standard and Poors in Dollars, Euros, Pounds and Swiss Francs. As you can see, since September of 2003, the S&P has been flat in european currency terms. That is, everything that has happened economically in the US for the last year and a half has been cut throat infighting. There's nothing new going on here. Historians will be tempted to call this "the late depression", or perhaps the "reverse recession", where Americans cheerfully voted to sit on their rear ends, and squander a generation of savings. That is, the next generation's savings, having already burned through the World War II generation and their own.
Writer Oliver Willis is probably best known for creating the “Brand Democrat, since 1796” logo. It is a point of pride among members of the Democratic Party that it can trace its continuous operation longer than any other political party in the world, rivaled only by, arguable, the Tories, or Conservatives, in British Parliamentary politics. But not everyone is as proudly partisan. The Democratic Party has had its ups and its downs as the party of the people – who can defend the period before the civil war when the Democratic Party was, essentially, the party of separationism and the aspects of the party’s past which are rooted in segregationism?
Why this witch hunt? Because, of course, it is a distraction. First because it is something they can simply lie about, as the US Congress is lying about Galloway, and second because it covers over much larger oil scandals. And third, because it has that magic word "Saddam".
This one is getting ignored, but it is part of the concerted attempt to swap out the aging "stalin" meme from the classic "liberals are socialists are communists are stalinists".
A sphere is a form of social organization which relies on individual initiative and public communiction through two way open channels rather than control and one way closed channels. Spheres compete with hierarchies. Within a sphere there will be smaller hierarchies and smaller spheres, the presence of hierarchies within a sphere does not change its nature, so long as the larger form is open and two way. A software team in an open source universe may well be closed, so long as it does not become part of a dominant strategy to close the larger structure.
Spheres are the coming form of social organization, because in the present, pyramids are too heavy and expensive. Pyramids must spend more and more of their effort centralizing functions and closing information. When the cost of closing information becomes greater than the advantage the pyramid creates, the pyramid starts to borrow significantly, and eventually becomes socially and financially insolvent.
The formation of the New Politics Institute is another step towards the establishment of spheres as the fundamental basis for our society, and the creation of the New Politics itself.
The indispensable pollkatz graph detects a slight uptick in Bush's numbers. The Reid-Ipsos poll has spiked upwards, and that usually heralds a bounce back in popularity for Bush.
This article will tell you what you need to know about what the Bush League has in mind: written by Matthew L Wald it wins the Judith Miller Award in the "outrageously biased sources and deceptions in the field of energy" for the week, and probably the month. This proud reciepient of the "Judy" says in print what I have been trying to convince activists of for some time.
It's the Hypedrogen economy, stupid. And the goal is to create "Enron in Eternity", an economy which has sunk a huge amount of money to produce dead capital that does only one thing: keeps people in the interface trap. What does this mean? The Republicans want to do to your car what Microsoft has done to your computer.
[Stirling Newberry is Chief Economist for Langner and Company the opinions expressed here are his own.]
Winston Churchill noted that 10 Downing Street was built by a profiteer who cheated the government, and implied that there was something of the disreputability of fraud that often seemed to infect its inhabitants. So it is with Tony Blair, a man who has earned the distrust of his party and his nation. The reports from, as the British say "the doorstep" of the campaign were uniformly negative and hostile, the election eve speeches horsewhipping Mr. Blair, one to his own face in his own constituency, were not, as polls now turning up show, the screechings of the fringes, but, instead, an expression of the rage directed at Blair for his mishandling of prosperity. He has stayed to long, and done too little good, and the Labour Party wishes that he would by all means go.
Calling Dr. Mortimer Post: A British Election Post-Mortem
by Stirling Newberry
This is an election that was more interesting than its campaign. The parties moved towards each other, because like many elections in the twilight of an expansion, everyone wants to promise the one thing that cannot be delivered upon: continuation of the status quo. Britain is headed for recession along with the Eurozone. The US will join them somewhat later - we have more room on George's charge card.
Thus each party promised the present, only better. The Liberal Democrats promised smarter and fairer, the conservatives promised tougher and cheaper, and the Labourites promised that if the electorate didn't vote for them that Margaret Thatcher would be made Prime Minister again.
[Stirling Newberry is Chief Economist for Langner and Company the opinions expressed here are his own.]
The April jobs report has come in much higher than expectations, with 256,000 private sector jobs, and with march revised upwards to 147,000 private sector jobs.
I am shocked and appalled at the vitriol from Labour supporters over the election. I watched them shout on the BBC, and now you scream from your column. It is disgusting, and repulsive and dishonest. It is not voters who abandoned labour and let conservatives in, it is the labour party which abandoned its constituents and have put a conservative on the Treasury Bench. His name is Tony Blair. It is not the "fault" of the voters for voting their conscience.
The electors are not your serfs, to be held hostage with their subsidies so that a Prime Minister who has violated the laws of his nation, and of nations, can run amok and join in an illegal invasion against the sacred covenants signed in the wake of a war that redrew the map of the world in blood. Those who give up dignity for temporary prosperity get and deserve neither.
A New Spectrum Requires a New Prism: The Left Divided in UK Election
by Stirling Newberry
Looking at the raw vote totals one finds that New Labour lost 4% of the vote, the Liberal Democrats gained 4%, and the Tories were about in idle picking up less than 2%. But this shift brought down a host of marginal New Labour seats. In all the centre-left was compressed slightly. The most repeated word of the night was "Iraq", and the unpopularity of the war and Blair's top down style of management fueled three independent runs in addition to other losses, including Galloway's upset bid in the heart of London itself.
But the reality of this election is that it sets up a drastic change in British party politics, in that each of the three main parties are now searching for identity. The 1980's have been lost by the conservatives, they cannot wave Thatcher the way American Republicans have carved Reagan on Mt. Rushmore.
Contaryto last polls, the exit polls predict that the Labour majority will be reduced to 66.The first result, from Sunderland indicates that it could be much worse than that in the end - with perhaps only 50.
In the exit poll Liberal Democrats have picked up many seats from the Labourites, but lost many to the Tories, an indication of the Lib Dem shift to being seen as more "left" than before.
What this should tell everyone is that the present fiscal policy is a failure, it is not producing large gains in productivity in the rest of GDP. This means that the United States is spinning its wheels, with nondurable manufacturing producing little in the way of gains, and the service sector - the secondary sector of economic activity that turns basic importing and exporting into jobs and profits for most of America, showing little improvement.
The big news wasn't yesterday, it was not the non-announcement by the Federal Reserve about another quarter point increase in interest rates. Uncle Alan has been telegraphing this for quite sometime, and there was no surprise, in fact, some in the financial press are calling the statement made "all but meaningless". Nor was the ECB's announcement to hold rates steady particularly a surprise.
After having backed an illegal war in Iraq, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are now putting the screws to spread fear uncertainty and doubt among voters considering the Liberal Democrats. The pure dishonesty of the current Labour government in Britain is on full display. It signals, first, that Labour is about to become the center party, and that it sees the Liberal Democrats as the danger. While the Tories are the legacy party - supported by the old, Brown makes it clear that they are the threat of the last century. What really worries Brown is that a party that tells the truth might somehow make gains against the party of war and dishonesty.
Steven Levitt claims to be a rogue economist, this is incentivization in action: being an outsider economist is better marketting. But, in fact, the reverse is the case - Levitt is the hottest, not necessarily best or most brilliant, but most incandescent - orthodox economist out there. He does what most professional economists do: statistical econometrics. The difference is that he is able to rapidly pare down the problem to a manageable number of variables. He's not necessarily better at number crunching than other top economists - he's better at looking in the right place.
His recent book Freakonomics covers a variety of topics, but it is the theory on abortion that is attracting the most attention.
While it is not quite yet time to re-enter the market, several indicators of Bearish sentiment among general investors is reaching that contrary level where an uptick in the market is indicated. It seems likely that this choppy down period has reached a point where expectations have been lowered. It is now time to look for where the significant cash accumulations in corporate coffers and among many large investors will re-enter the market. Given the drop from previous highs, the stocks best positioned will be those without significant overhead resistence - that is, stocks that did not participate in election rally.
2001 is over, and so, too, are the "late 1990's". In many respects a decade does not come into its own until its mid point. This decade started out as the 1990's done stupid, but the stupid 1990's, while overwhelmingly what people wanted, did not work. Any more than Kennedy's young 1950's - though I think it will stand up better to history - worked, because the large wave that no one worried about because they did not see having to worry about it, is arriving.
A while ago I posted a poll on DailyKos about what I should write, and this piece is the result, indeed some of it will be familiar to Kos readers. But there is more to say, below the fold.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The last four years of Bush economic policy has been to weaken the US dollar, hoping that it would make US manufactured goods cheaper. The reverse has been the case, all it has done has been to make US imports more expensive. The problem is that there isn't strong demand for our most competitive manufactured export - aerospace - in a high energy environment. And yet the group think drum beat goes on.
I was sent an email saying I had to have a "take" on this. OK, here it is.
From Bush@whitewash.gov
Subject: URGENT SOCIAL SECURITY PROPOSAL
ATTN: AMERICAN TAXPAYER
Dear Sir, madam or other
With due respect, trust and humility, I write to you this proposal, which I believe would be of great interest to you. I find your contact while I was doing a private research for a reliable and capable partner that will assist my party and I to transfer fund to his personal or private account social security account and for investment purpose. I am Mr. George Bush the son of Mr. George Bush.
This is the first part of the Public Income* and Retirement System article, describing the theory of public income as it has been developed over the course of the last century. It is related to Open America Agenda, whose National Community Initiative and National Sustainability Drive have already been covered.
[Open Source Politics at work: thanks for the Kossacks who suggested "Income" and "Public" rather than revenue!]
