SocraticGadfly

• Light at end of economic tunnel in three-five months?

  Possibly so, according to the National Associaton of Business Economists.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 3:21pm EST
  

• Obey wants surtax to pay for A-stan

  The powerful chair of the House Appropriations Committee says that if President Barack Obama wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, he, Obey, will bring a surtax bill to the floor.
  
  It’s about time. And, Obey isn’t alone. On the Senate side, Carl Levin has similar ideas. This [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 2:30pm EST
  

• White to run for Texas gov, NOT Senate?

  Looks like Kay Bailey Hutchison’s delay in leaving her Senate seat is affecting both parties and not just the GOP.
  
  It also would seem to indicate White doesn’t think the Texas Cheerleader will beat Gov. Helmethair in the GOP primary. It's also an indication of which race he [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:01pm EST
  

• White to run for Texas gov, NOT Senate?

  Looks like Kay Bailey Hutchison’s delay in leaving her Senate seat is affecting both parties and not just the GOP.
  
  It also would seem to indicate White doesn’t think the Texas Cheerleader will beat Gov. Helmethair in the GOP primary.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:01pm EST
  

• The truth about GM ‘repayment’

  Is that you and I, the taxpayers, are hugely on the hook for mega-millions that will likely never be repaid and could become a campaign issue next year.
  
  No wonder the Obama Administration wants an IPO, just to get away from the General which, as noted, makes cars [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:54am EST
  

• Douthat reams Palin, Huckabee and GOP

  First, the two 2012 presidential frontrunners are chewed out for leaning to celebritydom. After that, the rest of the party gets it for being vacuous on serious economic issues in part because the folks at the top are chasing celebrity.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:43am EST
  

• The conscience of a true health care Democrat

  Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman need to listen to Colorado colleague Michael Bennet to find a concscience on national health care.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 22, 2009, 8:35pm EST
  

• Rowan pissed at Benedict

  Specifically, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is in high dudgeon at Pope Benedict XVI for his blatant sheep-stealing move on trying to get Anglican priests to scurry to Rome.
  
  But, at the end, they kissed and made nice, in a way.There is no god and I am [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 22, 2009, 1:32am EST
  

• David Broder’s self-righteous budget hand-wringing

  All that and more are in the latest column of the man Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just recently derided as the retiree who rites an occasional column.
  
  And rightly so, on Reid’s derision. Broder refuses to accept the word of the Congressional Budget office about the bill. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 22, 2009, 1:12am EST
  

• Wanted: better citizens

  After starting his latest column with his “flat earth” schtick, Tom Friedman then goes Pogo-esque and, talking about America’s political dysfunctionality, essentially says, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
  
  That said, while descriptive, Friedman isn’t very prescriptive on HOW to change that. (Often, columnists aren't.)' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 22, 2009, 12:50am EST
  

• The stimulus is working – although too small

  Mainstream economists are weighing in a general thumbs-up for the results of the Obama economic stimulus plan. Mark Zandi says unemployment would be above 11 percent without it. And, as President Obama and Congressional leaders talk about a jobs bill, they should note that folks like Zandi all agree [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 21, 2009, 11:06am EST
  

• Karzai would 'fall in weeks'

  If the US and NATO forces pull out of Afghanistan, that is.
  
  That’s not my prediction of the possible future of Afghanistan’s president, either, though I largely concur. Rather, it’s the words of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Miliband argues that’s why the UK, and the US, and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 21, 2009, 2:23am EST
  

• Krugman: What Geither got wrong

  Clearly refuting fellow columnist David Brooks’ love fest for little Timmeh Geithner, Paul Krugman says the current Treasury secretary was a clusterfuck at the NY Fed, and hasn’t looked a lot better on his current job.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 12:52pm EST
  

• Vatican researcher claims Shroud is real

  Barbara Frale claims computer enhancing let her see Greek, Latin and Aramaic words on the Shroud of Turin.
  
  First, I want a list of the experts to whom she showed her photos.
  
