Rock on.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
He's BAAAAACK
Jerome Corsi, co-author of "Unfit for Command," is back with a new anti-Obama book.
He's a lovely fellow, and I'm sure John McCain will be forced to distance himself from every one of his remarks, along with the lyrics of Kid Rock and Trent Reznor.
He's a lovely fellow, and I'm sure John McCain will be forced to distance himself from every one of his remarks, along with the lyrics of Kid Rock and Trent Reznor.
CREDIT SMITH CREDIT SMITH CREDIT SMITH
Funny ad where Gordon Smith tells voters all the awesome things he's supposedly responsible for and then he ends the ad saying:
What matters is helping people, not who gets the credit.
Green Eyed Monster
I'd earlier suggested that Saint John had a wee narcissism problem half tongue-in-cheek, but increasingly it seems that unless IT'S ALL ABOUT HIMHIMHIMHIMHIM he's going to cry and scream and send his surrogates out to throw tantrums. Cafferty hit it pretty well yesterday:
So whatever you do, DON'T LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. By his own admission, the poor guy is feeling left out.
CAFFERTY: I'd be willing to make you a bet. If you added up all of the people who have attended every political event John McCain has held since the campaign started, the number would not get to 200,000, which is the number of people that watched Barack Obama speak in Berlin.
That ad that he put out is nothing more than the same jealousy he displayed last week when Obama was on this tour. McCain went to Canada, Mexico and Colombia. And the only thing I remember about any of those three trips or visits was some hostages got released one day while he was in Colombia. It had nothing to do with McCain being there.
So, you know, Obama is getting a lot of attention and McCain doesn't like it. It's jealousy.
So whatever you do, DON'T LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. By his own admission, the poor guy is feeling left out.
Rooting For Hulk
All right thinking people should hope that HULK SMASHES everyone else in the upcoming Republican primary.
Local Oddity
Wonder what this is about.
The area around Independence Mall was tied in knots this morning after a man and a woman attempted to enter the William Green Federal Building about 11 a.m. with "prohibited items," authorities said.
The couple was detained and federal agents searched a car in an adjoining garage, where they discovered additional "prohibited items."
Broadcast reports said the couple had ammunition and a knife in their pockets and a shotgun stowed in their car.
Now That's Mavericky!
I'm not one who faints at the thought that politicians might be a wee bit disingenuous with their attacks, but reporters enamored with all that straight talk should stop letting themselves be played. Assuming they want that of course.
What the McCain campaign doesn’t want people to know, according to one GOP strategist I spoke with over the weekend, is that they had an ad script ready to go if Obama had visited the wounded troops saying that Obama was...wait for it...using wounded troops as campaign props. So, no matter which way Obama turned, McCain had an Obama bashing ad ready to launch. I guess that’s political hardball. But another word for it is the one word that most politicians are loathe to use about their opponents—a lie.
Crazy Activist Judges
MSNBC:
...more:
BREAKING NEWS: Federal judge sides with Congress, says Bush aides can be subpoenaed
...more:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has sided with Congress in its fight with the Bush administration over whether top White House aides can be subpoenaed by Congress.
The House Judiciary Committee wants to question the president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and former legal counsel Harriet Miers, about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys.
Keep It Simple
As I am now an expert on all things Austin including their new SUPERTRAIN, let me suggest that they don't do this.
The line isn't all that long, and fare collection and monitoring is much simpler and faster if you just keep it simple. Confusion and uncertainty about how and how much to pay are pretty big barriers to ridership. Start by just charging a buck.
"Cap Metro is proposing a zone fare system for the metro rail system," said Shaivitz.
Zone one would be between Leander and Kramer, and zone two between Howard and downtown Austin.
The proposal calls for $1 for those traveling within one zone and $1.50 if for those traveling two zones. That will be voted on Monday night.
The line isn't all that long, and fare collection and monitoring is much simpler and faster if you just keep it simple. Confusion and uncertainty about how and how much to pay are pretty big barriers to ridership. Start by just charging a buck.
A Noble Tradition Of Journalism
It's true, as Ezra says, that Jamie Kirchik's habit of making shit up is there for all to see. Within TNR, and in our media ecology generally, there are certain ideological poses that give you license to do so. Why this is I do not know.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
And it's a banner day for lucky duckies.
...more here.
First-time jobless claims for state unemployment benefits for the week ended July 26 rose 44,000 to 448,000 - an unusually high gain as the government moved to enroll workers in a new extended federal benefits program and found some percentage qualified for regular benefits, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
...more here.
Small Government Republicans
Always reliable.
ANCHORAGE, July 30 -- Alaska's vast landscape is littered with federally funded tributes to Sen. Ted Stevens's single-minded promotion of the state, from the brushed steel of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport to the $187 million that subsidizes air mail for the one-third of residents who live beyond the reach of roads.
This Story
In his almost 40 years in the Senate, the octogenarian Republican in many ways defined the shape of the Last Frontier, not least by using his perch on the Appropriations Committee to ensure that his state's tiny population remained the nation's richest in federal spending per capita. More than $9 billion arrived in Alaska from Washington in 2006, twice as much as a decade earlier.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
McCain Hearts Nine Inch Nails And Kid Rock
So, you know, by the current standards he has endorsed ever single lyric ever written by either of them. It's as if this was a John McCain campaign commercial!
(video NSFW, so do not click)
Oh, sorry, this doesn't actually fall under the "black people responsible for everything other black people do" rule.
(video NSFW, so do not click)
Oh, sorry, this doesn't actually fall under the "black people responsible for everything other black people do" rule.
Bushies
Fuck up everything.
WASHINGTON — On May 17, 2005, the White House’s political affairs office sent an e-mail message to agencies throughout the executive branch directing them to find jobs for 108 people on a list of “priority candidates” who had “loyally served the president.”
“We simply want to place as many of our Bush loyalists as possible,” the White House emphasized in a follow-up message, according to a little-noticed passage of a Justice Department report released Monday about politicization in the department’s hiring of civil-service prosecutors and immigration officials.
The report, the subject of a Senate oversight hearing Wednesday, provided a window into how the administration sought to install politically like-minded officials in positions of government responsibility, and how the efforts at times crossed customary or legal limits.
You Mean It Isn't Good News For Republicans?
Dick Polman obviously doesn't understand how things work in DC.
The federal indictment of the GOP's longest-serving U.S. senator - on seven felony counts, stemming from his seven-year sweetheart association with an oil-services company - is not merely a severe embarrassment to the minority party on Capitol Hill, a party that had been ousted from power in '06 partly because certain ethics-challenged members had already stained the Republican brand. The bottom line is that Ted Stevens' legal predicament is a gift to the Democrats, who dream of gaining nine Senate seats on election day, thus dominating the chamber next January with a filibuster-proof tally of 60.
He's An Uppity Negro Who Wants To Fuck Your Sister
It is the path that the McCain camp has chosen. They're allowed. But if the word "presumptuous" comes out of the mouth of a journalist one more time I'm gonna go Elvis on the teevee.
The Nightmare Will Not End
While I'm happy for his better health, I do wish he would just go away already.
WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after finishing a grueling, three- month regimen of chemotherapy treatments, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter said today that his prognosis for recovery from Hodgkin's disease is "excellent."
The Philadelphia Republican, who has served longer than any senator from Pennsylvania in Senate history, said he fully intends to seek election to a sixth term in 2010.
July 6
While I'm doing my best to avoid speculation about VP choices, John Kerry chose his on July 6, 2004.
Just sayin'.
Just sayin'.
