Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Newly freed Suu Kyi prepares to address supporters

AFP

29 mins ago

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Property rights, and their transfer, are governed by laws with factually thousands of years of precedent.  The earliest records are in hieroglyphics and cuneiform.

Are Obama and Congress Set To Screw American Counties, Homeowners and Give Wall Street Mortgage Banksters a Retroactive Immunity Bailout?

By: bmaz Friday November 12, 2010 7:40 pm

Why would the Obama Administration and Congress be doing this? Because the foreclosure fraud suits and other challenges to the mass production slice, dice and securitize lifestyle on the American finance sector, the very same activity that wrecked the economy and put the nation in the depression it is either still in, or barely recovering from, depending on your point of view, have left the root balance sheets and stability of the largest financial institutions on the wrong side of the credibility and, likely, the legal auditory line. And that affects not only our economy, but that of the world who is all chips in on the American real estate and financial products markets.

What does that mean to you? Everything. As quoted above, even the most conservative estimate (and that estimate is based on only a single recording fee per mortgage, when in reality there are almost certainly multiple recordings legally required for most all mortgages due to the slicing, dicing and tranching necessary to accomplish the securitization that has occurred) for the state of California alone is $60 billion dollars. That is $60,000,000,000.00. California alone is actually likely several times that. Your county is in the loss column heavy from this too.

…

This is a death knell to the real property system as we have always known it and the county structure of American society as we have known it. And millions of people will have lost the ability to benefit from the established rule and process of law that they understood and relied on. After the fact. Retroactively. So Obama and Congress can once again give a handout and bailout to the very banks and financial malefactors that put us here.

I don’t weep for the counties, they’re not much more than lines on a map in Connecticut, but I do for the rule of law.  If you don’t give a rat’s ass about the 5th Amendment, you might about ex post facto.

Too Dumb and Dishonest to be anything but a Plagiarist

Our former deciderer-

George Bush Book ‘Decision Points’ Lifted From Advisers’ Books

by Ryan Grim, The Huffington Post

11-12-10 04:17 PM

When Crown Publishing inked a deal with George W. Bush for his memoirs, the publisher knew it wasn’t getting Faulkner. But the book, at least, promises “gripping, never-before-heard detail” about the former president’s key decisions, offering to bring readers “aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq,” and other undisclosed and weighty locations.

Crown also got a mash-up of worn-out anecdotes from previously published memoirs written by his subordinates, from which Bush lifts quotes word for word, passing them off as his own recollections. He took equal license in lifting from nonfiction books about his presidency or newspaper or magazine articles from the time. Far from shedding light on how the president approached the crucial “decision points” of his presidency, the clip jobs illuminate something shallower and less surprising about Bush’s character: He’s too lazy to write his own memoir.

Bush, on his book tour, makes much of the fact that he largely wrote the book himself, guffawing that critics who suspected he didn’t know how to read are now getting a comeuppance. Not only does Bush know how to read, it turns out, he knows how to Google, too. Or his assistant does. Bush notes in his acknowledgments that “[m]uch of the research for this book was conducted by the brilliant and tireless Peter Rough. Peter spent the past 18 months digging through archives, searching the internet[s], and sifting through reams of paper.” Bush also collaborated on the book with his former speechwriter, Christopher Michel.

Well this is it, last race of the season.  I won’t kid you, my guy Lew needs to finish first and everyone else has to park.  To add insult Hamilton was under investigation for an incident with Senna during practice and could suffer a 5 grid penalty.

The Constructors’ Championship is already done- Red Bull, McLaren, Scuderia Marlboro.  Fair enough I suppose, the others were playing catchup to Red Bull all year.  It’s a big triumph for the former Jaguar/Ford team which knew nothing but futility in it’s previous incarnation.  They’re now the biggest in Formula One too, with 2 separate groups (Toro Rosso, running the Ferrari engine) and 4 cars on track.

Speaking of engines, the Top contenders are all on used engines and are using different ones today than they used yesterday in practice.  Both the Red Bull drivers have relatively low milage, ultra reliable Renaults, everyone else is running the best they have left.  Barrichello’s stopped during the first practice.

