June 2011 archive

The world is ruled by an oligarchy.  Even the government functions primarily as a puppet of executives, serving mainly to pass laws – such as banning off switches on televisions – that protect and consolidate their power.  Technology has advanced to the point that people’s physical movements and communications can be monitored at all times, almost all non-security technology has been discontinued or fallen into barely functional disrepair.

The only real check on them are the people who regularly expose their unethical practices and allies both inside and outside the system who assist.

Truth, paranoia, or a dramatic introduction to more Meta?

Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Six In The Morning by mishima
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck

Featured Essays for June 8, 2011-

• Health and Fitness News by TheMomCat
• Our Aust(eri)an Goolsbee Nightmare Is Finally Over by ek hornbeck
• Can You Hear Us Now? by TheMomCat
• Free Amina!! by davidseth
• Sex and Puritanism: The Anthony Weiner Story by cabaretic
• A Japanese Lesson by ek hornbeck
• How Many "L’s" Are There In "Gullible"? by davidseth
• Dupree’s Paradise by ek hornbeck

DocuDharma

In case anyone on the left hasn’t noticed, Pres. Barack Obama is not a liberal, progressive or anything that even resembles a left wing politician. He is a neoliberal, or more obvious to some of us on the true left, a right wing corporate conservative. To see him as anything else is a delusion and Tim Geithner is proof. It starts with this Washington Post article:

Geithner finds his footing

By Zachary A. Goldfarb

By early last year, Geithner was beginning to gain the upper hand in a rancorous debate over whether to propose a second economic stimulus program to Congress, beyond the $787 billion package lawmakers had approved in 2009.

Lawrence Summers, then the director of the National Economic Council, and Christina Romer, then the chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers, argued that Obama should focus on bringing down the stubbornly high unemployment rate. This was not the time to concentrate on deficits, they said.

Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, wanted the president to start proposing ways to bring spending in line with tax revenue.

snip

The economic team went round and round. Geithner would hold his views close, but occasionally he would get frustrated. Once, as Romer pressed for more stimulus spending, Geithner snapped. Stimulus, he told Romer, was “sugar,” and its effect was fleeting. The administration, he urged, needed to focus on long-term economic growth, and the first step was reining in the debt.

(emphasis mine)

I’m not an economist but from what I do understand is that you cannot “reign in the debt” without including revenue and JOBS. If the private sector, after all the tax cuts and loop holes, cannot be urged to create JOBS then it must fall to the government to provide the STIMULUS.

A tip of the hat to Jon Walker at FDL who asks, rightly How Does Geithner Still Have a Job?. He concludes:

The most amazing thing about the entire article, of course, isn’t that it shows Geithner has been a destroyer, that should have been clear from his role in the financial melt down and HAMP. Rather it is simply that Geithner can be so constantly wrong yet still keep his job. He defines failing upward.

(emphasis mine)

At Salon, Andrew Leonard notes from the same WP article by Goldfarb, there are some glaring holes in Geitner’s plan:

Geithner was and is the primary architect of the Obama administration’s pivot from the economy to the deficit.

Furthermore, since Geithner now reigns supreme on economic policy, there is zero chance of any change of direction in the next year. All the advocates for greater attention to boosting economic growth and job creation in the short term — Christy Romer, Jared Bernstein, Austan Goolsbee, and even the much-hated-by-progressives Larry Summers — are gone. Geithner is what we’ve got.

Geithner’s stated position is that without long-term action on the deficit, the government will not be able to continue to support social welfare programs.

snip

But the electoral problem for Obama may not hinge on whether or not the president has the actual power to make manifest his will on job creation, but rather on whether he is perceived to be trying. Is he giving it his best shot? Is he making it clear to the general public what constraints have been placed on him by the opposition party and external events?

The answers are no, and no. And judging by Goldfarb’s Geithner profile, the White House is fine with that. It’s going to be a tough platform to run on, if the economy continues to slump as the campaign heats up.

The conclusion by Joe Sudbay at AMERICblog is the truth that the Democrats have not yet faced:

If this nation doesn’t start creating jobs, Obama and Geithner run the risk of losing theirs. And, as the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll showed us yesterday, the numbers on the economy are really ugly:

   By 2 to 1, Americans say the country is pretty seriously on the wrong track, and nine in 10 continue to rate the economy in negative terms. Nearly six in 10 say the economy has not started to recover, regardless of what official statistics may say, and most of those who say it has improved rate the recovery as weak.

The Republicans destroyed the economy. They weren’t held accountable and are not getting the blame. It’s Obama and Geithner’s economy. And, what happens with their economy is going to have a huge impact on the 2012 election.

I’m not optimistic.

Those of you who read this regular series know that I am from Hackett, Arkansas, just a mile or so from the Oklahoma border, and just about 10 miles south of the Arkansas River.  It was a redneck sort of place, and just zoom onto my previous posts to understand a bit about it.

