India has tested a nuclear capable ballistic missile with a range in excess of 300km, which puts much of China firmly in range, and Pakistan test fired a nuclear capable cruise missile with a 350 km range.
While I understand the threat that al Queida in the region poses, the fact that we have two nuclear armed powers who might actually pull the trigger on each other seems to me to be far more pressing, particularly since it could not involve the Chinese.
Any similarities between this and Bush v. Gore are not coincidental….Though the MDP has a lot more in the way of Cojones than do the Dems.
We now the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) saying that they doubt the official presidential election results, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is talking about some sort of UN in the runoff elections.
In the parliamentary elections, we have protests on over half the seats, with the ZANU-PF and the MDC lodging 53 and 52 seats respectively.
In the what took you so long, the Zimbabwean opposition is calling for Mbeki’s replacement as mediator. Seeing as how Thabo Mbeki has done everything in his power to support Mugabe, it is not surprising that he has no credibility left.
Unfortunately, it appears that the MDC will not participate in the runoff, at least that’s their word for now, as they claim that Morgan Tsvangirai won outright.
He probably did, but a boycott won’t help.
Which makes me more inclined to support.
It appears that they object to the idea that they will have to take a haircut to get FHA insurance, specifically that the FHA will not insure a loan unless the principal is reduced to 85% of a home’s worth.
Boo f&%4ing hoo.
Maybe they can sue Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan for the difference.
This is interesting. McConnell is still wants the FEC nominations voted on all at once, as opposed to individually, which effectively kills the new nominations by Bush.
Anyone have a clue as to what the heck is going on here? Why is Mitch McConnell dissing the White House and putting McCain in a bind over this?
As long as there are no new nominees, then David Mason stays head of the FEC, and he has been harshing on McCain something fierce, so there are two reasons that I he’s doing this, he hates McCain, or that van Spakovsky has some sort of hold on him.
This is genius, c/o this modern world.
What an Amazing Accomplishment
It’s September 12, 2001. You’re sitting in front of a TV, watching footage of the World Trade Center collapse over and over and over again.
All of a sudden, someone from seven years in the future walks out of a tiny temporal vortex, and tells you: George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly that in 2008, the United States of America will likely elect as president a black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim. Oh, and he also admits he’s used cocaine.
I think it would have been easier to convince me of the reality of time travel. “No, no, I believe you really are from the future. But the other stuff, that’s CRAZY.”
Tanta of Calculated risk notes that continuing unemployment claims are now above 3 million. Note that, unlike the weekly new claim figures, this one tends to show trends much better.
You may recall that recently the weekly data is showing a decline, the fact that the numbers are still rising means that people are spending more time on unemployment.
Because of inflation concerns, both the Bank of England and ECB leave rates steady have decided not to follow the Fed’s example and cut rates. Which has left the ECB rate at a 6 year high.
Normally, this would suggest a weaker dollar, but the dollar is doing pretty well against the Euro. No clue as to what is going on here.
Finally, another day, another record high in oil, $123.53/bbl at closing.
John McCain’s hometown paper, The Arizona Republic, has been covering John McCain longer than any other paper, and as a result they do some journalism, and reveal that McCain’s as a maverick is not born out by his votes in the Senate, at least not the ones where his votes matters.
When the votes are close, he votes Republican….if he manages to show up at all.
It’s being presented as a grand compromise, with separate votes allowed so that Hans von Spakovsky would be voted but, as Josh Marshall so ably notes, it’s really another f&%# you from Bush and His Evil Minions™ to the Senate.
The problem right now is that the FEC does not have a quorum, so it can make rulings, which means, among other things, McCain’s bungee jumping into and out of the public financing system cannot be approved by the board.
Additionally, one of the remaining members of the board, FEC chairman David Mason has been very vocal about McCain’s law breaking on the matter, which is an embarrassment.
Bush has renominated von Spakovsky, but is now saying that they can take a separate vote on the nominees, which Spakovsky, would lose, but he is now also submitting a replacement for Mason too, with the idea that once he is removed, McCain gets what he wants on a party line vote.
Here’s a little tidbit buried in a Washington Post story on Fannie’s recent losses:
To help homeowners caught in the market crisis, Fannie Mae said it would take the unusual step of allowing borrowers whose homes are worth less than their mortgages to refinance up to 120 percent of the property value. That option would be offered to homeowners whose loans are owned by Fannie Mae and who remain up to date on their mortgage payments.
They have just condemned themselves to death.
They will be lending on houses already underwater, and the increase in walkaways as a result will have them needing a government bailout.
Paul Krugman come across this picture:
This would indicate a Democratic blowout, neh?
As I’ve mentioned before, my son has Aspergers syndrome, a condition on the Autism Spectrum*, and for most of the past three years has been in a private placement, the Forbush School, a part of Shepard Pratt Health System as a result.
While this has helped him quite a bit in dealing with his problems, which are almost exclusively behavioral/social and not academic†, but he’s also very high functioning, an IQ of around 135.‡
So while Forbush has been good for him in terms of a social experience, academically, even with the very small classes they have there, he has increasingly found the academics not sufficiently challenging.
The problem with Baltimore County Public schools has always been that we have been unable to get sufficient support, and so we lawyered up, and he got placed at Forbush.
While Baltimore County could have supplied the necessary services, for less money than the Forbush tuition, they simply wouldn’t.
