Credit Crunch

And the crunching sound will be coming from where they set there teeth into your backside.

Crooks and Liars:

I have to laugh at this transparent ploy: Let us keep our usurious interest rates, Senator, or your American Express card is gonna get it! Apparently the fine folks of the credit card industry seem to believe they have an inherent right to obscene profits. Uh, ixnay, fellas. Usury is not only a sin, it's bad economic practice. Legislators have a right to control your out-of-control industry because credit has become something akin to a necessary public utility - especially when people can't even get a job due to a poor credit rating.

Seems to me it's time these companies learned to trim their expectations to fit current reality. I wonder if credit card executives have been asked to take off one day a week to save their company a day's pay?

Credit cards have long been a very good deal for people who pay their bills on time and in full. Even as card companies imposed punitive fees and penalties on those late with their payments, the best customers racked up cash-back rewards, frequent-flier miles and other perks in recent years.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

[...] As they thin their ranks of risky cardholders to deal with an economic downturn, major banks including American Express, Citigroup, Bank of America and a long list of others have already begun to raise interest rates, and some have set their sights on consumers who pay their bills on time. The legislation scheduled for a Senate vote on Tuesday does not cap interest rates, so banks can continue to lift them, albeit at a slower pace and with greater disclosure.

“There will be one-size-fits-all pricing, and as a result, you’ll see the industry will be more egalitarian in terms of its revenue base,” said David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which tracks the credit card business.

...

I love how they go quickly into egalitarianism. We want to quietly screw over people honestly paying their bills, but it is because we want to be fair...and screw them like we screw the rest of our customers.

It is a business. But trickery isn't. These companies have already started shifting payment dates without notice, and also made other changes knowing customers will be caught unaware. Is that the way to treat customers?

We are addicted, as a country, to credit, and often abusing it. Will this get people to seriously push back?

Going after Elizabeth Warren?

I have to admit I was not clear on who Warren was. Part of my mind was thinking Rev. Warren which made me suspicious, yet I wasn't thinking if the Warren's of the Amityville Horror...what a relief. Still, I caught Real Time this weekend and Bill Mahr was interviewing her. So I got to know here a bit. Seems like a nice and forthright persons. A good person to have in government today.

So I have a little better understanding of the story Crooks and Liars ran about the media's distaste for her.

I listened to this Planet Money interview yesterday and it wasn't even close. Elizabeth Warren, a class act in every sense, totally destroyed the host's argument that concerning herself with the economic health of the American family was somehow her liberal "pet cause" and outside her bailiwick as TARP oversight chair. Not that it made any difference in his evident scorn!

NPR may have some nice little essays, but the only time their hosts show anything resembling teeth is when they attack... people who attack corporate interests! From the Columbia Journalism Review's "So That's Why The Press Won't Cover Elizabeth Warren!" by Ryan Chittum:

A couple of times in the last few months I’ve taken the press to task for ignoring the Congressional Oversight Panel and its report on the TARP. I’ve talked to reporters in the biz since and got the impression that many of them don’t really take it seriously because its chairwoman Elizabeth Warren is a liberal who, they say, pushes her agenda.

So it’s worth listening to this entire Planet Money podcast from NPR, where Adam Davidson badgers Warren for more than an hour to justify her existence, so to speak.

If you want a peek inside business-press mentality, and why certain stories get reported and others don’t, you can do worse than start here. It sees Warren as an outlier whose views, based on decades of research, are suspicious. It would never, ever have badgered a former bank exec, say, like this if one had been chairman of the panel. Davidson, like the reporters I referenced above, has been talking to too many bankers and insiders who sneer at someone not inside their bubble. Perhaps he’s trying to prove his objective journalist bona fides at “liberal” NPR by taking it to a liberal.

Warren isn’t legitimate in the eyes of the press, so it just pretty much ignores her—even though she and her co-panelists were selected by Congress to oversee whether the Treasury is spending the $700 billion we gave it in a way that’s best for the economy.

This interview is really cringeworthy stuff from Davidson, who comes out looking pretty bad (which makes it all the more admirable that NPR runs the entire tape). Warren takes this fight going away.

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In the movies, is it just business?

Hathor Legacy has a good article on the double standards in movie making.

O.W. at Poplicks recently found my post, Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test the Hathor Legacy and had the following to say about it:

To use her example, if Hollywood has traditionally catered its products to white male moviegoers, it builds an expectation amongst audiences - and executives - that the only successful movies are those that cater to…white male moviegoers. Thus, there is no financial incentive to break the cycle and the very bias that exists helps to perpetuate that bias into the future.

