Now, the Blue Dogs Have Lost Joke Line

At Time, Joe Klein is saying that the devastating Blue Dog losses are their own damn fault:

This year, however, I do feel that there is an argument that, to an extent, the Dogs brought this on themselves by being penny-wise, dogpound-foolish. The argument goes like this: a larger stimulus package might have helped the economy recover at a faster clip, but the Dogs opposed it on fiscal responsibility grounds. A second argument: the public really has had it with Wall Street, but the Dogs helped water down the financial regulatory bill, gutting the too-big-to-fail provisions. There is real merit to both points. If the stimulus had been bigger and the financial reform package clearer and stronger, the public would have had a different--and, I believe, more positive--sense of the President's agenda.

Yes, when Democrats are bitch slapping the Democratic agenda, the whole party looks week, and voters hate to vote for weakness.

H/t Kevin Drum.

It's Jobless Thursday

And initial unemployment claims are back up to 457,000, with the 4-week moving average rising slightly to 566,000, continuing claims fell by 42K to 4.34 million, and emergency claims, which, by the way expire on November 30, rose by 357.7K to 5.01 million.

Total up those numbers and things are getting worse, and come November 30 they expire.

Extended unemployment insurance will likely not be renewed, because the threat of electoral punishment is gone from the Republicans, and over 5 million people lose UI benefits, which will crush consumer demand in the middle of the all-important holiday season.

So we have a cohort of 99ers who would be losing their unemployment benefits anyway, along with millions of people who will be abruptly cut off.

This is going to get very ugly very fast.

So If Timidity and Capitulation Created a Disaster, then We Need More of That!

So Barack Obama held his post election news conference, and he decided to double down on capitulation and weakness, and call it civility:

More conciliatory than contrite, Mr. Obama used that phrase, “take responsibility,” six times but rejected the suggestion that his policies were moving the country in the wrong direction. He conceded that legislation to limit greenhouse gases was dead and said he was “absolutely” willing to negotiate over the extension of tax cuts, including for the wealthy. But he drew the line at any major retreat from signature priorities, saying he would agree to “tweak” his health care program, not “relitigate arguments” over its central elements.

……

“I do believe there is hope for civility,” he said. “I do believe there’s hope for progress.”

Honestly, I understand that Barack Obama has spent his entire life trying to avoid being the stereotypical "angry black man," because the perception is politically toxic in our not yet post-racial America.

But he's leading with the chin again.

Barack Obama will ask what they want to preserve the sup $250K tax cuts, and they will say make the whole package permanent, and because Obama is afraid not being liked, and because he made a promise, which he wants to keep (Unlike his promises on prosecuting war crimes, closing Guantanamo, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc.) he'll cave, either on the $250K+ rates, or on eliminating the inheritance tax, or everything, because that's how he rolls.

The standard line in Washington, and I'm sure that it's one that Obama has swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, is that between the economy and "liberal overreach," the Dems lost.

The Dems lost because they looked weak, and the Dems looked weak, because they were weak, and they were led by a weak leader, who sees his weakness as an independent good.

Economics Update

The lede here is that the Federal Reserved has announced another round of quantitative easing (printing money), $600 billion over the next 9 months, more than the the widely forecast $½ trillion, which pushed the US dollar down in currency markets.

Accompanying the statement was a mild, to my mind too mild, statement about how the recovery is not progressing as rapidly as planned.

With the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index falling, and US GDP growing at a truly anemic 2% rate, I think that they are being too timid, though there is good news with the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index and non-manufacturing index, and ADP's private employment survey: all show an increase.

Even more significantly, it appears that retail sales are beating expectations, which may bode well for the all-important holiday shopping season.

Still, real estate looks dead, with mortgage applications remaining flat despite historically low rates.

BTW, here is a blast from the past, monoliner bond insurer Ambac is warning that it might go bankrupt this year.

I'm wondering if this will put a whole raft of municipal bonds in technical default, since if Ambac goes BK, then it no longer has an obligation to fulfill its insurance contracts.

I really don't know. Does anyone else know?

Full Fed Statement after break:

Press Release



Release Date: November 3, 2010

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September confirms that the pace of recovery in output and employment continues to be slow. Household spending is increasing gradually, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software is rising, though less rapidly than earlier in the year, while investment in nonresidential structures continues to be weak. Employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. Housing starts continue to be depressed. Longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable, but measures of underlying inflation have trended lower in recent quarters.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. Currently, the unemployment rate is elevated, and measures of underlying inflation are somewhat low, relative to levels that the Committee judges to be consistent, over the longer run, with its dual mandate. Although the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability, progress toward its objectives has been disappointingly slow.

To promote a stronger pace of economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to expand its holdings of securities. The Committee will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings. In addition, the Committee intends to purchase a further $600 billion of longer-term Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011, a pace of about $75 billion per month. The Committee will regularly review the pace of its securities purchases and the overall size of the asset-purchase program in light of incoming information and will adjust the program as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability.

The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period.

The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to support the economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Sandra Pianalto; Sarah Bloom Raskin; Eric S. Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh; and Janet L. Yellen.

Voting against the policy was Thomas M. Hoenig. Mr. Hoenig believed the risks of additional securities purchases outweighed the benefits. Mr. Hoenig also was concerned that this continued high level of monetary accommodation increased the risks of future financial imbalances and, over time, would cause an increase in long-term inflation expectations that could destabilize the economy.

Statement from Federal Reserve Bank of New York Leaving the Board

What a Whiny Bitch!!

So, after nearly 3,000 Americans are killed by terrorists, he leads into a war against Iraq on false pretenses, a number of the White House staff out a clandestine CIA Operative, he allows a city to drown, and, "Here, watch this swing," George W. Bush thinks that the worst day of his Presidency was when George Bush, still thin-skinned as ever, is still stewing of Kanye West:

MATT LAUER: You remember what he said?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes, I do. He called me a racist.

MATT LAUER: Well, what he said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: That's -- "he's a racist." And I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now. It's one thing to say, "I don't appreciate the way he's handled his business." It's another thing to say, "This man's a racist." I resent it, it's not true, and it was one of the most disgusting moments in my Presidency

MATT LAUER: This from the book. "Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust." You go on. "I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn't like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low."

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt 'em when I heard 'em, felt 'em when I wrote 'em and I felt 'em when I'm listening to 'em.

MATT LAUER: You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your Presidency?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes. My record was strong I felt when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And-- it was a disgusting moment.

I will actually agree with Bush that the criticism was wrong. What George W. Bush doesn't care about is poor people, white or black.

Of course, the idea that he was more offended by the accusation of racism than he was about treason (outing CIA agent Valerie Plame), or incompetence (Katrina), or lying about weapons of mass destruction (Iraq) and killing thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, or dropping the ball before 911, is a meaningful tell.

You see, he felt that the accusation by Kanye West was unfair, but that the other criticisms had some merit, because even saw that there was an element of truth to them.

Still, what a remarkably small and petty man.

The Recent Comments Widget Seems Not to Be Updating

There are a couple of comments that are not showing up.

I'll see what I can do.

(on edit)
I have placed a widget below the recent comments widget tag cloud in the left hand column, it works off the recent comments feed, which works fine, though it is pretty crappy looking.

