Listen Up
If you haven't heard British artist Corinne Bailey Rae yet you are in for a treat.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
A Very Good Idea
Could The Nation team up with Air America and offer to sponsor a Republican debate please?One of two things would happen.
A) They'd participate at which time a pundit panel from both media outlets could have a go at the candidates afterward or ....
B) Republicans would refuse and we'd then see the outrage, OUTRAGE of those wimpy Republicans refusing to go on a teevee show and debate.
With all this muscular testosterone driven rhetoric about refusing to legitimize FAUX
Friday, June 15, 2007
Everyone But The One Who Should
WASHINGTON — A senior Justice Department official who helped carry out the firings of eight U.S. attorneys said Friday he is resigning.
Mike Elston, chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, is the fifth Justice official to leave after being linked to the dismissals of the prosecutors.
The firings have led to congressional investigations, an internal Justice Department inquiry and calls on Capitol Hill for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Elston's resignation is effective at the end of next week. Reached Friday afternoon, he confirmed his plans to leave but would not say why.
His departure — and that of other senior Justice aides — has been anticipated since McNulty announced his own resignation last month.
Other aides who have resigned in the wake of the firings include former Gonzales chief of staff Kyle Sampson and White House liaison Monica M. Goodling. A fifth official, Mike Battle, who ran the Justice office that oversees the U.S. attorneys, left in March.
Passing Of An Era
June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Ronco Corp., maker of the Veg-O-Matic vegetable slicer and the Pocket Fisherman, filed for bankruptcy two years after founder and television pitchman Ron Popeil sold the iconic company for $56 million.Nice sale Ron. But where will I get replacement parts for my veg-o-matic?
Ronco, which marketed products as perfect for ``grads and dads,'' sought protection from creditors owed more than $32.7 million. It listed $13.9 million in assets yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Woodland Hills, California.
Hey ... Rudy!
Ask John McCain about this:
Giuliani said he could support escalating Bush’s escalation, provided Petraeus believed he “need[ed] more troops to make it work in order to get Iraq to a situation where Iraq is stable.” When Cook noted that many Americans would strongly oppose such a plan, Giuliani said, “Hey, you know, leadership is about sometimes doing the things you know are right.”Kidding aside, I wouldn't be surprised to start to see more of this CW. Afterall, we wouldn't really be reliving the 1970's without it.
It's Official
I know you'll all be shocked by this (via Froomkin):
Eugene Robinson writes in his Washington Post op-ed column: "Here's a surprise: Remember how we were told that if we just waited until the fall, we'd see that George W. Bush's 'surge' was working in Iraq? Well, now it turns out that we shouldn't expect answers in September after all.War without end.
"White House spokesman Tony Snow was purposeful on Wednesday in stomping, trampling, tap-dancing upon and otherwise giving a definitive beat-down to any expectations of a serious, fact-based reassessment of Iraq policy in the fall. Never mind that the White House raised those expectations in the first place.
"The September scenario has been a rhetorical mainstay for the administration and its supporters, a major argument for ignoring all the bad news from Iraq and giving Bush's troop escalation a chance to work. Let's wait for Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man who's now running the war, to submit his progress report. At that point, went the White House argument, the 'way forward' would become clear.
"The fog of war seems to have closed back in. 'I have warned from the very beginning about expecting some sort of magical thing to happen in September,' Snow told the White House press corps, whose collective recollection was somewhat different. 'What I'm saying is, in September you'll have an opportunity to have metrics.'"
How about this exchange between Helen Thomas and Tony Snow:
"Said Thomas: 'I have one follow-up. . . . Are there any members of the Bush family or this administration in this war?'You know what's really pathetic? The sonofabitch believes it.
"'Yes,' said Snow, 'the president. The president is in the war every day.'
"Thomas said that wasn't her question. She said she meant 'on the front lines.'
"'The president,' Snow said."
Our Old Friend
In Iraq, one of the largest obstacles to peace is settling the political differences between Sunni Baathists and Shiites. Care to guess who is in charge of this process, and who is now blocking it?
