toilet nation

2-29-08--The dollar hit another record low against the euro, deepening a six-year slide in which it has fallen more than 40% versus the European currency. WSJ A1

--... Those of us of a certain age remember it well, if painfully, and judging by the noises coming from the Federal Reserve of late we had all better get used to it again. ... Call it the Bernanke reflation, though it’s more precise to call it the Fed’s second inflation gamble of the decade. WSY, A16

--. . . overall the result is easy to predict: a regulatory pole will emerge in Eurasia, one closer to the geographic center of the world, and there will be a slowdown in the flow of goods, capital, and migration that currently nourishes the United States. The United States will then have to live like other nations, notably by reigning in its huge trade deficit, a constraint that would imply a 15 to 20 percent drop in the standard of living of the population. . . –Emmanuel Todd, p. 199 (2002)

--The US incarcerates more people than any other nation, a study found, with more than 1% [1 out of 100] in jail or prison. WSJ A1 2-29-08

--For a long time before that in the United States it had not been safe to walk in the big cities at night: sometimes in certain areas not in the day. For years they had moved about by the grace of paternal or brutal police; or under the protection of some gang. (It was in the mid-seventies that it came out for how long the United States had been run by an only partly concealed conspiracy linking crime, the military machine, the industries to do with war, and government.) Whether he chose to be protected by the bully men of the gangster groups, or by the police, or by the deliberate choice of a living area that was safe and respectable and inside which he lived as once the Jews had lived in ghettoes, in America the citizen had long since becomes used to an organized barbarism. –Doris Lessing (1969) THE FOUR GATED CITY

--Crime has become ... central to the exercise of authority in America... Across all kinds of institutional settings, people are seen as acting legitimately when they act to prevent crimes or other troubling behaviors that can be closely analogized to crimes ... we can expect people to deploy the category of crime to legitimate interventions that have other motivations [e.g., squishing a fetus equals murder] ... the technologies, discourses, and metaphors of crime and criminal justice have become more visible features of all kinds of institutions, where they can easily gravitate into new opportunities for governance. In this way, it is not a great jump to go from (a) concerns about juvenile crime through (b) measures in schools that treat students primarily as potential criminals or victims, and (c) later still, to attacks on academic failure as a kind of crime someone must be held accountable for, whether it be the students (no more “social passing”), teachers (pay tied to test scores), or whole schools (closure a a result of failing test scores.) ...In France, a nation rarely shy about enforcing nationalism with law, schools are mandated to inscribe the words “liberte, equalite, fraternite” over their entrance. Today, in the US, it is crime that dominates the symbolic passageway to school and citizenship. ... Crime has always been part of the messy struggle for control of the workplace. ...
Jonathon Simon, GOVERNING THRUGH CRIME (Oxford, 2007) 3-5 , 209, 233

...by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world... Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker student rather than by pushing gifted students. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress. ... Teachers and students address each other by first names....[When a Finnish high school senior spent a year in Michigan, she had to ] repeat the year when she returned. ... There are fewer disparities in education and income levels among Finns. ... Finland has a high school drop out rate of about 4%--or 10% at vocational schools—compared with roughly 25% in the US... Each school year, the US spends an average of $8700 per student, while the Finns spend $7500. Finland’s high tax government provides roughly equal per pupil funding, unlike the disparities between Beverly Hills public schools, for example, and schools in poorer districts. The gap between Finland’s best and worst performing schools was the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The US ranks about average. Finnish students have little angstata—or teen angst—about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. WSJ 2-29-08 W1, W10

let's try staying there for 200 years...

