Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
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Friday, February 26, 2010
The Professor and Maryann...
Remember that fun tip on how to peel a banana like a monkey? Here’s another one, forwarded to me by my cousin Cherie in California. How to peel a potato without the mess (and without a peeler).
Brought to you by Maryann from Gilligan’s Island:
Just one correction to the process – be sure to start your potato in cold water. Once they come to a boil, cook until tender. If you dump a potato into boiling water and cook for 15 minutes you will have raw potato on the inside and mush on the outside, regardless of how you peel it.
Btw – I totally missed the Dawn Wells / Maryann is a pothead story that came out last year. Per the video below, Ms. Wells was driving home from a birthday party and got distracted trying to turn the heat on in her car. Long story short, she was pulled over and they found pot in the car. Turns out the stuff had been left in her car unbeknownst to her by someone else. When all was said and done, Maryann ended up with a reckless driving citation while the pothead was arrested and fined. Unfortunately, the bad publicity messed with a number of the non-profit and business endeavors she had going.
Why is it that the media never jumps on the truth with the same rabid zealotry they exhibit over a potential scandal?
Brought to you by Maryann from Gilligan’s Island:
Just one correction to the process – be sure to start your potato in cold water. Once they come to a boil, cook until tender. If you dump a potato into boiling water and cook for 15 minutes you will have raw potato on the inside and mush on the outside, regardless of how you peel it.
Btw – I totally missed the Dawn Wells / Maryann is a pothead story that came out last year. Per the video below, Ms. Wells was driving home from a birthday party and got distracted trying to turn the heat on in her car. Long story short, she was pulled over and they found pot in the car. Turns out the stuff had been left in her car unbeknownst to her by someone else. When all was said and done, Maryann ended up with a reckless driving citation while the pothead was arrested and fined. Unfortunately, the bad publicity messed with a number of the non-profit and business endeavors she had going.
Why is it that the media never jumps on the truth with the same rabid zealotry they exhibit over a potential scandal?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
What the flock is that??
I was driving back from my parents' the other day and happened to see a flock of birds wheeling across the sky alongside Interstate 88. Not in any way unusual but it got me to wondering, as it does every time I see it, how a group of individual birds can move like a single entity. Are they somehow communicating with each other to determine the next turn, dive or swoop?Turns out that there’s no communication going on at all, the birds are merely following some basic rules related to interactions with other birds in the flock:
Separation - avoid crowding neighborsDo you want to know something really freaky? Humans flock too. Yep, it seems that we’ll follow anyone if they seem to know where they’re going and we don’t have our own route planned. A study conducted in Cologne Germany by two biologists from the University of Leeds demonstrated a flock like behavior in humans.
Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighbors
Cohesion - steer towards average position of neighbors
Measurements of bird flocking have been made using high-speed cameras, and a computer analysis has been made to test the simple rules of flocking ... It is found that they generally hold true in the case of bird flocking, but the long range attraction rule (cohesion) applies to the nearest 5-10 neighbors of the flocking bird and is independent of the distance of these neighbors from the bird…
~Wikipedia
Professor Krause, with PhD student John Dyer, conducted a series of experiments where groups of people were asked to walk randomly around a large hall. Within the group, a select few received more detailed information about where to walk. Participants were not allowed to communicate with one another but had to stay within arms length of another person.
The findings show that in all cases, the ‘informed individuals’ were followed by others in the crowd, forming a self-organizing, snake-like structure.
“We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd,” says Professor Krause. “But what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realize they were being
led by others.”
Other experiments in the study used groups of different sizes, with different ratios of ‘informed individuals’. The research findings show that as the number of people in a crowd increases, the number of informed individuals decreases. In large crowds of 200 or more, five per cent of the group is enough to influence the direction in which it travels.
~PsychCentral
Video filmed by Dylan Winter at an RSPB reserve called Otmoor near Oxford England. Check this link for more information about what you are watching.Does anyone else think that the creators of “Lost” have spent some time in Oxford?
Oh Really
"I mean, I don't know what her deal is, but my belief is in 2010 and 2012, public leaders need to have intellectual curiosity," Jeb Bush, on Palin.
