119.59.84.147 [Label IP Address]
This one from Thomas Wanhoff and uttered right here in Vietnam. And I was even hinting at it a few months ago. in this very blog. Maybe the boys in New York and Washington can't see the forest for the trees and we need a level headed German in Vietnam to hit the nail right on the friggin' head. I agree with Thomas entirely on this one. These boys should all get a washing in the swirly bowl and be proscecuted with true American FUBAR vengence. There's a pile of dickheads right now and if our courts don't get em' maybe the American people need to get the government. Make sure to read Thomas' full post right here!
Ms Palin said she was confident the reports would prove unfounded.
"That was all Photoshop you idiot", she said. "This shit happens all the time in America when Hockey Moms run for office".
While they didn't mention any figures at their meeting, Putin thought privately that Palin had a good one. "It wouldn't take a bottle of Stoli for me to jump her", he mused to an aide.
'A crime'
Pointing to a report published in Russia's Izvestiya newspaper this week, Mr Putin said Alaskan weapons and military experts may have been used in combat against Russian troops during the brief war with Georgia in August.
"If this is confirmed, this will be what I have called a crime - I could swear I saw a bunch of eskimos running around with harpoons on snow machines."
If Russia received proof of Alaska's involvement, Moscow would "build its relations accordingly with those who allowed this to happen", he said.
Ms Palin said she was confident that "such facts [would] not be confirmed - my husband was ice fishing", she defended.
Correspondents say Mr Putin is aware that Ms Palin is not responsible for Alaska's defence policy, and that his criticism amounted to an attack on the Republican men driving the bus.
"She can't see fuck all from Alaska, much less hit anything - but Bush thought he saw WMDs in Iraq and look what he did - I don't take anything lightly anymore - these people are all delusional".
Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Happy birthday dear Wild Wild East Dailies! Happy Birthday to me!
60s, Senator Everitt Dirkson of Illinois mused the title to this post and in fewer than 50 years we've taken to regarding a billion as just a bunch of zeros on paper. How many billion for Iraq? And how
many billion for the "mother of all bailouts" and how many billion for Katrina? And how many, many billion can the Chinese lend us? The following two stories put an interesting spin on what billions mean, the first from the Huffington Post and the second, sent to me by Tom Nelson in Minneapolis, in one of those usually-annoying-but-not-this-time chain emails.From the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/22/dirty-secret-of-the-bailo_n_128294.html
A critical - and radical - component of the bailout package proposed by the Bush administration has thus far failed to garner t
he serious attention of anyone in the press. Section 8 of this legislation is just a single sentence of thirty-two words, but it represents a significant consolidation of power and an abdication of oversight authority that's so flat-out astounding that it ought to set one's hair on fire. It reads, in its entirety:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
In short, the so-called "mother of all bailouts," which will transfer $700 billion taxpayer dollars to purchase the distressed assets of several failed fi
nancial institutions, will be conducted in a manner unchallengeable by courts and ungovernable by the People's duly sworn representatives.
All decision-making power will be consolidated into the Executive Branch - who, we remind you, will have the incentive to act upon this privile
ge as quickly as possible, before they leave office. The measure will run up the budget deficit by a significant amount, with no guarantee of recouping the outlay, and no fundamental means of holding those who fail to do so accountable.
Is this starting to sound familiar? Robert Kuttner cuts through much of the gloss in an article in today's American Prospect:
The deal proposed by Paulson is nothing short of outrageous. It includes no oversight of his own closed-door operations
. It merely gives congressional blessing and funding to what he has already been doing, ad hoc. He plans to retain Wall Street firms as advisors to decide just how to cut deals to value and mop up Wall Street's dubious paper. There are to be no limits on executive compensation for the firms that get relief, and no equity share for the government in exchange for this massive infusion of capital. Both Obama and McCain have opposed the provision denying any judicial review of decisions made by Paulson -- a provision that evokes the Bush administration's suspension of normal constitutional safeguards in its conduct of foreign policy and national security.
Kuttner's opposition here is perhaps the strongest language I've seen used, pushing back on this piece of legislation, in any publication of repute, and even here, Section 8 is not cited by name or by content. McClatchy Newspapers also alludes to Section 8 with concern, citing the "unfettered authority" that Paulson would be granted, and noting that the "law also would preclude court review of steps Paulson might take, something Joshua Rosner, managing director of economic researcher Graham Fisher & Co. in New York, said could be used to mask previous illegal activity." Jack Balkin also gives the matter the sort of attention it deserves on his blog,Balkinization.
But elsewhere, the conversation is muted. The debate over whether Congress is going to pass the Paulson bailout package, or pass the Paulson bailout package really hard seems to have boiled down to a discussion of time and concessions. The White House has made it clear that they want this package passed yesterday. Congressional Democrats seem to be of different minds on the matter, with some pushing back hard, and others content to demand a small dollop of turd polish.
But if we make it through this week with nobody in the press specifically informing the public about the implications of this single sentence - in the middle of a complicated bill, in the middle of a complicated time - then right there, you have the single largest media failure of this year.
A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but here are some interesting ways to consider it:
A. A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
B. A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.
C. A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
D. A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
E. A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.
"With the fragile economy of the U.S. in a state of collapse, oil hitting $100 a barrel (it was $25 in early 2001), our judicial system in crisis, our environment in the hands of polluters, our military stressed beyond stress, our image in tatters abroad, and our influence on the wane, George W. Bush, the man responsible for so much of this misfortune, took a page from Brian McNally’s book and hit the road, searching the planet for Third Worlders who do not read the newspapers."
the next I understand both the concept that I have regular readers and the idea that at least one of them has seen that I was on the beat well before a rather respected magazine. Oh sure, I did it without fact checkers, a legal staff, typesetters, designers, photographers and god-forbid, an editor – the number of journalistic ethics violated could easily beat the number of American missteps in recent world affairs – but then again, I'm working on the spirit of the law and not the letter. If I were getting paid for this, I'd be a lot less fun to read.
