04 September 2008
Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
04 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Strategically, my biggest quibble is that I don't see how you out-"change" and out-reform Obama. His credibility there has been pretty well-established. I'm not sure it helps to finish a close second on change if, in the process, you mostly junk the experience argument, which is a real vulnerability for him.
Obama is presented as the "insider". Sure he's an insider who promises change and reform but it has to be pretty simple to get the message across that real change/reform requires outsiders. Indeed over at NRO Victor Davis Hanson points out that one clear differentiator between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden is the lack of lawyers on the Republican ticket.Sarah Palin's speech last night was rapturously received by the delegates to the Republican convention, most of whom are conservative Christians. But just because most Republicans are conservative Christians does not mean that all conservative Christians are Republican. I have the feeling that Palin's speech will not wear well among many of the primarily younger evangelicals I have come to know.
I do not believe that "most Republicans are conservative Christians" In fact from what I've seen a large part of the problem McCain had was that he was neither appealing to the libertarian wing nor to the conservative Christian wing. Palin appeals to both.
06 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
06 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.
This caused the Obamanaics to come up with the (admittedly good at first sight) rejoinder - Jesus was a community organizer, Pilate was a governor. However the response doesn't stand up for long when you consider that Jesus actually did not organize his "community" to counter Roman Imperialism or slavery or any of the other injustices of life in palestine 2000 years ago. About the only "change" that Jesus actually tried to implement was to clear out the corrupt priests, money changers etc. in the temple and arguably that was what led to the Jewish leadership getting Pilate to crucify him on mostly trumped up charges.... Obama was working for a group of churches that were concerned about their parishioners, many of whom had been laid off when the steel mills closed on the south side of Chicago. They hired Obama to help those stunned people recover and get the services they needed--job training, help with housing and so forth--from the local government. It was, dare I say it, the Lord's work--the sort of mission Jesus preached (as opposed to the war in Iraq, which Palin described as a "task from God.")
This is what Palin and Giuliani were mocking. They were making fun of a young man's decision "to serve a cause greater than himself," in the words of John McCain. They were, therefore, mocking one of their candidate's favorite messages. Obama served the poor for three years, then went to law school. To describe this service--the first thing he did out of college, the sort of service every college-educated American should perform, in some form or other--as anything other than noble is cheap and tawdry and cynical in the extreme.
However the description at TNR makes it clear that Obama was disillusioned with community organizing because it didn't actually work:Obama attempted to put these principles into practice in South Chicago. Kellman and Kruglik's initial objective was to revive the region's manufacturing base--and preserve what remained of its steel industry--by working with unions and church groups to pressure companies and the city; but those hopes were quickly dashed. Indeed, during his three years in South Chicago, Obama was constantly having to scale back his objectives as one project after another faltered. First, he got community members to demand a job center that would provide job referrals, but there were few jobs to distribute. Then, he tried to create what he called a "second-level consumer economy" in Roseland consisting of shops, restaurants, and theaters. This, too, went nowhere. At that point, Kellman advised Obama to move elsewhere. "Stay here, and you are bound to fail," he told him.
But Obama remained. Next, he began to focus on providing social services for Altgeld Gardens. "We didn't yet have the power to change state welfare policy, or create local jobs, or bring substantially more money into the schools," he wrote. "But what we could do was begin to improve basic services at Altgeld--get the toilets fixed, the heaters working, the windows repaired." Obama helped the residents wage a successful campaign to get the Chicago Housing Authority to promise to remove asbestos from the units; but, after an initial burst of activity, the city failed to keep its promise. (As of last year, some residences still had not been cleared of asbestos.) In waging these campaigns, Obama's organization added staff, gained adherents, and won church support, including from the congregation of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But it failed to stem the area's overall decline. "Ain't nothing gonna change, Mr. Obama," says one resident quoted in Dreams from My Father who grows disillusioned with the Developing Communities Project. "We just gonna concentrate on saving our money so we can move outta here as fast as we can."
So while yes it is admirable that Obama did some community organizing (A for effort, A for hear in right place) it is also worth pointing out that it had minimal results (F for changes implemented).2) Review of Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) documents shows that Ayers and Obama each chaired the two CAC operating bodies from 1995 to 2000
3) CAC was at heart of Chicago school “wars” in 90s
4) CAC handed out more than $100 million in Chicago school system
5) CAC failed to improve student achievement but Ayers and Obama’s political goals were tackled
In 2003 the final technical report of the CCSR on the CAC was published. The results were not pretty. The “bottom line” according to the report was that the CAC did not achieve its goal of improvement in student academic achievement and nonacademic outcomes. While student test scores improved in the so-called Annenberg Schools that received some of the $150 million disbursed in the six years from 1995 to 2001,
“This was similar to improvement across the system….There were no statistically significant differences in student achievement between Annenberg schools and demographically similar non-Annenberg schools. This indicates that there was no Annenberg effect on achievement.”
