Month: June 2010

Oh For F%$#’s Sake!!!!

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Bueller? Bueller.

Google™ Adsense™ is at it again.

This time, the American Spectator magazine, which was a useless pile of deceit to begin with, and now that it’s no longer channeling the specifics of Monica Lewinski’s diet is completely irrelevant, ran an ad on my site.

In the scheme of things, I am sure that it won’t matter to them, it might cost them a penny, and get me ¼¢.

I probably would not have noticed, but for the fact that they were touting their new Senior Editor, Ben Stein. You know, the guy who got fired by the New York Times because he was whoring himself out to one of the “free credit score” scams.

They should have fired him for the advice he was given: You can become very rich by listening to Mr. “The credit crunch is way overblown,” and going the other way.

He is also thee guy who wrote the speech that Nixon never gave about not resigning.

It is amazing how the lamest of the lame seem to achieve success in this world, and then somehow, they appear in the lamest of ads on my blog.

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google™ Adsense™.

Is there a Single Straight Man in the Republican Party?

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I have to invoke this when discussing the travails of anyone named “Kirk”.

And by “Straight Man,” I don’t mean someone who sets up a joke.

Mark Kirk, the Republican running for Barack Obama’s seat in Illinois, has already been outed for exaggerating his military record, and now it appears that he has been just plain outed.

Michael Rogers recounts how when Kirk, who was generally pretty mild on the “hate te ghey” stuff, decided to run for Senate, he went hard right, and he got phone calls:

Until now, Mark Kirk elected not to play the typical Washington game. Instead of supporting his party’s dismal record on gay rights, Kirk received Human Rights Campaign ratings of 67% in 2002, 88% in 2004, 76% in 2006 and 85% in 2008. That’s more impressive than a lot of Democrats. I even let Kirk slide by when he didn’t co-sponsor earlier legislation relating to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. My thoughts then were that he wasn’t THAT bad on gay stuff and that the bill was going nowhere anyway.

………

Within hours of the DADT repeal vote I was contacted by two people who knew Kirk from his college days.

He then goes on to relate how two of his sources gave details on, “described personal details about the House, um, er, ‘member,’ ” and further notes that he (Rogers) was at a party where Kirk essentially admitted that he was gay:

It was at that party that I met Mark Kirk. I was introduced to him by the person I came with and at the time did not realize he was a member of the House. As my friend walked away, Kirk asked me if the man who introduced us was “single or attached.” When I said that he had a partner, Kirk replied disappointingly, “oh, well.” At the end of that interaction I walked away and didn’t think much of it at the time.

I really don’t care who a politician f%$#s, unless it’s the American public, but Kirk has gone Teabagger on this issue simply for political gain, and that means that, as is the case with his vote on DADT, he is screwing the American public out of craven hypocricy.

Furthermore, I think that the closet, whether it’s over sexuality or anything else, is a bad place for anyone who holds power to be, it twists values and world view, and opens them up to blackmail and other forms of coercion.

Needless to say, this makes the row to hoe easier for Friend-of-Barack State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is tied up in the failure of his family’s bank, which includes allegations of fraud, but I still think that this race is Kirk’s to lose.

H/t Crooks and Liars.

Uh-Oh.

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I don’t know what exazctly is going on, but the issuing of corproate bonds has basically fallen off a cliff in the past few days:

The corporate bond market is in the middle of a slump as the appetite for riskier assets has once again dwindled.

No companies issued corporate debt on Friday — the day before Memorial Day weekend — and only five sold bonds the day after the long weekend, according to Dealogic, a financial analytics firm. The last time that happened on a trading day was Sept. 4, 2009 — the Friday before Labor Day weekend.

While this could be partially attributed to the Memorial Day holiday, the slump in corporate bond sales, coupled with rising prices to insure those bonds against default, could be signs that credit markets are tightening again.

I’m a cynic, so my guess is that the insiders know something, but I am not sure what.

IMFed

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Yes, going through a debt crisis means selling off state assets at pennies on the dollar, so that private operators can underfund basic maintenance and overcharge consumers for luxuries like, you know, water:

Greece on Wednesday outlined plans to sell stakes in state-owned railway, water and real estate companies as part of a drive to raise billions of euros to help restore its ailing public finances.

…………

The European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout for the heavily indebted country projects revenue of 1 billion euros ($1.22 billion) per year from privatizations for the 2011-13 period.

