A butterfly rests on a flower at the Nehru Zoological Park

Spotted this picture on Yahoo! this morning and figured it was a better way to start a three-day holiday weekend.

Three day weekends

Are Awesome!

Well, for most people... I'm cleaning, sorting, changing drapes, getting rid of boxes I have been storing in the closet since my move in APRIL! Fun, no? Ah well... it has to be done.

Came across an excellent article at Gawker.com this morning, on why 2008 is 1932 all over again. Two of the comments I really liked were:

Our eagerness for change may be the death of us, if this is 1976. Can domeocrats for once just promise to give this 2 years to stick, and stop eating each other's young?

and

This is 2008. We have C+ student whom God elected invade a sovereign country, spend all the surplus in our treasury while cutting taxes and printing more money than any other President, plus the mass extinction of the middle-class and we wonder what it is all about? This is none of the above. These 8 years will go down in history and finally end trick-le down economics. Rome invented coins and became a empire, Britain invented paper money and became an empire, America invented plastic money and became an empire. What we are seeing is an empire in retraction. Blame the internets

Looking at the insanity of global markets over the past couple of days I keep remembering FDR's first inaugural address:

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

Thanks to History Matters, where I found the speech.

Bloggers, pass on the meme. I bitch, whine and moan about the economy, GWB and the evil clown college, and have been doing so for years ~ nothing new here. And, it changes nothing. But it doesn't keep me awake nights, it doesn't interfere with my daily life. I guess I'm lucky. But people are afraid and they need to know we've been here before (and will be here again because human beings never learn from history) and survived. It was painful, unpleasant, difficult... but we survived then and we will survive again.

I just hope we learn something this time.

Remarkable

It wasn't the car wreck I was hoping for; in fact, it was quite interesting. After watching Palin for 1.5 hours I came away thinking "cheerleader" - she's an excellent cheerleader for McCain. Hopefully she'll never end up in the Oval because cheer leaders do not good leaders make. She was extremely well coached and she, for the most part, stayed dead-on script. I can't help but wonder if she's capable of thinking on her own. I'm guessing not.

I must say I was shocked by Senator Biden. Where the hell did he come from? If he had performed like that during primary season he might have made it to the convention. The Senator's performance has made me feel a tad better about the Democrats. The VEEP position, however, is pretty much an empty space. Unless something happens to the President, the VEEP is just marking time. They have no real role, no real job. So Biden's brilliant performance helps Obama but it doesn't really matter in the end.

The Chicago Tribune asks, "Who won the VP debate?" and gives a very good summation of the debate itself. I think the answer is that the Democrats won - but I don't think the Republicans lost. I think the Democrats will win the election in November. I'm hoping they'll have a plan, an idea, a clue on how to fix this country after the last eight years.

I'm not holding my breath.

VEEP Debate

I don't normally watch the VEEP debates but this debate should be, at the very least, funny.

CSI is pre-empted anyway.

Palin vs. Biden: Pitfalls galore

Between Sarah Palin, with her repeated missteps in a series of interviews with CBS anchor Katie Couric over the last week, and gaffe-prone Joe Biden, who also has made for some Maalox moments for Barack Obama’s campaign recently, the two running mates have set the stage for what may be the most anticipated vice presidential debate in history.

With all their potential for pitfalls and insta-classic moments, the pair has made the build up to the showdown, to take place here Thursday night at Washington University, feel more like a NASCAR race than a serious political forum: the audience may be tuning in as much in anticipation of cringe-inducing pile-ups as they are to watch the typical parry-and-thrust of debate.

I don't know about anyone else, but that's exactly why I'm tuning in. Goodness knows we won't learn anything. I have some lovely wine to enjoy, some knitting to do and, as the temperatures have dropped in the great North East, cats who need to snuggle up against me on the couch.

“Voters aren't tuning in for a vice presidential food fight,” said Biden spokesman David Wade. “This debate is about two very different philosophies of where to take the country.”

It's exactly what people want to see. I'm betting Caribou Barbie can whoop Biden's ass without breaking a sweat or putting a single hair out of place. I've believed for years that if presidential candidates would just do one mud wrestling match voter turn out on election day would probably hit 75%.

As difficult as it may seem given her recent public performances, aides to Biden are casting Governor Palin as a knife-fighter who shredded debate foes in Alaska.

"I think Governor Palin will do well. She's good with the proverbial knife and she can deliver a prepared one-liner and quick jab very effectively. She's a former broadcast journalist who excels on television, and she's a career politician who climbed the ladder by out-debating political legends in Alaska," said Biden spokesman David Wade.

"There's a reason they call her barracuda," added another Obama aide, taking the expectation-setting to an even higher level.

Hm. Maybe we should just go all out panem et circenses in this country, starting with this election. The jackass with the highest ratings wins.

BTW: If a monkey and Superman had a knife fight on the Moon, who would win?

Huffington Post

Rich Man's Panic

Investors should expect the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall below 10,000 points, as the current credit crisis is a repeat of the 'Rich Man's Panic' of 1907, Tom Hougaard, chief market strategist from City Index, told CNBC.

A bit of forgotten financial history:

"We've been here before … About one hundred years ago we had an identical credit crunch," Hougaard said, adding that the Dow lost nearly 50 percent in over two years due to the 1907 crisis, which indicates further downside yet to come for today's markets.

The 'Rich Man's Panic' was caused by a severe lack of liquidity as banks pulled back lending and led to numerous bank runs and eventually the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

"It's most likely to get worse before it's going to get better … I don't think we're really seeing this capitulation just yet, but we're close," Hougaard said, adding that the S&P 500 could take out the low of the 2002 bear market, which was 944.

I think this is acutally worse than the 1907 panic, even though there are more safty measure in place now than at that time. And I don't see any J.P. Morgan's looming on the horizon...

See also: 5 Lessons About What Happened To The Economy You Didn't Learn From CNBC.

This is why I miss the West Wing

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet , Maureen Dowd's Op Ed from LAST WEEK that I just found.

It just gets better and better

WaMu becomes biggest bank to fail in US history.