Yas Marina is about 3.4 miles and because of it’s long straight and a couple of other fast bits can put a lot of strain on brakes.  It’s a relatively new track and while it’s designed to resemble Monaco it’s really nothing like it at all.  Yeah, sure, there are high walls and stuff, but they’re mostly not as close as they look on TV.  Instead there are acres of smooth asphalt run off areas, no gravel traps at all.  This has the unintended(?) side effect of making drivers more aggressive since there is rarely a parking penalty for an off.

Now you’d naturally think that being in Abu Dhabi and all you wouldn’t have to worry about rain, but it did in fact, quite heavily, just before yesterday’s practice and at practice time it was 80 degrees with 60% humidity.  The drivers won’t have to worry about ‘rubbering in’ the track though since after almost 2 months of down time the support races in GP 3 and GP 2 will stage their season finales before the main event (Speed’s coverage of GP 2 starts at 6 am).

About that rubber, next year Pirelli is taking over from Bridgestone as the sole source supplier to Formula One and they’re already talking about deliberately putting out ‘risky’ tires to encourage ‘tire management strategies’.

Well, for one thing they’re tactics not strategies and were I a driver that would certainly give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, especially after parking.

Branson’s toy Virgin team has sold off the Lloyd’s Bank stake to Russian Sports Car manufacturer Marussia who would dearly love to have Petrov on the team next year, but it would be a big step down from Renault for him.

After this racing starts again on March 12th, 2011 with Qualifying in Bahrain and they’ll be adding a 20th race in India.  If you want to see some of the other changes click the link.

I think I’ll spare you my comparison of Auto World and Ferrari World until tomorrow.  Pre-race coverage starts at 7:30 am.  Qualifying will repeat at 4:30 pm.  Surprising developments (if any) below.

Mostly premiers.  Yas Marina Qualifying @ 8 am.

Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.

What’s the catch?

The catch? The catch is you will sever every human contact. Nobody will ever know you exist anywhere. Ever. I’ll give you to sunrise to think it over.

Hey! Is it worth it?

Oh yeah, it’s worth it. If you’re strong enough!

• ABC Family– Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• AMC– Wrong Turn, The Walking Dead x 2 (this week’s)
• Disney– Avalon High (World Premier), Wizards of Waverly Place (Season Premier), Fish Hooks (premier)
• E!– The Soup (premier)
• ESPN– Hoopies, Jazz @ Hawks, Trail Blazers @ Thunder
• ESPN2– College Throwball, Boise State @ Idaho
• Food– Outrageous Food (premier)
• FX– What Happens in Vegas (again), Just Married
• National Geographic– Dog Whisperer (premier)
• Oxygen– Hairspray (not the good 1988 version)
• Sci Fi– Sanctuary
• Style– Chicago
• TBS– Meet the Fockers x 2
• Turner Classic– Tea for Two, The Daughter of Rosie O’Grady (Gordon MacRae night)
• TLC– What Not to Wear marathon (2 premiers)
• TNT– Men in Black x 2
• Toon– Sym-Bionic Titan, Generator Rex, Clone Wars (premiers)
• True– Conspiracy Theory With Jesse Ventura marathon (with premier)
• USA– Pretty Woman x 2, Juno

Later-

• Bravo– The World is Not Enough
• Comedy– Lewis Black: Stark Raving Black (premier)
• Sci Fi– Stargate Universe (this week’s), Sanctuary (Instapeat)
• Style– Pretty in Pink
• Turner Classic– Oklahoma (more Gordon)
• TNT– Ali
• Toon– Childrens Hospital, The Office (the good one)
• Speed– Formula 1 Debrief

Dave hosts Kelly Ripa, Greg Fitzsimmons, and Reba McEntire.  No Conan.

You’ll dress only in attire specially sanctioned by MiB special services. You’ll conform to the identity we give you, eat where we tell you, live where we tell you. From now on you’ll have no identifying marks of any kind. You’ll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You’re a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don’t exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You’re no longer part of the System. You’re above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Men in Black.

You see, the difference between you and me is I make this look good.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Myanmar’s Suu Kyi ‘on cusp of freedom’

AFP

Fri Nov 12, 11:48 am ET

Sometimes, to persuade an ass, you need a 2 x 4.

Where’s the Democrats’ fighting spirit?

By Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

Friday, November 12, 2010

“Why don’t they fight back?”