--- via Sullivan's blog
TW: You see this quote and think...an astute observation...but then you remember ...funny he did not think it was necessary between 2001-2009...
--- via Sullivan's blog
TW: You see this quote and think...an astute observation...but then you remember ...funny he did not think it was necessary between 2001-2009...
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Some Symptoms Of the Decline Of Our National Discourse
TW: Barry Ritholz seems like a fairly level-headed and a financial commentator who keeps his politics largely separate from his investment insight. His description of what happens with CNBC seems to me symbolic of what happens with most TV outlets. Things are getting less informative not more.
From the Big Picture:
"I had lunch the other day with several other analysts, strategists, money managers and economists, all of whom shall remain nameless. All make frequent media appearances. The conversation drifted over to CNBC. The consensus is everyone at the table wants to do less of it.
The reasons given:
-Producers try to tailor the discussion (“Be more Bullish/Bearish”);
-Too time consuming;
-Law of diminishing returns — the benefits are less and less each appearance;
-Nuance has become a dirty word (“Pick a Letter to describe the economy”);
-Last minute cancellations when “better” names become available;
-Dumbing down of the discourse (One person called it “Foxification”)
I then mention that while I still do a ton of media, I have become Persona Non Grata at CNBC.
There was an issue with some really obnoxious blog comments (they were deleted); I started asking not to be booked with really dumb guests (I also requested no Octobox). I did do Fox a few times (But really, who cares about that? I do all media outlets on behalf of my firm).
With Dylan gone, I dont hear from Fast Money, and with Kudlow, I was told I was “too nuanced“– a phrase that is hardly ever used to describe me..."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/02/persona-non-grata-at-cnbc/
From the Big Picture:
"I had lunch the other day with several other analysts, strategists, money managers and economists, all of whom shall remain nameless. All make frequent media appearances. The conversation drifted over to CNBC. The consensus is everyone at the table wants to do less of it.
The reasons given:
-Producers try to tailor the discussion (“Be more Bullish/Bearish”);
-Too time consuming;
-Law of diminishing returns — the benefits are less and less each appearance;
-Nuance has become a dirty word (“Pick a Letter to describe the economy”);
-Last minute cancellations when “better” names become available;
-Dumbing down of the discourse (One person called it “Foxification”)
I then mention that while I still do a ton of media, I have become Persona Non Grata at CNBC.
There was an issue with some really obnoxious blog comments (they were deleted); I started asking not to be booked with really dumb guests (I also requested no Octobox). I did do Fox a few times (But really, who cares about that? I do all media outlets on behalf of my firm).
With Dylan gone, I dont hear from Fast Money, and with Kudlow, I was told I was “too nuanced“– a phrase that is hardly ever used to describe me..."
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/02/persona-non-grata-at-cnbc/
Yerka's Worlds
I love these pieces by Polish artist Jacek Yerka. Yerka works in pastels and acrylics, depicting worlds found only in his imagination.
Check out his Bio and the text on the various pages. I’m not sure if the artist wrote first in Polish and then had it translated or wrote directly in English so I can’t tell if the way he puts things is his ‘voice’ or just the oddities of translation. After looking at his strange and beautiful work, I’m pretty sure the voice is true.
btw, click to enlarge - you'll see some things.
Fences
Pocket Jungle Room
The Strawberry Grove
Wegener's Theory
The Lion's Afternoon
See more at YerkaLand
Check out his Bio and the text on the various pages. I’m not sure if the artist wrote first in Polish and then had it translated or wrote directly in English so I can’t tell if the way he puts things is his ‘voice’ or just the oddities of translation. After looking at his strange and beautiful work, I’m pretty sure the voice is true.
btw, click to enlarge - you'll see some things.
Fences
Pocket Jungle Room
The Strawberry Grove
Wegener's Theory
The Lion's Afternoon
See more at YerkaLand
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The Toss
TW: A Hoosier blog noted that today is the 25th anniversary of Coach Knight's infamous chair toss, hence we mark the occasion...
Beating a Dead Horse
TW: Cynical, yes (Taibbi tends to be that way) but it bears some truth.
From Matt Taibbi's blog:
"They are gathering again at a Winter Olympics, now aging cold warriors.
