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I l-o-v-e Carly

2010-06-16T02:29:00.001-07:00

I don’t know how you can run for governor or senator or anything above dogcatcher when you are labelled one of the 20 worst CEO’s. Not worst of the year, or decade but of all-time!
I think that you have to love someone with amount of gall. Go Carly Fiorina, Go! Maybe you can screw up [...]

I don’t know how you can run for governor or senator or anything above dogcatcher when you are labelled one of the 20 worst CEO’s. Not worst of the year, or decade but of all-time!

19th worst CEO of all-time

I think that you have to love someone with amount of gall. Go Carly Fiorina, Go! Maybe you can screw up something else as badly as you screwed up HP (lost half its value with her at the helm).

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Candidate for best Shuttle pic

2010-06-15T00:49:00.001-07:00

This pic was taken by an Air Force jet that was patrolling the area when the Shuttle Atlantis took off.

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Wes Montgomery

2010-06-13T20:40:00.003-07:00

After last night’s music video, I thought that I had to do better. So, how about some Wes Montgomery?

Artist: Wes Montgomery
Tune: Round Midnight

After last night’s music video, I thought that I had to do better. So, how about some Wes Montgomery?

Artist: Wes Montgomery

Tune: Round Midnight

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Grab bag – Sunday Night

2010-06-13T20:40:00.001-07:00

Celtics are playing great basketball. They are on the boards and they are making their shots. Kobe is shooting lights out but the rest of the team seems to be wonderland. It is midway through the 3rd quarter.
Something smells rotten in the SC elections.
Barbara Bush, daughter of the former president, thinks that healthcare is a [...]

Celtics are playing great basketball. They are on the boards and they are making their shots. Kobe is shooting lights out but the rest of the team seems to be wonderland. It is midway through the 3rd quarter.

Something smells rotten in the SC elections.

Barbara Bush, daughter of the former president, thinks that healthcare is a right. Hey, she has her own thoughts. I’m proud of her. (I wonder if Liz Cheney will put her in a headlock until she says insurance companies are good.)

Boehner is changing his tune on whether or not BP should pay for the spill.

Rand Paul isn’t Board Certified. That’s interesting.

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Oh, Pat you are so 2008

2010-06-12T21:22:00.003-07:00

Pat Robertson is still on TV and talking. All I can say is wow!
From TP:
Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman [...]

Pat Robertson is still on TV and talking. All I can say is wow!

From TP:

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman who was concerned that her husband frequently flirts with “other women he finds attractive.” Naturally, Robertson blamed the wife, advising her to “make yourself as attractive as possible,” and to not “hassle him about it,” lest she “drive him away”:

CO-HOST: Pat, this is from Anne who says, “My husband has always been a flirt and loves to talk with other women he finds attractive. He says he would never cheat on me but his actions are starting to get to me. What should I do?”

ROBERTSON: Anne, first thing is you need to make yourself as attractive as possible and don’t hassle him about it. And why is he doing this? Well, he’s doing it because he wants affirmation that he is still a man, that he is attractive — and he gets an affirmation of himself. That means he’s got an inferiority complex that’s coming out. And he’s not gonna cheat on you. He’s just playing.

But you need to not drive him away or start hassling and hounding on him, but make yourself as beautiful as you can, as fun as you can, and say let’s go out here, let’s go there, let’s go to the other thing.

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Usher – OMG

2010-06-12T21:22:00.001-07:00

There are some artists that I just don’t get. Usher is one of those artists.

Artist: Usher with will.i.am
Tune: OMG

There are some artists that I just don’t get. Usher is one of those artists.

Artist: Usher with will.i.am

Tune: OMG

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Who is Mister Clutch in basketball?

2010-06-10T19:05:00.003-07:00

Before I go into who is Mister Clutch, I must say that this post has been inspired by Alan Siegel and his article in Slate.com. His article reminds me of the time I went to a Carolina Panthers football game. I was fortunate to get some very good seats. I was sitting no more than [...]

Before I go into who is Mister Clutch, I must say that this post has been inspired by Alan Siegel and his article in Slate.com. His article reminds me of the time I went to a Carolina Panthers football game. I was fortunate to get some very good seats. I was sitting no more than 10 or 15 rows up. The guys in front of me had season tickets. He said something strange during one play which made me realize he did not understand professional football. Yes, he understood that there’s blocking, tackling, passing and running. He understood how the ball moves down the field and the basics of football. He did not understand about zone blitzes, route options and some of the other nuances of the game. I guess it is watching without understanding what he was seeing.

This brings me to Alan Siegel’s article. He spends quite a bit of time trying to prove whether or not Kobe Bryant is the man that you want to take the last shot to win the game. This of course plays into America’s fetish, myth or love affair (depending on your point of view) with Superman like characters. In my mind, Superman is the superhero that most exemplifies America’s ideals. Just when all hope is lost, one man, one hero will swoop in at the last minute and save the day. This is the assumption of the clutch shot or clutch player. We’ve all heard the scenario before, you were down by one point and there is 10 seconds on the clock, who do you want to take the last shot? This assumes the unrealistic scenario that you’re playing one on five basketball. Your four teammates are going for a smoke break while you are maneuvering for the last shot.

One of the things that I like about Kobe Bryant over the last 2 to 3 years is that he is figured out the game of basketball. This really is a team sport. You can’t pull one player out and ask how clutch is that player. Let’s look at Kevin Garnett who everyone would say is a great basketball player but nobody mentions his name in the discussion of who do you want to take the last shot. Why? Because Kevin Garnett played with awful teams while he was suffering in Minnesota. The majority of the time, the game was a blowout by the time the fourth quarter rolled around. Now, let’s get back to Kobe Bryant and how his game has improved. In Los Angeles he is the man. The offense runs through him. He decides how to run the play. He decides whether it is best to take a jump shot or drive to the basket. Once he drives to the basket, he decides whether to shoot or to dish to one of his teammates. This is where Kobe Bryant’s game has changed. It is now less about him taking the last shot and more about the team winning. He is more likely to pass the ball to an open teammate like Derek Fisher who drains the three pointer at the buzzer.

I’m not arguing for or against Kobe Bryant being the best in the clutch. Instead, I’m arguing that being great in the clutch has more to do with decision-making than it does to shooting in today’s NBA. I have no idea how you’d measure this was a statistic. Except, perhaps, winning percentage. Maybe the fact that Lebron James is at home and Kobe Bryant is still playing says more about their decision-making ability than it does about their ability to shoot the basketball.

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Progressives – a force for good or self?

2010-06-10T19:05:00.001-07:00

Nice post from Mark Karlin over at Buzzflash:
We hope that the Blanche Lincoln and Jane Harmon primary victories against two progressive challengers don’t open another round of finger pointing and bitter recriminations among progressives. There is too much at stake.
When I started BuzzFlash in May of 2000, before Bush was put in the White House [...]

Nice post from Mark Karlin over at Buzzflash:

We hope that the Blanche Lincoln and Jane Harmon primary victories against two progressive challengers don’t open another round of finger pointing and bitter recriminations among progressives. There is too much at stake.

When I started BuzzFlash in May of 2000, before Bush was put in the White House by the Supreme Court, progressives and Democrats in general were looking for a voice to call out the Republicans for what they are: Bullies, Liars, Hypocrites and full of Gluttonous Greed. BuzzFlash to hundreds of thousands became that voice for several years until blogs emerged and became thousands of individual voices. The Internet became the vehicle for exposing and challenging the dishonest and thuggish theocratic oligarchy of the GOP, as the corporate mainstream media gobbled down Republican talking points and regurgitated them in stories as the “truth.” The Internet was — for many years — the sole counterpoint to a “frame,” as George Lakoff labels it, that the GOP successfully uses to control the debate on public policy issues and skewer that discussion to the hard right.

But with the emergence of an Obama Administration that is filled with Centrists and that has leaned heavily toward corporatist governance, progressives and Democrats have split into two camps: those who are critical of Obama’s frequent siding with the status quo and those who argue that he can’t do anymore because of the booby traps he inherited from Reagan, Bush I and Bush II administrations. But remember this: there is nothing that the entrenched elite and the Republicans want more than progressives to be engaged in a shooting war at each other.

BuzzFlash has not been immune from this fray, that we admit. But we do believe that progressives need to look beyond the politics to our goal of seeing government and Americans working on behalf of the common good — and to our long-held objective of healing the planet. Achieving these goals involve more than electing individuals; they involve building movements. We are awash in a sea of easy Internet “action,” when we need to realize that most great advances in the U.S. — Civil Rights, the Vote for Women, Labor improvements — have come as the result of movements that preceded legislative remedies.

Movements require shoe leather, organization and loud voices, not e-mail petitions that are quickly deleted if they ever even arrive in a Congressional or Senate Offices. Movements require sweat equity, courage, perseverance, self-sacrifice and determination. Movements can change the world; E-mails to Congress won’t.

Progressives need to rally behind what unites us, instead of getting caught again and again in the dashed hopes of supporting individual candidates who — for the most part — inevitably become a part of the Washington elite status quo of a revolving door between government and corporations. We must become the change by making Washington and local elected officials respond to the force of movements that cannot be denied. Lyndon Johnson would have never championed Civil Rights if there had not been years of movement activity and charismatic non-politician leadership behind the cause of equal rights.

Recently, Rabbi Brant Rosen, of the Jewish Reconstructionist Synagogue in Evanston, Illinois, wrote in an E-mail: “For me, the notion of ‘joy as service’ is fundamentally different from the kind of joy that is simply rooted in the self – ‘joy as narcissism,’ if you will. As Leo Tolstoy once wisely observed, ‘Joy can only be real if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.’”

That is the challenge that we face as progressives, to achieve through movement activity a “joy” that “can only be real if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves.”

This must become our beacon, our guiding light; we must rise above the notion that politicians will implement what is necessary to advance our democracy on an equitable and environmental basis without being forced to do so.

We must become the force that powered movements and social advances in the past. Legislation will follow only if we put our convictions into action and force elected officials to do the right thing.

Otherwise, big money will pull the strings, and we will be left bickering among ourselves on the Internet and shouting curses at FOX television in the comfort of our homes.

MARK KARLIN FOR BUZZFLASH, EDITOR’S BLOG

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Twitter overload?

2010-06-09T16:55:00.003-07:00

I saw this on Twitter a couple of minutes ago.

Twitter over capacity can’t be good for Twitter. It is like AOL back in the day (mid-90’s) going down.

I saw this on Twitter a couple of minutes ago.

Twitter over capacity can’t be good for Twitter. It is like AOL back in the day (mid-90’s) going down.

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9 Essential measures for transparency

2010-06-09T16:55:00.001-07:00

Financial Reform and transparency haven’t gone hand and hand. The Project on Government Oversight has a few recommendations:

BRING FULL TRANSPARENCY TO THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS:
Make the conference proceedings fully transparent by broadcasting them on C-SPAN and webcasting them online.
PROTECT FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY WHISTLEBLOWERS:
Extend best-practices whistleblower protections to financial services industry employees.
AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE:
Give the Government [...]

Financial Reform and transparency haven’t gone hand and hand. The Project on Government Oversight has a few recommendations:

BRING FULL TRANSPARENCY TO THE CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS:

Make the conference proceedings fully transparent by broadcasting them on C-SPAN and webcasting them online.

PROTECT FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY WHISTLEBLOWERS:

Extend best-practices whistleblower protections to financial services industry employees.

AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE:

Give the Government Accountability Office the authority to conduct an ongoing audit of the Federal Reserve, and require the Fed to make key information about its emergency lending programs available online.

CREATE A STRONG AND INDEPENDENT CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION AGENCY:

Create a truly independent, standalone Consumer Financial Protection Agency with full authority to issue rules and regulations to protect consumers.

REWARD WHISTLEBLOWERS WHO MAKE DISCLOSURES TO THE SEC AND CFTC:

Expand the whistleblower bounty program at the Securities and Exchange Commission and create an identical program at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Additionally, replace a secrecy provision and FOIA exemption with authentic whistleblower confidentiality protections.

EXPAND SARBANES-OXLEY WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTIONS:

Extend Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower protections to employees of subsidiaries and affiliates of publicly traded companies, and of nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.

ADDRESS CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AT CREDIT RATING AGENCIES:

Create a Credit Rating Agency Board to help address the basic conflict of interest arising from “ratings shopping.”

STRENGTHEN THE INDEPENDENCE OF FINANCIAL AGENCY WATCHDOGS:

Strengthen the independence of certain agency appointed Inspectors General (IGs), including the IGs at many financial regulatory agencies.

ADDRESS CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AT FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS:

Amend the election process for directors at Federal Reserve Banks in order to limit the influence of the financial services industry.

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Turn up the hype machine: Lakers versus Celtics

2010-06-04T17:26:00.001-07:00

In what is certainly a dream matchup for the NBA, tonight the Los Angeles Lakers take on the Boston Celtics. Two storied franchises which tangled in the 60s, 70s and most recently in the 80s. Everybody remembers the great teams of the 1980s. With Larry Bird and the Celtics taking on Magic Johnson and the Lakers. The games were epic. For those of us who were really into basketball in the middle 80s, we still remember these teams extremely fondly. Both teams played tremendous basketball. Both teams had five great starters and one or two outstanding people that came off the bench.

Kobe Bryant versus Ray Allen

That was then, now we have Kobe Bryant and the Lakers versus Kevin Garnet, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce and the Celtics. I think that Kobe Bryant is playing the best basketball of his career. He is now smart enough to know when to pass and when to keep the ball. He knows it is possible to win without them scoring 50 points every game. As a matter fact, as his body ages, he had to learn this if he wants more championships. In my opinion, his team played a somewhat disappointing game six against the Phoenix Suns. The rest of the team with the exception of Ron Artest played mediocre at best. Ron Artest was the ex-factor. In spite of being a bunion on the foot of modern basketball he still knows how to play.

This is going to be an extremely interesting matchup. The age of the Boston Celtics is extremely important. Basketball is a young man’s game. Therefore, if I’m the Lakers I’m going to try to run. Fast breaks, quick outlet passes, very little set offense. I’m going to try to act like the Phoenix Suns. I wanted to tire the Boston Celtics. I want to see Kevin Garnet and Paul Pierce bent over with their hands on their knees. I think the Lakers can do this. The advantage of pushing the ball will not come until the third or fourth game of the series.

I think the Boston Celtics match up pretty well in a set offense. I think they have the height and the strength to match up with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Celtics need to stay healthy. They need to slow the game down. In my opinion, the big three — Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnet — have become the little three. They have become complementary to Rajon Rondo. In my opinion, he is the key to the series. He is extremely quick. If he’s able to take advantage of Derek Fisher, this is going to be a long series for the Lakers. Rondo is the key to the Celtics success. If he plays well, he will pull the little three along with him in Boston will win another championship title.

I know that there are some that are going to freak out because I didn’t say that Kobe Bryant is the key to the series. In my opinion, he is not. Kobe Bryant is going to play great basketball. This is a given. Just as the sun will rise in the east and set in the west tomorrow, Kobe Bryant will do everything that he can to win. The Celtics are not going to be able to stop Kobe. Therefore, the Celtics must stop everybody else. The Celtics must dominate the glass. They must slow down the game. They have to prevent those long three pointers by Derek Fisher and the other Lakers. They have to stop that little two-man game that Kobe Bryant has with Pau Gasol. They have to keep Lamar Odom in check. Bynum and Artest must be neutralized. This is how the Boston Celtics can win this series in five or six games.