I will see if things sort themselves out over the next few days.

Just Desserts

Bummer of a birth mark, ConservaDems

In looking at the elections, there is a trend here:

• Reelection losses by the Blue Dog cut the caucus in half.
• Over ⅓ of the corporatist New Democrat Coalition got whacked.
• 96% of the Democratic Progressive Caucus 96% of the Progressive Caucus was reelected.

While a part of this is that liberal Democrats tend to have safer seats, though one of the Blue Dog losers, Gene Taylor, had polled at more than 75% in prior elections, what this is about is the fact that the Blue Dogs and the New Dems created the groundwork for this.

When people thought that they had to vote against Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, it was because the Blue Dogs gave credibility to this Republican talking point by campaigning against her too.

When people complained that the Congressional Democrats were in the banks pockets, it was because the New Democrat Coalition was in the pockets of the banks, and trading loopholes for campaign contributions.

When people complained that nothing was getting done, it was because the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats were slowing things down, because the Blue Dogs and the New Dems wanted time to get insurance company and banking lobbyists geared up and donating.

When they claimed that the stimulus did not work, they validated the Republican storyline.

To a very large degree, they validated the Republican attacks, and weakened legislation and policy, and contributed to the losses that we saw.

In fact, if these folks had held on, which was their argument for their positions, that it made them more electable, Nancy Pelosi would still be speaker in January.

Payback is a bitch, ain't it?

It is best to remember what Harry S Truman said:

Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.

I'd much rather have a Democratic majority in the House, but I think that they are marginalized.

Let's keep it that way.

What Emptywheel Said…

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This is how well Tim Kaine, former governor of Virginia, served the Democratic Party in Virginia

Fire Tim Kaine as head of the DNC.

Since Kaine has become head of the DNC, just in Virginia, we have had a Neanderpublican Governor and Attorney General, and lost 3 house seats, one of which had been held for decades.

Kaine is, of course, head of the the Democratic National Committee, hand picked by Barack Obama, because he is the sort of Democrat that Barack Obama loves, the type of Democrat that runs against the Democratic Party base.

How's that whole cock punching hippies thing working, Barry?

While We are On the Subject of HP Lovecraft Quotes…

Yesterday, I posted H.P. Lovecraft's quote on Republicans, and I also forwarded it to my Lovecraft-reading family.

My brother, Stephen, aka "No I'm Not Wearing a Wookie Costume, I'm Just Hairy," asked the question, "Given Lovecraft's fondness for slimy spineless creatures, it is strange that he didn't have anything to say about democrats..."

Well, according to the Donovan K. Loucks, the Webmaster at The H. P. Lovecraft Archive, who posted in the comments, the author did make his feelings known on both parties:

“Democrats invariably ape the grotesque crudities of the lower orders and make conspicuous clowns of themselves; jeering at civilised speech, manners, and standards of accuracy and beauty instead of respecting these things and urging their beloved masses to work up toward them. As long as they persist in this position, they will win nothing but the distrust and hostility of men well-disposed toward civilisation and the fullest realisation of the human personality.”

(H. P. Lovecraft to Woodburn Harris, 9 November 1929)

Given Lovecraft's rather well documented nativist attitudes, though biographer L. Sprague de Camp implies that his attitudes moderated as he grew older, and that some of his statements were a way he taunted people that he did not like, this is an unsurprising statement from him.

Interestingly enough, he was a fan of FDR and an Ardent New Dealer according to the Wiki.

Truth be told, I am kind of torn as to whether, if I had a time machine, I would want to meet him or not.

I'm Not Sure if It Was the Elections……

But after my morning election summary was posted, I got sick.

I ended up worshiping the porcelain alter, and that IPA that I bought by way of a condolence drink did not taste as good coming up as it did coming down.

Still went to work after everything settled down. I've had this reaction to stress since I was 7 years old.

It hits when I'm stressed, and then I relax.

And yes, it kind of sucks.

Crap.

So the lost the house, ironically largely because of the actions of the Senate and a former Senator (Obama). Lots of good things made it through the House only to die in the Senate with an assist from the complete apathy of the White House.

If the Dems retake the House in 2012, and Obama is reelected, the lesson here is that taking the initiative without movement from the White House and the Senate, you will get gigged again, and again.

It looks like Murkowski won in Alaska, as "Write Ins" got a plurality, only they haven't started counting the write-ins yet. That only happens after a full tally, and if the total number of write ins are enough to win under Alaska law.

As to the bad news:

• Alan Grayson lost his bid for reelection. It's a pity, we need Democrats with guts.
• Rand Paul will be battling Tom Coburn for craziest muthaf%$#er in the Senate.
• Heath Shuler won. Normally, I wouldn't root for the other guy, even if they are the rankest of Blue Dogs, which Shuler is, but as a Washington Redskins fan, I have a bit of residual hostility about his expensive washout in the NFL.
• It appears that Republicans are will not be relegated a minor party status in Colorado for the next 4 years, because Dan Maes barely cleared the 10% hurdle.

The good news:

• The Blue Dogs and New Dems appeared to take the brunt of the losses.
  
• This is more than simple churlishness on my part. While the economy is clearly the proximate cause of this debacle, the perception that both parties are in the thrall of the banks, a perception which is entirely true for the Blue Dogs/New Dems who worked tirelessly to castrate financial reform and foreclosure relief. It is appropriate that those Democrats who sold the party, and the country, down the road for fat-cat campaign donations bear the brunt of voter wrath.
• Harry Reid defeats Sharron Angle. Now that he's won, could we please elect someone else as Democratic leader? He is hapless and hopeless, and he is the luckiest person tonite for having to run against nut-job Angle, or perhaps 2^nd luckiest after Chris Coons, who ran against Christine O'Donnell.
• The Senate margin is large enough that Joe Lieberman won't be able viably threaten the Democrats with crossing the aisle.
  

A random thought on the loss of Alexi Giannoulias: Choosing someone as the nominee, even though they spent years running a bank that was then on the edge of failure, (It has since failed) just because they are basketball buddies with Barack Obama, is a really stupid thing.

As a final note, that whole idea of using Google searches to estimate final votes? It does not appear to be validated by the results.

For a quick view of the races, I would suggest going to the Talking Points Memo Election Center.

I still have not gotten results on the Tapeworm Initiative.

If You Are Bumming Over the Election

Some video game humor.


Link

So After Months of Evidence That Their Lawyers Were Corrupt Bastards…

The GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have finally fired the foreclosure mill and forged document factory that is the law offices of David J. Stern:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac terminated their relationships with a top Florida foreclosure attorney on Tuesday, one day after the companies began taking back loan files from the firm that has processed thousands of evictions on behalf of the mortgage-finance giants.

Fannie and Freddie dispatched employees on Monday afternoon to begin removing loan files from the law offices of David J. Stern in Plantation, Fla. Those files are needed to process foreclosures, which must be done through courts in Florida.

………

The Stern law firm has been at the center of allegations by the Florida attorney general's office of improper foreclosure practices and is one of four firms under state investigation. The office has released depositions of former law-firm employees who have alleged that the firm forged notarized documents and that employees signed files without reviewing them in an effort to speed through foreclosure filings.

