He ran an insurance agency, but hetook their premiums and applied them to his first campaign.
Schadenfreude time.
It’s amazing how the Tom Delay era is unwinding. In trajectory, if not in scope, it mirrors the unwinding of the credit bubble.
Month: March 2008
The Ultimate Comment on E. Gary Gygax’s Passing
Randall Munroe is a Freaking Genius
xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language – By Randall Munroe.
Trust me, if you ever played D&D, you have to read this comic strip, but it’s too wide for my format.
This is in lieu of lolcats.
No, I Don’t Want This Crazy Old Sick Man Answering a 3am Phone Call
Regardless of the color of the phone.
McCain just went postal on Elisabeth Bumiller.
He’s clinched the nomination this week, there are months to the convention, and he’s already flipping out about a perfectly normal question?
His head is going to explode on love TV.
Speaking of Bitch Slapping: Them Dems on FISA
Glenn Greenwald has the scoop, and I need a drink.
Oh well, Purim is not that far away.
Samantha Power Resigns
My concolences, and this does not bode well for the Obama campaign.
For the past few weeks, Hillary Clinton and the her campaign have been bitch slapping Barack Obama and his campaign, and this is just another step.
For the past 25+ years, the Republicans have used what Josh Marshall calls, the Bitch Slap Theory of Politics, and Hillary and her folks know it, and get it, and are using it on Obama.
The theory is as follows:
One way — perhaps the best way — to demonstrate someone’s lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves — thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.
–snipped Kerry comment–
Hitting someone and not having them hit back hurts the morale of that person’s supporters, buoys the confidence of your own backers (particularly if many tend toward an authoritarian mindset) and tends to make the person who’s receiving the hits into an object of contempt (even if also possibly also one of sympathy) in the eyes of the uncommitted.
This is certainly what Bush’s father did to Michael Dukakis and, sadly, it is what Bush himself did, to a great degree, to Al Gore.
And what Bush did to Kerry, and what Clinton is doing to Obama.
If he can’t answer this against Clinton, Obama cannot win the general.
Puerto Rico Switches from Caucus To Primary
The ostensible reason for the change is that they believe that turnout will overwhelm the caucuses, but I’m wondering if both campaigns might see some sort of political gain.
The Housing Crisis Just Got Bigger
Yes, the GSEs limits on the mortgages that they can buy have just been increased from 417,000 to as high as $793,750, and the FHA limits on insurance have gone from $362,790 to $729,750.
The market has responded by increasing the yield spread between debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 10 year Treasury bonds to 2.38%, the highest spread in 20 years.
Historically, it’s been in the 1.0 to 1.5% range, and this means higher mortgage rates, even if the GSEs can now carry your jumbo paper.
Smaller Bond Insurers Cleaining Up on Muni Business
With a MBIA and Ambac in death spirals over their involvement in mortgage backed securities and other similar instruments, former bit players like Financial Security Assurance and Assured Guaranty Ltd, which never drank that Koolaid, have seen their market position in the municipal bond insurance market soar.
The consequences I’ve predicted with the ability of municipalities to raise money may be milder than I had anticipated.
Memo to Greece, Alexander Was Not Greek.
In fact, his father, Phillip of Macedon conquered Greece, but this does not stop the Greek government from objecting to Macedonia joining NATO because they have the name Macedonia.
Alexander spoke Greek. He was educated by Greeks, but he was not Greek. He was Macedonian.
Morons.
Another Argument for Abolishing the Airforce
I really am getting sick and tired of the machinations of the fighter pilot Mafia.
Yes, General Bruce Carleson, who has raised insubordination to an art form, is saying that, “Air Force officials must develop and buy new aircraft or risk the service becoming irrelevant”.
In any likely conflict for the next 20 or so years, we are looking at a few weeks of the “kinetic” phase, followed by months or years of peacekeeping, where it does not matter if you are flying an F-16, F-22, or for that matter, a WWII era piston engined A-1 SPAD.
You are bombing and rocketing insurgents from a position of absolute air supremacy.
The Air Force as a combat service is largely irrelevant. What might be important is airlift, and there was just a 30+ billion award made on that a 2 weeks ago.
To the degree that you might need to exert “dominance” if challenged by a real air threat, the critical issue will be situational awareness and communications, which can be handled through system upgrades.
Chinese Nuclear Arsenal Increased by a Third Since 2006, Pentagon Report Indicates » FAS Strategic Security Blog
Since 2006, the Chinese nuclear arsenal has increased by 1/3.
