Understand something about AIG

I was listening to something on the radio yesterday, one of those talking heads rabbit on about how the situation with the Fed rescuing AIG was so bizarre.

I'm thinking - not so bizarre... big financial firm, lots of assets, domino effect, too big to fail-

-blah, blah blah.

The guy went on to point out that AIG does insurance, but they do a kind of insurance you and I can't get. They insure securities against loss - for big clients, like China.

Somebody like China goes to AIG and says "Hey, I'm buying a metric @ssload of mortgage-backed securities. On the off chance that the companies who issued these mortgages weren't following their stated practices, AND that the rating agencies were using three year old data to evaluate their appreciation potential - will you insure me against loss?"

AIG says "No problem. I mean, we all know that's not gonna happen, right?"

And AIG insures China against loss by undisclosed risk.

With me?

[Late Edit: This kind of insurance is called a Credit Default Swap. It was 1am, my brain wasn't functioning. Sue me.]

Okay. People like you and me don't get this insurance - and there's a reason (I'm not really starting a little guy/big guy kind of thing here) - big money cannot afford to take Wall Street at its word. You and I lose everything in the market, we're ruined - but life around us goes on. If China rolled the dice with 10% of their GDP and came up a loser, well.. life would change for a sixth of the world's population - for starters.

Scale that scenario down a bit. Let's say you're a Government Sponsored Entity that recently took 50% of their total losses on 10% of their mortgages (in subprime, naturally). You're big enough to merit insurance from AIG.

Happy dance, right? Except two things have to work out. You gotta live long enough to put in the claim - and your insurer has to pay it.

Well, the Fed taking over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spared those GSEs any chance of a quick death, but AIG going in the tank endangered any claim their securities had to being good investments for buyers like China.

No AIG, no securities insurance, no security for big money buyers.

Talking head man explained that the Fed, now the proud administrators of Freddie/Fannie's assets to save them from ruin - is now loaning money to the insurer who will write checks to big investors in case of big losses.

Pretend you're big money for a second. Does this fill you with confidence?

Yeah. CJR's Ryan Chittum agrees with you. What's more, he's not alone:

Forget about AIG. This [WSJ article] is the most important story of the day. Banks have essentially stopped lending to each other, threatening to bring the financial system, and thus the economy, to a standstill. This despite the Fed shoveling money into markets.

 That.... is downright creepy.

Don't look at the AIG bailout, look at what it was trying to prevent - and whether or not it is working.

The stupidest hackers in the world

By now the news is out that Gov. Palin's Yahoo account was hacked.

You have to believe that any hacker would have done better than this Anonymous group did. I suspect they have no idea what kind of a hornet's nest they've stirred up.

(Yes, yes, the government can read your email- but NOBODY else!!)

Lest you go trolling for good dish - relax, the only posted emails are ho hum messages (a thank you from a loyal supporter, and a "hang in there" message from Palin to her Lt. Governor).

[Late edit: it would be fair to say the big reveal is Palin's use of this yahoo account for gov't business. While neither of the messages whose contents are shown establish this, the subject lines of messages referenced by WikiLeaks would support that theory.

For example, this one from her chief of staff:

Fri, 8/22/08    42KB Read
Nizich, Michael A (GOV)
RE: Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans

Or this one from her press secretary: 

Sat, 8/30/08    1169KB Read  
Meghan Stapleton
Attachments
FW: Motor Fuel Tax Suspension

To the extent that what has been disclosed is genuine - it would suggest that any blanket refusal to hand over "personal email" from this account is less than accurate.]

Gawker is now claiming that the account is now gone - which would raise interesting issues if gov't business was conducted on this account.

As I see it, the relevant questions are

1) What bunch of miscreants did this? and
2) Is there such thing as a "but I had to delete my account!" defense when charged with destroying government records?
3) What kind of data recovery is possible for a deleted Yahoo account?

This Anonymous group had better enjoy the next few days, because the next few years are seriously going to suck.

Late Edit:
WaPo's The Trail is reporting that WikiLeaks has more email messages posted. WikiLeaks is (understandably) not responding well to the new internet load.

Later Edit:
I neglected to H/t to Fox News for the original reference. My bad.

Still later Edit:
It will be interesting to see how this will spiral out of control.

• GOP Congressmen (who shamelessly voted to allow the government to scan everyone's email) will suddenly become outraged defenders of the right to privacy.
• The McCain camp will denounce this as the dirtiest of political dirty tricks - demanding the media focus on their candidate as victim and capturing those responsible. Never mind about what this says about the honesty of our VP nominee, thank you very much.
• The Obama campaign will denounce this act, promise that no member of their organization was involved (and secretly pray that enough good dish trickles out to ruin Palin).
  
• The hackers will enjoy their moments of fame - and pray that their attempts to conceal themselves keep them safe.

Time will tell - but my money is on the hackers getting pummeled.

Release the hounds!!!

Rubbing elbows

Rachel Maddow commenting on Sen. McCain's visit to a yacht owned by an Italian con man in 2006.



Frankly, the cultural angle doesn't seem as strong as the ethics angle.

Why is a reformer hanging out on a con man's yacht?

McCain's presence on the yacht is confirmed by his campaign.
The con man is exactly that - he's pled guilty.

Late Edit: corrected the title. Sheesh.

I'm stupid, and I vote

Salon's Walter Shapiro scours the political landscape of Ohio and comes across some sparkling examples of the American voter:

"Obama doesn't have an American birth certificate or one that you can believe. The one from Hawaii is a fake."

or

"Usually about a month before the election, I start to read up on the candidates. But it's been a crazy summer, so I really haven't checked anything out."

or my personal favorite:

"I don't know much about McCain. I hear a lot about his vice president. What's her name? The one from Canada"

Heaven help the republic.

Aloha, Siva?

Siva Vaidhyanathan is calling it quits.

Downer.

To the chest-thumpers of America

Don't look now, but Ben Stein (on CBS Sunday Morning) has done a masterful job of letting the air out of this tough talk on Russia and Georgia (emphasis in orignal)

Here's a cool idea: while we're in a difficult war in Iraq, while the war in Afhanistan is turning distinctly ugly, while we have major economic and energy problems - let's get into a war with Russia!

What? You don't think that's a good idea?

Neither do I.

But that seems to be exactly where we are heading. We already made the boneheaded move of getting nation of Georgia to think we would back them when they confronted Russia over Issues that have zero to do with us.

Russia warned us over and over to back off. We didn't back off. Then when Russia called our bluff, invaded Georgia and thumbed their noses at us - we did nothing. This was a nearly fatal blow to Georgia, a sovereign state and made us look like liars and punks.

Now we've made an agreement that places interceptor missiles in Poland, even as Russia has told us over and over again not to do it. We've promised the Poles we'll defend them if Russia attacks.

This is dangerous foolishness.

We're not gonna fight the Russians over Poland, which is right next to Russia and about 5,000 miles from us.

1. We don't have the means to do it; and
2. The nation doesn't want to do it.

So if Russia invades, which they've strongly hinted that they may do - we'll do nothing, and look weak again.