America decided in 1981 to keep gas artificially cheap. It bought us 20 years, and that is long enough for most policies to be a "success" - after all, almost everyone who voted for it has left the stage, and the people who wanted it have gotten their retirement or meat of their career in. Americans still aren't willing to pay the global cost for gasoline, so look for an every accelerating attempt to "make the poor pay" in terms of longer commutes and nastier living conditions.
How long will it be before there is a scandal of "passes" to these "high toll lanes" being handed out? How long before people realize that this system is going to continue to spread, but will break because it isn't addressing the problem of trading gas for land prices? A while, the American people do the right thing only after they have done all the wrong things.
It is a return to the old days when the rich controlled the transporation system, and extracted high rates to get access to it.
That there is going to be another recession is a metaphysical certainty. We haven't repealed the business cycle, nor is there any sign that we've repealed human nature. The question is when is the next recession, what happens between now and then, and how bad that recession is going to be.
Today's vote by the Republican leadership to allow a divided ethics committee to open investigations is the end of the road for Delay. He will be replaced as Majority Leader by Roy Blunt. The Republicans will also use this to run retaliation - nothing like getting a twofer - against Democrats.
The Democrats must have a vision to win, and while laying out policy type language is not the only part of laying out a vision, moving legislation is crucial to establishing an opposition party as being credible. "Towards a Bright Horizon" lays out a sample agenda, including outlines of legislation, that creates an interlocking program to deal with the deficit cycle that plagues America.
This post is an overview of the whole program and its components, a program designed to lift the weight of the top down economy from the backs of Americans.
Towards a Bright Horizon: National Sustainabilty Drive
by Stirling Newberry
We believe in an Open America, one that is open for business and the free movement of goods and people. To remain open, this must be a sustainable America - with sustainable energy and agriculture.
It is time to put aside the Republican party of pessimism, that either hopes to drill one more well, or place its faith in manana energy initiatives. It is time to set America to work on the task of a sustainable America, in energy, agriculture and the environment. This is a piece of the puzzle in reaching an Open America. (See also Towards a Bright Horizon: National Community Initiative.)
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Towards a Bright Horizon: National Community Initiative
by Stirling Newberry
Before there can be victory there must be vision. Americans will not elect the party of pessimism to govern, nor will they allow them to stay in the majority should accident place them there. The Democratic Party must ennunciate how we are to drive towards that bright horizon in the future, and show how we can navigate the reefs and shoals, while the Republicans cannot.
Indeed, what has sustained the Republicans in their missteps, through their incompetence, collusion and corruption, is that they present a vision that many people want to believe in - whether Reagan's Rockwell revival, or George W Bush's Fox News America. People did not listen to scandal, because they did not want to listen.
Our vision is an Open America, where anyone can sell the products of their labor across the country, where communites become unique entites, rather than cogs in vast machines. This will require a thorough transformation of the relationship of communities to the Federal government, and a host of changes to the directives and goals of Federal Agencies.
Every so often the inability of liberals to listen to what reactionaries say becomes appalling. Every so often, the stupidity of a technocrat deliberately misunderstanding words that were deliberately intended to be misunderstood becomes so annoying that it cries out for a good swift kick.
Tracy Wilkinson and Richard Boudreaux are today's beneficiaries of the Humble Foreign Policy Memorial Award, given to those bicoastal technocrats who don't hear what is being said.
Liberal Avenger warns us of the other war we have forgotten. The War on Terrorism is the first - like "Who wants to be a millionaire?" a sensation for a short period of time, and then, well, it was gone. Iraq is more like "Survivor" - after all the riffs and the voting, it too, has faded into the back drop. Reality TV seems to be the last gasp of the 1990's grunge aesthetic than the first generation of something new.
Schubert set his tragic song cycle Die Schöne Mullerin at a mill, where the brook that drove the wheels becomes an implacable force of destiny, finally consuming the love struck hero in his suicide. This is the simple moral of this time: that the stone wheels that are grinding America down are driven by deep implacable forces. There have been many books that have looked at the ills of American Politics, many are deeply cogent and worthy of serious attention, but they have not understood the relationship between culture and economics which binds us in place. There is no abstraction involved, but instead a belief that we have gotten the society that we created incentives for.
It is clear that much of America is in denial, in denial about the massive collapse of our economic system that is in progress, from a dizzying peak of 2000, we have borrowed and devalued our currency to hold some semblance of normalcy. We are puzzled why the job engine has not reignited. There are a host of obvious changes, however, they never seem to be on the table. Instead, corporate tax breaks come up with maddening predictability. Most people have assumed that they just have to get by as best as they can. They check gas prices and how much month they have left at the end of their money, and hope for better days.
The UK economy has slowed almost too a halt, and yet, the Bank of England wants to raise rates to fight inflation. The Eurozone is, likewise, on the brink of recession. Rob Portman, another one of the good hair Delay clones in the house is going to be the next trade representative, and who is he blaming all of this on?
China. What did the G-7 talk about in their last meeting, harmonizing European and American monetary policy? No, China. Why the sudden tightening against China? Because the people at the top of the western economy are about to get squeezed, and squeezed as hard as they have squeezed the wage earners over the last few years.
Because China isn't just undercutting the cost of labor, it is now set on undercutting the most bloated cost in the US and European economy - the cost of management. Bush and company are more than happy to have China eat your lunch, but they are now panicked because China is about to eat their lunch.
The New York Times mentions the "S" word, one that strikes fear into the heart of investors: Stagflation. Paul Krugman said a bit over a week ago that there was a "whisper of stagflation".
What is stagflation? And why is it such a cause for concern on Wall Street and other places?
[I should note that Barry Ritholtz, chief strategist for the Maxim Group and out of the closet liberal is going to be on NBC's Powerlunch from 1 until 2 today talking about his bearish call on US equities just before the market tumble started. His thinking, while rooted in different numbers and models from mine, is along the same lines. He's going to be the next investment guru - having made two very good calls in the last 12 months when other people were throwing darts at the board.]
1. On the first point, I feel certain that he misses what I have said entirely, and that we are not in actual disagreement. It is a case of him recoiling from rhetoric which has been used to accomplish ends he does not approve of.
2. On the second point, I feel he overlooks the obvious solution.
The election of a man responsible for ideological enforcement under John Paul II has turned out to be not merely controversial, but positively divisive - reading the reaction from the non-Catholic press makes it clear that almost no other figure chosen could have been more calculated to insult other denominations of Christianity, and to set the Roman Catholic Church on a path of attacking secular societies, and modernity in general.
When writing on a new pope, mere circumspection is insufficient. The passions are so aroused that there are those who will accept nothing less than outright denunciation, and there are others who will bovinate over anything which touches their fellow member of the extreme right in his divinity. The political implications of Ratzinger run far too deep, since it was he that gave permission to the Catholic Hierarchy to meddle in American politics to the advantage of one side over another. He is a partisan, has behaved as a partisan, and ran for election to the papacy as a partisan.
And that is the issue: hypocrisy. By now it is well known that Ratzinger was a member of the Hilter Youth, and later conscripted into the German Army, only to desert late in the war. For his antagonists, this is enough to call him a Nazi, for his apologists, the world should not be used at all. But the issue is not whether Ratzinger should be called a Nazi, it is that Ratzinger is rather free in accusing his political opponents with being evil.
The issue is hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of his behavior, and the hypocrisy of the behavior of his defenders.
The 2008 campaign has already begun. On the Republican side it consists of manuevering for control of the Republican Party's donor apparatus and their shock troops - the hard theocratic right. On the Democratic side the aura of Hillary is the glare which other candidates must overcome. With Wesley Kanne Clark's all but announcement, the Democratic galaxy has gained a second star - one that ignites a contest that will be the longest campaign in American history which does not involve a rematch.
The window is closing for others to begin to stake out territory and position themselves, by the end of this year much of the campaigning talent will be committed, and much of the oxygen consumed. Politicians sitting on the fence are now going to have to decide far more quickly as to whether 2008 will be their year.
we can build a great deal more than we can run. 10 years from now Chinese automobiles will be in the same niche once occupied by Korea, and early Japanese autos - namely, the budget conscious car. [Devil's Tower over at Daily Kos has a long post on the decline of Detroit.]
Essentially, world labor prices are collapsing, but this has not translated into a reduction in the cost of financing - the people at the top expect to make bigger and bigger profits, by having a larger and larger market filled with poorer and poorer people - and yet maintain the same margins per unit that they have always made. This is a collision course, and will lead, inevitably, to a global financial collapse if continued. This day is far away at the moment, but what Chinese labor has done to the lower end of high tech, it is about to do to the higher end - undercut the market by 30%.
This is a direct result of Italy having backed Bush's economic and global plans and then being part of the group of nations that has gotten shafted. So far, no one has ever done business with Bush and come off well for it, ever, in public of private life.
There is no purpose of government, but to bring the greatest good to the greatest number. There is, therefore, no objective of policy but to find and achieve this end, by directing the national will in such a way as to bring it about. There is, therefore, no purpose for politics other than the creation, and illumination of that will, in order that people act towards the good, and not merely away from one evil and into another.
Where the people are in pain, they must be healed. Where they are afraid, they must be lead to safety. Where they are attacked, they must be defended. Where they are lied to, they must be informed. Where they are disorganized, they must be unified.
Since government is for the people, and the roots of our government are in the Enlightenment, there can be, in the end, no philosophy of Democratic government, and therefore of the Democratic Party, but enlightened populism.
Today's action on Wall Street is acting as a crescendo to the worries about profits and the future of the American economy.
The worry is that the current profit numbers, such as GE and Citigroup, are the result of the low interest rate environment now coming to an end, and that the increasing pressure on the consumer - food and fuel at the low end, the end of home equity growth at the high end - is going to continue to erode retail sales and demand for durable goods. Key thing to watch for: if inventories start to build up, then the Fed will have to tighten enough to send us into a hard landing or full recession.
Connecticut Episcopal Pastors Stand up for Bigotry
by Stirling Newberry
Bigotry is the rejection of God's law of love. And it is saddening to see a church which has so often stood against biogtry to have so many local pastors that have chosen to retreat into the sin of hate.