Thirty years ago, they played a game that has been called the greatest upset in Olympic history, a David-vs.-Goliath tale, a political metaphor, a miracle.
That’s how many Americans remember the hockey game played at the Lake Placid Olympics on Feb. 22, 1980, when a group of mostly college kids defeated the mighty team from the Soviet Union, which had dominated the sport for most of the previous two decades.
But what went through the minds of those red-clad players, who watched in stunned disbelief as the Americans celebrated the “Miracle on Ice” at the other end of the rink?
The hawkish features of goalie Vladislav Tretiak turned soft and he smiled slightly as he was reminded of the painful anniversary. But he brushed the memory aside as easily as one of the many thousands of shots he turned away in his Hall of Fame career.
My old friend Simon in Moscow sent me this and wrote:
AP: “Russians play down ‘Miracle on Ice’ 30 years later.” What kind of headline and story is that? How about a piece titled “Tatar-Mongols play down the Kulikovo battle 629 years later”?
I’m with him on this. Seriously, can we get over ourselves about the Miracle on Ice? It was great and all, but you hear about it every five minutes in this country. I lived in Russia for 10 years and didn’t even once hear about a bunch of Soviets with hideous mustaches whipping the asses of David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in basketball in Seoul in ‘88. I heard a lot about the 1972 thing, but that was only in the context of Russians being so amused by how much we whined about getting jobbed by the refs.
I mean really, whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? I’m trying to imagine what the citizen of someplace like Liechtenstein or Reunion Island thinks when he sees Americans keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds."
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/02/23/ap-russians-still-sucking-on-miracle-on-ice/
From Matt Taibbi's blog:
"They are gathering again at a Winter Olympics, now aging cold warriors.
Thirty years ago, they played a game that has been called the greatest upset in Olympic history, a David-vs.-Goliath tale, a political metaphor, a miracle.
That’s how many Americans remember the hockey game played at the Lake Placid Olympics on Feb. 22, 1980, when a group of mostly college kids defeated the mighty team from the Soviet Union, which had dominated the sport for most of the previous two decades.
But what went through the minds of those red-clad players, who watched in stunned disbelief as the Americans celebrated the “Miracle on Ice” at the other end of the rink?
The hawkish features of goalie Vladislav Tretiak turned soft and he smiled slightly as he was reminded of the painful anniversary. But he brushed the memory aside as easily as one of the many thousands of shots he turned away in his Hall of Fame career.
My old friend Simon in Moscow sent me this and wrote:
AP: “Russians play down ‘Miracle on Ice’ 30 years later.” What kind of headline and story is that? How about a piece titled “Tatar-Mongols play down the Kulikovo battle 629 years later”?
I’m with him on this. Seriously, can we get over ourselves about the Miracle on Ice? It was great and all, but you hear about it every five minutes in this country. I lived in Russia for 10 years and didn’t even once hear about a bunch of Soviets with hideous mustaches whipping the asses of David Robinson, Danny Manning and Mitch Richmond in basketball in Seoul in ‘88. I heard a lot about the 1972 thing, but that was only in the context of Russians being so amused by how much we whined about getting jobbed by the refs.
I mean really, whatever happened to acting like you’ve been there before? I’m trying to imagine what the citizen of someplace like Liechtenstein or Reunion Island thinks when he sees Americans keeping a 30-year boner over the image of themselves as longshot underdogs who beat the odds."
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/02/23/ap-russians-still-sucking-on-miracle-on-ice/
Fun in the kitchen
I like to cook. Not everyone does and I can accept that. But I would suggest that having the right tool or gadget in the kitchen can turn slogging through a chore into a pleasurable experience.
Once you have the basics - good knives, heavy bottomed cookware and a good set of mixing bowls, it's a matter of adding in some key utensils. Bonus if those utensils are both efficient and fun to use.
I wouldn't mind having any of these items in my kitchen:
The Parmenide Cheese Grater
From Alessi
The Head Chef's Pastry Brush
From Cheftools
The Pot Utensil Holder
From Cheftools
The Palm Peeler
From Chef'n
I don't really want this Hot Dog Rotisserie, I just thought that the sales pitch was funny: "Enjoy the great taste of Cinema style hot dogs at home."