Why are we getting into all these messes so far from home? Why are we provoking the Russians needlessly? They are obviously ready to fight on their borders, and we're not ready to fight on their borders. And neither is anyone in Western Europe - all of whom are totally dependent on Russia for natural gas at this point. Plus, the Western Europeans have almost no armies at this point.

Look, we have enough on our plate. Let's not get other people killed and ourselves humiliated in Russia's backyard.

If we're not gonna fight - and we're not - let's just butt out and stay out.

Ben's dead-on on this issue. Only blind nationalists and simpletons could think picking a fight with Russia has any upside. We are not invincible - even if nations like Georgia and Poland think we are.

Russia is doing what they are doing because they understand that we cannot back up our words. We may not like it - but it doesn't change things. Leaders who suggest otherwise are either  shameless demagogues or fools. Either way, they are dangerously irresponsible.

Wired, Part III

Read Part II

The other night, amid a flurry of hammering that woke up my little girl – I was at last fully networked in my house.

*Who cares?*

Yeah, yeah, okay. It's a pretty small thing. But small things have a way of turning into flowing cascades of increasing complexity. This should have been a small thing – but it wasn't.

And now its done.

*Except for the 2nd floor-*

Shut up, you! Just shut your subconscious little mouth!! Do you have any idea how long it's taken to…

Ahem.

Okay, perhaps you missed part I and part II of this saga. If you shorthand doing battle with AT&T, the narrative can be shortened to:

• I move to a new house.
• I transfer phone and internet to the new address.
• My house has no phone jacks, thus I enlist the aid of NG & MG to run wires to hook up my PC and DVR.
• After fruitlessly testing the new wires, I discover AT&T has not set up my internet.
• I spend hours on the phone in exchange for two separate promises of when my service will be set up.
• Both of these promises are broken.

---

On the date of the second promise – I had no ETA during the day, so I checked all day and into the night before calling AT&T to scream at them.

After being put on hold and passed around – I was referred to an account specialist.

In contrast to everything I'd experienced with AT&T so far, this person was courteous, and sympathetic. They apologize for what has happened, and – I remember this specifically – tell me they don't blame me at all if I wanted to cancel my order.

They advised me to let them continue to process the order, that it should be done by 3/14, and that I should shop around for other providers. If I changed my mind, I could easily cancel the in progress order at no cost. If I ultimately chose to stay, my order would have continued in the meantime - and  (the kicker) they'd give me two months of free internet service for the inconvenience.

The account specialist promised to call me before March 14th to either verify my order or cancel it.

Huzzah! Empathy! Apology! Free stuff!

Full of satisfaction for having wrested some concessions from AT&T. I vowed to price all options and make them earn my loyalty.

When the account specialist called me back, I was going to have all of the competitors rates in front of me. I would be ruthless.

[The discerning reader will have guessed the next part of the story: I would never hear from the account specialist again.]

Unaware of this fact (and frankly, determined to get a better deal just for spite) I hunt down internet prices for all ISPs in my area.

As anyone who's priced internet knows – this is not easy.
Bundling, initial teaser rates and connection speeds throw all manner of obstacles in front of consumers who simply want to compare apples to apples.

My personal favorite: My cable company was willing to offer me an introductory rate that bumped up after six months and resulted in a higher yearly bill than the regular rate. 

Nice.

Since no communications company will spit in your direction without locking you into a contract – I ended up having to compare the average yearly rate over two years for internet alone, internet with cable, and internet with phone and cable.

The maddening result: For the connection speed I wanted, AT&T was the cheapest.

Since I was getting two months free – I figured there wasn't much sense in paying more for spite. When AT&T's account specialist called me back [HAH!] I'd tell them I'd take the deal.

Now, those of you with freakish memories will recall that checking your order status on AT&T's website requires an online registration number – which you can only get via phone or snail mail.

I'd told them to call my house with the number, and they had. In classic AT&T fashion: A computer calls my house and rattles off a nine digit number – once – and then hangs up.

If I'd actually been at home when the call came, there's a good chance I'd have missed a digit trying to get a pen. Since they didn't repeat it, I'd have been stuck repeating this workflow:

1)    leave house again
2)    access the internet,
3)    go to AT&T's webform
4)    Request an online registration number
5)    Go home (to receive number via phone)
6)    Retrieve number from answering machine
7)    Leave home (to get internet access)
8)    access the internet,
9)    go to AT&T's webform
10)    Use online registration code
11)    Check order status.

See how easy that is! ARRrrrrrgh!

Needless to say, I didn't do this with any speed. Over the course of three days, I managed to write down the number, remember to bring it to work, and remember to visit AT&Ts website.

The first time I got in – I wasn't even planning on checking my order status. I wanted to check on my bill. It was the 12th and my order wasn't supposed to go through until the 14th.

I saw my bill was late – but hell if I was going to pay before I got service. On a whim, I saw check order status and clicked on it.

It said:

Residential/Internet: 
Scheduled: 2/27/2008
Completed: 3/10/2008

I'm like: 

!!!!

So I call E and ask her to check the computer. We're online!

What the freaking…???

I've had internet for days and AT&T didn't so much as send me an email!

Those b@stards!!!

Still...I have internet.

E can check email – I can back in touch with folks.

Then I go home and fire up the browser. And it's so slow, google takes ages to load.

I call AT&T tech support and download speed checks confirm that there's something really wrong with my connection.

I'm connected – but I can't use it.

ARRRRRRRGGGH!!

Days later - AT&T agrees to send a tech, at the last minute we change the day, since E's home with sick kids we figure we might as well have their tech show up when we won't have to take additional time off.

The tech shows up, has to install a whole house filter, reset our modem password and (in a delicious bit of irony) has to sit on hold with AT&T in order to do it.

It works! Huzzah!

The next day, I end up being home anyway and I watch another AT&T truck show up at our house (presumably, this was our originally scheduled appointment). I tell the person that we have internet now, than you.

They say something like, "I need to check Roger's work. I'll just take a look at the box out back."

I didn't have the heart to tell them we have no phone box – in the back, or anywhere else.

Done?

No.

Yes, I have internet, but there's still one thing in AT&T's hands that they can screw up: my two free months of service.

Being AT&T - they do.

I start getting hassled about my bill. Being me, I refuse to pay until I see a bill that reflects what I should pay. Being AT&T they tell me my credit won't appear for 1 to 2 months.

I ask you: why the hell would that be? We live in a world of instant communication. The thought that a message like "Credit account X with $50.00" would take two months to show up on my bill is just too stupid to contemplate.

I call AT&T to explain my point of view to them and they assure me that the credit will come – its in the system and that should show up on my May bill. They understand that I want to pay an accurate bill, so they quote me a single month and ask for that amount. I'm like, Okay. One month is no big deal – I don't really want to pile up three months of bills before sorting this out. Hell, knowing AT&T they'd probably disconnect me and I'd have to start over.

I'll pay a month – wait a month – and by then my credit will show up and we'll be square.

I pay a month's bill online.

The next day, I get a disconnect notice from AT&T.

Furious, I call them and am assured that I will not be disconnected. Ignore the incredibly threatening notice we sent you about collection and your credit history, no this was all a misunderstanding.

Fine.

May comes – and with it my AT&T bill. Happy to put this all behind me, I open it up to find…a month and a half of credit applied to my bill. Plus late fees.

