OK Go Away Now
I am.
It’s The Internets Fault
Whatever it is, that’s it.
Serious Criticism Of The Media
I tend to tease and tease and then say something really snotty about the media, but this post is really serious and looks into a systemic failure of the media for decades.
The media is an excellent example of this. In the 1990s, the media led the charge to depose Bill Clinton. As Gene Lyons meticulously documented in Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, the New York Times and Washington Post persistently, repeatedly, and egregiously misreported virtually every major aspect of the so-called “Whitewater scandal.” When that failed, and the Monica Lewinsky scandal emerged in its place, dozens of leading newspapers editorialized that Clinton should resign. Sixty percent of the American people disagreed, but they couldn’t get a word in edgewise-which is where, when and how MoveOn.org was founded.
In contrast, George W. Bush has not merely subverted the most central aspects of our constitutional order with his dictatorial theories of unchecked executive power, he has shredded the Magna Charta as well as the Constitution, and yet the media persists in lying that only the “loonie left” thinks that there’s anything amiss.
I think the savings and loan scandals had such an impact on Americans that the news had to be covered, but after doing research I was surprised out how much information failed to penetrate into the public conscience.
I can’t even get into too much detail in this post without bring up the Keating Five, two of whom have run for President. You can’t mention Iran Contra without mentioning Ghorbanifar, who is now involved with passing Iranian disinformation to the current Bush administration previous to the war in Iraq.
You can’t dig into BCCI without winding up in the nine eleven commission report.
None of this stuff should have been the sole domain of books. Hegemony appears to be the correct term to use, but it carries a neutral connotation and when we look at the corruption being reported today we have to wonder how much is not being reported on, and why not. How is the dying of the older media not a good thing?
We Are Special
via Oliver
Update: Of course with the primary over …
I can see why none of this clip makes it onto the air. If I were Obama or McCain I would know all about the underground city of Washington DC. I would even make a game out of sneaking up behind them.
Awesome!
That is one helluva woman.
Update: I was somewhat amazed I had nothing to say about Bobby yesterday. Now I know why.
Electric Prunes
I deleted “I had to much to dream last night” for all sorts of puns and reasons. This is a serious policy blog.
Meanwhile At Stately Clinton Manor
Batman ponders the motorcycle parked in the driveway.
Chris Wallace May Be Wrong
But he thinks Hillary will concede today.
Know Thyself, Is Difficult At Best
How many years did it take for you to start thinking in tandem with your spouse?
Hillary Clinton: An Appreciation
I mean, how the hell would they really know? I don’t think I’ll be revealing anything new by pointing out that most of the time, people’s public images are bullshit. Fergawdsakes, we’ve just about endured eight years of a president whose public image was sold to us as a regular guy who was like regular people, and he was anything but — more like a rich frat kid on steroids.
Baby You Can Park That Car
So consensus from the assignment desk thread is that you all want to know what’s up with oil, and in particular, the $11 jump in prices today. Honest answer? No idea, and I don’t think anyone else really knows either. But if you’re interested in picking through some theories, you could do worse than checking out The Oil Drum.
Mexicans, Like Iraqis, Want To Be Like Us
Somewhere in the American psyche is a little voice that tells us other people in other nations want to be just like us. Mexico accuses U.S. of meddling in drug war
MEXICO CITY: Few slights irk Mexican politicians so much as when Washington treats Mexico like a backward country in need of outside guidance, and that anger raged full throttle in the past week as top Mexican officials threatened to walk away from a major U.S. aid package to help defeat drug traffickers.
The reason: Democrats in the U.S. Congress have tied the aid to guarantees that the police and military will not violate human rights. Officials from President Felipe Calderón on down have assailed the idea that the United States would withhold a quarter of the aid for Mexico if it did not meet human rights standards, calling it an attack on their sovereignty.
Of course everybody wants to drink liquor like you do too. Ask Al Capone.
Living In A Black Hole
Hints of ‘time before Big Bang’
The CMB is relic radiation that fills the entire Universe and is regarded as the most conclusive evidence for the Big Bang.