Can't Work
While Obama's consumption of orange juice at breakfast was proof he was deeply out of touch with normal America, John McCain's $500 shoes are further proof that he is indeed a man of the people with whom most people would want to BBQ with. Except they wouldn't.
These zombie narratives (Democrats are out of touch, effete, elitist, and Republicans are rugged men of the people) are so ingrained that no amount of facts or reality can stop the bobbleheads from repeating them.
These zombie narratives (Democrats are out of touch, effete, elitist, and Republicans are rugged men of the people) are so ingrained that no amount of facts or reality can stop the bobbleheads from repeating them.
Cokie's Law
As a morning of MSNBC demonstrated, Cokie's Law is still in operation for political journalism.
I'll Lend You Money To Buy This Crap From Me
Ah, high finance.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch's agreement to sell $30.6 billion of toxic securities gives away the bank's potential profits on the securities and leaves it on the hook for most of the risk, strategists at Bank of America wrote on Wednesday.
Merrill Lynch & Co Inchas financed 75 percent of the sale of the securities, meaning it is on the hook if the assets decline by more than 5 cents on the dollar, Bank of America strategist Jeffrey Rosenberg wrote.
Journamalism
Jonathan Weisman:
Full quote:
...MSNBC just informed me that the highly misleading clipped quote might feed the idea that Obama is "presumptuous" despite being, you know, a highly misleading clipped quote.
...Craig Crawford: "Even if it's not true..."
Please kill me.
Perhaps he's beginning to believe the hype.
In his closed door meeting with House Democrats this evening, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama delivered a real zinger. According to a witness, he was waxing lyrical about last week's trip to Europe, when he concluded, "this is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for."
The 200,000 souls who thronged to his speech in Berlin came not just for him, he told the enthralled audience of congressional representatives.
"I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions," he said.
Full quote:
BUT A DEMOCRATIC SOURCE SAYS: “His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him. [The Post] left out the important first half of the sentence, which was along the lines of: ‘It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It’s about America. I have just become a symbol … .”
...MSNBC just informed me that the highly misleading clipped quote might feed the idea that Obama is "presumptuous" despite being, you know, a highly misleading clipped quote.
...Craig Crawford: "Even if it's not true..."
Please kill me.
Steps
Forwards:
And backwards:
In a shift away from highways-first transportation policies, top elected officials in the Baltimore region have decided to direct about $340 million in previously unallocated revenue over 20 years entirely toward mass transit projects.
And backwards:
The future of transportation in Southwest Florida will likely rely more on additional toll roads and expanded lanes on Interstate 75, than any potential light or high-speed rail systems that seem to have been knocking around in the state Legislature for quite some time.
...
Even if a commuter rail system were constructed, the most heady changes would still occur on I-75, which is currently in the midst of expanding to six lanes in both directions.
According to Southwest Florida Expressway Authority Chairman Bill Barton, that I-75 expansion is already obsolete, even though it is not yet even finished.
Idiots Represent Us
For a long time I thought that much of the problem with many "liberal" pundits was that they weren't all that liberal, and that liberal voices were almost entirely missing from our mainstream media. That's a problem, too, but another problem is that the "liberals" are just unappealing idiots. Digby:
Richard Cohen and others like him who play the role of "liberal" in the mainstream media are the reason why so many people hate liberals. They're idiots.
Spying
Sam Brownback is on my TV upset that China might be monitoring the internet and telephone communications of visitors during the olympics. "That's spying!" he says. He's really upset.
Please just kill me.
Please just kill me.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Run Away!!!
Liddy cuts and runs.
WASHINGTON — Hours after Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was indicted on Tuesday, his GOP colleague Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina sent his money to charity.
Dole donated $10,000 from her campaign to the Society of St. Andrew, a Christian anti-hunger organization, to equal the cash received this cycle from Stevens' political action committee.
After The Success Of Hot Soup
Of course McCain would recruit him.
Before Ron Fournier returned to The Associated Press in March 2007, the veteran political reporter had another professional suitor: John McCain’s presidential campaign.
In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain’s inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.
Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for “a senior advisory role” in communications.
Give It Back
And so begins the ritual calls for all politicians to give back all money tainted by Senator Hulk-Tubes.
Liquidate
Recession could bring a lot of these.
Bennigan's and Steak-and-Ale restaurant chains, owned by Metromedia Restaurant Group, sought permission to liquidate in bankruptcy court protection, without citing a reason.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the Metromedia Restaurant Group prepared a bankruptcy filing after allegedly violating several terms of a lending agreement with GE Capital Solutions.
Oh My
HULK SMASHED.
...more:
...indictment here (.pdf).
US officials say the Justice Department has indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) on charges related to a long-running investigation of business dealings in Alaska.
...more:
The 7-count indictment comes nearly one year after federal agents raided Stevens' home in Girdwood, a resort town about 40 miles south of Anchorage. The Justice Department has scheduled a press conference for 1:20 p.m. to announce the indcitment.
...indictment here (.pdf).
Poll Madness
I'll try to not get sucked into this stuff too much, but it's important to remember that polling results for "likely voters" depend completely on the turnout model of the pollster and should always be taken with a grain of salt, whether they favor your guy or not.
Patriotic Investors
Person on CNN just framed the question of whether to invest in the stock market as, "Do you believe in the future of America?" She also suggested that in the past, people who didn't believe in the future of America lost out.
So invest, citizen!
So invest, citizen!
Some Corrections Require Explanations
Either Dowd made something up, or somebody lied to her, or somebody is lying to the Times and they'd rather just eat it.
"Erasing Four Years Of Gains"
The lesson is don't see your primary residence as an investment and if you want to dabble in real estate investments understand that no matter what people tell you God has not commanded that home prices go up by 10% every year.
Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged at a record pace in May from a year earlier, with each of the 20 regions monitored showing annual declines for a second month, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case Shiller home price indexes reported on Tuesday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas fell 0.9 percent in May from April, bringing the measure down 15.8 percent from May 2007.
Shitpile Tales
Merrill edition:
July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Merrill Lynch & Co., the third- biggest U.S. securities firm, will sell $8.5 billion of stock and liquidate $30.6 billion of bonds at a fifth of their face value to shore up credit ratings imperiled by mortgage losses.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Deep Thoughts From Robert Stacy Mccain
Self-described author, bon vivant and raconteur.
I am not justifying anything. I was trying to make two major points:
1. Till was not killed merely for "whistling at a white woman." That phrase has attached itself to Till's name, suggesting that he was killed as the result of some casual encounter on the street -- which is simply not true.
2. Till's killers were the husband and brother-in-law of the woman whom Till insulted. It wasn't the Klan. It wasn't a racist mob. It wasn't some evil redneck sheriff. This was a personal crime, rather than a public crime.
To repeat what I have said in earlier posts: Emmett Till was not killed at random for the crime of being black. He was not hanged on the public square for advocating nonviolent social change. He was kidnapped and murdered by two men who felt that he had personally wronged them.
The point here is not to provide a "justification" for this crime. Rather, the point is to say that the meaning of Till's death has been distorted by propagandists who wish to use Emmett Till as a symbol of civil rights. I am saying that the facts of the case simply do not support that interpretation. While the acquittal of Till's killers said something about the unfairness of the criminal justice system in Mississippi, Till's death itself did not exemplify the values which some have attributed to it.
Was Emmett Till wrongly murdered? Of course. But thousands of Americans are murdered every year. Being a victim of murder, however, does not qualify one for sainthood.