In those depositions, former employees testified that the firms would go to great lengths to conceal improper practices during regular audits by Fannie and Freddie. A lawyer for Mr. Stern has dismissed the allegations as falsehoods made by disgruntled employees.

Well, it's a start, though even the most tepid investigation of foreclosure fraud, which is all what Barack Obama would do, is sure to be sabotaged by the new Republican majority in the house, because:

1. They will favor the banks even when they break the law because laws are for little people.
2. They favor the Andrew Mellon school of dealing with the economy, foreclosure, and the financial crisis. As Hoover's Treasury secretary, he suggested, "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."

So all that Daniel J. Stern, Esq. will see is a few bucks less profit, as opposed to disciplinary action from the bar or a criminal investigation.

Nothing to see, move along.

Understanding Christine O'Donnell

When one looks at the craziness out there, why is it that Christine O'Donnell appears to get the lion's share of the attention?

Well Matthew Yglesias has a good explanation:

That’s true, but I think there’s more in play, namely logistics. The Alaska Senate race should be excellent copy. Joe Miller is nuts, Scott McAdams is fascinatingly amateurish, the Palin-Murkowski feud is interesting, everyone likes to talk about Sarah Palin, etc. But Alaska is also cold and remote. Sending a reporter there would be expensive and annoying. The time zones are inconvenient. By contrast, Wilmington is a 2 hour drive or 90 minute train ride from both Washington, DC and New York City. So if you want to get some “real reporting” done it’s convenient. And logistics count in life.

I would note that even some place less remote, like Angle in Nevada, or Paladino in New York, or McMahon in Connecticut, they were also much less willing to expose themselves to the press.

Basically, if you wanted to cover "the crazy," it was easier, and cheaper, to cover Ms. O'Donnell.

Anecdotal Reports of High Turnout

Hopefully, this is good news for Dems, but I am not making any predictions, as I stated this morning.

I am so glad that I voted early on October 22 though.

The reports are of a lot of people waiting in line to vote.

I'm not going to be following this stuff on the cable networks.

Basically, I'll look at web based tickers, because I don't want to listen to the damn pundits.

I Haven't Followed Out of State Initiatives Much

But this one in Washington State is prize:

Ballot Measure Summary
This measure would require the Seal of the State of Washington to be changed to depict a vignette of a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached to the lower intestine of a taxpayer shown as the central figure. The seal would be required to be encircled with the following words: “Committed to sucking the life blood out of each and every tax payer.” The illustration would be selected from submissions submitted by taxpayers.

Just when you thought that the silly season could not get any sillier………


H/t DC at the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS.

No Predictions from Me

My record sucks, and I will take Abraham Lincoln's advice, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."

But I will leave you with a political quote on the horror that is Republicans the man who best understood horror in the 20^th century,^* Howard Phillips Lovecraft:

As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.

H/t Fafblog for the quote, which is being circulated by movie director, and Lovecraft fan, Joe Dante.

^*Or at least pre Holocaust, since I believe that it fundamentally redefined horror in the Western world by putting the lie to the myth of man's moral progress..

Oh For F%$#'s Sake, Pick a F%$#ing Fight!

In the face of what are likely to be very large legislative losses tomorrow, the Obama administration is busy trying to find more ways to capitulate to Republicans in the vain hope that they will be nice:

With Republicans poised to gain ground in Tuesday's elections, the White House is losing hope that Congress will approve its plan to raise taxes on the nation's wealthiest families and is increasingly focusing on a new strategy that would preserve tax breaks for both the wealthy and the middle class.

According to people familiar with talks at the White House and among senior Democrats on Capitol Hill, breaking apart the Bush administration tax cuts is now being discussed as a more realistic goal. That strategy calls for permanent extension of cuts that benefit families earning less than $250,000 a year, and temporary extension of cuts on income above that amount.

The move would "decouple" the two sets of provisions, Democrats said, and focus the debate when tax cuts for the rich expired next year or the year after. Republicans would be forced to defend carve-outs for a tiny minority populated by millionaires, an unpopular position that would be difficult to advance without the cover of a broad-based tax cut for everyone, aides in both parties said.

"The concept of 'decoupling' is a hot topic right now," said one senior Democratic aide.

And the Republicans will demand permanent tax cuts for the rich pigs, including the near total elimination of the inheritance tax, unless I miss my guess.

How many f%$#ing times do you have to lead with a compromise, and get a "no" before you realize that you cannot negotiate with the barbarians at the gate?

You want to pick a fight because you can, and because raising taxes on people making more than $¼ million a year is both good politics and good policy.

It allows you to set the agenda, choose the time and place of conflict, and it mobilizes your base.

This, "Can't we all just get along/Kumbayah" crap has ill served the Obama administration, the Democratic Party, and the whole country.

Prosecution Doing Back-Flips For Goldman Sachs in High Frequency Trading Trial

If there was any doubt that the federal prosecutors in New York prosecuting Sergey Aleynikov for theft of trade secrets weren't in Goldman Sach's Pocket, those doubts have been allayed:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has always closely guarded the secrets of its lucrative high-speed trading system. Now the securities firm is getting a help from an unusual source: federal prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan this week asked a federal district judge to seal the courtroom at the forthcoming trial of a former Goldman computer programmer accused of stealing the firm's computer code. The move was a formal request to empty the courtroom of the general public when details of Goldman's trade secrets are being discussed. The trial is set to start to late November.

Prosecutors also asked that any documents related to Goldman's trading strategies remain under seal.

Such requests are common when proprietary corporate information could be exposed in a trial, lawyers say. This case is unusual in that it involves secrets about a potentially lucrative trading system, rather than, say, ingredients in a soda formula.

What is also unusual is that this code is almost certainly obsolete, and almost certainly has no value to a competitor.

The software almost certainly has to be updated regularly, probably monthly, possibly weekly, which means that the algorithms and code are almost certainly obsolete, but still they want the court sealed.

This is not about protecting trade secrets, this is about concerns by the vampire squid^* that if the details on how they conducted business came out, they would have people calling for their scalps for front-running the markets.

Basically, Goldman, and the prosecutors, are trying to conceal activity by Goldman that is either illegal, or would lead to changes in regulations that would make it so if the details came out.

My earlier posts on this are here.

^*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.

Appeals Court Allows DADT Expulsions to Continue

They have made their temporary injunction against the judge's ruling permanent, so DADT, and separations from the military, continue until probably at least next June:

With one judge dissenting, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of the injunction of the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy issued by U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips, pending the outcome of the government's appeal of Log Cabin Republicans v. United States.

The immediate impact of the ruling, which was not unexpected by legal observers, means that -- absent congressional or executive action -- DADT will remain in effect through at least Spring 2011. The practical timeline for the appeal, however, means it actually would remain law much longer.

Damn.

So they Torture a Little Boy, Admit the Testimony Thereby Extracted, Use it to Coerce a Confession, and Sentence Him to 40 Years in Prison

Only he will actually be out in less than 3 years, since Omar Khadr will be transferred to Canada, and released for time served:

A United States military commission at Guantánamo Bay has sentenced a former child soldier for Al Qaeda to 40 years in prison for war crimes — but he might be released in less than three years, the Defense Department said.

