The Agonist blogs

Review: Going Palin

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:47:00 -0800

I think that should be a new version of 'Going Postal:' Going Palin is when a wingnut politician goes off the deep end.

Millions of copies will be sold of a book written by someone who can't write, intended for an audience that doesn't read, about the thoughts of a person who doesn't think. God is dead.

Can I get a hallelujah?

Ode To 'Something'

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:30:49 -0800

My buddy—we’ll call him ‘A’—and I are sitting on his back porch. His dog is spinning around wildly in circles, chewing on an old, smelly, dog-slobbered rag. The dog likes to set the rag in my lap, as some kind of canine-human bonding trick. “A” and I have both had far too much to drink.¹

“Dude, have you seen those new thingeys?” he asks.

“What-huh?”

“It’s one of those doo-dads you see on TV, man!”

I look up from the computer in my lap. We’ve been chatting across the porch to each other via instant messenger, checking our emails and generally acting like the GenX slackers we are. We call it ‘compunicating.’

“Are you high?” I ask. I punch the key board, shooting a quick, “you’re a freak’” IM back to him across the internets.

“No,” he says. “But pass the Scotch.”

“At least you know what that is,” I tease.

“C’mon man, you know what I’m talking about, they were advertised during the last Superbowl. They sell ‘em at, um, uh, whosamawhatsit!”

“What on God’s green earth are you talking about?” I sigh. I grab the bottle of scotch and pour him another drink. And one for me. He smiles. He’s having a hard time focusing his eyes. The dog starts barking.

“Eh, freak, you know what I’m talking about. Those thingamabobs!”

“Yeah, thanks. That helps. . . ” And before I can finish he says, “They’re about yay-high and about half the size of my, umm, uh, left foot.” He holds it up for good measure.

“You need help.”

“No, I don’t,” he says and coughs, lights up another smoke. “Ack, it’s on the tip of my tongue. I can’t get it out. It’s like one of those damn gahooters we had a few weeks ago.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve seen ‘em. We had one for a while in our whosamajiggy.”

“Whydontwejustaskyergirlfriend,” I IM him and then say, “She’ll know what you’re talking about you ingrate. Hey! ‘E’, ‘A’ has a question for you.”

“Honey,” he yells, “you know that whomagutchey we saw last night. What’re they called?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, “those thingamajigs that hang from the doo-hickey on the whatchamadoodle?”

“Guys,” I say, “I’d hate to listen to one of your lover’s spats.”
---------
¹ Dialogue inspired by Schott's Weekend Vocab.

Bill Moyers on Afghanistan

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:59:28 -0800

Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama's mind. He is apparently, about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another president, Lyndon B. Johnson.

...

Lyndon Johnson secretly recorded many of the phone calls and conversations he had in the White House. In this broadcast, you're going to hear excerpts that reveal how he wrestled over what to do in Vietnam. There are hours of tapes and the audio quality is not the best, but I've chosen a few to give you an insight into the mind of one president facing the choice of whether or not to send more and more American soldiers to fight in a far-away and strange place.

The show is definately worth watching or reading. Whatever The Big O's decision you can rest assured that it will be a political one..., not a moral one. Just as LBJ's decisions were.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: And I told them, let's try to find an amendment that will-we haven't got any Congress that will go with us and we haven't got any mothers that will go with us in a war. And nine months I'm just an inherited-I'm a trustee. I've got to win an election. Or Nixon or somebody else has. And then you can make a decision. But in the meantime, let's see if we can't find enough things to do to keep them off base, and to stop these shipments that are coming in from Laos, and pick a few selected targets to upset them a little bit, without getting another Korean operation started.

Moyers sums it up...,

BILL MOYERS: Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.

Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.

And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.

And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.

We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes.

That's it for the Journal. I'm Bill Moyers. See you next time.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/transcript1.html

Treasury Yield Plunge Sends Warning

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:39:05 -0800

By RANDALL W. FORSYTH | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
Collapse in note yields suggests economic distress will keep Fed on hold well into 2010 or beyond.

IT'S THE CRASH YOU DIDN'T HEAR. Not in the price of any security market, but in short-term U.S. Treasury yields.

Treasury bills once again were trading at negative interest rates Thursday, a mind-boggling state of affairs that hasn't existed since the panic late last year. That followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the assorted knock-on effects, notably the run on money-market funds after the Reserve Fund "broke the buck."

More significantly, the yield on the two-year Treasury note -- the most actively traded security on the planet -- fell to 0.669% Thursday, within a hair of the low of 0.657% set in the dark days of last December, according to data on Barrons.com's Market Data Center.

But now, the economy is supposed to be well on the way to recovery, in contrast to late last year when it seemed we stood on the precipice of a second Great Depression. The Dow is back above 10,000 and bulls claim all's right with the world. Why, then, would any rational investor be willing to lock up money for two years for the paltry return of less than two-thirds of 1%?
break
Wacky things have happened before in the T-Bill market. Over the turn of the year from 2008 to 2009, investors were so skittish about where they stashed their cash that they effectively paid Uncle Sam to hold it, resulting in negative yields on T-bills. Other times have seen odd happenings in the T-bill market, usually during times of stress when investors wanted only the safest assets.

