Psyche's News Roundup

Editorial - The Torture Report - NYTimes.com
Demands for war crimes prosecutions growing in the mainstream - Glenn Greenwald
Tortured Reasoning: vanityfair.com

Talking Points Memo | Breaking: Al Franken Takes The Lead In Minnesota Recount!
Republicans get really nervous as Al Franken pulls into the lead | Crooks and Liars
at-Largely: IT consultant had "root" over Rove's email, set to testify in election investigation dies in plane crash

Chris Matthews Eviscerates Neocon Frank Gaffney: "4,000 People Are Dead Because Of The Way You Feel" ("It is regrettable that they had to die," Gaffney said, "but I believe they did have to die")

McCain, Lieberman, Graham - A Chance for Consensus on Iraq - washingtonpost.com (3 Stooges)
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/19/2008 | Palin soap opera: Drug in Levi's mom's case is oxycontin
Prop. 8 Sponsors Seek To Nullify 18,000 Gay Marriages (Kenneth Starr returns)

Robert Fisk’s World: One missing word in 1968 Oslo Accord (intentionally) sowed the seeds of catastrophe
Katrina's Hidden Race War
YouTube - Letterman's Top 10 George Bush moments

TPMMuckraker | Cox "Worked to Dismantle The SEC," Says Commission Vet
Profile of SEC Chief Christopher Cox - Executive Articles - Portfolio.com Under chairman Christopher Cox, the commission has undermined and demoralized its enforcement staff
SEC Report: Employees Browsed Porn, Ran Private Businesses - ProPublica (pro-business)

History Repeats Itself in Different Hues – Japan vs. United States
The Atlantic Online | December 2008 | China: “Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money”
On the Contrary: The Talmud, the Stock Market and Bernie the Goniff

Business & Technology | How marketing tricks you, and how to beat it | Seattle Times
YouTube - 'Soulgasms' and the Christian War on Masturbation
YouTube - Five Biggest LIES About Christianity

Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumes
Itv News | 'Hobbit' Fossils Represent A New Species, Concludes Anthropologist
When Jesus met Buddha - The Boston Globe

California Drones Mystery Solved By Sarah Connor Chronicles? - Screen Rant
NatGeo: Top Ten Archaeology Finds: Most Read of 2008
Good Math, Bad Math : Fitness Landscapes, Evolution, and Smuggling Information

Blake retrospective: Tate Britain stages 1809 show | Art and design | The Guardian
LRB · James Wolcott: Caretaker/Pallbearer The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike
The Explainer: questions we never answered in 2008. - By Daniel Engber - Slate Magazine

Obama Staffs Another Fictional Bush Cabinet Post With Actual Person

He named Dennis Blair, as the new DNI. 6th generation Navy man. Former Rhodes scholar, thinker for one of the two democratic think-tanks in existence, friend of John Podesta. Although he may be a competent guy, probably better than the outgoing John "Pardon Me, But I Have Death Squads To Run" Negroponte. We spend $100 billion or so, not including black budgets, on this shit every year. What with all the decisive victories it's achieving, like in the video above, I was thinking "Hey! What the hell, let's see what happens if we spend less."

But we obviously, desperately need another federal agency that deals with "intelligence." I mean, there's only the Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and National Security Agency. And let's throw in the Secret Service, DEA, Centac, ATF, BNR, and the Park Rangers. We totally have to have this!

All The News That Eventually Gets Printed

An enraged George Tenet, drunk on scotch, flailing about Prince Bandar's Riyadh pool, screaming about the Bush Administration officials who were just then trying to pin the Iraq WMD fiasco on him:

A servant appeared with a bottle. Tenet knocked back some of the scotch. Then some more. They watched with concern. He drained half the bottle in a few minutes. "They're setting me up. The bastards are setting me up," Tenet said, but "I am not going to take the hit."

And then this:

"According to one witness, he mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the rlght wing of Israel's political establishment, referring to them with exasperation as, "the Jews."

From the prologue of Patrick Tyler's forthcoming book, A World of Trouble, about America's curious relations with the Middle East. (And hat tip to Jesus at Church and Empire, right margin.)

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, And God Damn It, I'm A Senator

Stuart Smalley is about to become the first, and hopefully only (except maybe for Tina Fey, who I'd vote for five times), Saturday Night Live alum to get elected to national office. The Minneapolis Star Tribune calls him the winner this evening, along with other newspapers there, such as the Frostbitten Gopher. Some things, perhaps Hell as well as International Falls, have frozen over. By what rights can Franken be Senator? Self-promotion, 50 votes or so, and the Jesse Ventura Precedent.

Al Franken will bring a hugely important 59th vote to Senate Democrats, which means they only have to bribe one opposing Republican divided by the cube root of Joe Lieberman to actually pass any legislation. I'll try to remember that whenever I listen to his adenoidally challenged voice, condescending demeanor, and remember when he and Jeanene Garafolo met with John Plywood Kerry at an East Central Park apartment to throw Howard Dean's candidacy under the bus.

Things aren't perfect, they fall apart, they come together. I used to listen to this twisted dude's comedy sketches when I was in high school, and wondered who he was making fun of. Earnest people trying to become better? Me? Himself? Self-help? Congress.

Blagojevich Might Skate

I previously marveled that the Blago case broke with the tradition of political corruption cases because no money had actually changed hands. Turns out there's a reason. The Chicago Tribune blew it for federal prosecutors by ending its cooperation with Fitzgerald, who had requested they hold a story, by running it on Dec. 5th. The run-down is given in a dynamite inside-reporting WSJ online article:

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald ordered the FBI to arrest Rod Blagojevich before sunrise Tuesday in order to stop a crime from being committed. That would have been the sale of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

But the opposite is true: Members of Fitzgerald’s team are livid the scheme didn’t advance, at least for a little longer, according to some people close to Fitzgerald’s office. Why? Because had the plot unfolded, they might have had an opportunity most feds can only dream of: A chance to catch the sale of a Senate seat on tape, including the sellers and the buyers.

The precise timing of Tuesday’s dramatic, pre-dawn arrest was not dictated by Fitzgerald, nor was it dictated by the pace of Blagojevich’s alleged “crime spree.” It was dictated by the Chicago Tribune, according to people close to the investigation and a careful reading of the FBI’s affidavit in the case.

At Fitzgerald’s request, the paper had been holding back a story since October detailing how a confidante of Blagojevich was cooperating with his office.