  Second, I want her to show the photos to the general public. Especially to [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 12:29pm EST
  

• Crowdsourcing, New Media and bad media

  The Big Money’s good article on the perils of TripAdvisor should give you crowdsourcing touters, especially ones who are also New Media touters (I’m thinking of a science editor in North Carolina, among others!) something to think about.
  
  Preferred media may just be crappy media; another reason to [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:27am EST
  

• One big reason Senate health care bill is good

  This one reason, from Ezra Klein, is enough:
  7) Forcing insurers to spend 80 percent of all premium dollars on medical care (75 percent in the individual market), thus capping the money that can go toward administration, profits, etc.
  Assuming it's enforced, without loopholes, the Scrushys of the insurance [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 20, 2009, 11:22pm EST
  

• Note to AP: Learn some American Indian history

  St. Augustine, Fla., is NOT "the oldest permanent city" in the United States. By best reckoning, it's the Sky City pueblo of the Acoma Indians. (The Hopi Indians have their own claim.)There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 8:02pm EST
  

• Rabbi offers cocaine for sex

  This news of the weird story is certainly more proof of the power of, ultimately, multiple addictions, not just one.
  
  And, I love the claim the rabbi made that coke helped him sleep!There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 6:31pm EST
  

• The ‘war industry’

  Gene Lyons is right. Misguided dunderheads of David Broder ilk aside, the increased privatization of the U.S. military means that, far beyond Ike’s famous “military-industrial complex” line, there is a “war industry” sounding the tocsin of battle all in the name of the almighty dollar — even as more [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 1:13am EST
  

• Reich: Raise interest rates!

  Yes, you heard me right. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich says raising U.S. interest rates might be part of what’s need to make the “Wall Street recovery” into the “Main Street recovery.”
  
  Of course, Reich should recognize that President Barack Obama cares little more for bottom-up Main Street [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 12:38am EST
  

• Obama kowtows to China on Fox News

  That about says it all, doesn’t it? Apparently afraid after a Beijing lecture, US President Barack Obama talked to what he used to consider The Dissed Network to turn into a deficit hawk, even to the point of warning about a double-dip recession if he doesn’t act like a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 10:53am EST
  

• Global warming: 6C rise by 2100, and carbon offsets exposed

  The Guardian reports there’s more and more evidence, supporting that likelihood, namely that natural carbon sinks are possibly becoming less effective.
  
  More on the fading efficacy of carbon sinks, in this case, the oceans’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide, is here.
  
  Hence, the “carbon offsets exposed.” [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 2:45am EST
  

• My latest resume – online

  Here you go, folks. Trying to use the Web to get myself in the door somewhere. A full copy of this is available as a Word doc to anyone interested
  
  STEPHEN J. SNYDER
  3727 Andrews Hwy., #702
  Odessa, TX 79762
  Phone numbers available on request
  E-mail: socraticgadfly AT hotmail [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 12:18am EST
  

• McCain aide: Palin book 'fiction'

  And, Nicolle Wallace said this as part of a TV interview, even though Schmuck Talk Express himself has asked his campaign staff not to do that. The long knives are out for Palin.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:11pm EST
  

• Goldman Sachs now Guilt-ridden Sachs? Or PR Sachs?

  Or, rather, are Sachs and fellow financial bailout hog-trougher Warren Buffet just buying PR with their $500 million small business capital line of credit?
  
  You know the answer? $500M is a drop in Buffet's bucket, let alone that of Sachs.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:03pm EST
  

• Fox boo-hoos AP's Palin fact-checking

  Fox calls it overkill and politically motivated for the Associated Press to have used 11 people to fine-tooth-comb "Going Rogue."
  
  Well, she's told enough whoppers, the AP was simply being prepared.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 18, 2009, 11:01pm EST
  

• The US-China joint sellout on Copenhagen

  The popular German magazine Spiegel wonders if the two nations didn’t deliberately cook up their APEC announcement that the Copenhagen climate summit would have no legally binding agreement, including accepting that each country would blame the other, for domestic consumption.
  “China and the US have more room for maneuver [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:59am EST
  

• Spiegel reams Obama on climate change

  The popular German magazine says U.S. President Barack Obama lied in Berlin a year ago, has sold out to the lobbyists he said he would fight, and has forfeited his claim to be a world citizen.
  