A panel of seven military officers at the American military base in Cuba determined on Sunday that the child soldier, Omar Khadr, 24, should be imprisoned — for terrorism-related offenses he committed in Afghanistan when he was a teenager — until he nearly reaches retirement age.

But that sentence was theoretical. Under the terms of a plea agreement, Mr. Khadr will serve no more than eight years. Moreover, after one year, Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, is likely to be transferred to a prison in Canada, where he would be eligible to apply for parole after serving two years and eight months.

Seriously.

The was a show trial, with a predetermined result specifically to allow face saving on the idea of military commissions.

The proceedings are a travesty of the law and basic decency, and every individual up the chain of command who allowed this case to proceed is guilty of conspiracy to violate both US anti-torture statutes and international treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

Not feeling hopey changey right now.

An Interesting Take of the Delphi Method

The Delphi Method is that people in aggregate make better predictions than the experts.

This can apply to a group of experts, or it can apply to a large sampling of the general population.

Well, someone just applied this methodology by using Google searches:

Google has published details of the levels of search interest for political candidates as election day approaches. But there seems to be little clear connection between Google hits and the ballot box.

The main advantage the web has for tracking patterns is the sheer number of people using it. For example, it sounds insane that anyone wanting to find the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) website would do anything other than try ufc.com as their first tactic. Yet the number of people who search for “UFC” and related terms in the days leading up to a pay-per-view event is nearly always a good indication of how many people will buy the event. The reason is that even if only a tiny fraction of people actually have to search for the term, it still adds up to enough people that variations over time are measurable.

Does this work for politics? Well, here’s the current levels of Google search interest among web users from the relevant state in three notable Senate races, along with predictions for the winner from polling analysis site fivethirtyeight.com (source of the image above). The first figure shows each candidate’s current share of the total searches for the listed candidates, while the second is the predicted share of the vote.

Florida: Marco Rubio 45.4/44, Charlie Crist 32.9/32, Kendrick Meek 21.7/24

Nevada: Harry Reid 54.4/47, Sharron Angle 45.6/50

Pennsylvania: Joe Sestak 51.1/48, Pat Toomey 49.9/52

I have no clue as to whether or not this is a valid technique, but if it is, Reid will be reelected, and Sestak will beat Toomey.

I guess that we will find out tomorrow, but I am inclined not to believe that this is a valid predictive technique.

They Really Are Sociopaths……

No, I don't mean the Teabaggers, I mean the beltway pundits.

Case in point, David Broder, who is suggesting that Barack Obama start a war with Iran, because it might be good for the economy and his election prospects. (No direct link, we should not reward such behavior with eyeballs.)

As Scott Horton notes (link above), this clearly demonstrates the, "strongest evidence yet of the moral depravity and sheer nuttiness," of the WaPo editorial page.

And I am sure that Broder was very proud of what he came up with, it seems so clever, and counter-intuitive, and it means that young men will die.

I bet that it gave the octogenarian psychopath his first stiffie in weeks.

Here is hoping that Keith Olbermann thinks to put him on his "worst" list tonight.

Trick or Treating

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The Rubikuitous Charlie


The most Sanguine Natalie


For that thoughtful look with: her glasses on

We went trick or treating tonight.

Natalie tried to go upscale on her fangs for her vampire costume, and go with ones that just fit on her eye-teeth, as opposed to the mouth guard type ones, and it didn't work, so she improvised using some sugary blood syrup that she got at the SCA event on Saturday.

Charlie's costume, a Rubik's Cube, however worked out very well, and he got a lot of compliments, though he did experience, as I had warned him, issues with comfort and mobility.

Still, they had fun, and took in a decent haul of hysteria inducing sugar, so they both considered their outing a success.

We had to return home at one point, because they needed gloves.

Neither of their costumes were amenable to the use of pockets to warm one's hands.

I remember trick or treating when I was a kid, with my Dad watching, and now I am watching as my kids trick or treat.

It's the whole "circle of life" thing, I guess.

The Stewart Rally

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I didn't go, it was our anniversary, and I have not watched the vids yet, but here are some of the signs I found via "the Google."

<Facepalm>

So, ABC decided to have Andrew Breitbart as a contributor to their election night coverage, despite the fact that he has repeatedly punked the news media with deliberately false and deceptive "news" stories, and now they are trying to walk this clusterf%$# back:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart's role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s opinions.

I have no objection to ABC using conservatives as either news analysts or "guests" on their discussions.

That is a basic journalistic activity.

That being said, when you do so, you have an obligation to bring on someone who has is own opinions, not his own (made up) facts.

Andrew Breitbart is an individual who has deliberately, and maliciously created fake news stories to pursue his political agenda, and he continues to do so.

If you are a news organization, and you don't use the words, "professional liar," before any mention of him, you are a piss-poor news organization.

The Nobility Gets the Best Sh%$ to Smoke

Instead of going to the Stewart/Colbert march for Sanity/Fear, Sharon^*, the kids, and I went to TNT, an SCA event held by our local group (the Barony of Brighthills).

I got called up to receive a baronial award, the Order of Job, for selfless service to the Barony.

I'm a wee bit confused: I don't recall doing much beyond cutting up some veggies, making the oldest recorded recipe for chocolate for an event, and washing a few dishes.

In any case, it was our 16^th anniversary, and we enjoyed ourselves. We ate, we danced, we made glass beads using a torch.

I got my wife some books as an anniversary gift.

It's so nice having a wife who doesn't want to be surprised by such things: I just point her at the book seller, and she says, "Is this OK honey?"

This is much better than the expectation that I am a mind reader.

A good time was had by all.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Not Gonna Happen……

The real reason for the UK independent deterrent

With the draconian British budget cuts, and the conversion of their carrier aviation from the STOVL F-35B to the CTOL F-35C, there is now talk of the British engaging in some form of joint carrier operations with the French:

London's decision to fit catapults on its planned second aircraft carrier opened up the prospect of French Rafale strike fighters flying off a British flattop, with reciprocal rights for British aircraft off the French carrier, French Defense Minister Hervé Morin said Oct. 26 at the Euronaval trade show.

Morin asked the French military staff to assess whether the installation of catapults would allow French aircraft, such as the Rafale, to operate off the Royal Navy vessel, and the answer was: "Yes, it's technically feasible," he told journalists.

That opened up potential opportunities of interoperability and mutual interdependence between the British and French fleets, he said. With such cross-deck operations came the possibility of a "permanent presence at sea," he said.

I just don't see it happening.

While the French and British have on occasion used common aircraft, most notably the SEPECAT Jaguar, given the nearly thousand-year history of animus between the two nations (see "Yes Prime Minister" vid), I just cannot see them operating jointly in this manner.

Holy Sh%$

Last weekend, the US Military lost control of a missile squadron:

President Obama was briefed this morning on an engineering power failure at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming that took 50 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), one-ninth of the U.S. missile stockpile, temporarily offline on Saturday.

The base is a main locus of the United States' strategic nuclear forces. The 90th Missile Wing, headquartered there, controls 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. They're on full-time alert and are housed in a variety of bunkers across several states.