07 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
| Format | Price | Availability | Publication Date |
| Hardback | £17.99 | In Stock | 02/02/2007 |
eBook - Adobe eReader  | £14.99 | In Stock | 01/05/2007 |
| Paperback | £7.99 | In Stock | 04/01/2008 |
| eBook - Adobe Digital Edition | £7.99 | In Stock | 28/08/2008 |
| eBook - MobiPocket | £7.99 | In Stock | 28/08/2008 |
08 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Republicans are left to wonder if it will ever be possible to wear those plush-toy hats in the shape of an elephant - the symbol of their party - anywhere else on earth.
One wonders how many inappropriate pieces of clothing in the shape of a donkey the Democrat delegates are destined for a similar fate? Then there is:Neither party appears to be enjoying the large, clear bounce in the opinion polls which traditionally follows their conventions.
Historically, candidates have been able to count on a 10% surge in popularity after the party gathering - partly because in modern times they have enjoyed extensive exposure on television against sympathetic and often spectacular backdrops.
Oddly enough, and as noted above, umm McCain is enjoying a bounce . OK maybe not the 15+% bounce of yesteryear but USAToday etc. (above) reports McCain up ahead and as Rich Galen reports:I am going into screechingly boring detail about this because as of yesterday, the Gallup Track had gone from Obama +8 to McCain +3 a convention bounce of 11 percentage points for McCain/Palin.
An 11% change sounds like a bounce to me but not apparently to the BBC, who then compound their idiocy with this:In other words, the tale of the opinion polls is not varying very much.
Most show Mr Obama in front, but when you take into account the statistical margin of error they don't show him in front by very much.
There is plenty to worry strategists from both parties in those numbers.For Republicans, the concern is obvious. Mr McCain does appear to be persistently behind, albeit by relatively small margins.
Even Saturday it was possible to find hints that McCain was surging but the BBC clearly didn't bother looking. And rather than analyze reasons why Obama might be less inspiring (elitism, stupid policies) they play the race card:But this is a year when America is suffering a crisis in the housing market, record gasoline prices and rising unemployment under an unpopular president who's conducting wars on two fronts overseas.
Lots of Democrats are concerned that their candidate is not winning by miles - they believe 2008 really should be a Democratic year.
Could it be that for all his charm in interviews, his brilliance onstage and his undoubted mastery of policy detail, Mr Obama is struggling to close the deal with the American public because of the colour of his skin?
Of course they present no evidence for this (indeed the next paragraph or two makes clear there isn't any) but never fear the BBC will now insist that a vote against Obama is a vote for the KKK.
08 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
No, Sarah Palin did not have a torrid love affair with GEN Petraeus while she was in Kuwait visiting AKNG troops.
Readers are invited to add their own as it says at the top:Let's create new smear dismissals before the smears make it to the press. Post your smear in comments in the form of a dismissal. Keep it clean(ish). Make it at least as plausible as the real smears (OK, low bar, but...).
My contributions
10 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Dear Democrats, liberals and the like:
I know it’s a lot to ask at the moment, but could you possibly please stop publicly losing your shit all over the goddamn place? Honestly, it’s embarrassing. Did you really not know that coming out of the GOP convention, the GOP candidate might have a poll bounce? Likewise, were you somehow surprised that the GOP might try very hard to make this campaign about something other than actual issues? Did you expect them to try to run on the last eight years, or even pretend that they own them? What the fuck is wrong with you?
And it goes on in excellent fashion. I disagree with Mr Scalzi's professed view of Governor Palin but I think that he gets the point across very well to the nutroot community who certainly do see Governor Palin in that light (or worse). In fact given the republican response to Obama's lipstick remarks I think that handing the chill pills out all round would be a good thing. I'll get back to "lipstick" in a moment. First I'm going to paste the comment I made chez Scalzi:As far as I can tell this FT article hasn’t been linked to on this thread.
Reading a lot of the comments on this page and even more of the assploding* lib/Dem commentariat elsewhere I get a huge sense of disdain/contempt by lib/Dems for the people they say they want to help. Even more than the ridiculous attacks on Governor Palin and the even more ridiculous lack of any pretense at neutrality by large chunks of the media this contempt is going to lose you an election you should have won. Obama, as a man, sounds OK to me and he has, for the most part, been handling the Palinmania just fine. I think he’s a typical shading the truth politician with dodgy deals in his past but then so is every pol including (surprise) Palin, but I believe he genuinely wants to make changes and I also believe that (duh) a lot of people are hacked off at the Bush government and want a change. So he ought to win easily (and probably be a total Carteresque disaster when he does but that’s irrelevant to this discussion).