  The magazine then faults average Americans’ notable insularity:
  For most Americans, the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 10:44am EST
  

• No love for Tricky Ricky Perry in top Texas GOP

  Ten of Texas’ 20 GOP Congressmen have already endorsed Kay Bailey Hutchison; the rest are likely to sit it out. At least one, Rep. Kenny Marchant, thinks Gov. Helmethair has already served long enough and shouldn’t even be running again.
  
  Geez, Kenny has more sense than I knew.There [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:13am EST
  

• Why not stimulus money for the Small Biz Admin?

  Big Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, is the latest person Washington mahatma to rue the lack of bank lending to small businesses. So, why not give the SBA a bunch of stimulus money?There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:04pm EST
  

• Tim Geithner, best bud of AIG and Sachs

  An audit faults the New York Federal Reserve Bank, then led by Tim Geithner, now our Treasury Secretary, for being too kind to AIG’s trading partners when it was bailed out last year. And, of course, a huge AIG partner was Goldman Sachs.There is no god and I am [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 10:37pm EST
  

• A new philosophy for pledging allegiance

  First, yes, Michael Lind is spot on. We should be pledging to other people, not the government.
  
  Second, I like that a 10-year-old kid whose parents have gay friends refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school because it’s not liberty and justice for all.There is no [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 10:05pm EST
  

• Big Pharma pockets Obama bribery

  And raises drug prices 9 percent. That’s just enough to cancel out any savings pledges from the top drugmakers. Gee, what a surprise.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 7:30pm EST
  

• Wingers should blame W, selves for alleged Obama kowtow to China

  To the degree it’s true that President Barack Obama is allegedly soft-shoeing China on civil rights and other issues, blame George W. Bush’s massive war debt.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 1:01pm EST
  

• Google, AP and paywalls

  Here’s some very interesting thoughts from Josh Cohen of Google News.
  
  Very interesting, indeed. I wish he’d been asked more, by the interviewer, Danny Sullivan, about the *rates* AP and other wires charge Google, et al, whether they're high enough, whether they should be set high enough to' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 11:44am EST
  

• How China helped Pakistan get the Bomb

  And then lied about it. And still does.
  
  As this Times of India story notes, US President Barack Obama probably isn’t happy about having details of this leak out in the midst of his first Asian trip.
  
  But, before Mao died, even, China was sending uranium compounds [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 2:35am EST
  

• China bemoans low US interest rates

  Ahh, well, you dance with who brung you, Beijing. I was going to suggest you might want to revalue the yuan, but the Bloomberg piece suggests that’s already in the possible works.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 2:27am EST
  

• Pakistan ISI hoist by own petard

  It’s an open secret that the Taliban in Afghanistan is to some degree a creation of Pakistan’s “military within a military,” it’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Well, first, the Taliban expanded into border agencies of Pakistan, along with allied but independent groups. Now, they’re attacking the ISI.
  
  That said, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 15, 2009, 1:15am EST
  

• Copenhagen climate round gutted

  In one sense, this decision is political realism, both here in the US and internationally.
  
  On the domestic side, I hope that President Obama and Congress use the breathing space to get serious about a jobs bill. Out of both political need and political smarts.There is no god [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 10:37pm EST
  

• Dear GOP: If you want more A-stan troops, cough up the bucks

  It’s that simple. For that matter, the same applies to you, Mr. President.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 1:59pm EST
  

• It’s about the jobs, Obama and Democrats

  Both Bob Herbert and Charles Blow recognize and stress that.
  
  That said, on Obama’s job summit, or Senate Majority Leader Reid’s jobs bill, what sort of jobs? How much help to get them?
  
  You’re losing the country’s confidence.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 11:17am EST
  

• Child abuse affects the child brain

  More and more, through things such as human physiological research, specifically on suicide victims, and discussed more here, it’s clear that child abuse, especially to younger children, can change both the structure of the human brain and how it expresses itself.
  
  The first study, albeit with very [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 2:15am EST
  

• Nothing corny about global warming

  Literally, that is. Due to corn’s temperature sensitivity, global warming could severly hit US corn harvests, barring some lucky new round of genetic engineering.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 14, 2009, 12:13am EST
  

• German tourists' remains found in Death Valley?

