Author's posts
Sep 04 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Suicide bomber kills 53 at Shiite rally in Pakistan
by Maaz Khan, AFP
Fri Sep 3, 1:12 pm ET
QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) – At least 53 people were killed and 197 wounded on Friday in a suicide bombing targeting a Shiite Muslim rally in the southwestern city of Quetta, police said.
The bomber was among the 450-strong crowd and detonated on reaching the main square in the city, according to police. The explosion triggered chaotic scenes, with an angry mob starting fires and shooting into the air while others fled or lay on the ground to avoid the gunfire, they added. |
Sep 03 2010
Great Austerian Success Stories!
Part 1- Ireland
Irish Ask How Much Is Too Much as Bank Rescue Trumps Austerity
By Joe Brennan and Dara Doyle, Bloomberg News
Sep 2, 2010 5:35 AM ET
Anglo Irish Bank Corp. said Aug. 31 it needs about 25 billion euros ($32.1 billion) in state funding, equivalent to about two-thirds of this year’s tax revenue. Standard & Poor’s, which last week cut the country’s credit rating to AA-, said the state may have to inject as much as 35 billion euros.
…
While Ireland provided the model for euro partners Spain and Greece in implementing tax increases and spending cuts, the bill for bailing out its banks is mounting. That’s left taxpayers, some enduring pay cuts of 13 percent, questioning the wisdom of the government and Dublin-based Anglo Irish’s management in keeping the lender alive.“Ireland had been seen as leading the way for the rest of Europe in terms of austerity measures, but now the market isn’t too keen on this black box that’s been opened up by the banks,” said David Schnautz, a fixed-income strategist at Commerzbank AG in London. “Investors don’t doubt the willingness of the Irish to accept the pain, but they are beginning to ask if the scale of the banking problem is just too big to handle.”
The government so far has injected almost 33 billion euros into banks and building societies, with two-thirds of that going to Anglo Irish. It has paid a further 13 billion euros for real- estate loans that were once worth 27.2 billion euros, the agency responsible for the debt said on Aug. 23.
…
“At this point, the taxpayer has paid enough,” said Brian Lucey, associate professor of finance at Trinity College Dublin. “It’s time to consider strongly if the senior bondholders should bear some pain. The only group that should be totally protected should be the depositors.”
(h/t AmericaBlog)
Sep 03 2010
Pyramid Scheme
Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Winner in Economics– “Contrary to what you may have heard, there’s very little that’s baffling about our problems – at least not if you knew basic, old-fashioned macroeconomics. In fact, someone who learned economics from the original 1948 edition of Samuelson’s textbook would feel pretty much at home in today’s world. If economists seem totally at sea, it’s because they have carefully unlearned the old wisdom. If policy has failed, it’s because policy makers chose not to believe their own models.”
You know, you can’t make a career in Academia by saying ‘problem solved’, it makes for very short papers, so there is a perverse incentive, especially in the Social “Sciences”, to disagree simply to be disagreeable and come up with insane theories about Pyramids being landing platforms for a race of parasite infested Galactic Overlords (I am of course talking about Stargate and not Scientology).
How has that Pyramid scheme worked out?
(L)et’s put politics aside and talk about what we’ve actually learned about economic policy over the past 20 months.
…
One group – the group that got almost all the attention – declared that the stimulus was much too large, and would lead to disaster. If you were, say, reading The Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages in early 2009, you would have been repeatedly informed that the Obama plan would lead to skyrocketing interest rates and soaring inflation.
…
So what actually happened? The administration’s optimistic forecast was wrong, but which group of pessimists was right about the reasons for that error?
…
When in doubt, bet on the markets. The 10-year bond rate was over 3.7 percent when The Journal published that editorial; it’s under 2.7 percent now.What about inflation? … Sure enough, key measures of inflation have fallen from more than 2 percent before the economic crisis to 1 percent or less now, and Japanese-style deflation is looking like a real possibility.
…
The actual lessons of 2009-2010, then, are that scare stories about stimulus are wrong, and that stimulus works when it is applied. But it wasn’t applied on a sufficient scale. And we need another round.
…
But politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. The economic theory behind the Obama stimulus has passed the test of recent events with flying colors…
…
So, as I said, here’s hoping that Mr. Obama goes big next week. If he does, he’ll have the facts on his side.