2-27-08—[After 6 years] the Afghan government under President Karzai controls just 30% of the country, the top US intelligence official said. WSJ A1

--The fragility of the American military is in a sense structural---a consequence of having never fought an adversary its own size at any time in history. . . . The recent circulation of the idea of a bloodless war, at least in the United States, is the culmination of an original preference for asymmetrical confrontations. This concept admits and gives formal validation to the traditional weakness of the American ground forces. [Todd, AFTER EMPIRE (2002) 80,81

--Political momentum in Iraq hit a sudden roadblock on Wednesday when a feud between the largest Shiite factiosn led to the veot of a law that had been passed with great fanfare lat week. The law had been heralded by the Bush administration as a breakthrough for national reconciliation. NYT A8

--The American ruling class is even more rudderless and clueless than its European counterparts who are so often criticized for their weakness. . . [Todd, AFTER EMPIRE (2002) 128]

tired old Europe

Feb. 27, 2008 The European Union is fining Microsoft Corp. 899 million euros ($1.35 billion) for failing to comply with the European Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling. The commission said that, until Oct. 22, 2007, Microsoft had charged "unreasonable prices for access to interface documentation for work group servers." The 2004 decision found Microsoft guilty of having abused its dominant position, and told the company to open up its interface documentation to third-party developers at a reasonable price. The EU had previously said it would fine Microsoft for non-compliance, but it hadn't calculated the precise amount. WSJ ALERT

Feb. 26, 2008

2-26-08—The US wants two of the biggest sovereign wealth funds to embrace promises that they won’t use their wealth for political advantage. WSJ A1

—The Pentagon is projecting that when the US troop buildup in Iraq ends in July there will be about 8000 more troops on the ground than when it began in January 2007, a senior general said Monday. NYT A10

--Javier Bardem [Spain], Marion Cotillard [France], Daniel Day-Lewis [Ireland] and Tilda Swinton [Scotland] are each taking statues across the Atlantic. Oscars for art direction, makeup and costume design all went to people for whom the US is a passport stamp. ... [best song went to “one Irish, one Czech’] ... “It was a huge victory for the Celts,” [said Tilda Swinton, with a “rich, complicated private life”] “Spain, France, England, we all served as a reminder that it was Europeans that invented Hollywood in the first place..” [Presidents of Fox and Miramax are British] NYT B1, B8

tired, old, passe' europe

2-25-08—Microsoft last week pledged a new era of cooperation with rival software developers...Minutes after Microsoft began a widely trumpeted news conference Thursday saying it would give competitors better access to its secret operating code, [EU Competition Commission office] said it had heard such talked before. ... The European Union voted to press ahead with two investigations into the company’s practices that it launched just last month. .. [The EUCC has torpedoed GE’s plan to purchase Honeywell, imposed a $613 million fine on Microsoft, and Google’s acquisition of DoubleClink Inc. is waiting for the EUCC approval (after FCC approval)][and has also lodged preliminary charges against Intel, Rambus, Mastercard, forced Apple to cut the price of UK iTunes, and raided several drug company offices] WSJ A1, WSJ A12

weekend up date, Feb. 24, 2008

--Three local [as in Elkhart] recreational vehicle makers are finding themselves targets of a congressional inquiry into formaldehyde levels in travel trailers. –2-22-08—ELKHART TRUTH, A1.

--Ominous signs remain in city run by Iraqis: Militias maintain Grip on Basra Institutions. 2-23-08, NYT A1

--Grand Jury indicts [GOP] Arizona Congressman -2-23-08, NYT A9

--Banks, which rarely want government intruding, now say they want it. -2-23-08- NYT ,B1,B4

--“Problems once confined to the working poor—lack of health insurance and access to guaranteed pensions, job insecurity and staggering personal debt, bankruptcy and home foreclosure—have .. become an increasingly normal part of [USA] middle class life.”—Prof. Jacob Hacker, THE GREAT RISK SHIFT, cited at NYT BR 2-24-08 p.28

--Six years after the US invaded Afghanistan ... [it] remains a security danger zone for Americans far more so than in 2002 NYTWK 2-24-08 WK1

news resulting from unproven theories

2-21-08—lunar eclipse last night, resulting from unproven theory that earth revolves around the sun

--Fears of Stagflation [last seen in the 1970s] Return as Price Increase Gain Pace [WSJ A1], resulting from unproven theory that extravagant war spending and unregulated really really free markets cause economic problems.

