Month: April 2010

Jon Stewart: National Treasure

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I don’t think that Jon Stewart is saying that all Republicans are Racists, but he is saying that this Republican calling into to CSPAN is a racist, and he is also making a comment on the sort of, “Opinions on the shape of the Earth differ,” coverage that you see amongst people who see themselves as members of the journalistic community.

Fundamentally, one of the major problems in our political discourse these days is that fact that there is literally nothing that a right-winger can say, no matter how bigoted or deceitful, that can get a meaningful push-back from the gentleman in the 4th estate.

You Keep Using That Word. I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means*

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USA Today headline, “In good sign for economy: Hiring rebounds on Wall Street.”

More Wall Street brokers, cutting more deals, with other people’s money, using more and more opaque instruments is supposed to be a, “Good sign for economy.”

It’s a pity that the author, Paul Davidson, apparently understands neither English nor the economy.

*The quote is from The Princess Bride.

Gunmen Wearing Military Uniforms, My Ass

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When gunmen in military uniforms stormed the the Sunni village of Albusaifi, and shot 24 people, you can be pretty sure that they were, in fact, soldiers.

One of the recurring themes during the ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from many parts of Baghdad was that the attackers were, “Dressed as security forces.”

This was not because these uniforms are floating around the street for anyone to pick up. It was because they were soldiers and police, and they were acting with the tacit approval of the Iraqi government.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, knew what was going on, and approved of what was going on, which is why the ethnic cleansing went into high gear in 2006, following his ascension to the PM’s office.

Maliki has been implacably hostile to incorporating the Sunni “Sons of Iraq,” Sunni militiaman recruited to fight against Al Qaeda, into the state security apparatus, as promised, and has directed a program of harassment and arrest against them.

This is just the next step in this process.

Barney Frank Goes Nuclear on Former Staffer

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And let me note that the staffer, Peter Roberson, deserves it.

Basically, this guy took lead on writing regulations on derivatives, and then he started shopping himself to hedge funds, and this Really pissed off Barney Frank:

But in late January, after learning that Roberson was interviewing for a position with ICE, Frank asked him to leave his post, removed him from the payroll, de-activated his email account and took his Blackberry, keys and identification credentials, according to both Frank and Frank’s spokesman.

And if that weren’t enough:

Frank said there is a rule which bans staffers who leave for industry positions from interacting with committee members for one year, but he doesn’t think this rule goes far enough.

Frank said Thursday he has instructed staff “to have no contact whatsoever with Mr. Roberson on any matters involving financial regulation for as long as I am in charge of that committee staff.”

(emphasis mine)

I will note that Frank did this a year ago with another former aid, where he forbade contact with Goldman Sachs lobbyist, and former committee staffer, Michael Paese, from contacting the committee while they were working on reform legislation, but that was only while the bill was being drawn up.

I am not sure if this has happened because Roberson’s behavior was particularly egregious, or if it was because the bleeding in staff was becoming excessive, but this is a much needed shot across the bow of the revolving door in the US Congress.

In either case, it’s pretty clear that Roberson is now radioactive, and that his market value as a peddler of access has been much diminished.

Frank’s official statement after break:

Statement of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank

Washington, DC – House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) today made the following statement about stories related to a recent staff departure from the House Financial Services Committee:

“Several people have expressed criticism of the move by Peter Roberson from the staff of the Financial Services Committee to ICE, after he worked on the legislation relevant to derivatives. I completely agree with that criticism. When Mr. Roberson was hired, it never occurred to me that he would jump so quickly from the Committee staff to an industry that was being affected by the Committee’s legislation. When he called me to tell me that he was in conversations with them, I told him that I was disappointed and that I insisted that he take no further action as a member of the Committee staff. I then called the Staff Director and instructed her to remove him from the payroll and provide him only such compensation as is already owed.

“Stories about this correctly noted that there is a one year ban on his interaction with members of the Committee staff, but I do not think that is adequate. I am therefore instructing the staff of the Financial Services Committee to have no contact whatsoever with Mr. Roberson on any matters involving financial regulation for as long as I am in charge of that Committee staff. Fortunately, examples of staff members doing what Mr. Roberson has done are rare, but even one example is far too much and that is why I wanted to make clear I share the unhappiness of people at this, and my intention to prohibit any contact between him and members of the staff for as long as I have any control over the matter.”