As the debate over a $700 billion bank bailout rages on in Washington, one of the nation's largest banks — Washington Mutual Inc. — has collapsed under the weight of its enormous bad bets on the mortgage market. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seized WaMu on Thursday, and then sold the thrift's banking assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion.

Seattle-based WaMu, which was founded in 1889, is the largest bank to fail by far in the country's history. Its $307 billion in assets eclipse the $40 billion of Continental Illinois National Bank, which failed in 1984, and the $32 billion of IndyMac, which the government seized in July.

One positive is that the sale of WaMu's assets to JPMorgan Chase prevents the thrift's collapse from depleting the FDIC's insurance fund. But that detail is likely to give only marginal solace to Americans facing tighter lending and watching their stock portfolios plunge in the wake of the nation's most momentous financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Bailout Talks to Resume After Impasse:

In the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Ms. Pelosi not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.

“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”

Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”

Hm. Didn't know Pelosi was the Pope.

At the White House, Mr. Bush was holding fast to the approach that Mr. Paulson has championed.

“In case there’s any confusion,” Mr. Fratto, the deputy press secretary, wrote in an e-mail message. “The president supports the core of Secretary Paulson’s plan.”

Which doesn't fill me with the warm and fuzzies. I'm not sure this plan is anything more than a band-aide on a gaping wound. However, something must be done and fast (and a chat with Sweden couldn't hurt). WaMu managed to survive a week until buyout, but there are others out there that won't. Chase most likely can't come to the rescue of any other banks and I'm not sure any other banks can either. International intervention is desperately needed - but if I were Canada, China, Japan I'm not sure I'd be willing to risk my nation's assets in the US right now.

~ ~ ~

As if the Financial Tsunami weren't enough, New England is getting hammered with a nor'easter and probably a tropical storm. When it rains, it pours.

Inspiration

"If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down,"

Brilliant. This was at the meeting that nearly, may still, implode the bailout plan:

Democrats accused Boehner of acting on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in trying to disrupt a developing consensus. The new proposal also displeased White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who chased after Democrats leaving the meeting and -- half-jokingly -- dropped to one knee and pleaded with them not to "blow up" the $700 billion deal, according to people present at the meeting.

Before the meeting broke up, President Bush had issued a stark warning about the impact on the nation's economy if the measure did not pass. "If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down," Bush said, according to one person in the room.

Did you watch the Palin interviews? My sweet lord... Alaska voted for this woman? From the LA Times:

Her third nationally televised interview, with CBS anchor Katie Couric, found Palin rambling, marginally responsive and even more adrift than during her network debut with ABC’s Charles Gibson.

In a 40-minute session with Couric that aired Wednesday and Thursday nights, the Alaska governor defended her puzzling claim that geographic proximity makes her some sort of expert on Russia; went nearly blank when queried about McCain's achievements as a big-business regulator; agreed America "may find itself" on the road to another Great Depression; and, promoting a troop surge in Afghanistan, casually suggested that it "will lead us to victory there, as it has proven to have done in Iraq."

What the hell planet does this woman live on?

"That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in . . ." Palin began, before meandering off in fruitless pursuit of coherence.

But I'll let the governor speak for herself:

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

I bet republicans are wondering if McCain is a closet Democrat. The whole interview was hysterically funny... but not in a good way. What the hell is McCain thinking in picking this Hockey Mom? No offense to Hocky Mom's across the US, but... hello? Is there a brain there? What the hell does this woman do as Governor of Alaska?

Palin at least kept her answers shorter during a Q&A with reporters Thursday morning, her first such session since McCain unleashed her on the national scene four weeks ago.

Although she didn't really answer two of the four questions, many Americans won't hold that against her. They see someone who understands what it's like in a small town.

Common sense has its value, and commentaries like this one, suggesting Palin's shortcomings, will only confirm to her fans that she is not a pet of the media elite. But it seems only sensible to wonder whether charm and pluck will be enough the next time Putin rears his head.

Yeah... well... Small Town America ain't that stupid.

Or, are they? Hell, they voted for the Moron currently in charge.

It seems I'm back to "we're screwed" again.

How to save the US economy

Sell the Virgin Islands to Richard Branson.

Now it won't completely solve the problem, but it'll go a long way towards paying down our debt. And since he always names everything Virgin anyway... less work for him!

Maybe we should just go whole hog and have him buy the US.

Virgin America, owned by Richard Branson.

I think I'll send him an email.

Will the Japanese come to our rescue again?

Back from the dead, Tokyo banks buy into Wall Street

Once considered too naive and cautious for the high-risk, high-return world of investment banking, cash-rich Japanese firms are once again aggressively pushing abroad.

"The balance of power in the global financial industry has changed dramatically over the past one to two weeks," said Shinichi Ina, banking analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.

"I don't think anyone imagined a few months ago that Mitsubishi would be making Morgan Stanley into a group firm. I don't think they could have imagined it themselves."

~ ~ ~

Not that anyone listened...

Buffett's "time bomb" goes off on Wall Street

On Main Street, insurance protects people from the effects of catastrophes.

But on Wall Street, specialized insurance known as a credit default swaps are turning a bad situation into a catastrophe.

When historians write about the current crisis, much of the blame will go to the slump in the housing and mortgage markets, which triggered the losses, layoffs and liquidations sweeping the financial industry.

But credit default swaps -- complex derivatives originally designed to protect banks from deadbeat borrowers -- are adding to the turmoil.

"This was supposedly a way to hedge risk," says Ellen Brown, the author of the book "Web of Debt."

"I'm sure their predictive models were right as far as the risk of the things they were insuring against. But what they didn't factor in was the risk that the sellers of this protection wouldn't pay ... That's what we're seeing now."

Brown is hardly alone in her criticism of the derivatives. Five years ago, billionaire investor Warren Buffett called them a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc., to exit the business.

It's a fascinating, slighly complex, article which gives some details on the massive shell game played by Wall Street and the Federal Government just in the past couple of years.

~ ~ ~

Someone in China has been reading my mind:

China paper urges new currency order after "financial tsunami"

Financial Tsunami. That's what I keep think of this as, as well as The Perfect (Fiscal) Storm.

Hi, my name is Laura and I'm a big geek.