So, while we were all on the same page about wanting him to go back to the mainstream public school, we were concerned that he would be placed in Behavior Learning Support (BLS) class for kids with severe behavior problems, which would have him in a situation with older kids who are behind him academically, which would be the worst of all possible worlds.
So, this Tuesday, we had a meeting to get our ducks in a row for him going to Chatsworth, an area elementary school which is set up with the most special ed resources.
It was a four hour meeting, and we went through the 25 pages in his IEP. Two goals were dropped, because the staff from Chatsworth found them redundant, and there were some minor rewrites, but basically we now have a situation where he will get the support he needs
He will start at Chatsworth on Monday, and he’s both nervous and psyched. He’s already spent about 5 half-day and 2 full-day visits to Chatsworth and sat in all the classes hew will be in, basically the Gifted and Talented (G&T) program, which is good, as he started to complain about what he calls, “Boring stuff he already knows.”
*There is some dispute between the experts as to whether it is a mild form of Autism, or a separate condition that is on the spectrum. Me, I don’t care, I just want to make sure that he has the services he needs.
†He has a bit of a problem writing long essays, because he can’t keep the idea in his head long enough to physically get it out onto paper. If he dictates, he’s fine though.
‡Just today, I was explaining how X-rays work, and discussing a brief primer on wavelength and frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum. We were at the Chiropractors, and they have an X-Ray machine there, and he was curious. He picked it all up in about 30 seconds. Like I’ve said before, scary smart.
The numbers are out for March pending home sales, and they are very grim, with the pending home sales index falling to it’s lowest level since its founding in 2001, a 1% one month and 20% year over year drop. Of course the NAR is seeing a turnaround in the next few months, like they always do.
We are also seeing increasing signs of inflation, with Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig suggesting that inflation pressures may lead to rate hikes soon, and Toyota to raising prices on their cars, largely as a result of the falling dollar.
On the plus side, however, productivity increased by 2.2% in the first quarter, more than the 1.5% predicted, which should moderate inflation some.
On a more general, “we in a recession” note, retail imports fell 4.8% in March, yet another indicator of a slowdown, that the retailers are cutting back.
Oil hit another record today too.
Details here, here, here, here, and here.
It appears that Scott Bloch was the target of the raid, which appears to be about obstruction of justice, at least that was what was on the subpoena.
Note that Bloch had his disk wiped to NSA standards some time back, and claimed that it was virus removal:
Jeff Phelps, who runs Washington’s Geeks on Call franchise, declined to talk about specific clients, but said calls placed directly by government officials are unusual. He also said erasing a drive is an unusual virus treatment. “We don’t do a seven-level wipe for a virus,” he said.
He used the office for political advantage, and then covered it up.
Why he needed computer consultants to break the law is beyond me though.
In 1989, before it became horrific bloatware, Norton Utilities had this ability, and you could find a dozen or so similar utilities on the Google, but having a receipt like this pretty much slam
I gotta call out Steven Weisman on his article saying that the dollar is showing signs of strengthening after a 6 year trend down. I
It’s very basic. The dollar has been heading down for 6 years…It’s been heading up for 2 weeks.
Please wait at least a few months before declaring the trend over? At this point it is likely still a dead cat bounce.*
*No cats were harmed in the preparation of this blog post.
Basically, it comes down to the Poles wanting money, billions of dollar, to upgrade their defense forces as a condition for hosting the missile base.
One wonders how much of this is plain old extortion, and how much is the Poles trying to avoid signing the deal while Bush is still in office.
In any case, Congress has voted $10 million to the Poles, and they want around $10 billion.
About 3 months ago, I noted that the NAHB was putting a moratorium on political donations to punish Congress for inaction.
Well, it looks like they are back in the bribe campaign donation business again.
They are claiming that it is because they have a tax credit to lobby on, but in reality I think that it’s because no one in Congress really cared that much.
The lesson to be learned is that members of Congress are less concerned about your donations to them than they about the potential of you donating to their opponent.
It appears that non only will they miss the election deadlines, but that the trials will not have started by the time that Bush leaves office either.
This affair is a complete cock-up. We already have the former prosecutor saying that administration officials were demanding convictions because an acquittal would be inconvenient, and , “and one high-ranking Pentagon officer has been quoted talking about the “strategic political value” of doing so before the November elections,” so it looks like this mess will be dumped on whoever is sworn in in 2009, as Will Bunch notes.
Well, if that was the purpose of Indiana’s restrictive voter ID policies, it appears that they have succeeded.
The nuns in question were turned away from the polling place.
There are now statements from representatives in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia that Russia will be taking over full control of military operations, and the Georgian foreign minister is claiming that they are near to war with Russia.
Again, let me say that much of this* is a direct result of NATO’s expansion eastward, in violation of agreements, which has fed Russia’s long tradition of xenophobia and paranoia, and hence has led to these actions.
*Though there is an aspect of Russia attempting to create a sphere of influence in the area too.
It appears that people under investigation in what appear to be politically motivated cases, and those who whistle blow on the same, are being systematically targeted with arson, break ins, and attempts to force their car from the road.
Cases in point:
I want my country back.
*Mongoose Gang reference is here. I went on vacation to Grenada a number of times as a kid, and the name given to Eric Gairy’s group of thugs and bully-boys used to enforce political intimidation always stuck in my head.