I rarely write about living people except with their express permission, but may make an exception or two here because it might be important to talk about some of her decedents who still breathe.  None of those references will be derogatory.

Ma was my maternal grandmother.  I shall explain the origin of her name in due time.  Elsie Roberts was born 19030628 near Hackett, Arkansas.  Think about this for a minute.  She was born before the Wright Brothers made the first aeroplane flight!

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

Now with 26 Top Stories.

1 Kadhafi forces attack Misrata as NATO vows no let-up

by Jean-Pierre Campagne, AFP

Wed Jun 8, 3:30 pm ET

mishima is excluded because he’ll spoil the curve.

In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. “Voodoo” economics.

How many of you know that Fukushima means “fortunate island“?  Hands?  Mr. Hand?  I like irony except I find that if you just toss your clothes in the dryer for a few minutes you hardly ever have to use it.

Now, how many of you know that Dai’ichi means “number one”?

Just as when we start numbering battles (First Bull Run, Second Manassas) and wars (WWI, WWII) and movies (Han shot first!), this should be a clue that there are others out there.

Dai’ni means “number two”, and now you and Elmo can count in Japanese.

Tepco Plans Radioactive Water Release from Second Plant

By MITSURU OBE, The Wall Street Journal

JUNE 8, 2011, 10:55 A.M. ET

TOKYO-Tokyo Electric Power Co. is planning to release 3,000 tons of lightly radioactive water into the ocean from the Fukushima Daini nuclear complex, the sister plant of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi complex, officials said Wednesday.

…

The government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the water contains a small amount of radioactive material, including manganese-54 and cobalt-58, but that the amounts are mostly within permissible levels for being discharged into the ocean. The total amount of radioactive materials contained in the 3,000 tons of water is estimated at three billion becquerels, NISA said.

Not that this is the worst news-

Blackout hits Fukushima nuclear plant’s Nos. 1, 2 units

Japan Today

Wednesday 08th June, 06:59 PM JST

TOKYO – The crippled Fukushima Daiichi (that would be number one original for you newly bi-lingual folks) nuclear power plant suffered power outages at its Nos. 1 and 2 reactors temporarily Wednesday, with lights in the units’ central control room being cut off and the transmission of radiation data being partially halted.

…

The system to transfer data from radiation monitoring posts was found to have partly stopped. The blackout is also believed to have affected the nitrogen supply system for the No. 1 unit’s containment vessel so its operation was stopped manually.

They’re also having humidity problems which they’re going to “solve” by leaving the doors open and letting radioactive vapor vent into the environment.

High Tech, isn’t it?

But wait, there’s more!

Since I’m entirely vain and constantly in search of validation I’m happy to report my original estimate that all three active reactors suffered containment vessel breaches is now confirmed–

‘Melt-through’ at Fukushima? Govt report to IAEA suggests situation worse than meltdown

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Jun. 8, 2011

Nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has possibly melted through pressure vessels and accumulated at the bottom of outer containment vessels, according to a government report obtained Tuesday by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

A “melt-through”–when melted nuclear fuel leaks from the bottom of damaged reactor pressure vessels into containment vessels–is far worse than a core meltdown and is the worst possibility in a nuclear accident.

The possibility of the situation at the plant’s Nos. 1 to 3 reactors was raised in a report that is to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Have a nice day.

Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Paul Krugman: Beware Charlatans, Cranks and Contemptible Politicians

Ben Smith and Byron Tau commented in Politico: “In this Republican primary season, no economic or monetary policy is too unorthodox for an electorate hungry for change.”

There wasn’t much new in the story, published May 20, but it did remind us that former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty – who is supposed to be a noncrazy – has declared his opposition to fiat currencies, which means a return to the gold standard (although he may not know that that’s what it means).

What Politico doesn’t include, but should, is the lemminglike rush to endorse the budget plan of Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, which, although Very Serious, is also complete crank economics, with its insistence – in the teeth of all the evidence – that privatizing Medicare can somehow bring about adequate health care in the United States at a much lower cost. And then there’s the recent rise of default denialism: Hey, let’s signal to everyone that we’re a banana republic, what harm can it do?

In the first edition (but only the first edition) of his textbook “Principles of Economics,” economist Greg Mankiw famously derided President Reagan’s supply-side advisers as charlatans and cranks. It’s pretty clear that when Mr. Mankiw wrote that, he imagined that this was only a phase, that Republicans would return to more sensible policies. In fact, however, the party is sinking ever further into deep voodoo.

Glen Grenwald: The Joys of Repressed Voyeuristic Titillation

There are few things more sickening — or revealing — to behold than a D.C. sex scandal.  Huge numbers of people prance around flamboyantly condemning behavior in which they themselves routinely engage.  Media stars contrive all sorts of high-minded justifications for luxuriating in every last dirty detail, when nothing is more obvious than that their only real interest is vicarious titillation.  Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright — like proud ostriches with their feathers extended — pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance.  The ritual is as nauseating as it is predictable.

