Yet another reminder. Every first Thursday the Southeastern Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at the Bulkeley House in New London at 6:30 PM. We are now officially members of the national Drinking Liberally organization.
We’ve had a lot of fun at the previous meetings. It’s a chance to meet like minded folks and talk politics. So far, no Obama-Clinton wars or anything like that. Just good, clean patriotic Republican bashing.
I was going to include a video of Bush getting booed yesterday, which I plucked from Truthdig here. It was basically a clip from the tv coverage of the game. When I tried to preview the video, I got a message that it was no longer available. I went back to Truthdig. The video played there, though I could tell it was a different video, but I assumed Truthdig had just found a new version of the same video. I copied the embed code, which, to my surprise, appeared to be precisely the same code as that which didn’t work before.
I was busily re-pasting the code in my post, only half listening to the video, when I realized it was an entirely different video. It started with video of yesterday’s game, then cut to out-takes from first pitches past, and interviews with people making laudatory comments about Bush.
Obviously, not the kind of thing Truthdig would post. Is there some way that someone can hack into youtube and replace one video with another?
In any event, I spent quite some time trying to build a post around the video, but that’s a no go now. Suffice it to say that George still doesn’t measure up to Dad, who managed to get booed at the Super Bowl. Not to say that George, Jr. couldn’t do it. He’s just had the good sense not to try.
UPDATE 2: A reader sent a substitute video link, which I posted, but I have now taken it down, because it seems to be playing havoc with the blog on Firefox. Everything looked fine in Safari, so I wasn’t aware of the problem until recently. I think the problem may also have stemmed from the fact that I was experimenting with Ecto blogging software, which I have pretty much decided to abandon.
Via Talking Points, here’s a fun site at Slate, where you can tinker with the delegate math and play out different scenarios depending on how things go in the upcoming primaries. The conclusion is inescapable: Hillary can win only if she steals it, or a miracle happens.
I assumed, for example, that she gets 65% of the vote in each of the remaining primaries. Assuming that Michigan and Florida remain out of play, she ends up with 12 more delegates than Obama. The problem is, she is unlikely to get 65% of the vote in any of the remaining primaries, and there are some where Obama is likely to get a vote of that magnitude.
If you are a Clinton fan, you should visit this site. The hard numbers will quickly disabuse you of any notion that Hillary can win this thing without playing dirty. (There is, by the way, little sign that there are a lot of top Democrats out there that would be interested in helping her play). Just more proof that it’s time for her to withdraw while she can still do so with grace, and before she succeeds in making McCain the odds on favorite in November.
Paul Krugman makes the valid point today that Treasury Secretary Paulson’s proposed “reforms” amount to little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic:
Anyone who has worked in a large organization — or, for that matter, reads the comic strip “Dilbert” — is familiar with the “org chart” strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.
You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration’s new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it’s all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive.
…
So the Treasury has, with great fanfare, announced — you know what’s coming — its support for a rearrangement of the boxes on the org chart. OCC, OTS, and CFTC are out; PFRA and CBRA are in. Whatever.
Krugman makes the case that new regulations are in order, but the fact is that even those won’t help unless we also get new regulators. Regulatory policy issues rarely if ever intrude on a presidential campaign, but an administration’s approach to regulation has far reaching consequences. Perhaps only its Supreme Court choices are more important It’s too late to prevent the unfolding disaster, but not too late to prevent the next one. But that requires two things, good regulations and good people to enforce them. We will never get the former as long as there is a Republican (of the 21st century variety, in any event) in the White House, and even if Congress legislated in detail, we would never get the enforcement such regulations will require. Krugman probably recognizes this, for as he notes, the mindset of our current regulators is hardly encouraging:
For example, there was a 2003 photo-op in which officials from multiple agencies used pruning shears and chainsaws to chop up stacks of banking regulations. The occasion symbolized the shared determination of Bush appointees to suspend adult supervision just as the financial industry was starting to run wild.
McCain has surrounded himself with people who promise more of the same. These folks are true believers, who will stick to their ideological preconceptions in the teeth of all historical evidence. They are the people who will tell you that the market will take care of people who peddle tainted drugs or the people who peddle fraudulent financial instruments. And it does take care of them. They walk away from the wreckage with big bucks, while the rest of us pick up the pieces.
Poor Joe Lieberman. According to him, he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, every other Democrat in the country did:
“It’s not the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party, which was strong internationalists, strong on defense, pro-trade, pro-reform in our domestic government,” he said. “It’s been effectively taken over by a small group on the left of the party that is protectionist, isolationist and very, very hyperpartisan. So it pains me.”