In class, I talk about the relationship between ideology and structure and how ideological bias - the idea that women are inferior, for example - influences structural inequalities - say occupational segregation - that then can be used as “evidence” to support the very ideological bias that helped produce the structural inequality!

I’m quoting and sharing this because I think it states the case better than I stated it myself. The problem is not the demographic numbers; the problem is how the people in charge selectively interpret them, and the circular rationalizations they employ to support the existing ideas. ...

As I have seen pointed out numbers are thrown out about female leads in films, then when the conversation turns to males, it is different. Why use Jack Nicholson in a film, for example? Why make a vehicle for him? Well he is good for box office. Really, look at his returns over the past decade or more and say that. Down the line, it is less a ready excuse to just run with guy flicks, and dump on the chick flick, as it were. Even when you have success for women it is a fluke, it is not a trend. Ignore it.

Bandwidth

In going online, we all get very relaxed with how are service works. Crooks and Liars has a good story noting the trouble. Like downloading? Like watching online videos? Are you rich? Bandwidth, how much?

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When they announced yesterday that the Department of Justice was beefing up the antitrust division, the first likely target I thought of was cable TV. How about it, guys? We can't take much more of these monopolies' skyrocketing prices:

Last month, the nation's No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as "metering" that charges Internet customers depending on how much they download. Customers who exceed their limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate.

Time Warner Cable's usage penalty would take the unlimited service we enjoy today (albeit slow compared to other nations), and make Internet more like cell phones, where you get overcharged by companies making record profits. It is the latest version of the Net Neutrality debate: should the companies that deliver Internet be allowed to block it, slow it down, or in this case, overcharge for it?

Here's why this issue threatens the Internet as you know it: Cable companies Time Warner and Comcast, and phone giants AT&T and Verizon sell the vast majority of high-speed Internet service in the United States. Phone and cable companies like these have no other competition in 97% of US markets, thanks to corrupt policies passed by the Bush Administration at the companies' behest.

These duopolies are betting on the future of their "triple-play" phone-Internet-TV service, so that you'll pay them more than $100 per month and they can keep earning record profits. They know that if you start downloading video from online innovators like Hulu.com and Roku.com, eventually you won't need their expensive, advertising-ridden television service. If you decide to use online phone providers like Skype, you won't need their expensive phone service. The answer? Jack up the cost of Internet, and once again eliminate the competition. This is exhibit A for when we need government to establish and enforce consumer protections; the same brand of policies we needed to prevent the financial meltdown and protect New Orleans.

Fortunately, Time Warner Cable's pricing scam was met by fierce opposition from consumers, public interest groups and members of Congress. Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) spoke out against the scheme, and Time Warner Cable scuttled the plan in four of the five test cities. Beaumont, Texas, was the city left as the lone petri dish, and Congressman Massa has promised legislation to curb the price-gouging. Yesterday, Rep. Massa told the Philadelphia Inquirer he is looking for a Republican co-sponsor for the bill: "This is bigger than a college kid surfing the Internet. Anything that limits access to the basic Internet is a threat to the economy."

Time Warner Cable is regrouping, and says it is planning a "customer education process" to teach the public that high prices and Internet caps are good for us. And while the company tries to get its messaging right, other phone and cable companies are dipping a toe in the metering pool. AT&T is already testing a billing scheme that caps Internet use, and other Internet service providers are preparing to do the same.

...

... Time Warner's pricing plans would put the Internet even further out of reach for tens of millions of Americans.

Time Warner Cable and other Internet providers say they need to penalize users to slow down an impending "Internet brownout"--a day when we run out of bandwidth. That bandwidth doomsday, however, isn't about to happen anytime soon. Even one of Time Warner Cable's own executives offers evidence that bandwidth scarcity is a ruse: "Cable is like the Federal Reserve of bandwidth...we can practically print the stuff!" said Mike LaJoie, the company's chief technology officer. LaJoie has also said that supplying consumers with more bandwidth is "basically free" for his company.

Ending the Tesla dream.

Not the car, the man, Nikola Tesla.

The massive lab and tower he built at the turn of the century to try and invent wireless electricity and radio seems doomed to be cleared away.

i09:

...Tesla sparked the tower up only one time in 1903, shooting enormous bolts of electricity into the air. Then he sold it off along with its environs, called Wardenclyffe, to pay his debts.