[Crossposted at my Kos diary and while you are there, read Senator Corzine on governance, because it is one of the best things you will read on the topic this year. ]
Senator Edwards is preaching religion, and the text of his sermon at the Kennedy School of Government on Wednesday the 13th of April, was poverty in America, and most specifically poverty among those who work, and the threat of poverty for those who are one accident away from the tender mercies of the new bankruptcy bill. His message was that the Democratic Party has stood specifically for two important principles: the first is that raising the respect of work and the fortunes of working Americans is the most powerful force against poverty, and second that the Democratic Party has battled poverty specifically and constantly through out its history, and that it is a moral obligation to fight poverty in America and around the world.
[One reader was kind enough to provide a real media link to the video]
In summer wind by the brook,
a willow tree drinks deeply,
though not of the cool water that flows
but of the air itself -
the air that animates her limbs
and tossles her hair upon the breeze.
What thoughts possess a dying man? It depends on how he
dies. It depends on why he dies.
Some deaths are clean prepared and a sharp and bitter line,
divided: the darkness from the light. In others it is death come unexpected,
and the thoughts of the last moments are as any thoughts of life.
Hobson's Choice a blog run by James R MacLean, has been dealing with international economics and American trade flows for some time. His comments here should be of interest, since they are generally in line with the ideas that many of the writers here have been exploring. In particular the "cycle of hegemony" model.
Fastest way to get a link from me is to do a back of the envelop calculation that I've been meaning to do. kudos to fester for doing the rent/gas trade off number.
Macroblog correctly notes that this is a demand shock, not a supply shock for energy. Good graphs on energy density, but misses a more important point - the energy density per real dollar of US exports is the important number here, not GDP. Why is this? Because energy density of GDP represents both efficiency and monetization. The really important question is how much value add there is for the US economy on its exports versus its resource imports - this is colonialism 101.
The basic reality that Democrats should be taking on is this: competition is good, the health care system, because it lives in the protected economy is not facing the same competitive pressures that manufacturing and high tech are. Where the market cannot provide competition because of immobility of service, the government must enforce competitive levels of cost reduction. Right now, health care is not facing competition from abroad, and this means that health care providers have much more pricing power than anyone else.
I can remember when the Decembrist was writing about almost nothing but medicare costs and health care costs. The present situation of health care in the US is a complete vindication of his view that this is the critical service delivery problem over the next decade. Mark was right, and finally the public debate is recognizing it. A lot of people should be thanking him for being ahead of the curve.
It is a hollow musty smell that hangs
in the air - of windows there shut tight against the outside - of light
repelled by thickets of drape, curtain and shade. The outside world held
at bay into a murky twilight. The twilight of a God - once the most cogent
voice of the music of the future, now dropping down to delerium and anguish.
Beside the bedside - no the pyre - of Wagner sits a wife,
herself drapped and tressed to disguise a weight gained through many years
of comfortable adversity in toil, her gaze does not stare longingly, but
greedily. Her eyes are not misty - her face is not distant with rememberance
past. There is no heaviness of grief waiting in the wings. There is not
even the stony silence of one who gather's strength before a trial.
In the course of a business cycle, there is a point where the economy is deliberately slowed by the Federal Reserve, this point leads either to a new recession if the slowing requires interest rate increases large enough to halt the expansion, or to a boom if such a new source of supply exists, and the Federal Reserve can ease. This is related to whether the economy has created a new source of supply that can expand without inflation. We are at this critical point.
The fall in real wages means that there is macro-economic incentive for people to change areas of work - good. It also means that there is going to be a fall in aggregate demand, or at the least a slowing of the consumer component - bad. (Graphs here on when this effect took hold and what it means.)
OK Guys, fess up, which Sex in the City Girl Would be the one for you?
by Stirling Newberry
Carrie - funny, well known, open minded? Samantha - sexually adventurous and carnivorous with oh so current taste in people? Miranda - successful, smart and sharp? Charlotte - artistic, domestic and marriage minded?
Bonddad at Daily Kos points out that Paul Volcker is worried about the investment deficit - namely, that the US consumes more than it produces and must drain the free investment from the rest of the world to finance our debt. He also points out that houses are being used as a ponzi scheme - where present investors are paid by future investors coming in.
Both good points, both, it should be reminded, link in to the American Thermidor problem.
People without labor pricing power want lower prices and lower taxes, since this is where they have economic leverage. See "Race to the bottom", as they begin wanting to exercise free-rider options, and resent the government for stopping them.
This is from 1997, arguing against the use of land mines...
This is a rather odd short article. It is, simply,
a plea for a saner kind of insanity.
The question of whether war is necessary, or inevitable,
or just has been debated for thousands of years. Doubtless it will be debated
long after this journal is forgotten and all of the people involved with
it have donated their constituent molecules to the cause of advancement
of flora. It is my belief that peace brings war. In peace people prosper
and breed. Eventually their ambitions grow from being well off to being
better off, and no matter how fast the capacity of the land is increased,
eventually a society will discover the oldest of human observations: because
humans can survive wretched times, it is possible to make people live with
far less than they need. The society then begins to play the zero-sum game,
treating some of its members as more expendable than others. Eventually
even this limit is reached, and there is sufficient unrest to create rebellion
or the pressure to find another group of people to invade. Our society has
already turned the first corner, with the open declaration that how much
less we can make people accept in living standards be codified into our
economic statistics. With the open declaration that since we are no longer
involved in a total war with an outside power, we no longer need to keep
everyone alive.
Henry Blodget writes about the other China. I know the region he is talking about, and have been to villages like the one he describes, they are the place where the people pouring into China's cities looking for work come from. But he, and others, miss a vital point: the world isn't getting smaller, it is getting larger. Day by day, as energy gets more expensive, it gets larger. As more energy must be spent to raise the living standards of the other China, it must be taken away from other activities, and the ability to jet around the world is one of the best targets for it.
This is the iron of the black gold currency system: first it makes the world smaller as capital and rent search for energy cheaper labor. Then it starts to make the world larger, as cost of transportation starts to rise. The global order is going to be torn apart, simply because it does not have the economic incentive to do what needs to be done.
Almost from the first moments after the Berlin Wall fell, the campaigns to give credit to politicians and leaders began. But the story of the revolutions of '89 belongs far more to the people who sensed a weakening of their oppressors and who took advantage of the moment for themselves.
The leaders who deserve credit for the end of stalinism are the ones that arose behind, not outside, of the iron curtain.
In 2004 the Democratic Party blundered a critical moment, the moment was when the metropolitan upper middle class was getting squeezed by the economic forces unleashed by Bush, and were willing to shift allegience. By deep sixing Dean and his rhetoric, and trying to shave off a few social conservatives who want checks from the government, the Democrats got threesweeped and showed they did not learn the lesson of Clinton.
That lesson was not "move to the right", but "move to the suburbs".
In March 2004, the Commission ordered Microsoft to pay a fine of €497 million (US$639 million), sell a version of its Windows operating system without Windows Media Player, and allow other companies access to information needed to make their workgroup server products work smoothly with PCs running Windows. Microsoft appealed the ruling in June.
Spouting Thomas made his reputation talking about globalization. And here he is again. The man who was wrong about terrorism, wrong about Iraq, who doesn't seem to understand that free trade isn't like free beer, can't even get his signature topic right.
At the moment there are forces that are set to tear the global order apart, though they will take decades to play out. The problem is the usual one - winners not compensating the losers in a new economic system. The losers, who are beginning to know who they are, are going to form political coalitions and take on free trade and free capital flows. This will make sense. Why so? For the same reason the first era of globalization was torn apart during the transition from oil to coal. The coal globalized world required huge infrastructure for recoaling. Oil offered a way around that, but there was not, at that time, enough oil infrastructure. Thus a few nations gained superior access to oil - Great Britain and the US particularly, since Britain could take and the US could extract oil. The losers of this transition turned more and more towards totalitarianism and militarism, determined to take the access to the now essential resource.
Eventually there was a war, a war to no small extent over access to oil. It was World War II.
Let's not start repeating the mistakes of 1890, because it is very likely that most of us will not live to see the other side of them.
Interestingly his comments note something I talked about last year: that the bet for the US soft landing is that speculators will hold stocks and dump oil with further interest rate increases. So far the picture seems to be reverse, that speculators are remaining in commodities, particularly oil, and investors are seeking safe havens, particularly in gold.
In the near term the US dollar should continue to strengthen, as the US Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates, while the ECB, at best, will hold rates steady, or shave a quarter point eventually. It is the ECB that does not have much monetary ammunition at the moment, while the Fed has to shoot very carefully. This means that Asia should continue to grow strongly, as European capital goods - which they are heavy importers of - become cheaper, while the US becomes a stronger export market.
However, the downside risk to the massive dollar portfolios built up in developing economies create a different risk: namely that as soon as the dollar rally falters, central banks will treat it as a rally to be sold.
The Road to Wellville: Ergative Hedonics and the Salvation of Social Security
by Stirling Newberry
In a brief conversation with Richard Parker, whose biography of John Kenneth Galbraith is getting entirely justifiable acclaim, I argued that liberalism, despite being known for its demand side theories, was really the supply side philosophy. After all, to keep demand side policy tools working, the government must constantly, and creatively, be searching for supply bottlenecks and easing them, so that the economy would not be distorted by people making long term inefficient trade offs in return for short term gains. Previously I have argued that our current economic problem is a supply-side failure: that it rests on our failure to encourage technology which makes efficient substitutions for commodities which are scarce, particularly energy for rent trade offs.
How does this relate to social security and sustainability? Read on MacDuff.
Many people in Britain are angry a the Labour Party, for breaking promises and riding the economic wave, rather than making progress on the government service delivery issues that they campaigned on so many years ago. Speculation is rampant that the Liberal Democrats will make a run at being the opposition, however, it would take significant erosion of the majorities to accomplish this. Never the less they have staked an aggressive position, based on being the only major British Party that stood against the invasion of Iraq.
