Bring In Your Dead!

And clone them! Scientists in Japan have cloned mice dead and frozen for sixteen years. Coming up: the Wooly Mammoth, stuff trapped in amber, Walt Disney. The New Scientist has the story, excerpted here [emphasis mine]:

Healthy mice have been cloned from cells from dead mice that had been frozen for 16 years, raising the possibility that endangered species could be cloned from old carcasses that have been tossed in freezers, rather than from living cells frozen using elaborate techniques.

The finding also raises hopes of one day being able to resurrect extinct animals frozen in permafrost, such as the woolly mammoth, . . .

. . .

Despite the excitement surrounding the technique, more research will be needed before it can be used on endangered species, . . . .

What's more, most conservationists agree that cloning should be considered only as a last resort for species such as the northern white rhino, where all other attempts at conservation have failed, says Paul Bartels, manager of BioBankSA at the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa in Pretoria. Nonetheless, he says, he will be asking biologists to start freezing the bodies of endangered species that have died.

"We intend to bring this [finding] to the attention of as many biologists working on endangered species as possible, through circulars, e-mail, newsletters, and talks," he says. . . .

Resurrecting extinct animals would be far trickier. Woolly mammoth carcasses would most likely have frozen and thawed several times over the aeons, which would cause far more damage to the nucleus than a one-off freezing.

Potentially easier would be cloning cryogenically frozen humans, though the consensus among cloning experts is that it would be unethical and dangerous to clone a human. In any case, people who sign up to be cryogenically preserved usually hope to be resuscitated rather than cloned.

Whom to clone, whom to clone (please note grammar). . . . Here's a preliminary list:

Lenin. Hey, these days this guy would be a maverick.
John McCain. Don't you think he's kind of frozen. Maybe his clone would have another chance. Maybe his clone would be a Democrat!
Walt Disney. D'Oh! Turns out he wasn't frozen.

Coming Soon

• Have Your Say: Vote for Candidate Clonees. And . . .
• Whom do we freeze for future cloning? And . . .
• Would you want to be cloned?

Links
The New Scientist | BBC | The Guardian

Glenn Greenwald Skewers Washington Post 'Ombudsman'

These days many major news organizations have an 'Ombudsman'. 'The World's Greatest Newspaper' has the Public Editor. These people are little more than fronts. On rare occasions they offer substantive criticism of news coverage, but even then it's typically a Mike Myers style "oops" with a delicate finger to the lips. (If you remember who Mike Myers is.)

That is, the ombudsman (or 'Public Editor'), is not a representative of the public, but rather the representative, the defender, the champion, of the paper or station in the face of public criticism. When the news organization's privates are too exposed, the ombudsman handles the fig leaf.

So the Times, long after its revolting coverage of Iraq and Bush via the accomplished bigot and liar Judith Miller, finally offered a "maybe we could have done things differently". Miller's lies had been repeatedly laid bare for almost 20 years, but it took glaring, frontpage coverage of outright falsification to finally damn her. Her cohort, Michael Gordon, is still lying with stunning arrogance on a regular basis. Pulitzer Prize winners John Burns, Thomas Friedman, and others offer marginally more respectable garbage to much official acclaim.

At NPR, Jeffrey Dvorkin was a routine apologist for NPR's atrocious coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, particularly of Linda Gradstein. He even went so far as to say (in a non-NPR forum) that he thought NPR's coverage was too pro-Palestinian.

Deborah Howell is the official shit-shoveler at the Washington Post. Salon's Glenn Greenwald vivisects the spineless creature in a current essay.

Despite the still-growing national and international consensus that George W. Bush is likely the worst President in American history (and probably the worst leader of the last 100 years among the industrialized democracies), Howell claims, as Greenwald reports incredulously,

that one reason that The Post and other papers are losing money is because they are "too liberal"; have had "more favorable stories about Barack Obama than John McCain," and "conservatives are right that they often don't see their views reflected enough in the news pages." To mitigate newspapers' financial problems, Howell decrees: "the imbalance still needs to be corrected." She adds: "Neither the hard-core right nor left will ever be satisfied by Post coverage -- and that's as it should be."

What if the actual facts -- i.e., "reality" -- are consistent with the views of "the hard-core left" and contrary to the views of the "hard-core right"? What if, as has plainly been the case, the conservatives' views are wrong, false, inaccurate? What if the McCain campaign was failing and relying on pure falsehoods and sleazy attacks, and The Post's coverage simply reflected that reality? It doesn't matter. In order to sell more newspapers, according to Howell, The Post's news coverage must shape itself to the Right and ensure that "their views [are] reflected enough in the news pages" (I don't recall Howell complaining when her newspaper -- according to its own media critic -- systematically suppressed anti-war viewpoints in its news pages and loudly amplified pro-Bush and pro-war views).

In Howell's view, The Post shouldn't determine its news reporting based on what is factually true. Instead, it should shape its coverage to please this discredited, failed political movement -- in order to sell more papers. That corrupt formula is, of course, what is now meant by "journalistic balance" -- say what both sides believe and take no position about what is true -- and it is precisely that behavior which propped up this incomparably failed and deceitful presidency for so long. The establishment media bears much of the responsibility for what has happened during the last 8 years, and amazingly enough, the lesson many of them seemed to have learned is that they didn't go far enough ("we're too liberal; we need to accommodate the Right more"). If there is an Obama presidency, watch for them very quickly to re-discover the long-dormant concept of "adversarial behavior."

Sarah Palin Chats with Nicolas Sarkozy . . . Not!

This from the Guardian, but plenty of news organizations are carrying the story:

Maybe Sarah Palin should have caught on when the caller purporting to be Nicolas Sarkozy told her he could see Belgium from the Elysée Palace.

But the Republicans' vice-presidential candidate remained blissfully unaware during the six-minute conversation with a Montreal comedian that she was the victim of a prank - even after the fake Sarkozy said his wife, Carla Bruni, was hot in bed, and slipped in a line in French about how fun it was to kill baby seals.

The caller, Marc-Antoine Audette, was one half of a comedic duo called the Masked Avengers. Audette described his call with Palin as his greatest triumph.

The prank on one of the most heavily protected personalities in US politics was an instant internet sensation in the final hours of the presidential campaign.

MORE >

What Nobody Dares Discuss

There is still an electoral race on. McCain is still fighting for North Carolina, Ohio, and most importantly, Pennsylvania.

Here's the beast: There seems little if any doubt that Obama will overwhelmingly win the popular vote. But, that doesn't matter. The Electoral College will elect the President. Just as there is no doubt that the popular vote is strongly for Obama, there is little doubt that the electoral vote is far closer.

What if there is an overwhelming popular vote for Obama but an electoral victory McCain?

We all remember this happened in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote. But then it was fairly close. What if the two — popular and electoral — are grossly out of balance?

Wouldn't it be something if we add a constitutional crisis to the financial one already under way?

Scope out FiveThirtyEight.com for a better look at the electoral/popular breakdown than you'll find in the Times or on CNN.