On Saturday morning, according to people briefed on what happened, a squadron of ICBMs suddenly dropped down into what's known as "LF Down" status, meaning that the missileers in their bunkers could no longer communicate with the missiles themselves. LF Down status also means that various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline. In LF Down status, the missiles are still technically launch-able, but they can only be controlled by an airborne command and control platform like the Boeing E-6 NAOC "Kneecap" aircraft, E-4B NAOC aircraft or perhaps the TACAMO fleet, which is primarily used to communicate with nuclear submarines. Had the country been placed on a higher state of nuclear alert, those platforms would be operating automatically because the frequencies used to transmit nuclear codes would be interfacing with separate systems, according to officials.

(strike-through original)

This is about ¹⁄₉ of our land based deterrent.

Great googly moogly.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!!

No FDIC closures, so the count for this year remains at 139, see the full FDIC list, but there was a credit union failure:

15. Phil-Pet Federal Credit Union, Pampa, TX
    

Full NCUA list

It does seem like the trend is slowing, but it's still pretty awful.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):



I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I'm keeping it here for historical purposes.

OK, Google™ Adsense™ Has Me Confused

So, I see an ad for Charles Loller.

He's running for Congress in Maryland, as a Republican, in the 5^th Congressional district.

Normally, this is the place where I would say, "What the f%$# is Google™ Adsense™ doing putting an ad for a Republican on my page?"

I know my reader(s) and they are NOT Republicans.

Only …………… The 5^th Congressional district is Steny Hoyer's district, and I have been consistently critical of him, so the Republican party running an ad for their sacrificial lamb,^* in this district might actually meet the eyeballs of someone who is disgusted, as I am, with the distinguished gentleman from the 5^th.

So, by the generally low standards of Google™ Adsense™, this actually appears to be a well done job, by virtue of being marginally competent.

Still, if I were running his campaign, I think that I might be a bit miffed that I was paying (fractions of a cent) for this.

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google^™ Adsense^™.

^*No, I am not going to pivot off of the sacrificial lamb statement to make a "black sheep" joke, and I will note that if this race were at all competitive, this guy would not have gotten the Republican Party nomination, because the Republican Party does not want black candidates elected, the party sees them as nothing more than useful window dressing.

No, I Did Not See Obama's Interview on The Daily Show…

I haven't had time, or the inclination, though I have read excerpts.

The excerpts do not impress me, but then again, I'm not in the "Impressed by Barack Obama," demographics, and and have not been since late 2007 (scroll down). I held my nose to vote for him in the general in 2008.

I just don't feel any need to see it, though I probably will when the election passes.

Call it my own 'enthusiasm gap'.

Well, Alaska Just Got Weird

With polls showing Lisa Murkowski in the lead, and the board of elections, in a transparent attempt to help her campaign, putting out a list of "registered write-in candidates," for the first time in history, which is in court, but the Alaska Supreme Court is allowing the decision to stand for now pending arguments.

In response, Joe Miller and the Alaska Teabaggers have flooded the election office to register hundreds of write ins to be added to the list.

With Miller firmly in 3^rd place in the latest polls, and these polls were before the release of his personnel files, I can understand why they want to move votes from Murkowski to him, but this would appear to move votes from Lisa Murkowski to Lisa Martini, or Lisa Murkin, or Lisa Murrow, which has the effect of boosting Democrat Scott Adams.

Pass the popcorn.

Heh.

I Don't Know What to Make of This

But it appears that someone in Yemen was attempting to send letter bombs to the United States:

Security officials in Britain and Dubai intercepted parcel bombs being sent from Yemen to the United States in a "credible terrorist threat," President Barack Obama said on Friday.

He said the parcels were bound for "two places of Jewish worship in Chicago."

Suspicion fell on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, which took responsibility for a failed plot to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on Christmas Day in 2009.

"Initial examinations of those packages has determined that they do apparently contain explosive material," Obama told reporters in a televised briefing, calling it "a credible terrorist threat against our country."

The White House said earlier that "both of these packages originated from Yemen" and that Obama was notified of the threat on Thursday night.

This is clearly an attempt at electioneering, even in Yemen, one would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know of the election, but, unlike bin Laden's statement just prior to the 2004 election, where he was clearly trying to throw the race to Bush, the intent here is unclear.

Some questions:

• Is this an attempt to favor Democrats or Republicans?
• Why were synagogues chosen?
• Did the perps expect to succeed of fail?

Damned if I know.

The Most Morally Repugnant Industry on the Face of the Earth

It's the private prison industry, which is lobbying for draconian immigrations laws, like Arizona's "Papers Please" law, because more people in detention means more money for them:

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.

The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

The story leads off with a private prison pitching an immigration detention facility for women and children in Benson, Arizona.

There are certain functions that cannot be fobbed off on the private sector, and this is perhaps the most sterling example.

What Will Obama Do if the Dems Lose Congress?

John Quiggin Crooked Timber says that Obama will start engaging in zero-dimensional-chess:

Translation: Mr Obama and his aides plan a series of pre-emptive capitulations, after which the Republicans will demand the repeal of the healthcare act (or maybe abolition of Social Security). When/if that is refused, the Repugs will shut down the government, and this time they will hold their nerve until Obama folds.

That Republicans won't work with him, even if he capitulates, is a certainty, if Republicans were to cooperate with him on sending the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow to Gitmo, they would still be primaried by the teabaggers.

The supposition that he will lead with capitulation is almost certain, since this has been his modus operandi over the past 20 months.

Regardless of the outcome, Obama sill see it as an opportunity to do some serious hippie punching.

The zero-dimensional chess bon mot deserves a Pulitzer.

A Correction.

When I quoted Dave Dayen on the HAMP foreclosure fiasco, I suggested that he was rather softer on the banks than I was, because he implied incompetence and timidity, rather than a conscious decision to f%$# homeowners.

Well, he posted a response, and stated quite clearly that he did, "think it was deliberate, and have said it plenty."

My apologies both to him and my reader(s).

So Not the Next Sarah Palin

Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but she does not currently get drunk and engage in one night stands:

Three years ago this week, an intoxicated Christine O'Donnell showed up at the apartment of a 25-year-old Philadelphian and ended up spending the night in his bed. Here's his story—and photos—of his escapade with the would-be Delaware senator.

When one finds a public who makes their mark with sexual "morality," it does appear that they are railing against what they want to do themselves.

I wil note that the source is Gawker, with all that that entails, and the account is fairly stomach churning, not because of anything that Ms. O'Donnell did or said, but because of the attitude of the source.

Lines like, "When her underwear came off, I immediately noticed that the waxing trend had completely passed her by," do not make kindly disposed to whoever he is.

In fact, it makes me feel a bit, and only a it, of pity for Ms. O'Donnell.

Getting drunk on Halloween and getting to 2^nd or 3^rd base really should be nobody's business …… Unless, of course, you are a very public campaigner against any form of sexual activity out of marriage under all circumstances.

Still, it reads like a bad letter to Penthouse forum.