  German boyfriend and girlfriend tourists, and their two kids, who had the "bright" idea of taking a minivan on some of Death Valley National Park's worst unpaved roads, in the summer of 1996, went missing. Their apparent remains have apparently finally been found.
  
  "Bright"? Three of the four' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:02pm EST
  

• Palin goes 'rogue' on facts

  The AP gives her a thorough checking, and finds, among other things, that she blames Bush II-initiated bailouts all on Obama, claims Reagan abolished estate taxes and more, including glossing over her big-donor campaign money and Alaskan ethics issues.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 7:57pm EST
  

• Could US-China talks spur climate agreement?

  Oh, the idea sounds optimistic on paper, or in the paper, but, color me somewhat skeptical. That said, Copenhagen climate summit expectations are now so low, any achievement at all next week between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao would get trumpeted.There is no god and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 7:25pm EST
  

• Easy on the drones, Obama

  Ed Cohen notes President Barack Obama’s high use of Predator drones is another case of a big difference between Obama the candidate and Obama the president. He also says we need to be talking more about ethical issues behind drone use.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:16pm EST
  

• Indian claims global warming NOT melting Himalaya glaciers

  Well, claims like this are a guarantee New Delhi will go slow on wanting to address global warming.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 12:06pm EST
  

• Obama immigration plan includes amnesty

  Hmm, in the middle of a high-unemployment recession, I am wondering how amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens will play in Peoria. Or, on Capitol Hill.
  
  AG Janet Napolitano was defending the idea as part of a “three-legged stool” in its initial rollout.There is no god and I [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 10:51am EST
  

• Jay Rosen's new media 10 Commandments are wrong

  Starting wit his claim media atomization has been overcome. It hasn't, because of the price level of new media. To the degree it consolidates, then it will professionalize, with some of the issues of "old media."
  
  For instance, more than three years ago, in Dallas, a group of' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:12pm EST
  

• Not so fast on more A-stan troops

  That’s the word from Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and also a retired three-star general. From the tone of the story, it appears he may well be behind President Obama now asking “exit strategy” questions.
  
  It’s amzong that Bush was too dumb, arrogant, or both, to ask [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 12:57pm EST
  

• A dinosaur ‘missing link’

  A new South African fossil illustrates how quadriped sauropods may have evolved.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 12:53pm EST
  

• Iraq WAS about the oil

  At least, for John Kenneth Galbraith’s son.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 10:36am EST
  

• ‘Internet triumphalism is not a public good’

  Near the end of a long article in the New Republic, arguing why transparency in government issues can sometimes have ambiguous results or worse, Lawrence Lessig goes beyond that near the end he jumps into how the Internet has more generally been a two-edged sword:
  Reformers rarely feel [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 2:11am EST
  

• Ego, skill, taste and citizen journalism

  At Tech Crunch, in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings, Paul Carr totally nails a lot of things on my mind about what happens when you mix “new media” social media tools with “citizen journalism.” It ain’t pretty.
  
  CJR has some good follow-up. But Megan Garber [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 12, 2009, 12:19am EST
  

• Reid plans Senate jobs bill

  While I wish the Senate would move more quickly on a climate bill, I understand indeed that something like this is both a social and a political reality and need. Let’s hope that, unlike Obama’s stimulus bill, it’s not watered down.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 11, 2009, 11:03am EST
  

• David Brooks, even worse than normal

  Just Muslims, and only them, are ultimately to blame for Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. No mention of neocons. No mention of Huntington’s “clash of civilizations,” etc.
  
  At the local level? Nidal Hasan was a dirty, stinking, Muslim fanatic, not a person under stress who then turned to more radical [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 10, 2009, 10:41am EST
  

• US in A-stan for the long term

  Or, at the least it certainly looks that way, as we build as much military infrastructure as we did in Iraq.
  
  And, a lot of it is going toward “contractors” of various sorts. It’s ridiculous.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 10:57pm EST
  

• Three dates: Berlin Wall, 9-11, Lehman collapse

  Michael Lind weaves a compelling story of how they link together as three transition points of the last 20 years most worth note and why.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 8:52pm EST
  

• Did Chrysler lie to government?