Independent Polls Prominent African Americans

You might think The New York Times would run something like this, but the editors of The Great White Paper probably view it as beneath them, and certainly not conducive to pulling in high-priced real-estate ad dollars. So check out The Independent.

"I never dared dream of a black president"
With Obama on the brink of victory, America's leading black voices tell 'The Independent' what it means to them – while David Usborne visits black churchgoers in Chicago praying for an epoch-making result

[From the Independent piece]

Maya Angelou, novelist: "If he wins, it means my country has agreed to grow up"

Toni Morrison, novelist: "Things are different now. A lot of white people are different"

Samuel L Jackson, Actor: "There's been a warrior culture here. It's time that ended"

Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader: "I just wish Martin Luther King was here to share the joy"

Jay-Z, rapper: "Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Obama could run. Obama's running so that we all can fly. I can't wait until 5 November and I'm going to say 'Hello, Brother President'."

Spike Lee, director: "I say it's very simple, we have BB before Barack and AB after Barack. . . . He's here when his country is at it's lowest in many many years."

Stevie Wonder, musician: "He's a combination of JFK and Martin Luther King. With that, he can't lose. I see a time when we will have a united people of the United States."

The Economist Calls It

I have major misgivings about both the ability and the intentions of Barack Obama to do what is needed to help Americans, but he's a damn sight better than the psychotic McCain.

US Down, China Up

Very interesting essay by former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts on Counterpunch.org. Unlike most of the stuff I see written about the financial meltdown, this is actually accessible (probably a sign that Roberts actually knows what he's talking about, as opposed to most reporters at The New York Times and other "Great American News Organizations".

World Tires of Rule by Dollar
Paul Craig Roberts

What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role.

The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors.

One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar.

The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest.

The financial crisis has reversed this process. The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street. They have endangered the balance sheets and solvency of financial institutions throughout the world, including national governments, such as Iceland and Hungary. Banks and governments that invested in the troubled American financial instruments found their own debt instruments in jeopardy.

Those who used yen loans to purchase, for example, debt instruments from European banks or Icelandic bonds, faced potentially catastrophic losses. Investors and speculators sold their higher-yielding financial instruments in a scramble for dollars and yen in order to pay off their Japanese loans. This drove up the values of the yen and the US dollar, the reserve currency that can be used to repay debts, and drove down the values of other currencies.

The dollar’s rise is temporary, and its prospects are bleak. . . .

MORE >

McCain's Brain!

The clock is running out on making McCain jokes.

More at Funny or Die

Blinkomatic

Yes, McCain has a crazy blink rate. From Lauren Kirchner and Air America Radio:

A lot has already been written about McCain's facial expressions, and how his scowling and grinning and blinking made him look alternately nervous, desperate, disrespectful, and psychotic. (Sen. Obama isn't off the hook either; I thought his beaming smile during McCain's answers sometimes made him come off as cocky.) Sam Stein at the Huffington Post reports that a Democratic researcher was moved to actually count McCain's blinks: an astounding 3,000 blinks in 90 minutes. (If Wikipedia is to believed, a normal blink rate is about 10 per minute, or 900 total.) This might be overkill, and I pity the intern that had to watch the video in slow motion for that tally. But it brings up a good question: for those of you that watched the debate on TV or online, how different would your impression have been if you had only heard the audio?

And from Sam Stein of the Huffington Post:

Not to harp on facial expressions but Democrats are absolutely giddy (and sometimes irate) over the way McCain presented himself during tonight's debate - everything from his eye rolls to his cadence.

A Democratic researcher spent the evening counting the Arizona Republican's blinks, and tallied more than 3,000 during the night's affair -- three thousand blinks in a 90-minute time span. They even compressed a 30-second clip of those blinks into a nine second video. . . .

But mainly, the facial expressions convey a lack of calm that everyone from average voters to seasoned political observers say is a damaging trait for a presidential candidate in the midst of an economic crisis.

"I thought McCain swerved off track," said David Gergen on CNN. "He got over-emotional about it. He looked angry, and it was almost like an exercise in anger management up there for him to contain himself."

Drought Will Alter the Habitable Surface of the Earth

Guardian story on the probable devastating impact of drought in the years to come.

Drought land 'will be abandoned'
Climate change will cause 'economic deserts' even in rich countries, warns UN environment chief

Parts of the world may have to be abandoned because severe water shortages will leave them uninhabitable, the United Nations environment chief has warned.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said water shortages caused by over-use of rivers and aquifers were already leading to serious problems, even in rich nations. With climate change expected to reduce rainfall in some places and cause droughts in others, some regions could become 'economic deserts', unviable for people or agriculture, he said.

MORE >

Vote for Matt

This guy has a better vision of the world than anyone who's run for Prez in the past 50 years.

American Injustice

The Bush Department of Injustice has declared that seventeen Chinese prisoners at Guantanamo may be held there for the rest of their lives, though they have never been charged with any crime in the seven years they have been held.

This could be an early test for the next administration. The men, ethnic Uighurs (an oppressed Muslim people of western China), were captured by Pakistani troops in Afghanistan in 2001 and handed off to the US. (Afghanistan borders western China.)

A federal judge has ruled they should be freed, but the Bush regime has blocked their release.

At every turn, the Bush brigade has trampled their rights under domestic and international law. To this day by stipulation of the Department of Defense, they are chained to the floor through meetings with their lawyer, Sabin Willett.

Here is the Orwellian logic of the US Department of Injustice, quoted in the Guardian article:

[T]he men "are linked to an organisation that the state department has labelled to be a terrorist entity, and it is beside the point that the organisation is not 'a threat to us' because the law excluding members of such groups does not require such proof."

"Linked to a terrorist entity" . . . . After seven years of Bush crimes against humanity, we have a sense what that does and does not mean. We know that someone "is linked" just in case the Bush administration asserts that there is a link.

"The law . . . does not require proof" . . . . Well, the Bush administration has never required proof — never even required evidence — of something to proceed with attacks, injustices, an entire war.

The Bush standard for seven long years has been "If it might be the case, proceed as if it were the case. Assert what ever is required, lie as 'need' dictates, regardless of proof or evidence."

This hasn't been a bootstrapping technique, which requires something like a foundation or rational starting point. It has been nothing more than outright fabrication, from start to finish. Purely, utterly circular. A true Catch-22. "They are in our custody. They must be their for a reason, because we make no mistakes. Therefore, they must remain in custody."

John Cleese on Sarah Palin

Famous S----lists!

In these last hours of the McCain campaign, dear John and Sarah are trying to wring blood from a stone. With Joe the Plumber as their battering ram, dear John and Sarah are bludgeoning Obama with whatever charge might seem plausible, most of them rehashes from the early days of the Reagan regime. 'Tax and spend liberal'. 'Pal of terrorists'. And the dreaded 'SOCIALIST'. In the Reagan years, this was a common charge. I remember that mewling, cretinous creep from Wyoming, Senator Alan Simpson, charging critics of Reagan with being 'Comsymps' during the Iran-Contra hearings.