When one considers the strategic needs of China, they would generally be geared towards protecting supply lanes for oil and other strategic materials, but we see a buildup here that is largely ICBMs and nuclear cruise missiles, which are useless in this scenario:
In fact, the only realistic use for these weapons is to deter the US from using their weapons as a threat to forestall specific Chinese actions **cough** Taiwan **cough**.
Were this simply a modernization, I don’t think that you would see an increase in warheads, because the older liquid fueled missiles would be decommissioned, and they have not been.
1000 Words, Confederate Edition
Economics Update
Oil hits another record, breaking $106/bbl, and the Dollar falls again another record against the Euro, and a 3 year low against the Yen.
As I’ve noted before, these are tied together. The expectation of a falling dollar pushes up the dollar denominated cost of oil to maintain the same global purchasing power.
Closer to home, the US lost 63,000 Jobs in February, which was an unexpected 5 year high.
Not surprisingly, this is accompanied by consumer confidence at a six year low.
Luckily for us, the Fed is riding to the rescue, and printing up more money to give to the jerks who screwed this up in the first place. The March money sales have been increased from $60 billion to $100 billion.
Carlyle Capital is being to forced to liquidate securities, one would assume well below purchase price, to meet its margin calls.
That’s what 32:1 leverage gets you.
The lenders are getting skittish, and they are starting to ask for some or all of their money back from hedge funds and other speculative entities.
And why shouldn’t they as the housing crash is chewing up their balance sheets like a great white shark.
So we have money fleeing to the safe haven of US treasuries, because they are expecting another shoe to drop, like, for example, the possibility that, Fitch Ratings might downgrade $160 billion in Alt-A mortgage backed securities, which is rumored to be imminent.
The Tanker Soap Opera, Part 1 of Way Too Many
Well, you can check out just how aggressively the politicians from Boeing Washington and Kansas are flipping out, here, and here.
I haven’t heard such hystirical muddled thinking since I argued with someone over the lone gunman theory.
Mostly, I see this as parochial politics, though there are Democrats out there who also see it as a club to use against John McCain, who torpedoed the original, highly corrupt and expensive, deal, it what might have been the only time he’s been right in his entire career.
There is at least a small good coming from the folks running around like chickens with their heads chopped off though, it appears that the outbrief on the decision, giving a rundown of the competition, will be accelerated to provide data as soon as possible to lawmakers and the public.
Even so, I expect a challenge from Boeing that will not be resolved until 2009 at the earliest.
There are also some indications that Boeing was sloppy on its bid. It appears that they did not provide a lot of deal on some of their cost estimates, which led to some downrating.
DID also has an analysis of the 9 Key Performance Parameters (KPP) for the bid, and it’s pretty clear that EADS won or tied them all, and I would particularly note that it demolished the Boeing bid for cargo capacity, and tanking at 1000 and 2000 miles from a base, both of which are critical in the Pacific theater.
Calling in an Emergency Airdrop of Thorazine
Between Obama staffers calling Clinton a “monster”, and Clinton staffers calling Obama the second coming of Ken Starr, one thing is very clear.
They need medication. They need lots of medication.
Ziff Davis Files Chapter 11
I’m kind of surprised surprised by the news, but as a first step to cut costs, fire John Dvorak.
Took Her Long Enough
Pelosi finally notices that John McCain is embracing a man who thinks that she, and all Catholics, worship the devil, and calls him on it.
Ummm…Hello??? You are a leader of the Democratic Party, 3rd in line for the presidency, the most politically powerful Catholic in the nation, and it’s taken you this long to notice that McCain is cavorting with anti-Catholic bigots like Hagee?
NPR CEO Fired
There is some sort of weird shakeup going on at NPR.
I only hope that, in the end, it results in a reduced role for hacks Barbara Bradley Hagerty*, Mara Liasson, and Juan Williams.
Particularly Williams, who in addition to being a hack is the stupid beyond belief.
*She is in the pocket of the right wing Christian dominionist movement, see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Torture Looks Set to Free Terror Suspects in Canada
It appears that a significant amount of the evidence against two Canadians was from Abu Zubaydah, the clinically insane man tortured by the CIA.
As a result Mohammed Harkat, and Adil Charkaoui are now free on bail.
Either they never will terrorists, or they are free on bail and are terrorists.
They are so lucky that they are in the custody of Canada, a country with the rule of law and a functioning justice system.
A hundred miles further south, and they would be in Gitmo now.
That torturing mentally ill al Queida travel agent thing worked out great, didn’t it.
Complete Ownage of Complaint Remover
A service which claims to “remove” bad links from the innernets.
The Consumerist completely owns them.
Don’t have anything in your mouth when you click the link.