Till's mother said her son was a "sacrificial lamb." But this construction wrongly imputes innocence and religious purpose to the victim. Till was not innocent. He was not merely walking down the street one day, selected at random, and killed simply because he was black. Till in fact was killed in response to his own action, by two men whose interest in him was specific and personal. Emmett Till was not killed while sitting in at a Woolworth's lunch counter or marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge or engaged in any other act of civil disobedience. Emmett Till was not killed as the result of his quest for civil rights, unless you consider insulting women to be a civil right.
The horrific nature of Emmett Till's death -- kidnapped at gunpoint rom his relative's home in the dark of night, tortured and murdered -- is not at issue. What is at issue is whether Till was a hero or martyr. Given the circumstances, I find it impossible to consider him such, and question whether any other rational person could do so.
Inexplicable
Yes, it is truly inexplicable how something becomes "an issue" when, prompted by a false ad from the McCain campaign aimed at members of the media, media figures repeat false charges.
I have no idea how this has happened. It truly must be a first!
I have no idea how this has happened. It truly must be a first!
BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE
A friend has 4 free not awesome tickets to tonight's Giants Stadium Springsteen concert. Pickup in center city Philadelphia. Email me if you want them.
What's Your Dermatolgist's Name?
John McCain just told me to make sure I call my dermatologist if ever I have some sort of skin discoloration.
My Entire Life Is A Vacation
It isn't a new observation, but it is a bit weird how people like to spend lots of money on vacations in places which have urban* features that they lack in their daily home life. There's no direct contradiction between daily lifestyle and vacation choices as people make choices under the constraints they face and quite often "good urban living" isn't on the affordable menu, but there is a contradiction between how our vision of development should be as expressed in our land use, zoning laws, and transportation expenditures, and what people spend a lot of money on to obtain in small doses.
(via ggw)
*Again, "urban" doesn't mean "Manhattan," it refers to any location with a degree of density and walkability, such as beach towns and other similar vacation destinies.
(via ggw)
*Again, "urban" doesn't mean "Manhattan," it refers to any location with a degree of density and walkability, such as beach towns and other similar vacation destinies.
Modern Journalism
Apparently it's hard work. Larry King and Ted Koppel, 2000:
Michael Scherer today:
Or, you know, journalists can do their jobs and help the public understand these things. Scherer does do that to some extent, actually, but only after framing the entire thing as "THIS IS JUST TOO HARD FOR MERE MORTALS TO UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAND." Odd way to sell an article, by suggesting we shouldn't bother to try.
KING: Okay. Were you impressed with this “fuzzy [math],” top 1 percent, 1.3 trillion, 1.9 trillion bit?
KOPPEL: You know, honestly, it turns my brains to mush. I can’t pretend for a minute that I’m really able to follow the argument of the debates. Parts of it, yes. Parts of it, I haven’t a clue what they’re talking about.
Michael Scherer today:
And so we return to where we began, a war of words with few numbers to back them up. The candidates speak in platitudes and broad swipes. They claim the high road, while banishing their opponents to the low road. And the American voters, if they are interested, must sort through the literature seeking numbers that were never really meant to add up.
Or, you know, journalists can do their jobs and help the public understand these things. Scherer does do that to some extent, actually, but only after framing the entire thing as "THIS IS JUST TOO HARD FOR MERE MORTALS TO UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAAAND." Odd way to sell an article, by suggesting we shouldn't bother to try.
Oh Well
So much for that. 2003:
Today:
Of course this analysis ignores the "wars are free" system of accounting favored by Fred Hiatt and others.
(AP) President Bush's goal of cutting in half a projected $500 billion federal deficit within five years is being dismissed as too timid by conservatives, unachievable by analysts and laughable by Democrats.
Mr. Bush will include the objective in the $2.3 trillion budget for 2005 he sends Congress in February, nine months away from the presidential and congressional elections. The goal is backed by many Republicans, but conservatives want a bolder move against the record deficits and big spending increases the administration has run up.
Today:
(AP) A senior Bush administration official says the budget deficit for this year will set a record in dollar terms, approaching $490 billion.
The official said Monday the deficit was being driven to record levels by the sagging economy and the stimulus payments being made to 130 million households in an effort to keep the country from falling into a deep recession. A deficit approaching $490 billion would easily surpass the current record deficit of $413 billion set in 2004.
Of course this analysis ignores the "wars are free" system of accounting favored by Fred Hiatt and others.
Driving Less
It's quite interesting, really, though it's a bit sad that many people don't have other options.
Simply having access to a train station isn't enough to make car-free existence attractive. Development must also include certain neighborhood amenities and retail which are within walking distance. But if people don't need a car to commute, you've taken away a big part of the reason they need a car. Add a walkable supermarket and you've taken away another big part. Have car sharing service around and you can cover the rest of any car needs without ownership. The point isn't that people will never want or use cars even if they are in transit-friendly places, the point is to create more affordable and desirable places which allow for reduced automobile dependency.
Much of the country is never really going to be easy to retrofit this way. Don't worry, there will still be plenty of car-dependent suburbs left after all the oil is gone! But there are plenty of places that can be greatly improved with minor land use changes.
A big barrier to policies (land use&zoning, transportation, etc.) is that so many people have never lived in an area where car-free existence is fathomable that they can't even picture it.
A report to be released Monday by the Transportation Department shows that over the past seven months, Americans have reduced their driving by more than 40 billion miles. Because of high gasoline prices, they drove 3.7% fewer miles in May than they did a year earlier, the report says, more than double the 1.8% drop-off seen in April.
But will they work? Will the simple proximity and easy access to a train station necessarily compel residents of the new developments to use mass transit?
“It's hard to envision anyone would really give up their car and just take the train. Honestly, some of that concern sort of resonates throughout all of these communities,” said Warminster solicitor Michael Savona.
Simply having access to a train station isn't enough to make car-free existence attractive. Development must also include certain neighborhood amenities and retail which are within walking distance. But if people don't need a car to commute, you've taken away a big part of the reason they need a car. Add a walkable supermarket and you've taken away another big part. Have car sharing service around and you can cover the rest of any car needs without ownership. The point isn't that people will never want or use cars even if they are in transit-friendly places, the point is to create more affordable and desirable places which allow for reduced automobile dependency.
Much of the country is never really going to be easy to retrofit this way. Don't worry, there will still be plenty of car-dependent suburbs left after all the oil is gone! But there are plenty of places that can be greatly improved with minor land use changes.
Meanwhile
The war is still over.
A suicide bomber helped kill at least 36 people and wounded 116 others after detonating explosives during a rally in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police official told CNN.
...Three female suicide bombers killed at least 29 people and wounded 85 others in central Baghdad, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said. Most were Shiite pilgrims.
...On Sunday afternoon, seven pilgrims were gunned down in a town south of Baghdad.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Purity Trolls
A constant in the life of the liberal blogger is the presence of purity trolls. Today's example is someone bitching that I'm "feeding the beast" that is Comcast by suggesting that people who already subscribe to Comcast, if they wish, take advantage of something free (Mad Men on demand) that Comcast is providing. This is "implorable" (?) because I'm someone "who uses the net as their primary source of income, and to disseminate their message."
Not only that, I use Comcast to disseminate my message! Like most of the country my options for TV and broadband are, you know, limited, which is why I support all kinds of policy changes which would thwart the power of Big Telecom. But until then, I'm a customer too...
Not only that, I use Comcast to disseminate my message! Like most of the country my options for TV and broadband are, you know, limited, which is why I support all kinds of policy changes which would thwart the power of Big Telecom. But until then, I'm a customer too...
But He Should Be Up By Twenty!