That’s the question I’ve been hearing from the Democratic Party’s stunned and dispirited base. For the past month, I’ve been on a book tour that has taken me to Asheville, N.C., Terre Haute, Ind., Austin and elsewhere. Everywhere I go, supporters of President Obama and his agenda ask me why so many Democrats in Washington don’t stand up for what they say they believe.

…

Now, which party holds the presidency and, until January, ample majorities in both houses of Congress? That would be the Democrats. Which party can point to public opinion polls indicating that Americans support its position that the Bush tax cuts should be extended only for the middle class? That, too, would be the Democrats. And finally, which party somehow appears to be looking for a way to lose this argument and capitulate? Incredibly, the Democrats.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that those who say the lesson from last week’s drubbing is that progressives should get a spine simply “don’t get it.” The explanation given by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some others – that aside from stubbornly high unemployment, one contributing factor was the Democrats’ failure to explain their program and counter Republican misinformation – is seen by the conventionally wise as delusional.

So how’s that river working out for you?

This is an apocryphal story, or at least I can’t be bothered to source it, but it goes something like this-

During the height of the Space Program a famous Astronaut was eating dinner at a restaurant when a waiter came by and spit in his soup.  Said the waiter-

Not everybody loves you babe.

So after his election “shellacking” his handlers hustled Barack Obama out on the road to revisit his adoring overseas crowds.  How’d that work out for you?

Traveling in Asia, Obama’s Glow Dims

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, The New York Times

Published: November 12, 2010

Before leaving Washington for a 10-day diplomatic tour of Asia that he has characterized as an economic mission, Mr. Obama conceded that his relationship with the American people had come down from an “incredible high” and gotten “rockier and tougher” as time went on. But he said the same is not true of his relations with foreign leaders.

…

Mr. Obama seemed to stumble in Seoul. He failed to seal a deal with Mr. Lee on a long-awaited free-trade agreement, a serious setback for a president who has made doubling exports a centerpiece of his economic agenda. And his plan to even out global trade imbalances ran into resistance from Mr. Hu and Mrs. Merkel, among others. Mr. Obama chalked it up to international muscle-flexing.

It ain’t just a river babe.

We can only hope.  Or changiness, I forget which.

In my piece yesterday, Democratic Party Death Wish, TheMomCat added a chart by Kevin Drum of Mother Jones that illustrates the “deficit” problem.  It’s kind of small so I’m blowing it up (I apologize for the sacrifice in resolution).

In case you can’t see it so well there are 3 blue colored areas and one thick blue line.

• The light blue area at the bottom is labeled Other Federal Noninterest Spending
• The dark blue area in the middle is labeled Social Security
• The medium blue area at the top is labeled Medicare and Medicaid
• The thick blue line is labeled Revenues

The thick blue line cuts through the big Medicare and Medicaid area and makes it look like there are two of them, but it’s really just the one.

Is the Deficit Commission Serious?

By Kevin Drum, Mother Jones

Wed Nov. 10, 2010 8:46 PM PST

Here’s what the chart means:

• Discretionary spending (the light blue bottom chunk) isn’t a long-term deficit problem. It takes up about 10% of GDP forever. What’s more, pretending that it can be capped is just game playing: anything one Congress can do, another can undo. So if you want to recommend a few discretionary cuts, that’s fine. Beyond that, though, the discretionary budget should be left to Congress since it can be cut or expanded easily via the ordinary political process. That’s why it’s called “discretionary.”
• Social Security (the dark blue middle chunk) isn’t a long-term deficit problem. It goes up very slightly between now and 2030 and then flattens out forever. If Republicans were willing to get serious and knock off their puerile anti-tax jihad, it could be fixed easily with a combination of tiny tax increases and tiny benefit cuts phased in over 20 years that the public would barely notice. It deserves about a week of deliberation.
• Medicare, and healthcare in general, is a huge problem. It is, in fact, our only real long-term spending problem.

…

Bottom line: this document isn’t really aimed at deficit reduction. It’s aimed at keeping government small. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re a conservative think tank and that’s what you’re dedicated to selling. But it should be called by its right name. This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit.

