Politics

I'm a mortgagor. On a near daily basis I receive a stream of offers to refinance. Many of them take the form of: A lender pretending to be my current mortgage lender A lender pretending to be a government agency A lender pretending to be a credit monitoring agency, noting I should refinance to keep my credit score up I really have to wonder why, after this giant debacle, lenders are still allowed to get away with this crap. I open every single one of these offers because I'm worried they might contain important information from my mortgage lender or the government agency that manages my loan. I think it'd make an awful lot of sense to require that sol…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29913195/ I support this. "Freedom Tower" seems like a Bush era doublethink sort of name. One World Trade Center does a much better version of communicating the whole "rise above" mentality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/politics/17obama.html Overall I must say I'm quite happy with the damage control Obama is providing for the bailout. Clearly there were a multitude of issues with it when it was passed. In my opinion Obama is doing a great job trying to address them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032502311.html Geithner and Bernanke's plan for expanding oversight of the US financial system was made available today: The main changes appear to be seeking authority to seize other financial institutions which aren't banks... namely any institution trading in financial derivatives, hedge funds, and major insurers. They also seek to impose uniform standards on all of these institutions, including banks. This seems like exactly what's needed per Greenspan's post mortem of his bad decision making: Clearly Geithner and Bernanke have a substantially different view (now) of how t…

This is a few months old at this point, but I'm not sure how I missed it: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/judge-sufficien.html The saga of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush continues. Basically, two guys working for an Islamic charity were accidentally sent a top secret document which shows they were being spied on by Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. They sued. Previously a federal judge ruled Bush was guilty, but the case was appealed and has now reached the district court level (i.e. one level below the Supreme Court) A US district court judge has ruled sufficient evidence exists for the case to continue. I wonder if it will reach…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-bush-memos4-2009mar04,0,643986.story Here's some background: The recently released memos and their dense legalese are still being deciphered by lawyers. They appear to lay out a rationale for massively expanding executive power, which is, well, what we saw with the Bush administration. They don't exactly appear to be in line with the Constitution. I certainly hope these serve to aid whatever legal action is going on against Bush. The memos are available online, although they're unreadable by humans, only lawyers can understand them: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/02/secret-bush-me…

The president had a briefing for the press a short while ago, and I rolled back the Tivo to watch it. I thought it was pretty interesting. CNN already has a story up about it (though it doesn't yet include most of what I'm talking about below): http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/21/obama.business/index.html He's laid down some new rules regarding transparency, but what's interesting about it is that he's changed the basis for information-handling from a presumption of secrecy to a presumption of public exposure. That's very different from previous administrations. Obviously he can't reveal private information (no more Valery Plames, one would hope), or inform…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090323/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/wall_street It would seem that "the markets" got the news they wanted to hear today: Well, today they got the specifics, and apparently they liked what they heard. Also, housing sales (while still down) were surprisingly positive: This certainly puts all the Dow knows all arguments to bed.

Just ran across this article, and I didn't realize it was this black and white: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090322/LOCAL/303229940/-1/LOCAL11 Getting a traffic ticket, and no charges yet you can have cash seized because the officer decides you don't have a good enough reason to explain that much cash? I knew if you had even a small amount of drugs a vehicle they can seize any money and the vehicle, but I had no idea they could just take your money and run. What are everyone's thoughts - is this constitutional?

I've been thinking about this recently, especially with all the Wall Street stuff on the news, and I was wondering if there's any studies on what determines pay. I know, I know, "Supply and Demand", but that doesn't seem to be the only factor. For instance, look at any engineering company - the managers get paid more than the engineers, even though you need fewer of them and there's far, far more to hire. It seems ubiquitous - those who are 'in charge' are paid more, regardless of their relative position on the supply vs. demand curve, probably as a result of basic instinctual programming from our days as troop primates. For another issue, consider pro athletes…

Scientists in Nebraska have successully grafted a pig's heart to a sheep by manipulating the immune systems of both animals. To accomplish this feat, researches first took bone marrow cells from a sheep and transferred them to a fetal pig. After the pig was born, they transferred white blood cells from the pig back to the sheep so that the cells would contain genetic material for both animals. Of 13 pigs with new hearts, only 1 rejected the heart. In the control group, who did not receive bone marrow and white blood cell transplants, 12 sheep rejected the heart. The article is available from yahoo.com here.

Unsurprisingly, only covered by Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/18/pelosi-tells-illegal-immigrants-work-site-raids-american/ This is a bunch of rabble-rousing, demagoguery, and it should stop. Illegal is illegal, and there is no difference between explicitly allowing people to enter the country illegally and imprisoning American citizens without due process or spying on their telephone conversations. The law is the law, and the law must be enforced, or it should be changed. Period. What do you all think?