I guess this makes sense given that the UK doesn't have ballparks but I can't imagine a nastier place to find hot dogs than 'the cinema'...
If you must have it, you can find it at Giles and Posner
Once you have the basics - good knives, heavy bottomed cookware and a good set of mixing bowls, it's a matter of adding in some key utensils. Bonus if those utensils are both efficient and fun to use.
I wouldn't mind having any of these items in my kitchen:
The Parmenide Cheese Grater
From Alessi The Head Chef's Pastry Brush
From CheftoolsThe Pot Utensil Holder
From Cheftools The Palm Peeler
From Chef'n
I don't really want this Hot Dog Rotisserie, I just thought that the sales pitch was funny: "Enjoy the great taste of Cinema style hot dogs at home."I guess this makes sense given that the UK doesn't have ballparks but I can't imagine a nastier place to find hot dogs than 'the cinema'...
If you must have it, you can find it at Giles and Posner
Monday, February 22, 2010
Douchebag Alert: Evan Bayh
TW: Seems like the women of the View burned through the BS and put Bayh on his heels where he belongs. The fundamental point is simple- folks like Bayh, who instead of staying and fighting, retreat and claim some sort of righteous indignation are part of the problem not the solution. Conservatives may be very wrongheaded but they have stuck around and in fact continue to exert an almost irrational zeal to foment their increasingly strident, radical and harmful agenda. If eveyone acts like Bayh be they politicians or voters, the wrong side will win.
I went to a Bayh fundraiser a couple of years ago (small setting thing) he is all hat no cattle.
From Politics Daily:
"Politicians frequently appear on national talk shows when they're running for office, but Sen. Evan Bayh, the retiring Democratic senator from Indiana, appeared on "The View" Monday to explain why he's not running for office later this year.
"I reached the conclusion that I could get more done for my country and for my state in the private sector," he told Barbara Walters. "Congress is so gridlocked these days. It's regrettable that with brain-dead ideology and strident partisanship, months go by and we don't get anything done."
If Bayh expected a soft-ball interview after that, he was in for a shock.
"I hate to say it, but you sound like Sarah Palin right now," Joy Behar said, accusing the senator of quitting his job before his work was done.
"Do you want to look at my hand?" he joked, referring to the talking points Palin wrote on the palm of her hand during a recent interview.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the conservative in the group, pounced on Bayh's remark about Palin. "You sit here and say, 'I'm sick of the partisanship,' yet you throw a cheap Sarah Palin joke in, so I don't really understand or believe you," Hasselbeck said. "I just think if you're going to participate in that, you can't be saying the other things. So I want to hold you accountable."
Bayh went on to explain that he is tired not only of the partisanship in Washington, but also of the spiraling federal deficits that Congress is running up.
"Why not quit during the Bush administration when the deficits went up?" Behar said. "Why quit now when we need you?"
After Bayh said that he was equally frustrated with the Bush administration's spending record, Whoopi Goldberg jumped in. "But you didn't leave. I think the leaving is the part that we're really having a hard time with," she said. "Sometimes when you're fighting the good fight, you're out there and you're going to get hit with the stuff. Why are you splitting?"
Bayh finally appealed to Goldberg, "You're going to get me in trouble with my wife if you're mad at me."
After describing the ways he thinks Congress can by-pass partisanship in the future (more bi-partisan meetings, less money in campaigns), Bayh told the women that he will not run for president in 2012, but did not rule out another run for office in the future.
Barbara Walters seemed not to buy the senator's assertion that he's fed up with politics. She signed off by saying, "Come back and see us, especially when you run again in 2016."
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/22/evan-bayh-gets-rough-treatment-on-the-view/
I went to a Bayh fundraiser a couple of years ago (small setting thing) he is all hat no cattle.
From Politics Daily:
"Politicians frequently appear on national talk shows when they're running for office, but Sen. Evan Bayh, the retiring Democratic senator from Indiana, appeared on "The View" Monday to explain why he's not running for office later this year.
"I reached the conclusion that I could get more done for my country and for my state in the private sector," he told Barbara Walters. "Congress is so gridlocked these days. It's regrettable that with brain-dead ideology and strident partisanship, months go by and we don't get anything done."