The world will see just how deep the anger over this runs soon.
Alan Greenspan warned governments not to get in the way of "market forces" that, he hoped, would end the current oil spike. Since he is one of the non-market forces that has driven up oil prices over the last three years, this is, to say the least, disingenuous. Having meddled in political affairs to get the changes that he wanted - lower taxes for the rich and commodity inflation, telling other not to touch the dial cannot help but be interpretted as self-serving. It would only be if Greenspan, himself, stopped interfering in "market forces" that oil would reach an equilibrium. What he is really saying is that he likes where this is going and everyone else should get out of the way.
Liberals have a tendency to make a fatal mistake in naming. A liberal institution, so that it does not trod on toes, will name itself something achingly specific, so as not to belittle all the other technocratic grinders working on the same issue. Where as no matter how extreme the right wing group, it is named something like "The Society for the Restoration of the Constitution". As a result, the Republicans own the big words, and liberals looking for language find that everything is already coöpted. So the next time you form a group don't pick "Campaign for a free and independent judiciary and protection of the filibuster."
Or anything like it.
Pick something like "The John Marshall Fund" or "The Marbury Institute" or "Campaign for Traditional Law" or "Defenders of Federalism". Short, coöpting and long on principle. It is the most glaring difference in the left and the right at the moment, the one that is visible in every headline. Right wingers have "The Hudson Institute and liberals have some long thing that becomes a murky acronym. So take a lesson from "The Center for American Progress" and the "Economic Policy Institute" - which are still too long but are at least strongly assertive, and pick a name that goes on a bumper sticker small enough to put on the bumper of something smaller than a Hummer.
American Thermidor lays out that the root problem is not peaks in oil production, but the response to them. US oil production plateaued in the late 1960's and global oil production peaked in the early 1980's only to rise again when Saudi Arabia abandoned its "swing" producer role in 1986. In both cases what followed was not more progressive government - but reactionary government.
If you like free trade, you should shack up with Rip van Winkle, this era of free trade is dying, and it will only be on the other side of the series of global crisis points that are coming that it will return. Free trade is a hot house flower - it grows under certain conditions, dominates in particular climates, and then fades beneath the more comfortable stance of economic nationalism. and economic nationalism is, indeed on the rise. More and more countries are trying to wrest control of their affairs from the global trading system. The two distorting forces are the OPEC oilarchies - that concentrate huge sums of cash in the hands of primitive economies, and China which is given an exemption from the WTO, and still gets all the perks.
The defending of the banking system of Korea is an example of a nation being pushed to the brink by having to compete in a system which is pressuring it from all sides. The bill itself is not particularly a good one, but it is symptomatic of the failure of the free trade movement - and it is a movement as much as a policy set - to correctly understand both why free trade flowered in this period, and what needed to be done to make it effective.
The rise of economic nationalism, however, finds its poster children in two nations: Argentina and Russia.
As usual, the "head in sand" theory of dealing with problems predominates. Everyone has been so busy warning themselves about "oil prices don't matter" that they don't seem to "get" the obvious - everyone is simply borrowing their way through the price spike, while many corporations hedged against higher oil prices earlier.
What this means is this: if the price of oil remains current after the ability to borrow and the hedges run out, the price shock will be enormous. It took several years in the 1970's for this price shock to fully realize, and then only with a supply disruption. There are other important differences in the current market. However one thing is the same: the correction, if and when it comes, will be rapid and excruciatingly painful.
One of the dangers of an uneducated public is that those who make money by selling words will be tempted to sell confirmation of their worst prejudices, rather than information. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick turns over the rock that is the latest drool fuel for the crank head porn monkeys that now run the political discourse in this country.
Her article should be required reading for every politician to the left of Tom Delay in the country - and a warning to moderates about the price of opening up and saying "baaa!" for the right wing.
Hajim al-Hassani has been the industry minister in Iraq. Several sources state that it is because he is a Sunni Arab.
I'd tell the obvious jokes about how Iraq's industrial redevelopment has been almost as bad as their creation of security forces, but the truth is that one leads to the other: that the US decided to pour money down black holes rather than establish real security and real development means that we have no idea whether al-Hassani can do the job, because he hasn't really been given a chance to do it.
Let's just hope that this venture goes better than his dot com company, which went bust.
The latest data, which reflect the impact of higher oil prices and a stronger euro, may force the European Central Bank to revise its view that last year's soft patch was ‘transitory’. However, Lucas Papademos, ECB vice-president, told an Italian newspaper that he expected ‘the economic recovery in the eurozone will pick up momentum over the course of 2005’
For anyone needing a reminder of the problems with having a conflict in monetary policy between the US and Europe, FT's article provides a sobering reminder.
If we had a reasonable political class in the US, what should happen would be a meeting of the major developed nations, hammering out a neo-Bretton Woods framework that would more widely distribute the available growth over the developed world, and permit various nations to make reforms in that context. Yes France needs to ditch the 35 hour work week, as it does not improve competitiveness, yes Germany needs to reform their tax base, yes the US needs to stop borrow and squander policies. But the root problem is that the developed world has a maldistributed set of incentives, and the US is, currently, by far and away the worst offender.
It would really be good to have such a conference and treaty before, rather than after, something ugly happens to the global economy.
There are moments when the last leader of an era leaves, a ruler or leader that has so outlived his contemporaries that he seems an anachronism. Fidel Castro, when he dies, will be such a figure, as was Franco of Spain. While not in any way comparing John Paul II to a despot, he too is the last man of a wave of leaders who came to power in the late 1970's and early 1980's on a rising reactionary tide that longed for more stable and conservative social, political and economic arrangements. At a moment when the West seemed to be pressured from outside, and unraveling from within, this wave of leaders set the style, tone and agenda for the next two decades, and their influence is still a weight upon us. John Paul II, like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Menachem Begin and Helmut Kohl, represented a resurgence of a particular view of the meaning of the past.
His contemporaries are all long since gone, and certainly long gone from power. But it is appropriate to look back at that political moment, now that its most durable, and in some ways most symbolic, member has left the stage.
I am amused by the recent boom in the phrase "the culture of life" - with its combination of meanings of kulturekampf and catholicism mixed together. It will, indeed, be the rallying cry for invasions, the death penalty and crack heads ranting along with Rush Limbaugh. Given their choice of martyr's - a brain dead woman who the courts had ruled wanted to have her suffering endeded, they should really call it the horticulture of vegetable life.
But more seriously, if you know your theology you know that God is not where they are coming from, instead, as the writings of CS Lewis make clear: the unswerving devotion to a mechanistic sense of life is a mark of hell, not heavan. The spiritually prepared do not fear death, nor do they regard death as the prime evil. As Lewis has one of his devils say: "They believe that death is the prime evil, and life the prime good, because we have taught them so."
On a moral level, the ghastly stew of Spencerian dog eat dogism that lives under the phrase should be enough to cause any individual of faith to reject it. It also tells me why they can't stand Darwinian theory - dogs eating dogs don't like even the appearance of competition.
Using the simplified methodology from The Recession That Would Not Die the estimated labor slack dropped to 7.3% from 7.5% This is largely because the household survey reported an increase of 400K in employment in March.
On the "B" side 101,000 seasonally adjusted private payroll positions were added, a major let down for those who hoped we would get a greater rise in employment this year. However, this number indicates that the interest rate increases from the Fed are slowing down the economy. The headline 5.2% unemployment rate indicates that the Fed does not have much room to slow down the pace of increases going forward.
Once again:
7.3% labor slack - down .2% from February, that is to say no significant improvement. 5.2% unemployment rate indicates that the Fed will not be able to slow interest rate increases.
Private payrolls at 101K seasonally adjusted, which means that the fed's attempt to engineer a landing is working. Though what kind (recession, hard, soft) is still open to question.
Daniel Gross is another fan of Peter Bernstein's excellent work on the Erie Canal. In no small part, this is what made New York City, rather than Philadelphia, the capital of the East coast, because the canal made New York the gateway to the interior of America's northern tier, and made it competitive, at a stroke, with both New Orleans - the other gateway at the other end of the Mississippi system, and with the manufacturing centers of the Northeast, and better than either of them.
Social security involves how this country will invest trillions of dollars over the next few decades. Conservatives want to hand it over to the casino of multinational corporations, footloose and willing to use it to drive down wages around the world to the lowest common denominator. A real progressive alternative would be to argue for using those trust funds to invest in rebuilding our companies rebuilding American physical assets, investing in American companies committed to high-wage growth, and in creating a future US economy far brighter than the dour assumptions of the Social Security Trustees.
As I've pointed out myself many times, government spending from the trust fund should be geared to creating enough growth, or lowering costs, by enough to fund future retirees. Towards this end I advocate changing budget accounting so that that trust fund revenues can only fund projects - and that does not mean tax reductions - that are investments that will show net returns.
I am writing a version of American Thermidor for Truthout, and honestly it is one of the most difficult bits of writing I have ever done. This is because of the very controversial nature of the American Thermidor thesis, and the problems of explaining something which people are so used to dealing with in pieces, rather than as a whole.
But that is the essential problem: the real reason our political system is spiralling to the right, and that while Bush and the Republican congress have no real political backing in the broad majority of the country, they have enormous authority to reshape America - is that there is a systemic problem that must be addressed in all of its parts. There is no simple tweak or technocratic twiddle that will work.
The Dripping Point: Crude Oil Pressure on US Exports
by Stirling Newberry
What does this chart say? It is the refiner acquisition cost of imported oil deflated by the producer price index for all commodities. What does it measure? It measures the pressure that crude oil prices are putting on US exports in real terms - the amount of paper we must sell to buy the oil we get from abroad, and hence the pressure on the US capital markets to produce new value to sell abroad to finance our trade deficit.