Threatened by a "financial tsunami," the world must consider building a financial order no longer dependent on the United States, a leading Chinese state newspaper said on Wednesday.

The commentary in the overseas edition of the People's Daily said the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., "may augur an even larger impending global 'financial tsunami'."

The article goes on to state:

China is a major buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds, and through its sovereign wealth fund it has taken stakes in two large U.S. financial institutions.

In July 2005, China revalued the yuan and freed it from a dollar peg to float within managed bands. But the yuan and China's trade remains tightly linked to the fortunes of the dollar.

The commentary suggested China must brace for grave economic fallout and look to alternatives, saying the crisis brings to mind the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"Lehman Brothers announced bankruptcy will not only have a domino effect on the global financial world, it will bring a shock to the world economy," the front-page comment stated.

It's not just a US problem - it's global. We need the rest of the world to help out the US, but after eight years of the Bush administrations horrendous foreign policy I don't see the rest of the world flocking to our side to help out. I can't say that I blame them, but it would be in their best interests to help the US.

I hope the rest of the world sees it that way as well.

"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
Benjamin Franklin

By the way...

Juan Cole is brilliant today. Go read: Informed Comment, A Nation of Masochists.

And in the wake of the greatest and most sustained act of systematic plunder since the Mongol hordes appropriated to themselves the riches of everyplace in Asia from Beijing to Isfahan, the reaction of the supine and slave-like American voting public is to scratch their heads and have a hard time deciding if they would like more of the same.

I know I won't be voting republican in November, but I'm still not happy with Obama.

Past is Prologue

Read about former President Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.

~ ~ ~

How to Save the Financial System

As I write this article, I am seeing proposals by some to create a new Resolution Trust Corp., as we did in the 1990s to clean up the S&L problems. The RTC managed and sold assets from S&Ls that had already failed. It was run by the FDIC, just like the FDIC. We needed to create the RTC in the 1990s only because we could not comingle the assets from failed banks with those of failed thrifts, because we had two separate deposit insurance funds absorbing the respective losses from bank and thrift failures.

I can't imagine why we would want to create another government bureaucracy to handle the assets from bank failures. What we need to do urgently is stop the failures, and an RTC won't do that.

Again, we must take three immediate steps to prevent a further rash of financial failures and taxpayer bailouts. First, the SEC must suspend Fair Value Accounting and require that assets be marked to their true economic value. Second, the SEC needs to immediately clamp down on abusive practices by short sellers. It has taken a first step in reinstituting the prohibition against "naked selling." Finally, the bank regulators need to acknowledge that the Basel II capital rules represent a serious policy mistake and repeal the rules before they do real damage.

We are almost out of time if we hope to eradicate the cancer in our financial system.

Mr. Isaac, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. from 1981-1985, is chairman of the Washington financial services consulting firm The Secura Group, an LECG company.

Last major investment banks change status

Bush, Congress exchange views on relief bill

The mortgage buck stops where?

Americans need to hear a full-throated debate by lawmakers about the range of players in this mortgage maelstrom who either lied, took on too much debt, or failed to check creditworthiness as these loans were issued and then sold up the financial food chain to the point where it has become nearly impossible to determine their value.

They also need to hear about the government's role in encouraging a housing bubble – and that will mean Congress needs to look at itself. No longer should federal support for owning a home be based on the false premise that housing prices will always go up or that taxpayers are the final backstop for mortgage holders.

They had me at the melting cow

Gawker, that is: It's The "Absurd Financial Product Some Rich Person Actually Bought" Contest!, but I stayed for the story.

Today's decision by the Bush administration to stick us with even more debt (to the tune of half a trillion US$) is just insane. Re-inventing the RTC was a semi-decent idea yesterday, but it's morphed into a massive bailout for the entire economy. These idiots are re-financing the United States. Hell, they're re-financing BAD DEBT.

Ye gods and little fishes. Why the hell didn't we impeach the Clown College when they lied and invaded Iraq?

CNN wants to know, Will it work?

Um.

Those securities were backed by home loans, many made to buyers with bad credit or without proof of income. As housing values fell and foreclosures shot to record levels in the past two years, the value of those securities plunged. That in turn caused massive losses in the financial sector.

This week it reached a crisis situation. Banks and investment firms stopped making the loans to each other as they hoarded cash to protect against any sudden liquidity crunch as well from unknown problems on their partners' balance sheets.

No.

"I'm confident this will work," said Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody's Economy.com. "The federal government is committed to backstopping the nation's financial system and will do whatever is necessary to make sure the system does not unravel. The details are important but secondary."

The Devil's in the detail Mr. Zandi. This bailout is going to cost more the Iraq war, which has already saddled the US with a multi-trillion dollar debt.

"If this doesn't work, we're in trouble, because there's not much more the government can do," said Jaret Seiberg, a financial services analyst at the Stanford Group. "They've left very few arrows in the quiver."

Good point Ms. Seiberg.

I'm a lot less optimistic than I was yesterday.

~ ~ ~

Text of Paulson's news conference Friday

Paulson, Bernanke Expand U.S. Power to Rescue Markets

Rescue cost: Hundreds of billions

I was thinking of posting a sign

here, stating that United States was up for bidding

FOR SALE: ONE COUNTRY, BADLY USED, AVAILABLE NOW! CHEAP!!

but then spotted this piece in the LA Times:

Hey U.S., welcome to the Third World!

We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.

Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.

I wonder if there is some kind of an award... like the Nobel... for countries who tank fastest. Darwin award wouldn't do... no one has died from this stupidity. Yet. There is the Ig Noble but I think we deserve something better than that.

In any event, I think the US has won, by a land-slide. Seven years, plus a pointless war, is all it took. Seven short years. Of course the underpinnings of this disaster have been there for decades:

Take John McCain, your Republican presidential nominee, whose senior staff includes half a dozen prominent former lobbyists. As he recently put it, "I was chairman of the [Senate] Commerce Committee that oversights every part of the economy." No question about it: Your leaders' failure to notice the damage done by irresponsible deregulation was indeed an oversight of epic proportions.

