The Unbearable Hamster of Being

Stinque We Must

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

We had hoped to announce this under calmer circumstances, but events overtook intentions, so here goes:

Welcome to Stinque!

Stinque will be our new home from here on, and we're inviting everyone — bloggers and commenters — to come party with us.

Our intention for the site is simple: We want to embrace the traditions we've quickly developed at our old home, and allow them to continue evolving. While the primary focus remains politics, the name reflects the broader interests of our community: If someone wants to post or chat about sports, culture, Big Fucking Ocean Tornadoes, or even Project Runway, we want them to feel at home.

(We mention Project Runway here so that when we gag on somebody's finale liveblog, you can hold us to our promise.)

We hold no ill will towards our former hosts, and we don't want folks feeling like they have to choose sides. We just have Profound Creative Differences with their future plans, and thought it best to bow out now before we get all pissy about it.

We're Not the Only One Out to Lunch

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

We've been highly distracted with geek chores the past couple of days, and we're discovering that trying to catch up with the Financial End Times is like missing an episode of a primetime serial — we have no idea how that polar bear got there, but we imagine it'll make sense eventually.

So pardon us while we attempt to wrap our exhausted mind around this:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned his former colleagues that they would pay a price in November for backing the bailout now — and that John McCain could ride to victory over Barack Obama by persuading voters that the bailout is really the “Obama-Bush plan.”

Now step back from this a moment and consider: It's understandable that they want to run away from an unpopular president, and the Republican convention was the equivalent of outlaws trying to switch their black cowboy hats to white — but this is the first suggestion we've seen of throwing Dubya under the bus.

We're tempted to agree with Newt, just to see the attack ads — a Rovian snake swallowing its tail.

House GOP rises up against Cheney [Politico]

And in the Trunk, Bundles of Cash

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 06:30:00 +0000

[via Blogenfreude]

Saw Hu Jintao from window today (and got picture) — he jumped out of limo, shook the hands of a carefully-assembled group of chinese people, then bounded across park avenue to do some more. Bush, on the other hand, hid in his limo.

Eternal Sunshine of the Blogless Mind

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

If it seems like the world is vanishing from your grasp piece by piece, well, it is. One day your comments are taken away from you, the next week the whole posting engine goes south.

And while we would gladly accept $700 billion to fix it, fact is your money's no good here, just like the rest of the world. Either the Evil Hamsters deign to fix the database, or they don't. At least, being hamsters, it won't take much gold to sew their parachutes.

Besides, times are tough all over — just check out this headline from Business Week: Wall Street Bailout Could Crimp CEO Pay. Golly, that would be just awful, wouldn't it? It was only in 2005 that CEO pay was a mere 411-1 over working wages, and nobody wants to return to the dark days of 1990 when it cratered at 107-1. Fucking up the world economy is hard work, after all.

Let's face it: If we don't lend them a hand now, who will hire the gardeners for the McMansions? Topiary doesn't trim itself, pal.

No, no, we're fine, just something caught in our eye, that's all. But the moment we see Sally Struthers asking us for a few dollars to maintain an orphaned Lexus, god help us we're gonna lose it.

Liar’s Paradox

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:42:00 +0000

Here's one for the annals of epistemology:

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign aides convened a conference call today to complain of being called “liars.” They pressed the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen. Barack Obama’s record.

But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy.

Oh Ben Smith, you're so adorable. "Little regard"?

McCain camp criticism rife with errors [Politico]

This Time It’s Personal

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

"This is a desperate attempt to gain political advantage using scare tactics and deceit," said Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman.

How does he do that? How does Tucker Carlson's bastard child say that in the face of eight years of Rovian politics? Who taught him how to lie like that? What pampered Eastern elite college did he attend on Daddy's money?

Turns out he didn't. He went to a Western state university. A very Western state university. A state university so Western, you can hop in your Pinto and be walking the Florence beach within an hour.

Tucker Bounds, Boy Liar, Campbell Brown's Punching Bag, went to the University of Oregon.

My university. My home town. My fucking turf.

It's not like there aren't assholes among the Duck Diaspora. One of them owns a sneaker company, although we treat him nice because the money he saves from Asian sweatshops buys some nice buildings on campus. And the dead half of Simpson-Bruckheimer was responsible for putting Tom Cruise in a fighter jet. And we were really proud of Yosuke Matsuoka until he, um, signed up Japan with Germany and Italy a few generations back.

But we prefer to talk about Prefontaine. And James Ivory. And Randy Shilts. And Wayne Morse, one of the two senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. (The other? Ernest Gruening of Alaska. Small world!)

It's okay, we'll be fine. At least it rains a lot in Eugene — the stench has probably long since washed away into the Willamette.