People who are never called to account, and sedulously avoid situations where they ever will be, can say things like this and get away with it. Lieberman insulates himself from any challenge to this weird world view. What this is really all about, of course, is the fact that the party has left Joe behind on Iraq. Howard Dean and Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi and John Larson and Wesley Clark and–yes–, Al Gore (who is apparently no longer a member of the Bill Clinton-Al Gore party) along with all those dirty filthy hippy Lamont lovers that account for more than half the Connecticut Democratic party (and now, probably all of it), have been proven right about an issue about which Lieberman has been wrong from the start. No doubt Joe is feeling a bit put out these days. The “surge” is currently being exposed for the failure that it is, and Maliki, the U.S. puppet and Iranian stooge, has been revealed for the weakling that he is. Benedict Arnold probably went to his grave convinced he’d been true to the principles of the American Revolution, and Joe will go to his believing he’s the last real Democrat, as he votes for one Republican after another.
I hope Joe keeps saying stuff like this about the Democrats. Despite their best efforts, I still think the Democrats will have a hard time losing the presidential election this year. If they win, there will be nowhere for Joe to go. No cabinet position, no Supreme Court position, no nothing. He’ll be stuck in the Senate, and if he keeps saying stuff like this the Democrats might just grow enough of a spine to move Joe back to the extreme backbench, where he can live out the remainder of his political life in the ignominy that he deserves.
[From Last Democrat Standing]
The Washington Post runs against type today and gives some space to Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has opposed the Iraq war from the start.
Nothing he says is much different than you can read, for instance, at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment every day, but it’s important that it appears in the pages of a paper that helped mightily to get us into this quagmire, and has regularly given a platform to those who have been so often wrong about this conflict. Here’s a bit of what Brezinski has to say:
Contrary to Republican claims that our departure will mean calamity, a sensibly conducted disengagement will actually make Iraq more stable over the long term. The impasse in Shiite-Sunni relations is in large part the sour byproduct of the destructive U.S. occupation, which breeds Iraqi dependency even as it shatters Iraqi society. In this context, so highly reminiscent of the British colonial era, the longer we stay in Iraq, the less incentive various contending groups will have to compromise and the more reason simply to sit back. A serious dialogue with the Iraqi leaders about the forthcoming U.S. disengagement would shake them out of their stupor.
Ending the U.S. war effort entails some risks, of course, but they are inescapable at this late date. Parts of Iraq are already self-governing, including Kurdistan, part of the Shiite south and some tribal areas in the Sunni center. U.S. military disengagement will accelerate Iraqi competition to more effectively control their territory, which may produce a phase of intensified inter-Iraqi conflicts. But that hazard is the unavoidable consequence of the prolonged U.S. occupation. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it will be for a viable Iraqi state ever to reemerge.
It is also important to recognize that most of the anti-U.S. insurgency in Iraq has not been inspired by al-Qaeda. Locally based jihadist groups have gained strength only insofar as they have been able to identify themselves with the fight against a hated foreign occupier. As the occupation winds down and Iraqis take responsibility for internal security, al-Qaeda in Iraq will be left more isolated and less able to sustain itself. The end of the occupation will thus be a boon for the war on al-Qaeda, bringing to an end a misguided adventure that not only precipitated the appearance of al-Qaeda in Iraq but also diverted the United States from Afghanistan, where the original al-Qaeda threat grew and still persists.
Speaking of Juan Cole, today he reports that Iran is calling for an end to the violence. He also, again, points out something that is not often mentioned in our stateside reporting, but is widely recognized overseas: the U.S. is backing the Shiite party that is most closely aligned to Iran (see, Axis of Evil):
The Iranian foreign ministry called Saturday for an end to the fighting, saying that it strengthens the US hand in Iraq and may have the consequence of prolonging the US presence. Iran tends to back the Da’wa Party of Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, so it is significant that Tehran is criticizing this push by those two to destroy the Sadr Movement. I take them at their word. They are genuinely afraid that al-Maliki’s poorly conceived campaign will backfire and that Bush will use it to insist on keeping troops in Iraq.
Looks like we’re on track to have one of those Southeastern Connecticut springs, when the weather stays cool until somewhere around the end of May, when it suddenly becomes blazing hot. My wife’s records say we often have daffodils by this point, though not always.
Yesterday I spotted a crocus. Not much, but at least a sign, however slight, that spring is coming.
Regular readers of the excellent blog Pharyngula can stop right here. For the rest of you folks, I must bring you up to date on a controversy brewing in the ongoing wars between scientists and crackpots over evolution. It has been covered extensively at Pharyngula, whose blogmeister, PZ Meyers, world renowned atheist and biologist, was among the many evolutionary scientists who were tricked into being interviewed for a movie, the premises of which was to be, unbeknownst to them, that “scientific” views opposed to evolution were being persecuted. Among other things the scientists were told that the movie was to be called “Crossroads”, when in fact it was to be called “Expelled”, a reference to the alleged expulsion of “creation science” from the garden of academia. Their views were artfully edited for the movie, which was, for reasons unclear, recently premiered in Minneapolis, which happens to be Meyers’ stomping grounds.