Apparently Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods have banded together to suggest an alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act, presently heading towards signage under the Democratically-controlled Congress and Obama Administration. One of the biggest complaints about the EFCA is that it isn't "free choice" -- it's actually carte blanche for the unions to intimidate and coerce uncooperative employees into signing on (the somewhat infamous "card check" process). This alternative basically takes the "free choice" concept and shoves it right back in the faces of unions, saying "you want free choice? fine, let's make it REALLY free". Instead of Card Check, employees will…

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081215-good-news-for-wind-bad-for-ethanol-in-major-energy-study.html A comprehensive study of various modes of power generation has concluded that wind, solar, and geothermal are the cleanest technologies, whereas nuclear, clean coal, and ethanol are the least. The study analyzed the entire lifecycle of the power generation process. Nuclear, for example, lost out due to the CO2 emissions involved in construction and decommissioning of plants along with the costs of procuring, transporting, and refining uranium ore, along with shipment of nuclear waste. Now I'm starting to wonder if Democratic opposition to nuclear power …

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/17/obama.veterans/ This seems to me to fall under the category of "rookie mistakes". Basically the White House tried to push a plan to have soldier's private health insurance policies pay for their combat injuries. It was a real facepalm moment and VA groups quickly met with the White House and Obama quashed the plan, which was DOA with Congress anyway. Probably what happened is that somebody at the White House tried to push a little harder on the issue of getting these companies to pay for non-service-related injuries, which is a notorious problem -- they tend to try (often successfully) to dodge those costs and get the VA …

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE52J0S220090320 I think this is an interesting approach. I think his direct appeal to the American people has been largely successful so far, and a marked change versus the traditional presidential approach of working through the mainstream media. It's useful because it really brings out all the subtle nuances of his message -- he can say EXACTLY what he wants to say and not have to worry about how the media filter might change the message. I don't know that this will do a lot of good, but it is interesting and could be just what we need. What do you all think?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10150716-54.html Denmark has enlisted the help of California company "Better Place" to set up an electric car network based around a battery swapping program. Customers will be able to go to a number of charging stations deployed throughout the country and have their battery pack instantly swapped for a new one. This will allow the charging stations to charge batteries at non-peak hours, reducing peak demand the program would otherwise place on the electrical grid. Charging stations can work directly with utility companies to coordinate the system. While I'm a big fan of electric cars I'm curious how they'll handle issues like …

Right now, in the midst of one of the single greatest economic challenges our country and our planet has ever faced, the United States is trying to "win the battle" with just "one guy on a horse." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19geithner.html Mr. Geithner is shouldering more crises on his slight frame than most Treasury secretaries ever have. And he is doing so without the usual complement of Treasury assistants because of administration delays in vetting potential nominees — a consequence in part of its efforts to avoid embarrassments like the disclosures of Mr. Geithner’s past tax lapses, which nearly doomed his nomination. Since befo…

Couldn't resist the subject line. Obama and Gates are ending the practice of extending tours beyond the service agreements promised to the troopers. I'm sure he's doing this because, as the right keeps telling us, Obama hates the troops and can't stand to support them in any way. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031802504.html

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times gives us a little preview of what's likely to happen when the toxic assets bailout plan is unveiled (possibly next week). http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/18/opinion/edfriedman.php I don't like it, but my gut feeling is that we can't let the banks fail. Letting businesses fail is something we should be doing in general, but if we let the banks fail, with THAT much leverage and impact, we lose the whole shooting match -- we ALL get to stand in the line at the soup kitchen, sooner or later. But I'm trying to keep an open mind about it. The real problem of course is that nobody knows the exact answer t…

That zany Ron Paul is at it again, introducing yet another in a series of acts intended to abolish the Federal Reserve: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/AbolishtheFed.shtml Some choice quotes from Dr. Paul and my responses to them: Seems like a bit of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Dr. Paul's statement implies we did not see a boom-and-bust monetary policy prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve. I wonder what Ron Paul makes of this list, namely: The Panic of 1797, the Depression of 1807, the Panic of 1819, the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, the Panic of 1873, the Long Depression, the Panic of 1893, Panic of 1907. If…

Possibly a legendary, historic television interview took place last night on The Daily Show, when Jon Stewart took on CNBC's Jim Cramer. It was one of the best interview take-downs I've ever seen, and Cramer's excellent defense only heightened the sense of drama and the amazing depth to which the issue was explored. In a nutshell, Stewart was taking Cramer and CNBC to task for participating in the problem -- for accentuating it, misleading people and knowing full well that it was an untenable problem, due for collapse. For his part, Cramer defended the financial networks, saying they do expose problems and admitting that they could do a better job of it. I h…

Well here we go. So far only the right-wing press is latching on to this, because the left-wing and mainstream press sees ACORN as a harmless and positive influence, but they're clearly partisan-left and take many positions on political issues. Even setting aside the accusations of voter fraud that plague ACORN, why would you want an organization that has a clear, stated position on social issues organizing and training census workers? How does that even make sense? http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/17/lawmakers-concerned-role-acorn-census/ Here's a link to ACORN's web site, which is chock full of positions on social issues: http://www.acorn.org/index.ph…

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/goodbye-yucca-obama-budget-nuclear.php Okay, this is just retarded. We need Yucca Mountain anyway to store existing spent nuclear fuel which has no permanent resting place. I understand Obama isn't a fan of nuclear power, but that doesn't change the fact that we do have nuclear reactors which have been producing waste and right now we have nowhere to permanently store that waste.

Some waves are being made today by pollster Scott Rasmussen, whose new polling data suggests that Obama's approval rating is lower than Gallup says it is. Rasmussen defends his poll in a Wall Street Journal op/ed piece today, and there will no doubt be a lot of talk about it hither and yon amongst the bloggers and pundits. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123690358175013837.html It's an interesting piece and worth checking out, but what I thought was most interesting about his analysis about the underlying concerns that Americans have right now. These numbers are pretty staggering, and it's not hard to see the truth in them, either. Americans also do…