This series will be worth the price of admission. Hype this all you want. The stars will be there. Tom Cruise, Spike Lee, Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman and others will be at courtside. Turn up the hype machine. This will be a great series.

This is my two cents.

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How much money do these big banks owe you?

2010-05-28T07:24:00.001-07:00

I originally posted this a couple of months ago. We still need to break up the banks and we are still owed money so, I thought I would re-post.
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment report showing that 162,000 jobs were added in the month of March. Republicans look for the [...]

I originally posted this a couple of months ago. We still need to break up the banks and we are still owed money so, I thought I would re-post.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment report showing that 162,000 jobs were added in the month of March. Republicans look for the bad in the numbers, the Democrats look for the good and the reality was somewhere in the middle. It is nice that the economy has started adding jobs. The economy has added jobs three out of the last four months, yet we’re still in a huge jobs hole. In order to get the unemployment rate of 9.7% back down to the pre-recession rate of 5.0%, we need at least 11 million jobs. At our current rate it will take a 67 months to create 11 million jobs, just over five years. Who is willing to wait for five years?

I’m in the middle of reading Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short. The whole subprime mortgage market was a big scam. These Wall Street banks would come up with new and exciting ways to entice people who could not afford a house to take out a mortgage on a house. As far as I know, it wasn’t illegal but it was unethical. The system was predicated on rising housing values. As long as the housing values rose, the folks with adjustable mortgages would simply refinance. (Many of us worry about the cost of refinancing, but those costs were waived in many of these subprime mortgages.) I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of derivatives. It seems like the purpose of derivatives is to hide the true risk and value of a particular security or commodity. It is like using Photoshop to morph me into Denzel Washington. That’s just wrong. If you are looking for Denzel and get me, I guarantee that you are going to be pissed!! Probably the only thing more deceptive and deceitful than derivatives would be these CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), which are nothing more than bundled derivatives. So, just in case you were able to figure out what was in a particular derivative, it became nearly impossible to figure out what was in the CDO. The big banks would then get a credit rating agency like Moody’s to put their AAA stamp of approval on these heaps of garbage. Then they would sell these heaps of garbage to your pension fund and my mutual fund. Funds would buy these things because they were AAA rated by S&P or Moody’s.

So, back to my original question, how much do these big banks owe you and me? When Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch began to implode in 2008, you and I came to the rescue. The government, using our money, decided that these guys were too big to fail (except for Lehmans, the government let them fail). Failure would’ve caused a catastrophic collapse of our financial system that’s what we were told. So, we reached deep into our pockets and pulled out hundreds of billions of dollars. Over the last several months, many of these banks have been paying back a large chunks of the billions of dollars we lent them. Once they pay all of the $700 billion back, are we square? My answer is no.. not even close. This guy (Andrew Haldane) over the Bank of England calculated that the irresponsibility of these large financial firms has cost the world approximately $4 trillion. When you think about job layoffs, businesses that had to close because the credit markets all froze up, the loss in value of retirement plans, yup… $4 trillion sounds about right.

The big question is how do we collect? It is clear that they owe us. I don’t think that we will ever get paid. I don’t think that we will ever get back the money that we lost because of their incompetence, arrogance and stupidity. The one thing that we can do is to make sure that this never happens again. We have to break up the banks. I don’t think that breaking them up into large chunks is a good idea. We need to break them up in such a way that they can fail without jeopardizing our economy. According to Robert Reich, $100 billion should be the upper limit. Okay, I can agree with this number. It is arbitrary. The loss of $100 billion is not going to bring down our economy. I like the number. (I also want to get rid of credit default swaps and derivatives need to be regulated, as do these huge pools of money called hedge funds.) So, it’s time to push Congress, and especially the Senate, towards better regulation and breaking up these huge banks and financial institutions.

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Grab Bag – Wednesday Night

2010-05-27T07:14:00.001-07:00

It is sad when you are so old that it takes you several days to recover from a very busy day in the hospital. Anyway, I would like to throw a couple things to you on a Wednesday evening.

The US government has ordered British Petroleum to use a less toxic disbursement. I was just wondering, [...]

It is sad when you are so old that it takes you several days to recover from a very busy day in the hospital. Anyway, I would like to throw a couple things to you on a Wednesday evening.

Microsoft vs Apple

The US government has ordered British Petroleum to use a less toxic disbursement. I was just wondering, when they use the disbursement where does the oil go? If we’re just spreading it around, how is that helpful?

Is Apple King of the hill? Is Microsoft yesterday’s news?

BP may be intentionally underestimating the amount of oil that’s being released into the Gulf in order to save the company millions of dollars.

Former Detroit mayor gets 18 months in jail for being a moron. I’m not sure how he figured he would be able to lie in court and get away with it.

James O’Keefe pleaded guilty to tampering with Senator Mary Landrieu’s phone. I’m not sure how he only got a $1500 fine and 100 hours of community service. That seems a little light to me. If I tried to tap a senator’s phone, I wonder how much I would be looking at. Just a fine for me. It would never happen.

As the president works to end the stupid policy of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, conservatives are pulling out all the stops. Conservative talker Bryan Fischer has stated that Hitler used gay soldiers. (Notice that anything that conservatives don’t like must be associated with Hitler.) The Family Research Council has stated that ending the discriminatory policy will mean more gay rape in the military. Their logic is crazy and convoluted.

New study suggests the best time to act on climate change and the energy bill is right now.

Glenn Beck is crazy.

The only reason that Texas was able to balance their budget was the stimulus package. Serendipity?

A black bear was spotted roaming in downtown Asheville earlier today. You don’t see this kind of excitement in Atlanta!

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Fix Economy, Then Balance Budget

2010-05-26T07:08:00.001-07:00

I spoke with a friend of mine today. A friend that I haven’t talked to in a long time. After the pleasantries, the Right Wing nonsense started. Obama is spending too much. Okay, I asked, how much is too much when you have an economy that is capable of generating massive amounts of money? There [...]

The harping of conservatives has become louder and louder over the last couple of weeks over the budget deficit. They have wrongly stated that Barack Obama spending us into poverty. There are many analogies that could be used, but the one that I’ll use right now is that our house is on fire. First, we need to put out the fire. Secondly, we rebuild the house.

I’ll avoid mentioning the obvious, that these deficit hawks were silent in 2001, 2003 and again in 2004 as President Bush passed massive tax cuts that were not offset by massive spending cuts. So, these hawks are somewhat hypocritical. Many of these hawks have looked at some promising economic numbers, and the unemployment rate from last month, and point to an improving economy. I’m not sure that the unemployment numbers are quite as rosy as we think. It appears that there is evidence that many of these Americans that are unemployed are now running out of unemployment benefits. Therefore they cannot seek further jobless benefits.

By the way, where are these jobs coming from? For the past 20 years industry has been cutting jobs and streamlining. As business returns, why wouldn’t they simply work with a streamlined workforce? Why wouldn’t they outsource the job, if possible, to somebody in Singapore or Dubai? With the auto industry shrinking and the economy not expanding, where are these jobs going to come from? Well, some of the jobs should come from infrastructure rebuilding that we funded through the stimulus package. Other jobs have to come from this legislation that President Obama spoke about today (See Video). Green Energy. Congress needs to move on this legislation. This is critical. We need this industry to produce millions of new jobs.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I also want to mention that Americans made the same mistake that many conservatives are making now back in 1935-1937. This was right in the middle of the New Deal. GDP was increasing. Unemployment was decreasing. Deficit hawks began to worry about budget woes. A poll at the time revealed that a majority of Americans wanted the administration to balance the budget. Therefore, Roosevelt began to balance the budget. Predictably, as taxes were increased and government spending decreased, GDP fell and unemployment rose. It was the exact opposite that budget hawks wanted to happen. President Barack Obama needs to walk the fine line. He needs to get the economy going but, as the economy begins to heat up, he does need to slow spending. He does need to balance the budget — after the economy began showing solid signs of recovery. Our economy has shown an incredible capacity to make money. We can pay off his debt, but first we need to put out the fire.

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Grab Bag – Monday

2010-05-25T07:32:00.001-07:00

Hey, really bad day today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

A few progressives are calling for the White House to really get involved with the Gulf Oil Spill. Kick BP out of the way and figure out how to stop this thing.
Anti-government dude, well, he appears to be anti-everything, was arrested in Ark. Very strange.
I thought [...]

Hey, really bad day today. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

A few progressives are calling for the White House to really get involved with the Gulf Oil Spill. Kick BP out of the way and figure out how to stop this thing.

Anti-government dude, well, he appears to be anti-everything, was arrested in Ark. Very strange.

I thought that Barack Obama stopped new offshore drilling until an investigation was complete? Maybe I was wrong.

From Political Animal:

With tensions escalating quickly, South Korea is ending nearly all trade with North Korea, and blocking North Korean merchant ships access to South Korean shipping lanes. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described U.S. support of South Korea as “unequivocal,” and announced that the American military and South Korean forces would initiate joint military exercises.

Yemen: “Yemeni tribesmen kidnapped two American tourists, a man and a woman, Monday morning outside the capital city of Sana, the American Embassy in Yemen confirmed on Monday.” The kidnappers are reportedly seeking the release of an imprisoned ally. (Ed note: Yemen is so dangerous that we have stopped letting our military ships re-fuel there. Why would American tourists be in Yemen. Seriously? Why?)

Texas gubernatorial hopeful, Houston Mayor Bill White (D), will, if elected, try to undo the damage done to the state curriculum by the Texas Board of Education.

Bagram: “A federal appeals court ruled Friday that three men who had been detained by the United States military for years without trial in Afghanistan had no recourse to American courts. The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight.” (Ed note: This is very disturbing.

Fox News’ on-air news team probably shouldn’t use the word “we” when talking about Republicans, at least if the network intends to keep up appearances.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s wife apparently calls him “Mr. Clueless.” She’s referring to his familiarity with technology, but I kind of like the broader applicability of the label.

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Is Terry Bradshaw a genius?

2010-05-23T11:13:00.001-07:00

This is a very interesting article. The premise is – are great athletes geniuses?
From Discover:
The qualities that set a great athlete apart from the rest of us lie not just in the muscles and the lungs but also between the ears. That’s because athletes need to make complicated decisions in a flash. One of the [...]

This is a very interesting article. The premise is – are great athletes geniuses?

From Discover:

The qualities that set a great athlete apart from the rest of us lie not just in the muscles and the lungs but also between the ears. That’s because athletes need to make complicated decisions in a flash. One of the most spectacular examples of the athletic brain operating at top speed came in 2001, when the Yankees were in an American League playoff game with the Oakland Athletics. Shortstop Derek Jeter managed to grab an errant throw coming in from right field and then gently tossed the ball to catcher Jorge Posada, who tagged the base runner at home plate. Jeter’s quick decision saved the game—and the series—for the Yankees. To make the play, Jeter had to master both conscious decisions, such as whether to intercept the throw, and unconscious ones. These are the kinds of unthinking thoughts he must make in every second of every game: how much weight to put on a foot, how fast to rotate his wrist as he releases a ball, and so on.

In recent years neuroscientists have begun to catalog some fascinating differences between average brains and the brains of great athletes. By understanding what goes on in athletic heads, researchers hope to understand more about the workings of all brains—those of sports legends and couch potatoes alike.

As Jeter’s example shows, an athlete’s actions are much more than a set of automatic responses; they are part of a dynamic strategy to deal with an ever-changing mix of intricate challenges. Even a sport as seemingly straightforward as pistol shooting is surprisingly complex. A marksman just points his weapon and fires, and yet each shot calls for many rapid decisions, such as how much to bend the elbow and how tightly to contract the shoulder muscles. Since the shooter doesn’t have perfect control over his body, a slight wobble in one part of the arm may require many quick adjustments in other parts. Each time he raises his gun, he has to make a new calculation of what movements are required for an accurate shot, combining previous experience with whatever variations he is experiencing at the moment. (more…)

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So, let’s start with a partisan prayer

2010-05-22T13:42:00.001-07:00

To be honest, I have no problem with a prayer to start a Board of Education meeting. I think that’s fine. But now listen to the partisan and misguided prayer that she delivers. Cynthia Dunbar, who delivers the invocation, ends her prayer with a very partisan statement that we are a “Christian land governed by [...]

I have no idea who Cynthia Dunbar is or what she does for a living. I don’t know she’s an ordained minister or simply a well-connected zealot. If you’re just a little bit thoughtful about what you say before you say it, you would do little bit of research. If you look at the Declaration of Independence in the first two paragraphs there is a reference to God.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Well, this must be evidence that our forefathers thought we should be a Christian nation. Well, I’m not sure that is direct evidence. The Declaration of Independence is really a letter from the colonists to the King of England. So, this letter is basically telling King George that we’re not going to live under his rule anymore.

Our first governing structure was the Articles of Confederation which were constructed in 1776. Although the articles of Confederation did not mention God it did mention “the Great Governor of the World.” Even early drafts of the Constitution reference to God and Christianity. I’m not sure if Ms. Cynthia Dunbar has actually read our Constitution. I have. And when you read the Constitution you notice that there is no mention of God, the Creator, the Great Governor or anything like that in its final version. Why? Again, if you studied American history and not just the blatherings of Newt Gingrich and Focus on the Family (“the Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order.”) One would recognize that this was not an oversight but instead a deliberate attempt by our forefathers to remove God and religion from the document. This is why article 6 declares that there be “no religious test” to hold office in the United States government. This language was inserted not by Thomas Jefferson or John Adams but instead by Charles Pinckney, governor of South Carolina. The measure was adopted without much discussion and according to a Maryland delegate, it passed by an overwhelming majority. Again if Ms. Dunbar truly studied her history she would’ve noticed that in several of the states there was a heated debate over this clause. Reverend David Cantwell, a Protestant minister from North Carolina was fearful that “Jews and pagans” could govern the United States. There were similar arguments in multiple different states. There was a general worry that a Quaker would get into the White House and because of their pacifism cause us to be overrun by anyone or some other foreign power. Virginia went so far as to suggest changes in language to article 6 so it read “no other religious test shall ever be required then I believe in the one and only true God, who is the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the evil.” James Madison defended the idea of no religious test to hold public office in the Federalist papers number 51 and 56.

We really and truly do have a remarkable document in the US Constitution. Many states including Massachusetts and Virginia have language in their state constitutions which actually had religious test for office holders. They had to be Christians. Over the years this language was dropped. Yet it shows us how remarkable it was that we were able to get a Constitution that was as liberal as it was.

Finally, Ms. Dunbar has proven that she does not belong on the Board of Education of any state. Before giving her prayer, she did not do her homework. She instead resorted to the common wisdom of people like Jerry Falwell and Newt Gingrich. If you want to teach your children common wisdom just remember that’s not the same thing as facts. The fact is we have a Godless Constitution, which was written by Christian men who feared tyranny of all kinds. Our forefathers purposely omitted God so that we could truly have freedom of religion or the freedom not to have any religion if we wanted. That’s the beauty of our Constitution.

Sections of this post were taken from the fabulous book, The Godless Constitution by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.

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They stole what? How?

2010-05-20T16:48:00.005-07:00

Are we living in the year of 2010 or 1960? I’m sorry, this sounded like an episode of It Takes a Thief. (A short-lived TV series starring Robert Wagner as a suave and sophisticated thief who began stealing for the American government.) So severals extremely expensive works of art are stolen from a Paris museum. [...]

