May, 2009 archive
What Digby Said 0
Another edition of What Digby Said.
Excerpt:
But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.
The Entitlement Society 0
Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian. It’s about events in the UKofGBandNI, but it just as well be about events in the States:
Afterthought: We know the answer to the question: He gets paid for performa–gag, choke, aarrrggghhhh.
“Good Ole Golden Rule Days” 0
Boy, did I go to school in the wrong era!
Get Your Used Car Here 0
Delaware is auctioning off surplus vehicles.
No used car dealer doubletalk here:
(Check the article for a link to the online auction.)
When Zombie Banks Walked the Earth 0
accompanied by their little zombettes:
(snip)
Total losses at those banks could surpass $200 billion over that period, according to the Journal’s analysis, which utilized the same worst-case scenario the federal government used in its recent stress tests of 19 large banks. Under that scenario, more than 600 small and midsize banks could see their capital shrink to levels that usually are considered worrisome by federal regulators. The potential losses could exceed revenue over that period at nearly all the banks.
Via RawStory.
Tesla Is Doomed 0
After all, aren’t these the same folks who were going to save Chrysler?
About Those “Green Shoots” 0
They are in the fields where all those unbuilt houses aren’t (not that I’m a big fan of filling fields with houses, but, even so):
The drop reflected a 46.1 percent plunge in groundbreaking activity for multi-family units and suggested homebuilding remains a drag on the economy. Starts for single-family homes, however, rose 2.8 percent, a second straight gain that showed the worst-hit part of the market was stabilizing.
I question whether housing is a drag on the economy. Rather, I think the economy is a drag on housing.
And Wall Street Banks are the deadweight in the drag.
Graph via Andrew Sullivan.
Novel Idea 0
That the reputed “owners” of a company might have rights:
I’m not holding my breath on this one.
A Newspaper Needs Many Voices 0
The Philadelphia Shrinquirer does its part.
First, John Yoo, who gives me the vapors, and now, for the vapors, Aye, there’s the rub.
What rub?
Why, the Vicks, of course.
When Zombie Banks Walked the Earth 0
When the dealer keeps the deals out of sight, the deck is likely crooked.
You can bank on it (emphasis added):
Gorton argues that shadow banking is “at the heart” of the financial crisis in his research in a paper “Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand: Banking and the Panic of 2007” last week at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Financial Markets Conference. Gorton argues that the recent financial crisis was really a banking panic in which banks, both in the shadows and in the light, were unable to meet their obligations.
Free hand of the market my anatomy.
Bar None 0
A lawyer is a hired gun, sure, but a hired gun whose first allegiance is supposed to be to the rule of law and whose second is to the client. Clients should be represented within the rule of law.
A lawyer who places his client above the rule of law becomes a whaddya-call-um, “mouthpiece.”
These guys were mouthpieces:
The coalition, called Velvet Revolution, asked the bar associations in four states and the District of Columbia to disbar the lawyers, saying their actions violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted illegal torture.
By writing or approving legal opinions justifying such methods, the advocates say, the Bush administration lawyers violated the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and American law.
Support the Troops, Feres Doctrine Style 0
Military personnel have no protection from medical “errors.” Follow the link for full details:
Then, during frantic efforts to repair the damage, two surgical sponges were left in Wilson’s abdomen. Twelve hours after giving birth, she was dead.
In civilian surgeries, the doctors and nurses routinely count sponges. Indeed, they count everything.
Leaving a sponge or a piece of apparatus in a patient is ipso facto evidence of error, if not malpractice. Penalities attach; a doctor or nurse could easily lose his or her license, even if no legal action takes place.
Because of the Feres Doctrine, no such accountability attaches itself to military medical staff.
Whereas some of the aspects of the Feres Doctrine may make sense in the fog of war or on the field of combat, it does seem a stretch for it to apply to a routine obstetrical delivery at a stateside hospital.
I Don’t Know If Not-Great-but-Decent Comics Is Enough To Justify Keeping My Subscription 0
I’ve been following it, but Brendan lays it out very well.
It smells real bad.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has sold out to the forces of darkness.
Ventura Blvd. 0
Back in my tech support days, I would frequently talk with techs from Minnesota. Generally, they were embarrassed by their governor of the time, Jesse Ventura.
I remember telling one of them after he expressed his discombobulation, “Let me tell you how the rest of the country reacts to your governor.
“Most persons find it very refreshing to see a politician who speaks his mind without consulting the polls and spin doctors first. Sure, he shoots his mouth off from time to time. But he speaks honestly. That is a nice change.”
Watch Mr. Ventura cut through the wingnut hypocrisy and doubletalk:
Via the Great Orange Satan.