Not surprisingly, the socialist label just won't stick to Obama. In this election cycle he has been far more the darling of Wall Street than John McCain. (Goldman Sachs has been one of the largest contributors to the Obama campaign.)

There are, however, a few people to whom the label didn't just stick, but who wore it without fear of the jibes of braindead American politicians and journalists:

• Albert Einstein. It was Einstein's socialist and pacificist sentiments that lead to his being excluded from the team of physicists developing the atomic bomb. To many it remains 'embarrassing' that the person widely perceived as the most intelligent of the 20th century should have been a socialist. So embarrassing that Walter Isaacson, former CNN propagandist, could barely mention it in his biography of Einstein.
• H. G. Wells, author of War of the Worlds and of The War in the Air, the end of which is purported to have inspired some to contemplate the possibility of an atomic bomb.
• Bertrand Russell. Philosopher, Nobel Prize winner, pacificist.
• Mohandas Gandhi. Indian nationalist and advocate of human rights.
  
• Helen Keller. Pioneer for the deaf.
  
• Charlie Chaplin. Actor and pioneering filmmaker.
  
• George Bernard Shaw. Playwright.
  
• Paul Robeson. Black singer.
  
• W.E.B. Dubois
  
• Jack London. Author.
  
• Nelson Mandela. Champion of human rights.
  
• Victor Hugo
  
• Margaret Sanger
• George Orwell
• Eugene Debs
• Emma Goldman. Strictly speaking, an anarchist.

There isn't a snowball's chance in Hell of any serious challenge to American capitalism, but it's worth reflecting on the fact that some of the greatest minds of the past century and a half shared a political view which is so villified today that no journalist would dare ask what the idea's merits might be.

Naomi Klein on Bush's Exit Crimes

Naomi Klein has an excellent essay on the Bush and Republicon campaign to loot the United States Treasury, rob from the American people, and in general rape and pillage this nation, something they've been doing anyway since at least the Reagan years.

Klein specifically addresses the theft of bailout funds, a multi-pronged Republicon strategy beginning with the absence of any real control over how recipients spend the funds on to gross overpayment by Paulson and on and on.

In the final days of the election, many Republicans seem to have given up the fight for power. But that doesn't mean they are relaxing. If you want to see real Republican elbow grease, check out the energy going into chucking great chunks of the $700 billion bailout out the door. At a recent Senate Banking Committee hearing, Republican Senator Bob Corker was fixated on this task, and with a clear deadline in mind: inauguration. "How much of it do you think may be actually spent by January 20 or so?" Corker asked Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old former banker in charge of the bailout.

When European colonialists realized that they had no choice but to hand over power to the indigenous citizens, they would often turn their attention to stripping the local treasury of its gold and grabbing valuable livestock. If they were really nasty, like the Portuguese in Mozambique in the mid-1970s, they poured concrete down the elevator shafts.

The Bush gang prefers bureaucratic instruments: "distressed asset" auctions and the "equity purchase program." But make no mistake: the goal is the same as it was for the defeated Portuguese--a final frantic looting of the public wealth before they hand over the keys to the safe.

How else to make sense of the bizarre decisions that have governed the allocation of the bailout money? When the Bush administration announced it would be injecting $250 billion into America's banks in exchange for equity, the plan was widely referred to as "partial nationalization"--a radical measure required to get the banks lending again. In fact, there has been no nationalization, partial or otherwise. Taxpayers have gained no meaningful control, which is why the banks can spend their windfall as they wish (on bonuses, mergers, savings...) and the government is reduced to pleading that they use a portion of it for loans.

What, then, is the real purpose of the bailout? I fear it is something much more ambitious than a one-off gift to big business--that this bailout has been designed to keep pillaging the Treasury for years to come. Remember, the main concern among big market players, particularly banks, is not the lack of credit but their battered share prices. Investors have lost confidence in the banks' honesty, and with good reason. This is where Treasury's equity pays off big time.

By purchasing stakes in these institutions, Treasury is sending a signal to the market that they are a safe bet. Why safe? Because the government won't be able to afford to let them fail. If these companies get themselves into trouble, investors can assume that the government will keep finding more cash, since allowing them to go down would mean losing its initial equity investments (just look at AIG). That tethering of the public interest to private companies is the real purpose of the bailout plan: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing all the companies that are admitted to the program--a number potentially in the thousands--an implicit Treasury Department guarantee. To skittish investors looking for safe places to park their money, these equity deals will be even more comforting than a Triple-A rating from Moody's.

Insurance like that is priceless. But for the banks, the best part is that the government is paying them--in some cases billions of dollars--to accept its seal of approval. For taxpayers, on the other hand, this entire plan is extremely risky, and may well cost significantly more than Paulson's original idea of buying up $700 billion in toxic debts. Now taxpayers aren't just on the hook for the debts but, arguably, for the fate of every corporation that sells them equity.

Interestingly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both enjoyed this kind of unspoken guarantee. For decades the market understood that, since these private players were enmeshed with the government, Uncle Sam would always save the day. It was the worst of all worlds. Not only were profits privatized while risks were socialized but the implicit government backing created powerful incentives for reckless investments.

Now, with the new equity purchase program, Paulson has taken the discredited Fannie and Freddie model and applied it to a huge swath of the private banking industry. And once again, there is no reason to shy away from risky bets--especially since Treasury has not required the banks to give up high-risk financial instruments in exchange for taxpayer dollars.

To further boost confidence, the federal government has also unveiled unlimited public guarantees for many bank deposit accounts. Oh, and as if this wasn't enough, Treasury has been encouraging the banks to merge with one another, ensuring that the only institutions left standing will be "too big to fail." In three different ways, the market is being told loud and clear that Washington will not allow the country's financial institutions to bear the consequences of their behavior. This may well be Bush's most creative innovation: no-risk capitalism.

There is a glimmer of hope. In answer to Senator Corker's question, Treasury is indeed having trouble dispersing the bailout funds. It has requested about $350 billion of the $700 billion, but most of this hasn't yet made it out the door. Meanwhile, every day it becomes clearer that the bailout was sold on false pretenses. It was never about getting loans flowing. It was always about turning the state into a giant insurance agency for Wall Street--a safety net for the people who need it least, subsidized by the people who need it most.

This grotesque duplicity is an opportunity. Whoever wins the election on November 4 will have enormous moral authority. It can be used to call for a freeze on the dispersal of bailout funds--not after the inauguration, but right away. All deals should be renegotiated immediately, this time with the public getting the guarantees.

It is risky, of course, to interrupt the bailout. The market won't like it. Nothing could be riskier, however, than allowing the Bush gang their parting gift to big business--the gift that will keep on taking.

Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) Took Bribes?

Two Minneapolis-St. Paul reporters try to pin down one of the dumbest Senators ever to bear the title, Norm Coleman. Coleman is being challenged by comedian Al Franken this year. (What continually astonishes me is the number of Americans who assume that our politicians must be reasonably intelligent merely because they hold seats in the Senate or House or Oval Office.)

