A shred of decency from Madoff?

In no way does this guy deserve any respect whatsoever, but it's only fair to give him props for wasting any money his trial would have cost. Pleading guilty to all charges was a decent thing to do.

I hope the Fed goes after anyone and everyone who was complicit in Madoff's scheme (I sincerely doubt one man could have pulled this off alone), including friends and family members.

Shitigroup indeed

Why am I not surprised at Citi going on the offensive against the Employee Free Choice Act? They're happy to take the money of the working man (except when they aren't, but they'll keep it anyway, thank you very much!)

Makes me feel that much better canceling my credit card with them last week. The Citi call center worker asked why I was canceling the account. I laughed, and asked if he was kidding. He said he really wanted to know. I said it was because Citi represents all that is evil in the world. He said nothing. Perhaps he knows he's working for the devil.

Everything's amazing, nobody's happy

Worth four minutes and twelve seconds of your day to watch.

That "Dan White Hero" psycho

I was on the steps of the California Supreme Court last Thursday in a heated shouting match with that psychopath carrying the Dan White Hero sign. I can tell you that this individual (I'm loathe to call him a person) clearly had some mental issues, apart from being stunningly ignorant. He was shouting the usual epithets of "God hates fags" and couldn't stop confusing me as a "fag spreading AIDS" even though my wife  - introduced as such - was right next to me.

My refrain was to shout at him repeatedly "You are supporting a murderer!" which eventually drew the attention of pro-Prop 8 supporters who actually turned their attacks on him, driving the psycho away. Or at least driving him away from us.

I can only hope he was met with the same fierce berating he got from us wherever he went.

Chas Freeman follow-up

David Rothkopf at Foreign Policy has what is for the most important perspective on the matter of Obama caving and letting Chas Freeman withdraw his name from consideration for Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

The United States will get along fine without Freeman and without each and every one of the casualties of this latest hiring cycle. But we will ultimately suffer irreparable damage if we do not reverse this pernicious trend. Further, those who celebrate keeping out Freeman or any others whose views do not align with theirs or who feared his associations would do well to remember that the same kind of criteria can be applied by other groups. The result is not a government of people without conflicts of interest or troubling ties, rather it is a government full of people whose conflicts and ties are with groups powerful enough to protect them. This among other reasons is why I, as a Jew with a memory, was so opposed to the attacks on Freeman. But for the record, the most compelling reason I found for believing Chas Freeman would have been a superb Chairman of the National Intelligence Council was one that seldom came up in all the articles I read. I actually know him.

(emphasis mine)

I'm also pretty sickened by the fact that our government seems to be puppets manipulated by a handful of powerful religious zealots.

Chas Freeman Out: Intel Chair Withdraws

WTF Obama?!?



I'm starting to wonder why Obama isn't showing that "flinty Chicago toughness" he brags about.



First he let himself get dragged around by the Republiscums over the Stimulus Bill, now he's letting the AIPAC-controlled Congress (meaning nearly every damn one of them, D or R) shove him around over his appointment of Chas Freeman - to a position that doesn't even require confirmation!



There very possibly goes our last best hope to put a check on the ultra-right wingnuts in Israel, and their agents that apparently do control our government here.



This is a major disappointment.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Raisin of Reason: Percentage of Americans with no religion on the rise

A glimmer of hope that insanity is waning.

The percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped dramatically over the past two decades, and those who do are increasingly identifying themselves without traditional denomination labels, according to a major study of U.S. religion being released today.

Derivatives v. Insurance

Yeah, I wish I didn't have to care about this either. Seriously, who the hell cared about Mortgage Backed Securities, and Credit Default Swaps, or Collateralized Mortgage Obligations besides the Masters of the Universe that were playing Texas Hold 'Em with peoples lives?  But now I have to care. And so do you.

Thankfully, the folks at TPM have been pretty good at explaining this mind-numbing - nay, mind-boggling stuff that might be otherwise hard to understand without a Harvard Business Degree.

So something new to add to this mess: the issue over Derivatives v. Insurance, and why that matters so much now. Here's a hint: it has much to do with that notoriously evil 2005 Bankruptcy bill foisted upon all the hapless suckers (meaning those who were not actually Masters of the Universe).