One of the stolen paintings - Picasso

All of the paintings can be seen here.

From BBC:

Mr Girard put the value of the stolen paintings at just under 100m euros (£86m; $123m). They had earlier been estimated to be worth some 500m euros (£431m; $618m).

The five missing paintings are Dove with Green Peas by Pablo Picasso (painted in 1911), Pastoral by Henri Matisse (1906), Olive Tree near l’Estaque by Georges Braque (1906), Woman with Fan by Amedeo Modigliani (1919) and Still Life with Candlestick by Fernand Leger (1922).

Museum officials discovered the theft early on Thursday, when they found a smashed window and a broken padlock which had been cut to gain access to the five paintings.

It is the biggest heist since the 1990 theft at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston of a Vermeer, several Rembrandts, Degas and other masterpiece.

None of these works has yet been recovered. (more…)

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America has changed

2010-05-20T16:48:00.003-07:00

I don’t think that the tea party is going to be able to take America back to the 50’s, too much as changed. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail which really illustrates this point. He wrote:
Amid all the clamor in public debate —every now and then a snapshot speaks volumes about our culture [...]

I don’t think that the tea party is going to be able to take America back to the 50’s, too much as changed. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail which really illustrates this point. He wrote:

Amid all the clamor in public debate —every now and then a snapshot speaks volumes about our culture –as does people’s reaction to the photo.

Look at the next photo in the attached photo gallery. For some reason it touched my heart about America —and I couldn’t stop gazing at it. Black and Brown Presidents walking in front of an incredibly diverse crowd of school children and a few adults. Compare it w White House lawn photos of 50’s , 60s and even 70’s.

Click on photo for larger image

The wide eyed joy and wonderment on the kids faces. A few other adults who are more sanguine either due to maturity or detachment. The seriousness of the task that Secret Service agents bring to their jobs at all times.

How America has and is changing.

What’s more—this is the type of photo that probably elicits very different reactions—particularly on the eve of an anticipated divisive immigration reform debate—based on the viewer’s life perspective. It touched me very deeply.

It reminds me of 2 other photos that offer similar commentary on different world views.

The famous 1965 photo of Cassius Clay standing triumphantly over a fallen Sonny Liston (click on photo to see enlarged image) while the background was full of “objective “ journalists and photographers with looks of disgust and amazement on their faces.

The 1974 photo of Ali’s knockout of George Foreman in Zaire with a background picture of unanimous unadulterated ectasy amongst the Black Africans.

This one is similarly etched in my mind as an updated snapshot of where we are in history.

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Grab Bag — Just a Couple of Things

2010-05-20T16:48:00.001-07:00

One of my commenters reminded me of the shenanigans that were going on at the Department of the Interior. Most of that was going on in the division of Minerals Management Service. These guys have been under scrutiny lately because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For a while, this was Corruption [...]

One of my commenters reminded me of the shenanigans that were going on at the Department of the Interior. Most of that was going on in the division of Minerals Management Service. These guys have been under scrutiny lately because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For a while, this was Corruption Central. Lucrative contracts were steered to former employees. Employees were accepting gifts, including golf, ski and paintball outings, along with tickets to football and baseball games. Alcohol, cocaine and marijuana were shared with oil and gas company representatives. Sexual relationships between industry representatives and members of the Minerals management service were also found. It’s kind of surprising we haven’t had more problems than we have. We need to fix this.

Michael Burry is the hedge fund manager mentioned in Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short. He figured out the housing bubble and invested in credit default swaps. Basically, the credit default swaps acted as insurance against mortgage-backed securities defaulting. If the securities defaulted, Michael Burry got paid. (He made over $1 billion with the crash.) Somehow, I missed an op-ed that he wrote in the New York Times over a month ago. Burry challenged Alan Greenspan to explain why he, Greenspan, did not see economic collapse coming. The article is unusually lengthy but clearly worth a read. I believe that all of Michael Burry’s points are extremely valid. If he was able to put together all the pieces using publicly available information, why wasn’t the Fed able to put together those same pieces? I think that this is a valid question. The Fed failed us, the American people.

There are several contentious issues with financial reform. The one that I’ve been pushing and trying to hammer on is making the banks smaller. Another issue is fixing these derivatives. Derivatives are currently unregulated. Blanche Lincoln, Senator from Arkansas, introduced legislation to regulate these derivatives. It’s somewhat surprising that she would introduce such a legislation, as she is associated with the free market crowd. The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Christopher Dodd, opposed this regulation and was trying to scale it back. He met with stiff opposition and has dropped his objections. (I’m hoping that some time in the near future someone will write a book about Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank and other members of the House and Senate banking committees. I think their loyalties are somewhat divided.) There’s an interesting conspiracy theory that is floating around. Senator Lincoln, up for reelection and being challenged from her left, never intended for this legislation to be passed. Instead, once she was able to squash her primary opponents she would withdraw her amendment. At least that’s how the conspiracy theory goes. Currently, she is in a runoff.

Finally, over the last several days the NBA has shown us that the Orlando Magic and the Phoenix Suns are not strong enough to pull off an upset. If the Lakers and Celtics stay healthy, they should cruise to victory and meet in the finals. This would be a GREAT final.

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Test results may be confusing

2010-05-19T17:46:00.001-07:00

Please watch the video:

CNN has painted this exercise as one about race, but maybe it’s not. If what the mother has said is true (not really been exposed to other races) then the child knows that she is good and she is white. The only figure that looks like her must also be good. The [...]

Please watch the video:

CNN has painted this exercise as one about race, but maybe it’s not. If what the mother has said is true (not really been exposed to other races) then the child knows that she is good and she is white. The only figure that looks like her must also be good. The figures that don’t look like her but be bad. Now, if the mother had a Black friend that came over with her daughter then this exercise could be about race. As far as I can tell this is about being different.

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Mark Williams equals hate

2010-05-18T19:08:00.003-07:00

My mother, a woman who grew up in the Baltimore projects, told me over and over again, “if you don’t have something nice to say, maybe you should keep it to yourself.” I think that this applies to Mark Williams. Religion is always a difficult subject to talk about. People have irrational responses to reasonable [...]

Sometimes, when you open your mouth, you reveal more about yourself than you do about those that you are condemning. Mark Williams revealed his ignorance when he called Muslims “the animals of Allah” and he referred to the God of Islam as a “monkey God.” I will assume, for the moment, the Mark Williams is a Christian (I don’t know this but I’m assuming). Therefore, in studying Christianity he should understand that Islam is a spinoff of Christianity. The God of Islam is the God of Christ and the God of Moses. So, in condemning the God of Muslims he is condemning his own God, my own God.

Mr. Williams has revealed that he has learned nothing by reading the Bible. The Bible isn’t about hating your fellow man. The Bible isn’t about spewing as much hate filled rhetoric as you possibly can. The Bible is about loving your fellow man and loving God. Mark Williams appears to be doing neither. My job is not to judge Mark Williams. He will be judged when the time comes. This gentleman supposed to be some type of conservative talkshow host. If he is spewing this kind of venom on the air, he should be removed. Talking in front of a microphone, broadcasting, is a privilege. He does not deserve this privilege. If he has just written this rhetoric on his blog than his blog should be boycotted by all.

Finally, I’m sorry I don’t get why building a Mosque near ground-zero is so upsetting. It wasn’t the Muslim faith that attacked us on 9/11. It was 19 men who were practicing some twisted form of that religion. I would think that there would no clearer sign that we, Americans don’t hate Islam and embrace all who come here (legally) than a Mosque near ground-zero.

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Ray Charles – Stevie Wonder

2010-05-18T19:08:00.001-07:00

I don’t know when this concert was. Stevie isn’t as big as a house, like he is now, so I would guess mid-’90s. Stevie Wonder is great in concert. If you have a chance, please go. I wish that I had had a chance to see Ray Charles. Both on the same stage is … [...]

The song is Livin’ for the City. Please note that Ray sings his own version of the song, which is a little bit more bluesy with a hint of country. (I’ll talk about politics later on tonight. I just had to post this.)

Artists: Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles

Tune: Livin’ for the City

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60 Minutes – Oil Spill

2010-05-17T20:29:00.003-07:00

60 Minutes interviews one of the survivors of the Deepwater Horizon – Mike Williams.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Okay, so the guys on the rig knew that several parts of the blowout preventer were broken and it appears from Mike Williams’ story that nobody did anything about it. How can this be a good thing?
Watch [...]

60 Minutes interviews one of the survivors of the Deepwater Horizon – Mike Williams.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Okay, so the guys on the rig knew that several parts of the blowout preventer were broken and it appears from Mike Williams’ story that nobody did anything about it. How can this be a good thing?

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Oh, the stupidity was everywhere. BP, TransOcean and Halliburton will be grilled over this.

This is a great segment.

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Opposing Newt Gingrich just seems right

2010-05-17T20:29:00.001-07:00

Newt Gingrich has been out of power now for a decade or two, yet is still dominant figure in the Republican Party and on the Sunday talk shows. Can you think of any Democratic equivalent? There is none. Through hypnosis or magic, Newt Gingrich manages to convince Americans that he is still relevant. He has made two statements in the last couple of days which I think need discussion. About 10 days ago he wrote an op-ed piece which argued for more offshore drilling and then today, on Fox News Sunday, he called for the President to withdraw Elena Kagan’s nomination for the Supreme Court.

Let’s start with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As you know it’s been more than three weeks since the explosion, the death of 11 American workers and the subsequent disastrous spill in the Gulf. The exact circumstances of how this happened are not clear. President Obama was 100% correct when he said that there’s enough blame to go around. Newt Gingrich argues that one disaster should not cripple the industry, nor cause us to abandon offshore drilling. He lists a litany of disasters in aviation, nuclear energy and even the levee failure in New Orleans as examples of Americans investigating a disaster and then moving forward. His take-home message is that we should not abandon offshore drilling. We should learn from this mistake and move forward. I viscerally oppose just about everything that Newt Gingrich says. I know he’s not talking for me or people who think like I do. Instead, he’s talking for the corporations. I’m surprised that there is no acknowledgment that cleaner, less destructive forms of energy exist.

Suppose in 1980, when Ronald Reagan moved into the White House, he had embraced alternative energy. Where would we be now? If Ronald Reagan had poured federal resources into the development of more efficient solar cells, wind power and even tidal power on the coasts, would we have affordable alternative energy by now? You figure that 20 or 30 or even 40% of our energy could now come from alternative renewable sources. Oil would not be eliminated, but oil consumption would have been reduced. How could have been a bad thing? Would we have invaded Iraq? I doubt it. I see America’s consumption of oil as the equivalent of a cocaine addict’s addiction to crack. We have to put down the crack pipe. So, I have no problem with safe offshore drilling (I just think it’s an oxymoron at this time). We need to focus on alternative energy.

Watch the Video:

Newt Gingrich says Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan should be disqualified because she did not allow military recruiters on campus. The case went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled with the military. I’m not sure why this should disqualify her. Newt Gingrich couches his comments in patriotic rhetoric. “We’re fighting two wars.” My answer would be — so? If it is wrong to have military recruiters on campus in peacetime, it would still be wrong in wartime. Therefore, the context is not important. What is important is the reason why Elena Kagan, as Dean of Harvard Law School, opposed having military recruiters on campus. Those recruiters could not guarantee that some students would not be discriminated against. I’m beginning to like Dean Kagan more and more. With conservatives opposing her, maybe I need to crank up my support of her nomination. (To be honest, I’m ambivalent. I agree with Glenn Greenwald that we really should have some idea of how she feels about the major issues of our day. I do not believe that anything that will be said in a Senate hearing will be truly indicative of how she feels. Instead, I suspect what will be said in the Senate Judiciary hearing will be just enough to get her confirmed, but not enough to get a true grasp on many of these issues.)

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Portrait – Honey Dip

2010-05-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

After way too much thought on this subject, I think that Portrait suffered from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They hit the scene at the end of the hip-pop era. Their first CD was a hit but not big enough to get a major producer and record label to grab them. [...]

Artist: Portrait

Tune: Honey Dip

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25 years go Philly bombed its own city

2010-05-15T05:02:00.001-07:00

I barely remembered this. All I remember was shock that the city of Philadelphia would bomb it own citizens. Very weird and tragic.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
MOVE members and their supporters gathered at City Hall yesterday afternoon to mark today’s 25-year anniversary of the Osage Avenue disaster.
“We never ever want anyone to forget the vicious [...]

I barely remembered this. All I remember was shock that the city of Philadelphia would bomb it own citizens. Very weird and tragic.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

MOVE members and their supporters gathered at City Hall yesterday afternoon to mark today’s 25-year anniversary of the Osage Avenue disaster.

“We never ever want anyone to forget the vicious murder of our family,” said MOVE member Pam Africa.

“These people dropped a bomb and did that to stop us from exposing what’s wrong in the system.”

Carrying posters bearing the name of MOVE founder John Africa and signs with the face of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, about 40 peaceful demonstrators listened to speakers and handed out fliers to passers-by.

May 13, 1985, was the day Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the roof of the fortified MOVE house, sparking a fire that killed 11 people and destroyed an entire city block. (more…)

A little more from another article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The MOVE Commission investigating the events of May 13 was critical in its findings. “The plan to bomb the MOVE house was reckless, ill-conceived and hastily approved. Dropping a bomb on an occupied rowhouse was unconscionable and should have been rejected out of hand . . .” by the mayor, the managing director, the police commissioner, and the fire commissioner.

Charles W. Bowser, a member of the MOVE Commission, wrote separately that “Mayor Goode cannot be held responsible for the dark tragedy of May 13 for the worst reason of all: He was not leading when it counted the most.”

But Goode is not interested in second-guessing. Instead, he has distilled the MOVE catastrophe into a handful of lessons.

First: “Make sure you understood what the total plan is before authorization to do it,” he said. Goode was criticized for delegating too much authority to Police Commissioner Gregor J. Sambor and for being in the dark about details of the plan.

Second: “If you want to negotiate with people holed up inside a facility, don’t send police officers. Send trained negotiators. And don’t allow the police officers to be in charge of what happens at the scene. Make sure someone else is there at the scene.”

Goode remained at his home and then his office for much of the day, discouraged from being on site or at the command center by threats against him and by his conviction that the confrontation was a police operation the mayor should not direct.

Third: “The third lesson is all life is important. Any loss of life is tragic, especially when it did not have to happen.”

Fourth: “You need not be a bad person to have bad things happen on your watch.”

I just don’t understand the loss of live. Very sad.

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Lebron and how to win in the NBA

2010-05-14T07:10:00.001-07:00

Tonight, our whole lot of people are scratching their heads and wondering why NBA’s greatest player, Lebron James has been sent packing, again. Two weeks ago, I was going to write a post on why the Dallas Mavericks cannot win the NBA finals. As a matter fact, they can’t even get back to the finals [...]

Tonight, our whole lot of people are scratching their heads and wondering why NBA’s greatest player, Lebron James has been sent packing, again. Two weeks ago, I was going to write a post on why the Dallas Mavericks cannot win the NBA finals. As a matter fact, they can’t even get back to the finals because of their flaws. Here, I will layout, what are the key ingredients necessary to win the NBA finals.

First of all, let’s look at the quintessential modern NBA team — the Chicago Bulls of the early 90s. Michael Jordan transformed the game. He made the game faster. He made the game more athletic. He made more people play above the rim. Few people would argue that Michael Jordan set the bar pretty high. In my opinion, since his reign throughout the 90s, other people have been copying his formula on how to win in the NBA.

