The 5th Estate

The jounalism of religion, and the religion of journalism

sapphorlando — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:45:25 GMT

On the launch of The Revealer, a new metamedia e-journal out of NYU:

'Journalism is itself a religion' by Jay Rosen

Werther's Law

londo — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:35:13 GMT

Or Joe Biden and the Iron Law of Adverse Political Selection
by Werther

Why do politicians make disastrous decisions with the consistency of iron filings obeying a magnet? Decisions that in retrospect (and frequently in prospect) seem doomed to failure? After 9/11, did it make any sense when, after coming close to the point of capturing Osama bin Laden, the U.S. government began pulling troops, materiel, and intelligence assets away from the hunt in order to invade a country that had nothing to do with Osama?

After invading that country (Iraq), what was the set of policy options that faced our brilliant and esteemed leaders? They could have maintained most of the preexisting organizations and institutions in the country and co-opted them to maintain order and a functioning civil society. This was a policy followed very successfully by Gen. MacArthur during the occupation of Japan. Of course they followed the polar opposite policy of firing all the Ba'athist administrators and disbanding the army, thus ensuring that the insurgency would benefit from a reserve army of the unemployed and disaffected.

The Democrats are also are no strangers to this tropism. The FISA telecom immunity fiasco is a perfect example: key provisions in the underlying statute had been expired for months and, contrary to the fearmongering lies of President Bush and CIA Director Hayden, what happened was – nothing. So there was no need to be panicked into enacting new legislation indemnifying the telecoms against their own illegal behavior. The public overall didn't seem to care one way or the other, but the Democratic base was vehemently against immunity. And there was no way to immunize the telecoms unless Congress affirmatively acted. Since it requires the speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader to move legislation, the Democrats could have simply run out the clock on the Bush administration.

Of course, we know how this farce ended: Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid brought up telecom immunity legislation and gave the president what he wanted without even so much as a quid pro quo. What the Democrats achieved by this move was substantively bad legislation, a horrible precedent for future statutory indemnifications of illegality, a victory for the president they profess to oppose, and a (more) disillusioned voter base.

In the last couple of days we have seen this scenario play out again with the selection of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the vice presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. However this selection plays out in the political horse race, it is substantively an extremely poor choice that will increase the probability that a Democratic foreign policy (should Barack Obama win) will simply be Bush Lite: more interventions, more insane levels of defense spending, more foreign aid giveaways to scoundrels like Mikheil Saakashvili.

The canned media critique is that Biden is a rhetorical blowhard who does not know when to shut up but that he has immense foreign policy experience. The first characterization is true: one recalls his opening statement during Samuel Alito's Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Biden's statement rambled, heaved, bloviated, and oozed like treacle, without point or substance, neither endorsing nor critiquing Alito's substantive qualifications. He chewed up so much valuable time not making any of the points that Democrats were presumably at pains to make that the C-SPAN camera briefly showed his colleague Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) burying his head in his hands in despair at Biden's interminable performance.

The second characterization is also largely true; Biden has immense foreign policy experience. But it is precisely the wrong kind of experience if the Democrats want to contrast themselves with the disastrous policies of the last eight years. He has long been a pliant tool of the War Party, favoring humanitarian intervention as the principal tool for meddling overseas. In a previous essay we alluded to John McCain's introduction of a "let's invade Serbia" resolution in 1999 as evidence of the Arizona Senator's maniacal bellicosity. McCain's chief cosponsor for this legislation was Biden.

Biden was Capitol Hill's main cheerleader for Bill Clinton when the latter unleashed his idiotic 100-hour bombing campaign against Iraq in order to divert attention from his impeachment. When Scott Ritter, a U.S. member of the UN arms inspection team in Iraq, began saying that the inspections were effective (which Washington didn't want to hear), and that the United States was inserting intelligence operatives into the team to target Saddam Hussein (thus giving Saddam legitimate grounds to expel the whole operation), Biden patronizingly excoriated Ritter during the latter's congressional testimony, referring to him as "Scotty Boy." The passage of time has vindicated Ritter far more than Biden.

Biden is one of the immense tribe of Washington savants who were gung-ho for the invasion of Iraq but who edged away from their support once it became less popular. Of course, the opposition is not based on any belated appreciation of the invasion's illegality, immorality, ruinous cost, or geopolitical imbecility. The default "opposition mode" is to criticize the invasion because there weren't enough troops. Morally, this argument is cretinous, like condemning Operation Barbarossa solely because the Wehrmacht didn't go in heavy enough. It is illogical as well: the American public is bombarded daily with pronouncements about how the U.S. military is "stretched to the breaking point," and how there is an upper limit to the number of troops that can be maintained in Iraq. So how would those extra troops have been conjured out of thin air?

It is revealing that as late as the fall of 2005 Biden gushed over a speech given by Bush to the National Endowment of Democracy (a coven of "ex"-Trotskyite neoconservatives who specialize in spending taxpayer dollars to rig elections abroad). Bush's speech was the usual malignant drivel about exporting democracy to the heathens at gunpoint; in praising it, Biden was endorsing the mindset that gave rise to the Iraq debacle in the first place.

Biden's trip to Georgia as Obama's emissary is just the latest example of his foreign policy judgment. The principal result of this journey was Biden's pronunciamento that taxpayers should fork over $1 billion to the Saakashvili regime. This amounts to indemnifying Saakashvili for his criminal stupidity. No doubt once Congress gets finished with such an aid package the price tag will be $5 billion.

Biden is fond of saying that because the DOD budget is so big there is a budgetary disproportion to what the State Department gets. Ergo, this automatically means in Biden's mind that because DOD gets so much, State's budget ought to be increased. Of course, it never occurs to him that it is just as logical to conclude one could cure the disproportion by decreasing DOD's budget rather than by increasing State's.

In point of fact, the foreign aid budget, just like DOD's, is a riot of waste, fraud, abuse, and bribes to regimes even more corrupt and odious than our own. One could rationalize temporary humanitarian aid to places hit with natural disasters or the like. But permanent, country-based aid (the vast bulk of the foreign aid budget) is simply a waste of money. One can imagine that in an administration in which Biden had influence such potlatch would greatly increase.

So why did Obama pick him? The standard answer is that Democrats don't want to appear "weak" (a term that now essentially means "less trigger-happy") on national security policy. But that raises the question of why this dynamic exists in the first place. Why did Obama choose the most bellicose of potential vice presidential candidates precisely when the public is fed up with the results of earlier bellicosity?

Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo facetiously propounded the theory that when hijacked airliners hit the World Trade Center towers on 9/11 they ripped a hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum and the country entered a "Bizarro World" where up was down, black was white, and stupidity was wisdom. There is some attractiveness to that argument – after 9/11 stupidity became almost a mandatory component of good citizenship – but it does not explain why there were many manifestations of this phenomenon prior to 9/11. The extremely serious consequences of intervening in the Balkans, for instance, are only now coming to light with Russia's long-delayed response to it in Georgia.

To explain why the American political class invades the wrong countries, indemnifies criminals, picks people like Joe Biden for responsible positions, and engages in so many other destructive acts, we modestly propose Werther's Law, or the Iron Law of Adverse Political Selection: in decadent political systems the most damaging policy option tends to be the one chosen.

