sacrebleu

This article on the French predilection for conspiracy doesn't really hit home based on my discussions with French people I work with. The whole DSK conspiracy was explained to me this way.

Sarkozy = Bush
DSK = Obama

The French apparently hate Sarkozy. His approval rating is 21%. He apparently is as dumb as Bush. A big problem with the French. He is considered ham-fisted and apparently overly concerned about his appearance and height. And he can't talk apparently. DSK on the other hand is considered an intellectual. He's a professor. He speaks well.

Imagine if Obama was caught during the primaries in a similar situation. I would argue that half the country would think it was a conspiracy. It certainly is the type of situation that could be framed easily. It's not like a moon landing conspiracy that would required thousands of people to be paid off. It would only require a few.

Now I don't think it is a conspiracy but it's a little unfair to the French to paint this as part of their national psyche. Especially when America seems to have a corner on conspiracies from Roswell to 9/11 to JFK to Birtherism to the Philadelphia Experiment to ...

yoo hoo

Funny comment on a Foreign Policy (foreignpolicy.com) article on the failure of Obama in Libya written by none other than John Yoo.  Yes.  That John Yoo.

Listening to Yoo talk foreign policy is like listening to Charlie Sheen talk child-rearing. I'm looking forward to your coming expose on the sanctity of marriage by Newt Gingrich.

And while I'm here a counter-intuitive but interesting article from the same source.

duped?

Interesting interview where the primary U.S. source for WMD's in Iraq comes clean and admits he made the whole thing up. The article states paints it as if the U.S. was duped. But I suspect it rather was that they utilized it because it fell into Bush's narrative of attacking Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/curveball-iraqi-fantasist-cia-saddam

Also.  Why is this nowhere to be found on US media?  Hmmm?

obama's real problem

No matter how much Obama talks about his “tough” new financial regulatory reforms or offers rote condemnations of Wall Street greed, few believe there’s been real change. That’s not just because so many have lost their jobs, their savings and their homes. It’s also because so many know that the loftiest perpetrators of this national devastation got get-out-of-jail-free cards, that too-big-to-fail banks have grown bigger and that the rich are still the only Americans getting richer.

The rest can and should be read here.  Once again the Democrats are their own worst enemy.

of all people

This Juan William controversy is fairly interesting. I don't quite understand the perspective that what he said was okay. Here's what he said in the interview with Bill O'Reilly:

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said Monday. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

He later responded with a piece saying:

Yesterday, NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims. This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings and my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. 

What if I take these comments and apply them to another minority group and a stereotypical setting.

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said Monday. "But when I'm walking down the street, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in black urban garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Blacks, I get worried. I get nervous."

and

Yesterday, NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am walking down the street and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Blacks. This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings and my fears after seeing news items about the violent acts of radical Blacks.

Is that an acceptable thing to say in the media?

who's in charge here

An interesting read on the new debacle in the real estate industry.

And now the mortgage mess is making nonsense of claims that we have effective contract enforcement — in fact, the question is whether our economy is governed by any kind of rule of law.

This news item has been making the rounds.  Basically servicers of mortgages are foreclosing on homes when they don't actually follow the process of foreclosure.  This is illegal.  Property rights are a foundation of our capitalist economy.

More interesting reading from Barry Ritholtz's The Big Picture (a very good and objective source of analysis on all things financial):
here, (this is the most important one)
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.

This brings up a bigger point I'd like to make.  There is no longer a two party system in our government.  It used to be Republican and Democrat and those two things stood for two different views on how government should be run and how it should regulate its citizens.  For about a decade now I just don't see how you can cast the American political system into this framework.  We have a single party system now largely run by corporations.  There differentiator between the two political parties now is which corporations are they beholdened to?

As far as I can see both political parties display the same two issues.  First they have no fiscal responsibility.  They display it in different ways but ultimately it comes down to the same problem.  Whether it is defined benefits plans we can't pay for or wars that provide no benefit to our safety, both parties spend like drunken sailors.  Actually that's an insult to drunken sailors.  The bailout of the financial community was started by W. Bush and continued and expanded by by Obama.  The war started by W. Bush is still going on with Obama

Two, they are not "protecting" the populace.  Whether it is infringements on privacy or the complete gutting of protective regulations or the complete apathy to instituted regulations, the government no longer serves to protect your interests.  Most regulations offered by both political parties are written by corporations whether it be music, telecom, banking, insurance, etc.  And most regulations are written through legislative actions which are coerced by corporate lobbying.

How can Obama be rationally viewed as better than Bush?  He's continued to support these two ridiculous wars.  He's supported Patriot Act type legislation that removes civil liberties.  He's continued his bailout of the financial industry with little appetite for prosecution. I could go on for paragraphs with this kind of thing.