The Chicago Bulls won their second world championship in 1992. Michael Jordan was the star, of course. Scottie Pippen was Mister versatility. He could rebound, he could shoot he could even actually play point guard, sort of. He could play defense. Horace Grant was the muscle. He was the rebounder. He was the bruiser. BJ Armstrong and John Paxson were very similar guards. Their relatively small. They were quick. They both had an excellent jumpshot. They both were good training three-pointers. Finally, the big man in the middle was Bill Cartwright. That was the Chicago Bulls.

The other thing that one must understand is that the regular-season is different than the postseason. In the regular-season, defense is rarely played. There are two types of games during the regular season. The first are blowouts. One team gets hot and smokes their opponent. These are the games are over in the third quarter. The second type of regular-season NBA basketball game are those that come down to the final five minutes of the fourth quarter. In these games it doesn’t matter what the score was earlier in the game, now, the game is tight. This is where the game slows down. This is where there are hints of defense. This is where all shots are contested. This is where officially running a set offense is extremely helpful in winning. In order to win these games consistently, you need a superstar who wants the ball. Your superstar must do one of two things on offense — your superstar must have a move in which he will make a contested shot 90% of the time. Michael Jordan’s shot was at the top of the key. Michael Jordan would make a quick move. He can move to his left or is right with equal versatility. He could then quickly elevate at the free-throw line. Michael Jordan, in his day, was quicker than most and could elevate quickly which allowed him to get his shot off. If, in the unlikely event that a foul is called, then you have to make the free throws. Often, Michael Jordan was able to get by this first man and drive to the basket then the defense would collapse upon him. Jordan was then able to pass the ball out to BJ Armstrong for a three pointer which kills a defense (you have played good enough defense to make the greatest basketball in the world give up the ball only to have Paxson or Armstorng drain a 3). Armstrong or Paxson had to hit that three pointer. Points are premium at the end of the game.

This is how Michael Jordan won throughout the 90s. This is how you win basketball games today. The two most successful teams in the last 10 years are the San Antonio Spurs and the Los Angeles Lakers. They use the same formula that Michael Jordan and the Bulls used in the 90s. With the Lakers the superstar is Kobe Bryant and with the San Antonio Spurs the superstars are Tony Parker/Tim Duncan. The names are different but the formula is the same. Super defense to get your offense the ball. Role players that know and understand their roles.

In the NBA playoffs, all teams discover defense. Therefore, in order to win you must limit turnovers and control the boards. You need to have the hustle guys to get the loose balls industry rebounds like Horace Grant. When you look at the Dallas Mavericks, they suffer from not having a true superstar and they can’t play defense. Dirk Nowitzki is a scoring machine. He can block shots. He can do a great job rebounding. Unfortunately, he does not have one move that he can consistently score with. When challenged, he reverts to a fadeaway jumpshot which will not draw foul and goes in less than 50% of the time. Therefore, he cannot be a go to guy late in the game. The Mavericks haven’t learned how to win in the NBA.

When you look at the Cleveland Cavaliers, you have to feel sorry for Lebron James. He really is doing his part. It is the rest of the team that are not doing their parts. (Remember that Jordan was great for many years and didn’t win squat because he didn’t have the right supporting cast.) Tonight, Lebron James had 19 rebounds, 27 points and 10 assists. It’s hard to get a better game out of the single player than that. The shooting guard, Anthony Parker had only seven points for the game. The point guard, Mo Williams had 22 points but five turnovers. As a matter fact, he had 20 points in the first half. How can you only have two points in the second half when you’re playing the Boston Celtics in game six? When you look at Lebron James’s performance, you see that he was great but had moments of badness. He had nine turnovers. You cannot be a superstar and have nine turnovers in game six of the playoffs. For the last five years everyone has thought that Lebron James was one of the top tube basketball players in the NBA. Everybody wants him to win the NBA championship. In order for him to win the championship he needs to have the adequate supporting cast. Right now, he doesn’t have it.

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Bust ‘em up

2010-05-13T09:24:00.001-07:00

Senator Byron Dorgan (North Dakota) stood up for the American people today. He pointed out that the financial reform bill is too weak. Without fixing provisions (breaking up the big banks) and regulating credit default swaps, he declared “shame on us. We have a responsibility here.”
I think it’s critical for us to understand the huge [...]

Alan Greenspan - Deregulation Guru

I think it’s critical for us to understand the huge amounts of money that sits in these large banks. Billions and billions of dollars. Banking is no longer simply checking and savings accounts. Banking is now these high risk derivatives that yield lots of money but also carry lots of risk. The complexity of these financial tools needs to be regulated. An excellent example was that five school districts in Wisconsin invested $200 million into something they thought was safe. (I’m not sure why anybody would think a collateralized debt obligation — CDO would be a safe investment. I’m not sure many people would consider a synthetic CDO (another order of complexity) would be safer.) You know how this is going to go. The investment starts off well then head south, then crashes. The five school districts lose everything. It is this kind of craziness which has to be regulated. Now, before you go and point out that a bunch of teachers should have trouble understanding synthetic CDO’s the schools had a financial wizard on this. Even he didn’t understand it.

On October 15, 2009, Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve Chairman and economic guru for the past 30 years, was at the Council on Foreign Relations. Chairman Greenspan did a formal question-and-answer session then took some questions from the audience. (emphasis is mine)

One questioner asked: “How specifically should we address the issue of financial institutions that are too big to fail?”

Alan Greenspan said: If they’re too big to fail, they’re too big. (Laughter.)

I — this one has got me. And the reason it’s got me is that we no longer have the capability of having credible government response which says, henceforth no institution will be supported because it is too big to fail…

I think — I mean, I hate to think of just arbitrarily breaking down organizations into various different sizes. At a minimum, you’ve got to take care of the competitive advantage they have, because of the implicit subsidy, which makes them competitively capable of beating out their smaller competitors, who don’t get the subsidy.

So I don’t have a simple solution, but that something has to be done. There is no doubt in my mind — and I don’t think merely raising the fees or capital on large institutions or taxing them is enough. I think that’ll — they’ll absorb that; they’ll work with it; and they will still be inefficient; and they’ll still be using the savings.

So I mean, radical things, as you — you know, break them up, you know. In 1911, we broke up Standard Oil. So what happened? The individual parts became more valuable than the whole. Maybe that’s what we need.

If Alan Greenspan says break up the banks then we need to break up the banks. Greenspan believed in deregulation and free markets. He presided over the largest deregulation of our economy in the last 60 years. He has concluded that he was wrong. The markets need some guidance, some control. That control has to come from the federal government. It can’t come from anywhere else.

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Learning from the meltdown

2010-05-12T11:03:00.001-07:00

What are the lessons that we can take from the financial meltdown? Too big to fail is too big to exist. That is one of the biggest lessons but the Senate hasn’t learned squat.
From HuffPo:
A move to break up major Wall Street banks failed Thursday night by a vote of 61 to 33.
Three Republicans, Richard [...]

What are the lessons that we can take from the financial meltdown? Too big to fail is too big to exist. That is one of the biggest lessons but the Senate hasn’t learned squat.

From HuffPo:

A move to break up major Wall Street banks failed Thursday night by a vote of 61 to 33.

Three Republicans, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign of Nevada, voted with 30 Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in support of the provision. The author of the pending overall financial reform bill in the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, voted against it. (See the full roll call.)

The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), would have required megabanks to be broken down in size and capped so that their individual failure would not bring down the entire system.

Under Brown-Kaufman, no bank could hold more than 10 percent of the total amount of insured deposits, and a limit would have been placed on liabilities of a single bank to two percent of GDP.

Brown-Kaufman was a good start but it got voted down. Why? Wall Street owns Congress. Regulation will never be enough to control these really huge banks. We need to limit their size.

Brooksley Born tried to look at derivatives. She wanted to investigate whether or not we should regulate derivatives. (This was back in the Clinton administration.) Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan shut her down cold. Derivatives were no regulated. Billions of dollars that were not accountable to us were part of the cause of the economic meltdown.

Finally, economist Dean Baker has a nice piece on Wall Street:

We had some hopes of reining in the million dollar babies with the financial reform package, but those hopes appear to be dimming. The effort to downsize the “too big to fail” banks got trounced in the senate last week, garnering just 33 votes. Apparently, the prospect of having to head out into the markets unprotected by the implicit guarantee of government bailouts was too frightening for JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and the other big banks. Their lobbyists twisted the arms and got the overwhelming majority of the senate to continue the big bank subsidy of free government insurance indefinitely.

There is still another good opportunity to rein in the banks ability to gamble with our money. Senators Merkley and Levin have proposed an amendment that would prohibit commercial banks from trading on their own behalf. The point is that commercial banks are backed up by the Federal Deposit Insurance Cooperation and the Federal Reserve Board. If they get into trouble, it is taxpayers’ dollars at risk.

Until the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, commercial banks were sharply restricted in what they could do, precisely in order to prevent them from taking advantage of this guarantee. If you wanted to engage in highly speculative activity you could set up a hedge fund or an investment bank, but Glass-Steagall prevented banks from gambling with government insured deposits. But this separation was obliterated by the repeal and now we have investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley that are openly speculating with taxpayer insured money.

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Lena Horne dead at 92

2010-05-10T16:24:00.003-07:00

The greatness of Lena Horne is hard to describe to folks younger than 40. She was a giant on stage, screen and in the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement needed big stars to step up and give the movement energy and money. Lena Horne did that and more.

From NYT:
Ms. Horne might have become a major [...]

From NYT:

Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.”

Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.

“The only time I ever said a word to another actor who was white was Kathryn Grayson in a little segment of ‘Show Boat’ ” included in “Till the Clouds Roll By” (1946), a movie about the life of Jerome Kern, Ms. Horne said in an interview in 1990. In that sequence she played Julie, a mulatto forced to flee the showboat because she has married a white man.

But when MGM made “Show Boat” into a movie for the second time, in 1951, the role of Julie was given to a white actress, Ava Gardner, who did not do her own singing. (Ms. Horne was no longer under contract to MGM at the time, and according to James Gavin’s Horne biography, “Stormy Weather,” published last year, she was never seriously considered for the part.) And in 1947, when Ms. Horne herself married a white man — the prominent arranger, conductor and pianist Lennie Hayton, who was for many years both her musical director and MGM’s — the marriage took place in France and was kept secret for three years.

Ms. Horne’s first MGM movie was “Panama Hattie” (1942), in which she sang Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things.” Writing about that film years later,Pauline Kael called it “a sad disappointment, though Lena Horne is ravishing and when she sings you can forget the rest of the picture.” (more…)

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It appears to be Elena Kagan

2010-05-10T16:24:00.001-07:00

The New York Times is reporting that President Barack Obama will choose Elena Kagan. She is a former dean of Harvard Law School and is currently the Solicitor General. NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post are currently reporting that President Barack Obama will make the selection in the morning. Kagan may be [...]

The New York Times is reporting that President Barack Obama will choose Elena Kagan. She is a former dean of Harvard Law School and is currently the Solicitor General. NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post are currently reporting that President Barack Obama will make the selection in the morning. Kagan may be perfect. The problem is we just don’t know. She’s not left us a huge record of how she feels on certain issues. This may be a good thing or it may be a bad thing.

I know that several progressives are not going to be happy with this choice. Then again, it appears that President Obama is not going out of his way to please progressives. Instead, he seems to be doing exactly the opposite. Right now, my only advice is to wait and see.

You can read more on Ms. Kagan here.

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Party!

2010-05-09T00:49:00.001-07:00

Just threw a surprise birthday party for my wife. Had some GREAT friends and family at the party.
There is nothing better than celebrating with your friends and family.

Just threw a surprise birthday party for my wife. Had some GREAT friends and family at the party.

There is nothing better than celebrating with your friends and family.

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George Benson – Breezin’

2010-05-08T05:41:00.001-07:00

Did you see the jobs numbers? 290,000!! Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Only 66,000 were government jobs. The private sector is hiring. The recovery package is working. More people are starting to look for jobs. This is nothing but great news.
I’m in Dallas chillin’ with my family.
Enjoy one of my favorite tunes.

Artist: George Benson
Tune: [...]

I’m in Dallas chillin’ with my family.

Enjoy one of my favorite tunes.

Artist: George Benson

Tune: Breezin’

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Tonight’s Grab Bag

2010-05-07T09:24:00.001-07:00

I have just a few items that like to talk about:

53 hours. It was 53 hours from a homeless veteran reporting to authorities that a suspicious car was on fire to authorities pulled Faisal Shahzad off a plane at John F. Kennedy Airport which was heading towards Dubai. Over the past several years, we’ve heard [...]

I have just a few items that like to talk about:

53 hours. It was 53 hours from a homeless veteran reporting to authorities that a suspicious car was on fire to authorities pulled Faisal Shahzad off a plane at John F. Kennedy Airport which was heading towards Dubai. Over the past several years, we’ve heard lots of criticisms of the “law enforcement” approach to terrorism. This approach appeared work very well. There are some Americans that say that they love the Constitution at times of crisis they seem to be the first ones that want to throw the Constitution in the trash. After word of Faisal Shahzad capture was leaked to the press John McCain was stating that reading this naturalized American citizen his Miranda rights would be a mistake. A mistake? Does the United States Constitution apply to all American citizens? If so, then there was no mistake. Over the last 200 years, we’ve seen our Constitution selectively applied. Only certain citizens were “American enough” for all of our laws to apply to them. It is clearly time for the Constitution applies to everyone who is an American citizen. If you’d like to discuss whether he should have been a naturalized citizen, that’s another discussion. What the heck are they thinking award goes to a few Senators who want to strip Shahzad’s citizenship before he has been tired and convicted. After trial the senate can do what they want but now, before trial, they should be quiet and let the wheels of justice turn. Congratulations to New York and the Obama administration for quickly capturing this terrorist. This near miss should show us once again how vulnerable we can be. As a free society, we are going to be vulnerable to those who want to do us harm.

The immigration law that was signed by the Arizona governor several weeks ago is an excellent example of the overreach of government. Where are the tea baggers now? The law basically states that law enforcement should and must stop anyone they suspect of not being in this country legally. There’s been lots finger-pointing from both sides about immigration. Both sides are declaring that the other side is weak on immigration. What would happen if Arizona went about this a different way? What would happen if they passed a law which reinforced current federal law? What if the law stated that any business that hires illegal workers (economic refugees) will be subject to a fine up to $100,000 per economic refugee and the cost of deportation of that economic refugee? What would the reaction of been? Well, there would be outrage from the business community. The Chamber of Commerce would’ve gone nuts and would’ve declared that the Arizona government was declaring war on business. Yet, economic refugees come to United States for a reason. They don’t come here to stand on corners. They don’t come here to bus tables. I come here to make more money than they could make at home. If we strengthen our borders and enforce the laws we have our immigration problem would go away.