###

Jon Stewart Nails CNN

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I really do not to ever piss off Jon Stewart!

He comments on Eric Erickson, who has moved from the Red State blog to a pundit at CNN, and Stewart notes that the expressions of shock from CNN about the incendiary nature of his posts rings about as true as, “The guy at the strip club who says, ‘I’m going to hang out, but I’m not getting a lap dance, I’m here for the buffet.’ “

BTW, Erickson’s latest, that he would pull a gun on census takers.

Credit Where Credit is Due

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Notwithstanding what appears to be no small amount of stonewalling on the Pat Tillman death, it appears that Stanley McChrystal is being remarkably forthright on issues involving excessive use of force at check-points in Afghanistan:

Q: “On Escalation of force, have you considered engaging the local community on the issue? We could explain at the brigade/battalion level what behavior we find threatening, and how we are trained to react when we feel threatened. We could negotiate with the community leaders over mutually agreeable actions and reactions that are better understood by both and gives part ownership of the issue to the community and empowers them in line with our approach to reintegration.”

GEN McChrystal: “That’s a great point. I don’t know if we have, but we certainly ought to be doing that. We have so many escalation of force issues, and someone gets hurt in the process, and we say, ‘They didn’t respond like they were supposed to.’ Well, they may not have known how they were supposed to respond, so as they approached an area or checkpoint or whatever, they may have taken actions that seemed appropriate to them, and when a warning shot was fired they may have panicked. I think this is a great thing to do, to engage people and tell them the kind of behavior on their part that would lower the chance that they would run into problems.

“I do want to say something that everyone understands. We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there’s danger, they’re asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it. That doesn’t mean I’m criticizing the people who are executing. I’m just giving you perspective. We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”

(emphasis mine)

What he is saying here is that none of the shootings have prevented an actual threat to the forces.

He is very careful not to criticize the troops, but it appears to me that he is criticizing the rules of engagement, which, given the generally opaque response of the chain of command in such incidents, is remarkably frank.

Osama, Take Me Now!

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Just when you thought that the fashion industry in general, and the makers of perfume in particular, could not get any more insane, they give us Vulva Original, a vagina scented perfume.

No, this is not a joke, it’s real, complete with a web site featuring a video which, for lack of a better term, climaxes in a man sniffing a bicycle seat.

Whiskey tango foxtrot?

You know, the supposition that certain backward religious nut-jobs make that our society is evil, corrupt, and irredeemably icky is becoming more and more plausible.

Economics Update (For the Week)

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Employment/Population Ratio Still at 1983 Levels


Long-term unemployment is still at a 40+ Year high


Personal bankruptcies on level with pre-bankruptcy reform numbers (H/t Calculated Risk)

Well, we have the employment numbers for March out now, and the March non-farm payroll numbers (NFP) rose by 162,000, with unemployment (U3)remaining at 9.7%, and the broader U6 unemployment number remained basically flat, increasing from 16.8% to 16.9% (seasonally adjusted).

This is an improvement. It’s the largest NFP jump in 3 years.

That being said, some things to note:

  • The US Census hired 48,000 temp employees in March.
  • You need about 150,000 new jobs each month to accommodate people entering the workforce.
  • Some of this may be hiring from prior months that was delayed because of the various snowpocalypse weather events that occurred.
  • Long term unemployment increased.
  • Involuntary part time employment increased (largely why U6 is up)

About 8 million people have lost jobs in this recessions, and at a NFP payroll increase of 162K a month, it would take more than 50 years for everyone who lost their jobs to get another job, so while it is an improvement, things are at best treading water, but the trend does appear to be getting better.

Still, the employment/population ratio is at a 27 year low, and long term unemployment is at a 40+ year high.

Also, we have

Still, all in all, I have to say that we are seeing a recovery, but it’s a feeble and fragile recovery.

We still have some areas of concern, most notably that construction spending fell once again, and personal bankruptcies rose sharply.

Yes, It Probably Is Abused

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Something that popped up some time after I graduated school was the rise of unpaid internships, and it appears that authorities are beginning to look at them for labor and wage law violations:

With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

I would be inclined to agree.