The Bailout, Day 27

Let's review some landmarks of the bailout to date:

• Paulson is knowingly cheating taxpayers by overpaying major recipients of aid by as much as 100%, particularly when compared to the deal Warren Buffett struck with Goldman Sachs. (Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers Union | William Greider, The Nation, Oct. 29)

• Most money will go, not to ease credit availability for businesses and consumers, but to shore up bank stashes of cash. (Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group, Bloomberg, Oct. 28 | Bloomberg, Oct. 23)

• A large portion of the money will go to big bank buyouts of smaller institutions (Schwarzman, Blackstone Group)

• Banks that least need the cash will get the most. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• Money will also go to ensure bonuses for executives responsible for the financial disaster. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30 | New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• AIG, beneficiary of a separate bailout scheme, is "rapidly running through $123 billion in emergency lending" (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Unlike the British, the Treasury has placed few restrictions on how its (meaning our) bailout funds are spent (or not spent).

• Insurers and car makers are seeking funds to bailout their operations. (Bloomberg, Oct. 27 | The Economist, Oct. 2 and Oct. 16)
  

• A record $200 billion deficit in U.S. pensions has developed during the current stock turmoil. (Bloomberg, Oct. 29)

• States are seeking federal funds to rescue them amidst massive budget shortfalls. (New York Times, Oct. 29)
  

• Crisis in credit card debt looms for consumers. (New York Times, Oct. 28)

• Consumer demand is taking a nosedive. (The Economist, Oct. 23)

• American Express has announced that 7,000 jobs will be cut. (Bloomberg, Oct. 30) Job cuts so far this year exceed 500,000.
  

Better Living . . . Through Science! (or How to Save the Earth Without Solving the Problem)

Scientists around the world, some begrungingly, recognize the problem of global warming. Granted, "intelligent design" scientists (1, 2) affiliated with Republicons and the Bush administration are still trying to prove that the Earth is just 6,000 years old. The vast majority of the scientific community, however, has moved from trying to convince the Palinites (aka, idiots or blockheads) to working on what to do.

Now, some might think that if you have a problem like, say, smoking that has bad consequences, one obvious course is to stop doing the thing that causes trouble . . . stop smoking. In the case of the global environment, stop pumping millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

But this is the age of The Modern Human or, as discussed some time ago, Homo funestus — Dead Man or Fatal Human. Why solve a problem when you can balance it out with a new problem?

Thus many scientists are now knocking heads to come up with geo-engineering schemes that might reduce the impact of global warming. Here are some of the brilliant ideas:

• Mirrors in space, to deflect sunlight away from the earth, previously tried in The Simpsons. Whether Fox or Matt Groening will seek patent protection remains to be seen.
• More pollution or global sunblock. Seed the atmosphere with still more particles to block light from reaching the Earth's surface. Previously tried in Jimmy Neutron, a 3D animation show for kids.
• Iron the ocean. Salt the ocean with iron filings to promote growth of plankton that absorb CO2. How this works I have no idea.

Once upon a time, science took great ideas from great science fiction, as in geosynchronous satellites from Arthur C. Clarke. Times have changed.

Nevertheless, scientists are brimming with novel novelties. Still, missing from this impressive list is a brilliant idea recently proposed by yours truly — Earth 2. This is far and away the the most absurd, most implausible and, most importantly, most expensive and therefore most best idea for Saving the Earth Without Actually Solving the Problem. I urge all to contact Congress, especially our most right-wing and dimmest Senators and Representatives, to promote this option.

---

NOTES
1. Behe, Michael. 'Professor' of Biochemistry at Lehigh 'University' and Senior CSC Fellow at the 'Discovery' 'Institute'.
2. Discovery Institute.
3. Center for Science and Culture.
4. "Climate damage science studied" in The Guardian, Thursday, 30 October 2008.

Paulson Kicks Billions Back to Goldman Sachs, or Spreading the Wealth Republicon Style

Henry Paulson may be committing crimes by overpaying Goldman Sachs (his old stomping ground) and the eight other financial firms receiving the initial payout from the $700 billion bailout fund.

William Greider of The Nation has summarized and expanded upon the charge brought by Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers Union.

The key is the deal already struck by everybody's favorite financial wiz these days, Warren Buffett. Buffett's deal with Goldman Sachs provides us with the benchmark against which to gauge the deal Paulson has struck, just twenty days following Buffett.

USW's Gerard writes,

"I am sure that someone at Treasury saw the terms of Buffett’s investment. In fact, my suspicion is that you studied it pretty closely and knew exactly what you were doing. The 50-50 deal — 50% invested and 50% as a gift — is quite consistent with the Republican version of the “spread-the-wealth-around” philosophy that seems so much in vogue."

Greider asks the obvious question: Will anyone take notice in the midst of the election campaign chaos?

The question I ask is: Does a Congress beholden to massive donors rather than the People care? Do they already know?

Let your members of Congress know that you know:

• SENATE
• HOUSE

Voting Machines that Suck and Politics Has Nothing to Do With It

This via Gizmodo:


Remember the voting machines in West Virginia that just couldn't bring themselves to let people vote Obama? Jackson County Clerk Jeff Waybright, who "hates stories like this" was good enough to show Video the Vote how a mis-calibrated voting machine would take a vote for Obama (or anyone) and turn it into a vote for another candidate—and not necessarily John McCain, either, though that's what would happen if you picked a straight Democratic ticket.

Fortunately, New York State is still using machines from the 1940s and 50s, so we don't need to worry about our votes being changed. We just need to worry about our votes being tallied at all.

In Case You Forgot, the Environment is a Disaster

The World Wildlife Fund has released its Living Planet Report. There's some good news and there's some bad news.

The good news is: We ain't dead yet. The bad news is: We will be, we will be.

The report concludes that "Humanity's demands exceed our planet's capacity to sustain us" (as if that was news). Britain's Guardian newspaper has a nice summation of the reports findings, which can be boiled down to

"[H]umans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species."

That's the average for the world as a whole. Humans in civilized countries like the United States are only using maybe 900% more resources than the Earth can replenish.

People like Michael Bloomberg or Stephen Schwarzman (the Blackstone chief who threw himself a multi-million dollar birthday party) use 100,000% more than the Earth can replenish. BUT THAT IS THEIR GOD-GIVEN RIGHT, by God! And if you suggest otherwise, you're an America-hating, Palin-bashing, anti-American Commie Pinko Socialist Marxist Anarcho-syndicalist BASTURD!

BUT there is a silver lining:

IF, by the 2030s (a big twenty years away), we can find A SECOND EARTH, we can all keep living just the way we are now.

So, Solution 1: The Earth 2 Buyout Fund. Congress must allocate $750 TRILLION to find and acquire Earth 2. Alternatively, we can use Earth 1 to build Earth 2. . . . No, no, that's not it. We can clone Earth 1. Or maybe we can do that thing like in Arthur C. Clarke's 2010, only use Jupiter to manufacture Earth 2. That would create jobs. (I am announcing my candidacy for President of the United Nations based on a platform of job creation through Jupiter reconstruction for Earth 2.)