Please, by all means possible, vote for Mr. Magoo in November. Let's just complete the hat-trick of the past two elections and keep putting greed-mongering, hate-filled useless politicans in office, mkay?? Thankx!

Not that the junior Senator from Illinois is a much better choice come November. At the very least he didn't help lead this country into damnation. No... he's just spent everyday since the last election tryin' to get elected this November. "First do no harm". Well, he did that, at least.

Admittedly, your transition to Third World status is far from over, and it won't be painless. At first, for instance, you may find it hard to get used to the shantytowns that will replace the exurban sprawl of McMansions that helped fuel the real estate speculation bubble. But in time, such shantytowns will simply become part of the landscape. Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start.

Believe it or not, I actually have more hope than Ms. Brooks. I remember the 1970's recession. I remember when Japan practically bought the United States at fire-sale prices in that decade and how hated they were for doing it. I remember being in New York City in it's darkest hours and no, not 9/11, but the early 1970's recession hit NYC really hard. I remember the S&L meltdown of the 1980's; it was bad for most everyone, but we survived it. The problem is we learned nothing from these experiences.

We have short-term memories in the United States. It looks like it's The End Of Times, but it really isn't. It's bad... really, really bad, but we've been here before and we'll be here again. That's what happens when a people have short-term memory problems - they make the same mistakes over and over again.

Like Yogi said, it's deja vu all over again. Maybe this time the Arabs will buy us out.

~ ~ ~

One of my favorite websites: Improbable Research. Enjoy.

Just when you think America couldn't get any worse

we get Caribou Barbie as VEEP nom to run with Mr. Magoo.

Like Obama and Biden wasn't weird enough.

Is it too late to move to Canada?

Ostrich, meet sand

Financial Crisis Is Absent From Agendas of Parties, Candidates

Many Democrats shy away from tackling the credit crisis because of the party's historical support for Fannie and Freddie. The Republicans, for their part, are reluctant to draw attention to a crisis that occurred on their watch. The subprime meltdown isn't the only item missing from the parties' agendas. The list also includes the Democrats' failure to set out a strategy for countering Russia's assertiveness and the Republicans' silence on income inequality.

I LOVE Schumer's condescending quote:

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said conventions aren't the place to discuss detailed plans for dealing with the markets.

``The conventions are aimed at the average voter,'' he said Aug. 25 in Denver. ``You don't go into Quinlan's bar and ask them what to do about the'' Securities and Exchange Commission.

Of course his job is secure for four more years and then he can retire on his huge pension.

My second favorite quote is:

``We feel like we've taken a big step to stabilize the situation,'' said Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, a Democrat on the Banking Committee.

Seriously? Oy! Senator, you've done jack-all to "stabilize the situation".

``We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since World War II,'' Stanley Fisher, governor of the Bank of Israel and a former IMF official, told central bankers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Aug. 23.

Not that anyone inside the United States is listening. It's an election year and no politican will listen to, let alone accept, the truth about anything. As the article mentions towards the end, this situation is very similar to the 1930's.

History repeats itself people. I don't think either McCain or Obama have what it takes to deal with what is to come.

Happy Friday

So the Olympics end today.

yawn

I haven't watched any of it. But I bet one thing wasn't clear in the televised events:


Sex and the Olympic City

Ah yes, the swimmers. For some reason the International Olympic Committee insists on bunching the swimming events towards the beginning of the Games with the inevitable consequence that the aquatics folk get going earlier - sexually I mean - than everyone else. So much so that, at the outset of the Sydney Olympics, Jonathan Edwards, a Christian and triple jumper extraordinaire, caused a ripple by telling them publicly to keep a lid on it. Edwards was simply concerned about getting woken up by creaking floorboards, but given his biblical credentials, it became a story about morality. Not that his intervention made a blind bit of difference. There is a famous story from Seoul in 1988 that there were so many used condoms on the roof terrace of the British team's residential block the night after the swimming concluded that the British Olympic Association sent out an edict banning outdoor sex. Here in Beijing, organisers have realised that such prohibitions are about as useful as banning breathing and have, instead, handed out thousands of free condoms to the athletes. If you can't stop 'em, at least make it safe.

Ah, gotta love the hypocrisy, no? The whole article is really interesting.

Well that's a relief!

I've just found out that residents of southwestern Connecticut can rest in peace as that dangerous outlaw has finally been captured:

Saugatuck Sheep Finally Captured

Last Thursday, a female sheep that has eluded capture for almost a year was caught by Westport Animal Control, assisted by Bridgeport's Beardsley Zoo.
The female sheep (also called a ewe) spent the past year wandering around the Treadwell Avenue area in Saugatuck, causing a disturbance in the neighborhood by wandering onto people's property and leaving droppings on their lawns.

She was found on Echo Lane and was brought to Westport Animal Control, where she spent the night.

Part of the ewe's notoriety was her size. "This sheep was the biggest sheep I've ever seen. I would estimate that it was about 200 pounds," said Lt. Thomas Casimiro of the Westport Police Depart­ment.

Ewes normally weigh between 100 and 225 pounds. That should give some idea of how large this female was at 200 pounds.

While many of the residents on the street knew of the sheep's existence, few ever saw it.

"We tried a few times to catch the sheep, but it kept getting away. It was hard to catch it because we were trying hard not to hurt it. That's when we tried to get the zoo involved," Casimiro said.

The other reason for the sheep's notoriety was that no one knew where the sheep came from.

"We don't know where the sheep came from," Casimiro said. "We don't know if it got loose from Stew Leonard's, or if it escaped from a truck on I-95." The only identification the sheep had was a blue tag in its right ear.

Dangerous times we live in... dangerous times. Thankfully that ewe is off the streets and we can all live in peace again. Oh, and God Bless the Westport Police Department - Connecticut's Finest! - for their year-long pursuit of that desperado!




I wonder how much wool (fleece) you can get from a 200 pound sheep?