First read this, then read this.

TPM Must Read: Maiden Lane I, II, III

Lots of good stuff at TPM on economic craziness. We learn something unbelievable every day. This nugget from yesterday really turned my stomach. The Treasury is basically using Enron-style accounting tricks with the bailout. That scares the hell out of me.

By law, the Fed isn't allowed to buy assets -- it can only lend, as lender of last resort. That was a problem for the Bear Stearns bailout, because JP Morgan said it would only buy Bear if someone else assumed responsibility for the crap. Fed came up with this idea to start a shadow company, called a special purpose vehicle (SPVs were how Enron operated, creating "Chewco" and the like named after Chewbacca - the New York Fed called their SPV "Maiden Lane LLC" for name of the street the NY Fed is located on in southern Manhattan). The deal then was JP Morgan put $1 billion into Maiden Lane, the Fed put $29 billion in cash into it. Maiden Lane paid Bear Stearns $30 billion, which went straight back to JP Morgan as this deal happened simultaneously to JP's purchase of Bear. So Morgan got $30 billion in cash ($29 billion net) and the Fed got stuck owning the crap, but was legally only making a loan to Maiden Lane, who was the legal owner (Maiden Lane was incorporated not in NYC, but in Delaware to avoid paying taxes). By the Fed's own accounting - which is very different from a real company's accounting - Maiden Lane has lost $5 billion between its creation and today.

There's a lot more to this post.

Money madness

For some great visuals of what a trillion dollars looks like in stacks of $100 bills, there are some great illustrations at this site to help put things in perspective. For instance, this stack below is a trillion dollars. The area in red indicates $50 billion, the amount that Bernie Madoff is accused of ripping off his clients for. (The speck of red to the left indicates an average sized person).

Conyers response to Lessig

Yesterday, I received in my inbox a note from Lawrence Lessig about a proposal that John Conyers is trying to push through, one that will forbid scientists receiving government funds to openly publish their findings online, but rather force them to have to pay thousands of their own non-government dollars to publish in peer-review journals. Lessig also posted this article on HuffPo on the very same matter.

Conyers responded to Lessig at HuffPo as well, but I fail to see how I can side with Conyers on this one. I am all for peer review of science research findings, because peer review helps keep science honest. But publications and journals are not - and definitely should not - be the only means of peer review. There are innumerable instances of non-published peer review of research and findings, most of which may not have ever been possible if the scientists were forced to wait for review by the publications. Furthermore, the resource pool of the publications is large, but it cannot compare to the broader access in academia and the professional world.

My earlier post referenced an article by a science journalist with Discover magazine, and his points remain unaddressed by Conyers's rebuttal. But Conyers is right in that this is worthy of debate, but until Lessig called him out, there is no evidence that a debate was even going to happen.

 

Dark days for justice in America

If you thought Bush leaving office was a sign that things were turning around in America,you were wrong.

The Beltway media establishment is still pro-Republican, despite how ridiculous, petty, and few they've become. Democratic officials are outnumbered on television appearances 4 to 1, and even the center-left shows like Countdown with Keith Olbermann and the Rachel Maddow Show spend a good lot of their time re-hashing GOP appearances and footage from the hard-right shows, and the puppet-heads.

Al Franken is no closer to being certified the winner of the Minnesota senate race.

Bernie "$50B Ponzi Scheme" Madoff may be getting a plea deal.



As for the presumed Enlightened state of California, things are looking dark here too with one lone Republiscum able to singlehandedly block the passage of the state budget.

Adding to that, it now appears likely that the California Supreme Court will uphold Prop 8, which will set precedent for anyone in the future with enough money to use the Ballot Initiative process to strip any minority group of whatever rights they choose.

It gets worse. Former Democratic Governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who was convicted by a Republican-dominated court (indeed by a judge who is friends with Karl Rove) on trumped up charges brought by the AL state attorney who is married to a friend of Karl Rove, has lost his appeal on all but two charges to another court dominated by Republican judges.