Finally, we need to fix Wall Street. Now, do not let your eyes glaze over. Focus. The guys on Wall Street want us to leave Wall Street alone. Like a patronizing teacher, they are patting us on the head and asking us to sit in the corner and be quiet. They want our eyes to glaze over at the sound of Credit Default Swaps. 3 things got us into this mess. 1) Unregulated nonbank lenders 2) Low or no interest rates 3) Rating agencies stamping AAA on stuff that smelled like junk. So, to fix this we need a bill that is going to fix the rating agencies. We need to regulate mortgage lenders. Finally, we need to fix the too big to fail guys. Regulation is not going to fix everything. A couple of banks (6 to be precise – Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) own assests totalling over 60% of our GDP. I’m sorry that’s too much money in the hands of 6 banks. These banks are currently free to do whatever they please because they know they are too big to fail. No matter how much these guys screwed up we would have to bail them out in order to prevent our economy from completely imploding. These guys need to be cut down to a size so that we, the American taxpayer, can live with them. This is a must. So, when you are listening to the news in the coming weeks, listen to see if Congress is going to break up the big banks, regulate the mortgage industry and fix the rating agencies. This is the least that Congress should do.

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More on Fannie and Freddie

2010-05-06T13:07:00.001-07:00

Fannie and Freddie sounds like a doowop group from the 50’s, doesn’t it? Anyway, I found a blog called the Economists View. He tries to do a causation analysis of the crisis.
From EV:
Rather, than just repeat my list of factors what were the causal factors, today I want to try a different approach. Let’s do [...]

Fannie and Freddie sounds like a doowop group from the 50’s, doesn’t it? Anyway, I found a blog called the Economists View. He tries to do a causation analysis of the crisis.

From EV:

Rather, than just repeat my list of factors what were the causal factors, today I want to try a different approach. Let’s do a “Causation Analysis” of the biggest factors to see if we can determine not just the various elements that contributed to the credit collapse, but which factors actually caused it to occur and what merely exacerbated the collapse, making it worse.

Understand that this is a theoretical discussion based on counter-factuals — what is likely to have occurred if various elements leading up to the crisis were different. We are trying to discern the differences between primary and secondary factors, separating the causes from theexacerbators.

Whenever someone asserts as a cause an event or force relative to a particular outcome, you should always ask: “Is this a “BUT FOR cause of that outcome?” In terms of a specific result or outcome, “But for” this factor, how would the outcome have changed? Would the result have been the same or different?

My top 3 list of crisis “BUT FORs” are:

1) Ultra low rates;

2) Unregulated, non bank, subprime lenders;

3) Ratings agencies slapping AAA on junk paper.

Why are these “But Fors?” But for these things occurring, the crisis would not have happened…, there is no boom and bust, no crisis and collapse. … That is these are the big 3 — why I label them the prime cause of the crisis.

I think that EV has hit the nail on the head. He goes on with his analysis:

So are Fannie & Freddie a “BUT FOR” ?

I don’t see how. Wall Street had been securitizing most of the sub-prime mortgages for years without the GSEs (Government Sponsored Enterprise) — Fannie and Freddie jumped in very late because they were losing market share. Their timing was perfect they started doing nonconforming mortgages just as the market peaked.

And if Fannie & Freddie didn’t exist, mortgage securitization would have happened anyway, the way it did in areas where their were no GSEs — securitized credit card receivables, auto loans, small biz loans, etc. took place without GSEs. I assume there would likely have been a private sector version for conforming loans, the way there was a private sector securitizing response to the demand for non-conforming (sub-prime) loans.

So, EV has looked at the data from a different vantage point than I did but basically came to the same conclusion as I did. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae threw fuel on the fire, but they did not cause the meltdown.

I also found this from CalculatedRisk:

I think we can give Fannie and Freddie their due share of responsibility for the mess we’re in, while acknowledging that they were nowhere near the biggest culprits in the recent credit bubble. They may finance most of the home loans in America, but most of the home loans in America aren’t the problem; the problem is that very substantial slice of home loans that went outside the Fannie and Freddie box.

Finally, I’m going to include a table from the San Francisco Fed. This simple table looks at the mortgage characteristics of several players in 2006 (the last year of the mortgage boom). Note the average credit score of Fannie and Freddie back loans.

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Our constitution and some basic guarantees

2010-05-05T17:06:00.001-07:00

It seems to me that our constitution guarantees some basic rights for all Americans. (Now we can, of course, argue about whether Faisal Shahzad should have been allowed to become an American citizen.) These rights are not open for negotiations. Yet, we have some who have argued that alleged failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, shouldn’t have been afforded these rights. Why not? Doesn’t our constitution work in good times and bad? If there is some reason that the constitution doesn’t work, then we need to amend it. I think that this is really pretty simple, but it seems that folks don’t get it.

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Did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused economic meltdown?

2010-05-04T01:58:00.001-07:00

Conservatives, in 2008, as the economy began to melt down quickly began to target one of the programs that they truly hated which started back in the Carter administration, Community Reinvestment Act. This one program has been pointed to as the root of all evil. The conservative argument goes something like this — the community reinvestment act asked banks to loan more money to minorities and Americans who lived in impoverished areas. Therefore, the banks were forced to hand out riskier mortgages. This whole operation was funded through a mandate of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So, with Fannie and Freddie pumping money into the mortgage financial system and bankers being “forced” to loan money to people who were obviously not qualified, there’s no surprise that these mortgages ultimately failed in a spectacular fashion.

This tale is like many tales that come out of the conservative movement. There is a shred of truth located deep within the story. Unfortunately, there is only a shred of truth. First, it is important to understand how the mortgage industry works. I thought, if I go to the bank, Friendly Bank, and I’m approved for a loan, Friendly bank gives me the money to purchase a house. I thought that the loan stayed at Friendly bank. I was wrong. That’s the way loans worked in the old days. Now, Friendly bank will take my loan and do one of two things — sell the loan to another financial institution or package the loan with other loans and then sell that to a financial institution. This is where mortgage securitization comes in and derivatives and collateralized debt obligations and much more craziness. Fannie and Freddie worked in the secondary markets. It is true that Fannie and Freddie injected liquidity into the housing market. They are able to buy qualified loans (notice the word qualified) from banks and then pass those loans on to other financial institutions. “The riskiest mortgages, however — the ones that were pushing the housing bubble to dizzying heights — were simply off-limits to Fannie and Freddie.” (From Simon Johnson’s book 13 Bankers, p 145.) Fannie and Freddie were barred by law from handling these risky subprime mortgages.

When you look at the subprime mortgages that were issued at the height of the craze, between 2004 and 2006, Fannie and Freddie only sold approximately 24% of those loans. In 2006, 84% of subprime mortgages were issued by private lending institutions. These loans were then passed on to other private institutions bypassing Fannie and Freddie. Although Fannie and Freddie Miami have wanted to get into the fray, they were unable to participate. “Private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market.” Over 66% of these loans stayed in the private sector.

This reason that conservatives continue to push a story that they know is not true is because the truth is very scary to them. The truth is capitalism worked the way it was supposed to work. Capitalism is about greed. Capitalism is about looking out for your own interest. This is exactly what these private investment banks did. The point of the federal government is to constrain the excesses of capitalism. Put another way, people always look for ways to make money. If there are no regulations then people will make money any way that they can. Some will even rip off their own grandmother to make an extra dollar. Alan Greenspan and Henry Paulson (and almost everybody in the Bush financial team and unfortunately, this includes most of Obama’s financial whiz’ also) believed in self-regulating markets. They believe that the purer the market was, the better the market would regulate itself. Unfortunately, they did not factor in one of the most important things in human nature — greed and deception. No investor will always have all of the information. Financial institutions have intentionally created an atmosphere where they hold most of the cards. They only reveal the cards they want you to see. Therefore no investor is fully informed.

So, in summary, Fannie and Freddie did not cause the economic meltdown. The Community Reinvestment Act did not fuel the economic meltdown. The climate of deregulation, mortgage derivatives, collateralized debt obligations which were designed to hide risk were sold to investors as safe. These mortgage securities were stamped with triple-A ratings which duped investors into thinking that they were safe. Because the primary lender had the ability to pass off loans to someone else, there was less worry about the quality of those primary loans. There you have the cycle. You have a near infinite supply of investors who want low risk yet high yield investment opportunities. These mortgage-backed securities were sold as exactly that — low risk and high yield. Unfortunately, for all of us, they were not low risk. Not even close.

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Supreme Court – Whom should we support?

2010-05-01T19:12:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot of division within the progressive community about whom President Obama should pick for the Supreme Court. Much of the dust-up has surrounded Solicitor General and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan. Constitutional scholar Linda Monk has been an outspoken supporter of Ms. Kagan. (I consider Ms. Monk to be a friend.) On the other side of this debate is former civil rights attorney and premium blogger Glenn Greenwald, who has argued that for all that Ms. Kagan has accomplished we know very little about her thoughts on important issues which will face the court. (Glenn is also a friend. Both he and Linda have been on my radio show several times.)

I’m not sure that past performance is any guarantee for future Supreme Court voting. Conservatives have whined about John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O’Connor. These were judges who were thought of as conservative but supported many liberal ideals while on the court. Plus, once you are on the court you might have different motivations than you did previously. An appointment for life to the highest court in the land can change one’s outlook on life and the law.

Ms. Monk has talked about the need for more consensus on the court. We need fewer 5-4 decisions. She mentions in a recent article on HuffPo that this kind of 5-4 decision “merely prolongs the dispute and creates more work for lawyers and political fundraisers.” I think she is right. Earl Warren worked to gain consensus on the Court. The Court stood united on some of the most contentious issues of the day. In my opinion, this is exactly what we need. We need someone who is used to mixing it up with conservatives and liberals, someone who can work the politics of the court and bring folks together. Ms. Kagan did help bring conservatives and liberals together at Harvard. This is a fact. Are 7-2 and 8-1 decisions possible with Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas on the court? I don’t know. I do know that Kagan is well qualified. She maybe the prefect person to bring the court together. But whomever Obama chooses for the Court will not be the Chief Justice. Roberts has that job and he seems to have little or no interest in consensus.

I think that there are a few other things to consider. I do think that there needs to be a far left Supreme Court Justice to balance out Scalia. Almost nobody is to the right of Scalia on any Supreme Court decision. The left needs its own Scalia. Such a person would have to be extremely strong. I’m talking about an attorney for Greenpeace or the Sierra Club who drives a hybrid or, better yet, rides his/her bike to work and gives 50% of his/her money to a homeless shelter. I think that Obama’s aversion to confrontation and his willingness to find the middle of the road will make such a nomination very unlikely, but this is my post and that’s one of the things that I would like to see.

I would love for Emory graduate (I’m an Emory graduate) Leah Ward Sears to be on the Supreme Court. She is a former Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. A very conservative Democrat, she was originally appointed by Zell Miller. Someone who can be appointed by Zell Miller and supported by liberals has to be very savvy. She was elected to the Georgia Supreme Court in a statewide election – twice. I think that there is something very special about Leah Ward Sears. I don’t think, though, that she has has a chance of being nominated. Obama is not going to choose a black woman. I just don’t think he wants to go there. Not now. Maybe late in his second term if he has the opportunity.

I think that Obama will need to choose a senator. I think that a senator might have the best chance of being confirmed without a bruising battle. The problem is that most senators who are even concerned as outsider candidates come from states that have Republican governors – Shelton Whitehouse (RI) and Amy Klobachar (Mn). I like Klobachar better. She is relatively young and politically smart. She has a great background. I think that she would do very well in the back room discussions that the Supremes have.

So, in summary, I think that Glenn is arguing over something that is not reality. I don’t think that we can predict how a Supreme is going to vote on a given issue. This is my two cents. Both Glenn and Linda are lawyers. They both have studied this issue more than I have. I would like to look past the front runner to an outsider. I really like Klobachar and Sears. I think that either one can and would do an excellent job on the Supreme Court.

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How safe is your information? Use a copier?

2010-05-01T00:52:00.001-07:00

I had no idea that most modern copy machines have a digital hard drive. So, everything is stored. In a way that’s great. In another way, that is very bad. What is the protocol at these Quik-Copy places? What about a check stub that you copied at work? All of your information is on that [...]

Watch CBS News Videos Online

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Guy – Wanna get with u

2010-04-30T05:37:00.001-07:00

Been travelling today. So, I haven’t been able to post today.
You would figure after I was challenged about Senator Schumer causing IndyMac to fail (and I proved that any reasonable person would conclude that IndyMac self-imploded because of risky investments and undercapitalization) that said person would go home and lick his wounds. Nope. Like most [...]

Been travelling today. So, I haven’t been able to post today.

You would figure after I was challenged about Senator Schumer causing IndyMac to fail (and I proved that any reasonable person would conclude that IndyMac self-imploded because of risky investments and undercapitalization) that said person would go home and lick his wounds. Nope. Like most conservatives, they don’t seem to know any direction but straight ahead. I have been challenged again. (I like this challenges because I get to research stuff that I normally wouldn’t read.) I will try to have a post on why the community reinvestment act that was amended under Clinton was not the cause of Wall Street’s collapse.

In the meantime, I would like to leave you with a supergroup that dominated the early 90’s.

Artist: Guy

Tune: Wanna get with U

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Republicans back down

2010-04-28T16:06:00.003-07:00

For the first time in recent history, it appears that the Democrats have won a battle with the Republicans. Wow! (More later. I’m off to the OR.)
From TPM:
Senate Republicans announced this afternoon that they will allow financial reform legislation onto the chamber floor for a debate after bipartisan talks hit an impasse.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), [...]

For the first time in recent history, it appears that the Democrats have won a battle with the Republicans. Wow! (More later. I’m off to the OR.)

From TPM:

Senate Republicans announced this afternoon that they will allow financial reform legislation onto the chamber floor for a debate after bipartisan talks hit an impasse.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee who has been in bipartisan negotiations with chairman Chris Dodd, released a statement announcing talks could go no further.

“We have been unable, however, to make any meaningful progress on other important components of the legislation. It is now my belief that further negotiations will not produce additional results,” Shelby wrote.

Shelby said he had gotten assurances from Dodd that “he will address a number of concerns” about ending taxpayer-funded bailouts. Those assurances, however, aren’t enough for Shelby to support bringing the bill to the floor. (more…)

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Sleep

2010-04-28T16:06:00.001-07:00

I need sleep. Will blog later.

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NFL: Uncertainty Masquerading As Certainty

2010-04-26T08:19:00.001-07:00

Sam Bradford

Starting last Thursday, the NFL put on an extravaganza they called the NFL draft. They brought out all the pomp and circumstance that they could muster. They moved the draft from Saturday to Thursday night — prime time. The ordeal was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York. They got a high profile announcer. Finally, they persuaded several Hall of Famers to be in attendance — Jim Brown, Joe Montana, Deion Sanders and others. All of this hoopla was surrounding the hope that a given NFL team would choose a 21 or 22-year-old who would make them not just slightly better but significantly better. The hopes and dreams of a team, of a city, land on this one guy.