Crisis Draws Attention to McCain Social Security Plan [WSJ]

'Dynamic Duck duo' help propel McCain's campaign [Oregonian]

That and $700 Billion Will Buy You a Bailout

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

''This is a hole in the dike and it threatens to injure the safety and soundness of our banking system. It's alarming to believe that the Fed, usually the great defender of the banking system, is now leading the deregulatory charge.''

And so, like Babe Ruth pointing the bat towards right field, Chuck Schumer — then a Brooklyn congressman — called the catastrophe that would unfold twenty years later.

The year was 1987, and the occasion was a major Federal Reserve vote that loosened Depression-era restrictions on banks — notably, allowing them to begin underwriting those mortgage-backed securities we've heard so much about lately. The 1933 Glass-Steagall Act wouldn't fall for another dozen years, but this was the beginning of the end.

The Reaganomic argument of the day was that while FDR may have saved capitalism from itself, 1930s protections had been rendered quaint by 1980s conditions, that we needed to take off the leash so American financial oligopolies could compete with oligopolies overseas.

And besides, the Cassandras fearing unimaginable calamities like trillion-dollar bailouts had failed to recognize that the financial system was all grown up now. Thomas Theobald, vice chairman of Citicorp, offered three "outside checks" on market misbehavior:

"a very effective" SEC

knowledgeable investors

"very sophisticated" rating agencies

Give him credit — that's three for three in naming the most cited failures underlying the current meltdown.

Missing from the conversation that long ago spring was any reference to Gordon Gekko or "Greed is Good," but that's only because of a technicality — Wall Street didn't premiere until December. The movie's tagline: "Every dream has a price."

Bank Curb Eased in Volcker Defeat [NYT, May 1, 1987]

The Long Demise of Glass-Steagall [Frontline, 2003]

Coffee’s For Closers

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:20:00 +0000

[Bush] added, "People are beginning to doubt our system, people were losing confidence and I understand it's important to have confidence in our financial system."

And speaking of con jobs, here's today's winning Lotto number: $700 billion.

Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout [AP]

Those Were The Days

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Didn't Sarah Palin used to be somebody? We vaguely remember her from a few weeks back — maybe it was a crotch shot in a limo. Or that "Leave Sarah Alone" video. Or the other one. Or the one that's not the first two.

Maybe this will help:

Another valley activist, Philip Munger, says that Palin also helped push the evangelical drive to take over the Mat-Su Borough school board. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the board," said Munger, a music composer and teacher. "I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism -- your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.'"

Ah, now we remember: She's Chuck Heath's daughter. You know Chuck — he's retired now, likes to hunt moose and caribou. Used to teach science. And apparently, near as we can tell, didn't care much for creationism, at least not in the classroom. Good for him.

The pastor who clashed with Palin [Salon]

Is 'Palin Effect' already wearing thin? [SFGate]

Office Maxxx

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Poor Cheryl Oldham. She gets a "prestigious job supporting high-ranking corporate executives" at a magazine publisher, but her working life becomes a series of nightmares straight out of The Devil Wore Prada.

Sort of.

Substitute "Nothing" for "Prada", and you'll understand her predicament. Seems the boss has a taste for professionals in another line of work, but his office isn't sufficiently insulated to contain the din of their animated consulting sessions:

The prostitutes "made loud, obnoxious and repeated noises of sexual gratification that disrupted the office and (Oldham's) ability to perform the essential functions of her job," her lawsuit alleges.

So Cheryl takes it up with HR, but HR doesn't want to hear about it. The boss asks her to testify against a co-worker who's also distracted by the chanson d'amour, and when Cheryl refuses, the boss calls her a fat old cow. Disenchanted by the glamorous promise and squalid reality, she finally files a lawsuit.

And who's the boss, you ask?

Hustler's Larry Flynt sued over 'loud sex in the office' [Contra Costa Times]

World Financial Markets At a Glance

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

U.S. Drafts Sweeping Plan to Fight Crisis As Turmoil Worsens in Credit Markets [WSJ]

KTHXBAI

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:51:00 +0000

And we thought Bluetooth would be the death of us.

Engineer in Deadly LA Train Crash Was Texting [WaPo]

I’ll Broaden My Exposure If You Short Your Position

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:11:00 +0000

The Fed will spray the dollars around the world via swap lines with other central banks who can then auction them in their own markets.

It's the end of the world as we bow-chicka-wow-wow know it...

Central Banks Offer Extra Funds to Calm Money Markets [Bloomberg]

The War on Boomers

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

As we were about to say last Sunday before we got tired of sounding like an oracle and spiked the post, this might be the most critical week of the election: the week the caricatures settle in.