Now, at this point my narrative has to go off the track a bit. I went to AT&T's website and scoured the site for any line of contact that I hadn't used before. I ended up finding a webform that I can no longer locate (or I'd post it here).

I sent the following on May 15th:

To: ATT_1ME@att.com
Customer Name: [withheld]
Email Address: [withheld]

Email Tracking Number: 8121[withheld]

Question/Comment:
Credit for late installation not appearing on my bill

Additional Information:
Re: Account Number [withheld]
I'd placed an order for phone and internet on 2/25 and was told it would be installed on 2/27.

It was not.

I was then told it would be installed on 3/7.

It was not.

So, I called your advanced DSL Customer Support number 866-583-2494 on 3/7 to find out what was going on. Over the course of a 53 minute phone call - I was told that it would be installed on 3/14 and that because things went so wrong I would receive two months of DSL for free.

Looking at my bill - it doesn't look like this has happened, either.

I am now getting late charges for billed amounts that are in error.

What needs to happen now to get this situation resolved?

Expecting nothing, I get it:
an email advising me of the impending credit within 1-2 billing cycles.

So I reply to the email and snark at them.

The next day, at lunch – I get a phone call from a nice rep called Mamie.

I explain that from my perspective AT&T owes me two weeks of free internet. They promised me two months, and they gave me six weeks.

Mamie was not impressed. "You transferred your service on 2/27, so the billing for your new internet began as of that date."

I'm laughing too hard to scream at her.

You didn't transfer my service on 2/27!

Mamie can't find this in her script. "On a good day it would have been-"

I'm outside, in a parking lot, surrounded by people. Despite this, I scream into the phone:

IT WASN'T A GOOD DAY! My service wasn't transferred! You promised me two months worth of internet and then you have the nerve to bill me for two weeks of service you never provided!

With this, Mamie gives up the ship. If I pay my second months bill, she'll apply a credit for the remaining two weeks while I'm on the phone.

I pay, she credits my account for the missing weeks and my struggle with AT&T ends.

She even sends me an email on May 30:

Good Afternoon [murph],

Per our conversation today, I am responding to your email regarding an adjustment. My name is Mamie, and I will be happy to assist you with your request.  I regret any frustration you have encountered because of the billing error.

After reviewing your account, a credit in the amount of $13.75 has been given for AT&T High Speed Internet . This credit should appear on your statement within 1-2 bill cycles.

My User Id is MM69[withheld]

[murph], if I can be of any further assistance, please reply directly to this email.

Thank you for using AT&T. We appreciate your business and continued loyalty.

Regards,
Mamie
Your AT&T Customer Service Representative

Scoreline:
Me: Four hours on the phone, internet two weeks late, and billing unsnarled after three and a half months.
AT&T: Two on site visits, -$50.00, and one more sucker, contractually obligated for two years.

Next up - wiring, the final insult.

Cat 2, my @ss

Mom's telling me that Hwy 90's sewer grates have seawater jetting out of them.

CNN's showing the Beau Rivage casino is taking on water.

I know storm surges vary according to local geography, but she's in Mississippi.

If Ike's pushing gulf water into casinos that far east, the Texas coast is really going to get creamed.

How cool is the Large Hadron Collider?

(Via Neatorama)

The Large Hadron Collider is not only a cool particle physics gizmo, it's also a very, very cold one. Indeed, it is the largest cryogenic system in the world and is one of the coldest places on Earth.

To keep them at superconducting temperature, scientists have to cool the LHC's magnets down to 1.9 K (-271.3°C), which is lower than the temperature of outer space (-270.5°C). First, the magnets are cooled to -193.2°C using 10,000 tons of liquid nitrogen. Then 90 tons of liquid helium is used to lower the temperature down to -271.3°C. The whole cooling process takes a few weeks.

I'm sorry, but that's just freaking awesome.

It's 17 miles in diameter, gets stretched by the moon's gravity, and smashes opposed streams of protons into each other at a collision velocity greater than the speed of light.

Geek out!

My new favorite windows error

Got this error message on my [st]inkPad:

Well....OK, then!

Michigan GOP: Papercut? Well, let me get my lemons....

How evil is the Michigan GOP?

See for yourself:

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

Ohio's GOP is apparently following suit.

(H/t CJR)

If you can't win their hearts, block their votes.

Nice.

Freddie and Fannie: Open the barn door wider

CJR has two posts on the GOPs new talking point (That Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are examples of social programs gone amuck):

The always excellent Ryan Chittum asks - Mae We Correct the Record?
     and
Dean Starkman points out that Wall Street Sank Freddie and Fannie

The Bush era conservatives are fond of claiming that government is the problem. In this instance, its fairly clear that Freddie and Fannie's problems are due to a free market run amok.

That the modern GOP would look at the current situation and proscribe a bigger dose of the current disease is pretty appalling.

He tried to warn us

Niemanwatchdog profiles a true independent military expert, Lt. Gen. William E. Odom.

Gen. Odom was buried in Arlington this past Monday.

As an overver of the Iraq situation, few have been as prescient:

The issue is not whether the Iraqi people will greet U.S. soldiers as their liberators, but what will they do six months after that," he said. "I find it naive and disingenuous to claim that you can create democracy in Iraq anytime soon. There is no historical record of constitutionalism in Iraq. The administration has already assured us that the U.S. will not stay there for very long, and, if that is the case, then the goal of establishing a constitutional system in Iraq is a joke

and this

...the idea that we could create a constitutional regime that would be pro-U.S. in a short period of time there struck me as pure fantasy. I must say, I found it hard to believe that the administration internally could make that argument convincingly to themselves. And I've just sort of been quiet since. But it seems now there is enough evidence where I can at least say not that I told you so, but that it really doesn't pay -- I would like very much to be wrong on this, but I don't see how it pays the United States to continue to go down this path...

and this

If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

and this

We should have learned a number of things from the Vietnam War, but most of all that unintended consequences are often the most significant outcomes. Our well-intended policies in Vietnam soon rendered the United States incapable of accomplishing anything positive in the region. Massive use of American combat power justified all of the extremism that North Vietnam used in pursuing its course, and most important, it removed all doubt about who could claim the banner of "national liberation" in Vietnam. The Saigon government was soon seen as no more than America's lackey. Thus withdrawal from Vietnam actually improved America's strategic position for turning the tide against the Soviet Union, beginning during the Carter administration and accelerating during the Reagan administration.

In the succinct language of military strategy, strategic withdrawals often involve tactical defeats but open the way to counteroffensives and "strategic success." The domino theory, invoked to avoid "tactical defeats," can easily obscure the wisdom of a strategic withdrawal and instead pave the way to "strategic defeat."

and especially this:

Because no act of terrorism has yet destroyed a liberal democracy but acts of parliament have closed a few, Americans should ask if the new U.S. policies, laws, and practices in reaction to the attacks of 9/11 are more threatening to their liberties than Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

[snip]

It is high time that leaders in Congress, opinion makers, candidates for public office nationwide and the press unmask the so-called "Global War on Terrorism" for what it is: a slogan and a campaign that make al Qaeda and other such organizations far more effective than they would be if publicly ignored and quietly attacked by methods entirely within the limits of our constitutional rights.

This barely scratches the surface.