Solution 2, favored by Republicons, Bloombergs and other fascists: Find a way for 99.99% of the world's population to live on 10% of the absolute minimum needed for basic human survival so that Wall Street, innately superior Corporate Executives, and members of Congress can live on the remaining 100,000%. Advantage: This is the solution already being worked on by Michael Bloomberg, Bush, McCon, Palin, and company.

Do I sound a little sarcastic? Pessimistic? Cynical? I apologize. Something about chronically suicidal, species-wide self-annihilation, endorsed by the enlightened 'experts' and 'leaders', just gets me a little down. That's all.

Plus. . . . I have a friggin' cold.

In the future, I will do my best to be more optimistic about the tiny tiny minority of self-appointed über-supremicists destroying the lives of the rest of us.

More Good News! Bonuses Are UP!

According to Bloomberg News,

"More than one-third of Wall Street employees . . . expect a bigger bonus this year than last year even amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."

Guess where the money for those bonuses will be coming from. Have you lost your job this year? Faced pressure to accept a pay cut? Wondering how to pay off the credit cards? Worried about your mortgage?

Fuhgeddaboudit! Your taxes will be going UP UP UP so that Wall Street Billionaires can amass more billions. Billions in bonuses for destroying the world economy. Maybe these people also feel the Nazis deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dow Up 10% — Nearly 900 Points — What's the Good News?

Consumer confidence dropped to its lowest point ever.

Prices of single-family homes dropped by the greatest percentage ever in August.

New York State Governor Paterson forecast a budget shortfall next year of $12.5 billion (up nearly 100% from what was projected a few months ago) and a total of $47 BILLION in shortfalls over the years ahead.

Job losses for New York State will likely exceed 150,000.

Job losses nationwide for 2008 currently exceed 500,000 (yeah, half a million).

Time, Inc. is cutting 600 jobs (10% of workforce).

Whirlpool plans to cut 5,000 jobs (6.8% of workers).

Home foreclosures continue at a pace unprecedented in American history.

This is the kind of good news that lifts the hearts and minds of Wall Street. AND, there are bargains to be had! The Fed may lower interest rates on Wednesday, October 28! SO BUY! BUY! BUY!

More important, the bad news is bad for regular people — 'Main Street' in the term of the day — so Wall Street reacts favorably. Make average and poor Americans poorer, Wall Street gets richer. And with the Bailout, the government has abandoned any pretense of acting in the public's interest.

Bailout for BONUSES!

Weegee. "The Critic", November 22, 1943. The war was on. We were still in the Depression. Look familiar?

The sheer Audacity of Greed. This is why the architects of Christianity invented Hell. There has to be some place where justice is finally meted out to evil monsters who steal from us and run organized crime machines like Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Lehman, Bank of America, and on and on. The People need some assurance that sooner or later these revolting worms will get what the United States government is absolutely unwilling to do. Thus Heaven for the poor, Hell for the leaches who make us poor. (1)

What am I raving about? The Boneses for Wall Street execs. Bloomberg news has a report on the BILLIONS being set aside by Goldman Sachs and others to kick back to their financial charlatans this holiday season.

My guess is that Michael Bloomberg, if he says anything, will support these kickbacks. First, these thieves are his friends. Second, for years it has been their obscene pay — and theirs alone — that has sustained the broader obscenity of New York City real estate prices.

Things were already bad. Over a year ago, reports flashed across the journalistic radar of the multimillion dollar party that Blackstone head Stephen Schwarzman had thrown for himself. But now We the People are pulling their asses out of the fire. We get laid off. We lose our homes. And they get bonuses totalling billions and billions of dollars. Perhaps Andrew Cuomo or someone with a comparable sense of decency will go after these beasts. We can be sure it will not be anyone in Washington, DC, including, I suspect, Barack Obama if elected.

The Schwarzman 60th birthday bash in 2007 included $1 million for Rod Stewart. Schwarzman, a Republicon, has said, "I don’t feel like a wealthy person."

I'm trying to imagine some historical or fictional representation of the poor or regular people coming upon the trappings of wealth.

Perhaps A Night To Remember — the classic 50s film about the sinking of the Titanic — when the steerage passengers, initially barred from reaching lifeboats (fact), finally break through the gates and pass through the first class areas of the ship.

Or perhaps the experience of the French peasants on overthrowing Louis XVI and seeing, however briefly the staggering wealth of the monarchy (before the Reign of Terror and Robespierre et al. tried to make themselves monarchs in all but name) .

It should bring tears to our eyes. Or rage. But most Americans seem unmoved. Rather, people lionize, idolize — American Idolize — the rich. "Future, Heaven of the poor" said poet W. S. Merwin. "In the Future, I'll win the lottery, become a star baseball player, an actor. I'll be rich, so they are my peers." Needless to say, the rich do not agree. Years ago, when I lived in Boston, a report emerged during a surge of public opposition to a very modest tax increase: Of those who bought lottery tickets, most spent more on lottery tickets than they paid in taxes each year. Such is the state of our delusions.

For a moment, we were moved by the bailout, moved to flood Congress with calls and emails. So the first pass at a bailout bombed. But now it's old news. And people like "Joe the Plumber" — middle class people — can still seriously fret over 'tax and spend' Democrats, as if a lottery win were just around the corner, just about to make us millionaires and catapult us into the party with Michael Bloomberg, Stephen Schwarzman, Henry Paulson.

Where are our tears? If We the People have no sense of decency, how can we condemn the self-appointed UberVölk of Congress and Wall Street?

---

---

NOTES

1. I don't know much about the intellectual history of Western religion, but it has always seemed to me that religion played a terribly important role in mollifying a possibly restless serfdom. "Things suck now, and the Lords live off the fat of our labour, but someday we will be rewarded for our suffering." Thus the religious class taught the poor while, of course, allowing the rich to buy their 'indulgences' for entry to Heaven.

Today, the religious class roughly parallels the politically powerful. (Not quite right, because we worship before the feet of the corporate elite, too.) The rich corporate Titans buy their indulgences in the form of bribes (called campaign contributions) to politicians.

I don't think it's any coincidence that, as times have gotten worse in recent years and particularly as disparities in the distribution of wealth of grown ever more extreme, people are turning more to religion. Increasingly, Americans are abandoning any hope of a good life and praying instead for a good life after.

2. New York Times essayist and conservative idiot Ben Stein has some vaguely relevant blather about a year ago. It should surprise none that he was dead wrong on very nearly every point. But he has a cool Ivy degree and that annoying delivery, so he must have been right even though he was wrong. That's religion, folks.

3. The Bride Wore Ritzy. New York Times, 22 April 2008

Attack of the Bailout Behemoth

We've already heard that the insurance and automotive industries are nosing up to the trough for money money money from Uncle Sam — meaning Us. The US slot is payin' big time, and the bigger you are, the bigger you get!

The Christian Science Monitor has a nice little survey of the Mighty Morphin' Money Machine.

Now, the US (unlike the British) has included NO requirement that banks actually dole out the money they get. As many have noted, Goldman Sachs et al. could just sit on that pile of dough until hell freezes over — or until it's Bonus Time in Bloombergburg.