I've long said that it's highly unlikely that McCain's support will ever drop much below 40%, so Obama's level of support in polls will depend mostly on how many undecideds/unwilling to states shift to him. One wonders just how high his polling support should be before the "he isn't winning enough so he's really losing" narrative is killed.
Timetables
Only hope for John McCain is that his base, the press, continue largely to excuse his gibberish.
We've gone from 100 years to timetables will destroy us to "anything is a good timetable."
We've gone from 100 years to timetables will destroy us to "anything is a good timetable."
SUV Leases
Another industry problem.
Auto executives just can't catch a break. Add to slumping sales and lofty gasoline prices a ticking time bomb in their auto leasing operations. During the past several years automakers from General Motors (GM) to Nissan Motor (NSANY) to BMW leased millions of cars and trucks. As those leases end, the companies have to take back the vehicles—many of them the gas-guzzling SUVs, pickups, and luxury models people don't want anymore. You know what that means: more pain as the automakers offload those vehicles at a loss.
Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research, estimates that this year alone the industry will lose $4.7 billion on sales of previously leased SUVs. "This caught everyone by surprise," he says. And it's a problem that will keep on giving because many automakers only recently started to write fewer leases. So there are plenty of newly leased gas-guzzlers out there, some with terms as long as 39 months. Spinella sees $10 billion more in lost value as thousands more SUVs come off lease in 2009 and 2010.
Free Pop Culture Advertising
All right thinking people should be watching the Mad Men season 2 premier tonight on AMC. All fortunate people should watch it in HD (season 1 currently free on demand from comcast) as it is quite stunning.
Deep Thought
Once upon a time, Fred Thompson was going to be the savior of the Republican party, and now he isn't even being considered for Vice President.
Sunday Bobbleheads
Document the atrocities.
ABC's "This Week" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
---
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Jack Reed, D-R.I.
---
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
---
CNN's "Late Edition" - McCain and Obama.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
THEY LEFT JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOOOONE
Apparently John McCain has started up a weekly "radio" address, aka a bit of recorded audio that he hopes various outlets will excerpt and run as a free campaign commercial every week. CNN obliged this week. I thought this bit was pretty interesting, though I can't tell if someone writing the speech thought that raging narcissism was an attractive quality or if they really believe the appeal of their own dumb campaign spin.
Good morning. I'm John McCain, and this week the presidential contest was a long-distance affair, with my opponent touring various continents and arriving yesterday in Paris. With all the breathless coverage from abroad, and with Senator Obama now addressing his speeches to 'the people of the world,' I'm starting to feel a little left out. Maybe you are too.
Correlations
My guess is wine's relative decline correlates pretty well with the falling dollar,* though also plausible is that wine peaked in the aftermath of the Sideways juggernaut and we're just in the backlash phase.
Nobody Wants To Live In The City It's Too Expensive
Rents are going up faster in downtown areas.
This bit is key:
Philadelphia's extensive commuter rail system has long, in most places, not lived up to its full promise due to poor land use around stations.
This bit is key:
The point isn't, as I must restate again and again, that everyone must move to the city. But hopefully increased demand for amenities like mass transit might lead to some minor land use changes around existing transit corridors (lowered parking requirements, increased residential density). The changes really are quite minor in some sense, and despite NIMBY fears they aren't going to turn your suburban outpost into an urban nightmare. But they can create small town centers around train stops, increase walkability and decrease automobile dependence while still maintaining, for most parts of the neighborhood, the suburban character that many people like.In urban New York and New Jersey, Kamson Corp.'s apartments are filling up and pushing rents higher, while its suburban ones in Pennsylvania can't hold on to tenants.
"We're finding people asking more questions about mass transit, what kind of services there are in the immediate area," said Mike Beirne, Kamson's executive vice president.
Philadelphia's extensive commuter rail system has long, in most places, not lived up to its full promise due to poor land use around stations.
And In Crazy Curt Land
Guilty:
- WASHINGTON - A Delaware County real estate agent and close friend of former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon who became a Capitol Hill lobbyist pleaded guilty yesterday to destroying evidence related to the FBI's investigation of Weldon.Cecilia M. Grimes, 43, became the second close Weldon associate to plead guilty and agree to cooperate with the FBI in its corruption investigation of the 10-term Republican congressman, his Russian business associates, and others.
Deep Thought
Maliki likes Obama's timeline.
McCain likes Maliki's timeline.
McCain thinks Obama's timeline will cause the destruction of America as we know it.
McCain likes Maliki's timeline.
McCain thinks Obama's timeline will cause the destruction of America as we know it.
Two More
The FDIC took over two more banks yesterday: First Heritage Bank of Newport, CA and First National Bank of Nevada.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Phoniness
Ezra:
McCain's desginated fluffer in Newsweek:
McCain stages phony event, is bad at it, and this is evidence of how awesome he is because he doesn't like all that phony political stuff.
But the obsession with the old, with documents that are outside the public's sight line, with interviews and the promise of off-message moments that they bring, comes out of an underlying worldview in journalism: That politicians are all bullshit artists, that politics is all artifice, and the reporter's job is to cynically expose it as such and then peer behind the curtain to uncover the moments of spontaneity and honesty.
McCain's desginated fluffer in Newsweek:
When John McCain descended on a Bethlehem, Penn. grocery store late yesterday afternoon, the unscheduled campaign stop, meant to highlight McCain's concern over skyrocketing food prices, instead quickly became a theater for the absurd. First, a cameraman knocked over several glass jars of Mott's applesauce, which rolled near McCain's feet as he posed for a bevy of cameras while strolling the grocery aisles. Then, the senator's hastily assembled press conference, held in front of a perishable food case labeled "Dairy Delights," was interrupted by the scream of the store's P.A. system announcing a staffer had a phone call. Finally, there was the fact that Renee Gould, the young mother McCain had an extended chat with about the high price of tomatoes and milk, was not a random shopper, but an area resident funneled to the campaign by the local Republican Party. Gould's admission (a reporter cornered her and asked how she came to be there) was ultimately not all that surprising. Even with the amusing mishaps, the entire event came off as canned, and McCain—whose discomfort with the phoniness required by politics has always been evident—spent most of his time shifting uncomfortably.
McCain stages phony event, is bad at it, and this is evidence of how awesome he is because he doesn't like all that phony political stuff.
Oh My
Family values party strikes again:
Peter Hong, a longtime Republican operative in Minnesota, was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a charge of soliciting prostitution in St. Paul.
...
Hong has been in and out of the Republican side of Minnesota politics since the mid-1990s, when he surfaced as a genial bulldog campaign press secretary for former Sen. Rod Grams, R-Minn. He served as a spokesman for Gov. Tim Pawlenty's campaign in 2002 and for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Minnesota in 2004.
Most recently, Hong was a point person for presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Gina Countryman, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Republican Party, said Hong is not currently working for any Minnesota candidate.
Our Stupid Discourse
I doubt I wrote anything even remotely original or interesting in college, but even if I did I would find it strange that if ran for president 26 years later anyone would consider it to be newsworthy or interesting or relevant.
But MSNBC is on the case with "Obama's missing thesis." The really important news.
But MSNBC is on the case with "Obama's missing thesis." The really important news.
Stupidity
So, the recent salmonella food scares have cost the industry much more than tracking regulations would have cost them. This should have been pretty obvious, as a the cost to all producers of such a scare is going to be much greater than the cost to one "bad" producer individually...
Made Up Rules
Sometimes I gaze at what the press thinks the rules of the game are and I get incredibly puzzled.