Unlike T-bills, which have only weeks to run until maturity, the two-year note embodies market expectations for interest rates. Longer-term yields are simply the sum of successive short-terms; all else being equal, you should earn the same from two consecutive one-year notes as a two-year note. Nobody knows what the future holds, of course, so what the second year will yield is just a guess.

Majority of Republicans Believe ACORN Stole the Presidential Election

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:52:13 -0800

Thursday, November 19, 2009 3:30 PM
Poll: Majority of Republicans Believe ACORN Stole the Presidential Election
Katie Connolly, Newsweek

As his hopes of winning the congressional election in New York's 23rd district fade, conservative candidate Doug Hoffman is clearly getting desperate. Today he's blaming his loss on "ACORN, the unions, and the Democratic party" who he alleges, without a shred of evidence, tampered with votes to rig the election against him. Never mind that ACORN told David Weigel that they didn't have volunteers in the area, or that it largely operates in poor urban communities, which NY-23 is not. For conservatives, ACORN is shorthand for the evils of the left.

On the heels of that news, Public Policy Polling released this shocking nugget on its blog: "a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately." Say what? More than half of Republican respondents believe the president was elected fraudulently! That's a stunningly high number. It's disturbing, not only as a demonstrable lack of faith in America's democracy but as an expression of wanton ignorance. Worse, it illustrates the effectiveness of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et al., alongside a well-funded "Stop ACORN" campaign, in creating an atmosphere where unquestioned lies become received wisdom.

Barack Obama won the election by an easy margin. In the end, it wasn't even close. John McCain knew that and delivered his concession speech before 9:30 p.m. Obama didn't just win in the urban areas where ACORN could actually be seen as a force—and which would likely have voted for him regardless of ACORN's participation. He won in places like North Carolina, where ACORN had just eight staffers. There's been no formal challenge to the electoral validity of the votes.There's simply no proof to back up claims that ACORN tampered with ballots. But there is evidence of irresponsible reporting catalyzing misguided fears.

Transsexual prostitute in Italian political sex scandal burns to death

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:37:59 -0800

A Brazilian transsexual caught up in a scandal which prompted the resignation of a senior Italian politician was found burned to death in his home Friday.

Reuters, The Daily Telegraph

This Brenda might be a shemale, to be precise. Plenty of them from Brazil work as prostitutes in Italy.

Google Chrome OS

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:15:43 -0800

It works but slowly.

Definitely alpha level of development.

18,000 miles to Washington

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:17:23 -0800

Mike Shepard |Washington Post Staff Writer |November 20
Wapo - Paulo Roberto Vieira stumbled into the Brazilian consulate on L Street NW bedraggled, nearly broke and at the end of his rope.

Dressed in a battered black leather jacket and scuffed black jeans, he told consular officials an almost unbelievable story -- that he had just ridden his motorcycle from his home town in southern Brazil to Washington, a monumental, 18,000-mile quest for official recognition of his life's proudest work, a vehicle accessory he says he invented.

Vieira's arrival that day in late October ended an odyssey that wound through 11 countries , a startling demonstration of Washington's enduring power as a magnet for ordinary people who believe the answer to their prayers can be found in the capital of the free world.

Standing next to his Honda CG-150 Titan motorcycle on L Street several days later, Vieira, gaunt and visibly weary, recounted in his native Portuguese the improbable tale of his four-month journey. How he rode alone for more than 1,900 miles on mostly unpaved roads through the Brazilian Amazon, narrowly avoiding becoming lunch for one of the rain forest's most feared carnivores. How a delay in obtaining a U.S. visa forced him to traverse Mexico three times before finally crossing into Texas. How he hoped for sweet justice in the U.S. capital, perhaps even from the president himself.

"I decided to come here because Washington is where things get done," he said. "Barack Obama is already solving so many other problems, how much more trouble would it be for him to solve mine?"

cont @ Wapo

Time for music. How about something with an international flavour?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:41:41 -0800

Here's some music from the cradle of civilization - it has the core of all rhythms (according to a few commenters).

more videos in comments, add one! - ed

Harvest time

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:21:54 -0800

Henry Ford, for all his faults, once stated that he needed to pay his workers enough that they would be able to buy the cars they manufactured. I guess globalists thought such laws don’t apply when you ship the jobs to a foreign land.

Now I hear people say that a cheaper dollar will make American products more competitive to foreign buyers. Who exactly is going to buy these “cheaper” American goods? Some Chinese guy earning $2 a day? Now out of a job because there’s an ongoing depression in the United States?

Rather than bring the rest of the world’s workers up to some sort of decent living standard, global financial players and manufactuers raced toward the lowest common denominator: workers earning slave wages, receiving no benefits, toiling in unsafe conditions, exploited to produce a bunch of cheap disposable products then sold in our big box stores.

Then one day a new reality hit us right between the eyes; not everyone can have a job sitting on his ass, doing nothing. Our own economy imploded.