Blago read the story, called his brother, and told him to "Undo that thing." Slimeball? Yes. But it is not a crime to advance agendas, or to go over a list of preferred candidates and discuss one's future political career, and Blago can honestly say he didn't take a dime for the governor's prerogative regarding appointment of vacated Senate seat. That's why he's not resigning. The way he sees it, having a third party set up a charity which he and/or his wife could run is not illegal, and I don't know that he's technically wrong on that. He figures a local jury will see it his way. Expect taped evidence and testimony that makes him look like a pig, but America has elected worse.

As for the rumors that Rahm Emanuel or Obama are mixed up in influence peddling? Hopeful tempest, meet pretty teapot. They promised nothing but appreciation. It's right in the complaint.

(Update: The pic is of Ann Cavello of the Bay City Bombers, inspiration for Jim Croce's hit, Roller Derby Queen, "the meanest hunk o' woman anybody ever seen, wham-a-bam, whoa, wham-a-bam.")

Iraqi Reporter Establishes Lasting Tradition

Yelling, "This is the end, a goodbye kiss you dog," a journalist for al-Baghdiya TV came up with a far-sighted solution to an important problem. How should we best scorn Bush in his post-preznit days? I hadn't thought of throwing shoes at him, but it's perfect.

I had mused of other things, such as various kinds of death (unrealistic, possibly risky), the International Criminal Court (ditto), spitting on him (requires proximity, classifiable as WMD), cutting out his tongue (outdated, fantasy), mooning him (public nudity, I don't want people to see my ass), denying him internet privileges (not a bad idea, he might start using it), but as a solution the shoe throw works on all levels.

The Arab world is only about fifty years removed from when camels and donkeys were the primary movers, and sewage treatment in Baghdad is not all that it should be, so a shoe is naturally still assumed to have shit on it. At meetings and meals, exposing the bottom of your shoe is the worst possible insult in the Mid-East. Shoes are toxic there, shoes are hazardous waste.

In the Western world, there isn't much in the way of law against shoe-throwing, as we lack the tradition. Shoes are not recognized as a weapon, except if they contain explosives, or maybe if you look great in high heels. So if you throw your shoes at Bush, Cheney, or their minions, their security would get uptight, sure, and would rough you up and wrestle you to the ground like with the somewhat biased reporter in the video, but did you just attempt assassination? Of course not. A few bruises are a small price to pay for the heroism that will surely be accorded evermore to Mr. Shoe Hucker in his country.

And really, what crime could you be charged with? Assault seems a bit much...harassing an ex-President is a time-honored pastime...Bush himself seems to be fine with it ("I think it was a size 10") and dodges pretty well, although the second one came very close to nailing him. And, at this point, if it went to trial, what jury would convict? You'd be more likely to get the key to a city, the Legion of Merit, laid for life.

I think the guideline here is to not draw blood. Imagine. Say you're in Dallas, and you happen to see the ex-President and a couple buffoons eating dinner at a table on the other side of the restaurant. Should you leave in disgust? Nah. Lob a shoe, take out some wine and water glasses. It's the most fitting leg-acy.

Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia (Brain Freeze)

Having a kid around means fielding lots of questions, which can range from fun to horribly embarassing. When LRB (Lord Running Boy) ate his vanilla ice cream too fast, got hit with the dreaded brain freeze and asked, "how can ice cream make my head hurt?" Good question, my boy. Internet to the rescue.

The medical term is sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia. When something very cold touches the top palate of the mouth, it causes the blood vessels to constrict. This makes the nerves send a signal to the brain to reopen them. The rapid reopening of the vessels causes buildup of fluid in the tissues causing a slight swelling in the forehead and, therefore, causing pain. It normally takes 30-60 seconds for the fluid to drain, and the pain goes away.

The Ass-Kickings Begin: Joe Stiglitz Goes Seven Samurai

The feeling of living in America under the Bush Administration was very much like being jammed into the back-seat of an SUV on a rainy night with a bunch of screaming-drunk teenagers driving way too fast. An all-too common experience in my taxi-free teenage terrain. If you had the misfortune to be sober (or god help you, female) in that situation, it went like this: you'd keep begging them to slow down and asking to get out, and they'd keep roaring, "Shut up, ya f***in' pussy! Yeeee-hahahahahaaa! Hey, Matt, you gonna pass the goddamn bong back here, or f*** it with your pencil-dick?"

As broken glass spits through the passenger cabin and we hunch for the next climacteric crunch on our way down the economic cliffside, wondering if we're going to die or just fracture a skull, some state trooper types have appeared on the scene. Such as Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist whom Republican De-Regulators have derided as dumber than owl shit. He has the unique distinction amongst economists of having been fired by the World Bank (see interview with Greg Palast, "The Globalizer Who Came in from the Cold") in the wake of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. He had the temerity to suggest mild land reform and regulation as solutions to free market failures.

In a Vanity Fair article, Stiglitz assesses the damage, and then goes effortlessly chop-socky on the irresponsible Icarian jobbernowls who have ruined so many lives. He describes a 20-year arc of systemic failure with the efficiency and clarity of a master, sketching five major phases of financial Walpurgisnacht. He understands finance like Picasso understood paint, dispenses an education in 2 pages, and ends his rap so:

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

For us citizens, it all started when we went to a party and voted to get into that car with those people. Opinions may differ on intent and consequence of the bad decisions made there, but it is critical to accurately assign blame so we can move forward towards the MacGuffin embedded in Stiglitz's remarks. He's just getting warmed up, and will be joined by a gathering chorus to drown out the discredited grobian chanticleers who hang about with "who, me?" expressions. What remains to be seen is if the nation-states themselves, in the wake of relentless corporate organization, remain strong enough to enforce regulation on global entities without becoming one themselves.

GM Takes Out Full-Page Ad In Automotive News

"You wouldn't buy our shitty cars. So we'll be taking your money anyway. The Bailout. Coming this January."

That's how the ad could've read. In its own way, the actual one was much better, titled: GM's Commitment to the American People. It would be wise to practice and master this particular form of contrition: "We know, we screwed up. Now we really, really need 18 billion dollars. Even though we've still got 16 billion in the bank."

The crowd from home plate on up to the peanut gallery was, you might say, a bit underwhelmed. GOP congress-critters worked up the spunk to actually heap a helping of scorn and derision on Dick Cheney for asking them to become communists. (Get used to a steady diet of those. Dick.)