Sweeping [American backed and promoted] de-Baathification reforms have been proposed to reconcile differences in the wake of Bremer’s failures. But progress on this front was “sabotaged” by U.S. ally Ahmad Chalabi, who is in charge of the processChalabi was also strongly in favor of the escalation.
Wonder how many times ole' W' has to take in the .... well .... you know, before he gets the picture that this guy is a snake?
The Official Word
Is that the escalation is "complete":
The escalation is now complete. “The full contingent of new U.S. forces being sent to Iraq…was completed by Friday, with 28,500 additional troops now posted in the country.” Five U.S. soldiers died yesterday.Does anyone actually believe this?
Unusual Senate Movement
I've heard of being dissatisfied with Congress, but this one deserves an award:
"Usually, if a turd gets into the Senate, it’s because he or she was elected," Emily Heil reports for Roll Call. "But on Wednesday, several large piles of actual, nonmetaphorical 'No. 2' found their way into the Capitol, and the source isn’t yet clear."No further comment.
Heil continues, "On Wednesday afternoon, Capitol Police cordoned off a section of the hallway on the third floor of the Senate side of the Capitol, where at least three piles of the stuff were causing a stench — and a stir. At first, the word circulating among the staff was that a visiting child had fallen ill while in the gallery. But then the prevailing theory was that the foul stuff had come from an adult or group of adults making a yet-to-be-determined political statement."
Bridezilla or How You Too Can Be Paris Hilton For A Day
There's a great article in the Times today about weddings:
About a dozen years ago, an old friend of mine was told by his daughter that she was going to get married. This suited him fine, but he balked at pouring untold thousands of dollars down the drain of a full-dress wedding. "I'll tell you what," he said to her. "I'll give you a choice: You can have a wedding, or you can have $30,000 to help you get started on your new life." Without a moment's hesitation, she astonished him -- and me, too, when he told me the story -- by replying, "I'll take the wedding."The already out-of-control wedding thing gotten even worse. And for what?
This, mind you, was no "Bridezilla," defined by Rebecca Mead as "a young woman who, upon becoming engaged, had been transformed from a person of reason and moderation into a self-absorbed monster, obsessed with her plans to stage the perfect wedding, an event of spectacular production values and flawless execution, with herself as the star of the show." No, this was a young woman of reason and moderation, a sensible person who nonetheless had been caught up in an early wave of the phenomenon that -- all unknown to her father and me -- was beginning to sweep across America: the rise of the wedding industry, "shaped as much by commerce and marketing as it is by those influences couples might prefer to think of as affecting their nuptial choices, such as social propriety, religious observance, or familial expectation."
Who got the better of my friend's deal I do not know, as it seemed impolite to ask, but he hinted that even his daughter's relatively modest wedding cost more than the $30,000 buyout he'd offered her. Inasmuch as the marriage didn't last much longer than the wedding itself, it certainly seems to have been money down the drain.Parents are a large part of the problem. First off, offering $30K for a wedding seems a *bit* excessive. Second, why did this guy pay more than 30K for the wedding? How about, "hey, here's $xxK, have a wedding or don't.
This whole excessive wedding thing is just another example of the excesses of our bubble economy. Everyone's ego gets so wrapped up in the "things" that they lose sight of the purpose. And since we have so much cash sloshing around, it just demands being put to work.
Where will it all stop? And perhaps as important, when?
If Only ....
Juan Cole daydreams a bit:
The biggest tragedy is that any sane person would have recognized after 9/11 that the US and the Shiites had a common enemy in Bin Laden and his ilk, and the US could have made up with Khatami's Iran. If the Iraq War had not happened, and the hardliners had not won the summer 2005 Iranian elections, the US position in the Muslim world would have been potentially strong by now. Instead, those great Islam scholars and political geniuses, Richard Perle and David Frum, managed to get Bush to put Iran in a cockeyed 'axis of evil.' It has been downhill ever since.Sure, there are a few "if's" in his thoughts. But those assumptions seem to be of higher quality that the "if's" of the likes of Perle and Frum before launching the great Iraq adventure.