Read more.

Distilled to its essence

Paul Begala tells you what's wrong with political coverage in America.

(H/t CJR)

They way they do one thing...is the way they do everything...

Finally! CJR hits on presidential campaign analysis that geeks can get behind:

What do the presidential candidates respective websites say about them?

(via IdolHands by way of CJR)

Document Types

Despite his carefully cultivated “maverick” image, McCain is playing it traditional and conservative by using HTML 4.01, the W3C spec from 1999.

[snip]

Obama shows himself to be much more progressive, adopting the 21st century XHTML 1.0 transitional standard: 

And so on...

Wrestling with a pig

The latest manufactured outrage to hit the campaign is out there - and CNN's headline ensures that McCain's meme is going to make the rounds:

'Lipstick on a pig': Attack on Palin or common line?

The article actually contains the context to show that Obama's remark was about McCain's policies:

 "John McCain says he's about change too, and so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out George Bush -- except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics -- we're really going to shake things up in Washington,'" he said.

"That's not change. That's just calling something the same thing something different. You know you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. You know you can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough of the same old thing."

Anybody see a reference to Gov. Palin in there? Are all references to lipstick now tied to the GOP's VP nominee?

McCain's campaign is so desperate to change the subject they might as well change their campaign slogan to  "look over there!"

I saw a McCain ad last night that (honest to god) denounced balooning budget deficits and placed the blame on Obama.

Are you kidding me? What party's been passing these budgets for the last 7 years? Under the GOP we've added 4 trillion dollars to the national debt. If voters wanna rein in crazy @ss spending, the last thing they should do is pull the lever for the GOP.

Get it into your skull America: McCain and Palin are asking you to forget who they work for - the party that brought you Iraq, recession, big government, reckless spending, and above all corruption.

They used brass knuckle politics across the board to advance their right wing agenda.
They have alternately threatened voters with trumped up dangers and equated their policies with 9/11 and "the troops" to quash criticism and debate.

Gov. Palin isn't some breath of fresh air - she's just the latest smokescreen from the GOP.
 (via The American Prospect)

What the nation learned about Sarah Palin last Wednesday, and what she has reinforced in all her public appearances since then, is that she is a master of the sarcastic, contemptuous sneer. It is extremely powerful to tell people that they are being ridiculed by someone else, that distant elite who live in cities sipping Chardonnay and eating brie as they look down their suspiciously long noses at you. And if you think that someone is looking down on you, the quickest way to feel better is to start looking down on them, which is just what Palin tells voters they must do.

And oh, did those Republican delegates swoon at their new tribune of down-home all-American virtue, their Hockey Mom from heaven. Meanwhile, up in the skyboxes ringing the arena, the people John McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt called the "malefactors of great wealth" nodded approvingly at the scene below. The party's patrons could rest easy knowing that once again, corporate and upper-income tax cuts are at the top of the Republican nominee's agenda. The troops on the floor had no more than a passing concern about that, though. They had been appropriately prodded with talk of values and God and the flag and the virtues of small towns -- but most of all, talk of those despicable liberals. Those liberals hate you, they were told, and they hate everything you stand for. So work your little hearts out.

The GOP has managed to wriggle out of eight years of accountability.

It's high time they get nailed right to the wall.

Lehman brothers: dude, you don't look so good...

Lehman Brothers is looking like it will be the next titan to come crashing down.

Via the NYT:

Waves of selling wiped out nearly half of Lehman’s value in the stock market on Tuesday, leaving the firm, one of the nation’s oldest and largest investment banks, in an all-out fight for survival.

[snip] 

Lehman’s future as an independent firm now seems more uncertain than ever, and many analysts fear that the bank is running out of time and options.

Confronting gaping losses stemming from the credit crisis, the once-proud firm is racing to secure a financial lifeline, possibly including the sale of its prized money management division or an investment from an outside investor.

Spare the messenger, but kill the message

GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin's boast of stopping the bridge to nowhere is coming back like a boomerang:

(via the AP, H/t to TPM)

At a rally in swing state Missouri, the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate accused Obama of requesting nearly $1 billion in earmarks for his state during his time as a senator. The new line of attack came after Obama made his first direct criticism of Palin over the weekend, using the topic of earmarks, which are special projects that lawmakers try to get for their districts and constituents.

"Just the other day our opponent brought up earmarks — and frankly I was surprised that he would even raise the subject at all," Palin said. "I thought he wouldn't want to go there."

Obama hasn't asked for any earmarks this year. Last year, he asked for $311 million worth, about $25 for every Illinois resident. Alaska asked this year for earmarks totaling $198 million, about $295 for every Alaska citizen.

and again from the AP

"I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere," she said in her convention speech last week.

That's not what she told Alaskans when she announced a year ago that she was ordering state transportation officials to ditch the project. Her explanation then was that it would be fruitless to try to persuade Congress to come up with the money.

"It's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island," Palin said then.

Palin indicated during her 2006 campaign for governor that she supported the bridge, but was wishy-washy about it. She told local officials that money appropriated for the bridge "should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done."

Wiser heads than me have pointed out that the the discussion cannot be about Palin, or the counter is just too easy (e.g. "How dare you attack this patriotic mother of five??!!")

Take her message of financial responsibility and juxtapose it with her advocating for the bridge to nowhere.

TPM is way ahead of me:



McCain is easier to skewer - since he's not media shy and has been around forever. You're a reformer? You're going to change Washington? Let's talk about how many lobbyists you have in your inner circle...

Looks like Obama's campaign is way ahead of me too

Bow before your google masters...

For they have a browser now, too:

Soon all will kneel in submission before the webgods...

Muhuhahahahahahahahaha!

Seriously, Google's browser, Chrome, looks pretty solid. And it's open source. Better still, it has a comic book:

Kim Jong Il: down for the count?

Bloomberg is reporting that North Korea's Kim Jong Il may have suffered a stroke in the past month.

Pantomime

The NYT's Dexter Filkins writing up our sham of an ally in Pakistan:

So here was Namdar — Taliban chieftain, enforcer of Islamic law, usurper of the Pakistani government and trainer and facilitator of suicide bombers in Afghanistan — sitting at home, not three miles from Peshawar, untouched by the Pakistani military operation that was supposedly unfolding around us.

What’s going on? I asked the warlord. Why aren’t they coming for you?

“I cannot lie to you,” Namdar said, smiling at last. “The army comes in, and they fire at empty buildings. It is a drama — it is just to entertain.”

Entertain whom? I asked.

“America,” he said.

(H/t to DangerRoom)

For this we give them billions.

Okay that's entirely too much fun

Okay, not the guy who had to set this up - but the guy who got to think it up and show it off.



(H/t to Neatorama)

Scoreboard

Lest anyone get carried away on the post convention hype, pollster.com has an excellent electoral projection map that shows where this election is currently at:

 

This would be why fivethirtyeight.com is showing Ohio as make or break for McCain. McCain's trailing in safe electoral votes. Of the 99 in serious contention, McCain will need to get 90 of them in order to become president.

If you accept pollster's projections, that's a hell of a hurdle.

Granted, there's a lot of qualifiers in there. Polls are never the same as actual turnout. But it would explain why McCain has to fight like a savage for Ohio and Florida. Either one could bury him.