  With it now rejecting plans to build an electric car, one most wonder whether Chrysler really planned to do that in the first place, or just said that as part of angling for government bailout money.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 12:53pm EST
  

• Why? The government doesn’t even have a ...

  Why? The government doesn’t even have a handle on how much imports, whether manufacturing or services, actually contribute to the economy.
  
  Brilliant!
  
  So, the economy could suck even worse, and perhaps has been for some time, while the current neolib occupant of the White House is [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 12:04pm EST
  

• Murdoch ready to cut Google out of the loop?

  Rupert Murdoch says that, as part of putting paywalls up on News Corporation websites, the company will remove its articles from Google searches. Sounds like a smart idea.
  
  And, he claims it’s what the Wall Street Journal already does with the part of its content that is paywalled. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 11:08am EST
  

• ‘The G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit’

  Krugman nails it, using last week’s tea-party rally sponsored, officially, by the GOP, as his starting point.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 1:40am EST
  

• You thought the housing bubble was bad?

  Commercial real estate prices are already further off their peak than housing values, and pwith a turnaround even further out of sight.
  
  Unlike housing, it wasn’t overbuilding, but too much money sloshing around the system, spiking prices in commercial real estate as investment.
  
  Full recovery could be [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 1:18am EST
  

• 'Old media' vs. 'new media' and media vs. messages

  "Old media" vs. "new media"? The difference is ultimately in the medium more than the message quality. Yes, blogs have broken news stories before the "MSM" and Twitter has added color to stories, but Twitter has releasd just as much inaccurate info as the MSM outlets at breaking news events, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 09, 2009, 11:41pm EST
  

• Does McChrystal not know his own Army doctrine?

  In light of reports that US President Barack Obama wants to send 34,000 more troops, reportedly; that’s four-fifths of a loaf for Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, but far less than Army doctrine says will do:
  The Army's counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 10:02pm EST
  

• Is the U.S. becoming more like Russia?

  That’s what a provocative new essay in Salon hints.
  
  I would slightly modify that, though. I think it’s that we’re becoming more like China, instead, since there’s not a Mafioso thuggery involved in the U.S. version of crony capitalism.There is no god and I am his prophet.[...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 9:32pm EST
  

• The Berlin Wall fall 20 years on – regrets?

  One professional class former East German probably speaks for many of her compatriots with a laundry list of regrets. Meanwhile, an American regrets how Eastern Europe of the 1990s evolved tangled state-private open-door networks similar to today’s American system that caused the financial meltdown.There is no god and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 8:39pm EST
  

• Obama ready to ramp up in Afghanistan?

  He wants to send 34,000 more troops, reportedly; that’s four-fifths of a loaf for Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, but far less than Army doctrine says will do:
  The Army's counterinsurgency manual estimates that an all-out counterinsurgency campaign in a country with Afghanistan's population would require about 600,000 troops.
  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 8:32pm EST
  

• A Dem, maybe two with guts to vote no on 'health care'?

  Per Huffington Post, it’s clear Dennis Kucinich opposed what he saw as a sellout to the insurance industry. I don’t know for sure about Artur Davis, but, per this NY Times graphic, he may have had similar reasons.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 11:41am EST
  

• Many Afghans don't want more US troops either

  With sentiments like this on the rise, why would we send 40,000 more troopsThere is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 12:47am EST
  

• Treasury says no to Sachs

  What? Refusing to give Goldman Sachs cut rate at the government hog trough? Is the apocalypse nigh?There is no god and I am his prophet.' [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 08, 2009, 11:14pm EST
  

• Malcolm Gladwell, deconstructed

  The Nation has an in-depth explainer of how, if you feel like you’re eating cotton candy when you read Gladwell, you actually are!There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 07, 2009, 12:32pm EST
  

• The Nation still rides the Obama pony

  It’s kind of sad for Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel to still talk about Barack Obama as a progressive president. Coming from someone theoretically that well informed, I’d have to call that a conscious, deliberate lie of some sort. That’s doubly true since she next lists all the disappointments of [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 07, 2009, 11:09am EST
  

• Facebook fun and games is big bucks

  Only, you don’t get a cut. Beyond your privacy, and often that of your friends, being infringed by various Facebook game apps, what’s ultimately happening is you’re setting yourself up to be the target of a shitload of spam advertising, whether via e-mail, on Facebook pages or elsewhere.
  
