it was a very good year

12-30-09—For Somali pirates, 2009 is a record year. NYT A9

weekend update

12-28-09—Only as the recession recedes will it become fully evident how permanently the state’s role has expanded and whether, as a consequence, a new, hybrid strain of American capitalism is emerging. WSJ A1
--Democrats “want 80 to 90% of Americans on government health care, that’s not a good thing for our country.”—Sen. Jim DeMint (R,SC) WSJ A3
--The Netherlands, Germany and Austria have all relied heavily on so-called short-work programs to keep people in their jobs in the wake of the financial crisis. All three have managed to keep unemployment from soaring... WSJ A10
-- DJIA today stands at just 10520.10, no higher than in 1999... In 1999 dollars, the Dow is only at about 8200 ...starting at 10520,10, the Dow would have to surpass 13450 to its 1999 levl in real, inflation-adjusted numbers.—WSJ C1
12-26-09—We’ve had more luck winning the equal right to 70-hours weeks than we’ve had selling the equal value of care-giving.—Ellen Goodman

the naught decade

the Florida recount
9/11
weapons of mass destruction
Saddam Hussein’s hanging, available on cellphone and YouTube
Dick Cheney shooting his lawyer
Hurricane Katrina
John Kerry, war hero, being depicted as a Swift-boating wimp
Lady Gaga
A.I.G. bonuses
Bernard Madoff
Glenn Beck
the “controversy” over Barack Obama’s birth certificate
Sarah Palin, best-selling author.

the zero decade

12-21-09—Since the end of 1999, US Stocks’ performance has been the all-time clunker. Even 1930s beat it. (1930s -0.2%, 2000s, 0.5%)—WSJ C1

--The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.—Krugman, NYT A29

12-20-09

12-20-09--If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. .... As of Friday, the Tiger saga had appeared on 20 consecutive New York Post covers. For The Post, his calamity has become as big a story as 9/11. And the paper may well have it right. We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, “the day that changed everything,” was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.
Indeed, if we go back to late 2001, the most revealing news story may have been unfolding not in New York but Houston — the site of the Enron scandal. That energy company convinced financial titans, the press and countless investors that it was a business deity. It did so even though very few of its worshipers knew what its business was. Enron is the template for the decade of successful ruses that followed, Tiger’s included. ... The most lethal example, of course, were the two illusions marketed to us on the way to Iraq — that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and some link to Al Qaeda. That history has since been rewritten by Bush alumni, Democratic politicians who supported the Iraq invasion and some of the news media that purveyed the White House fictions (especially the television press, which rarely owned up to its failure as print journalists have). ...You’d think after Enron’s collapse that financial leaders and government overseers would question the contents of “exotic” investments that could not be explained in plain English. But only a few years after Enron’s very public and extensively dissected crimes, the same bankers, federal regulatory agencies and securities-rating companies were giving toxic “assets” a pass. ...But after a decade in which two true national catastrophes, a wasteful war and a near-ruinous financial collapse, were both in part byproducts of the ease with which our leaders bamboozled us, we can’t so easily move on. –Frank Rich, NYT WK 7

12-17-09

12-17-09—France plans to tax bank employees’ bonuses above $40,000 at 50% next year... WSJA1

--...my favorite explanation comes from Jonathon Chait of The New Republic, who theorized that Lieberman was able to go from Guy Who Wants to Expand Medicare to Guy Who Would Rather Kill Health Care than Expand Medicare because he “isn’t actually all that smart.”—Collins, NYT A41

ides of December

12-15-09—[Experiments show that] fruit fries are choosing to consume alcohol ... until they are intoxicated, even if they don’t like the taste. They are also falling off the wagon. NYT D3
--The wonder, madame, is that you do not appreciate the inducement. --Samuel Johnson [responding to a lady’s negative comments on alcohol consumption]
--A quarter of top executives at major US companies had gains in their supplemental retirement-savings plans in 2008, even as employees had sizale losses in the companies’ retirement accounts. WSJ A1, C1
--12-14-09--You know life has gotten surreal when we have to beg a pro golfer to be boring. WSJB6

this is the way the empire ends

12-13-09—Citing finances, Kansas National Guard closes 18 armories—NYT A36

--In North Carolina, [removal] Lawsuit is threatened over councilman’s lack of belief in God—NYT A43

bang bang

12-10-09—With a Mighty Smash, Europe Seizes the Lead in Big Physics. NYT A1
--“Senator Baucus is currently in a mature and happy relationship with Melodee Hanes.” This is a turn of phrase that could be put to good use on so many sensitive occasions, the Baucus press office should really go for a copyright. Joe Bruno, the former majority leader of the New York State Senate who was convicted of corruption this week, is in a mature and happy relationship with Kay Stafford, the chairwoman and president of CMA Consulting Services. (Actually, the relationship is really, really mature, since Bruno is 80.) When Bruno resigned from the Senate last year, he quickly got a great job as C.E.O. of CMA. A guy who was being investigated by federal prosecutors for his consulting activities would not normally be regarded as a perfect hire for an information technology consulting business, particularly when he seems to know as much about information technology as he does about quantum physics. Still, it was nice to finally see a woman on the powerful, job-dispensing side of these stories.- --Gail Collins, NYT A35

hoosier holiday, jews, included

12-09-09—Senator Orrin G. Hatch [Mormon and Republican from Utah]... has penned a catchy holiday tune “Eight Days of Hanukkah.” ... In short, he loves the Jews....the song is performed by Rasheeda Azar, a Syrian-American vocalist from Indiana. NYT A18

weekend update

12-06-09—[Regarding Afghanistan] some circles of hell cannot be squared. ... Obama’s failure illuminated even his great powers of reason. The state dinner crashers delineated those limits too. This was the second time in a month—after the infinitely more alarming bloodbath at Fort Hood—that a supposedly impregnable bastion of post-9/11 American security was easily breached. ... It was a symbolic indication ... of how unbridled irrationality harnessed to sheer will, ... can penetrate even our most secure fortifications. Both incidents stand as a haunting reproach to the elegant powers of logic with which Obama tried to sell his exquisitely calibrated plan to vanquish Al Qaeda and its mad brethren.—Frank Rich, NYT WK 10.

—“If I owned hell and Texas, I would rent out Texas and live in hell.”—Sheridan. NYTMg30

12-3-09

12-3-09—Report examines civil rights enforcement during Bush years: a review finds a significant drop in enforcement. NYT A24
--US Judge opposes Republicans on elections; party won’t be able to use some tactics. NYT A24
--Harvard Law School Suspends Program giving students free tuition—NYT A23
--Man cleavage—plunging necklines slit open to reveal chest hair, pectoral muscles, maybe more—is back. WSJ A1.

things to be thankful for

11-24-09—The proportion of US homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%.—WSJ A1
--reports of hate crimes against gays and religious groups increased sharply last year—WSJ A1
11-23-09--Surely by now you know that the greatest crisis facing this country isn’t the economy of war, but the perilous states of the Michigan and Notre Dame football teams...and no one’s stepping up and offering the smoothest, wisest solution to their troubles: Merger! The Notre Michigan Irish Wolverines. WSJ B10

weekend update

11-21/22-09—Michigan ... came out more hateful [as opposed to Ohio State] in 10 of the 15 tasks. Finally, the Wolverines have something to celebrate. WSJ W4

11/21/09—We’ve been living with the illusion that manufacturing—making things—is so 20th century --Prof. Shaiken, NYT A17

--There are more hired American contractors in [Iran and Afghanistan] than there are military personnel. –Wills, NYRB, Dec. 3, 2009 p 8.

--you must beware of melancholy: it’s a vice.—Flaubert to Guy de Maupassant

--In the meantime, perhaps we should try and think of a name for the new economic system, which certainly isn’t capitalism: that’s remember, is ll about “creative destruction” and the freedom to fail. That’s exactly what we don’t have. The most accurate term would probably be “bankocracy.”—LRB Nov. 5 2009, p26.

perhaps the nation is not yet entirely mad

11-18-09—Americans don’t want to shoulder the cost of President Obama’s health care overhaul themselves. They think the rich should pay for it.—AP, SBT A3

is this a great country or what?

--11-17-09-- The number of Americans who lived in households that lacked consistent access to adequate food soared last year, to 49 million, the highest since the government began tracking what it calls “food insecurity” 14 years ago, the Department of Agriculture reported Monday.--NYT

(Nov. 16) -- It's federal law: All seriously injured emergency and trauma patients must be given equal lifesaving care, whether or not they can pay for it. But that's not happening, according to a new report. The study, conducted by Children's Hospital Boston research fellow Dr. Heather Rosen and colleagues from three other hospitals, found that uninsured trauma victims ages 18 to 30 are dying at an annual rate 89 percent higher than insured victims with identically severe injuries. --AOL