If Bayh expected a soft-ball interview after that, he was in for a shock.
"I hate to say it, but you sound like Sarah Palin right now," Joy Behar said, accusing the senator of quitting his job before his work was done.
"Do you want to look at my hand?" he joked, referring to the talking points Palin wrote on the palm of her hand during a recent interview.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the conservative in the group, pounced on Bayh's remark about Palin. "You sit here and say, 'I'm sick of the partisanship,' yet you throw a cheap Sarah Palin joke in, so I don't really understand or believe you," Hasselbeck said. "I just think if you're going to participate in that, you can't be saying the other things. So I want to hold you accountable."
Bayh went on to explain that he is tired not only of the partisanship in Washington, but also of the spiraling federal deficits that Congress is running up.
"Why not quit during the Bush administration when the deficits went up?" Behar said. "Why quit now when we need you?"
After Bayh said that he was equally frustrated with the Bush administration's spending record, Whoopi Goldberg jumped in. "But you didn't leave. I think the leaving is the part that we're really having a hard time with," she said. "Sometimes when you're fighting the good fight, you're out there and you're going to get hit with the stuff. Why are you splitting?"
Bayh finally appealed to Goldberg, "You're going to get me in trouble with my wife if you're mad at me."
After describing the ways he thinks Congress can by-pass partisanship in the future (more bi-partisan meetings, less money in campaigns), Bayh told the women that he will not run for president in 2012, but did not rule out another run for office in the future.
Barbara Walters seemed not to buy the senator's assertion that he's fed up with politics. She signed off by saying, "Come back and see us, especially when you run again in 2016."
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/22/evan-bayh-gets-rough-treatment-on-the-view/
Shop til you drop!
I don't like to shop much...in person.I'd much rather shop on-line. Not sure why other than I always feel that going store to store is inefficient.
I was always certain that the next store had a better deal - a better color, a better style, a better price. I was never finished shopping. Zappos changed my world. At least for shoes.
Imagine my delight when, while searching for the perfect pasta bowls, I ran across The Find. The people responsible for this site must have been eavesdropping on my brainwaves because, once the ease of shopping on-line became commonplace, the next annoyance was having to troll through hundreds of sites to find what I wanted and then do price & shipping checks.
The Find does all that and more - in one place, you have "every product from every store, every coupon and every review. Everything you need when shopping to quickly decide what to buy and where to buy it."
Mr. Blogger is less than ecstatic.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Lovers of Fog
I'm not a huge fan of fog - it's cold and wet and it makes driving dangerous.But it's also a key component of the ecosystem that makes Redwood trees possible. Redwoods, the tallest and one of the most massive tree species on Earth, grow only in the Pacific northwest of the United States, primarily in northern California.
The weather on the coast here ranges between 40 and 60 degrees Farenheit all year round.
Redwoods mostly grow a mile or two...from the coast, but never more than 50 miles...from it. In this temperate but humid coastal zone, the trees receive moisture from both heavy winter rains and persistent summer fog. The presence and consistency of the summer fog is actually more important to overall health of the trees than heavy precipitation.
~ Wikipedia
So, fog: not so good for driving, necessary for happy Redwoods. The problem?Per Wired, a recent study shows that "Over the past 58 years, the coastal fog has decreased by about 1.3 hours a day...[and] by about 3.5 hours a day over the last century from 13.5 hours to about 10 hours."
The study did not identify a specific cause for the drop in fog levels but indicated that climate change might be responsible.
But that's just crazy talk. My bet is on huge, ravenous, fog eating sea monsters from off the coast.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Celebrity Photos
I don't like having my picture taken - I always seem to be caught at the perfect awkward moment.
I guess I shouldn't complain, it could be worse. From Freaking News, celebrity upside down photos:
Sharon Stone
Hugh Grant
Janet Jackson
Hugh Laurie
Drew Barrymore
John Travolta
Want to see something real creepy?
btw, there are 20 pages of upside down photos at the link above - can you say time waster?
Thanks to Mr. Blogger for the link
I guess I shouldn't complain, it could be worse. From Freaking News, celebrity upside down photos:
Sharon Stone
Hugh Grant
Janet Jackson
Hugh Laurie
Drew Barrymore
John Travolta
Want to see something real creepy?
btw, there are 20 pages of upside down photos at the link above - can you say time waster?