Actually, GM would probably be ok if it hit Chapter 11, so it just needs a bridge loan, like, I dunno, maybe from a bank that has just shared in 4 trillion dollars of largesse. GM has some good models like the Malibu and Impala, can restructure a couple brands, and can bring in good models from subsidiaries where people haven't forgotten how to build them, such as Opel-Europe and Saab. All told, they probably need $5-8 billion before the Volt comes on line, which is an electric car powered by gasoline. (Don't ask.)

Ford probably doesn't need a bailout at all to avoid chaptering, with a stronger model line and high-quality small cars it's already bringing in from its European sub. It also owns part of Mazda, which it could sell without much difficulty. But Ford would feel quite snubbed if GM got a bailout, and it did not. It might fail out of sheer pique, just to get back at us, so look for something in the $4-6 billion range, with concessions of a green nature, and promises not to bust the union too openly or ship all production to Malaysia.

Chrysler? It is, in the Catholic sense, beyond redemption. It has no compelling models coming online, no far-off subs to get them from, no reserves, just liabilities. Daimler-Benz paid billions to be shot of it for good reason. There's talk of forcing GM or Ford to merge with it in order to save the doomed, lobbyist-chocked private equity firm ("Cerebus") which was dumb enough to buy it from Daimler, but whoa-ho. When you're drowning, you don't catch anchors.

So there's the quick-n-dirty state of automotive affairs. Please don't actually believe any of the above, your mileage may vary, etc. I've just always loved cars, and will mourn the loss of these once-glorious enterprises which made some of the best, now become wart-nosed, blinded, degenerate albatrosses. And someday I'll get around to writing about our new Honda Fit.

(Update: I'm about as flip-floppy as the rest of the country on the bailout issue, with 47% for, 42% against, 11% undecided. Cars have killed and maimed more Americans than the total casualties of all US wars, one hit me in a crosswalk in LA, one permanently messed my neck up in a rear-ender. Yet it was cars which first united the US as a country, and they remain the building block of our present structure. Transitions away must be gradual, and add to that the fact that England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, and Sweden amongst others all bailed out or nationalized indigenous failed car companies. Car industry is heavy industry, the engineering know-how can be readily harnessed to other purposes, so we should be solidly in favor of a limited, controlled bailout (let none dare say Nationalization.) Amazingly, it looks like Congress will be of the same mind.)

Pretty Statecraft, Brilliant Statecraft, Dressed In Holiday Cheer

Professional observers firmly believe there won't be serious progress on Palestine and Iran. Who could blame them?

With Palestine, zionists will reject any objectively fair (or do-able) two-state solution. Ditto the involved and aggrieved muslims, which include those of greater Arabia.

With Iran, the zionist position is even worse. Israel will knee-jerk into war if Iran develops its force projection capabilities, and nuclear deterrence doctrine (mutal assured destruction) doesn't apply well to any scenario which includes technically advanced muslim states. That's why Israel doesn't want any, as each would bear a legitimate existential threat. (Note: If you run into a zionist, just mention the words "nuclear Iran," it's really all you have to say. Then sit back and watch the show. Free entertainment, for hours!) Meanwhile it's easy for Iran, and fully within its interests, to keep up deniable pressure on Israel's backside.

Obviously, Israel's the diplomatic problem to solve. It's a poison to three-quarters of US bilateral relationships on the globe, its people have suffered from an abiding and deepening insecurity complex from the reign of King Zedekiah onwards, and its policies are, at this juncture, politically pathetic and suicidal. Policy which relies on keeping nukes away from Iran is doomed to deadly failure. They're going to have them soon enough. Policy which relies on running a national ghetto generates greater backlash the longer it goes. So much so, it supports the argument to not open the gates. (Apres moi, la goy-luge.) What on earth to do...oh! Wait! I know! Let's obviate Israel's need for nuclear weapons?

"Obama to offer nuclear shield to Israel:"

President-elect Barack Obama plans to offer Israel a strategic pact designed to fend off any nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran, an Israeli newspaper reported on Thursday.

Quoting an unnamed American source close to Obama, Haaretz daily said Obama's administration would pledge under the proposed "nuclear umbrella" to respond to any Iranian nuclear strike against Israel with a U.S. retaliation in kind.....

The latitude for unilateral Israeli action might be limited by a U.S. nuclear umbrella. Similar Cold War treaties -- NATO in Europe, the nuclear umbrella over Japan -- defended U.S. allies while obliging them to get Washington's nod for military moves.

The article was intentionally leaked by Obama, laying an impressive new groundwork:

1) he offers Israel what they already have, but in a new and very reassuring way. It takes pressure off them and creates wiggle room for quid pro quo without giving or taking much away.

2) he opens maximal manoevre room with Iran, including a lifted embargo. Do we want US companies to supply Iran with nuclear plants, or do we want the Russians to get the work?

3) Which, by the way, the Israelis have been sucking up to Russia hard, via detente with its client state Syria. Obama one-ups that move, and says, in effect, "Don't twist your forelocks over Iran. We'll vouch for them. And we're still top dog in the region."

4) Iran's first quid pro quo would be to stop Hamas and Hezbollah with the bottle rockets in Palestine, feeding into a more stable framework there.

As you know, I've long viewed Clinton as SecState in the (for my first time ever, positive) light of Obama making an immediate run at de-escalation in the Mid-East, a.k.a. Peace. The temperature will lower, and the ambition is now confirmed. I realize the words above do not in any way spell out "two-state solution," and given the actors and history involved, skepticism is warranted. I'm mainly encouraged because the statecraft is of the highest quality. Obama's cabinet has betrayed itself as being able to think wisely in multiple dimensions, the hallmark of great diplomacy, the X Factor in international relations. It makes a far bigger difference in outcomes than war, even when accompanied by war.

For example, if Edmund Burke had been Prime Minister rather than the over-reaching, ham-fisted simpleton Lord North, America would not have revolted, and might have remained part of England's Commonwealth to this day. Parallels between North and his Tory Party's bungling bellicosity and Bush and his Neo-con Gang of Pugs, although someone should write a book about them, they practically draw themselves. The one-track-mind diplomatic methods common to both cabals come in a black box with electrodes attached.

We should be thoroughly cheered by the deftness of Obama's first Mid-East overture. Call me starry-eyed, but when I say, "Peace on earth, good will towards men" this holiday season, for the first time in a great while--for the first time in my adult life--I'll know my government means it.

The Real Blagojevich Impact

(Photo Update: found Blago's high school yearbook pic, above. He was voted "Most Likely To Answer A Question With An Answer That He Answered The Question With An Answer.")