This is Unambiguously Good News

It's "Jobless Thursday," and the numbers are good, with initial claims falling by 21K to 434,000, the less volatile 4-week moving average fell by 5,500 to 453,250, continuing claims fell by 122K to 4.36million, and emergency claims (those extended past 26 weeks) fell by 414K to 4.36 million.

It's still to high for a job recovery, it needs to be somewhere south of 400K for an extended period for jobs to recover, but this is only the 2^nd time in months that it was below 450,000, so perhaps we are beginning to see the beginning of a trend.

John McCain, You Need to Go On The Daily Show

Because when you don't, Jon Stewart tees off on you something fierce:




Well, that will leave the proverbial mark.

Maybe the Blue Dogs Aren't the Worst Democrats in Congress

I think that the Blue Dogs are wrong, but I get the sense that they are motivated by values and ego.

I think that many of them legitimately believe that women cannot be trusted with their bodies, that rich people should not be taxed, and that idiot sons of rich people are entitled to be rich ad infinitum.

The larger New Democratic Caucus (Melissa Bean who The Onion excoriates is a senior member of the caucus), however, is just a bunch of people who want to suck at the tit of big business, as Sebastian Jones and Marcus Stern ably document:

As Congress entered the final weeks of its struggle to overhaul regulation of Wall Street in May, several hundred friends and colleagues slipped out of Washington for a private weekend on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Most were lobbyists for large banks, pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies, and big-ticket trade groups. However, 28 were members of Congress, and 29 were legislative staffers, all part of a coalition of House Democrats with a business-friendly agenda.

The retreat was held in honor of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of 69 lawmakers whose close relationship with several hundred Washington lobbyists has made their organization one of the most successful political money machines since the Republican K Street Project collapsed in 2007. In the past year and a half, New Democrats have pulled in more than $18 million in campaign contributions from their lobbyist fundraising network. The lobbyists, in turn, have mingled with lawmakers and their staffers at least 850 times during fundraising events and informal get-togethers.

…………

These folks were hamstringing Barney Frank at every turn during work on financial reforms because they worked for the banks, and not the American people.

The Blue Dogs get the press, but when push comes to shove, it's the New Dems who f%$# us.

Read the rest of the article. It's long, but it's long because it is exhaustive.

Economics Update

Click for full size

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H/t Calculated Risk for the September Philly Fed chart Pr0n

Since the tech bubble burst, the economy has been running on the consumer and on home sales, and both consumer confidence and home prices continue to disappoint.

Additionally, new home sales remain at pathetic levels, and mortgage applications increased, largely in response to lower rates.

Also, we did see the Philadelphia Bank of the Federal Released its State Coincident Indexes for September, and more states were up than down, though those advances were, once again, anemic.

The Definitive Word on Hamp

David Dayen summarizes it in a paragraph:

This is just a truism based on the Treasury Department’s own design for HAMP. Every trial modification payment reads as a default to the credit reporting companies. The Treasury Department could have set it up so that didn’t happen; they chose not to intervene in that reality. All of the money between the trial modification and the original payment that borrowers don’t pay during their trial period gets tacked on as part of the unpaid principal balance at the end. The servicers also tack on late fees. Treasury could have banned that. They chose not to intervene. The servicers can proceed with foreclosure operations during the trial period, arguing that the borrower is in default. They can’t actually foreclose (also in some cases they have). But they can go through the legal process. Treasury could have put a stop to that. They didn’t. Borrowers keep getting told they have to miss a payment to be eligible for HAMP. Treasury actually didn’t put that into the design. But they haven’t sanctioned a single servicer for this or any other violation of the program guidelines. They could have done something. They didn’t.

(emphasis mine, though inspired by Big Tent Democrat's similar exercise.)

I think that Mr. Dayen is far more forgiving than I am. He implies that it was combination of incompetence and timidity.

I think that it was actual malice. I think that the Treasury Department deliberately chose to deceive homeowners, because they thought that it would give the banks some breathing space.

Better Than I Expected

Elana Kagan just cast her first vote on the death penalty, and actually her very first vote as a Supreme Court Justice, and she voted to stay an execution:

Washington…Justice Elena Kagan cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court late Tuesday, joining the liberals in dissent when the high court cleared the way for the execution of an Arizona murderer.

The 5-4 ruling overturned orders by a federal judge in Phoenix and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that had stopped the execution by lethal injection of Jeffrey Landrigan.

His lawyers, in a last-ditch appeal, had raised questions about one of the drugs used in the execution. Since the only U.S. manufacturer of sodium thiopental had suspended production, Arizona officials said they had obtained a supply of the drug from a British company.

A judge had put the execution on hold because she said she was "left to speculate" whether this drug was safe for its intended use.

Hopefully this indicates that she was not quite the squish that I thought she might be when Barack Obama nominated her.

I Hate The Onion

Click for full size

---

Not only does the truth hurt, it leaves a nasty mark!

Their headline, "Democrats: 'If We're Gonna Lose, Let's Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We've Made'":

WASHINGTON — Conceding almost certain Republican gains in next month's crucial midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers vowed Tuesday not to give up without making one final push to ensure their party runs away from every major legislative victory of the past two years.

Party leaders told reporters that regardless of the ultimate outcome, they would do everything in their power from now until the polls closed to distance themselves from their hard-won passage of a historic health care overhaul, the toughest financial regulations since the 1930s, and a stimulus package most economists now credit with preventing a second Great Depression.

"There's a great deal on the line, and we know it isn't going to be easy for us," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), speaking from the steps of the Capitol. "But if we suffer defeat, we will do so knowing we cowered away from absolutely anything we produced that was even remotely progressive or valuable in any way."

If you'll excuse me, I will now hit myself in the head repeatedly with a hammer, because that is more pleasant than facing this reality.

Here is a hint for the Democrats: If The Onion is writing an article, and it describes your campaign strategy, you are being a f%$#ing moron.

Here is a Primer on Mers

This is a very good article on what the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems is, and how it is a corrupt it is as an enterprise.

The gist can be gathered by the sub-head, "Hint: It Holds 60% of All Mortgages, But Has ZERO Employees."

Go read it.

Optimism Can Kill You

Barbara Ehrenreich looks at the cult forced optimism in the United States, and how it is both dangerous and prevents people from challenging real problems in society.

I was particularly taken by her observation about just just how much mandatory optimism was a part of the infrastructure of the totalitarian Soviet state as well.

Pass the Popcorn

The Federal Reserve has decided not to appeal the decision of the Federal Courts to turn over information on its sh%$pile for cash loans to Bloomberg News:

The Federal Reserve won’t join a group of the largest commercial banks in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to let the government withhold details of emergency loans made to financial firms in 2008.

The central bank’s decision not to appeal makes it less likely the high court will hear the case, said Tom Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who has argued 22 cases before the high court since 1999 and whose Scotusblog website tracks the panel.

The Clearing House Association LLC, a group of the biggest commercial banks, filed the appeal today. Under federal rules for appeals, a lower court’s order requiring disclosure remains on hold until the Supreme Court acts. Kit Wheatley, an attorney for the Fed, confirmed that the central bank won’t join the appeal. David Skidmore, a spokesman for the central bank, did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

The bank group is appealing a federal judge’s August 2009 ruling requiring the Fed to disclose records of its emergency lending. Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, sued for the release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

Obviously, the Supreme Court could still decide to hear the case, but the Fed pulling out indicates that they no longer see this sort of disclosure as a systemic threat, which in turn makes it less likely that SCOTUS will take up the case.