Before I go on and on and how ridiculous it is to spend millions of dollars on somebody who’s never played professional football, let’s review some of the first-round draft choices over the last five years. I think everybody would agree that the NFL has become a quarterback driven league. So, let’s look at the quarterbacks. In 2005, Alex Smith was the first quarterback taken by the San Francisco 49ers. He is clearly not lived up to expectations but I’m not sure the book is completely written on him. Aaron Rodgers and Jason Campbell were also taken in the first-round. Jason Campbell has been mediocre at best. He has suffered from multiple different offensive coordinators. Aaron Rodgers has been everything that the Green Bay Packers have wanted and more. Vince Young was the first quarterback taken in 2006. The jury is still out. I think the same can be said for Matt Leinart but he will get his chance this year. Jay Cutler was the third quarterback taken in the first round of 2006. He’s had a very rocky career so far. The first player taken in the first round of 2007 was none other than JaMarcus Russell. I think that Oakland Raider fans get nauseated just hearing his name. Brady Quinn was taken at number 22. There no other first-round quarterbacks taken in 2007. I think it’s pretty fair to say that Quinn and Russell have been complete busts so far. 2008 was a much prettier for first-round quarterbacks. Matt Ryan was taken by the Atlanta Falcons and Joe Flacco was taken by the Baltimore Ravens. Both of these quarterbacks have had fine careers so far. Everybody expects more great things from them over the coming years. Finally, last year Matthew Stafford was taken at the number one spot and Mark Sanchez was taken at the number five spot. It is clear that Sanchez has shown flashes of brilliance. Stafford suffers from being in Detroit. Josh Freeman was taken at number 17. I think it is fair to say that he’s been relatively unimpressive at Tampa Bay.

So, in the last five years, I think one can say without a doubt one maybe two quarterbacks are really solid — Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan. Two quarterbacks can go either way — they can either be great or awful — Vince Young and Jay Cutler. We’ll have to wait and see how good Joe Flacco can be. I’m not sold on him yet. I am not sold on Mark Sanchez, either. He has potential to be outstanding we’ll just have to wait and see. The other quarterbacks are mediocre to awful. So, from a business standpoint spending millions of dollars on a first-round draft choice just doesn’t seem to be a sure thing. As a matter fact, far from it. From this small sample this looks to be a 50-50 proposition at best.

I have read Brian’s outstanding analysis of quarterbacks as draft picks. He has come up with formulas, as usual, and then trying to use the data to prove his point. I think this method is overly complex. He looks at something called adjusted yards per attempt and gives quarterbacks a 45 yard penalty per interception and a 10 yard bonus for each touchdown pass. I have a problem with this formula. I think there’s more to quarterbacks then just his passing statistics. A quarterback’s presence in the huddle at times can make your offensive linemen block better and your running backs run better. The leadership of somebody like Ken Stabler or Roger Staubach I don’t think and be adequately measured by formulas. Was Terry Bradshaw or Roger Staubach the better quarterback in Super Bowl XIII? Should Staubach be penalized because Jackie Smith dropped a wide-open touchdown pass? Brian’s data suggest that coaches and owners are actually pretty good at picking quarterbacks. His data goes much further and suggest that quarterbacks that are picked in the first round are much better than those that are picked in later rounds. This again suggests that coaches do know what’s going on.

Every now and then, I think that statistics can fool us. Just look at the data that I’ve presented above. We’re looking at the best. First-round draft choices. These guys are supposed to be good right out of the gate. We’ve seen that probably half of these quarterbacks are not great. As a matter fact several of them aren’t even good. I haven’t even mentioned everybody’s favorite whipping boy Ryan Leaf who held San Diego’s dreams as a first-round draft choice. He was paid $11 million. Not $11 million to play but just 11 million as a signing bonus. So, I really couldn’t get excited over this year’s draft. Let’s see how these guys do in training camp. Let’s see who will emerge as a real player. (I didn’t come close to getting caught up in the Sam Bradford, Jimmy Claussen, Tim Tebow speculation. I didn’t care. Let me see what these guys do on the field then I’ll care.)

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Obama here in Asheville

2010-04-24T04:29:00.003-07:00

The city of Asheville is overjoyed to host President Obama and his wife, Michelle.

For more check of the Citizen Times.

The city of Asheville is overjoyed to host President Obama and his wife, Michelle.

For more check of the Citizen Times.

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Robin Williams on Obama and Bush

2010-04-24T04:29:00.001-07:00

The greatness of Robin Williams should not be understated. Back when cable was new, a friend of mine I, being in college, were slightly inebriated and we watched Robin Williams’ HBO special, Comedy Faster Than the Speed of Thought. We almost blew out double hernias laughing so hard. It was painful. Unlike some other comedians, [...]

The greatness of Robin Williams should not be understated. Back when cable was new, a friend of mine I, being in college, were slightly inebriated and we watched Robin Williams’ HBO special, Comedy Faster Than the Speed of Thought. We almost blew out double hernias laughing so hard. It was painful. Unlike some other comedians, Robin Williams is never lost the ability to do standup. He has this stream of consciousness that is simply amazing to watch. Here he is on some show that I’ve never heard of being introduced by one of my favorite comedic actors John Cleese of Monty Python fame.

One of the great lines from this stand up, “Where did they get Sarah Palin? Did Ronald Reagan and Posh Spice have a child?”

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Grab Bag – Thursday

2010-04-23T10:51:00.001-07:00

Really tired. Work is kicking my booty.

For a second, I thought it was a secret that President Barack Obama was slated to be home this weekend. I guess not.

From PA:

Things go from bad to worse on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform.
Better, but still too high: “First-time claims for jobless benefits fell last week, evidence that [...]

Really tired. Work is kicking my booty.

For a second, I thought it was a secret that President Barack Obama was slated to be home this weekend. I guess not.

From PA:

Things go from bad to worse on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform.

Better, but still too high: “First-time claims for jobless benefits fell last week, evidence that employers are laying off fewer workers. But claims remain too high to signal steady job creation.”

Home sales “rose more than expected in March, reversing three months of declines.”

Greece: “The Greek debt crisis escalated again Thursday as new data showed the government’s gaping budget deficit was worse than previously thought and investors expressed fears that officials in Athens may not agree to stringent demands for an international bailout.”

The Dems’ Wall Street reform bill will reduce the budget deficit.

Iran: “In a matter of days, the United Nations will impose sanctions against Iran for illegally pursuing nuclear weapons, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview Thursday.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) thinks tackling immigration reform “destroys the ability to do something like energy and climate.” I suspect he might be right about this, though Stephen Stromberg touches on a related point about EPA action that’s worth watching.

Does Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) have any proof to bolster his White House/SEC conspiracy theory? By his own admission, “No.”

Joe Conason explains why it matters that the U.S. is becoming more respected internationally in the Obama era.

And Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) believes “trained professionals” can spot undocumented immigrants based on what they’re wearing. Seriously.

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What happened? Is Wall Street Reform on?

2010-04-21T22:51:00.001-07:00

With Republicans and Democrats digging in, I thought we were in for a long hard slog but something might have happened.
From Political Animal:
After some unpleasant chest-pounding last week, the fate of Wall Street reform looked shaky as recently as Monday afternoon. Yesterday, however, there was evidence of real progress, and today Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), [...]

With Republicans and Democrats digging in, I thought we were in for a long hard slog but something might have happened.

From Political Animal:

After some unpleasant chest-pounding last week, the fate of Wall Street reform looked shaky as recently as Monday afternoon. Yesterday, however, there was evidence of real progress, and today Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a leading negotiator on the bill, acknowledged, “We’re very close to a deal and there will be a substantial number of Republicans that go along with it.”

So, what’s behind all this progress? Brian Beutler and Christina Bellantoni explained that Republican senators weren’t prepared to walk off a cliff on this one.

Key Republicans, sincere about passing new rules for Wall Street, but intimidated by the notion of blocking financial regulatory reform, let it be known to their leadership that, at some point, they would side with Democrats to break a filibuster. Maybe not on round one, or even round two. But eventually.

“Folks on our side of the aisle want a bill,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) told me and a few other reporters Monday night. “I know that. I just [had a] discussion with some of our leadership on the floor. You know, we want a bill.”

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) made it equally clear: if top-level negotiations broke down, she and other members would find a solution. “I think it’s important to continue between the two principals on the committee, because that’s where it’s likely to happen,” Snowe told reporters yesterday afternoon. “But if not then we’ll take things as they come. We’ll take the next step.”

This afternoon, entering a Republican caucus meeting, the Republican Deputy Whip John Thune candidly acknowledged that the politics just aren’t playing out for the GOP, and that members don’t want to take a tough vote against regulating Wall Street.

In other words, Dems’ expectations were actually correct on this one.

Evidence that the GOP is “softening its opposition” to financial regulatory reform is apparent in more than just rhetoric and renewed negotiations.

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Did Senator Chuck Schumer cause IndyMac to fail?

2010-04-21T05:18:00.003-07:00

You remember what happened, don’t you? Everything started to unravel late in 2007. The first one who was found without a chair when the music stopped was Countrywide. Bank of America was able to buy Countrywide for $4 billion (a stock swap) in early 2008. Just a year earlier Countrywide was worth over $50 billion. [...]

You remember what happened, don’t you? Everything started to unravel late in 2007. The first one who was found without a chair when the music stopped was Countrywide. Bank of America was able to buy Countrywide for $4 billion (a stock swap) in early 2008. Just a year earlier Countrywide was worth over $50 billion. Countrywide’s founder and CEO Angelo Mozilo (Time wrote that he was one of the top 25 people to Blame for the Financial Crisis) was once the darling of Wall Street, he ended up being charged by the SEC for taking more than $139 million in profits. It was Countrywide who first introduced us, the American people, to credit default swaps and CDO’s. In a wonderful bit of irony, IndyMac was founded in 1985 by David Loeb and Angelo Mozilo as a means to collateralized Countrywide Financial loans that were too big to be sold to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae. In 1997, IndyMac (Independent National Mortgage Corporation) was spun off as a separate company. I mention all this about Countrywide because we’re going to see this exact same cycle again with IndyMac. IndyMac, Washington Mutual and Countrywide were birds of a feather. Each company pushed subprime mortgages. Each company pushed adjustable-rate mortgages. Each company packaged the mortgages into securities which could be sold to Wall Street.

Case: 80-year-old retiree in Savannah, Georgia, loan in 2005 to build a modular house. The mortgage was approved by IndyMac. They approve the application based on the applicant’s Social Security income which was written down as $3825 per month. The only problem is the maximum social security benefit is less than half this amount.

In late June of 2008, Senator Chuck Schumer released a letter which was volatile to say the least. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find the original letter on the Internet. I have been able to find portions of the letter quoted in several articles. (If someone is able to find the letter please send me the link.) In a statement the senator mentioned that he was “concerned that IndyMac’s financial deterioration poses a significant risk to both taxpayers and borrowers.” He went on to say that IndyMac “could face a failure if prescriptive measures are not taken quickly.”

Let’s back up and look at what the Los Angeles Times wrote in January of 2008. (this was 6 months before Schumer opened his yap.) This particular article looked at adjustable-rate mortgages. The author noted that adjustable-rate mortgages were usually given to small business owners, self-employed professionals and salespeople with consultative finances and fluctuating earnings. The article notes that adjustable-rate mortgages were given out by Countywide and IndyMac to people who previously would not qualify. Adjustable-rate mortgages usually have a “teaser rate” for around 2 to 3 years. So loans written in 2005 and 2006 were now resetting at their higher interest rate in 2008. The article noted delinquency rates in some parts of California of 13-15%. (One particularly egregious variation of adjustable-rate mortgages for something called an option adjustable-rate mortgage. This mortgage gave the homeowner three choices at the end of every month — pay principal plus interest, pay interest only or pay less than interest-only and allow the principle to increase.) So, in January, the Los Angeles Times calls out Countrywide, which had just been bought by Bank of America, and IndyMac by name.

IndyMac Stock Price

In a report that was published by the Department of Treasury after IndyMac’s implosion shows us the magnitude of the problem. According to this report, by May 2005, officials that IndyMac were aware of problems with their adjustable-rate mortgages. This market completely collapses in 2007. The bank can no longer sell its mortgage securities because there were no buyers. By May 2008, over 12% of these loans were greater than 90 days in delinquency. Another reason for IndyMac’s failure lies in its lack of deposits. The bank did not have many retail branches. Therefore there were many customers opening up savings accounts and checking accounts. IndyMac had to rely on Federal Home Loan Banks and brokered deposits for funds. Basically, as I understand it, this is simply another way to borrow money. At one point in 2006, IndyMac had over $9 billion in these loans. Finally, every bank is supposed to have a certain amount of cash on hand to balance out possible loan losses. In early 2008, IndyMac hired an outside accounting firm and the firm showed that IndyMac did not have enough cash on hand. As if this wasn’t bad enough, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s decided in April 2008 to re-rate the number of mortgage-backed securities (before this time they simply rubberstamped many of the securities that were brought to them by J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs). This included over $160 million in mortgage backed securities that Indy Mac was holding. Thus lowering IndyMac’s capital ratio. (When it rains it pours) During the same time. IndyMac announced its third consecutive quarterly loss (see graph).

I think it’s been pretty much established that the Office of Thrift Supervision ignored warning signs. If they would’ve acted in a timely manner the implosion could have been prevented. This one little side note that I was able to find that I thought was interesting. The Office of Thrift Supervision allowed Indy Mac to accept an $18 million deposit from its holding Corp. and backdate that deposit in order to help balance its books. This transaction happened on May 9, 2008. On May 6, 2008 the FDIC told the Office of Thrift Supervision that Indy Mac was “close to failing and needed new money quickly.” (Some at OTS were forced to resign because of IndyMac.)

So, I think with further investigation it is clear that IndyMac was going to fail with or without Chuck Schumer’s help. Did Senator Chuck Schumer drive the final stake through the heart of a dying Rasputin who already been shot, poisoned and burned? Yes, I think that’s a fairly accurate statement. On the other hand, I have clearly shown that IndyMac was dying. Federal regulators were going to have to step in soon. In hindsight, they should’ve stepped in sooner. IndyMac was going to die with a without Chuck Schumer’s help. Their business model simply could not stand the catastrophic failure of the subprime mortgage market.

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AP reporter lives in Wingnut World

2010-04-21T05:18:00.001-07:00

An April 15, 2010 front-page headline in the local Gannett newspaper, the Asheville (NC) Citizen-Times, caught my eye: “Obama, other Democrats battered in poll.” The story was by Associated Press reporter Liz Sidoti, who is so biased by her inside-the-beltway mentality that she apparently doesn’t understand the difference between “what people are saying” and “what [...]

The story begins

”WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s national standing has slipped to a new low after his victory on the historic health care overhaul, even in the face of growing signs of economic revival, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll.

“The survey shows the political terrain growing rockier for Obama and congressional Democrats heading into midterm elections, boosting Republican hopes for a return to power this fall.

“Just 49 percent of people now approve of the job Obama’s doing overall, and less than that — 44 percent — like the way he’s handled health care and the economy. Last September, Obama hit a low of 50 percent in job approval before ticking a bit higher. His high-water mark as president was 67 percent in February of last year, just after he took office.”

HOLD IT. STOP RIGHT THERE! READ THAT AGAIN:

Statement 1: “Obama’s national standing has slipped to a new low. . .”

Statement 2: “Just 49 percent of people now approve of the job Obama’s doing . . .

Statement 3: “Last September, Obama hit a low of 50 percent in job approval. . .”

According to Liz, the president’s approval rating has utterly collapsed, dropping AN ENTIRE PERCENTAGE POINT in less than six months. Battered. Just battered. Poor Obama must not know what hit him.

Sidoti marches on

“The news is worse for other Democrats. For the first time this year, about as many Americans approve of congressional Republicans as Democrats — 38 percent to 41 percent — and neither has an edge when it comes to the party voters want controlling Congress. Democrats also have lost their advantage on the economy; people now trust both parties equally on that, another first in 2010.

“Roughly half want to fire their own congressman. Adding to Democratic woes, people have grown increasingly opposed to the health care overhaul in the weeks since it became law; 50 percent now oppose it, the most negative measure all year.”