To explain how Werther's Law works, we need reference to another political rule of thumb, the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which states that all organizations tend to develop into hierarchies with oligarchs at the top. We submit that those oligarchies over time tend to become inbred, either literally (think Bush family), or because they select members based on obedience to hierarchy, a groupthink mentality, and ability to self-censor. The rewards for correct behavior are lucrative: not only the thrill of wielding power when in office but a virtual ironclad guarantee of well-remunerated lifetime employment as a lobbyist, a board member of a defense contractor, or a holder of an endowed chair at a foundation.

Making serious mistakes, or even pursuing disastrous policies, are no impediment to one's career moving onward and upward. "Failing upward" (known cynically in Washington as "f*ck up and move up") is an occurrence as frequent in Washington as the common cold. How else to explain Paul Wolfowitz's horrific tenure at the Department of Defense being rewarded with a plum job as president of the World Bank, where he could make further business contacts that would keep him well-paid even after he failed in that job? It is no sin to be incompetent; it is a sin to be competent and diligent in one's job if it involves blowing the whistle on malfeasance in one's organization. The fate of whistleblowers in the Bush administration is abundant evidence of this. No one with a mortgage likes to be demoted, fired, or blackballed from future employment.

As the oligarchy metastasizes, it penetrates and transforms other governmental and non-governmental organizations, including those intended to serve as watchdogs. Congress ceases to oversee military spending, because every weapon system is built in somebody's district. The media hires "news analysts" straight out of the White House and "military analysts" whose explicit understanding of their jobs is to present wars in the best possible light.

The public becomes less and less able to affect the issues. The American people are not noted for their driving intellectual curiosity in the first place, but should public indignation lead to protest it is quickly channeled into electoral politics, where the protest is drained of life. Elections themselves are characterized by personality contests, horse-race trivia, and strenuous efforts to avoid real issues. The opposing candidates, chosen by political hierarchies, afford the voter the choice between Coke and Diet Coke even if he desperately wants Bordeaux.

The oligarchy, and the political system that radiates outward from it, becomes an interlocking and self-reinforcing web of interests. Success becomes what serves the interest of the oligarchy (including the financial interest of individual members thereof); failure is whatever does not serve its interest. The system is inwardly focused, self-referential, and hostile to new ideas. The illusion of free debate is maintained by allowing marginal, process-oriented criticism ("not enough troops"). Those who reject the rules of the game and fundamentally critique the system, like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich, are simply quarantined, ridiculed by the bought media, and often face primary challenges organized by the party hierarchy.

Such a system is either notably incurious about the world outside its own power structure or else it seeks to interpret that world in ways that complement its own flattering self-image. Left to mature long enough the system becomes delusional. Hence all the crowing in the past 20 years about indispensable nations, hyperpowers, and so forth. Given that war is incredibly remunerative to the oligarchy (hundreds of thousands of people within a 50-mile radius of the Capitol make a really, really good living off it) even as it drains the resources of the public at large, it is no wonder that Washington habitually resorts to the sword. The fact that it provides an overseas scapegoat doesn't hurt, either, in terms of keeping the home folks in line.

Small and weak countries that habitually engage in this warlike behavior quickly end up in the dustbin of history, like Somalia. But the United States, like Rome, is a vast country with huge (though not infinite) resources and can delude itself for decades that this kind of behavior is benign. And it is benign, at least for the short- and even medium-term interests of the oligarchy. The perverse incentives of the process ensure that the oligarchy is stabilized and personally enriched even as national strength gradually ebbs.

Although we have used war-making as the prime example of oligarchy enhancement, the same principle applies in other fields. Why did the government encourage the decline of manufacturing and the financialization of the economy, thereby authorizing the creation of financial transactions that were little better than Ponzi schemes? A close examination of Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's political contributions to the oligarchy reveals the answer: it was incredibly lucrative.

Given the powerful set of career and monetary incentives that allow the American oligarchy to define failure as success, it will be very hard to break the feedback loop of rewards and punishments that create disastrous policies. But, as noted before, financial resources are not infinite. It is unlikely (though not unthinkable) that the American oligarchy could lurch into some crisis that gets everyone killed. But it is more than likely that, like the Soviet Union, Britain, Holland, Spain, and Rome before it, the American empire will follow Werther's Law and stumble over the ensuing decades from quagmire to quagmire, depleting its funds till outsiders shake their heads over the pathetic comedown of the erstwhile hyperpower. Joe Biden may be an extensive footnote in the history of that decline.

Original article
h/t dirkcjelli
(Dirk also runs a quality political blog at http://afinerworld.blogspot.com , which 5E types may dig.)

The intersection of psychology and politics

londo — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:56:14 GMT

I've just read one of the more compelling points I've seen in a long time. The following is an excerpt from an A Finer World response to some comments by David Brin. Emphasis mine, but not too different from the original:

Before I can tell you more about this disease, we should review some famous and recent psychological experiments which deal with how ordinary people deal with certain circumstances. In particular, I’m thinking of the work of Milgram and Zimbardo, as well as recent fMRI work by Sam Harris et al. (caution, pdf). Milgram conducted research into how people respond to authority. In his most famous experiment, under the guise of working as lab assistants studying the impact of pain on learning, subjects were led to deliver progressively greater electric shocks to another individual. Zimbardo conducted another experiment in authority. Individuals were assigned roles as either prisoners or guards. Once given such roles, they behaved in a manner most succinctly describable today as “like Abu Garaib.” Harris indicated that people find it very difficult to question statements they believe to be true, that different brain areas are involved in belief and disbelief, and that it takes less time to evaluate a statement we hold to be true than one we believe to be false.

If most ordinary people were exchanged with the guards who ‘just followed orders’ at Dachau, or Auschwitz, we know now that they would act in much the same way. Every-day evil is a product of environment, though that is not the same as saying that these people aren’t sick—they’ve simply been made sick by their environment. (Sick in the sense that we define mental illness in terms of behavior we find incompatible with accepted societal values.) From Harris, we may add that if they already believed in the authorities in question, in that case the German government, they cannot be counted upon to reliably evaluate whether that authority is just; they’re too invested in that system of belief. To evaluate that system would require a conscious effort on the part of those who were already a part of it.

It follows that the systems by which we arrange ourselves, the authorities we agree will govern our behavior, are critically important if we wish to see a change in results. If you take completely ordinary people and tell them that authority says you are legally and morally obligated to maximize profits to maximize shareholder value, that this is what everyone does, and that those who are opposed to this system are wicked and evil and it is for the greater good that sometimes this system has problems… it stands to reason ordinary people can do terrible things. Suppress information about the dangers of smoking. Enforce slave-like conditions. Pollute the environment. Produce products which break, requiring replacement. Deny healthcare. Arrange surveillance to break strikes. Have labor organizers harassed, and perhaps even killed.

Full article (which is generally worth reading) can be found here.

The best CDs of 2007, pt. 1

lullabypit — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:46:20 GMT

It was a pretty good year in music. A handful of artists produced absolutely fabulous CDs and a lot more managed releases ranging from "worth the money" to "are you sure that shouldn't be rated a little higher"?

Here's the format. Instead of the tedious task of actually ranking CDs - a torture I used to inflict on myself every year - we now have four tiers: The Slammy, awarded to the CD of the Year; the Platinum LP, awarded for superior achievement; the Gold LP, for significant achievement; and Honorable Mention, for things I bought and liked enough to keep. Today, the Gold LP winners and Honorable Mentions (presented in no particular order).

Gold LP

The National: Boxer(More...)

The Public Sphere and Democracy

nicwhite86 — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:30:25 GMT

Link to an essay I wrote a couple of weeks back. It's apparently too long to post to LJ.