London calling

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, 22 October 2009
--The argument of [THE SPIRIT LEVEL] is easy to summarize: among rich countries, the more unequal ones do worse according to almost every quality of life indicator you can imagine. ...this pattern holds inside the US as well, where states with high levels of income inequality also tend to have the greatest social problems. ...the US has the worst record of any rich country by [in the matter of imprisonment where a log scale must be used, otherwise it is “off the chart, even off the page”] ... rich English patients [in unequal England are] more vulnerable than poor Swedish ones [in egalitarian Sweden] p. 3
--The Republican party of 2009 ... has become the party of wars and jails, and its moral physiognomy is captured by the faces of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, faces hard to match outside Cruikshank’s drawings of Dickens’ villains, hard as nails and mean as dirt .... Equality in the United States in the early 21st century has become a gospel preached by a liberal elite to a populace who feel they have no stake in equality. ... For Obama to do the courageous thing and withdraw [from Afghanistan] would mean having deployed against him the wrath of the mainstream media, the oil interest, the Israel lobby, the weapons and security industries, all those who have reasons both avowed and unavowed for the perpetuation of American force projection in the Middle East. Pp. 7,10

weekend update

--11-15-09When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker. NYT A1
--While President Obama’s decision about sending more troops to Afghanistan is mimarily a military one, it also has substantial budget implications that are adding pressure to limit the commitment...NYT A1
—G W Bush , who made it an early goal to push conservatives into the judicial pipeline and left a strong stamp on the courts, had already nominated 28 appellate and 36 district candidates at a comparable point in his tenure. By contrast, Mr. Obama has offered 12 nomination to appeals courts and 14 to district courts. ... There are nearly 100 vacancies on federal courts....NYT A19
--Instead of marking Veterans Day or Armistice Day on Nov. 11, Germany on Sunday observes Volkstrauertag, its national day of mourning for soldiers and civilians who did in war, as well as for victims of violent oppression.—NYT WK1
--Not too long ago, Mr. Gosse said, a 20-year something male wouldn't admit to dating a woman over 40. “Now it is a badge of honor,” he said. NYT ST 14
--11-13-09—The growing influence of Brazil and China in the world economy received further recognition this week when the most commonly used benchmark for emerging-market stocks—and the mutual funds that track them—increased the weighting of companies in those nations. –WSJ C13
--11--07-09Fewer Harvard MBA graduates took jobs on Wall Street this year compared to 20008. And ... it actually could be a good thing... SBT C6

wall fall

11-09-09--In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.
This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.
But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment? ... When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity, liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy.
As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology itself — people aspired to something that can most appropriately be designated as “Socialism with a human face.” Perhaps this attitude deserves a second chance. –Slavoj Zizek NYT A21

weekend update

11-08-09—Ehrenreich herself posted a message on a cancer support site under the title “Angry,” complaining about the effects of chemotherapy, “recalcitrant insurance companies,” and “sappy pink ribbons.” –NYTBR 7
--11-07-0-9—Unemployment plus underemployment rate at 17.5%. NYT A1
--The American Health care system is more expensive than any other, without providing beter results. NYT A1

11-06-09

11-06-09—North by Northwest is 50 years old.—SBT D4 [ famous airplane scene near La Porte, Indiana]

--Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are among several large NYC employers that got doses of the H1N1 vaccine, which remains in short supply—WSJ A4 [any doubts left on who owns the USA and what it’s there for??]


--11-04-09—A landmark agreement aimed at giving the European union a global stature on par with major powers like the US and China cleared its last major hurdle on Tuesday... NYT A5 [actually, the week’s biggest news...]

this is the way the empire ends, not with a bang but a whimper

11-4-09--WASHINGTON (Nov. 3) -- Are America's youth too fat, dumb or dishonest to defend the nation against its enemies? The latest Army statistics show a stunning 75 percent of military-age youth are ineligible to join the military because they are overweight, can't pass entrance exams, have dropped out of high school or had run-ins with the law. So many young people between the prime recruiting ages of 17 and 24 cannot meet minimum standards that a group of retired military leaders is calling for more investment in early childhood education to combat the insidious effects of junk food and inadequate education.

sit down before reading

11-3-09—The health insurance industry likes to cite figures showing that 87 cents of every dollar in premiums is spent on medical claims.
But a new Senate analysis suggests that for-profit insurance companies are spending much less than that, especially for policies sold to individuals and small businesses. Instead, as little as 66 cents of each dollar paid in premiums goes toward doctor and hospital bills, while the rest covers administrative expenses, marketing and company profits, according to the analysis.
The data come from an analysis of regulatory filings by the Senate Commerce Committee from the largest for-profit companies, including WellPoint, the UnitedHealth Group, Aetna and Cigna. They spent about 74 cents out of every dollar on medical care in the individual market, according to the information released by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat, who is chairman of the commerce committee.

--Crisis Compels Economists to Reach for New Paradigm. WSJ A1

--Arabs See US Tilt to Israel. WSJ A1

Halloween weekend

11-2-09—... Under Armour is teaching up with IMG Worldwide ... to run 100 training and evaluation combines for high school athletes in the US next year. Executives say the goal is to create an evaluation system in which everything from natural talent, to strength, to sport-specific ability, to nutrition and musculo-skeletal issues are reduced to a single SAT-like score. WSJ B10

--10-30-09—More states have lowered their academic proficiency standards than raised them, casting doubts on claims of educational progress. ... nearly all [states] used exams that feel short of federal testing benchmarks.... WSJ A1, A3

crabs

HARPERS NOV. 2009:
--% of white Americans in August who said they considered Fox News “reliable: 46
--% of black and Latino Americans, respectively, who did: 5, 11 [p.13]

--Those who celebrated Bush’s militancy back in the intoxicating days when he was promising to rid the world of evil see Obama’s enthusiasm for pressing on in Afghanistan as a vindication of sorts. They are right to do so. ... Not for nothing has [Afghanistan] acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how the British, Russians, or others have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans.... For those who, despite all this, still hanker to have a go at nation building ... why not fix first, say, Mexico? ... The contrast between Washington’s preoccupation with Afghanistan and its relative indifference to Mexico testifies to the distortion of US national security priorities adopted by George W. Bush in his post-9/11 prophetic mode—distortions now being endorsed by Bush’s successor. It also testifies to a vast failure of imagination to which our governing classes have succumbed. ... The ethos of consumption and individual autonomy, privileging the here and now over the eternal, will conquer the Muslim world as surely as it is conquering East Asia and as surely as it has already conquered what was once known as Christendom.—Prof. Andrew Bacevich [pp. 15,16,18,20]

--...we concluded that I was doomed for the rest of my life to be a professor. Not that I hated to teach. But defined. Classified. Serious. That was the worst part, to have to be serious about life. ...The basic question: Who was ready, willing even, to launch an attack on the other, to lead us into a new war that would devastate the planet. Obviously, it was the United States. ... Then deGaulle seized power and suddenly it dawned on my that my life would be totally absurd, that my generation was doomed to exist under his pathetic and ridiculous assurances of “la grandeur de la France.”—Jean Paul Sartre [21]

demographics

10-28-09—[an analysis] found that Dallas and Houston were attracting less-educated migrants [raising thegeneral average IQs of where they came from and also where they were going to] NYT A20

--Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden lead the world in gender equality, as measured by economic participation, education, health and political empowerment. The USA is 31st.—NYT A11

catch up

10-27-09—[the new US Embassy in Iraq] is a monument to shoddy work and incompetent oversight.—NYT A8
--“We see a situation where [college] athletics expenditures are rising three or four times gaster than expenditures in academic programs..”—NYT B15
--An OECD report found that just 57% of children in the US live with both parents, among the lowest percentages of the world’s richest nations.—WSJ B8
--[In Georgia, a school district policy of prohibiting school sponsored Biblical citations] has produced an unexpected result: more biblical verses at football games, displayed not by cheerleaders, but by fans sitting in the stands.—NYT A12
10-25-09--A Saudi court on Saturday sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes after she had been charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publily talked about sex.—SBT A8

10-14-09

10-14-09Wall Street on Track to Award Record Pay—WSJ A1

10-13-09

10-13-09-- Ms. Ostrom is the first woman to receive the economics prize in the 41-year history of the award. She is a political scientist, not an economist, and in honoring her, the judges seemed to suggest that economics should be thought of as an interdisciplinary field rather than a pure science governed by mathematics. “This award is part of the merging of the social sciences,” said Robert Shiller, a Yale University economist. “Economics has been too isolated and too stuck on the view that markets are efficient and self-regulating. It has derailed our thinking.”

10-11/12

10-12-09—HOOSIER WINS NOBEL PRIZE. A U.S. academic who proved that communities can trump state control and corporations became the first woman to win the Nobel prize in economics on Monday, sharing it with an expert on conflict resolution. Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University defied conventional wisdom with studies that showed that user-managed properties -- such as community fish stocks or woodland areas -- more often than not were better run than standard theories predicted. "Since we have found that bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information while citizens and users of resources do, we hope it helps encourage a sense of capacity and power," the professor told a news conference via telephone. The previously accepted view was common property was poorly managed and should be either regulated centrally or privatized. (Reuters)

–10-11-09--...While Leif Erikson Day passed largely unnoticed Wednesday amid the daily presidential smorgasbord of Afghanistan and health care, the White House took care to mark the event with a soaring tribute to the Scandinavian explorer... [Former White House press secretary Martin Fitzwater observed] “You can just come out and proclaim it “National Rabbit Day” or something and make a bunch of rabbit lovers very happy very easily. Or Polish Americans. Some were no doubt gratified by Mr. Obama’s proclamation of General Pulaski Memorial Day (Friday), just as German-Americans might have been buoyed by Germany-American Day (Tuesday), and Nordic Americans were likely cheered by Mr. Obama’s Leif Erikson Day gesture. “It’s one of my favorite days,” gushed Sig Rogich ....”Leif never gets any credit at all ... It’s all Columbus this, Columbus that.” NYT 21

10-09-09

10-09-09—Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize [find a news source]

--There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe is still the center of the literary world, not the United States. The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”—Horace Engdahl, Nobel Prize Secretary, 2008 (NYT, C34)

--“The Damned United”[a British soccer movie] is rated R...British football fans, players, and coaches swear a lot when they’re upset. Also when they’re happy. Pretty much when they’re awake.—A.O.Scott, NYT C8

10-08-09

10-08-09--...the quality of the health care children get today will shape their contributions to the economy when they grow up. –WSJ A2
--...I don’t have any complaint about the quality of counsel [who argue before the Supreme Court] except maybe we’re wasting some of our best minds.—Antonin Scalia WSJ A17
--...more than a third of parents don’t want their kids vaccinated [for swine flu] according to an AP-GfK poll. AP

this medical stuff is just really so too complicated

10-06-09 –Expanding health insurance to cover everyone over the age of 51 might help save costs to Medicare in the long run ... People between the ages of 51 and 65 who lack health insurance end up costing Medicare about $1000 more per year when they turn 65 than people who have had coverage all along... NYT A17

hopefully FOX, Rush, Glen or Bill can give us the real scientific truth here...