Wedding Bell Blues

Bill
I love you so
I always will
I look at you and see
the passion eyes of May
Oh but am I ever gonna see
my wedding day?
Oh I was on your side Bill
when you were losin'
I'd never scheme or lie Bill
There's been no foolin'
but kisses and love won't carry me
till you marry me Bill
Bill
I love you so
I always will
and in your voice I hear
a choir of carousels
Oh but am I ever gonna hear
my wedding bells?
I was the one came runnin'
when you were lonely
I haven't lived one day
not loving you only
but kisses and love won't carry me
till you marry me Bill
Bill
I love you so
I always will
and though devotion rules my heart
I take no bows
Oh but Bill you know
I wanna take my wedding vows
Come on Bill
Come on Bill
I got the wedding bell blues


by Laura Nyro

I have a wedding to go tomorrow at Harkness State Park. Tomorrow's forecast is for thunderstorms and a high of 79F. Gack! I don't do well in heat or humidity.

~ ~ ~

The Olympics start tomorrow. I'm sorry if you're a fan, but I think the Olympics are a gignormous waste of time and money. I've read Bushy's statement on human rights, which he made in Thailand:

In a speech in Thailand, Mr. Bush praised U.S. economic and diplomatic ties with Beijing. But he said the United States "stands in firm opposition" to China's detention of political, human rights and religious activists.

Mr. Bush urged China to trust its people with greater freedom, saying that is the only way for China to develop to its full potential.

Ye gods and little fishes. I'm not going to rant. Not even a little bit. It's pointless; and boring for everyone else.

China had a response.

And life goes on.

You all have a good, safe, and cool weekend!

11 dead on K2

In K2 aftermath, lessons learned

Had you heard about this? I hadn't.

The search for survivors on the world's second-tallest peak ended Tuesday, when the severely frostbitten Italian climber Marco Confortola made it to safety after 11 lives were lost in one of the most tragic accidents of modern mountaineering.

I just don't understand the human need to test boundries like mountain climbing or deep-sea diving or going into space. I think these people are amazing and have brought back important knowledge for the rest of us, they've changed the way we view the world and the universe... but it's just not my idea of a good time.

Rest in Peace

Alexander Solzhenitsyn died yesterday at the age of 89.

His wife, Natalya, told the Interfax news agency that her husband, who suffered along with millions of Russians in the prison camp system, died as he had hoped to die.

"He wanted to die in the summer — and he died in the summer," she said. "He wanted to die at home — and he died at home. In general I should say that Alexander Isaevich lived a difficult but happy life."

It is the first most complicated name I remember learning. Funny, the things that stick in your head. I remember my parents trying to explain to an eight year old who he was and why he was so important. I didn't read his books until college and so I didn't understand, really, why he was so important until then. It takes time to discern, to comprehend.


Solzhenitsyn at Nobelprize.org
Solzhenitsyn at Spartacus
Solzhenitsyn at Wiki
BBC

Question to ponder

I just read an email from a friend detailing things to be done before going on vacation for two weeks. One of the To Do items was to clean her house first.

Me starts wondering why.

Why do we clean before we go on vacation?

I can just hear my Mother (yeah, I hear dead people) saying it's because you (meaning her) don't want to come back to a dirty house.

Me... don't care. I'd rather walk away from the disaster and deal with it when I come back all (hopefully) fully relaxed and refreshed.

Sadly this pondering is mute for me 'cuz I ain't going no where soon.

I will be housecleaning, however.

We're not telling you how to vote

but...

Wal-Mart warning managers of labor bill

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Friday it has held meetings with U.S. store managers warning them of issues that could arise if Democrats win power and pass a law that would make it easier for workers to unionize, but stressed it was not telling workers how to vote.

No, of course not.

The Last of July

I'm not sorry to see the month go. It hasn't been horrible, just frustrating with petty annoyances and some frim-fram sauce on the side.

Tomorrow is Claudius' birthday. Happy 2,018! If you've never read or seen I Claudius, you should - it's fantastic! It's not really historically accurate, but it's a good time, so I give it a pass on accuracy.

I missed the hen party. I ended up with a stomach flu for two days. Blech! Oh well. The wedding is a week from tomorrow ~ 08-08-08. They lucked out on getting that date, the one the originally wanted. It's to be outdoors and I'm scanning the weather channel site for the 10-day forecast and I'm not liking what I'm seeing. I don't do well in extreme heat and humitity.

sigh

Project Runway was a bit blah last night. Either I'm getting tired of the show or the show is getting tired. One of the contestants is named Suade. He talks about himself in the third person, which is why I remember his name. It's not just annoying, it's childish and stupid. There's another contestant, my age, who is dangerously into Leatha (leather). A Tanorexic. And then a whole bunch of other people who just sorta fade into each other. I can't even remember who won or who lost last night. I was too busy with crewel to notice.

It's not that we're in a recession or anything...

Merrill posts $4.9 billion loss, sells Bloomberg stake

We're going from bad to worse. But Freddie is looking at offering US$10 billion in new shares. I really wonder who would be insane enough to buy them.

The main buyers for any new-stock issues are likely to be existing shareholders worldwide, the paper said, citing one person involved in the discussion.

Any sale would have to offer a high rate of return to attract buyers, given the near-14 percent yield on Freddie's preference shares, the paper added.

During the last major recession faced by the US, the Japanese came to the rescue by buying up the United States, mostly in real estate. I'm thinking this time it might be the Chinese, though they seem to be a tad busy in Africa these days.

We have a "bad air" alert in CT for the weekend. Tomorrow night I'm going up to the Casino with my sister and friends to celebrate another friends impending doom... um, marriage. Hen party, bachelorette, I'm not sure what we're calling this, but it will involved gambling and alcohol and food in air conditioning, so I don't care.

If you're not afraid of the "bad air" we're going to be having in CT this weekend, you might be interested in a road trip. I spotted this article,
134 miles of Yankee Charm in the NYT this morning. It's not a cheap trip given current gas prices, but it would be a nice one. Probably better to do in October when it's cooler and the leaves are peeping.

Back again

Yes, I disappeared again.

Did you miss me?

probably not

I've moved... again. Back in Bridgeport. Full circle in four years. It's a nice little two-bedroom condo and I'm mostly unpacked. Still some boxes to empty.

Still in the same job, sadly. I should probably do something about that.