Read, discuss, etc.

The Scholars & Rogues Interview: Graham Parker

lullabypit — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 20:23:49 GMT

If there are any Graham Parker fans here, this is something you might have a look at.
____________________________

The mid-1970s were a wonderful time for music lovers. For starters, exciting and innovative new music was popping up all over the place. And when it did, it actually got played on the radio.

The UK was especially fertile ground during this period, as scores of punk and New Wave bands emerged (many from the "pub rock" scene) in the most dynamic explosion of music since the British Invasion. One of the most outstanding of these was Graham Parker, who in 1976 released not one, but two instant five-star classics - Howlin' Wind and Heat Treatment.

While some of his contemporaries (most notably Elvis Costello) became wildly famous, arguably nobody in rock history has posted a more enduring legacy of critical success. In the three-plus decades since Howlin' Wind Parker has released over 25 records, and you have to be a pure hater not to give 10-15 of them at least four stars. That's a remarkable accomplishment, especially when you add to the legacy this year's Don't Tell Columbus, which is currently in the mix for a lot of best CD of the year nods (including mine), and which some reviewers have gone so far as to call his greatest CD ever. (More...)

Silencing dissent: "Balanced" is in the eye of the chokeholder...

dkmnow — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:46:54 GMT

In his excellent "No Comment" blog, Scott Horton of Harper's reports:

August 13, 7:32 AM
A Curious Incident at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs

Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, whose London Review of Books article on “the Israel Lobby” unleashed a major storm in the United States, have worked their article into a book. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, arguably the most top-drawer of all U.S. publishers, is bringing it out under the title The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy right after Labor Day. In this connection, the publisher had planned the usual tour to highlight the book, including a stop at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

But no. Evidently under intense, but anonymous pressure, the Council suddenly withdrew its invitation, saying that Mearsheimer and Walt could only appear if they were “balanced” by someone with a contending viewpoint...

Allow me to fill in what I know Horton meant to include:

"BAD Council! BAD! That's a BAAAAD COUNCIL!"

Mearsheimer and Walt are but a tiny fraction of the real balance that has been missing -- nay, banished -- from public discussion on Israel for decades. Had the Council honored their invitation in a manner befitting vertebrate lifeforms, it would have been a tiny step in the direction of restoring balance -- nay, sanity -- to what has long been a woefully and dangerously UNbalanced public treatment of one of the most volatile and costly sets of foreign policy issues we have to face.

Now, this is not to say that Mearsheimer and Walt are wholly unbiased in their analysis and rhetoric. But does the Israel lobby really imagine that, if a feather lights on the other side, that will somehow send their mighty elephant flying off the scales? One wonders, if their position is so unassailable, how is it that they dare not tolerate even the faintest whispering of dissent?

Or is this all just because I'm "a vile anti-Semitic"?

KARL ROVE RESIGNING -- One Down, Three To Go (at the very least)

dkmnow — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:35:08 GMT

This just in from the AP:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-rove-resigning,0,7765934.story

chicagotribune.com
Karl Rove to Resign at End of August

By TERENCE HUNT

AP White House Correspondent

6:55 AM CDT, August 13, 2007

WASHINGTON

Karl Rove, President Bush's close friend and chief political strategist, plans to leave the White House at the end of August, joining a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final 1 1/2 years of the administration.

On board with Bush since the beginning of his political career in Texas, Rove was nicknamed "the architect" and "boy genius" by the president for designing the strategy that twice won him the White House. Critics call Rove "Bush's brain."

A criminal investigation put Rove under scrutiny for months during the investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name but he was never charged with any crime. In a more recent controversy, Rove, citing executive privilege, has refused to testify before Congress about the firing of U.S. attorneys.

Bush was expected to make a statement Monday with Rove. Later Monday, Rove, his wife and their son were to accompany Bush on Air Force One when the president flies to Texas for his vacation.

"Obviously it's a big loss to us," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. "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."

Since Democrats won control of Congress in November, some top administration officials have announced their resignations. Among those who have left are White House counselor Dan Bartlett, budget director Rob Portman, chief White House attorney Harriet Miers, political director Sara Taylor, deputy national security adviser J.D. Crouch and Meghan O'Sullivan, another deputy national security adviser who worked on Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was forced out immediately after the election as the unpopular war in Iraq dragged on.

Rove became one of Washington's most influential figures during Bush's presidency. He is known as a ruthless political warrior who has an encyclopedic command of political minutiae and a wonkish love of policy. Rove met Bush in the early 1970s, when both men were in their 20s.

Once inside the White House, Rove grew into a right-hand man.

Rove is expected to write a book after he leaves. He disclosed his departure in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

He said he decided to leave after White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten told senior aides that if they stayed past Labor Day they would be obliged to remain through the end of the president's term in January 2009.

"I just think it's time," Rove said in an interview at this home on Saturday. He first floated the idea of leaving to Bush a year ago, the newspaper said, and friends confirmed he'd been talking about it even earlier. However, he said he didn't want to depart right after the Democrats regained control of Congress and then got drawn into policy battles over the Iraq war and immigration.

"There's always something that can keep you here, and as much as I'd like to be here, I've got to do this for the sake of my family," said Rove, who has been in the White House since Bush took office in 2001.

Rove's son attends college in San Antonio and he said he and his wife plan to spend much of their time at their nearby home in Ingram.

Rove, currently the deputy White House chief of staff, has been the president's political guru for years and worked with Bush since he first ran for governor of Texas in 1993.

Even as he discussed his departure, Rove remained characteristically sunny. This quality of unrelenting optimism about the president, which matches Bush's own upbeat, never-admit-disappointment nature, has at times gotten Rove into trouble. Up to the end of the 2006 midterm elections, the political guru predicted a Republican win. That of course was not to be, and there was grumbling that Rove wasn't on his game during those elections as much as he had been before.

In the interview, Rove predicted Bush will regain his popularity, which has sunk to record lows because of the war in Iraq.

Rove also predicted conditions in Iraq would improve and that the Democrats would nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, calling her "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate."

Rove testified before a federal grand jury in the investigation into the leak of the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer whose husband was a critic of the war in Iraq. That investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges of lying and obstructing justice. Plame contends the White House was trying to discredit her husband.

Attorneys for Libby told jurors at the onset of his trial that Libby was the victim of a conspiracy to protect Rove. Details of any save-Rove conspiracy were promised but never materialized.

The most explicit testimony on Rove came from columnist Robert Novak, who outed Plame in a July 2003 column. He testified that Rove, a frequent source, was one of two officials who told him about Plame. Libby, with whom he seldom spoke, was not a source.

Rove, though, was not indicted after testifying five times before the grand jury, occasionally correcting misstatements he made in his earlier testimony.

The jury in Libby's trial did not hear that testimony, nor did it hear that Rove is credited as an architect of Republican political victories and has been accused by opponents of playing dirty tricks.

All that jurors heard is that Rove leaked Plame's identity and, from the outset, got political cover from the White House. He was never charged with a crime.

You can STOP HIM NOW!!

seeking4sophia — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 21:36:45 GMT

Go to Amazon right this second and pre-order Kanye West's new CD.

"But S4S, I don't like rap, even though that 'Gold Digger' song of his was kinda catchy!"
OR
"But S4S, I never PAY for music, and neither do you! Why should I start now?"

The answer to both:
50 Cent and Kanye West both debut new albums on Sept. 11. Fiddy has announced that if Kanye outsells him on that first day, he will QUIT HIS SOLO CAREER.