Thanks to Mr. Blogger for the link
Friday, February 19, 2010
Culture Day
Yesterday was 'culture day' at the White House. Mr. Blogger and I took advantage of the balmy 35 degree sunny day to walk down to the Art Institute.Did you know that every day in February is free general admission? We didn't stop in the Modern Wing this trip - I can only handle modern art once in any 12 month period...but we did see the Caravaggio exhibit and some really interesting photos from the Chicago Columbian Exhibition.
And while I enjoyed this latest trip to the Museum, I have to admit that the 20 minutes we spent waiting for it to open were almost as entertaining.
Across the street in the Railway Exchange building at Monroe & Michigan is the Chicago Model City. This exhibit, sponsored by the Chicago Architecture Foundation is pretty amazing.
A 320-square-foot model of downtown that depicts every street, building and structure in the city - it even shows the excavated hole where the Chicago Spire might some day actually be built.
The exhibit also includes some history on the building of the city's elevated train system, an exploration of the 1909 Burnham Plan of Chicago and a digital visualization of the tear down and rebuilding of the city's South side. About the only thing it doesn't include is the White House. For some reason, the model stops, literally, across the street from us...
The exhibit is free and open to the public 7 days a week from 9am-6:30pm
Photos from Kate Gardiner's FLICKR stream
Temporary And Structural Angst Brew Up a Tempest
TW: I think Cassidy hits the nail pretty squarely here. The above graph shows regardless of the to and fro about individuals, any POTUS suffers or flies high depending upon economic circumstances. Then when one overlays economic angst with a strategic shift in America's role in the world (see below) one gets the tempest currently brewing in the U.S. Furthermore, this strategic shift goes beyond matters of international power and prestige but encompasses evolving demographics as well, which leads cultural attributes previously taken as a given being questioned. The incumbents are fighting like hell for the "good old days". Although why those at the CPAC conference would suddenly feel good about dragging the still cold political corpse of Dick Cheney out of his figurative casket surprises me.From John Cassidy at New Yorker"
"...Another factor, which rarely gets mentioned, but which appears obvious to people who didn’t grow up [in the US], such as myself, is that many Americans reach adulthood with a set of values and sense of self-identity that is historically inaccurate and potentially dangerous. If you have it banged into your head from the cradle to adolescence that America is the chosen nation—a country built by a rugged and God-fearing band of Anglo-Saxon individualists armed with pikes and long guns—you are less likely to embrace other essential features of the American heritage, such as the church-state divide, mass immigration, and the essential role of the federal government in the country’s economic and political development. When things are going well, and Team USA is squashing its rivals, this cognitive dissonance is kept in check. But when “the Homeland” encounters a rough patch and its manifest destiny is called into question, the underlying tensions and contradictions in the American psyche come to the fore, and people rail against the government.
Not all Americans are subject to this unfortunate mental condition, of course. Many, perhaps most, of our citizens are pragmatic, open-minded, and justifiably proud of the nation’s cultural and ethnic diversity. But at any period of time, there is a certain segment of the population—a quarter, perhaps—that provides fertile ground for what Richard Hofstadter, back in 1964, called the “paranoid style” of American politics, which trades in “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy.”
All countries have some disaffected folk, of course. But the real danger to any democracy comes when military conflict or economic dislocation swells the ranks of the permanently alienated with legions of people who are temporarily disadvantaged or angry. And that, I think, is what is happening now..."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2010/02/tea-party-usa.html
Net net this fresh Toles cartoon sums up much of the current political realities:
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Only In America
From Chris Mathias via Andrew Sullivan:
"You’ve got to love the local news. Only there can a man with a penis tree-sculpture in his yard get a three-minute lead story at 5:30, reported on by entirely straight-faced reporters. There is so much to love: after they slip in a shot of the pine-dick near the beginning, they blur out the wooden member (as if it was actual nudity) for the rest of the clip, or show it at obscure and unintelligible angles. Perhaps even crazier, they get through the entire segment without ever saying the word ‘penis.’"