He won’t win if he manages to surround himself with people who say essentially “Look you dumb hicks don’t vote for another dumb hick” Currently that’s exactly the impression I get.
Someone in this thread (Laurie Mann #92) wrote about how successful Obama was at signing up volunteers registering voters etc. The really big thing that the Palin pick did was energize a bunchaton of republican supporters to go and do likewise as opposed to doing the minimum. Since we’ve only had a week or so of Palinmania it is too soon to tell whether or not this effort will result in enough ground level campaign volunteers to have an effect but it may well do. Churches are very good community organizers. I’ll note that mocking Palin for her faith and drastically taking some of her statements re: creationism, sex ed, etc out of context are more likely to energise other Christians who fear that the godless liberals are (going to) persecute them than almost anything else.
Also in re 117. I’m pretty sure its Biden who’s going to look like an idiot in the VP debate. Just get the videos of the Alaskan primary and governor debates. Biden (D-MBNA) is going to come across like the sleazy blowhard he is and he is exactly the sort of inside politics pol that Palin is good at picking holes in.
I really recommend the FT article. People responded to it with a certrain amount of "same old lies told be republicans" which misses the point. Democrats/liberals/progressives really do seem to look down on the people in "flyoverstan" and wonder out loud how they can possibly believe the things they do, with the implication that only congenital morons could believe these things. This is the real problem with Obama's "clinging" comments in San Francisco. They fit a well established precedent of Democratic leaders who seem unable to do anything but look down at the people they want the votes from."That's just, just calling some uh the same thing something different. You know you can't uh you, you can put lipstick on a pig, is still a pig"d
Compared with Palin's smooth Pitbull/Lipstick ad lib it is embarrassing and since 40 million people or more watched Palin make that quip it's going to remind them just how natural, normal but well spoken she is compared to the rest of the field.
11 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
11 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Bill Burton, Obama's press secretary, responded in a statement: “It is shameful and downright perverse for the McCain campaign to use a bill that was written to protect young children from sexual predators as a recycled and discredited political attack against a father of two young girls – a position that his friend Mitt Romney also holds. Last week, John McCain told Time magazine he couldn't define what honor was. Now we know why."
Why is it unfortunate? Because unfortunately for Obama the central claim appears to be true:Anyway, having now looked at the text of the sex education bill in question… it’s clear that one of its key purposes was to change existing law that said “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades 6 through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention, transmission and spread of AIDS” to “Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.” Yes, the legislation permitted parents to take their children out of the class. But that was already existing law.
(Note that the legislation also aimed to change the language from “All public elementary, junior high, and senior high 20 school classes that teach sex education and discuss sexual –intercourse shall emphasize that abstinence is the expected norm in that abstinence from sexual intercourse is the only protection that is 100% effective against unwanted teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)” to “All public elementary, junior high, and senior high school classes that teach sex education and discuss sexual activity or behavior shall emphasize that abstinence is an effective method of preventing unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and HIV when transmitted sexually.”)
Yes, there is a section stating that course material ought to be “age and developmentally appropriate.” But the bill also talks about alcohol and drug use education instruction in grades 5 through 12. So the legislation clearly recognized that some topics are best held until later years, but deemed that instruction on sexually-transmitted diseases - not merely "good touch, bad touch" - wasn’t one of them.
Actually in a further zinger the NRO blogger points out that the ad is wrong in one respect - it called the bill an accomplishment which it wasn't because it failed to be passed into law. Sounds like some other great Obama accomplishment such as the Chicago Annenberg Challenge: over $150M spent to improve education in Chicago with the result "There were no statistically significant differences in student achievement between Annenberg schools and demographically similar non-Annenberg schools. This indicates that there was no Annenberg effect on achievement.”
12 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
12 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
We talked about the moral vacuity of modern parenting. “I see extreme spoiling, self-absorption,” she said. “Constant bringing the kids up to love themselves without reflecting on how they affect others.” We talked about the disastrous lack of respect that children now show adults and institutions, and about the ways this lack of respect translates into a very ugly sort of lack of decorum and a lack of basic manners: “This 10-year-old, my daughter’s friend, she comes over and throws down a magazine with John McCain on the cover. ‘Here’s friggin John McCain,’ she says. ‘Let’s see what lies he’s going to tell now.’” She continued: “These 10-year-olds think they’re better than me. That they don’t have to say hello. That they think I’m beneath them.”
You go girl, I was thinking, in so many words, until the talk turned back to politics: “So often these kids that are so incredibly full of themselves, I find their parents are Democrats. The Democrats, they hate ‘us,’ the United States, but they love ‘me,’ that is, themselves,” she said.