But if you are getting your hopes up over the deal that Obama fenagled with Bush over getting Rove and Harriet Miers to testify about politicizing the Department of Justice, don't get too excited. Their testimony will not be under oath, but only under penalty of perjury, and behind closed doors. Remember all those cases that were successful when the witnesses didn't have to testify under oath? No? Didn't think so.

It looks like Rove has succeeded in his takedown of Siegelman, and he's going to walk away from this current hearing as well, thanks to the limp-wristed approach by the Obama administration. You know, that "Look forward, not back" approach to everything. The real problem with that approach is that by ignoring past misdeeds, Obama is tacitly guaranteeing that those same misdeeds WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. Where's the change in that?

To be fair, Obama has only been in office for a very short time, and he has a lot on his plate. Sure, Obama is doing some good things, like overturning Bush's ban on stem-cell research, and making health care reform a major issue. And while he's also done some other good, like releasing a batch of those horrible legal memos drafted by Bush's Office of Legal Council, he has done so on the heels of upholding one of the most egregious of Bush's power grabs, the wanton abuse of the State Secrets privilege, despite his campaign pledge that he would reverse it. Given the pattern of behavior that seems to be emerging here, I hold out little hope that we will see any real justice with regards to the crimes of the Bush administration, and if we do, it won't be because of Obama's help, but perhaps in spite of it.

That said, I'm still giving Obama the benefit of doubt, and I will very gladly admit my errors of judgment if I am wrong. I hope I am.

Animal Farm Friday: Off-color in Louisiana

For his lineage, the Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) is certainly seems off-color, being one of the brownest white men you will ever meet. Also from the Gulf state, we find another creature off-color for its kind. This being the albino bottle-nose dolphin recently discovered. But just because it's albino doesn't mean it's white. This one happens to be pink.

Is Conyers bought and paid for?

For all the (sort of) good he's been doing pursuing egregious and corrupt acts by the Bushies, he's got a few of his own that are down right disgusting. This is one of the newest that's been picking up lots of buzz on the Internets:

John Conyers (D-MI) [...] is pushing a bill through Congress that will literally ban the open access of these papers, forcing scientists to only publish in journals. This may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive. They can cost a fortune: The Astrophysical Journal costs over $2000/year, and they charge scientists to publish in them! So this bill would force scientists to spend money to publish, and force you to spend money to read them.

Why would Conyers do this? Interestingly, if you look at the bill sponsors, you find that they received twice as much money on average in donations from journal publishers than Congresscritters who don’t sponsor the bill — though to be fair, the total amount is not large. Still, Conyers got 4 times as much.

Interesting.

Ironically, this bill is called The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which is much like the Clean Air Clear Skies Act or the Patriot Act, in that it does exactly the opposite of what its name says. This bill is not fair, it puts a burden on scientists and keeps research from being publicly accessible as it should be. I myself rely on things like Astro-ph to do my reporting here; it could become illegal to post papers there for federally-sponsored scientists if this bill is passed.

The brother is going to have to knock off this kind of crap before some of us science-loving populists decide he needs to be brought up on corruption charges of his own.

And so it begins...

Mark this as the beginning of the end for humans and the rise of the machines?

Holy Bile: The destructiveness of the Roman Catholic church

Starting a new category to complement Raisin of Reason. I'm calling it Holy Bible (since the header can't support the strikeout tag, it will read as Holy Bile, which is what I'm going for anyway, sans the geek factor).

Today's first entry goes this story of a Roman Catholic archbishop in Brazil for excommunicating a 9-year-old girl's mother and her doctors for aborting the twins she was carrying as a result of being raped by her stepfather.

In the long run, being kicked out of the Catholic church could be better for the family. This is their opportunity to hopefully learn just how destructive and evil the Roman Catholic church really is. Not to mention that giving birth would probably have killed the little girl. And would the church accept responsibility for that, the same way they've accepted responsibility for ruining the lives of so many children raped and molested by Roman Catholic clergy? It appears that the church is against aborting fetuses, but they are all for destroying the lives of children.

What makes a Conservative

Sounds like every Conservative schmuck I've ever met!

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

• Fear and aggression
  
• Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
  
• Uncertainty avoidance
  
• Need for cognitive closure
  
• Terror management

Just asking...