Eventually parts of the tower were demolished and used for scrap, but a hulking chunk of it remains, along with the lab and possible tunnels beneath. Some of Tesla's massive, bizarre equipment is still in the buildings, and the purpose of some unimaginably huge batteries there remains a mystery.

Unfortunately, as the New York Times reports this week, the Wardenclyffe property is up for sale by its current owner Agfa. The company spent millions cleaning up toxins on the site, and with the economic downturn can no longer afford to keep it. They promise potential buyers that they'll deliver the property "cleared," meaning they'll destroy what's left of Tesla's research facility. There will be no chance for anyone to study its remains, to see if the man really had invented wireless electricity a century ago.

This would be a tremendous loss for science history. Luckily several groups are lobbying to turn the area into a museum for Tesla. You can find out about their efforts in the NYT article here. Let's hope the push for a museum succeeds.

Giving a dummy a show.

No it isn't Howdie Doodie Time. But it is damn close.

No Jenny McCarthy goes to TV, again. Now she is going to host...Really...Great.

Sure she spouts bad science on Larry King, she makes unproven claims on Oprah, but now she's like Dr. Phil...Really.

But, she, really, is a smarty. Orac looked at her twittering.

...

Now, when I first saw it, I thought it had to be a spoof, someone pretending to be Jenny. No one could be as inane as to Tweet things like:

Im inside a hyperbaric chamber. This thing makes me feel amazing.

About to fly to jersey. Security stole my sugar free jelly out of my purse. Boo hoo. I miss evan.

Now Im on the plane. they asked me if I wanted a cinnabun. Im so sad. The chubby guy sitting next to me is slobbering all over his. boo hoo.

Apparently I was wrong.

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Marcotte looked at the trouble McCarthy is bringing science, medicine, and child care.

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This is a complete disaster. For reasons I can’t quite understand, Jenny McCarthy is dedicated to fighting medical science on multiple fronts on the theory that she, as a celebrity who has given birth, understands way more about disease and biology than mere doctors and scientists, with their facts and their evidence. I know that there was some hope expressed that now that Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who published the study that supposedly showed a link between autism and vaccines, has been exposed as a fraud, the anti-vaccination movement would wither away and die. Unfortunately, I’ve been watching the anti-choice and creationist movements for a long time, so I know that cranks not only don’t care about the facts, scientific evidence against them just redoubles their enthusiasm for the cause, because now they can feel like they’re fighting reality itself. Overcoming a foe like that is a feather in your cap indeed. And McCarthy’s acquisition of a TV show demonstrates that I was right---if they can’t win on the facts, they’ll dominate the media discourse.

The first three blog posts at McCarthy’s blog are the sort of thing that give people who promote healthy eating a bad name. It’s not that she’s wrong to suggest that eating a bunch of sugar isn’t good for you. But this is coming from McCarthy, who actually claims to have cured her son of autism through obsessively monitoring his diet.

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Oprah has a lot to answer for for bringing so much of this woo to the forefront, giving it all so much legitimacy. She has gotten rich and famous spouting and promoting, UFO's, crystals, ghosts, mediums, psychics, anti science, pop religion, the Secret, etc. Larry King does much the same. But he doesn't get people there own shows, to begin exponential spreading of this fertilizer. You can only hope Oprah comes to realize how much trouble she has wrought an tries to make things right.


Orac looked further at Oprah's complicity.

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And Oprah is about to catapult her to the next level.

Still, when celebrity gossip rags start ragging on you for supporting antivaccine lunacy, you know you have a problem. Oprah has a problem. Not that Oprah cares. She's rich, and she's Oprah. Why on earth should she care if more kids become ill from vaccine-preventable diseases and if some of them even die because she gave a platform to an anti-vaccine loon like Jenny McCarthy to spread her poison about vaccines and frighten parents with pseudoscience, misinformation, and lies? There's money to be made! And if there's one thing Oprah is very, very good at, it's making money.

If the price is a few more dead kids, well what are a few more--or even many more--dead kids to her? She's Oprah, after all.

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Souter stepping down

News is coming out that David Souter will be stepping down from the Supreme Court.

And even today I heard someone claim that Bush, McCain, and Obama are all the same...

YEESCH!

Switching up

Specter changes parties?

Arlen Specter, Republican from Pennsylvania, is now Democrat from Pennsylvania. Another vote in the Senate, depending on the issue. He seems to want to show that he is going to be a thorn at times.