Never in Adam Nagourney's career has a political campaign issued a rebuttal to some story he's done without contacting him first? That's really weird, if true.
But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing his piece that the Obama campaign had released to reporters and bloggers like The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder and Politico's Ben Smith. Nagourney had not heard the complaints from the Obama camp and had no idea they were so steamed. "I'm looking at this thing, and I'm like, 'What the hell is this?' " Nagourney recently recalled. "I really flipped out."
Later that afternoon, Nagourney got permission from Times editors to e-mail Sargent a response to the Obama memo. But the episode still grates. "I've never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells me. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent."
Never in Adam Nagourney's career has a political campaign issued a rebuttal to some story he's done without contacting him first? That's really weird, if true.
Foreclosures
Many:
July 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier as falling home prices left borrowers owing more on mortgages than their properties were worth.
One in every 171 U.S. homeowners lost their house to foreclosure, received a default notice or was warned of a pending auction, an increase of 121 percent from a year earlier and a 14 percent rise from the first quarter, RealtyTrac Inc. said today in a statement. Almost 740,000 properties were in some stage of the foreclosure process, the most since the Irvine, California-based real estate data company began reporting in January 2005.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOONE
DO NOT TROUBLE HIM WITH FACTS!
Not that the "only presidents get to give speeches outside of country" rule, you know, makes any fucking sense at all.
In his interview with NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, which will air on NBC's Nightly News tonight, McCain questions whether Obama should have given a speech in Berlin before becoming president.
"I would rather speak at a rally or a political gathering any place outside of the country after I am president of the United States," McCain told O'Donnell. "But that's a judgment that Sen. Obama and the American people will make."
However, on June 20, McCain himself gave a speech in Canada -- to the Economic Club of Canada -- in which he applauded NAFTA's successes. An implicit message behind that speech was that Obama had been critical of the trade accord. Also, McCain's trip to Canada was paid for by the campaign.
Not that the "only presidents get to give speeches outside of country" rule, you know, makes any fucking sense at all.
Thanks, Andrea
MSNBC:
Apparently, since July 4 not only have we suddenly "won" the Iraq war, but the economy has soured so much that it's inappropriate for presidential candidates to travel. Early July:
- McCain campaign is criticizing Obama for being overseas while voters at home are struggling.
Apparently, since July 4 not only have we suddenly "won" the Iraq war, but the economy has soured so much that it's inappropriate for presidential candidates to travel. Early July:
CARTAGENA, Colombia (Reuters) - Trade, drugs and immigration will top the agenda of U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain during a visit to Colombia and Mexico this week designed to showcase his foreign policy experience over that of Democratic rival Barack Obama.
McCain, an Arizona senator who has wrapped up his party's White House nomination, was to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and other officials in Cartagena on Tuesday and Wednesday in the first leg of a three-day journey to South and Central America.
LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOOONE
Finally someone noticed that Saint McCain might have a hard time winning his own state.
But a variety of factors have made Mr. McCain’s chances in Arizona less assured than they ordinarily would seem, which his campaign has acknowledged.
The number of independent voters in Arizona has risen 12 percent since 2004, and those voters have helped send a Democrat to the governor’s mansion and given the party four of the state’s eight Congressional seats — including two in 2006, one in a historically Republican district.
At the same time, Arizona Democrats, like many of their counterparts around the country, have outpaced Republicans in voter registration, adding almost 20,000 voters to the rolls since March, compared with the Republican majority’s 8,600 new voters. The second-term Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano , remains wildly popular.
1968
Strangely, for a lot of Washington Democrats, even the ones who weren't alive then, it's also always 1968.
They Write Letters
Published letter to Philadelphia Daily News:
Attacking Iran
Nuclear war with Iran is coming! Israel must strike Iran now, before they launch their missiles. All this taunting back and forth is a forerunner of WW III. Whoever makes the first move wins. This country and Israel should wait no longer.
Ed Galing, Hatboro
Politics Sucks
As many others have observed, it's an odd thing about political journalists that they hate much about the subject they cover, specifically the messy business of politicians actually doing things to attract supporters and voters. While one can certainly hate certain structural aspects of politics as institutionalized in this country and wish them to change, the part about politicians trying to do things to get voters to vote for them is pretty much a constant in a democracy.
To be a good critic you actually have to have the capacity to love what you cover, otherwise you're just a cynical curmudgeon.
To be a good critic you actually have to have the capacity to love what you cover, otherwise you're just a cynical curmudgeon.
The Cost Of The Surge
I'll leave semantic discussions to others, but lost in all of this discussion is the cost of the surge. Wars have become free, with neither the dollar cost nor cost in lives subject for polite conversation anymore.
The troop escalation was announced in January of 2007. Since that time over 1100 US troops lost their lives. Obviously not all of those losses are attributable to the presence of additional troops in Iraq, but they are all attributable to the continuing presence of the US in Iraq.
The troop escalation was announced in January of 2007. Since that time over 1100 US troops lost their lives. Obviously not all of those losses are attributable to the presence of additional troops in Iraq, but they are all attributable to the continuing presence of the US in Iraq.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
And there are a lot of new lucky duckies.
WASHINGTON, July 24 (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped 34,000 last week, government data on Thursday showed, reflecting seasonal volatility typical at this time of year.
Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 406,000 in the week ended July 19, from a revised 372,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. It was the highest reading since late March.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Unconditional Withdrawal
The local Fox outlet just showed me clips of McCain saying (roughly) "Obama won't acknowledge that we've succeeded [in Iraq]" and "He's in favor of unconditional withdrawal."
If we've succeeded why can't we leave? Just who are we at war with and what conditions should we demand before we withdraw? Does any of this make any fucking sense at all?
If we've succeeded why can't we leave? Just who are we at war with and what conditions should we demand before we withdraw? Does any of this make any fucking sense at all?
Shot Down
Well that's an interesting opening statement.
Wonder where those crazy rumors come from.
But prosecutor Timothy Stone, in an attempt to draw a link between Hamdan and the al Qaeda leadership in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial, told the six-member jury of U.S. military officers who will decide Hamdan's guilt or innocence that Hamdan had inside knowledge of the 2001 attacks on the United States because he overheard a conversation between bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
...
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania. U.S. officials have never stated it was shot down although rumours saying that abound to this day.
Wonder where those crazy rumors come from.
Dark Knight Politics
Discussing the movie on the way home we were trying to get a handle on the odd politics of the Dark Knight. I think Alterman hits it:
[I]t pulled off the neat trick of being both libertarian and fascistic, which is to say it is damn confused.
Ridership
Still going up.
I wonder if there will be (or if there has been) somewhat of a backlash against car culture. Back in my young days, in addition to their necessity cars were kind of the ultimate accessory.
Philadelphia - As gas prices continue to climb, so does SEPTA ridership.
SEPTA's monthly ridership increased for the 12th consecutive month this June, and total ridership was up 13 percent compared with June 2007.
"These are highs we haven't experienced in 25 years," SEPTA spokesperson Felipe Suarez said.
City- and suburban-transit ridership increased 5 and 4 percent, respectively, in the last year. The regional-rail lines, however, which travel from the suburbs into Center City saw a 12-percent increase. Last month, the regional-rail lines saw a 22-percent boom compared with June 2007 numbers.
I wonder if there will be (or if there has been) somewhat of a backlash against car culture. Back in my young days, in addition to their necessity cars were kind of the ultimate accessory.
Far Left America
Agrees with Obama's left wing radical peacenik position.
America: A nation of dirty fucking hippies.
Oh, and Fred Hiatt? SUCK ON THIS!