Although this microwave background is mostly smooth, the Cobe satellite in 1992 discovered small fluctuations that were believed to be the seeds from which the galaxy clusters we see in today’s Universe grew.
Dr Adrienne Erickcek, and colleagues from the California Institute for Technology (Caltech), now believes these fluctuations contain hints that our Universe “bubbled off” from a previous one.
Maybe dark matter is the stuff outside the bubble.
They Aim For Me, I Go Bang
For a long time MSNBC was catering towards moderate Republicans, as CNN was “left,” Fox was “right,” and the sweet spot was center right. In reality they were catering to the biases of their very Washington-centric world, where center right convential wisdom prevails. In other words, they were catering to themselves.
Wonder where the market share went. Bong Along Beck!
Oil: Supply Versus Speculation
There is quite a bit of pushback on this from the CNBC crew. YMMV
Hedge funds and big Wall Street banks are taking advantage of loopholes in federal trading limits to buy massive amounts of oil contracts, according to a growing number of lawmakers and prominent investors, who blame the practice for helping to push oil prices to record highs.
The federal agency that oversees oil trading, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has exempted these firms from rules that limit speculative buying, a prerogative traditionally reserved for airlines and trucking companies that need to lock in future fuel costs.
The CFTC has also waived regulations over the past decade on U.S. investors who trade commodities on some overseas markets, freeing those investors to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges.
It is an unfortunate situation, but supply and demand doesn’t do what just happened.
Update: Of course I could be wrong, as this Economist article points out.
Back to basics
Mr Harris of the CFTC, for one, believes that the oil price is still a function of supply and demand. For the past few years, the world’s production capacity has grown only sluggishly. Meanwhile, demand, especially from the developing world, has been growing faster. So there is hardly any slack in the system. Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are thought to be able to increase their output from today’s levels, and even then, there are doubts, since Saudi Arabia, in particular, is secretive about the state of its oil industry.
That leaves the oil market at the mercy of even small disruptions to supply. Prices tend to jump each time militants sabotage an oil pipeline in Nigeria, bad weather threatens production in the Gulf of Mexico, or political clouds gather over the Persian Gulf.
The problem is exacerbated by a growing mismatch between the type of oil being produced and the refineries that must process it. The most common benchmark prices, including the one used in this article, refer to “light” crude, the least viscous sort, which produces the most petrol and diesel when refined. “Heavy” oil, by contrast, yields more fuel oil, which is used mainly for heating.
At the moment, diesel is in short supply and there is a glut of fuel oil. That makes processing heavy oil unprofitable for some refineries, since the gains from diesel are outweighed by losses on fuel oil. As refineries turn instead to lighter grades, it pushes their prices yet higher. The discount on heavier crudes has risen to record levels. But even then, points out Ed Morse, of Lehman Brothers, another investment bank, Iran is having trouble selling the stuff. It is storing huge quantities of unsold oil on tankers moored off its coast.
I read over thirty articles, but this is the best I think at explaining what is going on. That too, is my opinion, but most of what I read in fits and starts is all in this one.
I’m going with the CNBC guys for the time being.
Hillary and NOW
Why is Hillary Crashing? by Sara
Again, in a sense, this is a book review, the book in question being one I gave to five friends for Xmas this year. “She’s No Lady: Politics, Family and International Feminism” by Arvonne Fraser, Nodin Press, 2007. There is a part of it I believe may help us understand how and why the plus 100 million Hillary Clinton Campaign is on the verge of Crash and Burn. Garrison Keillor wrote the introduction, and has done a couple of hour long interviews with Arvonne on Public Radio as part of the “virtual book tour.”