10-05-09--STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Three Americans won the Nobel prize for medicine on Monday for revealing the existence and nature of telomerase, an enzyme which helps prevent the fraying of chromosomes that underlies aging and cancer...An outspoken researcher, Blackburn was fired in 2004 from then-President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics for her criticism of his policy on embryonic stem cell research.

day late a dollar short

10-02-09—Chicago loses
10-01-09—The US government said Wednesday it had ended its 11 year contract with the nonprofit body that oversees key aspects of the Internet’s architecture, afer demands from other countries for more say in how the Web works. ... Some countries, including China, have suggested they would build their own version of the Internet if the matter wasn’t resolved. WSJ B4
10-01-09---Gates has voiced doubts about Afghan war strategy. WSJ A1

stupider than Germans

9-30-09—Life expectancy: US 78 years, Germany 80 years; Infant mortality: US, 7/1000 births, Germany 4/1000; Health Spending as 5age of GDP: US 15, Germany 10; Percentage of health spending that is private: US 54%; Germany, 23%; Doctors per 10,000 people: US 26, Germany, 34.

jesus lurks

9-28-09—“We are a calm nation that drinks beer and eats dumplings, and we have strong antibodies to any kind of religious persuasion because of our history.” Czech Rev. Alex Opatrny, commenting on Pope’s visit.—NYT 9-28-09
--A pope’s visit should energize all Christians, but I find his social conservatism quite ridiculous. The Vatican and this pope have been absolutizing the traditions of the past without thinking of the reasoning behind the rules, which is what Jesus was fighting against.” Daniel Barton, Czech Protestant youth leader—NYT 9-28-09
--[a recent poll] found that fully half the people would support a tax of 50% or higher on the country’s wealthiest millionaires.—NYT, 9-28-09 p. B3.

fall falls; fen fu

9-22-09—Pentagon Delays Troops Call: Request for Additional Forces Hold as White House Seeks Review of Afghan Strategy. WSJ A1
--On the eve of the 60th anniversary Oct. 1 of Communist rule that was supposed to create a classless utopia, China is instead gripped with a renewed sense of anger toward a new elite. The Mandarin phrase FEN FU, or to hate the rich, has been coined in recent months to capture the public’s bitter resentment.—WSJ A1
--China Spreads Aid in Africa, with a Catch for Recipients. NYT A1
--An internal watchdog at the Justice Department said he was reviewing the agency’s involvement with the national community organizing group Acorn. Inspector General Glenn Fine wrote to Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, that his office would examine whether Acorn sought or received any Justice Department grant money, or conducted any reviews of the group’s use of such money. More than a dozen state and local authorities are also scrutinizing Acorn, including Maryland’s attorney general. –NYT A20

ides of September

9-15-09—“We won this war [WWII] because our men are brave and because of many things—because of Russia, England and China and the passage of time and the gift of nature’s material. We did not win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples. I hope that in victory we are more grateful than proud.”—Ernie Pyle (1945) NYT A27
--Senate votes to deny funds to ACORN after video airs. SBT A3
--“If the free market was the solution to all problems and was never wrong, when then are we in such a situation?” asked Mr. Sarkozy. “We need to change criteria.” ..Sarkozy is suggesting gauges of economic health encompass well-being in addition to GDP. Measures could nclude Employment levels, Health Care, Vacation, Household Assets and Income, Consumption, and Education.—WSJ A13
October HARPERS, p. 13:
--Percentage of their countries’ respective GDPs that the US and Chinese stimulus packages represent: 6, 13
--Portion of China’s stimulus spending that will go toward infrastructure projects: 2/5
--Portion of US spending that will: 1/8
--Percentage of Americans who could be sent to medical school in China this year on the total US health spending: 100

yale beats harvard

9-11-09—Harvard’s endowment dropped 27%, Yale’s 30%. NYT

9-9-09

The dollar tumbled to its lowest level in nearly a year as investors fled a safe haven for riskier assets and worried that the US economy could be a laggard in the global recovery.--WSJ A1

sept. songs

9-8-09—But there is another type of disturbing behavior, coming from our political leaders and the public at large, that is also symptomatic of a society at loose ends. We seem unable to face up to many of the hard truths confronting the US as we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st century. [e.g., health care, Iraq, Afghanistan, California] The serious wackos, the obsessive compulsive absurdists, may be beyond therapy. But the rest of us could use some adult counseling. ... The first step, of course, is to recognize we have a problem. NYT A21

--9-7-09--Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the US expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than 2/3 of all foreign armament deals... NYT A4

the week (and 2500 years) that was

9-4-09—President Obama’s plan to deliver a speech to public schools on Tuesday has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas and are asking school officials to excuse the children from listening.—NYT A1
--Obama Advisers are Split on Size of Afghan Force—NYT A1
9-3-09—For FDR was a divider, not a uniter, and he unabashedly waged class war.—NYT A25
9-2-09—[A Senate report ] makes clear that one of the principal means by which Forest [Laboratories] hoped to persuade psychiatrists, primary care doctors and other medical specialists to prescribe [their drug] Lexapro was to put money into doctors’ pockets and food into their mouths. NYT B1
--...health care is not an individual commodity to be bought and enjoyed like other products. That the health of each of us depends on the health of the rest of us, as epidemics from the Middle Ages to this year’s flu have demonstrated. ... You have to share [health care] with others in order to protect your own health. Yes, Democrats can prove that America pays more for health care than other countries; yes, they have won the dispute that private health insurance is needlessly expensive. But what they’ve lost is the argument that we are a society.—WSJ, Frank, A13
9-2-09—Abe Grady settled in Kentucky in the 1820s and married a freed slave. One of their grandchildren, Odessa Lee Grady Clay, give birth to [Muhammad] Ali—then Cassius Clay—in 1942 ... Ali’s wife, Yolanda, said her husband’s Irish blood might help explain his legendary ability to bludgeon his opponents with blarney as well as punches. –SBT A1
9-1-09—Decades from now, the crisis of 2008 might not be remembered as the last days of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, but as the moment the dollar lost its undisputed No. 1 ranking among world currencies. ---WSJ C1
9-1-09--Japan’s opposition party won an overwhelming victory at the polls on Sunday pledging to increase social welfare, better protect workers and do away with American-stle pro-market reforms to lead the country out of its long slump. NYT A1
8-31-09—As Banks repay bailout money, US sees profit. NYT A1
--Raft of deals for failed banks puts US on hook for billions. WSJ A1
--[Japan’s newly elected prime minister] has spoken of the end of American-dominated globalization and of the need to reorient Japan toward Asia.—NYT A1
--1996 (1975)—Again experience showed that expeditionary forces were severely troubled by consistent irregular or guerilla warfare, especially in rather remote mountainous areas where the foreigners lacked local support. The Russians struggled for decades against such resistance in the Caucasus, and the British gave up the attempt to control Afghanistan directly.. HOBSBAWM, THE AGE OF CAPITAL: 1848-1875, p 117.
~420 BCE--Few indeed have been the large armaments, either Hellenic or barbarian, that have gone far from home and been successful.”—Hermocrates of Syracuse [quoted by Thucydides]

8-27-09

8-27-09—French President Sarkozy said the dollar can’t remain the world’s only reserve currency, as the rise of emerging powers such as Chinese and Russia challenge US prominence.—WSJ C2

8-26-09

8-26-09—Investors are also growing more comfortable with the idea of emerging economics like China, Russia and Brazil playing a bigger role in shaping international finance.—WSJ A2
--President Nicolas Sarkozy of France on Tuesday announced steps, agreed to by bankers, to curb excessive compensation in the industry as he pledged to push for tighter international rules at a meeting of global leaders next month. “It’s too easy to say we’ll do nothing because others aren’t,” Mr. Sarkozy said, The New York Times’s Matthew Saltmarsh reports from Paris. “France must lead and try to persuade the others.” NYT B5
--“The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization, has issued an electronic “Town Hall Kit” to help its followers, including pastors, to set up their own meetings “to inform and activate the people in your pews and communities against the health care overhaul proposals moving through Congress. Actual Town Hall Not Included, NYT A14.

dog days of August

8-25-09—Rhode Island will shut down its government for 12 days... NYT A11
---...smoking has been banned .. at a prison where several buildings were burned down during an inmate riot. --Ibid.
--At least 1200 veterans across the country have been mistakenly told by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs that they have a fatal neurological disease.—Ibid.
--8-22-09—Taylor is expected to go to Yale or Wellesley even though her grades don’t hold up. When Taylor points out [to her ambitious mother] that a high-status education may not be everything, that Condoleeza Rice went to the University of Denver, her mother isn’t moved: “She, my darling, is conspicuously single. Maybe if she had gone to Wellesley she would have amounted to something.” ... [Mother] wants Taylor to consider doing more good works to beef up her applications, like volunteering at the golf course. When Taylor explains that the bar for charitable endeavors is pretty high—her friend Maya spent a summer working at a leper colony in India—[Mother] dismisses the effort. “You can hardly walk down the street without running into them. Four days later they’re cured.” NYT C3

8-19-09

8-20-09—Only about a quarter of the 2009 high school graduates taking the ACT admissions tests have the skills to succeed in college, a report found. WSJ A1
--The only place at the moment where you can see women forking over money to have sex with a gigolo is on HBO’s salaciously named “Hung.” The kooky comedy is about a divorced Detroit high school basketball coach ... He decides to sell his best asset, dubbing himself “a happiness consultant,” and teams up with an unlikely pimp, Tanya Skagle ... an aspiring poet who listens to PBS and has “Proust” tattooed on her forearm.—Dowd NYT A23
--...business embraced the carnival it saw in the muddy hills of upstate New York in 1969 not merely because it wanted to sell things to kids but because coolness, nonconformity and soulfulness expressed something deep and true about capitalism itself... let us remember that any establishment is lucky to have an opposition like this one.—Frank, WSJ A13
--[Engels] hosted regular Sunday parties for London’s left-wing intelligentsia and, as one regular put it, “no one left before 2 or 3 in the morning.” On a personality quiz, three of Engels’ answers were “Favorite virtue: jollity”; “Idea of happiness: Chateau Margaux 1848”; “Motto: take it easy.” NYT C1,6

theology

8-18-09—Last summer, Richard Posner, a federal appeals court judge, issued a surprising and prescient dissent. Executive pay is out of control he said, and the marketplace cannot be trusted to rein it in. Judge Posner is a conservative with libertarian leanings, and he is a leader of the law and economics movement associated with the University of Chicago ... and believes that many [legal] questions are best sorted out by the marketplace. NYT A10

--BBVA Compass [Spanish Bank] includes nearly 600 branches stretched across the southern US[and is looking to move west and into California]. .. Spanish banks have benefited from strict regulation by the Bank of Spain, which kept them on a tight leash after two banking crises since the 1980s. In a system that international banking regulators now hope to emulate, Spain forced banks to build up capital cushions during the years of plenty. That has helped them ride out the crisis so far with little government aid. –WSJ, C1 C2

d'oh....