TPM - Why Specter Did It

Swine Flu

Swine flu is on the uptick, including increasing numbers of children being struck. As they are oft to do at Effect Measure they are on to it.

Here are the posts they have made so far as the story has broken and authorities begin acting. Earliest to latest.

• The California swine flu cases
• The evolving Swine Flu story
• Is Mexico a part of the swine flu story?
• Swine flu update
• Latest on swine flu from CDC
• Swine flu: bits and pieces at the end of the day
• Swine flu: while we wait . . .
• Swine flu: CDC's Saturday press briefing

CDC has just concluded a press briefing and the big news is there is no big news. In fact there was hardly any small news. The major questions have been identified -- how transmissible, what is the epidemic curve, are there more cases in the US, are there subtle genetic differences in the US and Mexican versions to account for the apparent difference in clinical and epidemiological features, etc. -- but answering them will take longer.

Meanwhile, no new cases have been identified in the US, but CDC in collaboration with state and local health departments and the academic and medical sectors are working doing aggressive case finding.

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There was no new information about the situation in Mexico, except to say that "the situation is serious. We in CDEC are worried." Some, but not all, of the specimens from severely ill or deceased cases sent from Mexico is the new swine flu virus (7 of 14 specimens). While there is still no explanation for why the disease appears more severe, this is one of the top questions to be answered. ...

It is very clear that CDC has given this the highest priority and it sounds to these ears that they have very competent and dedicated personnel devoted to it. But reliable science takes time, care and some patience, even in circumstances where urgency is high and patience in short supply. That's just the way it is.

CDC has constructed a new and easier to navigate website for this: http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu

Perhaps the most important message is that this is a good time to move forward on strengthening the public health infrastructure and to get ready for the one thing we can be certain of in the days ahead: there will be more uncertainty.

• Swine flu: Saturday 6 pm EST
• Swine flu: Saturday night mind boggling factoid edition

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Bloomberg is reporting that the Health Minister, Jose Cordova, is putting at 81 the number of deaths linked to the virus, up from 68, although the number of laboratory confirmed cases still stands at 20.

Then there's this mind boggling factoid:

The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama’s trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn’t confirm if Solis had swine flu or not. (Thomas Black, Bloomberg)

I'm going to bed. Maybe when I wake up I'll find this has all been a (bad) dream

That explains all the more why they wanted to be sure Obama got checked out as this issue has worsened.

Some more sites covering the issue:

• Aetiology - Swine flu: a quick overview--and new New York and Kansas cases
• Avian Flu Diary
• CIDRAP
• DemFromCT
• Flu Wiki
• H5N1

More News:

• Swine Flu Outbreak May Spark UN Agency Review of Pandemic Alert
• Continental and US Airways relax ticketing policies for Mexico City passengers over swine flu outbreak

Teabag Rage

Conservative talkers have been trying hard to drum up rage and increase it. With the analysis from DHS, they wanted Napolitano fired, for her organization pointing to possible risks.

Right-wing battle cry: Bring me the head of Janet Napolitano!

Anyone notice how right-wing behavior toward President Obama so far is mimicking, structurally speaking, their behavior toward President Clinton in the 1990s: encourage anti-government hysteria, freak out about incipient totalitarianism, accuse him of destroying the country and making it weaker, and then constantly attack his appointees and demand their firing? What's next, an investigation of his investments?

Does it surprise anyone, then, that the first object of Republicans' ire -- the first Cabinet appointment whose resignation they're demanding -- would be a woman named Janet?

Greta Van Susteren and Byron York last night on Fox were fairly representative (check out the Limbaugh rant at the beginning), though the fire-Napolitano talk has been bubbling up everywhere. As Amanda Terkel notes this morning, John McCain even went so far as to falsely claim that the person responsible for the report had been fired.

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They are outraged at the notion anyone that might agree with them could be dangerous...

Teabagger arrested for threatening to turn the Oklahoma City capitol steps into a bloodbath

A number of us have been saying for a while now that the Republicans' extremist, anti-American rhetoric was going to push someone to violence. And it almost just did. From WIRED ...

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Wow, you mean a potential domestic terrorist was associated with gun issues. Funny, but that's exactly what the Homeland Security report said - the one the Republicans and the religious right wanted us to ignore.

Mr. Deity is coming back

YEEEAAAAAHHH!!!!

I recently got an update to my iTunes subscriptions for Mr. Deity. Here it is on their YouTube channel.