I think that it is now a question of "when" not "if" the data gets released, and I think that it should prove to be very interesting.

Background here.

The Last Word on Juan Williams

Of course, it's Jon Stewart and The Daily Show:

NPR -- you just brought a tote bag full of David Sedaris books to a knife fight.

My favorite bit was their entirely accurate characterization of Washington, DC traffic.

A warning: Don't drink anything while watching this, you will spew!

Payback is a Bitch

When you look at the Democratic Party Congressional caucus, the people who are most threatened with losing their jobs are the Blue Dogs:

More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week's election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The author of the article says that this is worrying because the Blue Dogs are, "a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House," but my take is rather more positive: It's these rat f%$#s that were in large part for blocking and weakening every serious policy initiative that the Democratic party, and it is this perceived lack of accomplishment that has put off voters.

Truth be told, it's not that payback is a bitch, it's that payback is making them it's bitch.

People don't want to vote for Democrats because they are perceived as timid, and the people who forced this are reaping the whirlwind.

Heh.

I Really Don't Have Anything to Add

Some thugs who worked for the Rand Paul campaign beat up a MoveOn.org activist at the Senate debates in Kentucky. Pushed her to the ground, and stomped her head.

Talkingpoints Memo has more coverage, but I really do not have anything to add.

Here is a Primer on Mortgage Backed Securities, REMICS, and Mortgage Frauds

This is fairly long as blog posts go, but it hits all the bases, and makes it clear just how f%$#ed the system actually is.

Even if this does not save a single homeowner, it is clear that these problems have the effects of rendering almost every major financial institution in the US insolvent.

Go read.

If You Read One Article on the Fraud and Corruption in MERS

This is it.

The title says it all, "What Is MERS and What Role Does It Have in the Foreclosure Mess? (Hint: It Holds 60% of All Mortgages, But Has ZERO Employees)."

Just go read it.

If They Are Looking Into it, It's Only Because They Need to Figure Out the Coverup

I am referring to the fact that the Federal Reserve has announced that it will investigate the foreclosure problems:

Raising pressure on banks, the Federal Reserve is wading into the investigation of whether mortgage lenders cut corners and used flawed documents to foreclose on homes.

Major banks are already under investigation by state officials with subpoena power, who could force them to detail how they handled hundreds of thousands of foreclosure cases.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke added weight to those efforts Monday by saying the central bank would look "intensively" at policies and procedures that might have allowed banks to seize homes improperly.

"We take violation of proper procedures very seriously," Bernanke said in remarks to a housing-finance conference in Arlington, Va.

Call me a cynic, but I think that this is all about creating the appearance of investigating foreclosure fraud without actually finding any wrong doing, because they are the Federal Reserve, and that's how they roll.

Holy Sh%$

Treasury has sold its inflation protected securities with a negative yield for the first time ever:

Inflation-protected securities sold at negative yields for the first time ever on Monday as traders anticipate that the Federal Reserve will start a new round of asset purchases.

Analysts said that asset purchases by the Fed would lead to a higher inflation rate and a positive return on the bonds.

The $10 billion auction of the five-year bonds sold at a negative yield of 0.550 percent, according to the Treasury Department. The results of the auction of the securities, known as TIPS, came as indexes on Wall Street edged higher, buoyed by recent strong corporate earnings and a rise in housing sales. The previous lowest yield for the TIPS was in the auction on April 26, when the yield was 0.550 percent.

“It is saying that there is a true demand for inflation securities, because people perceive the quantitative easing program is enabling a higher inflation rate in the future,” said Tom di Galoma, head of fixed-income rates trading at Guggenheim Partners.

Basically, this means that "the market," a nebulous thing whose predictive powers I think are overrated, is nonetheless predicting deflation.

Time to break out those helicopters, Ben.

Despicable……

So the military commissions have secured another confession, Omar Khadr.

They shoot a 15 year old, torture and threaten confessions out if him, allow his confessions to be admitted anyway, and now they have coerced a confession out of him by throwing bogus charges at him:

This morning I sat in a U.S. military commissions courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and watched the first child soldier charged by a Western nation since World War II plead guilty to crimes he was never even accused of. If the guilty plea of Omar Khadr this morning was a face-saving effort by the U.S. government, it was a sad day for the rule of law in the United States.

Omar Khadr is the 24-year-old Canadian who's spent a third of his life in U.S. custody without trial after being accused of helping his father's al Qaeda associates build improvised explosive devices when he was just 15. He was taken to Afghanistan from Canada by his father at the age of nine. The lone survivor of a 2002 U.S. assault on an Afghan compound, Khadr was accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.

But as he entered his guilty plea this morning -- after the government agreed he'd serve just one more year at Guantanamo Bay, and an as-yet-unspecified number of years in Canada -- it was clear that prosecutors had taken the opportunity to throw the kitchen-sink-full of charges at him - including far more crimes than he'd even been charged with. Most importantly, Khadr pled guilty to the murder of two Afghan soldiers who accompanied U.S. forces in the 2002 assault on the compound. The government has never presented any evidence whatsoever that Khadr was responsible for that.

…………

This is more than morally repugnant.

This sort of treatment of a child forced into battle by adults is is a war crime, and everyone involved in the trial, up to and including the commander-in-chief, Barack Obama are guilty.

Of course, there will never be an accounting, for even the worst of them.

After all, the two greatest mass murderers of the 20^th century, Stalin and Mao, died of natural causes while remaining in power.

A Welcome Change in City Planning

In Boston, in a new development, officials are pressuring developers to reduce the number of parking spaces at the complexes that they are building:

……

When Boston development officials recently handed permits to the developers of Waterside Place, they did so despite neighborhood concerns that the developers wanted to build far more apartments than parking spots. On A Street, the Boston Redevelopment Authority is close to green-lighting a 21-story residential tower. The tower’s developer had originally planned to build one parking spot for every two residential units, an abnormally low supply; BRA officials are pushing the developer to push that ratio even lower by replacing a whole floor of parking with innovative workforce housing units.

These permitting decisions are not happening in a vacuum. Government-imposed floors on the number of parking spots required at new developments are falling across the city, and beyond. Somerville, for instance, is increasing zoning density and lowering parking requirements along the route of the planned Green Line extension, with an eye toward spurring new transit-oriented development. But the change is especially pronounced in the Seaport, where developers are working with as close to a blank canvas as you’ll find in any major American city.

City planners are in the middle of an extensive re-thinking of Boston’s zoning codes. As they work, neighborhood by neighborhood, to update the code, they’re flipping the conventional thinking about parking on its head: Instead of mandating that minimum levels of parking accompany new developments, they’re pushing to establish maximum parking caps.

……

If you want a walkable and transit friendly cities, parking spaces are the enemy, because it creates sprawl.

IIRC, there is more ground taken up by parking spaces than is taken up by people in Montgomery County, which is why it is strip mall heck. (and Louden County, where I currently reside 3-4 nights a week, is strip mall hell)

If you make enough parking for people to drive in from the 'burbs, then you create unacceptable levels of sprawl.