8-14-09—Europe Recovers as US Lags: Germany, France Escape Recession Even as Consumer Weakness Hobbles America.—WSJ A1 [d’oh...]


--“I am in this race because I don’t want to see us spend the next year re-fighting the Washington battles of the 1990s. I don’t want to pit Blue America against Red America; I want to lead a United States of America.” So declared Barack Obama in November 2007, making the case that Democrats should nominate him, rather than one of his rivals, because he could free the nation from the bitter partisanship of the past. Some of us were skeptical. A couple of months after Mr. Obama gave that speech, I warned that his vision of a “different kind of politics” was a vain hope, that any Democrat who made it to the White House would face “an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false.” So, how’s it going? Sure enough, President Obama is now facing the same kind of opposition that President Bill Clinton had to deal with: an enraged right that denies the legitimacy of his presidency, that eagerly seizes on every wild rumor manufactured by the right-wing media complex. This opposition cannot be appeased. Some pundits claim that Mr. Obama has polarized the country by following too liberal an agenda. But the truth is that the attacks on the president have no relationship to anything he is actually doing or proposing. –Krugman, NYT A17


--Aug. 28, 1969 [Woodstock editorial WSJ]: The so-called generation gap is not really as much a matter of age as it is a gap between more civilized and less civilized tastes. As such, it may be more serious, both culturally and politically, than it first appeared. WSJ W5

ketchup

8-13-09—At the World Cup, Mexico’s teams are often among the three teams whose fans are loved by nearly all supporters from other nations: Brazil, Scotland and Mexico. The Brazilian fans are loved for their rowdy mixture of samba and sex appeal, the Scots for their bagpipes and kilts, if not their sex appeal, and the Mexicans for their outlandish sombreros and tequila-fueled good nature. WSJ D8

8-12-09—Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jesson were military retirees and psychologists ... in 2002 [for the CIA] they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism. They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions.. They had no relevant scholarship; their PhD dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda. NYT A1

--“Golf is a bourgeois sport—“ Hugo Chavez—NYT A4

--a new study argues that the Beatles may have helped bridge today’s generation gap in America.--NYT A13
--The young grass-roots army that swept Obama into office has yet to mobilize now that the fight is about something complicated rather than a charismatic hope-monger. No, they can’t? Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming young idealists on screen, we see ugly scenes of mostly older and white malcontents, disrupting forums where others have come to actually learn something. Instead of hope, we get swastikas, death threats and T-shirts proclaiming “Proud Member of the Mob.” President Obama has proven quicksilver instincts, but not in this case. You would think that a politician schooled in community organizing and the foul balls of a presidential campaign would be ready to squash this kind of nuttiness. (Like it or not, Speaker Pelosi, that’s democracy in action.) Instead, the president’s overconfident Harvard Law Review side, expecting a high-minded debate, prevailed. –NYT A21

8-9-09--Climate Change Seen as Threat to US Security; Pentagon Studies Issue.—NYT A1 [d’oh...!...]

8-5-09

--8-5-09—Back in 1932, the future Illinois Senator Paul Douglas advised progressives not to expect too much from the Democratic Party. It was, he wrote, “maintained by the business interests” as a kind of “lifeboat.” Whenever the GOP ship sprung a leak—whenever Republicans were no longer willing or able to do business’ bidding—the interests simply piled into the other party and made their escape.—Thomas Frank, WSJ A11

--Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by pharmaceutical companies played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement in women, suggesting that the level of hidden industry influence on medical literature is broader than previously noted.—NYT A1

--A trade group representing coal producers and power companies says that it directly hired a lobbying firm that sent fake letters to lawmakers purporting to be from nonprofit groups [e.g., NAACP, Creciendo Juntos] opposed to climate change legislation.—NYT A12

7-29-09

7-29-09—The unusual exchange between American and Chinese officials ... underscored a subtle shift in power between China and the United Sates, one in which the Chinese are showing a new assertiveness as they seek to protect their huge investment.—NYT A5
--During its US tour last summer, FC Barcelona held a training session one evening in Central Park. The team, including superstar Thierry Henry, practiced in a part of the park’s North Meadow that serves as the outfield for several softball fields. As warm-ups began so did calls from the clueless nearby beer league softball games for Barcelona to “Get the --- off the field.”—WSJ D8
--Sex really is a nation of its own. Those who allegiance is given to sex at a certain moment withdraw their loyalty temporarily from other powers. It’s a symbol of the possibility that we might all defect for one reason or another from the obedient columns in which we march.—Wallace Shawn HARPERS August 2009 p. 15

the summer of our discontent

It was Americans’ reverence for their traditional two-party system] that blinded them when it foundered once and for all on the inherent contradictions of liberal “democracy” soon after Barack Obama took office. The people’s desire for instant gratification, their willingness to elect dangerous demagogues, and the venality and contentions of their leaders all had rendered the American decline inevitable. ... The pampered youth of the American bourgeois classes came to believe that their mere attendance at rallies and the symbolic choices they made between factions in the election booths constituted a movement—even a sort of revolution. –Li Xian The Dragon Rising, The Chinese Century, HARPERS July 2009, 33-34

1825

Britain had prospered in the early 1820s from low interest rates and a surplus of money. There were two booms, in foreign investment and in trade. ... The middle classes borrowed to invest in the booming economy. Banks kept up with the demand for cash, issuing more banknotes. ... Late in 1825 the bubble burst. ... The visionary companies were the ones that fell furthest.—Ben Wilson, THE MAKING OF VICTORIAN VALUES (2007) p. 277.

green century

The situation is like this: they hired our parents to destroy this world, and now they’d like to put us to work rebuilding it, and—to add insult to injury—a a profit... And in our bewilderment we’re ready to leap into the arms of the very same ones who presided over the devastation, in the hope that they will get us out of it. ... Ecology isn’t simply the logic of a total economy; it’s the new morality of capital. The system’s internal state of crisis and the rigorous screening that’s underway demand a new criterion in the name of which this screening and selection will be carried out. From one era to the next, the idea of virtue has never been anything but an invention of vice. Without ecology, how could be justify the existence of two different diets, one “healthy and organic” for the rich and their children, and the other notoriously toxic for the plebes, whose offspring are damned to obesity. The planetary hyper-bourgeoisie wouldn’t be able to make its normal lifestyle seem respectable if its latest whims weren’t so scrupulously “respectful of the environment.” Without ecology, nothing would have enough authority to gag every objection to the exorbitant progress of control ... Everything is permitted to a power structure that bases it authority in Nature, in health and well-being. ... The new green asceticism is precise the self-control that is required of us all in order to negotiate a rescue operation where the system has taken itself hostage. –The Invisible Committee, THE COMING INSURRECTION (2009) pp 75-79

weekend update

-18/19-09—Now, on TV every day as people remember some trauma or triumph, they stop as if on cue ... and weep. They think this shows sincerity and sensitivity. ... I sometimes watch with fascination those shows where people lose weight. They often begin to sob as they fall of the treadmill or remember the Twinkie they didn’t eat. This is now the national style. It makes Europeans laugh. When they’re about to be mawkish or overly emotional they say, I don’t mean to get American on you.” --Peggy Noonan WSJ A13

7-16-09

7-16-09—First, the bosses were taken hostage. Now, workers facing layoffs in France have threatened—twice this week—to blow up their factories unless they receive more severance pay. –NYT B9

7-15-09

7-15-09—Sarah Palin is a collector of grievances. She runs for high office by griping. This is no small thing, mind you. The piling-up of petty complaints is an important aspect of conservative movement culture.—Thomas Frank, WSJ A13

7-14-09

7-14-09—...China’s protectionist tactics to become the world’s leader in renewable energy. Calling renewable energy a strategic industry, China is trying hard to make sure that its companies dominate globally.—NYT B1 [so they won’t have to invade Iraq for wind...]

7-13-09

7-13-09—Up and down Wall Street, analysts and traders are buzzing that Goldman Sachs, which only recently paid back government bailout money, will report blowout profits from trading on Tuesday. NYT A1—meet the new boss, same as the old boss


--Three Inmates Escape from State Prison at Michigan City.—SBT A1 –life imitates art [as in DILLINGER, although one of them has already been apprehended at the Mayor Daley vacation home in SW Michigan...]

weekend update

7-12-09—The park [in Granger Indiana] was part of a national attempt on Saturday by the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) to set the world record for largest skinny kip across North America... SBT B4
7-11/12-09—[Sarah Palin] was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn’t say what she read because she didn’t read anything. .. She wasn’t thoughtful enough to know she wasn’t thoughtful enough... She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bon bon. –Peggy Noonan –WSJ A11
--7/11/09--Most intelligence officials interviewed “had difficulty citing specific instances” when the National Security Agency’s wiretapping program contributed to successes against terrorists...—NYT A1

7-8-09

7-8-09—Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a radical rethinking of the global economy, criticizing a growing divide between rich and poor and urging the establishment of a “true world political authority” to oversee the economy and work for the “common good.” –NYT A6
--In “Caritas in Veritate,” Pope Benedict offered a sweeping indictment of the troubles that fueled the economic crisis, ranging from outsourced labor, to lax market regulation, to managers and financiers driven by profit and “darkened reason.”—WSJ A11
--Indiana’s privately welfare project has so many problems that the state could start taking steps to cancel its $1.6 billion contract with lead vendor IBM... WSJ A6