Here's one result from the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that will be released tonight at 6:30 pm ET on Nightly News and MSNBC.com... With the news that Iraq's prime minister wants the US to set a timetable for withdrawal, 60% of registered voters believe it's a good idea for the US to set such a timetable, while 30% say it's a bad idea.
America: A nation of dirty fucking hippies.
Oh, and Fred Hiatt? SUCK ON THIS!
Hitler Is Really Popular In Germany
So it makes complete sense that the Obama campaign would try to get some of that Hitler love.
Conservatives are so stupid.
Conservatives are so stupid.
Community Killing
1 in 20 homes in Merced County in California were foreclosed over the past year. Presumably they aren't evenly geographically dispersed and are concentrated more heavily in newer developments.
Exempt Car Sharing
Indeed, the city of Philadelphia should exempt car sharing from the city's rental car tax. A rental car tax is designed to squeeze money out of visiting tourists and business travelers, while a car sharing tax falls on residents. Whatever the merits of a rental car tax generally, it shouldn't apply to something it really wasn't meant for.
Bloggers
It's fascinating how some politicians (Lieberman now, Obama before him) attribute criticism to "bloggers" as a way of marginalizing and dismissing it.
Junk
Will WaMu go the Indymac route?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the largest U.S. savings and loan, posted a $3.33 billion second-quarter loss on Tuesday as souring mortgages forced it to set aside more money for loan losses.
The thrift's deteriorating health prompted Moody's Investors Service to say it may downgrade Washington Mutual to "junk" status. Shares of Washington Mutual fell in after-hours electronic trading.
Counterfeit
I've long wondered what is likely to happen if you get caught passing counterfeit bills that you didn't know were counterfeit that you had gotten from an ATM or bank. Obviously there's no way to know in this case what exactly happened.
- Ulises Garcia said he was withdrawing cash from a Wachovia Bank and depositing it into a Bank of America so he could pay his bills online. However, the Bank of America teller noticed something funny about 10 of the 36 $100 bills Garcia said he received from Wachovia Bank -- they were counterfeit, Local 6's Tony Pipitone reported. However, the bank has not given Garcia or his fiancé, Joann Rodriguez, any money.
LEAVE JOHN MCCAIN ALOOOOOOOOOOOOONE
He doesn't know what he's talking about, or he's lying, and CBS edits to cover it up.
As Jed also notes, once upon a time McCain had some idea what he was talking about.
Even the Hot Soup Press picked up on this:
evening@cbsnews.com
As Jed also notes, once upon a time McCain had some idea what he was talking about.
Even the Hot Soup Press picked up on this:
The problem with McCain's statement — as Obama's campaign quickly noted — was that the awakening got under way before President Bush announced in January 2007 his decision to flood Iraq with tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to help combat violence.
In March 2007, before the first of the additional troops began arriving in Iraq, Col. John W. Charlton, the American commander responsible for Ramadi, a city in Anbar province, said the newly friendly sheiks, combined with an aggressive counterinsurgency strategy and the presence of thousands of new Sunni police on the streets, had helped cut attacks in the city by half in recent months.
A spokesman for McCain did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
evening@cbsnews.com
Morning thread
Dear MSNBC...maybe a lot less "Joe" on Morning Joe would be good for its ratings. An "awesome" 5th out of 5 in the money demo is not what I would call a rousing success.
Or maybe, just maybe, if it isn't a parody of Fox & Friends -- because you can't parody parody.
Although putting on Andrea Mitchell and Pat Buchanan does appeal to the younger demographic, I'm sure.
Or maybe, just maybe, if it isn't a parody of Fox & Friends -- because you can't parody parody.
Although putting on Andrea Mitchell and Pat Buchanan does appeal to the younger demographic, I'm sure.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Now
Whatever the merits of sending more troops to Afghanistan, it's a policy Obama has advocated for some time and something Huggy Bear only decided he liked recently. Still as soon as the Mavericky straight talker flip-flopped on that one, suddenly Obama was following him on the issue.
Not Just Major Cities
As I regularly get misinterpreted (in part my own fault of course), I should restate again that when I talk about "cities" and "urban areas" versus the stereotypical suburbs I'm not just talking about Manhattan, or even the cosmopolitan metropolis that is Fluffya, PA, but any area which manages to possess to some degree urban features such as walkability, sufficient density to support street level retail, mixed use development, mass transit compatibility, reduction in automobile dependence, etc. Such things can exist in various forms and degrees in Manhattan, in small towns, in smaller cities, in older and in better designed newer suburbs, etc.
And I've long thought that many smaller industrial cities had a great potential for revival.
And I've long thought that many smaller industrial cities had a great potential for revival.
Better Buses
One thing which can help make bus riding a bit more of an attractive option is to provide real-time arrival information for people. Bus systems are commonly linked to GPS systems for automated stop announcements, so adding in this feature shouldn't be too complicated (though obviously too complicated here in Philadelphia). Good for those doing so in Minneapolis/St. Paul.
It Could Be The Same Thing!
As a longtime proponent of the Grand Iranian Conspiracy theory of the Iraq war, I'm not quite sure there's any difference between the Iranians doing something and Ahmed Chalabi doing something.
We've Won, My Friends
Apparently the period between July 4 and July 21 was THE critical time in Iraq, and now we've won. What we've won no one dares ask, but there you are. My friends.
Purity Rubes
Digby mostly has the right take on Nancy Gibbs's sympathetic portrayal of "purity balls," though I think there's one additional thing in her article which should be addressed, which is this bit which constructs the World's Grandest Strawman and ably dispatches with it.
None of this purity ball stuff has anything to do with the question of whether "it's a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex."
Generally our culture has a tremendous fear, almost revulsion, of the idea of female sexuality and sexual desire. Much of that is channeled to and projected onto teen females, where all sensible people agree that maybe it's not such a good idea for them to have sex for reasons they can't quite articulate but can usually be summed up with "if you were a parent you'd understand." I'm not a parent, but I was a teen, and my opinion is that on balance the problem isn't that teens are having too much sex, it's that they aren't having enough. That's somewhat of a joke, as the issue isn't how much sex they're having it's about having an informed and healthy attitude about sex and sexual desire so they can make their own choices about what's right for them. But demanding abstinence, especially when cloaked in morality, causes people to grow up with messed up attitudes about sexuality.
And, no, 12-year-olds aren't teens.
If you listen long enough, you wonder whether there is really such a profound disagreement about what parents want for their children. Culture war by its nature pours salt in wounds, finds division where there could be common purpose. Purity is certainly a loaded word--but is there anyone who thinks it's a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex? Or a bad idea for fathers to be engaged in the lives of their daughters and promise to practice what they preach? Parents won't necessarily say this out loud, but isn't it better to set the bar high and miss than not even try?
None of this purity ball stuff has anything to do with the question of whether "it's a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex."
Generally our culture has a tremendous fear, almost revulsion, of the idea of female sexuality and sexual desire. Much of that is channeled to and projected onto teen females, where all sensible people agree that maybe it's not such a good idea for them to have sex for reasons they can't quite articulate but can usually be summed up with "if you were a parent you'd understand." I'm not a parent, but I was a teen, and my opinion is that on balance the problem isn't that teens are having too much sex, it's that they aren't having enough. That's somewhat of a joke, as the issue isn't how much sex they're having it's about having an informed and healthy attitude about sex and sexual desire so they can make their own choices about what's right for them. But demanding abstinence, especially when cloaked in morality, causes people to grow up with messed up attitudes about sexuality.
And, no, 12-year-olds aren't teens.