NEVER have ordinary people like you and me had the power to just GET RID OF ARTISTS WE FIND EXTREMELY IRRITATING!

50 Cent: I'll quit if outsold by West

NEW YORK (AP) -- 50 Cent believes his new album will outsell Kanye West's upcoming disc, and he's betting his solo career on it. Both 50 Cent and West have albums due out Sept. 11. 50 Cent, who has sold better than West, has been riled by forecasts that sales of West's "Graduation" could rival those for his "Curtis" CD.

"Let's raise the stakes," the 31-year-old rapper told hip-hop Web site SOHH.com in an interview posted Friday. "If Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent on September 11, I'll no longer write music. I'll write music and work with my other artists, but I won't put out anymore solo albums."

An e-mail sent to West's publicist wasn't immediately returned Friday.

50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis James Jackson, has been publicly disparaging of West before. In 2005, he suggested the 29-year-old rapper's popularity was only possible because of 50's own success.

But they recently collaborated in the studio. Their work, though, isn't scheduled to appear on either new album.

50 Cent's last full-length solo album, "The Massacre," was the best-selling disc of 2005 and sold more than 1.14 million copies in its first week of release. The same year, West's "Late Registration" opened by selling more than 860,000 copies in its first week.

</div>
I personally blame Fiddy for the whole "being a crack dealer is cool" thing. I know there were plenty of others before him but I consider him the most ostentatious and offensive.

xposted, like, everywhere.

End of Days?

sparker959 — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:09:58 GMT

Dear investors
This just in the Media conglomerate "genius" DonaldTrump just said on CNBC that if interest rates don't drop very soon wewill have a very long term Reccession effecting the entire world. Saidalso even if the Interest rates were dropped we were going to be lookinforward to "some bad times in the mid and short term" Well its veryomnious even if it isn't true is words are going to have a huge effect.
Ohyeah I almost forgot he was claiming it was because of the lack ofcredit on the market. That nobody not regular citzens or citzen of thecoporate conglomery could get credit that was cheap enough for them.This is scary because of how much debt we have we always claimed thatthe escalating natinoal debt was never going to be an issue but uhhhhwait ummmm. Yeah some body working for the state ought to start lookinginto why its a bad idea to run your credit card through the roof. Andperhaps fax that to the free market experts in the fricken oval office.

XpostedX guerillanews wallstreet

Is the perfect real estate storm about to pop the housing bubble?

lullabypit — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 14:09:49 GMT

I've been waiting for the housing crash for awhile. I'm not an expert, but it has seemed to me that we have:

a lot of empty existing units;

a ridiculous excess of new units being built;

absolutely insane financing deals being offered; and

accelerating foreclosure numbers.

In other words, a perfect storm is brewing. (More at S&R...)

Hagel-Dodd bill to fix infrastructure a limited vision of the task

drdenny — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:36:51 GMT

At least one candidate and one almost-was candidate for president in 2008 believe that the United States cannot afford — through federal funding — to pay for desperately needed repairs to 160,000 bridges nationwide and other just-as-critical infrastructure needs. They want to privatize much of it, although they label the effort a "partnership."

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) appeared on CNN's The Situation Room Thursday to push their National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007 proposal. The bill leans heavily on research conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, resulting in the center's "Guiding Principles for Strengthening America's Infrastructure."

Sens. Dodd and Hagel told host Wolf Blitzer that the nation's infrastructure issues are so dire that the federal government cannot financially resolve them on its own.

That isn't necessarily true. What they propose is a political choice. The federal government, through presidential and congressional leadership, has sufficient ability to do resolve infrastructure issues if it chooses to.

From their CNN interview [emphasis added]:

DODD: ... What we're trying to do, Chuck and I, is not only identify the problem, but how do you come up with a unique and special kind of way to fund a lot of this? Because, frankly, through the appropriation process and earmarking, you can't begin to deal...
....
HAGEL: Well, the first thing that we must address, like any problem, Wolf, is accepting the reality of what's out there. And that is going to require tens of billions, really hundreds of billions of dollars, in funding.

And what we have come up with is an idea that's pretty novel. And that is, knowing and realizing that the federal government can't possibly find all the funding required, is to really leverage private- sector moneys with public-sector credit, and through this infrastructure bank and through tax credit, longtime — and long-term bonds.

And we think it makes sense. We worked with the Wall Street people over the last two years on this. We know we're going to have to find the funding to address these big issues. And it's not just bridges and roads. It's water systems. It's -- it's every element of our infrastructure. [See full transcript of interview.]

In an earlier S&R post, Sam Smith argues that the cost of needed repairs to the nation's bridges, estimated at $188 billion, could be paid for by what is currently being spent on the war in Iraq. That war was — is — a political choice. For the economists among us, that war represents opportunity cost. Money being spent (and American children's lives being lost) on chasing terrorists in the wrong country for five years could pay to repair bridges and much more. That's a choice. And it's not just President Bush's choice. Past administrations going back to President Nixon made choices as well that left the nation's infrastructure in the life-theatening, economy-costing condition it's in today.

Sens. Hagel and Dodd want to bring in private money and pair it with public money to fix everything. Their bill, according to their joint press release, would "create an independent national bank that would identify, evaluate and help finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional and national significance. Infrastructure projects under the Bank’s jurisdiction would include publicly-owned mass transit systems, roads, bridges, drinking water and wastewater systems, and housing properties."

Admittedly, the infrastructure is woeful. Say Sens. Dodd and Hagel:

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the current condition of our nation’s major infrastructure system earns a grade point average of D. The average age of drinking water and wastewater systems range in age from 50 to 100 years in age. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, the average traveler is delayed 51.5 hours in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas. The delays range from 93 hours in Los Angeles to 14 hours in Pittsburgh. Combined these delays waste 1.78 billion gallons of fuel each year and waste almost $50.3 billion in congestion costs.

But this is their proposed solution: "a new system through which the federal government can finance infrastructure projects by leveraging private and public capital to fund large projects that are vital to our country." [emphasis added]

Egads, no. Defeat this bill. Don't add another bureaucracy to a federal government that has proved it cannot, at the moment, address even emergency relief and aid in time of crisis (FEMA? Katrina?). Make the political choice to fix the federal government's ability to tackle public problems. Don't erode public control over public infrastructure, as is happening through the increasing sales of public works, such as toll roads, bridges and airports, originally built with public money.

As the BusinessWeek story points out, public works privatization has become big business, emerging as an "asset class" with investment banks touting new "infrastructure funds." Says BW: "Investors can't get in fast enough. They recently deluged Goldman Sachs with $6.5 billion for its new infrastructure fund, more than twice the $3 billion it was seeking. "

And the CSIS study? Included as study principals besides Sens. Dodd and Hagel were:

• Kenneth M. Duberstein, whose resumé includes chief of staff for President Reagan, trustee emeritus at the conservative think tank The Hudson Institute, vice president of governmental relations firm Timmons & Company (which earned $65,468,000 in lobbying fees from 1998-2006), and principal of The Duberstein Group, which took in $17,047,750 in lobbying fees from 1998-2004.