The Dems cannot let their foot off the gas - but anyone telling you that the Dems have an uphill struggle hasn't been looking at the numbers.

Freddie & Fannie: the walking dead

The rumors have crystalized. If you're a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae invstor - Sunday is going to suck.

The NYT is reporting:

Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday called in top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, and told them that the government was preparing to place the two companies under federal control, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

The plan, which would place the companies into a conservatorship, was outlined in separate meetings with the chief executives at the office of the companies’ new regulator. The executives were told that, under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced and shareholders would be virtually wiped out, but that the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

It is not possible to calculate the cost of any government bailout, but the huge potential liabilities of the companies could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars and make any rescue among the largest in the nation’s history. 

Looks like the home loan market is about to go into a vise.

I was listening to NPR on Wednesday and David Wessel was laying out a similar scenario. At the time, I though he sounded like a crazy man - i.e. another of those "This is what should happen, but it will never happen."

Well, it's happening. And (small justice) heads are rolling:

Officials said the participants at the meetings included Mr. Paulson, Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, and James Lockhart, the head of both the old and new agency that regulates the companies. The companies were represented by Daniel H. Mudd, the chief executive of Fannie Mae, and Richard F. Syron, chief executive of Freddie Mac. Also participating was H. Rodgin Cohen, the chairman of the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, who was representing Fannie.

Officials and executives briefed on the meetings said that Mr. Mudd and Mr. Syron were told that they would have to leave the companies.

 How bad is it?

After stock markets closed on Friday, the shares of Fannie and Freddie plummeted. Fannie was trading around $5.50, down from $70 a year ago. Freddie was trading at about $4, down from about $65 a year ago.

With Fannie and Freddie guaranteeing $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, and a big share of those held by central banks and investors around the world, Mr. Paulson appears to have decided that the stakes are too high to take chances. 

Why act now?

Here's a priceless answer from Columbia Business School professor Charles Calomiris:

“The last thing you want to do is give a distressed borrower more time, because when people are in distress they tend to take a lot of risks,” he said. “You don’t want zombie institutions floating around with time on their hands.”

 Brains... Brains!!!

The aim of all this is to avoid the true nightmare scenario - Freddie and Fannie imploding and taking 5 trillion dollars with them. It's still plenty bad- and anyone with below average credit can expect a cold reception from lenders in the foreseeable future.

Jeezus.

Late edit:
WaPo adds some more detail:

Placing the companies in conservatorship, rather than receivership, could signal that the government does not intend to nationalize or liquidate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Instead, under the terms of a federal law passed this summer, conservatorship is designed to allow the government to restructure the companies and return them to private control. Treasury officials have previously compared the process to Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Eat your words

I had one of those glazed over drives into work today – apparently part of my mind has dreams of directing political ads.

Begin Scene

Narrator: John Smith's neighborhood in suburban Ohio has seen better days. Layoffs and home foreclosures have turned a once vibrant community into a near ghost town. Many have given up. John Smith hasn't.

John Smith is shown talking in town hall meetings, assisting neighbors, and meeting with local government officials.

He's being interviewed in a cluttered office.

Interviewer: Why do you do it?

John Smith: This is my community. You can't give up on where you live.

John watches a TV sitting on the table next to him. Rudy Guiliani is speaking.

Rudy Guiliani: He worked as a community organizer. (laughs) What?

John stares impassively.

Sarah Palin (OC): …like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities. (cheers, applause)

John hangs his head.

Interviewer: What are you thinking?

John shakes his head slowly.

Interviewer: If you could speak to Mr. Guiliani, to-

Smith: Look at my neighborhood. There's no help, there's just me and my neighbors. We quit - this place goes under. Simple as that.

Interviewer: Well-

Smith: You want to know what my responsibilities are? They're the things the Republicans have been ignoring for the last seven years.

End Scene.

Allow me to just say

What the hell took you so long?

American Forces Attack Militants on Pakistani Soil

Coalition forces opened fire in a village near the Afghan border, killing seven people, the Pakistani military said.

[snip] 

...the commando raid by the American forces signaled what top American officials said could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush’s war council.

(via the NYT)

I mean - I'm no fan of broadening conflicts, but wasn't pursuing Al Qaeda something we should have been doing for seven years now?

Now?!! Now, we notice we can cross the border?

What changed?

Campaign bling

Oh, there's something for everyone (although I'm not sure the "Hippies for Obama" button is very helpful *grin*)

(H/t Dynagirl)

Preaching to the choir

Perhaps out of masochism – but more likely out of curiosity about Sarah Palin, I tuned into the penultimate night of the GOP Convention.

It would appear that GOP has decided that the best defense is offense – and there was plenty of it on hand.

I skipped past the minnows until I got to Mitt Romney.

All I can say is, wow – does he suck.

He's a warm up act, so he wasn't entirely to blame for his flat opener. I'm paraphrasing but it went like this:

Mitt: Thank you.

[applause]

Mitt: Thank you. I love you guys.

[applause winding down]

Mitt: My wife and I have a special place in our hearts for you. We love you.

[dead silence]

You could see Mitt was hoping for some love – and got polite indulgence. Sadly, that was about as good as it got for him.
According to Romney, the problem with Washington is that it is far too liberal.

Seriously.

That was his position. The Supreme Court (despite a Bush appointed Chief Justice, and an ironclad conservative block of ScaliaThomas/Alito/Roberts) is too liberal.

After all, the court wanted to give rights to prisoners! My God! Soon they'll be loose in our streets, accosting our children!!

But there was more – and so much worse. Mitt is never convincing – and despite a few zingers, he finished up by essentially saying, "You want crazy! I'm you're man!"

Even David Brooks was incredulous.

Apparently, Romney subscribes to the notion that if you're shot in the head with an arrow, the best advice is to push it all the way through.

Luckily for the GOP, things got better from there.

Romney was followed by Mike Huckabee, who for my money had the best speech of the night. He was the warm up act – so he will get no credit, but there was no other speaker that had veterans wiping tears from their eyes when they finished.

Then came Rudy. His speech was a day late and he came out like a rabid animal. He scored some good hits. The convention partisans were lapping it up, but I can't get past how contemptuous he was. Sneering and snarling throughout – this was a speech for people who want to hate something.

Rudy went to bad places (Obama's voting record – something that McCain is especially vulnerable on) and while he took 15 minutes to mention 9/11, he opened his speech standing in front of a panorama of the current New York skyline.

Say it with pictures, Rudy. Fer cryin' out loud.

Then came Sarah Palin – the woman of the hour. For liberals hoping she'd disgrace herself, this must have been quite a letdown. She did well – a few minor flubs, but had plenty of zingers and all about offense.

Her warm up was the weakest bit of her speech:

After aggrieved cries of "lay off my family" – we were treated to a prolonged introduction of each and every member.

With a family that could have come from central casting, the GOP realized they had a golden opportunity for getting the crowd to say "awwwwww."

Then there was the obligatory "my son, WHO IS GOING TO IRAQ." Yes, Sarah – we've heard. And heard. And heard. It's nice that you want to tell us, too, though.

Then she went back to the theme of the night.

Obama, bad. McCain, good.