If it's legal to marry your first cousin in California (and Florida, and Arizona, and 32 other states, why aren't same-sex marriages allowed?

The mother of all mashups!

Wicked awesome!

Raisin of Reason: Religious people don't use their brains

The proof is in the science: Religious people do not think.

In two studies led by Assistant Psychology Professor Michael Inzlicht, participants performed a Stroop task – a well-known test of cognitive control – while hooked up to electrodes that measured their brain activity.

Compared to non-believers, the religious participants showed significantly less activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a portion of the brain that helps modify behavior by signaling when attention and control are needed, usually as a result of some anxiety-producing event like making a mistake. The stronger their religious zeal and the more they believed in God, the less their ACC fired in response to their own errors, and the fewer errors they made.

At the rally before the California Supreme Court this morning, I heard a religious asshole with a bullhorn this shouting at someone from his own side saying:

"People need to stop thinking for themselves, and start reading the Bible instead.

If [you] have an opinion different from someone else's [sic], you should keep your mouth shut." (Oblivious to the irony that he was shouting this through a bullhorn.)

Self-evident, too.

Raisin of Reason: Some smarts from Susie Smartypants

(h/t Pharygula)

Something from TNR that isn't garbage

From Jonathan Chait no less. I applaud Mr. Chait for calling out an incredibly stupid reporter and her stupid report with some stupid rich people for being, well, stupid.

I've seen a lot of dumb news reports in my life, but I'm not sure anything can quite match this one from ABC News. The premise of the report is this: Barack Obama plans to raise taxes on people who make more than $250,000, so the reporter has gone and found people who earn a little more than that sum who plan to decrease their income so that they come in underneath the magic line.

Now, the obvious objection here is that the tax code doesn't work that way. A tax increase affects the marginal dollar that a person gains. That's means only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate. Obama is not proposing a tax system whereby somebody who goes from $249,999 to $250,000 suddenly becomes poorer. Nobody has ever enacted a tax hike like that in the history of the United States.

That doesn't stop ABC News' intrepid reporter. This story has to be read to be believed:

Generally, I am disinclined to link to anything from TNR, but this is worth it. So go read the rest of the post.

That's what I've been saying

But I'm not an investment guru like Jim Rogers:

"Suppose AIG goes bankrupt, it is better that AIG goes bankrupt and we have a horrible two or three years than that the whole US goes bankrupt," Rogers said. "AIG has trillions of dollars of obligations, let them fail, let the courts sort it out and start over. Otherwise we'll never start over."

...

"The idea that you have too much debt, too much borrowing and too much consumption and you're going to solve that problem with more debt, more consumption and more borrowing? These people are nuts."

...

"Power is shifting now from the money shifters, the guys who trade paper and money, to people who produce real goods. What you should do is become a farmer, or start a farming network," Rogers said.

Just say when

I've been working on an essay on the Fallacy of Conservatism for a while now, and just when I think I've got the premise dialed in, some Republiscum goes and blows it for me. While I've been drafting this essay, I keep getting short-stopped when I hit on something I find too cartoon-ish or just generally unbelievable about modern Conservatives and Republicans. And then I wake up and read in the news or blogs of somet new and astoundingly stupid thing some Conservative or Republiscum has said/opined/been convicted or indicted of, and I have to go back to the outline and start the draft over.

When Conservatives/Republiscums had their fingers on the buttons and their hands on the purse strings, they were worth taking seriously, even knowing all along the pathetic and un-funny collective joke that they have always been. But even I am amazed at just how amazingly ridiculous and bufoonish they are now that they pose no serious political threat (short of the militant uprising they are trying to foment).

I think I'll just sit back and see how much rope these 'tards will keep pulling out, and how many will hang themselves in the process.

Treason, Sedition, or Just Plain Stupidity?

Just a quick note on this "rebellion" garbage popping onto the radar screen from the Republiscums is something I think should be taken seriously. As angry and hateful as I have been to the Bushies/Neo-Cons/ex-Nixonians/Conservatives/Republiscums, I've always kept my anger in check. I may have forgotten my civil tongue in the presence of close company, but I've never publicly advocated revolution, secession, or insurrection, i.e., in a setting that could never have been perceived as anything more than an expression of frustration. But when idiots and assholes openly and publicly advocate for armed takeover and/or violent transfer of power, they have crossed the Rubicon, and should be immediately condemned as enemies of the state, and dealt with accordingly.