2-20-08

2-20-08—Crude oil prices finished just about $100 a barrel for the first time—WSJ A1

--Florida officials voted to require that evolution be taught in schools, but only if it is depicted as an unproven theory. WSJ A1

--The Bush administration was scrambling Tuesday to pick up the pieces of its shattered Pakistan policy after the trouncing that the party of President Bush’s ally, Pres. Pervez Musharraf, received in parliamentary elections. NYT A10

--“...Harvard could buy and sell a number of countries around the globe...” Cary Nelson, president of American Assoc. of University Professors, NYT A21

feb. 19, 2008

Feb. 19, 2008—Pakistanis dealt a crushing defeat to President Pervez Musharraf in parliamentary elections on Monday, in what government and opposition politicians said was a firm rejection of his policies since 2001 and those of his close ally, the United States.—NYT A1

--An early version of a British dossier of prewar intelligence on Iraq did not include a claim about unconventional weapons that became crucial to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s case for war, the newly published document showed Monday.—NYT A13

--What happened in 1999 that caused the [USA] suicide rate to suddenly rise primarily for those in midlife? [up 20% in 5 years]—NYT A1

thank you, market god (an Indiana too)

Feb. 18, 2008—A nationwide study has found that the uninsured and those covered by Medcaid are more likely that those with private insurance not to receie a diagnosis of cancer until its late stages. NYT A1, A10

---NY AG investigation indicating that “health insurers have been systematically cheating patients and doctors of fair reimbursement for medical services.” E.g., Ingenix, owned by UnitedHealth, tells UnitedHealth that fair market for 15 minutes consultation with doctor around NYC is $77, so United pays $62 and the patient pages $138. NY AG finds the rate to be $200. NYT A18

--Evidence that Germany’s rich tucked away their cash in Liechenstein and other tax havens is creating a new narrative in German politics: the betrayal of the elites, who have spent the last decade calling for a painful reform of the welfare state, even as they apparently avoided paying their fair share. NYT C1

Feb. 18, 2008--South Bend’s Ryan Newman celebrates in Victory Laned on Sunday after winning the 50^th running of the Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Fla. SBT A1

--Indiana limestone used in new Yankee Stadium. SBT B8

you read it here first

--During the years of the Clinton Administration ... relentless “investigations,” demanded by Republicans on Capitol Hill, created a series of trumped-up “-gates”... [and] explored techniques that would inform dozens of political prosecutions under Bush. ... The Republican project of the past seven years has been to build on that success, to transform the legal apparatus of the United States into an instrument of partisan force... The former political director of the Texas Republican Party, Royal Masset, actually told the HOUSTON CHRONICLE in 2007 that it is an “article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections,” but then acknowledged that such faith was unfounded. What he did believe, according to the CHRONICLE’s paraphrase, was that “requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop-off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent o the Republican vote.... [USDA Inglesias in 2004] reacted to Republican complaints about a highly effective voter-registration program run by a grassroots activist organization, ACORN, by creating special task force of FBI agents and prosecutors to fully investigate the allegations. [Inglesias, whose earlier life was played by Tom Cruise in A FEW GOOD MEN was later fired, in part for not prosecuting an ACORN registrar in 2006] [A study] found that between 2001 and 2006 the Justice Department had initiated 375 investigations of public officials. They also found that 298 of those investigations targeted Democrats and 67 of them targeted Republicans ... the odds of this imbalance occurring randomly were one in ten thousand. HARPERS, March 2008, p 37 f

periodical update

--[Richard Rhodes in ARSENALS OF FOLLY meticulously documents] how American officials frequently and deliberately inflated their estimates of military threats facing the US, beginning with he 1950 report to President Truman ... Under President GWB, the practice of exaggerating threats to the US in order to justify aggressive military policies has been taken to alarming extremes. ... Rhoades writes “Far victory in the Cold War, the superpower nuclear-warms race and the corresponding militarization of the American economy gave us ramshackle cities, broken bridges, failing schools, entrenched poverty, impeded life expectancy, and a menacing and secretie national-security state. NYRB, 3-6-08, 18f

--[In THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE WAR ON CANCER] Devra Davis’ main charge against eh cancer establishment is that it has ignored accumulating evidence pointing to environmental hazards as a –perhaps THE—major preventable casuse of malignant disease. NYRB, 3-6-08, 25

--“In the back-and-forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby Boom generation—a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago—played out on the national stage.”—Barack Obama, quoted NYRB, 3-6-08, 43