She landed plenty of good lines (her comparison of mayor to community organizer was particularly good) and worked hard to establish herself as a working class gal who's on your side.

The partisans were always going to cheer for her, but I imagine we'll see the likes of Peggy Noonan heave a sigh of relief.

Palin came to play – and Biden had best nut up for the Veep debate. There are plenty of holes in Palin's tapestry of snark – but the Dems can't sit back and hope on this one. They're going to have to get busy.

On Palin: Deliver us from groupthink

Lo, the talking heads have spoken. When Governor Palin delivers her speech, she must, must, MUST do the following:

In sum, Sarah Palin, you must: introduce yourself; tell your back-story and sell your maverick-ness. Actually, what you say doesn’t matter. It’s how you "appear." So, connect through the TV; seem presidential but also be "sympathetic" — oh, and, also, "commanding."
(via CJR's Liz Cox Barrett)

We gain a lot from up-to-the-minute news coverage, but here's the classic downside: you assemble a group of talking heads – they're going to talk.

When it comes to political speeches – their analysis is just as valuable as anyone else's: i.e. worthless.

I'll set aside the long odds of any speech changing minds and focus (as Ms. Barrett does) on how stupid it is to have a panel tell you about an event you just witnessed.

Really, what service are these people providing? Does anyone truly need help deciding if they enjoyed a speech or not?

The impact of a speech resides in an audience - who pronounce judgment before any of the pundits even opens a pie hole.

Wow! That was electrifying!

Or

*Yawn* I think Scrubs is on…

The pundits are yammering for their own amusement – and to fill air time. Compare the uselessness of any of their "musts" with the classic untestable pronouncements of football commentators:

The key to this game is making plays.
The game will go to the team that wants it more.
It's all about turnovers.

Memo to the media bobbleheads: An untestable prediction and a pointless prediction that can be tested are equally worthless.

You want a testable prediction? I predict the pundits will focus on their own vanity or other zeitgeist distractions – instead of diving into what was really said.

----


The Palin narrative so far has been pretty light on detail (mostly because she's such an unknown)

She's the three things that McCain isn't: young, attractive, and supported by the religious right.

Of these – only the last one has any value for analysis. People want to know to what extent her social policy views mesh with their own. If her record can be established – the talking heads would do us all a service if they ferreted out her record and compared it with her current rhetoric.

My take on the current knock list goes like this:

• Her teenage daughter is pregnant
  Honestly, any hypocrisy demonstrated by Palin boosters who condemn out of wedlock teen moms is surely matched by progressives who are brimming with schadenfreude over the personal struggle of a  teenage girl.
  
  I would think that progressives and conservatives could at last do in public what they tend to do in private when this happens in their family – focus on the inevitable needs of a child, welcome them into the world as best they can, and shut the hell up.
  
  
• She's a mom/ her daughter needs her/ she has a special needs baby – I'm going to do the unthinkable and agree with David Brooks. Anyone who gets into politics at this level is going to sacrifice a certain amount of their family life. Much was made of Joe Biden's daily commute back to his kids in Delaware – but nothing was made of the fact that somebody other than Joe was caring for them while he was going to work and spending four hours on the train.
  
  Why is Palin different? Because she's the mom? I'd think her husband is going to have to do what political wives have been doing for centuries – step up, or get some help. Mom's out chasing the brass ring. It may not be a bargain that you or I would make for our own family – but there's nothing new about the trade off Palin has chosen.
  
  
• She shouldn't have taken the job – to protect her daughter's privacy
  This one came from Mark Shields – and I'm surprised he could say it with a straight face. She's the Governor of Alaska right now. Any tangible tormentors will be local, and they would appear with or without national office. Palin's own support of her daughter and grandchild will matter a whole hell of a lot more than what some blowhards have to say on DailyKos.
  
  
• She's inexperienced
  Hell yes – she's inexperienced. Separating the puffery from fact would be a useful service the media might provide. She's been the chief executive of a state with less than 700,000 residents for 19 months. Don't talk  to me about Truman, he spent a decade in the Senate before becoming VP – this lady's green. She may be competent as hell (I wouldn't know) – but stop calling her experienced.
  
  
• She's right wing 
  Yes. She's very right wing (which is no doubt why she was chosen) If the NYT is be believed, McCain wanted Sen. Liebermann, but the far right shot down all his trial balloons. Palin is pro-life in ALL CAPS and believes we can drill our way to energy independence. I'm sure her speech will establish the more palatable aspects of her conservative brand – it's up to commentators to ferret out the less marketable fine print.

On balance, I think Palin's a lightweight. She's in her first term as governor of the fourth smallest state by population. She won her primary simply by being someone other than the staggeringly unpopular incumbent.

None of this precludes her from doing well in national office – but none of it establishes her as anything other than a newcomer to the national scene.

Yeah, Palin's the new, new thing – but I think progressives would do better to focus on McCain. If it's true that Palin's selection was just McCain hipshooting for some attention – her selection is a bigger deal than anything currently on the table.

Late edit: 
Apparently, the conservative water carriers aren't pleased either. Owch. (H/t TPM)

Out of Bounds

Talk about a beatdown.

McCain spokeperson Tucker Bounds completely fails to defend Palin's foreign policy record on CNN:





Damn.

I mean - you have Fox & Friends claiming Palin has foreign policy experience because her state is close to Russia (apparently you get foreign policy via osmosis) topped off with every GOP schill spouting off about how Palin was a commander in chief (of the Alaskan National Guard).

Mr. Bounds takes care to juxtapose her command of the National Guard with "deployed overseas," in an attempt to string together two items that have nothing to do with each other.

I mean - while there may be a demographic who believes that Governors give orders to guard members who are deployed overseas, I'm betting they are too few to matter - and too stupid to find a polling place in any event.

That's just sad.

(H/t to TPM)

How does this help me?

CJR's David Cay Johnston is bang on point with his article, Attitude Adjustment. As a media outlet - you can cover the big events, but if you ignore the concerns of your readers when you do - you'll lose readers.

Consider the coverage of proposed airline mergers, such as the pending deal between Northwest and Delta, the nation’s third- and fourth-largest airlines by revenue. Reports typically focused on the problems of the airlines, whose owners want to raise fares by reducing competition. Yet most readers are passengers, and they care about ticket prices, which tend to rise when competition lessens. Consumers also care about legroom, frequency of flights, whether getting home requires a change of planes, rapidly escalating charges to change tickets (up sixfold from $25 a decade ago to $150 at most airlines today), and new charges for such services as checking a suitcase or getting a drink of water. But such consumer interests too often tend to be relegated to the middle or end of reports of proposed airline mergers, if they are mentioned at all.

Think back on how many merger stories you've read/seen in the past year. The number of times you've heard about an executive stepping down or getting tapped. If you're like me, you greet these stories with a glazed over indifference. If there's a thought in there at all it sounds a lot like:

Who gives a sh!t?

This is not to say these stories don't affect me - but there's little in these stories to inform me as to why I should care. More to the point - there is nothing in these stories to tell me why these stories are more important than my other daily concerns.