Meyers’ obtained an invitation to attend the screening through the film’s website, but was threatened with arrest by the producers, who for some reason were reluctant to let him see the movie in which he appeared. The full story is contained on several recent posts at his blog, which the curious should have no trouble finding. Rather than court arrest, Meyers left, but his guests, who also had passes, were allowed to attend. Unfortunately for the producers, who should really take better care, one of those guests was Richard Dawkins, a more high profile voice of the godless (and also among the duped scientists) than Meyers. His review of the film can be read here.
Of interest is the fact that the film is fronted by Ben Stein, a true 21st century Renaissance man. Ben writes a column for the New York Times, and is billed as a “lawyer, writer, actor and economist”. That’s right, Ben has no talent across a broad range of activities. Given the present state of our culture, in which only those who are consistently wrong are accorded respect, he is a true giant, since he presumes to speak on a wide range of subjects, and is wrong about all of them.
Here he is last September, giving us the word on high about the subprime crisis, which was just breaking into the news at that point:
Yes, there are real problems: housing, mortgage defaults, losses at financial firms, rot in hedge funds. But over all, things will be fine. Unless there is a genuine dollar crisis or a devastating recession (very unlikely), things will work out. This economy is very big and very solid. It cannot be derailed for long by anything we have seen lately.
If I were the editor of the business section for just one day, I would run one immense headline: “Everything Is Going to Be Fine. Go Back to Work.”
Ben is still writing for the Times. About economics. Really.
Okay, I do this with some reluctance, but I am sick of cold weather, and this song, California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas, came to mind. I know they are something of a cliche, but the song brings back pleasant memories. I searched in vain for a non-lip synched version, but could find none. There was no attempt, in this video, to even try to match the words with the action. The advantage, I guess, is that the audio is excellent. In looking around I caught a portion of an interview with John Phillips in which he said that they were a studio band, which may explain the lack of a good concert version. Anyway, here they are:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wI6uAOHzvo[/youtube]
Now, I can’t resist reproducing this comment that was on the youtube page where this video is displayed:
im in 6th class and last year we dida play on the sixties and we dressed up as hippies and sang this song it was soo much fun
We are sooo ancient history.
According to MSNBC the nations investment banks are borrowing an average of 32.9 billion dollars a day from the Fed. I think even nowadays that’s a lot of money. The total proposed budget for the state of Connecticut for the fiscal year 2009 is about 18.4 billions, which means that the banks are borrowing a little less that twice Connecticut’s annual budget every day. Other comparisons suggest themselves. The amount borrowed in three days would be enough to fund Hillary Clinton’s health plan for a year. One day would pay for three months of the immoral war. Finally, that kind of money would allow me to get a new computer every day with a new camera thrown in on weekends for the rest of my life, guaranteeing that I would die with the most toys.
Imagine, if you will, that one of our states had created a fiscal mess of the magnitude of that created by these investment bankers. Would the federal government come through with money with no strings attached? (Hint: No). Oh, sure, the banks have to pay the money back, but if they don’t we taxpayers will have no redress, except some overvalued junk assets. If the banks do pay the money back, they will, if the Republicans have anything to say about it, be allowed to go their merry way, with full freedom to wreak havoc through more fiscal chicanery, free of those burdensome regulations which might have prevented the present disaster. Either way, whether the banks re-pay us or not, the executives who led us into this mess will remain filthy rich and reap further ample rewards for their failure, while paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than you or me. Oh sure, some of them are suffering. James Cayne, the guy who ran Bear Stearns into the ground, just sold all his Bear Stearns stock, stock that was valued at over a billion dollars just a few weeks ago. The poor guy had to make do with a mere 61.3 million dollars. To put that in perspective, he could probably only afford to buy a new computer every other day for the rest of his life. But before you shed too many tears, remember that’s just what he got for his stock. Who knows what he did with those multi-million dollar bonuses he gave himself every year for crafting the business strategy that got Bear Stearns where it is today. But we can’t fault him, can we? Who could have predicted that lending money to people who can’t afford to re-pay wouldn’t work out?
I freely admit, by the way, that I don’t know precisely how a Fed loan of 32.9 billion is accomplished. Is it the functional equivalent of printing money? I don’t know. But I’m convinced that however it is accomplished, 32.9 billion is a lot of money. The folks who slept while this crisis was brewing must be deathly scared now, since they have abandoned their orthodoxies to bail out these sharks.