So now we’re going to devalue the dollar and start producing something to sell once again. That’s the plan.

Who are your going to sell to? Americans don’t have jobs. Meaning they can’t buy things. And those poor bastards that have been making our goods overseas have no money, (aside from a few that became fabulously wealthy, selling out their own and they can't eat much).

Better yet, what’s going to happen when the next leg of this collapse cuts off the supply of that cheap made shit, for which there are no replacement parts, or destruction of the dollar raises the price of that cheap made shit to the level of unaffordability? We already tore down and hauled off all our goddamned factories, people.

I recently read that the United States now has the greatest disparity between rich and poor of any country on earth. I have no way of verifying such a statement, but I find the fact that’s even plausible shocking and reprehensible.

Time to reap what we’ve sown.

Taking back our money

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:10:46 -0800

I was trying to think of ways that we could possibly take down as many financial problems as we can while simultaneously bringing the power back to the people. That is, going through our own channels rather than the official process that has proven itself to be ineffective.
I was mulling bank bailouts, "too big to fail" and the notion of money as power when it hit me. What if we just took all of our money out of big banks and put it into local community banks and credit unions? This would greatly strengthen the community, rewarding banks that actually stick to banking, keep money local and even help bolster small business loans, while forcing the large banks to break down. Sure, things would be hairy at first and it wouldn't be pretty, but wouldn't it be a better situation in the long run?
If we could actually organize ourselves to do such a thing, it would be an impressive display of our power to those who sit in their towers. We are the ones who decide who gets our money.
Yes, I know that this also happened in 1929, but if it were a more organized process this time around, there might be a way to make this work in our favor. Anyway, I just wanted to bring the idea up, see what all of you had to say about it, pros? cons? Is it possible to make it work, or would it just ruin everyone simultaneously? All I know is that we have to do something, taking back our control this way might actually be palatable to a great many people.

The Real Power in Pakistan

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:38:24 -0800

Interesting take from Sabrina Tavernise in the NYT:

The military and intelligence establishment remains unassailable. It is both revered and feared by Pakistanis, who suspect its nationalist fringes of maneuvering behind the scenes, with help from allies in the news media, to keep civilian governments off balance.

At the same time, the news media today need little prodding, and are more diverse, powerful and nationalistic of their own accord than at any other point in the nation’s history.

“The media has a larger-than-life role,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “It’s been setting the agenda for the country.”

Pakistanis themselves are not entirely comfortable with that development. In a Gallup Pakistan poll released last Friday, nearly one-third of 2,765 Pakistanis surveyed blamed the media for political instability in the country, according to the Gilani Research Foundation, which released it.

The anti-Americanism is part of that new media explosion. “It reached a fever pitch,” said Madiha Sattar, a journalist with the monthly magazine The Herald, who wrote a cover article on the topic in October.

Pakistanis have reason to mistrust the U.S. of course. Most notably our backing of the military dictator Zia who crushed dissent and executed the elected president. That was followed by ignoring the region once the Cold War ended. Now we're suddenly concerned again. It's no wonder the local Rupert Murdochs see a play in fomenting against the Great American Satan.

TGIF!!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:59:15 -0800

I wish I had the weekend off

Recession shows shortcomings in U.S. economic data

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:49:27 -0800

By Emily Kaiser and Nancy Waitz - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is having a tough time guesstimating how many small businesses failed in this recession, casting doubt on the reliability of vital data on employment and economic growth.

The formula the U.S. Labor Department designed to help it deliver timely, thorough monthly employment reports broke down in the heat of the financial crisis, miscounting the number of jobs by an estimated 824,000 in the year through March.

The most likely culprit is the so-called "birth-death" model, which the Labor Department uses to estimate how many companies were created or destroyed.

That model appears to have misjudged how many companies went out of business during the recession, meaning the labor market was even weaker than initially thought when President Barack Obama took office in January. More recent figures may still be underestimating job losses now, but it will be many months before the Labor Department is certain.

One characteristic of this recession is that it has hit small businesses especially hard, driving down demand and choking off vital sources of credit at the same time.

Obama's administration is scrambling to try to prop up small business -- it hosted a summit on that topic on Wednesday -- because those companies are essential to bringing the jobless rate down from its current 10.2 percent, having accounted for the lion's share of new job growth in recent years.

Government data has difficulty gauging the health of smaller firms because there are simply too many of them, leaving officials to rely on surveys and models that are hit and miss.

Jan Hatzius, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York, thinks that is distorting not only the employment data, but also figures for retail sales, durable goods and even the biggest economic indicator of all -- gross domestic product.

UK universal childrens day sees Atheist campaign on billboards

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:51:22 -0800

- Hey Preacher, Leave those kids alone.
This week, the final phase of the atheist bus campaign will appear in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast – not on buses, but on billboards.

"Nobody would seriously describe a tiny child as a 'Marxist child' or an 'Anarchist child' or a 'Post-modernist child'. Yet children are routinely labelled with the religion of their parents. Guardian