Gasoline Worldwide
Want to know why the U.S. is one of the largest consumers of gasoline? (click to enlarge)
Big Inflation News!
Well, maybe not so big. Just so you know, there was no inflation except for inflation. That is, if you strip out fuel and food, prices didn't really go up much. Interestingly, a big factor in keeping the so-called "core inflation rate" (ex food and energy) was rents, likely due to many of those young house flippers becoming unexpected landlords, having to rent out their investments.
I continue to contend that, while less of an influence than at one time, there's no way you can have energy prices continue to climb and have it not permeate the economy eventually. Take that with an ultimately cooling Chinese economy (and decreased ability to buy our debt), and with our government's propensity to continue to spend like a drunken sailor on unnecessary wars, how can you not see an increase in inflation and interest rates? It may be a crawl, but crawl it will.
Update: Mortgage foreclosure hit a high not seen in fifty years!
The Translated Version
Judge Walton has been having some fun with the law "experts" who filed briefs in support of letting the Scootster scoot. One of his comments included this:
Walton also criticized a brief filed by 12 law professors, including Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, that argued in favor of keeping Libby out of prison. "The submission was not something I would expect from a first-year law student," Walton said.Here's the layperson's translation: "You may be able to pull that shit on CNN, but not in this court".
I Told Ya
It's the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" syndrome:
The Hamas takeover of Gaza "could doom the long-held Palesinian vision of uniting Gaza and the West Bank into a single independent state," says the LAT in a Page One analysis. It now seems increasingly likely that, as predicted, Abbas will let Hamas govern Gaza while he controls the West Bank. The NYT talks to some Israeli officials who welcome the idea of a divided government and will increase security operations to prevent Hamas fighters from entering the West Bank. Assuming things go as planned, Israel would then push to improve relations with the Abbas government and begin giving back the remaining Palestinian tax money.Does anyone really think that Hamas will be satisfied without the West Bank?
If so, be prepared for (catch this) a(nother) war between Israel and Hamas except this time it will be to protect Fatah! Who could have imagined ......
Ever Spill A Glass Of Red Wine?
It makes a huge mess and can stain anything. Right?
Well, how about having 7 gallons of red wine blow up in your closet?
Yep.
It happened to me last night. You see, I make wine. I have quite a lot ready to bottle at the end of the month. And it was, well, hot yesterday. Now the wife and I don't run air conditioning much, so it got a bit toasty in the house yesterday.
So let's review the bidding.
A full 7 gallon stoppered glass carboy + higher than normal temperatures = ? As they say in the old song, "somethin's gotta give".
The glass blew last night and there was .... well .... 7 gallons of wine released from it's bondage. And, unfortunately, not released into a glass.
The clean-up continues.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Feel The Surge!
No, not Iraq.
Of the conservative harpies who are about to s*#t a brick over Libby heading to the can.
Kerfuffle
You may have heard/read that Harry Reid was quoted as having trashed Gen. Pace as "incompetent" during a conference call with liberal bloggers. This was reported by the ever inaccurate Politico, picked up by Drudge, with all the pearl clutching/fainting conservative bloggers proclaiming it now the end of the world as we know it due to such incivility.
All well and good.
Except now three of the bloggers who were on the conference call are saying it never happened. You know it's funny. Not funny ha ha. But funny sad that The Politico has immediately jumped to the limelight as a "credible" source, yet they've routinely gotten stories completely wrong. I wouldn't be surprised if this one isn't wrong as well.
Update: Ok, so Reid did say it, although there is still dispute of whether Reid was talking about Pace of Bush. Actually they're both true.
Slate Finally Gets It
Not many other Washington "observers" do, but Slate finally does:
Slate announces the retirement of its Gonzales death watch: "When we first launched this enterprise, we truly believed that the sun rose in the east and gravity worked. We were wrong. As we have increasingly observed, most notably on the days the AG testified before Congress, some mystical alchemy provides that the worse he does, the better his chances become of remaining in office. At this point, just about nothing Gonzales does could cause the president to fire him."
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