7-7-09

7-7-09--All told, Paris has set aside 100 million euros in stimulus funds earmarked for what the French like to call their cultural patrimony. It is a French twist on how to overcome the global downturn, spending borrowed money avidly to beautify the nation even as it also races ahead of the United States in more classic Keynesian ways: fixing potholes, upgrading railroads and pursuing other “shovel ready” projects.
“America is six months behind; it has wasted a lot of time,” said Patrick Devedjian, the minister in charge of the French relance, or stimulus. By the time Washington gets around to doling out most of its money, Mr. Devedjian sniffed, “the crisis could be over.”
Gallic pride aside, Mr. Devedjian has a point. While he plans to spend 75 percent of France’s stimulus money this year, the White House is giving itself until fall 2010 to lay out that big a share of the American expenditure. And many experts predict that Washington will fall short of that goal.
As it turns out, France’s more centralized, state-directed economy — so often criticized in good times for smothering entrepreneurship and holding back growth — is proving remarkably effective at deploying funds quickly and efficiently in bad times.
“All projects must start in 2009,” Mr. Devedjian said. “We want rapid results.”—NYT B1

7-6-09

7-6-09—[A Russian version of Rush Limbaugh and Oliver Stone] has derided the United States as “a great power with a broken back,” “a country where armed psychopaths regularly roam educational establishments” and “a parasite that owes the world $53 trillion.” –NYT A1

happy birthday America

7-5-09—Overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly Protestant and Lutheran, [Minnesota] has election four Jews to th3 US States Senate in recent time. (Jews make up less than 1% of the state’s population—NYT WK4
--“Dillinger did not rob poor people,” wrote one correspondent to the Indianapolis Star. “He robbed those who became rich by robbing the poor.” --NYT WK 8
--Sarah Palin showed on Friday that in one respect at least, she is qualified to be president. Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy.—NYT WK 9

Mark his words

6-24-09—On behalf of the people of Illinois and New York, I’d like to thank South Carolina for giving us Mark... Finally, a governor who’s weirder than Rod Blagojevich and less rsponsbile than Eliot Spitzer. ...before this search for a [GOP] presidential nominee goes any further, I’m thinking it’s time for the Republicans to apologize for putting us through the Clinton impeachment. W seem to have pretty well established that sexual stone-throwing is a dangerous sport. –Gail Collins—NYT A21

update

--6-20-09—“I don’t believe in colleges and universities, I believe in libraries.”—Ray Bradbury NYT A1
--If Mr. Sarkozy campaigned on the idea of working more to earn more, Mr. Cohn-Bendit [Danny the Red, now Danny the Green] said the Green coalition urged “work differently for a better life.”—NYT A4
--People on the government’s terrorist watch list tried to buy guns nearly 1000 times in the last five years, and federal authorities cleared the purchases 9 time out of 10 because they had no legal way to stop them, according to a new government report.—NYT A10

ya gotta love these guys

--6-19-09—CEOs of bailed-out banks flew to resorts on firms’ jets. WSJ A1

6-18-09

--The American College of Physicians attributes much of the high cost of the US health care system to its relative excess of well-paid specialists and lack of primary care doctors. ... Another very important but often overlooked reason for greater health expenditures in the US is that, more than in any other advanced country, large parts are owned by investors. As a result, the entire industry behaves like a profit driven industry ... Nearly a half-century ago, Kenneth Arrow, later a Nobel laureate, convincingly argued that medical care cannot conform to market laws because patients are not ordinary consumers and doctors are not ordinary vendors. –NYRB, 7-2-09 p. 38
--6-18-09—[Senator Gregg (R-NH)) said the Kennedy [health care draft] bill looked as if it had been written by Rube Goldberg, Karl Marx and Ira Magaziner. ... Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) fired back. “Our current system is a combination of Adam Smith, Darth Vader and the ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” she said. “So I like our plan better.”—NYT A19

Republican solution to everything

6-17-09—Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, admitted Tuesday that he had an extramarital affair with a member of his campaign staff... He and his wife, Darlene, were active for a time in Promise Keepers, a Christian evangelical ministry that promotes strong families and marriages. In a statement released by his office in Washington, Mr. Ensign said, “I take full responsibility for my actions ...” NYT A15

bloomsday 2009

Bloomsday, 2009—The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China are gathering in Russia to plot how they can exert more control over the global financial system... While they are far from a monolithic group, they are generally united in their frustration with the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, which enables Washington to run budget deficits without fears of facing the kind of budgetary day of reckoning that other countries risk. NYT A1, A5
--Ohio State University researchers concluded this year that strong conservatives were more likely than liberals to perceive that Colbert shows their political beliefs. –SBT,A5
--The State Department overpaid the security firm once known as Blackwater by tens of millions of dollars for its work in Iraq, an audit found. WSJ A1

gimme culture

6-13-09—With Real Madrid spending money as if the global recession were a myth, it has been an interesting week for Joan Laporta, president of Real Madrid’s chief rival, F.C. Barcelona. But having just completed the most successful campaign in Barcelona’s history by winning La Lipa, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, Laporta, 46, is preaching serenity ahead of his final season in charge... [he said:] “One model is you build a team with checks and money. And another model is the one we have, where we have a trajectory, where we are mature, and identified with our culture. Of the players we have in our first team, more than 50% come from our youth teams.... In the global financial crisis, we in football have to be examples in many things. And in this case, common sense is telling us something different [from Real Madrid]. ... Like I say, they sign names, and we have a team. NYT B12

--6-13/14-09—Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy, but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society. [Republics, as “envisioned by some percolating secessionist movements” would include:
• Alaska-self-explanatory
• Hawaii—self-explanatory
• Cascadia—Vancouver down through Seattle
• Cali Baja—Greater San Diego through Northern Baja
• Texas—self explanatory
• Lakotah—Amerindians want ND, SD, MONT., WY, NB
• North Star Republic—MN, WI, MI—socialist republic
• Novacadia—NH, VT, ME, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Lsland and Nova Scotia, modeled on Denmark
• Southern National Congress—MO, KY, MD and everything south except for SC
• Christian Exodus—SC, a sovereign Christian run state
WSJ W1-2

--6-13/14-09--...the USA Today story this week on a Gallup poll saying nearly half the country’s Republicans and Republican-leaners can’t come up with a name when asked who their party’s leader is. Of those who could think of a name, 10% said Rush Limbaugh, 10% Newt Gingrich, 9% Dick Cheney. WSJ A13

have a good weekend

6-12-09--Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists. But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.
There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.—Krugman, NYT A23
--House’s No. 2 Republican [Rep. Eric Cantor] compares Obama to Putin. –SBT A3
--Andrews [chair of a white advocacy group] said he voted for Obama because “I want to see the Republican Party destroy, so it can be reborn as a party representing the interests of white people, and not entrenched corporate elites.”—Ibid.
--Movies at one South Bend theatre: Angels & Demons, Drag Me to Hell, The Hangover, Imagine That, Land of the Lost, My Life in Ruins, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Star Trek, The Taking of Pelham, Terminator Salvation. –SBT D6

more than a club

6-12-09—The outlaw for Messrs. Ronaldo and Kaka of more than $220 million also came two weeks after Real Madrid’s bitter rival, FC Barcelona, beat Mr. Ronaldo’s Manchester United in the final of the UEFA Champions League, the world’ most prestigious tournament for professional clubs.... The rivalry between Barcelona and Madrid, known as “the derby,” is fueled by simmering political resentments. During the reign of Francisco Franco, Madrid was the favored team of the fascist establishment while Barcelona was the team of the Catalan resistance. WSJ B2

floats my boat

6-11-2009—If the Democrats enact a public-option health-insurance program, America is on the way to becoming a European-style welfare state. 00Karl Rove, WSJ A11

--Two years ago, America’s two publicly traded strip-club chains were thriving, reporting big sales gains, buying clubs on a nearly monthly basis and posting three- and four- fold stock price gains. Then the recession hit...—WSJ B1

6-10-09

6-10-09--...the director of financial aid gave the [admissions team at Reed College] another task: drop more than 100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and substitute those who could pay full freight [nearly $50,000 per year]. NYT A1
--GWB spent “a total of 490 days” in the tumbleweed isolation of Crawford—NYT A27
--Boomers to this year’s grads: We are really, really sorry. WSJ A11
--A larger reason for the shock and surprise [at the killing of Dr. Tiller, the Oklahoma bombing]—and this is true for the right generally—is this: The culture wars are not meant to be taken seriously. ... these are the ingredients of entertainment, not politics.—A13

6-9-09

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's Pirate Party, striking a chord with voters who want more free content on the Internet, won a seat in the European Parliament, early results showed on Sunday.