To be clear, I am not against people expressing their grievances against their government. I've done quite a lot of that over the past eight years. I also believe that a time may arise when political actors need to be removed from office by force. But those times are - and must be - extremely rare. Only when the majority - or some number coming close to that - is being oppressed by a minority, or when the elected leaders are willfully and deliberately violating the Constitution, should force be considered an option. But, force is only an option when all other civil options have been completely exhausted. Then, and only then, should civil - or non-civil - disobedience be considered an option. But that said, any type of non-civil opposition should expect - and certainly deserves - fierce opposition from the sitting polity.

My main opinion here is that any and every American citizen advocating or publicly discussing armed and violent overthrow of an elected official or body of government should expect to be considered enemies of the state and treated as such. If and when they are found guilty of same, they should also not be surprised if they find themselves guilty of treason, and dealt with accordingly. Some asshole said on Hannity's forum, "it's only treason if your side loses" (or something to that effect). While this may be true, I wonder how many of these Republiscum blowhard assholes are brave enough to ante up. I'm sure they'd make fine bullet-stoppers.

I say put up or shut up, or suffer the consequences for either , because we are - if nothing else - a nation of laws, not men.

Raisin of Reason: Atheist Toast

yep there's No hidden picture of Jesus or the Virgin-Mary - it's just toast.
For as we used to say as students "Toast is the Truth" - Mrs B (aka Chi)

Hypocrites

Why does THIS not surprise me?

Animal Farm Friday: Dedication to the Fat Cats

Nothing like a breath of fresh coal air!

Every penny of 2% Would be a great start

Some money-grubbing coward at the Wall Sleaze Journal - a staff writer or editor too gutless to take responsibility for this piece of garbage op-ed claims that Obama's plan to increase taxes on the top 2% in order to bring some fairness back to the tax system and put more money back into the Treasury won't work, even if we take every dime.

I say that it probably won't work either, only because nothing really will given the size of the problem, but taking every goddamn dime from the top 2% would certainly be a great start, if for nothing more than the entertainment value of watching the Masters of the Universe cannibalize themselves.

The anonymous writer claims that because taxing the top 2% won't be enough, Obama will have to start taxing the middle class too. This is a classic and thoroughly debunked BS defense that the rich like to throw out as chaff to deflect unwanted attention, and it won't work this time. What little credibilty the WSJ had over the past many years has completed evaporated in this current economic climate. They gotten it wrong on every note, every time, just as they are getting it wrong with this op-ed (with the one exception being this).

Taxing the top 2% will not be enough, that is true. But it would be a hell of a start.

Sauce Wednesday

The Catholics have their Ash Wednesday today, so in honor of Flying
Spaghetti Monster, I will enjoy spaghetti and meatballs that my lovely
wife is making for dinner. I hope she doesn't mind if I rub a little
sauce on my forehead.

Twitter explained

Great moments in presidential speeches

Smudge

Excellent ad from the Reality Coalition.

Political Rogues

Political - Rogues
Originally uploaded by DiscoWeaselWaaaaa-waaa-waa-waa-waaaa.

Raisin of Reason: The Great Buzzword

This post isn't against religion, so much as it's against junk science and pseudo-science, which I find a greater threat. Because when people believe and find so-called "scientific evidence" to support daffy and ridiculous claims, this undermines the credibility of the scientific method.

Take this witty post slamming the ridiculous idea of "The Great Filter" (Or, Why We've Never Discovered Signs of Alien Life) for example:

The very existence of life makes finding a four-leafed clover with winning lottery tickets for leaves look like a sure thing.  Add the staggering improbability of our evolution from single cells and you end up with odds so vast they've driven the invention of everything from the Drake equation to an invisible sky-beard who seems unnecessarily preoccupied with what we do one day out of every seven.  People who study this subject file all that under "Shit we already knew", and were too busy actually working on the science to come up with a garbage buzzword phrase that would look really awesome in bold type on the cover of a hardback book (available now for $29.99!)  Luckily Robin Hanson was ready to do that for them.