So who is the Author of this political biography? Garrison calls her “Saint Arvonne of the Church of Perpetual Responsibility” and it is a pretty good characterization. Post College, she went to work as the Office Manager for Hubert Humphrey’s Senate Campaign in 1948, from there to Office Manager of the DFL, and then she married one of HHH’s staffers, Don Fraser, and quickly had six children. Between taking care of kids, sewing all her own clothes and those of her kids, (no, she hates to cook), she mastered the art of campaign management, eventually getting Freeman elected Governor, helped elect Gene McCarthy, Organized JFK’s 1960 Campaign, and got her Husband elected first to the State Senate, and in 1962, to the House of Rep. Moved to DC, she took over managing the office on the Hill, but quickly got interested in the emerging Feminist Movement, and after organizing Hill Staffers, she moved on to help birth NOW, the National and Minnesota Womens’ Political Caucus, the Women’s Equity Action League, and many other key feminist groups. In 1977, Carter appointed her Assistant Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs. In between she wrote the language for Title IX, and got it through Congress. When Reagan eliminated the position in State in 1981, she brought many of the programs back to Minnesota, put them into the Humphrey Institute where she was appointed, raised the money to run them over the next 12 years.
*In 1993, after Clinton’s election, considerable lobbying went into getting the new administration to appoint her as the US Delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women — and she was appointed. But after about three years, Hillary had Arvonne fired just before the Beijing UN Conference. According to Arvonne, Hillary did not want to bother with all the linked up Feminist Organizations that had carried this effort over the bad years of Reagan and Bush I, and thus decided Arvonne had to leave. She did. Arvonne did not exactly appreciate the fact that Hillary had one of Arvonne’s best friends do the honors, and in addition have other Clinton people in State see too it that the US lost its seat on the UN Commission by not attending the meeting where nominations were done.
Hillary mentioned a couple of years ago that her biggest problems would come from the left, but I don’t think many younger people understand what she meant.
A lot of the top tier bloggers came of age during the Clinton’s years, and although quite able to distinquish the policy positions of the DLC they may not really have had a clue about this aspect of the Clinton machine.
Maybe Big Tent Democrat will consider this as well.
*I went and picked this up for clarity.
Update: Note the date of Sara’s post, and then ask why I never linked it before.
More Your George At Work
Medvedev warns against Nato entry
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned Georgia and Ukraine of serious consequences if they press ahead with plans to join Nato.
Mr Medvedev and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Georgia’s president that joining the alliance would lead to a “spiral of confrontation”.
Mr Medvedev said Ukraine would be in breach of a friendship treaty if it joined Nato, Mr Lavrov said.
Besides the English speaking nations, is there anyone Bush hasn’t pissed off?
A Rabbi, an Imam and a Priest Write a Book
A rabbi, an imam and a priest discuss their ‘painful verses’
A rabbi, an imam and a priest on Thursday sat down to discuss the most sensitive parts of their sacred scriptures, the verses that offend or anger other faiths.
But instead of the Catholic criticizing Koran quotes or the Jew complaining about a Gospel, each took objectionable passages from his own holy book and tried to explain them to the others.
Unfortunately,
“For a real dialogue, we have to have the courage to confront difficult things,” the rabbi of the International Jewish Center in Brussels said at a presentation of the French-language book in Paris on Thursday.
Most of us will have to wait on the translation.
On Being A Man
For the first, I tell them to imagine themselves as parents whose 12-year-old son asks, “Mommy/daddy, what does is mean to be a man?” The list I write on the board as they respond is not hard to predict: To be a man is to be strong, responsible, loving. Men provide for those around them and care for others. A man weathers tough times and doesn’t give up.
When that list is complete, I ask the women to observe while the men answer a second question: When you are in all-male spaces, such as the locker room or a night out with the guys, what do you say to each other about what it means to be a man? How do you define masculinity when there are no women present?
The students, both men and women, laugh nervously, knowing the second list will be different from the first. The men fumble a bit at first, as it becomes clear that one common way men define masculinity in practice is not through affirmative statements but negative ones — it’s about what a man isn’t, and what a real man isn’t is a woman or gay. In the vernacular: Don’t be a girl, a sissy, a fag. To be a man is to not be too much like a woman or to be gay, which is in large part about being too much like a woman.
Don’t you just hate it when people make you think?
Walk It Back Gentlemen
Updated: McCain says,
“Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war,”
Rumors of War: Is Bush Gearing Up to Attack Iran?
The May 8 letter from U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., chair of the House Judiciary Committee, to George W. Bush received virtually no media coverage, in spite of the fact that it warned the president that an attack on Iran without Congressional approval would be grounds for impeachment. Rumor has it several senators have been briefed about the possibility of war with Iran.Something is afoot.