  [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 07, 2009, 1:20am EST
  

• No Zelaya in Honduran power – whose fault?

  Well, it looks like former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya won’t be sharing any power for a final few months, until the country’s new government, to be chosen Nov. 29, takes power.
  
  I’d assign blame about 50-50 between him and the Honduran Congress. That said, will the “international community” [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 06, 2009, 10:56am EST
  

• So much for ‘high-unemployment old Europe’

  Can we finally put this hypercapitalist rightist American myth to rest? Here’s the reality: Topping things off, “hard to fire people” German is two percentage points lower in unemployment than the US. The UK is also lower; France is even.
  
  Beyond that, this is comparing apples to oranges, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 06, 2009, 12:18am EST
  

• Apparently the GOP DOES favor stimulus measures

  An extension of unemployment benefits, and a home-buyer tax credit, both in the original Obama stimulus package but set to expire, were approved with near unanimity by both houses of Congress.
  
  The vote? It was 403-12 in the House and 90-0 in the Senate.
  
  On a similar [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 10:59pm EST
  

• Good news for Texas air

  Al Armendariz, the Southern Methodist University engineering professor who has been highly critical of the Texas Commmission on Environmental Quality's battles against smog in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Midlothian cement kiln pollution and other things, is the new Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 administrator. Merry Christmas, Rick Perry!There is [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 7:33pm EST
  

• No Copenhagen climate treaty this year?

  British Climate Secretary Ed Miliband says expect only a political deal, not an actual treaty.
  
  No real surprise there. And, contra warnings from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Denmark's Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and US chief climate negotiator Todd Stern that only a "politically binding" agreement can now [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 4:00pm EST
  

• More 2009 elections post-mortem

  First, should Democrats worry? Well, besides independents breaking GOP, which quaisi-Democratic bloggers try to write off as “conventional wisdom” or whatever, per Larry Sabato, there’s the matter of horrendous turnout, at least in Virginia. (That said, Sabato partially localizes that.)
  
  The economy per Larry Sabato, and, how [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 11:48am EST
  

• Toyota just refuses to get it

  Whether or not it has vehicular sudden acceleration defects, the perception is it does. For Toyota to claim it doesn’t, as part of a recall, to the point of getting an official federal slapdown makes me wonder if it’s not as bad as some more arrogant American-based companies.There is [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 10:44am EST
  

• GM, Opel and bailouts

  As you can see on the right, I still have up my poll on when GM will get out of bankruptcy. And, by that, I don’t mean a judge’s ruling on paper. I mean, when will the government no longer own part of it.
  
  Well, GM’s reneging on [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 1:10am EST
  

• Hey, pseudo-liberal Obamiacs – stop the MSM-bashing

  I love all the dyed-in-the-wool Democrats seeing a “horse race” line coming out of the so-called mainstream media, or MSM, about how Tuesday’s election was a “referendum” on Obama that he lost due to the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races.
  
  The truth? Not quite that.
  
  Here, the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 05, 2009, 12:36am EST
  

• CIA: Guilty in Italy

  An Italian court has convicted 23 CIA agents and others over an illegal rendition kidnapping. The CIA response? Straight from the pages of Uncle Fester, Dick Cheney. From one of those convicted:
  (Former Milan CIA station chief Robert) Lady has since retired and whose whereabouts are unknown. In [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 04, 2009, 12:47pm EST
  

• An Afghan surge with mercenaries?

  Per Tom Friedman’s column, wouldn’t that be the ultimate shotgun wedding of war hawkery and neoliberalism?
  