My father, my mother, and my older brother all went to the (lamentably now closed, at least until 2012) Antioch College, and I considered going there myself, and they had a co-op job program, where work credits were required to graduate, and this was for paid positions, so the idea of huge numbers of unpaid students doing scut work seems to me to be more of an opportunity to get free labor than of any legitimate educational need.

Additionally, I think that the growth of unpaid internships may hide a darker agenda, specifically that with the growth of this practice, and the necessity of this sort of experience to enter some fields, it creates an unlevel playing field for people in many fields:

While many colleges are accepting more moderate- and low-income students to increase economic mobility, many students and administrators complain that the growth in unpaid internships undercuts that effort by favoring well-to-do and well-connected students, speeding their climb up the career ladder.

Many less affluent students say they cannot afford to spend their summers at unpaid internships, and in any case, they often do not have an uncle or family golf buddy who can connect them to a prestigious internship.

Additionally, the laws regarding discrimination and sexual harassment appear not to apply to interns, since they are not employees, so the opportunities for abuse are rife.

Terrorist Gets Life in Prison

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Scott Roeder has been sentenced to life in prison for the assassination of doctor George Tiller:

Scott Roeder, the antiabortion extremist who murdered George Tiller, one of a handful of American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was sentenced to life in prison in a Wichita, Kan., courtroom Thursday and will not be eligible for parole for more than 50 years.

Here is hoping that he has a truly awful time in prison.

He will be 102 before he is eligible for parole.

Runners Up in the 2010 April Fools Competition

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Nate Silver Can be Annoying,* But

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He knows his math, as shown by his take-down of the study by Veronique de Rugy of George Mason University and the National Review† claiming to show that stimulus went disproportionately to Democratic districts.

You see, much of the aid under the stimulus package was direct aid to the states, which, of course, was sent to state capitals, like Sacramento, and Albany, and then disbursed from there to the rest of the state.

It turns out that state capitals, with their generally urban character, and having a large, and usually significantly unionized workforce, tend to be more liberal than the state as a whole, but what is more significant, is that the money that goes to these state capitals does not generally end up there; it is allocated by the governors or legislatures all over the states:

That de Rugy has testified before Congress on the basis of her evidence, and never paused to consider why the top five congressional districts on her list overlap with Sacramento, Albany, Austin, Tallahassee and Harrisburg, is mind-boggling. The presence of a state capital is the overwhelmingly dominant factor it predicting the dispensation of stimulus funds. This could have been discerned in literally five minutes if she had bothered to look at the apparent outliers in her dataset and considered whether they had anything in common — a practice that should be among the first things that any researcher does when evaluating any dataset.

Once you read his analysis, it’s pretty simple to see the flaw, but it is one that is hard to spot in the first place.

Basically, if you make any sorts of block grants to the states, they go to the capitals, and are then disbursed all around the states, so if you only go 1 or 2 levels down, you make it look like the stimulus program is a Democratic pork project.

The reality is far different.

*I tend to find his political analysis largely directed at either cock-punching DFH’s,‡ or mindlessly contrarian, kind like a mini-Michael Kinsley.
†2 strikes against her credibility there to start.
‡Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

I Call Best April Fools of the Season

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Gotta love the Grauniad*

Well, we now have a report that Labor is going to campaign on reports that Gordon Brown is violent and abusive with people:

In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown’s reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in “a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain”, the Guardian has learned.

Following months of allegations about Brown’s explosive outbursts and bullying, Downing Street will seize the initiative this week with a national billboard campaign portraying him as “a sort of Dirty Harry figure”, in the words of a senior aide. One poster shows a glowering Brown alongside the caption “Step outside, posh boy,” while another asks “Do you want some of this?”

Brown aides had worried that his reputation for volatility might torpedo Labour’s hopes of re-election, but recent internal polls suggest that, on the contrary, stories of Brown’s testosterone-fuelled eruptions have been almost entirely responsible for a recent recovery in the party’s popularity. As a result, the aide said, Labour was “going all in”, staking the election on the hope that voters will be drawn to an alpha-male personality who “is prepared to pummel, punch or even headbutt the British economy into a new era of jobs and prosperity”.

………

It’s not real, but it should be, and Barack Obama might want to consider a similar course of action.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”