…………

As part of the plan, the cash-strapped government will sell 49 percent of loss-making railway company OSE, 39 percent of Hellenic Post, 23 percent of Thessaloniki water EYATH and 10 percent in Athens water EYDAP.

I hope you are ready for the riots when people’s water bills triple overnight.

It’s sh%$ like this makes things worse.

The method is: sell the assets at an undervalued price, remove the revenue stream from your control, and they tell you that net result will be financial stability.

No, it’s just a slope to bankruptcy and the destruction of the middle class, and it is why the IMF is so justifiably despised across the world.

Alabama Primaries, and Thoughts on What It Means

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Parker Griffith, the Blue Dog Democrat turned Republican, just lost his bid for the Republican nomination to Mo Brooks by 18 points, which is generally known as a shellacking.

So, this is the 2nd party switcher with the backing of the national party, Arlen Specter being the other who has lost the primary.

In the other race on interest, Artur Davis got destroyed in his bid for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Alabama, and it was another run away, with 62%-38% to Ron Sparks, where Davis was consistently ahead in the polls the entire time.

Hell, the day before, CNN was writing as if his nomination was a done deal.

Interestingly, in Alabama, the numbers appear to indicate that the margins were the same both in predominantly white, and predominantly black areas, despite the fact that Davis is black, and Sparks is white.

So why did black voters walk away from a black candidate in what could have been a historical race?

Well, they looked at Mr. Davis, and found that he had been running hard to the right, looking at November, because he thought that the primary was a “Slam Dunk.”

Among other things, he:

  • Pointedly disassociated himself from the black community and black organizations in Alabama, refusing to even meet with them, and these organizations came out for Sparks, who actively courted them.
  • Voted against the Obama Healthcare bill. (And was the only member of the CBC to do so)
  • Cozied up to the “cultural conservatives”, which in the USA means people who use code words for, “I want to keep the n*gg*rs down.”

I think that a part of this is a mark of maturity of the black political establishment in Alabama, they looked at policy and character, and decided that pigment did not matter.

I think another part is that Davis pointedly took the black vote for granted, and no voter, regardless of skin color, likes that.

It should be noted too that Artur Davis went to law school with, and was a friend of, Barack Obama, which should have given some more pull with voters.

Actually, this is a more general point, with Specter and Davis on the Democratic side, and with Griffith on the Republican side, and it is that base voters are no longer willing to be taken for granted, not even for a “friend of Barack”.

When they are, and told to suck it up and vote for the party approved candidate, they either vote for the other guy, or they stay home, and my guess is that it is the latter.

To the degree that either party is playing the , “Suck it up and vote for us card,” they will lose.

Unfortunately, while the Republicans have been throwing red meat at their base for the past 2 years, Barack Obama has been studiously cock-punching the DFHs* because he wants to look “post-partisan”.

Unless Obama realizes that compromise in the interest of appearing bipartisan creates both bad policy and bad politics, November will not be pretty.

I have come to the conclusion that Karl Rove’s real genius in his political work was not his completely amoral methods, but an understanding that, except in extreme circumstances,† motivating out the base wins elections.

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.
†A pointless war, “Heck of a job, Brownie”, Congressmen hitting on under pages, Terri Sciavo, and corruption and venality that just buggered the mind.

Does Jordan River Water Make You Stupid?

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Because it does appear that stupidity is way too common in the Middle East.

Case in point: After 9 deaths, and a major propaganda victory, Hamas is refusing the supplies that the ships were trying to deliver:

Israel has attempted to deliver humanitarian aid from an international flotilla to Gaza, but Hamas — which controls the territory — has refused to accept the cargo, the Israel Defense Forces said Wednesday.

Palestinian sources confirmed that trucks that arrived from Israel at the Rafah terminal at the Israel-Gaza border were barred from delivering the aid.

Does this place make people stupid-crazy, or is it that the people who aren’t stupid-crazy simply leave?

I’m just wondering, because there has been an endemic of stupid over the past 72 hours or so.

Economics Update

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The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index fell from 60.4 in April to 59.7 in May. Note that this is still expansion, but it is a slower rate of growth.

Seeing as how the 2nd derivative is a pretty twitchy number anyway, I’d wait for the June numbers, and perhaps July, to see if there is a trend.

Meanwhile, construction rose by 2.7% from March to April, the largest one month jump in almost 10 years.

Additionally, serious mortgage delinquencies fell marginally, but since this is the first time that they have fallen since the real estate bubble started to pop in 2007.