• Felix G. Rohatyn, who has been managing director of investment bank Lazard Frères (and who restructured New York City's debt in the '70s to resolve its fiscal woes) and an adviser to global investment bank Lehman Brothers, whose holding arm was fined $500,000 as a settlement for ''failing to reasonably supervise trading'' in a stock at the close of trading on Dec. 11, 2002; fined $400,000 for the "submission of inaccurate monthly reports of short positions in securities listed on the NYSE"; fined $2.5 million by the SEC in August 2003 for failing to supervise a rogue stock broker; and was one of 10 Wall Street Firms — Salomon Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, UBS Warburg (UBS Paine Webber) — ordered to pay out at least $1.4 billion in fines and undertake business reforms in April 2003. Lehman's share was $80 million.

• Frederick Whittemore, advisory director of financial services and investment asset management firm Morgan Stanley, which in December 2002 was fined $1.65 million and in April 2003 agreed to a separate $125 million securities fraud settlement; which received "the biggest fine [$25 million] in the history of the New York Stock Exchange for failing to send out prospectuses out to people who bought securities"; which settled for $15 million in February 2006 a charge of failing to save e-mails; which in August 2005 paid $1.5 million in fines and $4.6 million in restitution to investors for the violations; and which was fined $10 million in June 2006 for a "systemic breakdown" in how the firm controlled inside information.

• Governors Rick Perry of Texas, Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey and former New Hampshire Sen. Warren Rudman.

• John C. Whitehead of the Lower Manhattan Development Council, a joint New York state-New York City corporation charged with oversight of Lower Manhattan's recovery from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, an enterprise that has not been without financial, artistic and political controversy.

The report these kind folks wrote contains this critical line: Resources for infrastructure investments should be more closely aligned with the benefits experienced by the users who enjoy them. And this one: Users should pay a greater portion of infrastructure costs; the extent to which users are prepared to pay for the services they use is ultimately the best test of project viability. And this code phrase: user cost recovery.

Think back 25 years to the Reagan administration. User fees. Revenue enhancements. These were tax hikes linguistically disguised. If the Dodd-Hagel bill has been hatched through the work of a think tank committee that quacks like a fiscally conservative duck, then the bill must be a fiscally conservative duck. This study, and the resulting bill, is based on a narrowly framed ideology. It should not be.

The public infrastructure of the United States should remain a public responsibility. That bloodstream of roads, bridges, waterways, water systems et al. is a common enterprise to "promote the general welfare" as ordained in the preamble of the Constitution. We all use it; we all should shoulder the burden of paying for it.

I can't think of a costlier or more boondoggle-prone enterprise than a public-private partnership that gets to decide what gets fixed first, by whom and how paid for. The federal government isn't perfect, but wiser political choices ought to be made by the people we elect to best serve the public's interest. The Dodd-Hagel bill is not that best choice.

This bill also presumes that the only issues at hand are financial. A public works effort of this magnitude should address, among others, environmental, social justice and dislocation, and federal-state relationship issues. Rebuilding how the nation gets goods and services and people from here to there is chance to undo mistakes made long ago and to redefine what kind of nation this is.

Will this effort to repair our infrastructure be one of exploitation or stewardship? Will it be principled by money or people? Will it leave the nation stale or vibrant? Will it demean us as selfish or teach us to be generous? Will the leadership of this effort stress a corporate or cooperative mindset? Will it be driven by ideology or vision?

The repairs of the nation's infrastructure will become a telling test of our government, of our concept of ourselves as citizens and the extent to which moneyed special interests control both.

xpost: Scholars & Rogues

Satan's pajama party: Ken Starr in bed with Hillary Clinton, Dubya slays the GOP

lullabypit — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:12:30 GMT

They say that politics makes for strange bedfellows. But this is ridiculous. (More...)

The UNFATHOMABLE cost of fixing ALL THOSE BRIDGES: a moment of perspective...

lullabypit — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 01:29:32 GMT

According to an article in today's Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the span that collapsed in Minneapolis, and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion.

(More...)

A special White House press secretary Quotabull

drdenny — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:07:09 GMT

We want fresh thinking, to charge the batteries, and passionate participation. There is a lot of value added in Tony coming on board and helping us internally with his own views and ideas. It fits into the mold.

— Dan Bartlett, an adviser to President Bush, April 27, 2006, on the appointment of former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow as White House press secretary.

The president's message and vision are firmly in place and are not going to change. But it still helps to have a new messenger. It helps to wipe the slate clean.

— Mark McKinnon, a political adviser to President Bush, April 27, 2006, on the appointment of former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow as White House press secretary.

Tony Snow should provide a smooth presence at the podium. But the problems that presidents have are political problems and policy problems, not press problems. But it is often the press problems that get addressed.

— Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University professor who studies presidential communication, April 27, 2006, on the appointment of former Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow as White House press secretary.

I feel so loved.

— The first words uttered by White House press secretary Tony Snow at his first press briefing, May 16, 2006.

Q: Tony, I'm curious, why won't you comment at all on the USA Today story, or at least talk in a limited way about how average Americans' phone records are handled by the National Security Agency?
MR. SNOW: Because it's inappropriate.

— Excerpt from White House press secretary Tony Snow's first press briefing, May 16, 2006.

This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.

— Ron Ziegler, press secretary to President Richard Nixon, during April 17, 1973, press briefing at the height of the Watergate scandal.

This strategy represents our policy for all time. Until it's changed.

— Marlin Fitzwater, assistant to President Reagan for press relations and press secretary to President George H.W. Bush, quoted in Newsweek, April 2, 1990.

Those who talk don’t know what is going on and those who know what is going on won’t talk.

— Larry Speakes, White House press secretary, on the news blackout at the Nov. 21, 1985, Geneva summit meeting between President Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev.

He'll outline his policy — it will not be — I think it's the beginning rather than the — I don't want to overcharacterize, but I would say that it — it's not — it will not be — it will not answer every single question. It is not intended to answer every single question about conduct and behavior. There needs to be additional consultation, and I think it will take more time for all the questions to be worked out.

— Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers' response at her first press briefing to a question about President Clinton's intent to end the ban on the gays in the military.

Q: Do you think you got a fair chance [as the first woman to hold the job of White House press secretary]?
MS. MYERS: I think I did get a fair chance. I don't think those two things are incompatible. I think there can be sort of unusual challenges or can be additional barriers or hurdles that you have to clear. But I think certainly — I think I've gotten a fair chance. And I think I've been — I think, by and large, most of you — all of you actually — have treated me fairly. I think you've — I think you are professionals who work hard every day to do a job that you think is important — that is important. I think you're here to keep government accountable. And I think that this nation owes you a debt of gratitude for doing that. I don't always like it; the President and people who work and serve in this building don't always like it; but it is important.

— Excerpt from final press briefing by Dee Dee Myers, Dec. 22, 1994.

I work for him despite his faults and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies.

— Bill Moyers, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, quoted in The New York Times, April 3, 1966.

Nobody believes the official spokesman ... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.

— Ron Nessen, press secretary to President Gerald Ford.

Of course, the reporters aren't the only ones who behave differently before the cameras. I acted differently, too. At the televised briefing I would sometimes lean into the podium, raise my hand and do my best to deliver a sound bite for the evening news. I liked mixing it up with reporters. I enjoyed a good intellectual televised argument. But the briefing always had an air of theater to it — on both sides of the podium.

— Ari Fleischer, President Bush's press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003.

QUESTION: Mike, at the beginning of all of this, and since, White House aides and Clinton allies had a lot to say about Ms. Lewinsky and her credibility and her character. Do you expect that the President has some message for her today or does the White House have something to say to her?
McCURRY: To?
QUESTION: To Ms. Lewinsky. I mean, there was a time when White House aides and his allies were doing a lot to try to undercut her credibility.
McCURRY: I don't believe that that's true. I know I don't believe I've ever done that, and I don't believe that that's true.