Yeah! Season 3 of Mr. Deity, a web series taking witty shots at a supreme being and religion. I can't wait. They are promoting items they have for sale, which is fine if it helps keep the show going. But I wince every time I see fun apps for iPhone and iTouch...as I, like most the world don't have either. Some of us just have a classic or Zum (or however that is spelled). And most of us can't afford to jump to a new phone service or really expensive phone...But it i nice for some people. I might get the CD, being a slavish fan.

Still, as we wait for more Mr. Deity they are also doing a second series in parallel. It is called Words, and looks at the actors from Mr. Deity in a more real world setting. As some of noted, it is akin to Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Here are the first 3 eps that are available.

• Episode 1


• Episode 2


• Episode 3

Some are saying it is available on iTunes through the podcast's section, but I can't find it, and a name like Words isn't helping. If anyone knows how to find it on iTunes, please share.

The Official Mr. Deity Page

Things to take the next time you let slip the leash of time.

At the Rogues Gallery they suggested a good chart to have up in your trusty time machine you got out and get stick, cause you know you will (Trapped in trapped amongst the feudal Flems again!) So take this chart and put it up pronto, unless your future self already did it for you...

Comics for girls

What do we do with girls wanting to read comics? So weird.

At least that is what I imagine is the attitude in most comic houses. "What there are people reading who don't just want anorexic teens in skimpy outfits bending over page after page?" You might think that is a silly thing to say , but go to various blogs discussing the depiction of women in comics and see how quick the guys pop up to tell you that girls in skimpy outfits is the point of comics, so shut up. It is almost enough to laugh.

So how does the industry try to reach out girls. (Not bothering to note that girls generally love the main books, which would only be more enjoyable with a bit more thought to their wider audience.) Why, by just putting out some grrl books. Oooooooooo.

We all see those coming out. But for every Birds of Prey, we get, what, 10 Divas.


Yes, for the females out there Marvel wants you to know they care and they want you to buy Divas. About 4 hard working girls, struggling with work an love. A Sex in the City for the female comic reader. Yeah 4 women, gossiping, griping about work, that's the same as that TV show. Joey Q over at Marvel really does have his finger on the pulse of womanhood. Geez, like so many times before this really does look more like poor writing where the writer struggles to imagine what a woman would talk about with other women, other then men they love, men keeping them down, women they don't like, and fooood. Can't wait.

Geek Girls Rule:

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He describes it as “Sex and the City in the Marvel Universe.”
Personally, I think Mr. Quesada never got past Samantha’s tits to understand exactly why women actually liked the show. I admit to an unhealthy fascination with the first two seasons on HBO, only partially because Chris (OMG, DREAMY) Noth played Carrie’s boyfriend, Mr. Big. These were four women who were strong, independent, had jobs I would KILL for, and owned their sexuality. They didn’t sleep with men to please men, they slept with men to please themselves. Even Charlotte, the most timid and puritanical of the four, realized that owning her own sexuality and pleasure was neccessary to her mental health and happiness.
So I look at that image above and compare it to this shot from the intro titles to “Sex and the City,” [PICTURE HERE] where the four women are engaged with each other, not posing pornaliciously, and I find Mr. Quesada’s vision sorely lacking, as well as his comprehension of what made women, even nerdy women like me, enjoy “Sex and the City.” These women have agency and friendship. They aren’t all posing sexily in their own little world, completely separate from one another. Even in the promo shots for the movie that were more posed, they still look more powerful than those superheroines above.
After the “Sex and the City” comment, he adds: “I also think the series is going to a deeper place, asking questions about what it means…truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.)” You’ll forgive me a sardonic laugh at this point, because he immediately follows it up with this gem: “But mostly it’s just a lot of hot fun.”

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Hot fun? Nice to know after talking about your book for the girls you make sure to assure the reading base that it will be hot still. Oh...goody.

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Seriously, Joe, hire some women and let them write. It’s the only way you can come out of this without looking like a complete sexist pig. Ok, it’s too late for that. But seriously, women like comics, women like superhero comics, women WANT to like superhero comics, and women want to not cringe every time they buy an X-title and think “Wow, I feel dirty that any of my money is going to support someone who doesn’t think I’m a real person.”

Let's shake.

With Obama meeting with leaders of the Southern hemisphere, conservative were driven into a fury by...well let us go to the Wheel of Fury to see what they chose to get pissed off over today.

And we land on...handshakes.