Meanwhile, in the department of, “If you listen to the Germans when you set up a currency, you will get screwed,” unemployment in the Euro zone rose to 10.1% in April. (PDF)

Why Do I Torture Myself?

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I know I shouldn’t have, but I read an Amity Shlaes opinion piece again, and this one suggests that regulating banks should be handled in the same way that a social networking site for 10-13 year olds polices itself, because, it’s like, you know, too tough to regulate things.

I think that Barbie put it best, when she said, “Math is hard.”

Gah!!!!

I think that what got to me the most was her brief bio at the end which noted that, “Amity Shlaes [is a] senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations.”

Here is someone who does not have a degree in economics, or history. She has a BA in English, she doesn’t understand, or worse does understand and lies with, statistics, and she is a senior fellow in economic history at the CFR?

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our public institutions?

And what’s wrong with the publications that employ her?

At least the FT had the good sense to fire her incompetent lying ass.

OK, So Al and Tipper Gore are Separating

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It’s really no one’s business but their own. They are both over 60, and they have been married for 40 years.

It’s really none of our business.

So, why am I writing about this?

Because once again, the Washington Post demonstrates just how horrible a human being you have to be in order to have some sort of gig writing opinions for them.

In this case, it’s Stephen Stromberg, who is suggesting that there was something “false” about their kiss at the Democratic Convention in 2000 because they are getting separated now.

He’s making a point about people complaining about Obama being too cook, but he can’t manage not to take a shot at a married couple who are breaking up after 40 years, because that’s what the Beltway Kule Kidz do.

Mr. Stromberg, I’m sure that you don’t read my screeds, but you are a miserable human being, and I would not piss on you if you were on fire.

Full disclosure: I did actually vote for Nader in 2000, because my vote did not matter, as I lived in Texas, and I regret that vote to this day.

About F%$#ing Time!!!!

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The Department of Justice has opened up a criminal investigation of BP’s oil spill.

I don’t know if laws were broken, but we have an environmental disaster, and eleven people died, so there should have been an investigation as soon as the fires were put out.

Of course, prosecuting wrong-doers is looking back and not forward, so I understand why Eric Holder was so loathe to look at BP’s actions.

In the Obama administration, prosecution for things that occurred in the past is generally reserved for whistle-blowers who reveal lawbreaking by Bush and His Evil Minions™.

On the Legality of Executing a Blockade in International Waters

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It’s come up in the comments, and Galrahn at Information Dissemination, who is arguably one of the most knowledgeable about things Naval out there, nails the issues of maritime law when he says that, “Israeli Actions Are Stupid, But Legal.

He notes that armed stop and seize operations in international waters have always been legal, they are routine operations in US anti-drug operations, for example, and Israel had declared a blockade, and a blockade area:

Under international law, the consensus of the maritime attorney’s I have spoken to is that the boarding operation by Israel was legal. The coast of Gaza has been under maritime blockade by Israel, a blockade that was well known – indeed running the maritime blockade for political purposes was the specific intent of the protesters. It is why the press had been reporting all week that the situation was likely leading towards a confrontation. Is anyone surprised that Israel had an established maritime blockade and enforced that maritime blockade? I’m certainly not, Israel made clear all week that the flotilla would not be allowed to pass.

The maritime blockade is a result of the war between Israel and Hamas. Ones political position on that ongoing war is completely irrelevant to the reality that the maritime blockade was established. Knowledge of the maritime blockade by the protesters is also not in debate, and neither is knowledge the flotilla intended to violate the blockade – they made this clear themselves in the press. Once the flotilla made it clear in the press they intended to run the maritime blockade, according to international law, and even US law, the flotilla was considered to be in breach by attempting to violate the blockade.

………

The truly scary part is that under international laws governing maritime blockades, Israel could have outright sank the ship instead of board it as an alternative enforcement of the maritime blockade, and Israel still been within their rights under international law. Such an action could have led to war with Turkey, but even if the ship would have been sunk, Turkey would still be on the wrong end of international law in this situation. Turkey will likely find plenty of populist political support in NATO countries over these events, but if they attempt to escalate they may find that support is fleeting among their NATO allies.

(emphasis mine)

It is that last paragraph that makes it clear just how f%$#ed up everything is.

You can argue over whether the blockade is an illegal mass punishment of the population (illegal), or an attempt to deny war materiel to Hamas (legal), but the execution of a stop/search/seize order in a declared blockade zone even if that zone includes international waters, is clearly legal.