Today's big story triggered the predictable gushes of Bright Shiny Media Object Mediocrity. True, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested for trying to sell Obama's open Senate seat:

Federal authorities arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Tuesday on charges that he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder....

Yes, Ro-Bla made his direct pitch to the Obama folks on November 7th:

And on November 7th, three days after the election, Blagojevich made clear what he wanted in exchange for appointing the Obama adviser to the Senate: the Department of Health and Human Services.

But they missed the back story. You've got to figure Team Obama was thoroughly acquainted with said Guv's distinctive style well before November 4th. They're all cogs in the same machine, and they must've known he was under investigation (if not wiretapped) by the FBI and pit bull prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. From Fitzgerald's filing, we know Obama wouldn't play ball on Nov. 7th and thereafter, with the accused grousing, "they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation."

The super-hustling Marcy Wheeler at Empty Wheel is all over it, and put together a time line after reading the 76-page filing. Merging with what facts are available, she doesn't think the time line supports Rahm Emanuel (who took Blago's congressional CD-5 seat over after he left it) whistle-blowing to the prosecuting attorney. I'm not so sure. Whistling would've been Rahm's job as CoS designate to protect Obama, he would've probably known about it, and it would've been overwhelmingly prudent to leak. Blago was persona non grata in Illinois for some time, and Politico naturally asks, "how much was the Obama transition cooperating with the FBI?" Still, the evidence angles miss the colorful mural that looms behind the play.

The real story here is about appearance, change, and enforcing boundaries of acceptable behavior in politics. The Illinois governor will serve as a great and ground-breaking example of Greek tragedy. Reason? He was horribly out of tune with the gods. To Blagojevich, he was simply conducting Chicago (and Bush Era) politics as usual, taking his rightful due. Therefore, his reaction to being arrested at 6AM was "Hahahahaa! Great joke. That was a good one. Alright, who put you up to this?" To the political machine that spawned him, he had crossed the bounds. Someone tipped off Fitzgerald to go after Blago based upon the shiv he was planning (emphasis planning) to stick in before new Illinois ethics rules went effective as of January. And that, my friends, is a high-aperture departure from established standards of political malfeasance. It's like wind sheer, like veer. The details may be decoded or enthralled over by a select few, but the effects to the rest of us in the cargo cult are religious.

Regardless of their level of cooperation or timing, Obama and Fitzgerald sent a big message to Chicago, to Illinois, and to every politician or lobbyist waiting in line to slurp at the Money River: you've got New Rules! Most if not every politician who got arrested in the past 30 years was only prosecuted after their deeds, after getting caught red-handed with courtesans on yachts and cold cash in freezers. Blagojevich doesn't fit that past. Freely admitting my own paltry memory, I can't think of a single exception, and further: the Guv didn't get a dime for all his self-advocacy. Radical departure of standards. The Guv's going down on conspiracy charges, merely for expressed intent. Show trials are cathartic. Yet I ask myself, "What current or former politician does not use at least half their brain cycles conspiring to peddle influence, trade horses, and use their position to enrich themselves?" I mean, Christ, it's what they do.

Busting Blagojevich, whoever did it, is a wake-up call to every sleaze-ball queued up in the system for a stool to slurp on the Money River. His take-down alerts every top-level Secretary, every business interest allocating funds to buy votes, every ward heeler fixing violations with the local Department of Health to be en garde: they're being told it's a crime to even talk about influence peddling. They'll have to devise code. A fish stinks from its head, a rose wafts from its bud. That's the story, and a case like this will shape behaviors all the way down to junior high schoolers choosing to cheat on tests, or study more. This is...new.

Rahm Emanuel's E-mail

A little more fun at Rahmbo's expense. Click here on Famous DC to see the larger version.

If you've ever been in a relationship with an actor, friendly or otherwise, you know they're emotion-amplifiers, they are shouters from rooftops and steepers in jacuzzis of pathos, sometimes simultaneously. Unsurprisingly, their brains exhibit differences. A fascinating public discussion was held at New York’s Columbia University this month, in which the RSC’s Michael Boyd and Dr. Oliver Sacks compared notes on memory, neural processing, and asked, How do actors memorize their lines?

(Excerpt)

Michael Boyd: We worked with about 30 actors over nearly three years on the RSC’s last complete cycle of the history plays. All the actors were in at least seven of those plays and learnt a huge number of roles. Halfway through the project, we left the first four plays behind for nearly a year. And we had to revive them. The actors began to get anxious about whether they would remember them: not only their principal roles, but the roles they understudied - thousands of lines, hundreds of states of emotions. An extraordinary feat of spatial memory was required, too: they had to remember where to go. Where am I? Backstage or front of house?

This process started with actors on their own going through their lines. They didn’t remember them. We then moved on to working together in a room, sitting down doing a line-run. It wasn’t very good. Then we decided to cut to the chase and just fling all four plays onto the stage - without costume, without décor, without all the effects. And the actors were very nearly word-perfect straightaway. It was clear that what they were trying to retrieve was no more than a broken bit of memory, only complete when the actions of their bodies and the emotions were combined together with the recall of the line. And there was a further improvement when they were not only together on stage, but also together with an audience. Then they became absolutely pitch-perfect and word-perfect, with an urgent need to communicate. I think that says something about where we keep our memory. Maybe our memory is in our body as well as in our cranium.

Psyche's News Roundup

Private Businesses Shed 250,000 Jobs in November - washingtonpost.com
The Bailout Isn't Being Policed Properly: Government Accountability Office (harvesting while they can)
Paulson Debates Second Infusion - WSJ.com - Hostile Lawmakers, Competing Bailout Demands and GAO Criticism Pose Dilemma

The Five Stages of Collapse | Energy Bulletin by Dmitry Orlov
Consumers Don't Cause Recessions - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute
Americas Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard

Rove: We Wouldn't Have Invaded Iraq If We Knew The Truth About WMDs
The Truth About Lies: The long and the short of it (part one) | The Truth About Lies: The long and the short of it (part two)
Cliff Arnebeck: "Rove Is A Common Criminal" - Rove "Destroyed Emails That Would Have Revealed His Role In Extending [Iraq] War"

Obama Gives (All-Bush) Political Ambassadors Their Pink Slips | 44 | washingtonpost.com
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/02/2008 | Military contractor in Iraq holds foreign workers in warehouses
Revealed: Britain's torture of Obama's grandfather | World news | guardian.co.uk Hussein Onyango Obama, a British soldier in the second world war, was locked up as a Mau Mau rebel in Kenya