Barry made the call earlier this week for investors to treat the current rise in US stocks as a rally to be sold. He is on CNBC's Powerlunc right now, and assumes there will be some discussion of his call.
This parallels my warning to investors to move out of Euro based stocks in anticipation of further US interest rate increases and a corresponding drop in the Euro. More on why later.
Slate's franchise is that they make sense, they explain things. Sometimes, often, they merely take a senseque pose - far too often in fact. But, still in all, they have enough articles that do make sense to be worth the surf. Right now both Daniel Gross and Jack Shafer have been on a hot streak, making sense and shipping it out to the public.
The subjects may seem different, but in reality, they are the same: how people who run the media live in a bubble, and how being in that bubble makes them say, and do, things which are against what Jay Rosen, in his Pressthink blog, points out is the spirit of the enterprise itself. Which is why he says "don't pay too much attention to big media trends." The question is one of politics, Aristotlean politics.
The clearing of the field for Casey in the Pennsylvania primary sets up a classic battle for the soul of the Democratic Party. Casey is a bad hair Republican - someone who can't quite hack it in the tax cut and spend crowd. After watching the Schiavo case, we should realize where the road of capitulationism leads, and yet, the entire Democratic Party establishment has said that basic civil rights are a negotiable issue. Clearly they don't want to be in power, they just want the perks and the patronage to hand out.
Are you a progressive? Then Peak Oil is Not your friend
by Stirling Newberry
Among liberals, progressives and Marxists there has been an increasing focus on Peak Oil, rather than Global Warming, as the hard limit to the current economy. This focus has, in some cases, reached the equilibrium of belief that the reaching of peak oil will, in itself, provide dramatic impetus to change the current economic arrangements. It won't - or rather, it will.
It will accelerate the control of the reactionary political coalition and the energy state. Peak oil is not a condition which is friendly to the progressive, the liberal or the member of the left in general. Why do I know that? Because we have already experienced peak oil twice, and both times it was a strong impulse towards the right, not the left.
The controversy over WUML could have gotten a better going over, however, many people in the town itself are happy that the radio station is broadening its appeal and programming. Heh, we are in the valley and don't get as many stations as other places...
Jack* has been reading The Rise of Rove's Republic. But I thought I would write a short comment: it is not that I am an economic determinist - instead it is that there is a complex dance between money and culture. Culture must work economically - even if people often make suboptimal choices because of culture. Economics must also work culturally: people must understand how money works in an intuitive and social way, because money is a cultural artifact. Thus economics often drives culture: peoples who must travel for work develop a culture to deal with separation, peoples who live as agrarians develop cultural means of responding to the pressures of it. There are moments when the cultural understanding of money breaks down, and this leads to a change in economic and political arrangements. Equally there are moments when the particular cultural understanding of money ceases to produce a working economic system, and as a result there is crisis the way supply and demand work.
This is why it is so disheartening to see the Democratic Party start up the same losing play it has run for more than the last decade - the moth to the flame spectacle of the Democratic Party losing to war, recession, noise and corruption - simply because it has a conception of the state of the body politic which is not merely wrong, but wrong headed.
It is nice to know that new art can at least get arrested someplace, though I know nothing about the content of the opera beyond some descriptions in various articles.
Who has a paragraph that "balances" noted labor economist Max Sawicky and Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum with a drooling right winger who blames Social Security's problems on abortion. This is, yet another out of thousands, of how sheeple just can't help opening up and saying "Baaaa!" for the extreme right wing.
Basic lesson in real balance: pit serious people against serious people. This is a crass example of balancing rabies riddled rereactionaries ationaries against mainstream liberals.
Below are the somewhat more than a thousand words on why right now the economy is making up its mind about where it is going to go, and why, though I've been thinking about writing this piece for a while, today's CPI is the trigger for it.
Actually, it isn't hard to explain: the VIX moves downward during the expansion period of the business cycle, as the fear that the previous period of contraction and uncertainty bottom. It reaches its absolute bottom at the "landing" point of the economy, at which point it begins to cycle upwards as the economy moves towards its boom phase, where there is more and more desire to protect gains. The VIX bottom we have reached indicates that the recovery phase of this cycle has been reached - confirmed by industrial production, inflation numbers and the increasing of rates by the Fed.
It will continue slowly upwards until the economy reaches its current peak, then it will plateau around the peak of the current cycle through the contraction that follows. Using VIX calculations back to 1980 shows this cycle was repeated in both the 1980s and 1990s business cycle and appears to be repeated here in the 00s (pronounced "ooze").
The bottom line: you don't have any rights that the Republicans in congress can't take away from you, should you stray from the straight and narrow, they will smear you into the ground. The spectacle of this case should wake the American people up to the truth, that the Congress, including many Democratic members, are out of the mainstream on who gets to make these decisions. This isn't "pro-life" it is anti-family and a vast power grab on the part of the censors of public morals in Washington DC.
So the next time I hear from any member of congress about how they can't act, or can't do this or that because they don't have political cover, my response will be simple: "That's bullshit, you can shove a tube down some poor woman's throat working late into the night." State's rights? That's Bullshit. Pro-family? That's bullshit. In step with American opinion? That's bullshit. Taking care of the people's business? That's bullshit.
What they spent the month of March 2005 on, the first months of a new term and a new congress - was grandstanding of the sort that would make Jerry Springer blush: C-Span did everything but run a graphic that said "Cheating husband's who want to kill their brain dead spouses."
Going on air shortly on Arnie Arnesen(NH broadcaster personality of the year 2004, public affairs show of the year 2004, all around sharp cookie). On the menu is Bush's confused stance on life, liberty and the meaning of dignity.
The Fall of the House of Gusher: Why Globalization is dying part 1
by Stirling Newberry
Niall Ferguson has a historical outline of the first age of globalization, as it is called, and its end. He presents a historical theory of why World War I brought it all to a crashing halt. Below is the economic and cultural side of the story.
Let me get this straight, two weeks ago, the Republicans were dating the "crisis" in Social Security from the date when Social Security would starting getting General Fund Revenues to pay off Trust Fund obligations - that is, money that Social Security put in to the General Fund which is owed to it - and today they are willing to insure trading on private accounts forever?
Don't the Republicans know that it is generally illegal for private companies to insure trading like this?
And the forest of fingers is growing.. In essence the question is whether the EU should subsidise Airbus through direct means in the same way that the US subsidises Boeing through military budgets. But the deeper question is still the monetary policy conflict between the Bush and the Europeans over whether the world with have a Texified economy - low wages and lots of resource extraction - or a strong wage economy, stronger technology economy.
Well, other people can't say this but I can - Please call Patrick Gavin at the Brookings institution and politely insist that they include a real liberal blogger at their event. Here are there numbers: 202-797-6310, or 202-797-6105. Make sure you are firm, but polite, in your insistence that there be a liberal blogger who is as engaged in partisanship for ourside as the Red State.org people are for their side, that this is only "fair and balanced."
Melanie updates us:
"It's over. They've added Ruy Texieira and Laura Rozen."
There is a chasm between the old and the new in the Democratic Party. Our elected officials see themselves as defenders of an old way of life of consumption, and the props of a consuming society - where as those who write see a new heaven and a new earth, a different society based on different norms and ideas. The old sees itself as supporting a few pillars of the old, and their work is done when they have slowed the Republicans a bit here and there. They have surrendered the initiative, and the vision, to the right wing.
And what do we want? We want a revolution, not a violent revolution, nor yet a velvet revolution - but a revolution in thought, a revolution of thought - a revolution of reflection, which joins both the deep human longings and the power of human reason. The right wing is attempting a revolution, not of feeling but of rage, a revolution of revenge, a revolution of rationalization - which, even when it should cloak itself in reason is unreasonable, one which even when it cloaks itself in nobility is ignoble, one which even should it cloak itself in humanity, is inhuman. The moment of change is upon us, we will have one or the other. The stasis of the past is closed, and open only is the ek-stasis of change. We will then have one or the other, a liberal revolution of construction, or a reactionary revolution of destruction.
Kennan is one of my icons, one of the people whose work and writing inspires my own - both his brilliant ideas, such as containment, and his mistakes such as the creation of the "political warfare" branch of intelligence. Through it all he was direct, candid, and forceful in the presentation of uncomfortable facts, and views based on the possible, rather than the emotional. He had a towering intellect, a piercing eye and capable pen.
We could use someone built by the same firm these days.
One truth that many in the Democratic Party have difficulty undestanding is how the populist Republicans work. From the point of view of risk averse liberals, they seem to vote, time and again, against their "economic interests" and in favor of "window dressing" issues, such as banning same sex marriage. They allow the bankruptcy bill to pass, they vote against education and universal health care. It is why Krispy Kristof and others loudly proclaim the Democrats should become more bible thumping, as if this was all just marketing.
It isn't. The Republican populists are voting as they are because they are making a bet, a bet that "we are the good people" and bad things don't happen to good people.
For those who looked forward to DemFromCT thoughtful guest blogging on Kos, and DHinMI's forthright language - The Next Hurrah is on line. It features many of the most successful front pagers from DailyKos, so it is sure to be a success itself - with DemFromCT, Emptywheel, JamesB3, Kagro X, Plutonium Page, Trapper John - and my personal favorite Meteor Blades, it is as close to a sure thing as one gets in the blogsphere.
The great news is that Christopher Lydon will be back on the air starting in June - on WUML, the UMass Lowell radio station. He's going to be broadcasting and raising the bar, bringing his long experience in radio, journalism and politics with him, when, starting the year after, he will be producing the program from the UMass Lowell studios.
The bad news is that the local paper already hates him, and put on the front page of the local section a painfully dishonest rant that needs to be responded to. The writer, Dan Phelps, is known around town as the sour grapes movie critic - at least, that seemed to be the opinion of the store clerk where I bought the paper this morning, and two other people I asked while pumping the gas.