— Exchange between reporter and Mike McCurry, press secretary to President Clinton, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Aug. 17, 1998.

Q: What do you think about — some Democrats have started talking about impeaching Alberto Gonzales. You've had strong comments before about Democrats launching investigations. What about impeachment?
MR. SNOW: Well, permit me to be strong again. This is another — what you have in American politics today -- and it's something that I think people are increasingly getting fed up with — is kind of a race to be most toxic. How can you try to elevate the stakes in what ought to be common, reasoned debate, and do it also in an atmosphere in which Congress, itself, has had a very difficult time getting its own work done? In this particular case, the Attorney General has testified truthfully, and this is the kind of thing that is designed to turn up the temperature rather than to turn on the light.

— Exchange between reporter and White House spokesman Tony Snow during July 31 press briefing.

So it is with great regret, after long soul-searching, that I must inform you that I cannot in good conscience support your decision to pardon former President Nixon even before he has been charged with the commission of any crime. As your spokesman, I do not know how I could credibly defend that action in the absence of a like decision to grant absolute pardon to the young men who evaded Vietnam military service as a matter of conscience and the absence of pardons for former aides and associates of Mr. Nixon who have been charged with crimes — and imprisoned — stemming from the same Watergate situation. Try as I can, it is impossible to conclude that the former President is more deserving of mercy than persons of lesser station in life whose offenses have had far less effect on our national well-being.

— Excerpt from Sept. 8, 1974, letter of resignation from White House press secretary Jerald terHorst, who served only a month, to President Gerald Ford.

xpost: Scholars & Rogues

Truth, lies and Alberto R. Gonzales

drdenny — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:22:57 GMT

I'm a big fan of Al's . . . I think Al has done a good job under difficult circumstances. The debate between he and the Senate is something they're going to have to resolve. But I think he has testified truthfully.

— Vice President Dick Cheney during a July 30 interview with CBS Radio.

It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes.

— Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales during his January 2005 confirmation hearings when asked whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of American citizens without warrants.

... I will vote to confirm. I understand the frustration of members of the Judiciary Committee about some of the answers — many of the answers that Judge Gonzales gave at the hearing. Some of them were evasive, some were legalistic, but that wouldn't be the first time that a witness before a committee had proceeded in that particular way, particularly one who has privileges that he occupies and lives under as Counsel to the President of the United States.

— from Feb. 3, 2005 remarks by Sen. Joseph Lieberman announcing his intent to vote to confirm Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general.

We are a nation at war - a war in Iraq and a war against terrorism war does not give our civilian leaders the authority to cast aside the laws of armed conflict, nor does it allow our Commander in Chief to decide which laws apply and which laws do not apply. To do so puts, I repeat, our own soldiers and our Nation at risk. But that is what has occurred under the direction and coordination of the man seeking to be Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, a man I personally like, but whose judgment on these very serious matters was flawed and is flawed.

— from Feb. 3, 2005, remarks by Sen. Harry Reid announcing his intent to vote against confirming Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general.

I am busting with pride over the incredible odyssey of Alberto Gonzales. Now that he has become the nation's first Latino attorney general, Gonzales has earned his place in the history books and, no doubt, in the hearts of millions of Latinos. But, given everything I heard during his confirmation, I'm also concerned. That's because, for me, the most important job of any government lawyer is the protection of individuals' civil rights and civil liberties. Given that Gonzales – in his written responses to questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee – asserted that the United States has the right to hold people indefinitely without charging them of a crime and transport them to countries that practice torture, it doesn't appear that the new attorney general agrees with me.

— from a Feb. 9, 2005, column by Ruben Navarrette Jr. of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility. We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected.

— Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales on the possibility of prosecuting journalists, telling the Associated Press on May 5, 2006, that the Bush administration would not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal-leak investigation.

I can't imagine a bigger chill on free speech and the public's right to know what it's government is up to — both hallmarks of a democracy — than prosecuting reporters.

— Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, May 5, 2006, in response to the attorney general's assertion.

You have a right to know what is going on in government. But we also believe such rights are not absolute.

— Then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales in remarks about reporters' access to government records to the 2002 convention of the Associated Press Managing Editors as reported by Editor & Publisher's Joe Strupp.

The government is releasing an extraordinary set of documents today, and this should not be viewed as setting any kind of precedent. But we felt it important to set the record straight. Additional documents may be withheld in the future for national security and other reasons.

— Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales at a June 23, 2005, discussing the release of "hundreds of pages of documents detailing the administration's debates and decisions about the use of torture."

We continue to believe that the president has the inherent authority, under the Constitution's commander in chief, to engage in this kind of conduct. But that's a secondary argument. We believe the Congress has authorized this kind of conduct.

And we understand the concern that have been raised by certain members of Congress. As the president indicated on Saturday, we have reached certain key members of Congress from the beginning of this program about what we're doing and the justifications for what we're doing.

And we didn't brief other members of Congress because of the importance of keeping this program classified as much as possible. We will, in the days to come, sit down with members of Congress and try to provide information to reassure them that the president of the United States is utilizing these tools in a lawful manner, in a way that ensures that the civil liberties of all Americans are protected.

— from a Dec. 19, 2005, CNN interview with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.

Sean, from Michigan writes:
I Want to get this national spying probelm straight. At that time the N.S.A was spying on known terrorist connections making international calls. it was not by any means affecting the typical american right? [sic]
Alberto Gonzales:
Sean, thanks for your question. I'm glad you asked this question -- it is a very important question about an issue that has a lot of people confused, in part because of incomplete or inaccurate media reports. First, let me be very clear -- the terrorist surveillance program described by the President is focused solely on international communications where professional intelligence experts have reason to believe that at least one party is a member or agent of al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist group. As this description demonstrates, the terrorist surveillance program described by the President is very narrow. Because it is focused on international calls of individuals linked to al Qaeda, it is overwhelmingly unlikely that the terrorist surveillance program would ever affect an ordinary American. And if this ever were to happen, the information would be destroyed as quickly as possible. The President authorized this program specifically to protect ordinary Americans from the type of outrageous attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, and you can rest assured that the federal government is fully committed to protecting you and other Americans - both your safety and your civil liberties.

— Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales during a Jan. 25, 2006, exchange on the "Ask the White House" Web site.

[W]e conclude that a government defendant may also argue that his conduct of an interrogation, if properly authorized, is justified on the basis of protecting the nation from attack.

— from an Aug. 1, 2002, memorandum prepared for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee.

The Attorney General may communicate directly with the President, Vice President, their Chiefs of Staff, Counsel to the President or Vice President, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Adviser, or the head of any office within the [Executive Office of the President] regarding any matter within the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice.

— from a May 4, 2006, memo signed by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales authorizing Vice President Dick Cheney, "his chief of staff and his attorney to enter into direct discussions with Gonzales 'regarding any matter within the Justice Department.'"

xpost: Scholars & Rogues

Reframing the Republican lie about wealth in America

lullabypit — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:17:15 GMT

In America, the Republicans are seen as the party of money and wealth. This perception is certainly accurate in one sense - the GOP is the favored party of the wealthy elite. Unfortunately, the party is also supported in large numbers by those who have no wealth, and thanks to the policies of the Republican party, no hope of ever attaining any. But they continue to support the party for reasons that seem irrational to us. Why?