  And, it wouldn’t totally surprise me, either.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 04, 2009, 11:19am EST
  

• 1989, and successful and failed revolutions

  Ed Cohen compares and contrasts the fall of communism in Eastern Europe 20 years ago with its post-Tiananmen strengthening in China, while wondering, in the long term, which way things will play out in Iran.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 11:39am EST
  

• Dump Orrin Hatch alt-med national healthcare

  Utah’s senior senator, perhaps the Senate’s No. 1 backer of alt-medical “treatment,” snuck a deal in Senate HELP Committee’s national healthcare bill to pay for Christian Science prayer treatments and such. It doesn’t mention the church by name, but the rider forbids discrimination against “spiritual medicine.”
  
  Rep. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 10:40am EST
  

• Half of kids will be on food stamps

  Yes, sometime before turning 18, half, half of today’s kids will be on food stamps if you have a delinquent mortgage.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 1:09am EST
  

• Goldman Sachs, friendly neighborhood repo man

  G. Sachs, on top of all its bailout money, its being enabled to play fast and loose again with investment risks by Team Obama, etc., also be the company wanting your home if you have a delinquent mortgage.
  
  Worse yet, it’s too chickenshit to be up front about [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 12:38am EST
  

• How does West Texas feel about Chinese-made wind power?

  Will various winger conspiratists in west Texas get up in arms about this?There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 11:49pm EST
  

• Who’s killing the nuclear inspections scientists?

  After the second suspicious death in a year at International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna, it’s a question that might need asking.There is no god and I am his prophet. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 03, 2009, 11:42pm EST
  

• NYT clueless about Fox

  John Harwood claims that the audiences at other news channels have tilted as sharply as Fox. That is surely true, but, audiences aren’t producers or programming. The viewers are leaving Fox because there’s nothing there for them if they’re not wingers; it’s not that CNN or, with partial exception, [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 02, 2009, 12:23pm EST
  

• Douthat half-right on third parties

  He’s quite right to note their effect in the New Jersey governor’s race and the NY-23 Congressional special election, and to call for more of the same tonic. He’s quite wrong to belittle third-party presidential candidates as too narrowly focused, and hypocritical for using the argument for third-party Congressional [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 02, 2009, 11:16am EST
  

• Next battle: selling healthcare reform’s benefits

  Assuming Congress passes some sort of healthcare bill, E.J. Dionne is right: Next comes the battle over selling its benefits. That said, both of the major parties will tell whoppers. The GOP will call it socialism, while Dems will make absurd claims for any emasculated “public option” that might [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 02, 2009, 12:49am EST
  

• Newspaper columnist too dumb to know who pays his bills

  A columnist for Long Island’s daily newspaper, Newsday, has quit. Why? The newspaper is putting up a paywall on his website.
  
  Great, not only are there freeloaders outside the newspaper office, they have aiders and abetters inside.
  
  Goodbye, Saul Friedman.
  
  Three other comments.
  
  One, don’t [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:57pm EST
  

• The latest Obama-Sachs Wall Street ‘socialism’

  That “financial regulation reform bill” that’s supposedly starting to work its way through Congress? It ain’t such a thing at all. It would allow Tim Geithner or future Treasury Secretaries to make Hank Paulson look like a TARP piker.
  
  Why? The new bill, which Rep. Brad Sherman called “TARP [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:26pm EST
  

• Is post-peak America now here?

  The perceptive Michael Klare, who writes on energy and national security issues for The Nation and elsewhere, argues that the greedy clusterfucks at Goldman Sachs, AIG, et al, leading to the economic crack-up that has the dollar in the crapper have brought 2025 15 years closer.
  
  And, while [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:09pm EST
  

• Coal not best way to cut CO2 by capture

  Rather, because it tends to have a “purer” stream of carbon dioxide emissions, not only natural gas refining, but even oil refining is a better place to look for carbon capture. If this shouldn’t sound the death knell for building more coal-fired electric power plants, what will?There is no [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 01, 2009, 7:54am EST
  

• The GOP Stalinists

  Frank Rich has a very good column on the NY-23 Congressional special election and how, win or lose for Hoffman, it’s bad news for the future of the GOP. Without being 100 percent hopeful this exiles the GOP further to the wilderness, and without totally wanting that in this [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: November 01, 2009, 1:35am EDT