Let's see... news: The Anglicans have their knickers in a knot; the Pope is in Australia for World Brainwashing (um) Youth Day; Obama raked in some serious cash last month, but he is still behind McCain; US economy is... a sick joke; Tony Snow died (RIP) and Bush admitted his love for the man - in the national Cathedral no less! And some nutjob geek is in jail for holding San Franciso hostage.

Not much new, is there? Oh, wait, I've picked up a new addiction ~ knitting. I kinda suck at it at the moment, but hope springs eternal!

Kitchen-Floor Conflict Intensifies As Rival House Cats Claim Same Empty Bag


"MAPLEWOOD, MO—Ongoing turmoil in the troubled kitchen-floor region of the Branson household reached a boiling point Tuesday, as relations between rival house cats Boswell and Johnson erupted into fresh violence. Observers said the arrival of a new brown paper-bag in the area ignited long-standing tensions and set off another round of territorial conflict between the two factions in the most serious aggression since the devastating stove-side siege of 2005."

How many must suffer before President Bush finally intervenes? Clearly we need a UN Peace-keeping mission in Maplewood, Missouri, to bring peace to the is destable region. And why aren't the Candidates addressing this, the most serious issue facing America today? Why? Write your Representatives and Senators and DEMAND they deal with this war today!

~ ~ ~



Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

RIP Margaret Truman Daniel

This was surprising:

Truman's daughter dies at 83

.

Shortly before her father's death in 1972 Daniel published Harry S Truman under her maiden name. A critically acclaimed full length biography of her father, the book used extensive sources from the Truman Library.

I liked David McCullough's book better, but it was still good.

She lost her husband and one son in 2000.

Rest In Peace

"He was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only knocked off Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity," said Clark.

Sir Edmund Hillary died in Auckland, New Zealand, on Friday 11 January. He was 88 years old.

"The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived. But most of all he was a quintessential Kiwi," New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Friday in announcing Hillary's death.

Hillary scaled the world's highest mountain in 1953, telling companions after the climb: "We knocked the bastard off."

Arse-trinkets

Arse-trinkets.

Right. Okay then, that's it, I'm moving to England.

Arse-trinkets!

These tight, elasticated, supposedly saucy partitions across the mid-derriere are, in terms of both comfort and aesthetics, as cruel as the partition between India and Pakistan. There is catastrophic physical displacement. Entire body parts are split asunder, and undertake vast migrations. With my own eyes, I have seen women walking around out there with anything between two and eight buttocks – and placed anywhere between the hip and the mid-thigh. This enforced deformity is not the fault of the pants. They are little guys, simply overwhelmed by the task that faces them. They are outnumbered. They are the Alamo. They are, indeed, often in terrible danger – many look like they’re on the verge of being absorbed by their owners. A&E departments must have had a few emergency admissions for “emergency admissions” in their time.

Women, this manner of underwear cannot be an act of sanity. Why are we starving our bottoms of the resources – like an extra metre of material – to stay comfortable? Why have we succumbed to pantorexia? It is, of course, all a symptom of women’s continuing, demented belief that, at any moment, they might face some snap inspection of their “total hotness,” and have to reveal their underwear to a baying crowd, possibly featuring George Clooney. In this respect, women have communally lost all reason. Ladies! On how many occasions in the past year have you needed to wear sexy pants? In other words, to break this right down, how many times this year have you suddenly, unexpectedly, had sex in a brightly lit room, with a hard-to-please erotic connoisseur? Exactly. On those kind of odds, you might just as well be keeping a backgammon board down there, to entertain a group of elderly ladies in the event of emergencies. It’s more likely to happen.

Read the whole article - it's hysterical!

There is no point here

For reasons I can't explain I've gotten quite addicted to reading the Daily Mail out of the UK. The Great Cosmic Muffin knows it's not because of their award-winning journalism - but I hit their website every morning and a couple times a day.

Is there a 12-step program for this?

Yesterday's fun article was The great pay divide: Why pole dancers, bishops and RAF pilots earn the SAME salary. Some of the jobs are paid the same here in the US (multiply the pound by 2 to get what those jobs would pay here). The PM gets US$376k and other Ministers receive anywhere from US$200k to US$1mil - the Chief of the Metropolitan Police comes within the same range. That seems odd - shouldn't the PM get more than the rest? However, it's more than the US Congress people get... which if memory serves is around US$240k (I'm too lazy to go look it up). Look at the miliary salaries - British Navy Captain, upwards of US$150k; US Navy Captain, I can't figure out the pay-grade nonsense completely but it looks like a comparable position is in the high US$80's to 90's. Big difference.

The point the DM is making:

The comparisons they drew are fascinating - and raise questions about just how a job's worth is judged.

The fortunes of farmers have dropped so dramatically over the past 50 years that they now share the same bracket as sewer cleaners, mortuary assistants and checkout staff, at £10,000 - £20,000.

The real-life James Bonds in MI5 earn the same as binmen, vicars, carpenters and NHS nurses, £20,000 - £30,000.

A bit higher up on £30,000 - £40,000 are the pole dancers and RAF pilots, along with bishops, police constables, sandwich shop managers, vets, London cab drivers, architects and paramedics.

can be said here as well (for that matter, everywhere). What is what we do actually worth? Who and how determines that? If you want to see what you can or should be earning in your own field, try Monster.com.

I am, apparently, grossly overpaid right now. Not good news as I'll be job-hunting soon.

Just. Great.

Maybe I should move to the UK and take up pole dancing.

Or a binman in Birmingham. Oh, wait, that'd be a pay cut. But still, the shear joy of saying I'm a binman in Birmingham might make up for the pay cut.

Yeah, I need help.

Oh, speaking of... the Daily Mail was the first to inform me of Who's the daddy: Pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears dumped by boyfriend who demands proof of paternity. They got Jaime Lynn's age wrong, however... she's 16. They may have been confusing her with this darling lass.

The ho's are back in town...

I just can't wait to read their Mama's parenting book! Damn shame it's been postponed.

in case you're wondering, when I googled "binmen from birmingham", that image came up. google also, rudely, tried to correct my search term to "lineman from birmingham". I hate nit-picky search engines.