In a nutshell, I want to argue here that they do so because the GOP has, through a long-term and exceptionally effective messaging campaign, drawn around itself the ideology of hope. Forgive a brief over-generalization, but they're the party that preaches wealth and that tells people they can join the club (never mind that the message is a lie, given our current economic policy structure). In the popular frame, the Republicans are often seen as being about getting and having money while the Democrats are about taking your hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn't earn it. The GOP would have you believe that they are dedicated to creating wealth while their opponents are committed to redistributing wealth. This is a powerful message in a nation framed by the Puritan work ethic.

The Democratic party does not at present have an effective counter-message that offers hope in ample measure. Their policies and promises paint a picture of a comparatively flat economic landscape. In essence, the party seems to say "if you want to have enough, we can help you." This is a viable and valid message for a rational popultion, but in America's media-saturated, hyper-consumerist culture "enough" is a glass ceiling message that doesn't parse as "you can have X" - instead, it parses as "you can only have X." People want to be well-off and if nothing else in the world is clear to us, it should be that hope trumps rationality every time. Successful political action must appeal to the public's aspirations, because psychologically Americans are unwilling and unable to let go of the American Dream they've been fed since they were toddlers.

This must change. Now. (More...)

The Saudi arms sale + campaign cash = profit?

drdenny — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:34:31 GMT

Controversy continues to emerge about the United States' intent to develop a proposed $20 billion, 10-year arms sales package for Saudi Arabia.

Brighter minds than this one can dissect Israel's concern about point-point, laser-guided weapons parked next door, whether the driving idea behind the proposal is meant "to act as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East," and whether the sale is the Bush administration's way to make nice-nice with Arab nations as the United States plans to sell $30 billion in arms to Israel.

The more mundane issue explored here is cui bono financially? Given the few details reported so far about what weapons systems the Saudis might get, Raytheon, Boeing, Textron and Lockheed Martin may be salivating. Then again, they paid plenty for the privilege.

Raytheon is the manufacturer of the Patriot air and missile defense system and other weapons systems such as "the AMRAAM, HARM, AGM-65 Maverick, AIM-7 Sparrow, AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles; the Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW); and the Paveway family of laser-guided bombs."

Since 1998, the Raytheon Co. PAC has made $4.6 million in contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns.

Boeing, the manufacturer of the Joint Direct Attack Munition or JDAM, a GPS-guided "smart" bomb, has made through its Boeing PAC $5 million in contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns since 1997.

If the "naval vessels" reportedly in the proposal sale include littoral combat ships, then Lockheed Martin is happy. The Lockheed Martin Employees PAC has made nearly $7.2 million in contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns since 1997.

And if those "naval vessels" include "landing craft air cushion" vessels, then Textron Inc. is happy. It makes LCACs through its Textron Marine & Land division. Textron Inc. owns Avco Corp., which owns Textron Systems. (Textron Marine & Land in June received a contract for $255.5 million for 369 more U.S. Army M1117 armored security vehicles principally for use in Iraq.)

The Textron Inc. PAC has made nearly $2 million in contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns since 1997.

Overall, the defense industry has made nearly $111 million in campaign contributions since 1990, about 65 percent of that from PACs.

Now that is an investment in future earnings ...

xpost: Scholars & Rogues

Saturday video roundup: the good, the baaaad and the fugly….

lullabypit — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 20:59:25 GMT

It's been a great week for videos. By all means, keep those links coming.

First up, you may have seen this week's report about drunk astronauts. Well, before you can be a drunk astronaut you have to be a drunk pilot. (More...)

The Internet is dead! Long live … television?

lullabypit — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 20:29:31 GMT

So says Mark Cuban. Now, I'm typically a big Cuban fan. But I'm looking at an AdAge report on his remarks from yesterday's Cable Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) Summit, and I'm a little puzzled. (More...)

Summer of scandal and the death of sport?

lullabypit — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:08:03 GMT

I love sports. Always have. I grew up playing all the usual sports and eagerly tried out a lot of others when I got older. I've always been a big spectator, too, watching everything from football, basketball and baseball to soccer, track, cycling, volleyball, water polo - whatever was on, you know?

But these days I watch less sports than at any point in my life, and it seems likely that this downward trend is going to continue. The why is pretty simple. I was raised old school by a grandfather who grew up playing through the Depression. People who knew him back then and saw him play said that under different circumstances he might have been good enough to play in the Bigs. Maybe. Hard to say, because the hard realities of life intruded on the dreams of many in his generation. So he wound up working for a few dollars a week and playing ball on the weekends.

There was a right way and a wrong way to play. Hard, but fair. Sportsmanship mattered. Team ethics mattered. And no game ever happened unless the chores were done and the academics were satisfactorily completed. I was taught to love sport but to understand its rightful place in life. We hear a lot of talk about how sports teaches lessons - yeah, it does. And I was one of the ones who learned it the right way.

I look at the sporting landscape today, though, and I feel like I'm the only one. With each passing day it gets harder and harder to watch sports without feeling the need to take a shower afterwards. If you're a principled, thinking person, you may spend a lot of time, as I do, realizing that your continued attention to the game is helping finance all the things that are wrong, and you wonder how much longer you can take it. (More...)

What is to become of the printed page?

archangel__7 — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 22:03:38 GMT

A few months back, I read an article in one of the major national magazines lamenting how bloggers are now beginning to set the terms under which interviews with journalists are to take place (if at all). For the life of me, I can no longer recall the magazine in which it was published, and knowing this community to be one of many avid readers, I'm wondering if anyone here would recall.

Accounts were given where a blogger would insist that the interviewer submit his questions in writing, via e-mail. Of course, this kind of demand is something most interviewers would balk at, and so he naturally refused to comply. At this point, an interviewer might normally persuade a subject to relent to an open interview, at least so the people can "hear his side of the story".

But the blogger no longer needs the printed page to accomplish that. At this point, the blogger simply electronically publishes about these events to his large readership, and if his views are in any way controversial, bloggers from an opposing viewpoint will likely pick up where the reporter had been left out.

We've all heard this before: The view that the information age is heralding a sort of decentralization of communication in the media, where it is no longer the intrepid reporter or the editors who monopolize the content and the slant in which a story is told. On the other hand, another journalist weighs in, suggesting that what has been lost in the technological exchange is an interviewer's opportunity to get a feel for what's really going on through body language, facial expressions, gestures, and so on. These sorts of things don't convey easily through textual responses to questions, and so the public is left out of such "true-color" moments which have made the press what we've known it to be for decades.

In any event, it was an interesting read. Any ideas where the article came from, or where to look?

Quotabull

drdenny — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 19:47:29 GMT

Q: Is it in part a response to the Democratic criticism last night over Iraq at the debate?
MR. SNOW: No.
Q: Did he watch the debate?
MR. SNOW: I don't think so. I don't think he's big on YouTube debates.

— White House spokesman Tony Snow aboard Air Force One, explaining the president's speech schedule and topic the day after the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate.

Let me turn now to the report that's being released today. Of the actions that were due at 12 months, we assess that 86 percent of those actions have been completed. That's to be compared to a score of around 92 percent that we released at the six-month mark. There are about 14 percent of the actions that are not yet completed. We document those in the action-by-action detailed report. We anticipate those being completed in the 18-month time frame at the next six-month report. I'm not going to go through the accomplishments in great detail. Suffice it to say that on the international front, we've taken unprecedented action.