Events overtook our discussion anyway. Who cares what Sarah told Charlie? That's a pre-9/15 attitude in a post-9/15 world. The past keeps disappearing at an alarming rate this season, and we're sure something will happen this afternoon that makes us forget this morning. And whatever it is, Geezer will promise to reform that too, just after he tells us not worry about it.

But despite our admonition to not pay attention, we do peek at polls occasionally, especially if they promise to enlighten us beyond who leads among 1,100 adults stupid enough to answer the phone.

Even if takes — let's see — seven grafs to find what we're looking for.

And sure enough, what we find is this: Nothing has changed. Including the fact that everyone continues to ignore the only consistent statistic all year: your age.

If you're under 45, odds are 3-2 you support Obama. If you're over 65, the odds reverse. In between, even. You can chart that with a ruler, left to right.

This election is a war on Boomers, and it has been from the start. Sarah Palin didn't change that, probably because anyone her age or younger can see what an idiot she is without the intercession of Uncle Charlie.

Everything else is a smokescreen, mildly interesting chatter at best. If you expect to live until at least 2035, you're voting for your future. If your chances of surviving McCain's first term rival McCain's, you're begging for one more chance to fuck up the world royally before passing what's left of it to the next generation.

McCain Seen as Less Likely to Bring Change, Poll Finds [NYT]

Miss a Day, All Hell Breaks Loose

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

So, while we were bravely rescuing CP commenters from being cast adrift on an ice floe, apparently Geezer said the economy is sound, and then he didn't, which was before or after he pulled a Gore and claimed squatter's rights on the Crackberry, but definitely before Failed HP CEO Carly Fiorina said he doesn't have the cojones to run a Fortune 500 company, while we discovered that Talibunny lurves them tanning beds, which makes the odds of Geezer croaking first from skin cancer less certain.

Oh, and Nader's talking to parrots.

We give up. Just throw the election into a blender and we'll check back later.

He’s Not Dead, He’s Resting

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Nader. Parrot. Awesome.

CP Commenter Strike Enters Second Day

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Sure, we could blame it on a malfunctioning database, but who are we kidding: It's you, taking your vengeance on our groundbreaking series of posts, "Sarah Palin: Get Over Yourselves, She Can't Be That Bad." You're dumbstruck by our sudden advocacy of plucky personality politics, and rather than comment, you're acting like a sulky bunch of goth kids.

Well, fine. Until you grow up enough to treat us with some level of respect and deference, we'll just leave the comments broken, and you can spend the day with the whiners at Kos and TPM. Then you'll come back on your knees, begging us to fix the comments, and maybe we will if your anguish pleases us.

And maybe we will anyway. Soon as we figure out how.

(Oh, hi, hamster fans! Sorry for the confusing crosspost. Actually, no we aren't. We don't make sense half the time anyway, why should we start now?)

We Interrupt This Campaign for a Financial Meltdown

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

Fannie and Freddie? So last week. Yesterday it was Lehman Brothers going down, Merrill Lynch being sucked up by Bank of America, and AIG holding a $40 billion gun to the head of the Fed.

That would be AIG, "the nation's largest insurer", collapsing by Wednesday if its credit rating slips a notch this morning.

And all because you — yes, you — took out an exploding mortgage to pay for your exploding credit-card debt to cover your exploding student loans to get into a good college so you could enjoy financial freedom for the rest of your life.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

A Chaotic Sunday Opens Wall Street's Week [WSJ]

Talibunny Campaign Airplane Held Aloft by Journo Jollity

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:41:00 +0000

Last night's SNL debut was enjoyed by everyone watching on Sarah Palin's jet. Well, almost everyone:

There were howls of laughter from the sizeable press corps covering Palin's first foray on the campaign trail without her running man as a chaperone.

But, from the front of the plane, silence. The flight attendants assured us Palin and her entourage were watching. What she thought, though, is anybody's guess.

Quick-thinking campaign operatives picked up on Chicago Bureau's remark and issued a release claiming the front-cabin silence stemmed from the following 85 minutes, not the first five.

Live From New York, It's Sarah (Tiny Fey) Palin! [ABC]

The Onion Throws Deep Into Python Territory

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

It was either this or Yet Another Contrarian Electoral Essay. We figured you could use a break.

The Onion [via Sully]

Sarah Palin’s Gay Book Club

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 08:59:00 +0000

TPM scores it a ban; we need to review the footage with the copy desk. Here's the play from the Times:

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

That would be Laura Chase, Palin's "campaign manager" during her 1996 run for Wasilla mayor, when the town had less than 5,500 residents. "Bejeepers" is Alaskan for "holy shit that bitch is running wild."

The McCain campaign responds in a related AP story that "Governor Sarah Palin has never asked anyone to ban a book, period." Normally we'd parse that for nuance and spin, but since Geezer now favors the efficiency of repeated outrageous lies, we won't bother.