M of A - Afghanistan: Merging News and Psy-Ops
CNN: Declassified government docs show U.S. let Saddam gas Kurds for farm deal - Democratic Underground
Mumbai Attackers Made Sophisticated Use of Technology - washingtonpost.com

GE shares rally after it vows to preserve dividend, rating - Dec. 2, 2008 (you just bailed out their shareholders)
Harvard's Endowment Loses $8 Billion (up to 30% drop, guess they didn't cash out)
Global Financial Crisis 2008: Global Issues

CTV.ca | Excerpt: 'Climate Wars' by Gwynne Dyer
Higher Education May Soon Be Unaffordable for Most Americans, Report Says - NYTimes.com
Apprendre un louveteau hurler la lune | kazados.tv

Vatican attacked for opposing gay decriminalization | International | Reuters
The Religion Virus: One Catholic Priest Destroyed the Entire Mayan Written Language
Eight rebellious U.S. regions and secessionist efforts - CNN.com

Bailout Monitor Sees Lack of a Coherent Plan - NYTimes.com
London warms to Islamic finance | csmonitor.com (no failed banks)
Business Spectator - A tsunami of hope or terror? (synthetic CDOs)

Apple: "No Reasonable Person" Should Trust Their Marketing
Edge: Bootstrapping Our Way To An Ageless Future By Aubrey de Grey
Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky

WSJ, NYT, & Institutionalized Stupidity

Wall Street Journal, writing about Robert Rubin:

Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes, and that his role was peripheral to the bank's main operations even though he was one of its highest-paid officials.

"Nobody was prepared for this," Mr. Rubin said in an interview. He cited former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan as another example of someone whose reputation has been unfairly damaged by the crisis.

New York Times interview with Jamie Galbraith (son of John K Galbraith):

Do you find it odd that so few economists foresaw the current credit disaster?
Some did. The person with the most serious claim for seeing it coming is Dean Baker, the Washington economist. I saw it coming in general terms.

But there are at least 15,000 professional economists in this country, and you’re saying only two or three of them foresaw the mortgage crisis?
Ten or 12 would be closer than two or three.

What does that say about the field of economics, which claims to be a science?
It’s an enormous blot on the reputation of the profession. There are thousands of economists. Most of them teach. And most of them teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless.

Mark Twain:

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.

(Note: This post, artlessly cadged from A Tiny Revolution, further indulges my loathing for the financial priesthood, imbeciles who really mean it. Brooklynese trader maxim: nobody knows nuttin.')

Twenty-Year Old News

(NYT Redux)

After seven years of war, Afghanistan presents a unique set of problems: a rural-based insurgency, an enemy sanctuary in neighboring Pakistan, the chronic weakness of the Afghan government, a thriving narcotics trade, poorly developed infrastructure, and forbidding terrain.

Psyche's News Roundup

ABC News: Bush: 'I Did Not Compromise My Principles' (just mine & ours)
Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security - washingtonpost.com - 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011
Cohen: Olmert to Obama: I Made Mistakes - International Herald Tribune

U.S. Warned India in October of Potential Terror Attack: specific locations, including the Taj hotel, were listed in the U.S. warning.
California Prop 8 Battle Far From Over: The Policy Report
Dow Falls Off Nearly 700 Point Cliff...Watch Out Folks! - iReport.com

AP Impact: Under pressure, US regulators eased lending rules - Yahoo! News
Citigroup Making $10B Construction Company Acquisition
Paulson Says Treasury Actively Mulling New Rescue Programs - WSJ.com

The GOP's McCarthy gene - Los Angeles Times Thinks Goldwater father of conservatism
I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq - washingtonpost.com
The Truth About the Election - The New York Review of Books

Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers
The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Scientific American: focus on effort, not on intelligence or ability, is key to success in school and in life
North Atlantic cold-water sink returns to life : Nature News

Book of Mormon critic Simon Southerton responds to his critics: Answers Apologetic Claims about DNA and the Book of Mormon
'The Complex' author John Duignan cites Tom Cruise control (Amazon kow-tows)
Calif. priest tells Obama supporters to confess because voting for Obama was a mortal sin

TheStar.com | sciencetech | 2,700-year-old marijuana found in Chinese tomb Stash seems to have been intended for buried shaman to use in the afterlife
YouTube - Ricky Gervais - Nursery Rhymes
vintagephoto: Pinups

It's Official

Want to know how I knew Hillary Clinton was going to be Secretary of State? Simple. Neither she nor her Big Dog talked to the press for, like, weeks while their misshapen hunchbacks were out robbing graves and urgently wiring all the available electricity down into transducers until it was sucked up and they shouted, "It's a-live, it's alive, it's aliiiiivvve!"

The background is complicated, in an Eyes Wide Shut kind of way. Barack Obama offered the Secretary of Herbal Teas & Bombing to Hillary Clinton, and we early and dutifully passed that information along. But there was a catch, a huge Catch-22, and that's some catch. Her husband Bill has been flying around the globe promoting his Clintonian Global Initiative for the last 8 years on a free-range combination of "Feed the World" and "Air F*** One." So the deal was, he had to turn over the names of 200,000+ foundation donors to the Obama drill-masters, and that's what all the waiting was about.

The salutatorian of my high school got mononucleosis around Christmas, so he had to stay home for a few months, and he wasn't valedictorian because the typing teacher only gave him a B+. I had to listen to him bitch about it for 4 months of my senior year after my stepfather told me he wouldn't pay for Yale or Harvard, not a dime, not even on scholarship. I know what sucks. Even so, it must not have been easy for Bill to knuckle under Arkansas-style.

I can commiserate, but my imagined intern-job (which didn't exist at the time, not until now) would've been having the internet, a sexy librarian, and a modest travel budget to go through that list of Bill's donors. Now, anytime Hillary Clinton even thinks about going off the farm I could just browse through the donor list and construct an email titled, for example: "The New York Times: Adolescent Girls Recall Orgy, Fundraising Event In Azerbaijan With Former US President."

Bill is still tasked with foreign affairs. Hillary is tasked with a rain-delayed dance in Palestine. Game's on.

Clinton Decides to Accept Post at State Dept., Confidants Say

The Grandest Novel

Opening paragraph to The Odyssey:

This is a story about a man, one who was never at a loss. He had travelled far in the world, after the sack of Troy, the virgin fortress; he saw many cities of men, and learnt their mind; he endured many troubles and hardships in the struggle to save his own life and to bring back his men safe to their homes. He did his best, but he could not save his companions. For they perished by their own madness, because they killed and ate the cattle of Hyperion the Sun-God, and the god took care that they should never see home again.