Radical
Having and maintaining for some time a position consistent with the views of the majority of the country are "radical."
Your liberal media at work.
Your liberal media at work.
Modern Capitalism
It's so awesome.
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's rescue package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will probably cost $25 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said.
Lieberman's Jewish Problem
They don't like him.
If Barack Obama has a problem among Jewish voters, then Sen. Joseph Lieberman is in monumental trouble.
Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.
Shitpile Tales
Wachovia's turn.
And no more wholesale lending.
Wachovia Corp. announced a whopping second quarter loss of $8.9 billion this morning, and outlined a turnaround plan that includes discontinuing wholesale mortgage origination.
The Charlotte bank also cut its quarterly dividend to 5 cents per share from 37.5 cents.
And no more wholesale lending.
Things you learn
Apparently it is woefully unfair to ask John McCain to define what "victory" means in Iraq.
Since he says he "knows how to win wars" (which ones those are, I don't know -- favorable divorce terms?) it sure would be nice if he would share some of it.
I know, I know, "victory" means never having to leave, etc.
Since he says he "knows how to win wars" (which ones those are, I don't know -- favorable divorce terms?) it sure would be nice if he would share some of it.
I know, I know, "victory" means never having to leave, etc.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Diablo Grande
Perhaps the first mistake was the name?
If only they'd gone with El Gran Diablo Anaranjado...
Nested in bone-dry Oak Flat Valley in the Diablo Range 8 miles west of Patterson and Interstate 5, Diablo Grande was touted as a "world-class destination resort and planned residential community." Among its most desirable features are two golf courses, the most prominent of which was designed by golf legends Jack Nicklaus and Gene Sarazen.
Diablo Grande was to be among the largest land developments in the history of Stanislaus County. Sprawling across some 28,500 acres of ranchland - roughly twice the size of Manhattan - developer Donald Panoz, multimillionaire inventor of the nicotine patch, envisioned 5,000 to 10,000 homes, a resort hotel and spa, six golf courses, an equestrian center, vineyards, a winery and commercial properties, including a high-tech research park.
But today, after Panoz and his partners sank more than $120 million into the project, Diablo Grande is mired in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and is expected to go on the auction block within weeks. The minimum bid is $25 million. If no one bids more, then Housing Source Partners, a Pismo Beach (San Luis Obispo County) condominium developer, will acquire the project, and about $54 million in unpaid debts.
If only they'd gone with El Gran Diablo Anaranjado...
Looking Tough By Caving
GOP Daddy Mukasey creates fake election year national security issue to frighten dems.
We'll see if this time around they're eager to have a bunch of headlines like "Democrats cave."
We'll see if this time around they're eager to have a bunch of headlines like "Democrats cave."
Beginning Of The End
Out.
BAGHDAD — After talks with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki reaffirmed that Iraq wants U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2010, a few months later than Obama had proposed.
Ali Dabbagh, the prime minister's spokesman, said Maliki and Obama didn't discuss specifics during the hour-long meeting. But he said the Iraqi government would like to see all American combat troops out of the country by the end of 2010, a bit later than Obama's proposal to draw down all combat brigades within 16 months after he'd become president.
And In Local News
Such fun.
Former CBS3 anchor Larry Mendte was charged today with hacking into the personal e-mail of onetime colleague Alycia Lane 537 times over more than two years and sharing the information with a newspaper reporter.
"This case ... went well beyond just reading someone's email," said a statement from acting U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid, who charged Mendte, 51, in an information with one felony count. He is not expected to surrender today.
...
Mendte, 51, grossed $700,000 a year as CBS3's marquee newsreader. The station fired Mendte three weeks after FBI agents seized his home computer. His former co-anchor, Alycia Lane, had made allegations that Mendte had illegally hacked into her e-mail account.
An internal investigation by the television station revealed software had been installed on a station computer that secretly captured keystrokes - including passwords.
No Bottom
This Wachovia analysis about the housing market sounds a lot more realistic to me.
Once upon of time these kinds of price reduction estimates were considered to be crazy talk, and most of the very serious people were talking as if there would be some momentary pause and then home prices would continue to appreciate at absurd rates until the end of time.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have suggested over the past year that an end is in sight. But with each prediction, things have grown worse. For many homeowners, the deep housing slump feels like a drop off a skyscraper. Every time another 15 floors have passed, there seems to be more room to fall.
"I don't think we get strengthening in the housing market until late 2011 or 2012," said Mark Vitner, senior economist for Wachovia, the nation's fourth largest bank and one that this month hired the number-two man from the Treasury Department as its new chief executive officer to shore up its own growing exposure to mortgage debt.
Before bottoming out, prices nationwide should fall 22 percent to 29 percent on average from their peak, according to a report that Wachovia released last Monday.
Once upon of time these kinds of price reduction estimates were considered to be crazy talk, and most of the very serious people were talking as if there would be some momentary pause and then home prices would continue to appreciate at absurd rates until the end of time.
Actual Facts
CNN guest actually told viewers that allowing offshore drilling everywhere is estimated to lower gas prices by a whopping 3 cents/gallon.
Very Serious Foreign Policy Expert
John McCain doesn't seem to know which countries border each other.
It has since been changed, but once upon a time the caption to the top picture of this Newsweek article read something like "A show of force: Iran displays its military might at the border with Israel."
It has since been changed, but once upon a time the caption to the top picture of this Newsweek article read something like "A show of force: Iran displays its military might at the border with Israel."
A Great Place To Raise Your Kids
That's what people always say about life in the suburbs. I'm not entirely sure this is as true as people imagine, or that good urban living, if available, is as bad for kids as they imagine, but for sake of discussion we can assume this is true. But most suburbs (they aren't all the same, of course) really aren't such great places for teenagers. Lack of mobility and public spaces where they can hang out and congregate are a problem.
Check The Kerning On That Translation
Out:
BAGHDAD - Iraq's government spokesman is hopeful that U.S. combat forces could be out of the country by 2010.
...
The timeframe is similar to Obama's proposal to pull back combat troops within 16 months. The Iraqi government has been trying to clarify its position on a possible troop withdrawal since al-Maliki was quoted in a German magazine last week saying he supported Obama's timetable.
Kerning
Apparently right wing bloggers are still obsessing about Obama's birth certificate.
Some people need new hobbies.
Some people need new hobbies.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
The Truly Awful Harold Ford
I only caught a bit of the Great Orange Satan/Harold Ford lunchtime discussion at Netroots Nation, but at one point he was chastizing all of us dirty fucking hippies for wasting time worrying about inconsequential things like FISA when people in the country were worried about their jobs, gas prices, health care, etc.
It would have been a powerful criticism had he, you know, aimed it at the United States Congress which spent weeks wasting time on this inconsequential issue when people in the country were worried about their jobs, gas prices, health care, etc.
It would have been a powerful criticism had he, you know, aimed it at the United States Congress which spent weeks wasting time on this inconsequential issue when people in the country were worried about their jobs, gas prices, health care, etc.
Inconvient Truths
I've had a bit of a cable news vacation so I don't know what's going on there, but it's certainly the case that the Maliki/Obama story is being underplayed in print world.
All of this is ultimately due to the fact that the reason we're in Iraq, mostly, is to prop up the egos of George Bush and Fred Hiatt. Because they've defined leaving as failure, and therefore the mission is simply "to say," it's unpossible to insert into the narrative the idea that maybe Iraqis want us to leave no matter how true that is.