— Dr. Rajeev Venkayya, special assistant to the president for biodefense, explaining the administration's actions on avian and pandemic influenza during a July 17 press briefing in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Certainly, I think it's a very important question one ought to be asking because, while hope and confidence and optimism are clearly very important, I think experience matters a great deal -- the experience people bring to their candidacy, the ideas, the bold ideas that they've championed over the years, whether or not they were successful in advancing those ideas and able to bring people together.

— Sen. Chris Dodd during the CNN/YouTube "debate" among Democratic presidential candidates.

Look, I don't think this is just a Republican problem. I think this is a problem that spans the parties. And we don't just need a change in political parties in Washington. We've got to have a change in attitudes of those who are representing the people, America. And part of the reason I don't take PAC money, I don't take federal lobbyists' money is because we've got to get the national interests up front as opposed to the special interests.

— Sen. Barack Obama during the CNN/YouTube "debate" among Democratic presidential candidates.

I consider myself a modern progressive, someone who believes strongly in individual rights and freedoms, who believes that we are better as a society when we're working together and when we find ways to help those who may not have all the advantages in life get the tools they need to lead a more productive life for themselves and their family.

— Sen. Hillary Clinton during the CNN/YouTube "debate" among Democratic presidential candidates.

I think the people who are powerful in Washington -- big insurance companies, big drug companies, big oil companies — they are not going to negotiate. They are not going to give away their power. The only way that they are going to give away their power is if we take it away from them. And I have been standing up to these people my entire life. I have been fighting them my entire life in court rooms -- and beating them. If you want real change, you need somebody who's taking these people on and beating them...

— Sen. John Edwards during the CNN/YouTube "debate" among Democratic presidential candidates.

I am proud to be running as a woman. And I'm excited that I may... (APPLAUSE) ... you know, may be able, finally, to break that hardest of all glass ceilings. But, obviously, I'm not running because I'm a woman. I'm running because I think I'm the most qualified and experienced person to hit the ground running in January 2009. And I trust the American people to make a decision that is not about me or my gender, or about Barack or his race or about Bill and his ethnicity, but about what is best for you and your family. We have big challenges... (APPLAUSE) ... and big needs in our country. And I think we're going to need experienced and strong leadership in order to start handling all of the problems that we have here at home and around the world. And when I'm inaugurated, I think it's going to send a great message to a lot of little girls and boys around the world.

— Sen. Hillary Clinton during the CNN/YouTube "debate" among Democratic presidential candidates.

ANNOUNCER: Imagine you're trapped deep in a hole with a group of politicians debating. President Bush says the only way out of Iraq is to dig us deeper and deeper. But what if one leader stood up for us and said no, we can get out now, without leaving chaos behind? Joe Biden is the only one with the experience and the plan to end this war responsibly so our children don't have to go back.
BIDEN: I'm Joe Biden and I approved this message.

— Clip from a Biden television ad played during the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate.

OBAMA: Look, I think every single question we've heard you see cynicism about the capacity to change this country. And the question for the American people, who desperately want change, is: Who's got a track record of bringing about change? Who can unify the country, so that we're not just talking about Democrats and Republicans, but we're talking about Americans? And who can overcome the special interests in Washington so that we have a president of the United States who is fighting on behalf of ordinary people? And that, I think, is going to be the kind of president that is going to be elected -- is going to be nominated by the Democrats, and I believe that I'm best qualified to fill that role.

— Sen. Barack Obama during the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate.

I like John Edwards. I love his wife Elizabeth and his family, and I think we've had enough of negative in politics. I have nothing negative to say about the gentleman.

— Sen. Chris Dodd during the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate, when asked to look to his left and "tell the audience one thing you like and one thing you dislike about that particular candidate. And remember, be honest."

She's doing great. Lindsay is working hard on her sobriety and we are all supporting her.

— Lindsay Lohan's publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnik, in a statement July 16 after Ms. Lohan's release from the Promises Malibu Alcohol and Drug Rehab Treatment Facility.

Addiction is a terrible and vicious disease. Since Lindsay transitioned to outpatient care, she has been monitored on a SCRAM bracelet and tested daily in order to support her sobriety. Throughout this period, I have received timely and accurate reports from the testing companies. Unfortunately, late yesterday I was informed that Lindsay had relapsed. The bracelet has now been removed. She is safe, out of custody and presently receiving medical care.

— Lindsay Lohan's lawyer, Blair Berk, in a July 24 statement after Ms. Lohan's arrest on charges of drunken driving, possession of a controlled substance and other offenses.

I am innocent... did not do drugs they're not mine. I was almost hit by my assistant Tarin's mom I appreciate everyone giving me my privacy.

— Film star Lindsay Lohan in a July 24 e-mail to "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush.

But one of the things with Hollywood celebrities is that forgiveness is a bottomless well among their fans.

— Janice Min, editor of US Weekly, a leading celebrity magazine, July 25.

Out of respect for the tradition of this game, the magnitude of the record, and the fact that all citizens in this country are innocent until proven guilty, I will attend Barry Bonds' next games to observe his potential tying and breaking of the home run record, subject to my commitments to the Hall of Fame this weekend. I will make an additional statement when the record is tied.

— Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig in a July 24 press release.

xpost: Scholars & Rogues

Quote of The Day

nebris — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:11:31 GMT

"Entertainment has become more important than information and the media is looking ... for money. They're looking for audience, they're looking to give the public what they want," ~Lawrence Taylor, a former Los Angeles prosecutor who runs one of the nation's top DUI defense law firms in this article on Lindsey Lohan.

From Rock Star to Star Doc...Kudos to Brian May....

sirpaulsbuddy — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 01:53:59 GMT

Brian May, the under-appreciated guitar hero of legendary rock band Queen, is about to receive his long delayed PhD in astrophysics.

May was working on his doctorate at Imperial College, London, in 1970 when he was persuaded by late band mate Freddie Mercury to join him and drummer Roger Taylor in the group. Bassist John Deacon joined shortly after completing the band's classic line up.

I became a Queen fan based on the song, "Killer Queen" from their 3rd album, Sheer Heart Attack. The combination of music hall camp and hard rock power struck exactly the right chord for me when the song appeared in 1974. May's guitar work sang throughout the tune, counter pointed with Mercury's piano, Taylor's Ginger Baker/Keith Moon influenced drumming and Deacon's understated, always interesting bass lines.

Next, of course, came the masterpiece.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is the stuff of legend. There are the famous facts - the sessions for that one song took three weeks and the tape on which it was recorded was overdubbed so many times that all the oxide is gone in spots - that the four members sang so many overdubbed parts that the song has a "choir" that sounds like 60 or so - that Mercury had the entire arrangement in his head and directed his band mates through it. Whatever the truth is (and with any great work of art, does it matter, ultimately how it came to be?), the song was the triumph of a band that made anthem after anthem during their careers.

There are other great songs in their canon - "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions," "Another One Bites the Dust," "Fat Bottomed Girls," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," "Under Pressure" and "Radio Ga Ga" - all are gloriously loud, overdone, and in most cases brilliantly absurd. What made Queen so great was that they were smart - smart enough to create music that is wonderfully over the top - and smart enough to laugh at themselves while they did it.

And now Brian May earns a PhD in astrophysics.

Maybe that's proof that while rock ain't necessarily rocket science, when you make it rocket science it can be a hell of a lot of fun....

XPOST: The Savoy Truffle