6-7-09

6-7-09—Russia says dollar makes a poor reserve currency. NYT B3

6-3-09 WSJ headlines

6-3-09—China Firm to Buy Hummer
--Germany Blasts “powers of the Fed”
--Congress Helped Banks Defang Key Rule—WSJ A1

6-2-09

6-2-09—[Treasury Secretary] Geithner’s trip [to China] seems geared more towards winning the confidence of Chinese leaders. He is emphasizing mutual respect and trying to ensure that Beijing does not sour on the dollar or stop buying Treasury notes. NYT A6


--...in some traditional Swiss restaurants, well-known bankers have been booed out of the house; one brasserie even turned away an illustrious banker client. NYT A9

6-1-09

6-1-09—As the financial crisis entered one of its darkest phases in October, a handful of the nation’s largest banks began holding daily telephone sessions. ... Atop the agenda ... how to counter an expect attempt to rein in credit-default swaps and other derivatives...NYT A1
--Hospitals plan to begin a lobbying campaign this week to prevent Congress from including charity care requirements in legislation to overhaul the health system. NYT A11
--A hedge fund firm that reaped huge rewards betting against the market last year is about to open a fund premised on another wager: that the massive stimulus efforts of global governments will lead to hyperinflation. WSJ C1
--A bipartisan group of legislators is pressing the Treasury Dept. to close a loophole that has allowed banks to seize Social Security and disability benefits from customers’ accounts despite federal rules intended to protect these benefits from creditors. WSJ C1
5-29-09—The Vatican newspaper made a rare foray into sports, praising Barcelona’s triumph over Manchester United in the European Champions League final as a victory of creativity over athleticism. “Football, Finally,” was the headline in Thursday’s editions of L’Osservatore Romano. “Technique and creativity have had the better of athletic vigor,” the newspaper said.” NYT B15

less than a club

5-28-09--Hobbled insurance giant American International Group Inc said it will not renew its sponsorship with Manchester United when its contract ends in May 2010....--WSJ D10

MemDay wknd

5-26-09—When [Derek] Walcott quit the race, commentators in British newspapers noted the irony of hounding a distinguished literary figure on the basis of long-ago sexual transgressions when many of Britain’s greatest poets were social or political reprobates, by the standards of modern day Britain. Michael Deacon in The Telegraph cited Lord Byron (“womanizer”), Samuel Coleridge (“drug fiend”), John Keats (“smack head”), Rudyard Kipling (“imperialist”), T.S. Eliot (“lines that could be construed as racist”), and Dylan Thomas (“drank like a drain, begged and stole from friends”), among others, and concluded “Not one of them, were they alive today, could hope to land the Oxford post—they just don’t meet the exacting moral standards set by people who conduct smear campaigns.” NYT A5

--5-24-09--The demise of an economy as mighty as that of the United States as of 2000 cannot be accounted for by anything less than deeply mistaken and foolish decision-making within that nation’s ruling circles. “The Decline and Fall of the United States of America,” Beijing University Department of Western Hemisphere History (Beijing Press, 2089)[sic] NYT WK7

sit down before reading

NYT May 22 2009 pm
For many years, unemployment in the United States was lower than in Western Europe, a fact often cited by people who argued that the flexibility inherent in the American system — it is easier to both hire and fire workers than in many European countries — produced more jobs. That is no longer the case. Unemployment in the United States has risen to European averages, and seems likely to pass them when international data for April is calculated. “The current economic crisis,” wrote John Schmitt, Hye Jin Rho and Shawn Fremstad of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a research organization in Washington, “has turned the case for the U.S. model almost entirely on its head.”

5-22-09

5-22-09—The hegemon’s ruling class, looking for investment opportunities, provides seed money for the next hegemon. As Marx himself pointed out, Venice (and Genoa) invested in The Netherlands, which eventually invested in England, which in turn invested in the United States, and as the United States appears to be currently doing in China. According to Arrighi, it appears to the hegemon’s ruling class that these new investments will leave them in their privileged position. Eventually, however, one of the regions favored by new investment establishes its own leadership in the production of key commodities. Eventually financially hegemony—which is technically easier to imitate, but depends on accumulated wealth—follows as well, and a new hegenomic wave begins. Richard Marens “It’s Not Just for Communists Any More,” OXFORD HANDBOOK OF SOCIOLOGY AND ORGANIZATION (2009) p 104

i wish

5-21-09—Republicans scrapped an effort to label their rivals the “Democrat Socialist Party,” ending a fight within the GOP. WSJ A1

5-18-2009

5-18-09—If these groups wanted to make a difference, they could have better used their money on homes for unwed mothers.—Notre Dame senior. NYT A3

--A series of cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior Pentagon officials during the early days of the war in Iraq in 2003 were adorned with biblical quotations...NYT A8

May 12, 13, 2009

5-13-09—A former surgeon at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, who is a paid consultant for a medical company, published a study that made false claims and overstated the benefits of the company’s product in treating soldiers severely injured in Iraq—NYT A1
--Cheney, who had 5 deferments himself to get out of going to Vietnam, would rather follow a blowhard entertainer who has had 3 divorces and a drug problem (who also avoided Vietnam) than a four star general who spent his life serving his country. –Dowd, NYT A27

--5-12-09--In states like Indiana, where property values never soared, community bankers have been rock solid. The last failure in the state was 1992. NYT A3

5-11-09

5-11-09--[“The Story of Stuff” video] is a cheerful but brutal assessment of how much Americans waste... NYT A1
--Many smaller [USA] companies complaining of abusive practices by their larger rivals were so frustrated by the Bush Administration’s antitrust policy that they went to the European Commission and to Asian authorities. ==NYT A3
---Remember that what the rest of us call health care costs, [the health care industry] call income–Krugman, NYT A21
--[Cliff Arness who runs the $20 billion asset-management firm AQR Capital said] “Hedge funds really need a community organizer.”—WSJ C1

weekend update, May 9-10, 2009

5-10-09—Fortunately I’ve had numerous other failed projects to help dilute the impact of this particular one.—Mr. Smigel NYT A29
--5-10-09If you wanted to pick the moment when the American news business went on suicide watch, it was almost exactly three years ago ... when Stephen Colbert, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, delivered a monologue accusing his hosts of being stenographers [for] the Bush White House... –Rich, NYT , WK 8
--5-9-09We are at war! We are engaged in a constant warfare with Satan. Bishop Finn, condemning Notre Dame’s invitation to invite Obama to speak--NYT
--5-10-09--Thank God I’m an atheist—Luis Bunel NYT A15

5-7-09

5-7-09—The FBI has incorrectly kept nearly 24,000 people on a terrorist watch list on the basis of outdated of sometimes irrelevant information, while missing people with genuine ties to terrorism who should have been on the list, according to a DOJ report ....politicians including Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Rep. John Lewis showed up on [the list]. NYT A20

May 6, 2009

5-6-09—An internal Justice Dept. inquiry has concluded that Bush administration lawyers committed serious lapses of judgment in writing secret memorandums that authorized brutal interrogations, but ... they would stop short of the criminal referral sought by some human rights advocates, who have suggested that the lawyers could be prosecuted as part of a criminal conspiracy to violate the anti-torture statute. NYTA1
--In a split decision on Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld a ban on married people combining already-hyphenated names, forbidding last names of three parts or more. NYT A6
--Here’s a Wall Street solution to Wall Street’s problems: Let’s offshore trading operations to land where ethics are more highly esteemed—Norway, for instance. And while we’re at it, let’sreplace our gold-plated, Lear-jetting American CEOs with thrifty Europeans , who may not write management books but who will do the work better, and for a fraction of the cost.—Frank, WSJ A13

the empire falls, the dark ages begin

5-5-09--A federal judge has ruled that a history teacher at a Southern California public high school violated the First Amendment when he called creationism “superstitious nonsense” in a classroom lecture. The judge, James Selna, issued the ruling after a 16-month legal battle between a student, Chad Farnan, and his former teacher, James Corbett. Mr. Farnan’s lawsuit said Mr. Corbett had made more than 20 statements that were disparaging to Christians and their beliefs. The judge found that Mr. Corbett’s reference to creationism as “religious, superstitious nonsense” violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause. Courts have interpreted the clause as prohibiting government employees from displaying religious hostility. Mr. Corbett teaches at Capistrano Valley High School. NYT A16

weekend up date May 3, 2009

5-3-09—A 2007 UNICEF study of the well-being of children in 21 developed countries ranked Dutch children at the top and American children second from the bottom. NYT Mag p. 47

--The longitudinal H/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study followed 68 such children, who were divided between instruction- and play- based classrooms. While everyone’s IQ initially rose, by age 15, the former group’s academic achievement plummeted. They were more likely to exhibit emotional problems and spent more time in special education... would I embrace the example of Finland—whose students consistently come out on top in international assessment—and delay formal reading instruction until age 7? NYT Mag 13-14

--“My pursuits are a joke in that the universe is a joke. One has to reflect the universe faithfully.” –John Michell NYT 28.

4-30-09

4-30-09—According to restructuring plans proposed this week, [UAW] will have more than half the stock in Chrysler and a third of GM, meaning it will have tremendous influence, along with the government, in determining the future of the companies. ... “We believe the offer to be a blatant disregard of fairness for the bondholders ...” a group of GM bondholders said ... NYT B1

4-29-09

4-29-09—Phoenix has the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first major city where home prices have fallen by half since 2006. NYT A1, B1

--US high school students haven’t made significant gains in reading or math since the early 1970s a report said. WSJ A, A5

--[Prof. Christopher Blakesley, former friend of torture memo signer and now federal appeallate court judge Jay Bybee] said that while he liked Judge Bybee, “he has some basic flaws about including being very naïve about leaders.” “He has too much respect for authority and will avoid a confrontation no matter what.” NYT A12

4-28-2009

4-28-09—[On Dec. 10, 2007] John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who had participated in the capture of suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly. M. Zubaydah started to co-operate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told ABC’s Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.” His claims—unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers—have been sharply contrasted by a newly classified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.” NYT A1

--Today the United States stands tenth, along with Australia, Spain, and Sweden, behind Canada, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Belgium, Ireland, Norway Denmark and France in the percentage of its young people (ages 24-34) who have earned a post-secondary degree. Since secondary education abroad is often stronger than in the United States, the comparative educational attainment of Americans is probably even worse than these rankings suggest. Among adults in the age 55-64, we still lead the world in the percentage who are college graduates—which means not only that over the past three decades many nations have surpassed us, but that, in the aggregate, younger Americans are less well educated than their elders. –NYRB, May 14, 2009, p. 38.

weekend update April 25/26, 2009

4-26-09—[The Senate Armed Services Committee report released last week] found that Maj. Paul Burney, a US Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantanamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce that intelligence. In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a ear resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. –Frank Rich, NYT WK 14

4-26-09—Mr. Siggfusson [53 year old Left-Green Party leader and former truck driver] was finance minister in [Iceland’s] caretaker government, a position he is expected to keep after the election, and he tells interviewers he wants to free Iceland from the consequences of embracing the unrestrained free-marketing that had its origins in the United States. “What are the people of the United States made about now?” he said in a recent interview. “It is the same poisonous philosophy that we had here, based on a lack of moral awareness and greed, and people who thought nothing of flying Elton John into Iceland fo their 50th birthday and paying him 70 million Icelandic kronors,” or roughly $600,000. NYT A8

4-25-06—In a confidence game that made a mockery of the US military’s most secure compound in Iraq, a ring of Americans posing as contractors and their Nepalese truck drivers used tanker trucks, forged documents and sheer brazenness to steal at least $40 million worth of jet and diesel fuel from an Army depot... NYT A6

4-24-09

4-24-09—[Even as the Global Climate Commission, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels] worked to sway opinion, its own scientific and technical experts were advising that the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted. NYT A1

--23 [Notre Dame student] groups endorse ... decision to invite President Barack Obama as this year’s commencement speaker. SBT A1

4-22-08

4-22-09—The top [Bush] officials which [GWB CIA Director Tenet] did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the US in war crimes trials after World War II and was a sell-documented favorite of despotic government since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia. NYT A1

--Record demand among faculty seeking tickets to the May 17 commencement ceremony featuring Barack Obama means not all University of Notre Dame professors who want to be there will be able to attend. SBT A1

i'll take half a loaf, then...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama left the door open on Tuesday to prosecuting some U.S. officials who laid the legal groundwork for harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects during the Bush administration.