Unfortunately, as Atrios says any action at all at this point looks unlikely. “Some big, new stimulus plan is not in the offing.”
So given the choice between going big and going home, the Obama Administration has decided to go home.
Sep 03 2010
Prime Time
Day 2 of Zap2it. I had a longer edition, but it got flushed during my power outage. Last chance this week for all Keith and Rachel all night long.
College Throwball, some halfway decent movies, and premiers.
- AMC– Troy (watch out for those Golden Apples)
- Comedy– Futurama (last week’s, new, and The Devil’s Hands are Idle Playthings– the original series finale)
- Disney– Camp Rock (Jonas Brothers, but a prelude to tomorrow’s World Premier of Camp Rock 2)
- E!– Bring It On: All or Nothing
- ESPN– Southern Mississippi @ South Carolina
- Food– Extreme Cuisine With Jeff Corwin (Jellied Eel, yum), Ace of Cakes, Family Style (all premiers)
- FX– Final Destination, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
- Lifetime– Project Runway (premier)
- History– The Universe (Asteroid Attack, premier)
- SciFi– Stephen King’s The Langoliers (everything I hate about Stephen King and poorly acted too)
- Turner Classic– Once Upon a Time in the West (Henry being bad)
- TLC– Sr. v. Jr. (last week’s and new), BBQ Pitmasters (premier)
- TNT– Sahara
- Toon– Monday premier repeat.
- Vs.– Pittsburgh @ Utah
- VH1– Road House (for Swayze fans)
Later-
- AMC– Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
- ESPN– USC at Hawaii (nice work if you can get it)
- FX– Final Destination (again)
- SciFi– WCG Ultimate Gamer (premier)
- Turner Classic– High Plains Drifter, The Count of Monte Cristo
- USA– House (very first episode)
Dave hosts Will Arnett, Tommy Johnagin, and Karen Elson. Alton does Sushi (if you knew her like I knew her). The Better Man, Dr. Orpheus’ back story and Triana dumps Dean.
Sep 03 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Disasters show ‘screaming’ need for action – climate chief
by Alexandra Troubnikoff and Richard Ingham, AFP
Thu Sep 2, 1:19 pm ET
GENEVA (AFP) – UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Thursday warned that a string of weather calamities showed the deepening urgency to forge a breakthrough deal on global warming this year.
Speaking before some 40 countries were to address finance, an issue that has helped hamstring UN climate talks, Figueres said floods in Pakistan, fires in Russia and other weather disasters had been a shocking wakeup call. “The news has been screaming that a future of intense, global climate disasters is not the future that we want,” Figueres, newly-appointed executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told reporters. |
Sep 02 2010
“Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue”
So another Oil Rig has exploded off the Louisiana coast. According to the latest TV reports all 13 workers are safe, though at least one is injured.
What makes this funny in that sad ironic sense is that not only did Judge Martin Feldman, the severely conflicted by his Oil Industry investments guy who blocked the Obama Adminitration’s initial deepwater drilling moratorium, just blocked the second one; but only yesterday Mariner Energy, the company running the rig, and its parent company Apache, which is purchasing BP’s Gulf assets to help BP meet its liability for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, staged a protest in Houston over the moratorium.
Good thing we have all those oil eating bacteria. I’m sure 75% of it will be gone in no time.
Unfortunately, as dday observes-
With the White House’s commission on oil spills wavering in the direction of lifting the moratorium, and the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy hinting at the same thing, and now this tangle in the courts, I don’t think you’re going to see much more of a fight.
Sep 02 2010
Prime Time
Well, I’m trying a new TV Listing service tonight, Zap2It. For some odd reason it turns up fine under XP Google and hardly at all under the customized Ubuntu default Google.
Country music. Despise it and only listen to be polite when I have to. Tonight is not one of those times.
- Bravo– Top Chef (premier)
- Discovery– Man v. Wild (premier)
- ESPN– Athletics @ Yankees
- Turner Classic– Picnic, Jeanne Eagels (Kim Novack night)
- Travel– Man v. Food
- FX– In Bruges x 2
- USA– Psych (premier)
Well, one thing it doesn’t do is improve the choices.
Later-
- AMC– Rubicon (this week’s)
- Turner Classic– Pal Joey
- USA– Burn Notice and Royal Pains (this week’s), Psych (repeat)
Dave hosts Donald Trump, Michelle Beadle, and Jukebox the Ghost. Alton does more casserole, this time Green Bean. Self-Medication.