I’m still waiting on that Jewish genius thing to show up. Now would be a good time.
NIE Sausage Making Exposed!
Thomas Fingar on National Intelligence Estimate Process
This is really worth watching — not only to learn about the framework, process, and analytic standards of NIE production but to learn about his views about the flawed Iraq WMD NIE and the 2007 Iran NIE of which he was lead author.
interesting to learn were the existence of a classified intelligence version of wikipedia called “Intellipedia” and that the Iran NIE report was more than 1500 pages in classified form — and distilled down to three and a half pages for the public release.
Israel to attack Iran unless enrichment stops
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.
Update: Don’t like the UN, huh?
Come, let us eat our cake and have it too, together.
The Heretics of the Enlightenment
Having seen how following Bush’s gut has worked out, I would hope the Israelis would understand why some of us are not too interested in following their gut feelings towards Iran.
Just Out at the Forward: “The Operator: The Double Life of a Military Strategist.” A propos of the Senate Intelligence committee’s Phase II report release today, a profile of a Washington military strategist with a double life. The Niger forgeries? Italian intelligence showed them to him before Dick Cheney heard about Iraq and yellowcake. (He refused to back channel them). Abu Omar rendition? He knew about it as it was going down in Italy. Back when he was House Intelligence committee minority leader, Cheney even told him what Iran Contra operation wasn’t authorized and notified to Congress. And recently, the consulting services of the author of “coup d’etat: a practical handbook” have been in demand from groups seeking to overturn the Iran regime.
The Real McBush
How John McCain courts the base. This is pretty much in line with what I was discussing about objectification.
Must be nice to be served by a moron pretending to be a piece of meat. On the other hand, how many women would volunteer to be that piece of meat?
via Taylor Marsh
McCain: Wrong Twice In One Article
II suppose this is experience at work,
McCain, who was with Bush on Monday and yesterday for a swing through New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, pointedly addressed AARP, the 35 million-member group for people 50 and older that has galvanized opposition to Bush’s plan among senior citizens. Choosing his words carefully, McCain accused opponents of wanting to wait to make a change until 2042, the year its reserve funds are projected to be depleted, leaving it with more financial obligations than money.
“I want to say to our friends in the AARP, and they are my friends, come to the table with us,” McCain said. “We not only have an obligation to seniors, but we have an obligation to future generations.”
Also yesterday, McCain said the conclusions of a commission investigating intelligence failures on weapons of mass destruction should not lead to new questions about whether the Iraq war was justified.
“America, the world and Iraq is better off for what we did in bringing democracy,” McCain said.
The dude just says whatever he thinks the audience wants to hear.
Iran Won The Iraq War
We just fought it.
It doesn’t matter if we never leave ala McCain, or pull out tomorrow.
None of this matters either.
What A Sexy Looking, Anti-Misogynistic Bitch
Catchy titles I am told. The buzz thing, we’re looking for a new fad dad.
One of the problems that many males may have, I know I do, is where in the hell to draw the line when it comes to women and women’s issues. In presenting themselves to the world, women and men all dress and groom for success, but with women I have a hard time discerning where dressing to be sexually appealing separates itself from dressing to be a sexual object.
I have the benefit of being a WASP male, so in many respects the fundamentals are the same for me across a wide range of the positions, in dealing with all of the subsets of the human family, not Wasp’s. I can empathize with, but not participate in being a non WASP, or female.
Just as is the case with an individual relationship, I cannot predefined the parameters of proper conversation or activity towards any subset or group either. As we are over informed, no subset is monolithic, and the individuals within a group may change their opinion as to what is proper depending on if a thing is said on this blog, or at Christmas party after everyone has a buzz. Context is important.
Update: More on the issue here, here, and here of course.
Progressives need to wake up and realize they’re being played and refuse to buy into toxic crap that they should not, must not, be about. At some point we need to stand back and take stock and realize that damage has been done and it needs repairing, both for the short and the long term.