Now consider Krugman-

The Hijacked Commission

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: November 11, 2010

We’ve known for a long time, then, that nothing good would come from the commission. But on Wednesday, when the co-chairmen released a PowerPoint outlining their proposal, it was even worse than the cynics expected.

Start with the declaration of “Our Guiding Principles and Values.” Among them is, “Cap revenue at or below 21% of G.D.P.” This is a guiding principle? And why is a commission charged with finding every possible route to a balanced budget setting an upper (but not lower) limit on revenue?

Matters become clearer once you reach the section on tax reform. The goals of reform, as Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson see them, are presented in the form of seven bullet points. “Lower Rates” is the first point; “Reduce the Deficit” is the seventh.

…

(W)hat the co-chairmen are proposing is a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases – tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class. They suggest eliminating tax breaks that, whatever you think of them, matter a lot to middle-class Americans – the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest – and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.

…

It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old – tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net.

My emphasis.

The truth is that the Catfood Commission wasn’t hijacked at all.  It was set up by Barack Hussein Obama and his Administration to produce exactly the results it did-

(T)his document isn’t really aimed at deficit reduction. It’s aimed at keeping government small. There’s nothing wrong with that if you’re a conservative think tank and that’s what you’re dedicated to selling. But it should be called by its right name. This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit.

To her credit here is Nancy Pelosi’s official take–

This proposal is simply unacceptable. Any final proposal from the Commission should do what is right for our children and grandchildren’s economic security as well as for our nation’s fiscal security, and it must do what is right for our seniors, who are counting on the bedrock promises of Social Security and Medicare. And it must strengthen America’s middle class families-under siege for the last decade, and unable to withstand further encroachment on their economic security.

Broadcast?  Mostly premiers.

Lance Corporal Dawson, Private First Class Downey: On the charge of murder, the members find the accused not guilty. On the charge of conspiracy to commit murder, the members find the accused not guilty. On the charge of conduct unbecoming a United States Marine, the members find the accused guilty as charged. The accused are hereby sentenced to time already served, and you are ordered to be dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps. This court martial is adjourned.

All rise.

What does that mean? What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.

Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.

• ABC Family– Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
• AMC– A Few Good Men
• Bravo– Real Housewives marathon (with premier)
• Disney– 16 Wishes
• E!– Little Miss Sunshine
• ESPN– College Throwball, Pittsburgh at Connecticut
• FX– It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The League (premiers)
• History– Aliens! (Season Premier)
• TBS– Fool’s Gold
• Turner Classic– Mogambo, The Barefoot Contessa (Ava Gardner night, not at all about Food)
• TNT– Hoopies, Celtics @ Heat (rematch of LeBron’s less that sterling debut), Lakers @ Nuggets
• Toon– Total Drama World Tour, Regular Show, MAD (this week’s repeats)
• USA– Burn Notice (Fall Premier)

“(Miami is) not a serious Basketball Town”- ESPN

Later-

• AMC– Hamburger Hill
• TV Guide– Weeds marathon (useless)
• Turner Classic– Bhowani Junction (more Ava)

Dave hosts Cher and Bruno Mars.  Jon has Rosario Dawson, Stephen Quincy Jones.  Conan Michael Cera, Julie Bowen, and Jon Dore.

All right, listen up. You people will not die on me in combat. You fucking new guys will do everything you can to prove me wrong. You’ll walk on trails, kick cans, sleep on guard, smoke dope and diddely-bop through the bush like you were back on the block. Or on guard at night you’ll write letters, play with your organ, and think of your girl back home. Forget her. Right now, some hair head has her on her back and is telling her to fuck for peace. This is Han. Those of you who are foolish will think of him as ‘gook,’ ‘slope,’ ‘slant’ or ‘dink.’ He is your enemy. He came over on the Chieu Hoi programme, and after he fattens himself on C-rations he will be hunting your young asses in the Ashau Valley. Now forget about this Viet Cong shit. What you’ll encounter out there is hard core NVA, North Vietnamese. Highly motivated, highly trained and well equipped. If you meet Han or his cousins, you will give him respect and refer to those little bastards as ‘Nathanial Victor.’ Meet him twice, and survive, and you will refer to him as ‘MISTER Nathanial Victor.’ Now people, I am sick and tired of filling body bags with your dumb fucking mistakes.

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