It is an irrational viewpoint to support a political party based on what they USED to stand for.  Right now they are indistinguishable to me.  And they are certainly not representing me anymore.

malice in wonderland

Interesting op-ed piece from Ted Koppel (yea that one) about how successful Osama bin Laden's strategy has been. It's a self-evident piece but probably needs to be reiterated for literally 75% of this country.

The goal of any organized terrorist attack is to goad a vastly more powerful enemy into an excessive response. And over the past nine years, the United States has blundered into the 9/11 snare with one overreaction after another.

And...

We have raced to Afghanistan and Iraq, and more recently to Yemen and Somalia; we have created a swollen national security apparatus; and we are so absorbed in our own fury and so oblivious to our enemy's intentions that we inflate the building of an Islamic center in Lower Manhattan into a national debate and watch, helpless, while a minister in Florida outrages even our friends in the Islamic world by threatening to burn copies of the Koran.

If bin Laden did not foresee all this, then he quickly came to understand it. In a 2004 video message, he boasted about leading America on the path to self-destruction. "All we have to do is send two mujaheddin . . . to raise a small piece of cloth on which is written 'al-Qaeda' in order to make the generals race there, to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses." 

north korea

Fascinating amateur journalism showing North Korea at vbs.tv. I'm linking to CNN though because VBS is the slowest loading, most confusing site I've ever seen. You do need to go there however to actually view the some 15 videos. And North Korea is as bizarre as you'd expect.

bush's war

I stumbled onto Bush's War last night. Part 2 is tonight I believe. I don't watch TV and rarely know in advance of these types of TV events so I was pretty lucky to catch it. I don't read much about Iraq or politics. They aren't entirely interesting topics to me and I find reading political events day to day provides very little perspective. I prefer to read a book or to watch something like this documentary. It should be required TV for anyone who wants a better understanding of what happened and what is happening. Whether you like or dislike what is happening or who is involved, I found insights into how the primary players function and how their philosophies and beliefs dictate their actions.

I'm reminded of McNamara's comment in Errol Morris' Fog of War documentary that went something like 'empathize with your enemy'. In other words it is impossible to counteract something if you don't understand why it is doing it in the first place. Motivations are important. Saying "Bush is Satan" is as bad as him saying "They want to destroy our way of life". It's a useless piece of propoganda. This documentary will help you empathize with everyone. That's different than saying you'll agree with everyone. It's an incredibly nuanced and fascinating and terrifying story.

chapter 4

White House Now Unsure if Firings Were Mier's Idea

I was hoping for a "I have no recollection" quote but this is damn close

“The attorney general [i.e., Gonzales] has no recollection of any plan or discussion to replace U.S. attorneys while he was still White House counsel,”

chapter 3

Boy that was unexpected. Rove is involved.

Rove is Linked to Early Query Over Dismissals

The White House senior adviser Karl Rove inquired about firing federal prosecutors in January 2005...

Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, repeated Thursday that Ms. Miers first proposed the dismissals, but Mr. Snow acknowledged in an interview that the e-mail messages shifted the time line earlier than the White House had previously said.

“The e-mail does not directly contradict nor is it inconsistent with Karl’s recollection that after the 2004 election, Harriet Miers raised a question of replacing all the U.S. attorneys and he believed it was not a good idea,” Mr. Snow said. “That’s his recollection.”

Clear & Present Danger - Tom Clancy

Jack Ryan: Who authorized this?
Ritter: I'm sure they'll ask you that.
Jack Ryan: Who authorized it?
Ritter: I have no recollection, Senator

this story has legs

This is getting even more interesting.

UPDATE from the Wall Street Journal (reg req'd)

WASHINGTON -- Emails between White House aides and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's chief of staff show an orchestrated effort to fire several U.S. attorneys, counter to Mr. Gonzales's previous assertions that the firings weren't instigated by the White House.

The emails released yesterday appear to conflict with statements Mr. Gonzales and other top Justice Department officials made to members of Congress in testimony and letters explaining the prosecutor dismissals. Some lawmakers and former Justice Department officials say Mr. Gonzales, a longtime friend of President Bush who previously served as White House counsel, seems to be acting more as presidential counselor than the nation's top law-enforcement officer.

Mr. Gonzales, who a year ago was touted as a strong possibility to be the first Hispanic chief justice of the Supreme Court, now faces demands for his resignation from some lawmakers and the prospect of frequent appearances before various Congressional committees investigating the U.S. attorney dismissals.

Even some Republicans distanced themselves from him yesterday. Recent events show that Mr. Gonzales is "an echo chamber of the White House," says Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan. "When the president says 'Jump,' he says 'How high?'"

you're fired

There's a really disturbing article in the NY Times today about the firing of U.S. attorneys for what looks like political reasons by the Bush administration. They had all received strong job evaluations. This is just getting out of hand. So much for checks and balance.

NY Times has a follow up on the story here.