Credit Crisis

FYI

Mortgage Lender's Bankruptcy Would Have Severe Impact on Consumers

"Countrywide is at ground zero of the mortgage crisis," commented Weiss. "It exhausted many of its extraordinary financing options last year and is ill-prepared for the rising mortgage defaults and home foreclosures that are widely expected this year. Already, the credit quality of Countrywide's mortgage servicing portfolio has deteriorated, with 7.2% of the mortgages it's servicing delinquent in December, up sharply from 6.5% in November and 4.6% a year earlier."

Weiss' conclusion: "With the mortgage market and economy continuing to slide, it's likely Countrywide will suffer intolerable losses. Thus, in the absence of extraordinary intervention, we believe it could be difficult for Countrywide to avoid failure, with a potentially severe impact on consumers."

Read the entire article. I hope you're not trying to sell in this market - which is only going to get worse.

Silly Season 2008

So Hillary and John won in New Hampshire.

Big. Freakin'. Deal.

The press is acting like it's election day - it's only one caucus and one primary down folks. Chill, please.

All day yesterday the political press is burying Hil in Iowa and proclaiming Obama as God's Second (and favorite) Child.

I've been sick of political theatre since Pelosi took impeachment off the table but it is now nearly impossible to avoid the insanity.

And it's only January. May the Great Cosmic Muffin have mercy on what's left of my soul.

I don't even want to address Bushies trip to Israel. With his BFF Condie. Don't they look cute together?

~ ~ ~

Heart-breaking and horrifying news out of Alabama: Man tells cops he tossed four children off Ala. bridge

"Lam Luong, 37, will face four counts of capital murder, prosecutors say. "That's as bad as it gets under Alabama law," District Attorney John Tyson Jr. tells the Press-Register.

Lt. Richard Cayton of the Mobile County Sheriff's Office tells the paper that searchers on boats and helicopters haven't found any signs of the children, who ranged in age from 4 months to 3 years old."

Apparently it was an act of revenge against his wife but so far no reason is given as to what he was getting even with her for. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been bad enough for this. No doubt there will be a diminished capacity plea, eventually.

~ ~ ~

From the Who Gives A Shit File, we have a story on Worst Dressed Of the Year.

Victoria Beckham, in case you're wondering.

In a huge act of charity Mr. Blackwell left Britney Spears off the list this year. The man should get a humanitarian award for that.

Frankly I find his stupid list incredibly mean-spirited most of the time - and utterly pointless. Who the hell cares what he thinks?

Happy New Year

Yes, I'm alive!

Yes, you should be afraid.

2007 sucked monkeyballs with hot chili sauce on the side.

Really.

I'm kinda, sorta, back from beyond, hoping 2008 will be better but I'm not holding my breath.

Thank you Homo Escapeons for keeping tabs on me. Muchly appreciated!

Back for a minute

Go to Free Rice and build your vocabulary while earning free rice to feed the hungry.

~ ~ ~

I've been MIA due to on-going family issues. It's likely to remain that way for some time to come.

Everyone in the US have a safe, healthy and happy Thanksgiving next week. If you've got some extra food or money, contact your local food pantry or homeless shelter and donate what you can.

Three Day Weekend

Yay!

does happy chair dance

I need the break. Don't we all? You all have a safe holiday weekend.

Nothing new under the Earth and Sky

Google has a new add-on feature for google earth - the sky! I've only been able to get the demo to run. Google seems to be having several problems today, including keeping blogger up and running.

Interesting story in the in International Herald Tribune yesterday - seems Moscow runs out of hot water in the summer time.

Also in Moscow, another painful penis story. What is with all the penis stories this week?

Bushie is backing away from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of Iraq.

However, Gordon Johndroe says otherwise:

National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said the president's words were not intended to signal a withdrawal of support for al-Maliki. As a result of the heavy media coverage of his remarks at the North American summit in Canada, Bush will insert a direct line of support for al-Maliki in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars conference, Johndroe said.

"Prime Minister Maliki knows where the president stands," Johndroe told reporters ahead of Bush's speech. The spokesman said that after Bush's comments in Canada, the White House had tried to make clear Bush was not distancing himself from Maliki.

"It appears that did not come through for whatever reason," Johndroe said.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is also "disgusted" with al-Maliki, apparently. Bush backing away from al-Maliki is probably a good thing for the Prime Minister, Sistani being disgusted is not. I hope al-Maliki's bodyguards are well paid and like their client.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France's RTL Radio from Baghdad that Europe must play a bigger role in Iraq because "the Americans will not be able to get this country out of difficulty alone." Kouchner is wrapping a three-day visit to Iraq.

Not just Europe, but the UN and a Pan-Arab league needs to go in and fix the nightmare we created.

In other cheery news, A new push for change in the war on terror, in the Christian Science Monitor:

The US is losing the war on terror. That's the assessment of the nation's top foreign-policy, intelligence, and national-security leaders from across the ideological spectrum. In this year's Terrorism Index, a survey released Monday by Foreign Policy magazine, 84 percent of these experts believe the nation is losing the war on terror, while more than 90 percent say the world is growing more dangerous for Americans.

That's prompted a variety of leaders to call for a complete rethinking of the nation's strategy. And some are looking back to the cold war's battle against communism to find models for the ideological struggle against terrorism.

Um... no one won the Cold War. Russia just collapsed. Is that the strategy? Fight a boogey man for 50 years until it just goes away?

Another is a call for a Middle East Marshall Plan to help develop the region's economies and confront the alienation of the young.

This actually makes some sense and it's something many humanitarian groups have been talking about for more than a decade - long before 9/11 and the US War on Terra. Terrorism, terrorists, flourish in poverty; the people they recruit have nothing to lose and their families have everything to gain.

Dwarf's penis gets stuck in vacuum cleaner

It's a rainy, dreary day here in Connecticut. It's a helluva lot worse in Mexico. Drop a shekel or three in a collection plate for Hurricane Dean relief.

Since it's a rainy day here, I'll leave you with some reading material.