Indeed the whole column brings home a couple of things that Democrats/liberals/progressives really really need to understand. One is tactical (and I'll get back to that in a second) and one is strategic. The latter is summed up neatly at the end:Jonathan Haidt, an associate professor of moral psychology at the University of Virginia, argues in an essay this month, “What Makes People Vote Republican?”, that it’s liberals, in fact, who are dangerously blind.
Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.
Perhaps that’s why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals’ skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.
I think that is absolutely right. And it goes in with previous comments in that column (and on this blog and elsewhere) about how contemptuous liberals come across to their opponents. And the comments underneath beautifully (if sometimes ironically) hammer home that point. Phrases like "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" land in the ironic box while this comment shows the empathy of conservatives and the lack on the pregressive side.
12 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
§ Suppose your 14-year-old daughter Willow is brutally raped in her bedroom by an intruder. She becomes pregnant and wants an abortion. Could you tell the parents of America why you think your child and their children should be forced by law to have their rapists' babies?
Because we don't believe in punishing innocent bystanders. The baby didn't ask to be conceived through rape but killing him or her because of how it was conceived is murdering an innocent life. You wouldn't insist on executing an innocent bystander who happens to discover a murder in process so why would you insist on killing a baby?§ You say you don't believe global warming is man-made. Could you tell us what scientists you've spoken with or read who have led you to that conclusion? What do you think the 2,500 scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are getting wrong?
A consensus of 100 or even 2500 scientists are trumped by one scientific fact. As I understand it there are numerous problems with the statistical methods used in the IPCC report and with the models it contains, none of which appear to have predicted the last decade or so of global cooling. The science is not as settled as you seem to believe.§ If you didn't try to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Baker over her refusal to consider censoring books, why did you try to fire her?
I didn't fire her for her censorship. I fired her because she was married to the chief of police who is a scumbag§ What is the European Union, and how does it function?
It's a gathering of most countries in Europe as a confused entity that is half state half confederation of states. For the most part it doesn't function so who cares?§ Forty-seven million Americans lack health insurance. John Goodman, who has advised McCain on healthcare, has proposed redefining them as covered because, he says, anyone can get care at an ER. Do you agree with him?
No, however 47M is probably the wrong number for the uninsured. It certainly includes a number of people who are unwilling to pay for healthcare insurance that they could afford because they believe that current policies which require cover of many unneccessary frills are a poor return on investment and it may well include illegal aliens who should not be here, insured or not. I would prefer to find a solution that permits catastrophic only cover and which permits people to self insure by means of MSAs and similar schemes.§ What is the function of the Federal Reserve?
Ensure the stability of the US financial system. Recently this has seemed to equate to "Bail out democratic donors on Wall Street"§ Cindy and John McCain say you have experience in foreign affairs because Alaska is next to Russia. When did you last speak with Prime Minister Putin, and what did you talk about?
Never. My negotiations have been more with Canada§ Approximately how old is the earth? Five thousand years? 10,000? 5 billion?
Millions if not billions. Estimates beyond millions are subject to scientific theories which are almost impossible to verify. Of course it could be that God created the earth 5,000 years ago with all the clues that make it seem to be older. How can we know? we weren't there to watch.§ You are a big fan of President Bush, so why didn't you mention him even once in your convention speech?
I'm an even greater fan of Ronald Reagan. I didn't mention him either.§ McCain says cutting earmarks and waste will make up for revenues lost by making the tax cuts permanent. Experts say that won't wash. Balancing the Bush tax cuts plus new ones proposed by McCain would most likely mean cutting Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. Which would you cut?
First I'll cut the porkine waste from government. Then if it turns out more cuts are needed we will see where the best place for them is.§ You're suing the federal government to have polar bears removed from the endangered species list, even as Alaska's northern coastal ice is melting and falling into the sea. Can you explain the science behind your decision?
Because the number of polar bears have increased over the last few decades. This is not a sign of a species at risk.§ You've suggested that God approves of the Iraq War and the Alaska pipeline. How do you know?
Either you can't understand English or you've been played for a fool by AP/ABC and a host of others who have decided to twist what I prayed for out of context. I prayed that we would be guided to what God's will is. I hope God approves of both but I cannot know it and I hope furthermore that if God disapproves he will find a way to guide us to the right choice.
12 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Obama’s average male employee earned $54,397.
Obama’s 30 female employees split $1,354,580 among themselves, or $45,152, on average.
andMcCain’s 17 male staffers split $916,914, thus averaging $53,936. His 25 female employees divided $1,396,958 and averaged $55,878.