What makes the Anthony Weiner story somewhat unique and thus worth discussing for a moment is that, as Hendrick Hertzberg points out, the pretense of substantive relevance (which, lame though it was in prior scandals, was at least maintained) has been more or less brazenly dispensed with here.  This isn’t a case of illegal sex activity or gross hypocrisy (i.e., David Vitter, Larry Craig, Mark Foley (who built their careers on Family Values) or Eliot Spitzer (who viciously prosecuted trivial prostitution cases)).  There’s no lying under oath (Clinton) or allegedly illegal payments (Ensign, Edwards).  From what is known, none of the women claim harassment and Weiner didn’t even have actual sex with any of them.  This is just pure mucking around in the private, consensual, unquestionably legal private sexual affairs of someone for partisan gain, voyeuristic fun and the soothing fulfillment of judgmental condemnation.  And in that regard, it sets a new standard: the private sexual activities of public figures — down to the most intimate details — are now inherently newsworthy, without the need for any pretense of other relevance.

Continuing economic policies  the have failed is flat out stupid. Proposing to not only continue with those policies but to reinforce them by making them worse is economic and political suicide. It is the path that the Obama administration and Congress have taken us down by renewing the Bush Tax Cuts until December 2012. Some of the GOP candidates would like to cut taxes even further, so much so that it would cripple the government and widen the socio-economic gap of the haves and have-nots.

June 7th was the tenth anniversary of the Bush tax cuts that were enacted on the promise as a  necessary economic stimulus that would boost job creation and a stalled economy by the Bush regime who said the “deficits didn’t matter”. Bush promised that result would be that the Federal debt would be paid in 10 years that was in 2001. At the end of 2008, the national to over $10 trillion dollars, 69% of the GDP and the highest it had been since 1955.

Think Progress compiled a concise video with graphics and music that demonstrates how the Bush tax cuts drove up the deficit and will continue to make matters worse over the next 18 months.

Yet, we still have the right wing pundits and GOP candidates for president repeating the with most of the talking heads nodding in acquiescence. Lawrence O’Donnell was the exception last night comparing the ignorance of Sarah Palin to the out right lies about tax cuts by GOP presidential hopeful, ex-Gov Tim Pawlenty. If elected, Pawlenty would propose cutting the business tax rate and wipe out the capital gains tax, interest income tax, dividend tax and the estate tax.

It’s estimated that Pawlenty’s proposals would triple the size of the Bush tax cut costing another $7.8 trillion over the $2.5 trillion the current extension is costing. Meanwhile, the other GOP contender, ex-Gov. Mitt Romney, follows the Bush/Cheney economic theory that deficits don’t matter with his endorsing a “federal spending at 20 percent or less of the GDP and finally, finally balance the budget” without mentioning the other side of the equation, revenue.

With Obama caving on just about everything, his word that he will not extend the Bush tax cuts again doesn’t hold much water. His economic policies and thus his re-election is in the inept hands of a Wall St. shill, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his Chief of Staff, former Morgan Stanley bank executive, Bill Daley. If Ben Bernanke expressed less than a rosy economic outlook, it understandable that the markets worldwide are taking a tumble.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on image to enlarge

June 8 is the 159th day of the year (160th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 206 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1776, Canadian Governor Sir Guy Carleton defeats American Patriot forces under John Sullivan, who were already in retreat from Quebec toward Montreal.

After General Richard Montgomery’s early success in Montreal, he and Colonel Benedict Arnold attempted to take Quebec in the middle of the night between December 31, 1775 and January 1, 1776. Montgomery lost his life and Arnold was wounded in the action; half of their men were also lost to death, injury or capture and Quebec remained in British control. The colonists’ ill-conceived, pre-emptive attack on Canada ended in disaster. Instead of winning French Canadians to the Patriot cause, it led only to a huge loss of life among Patriot forces.

The Battle of Trois-Rivières (Three Rivers in English) was fought on June 8, 1776, during the American Revolutionary War. A British army under Quebec Governor Guy Carleton defeated an attempt by units from the Continental Army under the command of Brigadier General William Thompson to stop a British advance up the Saint Lawrence River valley. The battle occurred as a part of the American colonists’ invasion of Quebec, which had begun in September 1775 with the goal of “liberating” the province from British rule.

The crossing of the Saint Lawrence by the American troops was observed by Quebec militia, who alerted British troops at Trois-Rivières. A local farmer led the Americans into a swamp, enabling the British to land additional forces in the village, and to establish positions behind the American army. After a brief exchange between an established British line and American troops emerging from the swamp, the Americans broke into a somewhat disorganized retreat. As some avenues of retreat were cut off, the British took a sizable number of prisoners, including General Thompson and much of his staff.

This was the last major battle fought on Quebec soil. Following the defeat, the remainder of the American forces, under the command of John Sullivan, retreated, first to Fort Saint-Jean, and then to Fort Ticonderoga.