What the insurance industry or the car makers will do if they get on the gravy train is anybody's guess. But we can safely say it won't involve cutting insurance rates, lowering car prices, or guaranteeing a better product (e.g., affordable hybrid autos).

Back in the 80s the US car makers moaned and moaned and moaned — "boo hoo boo hoo, if only we could get a little breathing space from the Japanese, we could improve our cars and become more competitive". The Japanese gave in to the sob story, voluntarily restricted exports to the US.

What did Our Glorious Car Makers do? They raised prices.

The Shape of Things to Come.

---

SEE ALSO

Broken Securities Industry Still Has $20 Billion to Pay Bonuses. Bloomberg, 27 October 2008.

Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven't stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.

Merrill Brokers May Get Big Bonuses to Stay. New York Times, 24 October 2008

Car makers may be next up for bailout. CNN, 27 October 2008

So the US Didn't Attack Iran (which could defend itself)

The US under the Bush regime has engaged in another act of war — an aerial attack within the borders of Syria. Syrian officials are saying that four children are among the dead.

A US attack on Syria would fit a recent pattern, that of attacking third party nations in which the US has no declared hostility, most notably Pakistan, where the US has repeatedly attacked, frequently using drones (unpiloted, remotely controlled aircraft) and causing numerous civilian casualties.

For over two years, there has been speculation whether Bush and his band of war criminals would try an October surprise style attack on Iran. Plenty of Bush insiders and 'advisers' have advocated such an attack. The problems: (1) Iran can actually defend itself, even to the point of attack beyond its borders and (2) too politically risky if seen as nothing more than a Republicon grab for votes.

But Syria. . . . Well, Israel attacked with American support (perhaps even actual air support) in September, 2007, and the Europe and North America remained silent. More important, for cowards such as those that infest the Bush regime, Syria is far less able to defend itself than Iran:

• poorer - virtually no oil wealth, GDP of $90 billion versus Iran's $763 billion
• smaller - 185,000 sq km as opposed to 1.6 million sq km
• far fewer people - 20 million as opposed to 66 million
• more accessible - particularly to naval forces in the Mediterranean and airforces in Turkey
• border US ally - namely Israel
• vastly weaker military - less than $5 billion in Syrian military spending v. $19 billion in expenditures for the Iranian military

But most importantly, NO ECONOMIC BLOWBACK in a Syria attack. Iran can threaten Gulf oil shipments and of course is a major source of oil itself. The last thing the US and Republicons want is a spike in oil prices prompted by a drastic cut in supplies.

So is this the beginning of a late October Surprise to aid the McCon campaign? Probably not. McCain is beyond hope.

More likely, the Bush brigade realizes that once the election is over, they really have nothing to lose anymore.

The Guardian quotes Joshua Landis (Co-director, Center for Middle East Studies University of Oklahoma): "The Bush administration must assume that an Obama victory will force Syria to behave nicely in order to win favour with the new administration. Thus White House analysts may assume that it can have a "freebee" - taking a bit of personal revenge on Syria without the US paying a price."

References (as of 11:50pm, Sunday, 26 October, 2008)

'US troops' strike inside Syria. BBC. The BBC is fond of single quotation marks these days. Why . . . the effect is to cast doubt.

US forces kill eight in helicopter raid on Syria. The Guardian.

Syrians Blame U.S. in Deadly Blast on Iraq Border. New York Times. The Times makes no mention of children killed — a pretty standard Times omission. Note also how the Times describes a "deadly blast" — avoiding any ascription of guilt.

Syria accuses US of deadly raid. al-Jazeera.

U.S. confirms strike on Syria that killed eight. Ha'aretz.

ANALYSIS / U.S. takes page from Israel's book in Syria Strike. Amos Harel. Ha'aretz. Harel takes a view somewhat reminiscent of my own: "Those who anticipated an American bombing of Iran on the eve of the presidential elections or immediately after must for the moment be satisfied with a somewhat lesser replacement: the helicopter attack Sunday night in north-eastern Syria. "

Syria accuses U.S. in deadly helicopter attack. Syria Comment. JoshuaLandis.com

Joe the Asshole's (I mean Plumber's) Party

Here's the real reason the Republicons have to paint Obama and Democrats as "socialists" (a label Democrats should embrace, but that's another story). Republicon expenses certainly clarify why the Spend & Spend Party doesn't want to "spread the wealth" — how can a body possibly get by on a $50 haircut when a $10,000 style wins so many votes?!

Shhhh. . . . It's the "S" Word

John McCain is turning to the golden oldies as his campaign burns. Charge Obama as a "tax and spend" liberal or even . . . a SOCIALIST.

The "S" word has American journalists in a dither. Is the bailout SOCIALISM? Soon to come to this very website . . . The TEST. You too may be a SOCIALIST! Answer ten simple questions and find out. Check back here.

In the meantime, listen to a terribly terribly concerned 60 Minutes JOURNALIST ask a CORPORATE EXECUTIVE if we've all become awful, evil, god-denying SOCIALISTS.



The answer? We have the same thing we had six months ago. A Government in the Service of Corporate America. State Capitalism. Take from the poor and middle class, give to the rich.

The World Wants Obama

Don't let the Americans know. Xenophobia alone could swing the vote McCain's way if The Economist's poll makes headlines. The Economist map is interactive and very thorough, but also suspect. It pegs support for Obama in the US electoral college at 80%.

The Gestural Language of John McCain

Journalists, loathe to investigate, scrutinize, analyze, or report on matters of substance, often obsess on things like "body language". The kicker is that, even when they still don't do anything substantive. There really is something to be seen in body language, especially that of John McCain. Reporters still ignore it. (Hear them speak of many politicians as friends, and we may have the explanation.)

I believe that McCain, like Nixon before him, is fighting an inclination to withdraw, or a tension between that inclination and the need to prove himself. After all, his father and grandfather were, in the American context, great successes — both admirals.

Struggling with this tension, McCain exhibits a strained effusiveness through which the real, closed McCain unavoidably emerges. He keeps his arms out like a wrestler (and he was a wrestler in high school). He's a small man, physically, so this is partly a 'puffer-fish' display — a way to make himself seem marginally larger. But it is also suggestive of a person who feels trapped and is trying to push his arms out against the box trapping him.



Other gestures are quite familiar to anyone who sees a few of his appearances — the thumbs up, the tight-fingers-together flat-handed gesture. Late comedian Chris Farley used this second gesture a lot. Not sure what it's about. Very emphatic, directive, directorial. "Look! Don't you see?! Isn't it obvious?"

These are all indicative of a severely repressed personality. This is also indicated by his early military record, from his time in the Naval Academy. He was something of a loose cannon, given to drink, etc. This a man who was struggling against a family history of control. Who knows, maybe he got shot down and chose to stay in the 'Hanoi Hilton' as part of a buried desire for death. ("buried desire for death" I make joke)

He must also feel some ambivalence over his "war hero" status. After all, what's his claim to fame? Getting shot down?! That makes you a hero? Landing in prison? And when did he get shot down? When he was bombing civilians! Operation Rolling Thunder. A war crime. So his big moment before the cameras was for something almost entirely out of his control. And he was a famous prisoner because of . . . his father and grandfather!