Jack Turner the other day had a terrific, must-read post reflecting on this:
Last week, after talking with several Hillary Clinton supporters, I had an epiphany: that which I most dislike about the darker sides of her and her campaign is just what some people see in me. It’s the worst feeling, to end up displaying traits you deplore, and I’d like to explore it a bit as we move to the general election.
Conservatives Endless Loop
McCain was followed by a panel discussion which included vice-presidential daughter and former State Department official Liz Cheney, who asserted that “the time for diplomacy with Iran is rapidly coming to an end,” suggested that the presidential candidates “should take lessons from this administration,” and extolled how the Bush Administration “has gotten it right” and has “been less successful when less bold.”
I thought we didn’t talk to the Iranians, since that would be appeasement.
So how has the time for diplomacy come to an end? I mean short of calling her a complete moron for asserting that threats of war carried in newspapers is diplomacy?
Well At Least He Didn’t Bring Hagee Along
The nice thing about the speeches at AIPAC is that we know our dear leader, whomever that may be, will avoid entangling foriegn alliances that lead us into fighting other peoples wars. That would be bad.
Convergences
Just think, today may be the first day in history when the blogosphere was as dull as the M$M.
Nobody Cares What Robert Johnson Thinks
Just saying
Most Excellent
“Oh, Go with the Green Background”
“It’ll make you look like the cottage cheese in a lime jello salad” Always a good look for an older gentlemen.
More:
Late Update: Here’s how bad it is. All the Fox commentators are giving competing explanation for why McCain’s speech sucked.
More, more: Media reviews: “Put McCain’s speech against Obama’s – and this was a wipe-out.”
McCain’s speech was slammed Left and Right (except by Harold Ford). Obama’s was given his due, even by those who don’t like him.
Well, on second thought then, more like it John!
So Is There Any News This AM?
Just wondering.
The Way I See It
Whose on stage last?
Oh, Well, That’ll Save The Polar Ice Caps
Army: Sun, not Man, is Causing Climate Change
In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West, the chief scientist of the Army Research Office’s mathematical and information science directorate, wrote that “the Sun’s turbulent dynamics” are linked with the Earth’s complex ecosystem, and that these connections are what is heating up the planet. “The Sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth’s average temperature,” West noted.
So instead of counter acting the sun’s effects, we should argue over whether it is bovine flatulence or coal fired electric plants.
I’ve changed my will and will be leaving the canoe to the grandkid so he can use it on the beach near the land we just bought in Colorado.
Knock Off The BS
The Obamabots who continue to send me vile, profane, but also threatening emails. So you’re all on notice. Personal threats will be turned over to the police, and since we have your IP and other information it won’t be hard to do.
Good lord, get a friggin blog.
Do Chickens Have Lips?
Yes.
On the other end of the bird.
Dead Conservatism Makes Dead Republics
Usually, the last thing I expect when I read a gun magazine is a lesson in how screwed the GOP is. But the June issue of S.W.A.T. has quite the instructional demonstration.
As I will further show in coming columns, the infrastructure of our Constitutional Republic is being torn down and replaced with something else — and that something is fundamentally unsuited to a free people and incompatible with liberty. We are seeing a constitutional republic in its final death throes, being killed by a thousand treacherous cuts, with the final slashes being inflicted by cold reptilian lawyers who fancy themselves “conservatives.”
You know there are a lot of stupid fuckers who think the left doesn’t need guns, in nearly the same number who think we don’t have them, I suppose.
As I’ve said before, I can understand how different locations may have different needs in regulating firearms since stupid seems to come in many forms. In many ways I think the lack of a war on our own soil has made us a little soft in the asses when it comes to firearms, and the various social ills have made some of us take life too lightly, especially other peoples.
American Leaders Are Mad, As In Insane
Can’t Be Bothered With Accuracy
Indeed. The IAEA has various complaints about Iranian nuclear activities, and it makes sense for the United States to vigorously pursue those complaints. It’s also true that given Iranian history on this issue and the nature of the Iranian regime, it’s smart strategy for the United States to seek nuclear concessions from Iran that go beyond what’s strictly required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But the Intelligence Community has assessed that current levels of scrutiny and pressure caused the Iranians to cease their weapons program back in 2003.