TW: No comment except the blurring out of a tree stump is pretty remarkable.
The War That Keeps On Giving...
TW:...succor to those opposed to American interests. It is the mistake that keeps on taking American- lives, treasure and reputation. All that has happened since 2004is the can has been kicked down the road. W. Bush had his "surge" that resolved nothing except reducing the political heat from flaming to simmer. Obama is conducting the "troop reduction" which kicks the can another year or two down the road and at least reduces American exposure in lives and treasure but will not solve much.
What would the teabagging Republican party suggest for Iraq at this point? More troops? More torture?
From Tom Ricks:
"I thought I was a pessimist about Iraq until I read this comment by a U.S. military official in today's Washington Post:
All we're doing is setting the clock back to 2005. ... The militias are fully armed, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to move back from the west. These are the conditions now, and we're sitting back looking at PowerPoint slides and whitewashing."
Ugh. I think 2005 was my least favorite year of the war Iraq, when things were falling apart and the American officials were insisting that they weren't. 2006 was bloodier but at least by the end of the year, it was clear that something had to change.
The official's comment in the Post reminds me of when, a few months ago, a top American expert in Iraqi affairs took me aside to warn me that I was dangerously optimistic. I asked him if he misspoke and mean that I was too pessimistic about the prospects for Iraq. "No," he said, shaking his head. "You are too optimistic. You think a civil war in Iraq is avoidable. It is not. It is inevitable."
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/17/iraq_the_unraveling_42_05_again
What would the teabagging Republican party suggest for Iraq at this point? More troops? More torture?
From Tom Ricks:
"I thought I was a pessimist about Iraq until I read this comment by a U.S. military official in today's Washington Post:
All we're doing is setting the clock back to 2005. ... The militias are fully armed, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to move back from the west. These are the conditions now, and we're sitting back looking at PowerPoint slides and whitewashing."
Ugh. I think 2005 was my least favorite year of the war Iraq, when things were falling apart and the American officials were insisting that they weren't. 2006 was bloodier but at least by the end of the year, it was clear that something had to change.
The official's comment in the Post reminds me of when, a few months ago, a top American expert in Iraqi affairs took me aside to warn me that I was dangerously optimistic. I asked him if he misspoke and mean that I was too pessimistic about the prospects for Iraq. "No," he said, shaking his head. "You are too optimistic. You think a civil war in Iraq is avoidable. It is not. It is inevitable."
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/17/iraq_the_unraveling_42_05_again
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Conflation Of Current With Future Problems
TW: Many folks are conflating our medium and long-term fiscal problems with the current fiscal situation. I have said before and will keep repeating, the implementation of fiscal constraints amidst a massive demand contraction would have and would still result in a vicious circle of even worse demand contraction. In other words a repeat of the Hoover approach of the early 1930's.
Most Republican politicians realize this but will keep conflating the issues right up until the time they regain political power at which point they will throw their fiscal concerns right back in the hamper where they resided until Jan 20th, 2009 to be replaced by the call for "supply side" (i.e.for the wealthy)tax cuts. The tax cuts that allegedly magically pay for themselves but somehow never do.
From Paul Kedrosky:
"In his latest column, the FT’s Martin Wolf spanks historian Niall Ferguson for his recent column equating Greece and the U.S. Here is the money ‘graph from Wolf’s latest:
'If these governments had decided to balance their budgets [in 2009/2010], as [Niall Ferguson and] many conservatives demand, two possible outcomes can be envisaged: the plausible one is that we would now be in the Great Depression redux; the fanciful one is that, despite huge increases in taxation or vast cuts in spending, the private sector would have borrowed and spent as if no crisis at all had happened. In other words, a massive fiscal tightening would actually expand the economy. This is to believe in magic.' "http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/02/martin_wolf_spa.html
Most Republican politicians realize this but will keep conflating the issues right up until the time they regain political power at which point they will throw their fiscal concerns right back in the hamper where they resided until Jan 20th, 2009 to be replaced by the call for "supply side" (i.e.for the wealthy)tax cuts. The tax cuts that allegedly magically pay for themselves but somehow never do.