(That none can raise or challenge this in the pop media tells us again just how cowed the 'fourth estate' really is.)

This also puts the Palin choice is a very different light. McCain really did choose his opposite number. He chose someone who seems genuinely at ease with being out there, on display (Palin was third in the 1984 Miss Alaska 'beauty pageant'). She makes a mistake, a big one, and she justs smiles on. Similarly, McCain's first wife modeled for a time. Cindy McCain was a cheerleader (a role she continues to this day).

I almost feel sorry for the sap.

McCainisti Steal Obama Signs . . . On Candid Camera

The person was caught at least twice on camera stealing signs.

Republicons Seek to Steal Another Election

Tina Fey and Will Ferrell Bushify and Palinize

Patricia Williams in The Nation

No president in American history has more systematically, more thoroughly, more brazenly failed to uphold his oath of office. Indeed, the Bush administration in all but name directly rejected any obligation or duty incumbent on the Office of the President under the Constitution and Laws of the United States.

This is what I take from an important essay by Columbia law professor Patricia Williams (slightly reformatted by your resident ranter to emphasize some content). Many, many other scholars, observers and just plain folks have made similar observations at different times and contexts.

Predatory Scapegoating
by Patricia J. Williams

Some three weeks before New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign his office in disgrace (sex! scandal! floozies!), he published an op-ed in the Washington Post. Titled "Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime: How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers," the piece expressed Spitzer's concern that for several years there had been a marked increase in predatory lending practices, including distortion of terms, surprise balloon payments, hidden fees and deceptive "teaser" rates. These practices, he wrote, were having a "devastating effect on home buyers." In addition, the sheer number of such transactions, "if left unchecked, threaten...our financial markets." To those in the know (OK, those few egghead "elites" not enthralled by the birth of the Brangelina twins), the situation loomed so egregious that the attorneys general of all fifty states, both Democrats and Republicans, lodged suits against the worst predatory subprime lenders. A number of states, including New York, passed laws to rein in such practices.

The response was shocking, and not nearly well-publicized enough: the Bush administration employed a little-used 1863 law to annul all state antipredatory-lending laws and, if that wasn't enough, to block states from enforcing their own consumer protection laws in suits against national banks. Thus, when Spitzer tried to open an investigation into discriminatory mortgage lending in New York, the administration actually filed a federal lawsuit to block it. These interventions were so extreme and so unprecedented that the attorneys general and the banking superintendents of all fifty states came together to oppose the rulings unanimously. But to no avail.

It is worth quoting the last paragraph of Spitzer's op-ed in its entirety:

"When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers."

Spitzer wrote his article eight months ago, in February. To some, it might be tempting to characterize his observations as prescient. It's probably more accurate to say that Spitzer just had his eyes open (if not for Mata Hari) — and he was not alone. Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been sounding the knell for a very long time. But, frankly, I worry that even now there is too little attention — in media or in political debate — to the incremental ingredients of this crisis. For it is not merely a failure to regulate Wall Street; it's a failure to govern at all.

• The FDA is packed with industry insiders who seem content with the gross understaffing of inspections bureaus. Animal feed laced with melamine was imported from China, consumed here and has now entered the human food chain.
  
• Nontherapeutic experimentation with pesticides on humans has been given the nod.
• Pharmaceutical companies have gotten approval for drugs like Vioxx and Fen-Phen that should never have been put on the market.
  
• Efforts by farmers to do voluntary testing for mad cow disease have been blocked by the Agriculture Department.
  
• The Justice Department's civil rights division has been gutted.
• The FCC has hacked away at public access to the airways and OK'd obscene concentrations of media power.
• The Transportation Department is underfunded beyond all conscience, and the toll has been tragic: collapsed bridges, breached levees up and down the Mississippi and nearly unnavigable railroad tracks.
• And FEMA... well, we all remember FEMA.

Maybe now is not the time to be ungraciously partisan; perhaps in the middle of the tornado we "don't want to argue about causes," as Sarah Palin said of global warming. But let's make one thing crystal clear: neither this global economic catastrophe nor the impending plunge in our standard of living is the fault of poor blacks or other disenfranchised minorities. It should be obvious, I suppose: African-Americans are only about 13 percent of the population, and about 48 percent of them are homeowners. Yet I emphasize this because to listen to some widely exported theories by John McCain's surrogates and right-leaning radio shock jocks, you could get the impression that this all came about because penniless black slackers took out home loans they were just as unqualified for as the jobs they stole from more qualified white contenders.

Perhaps the most insidious and ubiquitous propagation of this imagery is the McCain ad that features a scary photo of Franklin Raines, former head of Fannie Mae, the single black head of any organization implicated in this mess. Yet of all the hundreds of CEOs, crooks and swindlers who could be named — from Ken Lay to AIG's Christopher Swift to Jack Abramoff — it is Raines who is used as the Willie Horton-ized whipping boy of civilization's downfall. This is pure manipulation: Raines is not connected in any way to Barack Obama. Yet McCain's campaign director was a top manager at Fannie Mae. If we must look for figureheads, allow me to nominate George Herbert Walker IV, who just happens to be George W. Bush's second cousin. He also happens to be Lehman Brothers' investment management director, who, just before the firm's collapse, dismissed a suggestion from the asset management firm Neuberger Berman that top executives forgo their multimillion-dollar bonuses so as to "send a strong message...that management is not shirking accountability for recent performance." Walker actually apologized that the very notion had been circulated: "Sorry team. I am not sure what's in the water at Neuberger Berman. I'm embarrassed and I apologize."

Leathery Toad Channels Bart Simpson Before Congress

The economic war criminal Alan Greenspan was uncharacteristically intelligible in what will likely be the closest he offers by way of an apology. Greenspan joins Robert Rubin, William Donaldson, Henry Paulson and the cast of thousands in substantially avoiding any admission of his own role in an economic disaster for which WE THE PEOPLE will be held to account.

Greenspan effectively said, "I can't help feeling partly responsible." This is one of the leading advocates of deregulation in the history of modern economics.

Still the media faun all over him, just as they do with all of these arrogant shits. Charlie Rose had "Ace" Greenberg on last night (October 22nd). Now, Rose's specialty is grovelling before those whom he admires or with whom he agrees and being obnoxious to any others. But Rose outdid himself, even compared to recent interviews with Warren Buffett and Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg (no relation to "Ace").

The New York Times, meanwhile, invited Myron Scholes (vide Wikipedia) of Long Term Capital Management notoriety to suggest questions for Obama and McCain — no mention of Scholes's vested interest in covering up the roots of this absurd, obscene bailout.

And NPR interviewed William Donaldson, former head of the SEC and also a major advocate of deregulation. NPR accepted at face value Donaldson's claim that he voted for more regulation while at the SEC. Presumably that translates as "There was this one time I voted for spending less on coffee at our daily briefings". Donaldson was at the helm when the SEC released Goldman Sachs (then headed by Henry Paulson) and other investment firms from the "net capital rule" in April, 2004, effectively allowing the firms to go into unlimited debt.