It’s worth considering how the refusal of American politicians to acknowledge this must look in Teheran….
We Americans are fortunate to understand that they are crazy, a distinction without difference to Iranians I would imagine.
Oh, Do Let Us Begin The Post Mortem
You won’t have to read very far to know why this is linked from Diablo Orante’s place, but then you will understand why I still think Wolcott, along with BillMon, could write about arranging their shoes in the closet and still keep my attention.
I am of course one of those namby pamby bloggers who failed to leap into the breach, debating within the confines of my own little pea brain whether I was getting too big for the liberal blogospheres breaches, or had just obtained to my own peak of blogosophy, which allowed me to cope with my annual spring funk. Fortunately my grammer and spelling did not improve.
A Campaign to Hate?
Most of you will have a hard time getting past the false elitism of the opening graph, but this is an election year and everyone is a comedian. Fortunately Mr. Cohen is used to the Flip-flop express and leaves McCainus out of his dirge.
Personally I’m glad the depths of racism and misogyny in America was exposed. I thought that we were further along too.
But I’m glad the process lasted as long as it did, and given the coverage of it, the American people are a lot more aware of how the sausage is made in American politics, which will be helpful in addressing the issues.
Beyond the myth of a liberal media being exposed, the MSM did ratchet it up a notch from previous campaigns and I think some of Cohen’s frustration is warranted in the face of the increasing pressure of competition from citizen journalists and pundits. ( I saw some of the Today show on CNN half an hour earlier in the central time zone because of “breaking news.”)
I have to admit that the primaries were more interesting before Texas had theirs, and after that it began to wear, so it may have been benficial to have been in the latter states.
In the end I would give the coverage of the campaigns mostly Bs, although CNN did an outstanding job covering the different candidates and their events, even as I disagree with the interpretations of some of those events.
Hell of a show.
Socialist Repay JUCOs
Student Loans Start to Bypass 2-Year Colleges
Some of the nation’s biggest banks have closed their doors to students at community colleges, for-profit universities and other less competitive institutions, even as they continue to extend federally backed loans to students at the nation’s top universities.
Assholes.
Back In The US, Back In The US
Back In The USSR, It Isn’t Magic: Putin Opponents Are Made to Vanish From TV
Senior government officials deny the existence of a stop list, saying that people hostile to the Kremlin do not appear on TV simply because their views are not newsworthy.
In interviews, journalists said that they did not believe the Kremlin kept an official master stop list, but that the networks kept their own, and that they all operated under an informal stop list — an understanding of the Kremlin’s likes and dislikes.
A distinction without difference to what the capitalist are doing in America.
Perspectives On The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee
The “Protesters” at Saturday’s Rules and Bylaw Committee Meeting
Toward the end, when Clinton supporter and committee member Alice Huffman was booed for supporting the Florida compromise, she admonished the Clinton supporters by telling them their conduct wasn’t helping their candidate. Most of the Clinton people seemed to recognize that Huffman was correct. In the end, the disturbances came mostly from a couple guys heckling from the audience, and maybe a dozen or so women in the back of the room making a bunch of noise and chanting about taking the fight all the way to Denver.
For much of the media, what happens with a couple dozen rabid partisans points to huge conflicts within the Democratic party. How they extrapolate from those couple dozen to the entire Democratic coalition, who knows.
It works.
I think most of us understand that protesters are the only aspect of the meeting that provided what could be described as good television and radio material, and that’s what most people are going to see and hear unless the two formats have reporters that actually explain to their audience who and what they are watching. Otherwise it conveys a false impression of what is actually happening.
It is sort of like being swept up in the ubiquitous M$M.
Note To John McCain: This Guy Is In Charge of Iran
Iran ‘not seeking’ nuclear arms
Iran’s supreme leader has insisted it will continue its nuclear activities for civilian purposes only and will not manufacture nuclear weapons.“No wise nation would be interested in making a nuclear weapon today. They are against rational thought,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech.
Oil Slickers May Cause Crash
Oil prices: George Soros warns that speculators could trigger stock market crashAccording to the FT, Soros will warn that there could be very serious consequences for global stock markets if the institutions suddenly began betting on a fall in the oil price.