Instead we'll have a look at "Pastor I Am Gay", the other book earning Palin's Seal of Squeal. Written by Howard Bess, a "liberal Christian preacher" — we'll pause while you reread that — from nearby Palmer, the book was on the shitlist of Palin's church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. Bess says the rival church tried to force his book out of stores, and that librarian Mary Ellen Emmons (now Baker) told him several copies disappeared from the now-famous town library.

Must be a sale on scandals today. Buy Censorship, and we'll throw in Homophobia for free!

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes [NYT]

GOP campaign downplays Palin book-banning inquiry [AP]

For the Record, Bristol’s Pregnancy

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:34:00 +0000

"The McCain campaign said Gov. Palin opposed the bridge to nowhere, but now we know she supported it," said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor in a statement. "They said she didn't seek earmarks, but now we know she hired a lobbyist to get millions in pork for her town and her state. They said she visited Iraq, but today we learned that she only stopped at the border. Americans are starting to wonder, is there anything the McCain campaign isn't lying about?"

Palin never in Iraq, campaign now says [CNN]

Harshing the Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:00:00 +0000

If there's one thing we do fear this fall, it's not the increasingly whimsical attack ads, but the Rovian ground game. While we remain confident that 51 percent of the American electorate will come to their senses soon enough, we're not at all confident they'll actually be allowed to, y'know, vote.

Let's start with a taste of Andrew Hacker's article in the latest New York Review, which reminds us of the score to date:

Requiring a driver's license to vote has a disparate racial impact, a finding that once commanded judicial notice. To apply for the state ID card that Indiana offers as an alternative, moreover, nondrivers must travel to a motor vehicles office, which for many would be a lengthy trip…

The Indiana decision [Crawford v. Marion County Election Board] will not only make it harder to add new people to the rolls; many who had previously voted without photo identification are now required to produce an official photograph. If Marion County (Indianapolis) has the same proportion of unlicensed voters as Milwaukee County, I count it as having more than 44,000 black residents who will be needing transport to motor bureaus to ensure that each item in their nondriver ID application has been properly filled in. Extended nationwide, this means that a lot of on-the-ground assistance is going to be needed.

And if that's not enough to grab your attention, here's the breaking news from Wisconsin: state attorney general J.B. Van Hollen has filed a lawsuit against the state's election board, insisting that it crosscheck driver's license registrations on voters who registered or changed address since January 1, 2006.

an election official said the lawsuit could force clerks to check data on about 1 million voters. And critics accused Van Hollen — a Republican serving as the state co-chair of John McCain’s presidential campaign — of filing the suit for partisan gain.

We won't even bother listing suspicions about The Company Formerly Known As Diebold, or the integrity of its equipment in the best of circumstances. It's enough to note that concerted efforts to Block the Vote are already underway, in states where denying the franchise to significantly large numbers of American citizens would be beneficial to a campaign too desperate to lose.

In other words: It's the Ballots, stupid.

Obama: The Price of Being Black [NY Review]

Van Hollen’s voter-check lawsuit sets off a tempest [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

There’s a Rodney Dangerfield Line in Here, and We’re Not Going There

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:00:00 +0000

On one hand, we're just a tad uncomfortable running this as the Porn Post.

On the other hand — we can't resist.

But it's a sad story. David W. Johnson's wife suffered a stroke some years back, and she was placed in a Portage, Wisconsin, nursing home. Although she was all but comatose, he remained a devoted husband, visiting daily, reading her the Bible, moving her limbs so her muscles wouldn't atrophy.

Oh, and closing the door to her room and, er…

Yeah. That.

But that's not the story. The staff grew suspicious that he was too loving a husband, and tipped off the cops. The cops got a search warrant, installed a hidden camera in the room, and…

There you go. Caught on tape. That's the weird part.

The wife's sister is cool with loving hubby, so we're not going to pull a Frist and diagnose his behavior from afar. But the tape was used to bring charges against hubby, the tape was thrown out of court as the product of an illegal search, and the tape was the basis of an unsuccessful appeal by prosecutors to a state appeals court.

And the tape may yet travel to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Not that anybody's watching it, of course. Are they?

Wis. court: Cops illegally taped nursing home sex [AP]

Fear Me.

noreply@blogger.com (nojo) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:42:00 +0000

Nojo, 7 a.m.: "Kindie Porn already established that John McCain was willing to lose his integrity to win an election."

TPM, 3:04 p.m.: "An Obama spokesperson just blasted out a statement comparing McCain's current campaign to the infamously despicable 2000 campaign run against him in South Carolina -- true fighting words -- and adding that McCain 'would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.'"

(Update: And in the Low-Hanging Fruit aisle, you can see variations on the theme starting to show up in late July. But hey, it's all about timing.)