Likewise, Robert Rubin (also from Goldman Sachs), now advising the Obama campaign, advocated for deregulation while Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton years.

See the connections?

It's as if the captain of the Titanic had survived and instantly been offered the command of another great passenger liner by his buddies formerly in the navy with him.

In truth, this should come as no surprise. Ours is an authority-driven society. Thus, a degree from Harvard Business School can mask a multitude of sins.

We have a hybridized Buddy-Authority System (BAS). The figures in positions of authority are all buddies. They cover for one another. And they make damn sure that major media figures are also buddies, thus ensuring friendly media coverage — as if the air of authority were not already sufficient to intimidate weak-minded, not particularly well-educated journalists. Not that these journalists don't have excellent credentials — they have their equivalents of the Harvard MBA — but the notion of actually digging for truth is utterly alien to them, particularly when doing so threatens access, buddy status, or professional acceptance.

Again, no surprise. It was ever thus. The Brits couldn't conceive that Kim Philby was a spy. "He's an old Etonian! We were at Oxford together! Pish posh." And Caesar: "Et tu, Brute?"

At the head of this was the God Greenspan. We have to wonder, "Is there any depth to which conditions could descend which would prompt genuine doubt about Greenspan and his ilk?"

Fortunately, in the midst of these yea-sayers, there are the intellectuals, in the sense that Edward Said meant — the real questioners, the Mark Twains or Chomskys or Galbraiths. (See Representations of the Intellectual, 1996)

Would that Galbraith were still alive. In his last years, he wrote on precisely the phenomenon we are now witnessing (A Short History of Financial Euphoria, 1990 and 1993):

In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone. . . . In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong. . . . There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth.

New York City 9th Most Unequal On Earth

A new United Nations report on the State of the World's cities finds that New York is one of the most unequal in the world, and the most unequal in North America or Western Europe. 'Ahead' of New York are cities in southern Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean. By contrast, Beijing is one of the most equal cities in the world.

Moreover, "The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India. . . ."

Want to guess on whether Mayor Blunderbuss Bloomberg will have anything to say on this?


See also: "Wealth Gap Creating a Social Time Bomb" in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

NPR — National Plutocrat Radio

Where is the public in National Public Radio? In the past 20 years or so, it has steadily ceased to be what it promised at the time of its founding (if it ever was that to begin with).

Coverage of the Middle East, the US government and especially its foreign policy, and virtually any topic that requires more than a generic bachelors degree in some gut subject goes woefully under-reported. The most notable individual cases coming immediately to mind are Nina Totenberg's glaring failure to follow up after she broke the Anita Hill challenge to Clarence Thomas in 1991 and the consistently biased reporting from Israel/Palestine of Linda Gradstein, who was found to have accepted payment from pro-Israel organizations in violation of NPR's own published standards.

NPR's coverage of the first Gulf War and now of the Iraq War was almost devoid of anything that would pass for journalistic scrutiny. Now its coverage of the Wall Street chaos is matching that low.

In the case of Wall Street we should perhaps expect this. Among NPR's Board of Directors are several with degrees from Harvard, Chicago, Yale — institutions well-represented on Wall Street and in recent administrations — but more importantly, institutions that lead the US in encouraging and unquestioning acceptance of and obedience to "authority". Scroll to the end of this entry for a brief rundown of some of the behind-the-scenes automatons at NPR.

Below is an expanded version of a letter sent to NPR regarding its October 22nd interview with former SEC chair William Donaldson:

NPR continues its grossly inadequate, essentially conservative, reporting on the financial crisis with its October 22nd interview of William Donaldson.

Absent from NPR's interview is any mention that Donaldson was Chairman of the SEC during a crucial period of deregulation. Donaldson’s comments about deregulation are hardly those of a disinterested "expert". Like Robert Rubin and others, he now has a vested interest in protecting his own reputation (and now doubt his considerable personal wealth).

Indeed, Donaldson, like the rest of the SEC, uniformly advocated deregulation. In April 2004, the SEC released firms like Goldman Sachs (then lead by Henry Paulson) from the "net capital rule" which required them to hold in reserve capital, effectively limiting their borrowing. This was a crucial step in the lead-up to the current chaos.

Donaldson is quite wrong when he describes the US as the "gold standard" on deregulation. The Europeans -- on a number of fronts, not just financial -- have advocated greater regulation to protect average people (as opposed to protecting the wealthy or priviledged) and out of what many might say is an interpretation of democratic principles which surpasses that of the nation that calls itself the “world’s greatest democracy”.

As for the specific claim that better (meaning, more lax) US regulation made the US more attractive to investors globally: Of course the US was more attractive when it was easier to make a quick buck here. How attractive is the US now?

It is genuinely astonishing, and shameful, that NPR fails utterly to question Donaldson on exactly those points where he has a personal axe to grind. NPR brings out NONE of Donaldson's personal record, none of the points on which his personal record is relevant. Surely an awareness of his own involvement would influence listeners' willingness to take another Wall Street snake-oil salesman at his word.

This is entirely in keeping with NPR's reporting which has largely failed to investigate or scrutinize either the Wall Street failures or the government and business claims about them.

One telling characteristic of interviews like today’s is that NPR (and many other American news businesses) abandon the “he said/she said” approach which will be found in discussions of, say, evolution vs. “intelligent design”. There are many flaws in that approach, but on topics like that addressed by Donaldson, that approach might serve quite well. But of course, it might also serve to undermine the line that Donaldson is taking, a line that NPR has bought into over weeks of reporting.

Here's a rundown of some of NPR's board members:

• Kevin Klose, President of NPR - B.A. Harvard
• Antoine W. van Agtmael, Chair of NPR Foundation - M.A. Yale, M.B.A. NYU Stern
• John A. Herrmann Jr., Vice Chairman of Lincoln International, former Managing Director in the M&A practice at JP Morgan Securities - B.A. Yale, M.B.A. Harvard
• Lyle Logan, Executive Vice President, The Northern Trust Company - M.B.A. Chicago
• Howard H. Stevenson, Baker Foundation Professor and the Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus at Harvard Business School

These are people (and granted, there are more people at NPR) who share, with the exception of Klose, one key characteristic — a lust for money and a degree from one of the indoctrinating institutions of money. They all share an education in institutions which today show little evidence of encouraging critical analysis but rather encourage mindless obedience while at the same time encouraging their students to believe in their own innate superiority.

McCain Under the Lens

Try that McCain hand gesture. It tires the hands quickly. Not a gesture that comes naturally at all — especially not with that level of control.

This is a man who is constantly straining to restrain himself. Major behavior modification techniques at work. This guy fears that, if he loses control, the real McCain will be seen.

If (let us hope) he loses, watch for reports of titanic rages behind the scenes. No real prediction here. He's already known for a volcanic temper. A current New Yorker essay reports that he's enraged at how the Palin pick has turned out.