I love sarcastic scientists! (The whole post is a short entertaining read.)

WTF Obama?: Lost Emails

Time to start a new category of posts to keep track of all the back-pedaling and reversals from Obama's campaign promises, since there seems to be a new one each day.

The latest one flies smack in the face of his claims for more transparency.

The Obama administration, siding with former President George W. Bush,
is trying to kill a lawsuit that seeks to recover what could be
millions of missing White House e-mails in a stunning reversal of
Obama's rhetoric about Bush secrecy on the campaign trail.

I'll be going back to capture and post on the other flip-flops that I've been letting slide, because I think I see a pattern developing.

Benevolent tyrant, indeed.

WSJ finally gets one right: W worst ever at jobs

Bush On Jobs: The Worst Track Record On Record

President George W. Bush entered
office in 2001 just as a recession was starting, and is preparing to
leave in the middle of a long one. That’s almost 22 months of recession
during his 96 months in office.

His job-creation record won’t look much better. The Bush
administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight
years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration and only slightly better than President George H.W. Bush did in his four years in office.

Fatburgr

I suppose if you eat at crappy chain restaurants, this site could be useful. They're providing a good service, and the illustrations are sure fun!

The last word on George Will

I've been wanting to unload all week on George Will, much as I have unloaded on him in the past in my Axis of Evil blog of yore. Unfortunately, not having full use of my left arm makes typing strenuous, especially for this hunt-and-pecker. Lucky for me, Jamison Foster from Media Matters has a brilliant post that contains a lot of stuff I was planning to unleash, and even more.

I'll just add in this summary paragraph, and invite you to read the full article and follow the many links provided, which demonstrate the utter fraud that is George Will.

Basically, George Will routinely makes false claims large and small, holds politicians to disparate standards, and engages in ethically dubious conduct on behalf of his preferred candidates. The Washington Post can hide behind multi-layer processes all it wants, but as long as it publishes Will, it will continue to misinform its readers. The Post doesn't need to give Will a better fact-checker; it -- along with the rest of the media elite -- should instead give him a good, thorough shunning.

Seriously, George Will is a model symbol of the worst of Washington. He's an ignominious liar masquerading as an honest intellectual. He's intellectually dishonest, if anything.

Epic quote - brief yet poignant

From a well-educated atheist to some Believers in a debate over the existence of God:

"Honestly, it's like arguing with children about the monster under their bed."

More from Matt on George

I missed this post by Matt Yglesias earlier, one I think makes an even stronger case against George Will's intellectual dishonesty, and the Washington Post's professional malpractice.

Some of those people [at the Post] do bad work, which is too bad. And some of those people do good work. And unfortunately, that’s worse. It means that when good work appears in the Post it bolsters the reputation of the Post as an institution. And the Post, as an institution, has taken a stand that says it’s okay to claim that up is down. It’s okay to claim that day is night. It’s okay to claim that hot is cold. It’s okay to claim that a consensus existed when it didn’t. It’s okay to claim that George Will is a better source of authority on interpreting the ACRC’s scientific research than is the ACRC. Everyone who works at the Post, has, I think, a serious problem.

The new "N" word

I don't mean to denigrate anyone by this notion, so please don't take offense. I think, however, that progressives ought to treat the term "nationalization" as though it is the N word, and stop using it. Republiscums use the term to make the practice of the government stepping in to keep the banks from collapsing is some sort of Leftist Socialist/Communist tactic. The appropriate term to use is "receivership" which is a term commonly used positively by capitalists, and better represents what is inevitably going to happen anyway.

The key is that financial reorganization of failed companies -- whether it's receivership, or bankruptcy proceedings, or something else like it -- is textbook rule of law capitalism. TPM

Receivership is used to denote a situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver. In law, a receiver is a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights."^[1]

Are Republicans really lying sacks of garbage?

This Republiscum (Pete Sessions) seems to support that notion.

Good riddance, cont.

Matt Yglesias has a great post today taking the Washington Post's editorial board to task for their latest example of professional malpractice, in this case a completely dishonest and disingenuous op-ed from George Will, conservative douchebag whom has been given far too much unjustified respect.