Yeah. Obama shook the hand of the president of Venezuela. Now there are some of his policies I don't like, as well as some of his stances and actions. But we have to look at our need to...grow up. We have to actually deal with the world. We have to coordinate at times and communicate.

And I think there are some people Republicans might want to listen to.

And AMERICAblog shows them. Previous Republican presidents.

God knows best

PZ Myers looked at a hilarious video this week, looking at angels trying to give god advice before coming of Earth as Jesus. But god knows best.

Right wing secedes from sanity

OR How I took a permanent vacation from reality.

Have you seen these Republ...Conserv...POPULIST...yeah, that's the ticket.

What aren't they doing these days...that's sane.

A major news organization is fomenting revolt.




Limbaugh started out the pirate/hostage situation declaring Obama a coward, then when it ended with the hostage free and the hostage takers dead or captured, he was pissed and belligerent to any conservative who gave the administration ANY credit. Then he came up with a new tact. How dare Obama murder black teenagers. Yeah, last train to Nutterville is pulling into the station. With another attack already, and more to come it is doubtless that Rush readies to weep for these poor folks. (Now I have sympathy for the plight in Somalia, but Rush is plainly just trying to find some way to bitch and moan.


Then there's Pat Robertson. He wants to cripple the DHS. That's right those folks who are in charge of watching the border and preventing terrorist events in the US, he wants to disrupt there work. God bless him, by which I mean he should take Pat and do to him what many priests have done to kids. In the wake of the Right Wing threat file being leaked he is pushing people to jam there phone lines, the lines that people use to get through with warnings of suspicious activities and items they have spotted. Sharp thinking Pat, you'll show them, you'll show us all...Nut job.


Oh, yeah AND TEXAS wants to secede!

Isn't that right Rick Perry?



He has tried to back away since. But he also seems to be hemming an hawing. Way to be the governor of a state. Between the attacks on atheists, this, and well so much of your work you really are trying to outshine Palin as a first class twit. Good job.

But not to worry Tom Delay stuck his head in to. He gave Texas a great scenario to get Congress to secede from them. I just can't wait for the death watch between Perry, Delay, and Chuck Norris for rulership of the nation of Texas. Norris is getting older and no one fights dirtier than a politician.

But there is still more. Guess who else decided he needed to be heard on this? Rush! Ah-ah!

... And now they have a clip for Rush getting on the bandwagon too. From it seems like the Republicans, now centered heavily in the South, have found their issue to come back into power in the US -- building up a head of steam to leave the country altogether.

Nutters, nut jobs, and wackos all around. The Republican leadership and voices. Now, how are going to screw this up?

Railing away

I am pleased to here about the new investment in high-speed rail by the Obama administration.

(Note to the ditto heads of the world...It is possible to be critical of one aspect of policy and supportive of another...Tell Rush.)

Here's a map of the corridors that are in the running for the new federal funds the Obama administration announced today it is making available for high-speed rail ...

On torture from the current admin

Olbermann gave criticism of the stance the Obama administration on the torture that happen under Bush and what will be done about it now we are learning how bad it was.



AMERICAblog adds in about the political realities.

... He explains why we should proceed with prosecution, rather than how this president CAN proceed safely. Democrats are notoriously ham-handed. A Democratic president is going to prosecute Republicans for going too far in trying to protect our country? Fat chance. While owning the moral high ground, that kind of charge takes a political dexterity that Democrats simply don't have.

I don't criticize Olbermann for his argument. He's right. I criticize everyone responsible for making the Democratic party so poor at messaging, and thus so necessarily spineless, that politics would trump morality when talking about war crimes.

Mock the Meek

With the loathsome Gathering Storm ad going out. It is time to laugh at just how stupid its arguments are. (via Feministing)

On Somalia

Ah, Somalia. Some of us remember the Clinton years and the losses the US took in that country. Some people remember the movie Black Hawk Down. Some laughed over the last year at the number of stories of ships and crews taken hostage. Then it all became all so serious when an American crew was threatened (I would note that there are American hostages in a number of places today that just aren't as interesting to the US press.).

So now that we had a bit of military efficiency and victory, it seems we want more. Bomb them. Shell them. Show them what for.

This piracy is and has been for a while now a problem, and it needs to be dealt with. But it seems important to know the history and why we are here. If not to aid it expediting and end, to not let this fucking happen again.

Crooks and Liars:

Johann Hari from The Independent:

In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."
This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. ...