Four Year-Old Existentialism, Part I

The animated children's movie 'Ice Age' features Manny, a lonely mammoth. It becomes clear Manny has lost his mate and baby to human hunters, and it is implied his species faces extinction. This prompted a discussion, in which Lord Running Boy asked:

"Daddy, if mammoths could talk, would they still went ex-stink?"

Where Would You Want To Be Homeless?

It would be right across the street from Lord Running Boy's co-op school, and that's where the Nickelsville, named for Seattle's smooth-jazz mayor Greg Nickels, moved to a month or so back. The church which rents out space to the school turned over its profitable pay-parking lot to homeless activists in a perceived emergency. We parents weren't consulted, and some furies ensued. A part of our children's tuition now goes to feed them, in addition to the usual food bank crowd. The teachers are all about anti-fascism and anti-bias, so that first week they naturally took the kids over on a conga line to meet the pastel pink and blue tent-residers in the parking lot. Lord Running Boy's recorded quote: "They're not aliens!"

Many parents were tousled, tempests brewed in teapots, a homeless person was hit by a mini-van, and we expressed our support for the actions of the church and the school. It's not over by a long shot, the legal tussles between the church, city, tent-dwellers and parents might be going on for years. We'll have to deal with more of this, I said, so doctor my eyes, and tell me what you see. I hope you administer humanely. We're thankful our bias-free boy has met the homeless, for they might be us, we might be them, and hope they're not us. Awhile back I drafted a still-born post about it called Depression 2.0, but Still Life Living cooked a better, unflinchingly honest and more current post about what's up:

I regularly talk with my colleagues in a rational manner about what happens if the bailouts fail, where I want to be homeless. Then I point out all the people who are on the front line of our current wave of the melt down.

One wacky friend of mine has made the conscious decision to live out of his car.

Another friend has a University of Chicago MBA who owns his own small business and employs 15 people. He is diligently trying to rescue his business. Mail order sales of plants are off by 90%, but he can't draw on his good credit and he doesn't qualify for a bailout. So some of those families who depend on him will probably end up moving in with relatives or be forced to brainstorm.

As for me, I work in the glass towers of Los Angeles. And it is happening here too. My son’s friend’s father just lost his fancy job at a national law firm because the work is slowing. He is safe until December when he loses his alimony from the guild -- at which point he, his wife, and three kids have to scramble to land a $150,000+ per year job. It is getting harder even for the well educated to get jobs, at least jobs that pay enough to cover the mortgage, insurance, car, and food. With the slowdown, the experts say those good jobs will come back, but it may take three or four years. There is, of course, the chance unless they might be outsourced altogether, in which case they are never coming back. But my son's friend's parents and siblings will be okay, they have family back east.

An artist friend is designing very beautiful, colorful signs saying "Will Work 4 Food". She is betting that people will want to distinguish themselves from the increased competition. I really liked her art-nouveau one. They are really cool. I bought it to give as a christmas present to my friend who is sleeping in his car, but I have reconsidered and will probably just keep it myself. I mean it is really cool.

My company is filled with professional financial analysts and professional economists. No one is talking about the meltdown beyond the superficial, so either they don’t think it is a big thing, or it is too big for them to get their heads around.

The best person I have to talk about this with is my 8-year-old daughter. She has a Kit Kittridge American Girl Doll from 1934. My daughter loved the movie. She has seen a Hollywood-version of a Hoover Camp. She sees the homeless people around, and she can see them as real people because of that movie. She understands that if this magic thing called society contracts, we may be forced to think outside the box and eat in communal soup kitchens. I mean in a worst-case scenario. I don't think she thinks it could ever happen, and I hope she is right.

Nevertheless, I think we should downshift for a depression, grow our own gardens, car pool, eat less and more healthily (saves on doctors visits) — but at the same time work like hell to take democratic control of our shareholder responsibilities in society. I mean, if we are really good, maybe Halliburton will come solve this mess for us. Not in my American Dream. I’m going to have to do it, hopefully with you.

Strange story: a business that is struggling and has not done anything wrong can't get help, but the greedy trip over themselves to get a handout. Today in the WSJ, I see that insurance companies are buying banks so they can get bailed out. I didn't realize how much more surreal it could get than George W Bush, war president.

I take snap-shots of the children, dancing in a parking lot that's filled with tents of light. I yell at them to be careful, but I see nothing in front of me, nothing to the sides, nothing behind, and the old king is dead. Long live the king. A wild and rainy wind is blowing, and I'm not going to judge your cigarettes, the smells, or the drugs. Come on, tell me your stories, show me your scars, and return my son's hellos.

Blind Man's Bluff

I don't know what's going to happen to the stock or financial markets, only that when they go up, they're more likely to go up, vice-versa, and they have short-term and long-term reactions to central policy.

The Soros concept of reflexivity posits that because of human psychology, metric trendlines begin to self-amplify, and the more they diverge from the mean, the more they behave as a dominant fundamental factor. Any trader knows this intrinsically ("the Trend is your Friend"), but as a proof to his theorem, the only reason I've worked up enough courage to write this post is the Dow has closed up for three straight sessions for the first time since August of this year.

Above is a chart comparing stock market performance of the Dot Com Crash of 2000, the Oil Shock of '73, the Great Crash of '29, and the Cluster**** to the Poorhouse of '08. As far as they go, the angles of declension look remarkably similar.

Comrade Secretary Paulson changes his mind every two days over half a trillion dollars here or there, and because going to face a snarky Congress again would involve travel and thus increase his exposure to sniper fire, he just flat-out walked down some marble steps today and announced we're on the hook for another $600 billion, for a total of $4.3 Trillion and counting. There's ample evidence that I, most any accountant, a housewife who runs a business or a teenager who keeps an accurate checkbook has as good a chance at fixing the economy.

The people who are supposed to know, they don't know. The people in the driver's seat, they suck at driving. The people who are respected, they're playing Pin the Tail on the Orifice. So I'll just note this. There is no structural difference from the stock (and bond) market from that of 2000. The share of financial services as a percentage went up slightly, yes, but the markets were as leveraged in 2000 as now, hedge funds ran as rampant, derivatives were as reliant on the stressed individual blocks at the bottom of the inverted pyramid. And the dot-com sector is much more established and profitable.