Matt frames the pushback against Will's "post of lies" smartly, and connects it to the slow demise of print journalism, which is because perhaps people no longer trust the big newspapers anymore. As Jason Linkins at HuffPo asks:

why should anyone on the Post's op-ed page even bother to tie their opinions to ANY real-world truths? Why can't everyone just MAKE SHIT UP?

Just look back to the inane reporting in the elections last year. Or look a little further back to the media's culpability in the run up to the Iraq War. Or go even further back to how the media helped decide that Bush was the real winner of the election in 2000. Then turn and look at Fox News, and all the crap that comes out of Rupert Murdoch's media outlets.

Why should people trust the media anymore? The problem is that the media outlets don't see their role in their own demise. As Matt says:

But it's [insulation from market competition] also bread [sic] this weird arrogance where nobody in the business seems to think that the deplorably low quality of the product plays any role whatsoever in the declining relevance of these institutions. But here’s a George Will column in my paper, lying to me about global warming. Here’s Will’s editor refusing to correct the record or say anything about why he decided it would be a good idea to run a column in which George Will lies about global warming. And now here’s the very same indifferent-to-the-truth editorial team writing about global warming. And I’m supposed to read the editorial why? What value to me, as a consumer of information, do inaccurate uncorrected George Will columns offer me?

What actually sheds a little more light on this topic is this:

How will the addition of Bill Kristol to the roster increase the value of the newspaper to me as a consumer of information?

Because Kristol did such a great job at the New York Times? The decision makers at WaPo seem to be lacking in the ability to think critically.

Animal Farm Friday: Self Pity?

I'm feeling like a three-legged dog right now, but my story is trivial compared to... well, it's trivial. This story, while a little sad, is full of all kinds of hope.

As for why I missed posting last Friday, well...

Awesome Hangar

Great little discovery revealed by the folks at The News Pakistan via Wired's Danger Room blog. An old Google Earth image shows some Predator drones parked on the tarmac of an airfield in Pakistan. This image is not dated, and I am more than certain these particular drones were originally used in Afghanistan, but obviously they could still be the same drones bombing targets inside of Pakistan.



This updated image (captured this AM, but dated to 3/30/07) no longer shows the drones, but look at the awesome hangar they now have to [hide] in.

Just a thought

The Obama administration needs to learn very fast that no matter what it does to placate the GOP, it is pointless. The GOP will do everything they can to impede progress, just like they did with the Clinton administration. A successful Obama administration means bad news for Republicans, so they have no incentive to do anything that would benefit the Obama administration. They can let the country go down the tubes (as they have for the past eight years), then deflect blame to Obama. I don't get why Obama can't see the obvious. Thinking that Dems and GOP can work together towards common good is the height of naivete.

And to Obama's common refrain that "Republicans have good ideas," I ask what are they? We've had almost a decade of Republican ideas. I'm open to hearing of a single one.

Seriously. If you know of any good Republican ideas, please let me know what you think they are.

There are blogs...

...and then there are blogs like Talking Points Memo, and Glenn Greenwald's blog at Salon.

(Updated with new links.)

Like so many others, this blog is more commentary/broadcast relay - like say, Andrew Sullivan's blog. We don't do any real journalism, apart from occasionally piecing together different perspectives on stories and sometimes finding patterns that might otherwise be unseen. We're also trying to hold truth to power, and trying to keep the truth on record in this post-fact society, especially with a corporate media establishment that is still so hard wired for Republicans that it is hard to tell that they are almost an irrelevant party.

There is HuffPo, but apart from the boots-on-the-ground citizen journalists in the Off the Bus section that ran during the elections, not a whole lot more goes on there other than commentary. But not to devalue that, there are some really smart perspectives and insights in the posts at HuffPo. But again, not much actual truth digging. DailyKos is more activist, but still light on investigation, heavy on commentary.

But then there are blogs that do what so few others do, and they are my two favorite political blogs at this point. TPM, headed up by former attorney Josh Marshall, as I just mentioned, and also the blog by the tenacious and loquacious, Glenn Greenwald, former constitutional lawyer turned journalist.