--For safety’s sake, a child and an adult SHOULDN’T be ALONE in a closed room together. If a child and an adult happen to be alone, someone should KNOW where they are and the door should be OPEN or have a big window in it. ... Remember it’s ALWAYS SAFER with a group of people you know, but if you are alone with an adult, make sure OTHERS KNOW where to find you.—Girlie Angel in from BEING FRIENDS,BEING SAFE, BEING CATHOLIC, in a coloring book distributed this winter by the Archdiocese of New York. HARPERS, March 2008, p 25

--...nobody ever promised a big rock candy mountain to those of us who would rather read Proust ... than get an honest job. HARPERS, March 2008, p 84

weekend update, Feb. 17, 2008

--On average, healthy people lived about 84 years with health care costs of about $417,000 from age 20 on; smokers lived about 77 years with health care costs of about $326,000 and obese people lived about 80 years with costs of about 371,000.—Netherlands National Institute for Public Health. –Feb 15, 2008 SBT, A4

--US Struggles to Tutor Iraqis in Rule of Law—Feb. 12, 2008, NYT A1

--Acting on an anonymous tip that an abortion had been performed later in a pregnancy than the law allows, police offices [in Naples] entered the hospital and interrogated a Neopolitan woman ... immediately after the abortion and reportedly while she was still under anesthesia. They seized the aborted fetus. Feb. 16, 2008, NYT A8

--“I am tired of fighting the Vietnam war. I have drifted toward Obama.”—California Anti-Clinton Republican. Feb. 17, 2008, NYT, WK 13.

bushing it up

Feb. 15—When our intelligence chief starts talking like a central banker, you know there’s a problem. WSJ A15

--FEMA said it would step up efforts to move hurricane victims out of trailers due to high formaldehyde levels in some. WSJ A1

--The FDA violated its own policies when it approved for sale a crucial blood-thinning drug without first inspecting a Chinese plant which, along with a plant in Wisconsin, made the drug’s active pharmaceutical ingredient. NYT A15

VD Day

Feb 14—A federal appeals court has overturned a Texas statute outlawing sales of sex toys, essentially leaving Alabama as the only state with such a ban.—NYT A20

--Sen. Larry [“not gay’)] Craig was admonished ... as the result of his arrest and guilty plea last summer in an undercover sex sting in a men’s bathroom at the Minneapolis airport ... Committee members also raised questions about Mr. Craig’s conversion of over $200,000 in campaign money to pay legal fees NYT A22

feb. 13, 2008

Feb 13—As the Bush administration announced a fresh plan to aid homeowners overburdened by their mortgages, initial figures suggest much-touted earlier efforts have done little to help borrowers.—WSJ A1

--Limbo for US women reporting Iraq assaults -- NYT A1

--Investors flock to foreign bonds—WSJ D1

wishy washy editorial

ON THE ONE HAND Hillary is getting more votes from more Democratic constituencies that I worry about (poor whites, elderly and women vs. blacks and yuppies)

AND Hillary knows how to fight in the gutter

AND Hillary seems better on health care

AND Barak’s JFK stuff just means he’ll face a meatgrinder once he’s elected like the first JFK did (I am old enough to remember that)

ON THE OTHER HAND

Barak may attract more swing votes than Hillary will ever be able to

AND when I first met Hillary she was a lawyer fighting against me

AND when I first met Barak he was a lawyer working with me;

AND if Barak can put to rest all this 196o’sf. political correctness from both Right (Vietnam politics) and Left (identity politics) that would be from an aesthetic perspective reason enough to pray for him to win...

reality is a crutch for wimps

Feb 12—Gates said he wants to temporarily halt the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq this summer—WSJ A1

--White House does not see a Recession—many on Wall Street say the nation is already in a downturn. NYT C3