In other words McCain pays his males and females roughly the same and thus apparently employs both men and women in senior and junior positions in a comparable ratio which Obama appears to not have many well paid women.| Senator | Male Employees | Female Employees | Average Male Salary | Avg Female Salary | Salary Difference (F/M %) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biden | 15 | 25 | $85,144.80 | $55,922.33 | 65.68% |
| McCain | 17 | 25 | $53,259.36 | $55,958.67 | 105.07% |
| Obama | 27 | 30 | $56,298.75 | $45,070.09 | 80.06% |
15 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
Images were discernable up to about 11 inches across, even under our bright fluorescent office lights. But they were definitely faded. And some movie scenes were downright indecipherable. The same went for photos. I’m pretty sure the prototype 3M loaned me at CES in January was brighter as I was able to demonstrate it during a presentation under bright lights to a few hundred people. But I’ll have to do more tests to know for sure. (Even if it’s less than ideal, kudos to 3M for making it work.)
In a dark room, it could project a big enough image to be the ultimate cheap-o home theater.
Der voraussichtliche empfohlene Verkaufspreis wird zwischen 349,00 Euro und 398,00 Euro liegen.
The anticipated recommended sales price will be between €349 and €398.
15 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
"She represents me. She's real. She represents real people," said flight attendant Charlene Bybee, 54, of Sparks, Nev., who wore a black T-shirt with the slogans "I am Sarah Palin" and "Real Women for McCain." Bybee is a self-described "security mom" who has two sons, ages 20 and 24, and was once the runner-up "Miss Nevada." She said she identifies with Palin as a former PTA mom and one-time beauty queen. Bybee, who has been an active Republican volunteer in the past was tepid about McCain's candidacy. But she's so energized by Palin that she's now volunteering for the campaign. "You shouldn't have to be from a major American city to represent most Americans," she said.
Laura Tracy, 27, an unemployed barista from Yerington, Nev., held a sign that read "Hunter Chicks 4 Palin" on one side, and "Sarah Killed My Apathy" with a drawing of a deer rifle and a target on the other. Tracy, who had supported Mitt Romney in the primary, said that she cried the day of Palin's acceptance speech. "I think that it's great that the American people finally have a candidate who they can relate to, with morals," said Tracy, who said the issues she cares the most about are pro-life and the right to bear arms.
Deaun Parker, a 41-year-old single mother of five living in Carson City, who works full-time in workers comp insurance, attended the rally with her 16-year-old daughter Erica, and 12-year-old son Justin, a Boy Scout. "I think that she is a terrific role model for my daughter. She's a role model for me," said Parker, who supported Romney in the primary. Parker described her family as among the "working poor," and said she doesn't want a Democratic administration, which would bring universal health insurance, because she says she doesn't want to pay the taxes for it.
The descriptions remind me quite a bit of the descriptions of the people Judith Warner met for the NY Times and the descriptions we see in coverage of other McCain-Palin events and in the self-described commenters and email-writers who respond to posts and blogs about Sarah Palin. And there is a clear message here that Americans are sick and tired of professional politicians who seem to always end up scratching the back of special interests instead of having principles.Palin's rapturous supporters embrace her because "she represents me." It's the politics of sheer narcissism.
This crudely personalized and debased approach to civic life has always been present, but it's getting stronger, and the Republicans are recklessly exacerbating it. Never mind that if they succeed in dumbing down the electorate and turning politics into the most superficial popularity contest, the country will suffer irreparable harm. Hey, we gotta win this election!
From the GOP's perspective, Palin has all of the virtues of Bush, and none of the drawbacks. She's a red state culture warrior. And in the new GOP gender con game, the fact that she's a woman automatically makes her a "maverick" and an "outsider."
and (a bit earlier)Palin represents the reappearance of the one part of Bush that never died -- the culture warrior. Democrats may have forgotten about the notorious red state-blue state divide, or hoped that the failures of the last eight years had made it go away. But it hasn't. It's been there all along. If Palin catapults McCain to victory, it will be revealed to be the most powerful and enduring force in American politics. And that fact will raise serious questions about the viability of American democracy itself.
The culture war is driven by resentment, on the one hand, and crude identification, on the other. Resentment of "elites," "Washington insiders" and overeducated coastal snobs goes hand in hand with an unreflective, emotional identification with candidates who "are just like me."
The author of this pile of whiney entitlement crud clearly identifies with the "elites," "Washington insiders" and overeducated coastal snobs presumably because he considers himself to be one of them and he doesn't grasp that his lot have squandered their self-perceived right to govern by being caught too many times with their hands in the cookie-jar or each other's pockets. I suspect that the ongoing meltdown of Freddie and Fannie and the resulting disclosures about just how many Washington insiders were involved in delaying discovery that fustercluck is going to really really hurt whichever party is perceived to be the insider party and/or the party of Wall Street. This year it seems the party of Wall Street is the Democratic one, as is the party the provided most of the bosses of Freddy and Fanny including the notorious Jamie Gorelick.