From Paul Kedrosky:
"In his latest column, the FT’s Martin Wolf spanks historian Niall Ferguson for his recent column equating Greece and the U.S. Here is the money ‘graph from Wolf’s latest:
'If these governments had decided to balance their budgets [in 2009/2010], as [Niall Ferguson and] many conservatives demand, two possible outcomes can be envisaged: the plausible one is that we would now be in the Great Depression redux; the fanciful one is that, despite huge increases in taxation or vast cuts in spending, the private sector would have borrowed and spent as if no crisis at all had happened. In other words, a massive fiscal tightening would actually expand the economy. This is to believe in magic.' "http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2010/02/martin_wolf_spa.html
It Is Not As Simple As: "Kill And Torture As Many As You Can"
TW:...but perhaps ultimately more effective and less costly in blood and treasure
"Amazing what can happen when you have a foreign policy that includes diplomacy and force and sophistication."
--Andrew Sullivan's comment on the Coll article
From Steve Coll at New Yorker:
"The news that a joint C.I.A.-Pakistani raid in Karachi resulted last week in the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is a big deal...Why would Pakistan move decisively against Afghan Taliban leadership now? The Times suggests that Pakistani generals under the lame-duck Army chief, General Ashraf Kiyani, are coming around to the view that they require a national-security doctrine that does not involve sheltering the Afghan Taliban...
I would guess at a more subtle motivation, one that might suggest a favorable pattern now emerging in the Obama Administration’s and Central Command’s approach to Pakistan’s role in the Afghan conflict. Over the last few months, by multiple means, the United States and its allies have been seeking to persuade Pakistan that it can best achieve its legitimate security goals in Afghanistan through political negotiations, rather than through the promotion of endless (and futile) Taliban guerrilla violence—and that the United States will respect and accommodate Pakistan’s agenda in such talks. Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban, especially in recent years, was always best understood as a military lever to promote political accommodations of Pakistan in Kabul. Baradar, however, has defiantly refused to participate in such political strategies...The more the Taliban’s leaders enjoying sanctuary in Karachi or Quetta refuse to lash themselves to Pakistani political strategy, the more vulnerable they become to a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
If, through a combination of pressure and enticement, Pakistan and the United States can draw sections of the Taliban into peaceful negotiations, while incarcerating those who refuse to participate, it will produce a sweeping change in the war. With enough momentum, such a strategy would also increase the incentives for Pakistan and Taliban elements to betray Al Qaeda’s top leaders. It’s been a while since there has been unadulterated good news out of Pakistan. Today there is."
"Amazing what can happen when you have a foreign policy that includes diplomacy and force and sophistication."
--Andrew Sullivan's comment on the Coll article
From Steve Coll at New Yorker:
"The news that a joint C.I.A.-Pakistani raid in Karachi resulted last week in the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is a big deal...Why would Pakistan move decisively against Afghan Taliban leadership now? The Times suggests that Pakistani generals under the lame-duck Army chief, General Ashraf Kiyani, are coming around to the view that they require a national-security doctrine that does not involve sheltering the Afghan Taliban...
I would guess at a more subtle motivation, one that might suggest a favorable pattern now emerging in the Obama Administration’s and Central Command’s approach to Pakistan’s role in the Afghan conflict. Over the last few months, by multiple means, the United States and its allies have been seeking to persuade Pakistan that it can best achieve its legitimate security goals in Afghanistan through political negotiations, rather than through the promotion of endless (and futile) Taliban guerrilla violence—and that the United States will respect and accommodate Pakistan’s agenda in such talks. Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban, especially in recent years, was always best understood as a military lever to promote political accommodations of Pakistan in Kabul. Baradar, however, has defiantly refused to participate in such political strategies...The more the Taliban’s leaders enjoying sanctuary in Karachi or Quetta refuse to lash themselves to Pakistani political strategy, the more vulnerable they become to a knock on the door in the middle of the night.
If, through a combination of pressure and enticement, Pakistan and the United States can draw sections of the Taliban into peaceful negotiations, while incarcerating those who refuse to participate, it will produce a sweeping change in the war. With enough momentum, such a strategy would also increase the incentives for Pakistan and Taliban elements to betray Al Qaeda’s top leaders. It’s been a while since there has been unadulterated good news out of Pakistan. Today there is."
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