He compares it with the stock market crash of 1987, which was partly caused by a sudden rush of money into portfolio insurance – which institutions used to protect themselves against a fall in share prices.
“In both cases, the institutions are piling in on one side of the market and they have sufficient weight to unbalance it. If the trend were reversed and the institutions as a group headed for the exit as they did in 1987 there would be a crash,” said Soros, in remarks prepared for a committee hearing later today.
How come no one ever questions the patriotism of capitalists?
It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over
As an Obama supporter, I think people ought to have high hopes and low expectations of Hillary withdrawing, because a lot of the evidence being presented is just the spin of what the Clinton’s are saying.
Having said that, the netroots really needs to pull their collective heads out of their asses. One M$M full of makers of Presidents is enough, and there is only so much stupid the people can be subjected to before they loose interest in the democratic process.
What? No Corks?
Why We Need National Healthcare
Talk about having your cake and eating it, too! Doctors are performing excessive and often unnecessary C-sections to avoid insurance claims, and the insurance companies are now rejecting women who’ve had C-sections. Is this a great country, or what?
And here’s the kicker: They’ll take you if you get sterilized!
Update: What she said.
Kennedy Surgery Successful
Bump and Update: Surgery a success
Good news is hard to find.
DURHAM, N.C. – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy underwent what his doctors called successful surgery Monday to treat his cancerous brain tumor, and told his wife shortly after that he felt “like a million bucks,” a family spokeswoman said.
Blame The Christians Themselves
That Hagee and/or his enablers are taken seriously in American politics these days is prime evidence that the Far Right has taken this country to a very sick, very dangerous place.
If they won’t read the Bible then they are going to be subjected to all the wallet twisting Christ mongers will throw at them.
My readers know it, I would hope, but what book in the Bible mentions the Anti-Christ? Is it an individual?
If you do not love your enemies as Christ commanded his followers to do, does that make you anti-Christ?
Hollywood For Ugly People
Why Democrats Won’t Stop the War
Media coverage is currency in the nation’s capital. There, celebrities are people like Washington Post columnist David Broder, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Time magazine’s Joe Klein — people known to almost no one in the country at large.
Within the Beltway, however, they are influential celebrities because they appear on obscure chat shows, from C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” to Fox News’ “Special Report” to MSNBC’s “Hardball.”
Our nation’s capital has become Hollywood for ugly people.
Actually there is some very interesting points being made in the article. Those of you accustomed to two sentence paragraphs may have problems with the article.
Speaking Of Charles Manson
If Vincent Bugliosi were prosecuting George W. Bush for the murder of the more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq, he would seek the death penalty.
“If I were the prosecutor, there is no question I would seek the death penalty,” Bugliosi told Corporate Crime Reporter in a wide-ranging interview.
Bugliosi is the author of the just published book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (Vanguard Press, 2008).
So I took off my hat and said imagine that, me working for you.
Between Woodstock and Bill Clinton’s Wiener
As recently as April 25, his nominal boss, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, invited the press to what was supposed to be a well-oiled show-and-tell exercise “in a couple of weeks,” to display a multitude of captured weapons from Iran.
But the show did not go on; it had to be canceled when the weapons that had been found proved not to be of Iranian origin.
For most of you young people who missed Woodstock, most of us old people did too. Hard to believe, I know. Most of us didn’t care, we were freeks not hippies. I know less about Woodstock than Bill Clinton’s big ten inch record of the band playing the sax too. I am a well informed American, my MSM tells me so. Oh Yeah, Jesus loves me too.
Meanwhile back at the BE HERE NOW, goddammit.
Foisted On Our Own Petard
They wouldn’t do that here. After all they’re Muricans. Never under estimate the ignorance of American capitalists.
Uhh
Download al Qaeda manuals from the DoJ, go to prison?
Reg readers know now that reading the wrong stuff in the UK gets you on the fast track to prison for one possession of something likely to be of use to potential terrorists. Technically, get-out-of-jail-free cards have been issued for journalists and academics, both of which have a well-defined public interest in writing about and analyzing such documents. However, under the current climate it’s inevitable that those with good reasons for possessing jihadi electronic documents will find themselves in anti-terror cross-hairs.