For some time the top down media has believed that a "sensible" Democrat is one who is concilliatory towards Republicans, and even if he does not like them, embraces their ideas. Spouting Thomas and Nicholas Kristoff were two important members of this tribe. They travelled through the world, showed their bleeding heart liberal sympathies with good deeds, such as Kristoff buying out the contracts of two women in the sex industry and then following their progress a year later, and then used this as credibility to criticize the right.
The problem is that the basic paradigm the operate from is ridiculous, and it is now coming under increasing ridicule. The why of this is interesting, very interesting.
The return of the ellision of "potentially capable of making nuclear arms." accusations - the same language used to create pre-war hysteria - is a dead give away. To repeat what every inquiry has found: there is no credible evidence of credible evidence that Saddam had a functional WMD program, nor stocks of usable forbidden weapons. That there was "dual use" equipment was well known - in fact, the equipment mentioned here could have "civilian" uses. Note that what the equipment was is unlisted.
US Trade Deficit Surges on Imports of Snow from Canada
by Stirling Newberry
The Commerce Department last week released figures showing that the unexpected jump in February's trade deficit was driven by the imports of Canadian snow, primarily into the Northeast. The Commerce Department spokesman said that "this is a sign of the robust American economy, since people only want snow to play in, and that means that Americans have more leisure time." The Labor department noted that snow relocation services were part of the hiring uptick and predicted that this could lead to more job growth all the way into March, where snow imports are continued to be strong.
Jerome a Paris has been covering the currency and bubble problem. I have some comments on his bubble theory, since I predicted a secondary bubble would be generated back in 2001, but for the moment let me start from the point of agreement: there is an economic rift between the United States and Europe. The nominal issues - Iraq, Iran, weapon sales to China, US monetary policy - are reflective of a giant global game of Chicken. What is going on? Why does the resolution stand in the distance rather than close by? More...
Stirling Newberry -
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Mar 10 , 5:35 PM
Notch and Plateau
by Stirling Newberry
The study of non-seasonally adjusted numbers is not given enough attention in the press. The assumption is that "seasonal" adjustments remove noise and leave us with what is "really" going on. People then procede to build "expectations" around the seasonal number and look for trends in it. However the seasonal pattern is the heart beat of the economy, and the state of the economy can be seen through its cycle. However, this ignores the importance of the S-Number/J-Number pair and ignores further the usefulness of the non-seasonally adjusted ratio of claims.
According to a judge in California, bloggers aren't journalists. It is the latest in a long series of abuses by the old world to establish tyrannical dominance over the new. It is absurd that when Judith Miller spreads rumors, among other things, as news on the front page of the New York Times, she is a "journalist" entitled to protections, where as someone digging up the truth on a blog is simple a target for a law suit.
The ruling is absurd, and the judge who issued it should be retired to private life as someone who does not have a grasp of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. There is freedom of the press, and the people, not the government define what a "press" is. The bloggers in question did not slander or defame anyone - quite the contrary, Apple Computer is suing because the information provided to the public was true.
Unemployment J-Number indicates continued hiring growth
by Stirling Newberry
The Unemployment insurance series is often quoted, and seldom thought about beyond rules of thumb like "400,000 seasonally adjusted claims is a bad job market". In fact, the non-seasonally adjusted number series contains one of the most accurate indicator pairs in econometrics. The peak of continuing claims in winter, combined with the fall bottom in continuing claims. The "J-number" and "S-number". A substantial year on year rise in the J-Number, combined with a substantial year on year rise in the following S-Number indicates that there will be a rise in insured unemployment, or, more simply, a hiring recession.
The lines on the graph are the S&P priced in dollars, priced in Euros and priced in Pound Sterling. There is a version which shows swiss francs as well below the fold.
I was one of the first people to follow what I call "the poor pound" and the "poor euro" - the price of the S&P 500 in Great British Pounds and Euros. It was one of the reasons that I felt that the 2000 bubble was unsustainable, because it was not only stocks going up, but the Euro dropping. I knew that the ECB's stealth devaluation of the Euro - by setting the original dollar/euro price too high - was not going to last, and that when the scales were balanced it would be far worse than people knew.
A correction is when money leaves the market, but is not destroyed - a crash is when money is destroyed by the panic. Between 2000 and 2002, we had a crash. And don't let anyone tell you that the market is even close to recovering in real terms.
What is notable is the immense flatness of the American stock market. One reason we are not making economic traction is that we are not generating capital investment in real terms.
This chart has a cart full of caveats - it is an estimate based on back of the envelope methods. However, it tells an interesting story, and the number itself is not, in principle, unknowable. The number in question is estimated labor slack, which is to say, instead of asking "how many people are actively looking for work and can't work", it asks "how many people who demonstrably have worked aren't working now".
Social Security Benefit Follies: Why can't people get this right?
by Stirling Newberry
The Urban Institute has done a great deal of good work, which is why I was shocked and appalled - to the point of fuming with scatalogical references - at this paragraph from this morning's New York Times
Calculations by C. Eugene Steuerle and Adam Carasso of the Urban Institute offer this contrast: A 65-year-old single man who retires this year after a career in which he earned an average of $36,500 a year, in 2005 dollars, will get $164,000 in retirement benefits over the rest of his life, on average, based on his expected life span of 81.1 years. That is about $8,000 less than he would receive if he invested his payroll taxes at a 2 percent rate of return, after inflation.
This requires some blunders so obvious that it defies any generous reading of the word "mistake". Instead, whoever did the study had to have an axe to grind - because the mistakes have been loudly and clearly gone over in public discourse and are backed up by examples from the real world.
This is the boom: 229K Private Payroll jobs in February
by Stirling Newberry
What today's job number tells us, assuming that the headline report is correct, these are some numerical discrepancies to sort out: we are in the middle of the Bush boom - where whatever rise in real employment is going to happen is happening now. The headline number is 229,000 total private employment - confirming the rise in oil prices - namely, that the economy is slowly overheating. It is one of the best numbers of Bush's tenure in office and will be heralded as a sign of coming good economic times.
CSIS White Paper rips Defense Department's handling of insurgency
by Stirling Newberry
Anthony Cordesman gives it both barrels. Including such sharp shots as "Denial as a Method of Counter-Insurgency Warfare" and "As a result, the US failed to come to grips with the Iraqi insurgency during the first year of US occupation in virtually every important dimension.", as well as "The present level of the threat in Iraq is all too real, and Iraqi Interim Government claims that some 16 of Iraq's provinces are secure are clearly untrue."
Cordsman's analysis is, if anything, charitable, in that he repeatedly gives the civilian leadership every benefit of the doubt, and still finds that both concept and implementation of the post-invasion strategy was woefully inadequeate.
In 1857 America suffered what was then known as a "panic", we would call it a recession now, only the contractions of recessions at that time lasted longer, and could slash economic activity in half. The panic spread when British bankers pulled out of American holdings - since the there was telegraph, but the attempt to lay one across the Atlantic failed - and news of a failure in Ohio started the chain reaction. Remember at this time there is not only no deposit insurance, but not even a banking system, nor a Federal Reserve to bail banks out or pump liquidity into the system in case of crisis.
But for all of this 1857 was not the worst financial panic in American history to that point - but 1859, recovery was taking hold. So why did this panic help touch off the Civil War?
Wikipedia reached, and then some, its 75,000 US dollar fund raising goal. Even with a crash in the middle because of technical failure at the colocation facility that houses the servers that brought down the database for a day. Even without major institutional or media support. The news is, indeed, good.
The bad news is that one of the most brilliant ideas on the net - Neutral Point of View, or NPOV, is being eroded by a bad policy which is being badly applied. That policy? The infamous Three Revert Rule "3RR" - or as one editor calls it "the railroad rule". Why is this? Because it has taken a discretionary system which was based on descretionary judgment, and turned it into a mobocracy where there is a means to force out those who disagree with the organized mob that controls a particular page, because the 3rr rule is non-discretionary. This erosion has only started, but the end point is without question - every paged dominated by a few editors who will simply revert without regard for evidence, citation or any other external reference.
Quis Dipsos Custodiets: The American Library Association Shits on bloggers
by Stirling Newberry
I should not do this, I am, after all, promoting a library science project which would really need the help of the American Library Association. But, reasoning that if the President of that organization is so stupid as to publish the text I will look at below, he will be too stupid to understand the value of the project, I hereby offer my grading of his language.
In this statement the Anglican Communion places on trial the communities of both Canada and the United States for performing ceremonies between same sex couples.
Clearly the Anglican Communion does not have the courage to minister to love as God has made it in this world, and wishes instead to add another inquisition. What is ironic is the very statement that declares bigotry to be the Church's stance on marriage then goes on to lament the AIDs crisis in Africa, which is to no small extent caused by the same failure to recognize the facts of the human condition, and instead hide in the traditions of human bigotry.
It is a sad day for anyone who is a Christian, or who believes that religion is to minister to the love of God as it is made manifest in the ability to love.
Between the realm of the failed state and the functioning, if not always healthy, nation, there lies the semi-state. A semi-state can be defined as a state which does not reach its internationally recognized borders. Within its control it fulfills the basic requirement being the fact on the ground, however, there are significant regions which would have been called "palitinates" in English legal theory circa 1400 - that is, regions were "the king's writ doth not hold". In our post-feudal world, the easy acceptance of this idea is harder to come by, and yet there are a number of states that have come to a relative stablity as semi states: Zaire, Columbia, Pakistan - states with organized counter-government apparatus that have effective control of territory, and some degree of recognition from the "central government".
It works, if you don't mind the wastage of human life.
One number is seldom decisive in economics, one month's data means little, particularly with volatile indicators such as the producer price index. The volatility of PPI is, in fact, a more interesting number than the PPI itself is on many occasions: the increased volatility of the Producer Price Index in the late 1990's predicted the end of the Great Commodities Depression, and the problems with resource inflation we have faced since then. So far these problems have been pinches, less significant to the overall economy that incompetent fiscal policy and monetary policy that has been so accomodative that it makes a serious case for the use of the word "slut" with regard to the Federal Reserve.