USA! USA!

4-26-09—The US prosecuted some Japanese interrogators at war crimes trials after World War II for waterboarding and other methods detailed in the [CIA] memos. NYT A1

--Today’s [USA] populism has prompted no large-scale protests in the US. That isn’t the case overseas. Close to one million French demonstrators on March 19 protested the government’s handling of the crisis, and thousands blocked London streets on April 1 during a G-20 meeting, events that dwarfed any protests in the US. WSJ A9

--[French union leader Pierre Piccarreta said] “I’m fighting against this economic system that makes men, women and entire families suffer. Everyone realizes this now. This system is starting to explode; it should no longer exist. It makes the entire world suffer, it enriches the rich and impoverishes the poor.” NYT A11’

1952

1952—Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
--We might be tempted to bring the whole of modern history to a tragic conclusion by one final and mighty effort to overcome its frustrations. The political term for such an effort is “preventative war.” It is not an immediate temptation; but it could become so in the next decade or two. A democracy can not, of course, engage in an explicit preventative war...
--The lip service which the whole culture pays to the principles of laissez-faire makes for tardiness in dealing with the instability of a free economy ... Some believe that .. a recurrence of such a catastrophe [the Great Depression] is impossible; but it is not altogether certain that this is true...
--This tendency is accentuated in our own day by the humorless idealism of our culture with its simply moral distinctions between good and bad nations, the good nations being those which are devoted to “liberty.”
--One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentiously, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for its finite existence at the very moment when the decay that leads to death has already begun.

lawyers save Notre Dame

4-14-09—“...canon lawyers ... advised us that, by definition, only Catholics who implicitly recognize the authority of Church teaching can act in “’defiance’ of it,” [wrote Notre Dame Pres. Rev. Jenkins in regard to ND’s invitation to Obama].... “Moreover, fellow university presidents have told me that their bishops have told them that in fact it is only Catholic politicians who are referred to in [“Catholics in Political Life,” a statement passed in 2004 by US bishops. SBT A1

weekend update April 10-11, 2009

--4-12-09—The Canadian Supreme Court [Justice Ginsburg] said, is “probably cited more than the US Supreme Court.” ... “Can he police use torture to extract that information [where and when a bomb is going to go off]? And in an eloquent decision by Aharon Barak, then the chief justice of Israel, the court said” “Torture? Never.” NYT A14
--Seeking Arrangements 38 year old founder and chief executive [Brandon Wade says] “We ask people to really think about what they want in a relationship...” The site now claims more than 300,000 registered members ... Sugar babies outnumber daddies 10 to 1, Wade says, providing what one sugar daddy called “the best fishing hole I ever fished in.” ... Other women on the site would happily forfeit conspicuous prizes and go for cash instead, especially for tuition. NYTM40

---4-11-09-Millions of dollars worth of work associated with the new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and Mets was performed by companies that NYC avoids doing business with because of prior allegations of corruption and ties to organized crime. –NYT A1
--Obama’s round of spring events will culminate in appearances at graduation ceremonies in Notre Dame (where the local bishop is ticked off about the abortion thing) and Arizona State University where he is not going to receive an honorary degree. A spokeswoman for the university explained that it was withholding the honor from the president becase it was withholding that honor from the president because “his body of work is yet to come.” Tough standards, ASU! NYT A15
--Vince LaBarbara, spokesman for [Notre Dame’s bishop] urged Catholics not to attend an anti-Notre Dame, anti-Obama rally that was scheduled for 10 am Friday near the Allen County Courthouse ... The protest was organized by followers of anti-abortion advocate Randall Terry, who has set up an office in South Bend. LaBarbera called the event poorly timed, noting it was set for Good Friday ..... Friday afternoon ... the protest initially drew five local particpants, then Terry’s assistant and three other demonstrators showed up after 11 a.m. SBT A1

4-8-09

China, India, Brazil, and others into central, permanent roles in deciding the world economy’s course, even if that made the decision-making unwieldly. NYT A11
--Cyberspies have penetrated the US electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system... The spies came from China, Russia, and other countries... WSJA1
--When French foes of capitalism want to mount an effective protest, they phone Xavier Renou. As one of France’s top protest consultants, Mr. Renou teaches activists how to chain themselves to trees, damage genetically modified crops and withstanding police interrogations. These days, his phone is ringing off the hook... WSJ A1
---Niles [Michigan] YMCA expands family definitions. It’s now two adults who occupy same household, regardless of sex. “Our definition only fit 24% of the families in the US”—SBT A1

vive la France

Tue Apr 7, 2009 10:47am EDT
PARIS (Reuters) - Almost half of French people believe it is acceptable for workers facing layoffs to lock up their bosses, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday.

Staff at French plants run by Sony, 3M and Caterpillar have held managers inside the factories overnight, in three separate incidents, to demand better layoff terms -- a new form of labor action dubbed "bossnapping" by the media.

A poll by the CSA institute for Le Parisien newspaper found 50 percent of French people surveyed disapproved of such acts, but 45 percent thought they were acceptable.

"They are not in the majority ... but 45 percent is an enormous percentage and it demonstrates the extent of exasperation among the public at this time of economic crisis," Le Parisien said.

weekend update

--4-6-09—Threatened protests of [Obama’s commencement] visit by some conservative groups on campus have left liberal students ... bringing over what they say is the portrayal of Notre Dame as insulated and narrow-minded.
4-4/5-09—“He’s the first black president,” [said a 16 year old student from Alsace]. “He’s a symbol of freedom, justice and equality between black and white and he’s not a Republican.” -- WSJ A6
—4-3-09—The founder of a Roman Catholic religious order that ran retreat centers for troubled priests warned American bishops in forceful letters dating back to 1952 that pedophiles should be removed from the priesthood because they could not be cured. NYT A13

4-2-2009

--April 2, 2009—[Hedge fund criminal] defendants, with assets frozen, find it tough to hire attorneys.---WSJ A15

--Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina ... has told the Obama administration that he would not accept some $577 million in educational stimulus money for South Carolina unless he could use it to pay down state debt. [Secretary of Education] Duncan unleashed a barrage of dismal statistics about the South Carolina schools, noting that only 15% of the state’s black students are proficient in math and that the state has one of the nation’s worst high school graduation rates. NYT A15

--The simplistic dictum of more markets and less government ... has failed on a momentous scale. –Rasmussen, president of European Socialist Party and former Prime Minister of Demarl WSJ A19

April 1

April fools----Anarchists organize to spread the word ...Still anarchy in the UK isn’t what it used to be. Former Sex Pistols singer ... Johnny Rotten... recently appears in ads for Country Life butter. WSJ A8

--Employees surrounded [French tycoon Pinault’s] car as he left a meeting in Paris early Tuesday evening and refused to let him leave for nearly an hour... Separately, workers facing layoffs at a Catterpillar Inc. factory in the French Alps detained four of their bosses Tuesday in a bid to secure better severance packages. WSJ B1

--...cartoonist Robert Crumb has finished his long-awaited work ... a comic book re-telling of the Book of Genesis. NYT C3-- Bachmann to represent morally edifying Young Charles in copyright infringement lawsuit...

3-31-09

3-31—09—Nearly 70% of the Pentagon’s 96 largest weapons programs were over budget last year, for a combined total of $296 billion [yes, billion] more than the original estimates... NYT B8
--Give the Obama team credit, too, for replacing most of GM’s pet rock board of directors, which put loyalty to Mr. Wagoner above duty to shareholders while the company imploded. WSJ A21
--[France and Germany] have found common cause ... in a call for much tougher global regulation of financial matters, putting the blame for the crises directly on the “Anglo Saxons”—the US and Britain, whose free-market practices, not widely copied in continently Europe, are viewed by France and Germany as not sufficiently disciplined by the state. NYT A10

last week's blog, today's NYT

3-29-09—A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps towards opening a criminal investigation against six former Bush Administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [and Yoo and Feith] on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture.... NYT A6

--[English Prime Minister Brown]: “...we in Europe are uniquely placed to lead the world” in meeting the challenges of remaking the world’s economic system, not only because the union’s 500 million people constitute “the greatest and biggest single market in the world,” but because of European moral sensibilities. Without mentioning the United States, he implied that the moral contagion that has afflicted market economies ran counter to European belief that “liberty, economic progress and social justice advance together, or not at all.” “...riches are of value when they enrich not just come communities, but all.” “As we have discovered to our cost, the problem of unbridled free markets in an unsupervised marketplace is that they can reduce all relationships to transactions, all motivations to self-interest, all sense of value to consumer choices and all sense of worth to a price tag.” NYT WK 4

--A 2007 University of Louisville study concluded that people with blue eyes were better planners and strategic thinkers—superior at things like golf, cross-country running and preparing for exams—while people with brown eyes had better reflexes, making them good at hockey and football. –NYT Wk10

--Before blogs and radio call-in shows, people joined forces and turned to the streets as their most effective means of expression; a unified, angry crowd was often sufficient to win concessions from employers and governments.... That’s how we’ll recover our public life and perhaps help one another through this crisis—storming angrily into the streets and then, once we’re out there, actually talking to one another. NYT WK 10

happy Saturday

3-28/29-09—The Texas Board of Education approved a science curriculum that opens the door for teachers and textbooks to raise doubts about evolution.—WSJ A3