Every time I get near the "why did we invade Iraq and why do we stay" question, people always email me the word "oil." I don't deny the importance of oil in all of this, but 5 years later there's really a simpler explanation. Washington elites are simple-minded people with the emotional maturity of toddlers, and they are unable to accept their responsibility for this disaster. And so we stay.
SUCK ON THIS FRED HIATT
All of this is ultimately due to the fact that the reason we're in Iraq, mostly, is to prop up the egos of George Bush and Fred Hiatt. Because they've defined leaving as failure, and therefore the mission is simply "to say," it's unpossible to insert into the narrative the idea that maybe Iraqis want us to leave no matter how true that is.
Every time I get near the "why did we invade Iraq and why do we stay" question, people always email me the word "oil." I don't deny the importance of oil in all of this, but 5 years later there's really a simpler explanation. Washington elites are simple-minded people with the emotional maturity of toddlers, and they are unable to accept their responsibility for this disaster. And so we stay.
SUCK ON THIS FRED HIATT
Crisis In Condit Country
We are on day 7 of the Washington Post's 12 part serial on Gary Condit.
Please make it stop.
Please make it stop.
Sunday Bobbleheads
Document the atrocities.
- ABC's "This Week" — Pre-empted by coverage of the British Open golf tournament. ___ CBS' "Face the Nation" — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. ___ NBC's "Meet the Press" — Former Vice President Al Gore. ___ CNN's "Late Edition" — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Paulson.
Occupying Army
Until our public discourse allows for the fact that it is an occupying army we will be unable to have an honest conversation about what we're doing.
Wolverines!
Wolverines!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Deep Thought
This election may come down to a debate over the semantic differences between timelines and time horizons.
17 Sides Of Every Issue
Mr. Straight Talk continues his mavericky ways.
- WARREN -- U.S. Sen. John McCain backtracked Friday on a pledge to set national auto emissions standards that would supersede those California and other states want to set.
"I guess at the end of the day, I support the states being able to do that," he said at a town hall meeting at the GM Technical Center.
The statement appears to contradict a statement McCain made to The Detroit News last month, when he said he hoped to set a national standard that would make state standards unnecessary.
We're Number 5!
I live in the 4th most walkable neighborhood in the 5th most walkable city in the country.
Far Left America
I admit I'm surprised that support for gays and lesbians serving in the military openly is so high.
Would The Story Exist Otherwise?
I know it's a little funny that the White House sent the story out, but you almost get the sense that had hey hadn't sent it out, reporters would not have been able to find it on the intertubes themselves.
The White House this afternoon accidentally sent to its extensive distribution list a Reuters story headlined "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine."
...
The misfire comes at an odd time for Bush foreign policy, at a time when Obama's campaign alleges the president is moving closer toward Obama's recommendations about international relations -- sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, discussing a "general time horizon" for U.S. troop withdrawal and launching talks with Iran.
Soaring
More not good economic news.
WASHINGTON — Driven by a sour economy and skittish consumers, U.S. business bankruptcies saw their sharpest quarterly rise in two years, jumping 17 percent in the second quarter of 2008, according to an analysis by McClatchy.
Commercial filings for the first half of 2008 are up 45 percent from last year, as the national climate for commerce continues to deteriorate amid rising energy and food costs, mounting job losses, tighter credit and a reticence among consumers to part with discretionary income.
Putting The City Back In The City
It really can't be overstated how a little thing like parking zoning regulations can determine the future of an urban environment. If parking requirements are too high, you will destroy the urban nature of a city. Hopefully Washington does the right thing and changes their requirements.
Cautiously Optimistic
I think it would be quite a big deal if California's Proposition 8, the one which would ban the newly legal gay marriage, is defeated. Do the right thing Californians.
Check the Kerning!
Maliki endorses Obama's time-table, oops, I mean, "time-horizon":
In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Other Austin Conference
The funny thing is that I was utterly unaware of this parallel conservative conference being held AT THE SAME TIME AS NETROOTS NATION until I was informed last night. I'm sure it'll be the awesomest thing ever.
Tom Friedman Flashback
Just came across this for no particular reason.
9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.
Fence
Here in Austin they've just put up a fence between the hotel and the convention center, making it a bit harder to travel between the two. Normally this would be rather annoying, but it appears that they're building a SUPERTRAIN so all is forgiven.
NetRoots Nation
Observers on the scene praise Dad's performance with Krugman, Rick Perlstein and digby. If, like me, you're not in Austin you can watch videos live at the NRN site. Or you can come into Virtual NRN and gab with people while you watch.
Don't Call It A Timeline
Doesn't really sound like much.
TUCSON, July 18 -- President Bush and Iraq's prime minister have agreed to set a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq as security conditions in the war-ravaged nation continue to improve, White House officials said here Friday.
The agreement, reached during a video conference Thursday between Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, marks a dramatic shift for the Bush administration, which for years has condemned any talk of timetables for withdrawal.
This Makes Sense
Well, not, it doesn't.
Millions! Maybe even zillions! I do wonder what those "areas of agreement" could be, aside from "Obama sucks!"
The Wall Street Journal reports that Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, met with a group of 25 prominent supporters and fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Clinton at a private home in Westchester County, NY. The group included several so-called "Hillraisers," each of whom have raised in excess of $100,000 for Clinton's failed primary campaign. The meeting was repeatedly sought by the Hillary supporters and is at least the second such meeting between backers of Clinton and the McCain campaign.
An organizer of the meeting, Amy Siskind, said that the pro-Hillary groups represented pledged to help deliver, "hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of votes," to McCain if the groups find areas of agreement between themselves and his campaign.
Millions! Maybe even zillions! I do wonder what those "areas of agreement" could be, aside from "Obama sucks!"
Live Blogging!
I'm here with Amanda, Digby, the Rude Pundit, and Jesse, about to start what has become known as the "fuck panel." Exciting!!
Optimism!
Pretty positive!
Citigroup said Friday morning that it lost $2.5 billion, or 54 cents a share, in the second quarter.
...
But the chief executive, Vikram Pandit, positioned the $2.5 billion loss as progress. Last quarter, the financial conglomerate lost $5.1 billion.
“We cut our second-quarter losses in half compared to the first quarter,” Mr. Pandit said in a statement. “While there is still much to do, we are encouraged by our progress.”
"Comfort Capsules"
You really cannot make this crap up:
Meanwhile, as noted by Hecate in comments:
The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents...
In all, for the past three years the service has asked to divert $16.2 million to the effort from what the military calls the GWOT, or global war on terrorism. Congress has twice told the service that it cannot, including an August 2007 letter from Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) to the Pentagon ordering that the money be spent on a "higher priority" need.
Meanwhile, as noted by Hecate in comments:
Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Netroots Nation
Rode the fiffy cent elitest bus in from the airport. Lots of people wandering around with laptops and I just saw Richard Clarke so I assume I'm in the right place.
Now I just need to find the secret meeting of the A-list bloggers so we can continue to plot to redistribute all traffic and ad revenues upwards.
Now I just need to find the secret meeting of the A-list bloggers so we can continue to plot to redistribute all traffic and ad revenues upwards.
Send In The Accountants
Wachovia problems.
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Securities regulators from six U.S. states mounted a surprise inspection of theSt. Louis headquarters of Wachovia Securities on Thursday as part of a probe into the firm's sales and marketing of auction-rate debt, Missouri officials said.
The office of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan said a team of 10 regulators went into the St. Louis headquarters of the securities firm seeking information about the Wachovia Corp <WB.N> affiliate's sales practices, internal evaluations of the auction-rate securities market and marketing strategies.
The move on the headquarters came after Wachovia Securities failed to comply with information requests from Missouri securities regulators, state officials said.
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