What the data do indicate is that the comploria - complacency that resemble euphoria - that hangs over much of Wall Street and Main Street is beginning to be discomforted.
I am hearing echos of a dream, the fear of a stock market swan dive that will come with the next recession. It comes from people worried about the yield curve. Why is the yield curve such an accurate indicator of a recession?
Martin Wolf is one of the most important financial commentators on the global scene, today his Financial Times Piece calls for better aid programs to eliminate global povertry. Wolf is neither wooly headed nor does he have a bleeding heart, he is not calling merely for the increase in global aid budgets, he is not asking for unaccountable euros merely to be airlifted in. But importantly, he reminds people that the elimination of poverty is one of the goods for which the global economy exists.
For those looking for how the conservative press is going to interpret Blogging here it is. Defy the right wing, and there will be a blogstorm aimed at you personally. Since far right wing journalists are protected, while others are not, blogging is going to be used as simply a newer and spiffier way of destroying journalists who step outside of the line of right wing orthodoxy. It will work too.
So expect the press to become more, not less, blogmatic.
Every party is two parties: the party where it is the majority party, and the party where it is the minority party. Getting these two roles straight is essential to winning power on a national level. The Republican Party is the party of "small government" in the places where it is the minority party, and the party of massive military government and ag subsidies where it is the majority party. The reason this works is that "small government" means, to its base "keep money out of the hands of the urban poor" - and there are a variety of memes, such as "crime" used to make it clear.
Part of the problem is that the Democratic Party first does not recognize that it is now the secondary party in the South, and second it does not understand how to balance where it is a majority party and where it is a minority party - the narrative of one interferes with the other. As a consequence Democrats spend a great deal of time "fighting" over left and right, when instead it should be encoding words which, while the mean the same thing, take on different colour in the two regions.
But this requires getting one thing straight: the Democratic Party must accept that it is the party of capital development, the successor to the Republican party of the 1860-1912 period, and that its national base must be solidified in the Mississippi river valley and in the Southwest. The "Union Coalition".
The first consequence is predictable, by invading a nation without a deterent, it convinced nations on the veil of atomic technology that it was in their interest to acquire a full deterent. This is worse, much worse, that merely having atomic weapons.
In the world of right wing punditry, there is a constant need to fill certain slots, because very rapidly a right winger burns through their personal credibility, and must be replaced with a fresh new face with new credulability for the public. As Malkin replaces Coulter, so too has Brooks replaced George Will. The slot, of the pseudo-intellectual with the populist heart - for Will it was baseball that earned him the "regular guy at heart" label, for Brooks it is shopping - is one which is particularly dangerous, simply because one slip can create a scratch in the illusion of being a basically fair minded individual - when in fact the freep suit role is one of lying by grotesque oversimplification and creating ad hoc princples which just happen to make the present come out for the right. "Deep spin".
"What it will lead to is growing pressure for draconian cuts," Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Senate Budget Committee's top Democrat, said Saturday. "It's inescapable, the course he's led us on, whether it's this year or next year, is for very, very heavy cuts."
Americans were told that deficits could go on forever without effect. That was a dodge, the real objective is to gut spending for the poor, to pay for tax breaks for the rich. Stop wiggling so much while they scale you.
According to the DoD 1,342 Iraqi security personnel have died. This does not include armed Iraqi civilians working for the government, only official government forces. No word on total casualties. Allong with 1,471 US fatalities and 126 coalition members, this brings the official total of uniformed fatalities to 2,937.
By these numbers the Iraqi armed services are loosing the battle against the insurgents. This does not mean the insurgents are winning, merely that they are able to prevent Iraq from stabilizing.
If you want to read spin doctor idiocy in quantity, David Brooks is dah man. No one is better at taking a true demographic observation - in the case of this column the rise of micropolitics over the "fraternal organization", and draw as silly a conclusion, in this case, that Dean is micropolitics of the sort represented by NOW.
Brooks is right when he observes the top down nature of micropolitics, but then everything goes horribly wrong, as he procedes to ignore large chunks of the micropolitical environment that don't fit his Democrat bashing agenda.
Particulary funny is his determination to identify Howard Dean with micropolitics, when, in fact, Dean represents the death of micropolitics.
There was also a great deal of turgid right wing stuff where they sit around praising themselves in a the typical right wing circle jerk. But I won't bore anyone with the details, suffice it to say that Sully and company get well fellatiated by their fans.
Das Leben von Künstlern erinnert – meist mehr als bei uns “normalsterblichen” Menschen – an grossangelegte Versuch, weite Bereiche der eigenen Existenz permanent im Fluss zu halten und damit den Gesetzen der Veränderung und der Metamorphose zu unterstellen. Aufbruch, Bewegung, Wachstum und Transzendenz charakterischen Produkte.
“Henrich Ibsen oder die Revolte des Individuums” Gerhad Danzer, Dichten ist ein Akt der Revolte Konigsshausen und Neumann, Würtsburg, 1996 page 59.
I posted Cultural Bonds a few days ago outlining a theory that culture’s result is to create bonds within the brain, and since the breaking of bonds involves disutility, its result is to create potential property, or rental structure. I was surprised at the negativity of some of the responses. Professor David Thorburn of MIT (who if you do not know both his academic work, and his leadership of the MIT Communications forum, you should) blasted the article by, among other charges “the assumption, for instance, that corporate media is popular culture is at the least arguable.” This charge was similar to those made by Grand Moff Texan – one of the top rated diarists on the Daily Kos, in the comments on the original post. This was interesting to me particularly since I didn’t say that.
I went back, and saw that the text did indeed not say what it didn’t say.
On the upside there were lots of restaurant jobs created. I'm sure people are just lining up to make that trade: high paying jobs with pension and benefits for minimum wage sales comission jobs with no pension and benefits. Looks like Bush is doing for the jobs market what he has done for Iraq where January saw 127 coalition fatalities.
Paul Krugman has challenged supporters of privatization to come up with an economic model which will produce a situation where profits can grow even when the over all economy is flat. According to the calculations he cites, the P/E ratio of the US stock market would have to reach 70 and then 100 for the Bush plan to work.
There is a way to do this. Gory details below the fold.
Barry Ritholtz warns me by electronic chat he's about to head off to do CNBC power lunch, between 1pm and 2pm. So tune in to hear his views on how the "slightly cleverer pants wearing monkeys" are going to do in the Wall Street jungle. More specifically he's going to be talking with Joseph E. Besecker of Emerald Asset Management.
In economics, "utility" is treated as a kind of phlogiston or caloric, a strange liquid that inhabits objects and is released through action. In recent years, the undifferentiated model of utility seeking homo economici has been challenged, both from the perspective of economics - from the perspective of Stiglitzian information economics - as well as from practical financial people, who, in Barry Ritholtz words see people as "phlegmatic primates who've learned how to shave".
Ahmed Chalabi kicks off campaign for speaker of the Assembly
by Stirling Newberry
Ahmed Chalabi is known to be on the United Islamic list of al-Sistani (the Iraqi election people voted for parties, who had selected "lists" of candidates, thus if a party won five seats, the first five people on their list would be seated in the new assembly), and has been making comments that the speaker would be the most important role in the new government. One source has indicated that he has already begun politicking for the post. The "chatter" that began around in December, confirmed by high profile references to him, would indicate that this is a high probability.
Convicted felon for Speaker, that is, Chalabi, convicted in Jordan of bank fraud, is now running for what he thinks is the top spot in the new Iraq. Why if Hastert the Unspeakerable steps down, we'd have merely an indicted Speaker. Looks like the Iraqis are about to leapfrog us in pursuit of making it possible for anyone to be in government.
Low end mac gets it 100% reversed. In seeing our lady of perpetual copyright as bad, they want to go after people who don't have profitable copyrights by forcing people to pay fees to keep copyright. This is completely reversed. The people who need copyright protection to be extended are those who have not yet monetized the work. Otherwise corporations can not pay for works, and then snatch them up for free later when the author can't sell them.
The system should be some number of years from the first contract involving the work, with an upper limit from creation - effectively, the law will give you a window from when a work is first recognized as valuable to profit, and then it goes into the public domain.
What imbecile, moron or mental defective wrote that headline? What RNC operative approved it? What oxygen deprived dodo ran with it in the New York Times? Failure like this is a team effort.
No there's no name attached. It's Pravdaganda again.
One of they key changes from the modern, where the new technologies were so overwhelmingly necessary that they could force changes on previously existing social orders, is that the present is dominated by insertability as a key aspect of a medium being "live" or not. Live mediums are manipulable, linkable, and have the capacity to ratify choices. One key aspect of insertability is whether the consumer or the producer controls the timing and terms of consumption. The battle over copyright is really the battle of "dead" media attempting to keep what they do fragmented, postmodern and uninsertable.
Seeds of Construction: The roots of the grass are astroturf
by Stirling Newberry
One of the uses of internet politics is to find out where the bleeding edge is: consider Paul Krugman's op-ed piece in today's New York Times, entitled little black lies, it attacks the new Republican talking point that Social Security is a bad deal for blacks.
My idea is to set up a wiki page, and add changes, along with time stamps and edit summaries and a real talk page, that will step through the group drafting of the American Declaration of Independence. The idea is to take a famous example of group editing, and show how the wiki process is an analog to it. What follows below is somewhat of an in joke among wiki people, but the project is serious, and perhaps part of Ian's New American Republic.
Get me 2 cc's of Voltaire stat! We have another outbreak of panglossian sophistry. Between The Tipping Point, Blink, The Wisdom of Crowds and Dow 36,000 - there is a cornicopia of the latest version of it.
There is currently an argument in the US over Social Security, and in Europe and China, problems with previous pension systems are part of the political landscape. But arguments such as these are aspects of the two major waves of demographics - the baby boom wave, which remember happened in Europe as well as the US - and the wave of globalization. The political landscape in the US - come boom or bust - and in Europe as well, will hinge on these two waves - one trailing off, the other still cresting.