Sep 02 2010
Evening Edition
Evening Edition is an Open Thread
Now with 40 Top Stories.
From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 US deaths in Afghanistan hit record in 2010
by Lynne O’Donnell, AFP
Wed Sep 1, 12:18 pm ET
KABUL (AFP) – The toll of US soldiers killed in the Afghan war this year is the highest since the conflict began, an AFP count found, as NATO said Wednesday it had killed two insurgents for every soldier lost last month.
Military leaders say the spike in deaths reflects the deployment of additional troops into the Afghan theatre, which leads to a higher number of battlefield engagements with Taliban-led insurgents. A total of 324 US soldiers have been killed in the Afghan war 2010, compared with 317 for all of 2009, according to AFP figures based on the independent icasualties.org website. |
Sep 01 2010
enthusiasm updated
Background
GOP Tea Party Takes 10-Point Lead in Generic Poll
Taylor Marsh, 30 August 2010 6:00 pm
The Point
Obama just doesn’t get it
Unemployment is a catastrophe, the recovery is stalling, but the president says his priority is “debt and deficits”
by Joan Walsh, Salon
Monday, Aug 30, 2010 14:50 ET
It’s been written before: The Obama team seems to think 2012 will take care of itself, as long as they burnish that shining Obama "brand," which requires reaching out to Republicans and independents and ignoring the pesky left, with its old culture-war grudges and its subversive demand for greater economic fairness. I’ve heard some smart folks speculate that the White House may even welcome a Republican takeover, the better to “let Obama be Obama,” and continue to play out his fantasy of being a Democratic Ronald Reagan, creating a generation of what he used to call “Obamacans” and realigning politics for his lifetime.
If anyone in the White House still believes that, they are delusional. If Republicans win back the House, they will tie up the president in subpoenas and bogus investigations faster than you can say Darrell Issa. The president hasn’t created “Obamacans”; instead he’s created a phenomenon best described as “Obamacan’t.” And still he cozies up to Republicans like Alan Simpson, who’s determined to slash Social Security and its “310,000,000 tits” (in how many ways was Simpson’s statement wrong? Probably close to 310 million). And the problem with Obama’s milquetoast approach to the economy isn’t just political: If Republicans get to reverse or obstruct the Democrats’ inadequate but promising steps forward on healthcare and financial reform, while slashing government spending and extending the disastrous Bush tax cuts, we may yet see an economic collapse to rival the Great Depression — the one that an earlier generation of brave and visionary Democrats vowed would never happen again.
It is too late for anything Obama says or does to materially improve the economy, or ease economic suffering, in time for November. In an e-mail today to Politico, Time’s Mark Halperin laid out the list of Democratic problems that he says could lead to the party losing up to 60 seats in the House (that’s still unlikely): “the enthusiasm gap, the state of the economy, the failure to materialize of a lot of what Democrats were counting on (health care law getting more popular, and ‘recovery summer’ taking hold).” The only thing on Halperin’s list Obama and the Democrats have any real control over now is that so-called enthusiasm gap, the fact that Democrats are much less excited about the November election than Republicans are. Trust me, watching the president continue to mouth Republican platitudes about “debts and deficits” and a recovery built on “private investment” is only going to increase that gap, not narrow it.
Great job. You have my policy prescription.
(h/t Corrente)
Sep 01 2010
“It’s not that I’m an uncaring person”
Well it seems that someone has stuck their size 15s in it again for the second time in a week.
Apparently Veterans are now “lesser people” sucking at the public tit.
I’m certainly not the first blogger to notice this story (though I did cover it yesterday- #20), there’s digby and Teddy Partridge and Oliver Willis for example.
My take is a little different. I’m not in favor of his firing or resignation. His honest exposure of the endless greed of our ruling class, that they would STEAL the benefits of the troops they so hypocritically and incessantly praise as well as food out of the mouths of babies and the elderly so that the richest one tenth of one percent can get richer by looting our public treasury, says everything you need to know about the morality and values of our “professional political class”.
If I believed in Hell I’d hope you’d rot in it for eternity you heartless, soulless bastards.
It will be interesting to see how Obama, who just last night wasted 18 minutes I’ll never get back, and his mouthpiece Bobby Gibbs handle this.
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