The paradox in this case is that the source of the so-called al Qaeda manual. According to UK reports, Sabir downloaded it from the US government.
Is this a great nation or what?
No Safari For Yous
Microsoft urges Windows users to shun ‘carpet bombing’ Safari
Microsoft’s security team is advising users to stop using Apple’s Safari browser pending investigation into a quirk that allows miscreants to litter their desktop with hundreds of executable files.
Windows users who visit a booby-trapped site with Safari could be forced to download and execute malicious files with no prompting, Microsoft says. The “blended threat” is a result of the default download location in Safari and the way the Windows desktop handles executable files.
Who Dat?
Jefferson: a lesson for Europeans
Jefferson’s response to the news of Napoleon’s seizure of power was virtually a cry of pain. The event forced him to reconsider his whole position. He wrote to Dr Bache: “You have seen the afflicting details from Paris. On what grounds the revolution has been made, we are not informed, and are still more at a loss to divine what will be its issue; whether we are to have over again the history of Robespierre, of Caesar, or of the new phenomenon of an usurpation of the government for the purpose of making it free.
“Our citizens, however, should derive from this some useful lessons. They should see the necessity to rally firmly and in close bands round their Constitution; never to suffer an iota of it to be infringed; to incubate on minorities the duties of acquiescence in the will of the majority, and in the majority a respect to the will of the minority; to beware of a military force even of citizens; and to be wary of too much confidence in any man.
Should I say it? What more questions?
Aussie’s Depart Iraq
US Iraq deaths ‘at four-year low’
US military deaths in Iraq are said to have fallen to their lowest monthly level for four years, after about 20 soldiers were reported killed in May.
leads into,
Meanwhile, Australia has begun withdrawing its contingent of about 500 combat troops from Iraq.
The pullout honours a pledge made by the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, when he was elected last November.
The Australian troops had been mainly playing what they call an “overwatch” role, assisting Iraqi forces.
All my rowdy friends have settled down.
A Study For Noun Substitution
Entitled to Their Opinions, Yes. But Their Facts?
Luttwak said the scholars with whom I spoke were guilty of “gross misrepresentation” of Islam, which he said they portrayed as “a tolerant religion of peace;” he called it “intolerant.” He said he was not out to attack Obama and regretted that, in the editing, a paragraph saying that an Obama presidency could be “beneficial” was cut for space.
Imagine that.
Comments Closed: FOOD Fight!!!!!!!!!!
Unity In the spirit of the times, I’ll agree that Big Tent Democrat is half right. If both are qualified to be leaders then one would expect them do so.
The Last Months Will Be Grating
During a recent interview with the Washington Post, CIA Director Michael Hayden said that al Qaeda is “essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world” including the areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “On balance, we’re doing pretty well,” Hayden said. The Post even described Hayden’s view as a “strikingly upbeat assessment.”
But Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a letter to Hayden that he is “surprised and troubled” by his comments to the Post, adding that his assessment of al Qaeda’s worldwide strength is at odds with intelligence briefings to Captiol Hill:
I live in a country where the next government next year is far more important to watch than the current one.
What’s A Middle Aged White Goy Supposed To Do?
I am of course all those things that everyone hates because I hold anti-________(fill in the blank) views that somehow mean I am acting on my prejudices, which are detrimental to your favorite_______ .
Being older and wiser than most, I must inform you that I planned it to work like this so that you might re-examine your assertions about my anti_________ .
I have had to constrain myself for your benefit, because as we all well know you cannot be pro semitic, pro feminist, pro professional opinionators in this ‘ere format, although you could be anti-blog or anti-blogger and have a blog that succinctly so states. (This is a contradiction, maybe even a contradiction of life, or with luck, a contradiction of many lives depending on religious persuasions.)
Fortunately I have got around to thinking about the right wings criticism of me and my ilk. It is all my fault so don’t blame the ilk. I will now rip an SBD and contemplate the lefts criticisms of me and my ilk, knowing that I will not come out of it smelling like a rose.
I just want you to know and understand me and my feelings here, as I do yours.
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