Barack Obama Can "Shove It"

So says Democratic candidate for Rhode Island governor, Frank Caprio will not get an endorsement from Barack Obama when he visits Rhode Island, because Obama appreciated the endorsement that Lincoln Chaffee, the Republican Senator turned independent candidate for governor, running against him.

What's worse, the White House did not have the decency to tell him, and his campaign found out from a reporter who had been briefed on this:

President Obama will not endorse the Democratic candidate for governor, Frank T. Caprio, when he comes to Rhode Island to support other Democratic candidates, the White House said Sunday.

The president’s decision “is a victory for Linc Chafee,” the Republican-turned-independent who is Caprio’s opponent in the race for governor, said Chafee spokesman Mike Trainor, who said he was quoting Chafee’s own stated view. Former Republican Senator Chafee endorsed Mr. Obama for president in 2008.

Caprio was unaware that the president would not endorse him until his campaign was told by a news reporter, according to his campaign manager, Xay Khamsyvoravong. Khamsyvoravong said Caprio is not embarrassed that he did not get a courtesy call from the White House before the president’s decision was made public.

Caprio's response, "He can take his endorsement and really shove it as far as I'm concerned."

This is unbelievably stupid. It hurts the party and, in the long run, it hurts him, but because Lincoln is a "Friend of Barack", party unity, and party morale, takes a back seat.

I have to invoke this when discussing the travails of anyone named "Kirk".

I see a parallel in the Illinois Senate race, where Alexi Giannoulias is in a down-to-the-wire with Mark Kirk. …… In a state which is reliably Democratic …… Against a Congressman who has repeatedly lied about his biography …… And is the subject of ceredible allegations that he is a closeted gay …… who reliably opposed gay rights.

So, why is Alexi Giannoulias not running away with this? Well, it could be that he helped run his family bank which collapsed a few years later under the weight of its bad loans.

Of course, it has been know that the bank was in trouble since at least January of this year, when it entered into a consent decree with regulators, but Giannoulias got the nomination because he is Obama's basketball buddy.

It is to be understood that a President will head his the party, and part of this is obviously rewarding allies, this is just politics, but there are limits, and this is little more than self-absorbed narcissism.

Needless to say, Mr. Caprio is now on my Act Blue page.

When Your Opponent Hands You a Club, Use It

Meg Whitman said that she came to California 30 years ago, because then, "anything was possible," in California.

30 years ago, Jerry Brown was Governor of California.

It's ready made for this (very good) ad.

Facts are a bitch.

Heh.

The Worst Medical Lecture Ever

Laurence Klotz relates what might be the worst mdeical lecture of all time.

You see, before there was Viagra, there was an injectible treatment for erectile dysfunction developed by Professor G.S. Brindley, and at the lecture where he revealed these techniques, he dropped trow to reveal that he was sporting an artificially induced erection:

Professor Brindley, still in his blue track suit, was introduced as a psychiatrist with broad research interests. He began his lecture without aplomb. He had, he indicated, hypothesized that injection with vasoactive agents into the corporal bodies of the penis might induce an erection. Lacking ready access to an appropriate animal model, and cognisant of the long medical tradition of using oneself as a research subject, he began a series of experiments on self-injection of his penis with various vasoactive agents, including papaverine, phentolamine, and several others. (While this is now commonplace, at the time it was unheard of). His slide-based talk consisted of a large series of photographs of his penis in various states of tumescence after injection with a variety of doses of phentolamine and papaverine. After viewing about 30 of these slides, there was no doubt in my mind that, at least in Professor Brindley's case, the therapy was effective. Of course, one could not exclude the possibility that erotic stimulation had played a role in acquiring these erections, and Professor Brindley acknowledged this.

The Professor wanted to make his case in the most convincing style possible. He indicated that, in his view, no normal person would find the experience of giving a lecture to a large audience to be erotically stimulating or erection-inducing. He had, he said, therefore injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes (hence the track-suit) to make it possible to exhibit the results. He stepped around the podium, and pulled his loose pants tight up around his genitalia in an attempt to demonstrate his erection.

At this point, I, and I believe everyone else in the room, was agog. I could scarcely believe what was occurring on stage. But Prof. Brindley was not satisfied. He looked down sceptically at his pants and shook his head with dismay. ‘Unfortunately, this doesn’t display the results clearly enough’. He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing.

But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, ‘I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence’. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row. As he approached them, erection waggling before him, four or five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed loudly. The scientific merits of the presentation had been overwhelmed, for them, by the novel and unusual mode of demonstrating the results.

It does sound like something that you would see on an HBO comedy, doesn't it?

I Have Had It With These Motherf%$#ing Crocks On This Motherf%$#ing Plane!

We see yet another senseless crocodile disaster:

A stowaway crocodile on a flight escaped from its carrier bag and sparked an onboard stampede that caused the flight to crash, killing 19 passengers and crew.

The croc had been hidden in a passenger's sports bag - allegedly with plans to sell it - but it tore loose and ran amok, sparking panic.

A stampede of terrified passengers caused the small aircraft to lose balance and tip over in mid-air during an internal flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The unbalanced load caused the aircraft, on a routine flight from the capital, Kinshasa, to the regional airport at Bandundu, to go into a spin and crash into a house.

A lone survivor from the Let 410 plane told the astonishing tale to investigators.

Ironically the crocodile also survived the crash but was later killed with a machete by rescuers sifting through the wreckage.

We live in a very strange world.

Tree of the Year: 2010

The tree is known as the Pterocarya fraxinifolia, though its common name is the Caucasian Wingnut.

It turns out that this tree, which originated in Iran, is actually way smarter than your average teabagger.

All Your Stonehenge Are Belong to Us

English Heritage, an organization that manages many of the historical sites in the UK has now sent cease and desist letters to image libraries claiming that they own all rights of all photographs of Stonehenge ever taken:

English Heritage, the organization that runs and manages various historical sites in the UK, such as Stonehenge, has apparently sent letters to various photo sharing and stock photo sites claiming that any photo of Stonehenge that is being sold violates its rights, and only English Heritage can get commercial benefit from such photos. In fact, they're asking for all money made from such photos, stating: 'all commercial interest to sell images must be directed to English Heritage.' As one recipient noted, this seems odd, given that English Heritage has only managed Stonehenge 'for 27 of the monument's 4,500 year old history.

All this IP nuttiness is getting on menhir my nerves.

As a commenter noted, the rights to the photographs belong with the aliens what built the monument anyway.

The Final Serial Comma Is Still a Necessity

You kow what the final serial comma is, don't you?

It's the last comma used on a list, so you see, "Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5, and Item6."

Some people believe that this is an anachronism that can be discarded, and that, "Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5 and Item6," is acceptable.

Well, Patrick Nielsen Hayden believes that this shortcut is in error, and I agree:



With the final serial comma, it is clear that Merle Haggard's ex-wives, as well as Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall were interviewed.

Without the final serial comma it is clear that Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall are Merle Haggard's two ex wives.

To quote Emo Phillips, "Ambiguity, the Devil's Vollyball."