16 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
17 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
A report entitled "A Pragmatic Energy Policy for the UK", by Professor Ian Fells and Candida Whitmill, said renewables would not fill the impending energy gap so old nuclear and coal plants had to be kept going while new ones were built urgently.
"Current UK energy policy is not fit for purpose. Something has to be done about it if we are not going to run into serious problems around about the middle of the next decade," Fells, an advocate of nuclear power, told reporters.
The government should guarantee a minimum electricity price to the power companies for the next 30 years to give them a secure investment outlook to finance the 4 billion pounds each nuclear power plant is likely to cost, he added.
"We are looking at something that looks like a slow motion train crash," Fells said, accusing the government of vacillating over climate change and energy policy, starving the power industry of direction and reducing investment to a minimum.
"Professor Fells has a long standing love affair with the technologies of the 20th century, but as time goes by his fetish for coal and nuclear power looks increasingly naive," said Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr.
"All over the world jobs are being created in the renewable energy sector, but Britain has been left behind for too long by the negative, white flag approach to climate change that this report represents."
| Hydro-electric stations: | |
| Natural flow | 1,420 |
| Pumped storage | 2,744 |
| Wind (5) | 1,042 |
| Renewables other than hydro and wind | 1,565 |
| Total | 6,771 |
18 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
| Obama promises Wall Street reform Barack Obama promised an end to the “anything goes” culture on Wall Street as the deepening financial crisis added fresh impetus to his fight back against John McCain - Sep 17 2008 | Obama Positive |
| The end of McCain’s media honeymoon Tighter control leads to more aggressive style - Sep 17 2008 | McCain negative |
| Criticism as Obama reaches for the stars Public fund gamble may not pay off - Sep 17 2008 | Obama negative |
| Turmoil presents opening for Obama Allegations McCain is out of touch - Sep 17 2008 | Obama positive, McCain negative |
| Campaigns focus on US economy Poll rivals vow to tighten financial regulation - Sep 15 2008 | Neutral |
Certainly, the Democrats can see they are in a hole. Somehow, though, the word has gone out: “Keep digging.” Mr Obama is also urged to be less cool and lose his temper. Voters adore an angry candidate, you see. “Dig faster, and be more angry,” is the advice coming down from the political geniuses who decided it was a fine idea to laugh at Ms Palin in the first place. A recurring television image in the past few days has been the split-screen contrast between a serenely smiling Republican operative and a fulminating red-faced Democrat about to have a stroke.
Efforts to smear the governor proceed at a frantic pace. My guess would be that there are now more journalists on assignment in Alaska than bothered to turn up for the Republican convention in St Paul, sifting through dustbins, interrogating Palin family acquaintances (extra credit for those with a grievance) and subjecting Ms Palin’s expenses claims to a fanatical scrutiny which I dare say their own record-keeping, or that of most senators, might not withstand.
Of course, they will find things. They may even find something important. But the sheer swarming zeal for trivial malfeasance and family embarrassments is rapidly raising the bar for impropriety. I think that many voters – and not just committed Republicans – find this whole spectacle disgusting, so on top of everything else Ms Palin is now getting a sympathy vote.
However this is countered by Jurek Martin who ought to be awarded an OBN (Order of the Brown Nose) by the Obama campaign for this piece of tripe which is pretty much a perfect example of what Mr Crook finds objectionable. In fact it is so filled with half-truths and bias it deserves a good fisking and I'm only too happy to oblige:It would be logical to conclude that one benefit of the horrors on Wall Street would be to force those running for president finally to get around to talking about serious issues, not least the parlous state of the nation’s economy
Nice start. I guess Mr Martin may have pontificated slightly prematurely as the BBC reports that both candidates spent a lot of time yesterday on that subject.I am not sure this follows. After 9/11, logic dictated the US should pursue more multilateral foreign policies, but the reverse was the case. In the current political climate, one campaign, John McCain’s, may see no reason to get on to the high policy road, while the other, Barack Obama’s, cannot find the road map to it.
Ohh equal opportunity snark. I like it! Although surely claiming that Obama can't navigate is RACIST? no?Initial responses to last weekend’s calamitous events are not encouraging. The Republican candidate continued to wrap himself in the mantra that the American economy is “strong,” even as it leaks from all its financial seams. But, then, in his long-gone honest moments, he used to admit that economics were not his strong suit.
Given that the chaos appears to be caused by bad loans made to homeowners by a bunch of banks who are now paying for them by an inability to get repayments of the loans they shouldn't have made, McCain's statement is not completely wrong. Assuming the fallout remains lmited to a bunch of suits on Wall St then outside New York the economy should remain OK.Moreover, his assurances that a proven reformer like himself, coupled with another of same ilk, Sarah Palin, constitute just the team to clean up Washington, ring hollow in light of the fact that he has been a longstanding member of the very flawed Washington regulatory establishment. Moreover, his running mate, on all available evidence, would not know how to find credit drefault swaps in the aisle of her Wasilla WalMart.