To re-leverage these markets means stabilizing their base. That's much cheaper to do than directly stabilizing the arcane instruments on top, an extraordinarily complex, unprecedented if not impossible task. The $600 new billion that Paulson declared as spent today to guarantee all those casino chips would, if wedged into the bottom instead, back-stop all the troubled mortgages. It would in turn stimulate commodity & food spending and greatly increase the share of auto loans and credit cards paid. Maybe, just maybe, someone important will notice.

The Wit And Wisdom Of Rahm Emanuel

I hate Rahm Emanuel. I hate him for being a shitty DCCC chair, for battling with Howard Dean over the 50-state strategy, for doing everything possible to undermine the winning strategy, then for taking credit when it worked. I hate him for running Bush-sympathizing 'Blue Dog Democrats' in red districts in 2006, and I hate him for being a smirking phoney smarm. He is rumored to hold an Israeli passport, to have volunteered for the IDF during Desert Storm, he is a Zionist and passes out Uzis to Jewish gangstas, "The Isros," in synagogues all over Chicago's north side. My mildest reaction to him as Obama's chief of staff was "Blerrrchh!"

But then I thought, "What would Saul Alinsky do? What would a community terrorist who has improbably seized power next do?" Get himself an enforcer. A Laurenti Beria, Luca Brazzi, knock-on-the-door-in-the-night Bad Cop. My hunch is it was in part a "keep your enemies closer" move. By naming Emanuel, Obama fulfilled Chicago political machine payback in perpetuity and also removed a major, ongoing congressional pain in the ass, one which is now condemned to schedule meetings and incessantly listen to people bitch and whine about how they absolutely must see the President. Music, sweet music.

Is it any wonder Rahmbo didn't immediately accept the post? He's done it before, and knows it often requires arriving 5AM and leaving 9PM. Plus, it messes with his ambition to be Speaker of the House, so he only committed 2 years to the job from hell. A placeholder will take his congressional seat, but things aren't always predictable on that watch. Especially now. The shit that's being aerosolized will not have settled back down upon the turnip field a short two years from now.

So Obama has a (preferably hypoallergenic) pit bull for CoS, and past holders of that slot like Dick Cheney and John Sununu were noted for startling levels of unapologetic rudeness. You don't need to trust the holder of the post to be nice, you need smarts, stamina, effectiveness, and quick answers to your reins. Obama trusts his combat team: Axelrod, Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and his wife. Not the Merchant of Hyde Park, who will henceforth be Axelrod's responsibility. Emanuel scares the ever-living shit out of the Reich Wing, and he's as bipartisan as a broken nose. (See the cancelled SNL sketch above.) Politics is his blood sport. This is a good thing, if your President backs off from it.

Here's another Rahmbo angle: I suspect Obama will throw deep right away on the Palestine-Israel issue as a way to open up the options, because progress there, or the convincing illusion of it, makes everything else easier in the Mid-East. Emaneul knows how to work with the Clintons, is an intimate who maintained his neutrality, which pushes a few jigsaws together with Hillary as SecState. Baggage or no, the Clintons have mondo stature on the archway issue that's screwing the entire world up. They're the most recent people to make any headway on reconciliation and recognition, exact roboratives needed to free the Mid-East oxen from the desperate mire.

Obama is going after Israel, and it will be leaned on hard, with all the remaining US leverage available. Right where it should've been placed for the last decade and more. It may be too damned late, as Israel is busy sucking up to Russia with all possible speed, but having Rahm as CoS is like establishing an open channel to Tel Aviv. He will communicate what's doable, what's not, and he'll be believed.

For everything else domestic, he'll be diabolically effective, and will use his time in the White Cabin to gather power, not burn bridges. Aaron Sorkin's scheming character on the West Wing, Josh Lyman, is supposedly based on Emanuel's three-ring performances with the Clintons. Which, if true, means he gives a shit about liberal causes. And as for the rest, I'll take Machiavellian over Vaudevillian any day.

(Note: this post was originally written on November 8th, so the Clinton appointment and SNL sketch were added.)

"As God As My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly"

Keith Olbermann grokked to the Sarah Palin turkey rendering interview on his show tonight, and used a clip from the great old WKRP in Cincinnati "Turkey Drop" classic. Here is Les Nessman reporting the original, live.

Psyche's News Roundup

What "Effective Governance" Looks Like
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/24/2008 | Obama's unusual transition: Already a co-president
Study: Many Obama Small Donors Really Weren’t - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com (because we kept giving)

Donklephant » Blog Archive » Supreme Court To Review Obama’s Citizenship (Clarence Thomas)
Jesus' General: Mike Huckabee: The Smiling Happy Face of Theocratic Fascism
My Left Nutmeg:: Joe The Paskudnyak* (Lieberman)

Big Budget Events - Slideshows - CNBC.com
RIA Novosti - World - Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.
Balloon Juice: Gotta Love It: New Republic is the Michael O’Hanlon of magazines- usually wrong, always loud, and for reasons no one can really explain, looked upon as if they know something.

Fed Has Giant and Opaque Role in Financial Crisis Aid (Opaque...the new transparency)
Citigroup Bailout: Feds Offer Massive Rescue Package To Financial Giant (M-effer of all bailouts)
Bloomberg.com: Exclusive-Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

A Reporter at Large: Anatomy of a Meltdown: The New Yorker: Ben Bernanke and the financial crisis.
YouTube - Peter Schiff
Eschaton: Deep Thought: I'm so old I can remember when spending $8 billion to give more health care to kids would spook the bond markets so badly that it just couldn't be done.

US seeks 300 billion dlrs from Gulf states: report
America’s Debt to Income Ratio as Compared with Other Countries
The Corruption of Economics (Henry George and Neo-Classical Economics (NCE)) (see above)

We must plan a survival strategy for our species - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic ice is melting faster than computer models of climate calculate
Score: Romantics, 1 - Cynics, 0 | Science Blog (long-term passionate love stimulates same area as cocaine)

You Might Be A Sex Offender If... Once Fallen
Are Men Boring?
White extremists lash out over election of first black president - Los Angeles Times

Pranking Pride - The Biggest Pranks in Geek History - TIME
Beauty Is Truth In Mathematical Intuition: First Empirical Evidence
The Happiness Gene -Is it Inherited?