These guys go above and beyond just providing perspective and commentary on the reporting of the day, they also dig deep and do their own investigations, just like real journalists used to do. TPM has been a rising star these past few years, and are blossoming in to a real journalistic outfit, with a decent sized staff that is ever growing. Even some of their alumni have gone on to prominent gigs, and some not-so-prominent (come back, Greg!). But these guys are getting into some real meaty stuff. Like this nugget that sprung up from looking deeper into that story about the mini-Madoff clown, Sir Stanford.

The forever unapologeticly liberal Glenn Greenwald is also a force to be reckoned with. A good piece of advice is to never debate him unless you are armed to the teeth with facts, and not spin. There are few bloggers or journalists out there who are as well read and well versed in the facts on any topic of interest than Glenn Greenwald. Right now he is doing the hero's work of trying to reclaim America's honor from the Constitution-shredding, immoral, torturing scumbags that were the Bush administration.

So if you are a believer in the truth, and you care about the honor and dignity of the US, but you are not reading TPM and Glenn Greenwald's blog daily, I urge you to do so.

NY Post Defends Cartoon, Slams Al Sharpton

I know from first hand experience that political cartoons can easily be misinterpreted, but as a cartoonist, I assert that either Delonas is a racist or he's an idiot. To say this is tone deaf is polite. But no matter. If he wants to make a statement with such vile imagery, let him. Free Speech and all that. But most of us can see this cartoon for what it is, despite the Post's CYA defense. As this country moves forward daily towards racial equality and justice, tabloid rags like the NY Post, and the racist, ignorant pigs working there - Delonas especially - are becoming more marginalized and more irrelevant every day.



That's the nice thing about free speech. People are free to express themselves and proudly display just how pathetic they really are.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Fiscal Stimulus Will Pay For Itself

The premise of this entire article is flawed because of misunderstanding the very nature of our economic problems, and from misquoting Jefferey Sachs. Mr. Sachs never said the stimulus deficit would cripple us, he said the fiscal hole we're in will. As in, the hole that we are in now is much larger than most people paying attention are willing to realize.



The stimulus will indeed help, and even if it doesn't right the US economy, at least we'll be getting some badly needed infrastructure improvements out of it. The author - and most others writing about economic matters - should have a more realistic understanding of just how bad the global economic crisis is before writing such irresponsible articles.
About Stimulus Package
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

What an emBurissment

Burris Changes Story: Now Admits He Tried To Raise Money For Blago

Where has all the money gone?

Another Madoff for you, but this one looks much more colorful! What is it with Texas?

Gitcher Party On

Operating at Limited Capacity

This title is a double entendre. Firstly, it speaks to my present inability to type very well since I have almost no use of my left arm for the next few weeks. So to that end, The Low Bar will be publishing at a very limited rate.

The other intent of the title references our US government and its handling of the economy. In what capacity is it limited? How about that of sanity and reason. Never mind all of the bailouts and stimulus cluster-f***s, how about standard operating procedure. It seems the Congressional Budget Office uses some backwards accounting practices to arrive at its numbers, which are different from the method nearly every other office uses, and that of Wall Street, which is GAAP accounting.

The skinny of the problem is this: the CBO says we have a budget deficit of $455 billion, when in fact it is $5.1 trillion. But the more scary number is that, if the CBO used GAAP accounting, we would have a future projected budget shortfall og $65 trillion. That's larger than the world's GDP.

Still think we're going to pull out of this?

Too much bacon

Can there be such a thing?

Why we are doomed

With all of the talking heads spewing crap from their pie holes without knowing what the hell they are talking about, lost amid the noise and chatter is the message from the two guys who saw this all coming - Nouriel Roubini, and Nassim Taleb. They really appear to be the smartest guys in the room. If not that, they are certainly smarter than the cadre of idiots at CNBC.

Both men do their best to explain in adult terms the real dangers of our current economic crisis, and what needs to be done to get out of it, and all the CNBC morons want are stock tips. Un-F-ing-Believable. You've got to see it for yourself.

We are doomed, indeed, as long as assholes like the clowns at CNBC are broadcasting.

This is why you're fat

So that's why.