Ok this is where Mr Martin goes into full Obama-chanelling mode. There is plenty of evidence that having got involved with Charles Keating, McCain learned a number of lessons about the dangers of lobbying and of bankers. This would be why he sounded warning notes regarding Freddie and Fannie in 2002 and 2005. Also, while I think McCain Feingold is a horrible bit of legislation, the clear aim of it was to reform the lobbyist culture of Congress. Is Mr Martin seriously suggesting that reform is only possible from outside?For his part, Mr Obama, with his sophisticated mind, might be able to do better than simply to continue to tie Mr McCain to the failed policies of the Bush administration. Americans, not unreasonably, like to think that those who seek to govern them have some plans to extricate the nation from messes, be they in Iraq or the financial markets, rather than dwell on an admittedly awful recent past.
Uh huh. Obama is sophisticated and intellectual unlike the dumb rebpulicans. That's nice. By the way, Obama's plans to extricate the US from the mess in Iraq seem likely to have precipitated a major humanitarian disaster there. McCain's (the surge) seems to have dramatically improved things.But this is what happens when campaigns are locked into their own perceptions of what is working for them. And for Mr McCain, a seat-of-the-pants pilot who is not a strategic thinker by a very long chalk, he just has to look at the evidence of the latest polls, which tell him that just presenting himself as he is, seems to be good political medicine.
I'd say that McCain's campaign has been strategically sound - as evidenced by those polls.It is not necessary to dwell on the cynicism of his choice of Ms Palin as a running mate or on the outright lies that are the underpinnings of their campaign. Even a timid US media is summoning up what remains of its courage to pick holes and find contradictions in every respect of Ms Palin’s record, as it might have done from the outset had they ever heard of her before the Republican convention.
Allow me to translate: It is not necessary to dwell on how shocked me and my democratic leaning MSM friends were when McCain decided to come out fighting instead of doing a Bob Dole gallant loser thing, Of ocurse when we were presented with some hick like Governor Palin we immediately spared no effort to turn over even the smallest pebble in Wasilla, unfortunately so far we have yet to find any mud that will stick, but never fear we'll keep trying.More noteworthy is the extent to which the establishment conservative commentariat, Charles Krauthammer, George Will and now David Brooks of the New York Times, are turning on Ms Palin. They appear insulted by what even they concede is her total lack of qualifications for the vice presidency, much as they were by the president’s abortive nomination of his tame and completely undistinguished in-house legal counsel, Harriet Miers, for the Supreme Court, two years back.
The "establishment conservative commentariat" is limited to three people who write for the WaPo and NYT most of the time? really? I think this means the "conservatives that my liberal friends invite around for aperitifs because we trust them not to spout off about Ronald Reagan" or something like that. And they are upset? As compared to all those liberal commentators who were insulted about Obama's "total lack of qualifications for the vice presidency"? Just asking you know, but I'll note that Krauthammer for one seems to be coming around to a pro-Palin POV as he sees more of her.But they are not necessarily the dominant voices of conservativism any longer, drowned out by more visceral rightwing populists, in print and electronic media, who take delight in the fact the party base has finally been energised in this election by Ms Palin. The fact that this base is not big enough any longer to win a general election is immaterial, compared to the delights of discomfiting and unnerving the Democrats, who have reacted, true to form, by sinking into their traditional state of funk.
Yes I think my translation above is accurate regarding "establishment conservative commentariat". I'm not sure that W Kristol, M Barone, J Goldberg and half a dozen others are not equally establishment these days though they do seem to be pro Palin. Still moving on. "The fact that this base is not big enough any longer to win a general election is immaterial" is a moronic statement. The base is not enough of course, everyone knows that and it applys equally to the Democratic nutroots base too, but energising the base means that McCain get run a more successful grassroots get out the vote campaign than otherwise. Finally I have to admit that the Democrats have indeed sunk into their traditional state of funk so he's right there even if the rest of the last few paragraphs has been total bilge.This manifests itself in all sorts of ways, not least through desperate communications though the internet. But the one person who appears above all this angst is Barack Obama, either admirably or to his cost. Much as pundits and consultants urge him to get into the gutter with the Republicans, which is what electoral politics are supposedly all about, he refuses to do it.
As Matthew Dowd, once a Bush strategist, put it to the New York Times, if Mr McCain drags Mr Obama into the mud, it is to his advantage; if he flies at 10,000 feet, he has no advantage.