Nature Best Photography of 2007 - Euphoria Magazine

Frozen Scandal

Scandal is our growth industry. Revelation of wrongdoing leads not to definitive investigation, punishment, and expiation but to more scandal. Permanent scandal. Frozen scandal. The weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist. The torture of detainees who remain forever detained. The firing of prosecutors which is forever investigated. These and other frozen scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging the cable news shows and the blogosphere and the bookstores. The titillating story that never ends, the pundit gabfest that never ceases, the gift that never stops giving: what is indestructible, irresolvable, unexpiatable is too valuable not to be made into a source of profit. Scandal, unpurged and unresolved, transcends political reality to become commercial fact.

Frozen Scandal - The New York Review of Books.

Obama Calls Off Cold War, The Left Fights Over Decor

I'm a guillotine-sharpening skeptic, so have shared in the Left's discomfort at many Obama cabinet choices, especially over the more experienced hands within the Democratic Party. That group, as a group, are either Undead or in need of CPT (cattle prod therapy). But c'mon, what was the Left expecting, Robert Reich for Treasury? Bono for State? On top of the need for power calculus, there has only been one Democratic regime here in the past 28 years, so the menu of experienced choices is prix fixe. If you want organic at this restaurant, you have to raise it yourself.

Even so, when Obama named Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff, for example, I asked myself, "Why go through the Deputy Chief of their North American Station? Why not just give your intel to the Mossad directly?" While holding my nose, the angles started to sink in on the choice of Rahmbo for CoS, despite his being the world's only ultra-Zionist ballet dancer (aside from my actual reasons for hating him). But more on these and other oddities in the Cast of Thousands later.

While the Presstitutes and the blogsphere are slathering attention on the staffing, the key to reading Obama is how he sets the framework. That's his M.O., one he became renowned for when he was President of the Harvard Law Review, a signature leadership quality worth serious attention. As you might guess, the students on that Law Review are the most vociferous, ambitious, entitled, competitive people on earth, but they began to appreciate Obama because he could tease out the best from their opposing agendas. In short, because he was more disciplined, open-minded, and rigorous than them. They even began to imitate his moderations in wider social settings, like when going to a movie. Obama Voice: "Do you want butter on that popcorn? Or are you really certain...that you want popcorn at all?" Notice the framework-wrassling in that impression: questioning the basis of reflexive orthodoxies.

A wise person mentioned that Obama "has one chance to negotiate the change in foreign policy direction, with both hands tied behind his back." True, very true, but I wanted to respond in a post, because something of great and hopefully lasting import has already happened. Houdini kept the handcuffs and straightjacket on while they marched him to the water tank only because he'd previously created enough wiggle room to get out. Houdini was all about Framework Control, and Obama's M.O. hasn't changed. The week after his election, he stated any bilateral agreement on the status of U.S. forces in Iraq will have to either be run through Congress, or be deferred for the new administration so it can "negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support here at home and makes absolutely clear that the U.S. will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.”

Sounds pretty well-framed to me, but what are the implications--the height, width, and border of that statement? It conveys a not-very-veiled threat to the Bush Administration and its servants to ignore him at their peril. They will pay dearly if they dig a deeper hole, and Bush can't issue pre-emptive pardons. He's also re-limiting Executive powers with words, with nothing more than the force of rhetoric, explicitly declaring the entire Neocon Mid-East hegemonic vision ruined. He has no legal authority, yet Bush, the think-tankers, the minions and even Cheney have taken him at his word so far. And immediately after the above statement a preponderance of Neocons publicly jumped ship.

Why has no analyst, left or right, noticed this: the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution is kaput. One of the first things Obama did was cleave its head in two. No fun new wars with Syria or Iran, no plenary powers bullshit, no grounded undercover Seals pointing lasers and running insurgents, nothing without approval by two-thirds of the Senate. By pulling the plug on permanent bases in Iraq, Obama has switched off a looming Cold War II.

Factor in with the huge coup that's taken place in Congress, with tree-hugger Waxman replacing car-hugger Dingell for the most powerful chairmanship in Congress (Energy Chair), and you've got some clues to the coming agenda and its speed. America's perpetual war powers footing is based on energy paranoia. Energy is the crowbar to change the old framework. There's a lot of plaster around the Old Master, and it is being smashed. You'd think the Left might allow themselves a happy dance or two.

Raisin' Some Hell For 2012

Video #1 is a strange paen to Sarah Palin by a PAC called "Ethnic Cleansing for America." (Ok, just kidding. Sort of.)

In video #2, we have the Palinator doing a folksy, quite charming interview in front of a slaughterhouse for turkeys, in which turkeys...are being slaughtered...right behind her. A special touch when the turkey farmer, while draining out their blood, stares vacantly at the camera.

I'm sure you've seen these through your various real or fake nooz outlets, but I just need to embed these for posterity, and note that once upon a time, people, even Americans, would look at themselves and say, "Whoa, I can't put that on teevee because it'd look like, ahh, I'm an ignominious twit."

Also, I wish noticed that Presidential hopeful Mike Hukabee, the republican governor of the Land o' Goshen, already kicked off his 2012 campaign in Iowa.

You Say You Want A (Green) Revolution...

via the always thought-provoking Still Life Living:

You say you want a (green) revolution,
Well, you know,
We all want to keep our kids from frying under a magnifying glass like ants,
You tell me that we need a solution,
Well, you know,
We all want to live sustainably.
But when you talk about reducing my consumption,
Don't you know that you can count all those other people out.
Do you know it's going to be all right?
all right? all right?

With apologies to Sir James Paul McCartney, KBE (Knight Commander of the British Empire).

According to David Eisenberg of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology, if every man, woman and child alive today consumed at the average resource footprint level of Americans, we would need eight (8, VIII, 0001000) replicant planet earths to be sustainable. If, on the other hand, we take our current 7 or 8 billion brothers and sisters and try to establish sustainability goals for this blue-green ball called Earth, something’s gotta give. Population? Consumption? Equality? Biology? Rationality? While we may be Free to Choose, is it ethical to choose?

Quaker Ben told me once that he thought the world would evolve into either East Germany of the 1980s or the Rio de Janeiro of today.

Is that really our choice? Total information awareness, democratic fascism, or libertine laissiez-faire corporate colonialism where street urchins are hunted for sport?

Personally, I think it comes down to two choices: Arbeit Macht Frei versus The Truth Shall Set You Free.

You say you'll change a constitution
Well, you know
We'd all love to change your head.
You tell me it's the institution,
Well, you know
You better free your mind instead.

My advice is to start to "Practice Sustainable Sex".