STOP AGAIN. REALITY CHECK.

Statistic 1: Congressional Democrats – 41 percent approval

Statistic 2: Congressional Republicans – 38 percent approval

Wow. The Democrats are being battered, too. They’re losing . . . well, falling behind . . . okay, not quite as far ahead as they were a few months ago . . . Um, they’re STILL BEATING THE REPUBLICANS. HELLLLLOOOOO?

And Liz doesn’t even bother to mention the distressing news that, in the half-dozen special elections to the House of Representatives since Obama was elected, Democrats have lost ALL BUT SIX. That means they have beaten Republicans in House races only 100 percent of the time since November, 2009. In the world according to Liz, they better hang it up!

I go to the source.

After reading the four-paragraph version of this article in the C-T, I decided to find the original on the AP website. What did I find?

Well, the AP at least had a more reasonable headline: “Obama, Democrats slip in poll.” A little, teeny, tiny, minute bit more precise way of describing a one-percentage-point drop than “battered.”

But the rest of the story includes details of the AP’s polling, which stood out in light of a simultaneously released in-depth, nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll showing that a grand total of 18 percent of Americans identify themselves as tea party supporters.

Liz Sidoti writes:

“One third [33 percent] of those surveyed consider themselves tea party supporters, and three-quarters of those people are overwhelmingly Republicans or right-leaning independents.

“The tea party coalition remains fuzzy to most people; only 16 percent say they know a great deal or a lot about this political phenomenon born a year ago.”

HOLD IT. STOP AGAIN.

Liz’s world: 33 percent. . . consider themselves tea party supporters

Real world: 18 percent. . . identify themselves as tea party supporters

Liz’s world: 24 percent. . . are right-leaning Independents or Republicans (3/4 of 33 percent)

Real world: 84 percent admit they don’t know very much about what they support or oppose

So…the AP skewed its sample by polling an 83-percent-higher proportion of tea party supporters than there are in the voting population. That means that their approval-disapproval rating is also skewed. Thus Obama’s 49 percent approval is more likely 59 percent; the 41 percent for Democrats is closer to 49 percent; and the 38 percent for Republicans is a losing 46 percent.

Naturally, Liz concludes that this small group of ignorant tea-party Republicans—the loudest, angriest, best-armed, and best-publicized bunch out there—are the most powerful force in the electorate, far more impressive than the 64 million voters who elected Barack Obama 15 months ago.

Outside the beltway and the Fox media echo chamber, real people notice that the huge, massive national protest against gun control drew. . .75 people. Outside the beltway, people don’t think their liberties have been stolen away by an illegitimate Kenyan-born Muslim usurper. Outside the beltway, citizens cannot believe that the Republicans unanimously oppose new, stricter regulations on Wall Street. Outside the beltway, people are crossing their fingers in the hope that they will find a new job and keep current with their car payments, mortgages, kids’ braces, and other expenses. Outside the beltway, the tea party phenomenon is a small, very smelly pile of crap.

But for Liz Sidoti and the Associated Press (now under the presidency of a former Bush political operative), the world of wingnuts is reality.

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Paul McCartney – Maybe I’m Amazed

2010-04-18T09:53:00.003-07:00

Now this is great tune.
Artist: Paul McCartney and Wings
Tune: Maybe I’m Amazed

Now this is great tune.

Artist: Paul McCartney and Wings

Tune: Maybe I’m Amazed

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Iceland’s volcano

2010-04-18T09:53:00.001-07:00

These are very cool video of the volcano in Iceland.

From CNN:
An ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano was projected to snarl international travel for a third straight day, as flight cancellations and airspace restrictions stretched into Sunday.
British Airways canceled flights to and from London airports on Sunday, and the United Kingdom’s air traffic agency [...]

These are very cool video of the volcano in Iceland.

From CNN:

An ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano was projected to snarl international travel for a third straight day, as flight cancellations and airspace restrictions stretched into Sunday.

British Airways canceled flights to and from London airports on Sunday, and the United Kingdom’s air traffic agency extended restrictions on U.K.-controlled airspace until at least 7 p.m. Sunday (2 p.m. ET).

Thousands of flights were canceled Saturday. European air traffic officials said 5,000 flights took place instead of the customary number of 22,000. About 10,400 flights took place in Europe on Friday, compared with the normal 28,000.

The eruption began March 20 beneath the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in southern Iceland, blowing a hole in the ice. It worsened this week, forcing local evacuations and eventually affecting European airspace. Although barely visible in the air, the ash — made up of tiny particles of rock, glass and sand — poses a serious threat to aircraft. (more…)

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The greatness of Elizabeth Warren

2010-04-17T17:46:00.001-07:00

Professor Elizabeth Warren is standing up for the people and our economy. We need to do more to protect against fraud.

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Rikyrah from JJP in the house

2010-04-16T07:44:00.007-07:00

The Errington Thompson Show will look at, discuss and dissect meteorites, volcanoes, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, the state of the financial sector, the progress of the financial bill in the Senate, taxes and the tea partiers. We are happy to welcome from the popular blog, Jack and Jill politics, Rikyrah. Join me this Friday for some [...]

Listen to Errington Thompson on Blog Talk Radio

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Financial reform: Déjà Vu All over Again

2010-04-16T07:44:00.005-07:00

It seems at times that Americans have the collective memory of a gnat. We can remember how to work our iPod and how to start our car but not much else. Just a few months ago, health-care reform was dead. The Democrats went out of their way to try and appease Senator Susan Collins (Republican — Maine). The Democrats danced and tried to sing in tune in order to woo Susan Collins. (She was the football of bipartisanship or was she Lucy?) I know the Democrats are Charlie Brown, in this analogy. Every time the Dems got close to some sort of agreement on health care reform, Susan Collins would say she was not satisfied (and pull the football away so that the Dems would land flat on our backs) . This went on for weeks. The Dems finally wised up and passed Healthcare Reform without Senator Collins.

Now, we have financial reform. Wall Street is showing very nice and healthy profits with the money that we’ve infused into these huge corporations. As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. The conditions that caused the meltdown have not been fixed. There are still subprime mortgages. They’re still mortgage derivatives. There are still mortgage-based credit default swaps and credit debt obligations (CDO’s). All the ingredients are still there to make wildly insane profits based on unsustainable formulas. So to remedy the problem on Wall Street, Senator Chris Dodd has introduced a bill which has been passed by the Senate Finance Committee. The vote, of course, was extremely partisan. The Republicans are saying exactly the same thing about this bill that they said about health-care reform. They’re stating that reform is needed. They’re stating that they support reform but oppose this bill. A letter from the Senate Republicans has been drafted to the Democratic Senate leadership. 40 Republican senators have signed a letter except for Susan Collins. She is the lone holdout. She stated that she wants reform and is still open to negotiation. Does this sound familiar?

The Republicans are not pleased that they lost the last battle. I suspect that they will dig in and stand up against anything that the Dems propose for financial reform. They will attack Democrats on multiple different levels. They will claim that the bill supports the big banks. They will claim that there is too much regulation in the bill which will stifle innovation, profits and job growth. We’ve heard all this before. We do need better and smarter regulation. We do need appropriate regulation in order to prevent another meltdown. I think we look back from 1945 through 1980, we have to ask ourselves why weren’t their meltdowns during this time period? The answer is simple, regulations separated banks from other types of financial institutions. Regulations dictated by financial institutions had to have a certain amount of capital to balance out their debt obligations. Finally, during this time period, we never had banks that were “too big to fail.”

Democrats need to look to the past in order to give Americans a better future. We need not change anything to please Susan Collins. She is proven before that the cost of her vote is too high. The Dems need to let the dream of kicking that football go. Democrats need to do what’s right for the American people. That is all that I ask.

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Learn About Disco Music

2010-04-16T07:44:00.003-07:00

I enjoy disco music. As I write this post, I’m listening to the disco channel on Pandora radio. I find the music good-natured. Enough of life is angry. I’m often angry. I want something good-natured and disco music fits the bill.
I think if we all played disco music in our cars during our commutes to [...]

I think if we all played disco music in our cars during our commutes to work that people would be nicer to each other on the road.

At this very moment the song Disco Inferno by The Trammps is playing on Pandora. This is indeed entertainment.

Here are some of the lyrics to Disco Inferno—

To mass fires, yes! One hundred stories high

People gettin’ loose – all gettin’ down on the roof – Do you hear?

(the folks are flaming) Folks were screamin’ – out of control

It was so entertainin’ – when the boogie started to explode

I heard somebody say

Burn baby burn! – Disco inferno!

Burn baby burn! – Burn that mother down

Burn baby burn! – Disco inferno!

Burn baby burn! – Burn that mother down

Burnin’!

These words seem like you are being urged to burn something down. But it is quite the opposite. The singer clearly says in the song that your soul is on fire and you are happy. This song is channeling your negative energy away from destructive acts!

(Below–The Bee Gees!!!)

A new book reviewed in the New York Times recently tells some of the history and the social meaning of disco. The book is called Disco and the Remaking of American Culture and was written by Alice Echols.

From the review—

“But for the thrill-seekers, especially gay ones, who packed the trendier nightspots, disco was the sound of hard-earned freedom. It meant dancing your heart out until dawn, often aided by drugs, in clubs where anybody could pair with anybody. Disco’s beat took over your body and pounded away your inhibitions. At its headiest, the experience was a close simulation of sex, or a direct lead-in to it. Women were the main voices of lust. In “I Feel Love,” Donna Summer’s techno-backed moaning — “Oooooh, it’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good” — seemed like a six-minute glide on the runway to orgasm….Alice Echols, a professor of American studies and history at Rutgers University and a former disco D.J., knows that most of the music she spun is considered “mindless, repetitive, formulaic and banal.” But in her engrossing new book, “Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture,” she portrays that scene as a hotbed of social change — for gays, for women and their sexual rights, for blacks in the record industry. Other writers have done more to evoke the era’s sleazy glamour and animal excitement. But Echols…has few peers among music sociologists. Scholarly but fun, “Hot Stuff” is not just about disco; it re-examines the ’70s as a decade of revolution.”

(Below—A classic.)

Here is an article on the history of disco from American Heritage magazine. It is a good article that traces the evolution of disco to Paris during WW II.

Now playing on Pandora is Upside Down by Diana Ross.

Here is a history of disco from Soul-Patrol.com.

Listen to some disco and let some happiness into your life. Learn about the history of disco and see why it was music that made a difference in people’s lives and in our society.

(Below–Why must this gentleman be a hater? Photo taken by Rich.lionheart.)

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This Man Needs Something To Eat

2010-04-16T07:44:00.001-07:00

Above you see a brother of ours—we are all connected—fishing in the Houston Ship Channel.
I took this picture yesterday.
I’ve got a better picture of the guy, but just in case he was skipping work or fleeing the law I don’t want to get him in trouble.
You’ve got to be out of your mind to fish [...]

Above you see a brother of ours—we are all connected—fishing in the Houston Ship Channel.

I took this picture yesterday.

I’ve got a better picture of the guy, but just in case he was skipping work or fleeing the law I don’t want to get him in trouble.

You’ve got to be out of your mind to fish in the Houston Ship Channel.

Or—Maybe you need something to eat.

That man knows full well that the Houston Ship Channel is not a clean body of water.

There are specific guidelines for how much fish you should eat from the Houston Ship Channel.

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Southern Legacy

2010-04-15T13:09:00.001-07:00

I grew up in the South. I spent most of my adult life in the South (Dallas, Shreveport, Atlanta, Tyler and Asheville). I have tried to explain to my friends, from the north, how, for some inexplicable reason, the Civil War lives on down here. There are battle enactments. They’re those who romanticize about the time. I even have friends who know every single battle and the generals that were in each of those battles. I’ve tried to explain that the legacy of the Confederacy is more than bullheadedness, slavery and the staunch determination to make money at all costs. I have talked about, unfortunately, at length, the honor of the Southern gentleman. I have waxed poetically about how the South stuck together in spite of being outmanned and outgunned. Then, we have the governor of Virginia with his Confederate history month proclamation. There’s nothing honorable in such a proclamation. Nothing noble. Just in case some of us in the South, were hanging onto some of the good that I believe a true southern gentleman represents, then there’s current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. I’m done. I’m through defending the indefensible.

From Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary makes note of the fact that General Lee was opposed to slavery. I basically took that as true, until–in all honesty–some of my commenters informed me that it, in fact, was not. One of the saddest, and yet telling, aspects of the War, for me personally, is that on the two occasions when Confederate troops headed North, they kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery. Ditto for black soldiers who were captured and “lucky” enough not to be killed. Anyway, if you have a moment check out this lecture a reader was kind enough to send to me. At about the 55:00 mark, Elizabeth Brown Pryor talks about Lee’s relationship to slavery, and more interestingly, how the myth that he was somehow anti-slavery came to be.

It was sad to hear frankly. If the war actually weren’t about slavery, I think all our lives would be a lot easier. But as I thought on it, my sadness was stupid. What undergirds all of this alleged honoring of the Confederacy, is a kind of ancestor-worship that isn’t. The Lost Cause is necromancy–it summons the dead and enslaves them to the need of their vainglorious, self-styled descendants. Its greatest crime is how it denies, even in death, the humanity of the very people it claims to venerate. This isn’t about “honoring” the past–it’s about an inability to cope with the present.

The God of History bounds the Confederacy in its own chains. From the declaration off secession in Texas…

…in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states….

To Virginia…

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States.

To Mississippi…

….Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin… (more…)

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What to do with WaMu?

2010-04-13T23:20:00.001-07:00

The Senate open hearings today into the failure of Washington Mutual. Washington Mutual was among a group of banks that jumped into the subprime mortgage sector headfirst. Jumping into anything headfirst is not usually a good idea until you know how deep the pool truly is. It is estimated that over $700 billion of these [...]

The Senate open hearings today into the failure of Washington Mutual. Washington Mutual was among a group of banks that jumped into the subprime mortgage sector headfirst. Jumping into anything headfirst is not usually a good idea until you know how deep the pool truly is. It is estimated that over $700 billion of these subprime mortgages were handed out between 2004 and 2007. These were those famous adjustable-rate mortgages. Washington Mutual handed out over $133 billion in these adjustable mortgages. The former CEO Kerry Killinger stated that WaMu wasn’t being treated fairly by the government. He wined that WaMu “should have been given a chance to work its way through the crisis.” What I want to know is did anyone in that hearing run over to Mr. Killinger and cry tears of sadness for this millionaire?

When people are given the wrong incentives, we shouldn’t be surprised when they do the wrong thing. Specifically, loan originating officers were given incentives to generate loans. It really didn’t matter what kind of loan. It didn’t matter if the loan was fraudulent or legitimate. From Washington Mutual’s own internal investigation back in 2005, they found the two offices in California had over 50% of their loans that were originated were fraudulent. (At one location was over 80%.) Yet, the practice continued. Why? The money was too good. (Oh, I forgot to mention that their own risk officers were excluded from important meetings. This means that either these risk guys are lying to protect their butts or WaMu knew what they were doing was fraudulent and they didn’t what risk to tell them.)

In Michael Lewis’s book, The Big Short, he describes an incident where a immigrant farm worker who made no more than $14,000 a year was given alone for $750,000.