Feb. 11, 2008

Feb 11—Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning—NYT A1

--On top of it all, Mr. Obama beat out Mr. Clinton for a Granny, winning the spoken word award. NYT A1

weekend update Feb. 10, 2008

Feb. 10

In 1914-18, 1.3 million Frenchmen (those cheese-eating surrender monkeys) were killed defending their country, which is to say more than twice as many as all the Americans who have died in every foreign war from 1776 until today. There has been much anguish about American casualties in Iraq, where last year was the worst since 2003, with all of 901 deaths. Reading that, the European may reflect silently on the dates Aug. 22, 1914, when 27,000 French soldiers were killed in a day, or July 1, 1916, when 20,000 British troops died. ... Evelyn Waugh writing to his friend Graham Greene — “Of course the Americans are cowards. They are almost all the descendants of wretches who deserted their legitimate monarchs for fear of military service” — NYTBR p.27

2-8-08

--The CIA has made extensive use of contractors, who were likely involved in water-boarding, in its secret interrogation of terror suspects, the CIA director and others said. WSJ A1--[putting free enterprise to work for torture]
--A theological seminar for Roman Catholic bishops that had been scheduled for the University of Notre Dame will be moved off campus because of a planned performance of the play "The Vagina Monologues" SBT A2 [they already know EVERYTHING about vaginas...]

2-7-08

--US Backed Russian Institutes Help Iran Build Reactor NYT A3
--As Afghanistan flounders, US asks Europe for more--NYT A6
--Fail. Fail Better. --Samuel Beckett

the surge continues to works

Feb. 6, 2008--Gates declines to estimate next year's war costs, saing he doesn't know how many troops will be in Iraq this fall.--WSJ A1

hoosier aesthetics

Whether he was lobbying for a John Mellencamp endorsement for his presidential bid or simply looking for a rousing, all-American song to rally his supporters, we will never know. Because, according to Rolling Stone, the popular heartland rocker has quietly asked Republican Sen. John McCain to stop playing "Our Country," "Pink Houses" or any other Mellencamp tune at his political events.—Feb. 5, 2008

pathological mendacity or psychosis?

--Feb 5 2008--Bush repeated his prediction that his poliicies would bring the bduget into balance by 2012, ending a string of deficits.--WSJ A1

Super Weekend Update

--China’s latest export is inflation.NYT A1 Feb 1

--The United States military is not prepared for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces do not have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a new report.NYT A18? Feb 1

--[this shows] want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study. 1887 Wilde

--one of our campers tells us that Ann Arbor did indeed have sales celebrating MLK Day. Accordingly, to ensure that those progressive poseurs have nothing to brag about, we give you the first of hopefully many BLACK HISTORY MOMENTS: “Hello. I’m Harriet Tubman. And I want EVERYBODY to get FREE of high prices by shopping at WalMart!!”

snow day

Feb 1, 2008—George W. Bush took office in 2001 with budget surpluses projected to stretch years into the future. .. The longer-term picture is darker. .. The next president, if he or she serves two terms, could find the US government so deeply in hock that it would face losing its Triple-A credit rating, something that has never happened since Moody’s Investors Service began grading US securities in 1917—WSJ A1

--Bush said he won’t jeopardize security gains in Iraq by a hasty withdrawal, another sign force reductions could slow or stop this summer. WSJ A1

--More US cities were added to a Homeland Security list of places at high risk for terrorist attacks. WJ A1

--The Western US faces the threat of a water crisis from human caused climate change, a study concluded. WSJ A1

--Suicides by soldiers rose 20% last year from 2006 despite more mental health programs, the Army reported. WSJ A1

--Societe Generale says wayward trader Jerome Kerviel lost the bank $7.2 billion. But that was last week. He’s now on his way to cult celebrity-and he still hasn’t lost his job. Societie Generale has stopped paying Mr. Kerviel and told him not to come to the office, but it hasn’t managed to formally fire him. French law stipulates that to do that, the bank must first call him in for a sit-down meeting and explain its dissatisfaction. He has the right to bring along a trade-union official, a lawyer or anyone else he’d like. ...”Let’s be honest: No one likes bank... and people like the rich to get cheated,” says Christophe Rocancourt, a celebrated French con man who swindled wealthy Americans in the 1990s by masquerading as a french member of the Rockefeller family... Firing has never been easy in France, where on-the-spot dismissals a l’americaine are viewed as brutal and very un-French. ...Even Nicloas Sarkozy, who became president vowing to shake up France, hasn’t proposed that bosses be allowed to can workers at will. .. WSJ A1, a12