Here's a great bit:

One of the most powerful and enduring raps on mainstream media is that it identifies too much with the people and institutions it covers and too little with the readers who pay good money for subscriptions. Readers (and listeners and viewers) expect and deserve information that serves their interests, information that ever larger legions of publicity agents are paid to direct reporters away from, and toward what the business or government agency prefers.

It's too simple to say that big media outlets are simply house organs for big corporations - but it is clear they are not targeting coverage to consumer needs.

You don't care about me? Then you're telling me not to care about you.

Democracy Now

Glenn Greenwald is posting on the disgraceful behavior of the Police surrounding the Republican National Convention.

I'm all for law and order - but a policeman who arrests a journalist for asking a question (which then causes the Secret Service to pull her access credentials) isn't doing their job.

Watch for yourself. Here's Democracy Now's Amy Goodman getting hauled off for having the temerity to ask police why her producers were arrested:



Greenwald's Update VII is an interview with Goodman after her release.


I understand if there's a true riot underway, police may not have time to route legitimate inquiries to their Sargent - but give me a fricking break. This lady poses a threat?

Bag of salt

Mea culpa on the Georgia post earlier. While I thought Michael J. Totten's post on Georgia was an interesting counterpoint - I was curious why all the Tblisi posters on his website were in English instead of Georgian.

Obviously - they were aimed at a foreign audience. So, apparently was the entire post. That is not so surprising, but CJR is pointing out a telling detail: he'd had assistance from official Georgian media representatives. By itself, that doesn't mean his post is bunk - but it certainly rounds out any opinion of the post.

A terrifying kind of fusion

I was reading the Onion from a week back or so and saw the Hater's column on the Hills, Michael Phelps and TiVo partnering with Amazon to destroy the universe as we know it.

In a nutshell: Apparently there's a TV show called the Hills - where one of the twenty-nothings was interviewed about a scene where she cried.

I'm paraphrasing here, but:

Q: When you cried, your mascara ran and looked SO great.

A: Yes. My mascara was [full name of product, including everything but the SKU]

Hater: Starlet - you are too fake for words.

This was contrasted with an interview with the mother of Olympic champion Michael Phelps' mom. This woman is clearly on her way to TV commercial fame - she managed to not only insert a plug for her clothing sponsor but seamlessly integrated the line "drapes, doesn't cling and is flattering for all body types" into her response.

"Flattering for all body types?" Who the hell even talks like that?

We've known advertisers are striving for a utopiawhere all scenery is replaced with enticements to buy their product - where a consumer's every thought becomes billable - but it's just getting sick out there.

The (dated) announcement of TiVo partnering with Amazon is the next big step towards financial oblivion. Your DVR will allow you to stop your TV and buy anything on your screen from Amazon.

Like Alton Brown's silicon spatula? Well, click it and it shall be yours!

As a usability guy - yeah - I think that's pretty seamless. As a human being, I think our televised landscapes are about to get a lot more logos.

Caligula's horse?

Balkinization's Sandy Levinson weighs in on Gov. Palin's selection as VP:

John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin is spectacularly irresponsible. No sane person could believe that she is equipped to be President of the United States at the present time. (If Ms. Palin doubts this, then she is just another political megalomiac, who may, for all we know, believe that it is God's will that she become our President). She is minimally educated, without any significant relevant experience in thinking about or responding to the great issues of the day, and incredibly parochial, for starters. But she will be nominated, because we begin treating even our presidential candidates as the equivalent of monarchs who are free to engage in all sorts of indefensible decisions. No respectable political party would even be thinking of nominating Ms. Palin, but, of course, that is irrelevant. She is the equivalent of Caligula's horse, and if Caligula could get the nomination of a major party, then it would simply acquiesce to the horse's nomination, because that is just the prerogative of the candidate.

 Levinson's main point is to criticize the process by which VPs are chosen, but really - them's fightin' words.

mbar 958

 

Pre-landfall projections, via the NHC

The only positive is the barometer reading (at least as of this writing) is at 958.

It's not much of a upside, but it was 942 a few hours ago. Katrina got down to 902.

Collateral damage

CJR's Joshua Foust delves into the stories behind US forces and civilian casualties in Afghanistan:

The undisputed facts are fairly sparse: in the early pre-dawn hours of Friday, August 22, a small joint American-Afghan force came under attack in a village called Azizabad, in the Shindand District of southern Herat Province. While offering support to the embattled unit, an AC-130 gunship fired into a cluster of buildings. Beyond this, the facts become murky, even contradictory.

On Saturday, August 23, Voice of America reported that, while Afghan officials complained that the strike had killed “at least 70 people, including women and children,” a U.S. coalition spokesman claimed that a battlefield assessment indicated only thirty Taliban were killed, and that a follow-up investigation was under way.

[snip]

Local officials, including a spokesman for the western regional command of the Afghan National Army, claimed they found the bodies of sixty children and nineteen women among the dead.

[snip]

By Monday, August 25, they were counting the dead in Azizabad: a local human rights group claimed “at least 78 people were killed” during the clashes and the air strike, while the Ministry of Interior claimed seventy-six people died, including fifty children under the age of fifteen.

[snip]

The situation took an altogether different turn by Wednesday, August 27, when the U.N. announced that its own investigation revealed “convincing evidence” that at least ninety civilians, sixty of them children, had died during the Azizabad incident.

[snip]

By Thursday, August 28—six days after the initial incident—the Pentagon leaked its own version of events to The New York Times, claiming that photographs of the scene after the firefight revealed little evidence for a higher civilian death toll, the U.N.’s investigation was cursory, and other reports relied too heavily on the testimony of local villagers rather than physical evidence such as freshly dug graves or injured people in local hospitals. One U.S. military investigation repeats the claim of twenty-five dead insurgents and five dead civilians, but still proposes additional “joint” investigations of the incident—leaving one to wonder what, exactly, they are still investigating.

It's just maddening to think that this back and forth is all the information we will get on this subject. That there isn't some kind of ongoing process to determine what exactly is happening.

Our reputation is taking the hit, regardless - so you would think that some transparency would help our cause.

If there were mistakes, those responsible could be punished. If this is the result of misinformation, that could at least be communicated to those who might be persuaded that we aren't actively trying to kill civilians.

Clamming up and hoping just isn't going to help.

A stormtrooper's private shame

(H/t to JE)

What he said

There's a lot of buzz about Obama's speech last night - but TPM has a telling review from none other than GOP consultant Alex Castellanos



Yeah. Obama was hitting the right buttons.

McCain picks Palin

Reuters: McCain's Veep is Palin

A tactical choice (as they all are) but any novelty of her age and gender are offset by her being second fiddle to Sen. McCain.

Late edit:
Josh Marshall points out her youth and inexperience undercuts McCain's "experienced" mantra.

The virtues of paper & pencil

(via the DailyWTF)

Proof that there's virtue in the old way of doing things:

Back in 1993 - at an unspecified River City High School - a test taking program was installed on school computers. It was called Classroom Assistant.

To create a new test, all teachers would have to do was write up a bunch of questions and then “deploy” them to each of the classroom’s PCs. Because Classroom Assistant wasn’t a networked product, deploying the tests involved taking the 3.5" disk containing the test questions and then loading the disk into each computer.

Taking the “digital” tests was even easier. A student would simply select the appropriate test from the “test library”, run through the randomly selected questions, and then instantly see her results. She’d then raise her hand, and the teacher could then write down the test results as seen on the screen.