Lower middle class and upper lower class Americans were hit the hardest by these fraudulent practices. They were specifically sought out by these banks. These are Americans that are holding down one or two jobs. Both parents are working. They’re working extremely hard and they are very close to being able to afford a nice house, in a nice neighborhood with good schools. Something always gets in the way of their dream house. These are everyday expenses that they simply cannot afford — car breaks down, they need a new refrigerator, Johnny was hit in the head with a baseball and needs stitches. So Washington Mutual, IndyMac, Wachovia and others preyed on these Americans.

Here’s my whole problem with these shysters, they made tons of money off of unsuspecting Americans, off of Americans who wanted to believe in the American dream. When the banks collapsed, the Americans were kicked out on the street. Banks who were deemed too big to fail were rewarded for their size and they were allowed to buy the smaller failing banks at fire sale prices. Bankers who lost their jobs were given a little pot of gold on their way out the door. Bankers who kept their jobs were given big fat pay raises for acquiring new assets. Real, honest-to-goodness, hard working Americans who believed that they would never be given a mortgage they didn’t qualify for were asked to bend over. (And kicked in the seat-of-the-pants repeatedly)

So, I hope that something meaningful will come out of these Senate hearings. I hope this is not just a dog and pony show.

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Tiger, Phil and the Masters

2010-04-13T04:41:00.001-07:00

This was a great weekend of golf. The Masters at Augusta. The weather was perfect. Sure, on Thursday there was some sprinkles and there is some wind on Friday but for the most part the temperatures were mild and the greens were fast. Everyone, including myself, wanted to know about Tiger Woods. Well, Tiger played [...]

This was a great weekend of golf. The Masters at Augusta. The weather was perfect. Sure, on Thursday there was some sprinkles and there is some wind on Friday but for the most part the temperatures were mild and the greens were fast. Everyone, including myself, wanted to know about Tiger Woods. Well, Tiger played great for somebody who has had all of the distractions that he is head. I described his final round as up and down. I’m not sure how you play a round of golf and end up with a score of 69 and have people say that it’s disappointing. That’s the kind of expectations that Tiger Woods is set up. Back to Tiger in a minute… Phil Mickelson.

Less than 10 years ago, those television pundits were talking about how Phil Mickelson may go down as the greatest golfer never to win a major. He actually has 37 PGA Tour wins and three major titles. Now, he has a fourth major title. His third Masters. They’re even pundits, probably those same pundits, who are saying that it’s highly likely that Phil Mickelson will pass Jack Nicklaus’ six green jackets. All I know is Phil Mickelson played consistently good golf for four days in a row. He played a bogey free final round. I thought his back-to-back eagles on Saturday gave him the confidence to know that he could win. You know there’s a time when you’re playing a contest when you simply know you’re going to win and it doesn’t matter what the scoreboard says. You know that you’re going to play well enough to win. I think on Saturday, Phil Mickelson hit that spot. Now, the shop that everyone is talking about was on 13. He was in the pine straw. He hit a six iron over 200 yards to land on the green. From my standpoint, the amazing part of the shot was that he was able to get the ball up and over the sand trap.

Their three other short stories that I’d like to tell you about the Masters. The first is Fred Couples. He is 50 years old and still one of the best ball strikers on the tour. His opening round was a 66. He was playing great on Friday until the last three holes. He reportedly had back spasms. You really can’t play golf with back spasms (I’m not sure what sport you can play with back spasms). Hell, he’s 50 years old, he’s allowed to have back spasms. He shot a 75. That’s kind of sad because he shot a 68 on Saturday and a 70 on Sunday. He played well enough to win… except for that three hole stretch on Friday. Isn’t it amazing that you can play 72 holes of gold and 3 holes blew it for you. These guys are that close in talent. He came in sixth place at nine under par.

Anthony Kim is a 24-year-old American who is playing some absolutely fabulous golf. He reminds me a little of Tiger Woods when he was younger. There’s no shot that Anthony Kim seems to be afraid to try. He had an amazing stretch on Sunday where he had two birdies followed by an eagle and then another birdie. That really skyrocketed him into the top of the leaderboard. He had the lowest round of the tournament — 65. This is a guy to watch.

Lee Westwood led going into Saturday and Sunday. Unfortunately, he played his worst golf on Sunday. Normally, you would like to play your best golf on Sunday. He got into trouble early with a bogey on the first hole. He remedied that bogey with a birdie on the next hole. He got in trouble again on 4 and again on nine. He shot bogeys on both of them. On the back nine he really settled down. He eliminated the bogeys and added two birdies. He really showed grace under pressure. I would like to see him win a major.

Finally, there’s all the psychoanalysis of Phil Mickelson and his wife who had cancer. There’s the same $.25 analysis of Tiger Woods. Basically, these guys have proven that they can put adversity aside and play some amazing golf. I suspect the next 5-10 years we’ll see more great golf and both of these golfers. In the meantime, stop with the overanalyzing and I need it takes more golf lessons.

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Texas Stadium is no more

2010-04-12T10:15:00.003-07:00

It is kind of sad to see Texas Stadium go down in a pile of dust. I remember when it opened. I remember the luxury boxes from the early 70’s. I remember seeing some great football and some really bad pro football in Texas Stadium.

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They were for it before they were against it

2010-04-12T10:15:00.001-07:00

The Right wing all got behind Mitt Romney and his healthcare plan back in 2006. I don’t know if they thought they were supporting a future president or if they really believed in his policy. Everybody got on board. This would include the prestigious, conservative Heritage Foundation. They wrote ad nauseam. Now that liberals have passed a national healthcare plan that looks almost exactly like what former Governor Mitt Romney pushed in Massachusetts they (conservatives) are all up in arms. My question is were you lying then or are you lying now.

From TP:

The Heritage Foundation, one of the leading conservative think tanks — which has historically provided many of the policy ideas for the Republican Party, Republican administrations, and Republicans in Congress — has aggressively attacked President Obama’s efforts to reform health care in America. In addition to providing academic voices in the media to knock reform, Heritage has churned out blog posts and reports denigrating reform legislation for various reasons. And in recent days, Heritage has scrambled to mobilize a repeal effort of health reform, calling the law “intolerable.”

But before Democrats took up the mantle of reforming health care on the national level, Heritage experts boosted former Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R-MA) health reform plan in the Bay State. In numerous pieces posted on the Heritage website before 2008, Heritage took a markedly different approach to health reform than it does now:

– Heritage On Romney’s Individual Mandate: “Not an unreasonable position, and one that is clearly consistent with conservative values.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Individual Mandate: “Both unprecedented and unconstitutional.” [Heritage, 12/9/09]

– Heritage On Romney’s Insurance Exchange: An “innovative mechanism to promote real consumer choice.” [Heritage, 4/20/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Insurance Exchange: Creates a “de facto public option” by “grow[ing]” government control over healthcare.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]

– Heritage On Romney’s Medicaid Expansion: Reduced “the total cost to taxpayers” by taking people out of the “uncompensated care pool.” [Heritage, 1/28/06]

– Heritage On President Obama’s Medicaid Expansion: Expands a “broken entitlement program,” providing a “low-quality, poorly functioning program.” [Heritage, 3/30/10]

In fact, in 2007, Heritage again boasted that Romney’s plan is “already showing progress.” That same year, Heritage proudly posted a video of Romney gloating that Heritage officials had supported him in creating “ultimate conservatism” with the Massachusetts health plan.

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Grab Bag — Saturday (Updated)

2010-04-10T22:24:00.001-07:00

The third round of the Masters has started. Lee Westwood who has been playing some really good golf over the last two years is tied for the lead. My golf instructor told me to watch Fred Couples. He had problems yesterday with 16, 17 and 18 and had a disappointing round of 75. Today he [...]

The third round of the Masters has started. Lee Westwood who has been playing some really good golf over the last two years is tied for the lead. My golf instructor told me to watch Fred Couples. He had problems yesterday with 16, 17 and 18 and had a disappointing round of 75. Today he is three under through eight holes and is in fourth place. Not bad for a 50-year-old man. Tom Watson is in 11th place and he is 60. Everyone is watching Tiger Woods who is playing the kind of up and down golf that he sometimes plays. He is clearly in the hunt. The weather is perfect. There should be some great golf today.

With Judge John Paul Stevens stepping down from the Supreme Court, SCOTUSBlog had a really nice piece yesterday discussing on how the “Kennedy court” will be shifting.

When is the Catholic Church going to simply hold a press conference and come clean. When are they going to stand up for the people they say they serve?

I hope that everybody realizes that the health-care debate is not over. There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.

There’s an excellent article in the New England Journal of Medicine about the public opinion of healthcare reform at the time that reform passed. It’s kind of interesting you drill through the numbers. 90% of the population that is a good idea to have tax breaks for small businesses to help cover workers and make healthcare more affordable. 36% of Americans thought it was a good idea to reduce Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. Of the stuff that was asked but not in the bill, 69% of Americans that was a great idea to allow Americans to buy prescription drugs from Canada. By the way, where was that in the final bill?

Finally, a lot of Americans are really upset over the individual mandate. I’m not sure I understand their objections but their argument goes something like how can Congress force me to buy a product? The problem with healthcare is that if you do not have health insurance and get sick it is possible for you to run up a bill that you can never pay off. ($500,000 – $2,000,000 in some cases) That’s the problem. To me, the individual mandate forces us to join the largest insurance pool possible. This in turn drives down cost for all of us. I guess you can look at the other way, suppose you are a 20-year-old healthy male and decide that you’re not buying into any insurance plan. In your early 30s you develop hypertension but don’t take your medication and still don’t go to a doctor or join a health-care plan. In your 40s as your kidneys began to fail should you be allowed to then join the health-care pool? Individual mandate should help premiums stay low for all of us.

Has anybody seen any new movies? Anything good out there?

Update

Phil Mickelson powered behind back-to-back eagles is six under today and has taken the lead at the Masters. Tiger Woods started off strong but has been struggling most of the day.

When is Sarah Palin’s five minutes of fame going to be over? Snake oil science? Did she go to school? I mean did she even go to high school? Man, I find her irritating.

Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, died in a plane crash. Wow, this is weird.

Michael Steele holds the key to the Republican hopes in November or so he says. Do you think that he has a head injury? Is that why he acts the way that he does?

Republican restraint and fiscal responsibility. Don’t laugh.

Is is legal for the President of the US to order to have someone killed? What if that someone was a radical Muslim cleric living in Yemen? What if this cleric is an American citizen with ties to 2 people each of whom is a known terrorist?

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4 bodies were found in mining accident

2010-04-10T05:01:00.001-07:00

Very sad. Very, very sad. WE all knew that the chances were extremely remote but we always hope.

From HuffPo:
Searchers found four bodies deep in a West Virginia coal mine shattered by an explosion, raising the death toll to 29 and ending an excruciating week for families holding onto faint hopes that their missing miners [...]

Very sad. Very, very sad. WE all knew that the chances were extremely remote but we always hope.

From HuffPo:

Searchers found four bodies deep in a West Virginia coal mine shattered by an explosion, raising the death toll to 29 and ending an excruciating week for families holding onto faint hopes that their missing miners had somehow survived.

Crews are to soon begin the bleak task of carrying out 22 bodies from Massey Energy Co.’s Upper Big Branch mine, though officials said Saturday no timetable has been set. Seven bodies were removed after Monday’s blast, making it the worst U.S. coal mining disaster since a 1970 explosion killed 38 in Hyden, Ky.

The investigation into the company that has an extensive list of safety violations at the mine also will begin with President Barack Obama wanting some answers in a report next week and Congress planning hearings.

The discovery of the final four bodies ended days of futile searches by rescue crews that repeatedly battled a volatile mix of poisonous gases and thick smoke that turned them back on three previous attempts. The massive blast also left the inside of the mine a mess of twisted tracks, boulders and debris. (more…)

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The Errington Thompson show

2010-04-09T11:17:00.003-07:00

After taking a two-week hiatus, I come back rested and energized. As usual, I rue I will review the week’s top stories. I’ll talk about Tiger Woods, Donovan McNabb, nuclear disarmament, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and that terrible mining accident in West Virginia. My special guest, Meteor Blades of the Daily Kos. Join me at [...]

Now, this is progressive radio!

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How much money do these big banks owe you?

2010-04-09T11:17:00.001-07:00

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment report which showed that 162,000 jobs were added in the month of March. Republicans look for the bad in the numbers while the Democrats look for the good. The reality was somewhere in the middle. It is nice that the economy has started adding jobs. [...]

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the employment report which showed that 162,000 jobs were added in the month of March. Republicans look for the bad in the numbers while the Democrats look for the good. The reality was somewhere in the middle. It is nice that the economy has started adding jobs. The economy has added jobs three out of the last four months. Yet, we’re in a huge jobs hole. In order to get the unemployment rate of 9.7% back down to the pre-recession rate of 5.0% we need at 11 million jobs. At our current rate it will take a 67 months to create 11 million jobs, just over five years. Who is willing to wait for five years?

I’m in the middle of reading Michael Lewis’ book, The Big Short. The whole subprime mortgage market was a big scam. These Wall Street banks would come up with new and exciting ways to entice people who could not afford a house, to take out a mortgage on a house. As far as I know, it wasn’t illegal but it was unethical. The system is predicated on housing values to continue to rise. As long as the housing values rose, the folks with adjustable mortgages would simply refinance. (Many of us worry about the cost of refinancing but those costs were waved in many of these subprime mortgages.) I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of derivatives. It seems like the purpose of derivatives is to hide the true risk and value of a particular security or commodity. It is like using Photoshop to morph me into Denzel Washington. That’s just wrong. If you are looking for Denzel and get me, I guarantee that you are going to be pissed!! Probably the only thing more deceptive and deceitful than derivatives would be these CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) which are nothing more than bundled derivatives. So, just in case you’re able to figure out what was in a particular derivative, it became near impossible to figure out what was in the CDO. The big banks would then get a credit rating agency like Moody’s to put their AAA stamp of approval on these heaps of garbage. Then they would sell these heaps of garbage to your pension fund and my mutual fund. Funds would buy these things because they were AAA rated by S&P or Moody’s.

So, back to my original question, how much do these big banks owe you and I? When Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch began to implode, in 2008, you and I came to the rescue. The government, using our money, decided that these guys were too big to fail (except for Lehmans, the government let them fail). Failure would’ve caused a catastrophic collapse of our financial system that’s what we were told. So, we reached deep into our pockets and pulled out hundreds of billions of dollars. Over the last several months, many of these banks have been paying back a large chunks of the billions of dollars we loaned them. Once they pay all of the $700 billion back, are we square? My answer is no. Not even close. This guy (Andrew Haldane) over the Bank of England calculated that the irresponsibility of these large financial firms has cost the world proximately $4 trillion. We think about job layoffs, businesses that had to close because the credit markets all froze up, the loss in value of retirement plans, yup, $4 trillion sounds about right.

The big question is how do we collect? It is clear that they owe us. I don’t think that we will ever get paid. I don’t think that we will ever get back the money that we lost secondary to their incompetence, arrogance and stupidity. The one thing that we can do is to make sure that this never happens again. We have to break up the banks. I don’t think that breaking them up into large chunks is a good idea. We need to break them up in such a way that they can fail without jeopardizing our economy. According to Robert Reich, $100 billion should be the upper limit. Okay, I can agree with this number. It is arbitrary. The loss of $100 billion is not to bring down our economy. I like the number. (I also want to get rid of credit default swaps. Derivative’s need to be regulated along with these huge pools of money called hedge funds.) So, it’s time to push Congress and especially the Senate towards better regulation and breaking up these huge banks and financial institutions.

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