Starving Gaza, by Chris Hedges, at Truthdig:

Gaza has become the Sarajevo of the Middle East. Israel, in an action similar to that of the Serbs in Bosnia, has surrounded and cut off nearly a million and a half Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the Islamic militant group Hamas took control in June. Electric fences and watch towers manned by Israeli soldiers keep the Palestinians trapped inside the strip. The land and sea blockade, the halting of all but minimal humanitarian aid and the refusal to allow Gaza to receive financial support are crushing Gaza’s industry, farming and infrastructure.

See also:

Gaza's public employees getting paid on one condition: stay home

Genocide in Tranquil Kurdistan.

Scott Ritter: Calling Out Idiot America (an old article, but still interesting).

From Truthout comes:

Prelude to an Attack on Iran, originally published in Time Magazine.

And what do we do if just the opposite happens - a strike on Iran unifies Iranians behind the regime? An Administration official told me it's not even a consideration. "IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran."

Survivors of Bombs Left to Die in Rubble.

British military sparks US fears of losing Basra:

Stephen Biddle, who sits on the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of a group that advised the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, told the The Sunday Times in London that coalition forces were no longer in control of the city.

"I regret to say that the Basra experience is set to become a major blunder in terms of military history," Mr Biddle was quoted as saying. "The insurgents are calling the shots … and in a worst-case scenario will chase us out of town."

Another senior US officer told The Sunday Telegraph: "The short version is that the Brits have lost Basra, if indeed they ever had it … They did not have enough troops there even before they started cutting back. The situation is beyond their control."

The officer warned of "a stink about this that will hang around the British military".

The old expression "lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas" comes to mind for some reason.

And the most important story of the day, from the bin of "you can't make this shit up":

Dwarf's penis gets stuck in vacuum cleaner.

A view from the ground

Originally posted at NYT and Truthout.org:

The War As We Saw It

By Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy
The New York Times

Sunday 19 August 2007

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Pass it on.

Okay, who left the door open?

Seems the Universe has disappeared. Well, 96% anyway.

Greatest Mysteries: Where is the Rest of the Universe?

In fact, only 4 percent of the matter and energy in the universe has been found. The other 96 percent remains elusive, but scientists are looking in the farthest reaches of space and deepest depths of Earth to solve the two dark riddles.

Now you know why your parents always told you to shut the door! See what you did?

Turner described dark energy as "really weird stuff," best thought of as an elastic, repulsive gravity that can't be broken down into particles. "We know what it does, but we don't know what it is," Turner said.

That's what I told my 10th grade Chemistry teacher when he asked me how I managed to burn the entire lab table: I knew what it did, I just didn't know how I did it. He strongly urged me to avoid sciences - finance would be safer.

Too bad that guy wasn't around to advise Karl Rove, evil minion of DOOM! Well, thankfully, he's a goin' bye bye, but I'm sure he'll be on Dumbasses speed dial.

Strangest things in space.

No, I'm not on the list.

~ ~ ~

I believe the Earth has it's own cycles, just like people do. Every few hundred years the weather patterns shift, just as they are doing today. Vineyards flourished in England once upon a time; sea-levels have been muich higher and much lower than they are now. Life changes. I have no doubt human beings polluting the Earth makes the shifts in climate worse, but I'm not sure I buy the whole Global Warming spiel. Then I see this:

NASA Data Goof Fuels Global Warming Skepticism:

A small tempest is brewing in the blogospheric teapot between climate scientists and global warming skeptics over a recently revealed discrepancy in NASA's U.S. temperature records.

A former mining executive who manages a Web site dedicated to skepticism over global warming was combing the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies data for U.S. temperature anomalies—or the amount that one year's average temperature departs from the climatological average—when he noticed that the temperatures made an odd jump between 1999 and 2000.

Global Warming: How Do Scientists Know They're Not Wrong?

~ ~ ~

Queen of Mean, dead at 87

That would be Leona Helmsley. Before her life with Harry,:

She married a lawyer, Leo Panzirer, whom she divorced in 1959. Their only child, Jay Panzirer, later ran a Florida-based building supplies company that did extensive business with Helmsley properties. She later was briefly married to a garment industry executive, Joe Lubin.

Before her son's death of a heart attack in 1982, she told interviewers she would not talk about him "because terrible things can happen to people these days."

She evidently was referring to being knifed by robbers at her Palm Beach home in 1973. She was stabbed in the chest and suffered a collapsed lung, and Harry was wounded in the arm.

After her son died, she sued the estate for money and property she said her son had borrowed, and an eviction notice was served on her son's widow, Mimi.

Mimi Panzirer said afterward that the legal costs wiped her out and "to this day I don't know why they did it."

Rest in peace Leona.

~ ~ ~

Someone with more cats (and probably yarn) than I have. That makes my day!

That's all phoques!

No, I'm not turning this into Cute Overload, but I just couldn't resist posting this picture. It's a phoque! Seal to the rest of us. He's adorable! I want one! Sadly my building has a no phoque policy. Beasts!

Rest in Peace Scooter

Phil Rizzuto, Yankees' Hall of Fame shortstop and longtime broadcaster, dies at 89


IMO - all time greatest sports announcer. Period. End of story. The clowns around today are just a waste of time and space. I end up watching baseball with the sound off because I find these people so annoying and inane.

While many announcers spouted statistics, Rizzuto told stories. He delighted television and radio listeners by spinning yarns about his fear of lightning, his favorite place to get a cannoli and the prospect of outfielder Dave Winfield as a candidate for president.

Add insult to injury, the Yankees lost 12 zip to Baltimore. sigh

Yankees Hall of Famer, Broadcaster Phil Rizzuto

~ ~ ~

Happy Birthday Napoleon!

Rats abandoning the ship

Rovie wants to spend more time with his family.

He has a family?

"He's a great colleague, a good friend, and a brilliant mind. He will be greatly missed, but we know he wouldn't be going if he wasn't sure this was the right time to be giving more to his family, his wife Darby and their son. He will continue to be one of the president's greatest friends."

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.

I'm still hopeful for indictments and orange jumpsuits.

Karl Rove at Wiki.

I'm back!

Sorta. Kinda.


Well, I'm here now anyway! Thank you to everyone who posted/emailed to say you missed me. I've missed you all too!

I can't believe it's August already. It's been a really strange year.

A bookmark for me and you: History of Pie.

Yup, I'm making pies this weekend.