 What could go wrong?

This:

[Students] could simply CTRL-C to DOS, navigate to the appropriate test folder, and then type in the following at the prompt:

ECHO CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC > answer.key

This would overwrite the particular test’s answer key, ensuring that C was, in fact, always the correct answer. Some students even patched together a batch file that overwrote all answer keys for all tests.

Shortly thereafter, River City High moved back to the paper and pencil tests.

Priceless.

Q.E.D.

For anyone still smarting from Phil Gramm telling us the economic downturn is all in our heads - John Goodman (President of National Center for Policy Analysis) would like to blow your mind (emphasis mine):

Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.


"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

 So, all you people in the ERs of America... cheer up! You may not have access to preventative medicine - but Mr. Goodman says you've had insurance all along! And since you have insurance - the government is free to ignore you.

There's a mind that should be in government: If I have no solution for a problem - I pretend it doesn't exist.

47 million people swept under the rug. Something tells me they won't be content to stay there.

(H/t E and the HealthCare Blog)

Cutting off your nose to spite your face

CJR has me recalling one of my grandpa's favorite rhymes

Last night upon the stair,
I saw a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
My God, I wish he'd go away

Justin Peters details media struggling in vain to isolate the disgruntled Hillary partisans at the Democratic Convention.

After the last night’s speech, journalists were apparently clustered around the New York delegation, going person to person, trying to find one of the vaunted Obama refuseniks. No dice. “The whole idea seems to have come from pundits,” Gabe said. (I’m paraphrasing.) “They erected their own straw man, and then they brought it down. And it never existed in the first place.”

Even accepting that some Hillary supporters are now willing to vote for McCain, you have to question reporters who keep this issue on life support.

The polls, Hillary's withdrawal... not even her speech last night are enough to convince them that this issue was a phantom. Progressive voters will vote for Obama for the same reason that disgruntled evangelical voters will vote for McCain: because they are the lesser of two evils.

The handwringing over McCain's religious bona fides is just as pointless an issue.

Can we discuss Ohio? or who's money is going into who's campaign and with what expectations?

Something that means something for a damn change?

Bates flirts with snark

(H/t Emptywheel)

D.C. Judge Bates rejected the administration's request for a stay of his order (telling Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten comply with House subpoenas).

He doesn't quite rise up to full blown snark, but there is a palpable sense of exasperation in his tone:

The Executive’s argument boils down to a claim that a stay is appropriate because the underlying issue is important. But that is beside the point and does not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits. Simply calling an issue important -- primarily because it involves the relationship of the political branches -- does not transform the Executive’s weak arguments into a likelihood of success or a substantial appellate issue.

Still, good vintage though.

There is no appeal to an order that is not final - so it will be interesting to see what kind of brinksmanship ensues.  Could be an interesting windout.

Uh, that'd be one, why do you ask?

(via Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith)

Convention button:

It's only funny because its true...

This headline from Emptywheel:

Ted Kennedy with Brain Cancer, on (Probably) Morphine, and in Excruciating Pain Can STILL Read a Teleprompter Better than McCain

Full post

Don't know much about Georgia

If you're like me - the South Ossetia/ Georgia thing is a bit murky.

DangerRoom's Noah Shachtman says the popular account is totally wrong.

The account he cites (that of Michael J. Totten) is a very interesting counterpoint.

I didn't leave the networks - the networks left me

ABC News' Jonann Brady - putting another nail in the coffin of Amerian Political coverage
I know there's a lot of signal to fill up in the media these days but really, is this the best Ms. Brady can do?

During Clinton's historic run for president, not only were her positions on big issues analyzed, so too, was her appearance. The media occasionally mocked her proclivity for the pantsuit, and even fashion mavens like Donatella Versace weighed in on Clinton's wardrobe choices. 

Is there anything less relevant than a clothing critique for someone who is no longer running for president?

While it is perhaps the most obvious observation - I'm still waiting for ABC's clothing retrospective for the two presumptive presidential nominees.

Lara Logan had it right. I'm sticking to the BBC and PBS.

(H/t to E)

The best health care in the world

CJR's Trudy Lieberman brings us two more case studies in health care.

• Annette Murph (no relation)
  
  
• Kevin A. Smith

Both of these case studies show that while one candidate's plan might be better than another, neither is going to do much for the underinsured.

Lieberman's first case study was

• James Bell III and James Bell IV

Reading any one of these examples illustrates how inadequate the coverage of this issue has been (which is no doubt Ms. Lieberman's point). The networks have served up softball questions and the campaigns have responded with pat answers.

What I've read indicates that while Obama wants more people to have insurance – he's given us no reason to believe that that coverage will elevate the lives of the newly insured.

By contrast, McCain's plan of severing insurance from employer-sponsored benefit is tantamount to throwing hard to insure Americans to the wolves.

In my own limited experience, past employers negotiated insurance terms with insurers. The size of their business (and overall health of the worker pool) translated into leverage. My past insurers wanted a pool of business brought to them by my employer – so they made some concessions.

I didn't go to those negotiations; my HR person did on my behalf. They took their years of experience with employee benefits and fought for good terms.

As I read it, McCain would make us all lone wolves. Suddenly, I'll have to negotiate with the insurers. I am not an expert and I have no leverage. Is there any real expectation that those negotiations will be unlike all the other negotiations lone consumers have with large corporations?

They give you a number – and you take it or leave it.

This is so insane as to be beyond irresponsible.

If I were a one-issue voter on health care, my vote for Obama would have nothing to do with his fig leaf of a plan – it would be about preventing the disaster that McCain is advocating

Tit for tat

In reading Emptywheel's post on the NYT article on the loss of WMD evidence, one aside really jumped out at me.

Back in 2004 - the Pakistanis are in hot water over the A.Q. Kahn mess - (Kahn helps other countries build nuclear bomb technology, is publicly arrested, and privately given his freedom). The US makes numerous statements defending Pakistan.

The US puts those statements on then-Pakistani President Musharraf's account. You owe us.

And what are they asking in return?

But the Bush administration apparently conveyed to the Pakistani military after that episode that it now expected the Musharraf regime to deliver high-ranking al Qaeda officials — and to do so at a particularly advantageous moment for the administration. The New Republic magazine reported Jul. 15, 2004 that a White House aide had told the visiting head of ISI, Ehsan ul-Haq, that “it would be best if the arrest or killing of any HVT [high value target] were announced on 26, 27 or 28 July.” Those were the last three days of the Democratic National Convention.

[snip]

Just hours before Democratic candidate John Kerry’s acceptance speech, Pakistan announced the capture of an alleged al Qaeda leader.

Obviously not a new story, but a vivid illustration of how power can be misused in an election year.

We are fortunate that this is not a re-election year for the president, or we might see some other flavor of this nonsense.

Simulacrum

Looks like the programmers over at Image Metrics (of GTA fame) have managed to make a human CGI that (when blurred) looks pretty damn real.



The real question is, how agile is this? You can do anything for a demo (especially if you blur the lens) but being able to put this construct into an environment and move the camera is quite another.

Still… the mannerisms are pretty impressive.

(H/t Neatorama)