You see, the first means that the West will increasingly be old - while the second means that the new economies of China and India, and other nations entering, will be young.
One of my favorite commercials featured David Robinson a noted basketball player. It was called "Mr. Robinson's neighborhood", and it began with "Garbage, that's what people who use drugs are. If you use drugs, don't come around Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, he doesn't like Garbage in his neighborhood." He then dribbles a basketball a few times and says. "If you use drugs, don't buy Mr. Robinson's sneakers, he doesn't like Garbage in his sneakers."
Well, that is what the ID front men like Behe are, garbage.
US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said Vincent was one of Saddam's "accomplices" in an effort by Iraq to turn the oil-for-food program into a vehicle for Baghdad to sell influence and make money.
"We know that from the moment the oil-for-food program was introduced, Saddam Hussein and his agents attempted to subvert it, working the system so profits were diverted to fund a brutal regime rather than to feed the people of Iraq," Mr Ashcroft said.
And while he may have disclosed—in 2003—that he wouldn't disclose them, that's not good enough. DailyKos raised money for a dozen congressional candidates this past election. Which, if any, of them paid Moulitsas for the honor of directing his grassroots minions to part with their wallets? If you gave one of Moulitsas' preferred candidates money, wouldn't you like to know if Moulitsas' endorsement was purchased?
But didn't bother to investigate. He also straight up lies:
Until names are named, we can assume every Daily Kos candidate this past election wrote him a check for his consulting work.
But Kos did name names, as did the people who wrote on Kos who worked for campaigns. There was no covert quid pro quo, and getting from "Dean wanted a relationship because Kos was a blogger", to "Kos took money under the table" is both perverse and inaccurate, I know because I was involved in some of the conversations over why Kos was endorsing and why he was doing it - and there were no payments made for that endorsement.
Sullentrop is a classic case of someone in a glass house using a submachine gun - Microsoft created Slate to test its own strategies. And the standard he sets - "don't take money that comes attached to wanting good will" - were set, Slate, and indeed every mainstream media outlet in the country - would fail that test. Advertisers throw millions at media outlets not just for nominal air time, but to get good will from those who they advertise through.
Since Sullentrop didn't do his research before spamming slurs, I know, because any research of his accusations would have had to include him calling people I know, for a fact, that he didn't call - it behooves everyone to ask the question - what's his conflict of interest.
And, of course, everyone knows what that conflict is: as a top down media pundit, it is in his interest to cut off the revenue sources for his competition. If GM published a hit piece about Ford, would you take it at face value? That is precisely the case here, Sullentrop is smearing his competition. Competition that does what he does not do: turn a profit. Slate has been a giant hole in the web that MS has poured time and money into - where as the DailyKos, to my knowledge is at least a break even proposition for Markos.
That's what this is really about, money, and Sullentrop is clasping greedy fingers around what is his naked self interest to trash competitors. How do we know this.
Because a journalist trying to do a story would have picked up the phone and interviewed someone other than himself.
Pervasive incompetence is the name of the governing philosophy in Iraq, particularly in the creation of a sectarian divide in Iraq, and the failure to get basic infrastructure back on line.
I am a big fan of wikipedia. However, its very success has become a challenge. As it becomes a more important information source with "link equity", it becomes a more and more tempting target for being capsized - that is altered by organized groups intent on forcing fraud into the public discourse. And in an evolving system energy which is not protected is pillaged mercilessly. Predation is the rule of any competitive system, and Wikipedia is becoming fat and ripe.
Democracy is a conversation, one where decisions punctuate its sentences, where space breaks up its stanzas. It is a conversation because it is both adversarial: for each point, there must be a converse, and it is spiritual, because a conversation must rest on the possibility of conversion. Without the possibility of a change of heart, a conversation is without a center.
One of the problems within the Democratic Party is that the fundamental conversation of the left is broken: intellectuals do not listen to activists, political elites do not connect with those who produce art, all around, in each enclave of the party, there is a separation, even a suspicion, of the others. Without this conversation there is no party, merely an unarmed mob of interest groups.
In the race for DNC chair, look at how each candidate's supporters behave, because that is the kind of conversation that the candidate - whittingly or not - will bring with him.
A picture worth a trillion dollars: the CBO's own projections show that "plan B" is "borrow money now and cut benefits, and hope it all works out later."
Consider the following individual, located at point "1" who measures decisions on a two dimensional grid, and then compares to possibilities by looking from where he stands in the middle, towards the mid-point of the line that connects them, and chooses the right most option.
He's a rational lunatic - because he will prefer B to A, C to B - and A to C! Around in a circle he will go. Never deciding which he wants most.
Decision making is a key part of the economic research of the last 50 years: it has come to be understood that the study of how and why decisions are made is crucial to behavior, and some of the conclusions challenge the basis of efficient market theories, or at least those that assert that such markets exist in the wild. One decision making market is studied, and the results of its long tail distribution reveal interesting facts about the information that can be transmitted through making decisions.
This paper examines the pattern of decision making in a "live" media site: http://en.wikipedia.org.
Spouting Thomas again manages to snatch stupidity from the jaws of enlightenment. He understands that there is a civil war in Iraq, and then procedes to misunderstand the entire situation from there on in. Most importantly he has accepted the Republispin that the insurgents are trying to "stop the elections" - a bromide heralded from a dozen different news services.
They aren't trying to stop the elections, they are trying to prevent Sunni participation in the elections - a very different thing.
There he stands, watching you flamenco,
with the stomps making punctuation
in the grammar of his desire's race.
It is only in the imagination he can know,
the lines of concentration on your face.
The beats
of the music
come and hold,
bearing the feral wisdom from ages old,
poured into the vessel of your hips,
made into memory by your name on his lips.
And filled to the brim with that heady elixir
that is the dawning dream of pleasure.
Oh if he could reach out through these bars of distance
that jail his reach with unbending persistance,
and make each day a year without measure.
Against which he struggles, though caught by their fixture.
But it is only to look as your tassles twirl,
With your hear done close, while your glances whirl.
To see the passion learned from when you were a girl.
But lo, it is to be trapped in realities demenses,
making him Monte Cristo in the prison of the senses.
It seems the New York Times once again finds room in its pages for racism.
Has the New York Times no shame? They clearly have forgotten that metropolises require that bigotry and bigots be shunned. Why does the New York Times hate America?
The conclusion is that the Coalition is able to contain, but not sustainably, the rebellion, and that the Iraqi government security forces are neither able, nor on the road to being able, to take over military functions. The Mosul attack was a confirmation of these conclusions.
According to them only fatalities, rather than casualties, matter, so the US could win the war with an army of parapalegics, the rebels need PhDs and teleport in from out of country for their attacks. There's just no way to take that sort of thing seriously.
Sen's Arrow: Goedel writes a constitution with Cantor's help, or the limits of rationality
by Stirling Newberry
Amartya Sen is not the sort of person who makes many mistakes. This is why he is referred to, by almost anyone familiar with his work as "one of the great minds of the age." Thus, when one is reading a paper by Sen, and one notices a mistake - or more correctly, agreeing with someone else's mistake - it hits like a shot. I hope in passing that somehow these words will get to Micheal J. Sandel, because it has to with Rawls, and indeed his own work on Rawls. But to get to Sen's mistake requires a detour through Kenneth Arrow's General Possibility Theorem.
The Tuesday Morning Quarterback wisdom is now shouting for going for it more on fourth and short, particularly fourth and one, in the NFL. There’s been a great deal of bad thinking about this of late, and it’s time to sort things out. The reason this is of interest is that it is, in many cases, political writers and economists that are trying to push the TMQ wisdom of going for it being better. This is a subject of objective inquiry.
What is being proposed right now is being labelled "reform" or "overhaul", those two favorite words for "make wholesale changes". But this is not the content of the actual bill before Congress. While the media is content to make this a fight between whether we should be far right wing or extreme right wing. The reality is more complex. Social Security is, in fact, quite solvent, but is being pushed towards insolvency by poor economic choices made in the rest of the budget. The reductions in productivity, growth and immigration that are the results of the current "borrow and squander binge"
Cassini's map of Titan, gradually filling in with radar the more detailed terrain.
Full disclosure: I do not have a fiduciary relationship with any of the companies involved in the projects I am about to mention, but that could change at anytime.
In the last week the nation has turned the corner on impeaching George W Bush. It has gone from a cry of protest and anger, to being the subtext of what is said and done at the highest levels of government. The tumblers are whirring, and one by one falling into place. The force of gravity is now on the side of it occurring, rather than it not occurring. Impeachment is a 
AT 7 PM CDT...0000Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE RITA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 28.6 NORTH...LONGITUDE 92.9 WEST...OR ABOUT 95 MILES SOUTHEAST OF SABINE PASS ALONG THE COAST AT THE BORDER BETWEEN TEXAS AND LOUISIANA.
This trio is inspired by a series of early 20th century prints then on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The other movements are "MEZ", "Nachtsgestalten" and "Vienna".
From the website: 
From JPL
This is the human face of war, a war being fought by not being fought. Since the policy in Iraq grows more unpopular, the US is having to increasingly rely on punitive air strikes and helicopters to spray fire into areas that are not under Coalition control.
The Democrats must have a vision to win, and while laying out policy type language is not the only part of laying out a vision, moving legislation is crucial to establishing an opposition party as being credible. "Towards a Bright Horizon" lays out a sample agenda, including outlines of legislation, that creates an interlocking program to deal with the deficit cycle that plagues America. 
We believe in an Open America, one that is open for business and the free movement of goods and people. To remain open, this must be a sustainable America - with sustainable energy and agriculture.
Consider the following individual, located at point "1" who measures decisions on a two dimensional grid, and then compares to possibilities by looking from where he stands in the middle, towards the mid-point of the line that connects them, and chooses the right most option. 