3-28-09—[Brazilian doctors helped to abort twins of a 9-year old girl who said her stepfather raped her.] A Brazilian archbishop summarily excommunicated everyone involved—the doctors for performing the abortion and the girl’s mother for allowing it—except for the stepfather, who stands accused of raping the girl over a number of years. NYT A1,A7

3-27-09

3-27-09—The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples as sclerotic impediments to growth, are automatically providing the spending programs that the US Congress has to legislate. NYT A9
--[In Lecco Italy] each morning, about 250 students travel along 17 school bus routes to 10 elementary schools ... In 2003, to confront the triple threats of childhood obesity, local traffic jams and—most important—a raise in global greenhouse gases abetted by car emissions, an environmental group here proposed a retro-radical concept: children should walk to school. They set up a piedibus (literally foot-bus in Italian)—a bus route with a driver bus no vehicle. Each morning a mix of paid staff members and parental volunteers in flourescent yellow vests leads lines of walking students along Lecco’s testing streets to the schools’ gates....NYT A5
--On Sunday, the 180,000 people of Mayotte will decide whether they would like to become the 101st department of France. They live on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean, they are almost all Sunni Muslims, and their cultural heritage is overwhelmingly African and Arab. They could become independent just by ticking the right box—but they will vote instead to become fully, irrevocably French...Gwynne Dyer, SBT B5-
-...Bay Ridge, both in its friendly small-town feel and its subject matter—food is not taken lightly in this historically Italian-American enclave. NYT A19—pardon me, but we also used to celebrate Norwegian Independence Day there...

3-25-09

3-25-09—Citing President Barack Obama’s “long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred,” the Most Rev. John M. D’Arcy, bishop of the Catholic diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, announced Tuesday he will not attend the University of Notre Dame’s commencement ceremony in May. –SBT A1
--Alberto Giacommetti said that he could not get over “the violence of Bonnard,” a quality he found lacking in Jackson Pollock when he compared the two. WSJ D7
--With at least 1718, China was responsible for 72% of all executions in 2008 [reported Amnesty International]. After China were Iran (346), Saudi Arabia (102), the United States (37) and Pakistan (36).... “Together they carried out 93% of all executions world wide,” the report said.—NYTA11
--Workers at an American-owned pharmaceutical factory [in France] took their manager hostage on Tuesday in a protest over planned job cuts --NYT A12
--The police in Dublin said Tuesday they were investigating who was responsible for hanging unsigned oil paintings of Prime Minister Brian Cowen in two of the city’s art galleries that depicted him naked.—NYT A12
--Following is the transcript of a conversation between a Wage and Hour Division employee and an investigator posing as a worker whose employer had paid less than the minimum wage, as recorded by the federal Government Accountability Office: Wage and Hour Division employee: “You’re sure you don’t want to just have a nice conversation with him yourself?” Undercover investigator: “No, no, I don’t want to, because he gets very loud and angry.” Employee: “O.K., well here’s another avenue that you can pursue. O.K., do you have another job lined up?” Investigator: “No.” Employee: “O.K., you might want to do that before you file a complaint with us, because I can’t guarantee that he’s not going to fire you.”

it's all over now, baby blue 3/24/09

3-24-09—In another indication that China is growing increasingly concerning about holding huge dollar reserves, the head of its central bank has called for the eventual creation of a new international currency reserve to replace the dollar.—NYT A5

3-20-09

3-20-09—A Chinese director is preparing an operatic adaptation of “Das Kapital” NYT C4

--Iraq is drawing attention from foreign investors as security there improves. WSJ A1—ratings by Moody, insured by AIG, bonus package guaranteed

--[Dr. Biederman] is the world’s most prominent advocate of diagnosing bipolar disorder even in the youngest children and use of using anti-psychotic medicines to treat the disease, but much of his work has been underwritten by drug makers for whom he consults. ...In a contentious Feb 26 deposition between Dr. Biederman and lawyers for the states, he was asked what rank he held at Harvard. “Full professor,” he answered. “What’s after that?” asked a lawyer, Fletch Trammell. “God,” Dr. Biederman responded. “Did you say God?” Mr. Trammell asked. “Yeah,” Dr. Biederman said. NYT A14

spring is coming

3-18-09—Terminallly ill cancer patients who drew comfort from religion were far more likely to seek aggressive, life-prolonging care in the week before they died than were less religious patients and far more likely to want doctors to do everything possible to keep them alive, a study found. NYT A18 they know the types who populate Heaven
--French unions plan a nation-wide strike Thursday to call for a tax increase on the rich. WSJ A1—la lutte continue!
--Some bailout money is set aside to pay firms that bet housing market would crater. ... In essence, while the US government is trying to prop up the housing market—by trying to limit foreclosures, among other things—it is simultaneously putting up cash that could be used to pay off investors who bet housing prices would tumble and many mortgage holders would default. -- WSJ A1—laissez faire!
--Pope Benedict said condoms weren’ the answer to Africa’s fight against AIDS on his first trip there as pontiff.—WSJ A1—to Heaven with this man!

weekend update, pi/ides

3-14-09—Iraqi women are still smitten ... by the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi. ... “We were in Syria when he hurled his shoes at Bush, and we noticed the change in the way Syrian people treated us [said one Iraqi woman] “They treated us in a better way.” NYT A7
3-15-2009—John Thain has one. So do Richard Fuld, Stanley O’Neal and Vikram Pandit. For that matter, so does John Paulson, the hedge fund king pin. ... all card-carrying MBAs ... “It is so obvious that something big has failed, “ said [some business school dean] NYT B1—don’t forget GWB
--Yale launches 3 year JD-MBA program—NLJ p. 3
--Part of my role ... is to try to keep the government honest—John Yoo NLJ p. 15 March 9
3-13-09—European leaders rejected Obama’s push for more global fiscal stimulus, saying the
3-15-09--...the two top candidates for leader of the post-Bush GOP, Rush and Newt, have six marriages between them.---NYTWK12

Friday 13, I've got blisters on my fingers edition

3-13-09—European leaders rejected Obama’s push for more global fiscal stimulus, saying the problem is lax regulation. WSJ A1 where would those frogs & krauts get such an idea?
—Madoff was sent to jail after confessing to an epic fraud, saying he was “sorry and ashamed” for bilking so many out of their life savings. WSJ, A1 regulate, regulate!
--Americans see 18% of wealth vanish—WSJ, A1 regulate, regulate!
--GOP Chairman Steel said he opposes abortion, a day after he was quoted as saying it was “an individual choice.” WSJ A1 the GOP anti-Obama again trumps Obama
--Gov. Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter and her boyfriend, Levi Johnston, have called off their engagement, about 10 weeks after the birth of their child. NYT A13 It’s a choice, stupid
--“I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers.”—Tina Fey as Gov. Palin NYT A14
--The Transportation Secuirty Administration has opened a review into reports that Senator David Vitter threw a tantrum last week when he arrived at Reagan National Airport..NYT A14 isn’t this the guy who believes that marriage involves free choice when it comes to porking whatever female you want, regardless of whether or not she is married to you?
--An Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at Bush was convicted of assault and sentenced to three years in jail. WSJ A1 thank god almighty, free at last, free at last!
--“Britney is fluff,” said Rory Waltzer, a photographer for TMZ, “but the stories about Northern Trust and Madoff and politicians in DC really have an impact on the country.” Tabloids aren’t the only one wagging their fingers. In recent months, network news divisions have relied more heavily on watchdog segments ... Tracking the private jets, lavish junkets and other trappings of what the ABC correspondent Britan Ross calls “corporate royalty” are now full time jobs for reporters at the network news division...NYT A17

3-9-09

3-9-09—The Obama administration will use a summit next month to press for greater emergency spending, risking a rift with Europeans who want to focus on revamping financial rules. WSJ A1

--Even if [Bush lawyers] escape punishment at home, however, the lawyers could find themselves pursued in European countries that have laws allowing them to prosecute torture no matter where it occurred. NYT A13

--Florida is paying a Spanish led group to fix up and operate a toll road instead of doing the work itself—and other states [e.g., Texas, Virginia, Maryland, et.] are likely to follow. [Chicago and Indiana are bored, having already done it with the Skyway and the Tollroad] WSJ A1, A3

weekend update March 6-8, 2009

3-08-09—The once-lionized styles of the rich an infamous were appalling tacky. John Thain’s parchment trash can was merely the tip of the kitschy iceberg. The level of taste flaunted by America’s upper caste at the bubble’s height had less in common with the Medicis than, say, Uday and Qusay Hussein.—Frank Rich, NYT WK 11

--3-08-09—“There are very few Republican murals around”—Henry Sultan, board president of S.F. Mural Arts and Visual Center. NYT AR 23

3-06-09—Students at the University of Main recently announced a prototype for a wearable matchmaking device called the “Friend Finder.” The gadget, programmed with information about the wearer’s interests and tastes, features a series of LED lights that flash whenever another user with compatible interests is within 30 feet—allowing humans to mimic the romantic signaling of butterflies. WSJ W11

2-27-09

2-27-09--If the reception accorded Mr. Huckabee on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference was any indication, his words found a receptive audience. Few speakers, including Mr. Huckabee, a once and possibly future presidential candidate, left the stage without engaging in a fair amount of hand-wringing about where the conservative movement took a wrong turn.... But the mood on Thursday among the thousands of conservatives at the annual session was not defeatist. This, after all, is the conference where Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber, is a major celebrity, and where the talk show host Rush Limbaugh gets a prime speaking slot. During the three-day event, conference attendees have their choice of dozens of panels like “Al Franken and Acorn: How Liberals are Destroying the American Election System” and “Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?”—NYT A19

2-26-09

2-26-09...the US, at 30%, is tied for sixth place in college graduation among those 25 to 34 years of age, 2006 data show, behind such countries as Norway, South Korea, and the Netherlands. OCED data suggest that the US was No. 1 around 2000, but has lost its edge as other countries have stepped up their efforts to promote higher education. WSJ A4