This is interesting because whereas Mr McCain, reputedly his own man, has fallen under the spell of practitioners of the darker political arts, the Democratic candidate still sets the tone for his campaign, all his party alchemists notwithstanding. If he says the Palin family is off limits, then it remains so.
Glad to see the accuracy disappears again. Barack Obama is above all the angst? that's why he tells lame lipstick jokes I suppose. And why he launches Hispanic attack ads that wilfully a) misquote Rush Limbaugh and b) imply that McCain supported Mr Limbaugh's position. As for Mr Dowd, he is correct in that Obama has yet to face the sort of public scrutiny awarded to, say, Governor Palin. And it has to be said that the claim that "if [Obama] says the Palin family is off limits, then it remains so" appears to be somewhat wistful, True there have been no campaign ads regarding the Palin family but then there have hardly needed to be given all the rubbish dug up by progressive bloggers and their MSM pals.He had not even, at the time of writing, pointed out that John Thain of Merrill Lynch, no longer the Thundering Herd but one of Bank of America’s herd of cows, has not only been a fervent supporter of Mr McCain but had openly hoped for a senior policy job in the next Republican administration (not that he would now win Senate confirmation).
It is just possible that Mr Obama’s reticence may come over as a lack of toughness when matched against the McCain-Palin ticket of tough guys and gun-toting gals, to whom truth is just another five letter word? A few concise policy proposals on the financial debacle might remove that impression, as would substantive performances in the upcoming, and ever more important, presidential debates.
Dare one point out to Mr Martin that one reason why Obama is not mentioning John Thain's support of McCain is that it would immediately invite people to look at who supports Obama. People such as those wonderful leaders of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. I hope that Obama does indeed bring up mr Thain because it will undoubtedly turn out to be yet another rebounding smear.
19 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
19 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
It was late 2005 and David Weber's latest Honor Harrington novel had just been published. More than a hundred thousand people had read it and they were hungry for more.
There would be a teeny tiny wait.
Until now.
Late 2008. Rumors of a new Honorverse novel to be published in 2009 abounded. David's progress on Storm from the Shadows, the sequel to Shadow of Saganami, was followed with great glee. David, being the honest Baen writer that he is, wanted to help those rumors along.
So he snippeted. Snippeting being a technique invented by Jim Baen to torture, er, nurture Baen readers by sharing parts of the latest novels that haven't been released yet.
David, being David, does not do things in a small way. So he snippeted the whole freakin' quarter-million-word novel as it existed on September 2, 2008.
Okay, so that's not exactly what he had planned. He had just planned to let out a few chapters. So the "oopsie version," as it has come to be called in our usual dignified way, was pulled within a few hours of the post.
But not before a very few people downloaded it in all good faith. And proceeded to read it. And proceeded to gloat in front of the rest of us.
Lamentations and wailings for parity commenced. And so we let everyone know that the version that got released really was not the final version. Several rounds of revisions by the author have been made since, and the copy edit and continuity check is still in progress. We really aren't quite ready to let the book out as an official eARC (i.e. electronic advanced reader copy); we want to send it out to the world all prettied up.
But the lamentations from the faithful did not cease.
And so, we—the publisher, author of the book, and webmaster—bring to you:
For those who want it—and we stress this is an early, un-edited, incomplete version—we will sell the "oopsie" now for $10. We are not asking you to buy this version, we do not recommend you buy this version, but if you gotta have it, come and get it.
In about 6 weeks, when all the revisions and edits are in, we will make available for the usual $15 the official eARC, which will get you both the "final" and "oopsie" versions—extra computer memory sold separately. If you bought the "oopsie" version, you'll be able to get the official eARC for only $12.
If you buy the Webscription month that contains Storm from the Shadows, March 2009, you will get access to all three versions, if you want 'em. If you buy the novel as a solo ebook, you get access to all three versions, if you want 'em.
And so let there be peace in the valley. Until the next snippet.
—Toni Weisskopf
19 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
19 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
24 September 2008 Blog Home : All September 2008 Posts : Permalink
As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis -- weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual -- since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006. [...] Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.
I shall ignore other parts of the rebuttal because I can't see that they can be easily proven. The above however is sufficiently straight forward and factual that it is unlikely to be false. Now let's have a look at the NY Times:One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.
[...] Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said.
They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.
[...] No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.
So even by the Times' own admission Freddie Mac paid 15,000 a month from the end 2005 until (presumably) August 2008. Assuming the "end of 2005" means the first payment was in December 2005 and that the last was in August 2008 then this means 33 months of payments by my calculatioms. 15,000 * 33 = $495,000. For that $495,000 Mr Davis spoke to a PAC once in October 2006 and his firm did absolutely nothing whatsoever (apart apparently from cashing the checks).